[NVC Day 18] -- [Silence Amidst the Chaos] -- [Kirk/Bones]

[kirktastic]

The parts that came first, those were no problem. He had told the story before, complete and whole, during the single interview he had granted after the Narada incident. A hunk of that, a little more than half, had gone to purchasing the house on Risa. It would have been a better place to be, and Jim tried to keep the calm and peace of it in his mind as he told the story again. He had requested that there be no questions until he had finished the first story, whole and complete, because interrupting meant breaking the thoughts that came.

The questions were no problem as well. He had gone through them with the tribunal back on Earth in detail a million times worse than the lawyers were coming up with. Nero's defense infuriated him, in ways that were difficult to explain. How could anyone defend a man who had destroyed so much? How could someone work to get Nero and Ayel a lighter sentence? Nero was a madman. There was no punishment great enough to punish the man for what he had did. Jim couldn't reason that insanity was a reason to do what Nero had done. Just as Bones had said, he told the story, answered their questions.

It was the second part that was far more difficult.

It was more difficult to put into words to start with. He had been so heavily drugged at the time that things were unfocused in his memories, more emotion and color than actual imagery. He was grateful for the silence in the court when he had to struggle to come up with the words, less grateful (and equally, grateful somehow) for the looks of pity. Bad for him, good for the case. It was hard to keep the story in a linear fashion and not add in things he had learned later until he got that far.

When he got as far as the tattoos, the ones criss-crossing down his left arm that still remained, his voice... died in his throat. There was no sound at all, not even in his head. He stared down at the black marking of his own personal failure and grief that was still so vivid against his skin. It had been his inability to stop the drill in time that had let Vulcan be destroyed. He could have prevented it. The madman had understood, broken out of his insanity that they so wanted to use as a defense, the strength of his own pain and loss enough to divert what he had planned for that arm, whatever it was, and instead spiral the names of seven Federation ships. He had told what he knew of them, what little there was, almost like a funeral. Then... Vulcan itself. Nero had known its surface, better than Jim did except in ghostly memories of Spock's. Nero had known it for years, its people and history... then had erased it.

Nothing of all that came from his lips.

People looked between them as the silence became longer and longer, wondering why Captain Kirk had stopped in his story. It had cut off like a novel with its end missing, clearly not done. Out of respect they stayed silent, but as the silence continued it was uneasy. He was staring at his hands, motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest and the blinking of his eyes. Finally, the judge leaned forward and said in a quiet tone, "...Captain?"

He wanted to find the words to answer her, but couldn't. It felt like everything that had happened was collapsing back in on himself, imploding silently in his own little world.

Then, suddenly, there was a warmth in all the coldness. A single point of light in the darkness that had come like the stinking metal-oil of the Narada's interior where hell had come to Jim. At first, Jim didn't understand it until he recognized something very small and subtle. A starry sky, light by light, started to come into view in the darkness he had focused on. Something ethereal curled through him, nudging him as determined as a pup. Spock... He knew it, almost more instinctively then consciously. It was like Spock was sitting right there, just behind him, all the warmth and certain strength of Spock's body pressed against his back, strong arms wrapped around his chest. Warmth curled over his aching hand, between his fingers, massaging the ache as a foreign love curled between cracks in his memories. It was enough to break the silence, enough strength to continue through the memories.

The story continued as if it hadn't stopped. He attempted to explain what Nero had down to write down the names of the destroyed ships as well as Vulcan, then started to write about himself using Jim's skin as his paper. Things after that got beyond blurry, after Ayel had injected him with something black (or was it bright green?)

He finished the story in sickbay, for now, because he knew nothing for days after that. Just bits and pieces. He would like them question him, he would answer, then he would tell the last part of the story. Healing, the Narada, Agura, Jim and Spock on the Narada, the Romulans on the planet, getting Nero into the brig, and how they had come to the new colony. If it was possible, the questions were worse. They kept asking for clarification about things that he had no answer to. He could tell it was frustrating, and when he went into detail about his hand being broken and his father's torture he saw one of the members of the jury actually turn their head away and gag.

