Chapter 14: Everything Will Burn
He was a piece of shit.
Jim glared at his reflection in the mirror, which glared back at him, blue eyes narrowed in sagging eyelids, the lines that were already beginning to appear on his face becoming more prominent.
He was such a piece of shit. And he also felt like shit, thanks to last night.
With a heavy sigh Jim sat on the closed toilet and dropped his head into his hands, halfway to pulling out his lengthening hair. He couldn't believe what he'd said last night. What he'd done. Sure he been buzzed, but that was no excuse. He wasn't drunk enough not to know that lying to Spock like that, lying to himself like that was a bad idea.
"The relationship these two people have, it isn't romantic. This sort of relationship tends to exist alongside a romantic relationship." He mocked himself before letting out a groan and sitting up, letting his head bang into the striped wall. Once. Twice. Three times. That was such bull. Such bull shit. I mean he'd used bad lines on women and some men before, but Spock was different. He cared about Spock, yes. He did think Spock was his other half. But he wanted Spock. He wanted more than an extremely intimate friendship or whatever shit he'd concocted last night. He wanted everything. He wanted the good and the bad, the silent, calm moments and the really loud sex. He wanted to be there for Spock, catch the man who caught him, laugh with the man who made him laugh.
He wanted to tell Spock that he loved him.
"I need to start talking out of my mouth," he banged his head against the wall again. "And not," Again, "Out of," again, "My ass."
Spock was in a relationship with Uhura. A romantic, intimate emotional and sexual relationship. That's what Jim wanted. But that's not what they had now. But they weren't friends anymore either. They were in the ghost zone between friends, colleagues, and lovers.
They had only kissed three times. The first two introductory kisses before they had talked for a long time, both of their highs fading as their conversation had grown more stilted, softer, more fatigued. Their words had meandered, their conversation bouncing between light and dark. Jim talked for a few near silent moments about Tarsus IV.
Spock talked about nearly committing suicide.
Jim could barely relive the few short sentences without scrunching his eyes and clenching his fists. "The event transpired after my state of emotional shock was revealed to the bridge. I returned to my quarters, having lost control of all my emotions, the anger and hatred you witnessed, along with sorrow and hopelessness. I locked myself in our shared bathroom, set my phaser to kill, and placed it on my temple. After a few moments of consideration I realized suicide was an illogical action and instead went to find a way to control my grief on the transporter platform where my mother failed to materialize."
That was the third time they kissed. Soft, tender, Jim cupping Spock's cheek, trying to help the man who had helped him so much in the only way he knew how. Because Jim hadn't known what to say, he hadn't known what to do. Because he was a coward.
A coward.
They slept on the couch, leaning on each other. Though when Jim woke up, Spock was gone. He had to have just left, because his spot was still warm. A note was left on the Padd in his place, informing Jim that he had left early to go to the supply store in order for them to "complete projects on the most efficient time table".
In other words, he ran away.
Jim didn't blame him. That had been his plan once he realized what had happened last night. Spock wasn't dumb, but he wasn't really familiar with the broad scope of human social customs, so Jim had no idea whether he thought what Jim had said was bullshit or truthful. Spock was also drunk at the time they ... Interacted, to make matters worse. And probably not hung over, judging by his early departure, pointy eared bastard.
God he hated himself so much right now.
The kissing and talking had been great though, so wonderful. It was just the reason behind it that made him want to run. Jim had deluded himself the entire time that they were in a relationship, pretended that Uhura didn't exist. That the reason he and Spock kissed was because Jim had just admitted his love for the man, not his fake desire to be friends with benefits.
His communicator pinged, and while his brain told him not to check it, his hand was already lifting it to his face. It was a message from Bones.
"Get on your damn video phone," typed neatly across the screen. Jim was not in the mood to talk to Bones, or anyone for that matter, but he hadn't talked to the doctor in a while, and maybe McCoy could bring some normalcy back into his life.
