Fic: Like Rivers, Like Wine (1/3)
Title: Like Rivers, Like Wine
Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Word Count: 4,589
Summary: Destiny isn’t patient, doesn’t wait whilst its pawns prepare themselves for what’s to come. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse is yet to be seen. Follows directly after Parting Of The Sensory. Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009), Star Trek: Countdown. Vague references to Star Trek: The Original Series.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: This... this got away from me. In something of a big way. For what’s it’s worth, I did attempt to just write the epilogue, plain and simple, but it kept demanding more context, more backstory. What can I say; I’m a bit of a detail whore - it’s a weakness. And Kirk pretty much demanded some introspective angst of the intensely stream-of-consciousness variety once I got to feeling out his reaction to both the presence and absence of this sudden psychic connection. Therefore, this here’s not really so much of an epilogue as it is a follow-up story of its own, tying up some loose ends (because when the “epilogue” threatens to outstrip the original in terms of word length, somehow it doesn’t quite seem like an epilogue anymore), and possibly making room for a story or two to follow in the same vein.
Like Rivers, Like Wine
Part I
Jim Kirk is no stranger to cheating death.
In fact, there is a part of him that knows death more intimately than any sentient organism he’s ever encountered, better than he knows his way around a ship, better than he knows his way around a woman. And the very soul of him is more familiar to that pull of endless dark than to any other; any of those faceless one night stands who, in the stagnant, suffocating afterglow, had ever tried to figure him out, more than any friend, or any enemy, any family he’s never known. There’s an entire half of him, he reasons, that is his father, and when he’s waxing poetic in his own mind from the high of a shot too many or a fuck too deep, he figures it’s that same half that makes the threat of death so tantalizing, so close and so warm as when it freezes against the very blood in his veins; makes it seem tempting somehow, in the abstract - the promise of it welcoming to his hazy consciousness, like a warm blanket against the cold, like open arms awaiting his arrival, his return.
So he knows what it feels like, that space between this world and the void, and he knows that it’s always been hollow, always been empty. It’s fleeting, and it’s painless, the lightness of it a tease, and it’s something he craves when the world grows too heavy, when the smiles look strained, because it reminds him how fragile it all is, how short-lived. It brushes past him with the chill of the inevitable and it sparks a wonder in him; a soft light, but enough to keep him going until they meet again. It’s like a drug, the adrenaline of it, the thrill of risk and chance and fucking the odds hard and fast without a second thought, but it’s who he is, and it’s what he knows, and it’s brought him this far, he figures, so it can’t be all bad. It only lasts a second, the momentary still, even when it lasts for days, and he’s alone there, abandoned - there’s nothing to lose amidst that terrible isolation, that beautiful, agonizing gap that settles at the center of him, a black hole unto himself.
But he’s never known it to feel full before, to feel whole. To feel heavy to the point where it crushes his lungs and drags him back to waking. It’s only ever let him be, let him crash and burn until he’s ready to claw his way back in from the edge and tear himself apart in the process, clinging to the cliff-face and begging something greater than himself to help heave him back over the ledge, even as the whispers gather horribly at the back of his neck, reminding him that next time he might not be so lucky, that next time, he might be left to fall.
This, though; this is soul-deep, this seeps into everything that makes him who he is, that proves him unique and singular in the whole of the universe - that makes him matter, that lets him defy the odds and allows him to survive while everyone else fades into the ether. This spreads and seeps and coats every piece of him so that he’s covered by it completely, so that he cannot ignore it as innately part of him now; that it’s the shock that sends his mind ablaze, the jolt that starts his heart in a different rhythm - something foreign and wrong but so familiar, so stunningly melancholy, a swan song of mourning that beats through him like it’s his own, even when it isn’t, urging him to follow it, to understand what it’s asking, what it’s longing for.
Heavy, crusted lids slide hard over tired eyes, and the world explodes in blinding monochrome before the most basic primary hues bleed into focus. Contrast becomes more pronounced, and he can make out the glassy accents against the metal after one blink, the blur of a biobed display across from him after two, and then shades, the way that the lighting on his pulse readout is rusty red like the blood in his veins, the walls a soft, anguished sort of blue that blends into itself as his eyes cross, weak and disoriented as he draws a searing breath from water-logged lungs. He fights a cough as he chokes on the stuttering influx of air, hands clutching on instinct as he shudders against the spasm in his throat, swallowing it down dry and scratchy as everything erupts into godawful pain everywhere - everywhere - and the red that glows on the monitor spreads somehow to everything else, his fingers squeezing tight against nothing on his right, drawing blood from crescents at the heel of his palm, and grasping on his left at something... solid. Something smooth. Something that takes the lingering chill away from his skin and burns so fucking good that it makes him tremble, just a little.
His eyes flicker, focus slowly on his left wrist, just below it, what surrounds it with almost surreal purpose, still and sure as everything starts to grow overwhelming, starts to spin.
It’s the only thing that isn’t wine-stained through the ache that’s coursing through him, that pale, colorless hand that doesn’t move, doesn’t waver or flinch against his frenzied hold; and it’s not even his hold, he realizes in a sudden burst of clarity as his pupils dilate just a little and he blinks hard against the shock. The hand is holding him, instead - it was there first, long digits folded deliberately across his knuckles, his nails, clutching him strategically as if to ensure that he could not escape, and the muscles are tense, anxious, hard and visible against the jut of bone - and Jim can feel somehow, feel beneath the lazy beat of his heart that the hand on his is keeping him safe, keeping him grounded.
