School wasn't boring. For the first time in a long time, Jim was working to keep up. He told Pike as well as the board of directors and the admirals that he could do three years. And they had taken him up on it with a few nudges from Christopher Pike whom Jim thought was waiting for him to fail. And Professor Moore who ambushed him on his first day and called him (loudly) a fucking moron for trying three years. They went out for scotchs that night. The only other people in the history of the school to do three years were either people like McCoy who already had schooling and certificates and were automatically in their second year coming in. People like that didn't count, Jim figured.
So that left four people. The first a brilliant physicist who pretty much single-handily created the core that Star Ships use today. The second had been a Cardassian pilot back when they had a little peace treaty. She didn't count because she manipulated her way to the third year. (Jim didn't count manipulation prior to getting in as counting.) But she had been brilliant. The third person to do his workload was the Vulcan instructor he was truly not investigating. He wasn't even going near the Vulcan. He had no bias.
James Kirk, Captain of No Bias.
The first month, Jim learnt quickly which professors were capable of being befriended and which were strictly no-go territory. He learned never to piss off Lieutenant Parker unless he wanted five hours extra working on the most boring, repetitive coding on ancient systems meant to help elementary student's learn engineering (the lieutenant's side project in helping the community). He learned that the instructor for his survival courses was Mason Ronell, the same Mason who had been in the cave with him those last few days of Tarsus.
Mason recognized him right away. He nodded, his eyes darkening with memories. "It's good to see you. How you've been?" Jim nodded back and said, "I'm better. When did you join Star Fleet?" Mason picked up the mats they were going to training with and threw it down on the floor where he wanted it. "Oh, awhile ago now. Opted out of going back out into space though. I've had my share. I like to teach and I was the best student in this area for five years." Jim nodded. Mason had always been creative in surviving.
"Ready to show me what you've learned in the past eight years?" Jim grinned and replied, "Oh, Mason. I thought you'd never ask. Ready to hand that number one spot over yet?" Mason pushed him playfully as the rest of the class started to gather around.
That first month showed Jim just how excited he could be again. Truly excited. He hadn't felt this good since the start of Sana Kor. He was truly something new. He was smoothed-skinned and smiling, he wasn't investigating the people he met and especially the Vulcan he saw from a distance. He was the charmer, the guy who made it all look easy. He was Jim Kirk, son of George Kirk and ready to show everyone else up. Especially, George Kirk.
"You're beating yourself out." Leonard said, on Tuesday. Jim looked up from his five PADDS spread out on his bed. "What?" "Exactly. When was the last time you slept? Each time I come back here, you're either on those damned PADDs working or you're in class." Jim looked back down at his research and replied, "I can't sleep right now. I have four essays due and Professor Moore wants to meet me at three. By the time we go over my next project and the new data I collected, I won't have time to finish these for tomorrow."
Leonard didn't drop it and instead he stood there and gaped at him for a few moments. "Wait. Are you telling me you're doing seven different essays right now, because you told me you had three yesterday? And you told me your taking three linguistic classes so that you could make it onto the council next year. And you have three projects on the go as well." Leonard pointed at the contraption on the dorm's desk. "How are planning on keeping up with all of this?"
Jim shrugged, his headache coming back again. "I'm really good at being organized." Leonard just shook his head and then instead of walking away like Jim had predicted, did the exact opposite. Leonard came at him and out of nowhere, hypoed him. Jim gasped and bolted away. "What the fuck!" Just like that, his headache thudded softly, Leonard crossed his arms and fading from Jim's vision, Jim heard, "I'm sorry Jim, but it's for you're own good. You need some rest, it'll only last a few hours. You'll have time to catch up with Moore later."
Jim stretched and frowned. He tried remembering what his nightmares had been about. He remembered the feeling of not being able to move. Had it been about the slab? Tevik? Jim groaned, at least the last few moments, he felt good. He felt relaxed and his headache was gone for the first time in weeks. Tevik was silently busy and working. He could barely feel him anymore. Jim stretched again, this time loving the movement. The sun was good, not too hot, just warm on his skin and finally Jim realized that he had been sleeping.
