(Warnings for het and slash - nothing graphic but it's there.)

Chapter 12: XVII

When Jim was seventeen, he was done.

Done with dumb classmates and dumb teachers and dumb schools.

(Done with Riverside, Iowa, too.)

"Well, Jim, I must say I'm impressed. We haven't had anyone set to graduate this far ahead of their class - especially after you missed a whole year and a half - in a very long time." The principal has this smile on her face, as if she is personally responsible for his achievement - even though she had threatened to expel him at least five times, now. "I'll admit that your record," she gestures to the two PADDs in front of her on the desk, both filled to maximum capacity, "is rather... colorful, but no one can deny that you're a bright kid."

She pauses, as though expecting him to be bashful and deny it or thank her for all she has done.

Jim just continues to stare at her blankly as he has for the past twenty minutes, slouching in the chair across from her desk.

When it becomes clear that he is not going to reply, she shifts uncomfortably in her seat and shuffles some PADDs.

"Okay, well," she seems to be searching for a topic, but Jim isn't inclined to help her out. If it were up to him, he'd already be long gone. "Have you any plans for what you'll do next?" When the young man in front of her refuses to respond, she tries again, "Have you given any thought to colleges? I'm sure you could get in to almost any school you applied to if you tried." Still nothing. "Or what about Starfleet? You could do anything you wanted under them."

If possible, Jim's gaze and demeanor grow even more frigid at the mention of working for those bastards.

She seems to notice her mistake, quickly standing up and offering her hand before he can storm out. "Congratulations, Mr. Kirk, you are now a high school graduate. If you want to stick around, you are welcome to join your class in May for the formal ceremony. Otherwise, I hope to hear great things about you in the future."

Knowing this was the last time he would ever willingly see her, Jim quickly shakes the proffered hand, giving the woman a curt nod as he leaves the office, getting out of the godforsaken building as quickly as he can, eager to never see it again.

Okay, so maybe he should have seen that cop coming. Actually, he's a little ashamed of himself for not seeing the cop.

The Iowa roads are vast, flat expanses of land, with oncoming cars visible from miles away. How he managed to miss the cop is beyond him, but he's fairly sure he wasn't going that fast – only 20-30 mph over the speed limit.

Really, it would have been a shame to get a ticket for something as frivolous as that, so Jim just speeds up his bike, laughing at the rush of freedom zooming down the roads gives him. He takes a random turn off and follows it as far as it goes, well aware that the cop is still following him.

When he reaches the end, Jim takes a moment to think before he cuts into the fields to his left, not entirely sure where he is trying to go. At the end of a row, he takes another left, trying to make his way back to the main road, knowing that traipsing through the corn probably has not deterred the Robocop.

Regardless, he takes a hard right when he gets to the road, pushing his bike to go as fast as it can, to get him as far away from Riverside, Iowa as possible.

In the dim lighting of the bar, Jim can see the bodies moving to the beat of the music across the dance floor, along with the figures slumped at the bar. It's not the most high-class establishment, but he's certainly been in seedier. He can't remember what state he's in, couldn't even name where in the country this bar sits, and he likes it that way; nothing to tie him down.

He can feel it in his veins as he orders a shot of the strongest stuff they have – that pull, that itch to do something stupid or reckless or dangerous – possibly all three. He knows the night will either end with a fight or a fuck with some stranger he'll never see again, but which one it will be is anybody's guess.

As soon as the bartender slides over the shot, Jim drinks it, reveling in the burn and motioning for another one. He doesn't want to remember – not the call or the night, come morning.

Just as his next shot arrives, a gorgeous red head walks over to the bar, leaning past him to order, giving Jim a wonderful view. So it's going to be that sort of night.

He motions to the bartender and calls out, "I'll have what she's having – and hers is on me."

When she turns to him with a raised eyebrow, he gives her a rakish grin and holds out a hand, "Jim Kirk. You're just too stunning to ignore, …?"

His antics get him a raised eyebrow and a grin. It's a start.

Somewhere after getting the hell out of Riverside, Iowa, Jim's life turned into one long stream of constantly moving bodies – fucking, fighting, leaving, it doesn't seem to matter, as long as they are moving – just like him. Always in motion, never staying still long enough to get tied down somewhere and have to think about things.

No, he never wants to be still long enough to think about his mom or the transmission from Sam he got all those months ago, talking about a wife and a colony off-planet. He never wants to have to think about all the things everyone expected him to do with his life – because he is "brilliant," because he is George Kirk's son, because you're expected to grow stronger from hardships, because the world won't let him just give up, won't just give up on him.

When he pulls into town, he makes a beeline for the diner – cozy and friendly looking, and sure to have some really good pie. When he is seated with a cup of coffee and a slice of oven-fresh Apple, he turns to the waitress with a smile and asks, "I'm going to be in town for a couple of days, and I was wondering if you knew of any odd jobs that needed doing? I'm good with pretty much anything that will earn me a few credits."

The waitress, June, an aging woman, streaks of gray already in her brown hair, looks thoughtful for a moment. As she refills his coffee, she answers, "Well, I did hear Mr. MacArthur complaining about clogged gutters, and once people have seen your work, if it's any good, I'm sure they'll come to you with more jobs."

Jim smiles at her, the one that used to get him out of trouble with shopkeepers growing up, the one his mother had called his "Charming Grin" and enthusiastically replies, "Gutters are great. Anything is, really. Do you know how I can get in contact with Mr. MacArthur?"

By the time he leaves Flemington, Missouri, Jim has done all the odd jobs the three hundred person town has to offer, and on the last night there he finally finds himself in the bar, no longer afraid of sleeping with the wrong person's kid and getting driven out of town.

