Chapter 40

The next morning was eventful, to say the least.

Waking up between two ridiculously gorgeous men who just happened to actually be his boyfriends now, was pretty awesome, Jim had decided.

What was not awesome, was the fact that now, half an hour later, he was running after said-boyfriends to Professor Pike's office in a desperate attempt to prevent them from murdering his mother.

Which, you know, wasn't actually to protect her life, but rather to stop them from destroying their own.

"Guys, would you just wait a minute!" He panted, cursing his short stature and their well-over-6-feet frames, "We haven't even had breakfast yet!"

"And I promise that I'll feed you after I scream at one Winona Kirk" Bones replied tightly, "How do pancakes sound?"

"Fantastic. You know what sounds fantastic? Not murder!"

Spock sighed silently as they turned the corner, "Jim, ashalik, I promise that there will be no murder-"

"I don't" Bones muttered, but both men ignored him.

"-but we still wish to find out your mother's reasons for leaving you in that household".

"Because she hates me!" He exclaimed, trying to tug on his shirt hard enough to stop him, "We've been over this, Spock! She hates mutant, and guess what? I'm a mutant!"

"She married your father".

"And forbade him from ever using his powers around her!"

"She had a child. You. She had to have known the gene would be passed on".

"She had two children" He corrected, "And my brother's perfectly human, thank you very much".

That did cause them to stop.

Bones frowned down at him, "... You have a brother?"

"Yea. Sam. He, uh... he left".

"He left... you behind?" Spock carefully finished, knowing how to read between the blonde's words, and Jim swallowed thickly, avoiding their gaze, "... Yea. The second he turned 18. It was... It was only a year after that that I-"

"That you...?"

"... That Iran away" He finished, unwilling and unable to explain the whole 'oh yea so by the way I murdered my step father when I was 15!' story right now.

Bones nodded.

"Well then. That settles it" He announced, "After we kill your mother, we're gonna look up Sam Kirk in the phone book".

Jim awkwardly hovered behind the pair as Spock nodded loudly on Pike's office doorway.

He hadn't been able to dissuade his boyfriends from tearing down the halls to scream at Winona, and nothing he said could change their minds either.

So now, here he was, half hoping that she had left during the night, as usual, and the other half hoping that she was still here, so that Spock and Bones could yell at her the way that he himself couldn't.

Turns out, for the first time ever, that she had stuck around.

"Spock? Dr. McCoy? What are you-"

They barged passed the confused Headmaster.

"You!" Bones growled, spying Winona sitting in front of the Professor's desk, right where he'd predicted she'd be.

Spock looked just as furious.

And it was universally acknowledged that you did not fuck with an angry Vulcan.

And so, it was with some smug satisfaction that Jim watched his mother jump up, her hand flying to her belt where the Starfleet phaser usually resided.

The only problem was, she was currently off-duty.

"How dare you!" Bones began, "You call yourself his mother?! After abandoning him to that sick twisted man?! Time after time again?! You disgust me!"

Winona tried to run for the door, but a simple flick of Spock's wrist sent her spiralling back down into her chair, paralysed from his energy wave.

She stared up at him with wide eyes, "... You're a mutant".

His gaze was hard, "Unfortunately for you".

Pike immediately rushed forwards to stand between them, "Spock! McCoy! Just what on earth are you two doing?!"

"Something that should have been done a long time ago!" Bones snapped, "He was abused for fucks sake! And she just left him there".

"She has already paid enough for-"

"Bullshit! She will never be able to pay enough for what she did".

The doctor took a step forwards again, towards Winona, and Jim saw his anger flash around his entire body.

As well as his desire to punch.

He immediately teleported himself to stand in front of his boyfriend, grabbing his wrist just as he went to raise it.

"Don't!"

Bones's face immediately softened, "Jim-"

"No!" He growled, "Violence doesn't solve violence, McCoy!"

He stilled under the use of his real name.

"And despite how much she deserves it, despite how much I would quite frankly love to see her suffer... It won't change what happened" He continued quietly, "And it won't make her feel any guilt either".

Spock slowly released the invisible hold he had on the woman, and she jumped up, coming to stand behind Pike.

Bones studied his youngest boyfriend carefully, noting the fear, the sincerity, the pain behind his eyes, and slowly nodded, forcing himself to relax, "Alright... Alright, I'll... I won't hurt her".

Jim glanced past him to meets Spock's gaze, and the Vulcan gave a single nod of promise also.

"Good" He finished, before taking a deep breath and turning to face his mother, "... Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see you-"

"Fuck off" He snapped, "In case you haven't notice, Winona, I'm a mutant. And one of my many, many fucking horrendous powers, is being able to tell if you're lying or not... So. I'll ask you again. Why are you here?!"

She glanced over at Pike and he nodded solemnly.

Turning back to her youngest son, she sighed, "... It's got to do with my last mission".

"You had a rescue mission, on a sleeper ship" Jim replied, "You already told me this".

"Yes... but the part I didn't tell you, was that we actually found people on it".

From behind them, Bones frowned, "Found people? On a shut-down Starship? But... they would have had to have been frozen or- or hibernating or something in order for them to survive for so long".

"And they were" She replied gravely, "Over six dozen Terrans, all of whom have been in cryogenic suspension for the last 20 years".

The doctor swore.

Jim frowned, "I don't understand. Why are you telling me this? What has that got to do with coming back here?"

"Because when we entered their ship, some of them woke up. Seven officers were killed by... shall we say... unnatural powers".

"They're mutants" Spock summarised, and Winona nodded, "Exactly. And the mutant in charge, Khan, wants revenge on the single man who put them there".

Pike sighed heavily and stepped forwards, "And that man... would be me".