Title: Sticks and Stones (12/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Sequel to Many Bells Down; Riverside ‘verse AU. Khan is hell-bent on destroying everything and everyone James Kirk cares about until Jim surrenders the most important person of all—himself.
Previous Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

An author’s confession: The first soap opera I ever watched seriously was a show called Passions. I was of the opinion, before Passions, that only a fool would waste time on over-exaggerated drama and layer-upon-layer of mindless duplicity. Then Passions came along. It was in and of itself a parody of soap operas. It had everything you would think of as fanciful and ridiculous: witches and warlocks, doll-turning-boy, an orangutan named Precious in love with a human, star-crossed lovers complete with past-life flashbacks (like Titanic and POTC, WTH?), a slightly incestuous family, and a town torn between Good and Evil and on the verge of an apocalypse. I could go on. If Passions had lived past its infancy (nine years or so), the writers would have no doubt worked in vampires and werewolves to satisfy the public’s current obsessions. Looking back, I realized there was a lesson to be learned: sometimes you simply shouldn’t take yourself too seriously.

Part Eleven

Jim did the proper thing upon spying the terrible blankness in Spock’s eyes and set about assuring his boyfriend that he was okay. Spock didn’t seem to believe him so Jim pulled the man into a bathroom adjoining the sitting room that Lady Q had relegated all males to “to discuss their issues” and let Spock inspect him for himself. Jim already knew he could not stop whatever retribution Spock had planned but he hoped to stall it for at least half a day. That was then.

This is now.

Jim’s stitched skin protests sharply with pain as he attempts to tug Spock’s hands away from Pike’s neck. Bones divides his attention between physical restraint (when did Spock become so strong?) and pleading with the lawyer not to commit murder.

Pike’s coloring is not good; he sputters from a lack of oxygen and claws fruitlessly at Spock’s grip like he is dying—which he obviously will do in the next minute or so if Spock doesn’t let up on crushing his windpipe.

No, this is definitely not good, not good at all. So what if Jim imagined killing Pike himself only hours before? Actually watching Spock choke the life out of the man is a slap of reality. And he really would rather not have to visit his lover in prison. Leonard is saying something along those lines, intermixed with “Damn it, Spock! Let him go!” and “Holy hell, Jim, do something!”

Can’t Bones see he is doing something? Never mind that it isn’t working! Jim can’t even slip a pinkie between Spock’s grip and Pike’s neck.

Quick thinking has always been Jim Kirk’s forte. When inevitably an idea strikes him, it takes Jim only a mere second to decide it’s brilliant. With an overly loud gasp, he breaks away from Spock and Pike and hugs his wounded side. His sudden dizziness (not that he would ever admit it) is not entirely feigned when he staggers backward, drops to his knees, and falls limply upon the Oriental rug with a pained groan.

The result is instantaneous: Spock stops choking Pike at the sound of Jim’s distress, and Leonard wedges between the two men, forcing them to break apart, in order to throw himself at the fallen Kirk like Jim is the one dying.

Oops, Jim thinks, noting the genuine terror on Bones’ face. He swiftly re-evaluates his plan and sees its inherent flaw.

Jim sits up, abandoning his dramatic pretense of wretched illness, to say he is okay—no, really, Bones!—but the doctor shoves him onto his back again with the order “Don’t move, Jim!” Then he and McCoy fight valiantly for the tail of his shirt (and essentially over whether or not Leonard is allowed to look at his injury). Spock, the bastard, intervenes and pins Jim’s arms to the floor so that Jim loses the battle.

The plan’s flaw, it seems, has turned into an outright disaster.

Jim squirms for a moment and jokes desperately, “While this is kinky and all, Bones, can we not do this in front of Pike?”

Leonard ignores him and asks exactly how bad his pain is on a scale of one to ten.

Jim deadpans, “Zero.”

The pinch of Bones’ mouth says he is not amused. “You’re bleeding a little—”

He is? Huh, that explains the stickiness of his bandage.

“—but that’s because you’ve torn a stitch.”

What? When did that happen?

“Goddamn it! I should have never believed that old bat of a woman when she said she knew what she was doin’! Decorated nurse in WWII, my sainted aunt. You could have serious internal injuries we don’t know about, Jim!”

Another voice inserts hoarsely, “Bella had him put in the MRI first. If the scans had shown anything life-threatening, she would have flown in surgeons.”

Wow, Pike’s voice sounds terrible; then again, the man—though his coloring is slightly improved, turning his face less of an angry red to an angry pink—does have purple-and-black bruises forming around his neck.

