[Hide] -- [Kirk and Bones]

[kirktastic]

(OOC: This actually occurs after his escape from sickbay but before the party. Yay timeline fuckery!)

Somehow, he had made it back to their rooms. What had happened in the hallway... Kirk shuddered, full body, and staggered towards the bathroom. It required sitting on the toilet and both hands to be able to get off his boots, whole body shaking with the effort. When had he gotten so weak? He had been through beatings before... he shucked pants and shirts and turned to get into the shower.

He caught his reflection in the mirror.

Kirk's body, his entire world, froze in time. He stepped forward once, twice, staggering on shaking legs. He grasped at the edge of the sink and all of his weight leaned on it as he stared in horror at what stared back at him.

He looked like shit. Heavy bags under his eyes, a stubble growing that he never let grow. The tattoos were brilliant in their freshness, the edges crisp. He had been rubbing at them, rubbing off dirty brown, and now understood. He knew exactly what those words and markings meant. The lives carved into his skin.

Nero had kept a part of him behind.

Kirk couldn't feel his body shaking, couldn't take his eyes away from his own face. He saw it. Traces of green and blue and orange, so orange... everything else was black. Even the blood was black. Gleaming and black, dripping down the edge of the table, his father screaming screaming screaming...

His own scream echoed the one in his head and he slammed his fist into the mirror, cracking it. Designed not to shatter. It twisted his face, cracking it, displacing it.

He staggered back from the mirror and groped at the opaque glass of the shower until it opened and fell against the back wall, sinking down. He reached up, fingers sliding across the controls, and water fell. It was freezing at first, then got hotter, hotter... until it felt like it was burning. Kirk just buried his head against his knees, remembering.

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[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

He hadn't known exactly what time it was when he had fallen asleep on the cot next to Kirk, so messed up was his sleep cycle, that when he awoke, a few hours later, he wasn't sure how long he had been out. 

The feeling of being refreshed, of having reached a deep and restful sleep and waking up on your own, no hand shaking you, no comm device going off in your pocket... Bones enjoyed that feeling for just a moment before he remembered that he hadn't fallen asleep alone. Fucking Jim...

He stood and took a deep breath, mentally berating himself. Of course Kirk was going to make a run for it, he knew that. Fucking stupid Bones...

He growled outside his office, wondering aloud if anyone managed to miss the fact that their captain was missing, only to discover that they all assumed that the CMO had busted him out personally. Great. He stopped by to check on George fast before heading out to find his wayward patient.

 When he entered their quarters the heat and humidity from the steam hit him, so strange to feel that in an environmentally controlled room, but at least it told Bones where to look first.

It wasn't what he expected. "Jim!" he called out, running into the small shower with him, fully clothed, water dripping off of him. He knelt beside him.  "Jim, what..."

 He reached out to touch Kirk's hair. 

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk jerked from the small touch, staring up at Bones. He looked about ten years younger, his skin bright pink from the heat of the shower. The gaze was haunted, unfocused.

Bones! Fuck, he's hurt, he's hurt, his shoulder... Kirk reached out blindly until he grasped Bones' arm, feeling hot liquid running over his fingers. Dying, he was dying!

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"Hey, look at me," Bones said to Kirk, that lost look on his face worrying him something fierce. "Jim..." 

Reaching up to turn the water off, Bones grabbed a towel and laid it gently over Kirk. Fuck, the hot water was opening some of the scabs, cracking them, exposing the new pink skin too soon. 

"Don't..." but he didn't know what to do. It was the most heartbreaking thing he'd ever seen, Kirk more scared that Bones had even seen. He wanted to grab him, hold him, shake him even- anything to bring him back to the present.

"You're safe now," he whispered into the ear of the shaking man, touching his head carefully. "You and your dad, both safe, promise you."    

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Bones was holding him, had held him. Bones was there, with him, on that ship... he had held Bones, hands slicked with blood.

Not safe. He's still out there... why haven't we destroyed him... WHY!? We did it once! Kirk shifted his weight and tried to stand up, to pull Bones with him, just like he had done on the Narada. Memory mixed with truth, confusing and potent.

Will protect you. Have to protect you.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones stood, scrambling to help Kirk who was trying desperately to stand. 

"What's wrong, Jim, you want to go somewhere?" It didn't make sense, this confusion, Kirk had been lucid before, had been in the present, with him before.  

"Wait," he told the shaking man, propping him against the wall.   Running out of the shower, nearly slipping on the water spilled all over the floor and grabbing a padd, Bones put the stylus in Kirk's shaking hands. "Tell me what's wrong?" 

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk stared at the stylus for several moments, as if he didn't even know what to do with it. The writing was barely legible, dripping water making it harder to write. The stylus slipped, smearing.

The water was pink stained.

Won't let you die. He wrote. It was black, all black, except for the writing. That was a deep green, barely visible.

The smell of blood, it reeked, coming from the cut in his hand from his punch to the mirror. Bones, he had to get Bones out... hot body in his arms, walking, walking somewhere, somewhere he knew how to get out. His other hand was throbbing in agony, his heartbeat racing.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

...won't let you die. Bones scrunched his face, wondering if he was reading it correctly. "'m not dying, Jim, I'm right here, and we're safe, all of us-" 

It was then, looking down at the hand, bleeding fresh again. "What the fuck did-" he started, his voice rising, from panic, anger, confusion... Jim's right hand, the one he always seemed to be working on was smashed open. Now both of Kirk's hands were a mess. "Goddamnit."

