0Title: I Follow (3/4)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Sam Kirk, Jim Kirk, others
Summary: Sam wants nothing more than to save his brother, until the day he realizes Jim never needed him.
Previous Part: 1 | 2
I would like to thank everyone for their patience. Not only has it been tough to find time to write this past week, but coming to a compromise in regards to Sam’s fate wasn’t easy either. You see, I started this story with a clear vision of how things would end, and the story was meant to be a brief and poignant look of what happens when someone walks a path of destiny that isn’t his – namely, Sam – and how the universe tries to correct itself to bring Jim back into the picture. But I thought too long and too hard and realized there was so much more I could do with the details I had envisioned. The premise became focused on the broken bond between two brothers and destiny, believe it or not, took a backseat. So here is my compromise, folks, to give us both what we want. I hope you enjoy the story!
For a week after Aurelan’s visit, Sam sporadically contemplates the messaging system of his comm. He pulls up Leonard’s contact information during class, at dinner or early in the morning to stare at it. But all of the staring in the world doesn’t make a new message appear, and it certainly doesn’t form a message of its own that Leonard can read. Each time Sam ends up placing the device aside, reminded that he doesn’t know what to type. His connection with Leonard seems like a thing of the past, and anything he might say to the man would be awkward.
Sam’s uneasiness plagues him for another week before he gives in to a persistent worry and goes over to the hospital. It occurs to Sam then as he is walking toward the section of campus which hosts the medical facilities that Leonard must have finished his residency last year as planned. Leonard would be working a proper schedule now as a certified physician. “Dr. McCoy”—Sam had jokingly called him that many times after they became friends. Always Leonard had responded with a long-suffering expression and a “Not until I’ve reached the point of wanting to drown myself, kid, like every other poor bastard in the field.”
Sam is swamped by regret. He’d missed that special moment in Leonard’s career. He had meant to be there for it; to congratulate his friend for seeing one dream fulfilled; and to be the first person to call Leonard by the hard-worn title of Doctor. Leaving had not come without a price. In so many little ways, Sam is discovering day-by-day in what dear coin he has paid for his decision.
Leonard has an office at the hospital in the basic shape, size and appearance of a cubicle. Sam asks an unfamiliar nurse if the space by the window is still Leonard’s. She says, “Sure is, hon, but you won’t find him there. He’s gone on break. You might catch him outside the lockers, though.”
Sam’s memory of the hospital (he had only visited once each year for the required physical examination as a cadet) is too vague to be trusted. He asks where that is and she kindly leads him to the elevator with a very clear set of directions. Sam finds his destination without much difficulty, but no one comes or goes from the entrance to the staff lounge or locker rooms for a couple of minutes and Sam grows impatient. The door itself is secured against non-hospital personnel. He swipes his student card across the identification monitor and, following a pause from the computer, is awarded entry. He knew giving himself security clearance to match Leonard’s would come in handy some day, even if that day took four years to arise.
Entering the men’s area—which is disappointingly small, just as Leonard once proclaimed—Sam finds McCoy in front of a row of lockers. At first Leonard is too busy crumpling his medical scrubs into a ball to notice Sam’s arrival. When McCoy drops a sock and, cursing, bends down to retrieve it, Sam clears his throat, saying, “Leonard?”
Leonard looks in Sam’s direction and stares for a moment. The stare melts into a frown. Then Leonard straightens, jerks open the door to one of the lockers and begins to shove his personal belongings into it.
Before the silence can become into an impenetrable wall, Sam implores, “Can we talk?”
Leonard is quiet for a long minute, continuing to pluck at and rearrange items inside his locker as if Sam isn’t there. Sam is close to giving up hope for a response when Leonard shuts the locker door suddenly and fixes a flat look on him. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”
It’s not quite an accusation. Sam feels bad nonetheless. “I—Sorry,” he apologizes, his heart plummeting.
“Am I supposed to grateful?”
“I made a mistake. Leonard…” Leonard looks unimpressed. Sam’s shoulders sink with resignation. “I’ll go.” He turns toward the door.
“Sam, wait!” Leonard is beside him in the next instant, holding onto his elbow and gently steering him into the middle of the locker room. Once positioned between Sam and the exit, Leonard says quickly, “I’m sorry I said that. I am grateful you came. I was beginning to lose hope that you would.”
“You were waiting for me?” That thought startles Sam.
McCoy crosses his arms in annoyance. “Well, what did you want me to do, Sammy? Chase you around campus like I do your brother?” His voice drops to a mutter. “There’s somethin’ damned wrong with you Kirks. Why do you never think first ‘n act later?”
Sam is fairly certain he ought to treat that comment as rhetorical so he does, staying silent.
Leonard’s loud sigh echoes off the walls of the small room as the man loses his defensive stance, his shoulders naturally curving downward into a slump. Leonard’s expression is laden with both irritability and concern. “You’re driving me batty, kid. You didn’t used to do that.”
Sam shrugs one shoulder. “Things change, I guess.”
“Yeah, I tell me about it.” Leonard’s tone softens. “So, is it Jim you want to talk about?”
