I'm so screwed right now - I really can't decide whether to pair Kirk off with Pike, Spock, Bones or Khan...
Well, this is Jim/Chris here, because it just wanted to be written... or so O.o
I kinda hate myself for it.
Still.
...Enjoy ;)
oOoOo
A Zillion Moments Left
Jim is not thinking about Pike.
Which is not a surprise, really, because he never is.
Not thinking about Pike is actually one of the things he knows he rocks at.
Which would be pretty sad if…
Well, if he gave it any second thoughts.
Which he does not, so the point is futile.
Jim was not staring.
After all he was James T. Kirk, all charming and hot and popular – at least as much as some petty Iowa farm boy could be – and could get sex whenever and with whomever he wanted. And, well, if one or two boys and girls happened to say no when he first asked – he was not exactly known for being patient, except when it came to getting the one night stands he wanted. Then he could be very persevering. And very persuasive. And anyway, he was not staring!
Somehow, however, he found that, no matter how much he kept telling himself otherwise, he could scarcely take his eyes off the Captain.
And, somehow, he knew that this was not about Pike having served on the USS Kelvin together with his father, or about his admittedly good looks for a man his age, or about saving him from an even worse beating than the one he had already gotten, or about having been emotionally manipulated in boarding this shuttle by the man.
It was about pale blue eyes piercing into his and staring right down into his very soul – if Jim Kirk had something like that – and about crinkles around those incredible eyes dancing and softening the kind but strict face when the man smiled, and about that goddamn whistle.
However, Jim was conveniently ignoring that fact. As well as the fact that he was ignoring it. That he was ignoring anything. And that he was staring. Because he was not.
Not any longer, anyway, since Pike had relocated to the cockpit of the damn shuttle and was taking them up towards the sky.
So Jim busied himself with drinking his also-not-Starfleet-uniform-wearing colleague's alcohol, who was conveniently sitting next to him, and not thinking about his – so far – two encounters with the Captain.
Or the way he had gasconaded the second he had seen the man again, setting goals for himself that would be very hard work to reach, having no idea why he had done so. Act unaffected? Yes. Desperately try to impress within ten seconds? No way.
He had been cheeky the day before, even bitchy, because he did not like being saved, or having to be saved, and he sure as hell even less liked being saved by hot older guys who managed to throw him off balance with just an overhead view and a few sentences. Not that anyone else had ever pulled off that feat before.
Jim remembered hiding behind his usual snappy self, trying to drown his confusion in retreat and attitude.
He had been planning to let the guy talk and go home afterwards, crash on the couch, sleep it off and pick someone up the next day, to fuck it off as well.
Instead he was on a shuttle, next to a cranky doctor suffering from aviophobia, on his way to enlist in Starfleet.
Terrific.
Just what he had been planning to do all his life, following in his father's footsteps, going to a stupid academy, captaining a spaceship – only because he had been dared to do better. By a man who was said father's age.
And still, he knew he would be trying, giving his best.
After coming here despite all intentions to do the opposite, he already could tell that he would work his ass off to try and impress Pike.
Oh, he hated having no control over his own actions!
Jim still remembered Pike saying that yes, he was done the evening before, and he also remembered the way his stomach had churned after hearing those words.
Life sucked.
Not thinking about Pike is hard.
Really hard.
Because Pike is everywhere.
Still.
Jim is not thinking about him.
And he is pretty damn good at it.
Pike in a Captain's gold uniform was incredibly nice to look at.
Jim had gone through three years of Starfleet Academy flirting with every living female, and trying to get into every second one's pants. This was him, trying to take his mind off things – Pike, who was there all the fucking time, never letting himself be forgotten – and to get the hang of his own emotions.
That he had never again picked up any man or boy – well. In the beginning he had been telling himself that if he was going to get rid of those stupid feelings for Pike, he had to avoid any encounters that could make his efforts futile.
In the end, however, he had had to admit that he would just have been imagining, and comparing, and that it would have felt like cheating.
Somehow, he despised himself or that.
Still.
Pike in Captain's gold did look nice.
Having a severe allergic attack, however, was not nice.
Neither was being asked what the hell he was doing on Pike's ship.
Or being told that he was just an attention seeking brat.
