0Title: River Bound (2/4)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Warnings: Stalking, Mind Control, Non-consensual kissing
Summary: AU. When Kirk begins to receive anonymous love letters, he assumes they’re coming from his partners, unaware that he has attracted some unwanted attention. The situation turns perilous once Kirk realizes his mistake, for he has been ensnared by someone who wants to keep him from Spock and McCoy at any cost.
Part: 1
Sam’s pickup is not parked in front of the farmhouse, the realization leaving Kirk with a moment’s disappointment. When he pushes through the screen door, disappointment strikes again, this time more soundly. Aurelian must be out with his brother. Jim had wanted to tell her how happy he is about the pregnancy, and also to see if Sam and Aurelian already know the baby is going to be a boy.
Before he reaches the family living room, a shadow falls across the front hallway. The shadow’s owner stands just within the archway to the kitchen.
“Jimmy?”
“Mom,” Jim responds, uncertain how her reception of him will play out.
Winona Kirk steps into the hallway, removing a flower-print apron from around her waist. “I was just thinking about you.”
Jim runs fingers through his cropped hair, startled by how awkward he feels to hear his mother say that.
“Sam says you’re not joining us on Sunday.”
“It’s probably not a good idea.”
“Don’t you want to congratulate Aurelian?”
“I came to see her today.”
“Oh. Well, Sam took her for her doctor’s appointment.” Jim’s mother falls silent, then, turning her gaze away briefly. The tone of her voice is different the next time she speaks. “Jim.”
Jim’s feelings of awkwardness turns to certain dread. “Don’t.”
But the woman goes on, “You’ll never guess who I ran into at the supermarket.”
Jim doesn’t want to guess. How many times has she tried this tactic?
“Jan Lester,” Winona says. “Do you remember her? You two dated in school.” She sticks a hand into one of the apron’s pockets, retrieving a piece of paper. It looks like it has been folded and refolded multiple times. “This is her phone number.”
Frankly Jim doesn’t remember Jan Lester well at all. Was she sweet or snobby, dark-haired or light-haired, smart or dumb? Their brief dating stint had to have been in middle school. Jim vaguely recalls wanting a girlfriend back then because it made him seem normal. It isn’t like he knew as a pre-teen what kind of person he is actually attracted to.
He blows out a breath, annoyed now. “Stop doing this. Please. I’m not available.” When his mother’s earnest expression doesn’t waver and the paper begins to tremble faintly in her hand, he caves enough to take it from her, displeased with himself as much as her. “You didn’t tell her I was single, did you?”
Winona looks momentarily shocked. “Of course not.”
Relief swaps Jim.
But of course, his mother isn’t someone to give up meddling so easily. “Jan was a nice girl. You liked her a lot.”
“We were eleven.”
“She seems like a mature young woman. She remembers you, asked how you were. Maybe you should call her.”
Jim closes his eyes and counts to five, then crumples the paper with Jan’s phone number. “Mom, I’m in a relationship. And I’m not interested in meeting old girlfriends. Or do you want me to seem like the kind of person who cheats on his partner?”
“Jim.” Winona’s mouth firms with dismay. “I would never want that.”
“Then cut the bullshit!” Jim shoots back. Since there isn’t a trashcan nearby, he shoves the crushed paper into a pants pocket. “If you don’t like me dating men, just say it.”
“James Tiberius! Don’t use that word. Your grandfather would roll over in his grave if he could hear you.”
Tiberius Kirk would roll over laughing. He taught his grandsons curse words much worse than bullshit. Though, to be fair, Tiberius also always cautioned Jim and Sam not to use them around women-folk.
“And I don’t know where you got such a ridiculous notion,” his mother adds, clearly unhappy.
Jim studies the seriousness of Winona’s expression, the stress lines around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes. He guesses they both think this conversation sucks. Still, now that’s he said it, he cannot walk away without hearing an explanation from her that makes sense.
“Then what’s your problem?” Jim presses when Winona grows silent again, “I’m happy with Spock and McCoy. I told you that.”