Pike’s statement finally sinks into Jim’s brain. He gapes. “Wait, MRI? Surgeons?” What in the hell has Lady Q been doing to his unconscious body!?

Leonard turns a hard stare to Pike, who is half-bent at the waist like he needs to catch his breath after a long run. “Where are they? I want to see them,” the doctor demands.

Jim blinks up at Spock and whisper-pleads, “I want to go home. They scare me.”

“I do not believe returning home would be wise, Jim. Allow Leonard to do his job and determine a course of treatment for you.” Spock sounds so calm now, like he wasn’t actively attempting homicide a few moments ago. Jim is amazed at this change and also slightly disturbed by it.

He protests “But I’m not sick!” then realizes instantly how dumb that sounds and wishes he could disappear straight through the floor, especially with the way Leonard is looking askance at him, as though the man seriously thinks Jim should undergo a serious psychological evaluation.

Despairing of his predicament (and mysteriously nauseous), Jim closes his eyes. Maybe everyone will go away if he can’t see them. Maybe this is a dream, and he’s actually on a beach in Honolulu with the sun warm on his skin and a gorgeous native girl serving him a fruity drink. Wouldn’t Bones and Spock be envious?

Fingers brush across his cheek. “Jim?” His name sounds far, far away.

“What?” he murmurs. And oh, there’s a cold breeze at the beach too, and the rumbling noise of gigantic ocean waves breaking in his ears. Or roaring, rather.

He blinks open his eyes when the roar dies down into a voice. How weird, he’s floating above the ground—no, not floating. “Spock!” he says, shocked and immediately embarrassed beyond belief. “I can walk! What are you doing!”

Leonard appears in his peripheral vision. “You passed out,” the man says.

“You mean I fake-passed out.” Because real, actual fainting was not part of Jim’s brilliant idea. What is wrong with his stupid body?

“No,” Bones corrects but says nothing more, moving ahead of Spock and Jim to talk to a surprised Q who appeared from a side door in the wide corridor. Jim glances around and over Spock’s shoulder but he can’t see Pike anywhere. He hopes the man stays put in the sitting room—and away from Spock—for a long while.

A tiny part of Jim admits it was gratifying to see Spock’s anger manifested. Christopher Pike had played with them all to satisfy his own scheme at catching Khan, and Jim has the sick feeling Pike would have chalked up any subsequent losses to the “greater good”. Bones is not a pawn to be sacrificed simply because he wants to protect someone he loves; that Pike would carelessly use McCoy that way—and tell no one about it—makes Jim’s blood boil all over again. But Spock made an undeniable point with his attack, and Jim can be satisfied with that.

They—he, Spock, and McCoy—aren’t to be messed with. They defend and protect each other, no matter the circumstances, and they stand united against a common enemy despite any fighting they do amongst themselves. Always.

Jim couldn’t wish for a sweeter truth.

He sighs and rests his head on Spock’s shoulder. He won’t protest this embarrassing spectacle, not because he enjoys being carted around like a damsel in distress, but because he knows Spock needs to feel helpful when one of them is hurt. Apologies will come later, once Jim isn’t so tired and Spock might be willing to accept Jim’s explanation for fighting Khan’s miscreants alone once things went to shit. After all, it turned out for the better, Kirk decides. Spock saved Sulu from bleeding out, Bones found Jim in time to save him, and they might, just might be on their way to kicking Khan out of Riverside.

In the last few months, Jim has been drugged, manipulated, attacked, lied to, betrayed, and, the cherry on top of it all, shot (even if it’s more like grazed by a bullet, which is a damned near thing in Jim’s opinion). He has felt hopeless, depressed, angry, and hurt; like a man struggling to do something as basic as breathing.

Now, quite inexplicably, he feels a break in the cloud of misery hanging over him. It’s not much, really, only a small peek at a happier future, the tiniest of hopes, but it exists. And he wouldn’t be James T. Kirk if he didn’t latch onto it with all the joy and determination he could muster.

Khan has played his hand and failed. Jim thinks he is more than overdue for a turn at this twisted game they are immersed in. He may not know what he intends to do yet but once he figures it out, there will nothing which can stand in his way and stop him from winning.

Gonna get you, “Khan,” he mutters. Someone strokes his cheek in response.

Noises, like the opening and closing of doors.

“Put him on the bed, Spock. He’ll sleep through the night, I think.”

“He should be at a hospital.”

Bones and Spock talking, Jim dreams.

