tampered | The purpose is to experience fear. Fear in the face of certain death.

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The purpose is to experience fear. Fear in the face of certain death.

When: 17th onward!
Rating: Gross sickly stuff.
Characters: Jim & you!
Summary: Catch-all log for Jim's friends! After the 16th when he felt ill, Jim's Augmented blood has started to fight back like it did during the two weeks he was out cold after dying in a decontamination chamber. His organs will be starting to slowly fail, blood (both his own and Khan's) will be coming up, and he's generally confined to his bedroom in his and Bones' apartment. As time goes on, his condition will be deteriorating until his essence rite is performed. Please put the date of your visit in the subject header! Forward/Back-dating and Prose/Action are all fine, as are video/audio/text which can be directed here for all personal calls while Jim is sick.
Log:

[ He finds himself thinking of Christopher, more than anything. Of the last time he saw him, specifically, in the Hall of the Missing. Of not being able to let go of him for so long and crying like a son lost in the thickest of woods, longing to find his way home only to briefly find it and have to turn back into the darkness once more. Chris had held him, kissed his hair like a father, soothed Jim in a way he had never had to before, but then again neither of them had died and been torn apart in such violent ways until the Augment came into their lives. Even in death, he's still been there when Jim needed him.

He stares out of the window in his room, propped up against pillows as coughs rumble in the pit of his chest, looking at the City below where the horizon meets a fake, beautiful sky. If he lets the migraines take over for long enough his senses go haywire and a drowsy kind of tactile memory swims under his fingers and into his nose, of an admiral's uniform scented with aftershave that soothes his anxieties almost as effectively as the real thing.

"It's going to be okay, son."

He wishes he could find a bar to drown his sorrows in. Chris always, always found him when he was at his lowest point in backwater dives.

And then on occasion, during his more painful moments where there's no one around to hear his muffled crying into a pillow or witness the sheets crumpling in his fists, his thoughts drift to the decontamination chamber. Jim wakes himself up several times after passing out with Spock's name on bloodied lips and hopes to God he hasn't started doing anything as embarrassing as crying out in his sleep to betray his fright; he has the use of his lungs still, unlike his final moments where he hadn't been able to tell his friend a wealth of things that suddenly seemed so important. Look after the crew, you're the captain now. I'll miss you. I don't want to go, stay with me. It's shameful, but a couple of times he calls for Bones just to have his company, terrified under a firmly schooled expression that he'll die in the here and now, well and truly alone.

If he had been given diagrammatics on his condition in the form of a vessel's specifics, he would have written it off by now. It's as if the effects of his descent into the warp core are being clawed out of his body in slow motion by the deepening fever-tide, leaving Jim to hate every minute of having survived. Which is counter-productive, he knows, because he very much wants to live. ]

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There are stars innumerable. Stars and screams.

A woman gives birth in the cramped confines of medical shuttle thirty-seven, her cries eclipsed by those of the newborn baby boy shortly placed in her arms. He is small with wisps of blond hair plastered to his head and settles uncommonly easily when gathered close. A conversation continues over his head, for his father is not present; over the expanse that separates the craft from the U.S.S. Kelvin, he stirs at the deep voice laughing over the comm.

"What, 'Tiberius'? That's awful, no, no. Let's name him after your dad. Let's call him Jim."

George Kirk dies telling his family I love you, I love you so much — and then everything continues as before as the acting captain of the starship buys his family and eight-hundred other lives enough time to escape a Romulan vessel called the Narada by riding out a collision course. The boy knows no different.

He likes to climb on the roof with Sam, small and whiny when the cuff of his pants gets caught on a nail and his big brother has to half-drag him out of harm's way.

"That's the Big Dipper, Jim. See?" Sam is clever and wonderful and everything Jim ever wants to be. There's nothing but love and trust put in him as Jim nods and cranes back so far that a hand automatically swings out to support him. Sam laughs when a six-year-old Jim exclaims I want a star! "You want one? Okay, let's figure out which is the best."

Downstairs, far below in the kitchen of the shambling old house, Winona Kirk argues in her son's favor as her new partner rails against the mess her youngest has caused. A can of paint lies open in the yard next to the antique Corvette that belonged to her husband, dotted all over one side with tiny fingerprints.

"You can have all the stars," Sam solemnly promises, "if you swear never to paint them on dad's car again."

Jim nods enthusiastically.