Jim returned to his bedroom, stepping carefully around Spock's mattress before grabbing his Padd and propping it up in his bed. Just as he'd finished that it pinged with and incoming call, the bad picture he'd secretly taken of McCoy appearing.
"Bones!" He started with a loud grin, "it's good to see you." The man grumbled, looking gruffer than usual, obviously he hadn't shaved in a few days.
"Jim, you need to learn to answer your goddamned communicator. I'm surprised you even got the type message I sent you." Jim shrugs, keeping up his smile. He hadn't been avoiding Bones, there had simply been so much work to be done. Or at least that's how he justified it.
"Sorry Bones. It's just that we've had a lot to do. This place was practically falling down around us when we got here."
"I don't doubt it," Bones grunted because he was the only other person Jim had brought back here, and that was years ago and they were practically squatting the few days they laid over. "I'm glad to here you both have something to do." Jim narrowed his eyes at Bones, reclining back on the pillows that had made their way onto his bed.
"Not as much as if I were helping with the recovery efforts." Bones rubs a hand over his face and sighs.
"God damn it, you sure are persistent. Then you must be feeling better,"
"I'm feeling a hundred percent better. I haven't used the cane at all," Bones nods.
"Good, you shouldn't need it at this stage. How are you and Spock getting along? Are you at each others throats yet?" Jim laughs, being careful not to rub the back of his neck sheepishly.
"We've actually been getting along very well, surprisingly enough. Barely any fighting." Bones snorts, ignoring a clamor in the background which resulted in the computer lab tent tipping wildly.
"Sure. Because the bruise on his face happened when he fell down the stairs."
Jim opens his mouth to reply snappily, but then closes it again.
How did Bones know about that?
"Bones, I didn't tell you about the bruise on Spock's face." The doctor rolls his shoulders.
"Why do you think I made such an effort to get in touch with you this morning?He hasn't called me yet. Jim, I have been talking to him everyday. I did notice when a dark green splotch appeared on his jaw." Jim started to tap his fingers on his leg, heart beat increasing.
"You've been talking to him everyday."
"Well of course I have been. You won't answer your damned communicator, and how else am I supposed to get updates on your condition? I'm a doctor, not a psychic." Blood was rushing through his head. His vision began to jump. The speed of his fingers increased.
"What exactly have you been talking about?" Bones sighed, overloading the speakers and causing them to crackle.
"What do you think?"
"Me," Jim turned away from the screen, putting both of his feet flat on the floor, digging his hands into the quilt to stop them from fidgeting.
"God damn it man, of course we've been talking about you. Do you think I sent Spock out there because he's emotionally compromised? You couldn't go alone, and I wasn't going to have one of your subordinates or a random nurse who'd sell your soul to the media take care of you." Jim jumped off the bed and began to pace the room, hands tight behind his back.
"You sent Spock out here to take care of me. You made Spock a nurse maid."
"Not a nurse maid. He's your friend. And right now, you only have two friends, and I'm stuck out here. Get back in front of the camera will you?"
"I don't need a god damned baby sitter Bones. I can take care of myself." Bones growled some curses under his breath.
"Jim, without Spock out there, you probably be fucking dead right now. So stop whining and get your ass in front of the camera."
Jim stopped pacing. Stood still for a moment. Stiller than he'd ever been, since waking up from death. He returned to the bed. Pulled the Padd into his lap.
"How much has he been telling you?"
"Jesus Jim, he told me how you practically ordered him not to tell me anything. Way to make it harder on the guy than it already—"
"How much has he been telling you, Leonard?" His voice was dead calm even as his hands began to shake again. Bones let off another speaker crackling sigh.
"Jim, we have orders from the highest of the high, or what's left of them, to get you healthy again. It's not like they don't know."
"He's told you everything. And you've told them everything." He was so calm, he was so still. He'd never burned so hot but felt so cold. Maybe it was the mixture of panic and rage, they neutralized one another, leaving nothing. McCoy paused for a moment, and then relented.
"Yes. Everything. He's told me everything."
Silence.