He bolted up and remembered everything. Wide-eyed, he looked at Leonard who was sitting in the desk chair, looking right at him. Jim clenched his jaw and tried to control his anger. "What the fuck, Leonard?" The older man did look ashamed and he replied quickly, as Jim started to get up, "I'm really sorry Jim. Really, I am but you weren't thinking straight. You haven't slept more than three hours in the past week. You might be able to fool everyone else around here, but I live with you and I've seen you with that dermal charger. You're beat out. You needed sleep. And while I'm am apologizing for springing it on you, I'm not going to apologize for making you sleep."
Jim was absolutely furious. He didn't know what to do with himself. Leonard had been cool, easy, and really they lived together harmoniously, but doing that, having him vulnerable and Jim hated the fact that he even allowed Leonard that close to him. Without saying anything, Jim grabbed his jacket and left the room. He ignored Leonard calling him.
Jim lasted an entire week without seeing Leonard. He didn't go back to their dorm and instead stayed at the Sana Kor offices that were in the middle of being built. He answered all his emails and held a conference with both Jenna and Adalyn (at different times.) Jim caught up on all his work and met up with Moore, who called him every name in the book even though Leonard had contacted him the week prior to reschedule.
Jim was only caught as he left his linguistics class. Leonard was waiting for him, looking tired and agitated. He stood up straighter when he saw Jim and Jim clenched his jaw at the sight. Before he could talk to an Orion girl that caught his eye, Uhura came up and walked off with her. Jim sighed and waited for Leonard to walk up to him.
"Listen, Jim. I'm really sorry. Do you want to get a drink?"
Jim's lips twitched without him thinking about it. It was noon and he had five more classes for the day. But a drink sounded nice and Jim soon found himself at the campus bar and restaurant. They sat down and not for the first time, Jim wondered why he was even considering talking to Leonard. Except for the fact that McCoy looked nothing short of self-berating.
"So, you wanted to talk?"
Leonard winced and he said, "Listen, I know what I did was wrong. I shouldn't have jumped you like that. I just...I can get a little overprotective when people I care about are hurting." Jim raised a brow. He hadn't been hurt, and he never gave away when a headache started. Leonard shook his head and said, "You did that to yourself. You weren't even paying attention to your own body. You were shaking Jim! You might be able to concentrate on your work, I don't know how you do it, but you didn't eat in two days. You have to take better care of yourself. I don't want to see you collapsing one day in the middle of class because you're exhausting yourself. I don't even know how you manage it."
Jim frowned, really listening, he spoke confused, "You care about me?" Leonard froze, the scotch halfway to his mouth. "You have got to be fucking joking." At Leonard's tone, Jim froze. Leonard scowled and he spoke loudly, "You think that I'd spend all of my weekends out with you, that I'd talk to you, that I'd go out of my way to to say I fucked up, for just anyone? You think I'd let you crash in the hospital call rooms just so you could look up medical shit for Professor Warren? If I didn't care, I wouldn't even bother saying morning when we meet. You're my friend, Jim, I care."
Both men were silent, Jim a little awed and Leonard who was getting even more frustrated. "Wait...are you trying to say you don't give a shit about me?" Leonard's brows came together in a look that conveyed his own confusion, frustration and uncertainty.
Suddenly Jim thought about the last couple of weeks. Leonard and him laughing, joking, playing poker with those Tellarites that totally cheated. Jim actually managed to sleep when the other man was in the room. He really thought about it, and about the past week without Leonard in it. Jim missed him and with surprise, found he was beginning to trust the older man.
"I don't have many friends. Never have."
Leonard snorted as if he found it to be exaggerated. Jim supposed he looked like someone who should have been popular in high school, he looked like someone who should have gone to high school. "Well I think your a good guy Jim, so...are we okay?"
Jim looked at at Leonard and finally, after real thought, smiled and said, "Yeah...friend." Leonard snorted before taking a long drink, finally relaxing.
