Fic: Observations, Ch 229
Memory shatters every single time and one memory of killing is mixed in with every other and he never tries to process the feelings never tries to think of what happened only moves on moves forward until the experience repeats itself and suddenly he remembers every face he’s ever killed but no names suddenly the mask of himself is ripped away and underneath blue eyes and a mirror is the face of Kodos and Nero and the Romulan crushing his throat underneath a wide smile is a vacuous expression a deceit a person who was never great never able to rise above a madman responsible for the death of a city a killer who’s enjoyed the thrill of driving a sword discharging a phaser and when he’s inside that neutron star he can’t remember anything else when he’s immersed in the experience and covered in the malice of his own emotion he can’t see past masks and empty blue eyes cold and calculating.
This is why he never goes back. This is why he never wants to go back because who wants to face the abyss inside themselves? Who wants to admit that deep down, they’re no better than anyone else, that perhaps they’re worse than anyone else. He remembers facing that ugly side in the transporter accident and he remembers wishing so clearly that he had never seen this Jim yet knowing him so clearly. In the passage of life and time and circumstances he’s tried to become a better man he’s tried to earn this captaincy and the fact that his father mother stepfather sacrificed themselves to give him a chance. He’s tried to earn that despite the fact it’s something that can never be repaid or bought back like a city lost to memory and history like so many people lost in the line of duty under his command his orders. It’s a fine line that he walks every day and he does it mostly by ignoring the neutron stars that pierce the cloth of his memory.
But that’s not possible anymore. And it’s true. He’s been using Spock Bones Sulu Nyota Chapel hell even Scotty and Chekov as emotional crutches releasing the tension little by little when the pressure gets too high but this shit with the Games was too fucking much. He lost all sense of time and sanity in the cabin fever in the killing he hasn’t been the captain the crew needs him to be because he’s hurting and he doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know what to do never knew what to do because after Tarsus he was covered in masks after Vulcan he was walking in the a haze after every mission where some kind of fantastic shit goes down he doesn’t remember only works the emotion out of his skin through sweat and a punching bag. He learned early on to express emotions through his body and it’s not surprising that he got into bar fights all the time it’s not surprising that he’d take out his anger on strangers who knew just as much as he did about emptiness even if the kind of emptiness they had was about heartbreak or debt or whatever the fuck their hard knocks were.
He remembers every bar fight like he remembers every kill-when he’s in them, he knows every face he’s smashed he knows every bar he’s trashed he knows the names of drinks he’s had he knows that four five six guys are beating the crap out of him with a bar stool laid out flat on the pool table kicking and punching and thinking that this is great practice for he has no idea what it’s great practice maybe for prison maybe for survival maybe for school and afterwards when the robocops come asking him his name he says it slurs it when the medics give him disgusted looks but patch him up anyway when the bartender tells him he owes this many credits when the judge puts his bail higher and higher because the charges are adding up and psychiatrists don’t know what the fuck to do with him they try different programs they try drugs that he never takes they scan his brain and his foster parents are worried tired tried and everyone feels deficient and failing because they don’t know what to do with him and he doesn’t fucking know what to do with himself. All he sees are the masks of people and it haunts him. He doesn’t know why things haunt him why he looks up at the sky searching for the black of space he doesn’t know why he’s fucked up like this even though they say he’s a genius and he’s never been much of a talker except a flirt but he feels like he can’t talk can’t trust can’t see people. That ability went away when George met him at the shuttlebay after he came back from Tarsus and started screaming at him crying and trying to beat the shit out of him that he’s a killer wherever he goes he kills people and their families and George told him he never wanted to see him again told him to stay away because he’s a plague because everywhere he goes the blackness of space and the darkness of death follows him.
He’s never forgotten that. And sometimes he thinks it’s true, that he’s the biggest mask of them all, that he brings destruction to everyone he loves and everything he touches and so it’s better to fight and fuck and never admit to softer things. Watching Vulcan disappear was a nightmare. It felt like a nightmare. He felt like an emotional zombie afterwards. Like he should’ve known or he should’ve done something or he has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about and as much as Spock was emotionally compromised, he was too. He’s just a hell of a lot more used to being emotionally compromised and being a jackass about it because that’s what he’s been practically his entire life. A jackass a jackal a person never meant to survive the hunger and horror a person never meant to get out of juvie a person who never should have been shot to captain a person with the weirdest luck in the world. Because as much as he’s been through some fucked up shit, he’s had some amazingly lucky breaks. Sometimes he wonders if his life were a poker game, what kind of hands would he be dealt? Some of them line up beautifully and he bets high and wins big. Some of them are nothing but fuck and he gets through round after round after round of shit and mediocrity by lying through his teeth and smiling and being a jackass. Going directly from cadet to captain? That was one of those luck things. He’s got no misconceptions about that.