In fact, he has made no secret of it to anyone. He finds it kind of difficult to keep quiet about his happiness since it’s the first time in his life he feels he has good luck of his own. That is definitely something to brag about, in Jim’s opinion.
Which is why it hurts him so much that his mother does not seem happy for him. She never shunned him for being different before, was always the one to encourage him to follow his heart when his other family members were scandalized. Between Tiberius and Winona, both Kirk boys grew up with the belief they should never accept less than what they deserved, that being especially true when it comes to friends, family, and lovers.
It upsets Jim now that he doesn’t understand why Winona isn’t on his side. She seems like a stranger.
After another prolonged silence, he gives up on receiving a straight answer. “I have to go,” he says.
Winona’s presence in the hallway seems to wilt. “Jimmy, about Sunday…”
“No,” he states firmly.
She nods after a moment. “Then I’ll ask Sam to drop off a lunch plate at your apartment.”
He chokes on his disappointment. Saying nothing else since there seems to be no more to say, Jim turns for the front door.
“Stop.”
The word is a whisper. There is no spell in it, but its command is as effective as magic.
Jim turns back to Winona, uneasy. “Mom?”
“Jimmy, he’s an Other,” she says in a very soft voice.
And just like that, Jim Kirk’s stomach plummets to the floor. “He’s Spock to me.”
“With Them, love is an illusion.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Jim closes his eyes. “Of all people, I never thought you would distinguish between Them and us,” he says, opening his eyes. “Or did you forget Dad wasn’t fully human?”
“He was human enough,” Winona counters, her tone sharpening.
“But Spock isn’t?” Jim stares at her, stung on his boyfriend’s behalf. “Believe what you want, but whether Spock is full Blood or half-blood doesn’t matter to me. I love him because of who he is, not because of his parentage or where he came from.”
His mother’s voice rises, the pain in her cry evident, as he arrives at the door. “Jim, They took your father!”
He swallows hard, whirling back around. “Why is it always someone else’s fault? Dad left! Blame him!”
“No,” she insists. “No. He wouldn’t have. He was forced. He was—”
Unable to listen any longer, angry to have his mother refuse to accept his choice to love Spock because of her abandonment issues, he lashes back thoughtlessly. “Maybe he left to get the hell away from you!”
The sudden silence between them is deafening.
Then a tear slips down Winona’s cheek—and Jim flees, slamming past the screen door, hurtling down the porch steps. A door slams; Sam, helping Aurelian out of the pickup. Jim catches their startled faces from the corner of his eye.
Bones was wrong, he thinks as his motorcycle helps him fly away from the farm. Talking doesn’t help. With his family, talking always makes their pain worse.
He wastes time downtown until his anguish has abated to a manageable level and the sunset arrives. Then he goes home to his new family, the two people he counts on to protect his heart rather than rip it apart. He doesn’t mention to McCoy that he finally knows why his mother is against their relationship. He just focuses on enjoying being happy with them.
But that night, while the three of them are squashed together on a too-small bed, Leonard snoring on the right and Spock sleeping so quietly on Kirk’s left as to appear dead, Jim stares aimlessly at the bedroom ceiling, wondering how much wider the rift with his mother will have to become before everything he held dear about her collapses.
Eventually that awful thought accompanies him into an exhausted sleep.
“See you later,” Leonard says to his boyfriends, pausing long enough in his harried flight from the apartment to kiss first Jim then Spock on the cheek. The apartment door slams shut in his wake.
Jim goes back to eating his bowl of cereal. “Plans today?” he asks Spock.
“There is an opening ceremony for the city’s new art museum.” Spock folds down his newspaper to stare at Jim. “Would you like to accompany me?”
Jim considers that. “Will the Hill folks be there? Would I have to schmooze?”
“It is highly likely, yes.”
“Then no thanks.” He adds, “Keep an eye out for pickpockets. Highborns make prime targets.”
“Duly noted.” Spock returns to his daily news, and Jim finishes his breakfast.
When he gets up to put his empty bowl in the kitchen sink, Spock remarks, “Should we try lasagna for dinner?”