After that, Jim and Leonard's friendship took a turn. It was a good one, one that made both of them surprised at several points. They joked about professors and Jim manged to get Leonard out of class on more than one occasion. Jim introduced Leonard to Andorian Whiskey, which he later regretted, when he couldn't get the bottle back from the doctor who proclaimed it his favourite drink.
Leonard finally put his doctoring skills to the test in December, neither went home for the holidays and instead they spent Christmas out at the few restaurants that were open before rushing back home.
"Holy Christ, Jim. Sit down, relax."
Jim's heartbeat was doing about two hundred beats a minute, so relaxing was hard to do. He stumbled towards the gurney, in the nurses room. "Hey,' he tried saying, it came out more as a wheeze, "You broke into the nurses offices. So cool." "Shut up, man! You shouldn't be talking with your neck that swollen! Why didn't you tell me you were allergic to Hannak!"
Jim shrugged as his vision started going bleary. It was only then as his emotions were piking, his heart racing, that he felt the pull from Tevik. He hissed in pain. It was always painful now. He half gasped, half choked as he felt the puncture of a hypo. It took fifteen minutes and two more hypos before he started feeling okay. Leonard still looked freaked out and he said, "I think you're getting an infection too, you've been couching for a couple of days now." He checked Jim's temperature, blood pressure and eye dilation.
"C'mon, let's get you back in bed." Jim turned when Leonard tried to lead him out and he badly tried to whisper, "Don't you want to take anything?" Leonard scoffed and said, "I'm not stealing shit from the school. It'd be my luck that we get caught. C'mon."
Leonard made him list all the things that he knew he was allergic to. When Jim started slowing down with only twenty-seven things on the list, Jim grew more forgetful as Leonard's frustration mounted. "You have Lannect's syndrome, you're allergic to at least fifty things and you can't even tell me all of them! How are you not dead? How do you go to the processors and just get a meal without checking. God, I thought you were careless before but now you're just suicidal! You're planning on being a Captain! How the fuck are you going to captain a ship? This is an actual disease, you know!"
Jim winced, his ears were ringing and his throat was still sore. Definitely getting an infection. "When I'm better, I'll remember more." Leonard sighed loudly and said, "We have a few more days before school starts back up and everyone get's back. Rest. I'll make sure you're getting medicine that won't kill you."
Jim hadn't gotten a bad infection for years. For being a sufferer of Lannect's syndrome for almost all his life, he got off easy. He knew it before, but the last week of the holiday's really showed him how bad it could be. Leonard nursed him, he knew the older man was there like he used to know Sam was there. He lost a few days, the fever completely stealing his memory, another couple of days were hazy, blurry and cherished for he couldn't feel the tightness in his chest and the coughing fits that left him breathless and winded, with a hard ache in his throat. He felt Tevik on the edge of the bond, harsh and hot the bond burned as he shivered. His mind kept on flashing to Kevin, expectantly, causing night terrors that refused to end.
When Jim finally woke, feeling tired but much better, he groaned. He felt warm, not overly so but nice, safe and comfortable. He only then noticed the weight when he started to stretch, some of his bones cracking slightly. Turning he saw an exhausted looking Leonard asleep next to him. Jim smiled at the sight and laid still, careful not to wake the doctor.
It didn't matter, Leonard woke only a few seconds later. Blinking, he slowly said, "You're up." Jim nodded, "Achy, tired but back to being me. How long has it been?" By the look of Leonard it had been a few days. Leonard snorted and sat up, running his hands over his messy hair, he had stubble that hadn't been there when Jim first got sick. "Eleven days." Jim's eyes widened. "What?" Leonard nodded, looking grim. "You were out for most of it, I thought of bringing you to a hospital, but truthfully for Lannect's there's nothing anyone could do that I couldn't from here."