The day that Sam leaves without so much as a hug, Jim drives the Corvette off the quarry. The exhilarating experience (freedom, strength, speed) is soundly quashed when the officer takes him back home to a furious Uncle Frank. He sits at the kitchen table for ten minutes before exploding back, something that rocks his guardian with surprise. Jim knows why. He's the good kid, just like Sam said, always making the best grades and doing what he's told. If that means he has to let his big brother walk away, he doesn't want anything to do with that kind of person.

"You're not my father!" he yells, twelve-years-old and standing up to a man twice his size, blue eyes blazing. Breathless, fierce as a dog backed into a corner with no way out.

Fifteen minutes later, he's up on the roof where Frank can't chase such a small boy, even one with newly forming bruises on his arm from where he was shaken. Frank doesn't usually do that, Jim knows. He yells and looms and terrifies Jim sometimes but there's a limit, even if said limit is currently off the planet. By the time the stars come out he's hungrier than he can ever remember being before and rolls onto his back to get the cramp out of his side, dirt-smudged tear-tracks staining dry cheeks.

Sam is gone. He left Jim the stars, but what good are they when they're so far away?

On his eighteenth birthday, he slips out in the dead of night with a backpack and doesn't look back. I can't be a Kirk in this house, he said earlier, parroting his brother when his mother asked what was wrong. She probably knew he was going to leave. Taste in Frank aside, she's a smart lady.

Jim starts to walk and he doesn't stop for years, aimless and frustrated with everything on the planet, until a man in a bar gives him a small plastic starship and says, "I dare you to do better."

There's a ruckus in the bathroom, one that shortly makes itself known. An unkempt man argues with the officer threatening him into his seat and finally leans over. Jim's eyes might flicker away a few times, but for once he's quieter than usual, watching with interest.

"I may throw up on you," and then shortly after making himself known, "Ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I got left is my bones."

Leonard McCoy is Southern, cranky, a little sad and messed up from the get-go, but Jim thinks that's alright because he hits most of those achievements too. They're both oddities on the shuttle stuffed with regulation uniforms. Jim knows he's broken a dozen rules in getting on board and doesn't want to use Pike's name if he can help it, so he chats to Leonard all the way to the Academy to help distract both of them from causing more trouble.

Over three years, Bones fills the aching place in Jim's heart that his brother abandoned in Iowa. For a time, he forgets about looking at the stars and starts working on ways to live amongst them with his best friend at his side.

"Jim, you've got to see this."

I'm going to throw up on you, he mutinously growls, craning his head for a look out the porthole at a ship he saw in pieces on his homeland three years ago. U.S.S. ENTERPRISE NCC-1701. Now, amongst the heavens and endless possibilities she's been built to explore, her hull is smooth and sturdy. The unfinished maw of her insides is complete, sound and ready for action. Everything about her sounds like a scream through the silence of space that only Jim can hear, his own personal siren's song. This is his ship, he wants her badly. Somehow, if he isn't kicked out of Starfleet for breaking onto her with Bones' assistance, claiming her is going to be his new objective in life.

Once upon a time, he told himself that you didn't sleep with a starship, you slept on it. Now, Jim wishes that the beautiful ship before him really could turn into a woman so he could put those rules to the test.

En route to Nibiru, it's the middle of the night, ship-time. A skeleton crew works the bridge, four officers, and Jim sits in the captain's chair recently usurped by April. Taken back, more importantly, and rarely left since. It's the only place he can begin to doze off, connected to the heart of his vessel and in complete control of her after being so abrasively severed by ghost-protocols in her memory-banks. They've been wiped now, yet it makes no difference; he does not move.

On the viewscreen, there are stars drifting past that remind him of sitting on a rooftop with an arm around his shoulders, safe and content. Pike's old chair provides the support he needs in such quiet, personal moments.

"Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass you are?"

I think so, sir, Jim says. He's standing in Christopher's office, the Admiral bristling nearby.

"Then tell me what you did wrong, what's the lesson to be learned here?"

Never trust a Vulcan.

Chris whirls on him in frustration, "You see, you can't even answer the question! You lied on an official report. You lied. You think the rules don't apply to you because you disagree with them."

That's why you talked me into signing up in the first place, it's why you gave me your ship.

He doesn't understand. He saved Spock's life, that was more than enough of a reason to break the Prime Directive. He didn't want to, it was just the morally right thing to do.

