AN:
Love is expressed in many ways. For Jim and Bones, this is just one of five.
Words of Affirmation
This was the fifth time in a month the kid was borderline passed out on his stool, back slouched and face downcast as he pouted over the bar top. The tender tried his best not to get sucked in, but something about how depressed the kid looked was just irresistible.
His name was James Kirk. James Tiberius, or so he'd heard. Something about him was so goddamn off tonight. And not in a subtle way. It was actually very hard not to notice. More like holy shit the Earth's about to go down in flames.
Because James rejected a woman. Rather harshly, one might add.
He'd come wobbling in, already drunk off his ass. The bartender had paid no particular attention, sometimes he came here after getting himself kicked out of another bar. But then again, he usually had followers. And a dumbass smile on his face.
Today, as he stumbled to the counter and miraculously found himself a stool, he had neither. Of the few ten o'clock usuals that were used to Jim Kirk's grand entrance, they knew something was off. And no dared offer to buy him a round. After a while of moping and just grumbling to himself, Jim Kirk wrapped the bar top with split knuckles, smudges of blood spread across them.
The bartender dropped a glass of brandy before his slouched form, avoiding eye contact like a Klingon STD. And James Kirk wouldn't seem to have it any other way as he kept his head down, save for tossing it back once or twice to swallow the alcohol. Otherwise, his cheek was plastered to his arm, pillowing it against the countertop as he nursed his drink.
The bartender couldn't keep his eyes off those bleeding knuckles. Something about them seemed wrong. The kid was obviously in a fight. Usually when that happens, he comes sauntering into the bar like he's the returning hero of Earth. His behavior suggested he lost the fight. But the kid never lost the fight.
After that the bartender decided to keep a discreet eye on the kid that no one had yet approached. And of course, James Kirk being James Kirk, the second he turned his back on the kid…
"GET OFF ME YOU SLUT!"
The bartender comes running out of the backroom, the desired bottle of vodka in hand for another customer, when he was James Kirk flapping an awkward arm at an appalled looking woman. The bartender noted a red lipstick colored smear on Jim's indignant cheek.
"What the fuck, Jimmy?" The Terran woman cried, stomping her high heels onto the wood paneled floor. "What's with you tonight?"
By now the bar was quiet, every customer, even the ones drunk of their asses, were watching Jim and the woman that comes flaunting every now and then.
"Just-" Jim almost falls off his chair, thrown off balance by the waving of his own arm. "Jus- back off, get it?" He lays his head back in his arms on the bar top. "Fuck off."
The woman's about to bring her long nailed hand across Jim's head when the bartender steps in, holding out the bottle of vodka by the neck like a sword in front of her. "Back off sweet cheeks. Go find someone else tonight."
After she stomps off in a huff, the room gradually returns to normal, and Jim Kirk has yet to remove his silently sobbing face from the countertop. The bartender goes about his prior task, pouring a fresh Vodka for a customer before waving all the others from the counter. When they're gone, he walks over to Jim Kirk and leans over, resting his elbows in front of the Starfleet Cadet.
"What's the matter, kid?" He asks, despite his better judgment.
When Jim looks up, his eyes are red and teary, his face contorted in a strange pain. It looks like he's ready to spill his heart out as he opens his mouth. Before he can, the blond snaps his mouth shut and looks dejectedly to the side.
"Nothing."
Good lord, this man is an overgrown child, the bartender says to himself. He's suddenly regretting asking, but he has two kids of his own, and he knows how to handle himself. "You're shittin' me kid. The fuck's wrong?"
Jim looks up again. He gives the bartender an even stare until he breaks out in fully body sobs, thankfully drowned out by the sound of the bar crowd. "Fucking love!"
Oh good lord, is all the bartender can say.
"Yeah, so?" He asks, ignoring his brain telling him to bail on the situation. "What's up with the lady friend?" The bartender notices Jim twitch. "Ah," He says knowingly. "She's a lady friend."
"Prolly." Jim finally admits, laying his cheek against the bar top. He stares distractedly into his brandy shot, eyes never leaving the amber liquid. "Best friend. Not sure if it was love in the fir' place." He drunk hiccupped. "Prolly never will be now."