Yet, Jim knew he could not back down, because this was about the Enterprise's safety, about the lives of everyone on board – hell, it was about Pike's safety. And he was slightly ashamed that this was exactly what it came down to, and thinking about the impact Pike's simple existence had on his own life made him sick, but he could not change it.
So he did not give way under Pike's and Spock's onslaught until he got his point across.
Then he kind of hated himself for letting Pike run straight into what could possibly be his death.
Awesome.
Just fucking awesome.
Finally, however, they dropped out of warp and for a few moments Jim was distracted, by shock, and fear, and the pressure that came with having to avoid the pieces of wreckage of those other ships. There was no time to think about all those lives lost, about those cadets and officers and Captains that had been on those ships, about how that could have been them - could have been Pike - but he knew that it would haunt him later. Just like it would haunt everybody else.
Now, however, they were busy trying to save their own lives and suddenly Pike was staring at that damn Romulan ship disbelievingly, and Jim highly, desperately wished that he could offer some kind of comfort.
But of course he could not, and a moment later they were being shot at, before they were hailed.
And for a second there was so damn much in Pike's eyes, when he saw the man who had killed his Captains – one of whom had been his dear friend – so many years ago.
Then the second was over and Pike was asked to come aboard the enemy ship.
Jim knew immediately that the man was going to do so. He also knew that all attempts to talk him out of it would fail. He still tried, feeling his heart beat way too loudly and too fast. Too heavily. There was just no way he could get over losing Pike-
He was not sure whether he should be devastated that Pike was risking his life so easily, throwing him off the ship and down onto a drill – even if he was not supposed to be aboard in the first place, like the older man had pointed out – or delighted that he had promoted him to First Officer, obviously having some faith and trust in him after all.
All the while it was painfully clear to Jim that the no-longer-Captain himself was not expecting to return – after all Robau had not returned either, when he had been in just the same situation.
And he knew that he would have offered to risk his life a thousand times over had Pike not requested it anyway, trying his best to save the man who meant so much to him. The man, who sent him off with a simple Good luck!, that was probably meant for the other two as much as for him.
Fortunately, after that his concentration was elsewhere, occupied with surviving, and saving Sulu, and returning to the Enterprise.
Which was not a good thing.
Because Pike was still aboard the Narada, and Spock was Acting Captain.
Jim wishes that lying to oneself were easier.
Well, the lying part is easy.
The believing part is not.
Unfortunately, he always can tell when he has lied. To himself. It is pathetic.
Jim is terribly bad at not thinking about Pike.
Jim thought his heart stopped when he found Pike, bound and frighteningly worse for wear.
If he was honest, he himself was way beyond emotionally compromised.
All he had been able to think about, ever since beaming back aboard the Enterprise, and being thrown out for mutiny, and meeting Spock the time-traveller, and finding Scotty, and beaming back aboard, and messing with the Spock from this time, and changing plans – not once had his thoughts strayed from Pike, and the possibility that he was still alive.
That Jim could still save him.
And that meant so much more than finally becoming Captain – within his announced three years – or than finally getting to see eye to eye with Spock.
All he was waiting for, fighting for, was to see Pike again, and to rescue him, and to show him that he was worthy.
Jesus, he had some issues.
Still, Pike was who he fought for. Pike was who he let Romulans beat the shit out of him for. Pike was who he told Spock to ignite the red matter for.
Pike was who he found strapped to that cot, obviously having endured torture, never expecting to survive this ordeal.
And when Jim freed him it mattered none that he actually finally got to touch the man, or that Pike was the one who shot those two Romulans sneaking up from behind, or that he could not feel his legs. All that mattered was that the older one was alive, and talking, and that Jim could get him to Bones, have him patched back together again.
For a few moments he got to hold him, and when he knew the one person who made him do and say the stupidest things imaginable was in the best possible hands, he stormed off.
Even if it broke his heart to do so.
However, he was Acting Captain, and they were still in the middle of a crisis.
Jim is thinking about Khan instead.
About his revenge, which he will never get.
Not now that Khan is defeated and Starfleet has had him frozen back up.
When Jim saw Pike again for the first time after getting the Enterprise out of that mess Nero and the red matter had been he felt his heart stop yet again.
The former Captain was pale and haggard, an alarming number of tubes running into various parts of his body.