In the dim light of the bar, he notices a fantastic ass bent over a pool table, lining up the perfect shot, and makes his way over to challenge the group to a game of pool. Though he never really takes his eyes off the tall brunette with the muscular arms and that great ass, he easily wins the game (it's all just angles and force, he could probably win a game of pool in his sleep).

Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy (Erik, the man offered, with a winning grin and a warm shake of his hand) watches him as he clears the table for the second time, but does not offer a third game. Instead, Erik hands Jim a drink with a salacious grin, and Jim has a pretty clear idea how the night is going to end.

Still, it is more than satisfying to slide his fingers through the brown hair and pull Erik in for a long, hot kiss before they leave the bar to head back to Jim's hotel room.

He celebrates his eighteenth birthday in some bar on the East Coast – he thinks he's in New York, but he could easily be anywhere in the tri-state area – he stopped paying attention to the road signs about three hours back, simply enjoying the wind in his hair and the freedom of the open road.

He's far enough away from the a city that he doesn't have to worry about traffic, but also close enough that the population of the town is over two thousand.

Jim celebrates by getting so drunk he can barely walk, then stumbling back to his hotel room in the early hours of the morning (he picked a bar close to the hotel intentionally). He steadfastly avoided TV and radio all day, and ignored any and everyone who had something to say about remembering the Kelvin. Still, out here in this town he doesn't even know the name of easily beats birthdays back home, and he can only imagine how bad it would have been in a big city where they actually celebrate the heroism of George Kirk's actions – or some shit like that (he never listens long enough to find out what they think is so worth all the excitement).

He doesn't take anyone to bed, and he avoids fighting, drinking to forget, rather than to enjoy.

Birthdays stopped being a thing Jim celebrated a long time ago.

One of the benefits of avoiding major cities is that, on nights when any sleep he gets is plagued with memories that cause him to wake shaking in a cold sweat, he can climb up to the roof, lie down, and look at the stars. On the nights when he gives up on sleep, too stubborn to fill the prescription for sleep aids that he always carries around (just in case), he lies down and stares up at the stars, searching out every constellation he knows, for the familiarity of it, for the calm that the vastness of space always brings over him.

If he finds himself in a particularly middle-of-nowhere town, he will look up and not even be able to pick out a constellation from the multitude of stars above him, too many pinpricks of light filling the sky to find a specific few.

The nights when he doesn't even try to sleep, Jim sends messages to The Survivors, catching up with everyone and pretending for their sakes (as they were surely doing for his) that he is coping far better than he actually is. He spins tales of his perpetual road trip that make it sound like something almost fun, suggests that he may settle down "one day soon" at the end of each message. Somehow, no one ever calls him out on that, but then again he never calls them out on their fallacies, either.

It's something they all understand – the aversion to settling down, the feeling that as soon as they do settle down, tragedy will seek them out and strike again.

He keeps playing chess.

It's one of the things that calms his mind when his body wants rest and his brain refuses to shut down. Mostly, he plays against a computer – on the terminals in motel rooms, on his PADD, in local libraries, anywhere.

Occasionally, he'll be driving through a town that is hosting a tournament, and though he always wins the first few rounds with ease, he relishes the challenges that the final rounds bring, and the creativity in strategy that computers always seem to lack – the hardest opponents are ones who would periodically abandon all strategy, and he always remembers that.

Mostly, he joins the tournaments for entertainment, but the cash prizes are certainly a draw, as well. Days he wins, he doesn't have to fix cars or trim hedges or paint houses.

When he finds himself headed West, Jim sends a warning message and makes his way to Utah.

By the time he arrives in Salt Lake City, it is getting dark and the city lights are on, illuminating one path back out into the desert and another up into the mountains. Jim makes his way to a familiar house and is met with Michael sitting on the front porch, waiting for him.

If not for everything they'd been through together, Jim often thinks, they would have wound up together ages ago. As it is, Michael greets him with a warm hug, and if they hold a little tighter and it lasts a little longer than is customary, well, the types of things they've been through change people. Normal societal rules don't exactly apply when you've been hiding out and starving for months, afraid for your lives. Michael, because it always pisses Jim off, rests his chin on Jim's head, never willing to let Jim forget that he's come out of puberty the taller of the two, although the gesture is far more tender than it is taunting.

The two spend the evening in their usual fashion – pretending that everything is okay and competing to see who can get the most drinks bought for them in an hour at the nearest bar (one that they've been to often enough that the bartenders all know their names and their games).

When the bar closes and they have to make their way back to Michael's house (Jim won the game, but suspected that Michael let him, the ass) they finally drop the façade, drunk enough to admit that nothing is ever as okay as they'd like.

It's long been a tradition that when Jim visits Michael, they stay in the same room, and despite how they've grown in recent years, how they've changed, precedent holds up. By the time they make it to Michael's room and are ready for bed, the two don't even think twice about climbing into the double bed together and laying together, sharing space (it's not, nor will it ever be, cuddling. Cuddling is for over-emotional people, okay?).

It's really only then, as they're drifting off next to each other, more than a little buzzed, yet nowhere near blackout drunk, that they allow themselves to talk about the memories they share.

Sharing space and memories and nightmares and fears, the two somehow manage to get a relatively peaceful night's sleep, and if they wake up in each other's arms, well, they don't have to tell anyone.

(Feedback is love. And cookies. And a pocket-sized Chris Pine.) (Also: fuck it. I'm changing to present tense. The rest of the story has been adjusted accordingly.)

(Bonus Note - 04.04.2013 - I'm planning on making a mix for this story, at some point, and there'll be a link on my profile when that happens - keep an eye out! [I'm open to song suggestions, if you have anything you think is particularly fitting.])