Fic: Goodness is a Difficulty
Third installment in what I've come to think of as the 'Fruits of Spirit' universe. I ended up abandoning all homework over the weekend to get this thing written. The title comes from a quote by Anne Rice.
Title: Goodness is a Difficulty
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/Mccoy
Relationship Status: Established
Rating: PG-13 for angst and implied slash
Word Count: 2,368
Summary: An unexpected discovery leads to trouble in paradise for Bones' and Jim's recent marriage.
Disclaimer: I do not own. I make no money.
It seemed that Jim had been truly been born under a black star ‘cause there wasn’t much else to explain how bad luck and trouble followed the man around like a bad cold that just couldn’t be shaken off.
Jim had enjoyed just four short months of married bliss with him, or as close to bliss as serving on a floating deathtrap in space got, before all hell broke loose with the random coincidences that plagued the Enterprise, her crew, and her captain.
It had all started with just an innocent gesture of hospitality from the royal family of the planet they were establishing diplomatic ties with as a congratulatory gift for his and Jim’s recent marriage.
After all, who’d have thought that any harm would come out of watching a group of performers put on a Shakespearian play?
They’d settled down for the performance, but it wasn’t ten minutes into it that he’d noticed there was something upsetting Jim. His husband’s face was pasty white and his hands were trembling while gripping the seat’s arm rests hard enough to make his knuckles match the color of his face.
When the performance was over, Jim had quickly excused himself, claiming fatigue, and he’d quickly followed after his husband, determined to find out exactly what had shaken the man.
He’d found Jim in their room designated to them by the royal family, pacing back and forth with a wildness and cold fury in his eyes he hadn’t seen since the confrontation between he and Spock after Pike had been captured and Vulcan destroyed in the Nero Incident.
Though he hadn’t known what was eating at Jim, he knew for a fact that he wasn’t going to let it ruin one of their best diplomatic overtures so far.
Oh how wrong he’d been proven.
“What’s gotten a bee in your bonnet darlin’?”
Jim suddenly came to a stop, shaking his head back and forth as if trying to throw off a bad dream.
“It’s nothing Bones, I just thought…never mind. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. I’m pretty much beat, so I’m gonna go ahead and crash for the night.”
And that had been the end of the night’s discussion with Jim crawling into bed and doing his damnedest to pretend to be asleep.
He didn’t get much sleep that night, being preoccupied with trying to sooth Jim’s thrashing and moaning that meant his husband was fighting through another nightmare.
It was during the afternoon of the next day that the proverbial shit hit the fan.
He’d been looking for Jim for several minutes after their noon meal when his attention was caught by his husband’s raised voice close by. Breaking into a light jog, he turned the corner and took in the shocking sight.
Jim stood facing down one of the Shakespearian players from the performance last night, his phaser in hand and pointed at the stranger. What sent chills down his spine though was the look of utter hate on Jim’s face that let him know the phaser wasn’t set on anything lower than ‘kill’.
Trying to diffuse the situation enough to keep Jim from annihilating the unknown man, he attempted the standard option of talking Jim down from his anger and figuring out what was going on.
“Hey Jim, don’t do anything crazy now. I know Shakespeare isn’t your favorite playwright, but that’s no reason to take it out on this guy.”
Jim’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker away from their intended target, remaining fixed on the perceived threat.
“It’s Kodos, Bones.”
And that statement on its own made his stomach begin to churn nauseatingly, threatening the upheaval of the very nice meal he’d just eaten.
Even if Kodos had been a popular name, there was only one that would have brought out this kind of reaction from Jim.
Everyone in Starfleet had been taught about Kodos the Executioner. Kodos, the former governor of the earth colony of Tarsus IV, who made the decision and carried out the orders to murder in cold blood over 4000 colonists. It was a major topic used to teach students the errors that those in power can make.
He knew that Jim had been on Tarsus IV during his youth in the same factual way that he knew of Jim’s birth and subsequently his father’s death. Like the latter mentioned, it wasn’t mentioned or talked about by either of them. Jim wasn’t ready for it, and he hadn’t pushed.
It was at this point that Spock, thank his pointy eared head, showed up, and it was proof of the Vulcan’s trust in his captain that he didn’t look at Jim like he was mad, but instead turned to face the man his captain had just identified as a man charged with genocide.
“Are you Kodos, former governor of Tarsus IV?”
The overwhelming amount of grim resolve in the man’s eyes matched with his reply as he locked gazes with Jim.