"You get into a fight with the boyfriend?" The bartender asks, nodding his head at the cracked and bleeding knuckles on Jim's punching fist.
"Ain't got a boyfriend." Is all Jim chokes out. "I'd know. Been livin' togeth'r f'rever now."
Whoa, whoa, whoa. "Wham Bam Thank you Ma'am" Kirk was shacking up?
"Who'd you fight with then?" Now the bartender's intrigued. "Her dad?"
"No." Is all Jim chokes out for now. The bartender gives the kid a moment to dry heave and sob until he's back to the conversation. "Fuckin' amazing. No one better in th' fuckin' world. Goddamn beautiful and sexy and sweet and caring and every godamn thing any man wants f'rever."
"Mmm." The bar tender wordlessly agrees. If only he had a nickel for every time he'd heard this sob story.
"Best thing t'ever happen t'me." Jim hiccups again and wipes his running nose in an incredibly unattractive fashion. Which was very unlike him. Normally every move made by James Kirk was oozing sexual prowess.
And here he was, crying his eyes out and getting snot all over his cadet reds like the world just fuckin' imploded. "This lady friend sounds like a catch."
"Best fucking parent in the world." Jim mumbles. His eyes were drying and his wracked breathing was evening out. "Loving and nice. Perfect in every way."
"So what's wrong with this lady friend?" The bartender asks. "You tell her how you feel yet?"
"Fuck no!" Jim squeaks. "Too goddamn good for me." He puffs out. The bartender naturally assumes this girl's not one he's ever seen with James Kirk in this kind of setting before.
"Well she hasn't rejected ya yet." He offers. A customer comes up for a refill, and the bartender sends him away with a glare. "Worth a shot, right?"
Jim snorts and shakily picks himself up from the counter so he's slouched but upright. "Not gon' love a bastard like me." He wipes his nose on his sleeve again. Gross. "Not now."
"What happened?"
"Got in a fight." Jim offers pathetically, cradling his punching fist in the other hand against his chest.
"Did you fucking punch her?" The bartender asks with shock. Jim Kirk may be a promiscuous gentleman, but he was a gentleman nonetheless.
"I can't fuckin' take it!" Jim cries suddenly, throwing his arms up in the air and almost falling off the stool again. "I fucking love! Love, like love! Not some goddamn crush! Love damnit!"
Jim falls to the counter again. Crying and sobbing like a drunk baby. "Should be mine. M'lovin' more than anyone else in the world. Should be with me."
At this point, the bartenders feeling pretty goddamn sympathetic. So he pours Jim another brandy- on the house- and the kid takes it in one go. Should probably slow down, the bartender thinks to himself but pours another drink anyways.
"She's not gonna know you love her till you say somethin', kid." The bartender offers pathetically. He can't think of much else to say now.
"Even if," Jim hiccups again. "Even if- uh- loves me. Ain't happenin'." The alcohols getting to him. "Deserves better. More than me. A pathetic man-slut with daddy problems up the wazoo."
The bartender had no idea what the hell a wazoo was, but everyone in San Francisco, hell, everyone on Earth, knows George Kirk. Fuckin' hero, that man. It'd been a sad day in San Fran that day. The bartender remembers dedicating the strongest drink he'd ever had to that man. And here was his son. His precious, fucked up son, crying his eyes out in a no-name Starfleet bar with a woman haunting his heart.
"You're more than you give yourself credit for." Is all the bartender says, because he sure as hell can't argue the whole 'man-slut' thing.
"It hurts so much." James Kirk sobs again, burying his tired face and pounding head in his hands. "So FUCKING much." After that, Jim falls asleep quietly at the bar. But he continues to talk in his sleep for the next few hours.
"I love you…"
Since it would be humiliating for Jim to be carried into the back break room where there's an actual couch, the bartender just lets him sleep at the counter, keeping an extra close eye on him. It looks like he left his place in a rush; he doesn't have a wallet, a PADD, or a communicator.
So the bartender lets him sleep and figures he'll deal with him at closing time in the morning.
After the crowds cleared out and it's closing time, every passed out drunkard from the bar has been picked up by a friends or family with profuse apologies and promises that they won't be anymore trouble. The bartender collects the tab and sends them on their way.
