Long Way Home part five
Part Five
Midnight found Jim gasping into the sweat slick skin of a Betazoid woman. Her golden skin rippled under his hands and she kept murmuring words he didn’t - couldn’t - understand into his ear as she ran her hands through his hair. A few hours later had him on his knees, lip split from the bar brawl, stinging from the salt-heavy tang of the cock in his mouth, moaning in time to the thrust of the cock in his ass.
What few hours of sleep he got, he did not dream.
It was his unfortunate luck to run into his first officer and Uhura on his way to see Bones the next morning.
“Captain!” Uhura’s eyes were wide as she strode to his side.
Crap. “Yeah, hi,” Jim continued at a sedate pace to the medical bay. “Aren’t you due on the bridge?”
“Not for an hour,” the woman kept pace with him. Jim twitched a glance over his shoulder. Spock loomed behind him.
“Yeah, well, don’t let me interrupt your breakfast,” Jim made shooing motions.
“You have been assaulted,” Spock said.
“What, this? No, no. Just bruises.”
“Captain,” Uhura’s eyes had narrowed.
“Seriously, it’s fine.” Jim forced out. Walking was a bit…delicate. “You’re going to miss breakfast. All good communications officers need a healthy start to the day, right? Bones will fix me up. Go on.”
“Captain.”
“It’s just some scrapes, Uhura.”
“Captain. Jim,” she caught his arm on a particularly nasty bruise. Damn. The orgy had been a great idea at the time. He thought. The pretty-eyed man had sure been convincing. So had the Romulan ale.
“Look, it’s my own damn fault,” Jim tugged at his hand. “If I’d remembered to get a dermal regenerator, this wouldn’t be happening. So leave me to my walk of punishment and go on.”
Uhura had pushed back the sleeve of his uniform. A dark, splotchy bruise was mottled around his wrist. “You - were you held?”
Jim yanked harder, gaining freedom. “It was a good idea at the time. I think,” he tried for a leer. It came out halfhearted.
“You think,” Uhura said.
“Romulan ale,” Jim gave her a sheepish smile. “And a blue smoking…thing. Tasted like peaches.” Jim sighed. “Free ones, too. Never did get the name of them. Bones would have loved them.”
“You were not with Dr. McCoy?” Spock asked.
“Jim!” The man himself advanced on them from the door to the medical bay. “There you are. I’m a doctor, Jim, not a bloodhound.”
“Cool your jets,” Jim rolled his eyes at the man. “I’m right here.”
“You weren’t with him last night?” Uhura followed them into the bay.
“Bones, tell her I’m fine.”
Bones fixed him with a sharp glare. “I oughta brain you.”
“Hey! You can’t do that! I’m the captain!”
“Captain clueless,” McCoy struck him with a hypo. Jim yelped and kicked out at him.
“I don’t need more shots.”
“What you need is a keeper,” Bones shoved a dermal regenerator in his hands. “Go on.”
“What, no bed side treatment?”
Bones glared at him. “You want me to yank down your -”
“All right, all right,” Jim waved his hands at the man, cutting a glance at Uhura and the stone-faced Vulcan looming behind her.
“Go,” Bones raised an arm, finger pointed at the privacy room.
“Jesus, you’re worse than my mother.”
He must have been misheard Bones say, “I would hope so.”
Uhura and Spock followed him from the medical bay to the mess and from the mess to the bridge, despite Jim’s assurances that he was fine, thank you. No, really, fine. As in he could walk the halls of his own ship without a pair of guard dogs evaluating his every step. He’d been walking unassisted since before his second birthday, thank you.
“Like you could remember,” Uhura had scoffed.
Jim tapped the faint scar on his cheek. “Got the proof right here. First dive off the front porch steps. Bled all over the boards. Still have the stain to prove it.”
Uhura’s horrified expression had thrown him for a moment.
“It was the outside steps,” he reassured her. “My stepdad never fixed anything outside if he could help it. I cleaned up all the later spills inside.”
Her expression hadn’t changed. Women. It wasn’t like he’d let the stains set on the linoleum, Jesus. His stepdad would have really shit a brick then.
