(no subject)
Title: When we were young (Chapter 3)
Author: K_E_Wilson
Rating: PG-14 (see warnings)
Word Count: ~2000 (Yeah, pretty constant on this, isn't it?)
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: child abuse, death, destruction, determination, mayhem, split personalities- batshit insane stuff, basically.
Summary: He doesn't feel normal, and that's pretty okay-- maybe.
A/N: I swear to god this is the last split, and shit picks up a bit after this (to which I can just SEE some of you asking "wait, this has been slow?") So please bear with me and try not to wibble as hard as I did while writing this.
Previous Chapters: ONE TWO
S A M
He started naming them, after Tarsus. He had to; there were three of them, now.
The Times he became Jimmy were hard to remember, but not impossible like before... Clouded over with a sense of wonder and fearful questioning, the memories usually weren't of a positive sort, but every once in a while, he'd come across one of his mother, back on planet, through jimmy's eyes and for the few minutes it would last, he'd feel loved and safe. Jimmy didn't see his mother's abandonment; opened his arms to her with the easy acceptance only a child could truly offer. There were a few times, in the months after Tarsus IV, when Jimmy would take over for days, forgetting about the horrors, and when Jim came back, there were memories stock piled of his mother, brushing at his hair gently, singing him the little lullabies. They embarrassed him, some of the time, when he realized that though Jimmy was a little kid- he had placed Jimmy's creation at that time, when he was six- the actions in the memories were being held out by a progressively older teenager. The light that flared in his mothers eyes in those memories, though, helped him battle away those of Tarsus IV- of smoke and death and ash-tainted snow and the hunger- the little spark of remembrance, gilded in fond acceptance and love.
Jamie's memories always bordered on psychopathic in their anger and concentrated rage. The little, devil-may-care part of him that had faced death and raged against it so hard only to accept it an instant from salvation raged now against Frank. It had been almost a year since the last time Frank had been able to get hold of him and do that. (Every one of them agreed never to say what that was, because saying it made them victims, and they were victim enough to plague and fate.)
Jamie's memories didn't come to him like Jimmy's did. They came in brutal flashes that left him reeling for moments unending. Unlike Jimmy's memories, he couldn't pick up and examine specific ones. Sometimes this was a blessing, and others, when Jim came back with particularly bruised arms or his back so sore he couldn't move, he wished he could know what had happened- often, these were the times that Jimmy would hide. He suspected Frank had not gotten to do that, though Jamie might have been so centered on self-preservation that he could have found the basic medical tricordor in the kitchen to heal the wounds left, so Jim wouldn't know. Jamie, it seemed, liked being caged in the back of Jim's mind about as much as Jim enjoyed having him suddenly burst forth- the struggle against becoming constantly Jamie was a war waged every moment in the back of his mind that he'd had to practice hearing over for weeks, and even now it distracted him to the point of slowing his reading capabilities by three words per second.
Jim, though, Jim was simply that. He wasn't the splinters formed by the terror or trauma. Jim, he suspected, was what he would have- should have been like if none of these things would have happened to him. But having Jimmy and Jamie constantly tugging at his mind, trying to 'show Jim! Jim, look!' or claw their way to the surface for control had shaded him. Before, it had been hard to make friends, but nowhere near impossible. People had been attracted to the 'Kirk charm' and had been able to ignore the terrifying intelligence of the child who possessed it.
He'd had friends, but when he returned from Tarsus, they had left him alone almost as completely as if the horrors he had gone through were a disease, ready to jump to the next life at the first catch of eye contact.
He'd felt alone for weeks, waiting for Benny and Sarah and Johnathan and Kate and June and Joss to come visit him. Then, there were the two hours he can't recall for the life of him- Jamie blocking them from view with a ferocious hate against Jim that sends even his own thoughts reeling, and Jim suddenly knows by thinking of the great, black space that is now those few minutes to him, that they aren't his friends anymore, that he's alone.
He's tried to make new friends, but without the gentle light of innocence he suspects is long gone by now, they mostly end up in flings or fights.
He's fifteen, now; George- no, he corrects himself, Sam(who hates his real name, on principal) is just on the cusp of eighteen. Sam, he suspects, is the only one who has even thought to try and explain why Jim changes. A month ago, Sam called Jim 'Jimmy' by accident, and then all Jim can recall is a childlike thrill that tinges the memory of demands to go out to see the quarry, a favorite past time that he had stopped asking for at seven. Sam's face, in the memory, is a mix of shock and question and wonder, but he agreed and the rest of it until Jim came back while watching the sun lower to throw the huge gorge into relief, is about this pseudo-him and his brother, playing tic-tack-toe in the sand, and then slowly trying to figure out what word Sam had picked for hang man.