Jim frowned and slowly moved, his muscles still tense and heavy. "Don't move too fast, take it easy." Jim frowned as he looked down, he was in pyjama pants he hadn't had on before and he was clean. Jim looked over at his shoulder giving Leonard a look and Leonard reading it completely, scoffed but still blushed slightly. "I'm a doctor man! You had to bathe and the steam helped with your lungs." Leonard quickly got up and Jim grinned at his back. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jim replied playfully, "If you wanted to see me naked, you just had to ask." Leonard threw a pillow at him and called out, "You need to shave and just to let you know," Leonard turned back from his chair at his desk to look at him, he smirked something evil, before he replied, "School started two days ago, you missed like fourteen classes."
Jim gaped and Leonard took pity on him. "The plus side is that it's Saturday, so you still have one day to catch up on everything you missed."
That wasn't helpful.
Jim didn't realized he was coming to rely on Leonard being near all the time. It wasn't like it was with Jenna, whom knew all his dark side, whom looked at him with respect and fear. Adalyn loved his strength, Locan loved Sorren. Tevik hadn't really considered Jim a friend, but Jim tried to remember how he once considered the Vulcan his. He frowned, looking out the window, into a foggy day, he tried to remember what real friends were like.
He needed something to compare this to. How did a person tell if someone was a real friend? How did normal people do that?
Leonard found him at the back table, he plopped down two coffees and said, "We should do something for spring break. It's been nothing but work the past few months." Jim nodded. Even the doctor had been busy during the weekends, Jim didn't see him for five days in late January, though when Leonard found out he was top in class, they both celebrated hard. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't know. Do you want to do a trip somewhere? I know it's short notice..." Jim shrugged and replied truthfully, "Sure. I've always wanted to see London or Paris. Apparently, The Isle of Zealand is going to have a conference on intergalactic space communications and abnormalities throughout the twenty-second- What?" Jim cut himself off as Leonard kept on staring at him. "Well...I was thinking more of a road trip since we don't have to the money to take a shuttle across the globe."
Jim paused and thought about it. Normal people, he supposed did not have their own shuttles. "Well," he spoke carefully, "I know a guy, who knows a guy. Long story. Why don't you pick the place and I will figure out where we're going." Leonard nodded and took a long sip of his coffee.
By the time spring break came along, Leonard had, had enough. He sat down on his bed as Jim packed a backpack carefully and expertly. "So, are you ever going to open up? Or are we just going to go on like this?" Jim looked up and frowned, replying, "What are you talking about?"
Leonard raised a brow and said, "Jim, I know I'm not the most touchy-feely type, whatever. But I do believe that some form of talking helps. I've seen it with patients. When I hypoed you in October, you had these terrible nightmares. You talked in your sleep. I thought it was because of the medication. Again," Leonard spoke quickly for the dirty look Jim was giving him, "Again, I'm sorry about that. But when you were sick, they came again. Every time your defences are down you get solemn, and don't think I haven't noticed how quickly you can lie. At that party you dragged me to, I watched as you changed from goofy sex toy to actually tensing as that girl led you upstairs. I saw that, even though it was minor and you relaxed right away, for some reason you're playing a role that isn't you. I like you Jim, but I don't like being lied to."
Jim raised a brow and stopped packing as he replied, "Tell me Leonard, it's been what, seven months that we've known each other? Why don't you tell me why you don't trust people? Why you have, what, three friends including myself. And the other two are your colleagues, so let's not count them."
Leonard looked away and clenched his jaw and Jim shrugged, saying, "We all have things we don't like to talk about." Leonard nodded and sighed, finally when he spoke next, he surprised Jim once more. "I don't like friends. I had them once, not much good it did me. There was my best friend when I was young. I told you I experienced death early." Leonard looked up and Jim saw the seriousness of the conversation to come. Jim sat down opposite Leonard and waited for the man to open up to him.
"Jeremy Hallcrow was his name. Brunette like me but with really green eyes. Even at nine, you could see he was going to be a looker. And he used it often, got into a damn lot trouble dragging me behind him. Well, one night I told him I was going home, we were out past curfews again, down by the docks by the river and we had just scared the pants off Kyle Burton, he was a jackass and still is today. Damn lawyers. We got into a fight, something stupid, me being a coward which I took way too hard. I suppose I was though, I never wanted to get into trouble or to explore anything new. I was frightened he'd leave like my brother outgrew all of the old friends who used to stop by the house. Ma said it was natural, growing up. But I knew, even back then, I'd never have a friend like that again. Jeremy had my back, always there, always ready to defend me, take the fall, even when it was my fault. There was no questioning it or each other. So we fought and I stormed off. I thought we'd just make up the next day, like we usually did."
