Sins of the Mothers

Kirk knows somethings up. The bridge crew have been strangely attentive these past few days, even Uhura, which was what started making Jim nervous in the first place; The fact that she was looking at him with something resembling sympathy in those dark liquid eyes.

Jim hates not knowing, and having everyone staring at him when he so much as shifts in his chair is giving him the creeps. It seems they know something he doesn't, and he's gonna have to put all that charm that James T. Kirk is known for to good use in finding exactly what is going on.

XxX XxX

“Uhura.” Nyota turns, a soft smile on her face, and Jim grits his teeth, used to sardonic wit and sarcastic smile. He hates pity in all forms, and having it come from one of his greatest adversaries is almost more then he can bear. “Why are you being so nice to me?” Her eyes widen and Jim's narrow. “Why, Ny~o~ta.” He drags out the syllables of her name, cheered to see her smile sliding off her face in favor of something more dangerous. An expression he's more then used to seeing on her exquisite features.

“Do I need an excuse to be nice to my Captain?” She says it through gritted teeth, and Jim feels considerably cheered. He feels the eyes of the bridge crew on him and settles back in his chair, splayed across it like he owns everything in his sight. Like he's an ancient king of some sort, back from battle, the spoils of war lay out before him.

The crew stares for a minute more before they realize that the smugness on Jim's face isn't going anywhere, and their staring is just fueling his ego. With a seemingly conjoined sigh they all turn back to their duties, and Jim feels that all is right in his world.

XxX XxX

Bones accosts him after his shift, grumbling the entire way down to Sickbay about how people shouldn't be sticking their noses into private business. And Jim just goddamn knows this is something to do with him and the crew staring at him for the past two days.

Bones pushes him into Sickbay and stands guard over the door, so Jim can't make a run for it when he turns and stares at his bridge crew. His hands start to sweat, and he tucks them behind his back so no one except Bones can see his fingers clenching and his hands shaking. It almost helps to know that Leonard's got his back, the way he did all through school.

“Wha--” He has to stop and clear his throat. “What's this all about?”

“We know about your mother.” Uhura says and Jim exhales, his knees nearly buckling in relief. They didn't think he was unfit for the position, this isn't mutiny. Bones stepped up behind him, a firm hand resting on his shoulder. The man had always had a knack of knowing what he was thinking.

“Captain.” Kirk raised an eyebrow at his first officer. “Humans are an emotional species. There is logic in -”

“No.” Kirk raised a hand, refusing to let anyone else get a word in before he had his say. “Not to get ahead of anyone here, but if this is about my lack of grieving involving my mothers death...” Jim stopped, trying to find a way to word out the next few sentences so he doesn't come off as callous.

“I tried to tell them.” Bones grumps from behind him.

“Captain, there's no need to play the macho man card with us.” Uhura speaks up, her arms crossed, hip cocked out like she's about to play who's the fastest draw. Jim stares at her, blue eyes narrowing as his lips purse. Bones heaves a sigh and the shifting of fabric lets Jim know that he's sitting down, ready to intervene if the situation calls for it. It seriously feels like being a cadet all over again, and Jim doesn't care for it one bit.

“You wanna know why I'm not grieving for the woman who gave birth to me?” Jim scrapes his hands over his face and turns to sit in the other chair, across the table from the Doctor. Why does he have to tell his crew about this, shouldn't his childhood memories be his own?

Jim curses under his breath, knowing that if he doesn't get this out now, their likely to keep pestering him until he finally breaks and screams it at them at the worst possible time. Like on the bridge or on a diplomatic mission or something with some snooty admiral staring at him from the view screen.

“Siddown, all of you.” No one moves to comply and Jim glares. “That's not a suggestion.” Everyone scrambles to grab chairs and Jim feels a little better. He's not looking forward to opening this particular can of worms, but if he doesn't get it out now....well it seems better then the alternative. And he's pretty sure that Spock could probably be convinced that mind melding for the information they're looking for is logical: Uhura can make diving into a volcano logical when she turns those big brown eyes on you.

“You all suck.” There's a few muffled laughs, most of them nervous. Jim's staring at the ceiling, memories shuffling through his mind at light speed. He's trying to maybe pick and choose the not so terrible ones, try to see if living with his mother really was as bad as he had made it out to be to himself.