By the end of the final story, by the end of their endless questions, Jim was raw. His throat was raw from speaking, his stories, the questions, the answers taking up hours of time that would be unbroken due to the circumstances of the need for privacy. His hand hurt so badly that he kept having to shake it out, but the cramp returned over and over until he wanted to scream. It felt like the tiny bones of his hand, most of them probably rebuilt from the osteoregenerator more than any original bone remaining. The scars on his face itched badly. His mind was raw from the memories of pain, anguish, and suffering, some of it not even fully his own. It was those emotions that told Jim why Jim and his Spock would never be able to understand his position. It was why there were people who were willing to risk Nero getting free. It was why...

He had lived through the destruction of Vulcan in every way possible except being on its surface. He had watched the Vulcans in sickbay, the raw emotion on their faces as their skies went dark. He had been with them, sat with them, on the limping ride home to Earth while they had none to go to.

He would have rather lived through Tarsus again then what had happened that February 11th.

When finally he was allowed to go, Jim thanked the court and walked out without looking back. Everything in him felt cold and distant and hard, very far away. Just the Captain, just for now, until he could find his mental footing again. He opened the door, and walked out into the hallway.

Comments

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones had left the courthouse, like he told Jim he would.

Then later, he came back.

Back through the rear entrance, still in his civilian clothing so no one would bother him. He'd hoped the testimony would be done around lunchtime. A vain hope, he knew, but one he clung to.

Two hours turned into three, then four, then more. Bones sat on a bench at the end of a hallway, staring at the floor. He hasn't in the room with Jim, but he was reliving it all himself - the day Vulcan was destroyed and their lives changed, when he thought he'd lost Jim to Delta Vega, and worse. Then the kidnapping, the dream of him, finding him, working on his broken body. Things about that time that Jim himself would never know, how stupid Bones was, how ruined he was by Jim's absence.

Footsteps in the hall broke his concentration, and he looked up, seeing a familiar form heading toward him.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

It was both a surprise... and not a surprise... to see Bones there.

Bones sat alone in the empty hall except for the Vulcan guards, hands wringing together between his knees in concentrated worry. How long had Bones been sitting there?

Yet... it was just sort of a coldness. No. No. Numbness. He wasn't feeling anything at all. "Bones."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

He looked up and sighed. Jim looked about as bad as he expected. Fuck. He stood slow, eyes level at Jim's. There wasn't a way they could be closer, not even here, alone in the hallway. He couldn't hold Jim like he wanted to.

But they could get the hell out of there, and get home. "C'mon," he nodded his head in the direction of the rear entrance to the building. No way they were dealing with reporters right now.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim followed, a guidance where he had been short circuited by the sight of Bones. His mind had been focused on getting back to the hotel room as he'd promised, needing that something to focus on. Now, instead, it was focused on Bones.

The walk back was more of a blur than anything. There was no defined edges, just memories he was trying to place back behind the locked doors of his mind where they had been hours ago. His hand throbbed with every step, though the memory of warm fingers slid between his own kept some of the worst of the pain at bay. Spock had been watching, or feeling, or whatever the bond did. Even though Jim hadn't said a word to him properly in days and days, Spock had reached out and helped him.

When they got back to the room, he had just enough focus left to sit down on the edge of the bed before his hands started to shake.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

The walk back to the hotel had been wordless and hurried, Jim not even noticing the friends and colleagues who were looking at him with curiosity and worry. For this Bones was grateful - Jim would hate to know people were concerned about him, so he acknowledged them for the both of them, a small tight smile.

Once inside, Bones watched Jim perch nervously on the bed, still in shock, and he headed toward the table where he kept his bourbon. He poured two glasses, and silently handed one to Jim. "Drink it," he told him.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Doctor's orders and all. Jim wrapped his fingers around the glass, and quickly had to do the same with his other hand to keep it from shaking. He swallowed most of it in a heavy, burning, eye-watering gulp. He lowered the glass back down to his lap and stared at it. He felt so tired, numb down to his bones like talking about everything he had been hiding had leeched everything out of him and not in a good way.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones took his a little slower, sipping at it as he watched Jim. He looked like shit, but medically speaking Jim was okay. Nothing that was so bad that he needed to be sedated or medicated or anything else like that. What Jim needed was to rest and let what happened today go.