“Yes, that name and the atrocities done in conjuncture with it belong to me. You must have been on the colony during the crop failure. I understand that it probably will not bring you much measure of peace, but I do regret the decisions I made and have carried the guilt brought on by them for these many long years.”
Jim’s body had trembled in rage after hearing Kodos speak, his face twisting into a vicious snarl, one that he’d never seen the likes of before.
“You murdered my uncle, my aunt, my cousins. Four thousand innocent people dead because you couldn’t wait for some fucking supply ships! And all you can say is you’re sorry?”
Kodos hadn’t offered up any other defense for his actions after Jim’s outburst, keeping his eyes locked with the captain’s.
Before he could once more try to talk Jim down from doing something stupid, Spock had started up another inquiry.
“You admit to your crimes and will agree to a trial located on Earth?”
He was more than a bit floored when Kodos agreed without bribery or trickery involved.
“Yes, I will turn myself over to be tried for the crimes I committed. These past years have weighed heavily on me. My daughter has been dead for some time. I have nothing left to live for and everything to answer for.”
Jim didn’t look like he was backing down and he wondered why Spock wasn’t saying anything else in regards to his captain pointing deadly phaser fire at a civilian, criminal or no.
That was when it hit him that Spock was trusting Jim to make what he felt was the right decision. If Jim went ahead and pulled the trigger, he was sure that Spock would stand by his captain’s decision, and maybe even fail to mention in the mission report running into Kodos at all.
It was up to Jim what Kodos’ fate would be.
He could only stand there and hope and pray that Jim’s goodness and true strength of character would win out.
Quicker than he thought it took for him to blink, Jim had switched the phases to heavy stun and hit Kodos dead center in the chest, the man falling into an unconscious heap on the floor.
Turning to his commander, Jim proceeded to give orders in an emotionless voice that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
“Mr. Spock, please take the prisoner and beam up back to the ship. Make sure that once the prisoner is placed in the brig, there is constant surveillance set up. We will wrap up things here and proceed directly to Earth to deliver the prisoner for trial.”
With that said Jim turned on his heels after receiving a nod from the hobgoblin and went to go find their hosts and inform them that they would be leaving a bit ahead of schedule.
Once they’d all gotten back to the ship, it had become impossible to nail down Jim for any length of time. He knew that Jim was running himself ragged trying to keep his thoughts away from Kodos and the fact that he was on his ship, a constant threat and reminder of what he’d lost.
Jim had of course rejected all attempts from him to talk about it, and the week it took to return to Earth was the longest feeling one of his life.
It didn’t help that he knew the goddamned idiot was filching stimulants from his sickbay to try and stay awake for as long as possible and when he did end up crashing, the nightmares that now came every night kept both of them from getting any sort of adequate rest.
Starfleet had been uncommonly cooperative when they had been informed that Kodos the Executioner was in custody and in route to Earth.
Any hopes though that their lives could get back to some semblance of normal though were smashed to pieces once Jim had been briefed.
As a witness of the massacre on Tarsus IV and one who was able to identify Kodos, Jim was called in by Starfleet to act as the major material witness for Kodos’ trial.
If things had been shitty before, dammit, they had turned into shitty left out to rot for a week and then more added on.
The crew had been given leave while the trial was going on, but the senior bridge crew didn’t wander far from where their captain was staying. They were the top of their field, the best at what they did and none of them were unaware of the stress their captain was under.
They’d all informed Jim of their desire to help their captain in any way they could.
Scotty had refused to leave the Enterprise after it had docked, swearing to Jim he wouldn’t leave their lady unattended while the minor repairs were being taken care of.
Even the green blooded hobgoblin had offered Jim a stress relief outlet.
“Captain, would you perhaps wish to engage in a recreational match of chess?”
He was sure without the Enterprise’s crew Jim would have gone mad from the trial’s demands on him.
What was worse though was the strain it was putting on their marriage. Every time Jim came back to him from anything involving the trial ne looked more and more wrecked; heavy bags under his eyes, skin sallow and white as a ghost, brow scrunched up with lingering pain from a headache, and a frame radiating with tension.
It was things falling apart in their bedroom though that made him want to cry. Making love to Jim was one of the things he enjoyed most about their marriage and it wasn’t even about the sex.
When he and Jim made love it was the most direct way to show that love to each other. He could shower Jim with affection and devotion, could show his husband that he was cherished and wanted and loved.