They had an easy undocking and sedate cruise into the neutral zone. They were transferring the ambassadors to Sirius One, a sprawling Federation station that circled the binary star. A three-week trip at maximum warp. Jim was content to sign off on Scotty’s request to let the engines go full throttle; there had been a number of “upgrades” in Scotty’s latest tests. Jim was curious to see how the efficiency reports came out. All the better on their budget if they could eke what they could from their fuel supplies. Maybe then he could order the latest gadget Bones had been griping about.
Uh. He was musing over the budget. He was such an adult. His life. He couldn’t believe it sometimes.
He accepted the older Spock’s invitation to dinner that night.
“They never said being the Captain meant fussing over the budget,” he told the Vulcan over a plate of greens and tangy fruit.
Spock the elder’s eyes creased at the corners.
“You’re laughing at me,” Jim pointed his fork at him.
“I am not.”
“On the inside.”
“Perhaps.”
Jim rolled his eyes.
“I am curious,” Spock said as they moved to coffee on the couch after diner.
“About what?”
“You,” the Vulcan cradled his tea in gnarled hands.
“You…you know all about me.”
“A version of you,” Spock countered. “I would like to know you as you have come to be in this timeline.”
That warmth bloomed in his chest. “Well,” Jim chewed on his lower lip. “I have the longest juvenile record in Iowa I bet…” He stuck to the pranks he had pulled as a kid, out late as his stepdad drank himself to sleep on the couch.
Jim’s days fell into an odd sort of pattern after that. In the mornings he was accosted by Uhura and Spock. He either had dinner with the older Spock or in the mess with Bones - with Uhura and Spock attending on the days he wasn’t with the Ambassador.
His dreams, however, were a different story. Without the memories playing out at night, Jim’s mind had conjured back all the night terrors he used to have as a kid. They came rushing back with a vengeance, as if making up for time lost. Every scenario his subconscious could dream up played out in his dreams at night. Perhaps that’s why the Kobayashi Maru had never scared Jim. He had lived through worse several times a week for years.
Jim had lost count of the shrinks he’d been forced to see when he was young, before his mom had married Frank and then left on the first starship out of the system. Jim had always had nightmares, great screaming terrors that would rouse the whole house at night. Sometimes he remembered them, most not. Jim had grown used to them, of sorts, by the time he’d taken up Pike’s challenge. Late nights studying meant that his brain latched onto the facts and figures from his texts instead of the more twisted things his subconscious could draw up, like Tarsus IV, Frank and the long lonely hall of a starship. Of all the things that his brain could have been terrified of the most, it was a blank corridor, turning, turning, never ending, with no doors or windows in sight. Just a beige carpet with red trim, banked lights set near the ceiling and silence. Deep, terrible silence that was broken only by the even more terrifying version of the dream. A broken, reverberating claxon would sound, crackling as if it were coming out of an antique radio, buzzing with static, buzz buzzing, BUZZ buzzing, BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ -
Jim woke with a gasp, sweat slicking his skin, chest heaving. Jesus. He hated that dream.
The alarm buzzed at the edge of the bed. Jim had it up and hurled against the wall in a flash.
“It’s just a dream,” he pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes. “Just a goddamn dream.”
It was Ambassador Spock’s last day on board. They had docked with Sirius One during the night. The Freedom was waiting for their passengers, the newest ship of the line from Earth’s overworked space ports. It would be taking the ambassadors back to Earth and New Vulcan.
Jim was still feeling the dregs of his dream as he turned up at the Ambassador’s door to see him off. Jim had hid in his rooms to avoid his first officer and Uhura. He hadn’t had such a strong dream in…well, a year.
“Jim,” the older Spock greeted him as Jim entered.
“Spock,” Jim crossed the distance between them.
“I am glad to see you before I go,” Spock said, sinking onto the couch.
“It’s the least I could do,” Jim sat next to him.
“I…” the old Vulcan paused, head tilted to one side. “I wished to thank you.”
“Me?”
“You are and always shall be my friend,” a brief smile touched his face. “But I believe I have been…selfish, my old friend.”
“You selfish? Not possible.”
“Yes, it is indeed possible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Forgive me,” Spock’s eyes were crinkled in the corners. “I cannot tell you all of it.”
“All…right. I trust you.” Jim frowned at the Vulcan.
“Yes, but it is the younger me you should learn to trust as well.”
“I trust him!”
“Jim.”