“There’s a vegetarian version, so yeah we could. Why do you ask?”
“This cat Garfield finds it delightful. I wish to know why.”
Jim bursts out laughing. When Spock puts aside his newspaper to watch Jim curiously, Jim says, “And all this time I thought you read the articles.”
Jim’s boyfriend arches one eyebrow. “I assumed the comics section was relevant to understanding humans.”
“Oh, it is,” agrees Jim, going over to Spock and leaning down to kiss him just as McCoy had. “Keep me posted on what you learn.”
“Yes, Jim.”
Jim reaches the living room when Spock calls to him, “Perhaps I may look into adopting a feline.”
Locating his phone in the jacket he draped over the back of the couch, he grins to himself and advises the man, “Don’t tell Bones that.”
Moments like these, decides Jim, are what makes his life worthwhile.
The day’s cloudless, sunny sky is refreshing. Take-A-Walk’s door stands open to catch the spring breeze when Kirk gets there, just ahead of the crowd. He nods to the redhead behind the register and claims his favorite stool, the one at the end of the coffee bar facing an amateur painting of a river bank, the very same bank running parallel to the building.
The painting is a depressing montage of dark, swirling water and a fog-obscured stand of trees that whisper forest. Jim thinks he understands what the artist wanted to convey. Being a gateway to a mystery world, the River’s purpose has never been clear. Does it protect humans from those of a different realm, and vice versa, or does it cage both races?
This cafe has always been a popular tourist spot for that reason, being close enough for its customers to stare out over the river and ponder the nature of living in a bordertown without having to place themselves in danger of the unknown. Jim started coming to the cafe soon after it opened, at the age of fifteen, hoping to work up the courage to explore that unknown for himself. He never quite managed it.
A mug of black coffee appears in front of Kirk, accompanied by an inquiry of “Trouble in paradise?”
Jim picks up the mug, almost immediately sloshing coffee over the rim and onto his yellow t-shirt. Sighing, he takes the dishtowel passed along to him and wipes down the counter and himself. This is one person, at least, he can tell his woes to. “Had a fight with Mom.”
“Ah.” Take-A-Walk’s owner pulls the wet towel from Jim’s hands. “What did you do this time?”
Jim lifts a blue-eyed glare to meet the owner’s amused one. “Why do you always assume it’s my fault?”
“Because you’re young and impetuous?”
Jim sinks down, drawing the coffee closer to him, the steam from it tickling his nose. Admittedly there’s some truth to that, but still… “I was young and impetuous ten years ago.”
“Mm.”
“I’m an adult now.”
“Mmm.”
“Stop doing that,” he growls.
“Do you know what an adult would do in this situation, Kirk?”
“What?”
“Bow to wisdom.”
Jim rolls his eyes. “I’ll do that when I meet someone who has it.” Then, aghast at his own remark, he nearly slaps a hand over his mouth.
Oh. Oh no. There’s nothing worse than Christopher Pike’s quietly hurt expression.
Jim is such an idiot.
But Pike doesn’t try to defend himself against the jab, only sighing softly through his nose and asking Jim without a fuss, “Which sandwich will it be today?”
“Ham and cheese,” Jim murmurs, fully aware that he should apologize. “Look, Mr. Pike…”
Pike stops him by shaking his head in the negative and walking away.
Jim drags both hands over his face, cursing himself under his breath. The woman who had been manning the register comes over to stare openly at him.
“Gaila,” he says warily, wondering if he can drink his hot coffee fast enough to forestall it’s being dumped over his head.
Gaila tucks a red curl behind a pointed ear, her gaze icy. “What’s your problem today, Kirk? Did you wake up this morning and decide to insult nice people?”
Jim winces. “It slipped out.”
The woman crosses her arms over her chest, the bangles on her wrists flashing in the sunlight. “Pike may not kick your ass to the curb, but I will.”
“I know.”
At last, Gaila’s gaze warms, and she rolls her eyes. “Listen, if you promise to make a decent apology, I’ll bring sugar for your coffee instead of salt.”