"I gave you my ship because I saw greatness in you, and now I see that you haven't got an ounce of humility."

Chris sounds tired. Disappointed. Trying to explain, Jim quietens under the overwhelming flaws thrown back in his face.

"I wouldn't have risked my first officer's life in the first place. You violated the Prime Directive and almost got everyone under your command killed. You think you can't make a mistake, it's a pattern with you! The rules are for other people." He doesn't take kindly to Jim stating Some should be. Infantile and indignant, and not understanding. Chris grits his teeth. "What's worse is you're using blind luck to justify your playing God!"

Silenced, it doesn't last long. The moment Jim is told that the Enterprise is being taken away as per Starfleet mandate on the matter, he creases desperate arguments in wherever he can, but the Admiral wants none of it.

"You don't comply with the rules, you don't have respect for anything but yourself and you don't respect the chair. You know why? Because you're not ready for it."

And just like that, Jim loses contact with his insides for a moment. His home is gone and the stars are plucked beyond his reach.

It hurts to crawl back to the decontamination chamber and he's ashamed to say he almost didn't bother. Slouching heavily against the wall, he stares up at his equally tearful first officer, a hazy unpleasant heat pulling at his vision.

I'm scared, Spock, he confesses on a labored sigh. Help me not be. How do you choose not to feel?

"I do not know," Spock chokes out, wide-eyed as they stay as close as the glass allows. Jim wishes he could have seen him this open before, emotional and raw. So human that it clearly hurts both of them. "Right now, I am failing."

Jim's hand presses with as much clumsy haste as his weakening arm will allow right against the door, splaying for traction. Spock places his palm over it on the other side, and Jim matches the Vulcan salute that says everything his failing organs will not allow him to put into words. Suffocating, his vision darkens.

It is not the comforting expanse of space, there is nothing waiting but terror and darkness without a single light to guide his heart home. Disjointed from both, every second pierces his mind with agony until he can no longer even feel frightened; Jim's hand slides to his side, having lost all feeling where death closets him away from family, comfort and lights.

The stars go out.

Edited 2013-07-21 19:28 (UTC)

[ bones doesn't usually dream. part of the reason why he's always so focused on doing his job above all else is because it tires him out enough that he passes out when he hits the bed and his brain blanks for hours until the chronometer sounds the alarm and it's another day at work, another day trying to keep everyone alive on the weight of his broad shoulders.

when he does dream, however, they're usually flashes of memories: some that he likes to repeat in his head even when he's away, some that he cares a lot for but never really wants to talk about, and others that he's wasted enough credits on booze to forget. but there's always a pattern to those things, a fuzzy kind of recognition. so he's never surprised anymore. the routine makes everything sort of numb, at least when he's not awake.

this is different because it's not his kind of dream, per se. ]

[ it comes in segments, and the first one - he'll come to realize soon - is just as heartrendering as the rest.

here comes to the world a boy born in the stars, worth with a broken heart and the feeling of hopelessness surrounding him. of lost lives, saved lives, and lives that won't care that a man saved eight-hundred of them at the cost of his own. the boys eyes are a shining blue, as bright as the nearest star - as dazzling as the explosion outside the shuttle craft and brings tears of his mother's eyes, but the boys sleeps, among his kindred, lost at space.

the rest of it comes to bones with increasing familiarity, stories the bones as heard, or ones he's witnessed himself. a stubborn brother with a heart of gold, an ill-tempered stepfather, and a mother who died along with the man she once loved. i can't be a kirk in this house - the feeling that he's so lost in the world and trying to find a place he can actually fit into. something that bones knows so well that his heart clenches physically. he feels his own body moving but he doesn't know what he's actually doing.

( he's rolling to his side, trying to press a hand to his chest, because the feeling of hopelessness resonates with him a little too much. )

and then, a kinship, a friendship of a lifetime.

this one bones knows. so the fleeting images pass through his eyes with only the faintest sense of nostalgia.

it's the end that gets to him. disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence, indeed. he has the faintest urge to reach out himself, do something, do anything, but he holds in his hands a mirage of a tampered memory, incredibly familiar. i'm scared - he's heard those words before, and they echo in his dreams, too. ]