Sitting down next to Jim, Bones wanted to just let the other man know he was there. They'd been through a lot together, the two of them, and because of that Bones felt he could read Jim pretty well. Knew when he could push him, knew when Jim might need to get something off his chest.

Right now, Bones could see that tonight was different, and he wasn't quite sure what he needed to do. Tonight it was whatever Jim needed, so Bones sat and waited. Jim would let him know, and in the mean time, he was here.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

The silence between them stretched on for a while, until the glass in Jim's hands was empty. Finally, Jim said very quietly, "...I wish we were back on Earth. Back at the Academy. I'd go find some bar where no one knew my face, where I could get so drunk the world spun and I forgot everything down to my own name." Probably cause a fight, just to get some of this out of him. Before he and Bones had gotten together, gotten laid by someone who wouldn't care a damn thing about him except how good he was with his hands and mouth and cock.

He didn't want to be a Captain of Starfleet right now, a golden boy, or maybe even Jim Kirk.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones watched Jim carefully as he spoke. Jim wasn't complaining, wasn't whining. Wasn't feeling sorry for himself, no matter what it might have sounded like to someone who didn't know what was going on. He stood and walked back to the table, picked up the bottle and brought it back to the bed.

Holding the amber liquid in his hand, he tilted his head at Jim. "You got anything else to do tonight? Got plans to go anywhere?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"...isn't getting drunk in your hotel room a sign of being pathetic?" It was almost like a joke, something other than the strange coldness starting to come back through. "Or is that only if it's when you're alone?" A Jim that felt sorry for himself was a very different sounding Jim, who did want to be alone - sometimes completely alone - instead of going out and being with people.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Bones just watched him talk. He knew a lot about being drunk, pathetic or otherwise, but Jim didn't want to listen to that.

He poured some more liquid into each other their glasses. "I'm gonna order some food up here," he told Jim, standing as he headed to the computer terminal. "Take off your boots."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"...something good." Jim murmured, toeing off his boots before stripping off the gold command shirt and letting it fall somewhere to the side of the bed. He laid back, drink held precariously in his right hand. His left still ached.

"Hey, Bones? ...Why does it still hurt?" He waved his tattooed hand in emphasis.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

He didn't answer, couldn't until he'd finished placing their food order. Sandwiches, fruit, nuts - things they could snack on, nothing too heavy.

Kicking off his own shoes, he sat on the edge of the bed, one hand falling on Jim's leg. He traced a little pattern on the fabric before he spoke. "That hand's been through a lot, Jim, even before what happened to it." Understatement. "The bones there are small -phalanges," he turned Jim's hand in his own, tracing up a finger as he spoke. "Phalanx, metacarpals," he murmured looking at the pattern. "There was a lotta damage done, Jim. A lotta damage. It should get better, as the bones get stronger, as your own cells take over and replace the regenerated ones." The medical record was still hard to read, what had happened to Jim's hand, even before the tattooing began. "You want something for the pain right now?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim hadn't read the reports that had been so carefully documented about all of his injuries when he had come back from the Narada. He wasn't sure he would be able to take reading it, and lived with the aches and scars of things he could only half-remember in his nightmares.

"No." The response wasn't a big surprise; rarely did Jim ever ask for anything to deal with pain and when asked he usually lied about it. He hated that feeling of being drugged up, floating and filmy and fake and falling.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

It was the answer Bones expected. "Food'll be here in twenty minutes."  Scooting up on the bed to sit next to Jim, he took the inked hand back in his own, carefully massaging the palm. Jim said it felt better sometimes when he rubbed it. 

"May have found us a Healer," he said, not exactly changing the subject, but letting Jim know that there was no pressure to talk about it right now. Had all night. Hell, had forever, really.  

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

It did feel better. At least, the heat of it did. The memory of Spock doing the same thing, there but not... "Yea? Think we can trust them?" That was most of his worry. A Healer that would answer them, two outsiders now part of something so very Vulcan. A Healer that wouldn't spread word of what they asked.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"I think so. I implied that someone on board needed to find out about relationships with Vulcan." He gave Jim a tired smirk. "Lucky for us right now, we've got multiple Vulcans on board, and it isn't easy to determine which one might be the one who's been interacting with humans."