Keeping him from slipping away.
He sucks in a heavy breath, the oxygen fierce and frigid as it settles, and his eyes drift closed for a moment too long, and he’s lost in the feeling of safety, of solid, inescapable completion bearing down upon him, bright and desperate and scared, so fucking scared, tethering him to this world with the innocent force of an iron will and a fool’s hope, raging against him with the fire of the very brightest star and the relentless speed of light, a hummingbird’s wings beating their last in a blaze of heart-breaking glory - all through the touch of that hand. And it’s enough, apparently; it’s enough because Jim’s still here, even if it’s only for the moment, even if it’s almost over.
He struggles to breathe again, everything becoming a little to much, a little too deep for him to manage, and his muscles tense against it as it washes over him anew, a feeling he’s only ever felt once before, and his mind is overcome with a wave so fathomless and unfettered that it makes even the ice of that alien cave feel like fire. He cowers against its warmth, its strength, hiding at the very back of his mind and still unable to escape its touch.
With a gasp, his eyes fly open once more, and he hears the shrill beep at the head of the bed signal the spike in his vitals. Feeling consciousness slipping away, his eyes cut sharp to follow the graceful lines drawn from the slender wrist, the shining braids at the cuff of a sleeve, the same ocean blue that somehow stands out now, stands out here, that breaks at a line of black encircling olive undertones on pale flesh. He thinks he knows what he sees, knows what it means, but he can’t, he doesn’t; his chest is heaving and it seems like an eternity in those simple seconds that can’t be any more, can’t be any longer than that because he’s still alone, and there’s still that angry alarm from his monitors stabbing at his eardrums, and it doesn’t make any sense, the way his eyes are fucking with his mind.
Soft black hair. Swept-back ears. Soft, yet strong features, relaxed in a sleep so peaceful, so innocent that it breaks his heart a little, just to see such untainted beauty, such serenity.
His consciousness betrays him, and his mind collapses on itself, everything crumbling, falling in one on top of another and bleeding together like watercolors against the rain; chaotic, nonsensical. And he cannot tell for sure, because everything seems far away and detached from him; but if he were to guess, he would say that he smiled then - because if he had to be wandering around death’s door, this was a pretty fucking good dream to ease him across the threshold.
He drifts back into the darkness, chased by the vague realization that he’s never known himself to dream in color.
_____________________________
When everything comes back into the focus again, he’s knows that this time, it’s real; he can tell by the fact that he feels just as empty, just as exhilarated as he ever did, he can tell by the way that the pain lingers at the edges of his world, like a border, or the frosting on a particularly unpleasant cake baked by his culinarily-challenged mother so long ago, so far away. He can tell by the way that his mind wanders, he can tell by the way his limbs feel heavy and his chest feels light and his head feels like it went through a mother-fucking blender.
He can tell by the way that his hand feels numb, feels separate from himself; he knows by the echo, the lingering breath of life that touch had given him, the depths in him it tapped anew still stirring, the waves still cropping up upon the shores of his most primal, most unconscious self.
The first word that spills from his mouth cracks his lips, and he can taste the threat of iron in the small fissures of raw flesh stretched into the skin beneath his tongue. It’s funny, really, when he thinks about it after - that first simple word - because in reality, it makes no sense to have said it at all. There’s no reason for it, and it makes him wonder for the briefest of instants if maybe this isn’t simply another dreamworld, a figment of a fading grasp on reality, a dying man’s delusion - because there’s not a chance in hell that the man belonging to the name he moans as everything tightens in him, everything recoils from breath and sound and light; there’s not a chance that he gives a flying fuck about Jim, that his was the hand that held him steady, anchored him in the land of the living; that his was the soul that reached for him, that fought for him.
“Spock,” he gasps against all common sense, because his heart’s beating too fast to hear all of the reasons why it’s impossible, and his head’s always been screwed on a little crooked, anyway.
“I should be offended by that,” a gruff voice to his right mumbles in response, and Jim barely flinches when a hypospray presses against the side of his neck with a gentle concern that’s utterly foreign to him, and somewhat disturbing. “Lucky you’re still drugged up.”
“Bones,” he murmurs, a soft smile curling his lips as his eyes slide shut and the good doctor retrieves his tricorder; this is reality, he confirms to himself before he feels his friend hovering for more detailed readings just above him, narrowed eyes and quirked brow the first things that make sense as he blinks again to stare up at him. Familiar, predictable, comfortable. Safe. Real.
His pulse slows, calms for a moment, and he heaves a sigh that lets Bones know he’s ready. He deliberately avoids the recollection of that presence, that touch against his mind, his thoughts, his deepest desires and his blackest fears, wrapping itself around his heart like a reluctant memory and stroking a subtle song against it, coaxing it softly to an awkward, inefficient flutter that made him feel lightheaded even in his dreams, even as the room stood still.
“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Bones mumbles conclusively, apparently mollified for the present as he tucks away the hand scanner and sets the tricorder down, settling into the chair next to Jim that still has the specter, the ghost of someone else reclined against it, painted on the backs of his eyes anew with every blink, even as McCoy’s hand comes to rest solidly against the cuff of his shoulder, grip firm and filled with a relief that quirks at the doctor’s lips just a bit.
“Thanks,” Jim groans, shifting in the bed out of habit; his limbs are tired, lethargic from resting far too long; his eyes slide shut at the assault of stabbing pain through his muscles as he freezes, an unconscious part of his mind reaching to hold to something it knows will reassure him, knows will embrace him until the ache subsides, but he meets nothing, finds nothing waiting to offer a comfort meant for him and him alone.