And finally, James Kirk is the last slumbering form in the room. The bartenders eyeing him grumpily when there's a knock on the open bar door and a southern drawl from outside.
"Hello?"
The bartender turns, his arms still crossed, to see a man dressed in cadet reds. Hard to guess the guy's age, but he's older than Jim. And he has a bright blue and purple black eye. "I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, but I've been to every bar in this town looking for-"
The Starfleet cadet sees Jim passed over the bar, and the tender allows the man to go running to the kid with concern slapped across his face. "Jim?" The man grabs the passed out blond by the shoulders and pulls him upright. "Jim? Damnit, where have you been?"
"He passed out a while ago." The bartender offers.
The other cadet lets out an exasperated sigh before gently setting Jim back against the counter. He walks over to the tender, apology written across his face. "I'm so sorry to trouble you. I'll take him home right away."
"No worries." The bartender shakes his outstretched hand, glad to finally have the kid out of his hair.
"The name's McCoy. Leonard McCoy." The southern gentleman says with a pleased air about him. As the bartender goes back to wiping the countertop, Leonard is at Jim's side, running a tricorder over the drunk boy.
A doctor, the bartender thinks to himself. "He's fine. Just drunk."
Leonard frowns to himself. "That's weird…"
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh, nothing," He says distractedly. "It's just… Jim handles his alcohol pretty damn well."
"He was pretty upset today."
"Any idea what over?" The man asks hesitantly. Like he already knows the answer, but needs confirmation. "Specifically?"
"Not at all." The bartender lies. It would slaughter the James Kirk reputation if any of his friends knew how soft and heartbroken the kid was.
"I'm so sorry about all the trouble he's caused you." Leonard says. The doctor's shuffling through his pants pocket until he pulls out a scrap of paper with a number scribbled on it. "My contacts." The doctor explains, handing it to the bartender who gives it a once over before pocketing it. "If this happens again, just ring. I'll be here in minutes."
The bartender nods politely and Leonard walks over to the slumbering boy. With a grunt and surprisingly strength for his tired looking body, the doctor heaves the blond easily into his arms bridal style.
Jim grumbles feebly in his sleep, groaning and resisting to the sudden movement, though not conscious. "Shhh," Is all Leonard says, and immediately the kid quiets down, recognizing the sound and the voice in his sleep. "S'okay kid, I got ya."
"Want some ice for that shiner?" The bartender asks, nodding at the black and blue around the hazel eye.
"Nah." Is all the doctor says. "I deserved it." He whispers, almost lovingly as he watches the kid dreaming in his arms.
The bartender follows the two men, offering to hold the door open for Leonard as he steps out into the night. "Need a cab?"
"Nah, we live pretty close." Leonard says distractedly, shuffling the squirming blond in his arms in an attempt not to drop him on his blond ass.
The bartender crosses his arms in the doorway, just now wondering if giving an unconscious Jim to this man was a good idea. "You gotta do this a lot for Jim?"
"Yeah." Leonard says with a sarcastic smile. "He's worse than my five year old daughter."
"How do you know Jim?"
"We're roommates at the academy."
And then it hits him.
Been livin' togeth'r f'rever now. Goddamn beautiful and sexy and sweet and caring and every godamn thing any man wants f'rever. Best fucking parent in the world.
The bartender can't help but burst out laughing and Leonard gives him a confused look. "What's so funny?"
"Oh, nothing." The bartender says between stifled laughs. Who'dve thought that James Tiberius freaking Kirk was into men?
"Alright…" Leonard frowns and begins walking down the street back to the academy. Jim squawks out in his sleep again and Leonard curses. "Jim! Cut it the hell out!"
Behind him, he hears the bartender call out into the dead of night; "That kid's gonna be something amazing someday! Give him a chance!"
The door to the bar closes, and Leonard is left standing confusedly in the street.
And safely cuddled in his arms, Jim lashes out in his sleep, whacking Leonard in the face for the second time that day. This time, he's fighting Klingons in his sleep.
"I'm a doctor Jim, not a punching bag!"
AN:
Thanks so much for reading! Next one is gift giving!
Ezellia