Despite the fact that he had obviously been put out his face was pained, and he looked like he had aged a decade in that short time aboard the Narada.
There was no one who knew Jim better than Bones, and still the doctor had no idea what his friend felt when he stared at the unconscious man in a private chamber of sickbay. He told his Captain everything he could, which was way too little, and Jim knew that he would be finding any specialist available as soon as they made it back to Earth.
Until then, it had to be enough that Pike would make the trip.
Somehow Jim managed not to pay sickbay a visit every five minutes in those following days that it took them to bring the badly damaged ship into a condition in which it could take them back to Earth.
He busied himself with coordinating his crew, helping Scotty wherever he might need help, and communicating with the Starfleet chair.
When they finally arrived at their homeplanet he was being praised to the skies for his abilities, his courage and his quick thinking. And all the while he could not forget that he had done whatever had to be done in order to save one person. That he had saved a planet in order to please one man.
It still freaked him out, but – fortunately – not as much before.
Which was a good thing, really, because he spent disturbingly much time sitting around in Starfleet's medical headquarters, waiting for news on Pike's condition over the course of an endless amount of treatments and surgeries while the Enterprise was being repaired.
Of course Jim was also there the day Pike finally woke up, after the doctors had done all they could and the induced coma had been lifted.
He did not expect for the pale blue gaze to settle on his still a little bruised face first of all, or for it to stay there for several minutes. Jim drowned in those deep eyes, his hand dangerously close to his Captain's – how could he think of the other as anything else? – and enjoyed the silence; which was comfortable despite being heavily laden with questions neither wanted to ask and all the things that had happened.
The… spell was finally broken when a nurse came by for a routine check-up and suddenly the room was swarming with doctors and specialists of all kinds, telling their patient everything they thought he should know.
Which was a lot.
Jim had retreated to a quiet corner, refusing to leave, and stayed there until he could tell that Pike was overwhelmed.
Then, with Bones' help, he simply drove everyone out, and in the end it was back to the two of them, the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer having left as well.
Again Pike stared at him, and this time the silence was even heavier.
"Thank you," he said in the end, voice still hoarse, and Jim knew that he not only meant saving him from the doctors, but also getting him off the Narada, and saving his crew.
Jim smiled a sad smile and suddenly knew he could not keep it back any longer. He remembered those endless seconds, minutes, hours when he had thought that he would never see the other again. That he could never tell him what he felt, ridiculous as it might be.
"I did it for you," he blurted out before he could change his mind. "All for you."
Pike's eyes widened in surprise and then that smile that made the crinkles dance lit up his face. "I am… very proud of you," he said, his voice heavy with honesty. And for the first time he did not call Jim 'son'.
He said nothing more on the topic, on Jim's confession, whether he had understood what that meant – he did not have to, however.
For over the course of the next weeks they did spend a lot of time together, talking about anything and everything. Either of them helped the other carry their burden, fixing emotional disaster sites that started with the Kelvin and ended with the Narada.
On the evening after Pike – Chris, as he had asked Jim to call him – gave over the Enterprise scarred fingers hung onto younger ones as if for dear life, and neither of them could tell how it happened that they ended up cuddled together in Chris' bed, occasionally kissing and enjoying each other's company, trying to make up for all those years of quiet yearning.
Neither of them cared, though.
It was what both of them had been dreaming about for so long.
It was also the evening before the Enterprise ventured out again.
Jim hated leaving.
Every time Jim thinks about Khan he also thinks about Pike.
It is inevitable, and destructive, and he wishes he could prevent it.
Because it fucking hurts So. Damn. Much.
Jim loved Chris, and he had finally come to terms with that.
He was happy about it.
Because whenever he was on shore leave he would spend every single minute with the Admiral, and when he was out in space they would talk as often as possible, exchanging silly jokes and mundane news.
Outwardly their relationship was strictly professional, and nobody, not even Bones, had an inkling of what they felt for each other. How much they could rely on each other, how they understood each other. They had been in the same catastrophes, together, and they had gotten out. Alive.
Together.
So what if Chris was at least partially disabled, and so much older than Jim, and his superior?
Neither of them cared.
And both of them were happy.
He wishes he could throw the memories out, burn them out of his head, burn his love out of his heart.
He wishes a lot of things.
