Jim dragged his feet through the front door of the house, feeling like a rather pathetic creature. He was only trying to make sure he was properly punished for all his wrong doings, but then he'd been the one who'd run away like some kind of coward. What was wrong with him? He let out an audible snort without meaning to. Asking what was wrong with himself was only begging to sit around for years to try and parse it all out. There was way too much wrong with him to ever be able to make a list or anything.
Jim sighed, and just hoped that Frank and his mom would both be busy elsewhere, preferably on the other side of the universe from him, though he'd take what he could get. He peered around cautiously as he walked through the living room, but didn't see any signs of life, so he decided that it was safe to keep moving towards the stairs.
When he finally got to his room, he sank down on his bed, and let out a small sigh of relief. No matter what else happened, he'd always be happy to have such a comfortable bed. Frank probably didn't even realize that Jim had swapped his bed with Sam's years ago, leaving him with something that was actually nice to lie on top of, even if his head was still spinning, and his ribs were aching from where he'd gotten clipped by a car when he staggered across the road yesterday.
Even though he was tired, Jim knew it would be a dick move to fall asleep without calling Bones first. He heaved out an exhausted sigh, and then got back up to his feet so he could trudge back out into the hallway to retrieve one of the landline phones. He really should've thought to grab one on in the way to his room, but it's not like Jim was ever very smart.
He winced as he reached out to grab the stupid phone, and suddenly someone was knocking his hand aside with a lot more force than necessary. Jim slowly tilted his head back to look up at his mom's face. Wasn't she supposed to be at work? Then again, Spock hadn't left his home yet despite the time, so it was probably just the weekend.
Winona looked at Jim with a scowl on her face and narrowed eyes. "Where the hell have you been? Do you really think you can just run off like that and worry everyone sick and not have to face any consequences?"
Jim furrowed his eyebrows. "Uh, yeah? I didn't realize that my absence would worry you so much. Didn't think you'd care."
Winona clenched her jaw, and her fists, before gritting out, "I'm your mother, of course I care. Though you've been an awful son lately. You didn't even stop once to consider anyone else's feelings before doing something so stupid."
All Jim wanted to do was let Bones know he was okay, and then take a nap for like a year, but his mom was starting to grate on his nerves. He crossed his arms over his chest, and frowned at her. "I'm so sorry for not thinking about you before I decided to take some time away from the people who don't mind hurting me over whatever little thing bothered you that had nothing to do with me. I'm a bad son for not wanting to stay in this house where I'm destined to rot away into nothing?" He made sure not to raise his voice, because he knew shouting would only draw Frank's attention if he was somewhere in the house.
For some reason, Winona actually had the audacity to look offended by Jim's words. "Excuse me? How dare you say something like that when we both know that the only reason you came back is that you don't know jack squat about taking care of yourself in the real world, and it was scarier and more difficult than you thought it would be. We give you food, and clothes, and a roof over your head, and a television and books and a whole bunch of other crap that you've done absolutely nothing to deserve!"
"Yeah, thanks for providing me with the bare minimum required to live, it really makes me feel so wanted."
A moment later, there was the sound of skin hitting skin, and Jim could feel his cheek stinging where his mother had just slapped him. "You are the worst son ever. Why can't you be more like Sam? If your father was still alive, he'd feel nothing but shame to have you as a son."
Jim gulped, and took in a deep breath, willing himself not to cry. This wouldn't hurt so much if he wasn't so goddamn emotional all the time, and he wasn't going to let his mom see just how much she was getting to him. "If my dad was still alive, he'd feel ashamed to have you as a wife," he said quietly, hoping his words would sting his mom as much as hers had him.
Winona slapped him again, this time across his other cheek. "You are a disgrace to this family. If you hate it here so much, why don't you just leave for good? Maybe we'll all get lucky, and you'll get yourself killed out there." Then she abruptly turned on her heel, and marched down the hallway to her own bedroom.
Jim stood perfectly still where he was, waiting until she was in her room with the door closed behind her before he reached out to grab the phone, and then retreated into his room. He sank down onto his bed, though this time he couldn't be bothered to think of whether or not it was comfortable to lie in.
