AU - kind of, since Jim is 17 and McCoy is just about to go into his second year in college (early HS grad, of course, as Jim was) while in the movie, Bones is around 29-32 vs. Jim’s 23-25.
James T. Kirk had a problem. It was a big problem, and one that he thought he wouldn’t have to worry about this since he’d gotten back from Tarsus. But his mother hadn’t changed one bit, and her usual litany of disgusting boyfriends was back in full force. The latest one, Barry, was easily as bad as Winona’s last husband, Frank, in that to him, Jim was free labor, and even worse because he saw Jim as eye candy.
There was no car to steal this time, no daring police chase ending in his second near-death experience (cause his birth had to count for that sort of thing, right?), to bring Winona back from her current mission in space, to see how Barry was treating him and get him kicked to the curb (the only thing Winona was good for, even if she caused the situations in the first place. So he had to get really creative.
Thankfully, he’d opted out of going back to school and got his GED by studying on the nets (and taking all of the aptitude tests while he was at it), so school wouldn’t hold him back from leaving. He’d tried to escape the house by getting a job in town, but that hadn’t panned out: seemed every business owner was leery of hiring ‘that Kirk boy,’ no matter who his dad was. So he’d tried to stick it out; the boyfriends only usually lasted through her tours, and she was due back in two days for his 17th birthday (which wouldn’t be celebrated, but she’d at least be home).
But Barry was truly the most disgusting creature he’d ever seen in his life, and his patience (which had once been phenomenal, but had dropped to almost non-existent after Tarsus) was wearing really thin. It finally snapped when he had to jump out of his own window to escape ‘Mr. Grabby Barry’. He was done with waiting for his mom, because he wouldn’t be able to dodge it next time, even if he was looking for it; as it was, his shirt had been torn in half by the big man’s hands, and he’d had to break a lamp that had been in the Kirk family for generations to get away.
So he was gone. He waited until Barry finally passed out (either from a concussion or from drinking, he didn’t know or care) and climbed back in his window, bypassing the mess to pack his duffle bag. He had about 500 credits that he had kept meticulously hidden from everyone, so he wouldn’t starve, wherever he was going. Once he got the duffel and the money, he slipped out again and made his way to the Shipyards. This time of night, there were no shuttles heading out, but he could always wait for the first one, which was only a few hours away. He pulled his jacket closer around him and huddled in the cold, empty waiting room until the ticket counter opened.
He was woken by a shaft of early morning sunlight, and he stretched, wincing as every muscle he had protested the movement, along with quite a few bones. The ticket counter wasn’t open, but a quick check of the time showed that he only had about 20 minutes to wait, so he sat back down, pulling out a nutrient bar and munching silently, calculating where the first shuttle of the day would go. The shuttles here only went 3 places: San Francisco, Toronto, and Atlanta. San Fran wouldn’t be a good idea, since that one cost more for civilians and was heavily populated by cadets and officers on their way back to Command. And Toronto was too cold, but he’d take it if he had to.
Thankfully, when the counter opened, the first shuttle was in 45 minutes to Atlanta, which suited him just fine. This time of year you could sleep without a blanket there, and that was a big plus; he wouldn’t have to waste money on a place to stay because of the cold. He promptly bought a seat, which ate up half of his money, and headed for the ‘roach coach,’ a small van that sold snack foods and coffee and was always parked right outside the entrance to the passenger port. He got coffee, since the N-bar was still working on getting him full, and went back to the main area, waiting for the boarding call.
He was one of the first on the shuttle, and one of the only ones, as well. This early in the morning, not many people were looking to hop cities. He fell asleep and had a mostly comfortable nap before the shuttle landed in Atlanta’s Hub, and he had to find something to do. Unfortunately, staying in the city was a no-go, since he’d already heard tentative news reports about his ‘disappearance,’ so he had to shell out yet more money to go somewhere else. He ended up getting a short hop to Oxford, Mississippi, the home of the University of Mississippi, which worked out pretty well, all told. He managed to get a job at a bookstore in the town proper, which guaranteed him a steady paycheck. He supposed his name had helped seal the job: he’d told some sob story about getting kicked out by an overbearing step-father to explain his absence from Iowa, and he was in.
(On to Chapter 2)