“I totally trust him.” Jim threw a hand in the air. “I think you got it turned around. The younger you doesn’t think I can breathe without my mouth open. And that last diplomatic mission was not my fault,” Jim said before the Vulcan could cut him off. “I had it under control. There was no need to send a security team with the younger you. Really.”
“Jim.”
“No, really.”
Spock laughed. Jim beamed, pleased he had coaxed the rare sound from the man.
“Jim,” Spock said, sobering.
“…Yeah?”
“In part because of the memories you held, I am afraid the rapport between my younger self and you has yet to form.”
“What?”
“There was some truth to my statement of paradox concerning my counterpart and I. While you contained remnants of my memory, my younger self would have been able to feel the…vibrations of temporal displacement lingering in your aura.”
“Spock’s avoiding me because I give off bad vibes?”
Another smile. “To oversimplify, yes.”
“And now?”
“Now, as you say, there are no more bad vibes.”
“What is - wait, did he know about the,” Jim gestured at his face. “Thingy?”
“No. My younger self has, most likely, been reacting on a subconscious level.”
“Oh.” Jim let his shoulders slump. “So…he’s going to, what? Avoid me because I’ve got the equivalent of It’s A Small World chiming around my aura?” God. It was just like in his dream. All alone with nothing but the buzz.
“No, Jim,” the older Vulcan’s tone was gentle.
“No?” Jim risked a glance at him.
“Your friendship shall be the most defining of your life,” Spock laid a hand over Jim’s. He got a flash, breathless, of a younger hand, smooth and tanned, clasped on the junction of Jim’s counterpoint’s neck, who had his head thrown back laughing.
“Easy for you to say now,” Jim couldn’t help the wistful tone.
“What use would you have for anything easy?” Spock withdrew his hand. “Above all else, you shall never lose my friendship,” the Vulcan tucked his hands into his sleeves. “I wish you luck on everything else.”
Jim rose with the older Vulcan and escorted him to the transporter room. His first officer was waiting for them.
“Ambassador,” Spock the younger said.
“Mr. Spock.”
Jim eyed the pair. Time paradox. He still wasn’t sure if he believed the elder that nothing bad would happen if they touched. Bad B movie scenes flashed through his head.
“Jim,” the Ambassador turned to him.
“I’ll see you again,” Jim promised the solemn eyes.
“I would enjoy that,” the Ambassador mounted the pad. With a graceful nod, the Ambassador faded from sight. Jim held his gaze until there was nothing left.
Jim let out a breath. “Time, crewman?”
“It is a quarter to eight,” his first officer answered instead.
“…Thanks,” Jim ran a hand over his head. If he sprinted, he might be able to grab a cup of coffee before he was due on the bridge. Jim shifted the man a glance and headed for the door.
Spock fell into step with him in the hall. “You have not visited the mess this morning.”
“Nope.”
“Dietary regulation -”
“I’m fine.”
“Human nutritional -”
“Mr. Spock.”
“Captain.”
Jim felt the muscle flex in his jaw. “Yeah, I’m going to get some coffee and I’ll meet you on the bridge, Mr. Spock.” The contrast between the older version of Spock and the current shadow dogging his heels felt like glass rubbed into fresh wounds at the moment.
Sam was wrong. Jim gave the memory of his older brother’s childish advice the finger. Having more than one friend was overrated. Bones and me are just. Fine.
“Captain.”
Jim stopped. “Yes?” He turned at the unexpected pause. Spock had a - yes, puzzled set to his brows. Jim had seen that expression before. On a much older face.
“I seem to have offended you.”
Jim let out a gusting sigh. “No, no,” he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry.”
“You have done nothing that requires an apology,” Spock said.
It was going to be one of those days. Jim was grateful he had scheduled leave for that night. “Look, just…forget it,” he said.
“Captain.”
“It’s fine, Spock.”
“Jim.”
His name stopped him cold. He glanced up at the Vulcan. The puzzled expression was gone. A set to the expressive brows-of-doom, as Bones like to call them, was in a position Jim was unfamiliar with.
“I need some coffee before shift,” Jim eased a step back from his first officer. “I’ll see you on the bridge.”
“Yes, Jim.”
Jim could feel his eyes go wide as he turned and hotfooted it out of there.