Sam fixes his eyes on a spot over Leonard’s shoulder. Of course McCoy would guess correctly. “Is he… doing okay?”
“You mean since you kicked his ass over Aurelan?”
The sting in Leonard’s words is intentional and surprises Sam. “I didn’t kick his ass.”
“You don’t have to touch somebody physically to hurt them,” counters McCoy, a fierce quality to his drawl.
Sam stares at Leonard, coming to the realization that the man is not simply disapproving of his actions but also protective of Jim. “You’re really close to my brother.”
Leonard’s mouth presses into a thin line, as if he can neither admit nor deny that statement.
“It’s okay,” Sam clarifies quickly. “I’m not upset about it.” He winces over the half-lie. “Well, maybe I was at first but Jimmy…” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“Jim deserves a friend,” Leonard finishes for him.
Sam nods, feeling inexplicably sad all of a sudden. “I don’t know what it was like for him… out there, but wouldn’t it have been lonely?” And terrifying? his brain supplies. How could a child have survived on his own? Sam tries his best to still those thoughts because they hurt.
“I wish I knew,” Leonard is saying while Sam struggles with emotions that want to be given free reign.
“What?”
“You think he told me something, Sammy, but you’re wrong.” The measure of sadness in Leonard’s eyes is a perfect reflection of Sam’s. “No matter how I try to broach the subject, Jim clams up like an Andorian shellmouth. What happened that made him so…?”
“Messed up?” Sam glances away. Damn it, Jimmy. “I know I was wrong about Aurelan, but I don’t think I’m wrong about you, Leonard. You’re Jim’s closest friend at this school—and if I give you an answer to that question, I’ll hurt him more than I already have.” He holds Leonard’s gaze. “Won’t I?”
Leonard agrees with a quiet “Yeah.” Then he rakes a hand through his hair. “I guess I’m just not meant to know.”
Sam puts a hand on Leonard’s shoulder, not knowing what else to do. Would Jimmy ever speak of his past to Leonard? Sam might have thought he knew an answer like that years ago, but his brother is a stranger to him now.
A request comes unbidden, partly because Sam feels remorseful for ruining Leonard’s mood and partly because he wishes they could be close like they once were. “Do you want to go out for a drink?”
Leonard smiles. “Normally I’d say yes but I’ve had my fill of alcohol for a while. I could always use some proper coffee though. The stuff they keep here is the cheap shit.”
Coffee is a much better choice than alcohol in Sam’s opinion. He releases Leonard’s shoulder and steps back, looking at a digital wall clock. “Later this week, maybe? Just let me know when you’re free.” Then he motions at the door. “I think I should go. Sorry to intrude on your break like this.”
Leonard gives an odd shake of his head, distracting Sam just long enough that Sam doesn’t realize McCoy’s intent until he is securely in the other man’s arms.
“Stop being a wuss and hug me back, you idiot,” Leonard complains fondly.
“I’m not much of a hugger,” Sam responds, but it’s too easy to lean into the embrace. He cannot remember the last time he had a proper hug.
“Well, color me surprised,” Leonard says, amused. “Jim said exactly the same thing.” With a final tightening of his arms, Leonard lets go of Sam and pulls away.
Not liking this awkward feeling taunting him, Sam rubs at his nose.
“He did that too, afterwards,” McCoy remarks with a snicker. “But don’t worry, the hugs are growing on Jim, I can tell—so I expect they’ll grow on you too.”
“I’m definitely leaving now,” declares Sam, scuttling to the side and away from Leonard.
“Run while you can, Kirk!” comes the cheerful call at his back. “Run while you can!”
The door shuts on Leonard’s amusement, silencing any other teasing remarks the older man might have made. As Sam crosses the hospital corridor to the nearest elevator, he reflects on their parting and finds that he is both relieved and comforted. Soon, with a faint smile Kirk is deposited on the first floor; he leaves the hospital with an easy stride, not once noticing if he passed a familiar face at any point during the journey.
From there on, Leonard meets with Sam bi-weekly in a hole-in-the-wall cafe preferred by many of the medical staff. The feeling isn’t quite the same between them as it was in the past, but Sam does his best not to think of the past too often. Their friendship, though altered, still has strong roots.
And if Leonard always lets slip one or two comments about Sam’s brother during their hour at the cafe, Sam says nothing of it. He just soaks up those words more quickly than anything else Leonard will tell him.
~~~
The summons comes at the start of the second semester. Sam is caught unawares by it but answers it nonetheless, mostly out of curiosity.
“George Kirk,” a dark-haired young woman reads from a data padd in her lap. Her outfit is that of a student of psychology with a lab coat thrown over it for good measure, but her posture speaks of years of professionalism. Sam wonders about that, if she is new to the Fleet but experienced at her work or if she is simply adept at acting the part.
In the meantime while he thinks, Sam corrects her on his first name. He asks politely, “Why am I here, ma’am?”
The woman lifts one finely shaped eyebrow at the question. “This is a mandated session.”