Leonard sighed again, this one heavy and his eyes grew dark. "He didn't show up to school the next day. It upset me but I wasn't surprised, he usually skipped the next day after a fight. He knew how to make it hurt for me." Jim winced, he had done the exact same thing to Leonard just a few months ago. "Well the news came later that night. Mom got it over a phone call. He drowned. Usually the river was calm but occasionally when there was a flood in the neighbouring town or a harsh storm, the current could get strong. Jeremy was a good swimmer, but it usually took two of us to make it to the other side. I wasn't there."
Jim sighed and said, "Len-" "I know. Not my fault. I've heard it a thousand times. I'm telling you this because I haven't told anyone it before, except a gang of shit talking therapists when I was young. I think...I don't know... that somehow you'd get it. That loss, even if you'd naturally grow out of it, it's..."
"It's something that you could look back on that's perfect in that moment. You had a brother, and he had you, it's not something you forget. That closeness. I've had that Len, for a couple months, sometimes I fooled myself into believing it and sometimes it was real. I think it was real. I understand. I do."
Leonard nodded. "Friends are hard to come by. I want you to trust me because I trust you, Jim. I want you to rely on me and know that I'm going to be there for you. Yeah, we might grow apart one day, yeah we might end up hating each other. But right now, you're all I got." Jim sat there stunned and realized it was true. Both ways. He couldn't go back to Reklor, he couldn't go back to Zanni Mi, he had Star Fleet and he had Leonard to keep him stable, healthy and...safe.
Jim swallowed and said, "I think there's more to that story." Leonard ran a hand through his hair and said, "Yeah. A bit. You first."
Jim sighed and said, "Well, I had a brother. Sam Kirk. No one here really remembers him. I guess we grew up knowing that and I knew it would be true when he died. He was murdered, his throat was cut in front of me." Leonard's eyes widened. "Jim-" Jim shook his head and said, "Not the worst part really. It was the fact that I felt like I was an intruder. Sam and I, you see, we weren't that close. I was jealous of him all my life. And I think he was slightly jealous of me. Mom loved him more, or at least she didn't cry around him. He wasn't so serious and he made friends easy. He was really, genuinely nice. And..." Jim glanced up at Leonard and then back down to the floor. He didn't know how much he could say without admitting how bad a person he was or including things that he just couldn't talk about.
"It takes effort for me to be selfless. I have to think around all the angles before I make a decision on anything. It lets me think outside of the box, something Sam wasn't good at, but it also makes me break the rules and sometimes harshly. When Sam died, it was horrifying, I never pictured him gone, but if I am being truthful, I never pictured us close either. We'd comm each other, say happy birthday and happy Christmas. We celebrated those as best we could. But Sam, Sam always showed me what I wasn't and I couldn't stand him for being so much better than me. It was everything I lost with Sam that hurt the most. My mom I couldn't look at, I couldn't pretend that she was a mother after that. She hadn't really been there during my childhood and I felt too angry with her. I had a friend too, but he was Sam's friend, so I lost him. I couldn't go home because I hadn't really had a home to begin with, I ran and I didn't look back until just recently. Lot of good that did me."