“How long?” he asks, voice scratchy but still his own as he swallows hard, wincing at the burn of saliva against his parched throat, the strain of his vocal chords. He tries to take heart at the way Bones is there, offering him water, knowing what he wants without his asking; tries to tell himself that such familiarity is enough to draw on, enough to soothe the emptiness that’s already seeping into him - the remnants of a dream forgotten, ephemeral and fleeting and perfect, far surpassing the reality left in its stead.
He tries, goddamnit, but the hole that shifts against his lungs, weighing him down somehow with its inescapable nothingness, refuses to be ignored.
“Six days.” He’s not surprised; it’s longer than he usually manages to pull off under his friend’s care, but then again, he was significantly worse for wear this time around. “Here for two of ‘em, give or take.” It’s only then that Jim notices the clean lines of steel and glass typical of Starfleet Medical, and it starts to sink in that they’re really back on solid ground again.
“Everything...” he starts, voice raspy before he risks clearing his throat, biting back the burn that tears from somewhere near his ribcage at the force that vibrates through him. “Everything turned out okay?”
McCoy pauses in his adjustment of settings and controls at Jim’s side, his eyes trailing to the IV line running into Jim’s left hand versus meeting his patient’s eyes, mumbling instead to the charts in his hand: “More or less.”
Jim tries not to groan as he notices the immediate fire that erupts from the back of his hand as something - fuck knows what - starts circulating through his bloodstream, and the presence, the hand in his own is only missed all the more as he bites blood out of his tongue, trying to steady himself from the wash of fatigue, of nausea, the will to fade again to black.
Bones watches him fight it, rolling his eyes but not saying a word as he moves instead to check silently at Jim’s collection of lacerations, each seemingly in different stages of the healing process. Lifting, peeling, grunting and moving on - it’s a routine for Leonard McCoy, but Jim can tell that those rough hands are moving a bit more gently over him, are handling him a bit more carefully; beneath that hardened gleam, he can tell that those familiar eyes are watching him like he’s going to break, and he feels something in him settle, something solidify and penetrate him ruthlessly, without hesitation. What it is, he doesn’t know, but it’s strong and it makes him feel as if he’s missing something, something significant, and even as his bruises are prodded and his cuts pulled at, he can’t avoid the subtle hint that whatever it is he’s somehow misplaced, it makes him feel like it matters, like it all fucking matters.
“How’s that feel?” Bones asks, voice low as he presses skilled fingers against Jim’s side, and the spike of pain is nothing to the brush of awareness at the very edge of his world that flares before it retreats into nothing, impossible and nonexistent but so very, very there.
“S’fine,” Jim says distractedly, eyes focused elsewhere; he doesn’t even see the leggy nurse who walks through his line of sight, he only sees a shadow, a baseless manifestation that he desperately needs to be real, that his heart reaches for only to draw back empty and alone, cold somehow inside his still-slightly feverish corporeal frame.
“Don’t bullshit me, Jim,” Bones snaps, and anyone else would have flinched, would have balked, but Jim knows better, and draws in a slow, deliberate breath, trying hard not to disturb the very worst of his injuries as he fixes sharp blue eyes on the doctor scowling at his side.
“It’s sore,” he confesses through gritted teeth, clinging wrinkles into his sheets and imagining with everything in him that the bunched material caressing his palm is something softer, tactile, inhumanly warm; the stuff of fantasy. “I’m thinking that might have something to do with getting the shit kicked out of me, though, so it’s fine.” He shoots Bones a soft glare, and while he can’t quite summon a smirk for him - not yet - Jim knows he’s already won this fight before its begun, just because he’s alive and awake and able to hold his own again; his best friend is predictable like that, when it comes to the things that don’t matter, the things that matter most of all.
“Come on,” he coaxes his dotingly attentive physician with a patented combination of warmth and authority. “Stop hovering. Just sit.”
As predicted, albeit reluctantly and only after evaluating Jim’s vitals for the fifth time since he’d open his eyes, the good doctor folds himself into the chair at Jim’s bedside.
“How’s Pike?” Jim asks quickly, cutting off any criticism, any protest before it can begin; he was pretty damn sure that delaying Bones’s wrath for his reluctant sense of self-preservation was, in fact, a survival technique in itself.
“Recovering,” McCoy answers, leaning in on his elbows, and Jim can see how haggard he looks, how exhausted, and he feels an unmentionable guilt begin to thread itself against the tail-ends of his thoughts. “His mobility is going to be restricted for the next few months, but he’ll be back on his feet in no time. Good as new.”
Jim nods, more than slightly relieved; it hadn’t been in vain, then, everything they’d done. The lives lost, planets obliterated - it hadn’t been for nothing, at least.
“Do you remember what happened?” Bones asks, and Jim’s pleased, if not a little surprised, to see the blatant concern in his gaze as he studies Jim’s face, the soft green eyes fixed on him belonging now only to his best friend - not his doctor, not his CMO, just Leonard McCoy, who looks almost afraid for what Jim may or may not remember about the events that nearly ripped him beyond repair.
“Some of it,” he says slowly, pondering it with solemn concentration. “To a point.” He remembers the ship, remembers rescuing Pike and ordering the beam, remembers being taken and remembers only snapshots, fragments of that Romulan bastard breaking his bones and skinning his ass like a fucking suckling pig. After that, it’s only darkness; darkness and then heat, then contact, the fire of a soul that sheltered him, that carried him, that made sure he was safe. “Don’t remember getting back,” he answers finally with a dismissive shake of his head, and it doesn’t have to be said, what comes next; ‘I was pretty sure I wasn’t coming back.’ They both know it well enough.
