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

[kirktastic]

After the communication with Bones, Kirk already knew this was going to not go well. He had left a last note to Bones, giving him the location of a small lounge near the residential area. It was supposed to be for ambassadors, but hell, he was Captain. He could use it, and he could lock it down.

He also knew the replicator had access to the alcoholic menu.

He flopped down with a grunt into a heavily padded chair and closed his eyes. His left hand was throbbing slowly in time with his heart beat, and he told it to leave him alone. This was the absolute last thing he ever wanted to be doing.

And Bones was forcing him to. Fuck.

Comments

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"...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.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

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."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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!"

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

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."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

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."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

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."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

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."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"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."