“Khan owns the only hospital in this region, and he’ll be hunting for us. Jim’s all right, Spock. This is just his body’s mechanism for coping with the blood loss. Still, I’ll take a look at the MRI scans to be certain.”

Silence, but not prolonged.

“Leonard.”

“I know. I’m sorry too. There are pajamas in the dresser if you want to sleep here.”

“I will wait for you.”

The voices fade in and out, growing soft and formless. Jim sinks into a tangle of dreams: Khan, Leonard, and Spock; a mad-hatter named Lady Q, and woman’s voice that sounds oddly like his mother’s.

This is the second time Jim has woken up in the Q compound to a surprise he did not expect. However, Lady Q isn’t the person humming at his bedside or stroking his hair. He blinks to dispel the dream but Winona Kirk doesn’t vanish. She smiles at him.

“I stayed in labor for twenty-two hours,” she says, voice soft, and Jim’s eyes widen because only his mother would begin a conversation with this particular line. “By the last five minutes of it, I thought I’d die if I didn’t birth you right then and there, and I prayed, oh how I prayed, you would stop being so stubborn and come out already.”

Jim closes his eyes again, listening.

“It’s like you heard me, baby, and a couple of minutes later you were born. The nurse took you up and when you didn’t start to cry, we all thought the worst. I said a lot of things I didn’t mean while in labor, Jimmy, but the worst of it was cursing your father for dying and leaving me alone to raise you. Then you came into the world and you were so silent and I hated myself for even thinking such a thing because you were a gift, a part of George I’d always have, and if you died too… I screamed until they handed you over.” She laughs a little but it sounds watery. “I think they thought I was going to climb out of the bed to get to you, which I very well might have if the nurse hadn’t put you in my arms. You didn’t make a sound, quiet as a little mouse, but I felt you breathing and I started to cry because I was so grateful. That’s when you started crying too.”

He opens his eyes and reaches up to brush away a tear from her cheek.

Love fills Winona’s voice as she finishes her tale. “That was the first time I wondered if we had a special connection, that maybe you somehow knew when I was upset and reacted to it.”

“I do know when you’re upset,” he says softly. He’d never really thought about it as more than intuition. How uncanny, that it might have started from the moment of his birth.

“Likewise, I know when something is wrong with you,” Winona says. “Do you remember that time you broke your wrist when you fell in your grandfather’s barn?”

He nods and his wrist aches in memory, despite that he had been very, very young when it happened.

“I was standing in the kitchen at home, hands in a sink full of soapy water and dishes, when a terrible feeling came over me. I just knew it had to be you. A bad feeling and you, all mixed up.”

Jim stares at her, surprised. His wrist had hurt horribly but he had been afraid to tell anybody because he knew he shouldn’t have climbed to the loft in the first place. Then, as a six year-old Jimmy was trying to figure out how to hide his injury, his mother had shown up out of nowhere, yelling for him. It had seemed natural to go to her when she sounded panicked, so he had and the rest was history. That she was there because he had been hurt had not ever crossed his mind.

“It still happens to me, that same awful sense of dread every time you’re in trouble.” Her smile is a touch bitter. “I knew, deep down, I shouldn’t have let you stay at the diner that night. I knew it, but you were so stubborn and certain and—look at you now, Jim.”

He can’t help but groan. “Mom, is this a lecture? Are you seriously lecturing me while I’m bedridden?”

“What better time, darling, than when you can’t run away?” But her eyes hold his, implore him to understand. “My point is simple. I know when you’re hurt, which inevitably upsets me, and you don’t like it when I’m upset. Why don’t we both agree to do our best not to frighten one another?”

“But it’s not my fault,” he mutters at the duvet covering his legs.

“Of course it isn’t,” Winona agrees, “but you’re very accident-prone.”

He almost pokes out his bottom lip but quickly remembers he is an adult and not a pouting boy. “It’s not an accident when someone is out to get you, Mom.”

“Well, then I would have to admit you attract trouble on a regular basis and how would that reflect on my parenting skills?” Winona tucks the covers around his shoulders. “Shall I let Spock and Leonard come in now? Are you still sleepy? Are you hungry?”

He brightens at the prospect of food. “Can I have waffles?”

Winona purses her mouth thoughtfully. “I suppose I could invade the kitchen…”

“And maple syrup,” Jim reminds her because sugary syrup is the most important ingredient in any breakfast. To round out the menu, he tacks on, “With blueberries, too—not on the waffles, yuck, but in them, Mom. And some orange juice, that’d be great, thanks!” He lays back on his pillows and blinks sweetly at her.