Reaching for another towel to put around Kirk to keep him from slipping against him, Bones put his arm around Kirk's right shoulder and heaved him out of the bathroom. As soon as they were close to the bed Bones eased him off and sat him down. "Sit still," he said gruffly when Kirk began fighting him, trying to move away. Bones took a deep breath and stood, walking over to the shelf where he kept his medical bag, returning a moment later. 

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The slow sound of water, vague and far away.

He blinked.

Then looked up at Bones. His quarters? No, their quarters. Bones was there, looking something between angry and terrified. His hands hurt like hell, and looking down at them made him wince. He couldn't remember getting in a fight. When had it happened?

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones was standing over him now, holding the small regenerator unit. Eyes locked on the broken hand, he knelt down on the floor next to Kirk and slowly picked up his right hand in his own, applying soft pressure to the broken and bloody skin, had to heal that first before fixing those tiny, fragile bones.

He wanted to say something, knew he should be saying something but he felt like Kirk right now... nothing was coming out.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly, the interior damage was almost non-existent. He'd cut the skin though, and on the hands, it always bled like hell. Kirk watched in silence, wondering why his hand was cut up. He could remember going into the bathroom and...

What the hell? Kirk thought to himself, blinking. It just went sort of... fuzzy, like a movie in super fast forward, then he was sitting here. With Bones kneeling and him bleeding and what the fuck.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

It took a few minutes to clean and seal the small, sharp cuts. Bones kept his eyes on the hand until it was done, then sat down on the floor, still in soaking wet clothes.

He took a deep breath and looked up at Kirk, naked and wet, but looking more 'aware'.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk swallowed, then finally got the courage to grasp for the stylus and padd. He wiped water from the surface of it and wrote with a hand that still shook a little, What happened?

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones leaned a little against Kirk's leg, read the padd, and looked up. "I think you were remembering what happened to you." He glanced over at Kirk's hand. "You hit something pretty hard."

Something didn't make sense. "Did something happen in my office or in Sickbay? I woke up and you were gone - are you okay?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk thought about it for a few moments, then shook his head. I wanted out of sickbay, and I remember coming back here, and wanting to take a shower... It scrawled off, and he just looked... confused.

He swallowed visibly.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

He stood and sighed. He had an idea. "Wait here, alright?" he told Kirk, realizing that he wasn't likely to bolt in this shape but you never knew with Kirk...

Bones headed into the bathroom and saw the mirror. Some of the pieces were making sense. His reflection... could that have triggered something?

Walking slowly back to the bed, he took off his wet shirt and pants before sitting next to Kirk. "The mirror is busted up."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk looked at Bones when he came back, just... looking at him. Finally he shook his head - he couldn't remember even looking in the mirror. He stared down at his just-healed hand. So he had punched the mirror?

How bad is it?

Bad.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"Probably a shock," Bones said softly, but more clinically than before. "There's a lot of work we're gonna have to do to get that off." He dipped his head, catching Kirk's eyes. "But I am going to get it off, Jim, and that's a promise."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

It took a bit for Kirk to even figure out what Bones was talking about. Finally he just let out a tiny breath and looked away. He wrote something on the padd, not looking at it.

Maybe they should stay.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"You're not in any sort of condition to make that kind of judgment right now," Bones told him matter-of-factly. "And it's going to take a little time before we can do anything, need to get your skin healed properly before I remove them."

Because he was going to remove them.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk reached down, grabbing Bones' hand roughly in his right hand. He shrugged his shoulder hard to spill the towels from his back. He put Bones' hand on his right shoulder and wrote,

The Farragut.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"What... you mean, that's what that says?"

It sort of hit him slow - these were grief tattoos, written when someone died. But why would Nero put grief tattoo of Feder-

"Oh fuck no." He couldn't keep it inside. Jim had asked for these - it was the only explanation. Somewhere in that torture room he'd understood what was happening and in his broken, aching mind he'd asked for this one himself.

Sitting down, he touched it the drawing carefully, looking at Kirk and sighing.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Those words hit hard. He wrote as Bones' hand drew down his arm. Truman. Walcott. Antares. Hood. Centaurus.

When Bones' hand got to his own, the writing was very shaky. Vulcan.

He wouldn't look at Bones.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"Those weren't - fuck, Jim, you still thinking that way - that what happened was your fault..." His voice was louder now, more than a hint of frustration and anger. "You saved so many lives, fuck, look what happened to the Joanna that came on board. She lost her Earth, they weren't fast enough. You were, and people we know and love are back there because of you."

Vulcan... of course, Kirk would blame himself for that... For a moment Bones was genuinely angry at Kirk and despite his hand on top of Kirk's, tracing the inky pattern, he wouldn't look over at him either.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk knew it.

He jerked his hand hard, pulling it from Bones' grasp. He stood up, walking several shaking steps away, forced to lean against the desk. Bones hadn't been there. Hadn't been there. Only Sulu...

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones watched Kirk walk off, and part of him was glad to see that fighting spirit back, even if it was directed at him. "Why can't you talk yet?"