Inexplicably, Sam is struck by a sense of wrongness, not from her words but from the look in her eyes. “My mandated sessions were discontinued.” He had had that talk with Pike right after his return to campus. Sam told the man point-blank that, in light of their heart-to-heart on the shuttle bound for San Francisco, the counseling was a pointless effort. Sam had had to promise of course to bring any problems or worries or stress directly to Pike in lieu of an official visit to the campus counselors.
Had Pike thought better of their agreement later and gone against his word?
In the lapse of silence, the counselor had set aside her padd. She crosses her legs and locks her fingers over a kneecap. With a sigh, she says, eyes suddenly gleaming, “You’ve caught me. This isn’t a mandated session.” She smiles at him like there is nothing wrong with her statement. “You’re here because I’m curious.”
It only takes a second for Sam’s confusion to turn into anger. He can think of a reason someone would be curious about him—the same reason people have always been curious about the offspring of George Kirk—and he doesn’t like it. Without a word, Sam rises from his chair and heads for the door to the tiny office.
“Your brother,” the woman calls casually to his back, “is an interesting man, Sam.”
That almost gives him pause—almost. Sam tosses a flippant reply over his shoulder as he reaches for the doorknob. “If this is your version of bait, I think I’ll pass.”
“So we can’t talk about why Jim is afraid of you?”
That takes a hold of him as strongly as a physical grip. Tensed on the threshold, Sam turns back to the woman watching his reaction. “What did you say?” He has taken two steps in her direction before he thinks better of it. “Jimmy isn’t afraid of me.”
“Of course he is. He’s afraid of everything you represent, Sam. You’re family. You’re that innate trust we all crave and the rejection we fear. No one has a stronger hold over Jim Kirk than you do. The question is… how do you use such power?”
“Who are you?” Sam demands, ignoring her question despite how badly it unsettles him.
She holds out a hand, smiling. “Helen Noel. I suppose you could call me an interested party.”
Sam pointedly slips his hands in his pants pockets. “That means you aren’t a friend of my brother’s.”
“No, not precisely.”
“Then you should mind your own business, Ms. Noel.”
Helen cocks her head. “But I don’t intend to. You and your brother are estranged. Why?” After a long moment of silence, she adds curiously, “Is silence a defense mechanism for you, Samuel?”
“If it was, that would beg the question of why I would need to defend myself. Is there a reason you’re antagonizing me, Helen?” He doesn’t particularly like using her first name but decides she thinks she is playing a game he doesn’t know the rules to. The foolish woman. Sam takes another step toward her. “How obsessed, exactly, are you with my brother?”
The amused slant to her mouth falters.
“Did he sleep with you and forget to call the next day?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Ah,” he murmurs, “but it’s a fair question since you’re prying into mine.”
Helen uncrosses her legs and snatches her data padd from a side table. “Do you know what your profile says about you?”
“I really don’t care.”
Her mouth curves again, no doubt because she thinks she has found a weak spot in his armor. “You would never have made it far up the chain of command.” Helen looks at the padd’s screen, reading, “Antisocial, introverted, emotionally detached—in other words, damaged.”
Sam feels coldly calm, so calm that he is an arm’s length from her before she realizes it. He takes the padd out of her hands with a gentleness belying the hard look in his eyes. “I think,” he says slowly, “Jim did a good thing when he dumped you.”
She wants to lash out at him. He can read the desire to strike out in her face. Frank would look the same way just before he raised his fist or picked up the nearest solid object that could bruise skin.
“Stay away from my brother,” Sam tells her. “Stay far away from him, Helen.”
“Or?” she challenges.
Sam doesn’t answer that because he doesn’t need to. He simply snaps the fragile device in his hands into two halves, drops them in her chair, and walks out of the room without once looking back. He briefly considers reporting Noel for abuse of the system for personal gain but decides the repercussions might come back to bear down on his brother rather than on him.
Jimmy has enemies as well as friends, the encounter teaches Sam. He mulls over that new thought for one night before coming to a decision and, hours before his first class begins, pulls out his comm to text Leonard a question. How many vengeful exes does my brother have?
Leonard must be awake because Sam’s comm dings almost instantly with a reply: How much time do you got? A second later, another message pops up on the heels of that one. Might as well discuss over breakfast.
Sam names a 24/7 diner he knows Leonard likes and tucks the comm into his back pocket without lingering too long on why he feels so satisfied there might be a reason Jim needs a brother after all.
~~~
Sam has no intention of leaving his room that day until McCoy calls him on a break between a class and a hospital shift and says without preamble, “Jim skipped lunch.”
Sam removes the hand that had been across his eyes (a migraine is brewing, the cool darkness of his room doing little to stop it) and sits up in his bed. “What?”
“We were supposed to meet and he didn’t show. Go find him.”
Why am I the best choice to do this?
He is about to voice his doubt when Leonard’s voice returns with a note of pleading in it. “Listen, I’m not being a mother-hen. Jim never ditches me without saying anything unless we’ve had a falling-out, ‘n I’d know if we had one of those, don’t you think? Just—please, can you look for him?”