“He went back for you.”
Jim narrows his eyes at the reply, and he tries not to wonder, tries not to hope when Bones refuses to look him in the eye, leans further forward and rubs his hands together as if steeling himself, as if even he’s still trying to come to terms with it.
“Spock,” he clarifies, and there’s a bemused sort of disbelief in his tone as the stark syllable rolls from that Southern tongue. “Damned fool stunt he pulled, but he saved your life.” He looks up then, and his eyes are open, honest; furious but grateful, and Jim can’t respond to it, except to stare back. “Bastard should probably be court-martialed, all things considered,” he continues, the doctor’s gaze hardening now, the walls coming back as he pushes himself to his feet, and Jim would probably have figured himself lucky under the circumstances, to have convinced his friend to sit with him for that long before the professional resumed command, had he not been so consumed with the purr, the gentle glow of promise buried deep, too deep to see but not too far to feel, something that he couldn’t help but wonder now, in the darkest corners of his soul, if it wasn’t something more than the buzz of the drugs or the echoes of the pain.
“...Put the whole damn ship in danger,” Bones is still ranting, busying himself with Jim’s readings once again, but Jim only catches the end of it as McCoy’s hand slides suddenly to rest on his shoulder, squeezing just a little in what Jim suspects is the only spot, the single arrangement of each individual finger he could manage that wouldn’t cause undue pain - something only Bones would know, and only Jim would think to notice. “But seeing as you’re here, and you’re safe, and we’re all still alive to tell the sordid fuckin’ tale...” his gaze falters as he trails off, and Jim can’t help but feel warm, despite everything, at what he’s trying to say, what he’s writing clearly between the lines; “Well, let’s just say I won’t be the one turning him in for culpable negligence.”
This time, Jim does manage a smile, small and weak, but he sees it reflected in the gentle green of McCoy’s eyes before they darken again and he goes back to his work, muttering agitatedly; “Much as I might like to. Bastard could use to be knocked down a few pegs.”
Jim wants to laugh, wishes he could, but it’s all settling in now, the absurdity of it, the unfathomable concept that Spock, Spock of all people, went back for him - Spock who insulted and humiliated him in front of half his class for beating his fucking test, who marooned him and left him for dead; Spock who nearly killed him without a second thought. His head spins with the implications, with the poisonous suggestion of hope, of truth in the deep, inexplicable resonance that hums next to his pulse; the illogical impulse that led him to see the Vulcan in the most desperate of visions as the other man fought personally, somehow, for each of Jim’s dying breaths, for each beat of his failing heart and demanding one more, just one more; Spock, who urged Jim to call out for him, even before he knew the world he was returning to was real.
“Speaking of Spock, though,” Bones interrupts the silence with a curious condescension in his tone, something that seems more of a pretense than anything else; “I’m surprised the green goblin ain’t here now, to be honest. He’s been your private nursemaid since you came in,” Bones inclines his head indicatively at Jim as he slides a stylus over the PADD in his left hand, nudging bits of information into place and recording whatever the fuck he always seems to record that makes the wrinkle in the middle of his brow dip just so. “Wouldn’t leave unless the goddamn world was coming to an end.”
‘Wouldn’t even leave then,’ something inside of him whispers, and before Jim can marvel at the revelation, at what it could mean on his own, he shivers violently, seizing against the mere whisper of the presence still left in his mind, the only lingering echo that was keeping him from giving into the nagging despair that it was all nothing, that it was simply the trauma, the ordeal playing tricks with his psyche or the demons of his subconscious mind taking shape in his vulnerable state. He winces as it disappears as suddenly as it flared, retreating with sharp and purposeful force, gone in the blink of an eye without a trace left behind. He closes his eyes against the aftershock of the loss as it rips, reverberates through him like a physical blow, and he cannot decide in that moment what it means, whether he mourns its absence or rejoices in the fact that, in forsaking him so suddenly, so mercilessly, he can no longer harbor any doubt of it having been there at all.
And Bones - who never misses anything, the fucker - narrows his eyes as Jim tenses visibly in response, biting his lip for a second in thought, staring down at his notations for a brief moment in time and comparing them to the biobed scans before he strides again over to the intravenous line trailing from Jim’s hand.
“I’m going to give you a few more stims before starting you on the vascular regenerator, see if we can’t get some more of that bruising down for you” he informs him abruptly, keying in commands on his drip; “Then it’s on to the last of the osteo-regenerator,” he adds with a perverse sort of enthusiasm, his eyebrow cocked in that sadistically excited way of his. “And given our previous experience involving a broken jaw and you whining like a goddamn pussy over too much tequila, we both know you’ll want to be out for that.”
Jim feels his vision blur immediately as the stimulants start to take effect before Bones administers the sedative at his neck, and he doesn’t even try to speak, doesn’t try to push it aside. He starts to lose focus, lose his senses, lose control and he’s falling, fucking falling and he can feel his heart pound hard once, twice before even it becomes muddied, distant - he reaches with everything he is, the most basic parts of himself for that touch, that soul so familiar, so dear and so gentle to break his fall, but it’s nowhere, nowhere - like it had never been there at all. Desperate, he stops fighting back the hands begging him to join the black, the void without beckoning to the void within; and he gives into it, because slipping into the emptiness is better than flat-out abandonment, any day.
Something was always better than nothing, and always would be. He knows that well enough.