Jim was numb.
He did not feel anything – except for that maddening, destructive, tearing pain.
He was staring at Chris once again, like he had so many times – just that this time the crinkles did not dance, and his eyes did not lighten up, and he was not offering snippy comments-
In fact he was not even breathing.
Those eyes Jim loved so much were directed upwards, without seeing anything, those lips Jim had kissed so often slightly opened, unmoving, a smear of blood the only dash of colour on those freshly shaved cheeks.
Most Admirals and their First Officers were dead, and Spock was there, and Khan was gone, but Jim could not bring himself to care about any of that – because Chris was gone, too.
And Jim thought that, maybe, he could have saved him, had he not been trying to get a hold of Khan, instead of protecting the one he loved.
He knew, Chris would not have wanted it. He was - had been - one of those did not need protecting, did not want protecting - especially not after all those humiliating moments that had come with having a slug that fed off your brainstem living in your body.
Still, Jim would not have cared about that, had it meant that Chris was not lying here now, unmoving-
Jim was still in denial, somehow.
Yet, he was crying, shaking with sobs, and thinking about those zillions of moments they had thought that were just waiting for them to be spent with each other. All the time they had thought they still had left.
Of course they had known that this could happen, that space was dangerous, that either of them could get killed; and that Jim tended to be exceptionally stupid and reckless whenever he thought that it was necessary, or when it came down to Chris' safety.
Still, never had Jim expected that it would happen on Earth, in a conference room, instead of out in the black. Neither had he expected it now that the Enterprise had been given back to his beloved and he himself would be the older one's First Officer. They would have gone together, and if any disaster would have happened – they would have died together.
In reality, however, Chris had died alone and Jim was still caught in that all-consuming pain.
That, and the desperate wish to wake up, to find that this was nothing but yet another nightmare, that Chris would be there to hold him, to help him calm down. To show him that he was very much alive, just like they had done for each other so many nights.
He could not believe it, again pressed his finger's against the older one's carotid, tried to find a sign, any sign, of life, despite knowing – deep down – that it was futile, still refusing to believe it-
Then the anger came.
White-hot rage that seared through him, setting his nerves on fire, fuelled by the pain.
He was going to find that bastard and he was going to kill him.
It was the only thing he had left to do.
Jim knows what he has to do. What he will do, despite of what it means for everyone else.
He knows that his friends can get by without him, that Starfleet can get by without him.
He, however, cannot get by without Pike.
He knows what is going to happen, and he does not even want to think about changing his mind.
Jim took the time to make sure that there would always be fresh flowers on Chris' – Pike's – old-fashioned grave before he went after Khan.
Maybe he was hoping that Khan would take him out.
Maybe he was hoping that both of them would be going down.
It did not matter.
Nothing mattered anymore.
Not even that Khan was probably still alive, even after Spock's genius manoeuvre.
So in the end he was crawling into a room buzzing with radioactive radiation, knowing that he could not let his crew – Pike's crew – die just because his own life had lost all meaning. And if he was sacrificing it to safe the others that was just as well.
Chris would have approved of it, Jim thought, if not of his suicidal thoughts, and when Spock actually cried when he saw him, pushing his hand against that thick glass separating them he did feel bad for a moment.
Mostly, though, he felt relieved.
He did not believe in any religion, but if there was any kind of afterlife - they would still have a zillion moments left to spend with each other. And if not - well. There was nothing for him in this world, not without Pike. It was kind of pathetic how much he depended on the man's presence, Jim thought. He idly wondered if he should care.
Then everything went black.
Never did he expect to wake up again.
Because Jim misses Pike, and nobody knows just how much.
And now that Khan is back to being a human popsicle, and there is no way Jim can kill him to get his revenge – now he does not really have anything left worth living for.
It was McCoy who found his body.
It was McCoy whose vomit was mixing with his still liquid blood in the puddle underneath his slashed carotid.
It was McCoy who had to declare him dead.
It was McCoy who patched his neck back together, in order to look nice for the funeral.
It was McCoy who knew that, despite Khan's blood still being available, Jim Kirk was gone for good this time. Because he wanted to be.
oOoOo
In his last moments, Jim had hated himself for doing this to Bones, who was bound to find him.
Then everything had – finally – gone black again.