Silence outside. Silence in his room. Silence in his mind.
Jim dropped the Padd on the bed. Stood.
"Jim, god damn it Jim get your ass back-"
"End call," he intoned as he left the room, and there was the beep as the video call ended. He paused at the top of the stairs, and in a sudden rage ripped his communicator from his pocket and flung it as hard as he could down the stair well, satisfied with the crunch it made when it impacted the wall and then the floor, though the damn thing probably wasn't broken.
He walked down the stairs, turned right and and walked down the hall, slipping his feet into his boots and walking out the door in one smooth motion. It was cooler outside than it had been recently, but that may have had something to do with the rain. The drizzle barely dampened him at first, but it wasn't long before beads of water were rolling down his face and neck. Jim shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders, and just began to move.
He wandered about the property, trying desperately to focus on how cold he was, how damp he was, how itchy the grass was on his arms and legs. Not to think about Spock. Not to think about himself.
He was such a fool. James Tiberius Kirk was a fool.
All those miserable nights Spock spent at the hospital were probably on orders. Spock didn't talk to Bones about going with him to Iowa, it was an order. Spock didn't take his hand during the Tornado because he cared, but because it was his duty. Spock didn't move that mattress into Jim's room because of the rain or a subconscious need to be near Jim, but because and Admiral told him to watch Jim at all times. Spock didn't take three punches to the face and then let Jim sleep on his shoulder because he wanted to be a little more than friends, but because in order for Jim to heal emotionally he needed to 'release pent up aggression' and 'interact with other humanoids'.
Even the kisses.
Jim can practically hear the thoughts that went through Spock's head at the time. "The Captain is making unwanted sexual advances on me, against StarFleet code 307 paragraph 4 subsection 1. Override by Admiralties direct standing orders to 'get that damn kid better, what ever the price'. The Captain is a human, humans require intimate touch to maintain the correct balance of hormones, which relates to the psychological stability. The captain requires more interaction than most. Conclusion, allow sexual encounter to persist."
Jesus Christ, what if he had admitted his love to Spock? What would he have done? Continued to follow orders until the bitter end, playing along with Jim's advances, fearing that he was either going to disobey the admiralty, break Uhura's heart, or break Jim?
Jim turned his face upwards, staring into the monotonous gray, watching the low clouds swirl and buckle with some unfelt wind. The drizzle was picking up a bit now, and he was soaked to the bone. Not that he really cared at this point.
He stopped walking when a bit of glass crunched under his boot.
He was back at the remains of the barn. On a different angle this time, twisting the steel and wood into new shapes. Oddly, there was one piece of flat metal Jim didn't remember from before, sticking straight out of the ground.
In front of it, while starting to match the rest of the mud, the dirt looked fresher, overturned.
It was the grave.
It could have been minutes or hours that Jim stood there and watched. He didn't really think much, or move much, just watched. It was just a cat, now. Jim realized that. But he still wouldn't be able to do what was necessary and put the creature out of its misery. Spock was Vulcan. Spock would never have trouble doing what needed to be done. Though Jim would have been able to do it too, before he died.
He had died.
He was the only person to have ever technically died, and come back to life. He didn't want to believe them, he wanted to believe he'd gone into a very, very deep coma, a nearly undetectable one. But it wasn't true.
And there was nothing.
The car splashed up the road, Spock was driving it too slow to be reasonable, but he had never had experience in a convertible vehicle before. Wood and other things hung out the trunk. The blue tarp meant to cover them flapping in the breeze. Jim watched it slow even further and pull into the driveway, and then disappear into the garage.
Jim began to move, the rain really coming down now, nearly shielding the house in a gray curtain.
The screen door banged against the side of the house as Jim walked into the kitchen, a wash of rain and a gust of wind following him onto the white tile floor.
Spock looked up from where he was sitting at the table, two communicators lined up neatly before him, one spotless, one scratched and cracked in the corner.
"Hello Captain," there was a slight pause and those brown eyes softened, but for once Jim barely felt it. "I feared you would not return."
