Jim Kirk looked down at the set of keys in his hand, blinking back the tears that had begun crowding his eyes. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and slowly glanced back up, closing his fingers around the worn brass in his palm. Bones' momma had given Jim the keys just after the funeral, settling them in his hand with a sad smile. "He loved that truck," she'd said, "He'd want you to have it."
And now here he stood in the stifling humidity of a bright Georgia summer afternoon, staring at that damn old truck with unshed tears prickling hotly at the back of his eyes, just hours after laying his best friend, the goddamn love of his life, in the ground.
The memory of the full military honors service, the way the flag had been folded so carefully, the crack of the gunshots for the salute, came rushing back at him, despite how hard he had tried to push that fresh hurt away and he had to brace a hand on the sun warmed metal of the driver's side door to keep himself upright.
Bitter anger welled up inside him, momentarily blotting out the grief that had settled there and he squeezed his hand tightly around the keys, feeling the bite of the sharp ridges on his palm. It wasn't fair- it was so fucking far from fair that he could hardly breathe. He was the reckless one. He was the one that was always putting himself at risk for some adrenaline high or another, the who had joined the military as soon as he'd been old enough to enlist. Bones had followed, always so adamant to proclaim that he'd done it to be a medical service to his country, but Jim had felt, had known, in the deepest, most private part of himself that Bones had followed to protect him, to keep him safe. And Jim hadn't minded one bit, had he? Everything had been peachy fuckin' keen with Jim pursuing the military career he had always wanted and Bones tagging along, until Jim had gotten notification that Medical Officer Leonard H. McCoy had been caught in the crossfire while attending to a fallen solider on the field in an overseas operation.
Jim groaned with frustration and hurt and formed his hand into a fist, punching into the faded blue panel on the truck's door. A bruising jolt of pain shot up his arm, but he barely even noticed. He should have been there, goddammit. He should have been there at Bones' side, but instead he had been here, back in the States on leave, just two days from Bones' being granted his own leave, before Jim had felt the world crumble out from underneath him.
Jim blew out a pent up, shaky breath and rubbed at his abraded knuckles, looking up at the beat up junker Bones' had spent so much time repairing when all the old thing wanted to seem to do was fall apart. A sun-bleached blue stripe ran the length of the scratched and nicked body from the front fender all the way back along the bed. Jim's breath lodged in his chest, remembering so vividly the warm nights he had laid out in that dented truck bed with Leo, looking up at the stars, which had always led to tender kisses, which had always led to so much more.
Jim quickly drug his eyes away and jammed the key into the lock a little harder than he'd originally intended to. Doing his best not to break down, he wrenched the door open and hauled himself inside. The cab of the truck was so immediately and so distinctly Bones that Jim had to consciously work to swallow back the sob that hitched in his throat. The warm scent of dust mingled with the lingering hint of Bones' after-shave, permeating the very air Jim drew into his lungs. He looked down to see a half-empty bottle of Gatorade, the flavor Bones simply referred to as Red, sitting listlessly on the passenger side floorboard. And up on the dash, Jim saw Bones' faded and frayed Atlanta Braves cap, worn faithfully at every game he'd been able to go to, the one he'd stubbornly refused to throw away even after Jim had bought him a new one.
Sunlight on metal suddenly caught Jim's eye and he slowly looked up from the dashboard, a heavy ache settling deep in his chest. Bones' dog tags hung from the rearview mirror, put there most likely by his momma. And that was all it took for Jim's already fractured heart to splinter and break completely. The tears he had been trying so hard to hold back suddenly sprang forward as he raised a trembling hand to the tags, but he made no move to wipe them from his cheeks. He instead reached out, brushing just the very tips of his fingers against the metal pieces, remembering, so goddamn strongly, the way they had lain against Leo's tanned skin, remembering the sound of them clinking together when he would hook his fingers in the necklace and tug Bones in close for a kiss. A great aching hurt flared in Jim's chest and he drew his hand back, scrubbing roughly at the tears that continued to track down his face. A sad, watery chuckle rumbled in his chest, imagining the frown Bones would be wearing if he saw the state Jim was in right now. "Dammit, Jim," he'd grumble "Cryin' never fixed a damn thing. Pull yourself together, darlin".