She sighs with an exasperated fondness. “Let me see what I can do, Jimmy. Now be good and stay in bed until your doctor says otherwise.”

He waits a full five seconds after she slips out of his bedroom door before throwing back the duvet and bed sheets and shuffling in the direction of the bathroom. Unfortunately, on the heels of his mother’s departure, comes Bones—who immediately jumps down his throat about moving around.

Jim rolls his eyes as he flicks on the bathroom light. “I have great aim, Bones, but even I can’t reach the toilet from the bed.” He shuts the door on Leonard’s stunned silence and proceeds to relieve his full bladder and, upon spotting a toothbrush and toothpaste that looks suspiciously like his from his apartment bathroom, brushes his teeth, glad to be rid of the icky feeling in his mouth.

Leonard is leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door when Jim comes out.

“Did you piss blood?” his boyfriend asks immediately.

“Gee, we have the sexiest conversations” is Jim’s dry reply. “And no, I didn’t.”

“Let me look at your stitches.”

“No thanks.”

“It wasn’t a request, Jim.”

Leonard unceremoniously unties the belt of the robe Jim found in the bathroom and pushes it aside. While the doctor goes about carefully peeling away Jim’s fresh bandage to peek at his wound, Jim’s hand un-tucks Leonard’s shirt from his pants.

Leonard pauses to ask, “What are you doing?”

Ah, the old tongue-in-cheek, the kind of reply Jim is always good at: “I thought we were undressing each other.”

Leonard removes Jim’s hand from where it had wandered inside his shirt to stroke at the smooth skin over his ribs. “Sorry, Jim, no sex for you for at least two weeks.”

“Excuse me?“

“You heard what I said.”

Jim’s mouth needs a moment to start working again. “Fine. Whatever. Spock’ll put out if you won’t.”

Leonard smirks. “I already told him to keep his hands to himself—or simply me—until you’re healed.”

Jim falls back onto the bed with an exaggerated flop of limbs. “I’ll die!”

“Don’t be such a baby. Nobody’s ever died from abstinence.”

“But I’m not a monk, Bones! I have needs—healthy, sexual, adult needs!”

Leonard pokes at his thigh with a warning finger. “If I find out you’ve even so much as put your hand down your pants, Jim, I will stick you in a chastity belt.”

Jim lifts his head to look at his boyfriend, wide-eyed. “Are you—” He wets his dry lips. “—are you sure we’re talking about the same thing? Like as in ‘no sex until I die of frustration’ or ‘lots and lots of sex involving a chastity belt’?”

Leonard pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to ask. Really, I’m not.” He turns toward the door. “Spock wants to see you.”

“Is Spock going to wear a chastity belt too?”

“Shut up, Jim.”

“But I have this great idea—!”

Though Leonard walks away, Jim can tell by the man’s stalk he isn’t unaffected by the hints of Jim’s dirty imagination. Jim drops his head back to his pillow and grins at the ceiling. Score one for James Kirk; McCoy, zero. It won’t be long before Jim’s enforced two weeks of sex-less activities devolves into a much shorter period of time. He likes to think he is that good.

Minutes later, Spock easily plucks Jim’s hand away from his belt. “I have been duly informed you will try to seduce me. I am to resist.”

Jim smiles lazily at Spock and motions to himself. “How can you possibly resist all of this, Spock?”

“Your hair, if you must know, is not visually attractive after your extended period of rest. Would you care for a comb, Jim?”

Spock, you dog. What a low blow!

Jim growls wordlessly and chucks a pillow at the lawyer’s head, which Spock catches with ease and plumps before replacing it next to Jim again. He studies Jim’s mutinous face some seconds before leaning in. “I do not believe,” the man murmurs as he closes the distance between them, “Leonard will classify a kiss as detrimental to your person.”

Let it never be said Jim doesn’t know how to make full use of an opening like that.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Leonard remarks, amused, as he re-enters the bedroom carrying a tray with a glass of orange juice.

Jim tears his mouth from Spock’s with reluctance. “We were—just—kissing,” he explains between gulps of air. “Not leading-to-sex kissing, I swear, Bones! Though, I think, that’d be awesome…” He pauses and decides not to press his luck.

Leonard is smiling as he hands Jim the drink. “I don’t know how you do it, kid, but you always manage to get your way.”

Jim’s eyes light up. “So does this mean—?”

“No,” his boyfriend says, “but it does mean you can kiss me too, if you want.” Leonard ends the sentence almost quietly.