Leonard’s concern is genuine, and it seems to be catching. “All right. Where should I look?”
The second of silence is an ill omen to Sam.
“There’s a place on the south-side of the Bay, a bar called the Red Dragon.”
The south-side is a slum, the kind that looks ritzy from far away but is falling to shambles up-close. It’s a shadier part of San Francisco where a desperate man might go. Sam can’t imagine why Jim would be there. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly.” McCoy’s tone of voice is grim.
Which only serves to make Sam shove his legs into his pants faster. “Red Dragon, got it. I’m going. But, Leonard?”
Leonard stays silent on the other end.
Sam finishes slowly, “My brother better not be there. If he is…” He bites down on the ending to that threat. “Whether he is or isn’t, we’re going to have a chat about this.”
Leonard’s reply is clipped, like Sam is far above him in rank and the remark has no choice but to be accepted. “Understood.”
Sam hangs up.
~~~
The bar is a glittering mesh of painted glass and faux gold; if it’s meant to look like Old China it only succeeds in the huge whiskered paper dragon hanging from the ceiling. Sam feels out of place the moment he walks in. A small man dressed in black stares at him from a chair at the bar counter, but Sam’s attention is already pulled elsewhere.
A bar table is up-ended, a few bottles lying broken on the floor. Men are standing in circle; Sam cannot see who they are hitting but he hears the thud of a fist against flesh and the mean laughter that follows it.
He knows it’s Jim they are beating. He knows it in his gut, not simply because McCoy sent him there with a certain dread, and the shout bursts out of Sam like a rocket: “HEY!”
Two of the men break the circle to see who’s interrupting their fun. Sam strides at them without slowing down, a thrum starting in his chest and working its way into the rest of his body. “Move,” he snaps from between his clenched teeth, shoving through the men like they aren’t more than random obstacles in his path. And there Jimmy is, in the grasp of a third person; he can barely lift his head in Sam’s direction. One of his eyes is swollen shut and blood is dripping off his chin to land on his uniform front.
Sam looks at his brother for a long moment before lifting his eyes to Jim’s captor. “You’ll let him go.”
The guy’s grin is mean. “Says who?”
“Says me, asshole.”
The thug responds to that, shoving Jim aside as though he isn’t more than a rag doll who’s lost its stuffing. “What’d you say?”
“S-Sam.” It’s not more than a whisper. Jimmy has managed to get back on his feet from where he’d fallen to his knees. He is bent at the waist like it hurts to straighten up. When Jim lifts a hand, fingers spayed, as if to stall Sam from entering the fight, that hand weaves drunkenly.
“Sammy.“
In his mind’s eye, Sam sees a nine year-old Jimmy saying the same thing, eyes wet as he gingerly crawled into his brother’s bed after Frank had gone to bed. For an instant Sam always wanted to throw his little brother out, to spit that the bed was his place, the only place he had to himself, but Jimmy would be hurting and Sam had to cave because he knew his thoughts were ugly and because if Jimmy didn’t have him, if they didn’t have each other, they had no one.
Little Jimmy is this Jimmy, still hurting and still in need of Sam. Sam feels his knuckles straining to pop as his fists tighten.
The thug laughs, sensing a new game to be had, and flips open a switchblade. “Wanna play now?”
~~~
Every cadet takes basic defense classes. Those in Command, Security & Weaponry, or Special Ops are required to have the advanced courses as well. Sam made it to the intermediate level before he took his leave from Starfleet. Perhaps that wouldn’t have made much a difference in how well he could fight if it hadn’t been for a particular individual during that last class. The cadet was older than the others though he was a third-year at the time Sam first encountered him. Whether it was because they shared a first name or not, Sam doesn’t know but they were paired together as sparring partners more often than not. The instructor yelled at them by last name respectively when he had to—Kirk and Giotto.
Giotto was not a tall man but he was broad through the shoulders and much, much heavier than he looked. In a past life, Sam mused, he might have been a Roman gladiator. Giotto grinned, his teeth a striking white in his darkly tanned face, when Sam let that thought slip out during a sparring match. But to Sam the comment hadn’t been meant as a joke: the guy had the skill to match his musculature. No one ever came close to beating Giotto, literally as well as figuratively. It was enough—and painfully so—to keep one’s limbs intact for the duration of an hour, class scores be damned.
Giotto was a natural teacher. He corrected Sam’s stance, the swing of his fist or kick of his leg; he gave direction when Sam was on the floor in a tangle of sore limbs and misery. The instructor seemed content to let Giotto coach his partner and rarely intervened. Sam often wondered if Giotto wasn’t more of a successor to the Defense department than a top student. Would the Fleet want him to stay and train the generations, or would they want him out in space protecting the chain of command at the front lines? Sam wondered which Giotto wanted for himself.
The class was ending in less than fifteen minutes. A few students had given up and headed for the lockers at a limping pace. Giotto preferred sparring until the last second, and so whoever was his partner for that day sparred until the last second too, no matter how many times he tried to claim defeat beforehand. Giotto would simply hoist the poor cadet to his feet and wordlessly resume the proper opening stance for a spar until the other person relented and joined him.