Hands could caress or stroke, endearments and praises could be whispered or screamed, all of it done in a setting where he didn’t feel like a simpering idiot and Jim could feel secure enough to allow himself to be vulnerable.
But the trial and his part in it had caused Jim to wall himself off and it was slowly killing both of them.
Jim was never one to turn down sex, but since the trial started had hadn’t initiated anything. Though any sign from him wishing for intimacy had Jim accepting, but he avoided eye contact and his hips always fought the gentle pace, tying to have his body used harder, to punish him for things he’d had no control over.
And just like that, the trial ended with the verdict that Kodos would spend the rest of his life in one of the most undesirable mining penal colonies.
People celebrated and he began to think that they could finally move on, but even though the trial had reached its conclusion and Kodos had been locked away for good, Jim’s behavior didn’t really improve much at all.
It had taken Jim three days after the trial’s end to finally break down and tell him what was going on in that crazy assed head of his.
“Talk to me darlin’. Tell me why you’re still twitchy and snappy. Aren’t you glad to have the man locked up?”
Jim had blown up.
“Happy? Why the hell should I be happy? The man should be dead for what he did. Hell, I had the chance to do it myself, but for some reason I just couldn’t pull the trigger. I should have, I wished I’d killed him. That fucker murdered my family Bones, so why the hell couldn’t I end him?”
At the end of his tirade, Jim had collapsed onto the bed, gasping in a lungful of air and running a hand through his short cropped hair in frustration.
He’d sat down on the bed alongside his pain in the ass husband and cupped his cheek, waiting until those piercing blue eyes locked with his own hazel ones before answering.
“Because darlin’, you’re a good man. And that’s not something easy to be.”
And with that Jim’s face had crumpled and he leaned fully into his husband’s embrace, soft and heart-wrenching sobs being pulled from out of him as he finally let his grief of Tarsus IV wash over him.
All he could do was shelter his husband, his captain, within his arms and whisper all the endearments and soothing assurances he could until Jim eventually cried himself into the exhausted slumber of those pushed to the very edge of their limits.
It also couldn’t help but make him wonder if the universe would ever quit pulling the rug out from under his darlin’s feet just when he was feeling sure of his footing.
He figured that it might not ever, but he’d be damned sure to be there to catch him when it decided to kick up a fuss.
That night, Jim had fallen into a nightmare free sleep for the first time since before discovering Kodos, wrapped up safely in his arms and head tucked up under his chin.
Title: Goodness is a Difficulty
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/Mccoy
Relationship Status: Established
Rating: PG-13 for angst and implied slash
Word Count: 2,368
Summary: An unexpected discovery leads to trouble in paradise for Bones' and Jim's recent marriage.
Disclaimer: I do not own. I make no money.
It seemed that Jim had been truly been born under a black star ‘cause there wasn’t much else to explain how bad luck and trouble followed the man around like a bad cold that just couldn’t be shaken off.
Jim had enjoyed just four short months of married bliss with him, or as close to bliss as serving on a floating deathtrap in space got, before all hell broke loose with the random coincidences that plagued the Enterprise, her crew, and her captain.
It had all started with just an innocent gesture of hospitality from the royal family of the planet they were establishing diplomatic ties with as a congratulatory gift for his and Jim’s recent marriage.
After all, who’d have thought that any harm would come out of watching a group of performers put on a Shakespearian play?
They’d settled down for the performance, but it wasn’t ten minutes into it that he’d noticed there was something upsetting Jim. His husband’s face was pasty white and his hands were trembling while gripping the seat’s arm rests hard enough to make his knuckles match the color of his face.
When the performance was over, Jim had quickly excused himself, claiming fatigue, and he’d quickly followed after his husband, determined to find out exactly what had shaken the man.
He’d found Jim in their room designated to them by the royal family, pacing back and forth with a wildness and cold fury in his eyes he hadn’t seen since the confrontation between he and Spock after Pike had been captured and Vulcan destroyed in the Nero Incident.
Though he hadn’t known what was eating at Jim, he knew for a fact that he wasn’t going to let it ruin one of their best diplomatic overtures so far.
Oh how wrong he’d been proven.
“What’s gotten a bee in your bonnet darlin’?”
Jim suddenly came to a stop, shaking his head back and forth as if trying to throw off a bad dream.
“It’s nothing Bones, I just thought…never mind. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. I’m pretty much beat, so I’m gonna go ahead and crash for the night.”
And that had been the end of the night’s discussion with Jim crawling into bed and doing his damnedest to pretend to be asleep.