"Well, here I am."
They stared at each other in silence. Jim didn't move to sit, Spock didn't move to stand. The only sound was Jim's dripping on the floor, the ticking of the replicator, and the rain on the still broken roof.
"I talked to Bones today," Jim starts, and they still stare at one another, neither backing down.
"You did."
"Yes," Jim moves into the room, looking around the kitchen like he'd never seen it before, hand on the green counter. "He told me that you've been talking to him, everyday. Is that true?"
"It is Captain." Jim turns his burning eyes on Spock, trying to show him, trying to force him to feel what he's feeling, like he's being eaten alive from the inside out, trapped like a mouse in a maze with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide even as he breaks and tries to put himself back together and breaks some more.
"You promised me that you wouldn't tell him when I had panic attacks." Silence. "You promised me, as a friend. As my best friend." Slight pause as Spock tries to work out what to say.
"Jim, he is your doctor. It was in your best interest-"
"Fuck my best interest!" Jim shouted, knocking the bag on the counter to the floor with a crash as he whipped on Spock. "Fuck my 'fragile health', fuck my 'emotional instability'. I asked you not to, Spock! I trusted you! I trusted you with my weakest moments, with my lowest lows. And you betrayed me. Why did you do it Spock? Why?" The words spit mean and cruel from his mouth, but he doesn't care, even as Spock leans back and locks off, even as Jim watches Spock's emotions drain away, he doesn't stop. He can't. He doesn't want to.
"I was following my standing ord—"
"Orders," Jim completes, a mean laugh lashing from his mouth. "Orders! What a surprise there, Mr. Spock, following orders. Playing the Admiralties bitch because its fucking logical. How far did they bend you over their desks, hmm? How hard did they have to fuck you to get you to betray me, your only god damned friend—" Spock stood abruptly, screeching back his chair.
"That's enough Jim—"
"—oh so what if I lose it? So what if I get angry? They already know how batshit crazy I am, thanks to you. So what if I scream a little, break my communicator? It doesn't matter—"
"Jim, please—"
"—nothing fucking matters. Do you care at all? Do you feel anything, for anyone?" Spock's lip twitched downwards. Jim could feel the blood rushing through his skull, through his arms. He felt high, in charge, powerful for the first time since he was reborn. "I didn't think so," Jim scoffed. "After this you're just going to go call them up and bend right back over, informing them of how Kirk just broke again, and no, he's not going to be ready for another few weeks. I bet you already told them about what happened last night, listed all the little details in that damn monotone—"
"I have told no one of our encounter—"
"—I opened myself up to you because I trusted you, because there was no one I was closer to in the entire galaxy, and you betrayed that, you betrayed me, just like everyone else ever has! " Jim swung his arm at nothing in particular, but Spock caught it, in a grip so strong Jim's bones groaned.
"Jim. I do care about you. I apologize for your feeling of betrayal, however—" Jim tried to tear his arm away, but Spock was too strong. Jim then threw a sloppy swing at him, which resulted in Spock grabbing his other arm. "Jim you must listen. Captain, Jim," Kirk still struggled, throwing a knee into the mix, which Spock easily dodged, shifting his grip from Jim's arms to his hair and his neck, where he could easily be dropped by a nerve pinch.
Jim stopped fighting and stared at Spock, letting the wall he'd built fall, letting all his pain wash into his eyes. He was too tired to keep the fear, the sorrow, the rage. He was so tired. And there was nothing.
"Jim," Spock murmured, loosening his grip to a less bone crushing state. There was a faint wash of Spock's lukewarm mind at the edge of his. "Oh, Jim."
Then, they melded.
Hey! Sorry to lay the angst on so hard after such a good time, but conflict drives a story right? I'm actually really proud of this chapter, I like how the dialog turned out.
Its official, this story is going M next chapter, thanks to every one who voted in reviews. I have some ideas for a very hot time between our two favorite star fleet officers :)
-Natcat