After barely managing to deflect one of his partner’s lightning-quick blows, Sam swiped a hand over his sweaty face and returned to his half-crouch in preparation for the next attack. It was very odd then when Giotto dropped his fists instead of resuming the drill and looked Sam over with a critical eye.
“You’re a quick thinker,” he said as if it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken in an hour, “and you’ve got tight control of your responses, but what happens on the day you lose that control?”
Sam had blinked at his sparring partner because despite his looks and his not-inconsiderable bragging rights, Giotto had little use for words when he wasn’t giving advice or explaining a defense technique. Thus Sam’s response to the remark was a very un-intelligent “Huh?”
“All it usually takes is for someone to provoke you the wrong way,” Giotto continued, like they had conversations on a regular basis. “You lose your focus, and then the fight’s over before it’s started.”
“I won’t lose my focus,” Sam countered. He glanced at the time display built into the gym wall. “We can stop if you—”
He never finished that sentence. Giotto barreled into him and knocked Sam’s feet out from under him. Then he planted his boot on Sam’s chest, effectively pinning him to the mat. Sam was stunned.
And then he was angry.
He shoved Giotto’s foot off his chest (which gave way with ease) and stood up, demanding, “What the fuck was that?”
“How long are you going to waste my time, kid?” Giotto had asked in his usual blunt way.
That stung in a place Sam didn’t realize he could still be wounded; and because of the hurt, he felt angrier.
“What—the—fuck—was that? I thought we were sparring.”
“So you’re ready to hit me now? Well, I’ll let you try,” the other cadet continued in a calm tone.
Sam’s fists flexed but he took a step back, telling himself, It’s just a class.
Giotto followed no matter how far Sam backed up. By that point, some of their other classmates were watching the unusual display with trepidation. The instructor had given his two students a curious look and then casually turned his back.
That, more than Giotto’s sudden aggression, tinted Sam’s vision red. If Giotto wasn’t going back off, if the instructor didn’t give two shits in order to stop him, Sam had no choice.
He threw himself forward into the fight. Not one blow landed, and by the time Giotto had decided toying with him was no longer fun, Sam was breathless and only on his feet due to the strength of his rage. Giotto caught his arm easily—Sam had exhausted his energy too quickly without meaning to—and twisted it behind his back.
Sam wasn’t above fighting dirty. He stomped on his captor’s foot. But when he pivoted to bring his knee in range of Giotto’s stomach, Giotto simply shoved backwards, aimed his fist, and delivered a punch that dropped Sam like a stone. His vision burned white with pain for several seconds before it cleared enough that he could see.
The fight was over in less than three minutes, would have been over sooner if Giotto had intended to knock him down from the beginning. Sam was humiliated but he was also grateful it was over. He sat up and drew a leg towards his chest so he could drape an arm across his knee. His mouth was slick with an iron taste. He wiped off some of the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of a hand, and ignored the murmuring around him.
Sam wasn’t surprised no one wanted to come near him or Giotto. How long would it take for Pike to find out about this? Shit, he’d messed up.
“Class over!” someone bellowed, which was true since it was now two minutes past three. The instructor’s swift approach across the gymnasium had the other cadets scattering in all directions; some of them even forgot to go back to the locker room to shower and change. The instructor stopped within a foot of Giotto, looked from him to Sam, and said in his gruff tone, “Clean the blood off the mat before you leave.”
Once the gym was empty of the others, Giotto knelt next to Sam and took his chin in hand, turning it to the light. “Anything loose or broken?” he asked. Sam’s partner was back, and the bully in Giotto had vanished like he never existed.
Sam probed his teeth with his tongue. “No.”
“It’ll still swell.” Then he let go of Sam. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Sam just looked at him.
“Sometimes words can’t substitute for action. How’d it feel?”
“What? Getting my ass kicked?” Sam replied with a touch of bitterness.
“Letting go of the control.”
The last vestiges of his anger faded as he considered that question. “I lost,” he said at last. “But I would have lost the other way too. You’re difficult to beat.”
A smile ghosted across Giotto’s face. “There’s a way that will at least give you a chance to fight back.”
Sam felt himself perk up a little in response to the offer. “Yeah? How?”
“First things first,” Giotto said, helping Sam to his feet. “You’re going to Medical.”
Sam grunted. No doubt Leonard was going to catch wind of this. He wouldn’t hear the end of it for a month. Possibly two.
“After that,” his partner promised, “we can sit down and talk.”
What does talking have to do with fighting?
Giotto must have expected Sam to think that because he said too casually, “Have you ever tried meditation?”
Sam fought his confusion for a second. “No.”
“The basics of calming the mind involve compartmentalization of your thoughts. If you can have that kind of clarity in a fight, the rest is just knowing when and where to strike.”
“…Wait, you’re going to teach me to meditate instead of fight?” Sam was fairly certain he couldn’t be connecting the dots correctly, no matter how matter-of-fact the man walking beside him was.
