Fic: Observations, Ch 226
“I’m tired of this,” he said into my skin. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
We were lying in bed.
“I’m fucking tired of this. I don’t mean to be a prick.”
“I do not blame you, Jim.”
“I want to go back to how we were before all this shit happened.”
I kissed him.
“I want to back to New York. It wouldn’t have been so bad, Spock. You and me, an apartment. None of this between us.”
“How long were you alone?” I touched the curve of his eyebrow.
“I have no idea. It felt like weeks. They didn’t have night or day, or any way to measure time. It felt like forever. Or one long day.”
“Were the beings incorporeal? What happened?”
“I don’t know. I never got to talk to them face to face, if they have faces at all. Mostly screamed at them until I found myself on the Enterprise.”
I drew him closer to me.
“Meld with me,” he breathed. “I’ll show you everything. Fucking everything. I want you to know. I want you to see.”
My breath caught.
“It will take some time.”
“I don’t care. We’ll take the shifts off, give command to Sulu and Nyota. I’ll tell Bones not to bother us.”
He looked at me, blue eyes blazing.
“I never want to be that fucking alone again, Spock.”
I took his hand in mine.
“Meld with me,” he whispered. “I’ll show you everything. I’m yours, Spock. I’m fucking yours.”
--
the gnaw of hunger the exhaustion and stress, sitting in a corner eyeing the others knife hidden safe and secure. they don’t leave him alone, even after the first and second and third and fourth times. they just keep coming with their friends and friends’ friends and enemies’ enemies because that’s how it works. kill someone and the bloodshed never stops. but not killing is not an option. so kill and kill. doesn’t think about never wanting to or the morality of it, right now the first rule is survival. do anything to survive, live another day, get the fuck out of this warped hole.
where is Spock? where’s the Enterprise? they’ve got to be searching, they’ve got to know. where the hell is Spock?
the killing isn’t totally useless. it’s practice for the Games. it’s gotten him some allies, pacts made in spit and blood to protect each other because my enemy’s enemy is my friend. he’s killed a lot of enemies. they think just because he’s human and new and young he’ll go easy. some of them were recently acquired and they know about Spock. they think because he’s a faggot he’ll take it. fuck them. fuck them.
he’s never been so satisfied with killing someone as the time when that fucking Cardassian tried to pin him and he just sliced him open. the bastard was dead before he even knew it. that was Jim’s third kill. he’s always been a light sleeper, it’s a good trait to have. sliced the Cardassian open right in that sweet spot under his chin and everyone thought he was taking comparative xenobiology to learn about alien g-spots. they don’t fucking know Jim Kirk.
one of the things they teach you at Starfleet is how to count the time to ground yourself and keep track of things. but tracking time is useless here because there’s no rising and falling of any sun, only bright light and the days measured by Games. games and games and games and the thralls shoving food through a gate, prison cells bolted and secure. he learned a long time ago that the first priority isn’t escape, but protecting yourself. escape comes later, after learning the patterns of the guards and planning schemes, bartering information and gaining allies. the first priority is never leave your back exposed because someone will kill you because you’re the new guy, young and inexperienced. baby those blue eyes are too blue to know anything about how the world works and fuck off, he’s seen plenty through these blue eyes.
memory shatters. every single time. he’s not an idiot, he read a few books about the basics of psychology and this is typical in humans. memory shattering and he can’t remember if he killed the Cardassian four games ago or sixteen. no, it was sixteen games ago because the fifteenth game was when he faced Halbfinger and that motherfucker almost broke his legs trapping him in that net. he sprained something, probably. the thrall did something that made the injury go away, but not the pain. it was sixteen games ago because right afterwards, the seventeenth game was when he lost it and fucking slaughtered the guy, tore him apart.
where is Spock? where the hell is Bones when he needs him? where is Spock? they’ve got to be searching for him, but how would they find him? as far as he can tell, this is a self-contained facility with no end. it might even be underground or in an asteroid. everything’s reproduced to mimic the surface of some planet, but somehow they all know that this isn’t the outdoors, and there’s mad cabin fever. mad cabin fever in the form of bloody fights between rivaling factions and shanking people in the showers.
never never never fucking leave your back exposed.