_____________________________
>>>>>>>>>> Part II Here
_____________________________
Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Word Count: 4,589
Summary: Destiny isn’t patient, doesn’t wait whilst its pawns prepare themselves for what’s to come. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse is yet to be seen. Follows directly after Parting Of The Sensory. Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009), Star Trek: Countdown. Vague references to Star Trek: The Original Series.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: This... this got away from me. In something of a big way. For what’s it’s worth, I did attempt to just write the epilogue, plain and simple, but it kept demanding more context, more backstory. What can I say; I’m a bit of a detail whore - it’s a weakness. And Kirk pretty much demanded some introspective angst of the intensely stream-of-consciousness variety once I got to feeling out his reaction to both the presence and absence of this sudden psychic connection. Therefore, this here’s not really so much of an epilogue as it is a follow-up story of its own, tying up some loose ends (because when the “epilogue” threatens to outstrip the original in terms of word length, somehow it doesn’t quite seem like an epilogue anymore), and possibly making room for a story or two to follow in the same vein.
Like Rivers, Like Wine
Part I
Jim Kirk is no stranger to cheating death.
In fact, there is a part of him that knows death more intimately than any sentient organism he’s ever encountered, better than he knows his way around a ship, better than he knows his way around a woman. And the very soul of him is more familiar to that pull of endless dark than to any other; any of those faceless one night stands who, in the stagnant, suffocating afterglow, had ever tried to figure him out, more than any friend, or any enemy, any family he’s never known. There’s an entire half of him, he reasons, that is his father, and when he’s waxing poetic in his own mind from the high of a shot too many or a fuck too deep, he figures it’s that same half that makes the threat of death so tantalizing, so close and so warm as when it freezes against the very blood in his veins; makes it seem tempting somehow, in the abstract - the promise of it welcoming to his hazy consciousness, like a warm blanket against the cold, like open arms awaiting his arrival, his return.
So he knows what it feels like, that space between this world and the void, and he knows that it’s always been hollow, always been empty. It’s fleeting, and it’s painless, the lightness of it a tease, and it’s something he craves when the world grows too heavy, when the smiles look strained, because it reminds him how fragile it all is, how short-lived. It brushes past him with the chill of the inevitable and it sparks a wonder in him; a soft light, but enough to keep him going until they meet again. It’s like a drug, the adrenaline of it, the thrill of risk and chance and fucking the odds hard and fast without a second thought, but it’s who he is, and it’s what he knows, and it’s brought him this far, he figures, so it can’t be all bad. It only lasts a second, the momentary still, even when it lasts for days, and he’s alone there, abandoned - there’s nothing to lose amidst that terrible isolation, that beautiful, agonizing gap that settles at the center of him, a black hole unto himself.
But he’s never known it to feel full before, to feel whole. To feel heavy to the point where it crushes his lungs and drags him back to waking. It’s only ever let him be, let him crash and burn until he’s ready to claw his way back in from the edge and tear himself apart in the process, clinging to the cliff-face and begging something greater than himself to help heave him back over the ledge, even as the whispers gather horribly at the back of his neck, reminding him that next time he might not be so lucky, that next time, he might be left to fall.
This, though; this is soul-deep, this seeps into everything that makes him who he is, that proves him unique and singular in the whole of the universe - that makes him matter, that lets him defy the odds and allows him to survive while everyone else fades into the ether. This spreads and seeps and coats every piece of him so that he’s covered by it completely, so that he cannot ignore it as innately part of him now; that it’s the shock that sends his mind ablaze, the jolt that starts his heart in a different rhythm - something foreign and wrong but so familiar, so stunningly melancholy, a swan song of mourning that beats through him like it’s his own, even when it isn’t, urging him to follow it, to understand what it’s asking, what it’s longing for.
Heavy, crusted lids slide hard over tired eyes, and the world explodes in blinding monochrome before the most basic primary hues bleed into focus. Contrast becomes more pronounced, and he can make out the glassy accents against the metal after one blink, the blur of a biobed display across from him after two, and then shades, the way that the lighting on his pulse readout is rusty red like the blood in his veins, the walls a soft, anguished sort of blue that blends into itself as his eyes cross, weak and disoriented as he draws a searing breath from water-logged lungs. He fights a cough as he chokes on the stuttering influx of air, hands clutching on instinct as he shudders against the spasm in his throat, swallowing it down dry and scratchy as everything erupts into godawful pain everywhere - everywhere - and the red that glows on the monitor spreads somehow to everything else, his fingers squeezing tight against nothing on his right, drawing blood from crescents at the heel of his palm, and grasping on his left at something... solid. Something smooth. Something that takes the lingering chill away from his skin and burns so fucking good that it makes him tremble, just a little.
His eyes flicker, focus slowly on his left wrist, just below it, what surrounds it with almost surreal purpose, still and sure as everything starts to grow overwhelming, starts to spin.
It’s the only thing that isn’t wine-stained through the ache that’s coursing through him, that pale, colorless hand that doesn’t move, doesn’t waver or flinch against his frenzied hold; and it’s not even his hold, he realizes in a sudden burst of clarity as his pupils dilate just a little and he blinks hard against the shock. The hand is holding him, instead - it was there first, long digits folded deliberately across his knuckles, his nails, clutching him strategically as if to ensure that he could not escape, and the muscles are tense, anxious, hard and visible against the jut of bone - and Jim can feel somehow, feel beneath the lazy beat of his heart that the hand on his is keeping him safe, keeping him grounded.
Keeping him from slipping away.