He dialed Bones' number, which he'd definitely know by heart by now even if it hadn't been for his better than average memory, and didn't have to wait long because his best friend answered on the first ring. "Jim? Where the hell have you been? You haven't been in school, and I've been calling for days but your parents keep saying that you're unavailable at the moment and I thought-"
"I'm fine," Jim managed to croak out, despite the fact that it felt like there was a giant lump in his throat. "Sorry if I worried you," he offered after a long moment passed of nothing but listening to the echo of his own labored breaths. He wasn't even sure how much of the trouble with his breathing came from his sore ribs, and how much came from thinking about what had just happened with his mom. Not that getting hit in the face should really do much to impede one's breathing.
There was another long stretch of silence, but before Jim could fill it in, he suddenly heard the worst noise in the history of all of humankind. He could hear Bones crying. He'd only ever heard that noise once before in his entire life, when Bones' mom passed away when they were children. It was absolutely horrible to hear, because it meant that Bones had really reached the end of his rope. He was always the strong one, covering up all of his emotions with a general grouchiness, keeping Jim in one piece (for the most part). He didn't even know what to say. What could he possibly say that would make anything okay when he could feel his heart breaking for one of the few people he genuinely cared about with everything he had? "I thought you were dead," Bones finally said in a voice barely loud enough to qualify as a whisper. "I went to your house, but your mom wouldn't let me in, and kept saying that you were busy or out, and I called the police, but I guess your mom was good enough at talking to them, and they couldn't find any evidence of- of foul play. But I…" he trailed off, but that was enough.
Despite Bones' status as Jim's best friend in the entire universe for all of eternity, he'd always assumed that it didn't really go both ways. Sure, Bones didn't really have many other close friends, but that seemed to be the way he preferred things to be, since he didn't like all the 'teenage nonsense' that their peers got up to sometimes.
Jim had known for a while, ever since Tarsus, that he was actually a very disposable person. He'd done more terrible things than he'd ever be able to redeem himself for, and honestly hadn't deserved to make it out of that place alive. And he'd known that even if he hadn't made it, no one would've really been all that upset. Sure, maybe Sam would've cried at first, but considering how easy it had been for his brother to abandon him, he was pretty sure that he'd get over Jim's death pretty quickly. And it wasn't like Winona or Frank made any secret of how much of a burden Jim was. And he'd figured that even Bones would get over it sooner or later, because it's not like Jim had ever done anything to set himself apart as being some kind of spectacular friend. It was usually Bones who ended up doing stuff like that, half of the time without even meaning to.
But now he wasn't so sure. The effect would probably be even worse in person, but Jim knew that at least just over the phone, Bones sounded totally devastated at the thought of Jim being dead. It was crazy, because he'd never thought anyone would be that upset about it. He was just Jim Kirk. No one special. "I'm sorry," he finally said, not sure of what else he could do. All he knew was that he wanted to make Bones stop crying, because he couldn't imagine ever hearing anything nearly as awful even if he lived for another thousand years.
His apology didn't seem to help, though. Bones just let out a violent sounding sob before shouting, "Don't you apologize, you idiot! Of course I'm pissed that you didn't come to me, or at least call me, sooner, but I'm infinitely more pissed at those two pieces of garbage who call themselves your parents. If I didn't think it would make things worse for you, I'd go over there right now and punch them both in the face." At least now he sounded more like he was aggressively growling than crying. Anything had to be better than listening to Bones cry.
Jim smiled to himself at the concern in his friends voice. "You're the best friend a guy could ever ask for," he said softly.
"Yeah, well," Bones said gruffly, apparently unable to think of anything more clever. "If you ever scare me like that again, don't expect me to stick around."
The strange thing was, though, that Jim just knew that what Bones really meant was that he was always going to be there for Jim. There was literally no one else in his life who would even care to make such a promise, let alone actually make it. Jim shifted around on his bed until he found the comfiest position, and then cleared his throat. "So you're never going to believe what happened," and then he launched into a long and very exaggerated tale of how he found Spock's cat, and then Spock took him back to his house.