it’s some kind of system but fuck if there’s a pattern to it that he can see. sometimes he’s led to a cell. a cell built theoretically for one person, though you could fit three if you wanted. sometimes they do. the single cells give a false sense of security because, and he’s seen it happen, you finally think you can sleep without getting knifed when the thrall comes in and has some quality one on one time doing whatever the fuck they want. he lucked out. his thrall isn’t a nice guy, but he’s not out to get him. yet.
sometimes he’s led to a cell but most of the time it’s in the pits, friends’ friends and enemies’ enemies roaming around freely. he doesn’t know why they’re all trying to kill each other when they already do that during the Games. it goes back to some feud that got started a long time ago and he wants no part of it, doesn’t care about clan X and group Y shedding blood because gang Z killed off their leader or whatever. he doesn’t want to get dragged into this when all he’s doing is surviving and waiting for Spock to find him but my brother’s enemy is my friend, and he’s really fucking tired. he could use some sleep. that’s probably why in the end, they all get divvied up, because they want to sleep.
and then there are the Games.
he’s a pretty good fighter. has to be, if he’s captain and all that shit. knows his katas, practices form, he’s worked with weapons, the security guys do a good job making sure he stays in shape. even took up a couple of rounds of fencing with Sulu, since wielding a sword’s come in handy more than a few times. swords, in an age of phasers. what the fuck.
they give him a fucking sword. that was after they stripped him down and the thralls pinched and poked him to see his muscle tone and what he was good at, they attacked him out of the fucking blue to see his fighting style and reflexes and made various grunts of approval. he remembers stuff in xenolinguistics. people always thought that Jim Kirk was a fucking airhead know it all jackass player whore nice guy whatever the fuck they wanted. they thought it was stupid that he didn’t remember what the Klingon holidays were and their different salutes, but he thought they were fucking retarded for thinking that shit mattered in the first place. he remembers what the Klingon for “get on your knees” is and that’s all that matters.
he’s always had different priorities. the priority right now is to learn how to use this rusted sword they throw at him how to wear the armor to his advantage and his thrall is quiet but teaches him useful stuff. he thinks he might be able to work with this guy but after two years of learning diplomacy and watching Spock and Uhura wrangle treaties has taught him something. he needs to be patient and hold out for the Enterprise.
people always thought that he was flirty happy go lucky bounces back from everything made of teflon and Bones even said that to him. the truth is that you don’t go through something like Tarsus without being fundamentally changed and things looking completely different. you don’t hear your stepfather and mother tell you to get the fuck out of the house you don’t run through the darkness with your heart in your throat and come out of that experience unchanged. he never felt so fucking scared and helpless in his life and he’s got no idea how he pulled through, how he survived and sometimes he wonders if he survived only because he found Tiff later and they promised each other not in words but in hiding that they’d make it that they’d keep doing whatever it was they were doing.
you don’t go through shit like that without realizing that you’re alone. that no one cares about anything but themselves and when fucking push comes to shove the guy in the grain silo would rather try to kill you than share with some half-starved teenagers you see the true face of people and that makes you promise yourself to always be prepared always be fucking prepared.
it’s frighteningly easy to go back to his old mentality to that mode where it was all about get to the next day and the next and the next, the mindset he used as emotional armor or something that every psychologist would say it’s frighteningly easy to go back despite the fact that he’s got the Enterprise and Spock but Spock’s not here and the Enterprise isn’t here and he’s got no friends no one to take care of but himself and it occurs to him that maybe the Enterprise is in another compound exactly like this one and theories and ideas are about to spin out of control when he clamps down. stops.
he’s alone. he’s fucking alone without a friend or brother or lover and there’s only the gnaw of exhaustion and the Games, the fact that there are no friends here not like the friends he has on the Enterprise there are only allies and enemies and enemies’ enemies. but he needs fucking sleep if he’s going to survive the Games and he’s got to believe that Spock’s searching for him because Spock made a vow a promise never with words but he’s always known. Spock looks at him and he knows that he is Spock’s and Spock is his and that’s about the only thing keeping him sane right now the only thing slowly driving him insane and seriously messing with him because Spock’s not there.