He didn’t get much sleep that night, being preoccupied with trying to sooth Jim’s thrashing and moaning that meant his husband was fighting through another nightmare.
It was during the afternoon of the next day that the proverbial shit hit the fan.
He’d been looking for Jim for several minutes after their noon meal when his attention was caught by his husband’s raised voice close by. Breaking into a light jog, he turned the corner and took in the shocking sight.
Jim stood facing down one of the Shakespearian players from the performance last night, his phaser in hand and pointed at the stranger. What sent chills down his spine though was the look of utter hate on Jim’s face that let him know the phaser wasn’t set on anything lower than ‘kill’.
Trying to diffuse the situation enough to keep Jim from annihilating the unknown man, he attempted the standard option of talking Jim down from his anger and figuring out what was going on.
“Hey Jim, don’t do anything crazy now. I know Shakespeare isn’t your favorite playwright, but that’s no reason to take it out on this guy.”
Jim’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker away from their intended target, remaining fixed on the perceived threat.
“It’s Kodos, Bones.”
And that statement on its own made his stomach begin to churn nauseatingly, threatening the upheaval of the very nice meal he’d just eaten.
Even if Kodos had been a popular name, there was only one that would have brought out this kind of reaction from Jim.
Everyone in Starfleet had been taught about Kodos the Executioner. Kodos, the former governor of the earth colony of Tarsus IV, who made the decision and carried out the orders to murder in cold blood over 4000 colonists. It was a major topic used to teach students the errors that those in power can make.
He knew that Jim had been on Tarsus IV during his youth in the same factual way that he knew of Jim’s birth and subsequently his father’s death. Like the latter mentioned, it wasn’t mentioned or talked about by either of them. Jim wasn’t ready for it, and he hadn’t pushed.
It was at this point that Spock, thank his pointy eared head, showed up, and it was proof of the Vulcan’s trust in his captain that he didn’t look at Jim like he was mad, but instead turned to face the man his captain had just identified as a man charged with genocide.
“Are you Kodos, former governor of Tarsus IV?”
The overwhelming amount of grim resolve in the man’s eyes matched with his reply as he locked gazes with Jim.
“Yes, that name and the atrocities done in conjuncture with it belong to me. You must have been on the colony during the crop failure. I understand that it probably will not bring you much measure of peace, but I do regret the decisions I made and have carried the guilt brought on by them for these many long years.”
Jim’s body had trembled in rage after hearing Kodos speak, his face twisting into a vicious snarl, one that he’d never seen the likes of before.
“You murdered my uncle, my aunt, my cousins. Four thousand innocent people dead because you couldn’t wait for some fucking supply ships! And all you can say is you’re sorry?”
Kodos hadn’t offered up any other defense for his actions after Jim’s outburst, keeping his eyes locked with the captain’s.
Before he could once more try to talk Jim down from doing something stupid, Spock had started up another inquiry.
“You admit to your crimes and will agree to a trial located on Earth?”
He was more than a bit floored when Kodos agreed without bribery or trickery involved.
“Yes, I will turn myself over to be tried for the crimes I committed. These past years have weighed heavily on me. My daughter has been dead for some time. I have nothing left to live for and everything to answer for.”
Jim didn’t look like he was backing down and he wondered why Spock wasn’t saying anything else in regards to his captain pointing deadly phaser fire at a civilian, criminal or no.
That was when it hit him that Spock was trusting Jim to make what he felt was the right decision. If Jim went ahead and pulled the trigger, he was sure that Spock would stand by his captain’s decision, and maybe even fail to mention in the mission report running into Kodos at all.
It was up to Jim what Kodos’ fate would be.
He could only stand there and hope and pray that Jim’s goodness and true strength of character would win out.
Quicker than he thought it took for him to blink, Jim had switched the phases to heavy stun and hit Kodos dead center in the chest, the man falling into an unconscious heap on the floor.
Turning to his commander, Jim proceeded to give orders in an emotionless voice that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
“Mr. Spock, please take the prisoner and beam up back to the ship. Make sure that once the prisoner is placed in the brig, there is constant surveillance set up. We will wrap up things here and proceed directly to Earth to deliver the prisoner for trial.”
With that said Jim turned on his heels after receiving a nod from the hobgoblin and went to go find their hosts and inform them that they would be leaving a bit ahead of schedule.
Once they’d all gotten back to the ship, it had become impossible to nail down Jim for any length of time. He knew that Jim was running himself ragged trying to keep his thoughts away from Kodos and the fact that he was on his ship, a constant threat and reminder of what he’d lost.