He sucks in a heavy breath, the oxygen fierce and frigid as it settles, and his eyes drift closed for a moment too long, and he’s lost in the feeling of safety, of solid, inescapable completion bearing down upon him, bright and desperate and scared, so fucking scared, tethering him to this world with the innocent force of an iron will and a fool’s hope, raging against him with the fire of the very brightest star and the relentless speed of light, a hummingbird’s wings beating their last in a blaze of heart-breaking glory - all through the touch of that hand. And it’s enough, apparently; it’s enough because Jim’s still here, even if it’s only for the moment, even if it’s almost over.
He struggles to breathe again, everything becoming a little to much, a little too deep for him to manage, and his muscles tense against it as it washes over him anew, a feeling he’s only ever felt once before, and his mind is overcome with a wave so fathomless and unfettered that it makes even the ice of that alien cave feel like fire. He cowers against its warmth, its strength, hiding at the very back of his mind and still unable to escape its touch.
With a gasp, his eyes fly open once more, and he hears the shrill beep at the head of the bed signal the spike in his vitals. Feeling consciousness slipping away, his eyes cut sharp to follow the graceful lines drawn from the slender wrist, the shining braids at the cuff of a sleeve, the same ocean blue that somehow stands out now, stands out here, that breaks at a line of black encircling olive undertones on pale flesh. He thinks he knows what he sees, knows what it means, but he can’t, he doesn’t; his chest is heaving and it seems like an eternity in those simple seconds that can’t be any more, can’t be any longer than that because he’s still alone, and there’s still that angry alarm from his monitors stabbing at his eardrums, and it doesn’t make any sense, the way his eyes are fucking with his mind.
Soft black hair. Swept-back ears. Soft, yet strong features, relaxed in a sleep so peaceful, so innocent that it breaks his heart a little, just to see such untainted beauty, such serenity.
His consciousness betrays him, and his mind collapses on itself, everything crumbling, falling in one on top of another and bleeding together like watercolors against the rain; chaotic, nonsensical. And he cannot tell for sure, because everything seems far away and detached from him; but if he were to guess, he would say that he smiled then - because if he had to be wandering around death’s door, this was a pretty fucking good dream to ease him across the threshold.
He drifts back into the darkness, chased by the vague realization that he’s never known himself to dream in color.
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When everything comes back into the focus again, he’s knows that this time, it’s real; he can tell by the fact that he feels just as empty, just as exhilarated as he ever did, he can tell by the way that the pain lingers at the edges of his world, like a border, or the frosting on a particularly unpleasant cake baked by his culinarily-challenged mother so long ago, so far away. He can tell by the way that his mind wanders, he can tell by the way his limbs feel heavy and his chest feels light and his head feels like it went through a mother-fucking blender.
He can tell by the way that his hand feels numb, feels separate from himself; he knows by the echo, the lingering breath of life that touch had given him, the depths in him it tapped anew still stirring, the waves still cropping up upon the shores of his most primal, most unconscious self.
The first word that spills from his mouth cracks his lips, and he can taste the threat of iron in the small fissures of raw flesh stretched into the skin beneath his tongue. It’s funny, really, when he thinks about it after - that first simple word - because in reality, it makes no sense to have said it at all. There’s no reason for it, and it makes him wonder for the briefest of instants if maybe this isn’t simply another dreamworld, a figment of a fading grasp on reality, a dying man’s delusion - because there’s not a chance in hell that the man belonging to the name he moans as everything tightens in him, everything recoils from breath and sound and light; there’s not a chance that he gives a flying fuck about Jim, that his was the hand that held him steady, anchored him in the land of the living; that his was the soul that reached for him, that fought for him.
“Spock,” he gasps against all common sense, because his heart’s beating too fast to hear all of the reasons why it’s impossible, and his head’s always been screwed on a little crooked, anyway.
“I should be offended by that,” a gruff voice to his right mumbles in response, and Jim barely flinches when a hypospray presses against the side of his neck with a gentle concern that’s utterly foreign to him, and somewhat disturbing. “Lucky you’re still drugged up.”
“Bones,” he murmurs, a soft smile curling his lips as his eyes slide shut and the good doctor retrieves his tricorder; this is reality, he confirms to himself before he feels his friend hovering for more detailed readings just above him, narrowed eyes and quirked brow the first things that make sense as he blinks again to stare up at him. Familiar, predictable, comfortable. Safe. Real.
His pulse slows, calms for a moment, and he heaves a sigh that lets Bones know he’s ready. He deliberately avoids the recollection of that presence, that touch against his mind, his thoughts, his deepest desires and his blackest fears, wrapping itself around his heart like a reluctant memory and stroking a subtle song against it, coaxing it softly to an awkward, inefficient flutter that made him feel lightheaded even in his dreams, even as the room stood still.
“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Bones mumbles conclusively, apparently mollified for the present as he tucks away the hand scanner and sets the tricorder down, settling into the chair next to Jim that still has the specter, the ghost of someone else reclined against it, painted on the backs of his eyes anew with every blink, even as McCoy’s hand comes to rest solidly against the cuff of his shoulder, grip firm and filled with a relief that quirks at the doctor’s lips just a bit.
“Thanks,” Jim groans, shifting in the bed out of habit; his limbs are tired, lethargic from resting far too long; his eyes slide shut at the assault of stabbing pain through his muscles as he freezes, an unconscious part of his mind reaching to hold to something it knows will reassure him, knows will embrace him until the ache subsides, but he meets nothing, finds nothing waiting to offer a comfort meant for him and him alone.