But today isn't like that, and Jimmy's in the back of his mind trying to soothe him with one of his mother's lullabies as Jamie looms nearer to the surface than ever. Sam's got a bag on his bed, is throwing things into it and screaming back at Frank, who's towering over in the doorway. Jim's pressed into the corner near the closet, trying not to bumble as he begs his brother not to leave, tries to ignore the bitter, half-drunk taunts and rage-tinted exultations from the older man. Sam doesn't look at him, can't.
Jim knows this has to be hard on his brother, but that makes him want Sam to stay more. "Sam, Sam please don't leave me here!" he begs, but he knows he has nothing to offer. Sam's hand keep thrusting his shirts, pants, an extra pair of fucking socks into the ragged Star Cadets backpack that had been left for so long, cold and forgotten on the shelf of his closet, the same closet that now stands open and empty.
"You can't be a KIRK in this house, Jim-..." He cuts himself off, looking farther away from Jim, who knows he's almost said 'Jimmy' and it's clear now that Sam KNOWS about Jimmy, probably about Jamie, too, though he might not have a name for him. But he doesn't have time to think about the repercussions of that on him and his brother, because Sam's got that god-forsaken bag over his shoulder and he's walking out the door, brushing past an enraged Frank, who screams after him to never come back to MY house again!
He feels himself breaking, can't help but collapse against the closet door, the handle a cold pressure against his arm, helping him try to keep his feet as he hears his brother leave for the last time. There's a flash of pain in his mind and he's raging not only against the tears that desperately want to fall- something he's not let happen since that first night after Tarsus, doesn't want to let happen ever again- but against Jamie, too, who knows Jim's almost too weak to fight him right now, and with that fight raging, he doesn't have the energy to hold himself up anymore and as his knees hit the floor, so too does the realization that his brother is gone has left him here, alone with FRANK.
On one, dry, painful sob, he feels himself break, and he feels Jimmy calm just a little bit, his lullaby no longer a frantic string in the back of his mind, but a hushed, tearful murmur. There's another, now. He can feel it, curled close to Jimmy, silent and watchful with a hint of knowing but he's trying to fight against the tears and Jamie right now, can't focus on trying to see who or how or why or what it is.
In the end, he looses. A tear falls and then there's hour of blank where he comes to later, at the police station with dust all over him and his voice hoarse and Frank, looming and purple-faced off in the distance, signing something and obviously angry beyond almost anything Jim's ever seen.
When they finally get home, Frank throws him bodily across the living room, and as his shoulder smashes painfully against the wall, he can feel Jamie in the back of his mind, unable to make up his mind on being smug and gnashing at the bit to escape once more. Frank's screaming now, though, raging and angry and recalling everything Jim's ever done to him, some he can't even remember and Jim knows it's because they happened with Jamie and so he won't remember, not until Jamie wants him to.
It takes a couple minutes, but suddenly Jim's thrown back and all he can feel is calmwarmsafe. He sees it, sees himself catch Frank's fist, twist it the way he's learned to do if you catch a fist like that, brings the heavy man to his knees in a way he's been secretly trying to do for years now. He hears his voice, an echo of anger and pain and loyalties that are dead now, but apparently still clinging on. "If you ever touch my body again," this not-him is saying, "I will find a way to justify killing you."
It's not until later that this new-him releases it's hold. He gets them into the kitchen, gets them fed with something that tastes like warm memories from the replicator, gets out the battered, nearly-empty med kit from under the sink and gives them one of the few hypospray pain reliefs left that they aren't allergic to. When he's done all that, when he's made sure Frank is safely holed up in his room, only the low angry grumble of his voice present, he gets them up to the bedroom, gets them dressed in the warm flannel pants and tshirt that make up their sleeping garments since they got olderand started refusing to wear any matching sets anymore. Only when they are laid out on the bed, breathing calm, eyes drooping in exhaustion as stars peek in the window at them, does he release his hold.
Jim comes to, feeling the calm and warmth stay with him, as the personality snakes back into his mind, curling itself warmly near Jimmy, who's completely content to have him there, between himself and Jamie.
He doesn't try to name it until the next day, not because he doesn't want to, but because he's simply too tired, too warm, feels too safe to try. As he's trying to vary his own name again, he finds his mind balking. James, no. J.T seems too childish...
There's a warmth in him, and suddenly he just knows his name is Sam. Because the name comes to him just that easily, and it floods his body like when Sam used to answer his questions, no matter how childish.