Leonard looked surprised and he said, "How old were you?" Jim shrugged and said, "Thirteen, fourteen around there. Long story." Leonard nodded and said, "My wife cheated on me." Jim was stumped by that comment but Leonard continued. "Actually, it was more like she had an affair for a year and a half. I didn't see it at all in the beginning. I was grieving, I suppose. I was angry. She aborted our child and I didn't even know she was pregnant until Tom admitted her to the hospital with complications. Tom was my best friend since freshman year of college, we knew each other for a good fifteen years by that point. And he was the boyfriend she was seeing, the best man at our wedding. I didn't find out until I came home early from a conference trip. We'd been married since I was twenty-eight, so it was our four year anniversary. Well, cliche I suppose, found them together, we fought and it all came out. I broke my hand breaking Tom's jaw and spent almost three years in the worst bitter divorce hears you'd ever saw. Funny thing was, I found out that it was Tom was got her to abort the baby, a girl, it was suppose to be. And now they have a child together, a boy named Carter. Getting married too, next year from what my sister says."
Jim blew out a breath and shook his head. "We need liquor."
That spring break they didn't go anywhere but whatever bar was open and close. They talked about things they hadn't before. Jim didn't bring up too much but he did finally say how lonely he was, without really saying it. It all came out the night they got smashed drunk on illegal Cardassian yellow Volkka. Jim ended up falling down on the lawn of their dormitories and Leonard quickly followed with a loud huff.
"I don't...I don't think I can get up again." Leonards words were slurred badly with his accent and slow, Jim knew he wasn't much better.
Jim laughed as the world spun around him. "Hey Len," Leonard was shuffling on the grass, he moved until he was next to Jim, who didn't think he could tilt his head without throwing up, never mind shuffle and crawl. "Yeah?" Leonard said, turning until he was facing the stars like Jim. "When I get my own ship... I'm ...I'm going to get you to work with me." Leonard snorted and said, "Jim, you need me to work with you, no one will remember all those...those allergies." Leonard hiccuped and Jim smiled, too sleepy to chuckle. "Yeah."
Jim finally managed to tilt his head to look at Leonard. Leonard who had just told him he was scared of being alone, who was frightened he'd push everyone he loved away, or worse he'd hold on too tightly and they'd run instead.
"I think I'm clingy."
Leonard looked back at him, his eyes glossy and his face pink and relaxed. "You think?" Jim nodded and said, "I'm a latcher, I latch on to certain things and it's hard to let go. But I don't really know with people. People tend to not stay long enough for me to know. I think I'm clingy." Leonard replied, his words thick and slightly hard to understand, "That's not so bad. It's okay."
Jim took a few seconds to realize what he said and moved without thinking. He really hated it when he did that. He blamed the alcohol. Jim moved to kiss Leonard lightly, chastely and Leonard let him. When Jim put his head back down, Leonard frowned and said, "Jim, I'm not...I'm not..."
"I know." Jim said relaxed. "I just want you to know, I'm yours now. Forever. So be prepared for cling-y-ness." Jim shut his eyes and didn't catch Leonard's smile. "'k."
"Also, I'm so renaming you."
That drew Leonard's attention. "Wha?" Jim nodded, making his stomach turn and he clench his jaw to stop his nausea. "Bones. That's what I'm calling you." Jim turned his head once more to look at Bones, who frowned. "That's what you said when we met. You had nothing but your bones, but now you have me too. So I'm never going to let you forget that. You got more than just yourself now."
Bones smiled and chuckled and said, "Well Jim, I won't leave if you don't. But careful what you wish for, you're stuck with me too."
The next morning the sun was bright and Jim groaned at his hangover. He woke with a shadow blocking the sun and groaned again as his head and stomach caught up with him. Jim slowly lifted his body to his elbows, Bones following suit looking just as haggard.
Captain Christopher Pike stood before them, arms crossed and looking furious. Jim looked to Bones who looked back at him and both of them had the same thought. Shit. When Jim stumbled up on his feet he found the whole campus out and walking to and from classes. People grinned at them, laughed and others shook their heads. The illegal Volkka bottle lay just a coupld inches away from them. Jim turned to Chris and said, "You can't prove we drank that." Chris pinched his nose and said, "Just go to your dorms and for god's sake, don't ever pass out in public again or I will have to alert the Admiralty."
Jim and Bones grinned and waved at the onlookers, helping each other across the lawn to hollers and chuckles.
Chris grumpily and discreetly discarded of the bottle, all the while, shaking his head and grumbling.