The entirety of his first twenty years or so are full of neutron stars. He remembers there was a time when that wasn’t true, happier times when he and mom and Mark were together and he actually had a sense of stability, of linearity. But he forgot that after they died because the memories turned sour and reminded him of something he didn’t have could never have again despite the fact that the people who took him into their homes were genuinely nice people. Nice doesn’t mean anything after Tarsus. Nice is a consolation prize when all he wants is the real thing his mother’s hand on his forehead his stepfather’s laughter and patience and Jim’s been trying to forget them for so long that he’s not sure he actually remembers anything real and true and personal of them anymore. When he saw Spock reaching out on the transporter pad for his mother reaching with that face devastated something inside him twisted but he pushed that away stuck it in another neutron star for another time another place. Death follows him wherever he goes and it doesn’t make sense but sometimes he does feel responsible for the things that happened that were out of his control because he was young he was a teenager coming back from Tarsus without family and the first person he meets is his brother and they were never close but fuck George was screaming at him crying enraged face ravaged with grief and all the things the universe took away from them both hurting so bad that the only thing he knew how to do was hurt someone else. He was convenient and he was there and George was telling him he never wanted to see his face again because underneath those blue eyes was death itself and some part of him hurting and reaching for anything believed it.
It doesn’t make sense but emotions never do. He has more sympathy for Spock than the Vulcan realizes. He wears more masks than anyone knows, perhaps even himself. But despite all that shit and his world shattering over and over and his memory torn to pieces and he doesn’t kid himself, that sense of time is never going to come back, but in spite of all that something must have survived that he always picks himself up and keeps going, tries harder, takes risks. Lets himself hope. Maybe it’s because he’s young maybe it’s because he’s a fool maybe it’s because he’s human but that’s something that’s always been in him. Hope. Maybe it’s because he was born as a hope, when his father went kamikaze into the Narada he was doing it because he hoped his son would survive he hoped his son would live and thrive to whatever life he built. When his mother and stepfather protected him first and told him to get out of the house and run for his life they were doing it out of hope that he would escape the carnage to a better place they were doing it not because they thought he was worth it but because he was their son and that was the love of parents for their child. He was their hope and his mother would often come into his room and tell him how much she loved him the dreams she had for him of stars and adventures and hopes and of all the people he knew his mother was the one person he thought always kept hope alive. Maybe that’s what survived from his childhood and was washed into him or maybe that’s just the way things are but something burned in Jim and he was lucky that it burned long enough for him to get to a place where he could learn to trust people again.
He had been running from his memories and the masks of people for so long that he’d forgotten this gift that his parents left him. And when Pike gave him that lecture it wasn’t the challenge that made Jim enlist but vague memories long suppressed but not forgotten the combination of the knowledge that Starfleet wasn’t perfect like they wanted others to think they were and that here was a silver trinket that exploded in space because one man though it better to die and give a fighting chance that his wife and son live a mother and stepfather thought it better to give him a chance to get away than let him get consumed in darkness. He can work in imperfect systems. Pike made no attempt to apologize for his cadets’ behavior because there was none. And he could admire that kind of honesty in a person. Pike had a look on his face of someone who’d seen crazy shit but was commanding a starship anyway. He could respect that. It wasn’t that Pike could see through his bullshit-that wasn’t that hard to do. But he could see why he was bullshitting in the first place. And that was something no one had ever really understood.
Starfleet pissed him off. It pissed him off because of its glossy exteriors and the masks that were everywhere again and he was lucky-it was another one of those moments when his cards had everything in them to get him through the next rounds-he was lucky that he found Bones. Bones is the most honest man he’s ever known and the fact that the man was going through a helluva divorce, genuinely terrified of space, and sarcastic to the point of craziness gave him a window of sanity. He wanted to graduate in three years not just because he had something to prove but because he couldn’t get away from the polished shine of buildings like mirrors fast enough.
And Spock. When Spock had the gall to talk to him about fear. About certain death and the conduct of a captain and the fucking computer simulation. A computer simulation that was a computer simulation. He tried, he tried so hard to keep the words he actually wanted to say stuck in his throat. It wouldn’t do any good to bring up a past he didn’t understand but only felt in the form of neutron stars it never mattered to talk about it and he never talked about it not even with Bones because Starfleet for all its faults and mirrors was still a new life a clean break a safe place a place he could hope and dream and reach for the top because people believed in him and he had friends and he could do something instead of dwelling in neutron stars and it did no good for him to bring up emotions he suppressed memories wrapped up in darkness. So he didn’t say anything only put on a serious face and acted like an asshole because that’s easiest and he didn’t wish that the fucker would understand what it’s like to face a real Kobayashi Maru because that’s something he can’t truly wish on anyone. He can’t. He doesn’t know why. He’s human and he resents a thousand different things he sees in other people like the professor standing across from him son of a diplomat probably would never look twice at someone like him in his life, but he can’t bring himself to resent people about something like this. It’s not who he is.