CHAPTER 4
Author: K_E_Wilson
Rating: PG-14 (see warnings)
Word Count: ~2000 (Yeah, pretty constant on this, isn't it?)
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: child abuse, death, destruction, determination, mayhem, split personalities- batshit insane stuff, basically.
Summary: He doesn't feel normal, and that's pretty okay-- maybe.
A/N: I swear to god this is the last split, and shit picks up a bit after this (to which I can just SEE some of you asking "wait, this has been slow?") So please bear with me and try not to wibble as hard as I did while writing this.
Previous Chapters: ONE TWO
S A M
He started naming them, after Tarsus. He had to; there were three of them, now.
The Times he became Jimmy were hard to remember, but not impossible like before... Clouded over with a sense of wonder and fearful questioning, the memories usually weren't of a positive sort, but every once in a while, he'd come across one of his mother, back on planet, through jimmy's eyes and for the few minutes it would last, he'd feel loved and safe. Jimmy didn't see his mother's abandonment; opened his arms to her with the easy acceptance only a child could truly offer. There were a few times, in the months after Tarsus IV, when Jimmy would take over for days, forgetting about the horrors, and when Jim came back, there were memories stock piled of his mother, brushing at his hair gently, singing him the little lullabies. They embarrassed him, some of the time, when he realized that though Jimmy was a little kid- he had placed Jimmy's creation at that time, when he was six- the actions in the memories were being held out by a progressively older teenager. The light that flared in his mothers eyes in those memories, though, helped him battle away those of Tarsus IV- of smoke and death and ash-tainted snow and the hunger- the little spark of remembrance, gilded in fond acceptance and love.
Jamie's memories always bordered on psychopathic in their anger and concentrated rage. The little, devil-may-care part of him that had faced death and raged against it so hard only to accept it an instant from salvation raged now against Frank. It had been almost a year since the last time Frank had been able to get hold of him and do that. (Every one of them agreed never to say what that was, because saying it made them victims, and they were victim enough to plague and fate.)
Jamie's memories didn't come to him like Jimmy's did. They came in brutal flashes that left him reeling for moments unending. Unlike Jimmy's memories, he couldn't pick up and examine specific ones. Sometimes this was a blessing, and others, when Jim came back with particularly bruised arms or his back so sore he couldn't move, he wished he could know what had happened- often, these were the times that Jimmy would hide. He suspected Frank had not gotten to do that, though Jamie might have been so centered on self-preservation that he could have found the basic medical tricordor in the kitchen to heal the wounds left, so Jim wouldn't know. Jamie, it seemed, liked being caged in the back of Jim's mind about as much as Jim enjoyed having him suddenly burst forth- the struggle against becoming constantly Jamie was a war waged every moment in the back of his mind that he'd had to practice hearing over for weeks, and even now it distracted him to the point of slowing his reading capabilities by three words per second.
Jim, though, Jim was simply that. He wasn't the splinters formed by the terror or trauma. Jim, he suspected, was what he would have- should have been like if none of these things would have happened to him. But having Jimmy and Jamie constantly tugging at his mind, trying to 'show Jim! Jim, look!' or claw their way to the surface for control had shaded him. Before, it had been hard to make friends, but nowhere near impossible. People had been attracted to the 'Kirk charm' and had been able to ignore the terrifying intelligence of the child who possessed it.
He'd had friends, but when he returned from Tarsus, they had left him alone almost as completely as if the horrors he had gone through were a disease, ready to jump to the next life at the first catch of eye contact.
He'd felt alone for weeks, waiting for Benny and Sarah and Johnathan and Kate and June and Joss to come visit him. Then, there were the two hours he can't recall for the life of him- Jamie blocking them from view with a ferocious hate against Jim that sends even his own thoughts reeling, and Jim suddenly knows by thinking of the great, black space that is now those few minutes to him, that they aren't his friends anymore, that he's alone.
He's tried to make new friends, but without the gentle light of innocence he suspects is long gone by now, they mostly end up in flings or fights.
He's fifteen, now; George- no, he corrects himself, Sam(who hates his real name, on principal) is just on the cusp of eighteen. Sam, he suspects, is the only one who has even thought to try and explain why Jim changes. A month ago, Sam called Jim 'Jimmy' by accident, and then all Jim can recall is a childlike thrill that tinges the memory of demands to go out to see the quarry, a favorite past time that he had stopped asking for at seven. Sam's face, in the memory, is a mix of shock and question and wonder, but he agreed and the rest of it until Jim came back while watching the sun lower to throw the huge gorge into relief, is about this pseudo-him and his brother, playing tic-tack-toe in the sand, and then slowly trying to figure out what word Sam had picked for hang man.