memory shatters and he can’t tell if it was the ninth Game or the twentieth when he almost died because the match was going on for fucking ever and he was dehydrated tired sweating and shivering and feverish but the other guy seemed to have stamina like a fucking bull he was built like a bull and he can’t remember what happened afterwards if the cry that emanated from him as he got sloppy and just decided to charge was of despair or a final throw in to victory.
it’s so confusing and disorienting he can’t orient himself despite the training he was able to perfectly orient himself and stay focused while he was there when he was in it but in this his mind the space of memory reliving it everything is helter skelter like the chaos of a planetary nebula and he remembers when Scotty took catnaps because he catnapped and trained obsessively and was glad there were no mirrors because he would be grey with grime despite the showers where people were shanked regularly.
he does and doesn’t remember how he gained some sort of understanding with his enemies’ enemies and he wonders if they were looking to him as some sort of light to guide them out of the hole if this whole thing was a test to see if he was worthy and he hates those fucking tests like the Kobayashi Maru what the fuck more does he need to prove what the fuck more do they want from him. someone tried to kill him while he was standing under the rusty water but one of the enemies’ enemies gave him a heads up and he was able to grab his blade like a lifeline and kill them before they touched him.
the reason why he never got along in the foster homes was because he’d seen the face of people stripped away and he thought with every single one of them even though they were decent people that on Tarsus they would never think of adopting him giving him food protecting him they would sooner kill him and have a barbeque than help him and you don’t go away from that kind of environment without your sense of trust warped and he always had a problem with authority anyway.
so many people wanted to fix him so many people wanted to show him goodness and pureness or something give him happiness but he thought they were all masks endless masks. but something must have stayed alive in him some kind of hope or some remembrance of his mother’s love of his father’s love sacrificing himself not so that everyone on the Kelvin could get away but so that his mother so that he could get away and have a chance to live and breathe and see the wonder of the universe something of that optimism must have stayed in him and something of Mark’s patience and kindness a stepfather willing to take him on and treat him like his own son put up with all his crap must have stayed with him that he was willing to give things another chance.
and when Pike was giving him a lecture about how pathetic he was and how George Kirk did this and saved people and he was flying the ship through the imaginary space, he was remembering in the back of his mind through the beer haze and the headache building the noseblood trickling down his throat he was remembering his father and Tarsus his mother and the Kelvin his stepfather and the brief faint glow of his childhood before everything shattered and he had no memory but the dark masks of people.
he’s in another hell hole and Spock isn’t there and everyone’s looking out for themselves they all dread and love the Games they kill their thralls they fuck each other they steal food and there’s mad cabin fever. new guys come and go, old guys die and become thralls, and they have no idea what the fuck this is all about except that thralls have orders and they are marked and some say that there were bets that this was all being recorded somewhere and others think it’s just hell. he’s been in hell before. this comes pretty close to all the other hells he’s been in.
no one knows what makes him tick not even himself but after his twenty third or was it his nineteenth Game he puts his enemies’ enemies to use. he has plans. he has information. he always observes and notices-between Spock and Giotto, he’s got that down-and he’s got plans for a prison break. no idea where to go, no idea when, but it will send a message because they all know with the uncanny knowledge of all beings that someone’s watching them. no idea if it’s for science or entertainment and he doesn’t care, but he gathers his self made clan, you stay in the Games long enough everyone dies anyway and he’s been around long enough to be high up and he’s got a bunch of kills on him and they respect him for that and for being a Starfleet captain and the one thing he does best without knowing he’s doing it is getting people to believe in him.
because something must have survived or maybe it’s part of him written into his blood and bones like the rising and falling of the sun on Earth but he doesn’t give up. doesn’t give up even though he’s alone and Spock’s not there doesn’t give up doesn’t give up it’s unacceptable. something must have survived despite the fact that for so many years he was twisted and gnarled more fucked up than anyone he’s ever met he found some way to be friends with Bones found the balls to take up Pike on his offer not because he wanted to outdo his father but because he’s got something to prove to himself. he’s lived with the vision of the masks of people and he had considered Starfleet before but it wasn’t until he got in that barfight when four guys ganged up on him that he knew people are people Starfleet’s flawed and doesn’t get rid of the evil inside intelligence like they pretend to do with their promos about interspecies diversity. cupcake had as much to do with him joining up as Pike, he knows this though he’s not sure why.