“How long?” he asks, voice scratchy but still his own as he swallows hard, wincing at the burn of saliva against his parched throat, the strain of his vocal chords. He tries to take heart at the way Bones is there, offering him water, knowing what he wants without his asking; tries to tell himself that such familiarity is enough to draw on, enough to soothe the emptiness that’s already seeping into him - the remnants of a dream forgotten, ephemeral and fleeting and perfect, far surpassing the reality left in its stead.
He tries, goddamnit, but the hole that shifts against his lungs, weighing him down somehow with its inescapable nothingness, refuses to be ignored.
“Six days.” He’s not surprised; it’s longer than he usually manages to pull off under his friend’s care, but then again, he was significantly worse for wear this time around. “Here for two of ‘em, give or take.” It’s only then that Jim notices the clean lines of steel and glass typical of Starfleet Medical, and it starts to sink in that they’re really back on solid ground again.
“Everything...” he starts, voice raspy before he risks clearing his throat, biting back the burn that tears from somewhere near his ribcage at the force that vibrates through him. “Everything turned out okay?”
McCoy pauses in his adjustment of settings and controls at Jim’s side, his eyes trailing to the IV line running into Jim’s left hand versus meeting his patient’s eyes, mumbling instead to the charts in his hand: “More or less.”
Jim tries not to groan as he notices the immediate fire that erupts from the back of his hand as something - fuck knows what - starts circulating through his bloodstream, and the presence, the hand in his own is only missed all the more as he bites blood out of his tongue, trying to steady himself from the wash of fatigue, of nausea, the will to fade again to black.
Bones watches him fight it, rolling his eyes but not saying a word as he moves instead to check silently at Jim’s collection of lacerations, each seemingly in different stages of the healing process. Lifting, peeling, grunting and moving on - it’s a routine for Leonard McCoy, but Jim can tell that those rough hands are moving a bit more gently over him, are handling him a bit more carefully; beneath that hardened gleam, he can tell that those familiar eyes are watching him like he’s going to break, and he feels something in him settle, something solidify and penetrate him ruthlessly, without hesitation. What it is, he doesn’t know, but it’s strong and it makes him feel as if he’s missing something, something significant, and even as his bruises are prodded and his cuts pulled at, he can’t avoid the subtle hint that whatever it is he’s somehow misplaced, it makes him feel like it matters, like it all fucking matters.
“How’s that feel?” Bones asks, voice low as he presses skilled fingers against Jim’s side, and the spike of pain is nothing to the brush of awareness at the very edge of his world that flares before it retreats into nothing, impossible and nonexistent but so very, very there.
“S’fine,” Jim says distractedly, eyes focused elsewhere; he doesn’t even see the leggy nurse who walks through his line of sight, he only sees a shadow, a baseless manifestation that he desperately needs to be real, that his heart reaches for only to draw back empty and alone, cold somehow inside his still-slightly feverish corporeal frame.
“Don’t bullshit me, Jim,” Bones snaps, and anyone else would have flinched, would have balked, but Jim knows better, and draws in a slow, deliberate breath, trying hard not to disturb the very worst of his injuries as he fixes sharp blue eyes on the doctor scowling at his side.
“It’s sore,” he confesses through gritted teeth, clinging wrinkles into his sheets and imagining with everything in him that the bunched material caressing his palm is something softer, tactile, inhumanly warm; the stuff of fantasy. “I’m thinking that might have something to do with getting the shit kicked out of me, though, so it’s fine.” He shoots Bones a soft glare, and while he can’t quite summon a smirk for him - not yet - Jim knows he’s already won this fight before its begun, just because he’s alive and awake and able to hold his own again; his best friend is predictable like that, when it comes to the things that don’t matter, the things that matter most of all.
“Come on,” he coaxes his dotingly attentive physician with a patented combination of warmth and authority. “Stop hovering. Just sit.”
As predicted, albeit reluctantly and only after evaluating Jim’s vitals for the fifth time since he’d open his eyes, the good doctor folds himself into the chair at Jim’s bedside.
“How’s Pike?” Jim asks quickly, cutting off any criticism, any protest before it can begin; he was pretty damn sure that delaying Bones’s wrath for his reluctant sense of self-preservation was, in fact, a survival technique in itself.
“Recovering,” McCoy answers, leaning in on his elbows, and Jim can see how haggard he looks, how exhausted, and he feels an unmentionable guilt begin to thread itself against the tail-ends of his thoughts. “His mobility is going to be restricted for the next few months, but he’ll be back on his feet in no time. Good as new.”
Jim nods, more than slightly relieved; it hadn’t been in vain, then, everything they’d done. The lives lost, planets obliterated - it hadn’t been for nothing, at least.
“Do you remember what happened?” Bones asks, and Jim’s pleased, if not a little surprised, to see the blatant concern in his gaze as he studies Jim’s face, the soft green eyes fixed on him belonging now only to his best friend - not his doctor, not his CMO, just Leonard McCoy, who looks almost afraid for what Jim may or may not remember about the events that nearly ripped him beyond repair.
“Some of it,” he says slowly, pondering it with solemn concentration. “To a point.” He remembers the ship, remembers rescuing Pike and ordering the beam, remembers being taken and remembers only snapshots, fragments of that Romulan bastard breaking his bones and skinning his ass like a fucking suckling pig. After that, it’s only darkness; darkness and then heat, then contact, the fire of a soul that sheltered him, that carried him, that made sure he was safe. “Don’t remember getting back,” he answers finally with a dismissive shake of his head, and it doesn’t have to be said, what comes next; ‘I was pretty sure I wasn’t coming back.’ They both know it well enough.