And then Vulcan happened and his memory shattered again.
--
I eased away from the meld, my mind and Jim’s exhausted. With little effort, he and I recreated the space of New York and this time, we chose to lie in the grass in Prospect Park. Random people were milling around us, there was a picnic and children playing various ball games. Jim put his head on my stomach and we laid perpendicular to each other, simply breathing and looking up at the sky.
Nothing about this experience has been easy for either of us.
I do not-I could never-regret it and the new insight I have. This understanding of his character and the strength of his being, the hope that has always burned in him. I did not realize how much it took for him, how much it cost to be the man he is today. It makes it impossible for me not to love him now.
“Really?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.”
And he doesn’t understand what it is that I see in him that makes me believe in him so fiercely, his perception of himself is made up by sheer willpower and by these fragmented memories. He knows and feels the loyalty people have towards him and he’s never thought or questioned it very deeply, but it puzzles him. He sees himself-an ordinary person who’s lived through some extraordinary circumstances, had some luck and found a way to get by. There is nothing spectacular or special about that ability because that is the way he has always been. He wants to be better and strives to live up to his name, but he does not see why others look to him for a symbol for inspiration for hope.
“I’m not anything special, Spock.”
I raise my eyebrows. In the beginning of our relationship, I only saw brash confidence. I would never have believed that statement would ever come out of his mouth.
“I’m afraid I must contradict you. You are currently in a relationship with me, and as I am the only half Terran half Vulcan in this galaxy, you are by proxy unique as well.”
He grinned.
“And you say I’ve got an ego.”
He does. It was brittle and fragile and hard but it allowed him to survive what he needed to survive. Now, it is no longer necessary for his confidence to be based on the force of his personality. It can, and it has been, quietly built in the admiration freely given by his crew, the trust freely given by his friends. What is necessary now is finding a way to preserve it so that it does not fall apart so devastatingly in the face of extended trauma.
“You are a contradiction.”
I thread my fingers through his hair and absently think of the transporter incident, how different those two sides were, yet they make up the whole person that he is and I would not have him any other way.
“Yeah?” he sat up and looked at me.
I nodded.
“I guess you’d know about contradictions.”
My Terran and Vulcan halves, warring and reconciled.
“As long as it doesn’t lead to some logical fallacy, I guess.”
“Mathematics is arguably the most logical discipline in this universe and as a system, it is full of contradictions. I believe that Godel proved this on Terra. They are built into the system and are necessary for its existence.”
“It’s all part of logic, then?” Jim leaned down, his lips hovering over mine.
“Yes,” I bridged that distance and kissed him.
And in our meld comes the amazement that I am still with him, that despite the fact that he has shown me some of the darkest parts of himself, I love him and find what seems to be a contradiction to be a thing of logic and beauty.
The meld recedes, he takes charge of our mindscape and it fades until there is only an enhanced telepathic connection and we are in my quarters.
I’m sorry comes through his touch and I know what he’s sorry for, sorry for the anger and the sessions of fighting and fucking the viciousness the silence but I tell him that I’ve already forgotten and strictly speaking, it was not an altogether unpleasant experience and he is smiling with blue eyes not whole but not empty and let me make that up to you and I have absolutely no objection if he desires to do so though I promised Leonard and Christine that we would dine with the crew and that’s fine we have time
Jim is very generous in bed when he sets his mind to it.
You like that sweetheart you like it
In the beginning of our relationship, we focused on experimentation and pushing each other to different limits.
Don’t think don’t think just feel come on Spock open your eyes for me come on say my name you know I’ll do anything for you
Then sex was a revelation, a way to express newfound passion and a physical expression of something that can never be encapsulated in the range of thought and emotion.
Let me make it up to you
Then something relaxed, casual, intimacy shared between lovers.
You like it when I do this, and this, and this, and open your mouth give me your hand I’ll do it just the way you like it
And a fight, an outlet for frustration and everything we did not find satisfying about each other.
Say my name Spock don’t control don’t think come on let me let me just the way you like it I remember how you love it
Now this.
Spock don’t come yet don’t wait a little longer I promise a little longer
It is wholly different, having an experienced lover who knows your body, mind, everything about you and you know him, and there is intimacy mixed with experimentation, kinetic poetry that burns quietly and steadily instead of the intense heat of a bushfire, an outlet and expression that comes only with time.
That’s it you’re beautiful like this
And after my climax and his, I find myself almost smiling.
I want to classify this.
Jim, is this what Nyota referred to as ‘make up sex’?
Laughter and something like that he kisses my fingers. Like it?
I did not make my pleasure known?
More laughter and feet touching his toes brushing against my heel and staying there for a while, for five minutes, breathing and tangling feet.
We are ten minutes late for dinner, but they make no comment, only smile and immediately demand we take sides in the debate concerning the merits of bagpipes and electric guitars.