kirktastic | [A Stupid Hot Mess] -- [Kirk and Bones]

"I couldn't tell you, you haven't said shit about it to me," Bones retorted. "I know what I saw, you pretty sliced up." Bones took a deep breath. "So why don't you clue me in then."

"They tortured us. I figured you were a fucking doctor, you could figure that out. They wanted the codes for the ship. George didn't know them and I didn't give them."

I hope.

Bones let the remark slide, though he raised an eyebrow at Kirk. "Tell me about the tattoos," he said with a sigh. "You showed them to me before."

His hand throbbed. "S'all in Romulan. Names of his dead crew, himself, his second. Stories about them. ...Mine, too. He decided that I couldn't forget if it was in my skin."

"What kind of stories?" Bones asked, curious. He had noticed the fidgeting with Kirk's fingers. "What is wrong with your hand?" he wondered, moving to sit next to Kirk, picking the hand up gently and looking at it closer.

When his hand was captured, it jerked. The jerk was strong enough to almost pull his hand free of Bones' grip, but remained just within the touch of fingers at the last moment. "It's fine." He half-muttered, but tried to remember.

Was hard to forget, tattooed right there on his skin. He looked over at his right hand, free now, and muttered, "Right arm's entirely about Oren and Ael. Nero.. and Ayel."

"It's not fine," was Bones retort, but he didn't say anything else about it, instead letting their hands fall down toward Kirk's leg, resting on it, fingers still touching.

Bones felt his heart begin to beat harder, the blood rushing behind his eyes at the mention of their names. Bones wanted to hurt them, hurt them harder and more brutally that he'd ever wanted to hurt anyone in his life. "Can you tell me what the stories were about?" he asked, almost automatically.

He needed to get Kirk talking more, talking about the injuries, the pain, the degradation. He needed to get Jim to push through all that happened to him, and he needed to hear about what his lover had gone through.

"He was happy, once. He had a wife. They were... friends. Oren, Ael. Maybe more then friends. Then Romulus was destroyed... and so was his mind." Kirk shivered visibly, his eyes looking away, briefly glazed over.

Then they grew darker, harder.

"He was an insane man," Bones told Kirk. He glanced over at his PADD, trying to remember the questions he'd jotted down, notes to ask him. But he didn't want to leave where he was sitting now.

He recalled one of the more painful questions. "Could you see what was happening to your dad?" Bones asked, bracing internally for the reaction.

"Yes." The single word was tight in his throat. Except when he had been unconscious, or what had happened to put him in that coma. "Most of it."

Bones exhaled, trying not to look as worried as he felt. "Jim, I need you to tell me about it. This isn't doing either of us a damn bit of good if you don't work with me here." He paused, taking a breath.

"I'm not... fuck, I just - what do you remember, about your dad?" He could feel himself losing his objectivity, and that wasn't a good thing.

"...they were slicing him open like a sushi chef working with a cut of fish, pouring something into him that made him scream." Kirk spat out, his voice even tighter, thick and dark, remembering.

"And where were you when that was happening?" Bones asked in a low voice. This was harder than it had to be, maybe because they were so close. Maybe another doctor wouldn't have put up with Kirk's bullshit answers and pressed the issue, forcing him to talk or leave.

But Bones wasn't just another doctor, he wanted to get through this today, wanted Kirk to genuinely talk about his experience so that it wouldn't be a non-issue, one of those things that they didn't talk about.

An idea formed in his head, one that he wasn't sure would work but it was worth a try. "I'll make you a deal," Bones told him. "You get through this with me, and I'll answer any question you might have about me and my personal bullshit. Anything," he repeated for emphasis.

"Tied to some crates." Kirk swallowed, "They dealt with him first. He got to watch everything. He never stopped cursing them out..." His voice dropped into nothing at all. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he didn't want to talk about this.

"I'm trying, dammit." Kirk growled out, feeling a bit like a child being given a sweet to encourage him.

"You're doin' great, darlin'," Bones told him, leaning over and pressing their heads together for a moment. "How did you two get out of there?" he asked, leaning back, looking Kirk in the eyes.

That warm accent and affectionate term did more for him then any doctor ever could have. Kirk let out a sigh, staring into those dark eyes, before letting his own shut. "I have no idea." He whispered, completely honest. "Last thing I'm even sure about is a needle in my arm then... everything... it could have been a hallucination or a dream or real for all I know. Just big gaps of time I can't remember anything at all, or I can't... tell. Can't tell if its real or not."

Bones reached up and ran a hand over Kirk's hair. "Tell me what you do remember. Anything, I don't care if it happened or not, if it was real or not. You gotta get it out of here," he said, tapping Kirk's head lightly.

"I don't remember!" Kirk forced out, eyes opening again and staring. "Just... just little clips of things. Blood and blackness and green and... and..." There was something, like a word on the tip of his tongue that just wouldn't come. "Something... I just can't remember."

"That's okay," Bones told him, stroking his head again. "You won't remember everything, and that's alright. Your mind is protecting you, Jim," Bones tilted his head, looking back at Kirk, frustration written all over the younger man's face. "It's trying to keep the bad stuff away from your conscious self, worried that you can't handle it."

"But we can't leave it there, not when you're in charge of a starship. Can't risk that those bad memories will surface at the wrong moment, when you're off facing some new menace." Bones knew that it would happen again, that they'd meet more enemies, surely as they'd meet allies, and that Kirk would run in head first, like he always did. "You understand why I need to ask you about this? That there's a purpose behind it?"

"What, to drag it all back to the surface? Talking about what little I can remember doesn't make it vanish!" Kirk pulled away, turning, his hand gripping hard at the edge of his seat. He knew the memories were in there, and he was find letting them stay half-remembered and calm instead of fully remembered and right there in his face.

"And next time we meet some species, some bald humanoids with markings all over their faces?" Bones watched as Kirk pulled away, wishing he could just stop all of this and sign the damned paper for Kirk. But he couldn't... "Can you guarantee me right now that you'll look at them fairly, that you won't let what happened to you on the Narada affect your judgment?"

Bones turned to face Kirk full on in the face. "Fuck, Jim, can you tell me that you could look deal with any Romulan right now and not be affected by this, much less keep from flipping out when all our lives might be in danger?"

"I'm not going to flip out." Kirk spat, meeting Bones' eyes. "I've got a lot of bad memories to deal with Bones, okay? I'm not ignorant of it! Why are you convinced there's something wrong? I mean really, really wrong. You're so convinced there must be something massively wrong that you're looking for it instead of hoping it isn't there!"

"Can you hear yourself? Of course I'm looking for it, that's my job!" Bones pulled back, shaking his head. "That's like asking me, 'Hey that guy over there is looking sick, but why are you looking for cancer, why don't you just cross your fingers and hope its not there?'"

Standing, Bones walked away from the chairs. He found himself standing in front of the replicator, staring at it. "You've got bad memories, yeah, but you're not dealing with them."

"Why do I need to deal with them?" Kirk glared at Bones' back. "What does talking about them do? Tell me that. Give me a good reason, not just some 'possible if maybe in the future' bullshit."

Bones closed his eyes, biting back the smart-ass comments burning in his head but his patience was wearing thin.

Turning back toward Kirk, he just glared at him. "How 'bout this, Jim. How 'bout Starfleet isn't going to put their trust in someone who's been through what you've been through without a psychological exam." Crossing his arms in front of him, Bones stood straight, the distance between them right now more than just physical. "I know you hate this shit. I hate this shit too but fuck, if you can't see that there are issues you have to deal with them maybe you shouldn't be back in charge."

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