Part Six
Midnight found Jim gasping into the sweat slick skin of a Betazoid woman. Her golden skin rippled under his hands and she kept murmuring words he didn’t - couldn’t - understand into his ear as she ran her hands through his hair. A few hours later had him on his knees, lip split from the bar brawl, stinging from the salt-heavy tang of the cock in his mouth, moaning in time to the thrust of the cock in his ass.
What few hours of sleep he got, he did not dream.
It was his unfortunate luck to run into his first officer and Uhura on his way to see Bones the next morning.
“Captain!” Uhura’s eyes were wide as she strode to his side.
Crap. “Yeah, hi,” Jim continued at a sedate pace to the medical bay. “Aren’t you due on the bridge?”
“Not for an hour,” the woman kept pace with him. Jim twitched a glance over his shoulder. Spock loomed behind him.
“Yeah, well, don’t let me interrupt your breakfast,” Jim made shooing motions.
“You have been assaulted,” Spock said.
“What, this? No, no. Just bruises.”
“Captain,” Uhura’s eyes had narrowed.
“Seriously, it’s fine.” Jim forced out. Walking was a bit…delicate. “You’re going to miss breakfast. All good communications officers need a healthy start to the day, right? Bones will fix me up. Go on.”
“Captain.”
“It’s just some scrapes, Uhura.”
“Captain. Jim,” she caught his arm on a particularly nasty bruise. Damn. The orgy had been a great idea at the time. He thought. The pretty-eyed man had sure been convincing. So had the Romulan ale.
“Look, it’s my own damn fault,” Jim tugged at his hand. “If I’d remembered to get a dermal regenerator, this wouldn’t be happening. So leave me to my walk of punishment and go on.”
Uhura had pushed back the sleeve of his uniform. A dark, splotchy bruise was mottled around his wrist. “You - were you held?”
Jim yanked harder, gaining freedom. “It was a good idea at the time. I think,” he tried for a leer. It came out halfhearted.
“You think,” Uhura said.
“Romulan ale,” Jim gave her a sheepish smile. “And a blue smoking…thing. Tasted like peaches.” Jim sighed. “Free ones, too. Never did get the name of them. Bones would have loved them.”
“You were not with Dr. McCoy?” Spock asked.
“Jim!” The man himself advanced on them from the door to the medical bay. “There you are. I’m a doctor, Jim, not a bloodhound.”
“Cool your jets,” Jim rolled his eyes at the man. “I’m right here.”
“You weren’t with him last night?” Uhura followed them into the bay.
“Bones, tell her I’m fine.”
Bones fixed him with a sharp glare. “I oughta brain you.”
“Hey! You can’t do that! I’m the captain!”
“Captain clueless,” McCoy struck him with a hypo. Jim yelped and kicked out at him.
“I don’t need more shots.”
“What you need is a keeper,” Bones shoved a dermal regenerator in his hands. “Go on.”
“What, no bed side treatment?”
Bones glared at him. “You want me to yank down your -”
“All right, all right,” Jim waved his hands at the man, cutting a glance at Uhura and the stone-faced Vulcan looming behind her.
“Go,” Bones raised an arm, finger pointed at the privacy room.
“Jesus, you’re worse than my mother.”
He must have been misheard Bones say, “I would hope so.”
Uhura and Spock followed him from the medical bay to the mess and from the mess to the bridge, despite Jim’s assurances that he was fine, thank you. No, really, fine. As in he could walk the halls of his own ship without a pair of guard dogs evaluating his every step. He’d been walking unassisted since before his second birthday, thank you.
“Like you could remember,” Uhura had scoffed.
Jim tapped the faint scar on his cheek. “Got the proof right here. First dive off the front porch steps. Bled all over the boards. Still have the stain to prove it.”
Uhura’s horrified expression had thrown him for a moment.
“It was the outside steps,” he reassured her. “My stepdad never fixed anything outside if he could help it. I cleaned up all the later spills inside.”
Her expression hadn’t changed. Women. It wasn’t like he’d let the stains set on the linoleum, Jesus. His stepdad would have really shit a brick then.