By the time he was done, Bones was actually laughing. "I can't believe you got the chance to see the hobgoblin in his home territory and didn't even look for blackmail material! And how am I ever supposed to recover from the knowledge that a Vulcan has an adorable little kitten?"
"I know, right? Maybe that's what his mom meant when she said that Vulcans can actually feel things. Like the soft fur on a fluffy little kitty." He laughed, and Bones laughed with him, before smoothly segueing into letting Jim know what they'd been doing in school the past couple of days. Jim was happy to listen, because missing out on an education would be one of his greatest regrets for sure, so he had to learn as much as possible whenever he got the chance.
,,,
By the time Monday rolled around, Jim felt a lot better, at least physically. And talking to Bones all weekend had actually helped keep his mind off of everything else, which was nice. He hadn't risked leaving to visit Bones in person, though, and had instead spent the entire weekend holed up in his room, where he somehow felt safe most of the time. It meant that he felt like he was starving by the time he was getting ready for school, but it was worth it to avoid any further confrontations with Frank or Winona.
He practically skipped into his first class of the day, and ignored the various looks that he got from his classmates. He already knew that they ranged from pity to confusion to awe to jealousy (though he couldn't understand why anyone would possibly be jealous of him, all things considered). Jim sank down in his seat next to Bones, and gratefully accepted the notebook that was handed to him to copy all of Bones' notes out of.
Eventually, it was time to go to Spock's class, and Jim was pretty tempted to just skip it. He wasn't sure if the teacher would act weird or different because of what had happened, but he was cowardly enough to not want to find out. That entire incident with Spock had felt more like a fever dream than anything, and Jim was half-afraid that maybe it hadn't even happened, except for the fact that he had gone home clean and bandaged up.
Bones seemed to sense his hesitation, because he dragged Jim along with him to the classroom, and they hurried to their seats once they were inside. Spock was standing up, leaning over his desk as he read something lying flat on it. Jim couldn't see what the teacher was looking at from where he was.
At exactly twelve, Spock straightened up, and grabbed the attendance sheet to do a roll call. One kid was absent, and everyone else was in the room. When Spock had gotten to Jim's name, Jim ended up holding his breath, wondering what was going to happen. Instead of anything out of the ordinary, his name was said exactly the same as always, and Jim admitted that he was present when Bones leaned over to poke him in the arm.
Jim totally zoned out during the class, taking all of his notes on autopilot in a way that he knew most of his classmates would not be able to do. Even though he knew it annoyed Spock when students did so, Jim packed all of his things back into his bag a minute before the bell rang, but that was only so he could dash off the moment he heard that shrill noise.
He waited right outside the door for Bones, who took longer to escape. Bones kept giving him a funny look, but Jim ignored it, because he wasn't sure how to explain the fact that he suddenly wanted to be nowhere near Spock. They went to the cafeteria together, and sat down to share Bones' lunch, which was basically two lunches thanks to the wonderful David McCoy.
Jim suffered through his last class, which unfortunately was not with Bones, and then shuffled outside, making his way to the dinky back parking lot where Bones always kept his truck. He hoped inside, and waited patiently for a few minutes until Bones finally caught up and got into the driver's seat. Bones didn't even give Jim a second glance before taking off in the direction of his own home.
They retreated up to Bones' room before David or Eliza could pull them into a tedious conversation, and then flopped down on the bed so that they could stare blankly at the black television screen. "Do you wanna talk about it?" Bones finally managed to ask.
Jim quickly shook his head. "No. I don't think that I'll ever in a million years want to talk about this. But thanks for asking."
Bones shrugged. "Whatever." Then he got up to grab his backpack and pull out his homework. "I'm here if you end up changing your mind before that million years is up."
This exact moment had to be what made all of that pain worth it. If he gave up all his emotions, he wouldn't feel the swelling up in his heart at the thought of what an amazing friend Bones was, and he wouldn't be able to know just how much he loved his best friend in the entire universe.