“When I was three, there were these really cool golden ships on the side tables in our house.” From the widening eyes, Jim imagined they were catching on really quickly. “I didn't know what they were, didn't know Starfleet gave them to my dad for dying in the line of service. All I knew was that they were starships, and they were made of gold. She caught me playing with them, whirling around like I was on the bridge. I still have the scars on my back where she used Dad's belt to teach me a lesson about playing with what isn't mine.”

He stands, clasps his hands tightly behind his back and starts to pace the room, feeling a bit like he's in a zoo with everyone staring at the man in the gilded cage.

“When I was eight, I came home with a score of 96.8 on a math exam, the highest in my class. I thought it would make her happy. She sneered, poured gin on it and lit it on fire in the sink, told me I wasn't George, never would be and to stop trying to act like it.”

He pauses by Leonard, the man's already heard all of this, back at the academy when they were full on sloshed out of their minds. Jim doesn't remember if it was before or after Bones leaned forward and all but swallowed his tongue. Bones has his eyes closed, stretched out as if he's sleeping, but Jim knows that the moment everyone's gone off, he'll be on his feet and full on comfort and booze. The two things Jim loves best about his Doctor, that and his hands. Jim focuses on Leonard's hands, cause this next one is something he still has nightmares about.

“Winona had a boyfriend when I was eleven. He was almost the spitting image of George Kirk.” His mouth goes numb and his skin burns hot then cold. He can still hear the man's voice, feel those pinching fingers on his neck and arms. “Talked like him” He spits out, and he moves away from everyone, can't stand to have another human being near him when he's remembering. “Fucking moved like him.” There's a shift and he knows Bones is sitting up now.

“I drove his car off a cliff, almost went over myself. She was off planet at the time, liked to pretend she'd enlisted when she was at the casinos on Jupiter. Made her feel important.” He can't do this, can't finish why he drove the car over the cliff, how he wished he'd had the guts to just stay in instead of leaping out at the last second. “He...he tried.” Jim scrubs at his mouth and drops his hands to fist at his sides, not meeting the eyes of anyone in the room.

“When Winona got back, he was already gone, pissed off that his classic car was scrap at the bottom of a canyon. She never.” His voice cracks and he takes a deep breath. “She never believed me, about anything, just thought I'd driven off another one.” Jim can feel everything coming to the surface, and Captain or not, he's about to have a nervous breakdown in front of his senior staff. He turns and makes a pleading face at Bones. The man is up in record time, moving in front of Jim like some sort of white Knight of years gone by.

“Jim.” His voice is soft, and there's a hint of are-we-done-here in his eyes, cause he'll end it if Jim wants him to. Kirk takes a deep breath and let it out softly, nearly shuddering with the hate, with the shame. He shakes his head and turns back to the rest of his crew who are watching him with shocked faces. They never expected this. And boy, does it ever get better.

“Tarsus IV,” He mumbles, just loudly enough for everyone to hear. There's a stunned silence, and Jim refuses to make eye contact with anyone, knowing he'll break if he does. He just wants to go back to his quarters and snuggle under the covers. Plaster himself to Bones and hope the memories don't come up tonight the way they have in the past, the acid rush of vomit and despair that always leaves him shuddering by the toilet half sobbing.

“She thought it would be a good learning experience for me. Turns out she was right.” He feels a little better now, doesn't feel too hot fingers pinching his arms, breath burning at the back of his neck. “Brought me home, I was fourteen.” He can get through this, there's just a little bit more to tell. “She had another boyfriend, kind of guy who liked to pound on her for kicks. Never touched me, I wasn't afraid to hit back.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and takes another deep breath. Oh, those nightmares are gonna hit with a vengeance tonight. Jim wonders if he can convince Bones to stay with him through the entire night.

“Guy...his name was Burt, stupid name. He was hitting Winona, no not hitting. Beating, half her face was already broken, she was bleeding like a fountain and he hadn't used anything but his fists. He took of his belt, that's when she started screaming for me. I ran in......he won't ever walk again.” Jim takes the time to smirk a little at the memory, knowing that his crew now thinks a little differently of him. He learned to fight on Tarsus, not just these bar brawls everyone seems to know about. He can kill a man twice before he hits the ground.