But today isn't like that, and Jimmy's in the back of his mind trying to soothe him with one of his mother's lullabies as Jamie looms nearer to the surface than ever. Sam's got a bag on his bed, is throwing things into it and screaming back at Frank, who's towering over in the doorway. Jim's pressed into the corner near the closet, trying not to bumble as he begs his brother not to leave, tries to ignore the bitter, half-drunk taunts and rage-tinted exultations from the older man. Sam doesn't look at him, can't.
Jim knows this has to be hard on his brother, but that makes him want Sam to stay more. "Sam, Sam please don't leave me here!" he begs, but he knows he has nothing to offer. Sam's hand keep thrusting his shirts, pants, an extra pair of fucking socks into the ragged Star Cadets backpack that had been left for so long, cold and forgotten on the shelf of his closet, the same closet that now stands open and empty.
"You can't be a KIRK in this house, Jim-..." He cuts himself off, looking farther away from Jim, who knows he's almost said 'Jimmy' and it's clear now that Sam KNOWS about Jimmy, probably about Jamie, too, though he might not have a name for him. But he doesn't have time to think about the repercussions of that on him and his brother, because Sam's got that god-forsaken bag over his shoulder and he's walking out the door, brushing past an enraged Frank, who screams after him to never come back to MY house again!
He feels himself breaking, can't help but collapse against the closet door, the handle a cold pressure against his arm, helping him try to keep his feet as he hears his brother leave for the last time. There's a flash of pain in his mind and he's raging not only against the tears that desperately want to fall- something he's not let happen since that first night after Tarsus, doesn't want to let happen ever again- but against Jamie, too, who knows Jim's almost too weak to fight him right now, and with that fight raging, he doesn't have the energy to hold himself up anymore and as his knees hit the floor, so too does the realization that his brother is gone has left him here, alone with FRANK.
On one, dry, painful sob, he feels himself break, and he feels Jimmy calm just a little bit, his lullaby no longer a frantic string in the back of his mind, but a hushed, tearful murmur. There's another, now. He can feel it, curled close to Jimmy, silent and watchful with a hint of knowing but he's trying to fight against the tears and Jamie right now, can't focus on trying to see who or how or why or what it is.
In the end, he looses. A tear falls and then there's hour of blank where he comes to later, at the police station with dust all over him and his voice hoarse and Frank, looming and purple-faced off in the distance, signing something and obviously angry beyond almost anything Jim's ever seen.
When they finally get home, Frank throws him bodily across the living room, and as his shoulder smashes painfully against the wall, he can feel Jamie in the back of his mind, unable to make up his mind on being smug and gnashing at the bit to escape once more. Frank's screaming now, though, raging and angry and recalling everything Jim's ever done to him, some he can't even remember and Jim knows it's because they happened with Jamie and so he won't remember, not until Jamie wants him to.
It takes a couple minutes, but suddenly Jim's thrown back and all he can feel is calmwarmsafe. He sees it, sees himself catch Frank's fist, twist it the way he's learned to do if you catch a fist like that, brings the heavy man to his knees in a way he's been secretly trying to do for years now. He hears his voice, an echo of anger and pain and loyalties that are dead now, but apparently still clinging on. "If you ever touch my body again," this not-him is saying, "I will find a way to justify killing you."
It's not until later that this new-him releases it's hold. He gets them into the kitchen, gets them fed with something that tastes like warm memories from the replicator, gets out the battered, nearly-empty med kit from under the sink and gives them one of the few hypospray pain reliefs left that they aren't allergic to. When he's done all that, when he's made sure Frank is safely holed up in his room, only the low angry grumble of his voice present, he gets them up to the bedroom, gets them dressed in the warm flannel pants and tshirt that make up their sleeping garments since they got olderand started refusing to wear any matching sets anymore. Only when they are laid out on the bed, breathing calm, eyes drooping in exhaustion as stars peek in the window at them, does he release his hold.
Jim comes to, feeling the calm and warmth stay with him, as the personality snakes back into his mind, curling itself warmly near Jimmy, who's completely content to have him there, between himself and Jamie.
He doesn't try to name it until the next day, not because he doesn't want to, but because he's simply too tired, too warm, feels too safe to try. As he's trying to vary his own name again, he finds his mind balking. James, no. J.T seems too childish...
There's a warmth in him, and suddenly he just knows his name is Sam. Because the name comes to him just that easily, and it floods his body like when Sam used to answer his questions, no matter how childish.
CHAPTER 4