Giotto was grinning openly now. “Nobody’s better at meditation than the Vulcans. So no, I’m not going to teach you to meditate. I’m going to take you to the guy who taught me. Then we’ll go back to the fighting.”
~~~
Looking at the knife, Sam’s fists loosen, and he becomes the picture of absolute calm. His breath slows and evens out. Anger he traps by visualizing a ball of furious energy—and all of its negative emotional tendrils—and turning it into a shadowy thought in his mind. The technique is a personal compromise since he could never learn to simply dissolve the anger with logic as a Vulcan would.
Fear—now that is the easy part for Sam. Fear is placed aside. He doesn’t want it or need it in a fight. His meditation teacher had remarked, slanting his eyebrow in a fashion that typically indicated his scientific interest in an anomaly, Sam has the uncanny ability to ignore the baser emotions which plague most species. Sam had replied that fear is simply one of those feelings he knows well, and he long ago learned it only made him more vulnerable to that which he feared. (That the emotion had also played a hand in ruining his life, he did not mention to the then-Lieutenant-Commander.)
“Not so tough now,” sneers the man, brandishing his weapon.
Giotto’s advice is like a voice whispering in his ear. First, disarm your opponent without touching him if you can. Put him off his game.
Sam smiles, a great big grin that could belong to a kid who just walked into the galaxy’s largest candy store. He flicks a finger in the direction of the switchblade. “Really? Is that all you’ve got?”
The man’s look falters momentarily, gaining an edge of confusion before that confusion is quickly hidden. He calls Sam’s bluff by diving forward with a snarl; his hand is fast, whipping outward like a snake to strike at Sam’s side.
If the weapon is small and not run by voltage, your best bet is to let him come at you. When he does, block, chop and—this is the important part, Kirk—break.
At the time of the instruction, Sam had thought it might be difficult to break someone’s arm. Turns out, it isn’t. The man goes down howling and clutching his wrist. Sam retrieves the dropped knife at his feet and closes the switchblade, tucking it into one of his pants pockets.
That, of course, makes the other two gangsters let his brother go (who they had been holding back from intervening with something like a misguided pride in their fellow man) and head toward him. The guy who had been at the bar counter closes in too.
Sam knows even with his training and his sharp reflexes, a fight of three against one simply requires a single moment of inattention on his part to leave him broken and bleeding on the floor. This time he dodges aside, catching the man on the very end as he does, and pulls his feet out from under him. With a shove in the right direction, the man pinwheels with a shout of surprise into the other two.
It gives Sam the second he needs to grab a hold of the back of Jimmy’s uniform collar and drag him into a run for the door. Jim tries to say something, maybe a protest, and Sam doesn’t have time to hear it so he snaps, “Shut up and run, you idiot!“
If Jim ever grew into his height, his behavior has certainly regressed now. The kid is all awkward limbs tangling into Sam’s as they practically fall through the doorway into a heap on the street sidewalk. Angry voices echo behind them. Cursing, Sam rolls to his feet and jerks Jim up along with him. Jim staggers sideways and Sam catches him, rights him and—as the thugs come barreling through the exit—pushes his brother back into a run. “Go, go, go!” he cries.
They pound down the sidewalk, narrowly missing a street vendor’s cart and a little old lady with an oversized purse which Sam ducks when she swings it at his head. Jim’s not in the right condition to navigate the streets with one eye so Sam lengths his stride just enough to take lead. As they come abreast of the opening to a side alley he takes a hold of Jim’s sleeve and jerks him into the passage. In short order, they come to a fence. Sam hooks his fingers into the metal links, asking, “Need a boost?”
Jim just snorts at him, resulting in a gross spray of blood on Sam’s shirt sleeve, and begins climbing the fence like a monkey. Sam cannot help but grin at a memory of a barely out-of-toddlerhood Jimmy stuck in a wide oak tree. Sam, not knowing what to do, had called the fire department to get him down.
The crash of trash cans in the distance and the sound of running feet bring him sharply into the present again. Sam heaves himself up and over the fence, landing on the other side in a crouch.
The gangsters, who must be slow as molasses or just plain not used to chasing people, holler coarse threats at the top of their lungs when they spy the Kirk brothers on the other side of the fence. Jim, with a display of bloody teeth, returns their threats with an obscene hand gesture.
Sam wraps his fingers around his brother’s wrist and tugs him away from the fence. “We don’t waste time to gloat,” he chastises in a voice that sounds eerily like Pike. Jim probably decides this is sound advice when the first thug slams into the fence and starts to climb it.
They’re running again.
Sam has an idea of where he wants to hole away and hide, but the first matter of import is making it down to the docks. Jim’s breaths become labored and wheezy the longer they run but he does his best to keep up with the ruthless pace wordlessly, face pale and tight-lipped against pain. Sam knows they cannot afford to stop, yet his heart spasms when his brother’s gait begins to fall out of sync in increasingly shorter intervals. They break free from the streets toward the boardwalk, the noisy horns of the old steam-ships occasionally blocking out the sound of pursuit.
“C’mon, Jimmy,” Sam urges his brother, taking Jim’s arm. “C’mon, almost there.”