Okay, last little bit, he can do this, he can get through this. It's like reciting it for the morons at the psyche ward who thought they could just analyze him and push him out of the way for the next wounded child.

“After she got back from the hospital, she went into a fit. Bitching about how I never thought about anyone but myself. When was it finally her turn to be happy, couldn't I just dissapear and leave her to her life. Threw a bag already packed with my clothes at me and started screaming that if I didn't look so much like my dear old daddy she would have done this years ago. So I left, end of story.”

There, they only wanted to know about Winona, didn't need to know about everything after that. Jim exhales out a sigh, and wants to punch who ever said talking made everything better. Talking only regurgitates bad memories back into the front of your mind.

Bones shoots a killing glare at everyone in the room, they get the drift and leave. Uhura nearly lays a hand on his arm, but the look Kirk shoots her has her hand closing into a fist. She nods once in his direction and leaves with Spock. Probably to discuss why Jim Kirk is the way he is, and all the factors that add into that equation.

Bones wraps his arms around him, strong capable arms, when the last of them leaves. Jim sinks into the embrace, absolutely loving it when Bones gets cuddly. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, Jim makes damn sure to make every second count.

“You okay?” Leonard's voice is gruff with something resembling emotion, but if Jim asks about it, he'll get a scowl and a cuff alongside the head. Something that reassures him more then ten thousand I love you's.

“Fine...” He takes his time with the answer, trying to gage if he should come off as cocky or wounded, wondering what the good Doctor would be expecting from him at the moment. He takes a breath and gets the air squeezed out of him, then a touch of lips to the forehead.

“Don't play me, boy. I can see right through you.” It's the warning that has Jim grinning and burying his head into the warm crook where Leonard's neck meets his shoulder. He shudders once, then again, and there's panic when the tears won't stop.

“Why....why?”

“Didn't think you could just ignore it didja? Idiot moron.” There's affection in that drawl now, Bones runs a soothing hand across Jim's back, pulling him back and down, so Jim can cuddle into Leonard's lap and sob out his wasted childhood like he never thought he wanted to. The tears a complete surprise to him, a shock to his already battered system.

“You still loved her Jim, she was your mother through all of this. It's normal to want her to love you back, normal to grieve the loss even when you tell yourself you hated her and wanted her to die in the most foul of ways.” Leonard is rocking now, a subtle movement that Jim barely feels.

“I don't miss her though.” He tries, hiccoughing and sniffling wetly. Leonard doesn't say anything, just starts to hum a little, some song that sounds familiar to Jim, even as the events of the day pull him down into blessed darkness and dreamless sleep.

Jim wakes up in his own bed, someone is muttering off to the side in what counts as his living room. He throws the covers off, grimacing at the heavy feeling in his sinuses and knowing it means he cried on his boyfriend like a little girl.

“Bones?” He tries tentatively, and the grumbling stops.

“Yeah?”

“Umm....” Now he doesn't know what to ask for fear of sounding like a fool.

“Blow your nose, have a shower and go back to bed. Spock is taking both shifts, goddamn computer.” Bones sound's so normal through all of this, like he didn't have to hold his Captain's hand through his sissy breakdown.

“...” Jim opens his mouth, closes it, scratches his head and goes to comply. He's in the shower, the real water shower in the Captain's quarters that he's bugged Bones about far too many times, when the curtain is pulled back and a blast of cold air hits Jim's skin moments before a warm body is pressed up against him.

“I hate it when you do that.”

“I know.” He can feel the smirk forming from where Bones is nibbling on his shoulder. “Why do you think I do it.” And Jim is laughing, helplessly. Little snickers that make him nearly lose his footing, Bones arm's at his hips the only thing keeping him from falling.

He turns, settles back in, hands linking behind Leonard's head, staring up a little, the good Doctor had a couple inches on him in height. McCoy is grinning down at him, hands skimming along his ass, just touching, nothing sexual...yet.

“Love you.” Jim mutters, ignoring the way Leonard's eyebrow wings up into his hairline. He snickers again and bites at Leonard's smooth line of neck to stop.

“Love you back, you little shit.”