Jim places his glass on a side table, untouched. “C’mere, Bones.” His voice is husky with understanding. “We have some catching up to do.”

“I will guard the door,” Spock offers.

“You can join us,” Leonard points out as Jim scoots over to make a space for him on the bed.

“Would you prefer to be caught by Jim’s mother, who I assume sent the orange juice to Jim, or perhaps Lady Q?”

Jim shudders. “I vote Spock watches for intruders.”

“Agreed,” Bones seconds.

“Very well.” Spock gracefully slips to his feet and strides toward the sitting room. Jim wastes no time in reaching for McCoy.

They make out with a few tender kisses and then are content to lie together on the bed. Jim is somewhat drowsy when his stomach decides to protest an hour of endured waffle-less-ness. Leonard’s hand lightly and carefully strokes his belly as he comments on its noisy grumbling. “Should I find you something to eat?”

“Mom’s making me waffles.”

“Excuse me for saying so, Jim, but she’s takin’ her damned time about it, don’t you think?”

He muses absently, “I wonder where she is.” It hadn’t really struck him until now that she is inside the Q compound. Has she ever been here before?

There is a light warning knock against the door then Spock slips into the room. He doesn’t hesitate to tell Kirk and McCoy, “There may be a problem which requires Jim’s attention.”

Leonard sits up. “What do you mean?”

“One of the servants approached me, distraught. He claims…” This time Spock does hesitate. “…Lady Q and Jim’s mother are at war.”

Jim cannot take that in without a mental fumble. Bones doesn’t seem to fare any better either, as he says, “What? You mean Winona made Lady Q angry?”

Spock gives them a meaningful look. “I suspect quite the opposite, Leonard—it was Lady Q who incited Winona’s rage.”

“Oh God,” Leonard says with conviction.

Spock and McCoy turn to Jim.

He clutches at his bedcovers. “Hey, why are you looking at me like that? I’m sick!”

“Jim, I think this is an emergency.” Leonard tugs the sheet out of Jim’s hands while Spock searches for Jim’s pants.

He whimpers. Fire is an emergency. Two Titans clashing—especially a Kirk and a Q—is Armageddon. How is Jim supposed to stop that?

No. It’s not his problem. He could easily die in the crossfire! Don’t his boyfriends realize this?

There is another rapid tap upon the door and a pale face wearing wire-rimmed glasses cautiously peeks around its edge. The servant Q says, anxious, “Sirs, her Ladyship has issued a call to arms.”

Jim sits up. “WHAT?”

But the Q’s anxiety only amplifies as he enlightens them of the dire situation: “She Who Shall Not Be Named has thwarted her Ladyship’s personal attempts to reach the armory. They were last seen in the courtyard, whereupon the Captain attempted parley between the hostiles and was smote upon the cobblestones for his insolent interference, and then She Who Shall Not Be Named insulted the honor of all Q. Incensed, her Ladyship procured his Lordship’s favored rapier—”

Jim has long-since scrambled out of the bed and is shoving his legs into a pair of pants. His shirt goes on backwards and inside-out but he doesn’t care. He isn’t the only one cursing aloud.

“—and She Who Shall Not Be Named, keeper of the young master’s katana—”

Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. Well, now he knows what happened to Sulu’s beloved sword.

“—accepted a duel to the death, wagering the fate of one James Tiberius Kirk.”

Nobody yells at Jim for running with a stitched gash in his side because Bones and Spock are hot on his heels. That all of the Q they come in contact with, or pass by in their headlong flight, look intensely afraid only serves to send Jim’s fear spiraling to new heights. He hurtles into a courtyard lined with Q servants in various states of abject terror just as Lady Q cries, “I warn ye, wife of the Late Captain Kirk! I will not relent until ye perish beneath my blade or forfeit thy son!”

“You’ll never take Jimmy, you frilly sack of bones!” Wind whips Winona’s unbound hair, making her look wild and young.

“He is a Q as his father before him!” Lady Q declares and swings her rapier madly.

Jim’s mother dodges it, her lithe figure dancing aside, and raises Sulu’s katana to chest level with a frightening ease. “You may have owned my husband’s life,” she growls at the old woman, “but you will not have my son’s!”

And thus the battle for James Tiberius Kirk begins in earnest while Jim looks on in nervous horror.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Sticks and Stones (18/18) – from April 19, 2012
• Sticks and Stones (17/18) – from April 17, 2012
• Emotional Much? – from April 17, 2012
• Sticks and Stones (16/17) – from April 13, 2012
• Sticks and Stones (15/17) – from April 11, 2012