Jim, like Sam, would probably rather die than admit he can’t go on.
With a last sprint, they leap their way down a set of concrete stairs and dart under a short drawbridge and into a long tunnel-drain abandoned decades ago. Sam doesn’t wait for Jim to lose his footing once they reach the end, just slips his arm around the back of his brother’s shoulder blades and helps hoist him up the embankment.
At the top, Jim lies on the dirt, face-down, trying to catch his breath. Sam rolls to his side and slips part of the way back down the embankment to see if they were followed. Then he scrambles to his brother’s side again and places a hand on Jim’s back.
“You okay?” he asks. He interprets Jim’s abbreviated grunt as I’ll live. “Can you get up?”
Jim answers by pushing himself off the ground, however slowly. He doesn’t look amused when Sam offers to carry him on his back. Sam catches Jim by the collar when Jim starts to limp in the wrong direction. “Not there,” he tells his brother. “Stay with me.”
Surprisingly, Jim doesn’t argue.
~~~
The owner of the shop is startled by their sudden appearance. Sam sends him an apologetic look and hustles his brother down the narrow aisle of two looming bookshelves. “Sit,” he orders when they come to a small reading area with three chairs.
Jim drops into a chair with a pained expression, but the look dissipates slightly as his gaze wanders over their surroundings. “Books,” he says, sounding dazed.
“Lots of books,” Sam agrees. “Stay here.”
Jim makes a huff that turns into a groan. “Not… goin’where.”
Sam takes his word for it. Hurrying back to the front of the store, he implores of the owner, “Please, do you have a first aid kit?”
The owner nods and retrieves it. “What’s this about?” he asks Sam as he hands it over.
“Run-in with a local gang.”
The grey-haired man squints one eye at him contemplatively. “E’pect you didn’t bring the trouble with you?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. There’s a towel in the bathroom. Just throw it away when you’re done.”
“Thank you.”
Jim is poking at the cover of a book titled Robinson Crusoe when Sam returns loaded down with medical supplies. Sam cannot help but lash out at him sharply with “No, don’t!” when Jim tries to open the first aid kit.
Withdrawing his hand like he thinks Sam will bite it, Jim eyes him and counters (or rather slurs), “I can do it m’self.”
“No,” Sam insists, forcing himself to sound calmer. “You won’t be able to wrap the bandages tightly enough.” It’s a lame excuse but Sam can’t think of anything better.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Sam’s skill at wrapping bandages is poor indeed. A few minutes later, he and Jim stare at an empty bandage roll and what used to be Jim’s left hand.
“Looksss ‘ike a mummy,” Jimmy says, blinking at it.
Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “I should call McCoy?”
“Yuuup.”
Sam straightens from his crouch with a grimace at the protesting of his legs muscles from squatting too long. He turns to head back to the shop front to ask to make a call when Jim’s overly bandaged appendage bumps into Sam’s leg.
“Hey,” Sam’s brother says, his smile small, tentative and shaky at the edges, “good try.”
Sam nods once, moving away quickly so Jimmy won’t see him cry.
~~~
After the incident of the Red Dragon, it’s a little easier to greet his brother when Sam sees him. The words used between them at a time aren’t enough to qualify as a conversation but Sam is okay with that.
He learns from Leonard, who on pain of death makes Sam swear to never repeat the secret to anyone, that Jim is in debt to a loan shark because the Academy’s monthly stipend can’t fully support him and Jim refuses to touch their family money. Sam has no qualms about touching it on his brother’s behalf, however (though he rarely uses it for himself because his father’s blood bought that money, so in a way he gets Jim’s aversion to it) and forwards what is owed to the owner of the Red Dragon in large installments with the understanding that if anyone lays another hand on Jim, the authorities will be confiscating that business (legitimate and otherwise) by the next day. The owner respects Sam’s gall to blackmail him, and they strike an accord.
It takes Jim a few months to catch on to the lack of violence but when he does, Leonard is told to inform Sam (which he quotes with a twinkle in his eyes), “You are a goober-head and your sucky bandaging skills SUCK. Kirk out.”
Sam and Leonard spend a long time laughing over that.
~~~
Spring passes into early summer. All through the graduation of the senior class and into the after-party Sam is unable to keep a dopey smile off his face. At least, that’s what Leonard tells him.
“Somebody’d think you just been on that stage yourself,” McCoy ribs him.
“Shut up,” Sam responds in a good-natured tone, eyes fixed across the crowded ballroom.
“Which,” Leonard goes on to say stubbornly, “would have been the case if you didn’t play hooky for a year.”
“Really, shut up, Leonard,” says Sam more firmly as he glances at the man standing next to him. “Don’t ruin Aurelan’s mood.”
Leonard rolls his eyes, muttering under his breath, “As if I’d dare.”
A waiter floats by them with a tray full of exotic (and undoubtedly potent) drinks. Sam nods in the direction of the liquor. “Why aren’t you drinking?”
Leonard points to a huddle of cadets, most of them female. “See that there? That’s why. Somebody has to be sober to deal with the aftermath.”
