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

"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."

Kirk's eyes went wide with the statement, and his fingers curled tightly into fists. "When the fuck did I say that?! Everyone's got issues, and these are just more of them. Why are you LOOKING for things to be bad?! Ever think for just a second that maybe this is me handling them well!? You're looking for it. You're LOOKING for me to handle this badly, and because I'm not handling it by freaking out," Again, fuck, "Now that my body's healed up, you think there's something wrong."

Bones turned fast, looking back at Kirk, his eye blazing. "You think I WANT something to be wrong with you? Do you have any idea what it was like..."

Bones folded his hands, brought them up to his face and exhaled slowly. "Smashing your hand into the mirror was not handling it well. Not talking about it is not handling it well. Yelling at me because you don't want to do this is not handling it well."

"I'm here, aren't I? Even if I don't want to be! I was answering your questions!" Kirk snapped, "You know I don't want to do this, yes I know I have to, and I'm here doing it. I've gotten used to the damn tattoos, I know what he did to me. I'm learning to handle it. I've had plenty of practice at it." Kirk twitched at the last words, but his glare didn't ease up. His next words were softer. "I'm not yelling at you because I don't want to do this, I'm yelling because I'm frustrated."

Fuck all this shit to hell, he thought to himself, looking at his feet. "Jim," he started, taking a deep breath, "has it ever occurred to you that the way you've handled things in the past might not be the best way to take care of your shit."

Taking two steps closer to Kirk, he dropped his hands to his side. "You're not that kid on the streets anymore, you don't need to- you don't have to shove it all inside. You got people now, you got family, friends, resources..."

You got me, he wanted to add, but couldn't, couldn't choke those words out.

As if Kirk was reading his mind, "I have you. That's the one I care about the most. I'm dealing with it, Bones. Dealing with it in the way that isn't going to shatter me into pieces. Nightmares, I can live with. Half-remembered things, I can live with. Sitting there talking about it dregging it all up for no reason? I can't."

"Yeah, you got me," Bones repeated, from the other side of the room. Felt safer to talk like this, a few feet between them. "And you're always gonna have me, Jim, always... so you can trust me when I tell you this - nightmares and not remembering and getting into fist fights and ignoring it all is not 'dealing with it'."

He took a step closer, hands gripping the back of one of the chairs. "I appreciate you giving me as much as you have today, I know you hate doing this shit. If you don't get it out, talk about it with me - I don't know when or where, but its gonna come roaring out one of these days, and I can only pray that its not when your life, or anyone else's is on the line." He paused, then added, "And I think deep down, you're smart enough to know that."

"Every think that different people have different ways of dealing with stuff?" Kirk grumbled, "Just because some people have to talk about stuff and some people have to make you into Doctor McCoy instead of the man you are, doesn't mean I have to. I've dealt with other stuff, and it hasn't come 'roaring out' before."

"You still got those nightmares," Bones said quietly. "How long you had those? Been having them as long as I've been sharing a room with you. You think that's dealing with it? You think your dad's dealing with it?"

"It's just nightmares. They happen, even to normal people." Kirk raised a brow in Bones' direction.

"Those are not just nightmares," Bones retorted, "and you know it. You don't talk about that shit that happened to you."

"What the hell does that mean? They're just nightmares!" Kirk gave Bones a long look.

"Long repeated nightmares aren't just nightmares."

WHAT? Kirk rolled his eyes. "Even if they are long and repeated, they are still NIGHTMARES."

"They cross into a whole new category of problems."

"Just because mine are about a specific event and not about hot dog wielding vampires doesn't mean mine are any different." His hands flailed a little, trying to get Bones to understand.

"Why don't you talk about that event, what happened to you when you were younger?" Bones asked exasperated. "Why can't you talk to me about it?"

Kirk tensed up with that comment and turned an angry glare on Bones, "That's my personal stuff to deal with, okay?" His shoulders were tight, tense, and he turned away from Bones completely, stalking across the room. "I lived my whole life with it. Don't deal with it."

"Is this how it's always gonna be with us?" Bones asked, following Kirk from a distance. "You gonna be tensing up like this ten years from now, when I ask about the Narada, or your childhood, or whatever the fuck happened to you that makes you wake up frightened in the middle of the night? Ignoring it all, acting like there's nothing wrong?"

Kirk didn't turn around, "What about every time, when we were in the academy, anyone mentioned their father?" His voice was very soft. "You think you're free of your own nightmares? You have them too."

Bones stood silent. "Yeah," he replied after a long moment. "Guess I do. But we're not talking about me right now, we're talkin' 'bout you."

"But how can you tell me that what I'm doing is wrong, when you're doing it yourself?" Kirk asked softly.

"Because maybe I'm as fucked up as you are, and just - no one's called me on it."

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