“He went back for you.”
Jim narrows his eyes at the reply, and he tries not to wonder, tries not to hope when Bones refuses to look him in the eye, leans further forward and rubs his hands together as if steeling himself, as if even he’s still trying to come to terms with it.
“Spock,” he clarifies, and there’s a bemused sort of disbelief in his tone as the stark syllable rolls from that Southern tongue. “Damned fool stunt he pulled, but he saved your life.” He looks up then, and his eyes are open, honest; furious but grateful, and Jim can’t respond to it, except to stare back. “Bastard should probably be court-martialed, all things considered,” he continues, the doctor’s gaze hardening now, the walls coming back as he pushes himself to his feet, and Jim would probably have figured himself lucky under the circumstances, to have convinced his friend to sit with him for that long before the professional resumed command, had he not been so consumed with the purr, the gentle glow of promise buried deep, too deep to see but not too far to feel, something that he couldn’t help but wonder now, in the darkest corners of his soul, if it wasn’t something more than the buzz of the drugs or the echoes of the pain.
“...Put the whole damn ship in danger,” Bones is still ranting, busying himself with Jim’s readings once again, but Jim only catches the end of it as McCoy’s hand slides suddenly to rest on his shoulder, squeezing just a little in what Jim suspects is the only spot, the single arrangement of each individual finger he could manage that wouldn’t cause undue pain - something only Bones would know, and only Jim would think to notice. “But seeing as you’re here, and you’re safe, and we’re all still alive to tell the sordid fuckin’ tale...” his gaze falters as he trails off, and Jim can’t help but feel warm, despite everything, at what he’s trying to say, what he’s writing clearly between the lines; “Well, let’s just say I won’t be the one turning him in for culpable negligence.”
This time, Jim does manage a smile, small and weak, but he sees it reflected in the gentle green of McCoy’s eyes before they darken again and he goes back to his work, muttering agitatedly; “Much as I might like to. Bastard could use to be knocked down a few pegs.”
Jim wants to laugh, wishes he could, but it’s all settling in now, the absurdity of it, the unfathomable concept that Spock, Spock of all people, went back for him - Spock who insulted and humiliated him in front of half his class for beating his fucking test, who marooned him and left him for dead; Spock who nearly killed him without a second thought. His head spins with the implications, with the poisonous suggestion of hope, of truth in the deep, inexplicable resonance that hums next to his pulse; the illogical impulse that led him to see the Vulcan in the most desperate of visions as the other man fought personally, somehow, for each of Jim’s dying breaths, for each beat of his failing heart and demanding one more, just one more; Spock, who urged Jim to call out for him, even before he knew the world he was returning to was real.
“Speaking of Spock, though,” Bones interrupts the silence with a curious condescension in his tone, something that seems more of a pretense than anything else; “I’m surprised the green goblin ain’t here now, to be honest. He’s been your private nursemaid since you came in,” Bones inclines his head indicatively at Jim as he slides a stylus over the PADD in his left hand, nudging bits of information into place and recording whatever the fuck he always seems to record that makes the wrinkle in the middle of his brow dip just so. “Wouldn’t leave unless the goddamn world was coming to an end.”
‘Wouldn’t even leave then,’ something inside of him whispers, and before Jim can marvel at the revelation, at what it could mean on his own, he shivers violently, seizing against the mere whisper of the presence still left in his mind, the only lingering echo that was keeping him from giving into the nagging despair that it was all nothing, that it was simply the trauma, the ordeal playing tricks with his psyche or the demons of his subconscious mind taking shape in his vulnerable state. He winces as it disappears as suddenly as it flared, retreating with sharp and purposeful force, gone in the blink of an eye without a trace left behind. He closes his eyes against the aftershock of the loss as it rips, reverberates through him like a physical blow, and he cannot decide in that moment what it means, whether he mourns its absence or rejoices in the fact that, in forsaking him so suddenly, so mercilessly, he can no longer harbor any doubt of it having been there at all.
And Bones - who never misses anything, the fucker - narrows his eyes as Jim tenses visibly in response, biting his lip for a second in thought, staring down at his notations for a brief moment in time and comparing them to the biobed scans before he strides again over to the intravenous line trailing from Jim’s hand.
“I’m going to give you a few more stims before starting you on the vascular regenerator, see if we can’t get some more of that bruising down for you” he informs him abruptly, keying in commands on his drip; “Then it’s on to the last of the osteo-regenerator,” he adds with a perverse sort of enthusiasm, his eyebrow cocked in that sadistically excited way of his. “And given our previous experience involving a broken jaw and you whining like a goddamn pussy over too much tequila, we both know you’ll want to be out for that.”
Jim feels his vision blur immediately as the stimulants start to take effect before Bones administers the sedative at his neck, and he doesn’t even try to speak, doesn’t try to push it aside. He starts to lose focus, lose his senses, lose control and he’s falling, fucking falling and he can feel his heart pound hard once, twice before even it becomes muddied, distant - he reaches with everything he is, the most basic parts of himself for that touch, that soul so familiar, so dear and so gentle to break his fall, but it’s nowhere, nowhere - like it had never been there at all. Desperate, he stops fighting back the hands begging him to join the black, the void without beckoning to the void within; and he gives into it, because slipping into the emptiness is better than flat-out abandonment, any day.
Something was always better than nothing, and always would be. He knows that well enough.
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>>>>>>>>>> Part II Here
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