(no subject)
Title: When we were young (Chapter 4)
Author: K_E_Wilson
Rating: PG (see warnings)
Word Count: ~2000 (Still pretty constant)
Disclaimer: Alas, I can't even claim to own the idea for this one- Characters from the great mind of Mr. Roddenberry, copyright to the big-shots, and idea off a prompt.
Warnings: None for this chapter. Just a bar fight or six.
Summary: He doesn't feel normal, and that's pretty okay-- maybe.
A/N: See, I promised no more splits. This one's a VERY tiny bit longer than the previous three, but I'm confident y'all don't mind. Please enjoy and leave a comment. Wasn't planning to update until Tuesday, but since I want to finish this before posting up my WWII AU, I wanted to put this up in honor and memory of those who died today, December 7, in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, signaling the USA's entry into WWII.
CHAPTER 1, CHAPTER 2, CHAPTER 3
He grows, and with that comes the bitter knowledge that he's almost too different. Others only see the constant fight against the memory of his father- and, yes, that part is still there. He doesn't want to be known just as "George Kirk's boy" because he knows he's another person entirely- another four people entirely, if he's going to be completely honest with himself; And that makes him fight harder against it, because it's the one thing all of them agree on completely beyond Frank- all of them want to be known. Jimmy for being a good son, Jamie for surviving, Jim for himself, and Sam- Sam wants them to be known because it would make the others happy.
It's taken a while, but Sam helps him control the others. The three of them come out at will, sometimes, but it's become less frequent. With the drop in frequency, though, Jamie's times are becoming more violent, longer... and as puberty passes, as sex comes in- a wonderful, blissful other thing Jamie finds more power in the similar tastes he shares with Jim while Jimmy shies away from it, and Sam looks on, ready to catch them all in the fallout.
Just before Sixteen, they loose what virginity it could be said they have left- it's quick, it's dirty, and it's entirely violent. Jamie's in control when it happens, and he finds a wild card girl near one of the shit hole bars in Riverside, near the shipyard where they're just finished with the skeleton of the new Constellation Class USS Enterprise. They're out celebrating; Jim'd been able to scrape them a job, with Sam's help. Welding, not on the Enterprise itself, but he wouldn't want to do that anyway, because that would put him too close to Starfleet- to his father.
But they got the job, welding and fixing the heaps of junk that passed as hovercraft in Riverside. And Jamie had taken the opportunity to get them drunk off the bottle of whiskey that hid in their closet and drag them out to 'get some action' with a woman- there was no doubt that she was just that, a woman- who's name they never learn, and somehow that doesn't bother any of them.
After that, it had been like addiction and Jamie grew in presence and power. Jimmy got pushed to the side, weak and not willing to try and battle for power or position like the others were- not over something like this- until he was only the little voice with his mother's lullabies that helped calm Jim and helped Sam keep Jamie at bay sometimes.
They go through six years of it; hopping bars that barely scrap inspections because they're able to get drunk off their asses there, starting brawls when getting laid just isn't enough to satisfy. They get arrested, roll up a wrap sheet that extends past and way beyond the corvette flying over the cliff after Sammy left. The cops in Riverside start watching them, start arresting them whenever they can because a night in the cell means a night they don't have to worry about the fucked-up kid with a daddy complex causing trouble.
There's one officer- Mallory- who almost figures it out, almost figures all of it out- Frank, Tarsus, Jimmy, Jamie, Sam...
He finds Jim, passed out in a cell and drunk off his ass at seventeen, and he looks him up- looks at his history. He sees the Genius-level-repeat-offender, but he looks past that. He sees the goddamn vaccinations for interstellar travel, and he sees the gaps in his history when he was fucking thirteen. He sees the gaping black hole in his shcooling that Starfleet had been sure nobody would fucking notice- but, then, when the hell did Jim Kirk get off trusting Starfleet anymore?
Mallory corners them in the morning, and Jamie's immediately in control, belligerant and young and violent as the others stare on in shock, unable to react past "Tarsus IV" and "Survivor" and "Kodos". It's the one time Jim's been proud of Jimmy- battling for every one of them to be left the fuck alone, his presence overwhelmingly protective and defenseive.
But Mallory gets promoted and sent to a new city-it's nowhere near as couth as Starfleet could make it, but the message is clear- leave the fucking kid alone- and Jim feels safe again. They all relax after Mallory, and they break away- Eighteen, barely legal, and they're renting the shitty apartment down the road from the auto shop, scraping by paycheck-to-paycheck and enduring; Tolerating it even when they aren't quite making ends meet, because no matter how frequently Winona Kirk calls to beg them to come home, with that haunted and lost look in her eyes, no matter how many times, it's not worth seeing Frank again.
So when Jamie took over in the Shipyard Bar when they were twenty-two, Jim knew he was completely fucked. Sure, the chick had been sweet- those legs just would. not. stop.- but he'd been ready to back off when she turned him down. He was amiably drunk; there were plenty of other willing ladies who wouldn't hesitate to take a roll in the hay for a flash of teeth and a pickup line.
But Jamie was fixated on her, because he always did that. Picked one and stuck with it until he got his way or he got a fight. Jim thrashed in the back of his mind as he felt his body beaten. The whistle, a loud piercing sound, sent Jamie rolling with laughter back to his place and left Jim panting on the table, blood flowing freely as he stared up at the man who had cleared all but the few locals from the bar with only a barked command. Must be nice to be listened to like that, he thought, but the only thing to tumble off his fucking lips was "You can whistle really loud..." which sounded like he was much more drunk than he actually was, because with the sharp release of Jamie's hold on him, he could tell that more alcohol had been spilled ON him in the past half hour than had been put IN him, and wasn't that just the biggest tragedy since motherfucking Tarsus?