[ when the darkness closes in, his eyes open and he sits up abruptly, woken up from a strange dream. he looks around and finds himself in a slightly more familiar scene - sleeping in the living room couch since he's given his room to uhura for the duration of her stay here. he holds his face in his hands for a moment, breathing in and out as quietly and calmly as he can before he throws the thin blankets off him and tiptoes off, careful not to wake anyone up ( and they've all been trained to be light sleepers, too, so he doubles the effort ).

he enters jim's room, the door swinging open with the soft squeak from the hinges. he's stands there, leaning against the doorway and crossing his arms over his shoulder. a stance of an observer who watches from afar, and in his sleep, jim kirk is the subject - until bones' gaze wavers to the window, eyes flitting over to the twinkling sky that seems a lot farther away that they've even realized, and they aren't even real.

he sighs, crossing the room in short strides and sitting on the edge of the bed, a hand on jim's arm to shake him awake if he wasn't already. ]

Scoot over, kid.

[ He dreams in fragments, ones that twitch his fingers and others that leave him gripping the sheets. A voice reels him out of the muddy slew of images to crack his eyes open at the sight of the figure dipping his bed, sleep in his eyes and blanket creases on one side of his face, his own throat soft with the disuse of sleep. ]

Bones? [ But he obeys with a careful slide to put his back against the wall, surrendering space enough to let him lie down. In the inconstancy of almost-morning, the world is still indigo and peach with an oncoming sunrise that most of the City won't get to share, just like the exchange in Jim's room. ] You okay?

[ bones doesn't answer immediately. he sinks down on the bed, elbows first, then his legs sliding under the warmth of the covers before he lets his head down, eyes closed and a hand raised, thumb brushing against his temple.

they hadn't shared a bed since their academy days, back when things got a little bit too much, back when those couple of days on the calendar still bring out the worst in them, and neither of them had the means to handle the fucked up state of mind that overcame them aside from what they knew best - drinking, solitude, and (in jim's case) stirring up trouble in the worst possible way.

in any case, this is probably the only way they'll be able to talk without disturbing the others - and without any effort exerted on jim's part. ]

Bad dream. [ a beat. ] Well, not - it was weird, and I swear to God Almighty, I don't know where the hell it came from.

[ It's nostalgic in the best of ways, pulling a smile from him as he watches Bones get comfortable. He rests a temple on his shoulder and sighs, a raspy noise even though it's quiet, the weight in his eyelids causing them to droop as he slouches against Bones' side, fever-hot but lucid. ]

Ditto about the dream. What happened in yours?

[ well. ]

How much do you love that floating tin can of yours?

[ ... Hm. After a beat, he shifts his head up to make eye-contact. ]

Why do you ask?

[ if bones were another person, there'd be a shit-eating grin on his face right now. as it were, he's just gonna raise an eyebrow at him. ]

I'm judging how accurate my dream was.

You dreamed about my ship?

[ That. Pretty much answers all Bones' questions, right there. ~~IF HE HAD A SISTER WOULD BONES HAVE SLEPT WITH HER TOO?~~ ]

What happened in your dream with me?

So, it's true. You want to sleep with the goddamn Enterprise, not just on it.

[ jim pls. ]

And lots of things happened in the dream, Jim, but that one was pretty special. I had to address it first.

Edited 2013-07-24 03:11 (UTC)

What? Are you — have you been drinking? [ Flopping a hand on his stomach, he beseeches the ceiling for a little help. ] What are you even —?

[ ... Wait a second. His expression flattens in seconds, as does the out-reaching hand. Jim's lips thin. ]

I do not want to sleep with the Enterprise, Bones.

[ Spoken like a man that knows exactly what's being dug at. ]

And I'm not a doctor. Right.

[ he rubs a hand over his mouth for two things. to hide the exasperated look on his face, and to figure out how to address the situation wherein he dreamed about his best friend and it felt real, although it probably ( hopefully ) wasn't, but he still would like to know, anyway. not adding the fact that it's gonna be even weirder if they were real. ]

You can call me crazy after we've finished this discussion, okay? And after that, we'll never speak of it again.

But you did listen to that video on the network about - "essences", right?

Please don't tell me a magical dog gave us mind-meldy dreams that told you my essence has to do with banging the ship.

[ Jim rubs his eyes, distinctly not looking over at Bones. Eugh. ]

Essence Rite Dream, JAMES T. KIRK ; to all Starfleet crewmates & close friends

( 7/21 | crack of dawn, probably. )

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25.07.13.

July 23rd // evening

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