Jim had of course rejected all attempts from him to talk about it, and the week it took to return to Earth was the longest feeling one of his life.
It didn’t help that he knew the goddamned idiot was filching stimulants from his sickbay to try and stay awake for as long as possible and when he did end up crashing, the nightmares that now came every night kept both of them from getting any sort of adequate rest.
Starfleet had been uncommonly cooperative when they had been informed that Kodos the Executioner was in custody and in route to Earth.
Any hopes though that their lives could get back to some semblance of normal though were smashed to pieces once Jim had been briefed.
As a witness of the massacre on Tarsus IV and one who was able to identify Kodos, Jim was called in by Starfleet to act as the major material witness for Kodos’ trial.
If things had been shitty before, dammit, they had turned into shitty left out to rot for a week and then more added on.
The crew had been given leave while the trial was going on, but the senior bridge crew didn’t wander far from where their captain was staying. They were the top of their field, the best at what they did and none of them were unaware of the stress their captain was under.
They’d all informed Jim of their desire to help their captain in any way they could.
Scotty had refused to leave the Enterprise after it had docked, swearing to Jim he wouldn’t leave their lady unattended while the minor repairs were being taken care of.
Even the green blooded hobgoblin had offered Jim a stress relief outlet.
“Captain, would you perhaps wish to engage in a recreational match of chess?”
He was sure without the Enterprise’s crew Jim would have gone mad from the trial’s demands on him.
What was worse though was the strain it was putting on their marriage. Every time Jim came back to him from anything involving the trial ne looked more and more wrecked; heavy bags under his eyes, skin sallow and white as a ghost, brow scrunched up with lingering pain from a headache, and a frame radiating with tension.
It was things falling apart in their bedroom though that made him want to cry. Making love to Jim was one of the things he enjoyed most about their marriage and it wasn’t even about the sex.
When he and Jim made love it was the most direct way to show that love to each other. He could shower Jim with affection and devotion, could show his husband that he was cherished and wanted and loved.
Hands could caress or stroke, endearments and praises could be whispered or screamed, all of it done in a setting where he didn’t feel like a simpering idiot and Jim could feel secure enough to allow himself to be vulnerable.
But the trial and his part in it had caused Jim to wall himself off and it was slowly killing both of them.
Jim was never one to turn down sex, but since the trial started had hadn’t initiated anything. Though any sign from him wishing for intimacy had Jim accepting, but he avoided eye contact and his hips always fought the gentle pace, tying to have his body used harder, to punish him for things he’d had no control over.
And just like that, the trial ended with the verdict that Kodos would spend the rest of his life in one of the most undesirable mining penal colonies.
People celebrated and he began to think that they could finally move on, but even though the trial had reached its conclusion and Kodos had been locked away for good, Jim’s behavior didn’t really improve much at all.
It had taken Jim three days after the trial’s end to finally break down and tell him what was going on in that crazy assed head of his.
“Talk to me darlin’. Tell me why you’re still twitchy and snappy. Aren’t you glad to have the man locked up?”
Jim had blown up.
“Happy? Why the hell should I be happy? The man should be dead for what he did. Hell, I had the chance to do it myself, but for some reason I just couldn’t pull the trigger. I should have, I wished I’d killed him. That fucker murdered my family Bones, so why the hell couldn’t I end him?”
At the end of his tirade, Jim had collapsed onto the bed, gasping in a lungful of air and running a hand through his short cropped hair in frustration.
He’d sat down on the bed alongside his pain in the ass husband and cupped his cheek, waiting until those piercing blue eyes locked with his own hazel ones before answering.
“Because darlin’, you’re a good man. And that’s not something easy to be.”
And with that Jim’s face had crumpled and he leaned fully into his husband’s embrace, soft and heart-wrenching sobs being pulled from out of him as he finally let his grief of Tarsus IV wash over him.
All he could do was shelter his husband, his captain, within his arms and whisper all the endearments and soothing assurances he could until Jim eventually cried himself into the exhausted slumber of those pushed to the very edge of their limits.
It also couldn’t help but make him wonder if the universe would ever quit pulling the rug out from under his darlin’s feet just when he was feeling sure of his footing.
He figured that it might not ever, but he’d be damned sure to be there to catch him when it decided to kick up a fuss.
That night, Jim had fallen into a nightmare free sleep for the first time since before discovering Kodos, wrapped up safely in his arms and head tucked up under his chin.