But that was so much easier said than done, wasn't it? Because how the hell could Jim pull himself together when he felt scattered in so many different fucking directions? How could he pull himself together when he was so hopelessly broken?
Jim pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to stem the flow of his tears, tasting the saltiness burn against the back of his throat. That anger, that despairing guilt that screamed It should have been me! It should have been me instead of him! came crashing forward again and Jim wrenched his hands away from his face with a wounded cry, shoving the keys into the ignition, needing suddenly to just get away, to try and outrun the damn unbearable sadness and regret and self-loathing that was consuming him.
He started the truck with a vicious twist of his wrist and rolled all the windows down. A warm Georgia breeze blew in, carding through his hair like Bones' fingers had done on more occasions than Jim could even begin to count and he shook his head roughly, throwing the truck into drive and stomping down on the gas. A wide rooster tail of dust was thrown out behind the truck as Jim peeled out of the long dirt driveway in front of Bones' momma's house before the tires finally caught in the gravel, lurching the vehicle forward.
Jim kept his foot firmly planted down on the gas pedal as he tore down deserted side streets and backroads, trying to clear his mind of everything, every happy memory and every sad one, aiming for a numbing blankness but falling miserably short.
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a large abandoned field overrun with weeds and scrub brush and all at once all he wanted to do was tear it up. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to destroy something, anything, as completely as he himself was destroyed.
Without a second thought he yanked on the steering wheel, turning the truck sharply into the field with a reckless abandon. Dust and debris flew out from the back tires as the treads ate into the dirt and Jim jerked the wheel again, pulling the truck into a wide circle. Bones' dog tags hit against the dashboard with a muted jingle and Jim, barely holding himself together at all, utterly fell apart. Tears began to stream down his cheeks and a sob wracked his chest painfully as he gunned the engine again, cutting a wide swath into the earth. A trembling litany of words tumbled from his mouth, curses and pleas and apologies, each one cutting deep furrows into his shattered heart just as deeply as the truck carved ruts into the loose earth beneath it.
And still he drove, turning the truck every which way he could, pushing it has hard as it would fucking go, until the damn thing, which had been low on fuel to begin with, was nearly out of gas and his breath was coming out in harsh, labored breaths.
He slowed the truck to a stop, the front wheels coming to a rest in one of the grooved switchbacks he had cut, and killed the engine. A heavy silence descended in the cab, punctuated only by his own shuddering gasps and a few sniffles. He slumped back in the driver's seat, burying his face in his hands and finally let it all go, weeping openly and unabashedly. Agony tore through his chest and he curled forward, gripping the steering wheel and bringing his forehead down to rest against the hard, worn plastic as he sobbed. He was lost, adrift on an ocean of sorrow and he absolutely did not know how he would ever find the shore; he didn't think he ever would, so vast was his hurt. Bones was gone, he was fucking gone and he wouldn't ever be back.
"C'mon now, Jimmy. It's not as bad as all that, is it?" Bones whispered from somewhere deep inside him.
Jim gripped the steering wheel tighter. "It is as bad as all that!" he cried out hoarsely. "I won't ever see you again! I didn't even get to say goodbye, for fuck's sake!"
"Aw, darlin'," Bones sighed out in that resigned adoration only he could achieve. "Just look up. How can you say you'll never see me again when I'm all around you?"
Jim paused, flexing his hands open and closed around the steering wheel, blinking back his tears. He slowly brought his head up, one last sob hiccuping in his chest, as he looked around the cab of the truck. And he saw, and felt, that it was true. Bones really was here, from the lingering hint of his scent to the dog tags bearing his name swinging in a gentle puff of a breeze blowing through the open windows. He was here, surrounding Jim completely.
He brought his hands up, brushing the moisture of his drying tears from his cheeks, feeling just a fraction of the hurt and loss lancing through his heart subside. He didn't know how long the pain would last, or if it would ever fade away completely, but just being in the cab of Bones' truck was, for the moment, the closest he could come to having him back at his side.
Jim pulled in a great, shuddering breath, blowing it out slowly and steadily, before reaching for the keys and turning over the ignition.