Pike's challenge was well played. He tried poking at the 'dear fond memories' card- which had only appealed to Jimmy, and bit into Jim with a bitter knife- tried the guilt card- something Sam had balked at and had Jamie gnashing at the bit again- hell, he'd even attempted the same-old repeat-offender, genious level, but at that point, Jim's heard that one so many times he's ready to die laughing over it- and, finally, as he stood to leave, he had to fucking say that.
Dare? James T. Kirk never could learn when to back down- it was a quality that, until rather recently, he'd liked in himself. But as Pike stood to leave, DARING him to beat his father- which, fuck, he'd face it, was what he'd been TRYING to do all his goddamn life- offering him a CHANCE to do that... Sam, Jimmy, Jim, hell even Jamie were at attention, all thought focused on what Pike was saying.
They didn't sleep that night, though Sam tried to take over and lead them back to the hellhole of a little apartment near the garage they were holed up in. They took the bike and rode clean out to where the goddamn Enterprise stood, and he found himself just staring at it. A jarring thought occurred to him that he was looking at the ship like it was a woman- assessing it's curves, it's shape, design, even it's coloring. You sleep in a star ship, not with it. He reminded himself fiercely, trying to ignore the soothing presence of Sam, trying to coax him to forget about the ACTION of enlisting in the 'Fleet, and to think about what he could DO.
Jimmy, it turns out, was the real reason he was able to drop his life in Riverside and get on that god-forsaken 'fleet shuttle.
It was five AM, and he had just pulled in to the little shitty apartments, and the little lullaby he'd been listening to half-heartedly for the better part of an hour stopped suddenly. Jamie was grumbling darkly to himself, still angry he'd not gotten the cadet girl, and Sam was still trying to soothe Jim into listening to 'reason'. But Jimmy's voice suddenly stopped and Jim froze on the bike, eyes wide, terrified beyond belief that he wasn't just changing songs again- Jimmy, who'd been teetering on disappearing into Jamie for a while, by that point- but then, the little voice was back in his mind.
I want to go, Jim.
So quiet and so timid, if he'd not been on edge with terror that it wouldn't be there anymore, he'd not have heard it...
And it was decided; just as simple as that.
Jim surged off his bike, banging on his landlord's door at five fifteen in the morning. When the irate woman came to talk to him, he told her he was leaving, said to sell off the shit in his apartment and gave her what credits he had in his pocket- a hundred fifty, another month's rent. She didn't complain, and he didn't wait around. Swinging himself back onto the bike, he'd beat it for the shop.
Jamie was gnashing again, trying to win control as Sam raged the battle back and the noise in his mind was overpowering, but he knew where he was going. He had to wait an hour and a half for Jose to show up to open shop, and the man was none too happy Jim was taking off- it did little good in assuring him he wasn't demanding a final pay check. Jim left him there, pissed off and cursing, to speed down the two-lane highway toward where the ship yard lay in wait. He'd had to slow four times while passing patrol bots, Jamie feeding off the anger as they dropped below seventy and then back up to eighty-five, ninety. All in all, when he reached the ship yard, Jimmy's tiny plea still ringing in his ears, he hadn't thought about how the hell he was going to get in.
It had been Seven fifteen by the time the Enterprise loomed up into the sky above him, and he'd had to think fast. The guard was looking at him like he was pond scum- which, admittedly, he felt a close kinship to right now, covered in road grit, his jaw throbbing slightly from the punches and hours awake he'd endured, and blood coating the front of his shirt in trickles, the dried remnants of what he wasn't able to wipe off still cracking at his chin. The guard didn't buy that he was here to enlist, didn't look like the kind of guy who'd take well to a sexual pass- even from someone like Jim (which was a pretty big disappointment, actually, because the guy looked like he was all wiry muscles and green eyes).
What got him in, at Seven forty, was saying he was Pike's nephew. He hoped the old man wouldn't mind terribly, and when he met up with him at the shuttle, the Captain didn't even question how he was there, just looked happy to have him. And if he smiled just a bit wider when Jim announced his intent to graduate in three years, well that was just part of the game, wasn't it?
Jamie took a sick pleasure in Jim taunting the cadet who had bashed their face in, the fight dying a little at this modest appeasement as Jim lowered himself into the harnessed seat. Jamie wasn't pleased by that- hated being in the box-like setting, wanted to see the sky, or the stars, always. Jimmy tried to calm him with a surprising amount of success. Jamie subsided, prowling his mind behind the others, his mutterings constant. Eyes scanning around him, trying to see if anyone could catch the war in his mind, he was distracted by a commotion near the entrance.
Twisting himself, he could see an extremely scruffy man, arguing with a flight attendant, who was threatening to make him sit down.
Jim felt Jamie still, and for a minute he was a bit lost, the sudden end of the struggle in his mind that didn't end with himself in the back had a certain whatthehell quality. But Sam was right there, on the edge of his conscious as he watched the man flop into the seat beside them, eyes dark in the poor lighting and shoulders hunched in what was clearly a defensive stance that read I want nothing to do with you fuckers, STAY AWAY. His hands continually twitched about, and as Sam leaked through, tried to soothe him- the fliers were safe- he could see the man assessing him, watched those psudo-insane eyes dart over them. That pleased Jamie, who wanted to assess the man directly in return. Jimmy felt a little uneasy for a moment as Jim and the man continued to banter about the relative safety- or, in the other's case, lack thereof- of the shuttle craft. But when the man introduced himself, "Leonard McCoy" Jim couldn't help but introduce himself in return. After all, it wouldn't have been polite to push the only other person without a goddamn red uniform away.
And when McCoy didn't immediately spark in recognizance at his name, didn't take back the small flask that flashed to Jim's lips,Jimmy eased, and Jim felt the smile stretch his face.
CHAPTER 5