They had an easy undocking and sedate cruise into the neutral zone. They were transferring the ambassadors to Sirius One, a sprawling Federation station that circled the binary star. A three-week trip at maximum warp. Jim was content to sign off on Scotty’s request to let the engines go full throttle; there had been a number of “upgrades” in Scotty’s latest tests. Jim was curious to see how the efficiency reports came out. All the better on their budget if they could eke what they could from their fuel supplies. Maybe then he could order the latest gadget Bones had been griping about.
Uh. He was musing over the budget. He was such an adult. His life. He couldn’t believe it sometimes.
He accepted the older Spock’s invitation to dinner that night.
“They never said being the Captain meant fussing over the budget,” he told the Vulcan over a plate of greens and tangy fruit.
Spock the elder’s eyes creased at the corners.
“You’re laughing at me,” Jim pointed his fork at him.
“I am not.”
“On the inside.”
“Perhaps.”
Jim rolled his eyes.
“I am curious,” Spock said as they moved to coffee on the couch after diner.
“About what?”
“You,” the Vulcan cradled his tea in gnarled hands.
“You…you know all about me.”
“A version of you,” Spock countered. “I would like to know you as you have come to be in this timeline.”
That warmth bloomed in his chest. “Well,” Jim chewed on his lower lip. “I have the longest juvenile record in Iowa I bet…” He stuck to the pranks he had pulled as a kid, out late as his stepdad drank himself to sleep on the couch.
Jim’s days fell into an odd sort of pattern after that. In the mornings he was accosted by Uhura and Spock. He either had dinner with the older Spock or in the mess with Bones - with Uhura and Spock attending on the days he wasn’t with the Ambassador.
His dreams, however, were a different story. Without the memories playing out at night, Jim’s mind had conjured back all the night terrors he used to have as a kid. They came rushing back with a vengeance, as if making up for time lost. Every scenario his subconscious could dream up played out in his dreams at night. Perhaps that’s why the Kobayashi Maru had never scared Jim. He had lived through worse several times a week for years.
Jim had lost count of the shrinks he’d been forced to see when he was young, before his mom had married Frank and then left on the first starship out of the system. Jim had always had nightmares, great screaming terrors that would rouse the whole house at night. Sometimes he remembered them, most not. Jim had grown used to them, of sorts, by the time he’d taken up Pike’s challenge. Late nights studying meant that his brain latched onto the facts and figures from his texts instead of the more twisted things his subconscious could draw up, like Tarsus IV, Frank and the long lonely hall of a starship. Of all the things that his brain could have been terrified of the most, it was a blank corridor, turning, turning, never ending, with no doors or windows in sight. Just a beige carpet with red trim, banked lights set near the ceiling and silence. Deep, terrible silence that was broken only by the even more terrifying version of the dream. A broken, reverberating claxon would sound, crackling as if it were coming out of an antique radio, buzzing with static, buzz buzzing, BUZZ buzzing, BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ -
Jim woke with a gasp, sweat slicking his skin, chest heaving. Jesus. He hated that dream.
The alarm buzzed at the edge of the bed. Jim had it up and hurled against the wall in a flash.
“It’s just a dream,” he pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes. “Just a goddamn dream.”
It was Ambassador Spock’s last day on board. They had docked with Sirius One during the night. The Freedom was waiting for their passengers, the newest ship of the line from Earth’s overworked space ports. It would be taking the ambassadors back to Earth and New Vulcan.
Jim was still feeling the dregs of his dream as he turned up at the Ambassador’s door to see him off. Jim had hid in his rooms to avoid his first officer and Uhura. He hadn’t had such a strong dream in…well, a year.
“Jim,” the older Spock greeted him as Jim entered.
“Spock,” Jim crossed the distance between them.
“I am glad to see you before I go,” Spock said, sinking onto the couch.
“It’s the least I could do,” Jim sat next to him.
“I…” the old Vulcan paused, head tilted to one side. “I wished to thank you.”
“Me?”
“You are and always shall be my friend,” a brief smile touched his face. “But I believe I have been…selfish, my old friend.”
“You selfish? Not possible.”
“Yes, it is indeed possible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Forgive me,” Spock’s eyes were crinkled in the corners. “I cannot tell you all of it.”
“All…right. I trust you.” Jim frowned at the Vulcan.
“Yes, but it is the younger me you should learn to trust as well.”
“I trust him!”
“Jim.”