Sam spies the person in the middle of that huddle and agrees silently. “He can’t possibly go home with all of them.”
Leonard’s eyes roll heavenward again. “Clearly you don’t know how Jim’s brain works.” Then Leonard pokes him in the side. “Hey, why don’t you go over there?”
“What? Why?”
“You know… I’m the sympathetic, sometimes bitchy best friend. You’re the brother. You’re supposed to find ways to make him miserable.” Leonard grins like a mischievous little boy. “C’mon, steal his thunder. Put some of those rumors to good use.”
Sam’s fingers find the end of his jacket sleeve and fiddle with it. “I can’t do that.”
“Aurelan won’t care.”
Heat rises along the back of Sam’s neck. “I told you, we’re not dating.”
“So you’re going to skip straight to marriage? Good luck with that,” Leonard drawls and snakes out a hand to catch a blue-colored brandy off a passing waiter’s tray.
“Who’s getting married?”
Sam switches from hot to cold in turns at the sound of that voice. His reply isn’t the smartest thing he has ever thought up. “Um, Aurelan, hi there, congrat—”
Leonard waves his drink-laden hand between Aurelan and Sam. “You two are.”
Aurelan slips her arm through Sam’s and leans into him, eyes still fixed on Leonard. A smile might be playing about her mouth. “We are?”
“Of course you are,” Sam’s worst friend in the entire galaxy says indignantly, “whenever Sammy here stops tripping over his tongue and starts courtin’ you like a proper gentleman.”
Sam is bright red, he just knows that he is. The moment he has the opportunity he is going to take Leonard out back, kill him, and bury his body on campus grounds. Then he will erase the man’s records from the database and somehow explain to his brother that McCoy’s death was very necessary and he’ll just have to find another brilliant doctor to be his CMO on the day he becomes captain of a starship.
Damn it.
Aurelan is patting the top of his hand. “Sam?”
He blinks at her.
“You looked very far away. What were you thinking about?”
“Murder,” his mouth answers before his brain becomes involved.
For some reason that makes her laugh. “Leonard was only teasing you.”
“I doubt that,” Sam mutters darkly.
Aurelan pulls her arm from his and stops patting his hand. Her brown eyes study him for a long minute. “Then what should we do, Sam?” she finally asks, tone serious.
Why does he always struggle with words in the presence of Aurelan? Why isn’t this easy? He could hit himself when he says, “You’re leaving.”
Aurelan nods. “I received my posting last week. Sam…” Her words are soft but full of hope. “Will you forget me when I’m gone?”
“I couldn’t,” he replies immediately. The thought seems impossible.
Her hand lifts to touch his cheek. “Do you remember what I told you, that you can’t choose who I love?”
“Aurelan.” Don’t say it.
“I think I want to love you, George Samuel Kirk. I think I can wait a little longer, too.” Then she taps the end of his nose, warning him, “But not too long, mister—only until you graduate next year and then you’d better come find me!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sam says, duplicating her serious tone and taking her hand partly so she can’t tap his nose again and partly because he wants to savor being this close to her. He drops a kiss to her knuckles. “I promise.”
She extracts her hand from his with a faint blush. “I guess you can be charming when you want to be.”
“Only for you, Aurelan.”
Her happiness is infectious. Sam finds himself grinning.
Like a frightening jack-in-the-box Leonard pops back into the scene with little warning. “It’s about damn time! I call dibs on bein’ the godfather to all the little babies.” His voice is slightly louder than normal and his accent thicker.
Sam eyes McCoy. “Exactly how much of that brandy have you had in the last few minutes?”
“Enough that I can enjoy this party.” Leonard grabs Sam’s shoulder and turns him to face another direction. “Now I’m drinkin’ you have to be responsible for Jim. Go on.” He gives Sam a none-too-gentle shove. Aurelan is snickering behind her hand. “Think he’s gone after Gaila again, so you’d better get to ’em before her roommate does.”
“I’m not,” Sam says stubbornly. “I won’t.”
No one seems to believe him. Leonard wraps an arm around Aurelan and waves his drink animatedly in the air as he talks to her and steers her into the crowd of celebrating graduates. They don’t spare a backward glance for Sam.
Sam stuffs his hands into his pants pockets and trudges to the other side of the ballroom. The last time he had been sent on a mission to break up his brother’s sex-capades, he had literally caught Jim with his pants down. Apparently no one has any regard for how traumatizing that can be.
Sam almost approaches the circle of women Jim had previously been trying to impress to ask them of his brother’s whereabouts but thinks better of it when they spy him coming and look too thrilled to have another Kirk in their midst—especially the Kirk with a mysterious reputation of sexual prowess. Jim’s reputation, it can be said, is anything but mysterious.
Broom closet, he decides. Start with the broom closet first, then work his way to the weirder places two people (or more?) could be copulating.
In that instant, Sam both hates and loves his life.
Related Posts:
- I Follow (4/4) – from February 1, 2013
- I Follow (2/3) – from January 25, 2013
- I Follow (1/3) – from January 23, 2013