he’s got a plan like he’s always got a plan, impetuous and he pretends that Spock’s here and he thinks of what Spock would say and what he would do because even though Spock’s not there he has someone to go home to now. he’s got a legitimate reason to keep going and this is something he’s never had before, this is a new feeling and he doesn’t think about how he’s changed all the creatures he’s killed just to go back to Spock. he doesn’t think about consequences and emotions doesn’t think about how Spock might not recognize this man who kills without hesitation who slips easily into a calculating bastard.
in the process of survival he does things that he’s not proud of because that Machiavellian side that appeared during the transporter accident is in full play right now glorying in the experience the taste of murder and he’s saving the other side hiding him and suppressing him for Spock. Spock who brings out the goodness in him, Spock who changed and transformed him. Spock who believes in him and he doesn’t think about whether or not Spock will still love him after all this is over. after he shows him all the disgusting things he’s done to survive. he doesn’t regret it and never will regret staying alive. he regrets how much satisfaction he got out of killing people though.
people think he’s a saint and savior and he’s not. he’s only as good as the circumstances around him the people who support him. the people who support him here are warped and scared and looking out for themselves and they only look to him because they think he’s got a plan they think he can break them out. he’s become Karidian in his power over this prison he’s become Karidian because he’s considering killing anyone who doesn’t join this growing posse and that would send a fucking message. they can stop the Games by refusing to play but the Game isn’t rigged just that way because for all they know whoever’s watching only has to turn off a switch and they’ll die for lack of air. or they might stop sending food.
food is the first and last thing on everyone’s mind. he doesn’t remember everything because the memory of the fight is mixed with memories of other fights on other planets with Spock by his side but he remembers things like the diagram they drew of what they think the compound is like, the weapons they amassed, the food they saved up for the great escape, the intense code they developed, the information they gathered. he doesn’t remember faces so well because they were constantly changing as Games went on people were replaced.
sometimes all it takes is one person to make the difference and he’s never believed that. he’s never put stock in that because if he could make a difference he’d go back and change things but he’s never one to look back never one to process the past always looking forward always looking past the darkness behind the masks of people the pointlessness the petty evil the indifference they all have and he knows he’s got that same darkness in him too. you don’t leave from a place like Tarsus without knowing your own capability and the price of your survival.
but something must’ve survived because he’s made all the difference in the world to so many people and so many planets and beings and wars stopped and he should be cynical after all he’s seen he should be in a bar bitching about the hard knocks of life but here he is instead organizing a prison revolt and he doesn’t think about shoulds and coulds only they press on him sometimes the expectations and voices of a Federation the past voices of families who tried to fix him but they just couldn’t because he wouldn’t let them come near him.
there’s a timing for everything he’s beginning to see, a timing for diplomacy and war, for science and theory, for trust and traitors. he’s beginning to see how losing Vulcan split him open, not just Spock, and he’s not sure how but becoming captain after seeing something like that becoming captain after using the Red Matter and understanding the true meaning of power, staring at the face of madness but still finding himself offering Nero a chance to live he has no idea where that came from and the rationale he gave Spock was bullshit and he’s never been good at analyzing emotions or knowing what the fuck is going on in his brain, but there’s a timing and a growth, if he lets it happen.
he’s got Spock to go home to. he never thought he would have a home or anyone again, but he does and he’s planning a prison break recruiting thralls setting the timing and there are some motherfuckers who just like fighting so they try to kill him but he’s always alert. doesn’t mess up. can’t afford to mess up because he found a home and he found Spock and he’s going back to them.
where is Spock and why isn’t he here with him?
and when he’s successful and everything goes in planned chaos, he finds himself facing the fucking makers of this system of killing and cabin fever. he finds himself kneeling in agony as they materialize a body and it’s Spock and he’s lifeless. they say it’s his punishment for being so audacious and some alien whips him flays his back open for shits and giggles. he doesn’t care because it’s the body of Spock in front of him and his heart is breaking. shattering.
when he wakes up he’s in Sickbay, Bones yelling for people to clear away and he doesn’t remember anything anymore.