“I totally trust him.” Jim threw a hand in the air. “I think you got it turned around. The younger you doesn’t think I can breathe without my mouth open. And that last diplomatic mission was not my fault,” Jim said before the Vulcan could cut him off. “I had it under control. There was no need to send a security team with the younger you. Really.”
“Jim.”
“No, really.”
Spock laughed. Jim beamed, pleased he had coaxed the rare sound from the man.
“Jim,” Spock said, sobering.
“…Yeah?”
“In part because of the memories you held, I am afraid the rapport between my younger self and you has yet to form.”
“What?”
“There was some truth to my statement of paradox concerning my counterpart and I. While you contained remnants of my memory, my younger self would have been able to feel the…vibrations of temporal displacement lingering in your aura.”
“Spock’s avoiding me because I give off bad vibes?”
Another smile. “To oversimplify, yes.”
“And now?”
“Now, as you say, there are no more bad vibes.”
“What is - wait, did he know about the,” Jim gestured at his face. “Thingy?”
“No. My younger self has, most likely, been reacting on a subconscious level.”
“Oh.” Jim let his shoulders slump. “So…he’s going to, what? Avoid me because I’ve got the equivalent of It’s A Small World chiming around my aura?” God. It was just like in his dream. All alone with nothing but the buzz.
“No, Jim,” the older Vulcan’s tone was gentle.
“No?” Jim risked a glance at him.
“Your friendship shall be the most defining of your life,” Spock laid a hand over Jim’s. He got a flash, breathless, of a younger hand, smooth and tanned, clasped on the junction of Jim’s counterpoint’s neck, who had his head thrown back laughing.
“Easy for you to say now,” Jim couldn’t help the wistful tone.
“What use would you have for anything easy?” Spock withdrew his hand. “Above all else, you shall never lose my friendship,” the Vulcan tucked his hands into his sleeves. “I wish you luck on everything else.”
Jim rose with the older Vulcan and escorted him to the transporter room. His first officer was waiting for them.
“Ambassador,” Spock the younger said.
“Mr. Spock.”
Jim eyed the pair. Time paradox. He still wasn’t sure if he believed the elder that nothing bad would happen if they touched. Bad B movie scenes flashed through his head.
“Jim,” the Ambassador turned to him.
“I’ll see you again,” Jim promised the solemn eyes.
“I would enjoy that,” the Ambassador mounted the pad. With a graceful nod, the Ambassador faded from sight. Jim held his gaze until there was nothing left.
Jim let out a breath. “Time, crewman?”
“It is a quarter to eight,” his first officer answered instead.
“…Thanks,” Jim ran a hand over his head. If he sprinted, he might be able to grab a cup of coffee before he was due on the bridge. Jim shifted the man a glance and headed for the door.
Spock fell into step with him in the hall. “You have not visited the mess this morning.”
“Nope.”
“Dietary regulation -”
“I’m fine.”
“Human nutritional -”
“Mr. Spock.”
“Captain.”
Jim felt the muscle flex in his jaw. “Yeah, I’m going to get some coffee and I’ll meet you on the bridge, Mr. Spock.” The contrast between the older version of Spock and the current shadow dogging his heels felt like glass rubbed into fresh wounds at the moment.
Sam was wrong. Jim gave the memory of his older brother’s childish advice the finger. Having more than one friend was overrated. Bones and me are just. Fine.
“Captain.”
Jim stopped. “Yes?” He turned at the unexpected pause. Spock had a - yes, puzzled set to his brows. Jim had seen that expression before. On a much older face.
“I seem to have offended you.”
Jim let out a gusting sigh. “No, no,” he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry.”
“You have done nothing that requires an apology,” Spock said.
It was going to be one of those days. Jim was grateful he had scheduled leave for that night. “Look, just…forget it,” he said.
“Captain.”
“It’s fine, Spock.”
“Jim.”
His name stopped him cold. He glanced up at the Vulcan. The puzzled expression was gone. A set to the expressive brows-of-doom, as Bones like to call them, was in a position Jim was unfamiliar with.
“I need some coffee before shift,” Jim eased a step back from his first officer. “I’ll see you on the bridge.”
“Yes, Jim.”
Jim could feel his eyes go wide as he turned and hotfooted it out of there.
Part Six