"Also, this whole sex soda incident..." Bones hesitated, a little grin on his face despite the still-weirdness of the situation. Another thing they'd have to talk about soon, what happened. "I think they're more worried that the Enterprise or Starfleet is going to file an official protest or something with the Vulcan High Command, 'cause so many of our guys got hit with it all."

Bones twisted until he was behind Jim, and began rubbing his shoulders. "I might have let it slip that I would put in a good word with the Captain if I could get an experienced Healer whom I could trust implicitly. No first-years or anything," he added.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"I just... hope that we can trust whoever takes our case." His eyes closed and he slumped in place, putting an arm over his eyes. It was starting to fade away, the numbness, and replace it with just a bone-deep exhaustion. "I hope this works. We can get some sort of real information and not some bullshit."

The sex-soda... Jim almost smiled. "That... was some crazy shit, you know. That soda. Paula. S..." He stopped on the last word, unable to get it out as his almost-smile vanished. It was a clear sign that... that was something he didn't want to discuss yet.

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"Jim, the minute you feel like you wanna stop talking, we'll stop. I just think we need to get the best information before we decide, you know, about Spock." Maybe a certain amount of time had to get by before they could bring this kind of stuff up. Some distance was needed before they could discuss things calmly. Rationally.

And Bones wasn't sure he was ready to talk about what happened either.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Spock. Yea. Probably better Bones decided it was Spock and not who he had been thinking of. "I know. That's why we're doing this. Hopefully... we can talk to one of them as soon as possible."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"You want me to get this rolling quick then?" It was like - he felt they needed to talk a little about it between then before they were in front of a stranger. "I'll get something set up soon, okay?"

"Jim..." Bones halted his movements on Jim's shoulders. He wasn't sure what to say. Fuck, they needed to talk... why was this so hard?

He pressed his forehead against the back of Jim's neck and breathed him in. A little smile on his face as he remembered something. "Speaking of...I hope you don't mind, but I had some flowers sent to Paula yesterday. Put both our names on it." He'd thought about giving her a call, make sure she was okay, but that was still too awkward. "Just didn't want her to feel too weird about us, you know?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Soon." Jim wanted to get it over with. He hated few things more than feeling in the dark about something when he had a way not to be.

Bones' comment about flowers finally got a smile on Jim's lips, however small. "...yea? Huh, look at you, being the gentleman." It was a tease, sounding almost like Jim again. "S'good idea, actually..." His voice trailed off, and he hesitated before quietly, "was it... bad? I swear I didn't mean to get infected with that stuff, and Paula... I know how you feel about other people..."

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

"Fuck, Jim, I know it wasn't your fault. Hell, I practically threw her at you." Bones leaned over and kissed Jim's temple. "Not bad. Not bad. I mean, not normal, for us, for me-" none of it had been normal - The whole thing had reminded Bones of the night they spent with the other Spock and Jim. Or their Spock and Nyota. Just... something they did once in a while. "But I ain't gonna hold that against you."

He kissed the back of Jim's neck. "Told you, I wasn't gonna do that. Thought I was doing a good job."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Dammit, Bones... whether or not you say something I know you're not happy with it." He half turned in Bones' arms, enough to catch a glimpse of his friend's face out of the corner of his eye. "...If we... do that, I want you to be happy about it, not just... suffering me." It was not only something like what had happened with Paula... what about Spock and Nyota?

[dctr-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Dammit, Jim... He lifted one of his hands and cupped Jim's face with it.

"I love you. I do... but I'm not gonna be with someone like that, fucking them, if I don't want to, okay? So just stop worrying 'bout that, like you're making me do somethin' against my will. I'm not a fuckin' delicate flower, I know how to say 'no', and I know you'll understand if I ever do."

He wasn't upset, despite the gruff tone to his voice. His finger were tender against Jim's cheek as he continued. "Thought you understood that," he sighed, looking in Jim's eyes.