Jim eyes her speculatively, sipping said sugarless coffee. “Shouldn’t the boss be protective of the employee, not the other way around? What’s with your interest in Pike?”
“Stop being gross. The boss is a silver fox, but I’m not about to jump his bones.”
Kirk slaps a hand over his mouth to prevent spraying his drink all over the waitress.
Gaila laughs, a merry sound, before she saunters away. Jim squeezes his head, trying to un-see the image of Pike and Gaila in flagrante delicto. God, now he won’t even be able to look Pike in the eyes. How is he supposed to apologize properly if he can’t do that?
The door to the cafe swings open, and the outside breeze pushes its way into the cafe to stir up anything made of paper. A group of people troop inside after it, laden down with video and audio equipment. Chapel’s voice rings out, calling to Gaila. Jim freezes.
Jim’s boyfriend, McCoy, is the last one of the group, doing a fast sweep of the cafe’s layout and clientele once he’s past the doorway.
Too late, thinks Jim just as Leonard spots him and also freezes.
Kirk offers a tentative handwave, feeling a certain doom descending upon him. Did Bones say he would be at the cafe today? Probably. Jim generally doesn’t forget anything concerning events happening at Take-A-Walk, so that means he wasn’t listening when his boyfriend told him. Bad news. Very, very bad.
He tries for an innocent look as Leonard veers away from his crew, heading his way. “Oh, hey, Bones.”
“Jim, what’re you doing here?”
Jim notices Chapel and Galia’s pitying stares. “I, uh, came for lunch.”
“You came for lunch,” McCoy repeats flatly. “To Take-A-Walk. On the day I’m interviewing Mr. Pike.”
Put like that, it paints an unfortunate picture. “No, it’s not because of the interview. I didn’t know that—” He clams up at McCoy’s sharp inhale.
“So you weren’t listening. I knew it!”
Okay, groveling time. Jim grabs McCoy’s hand. “Bones, I’m sorry! I’m a terrible boyfriend.” When McCoy jerks his hand, Jim leaps up and engulfs the man in a rib-crushing hug. “Boooones, please forgive me.”
Leonard starts pushing at him, hissing, “Jim! Jim, stop it, people are staring!”
Jim uses his best tactic, tucking his face into the crook of McCoy’s neck and whimpering.
The man goes slack. “All right,” he says in a choked voice a second later, “I forgive you.”
Jim gives his boyfriend a smacking kiss on the cheek and releases him.
“I hate you,” Leonard declares, flushed bright red.
Jim shakes his index finger at him. “But I love you.”
“Go away.”
Jim blinks, shifts on his feet. “Okay. I can leave.”
McCoy sighs. “No, that’s not—never mind. Enjoy your lunch.” Then he glares hard at Jim. “And stay outta my shoot.”
Back in the day, before they started dating and when Jim wanted McCoy’s attention, that is basically all he did—worm his way into the documentary to annoy McCoy. The end result was worth the trouble since over the course of those six months he slid into McCoy’s heart at the same time.
Maybe Leonard is remembering that too. His look is strange. But before Jim can ask him what’s on his mind, he harrumphs, seeming to collect himself, and leaves Jim to one side of the cafe.
Jim looks around, spies Pike leaning against the wall by the swinging kitchen door. Pike had been watching him, he’s sure of it, but the man just raises an eyebrow at Jim when Jim meets his eyes. Pike pushes off the wall to greet the filming crew.
Jim slides back onto his stool with a sigh.
Gaila sets a sugar dispenser in front of him. “Enjoy.” A while later, she brings him the sandwich he ordered with a side of fruit. When he mentions that french fries are his usual side-dish fare, she explains, “I hear your cholesterol has been high lately.”
He balks. “Who told you that?”
She points to the booth where Pike and McCoy are, heads bent together over a notebook. “Nobody. Boyfriend A told Dad B.”
In other words, he’s never going to see another fry at Take-A-Walk. Gaila shakes her head, leaving Kirk to bemoan his fate.
He inhales his lunch, leaves enough money on the counter for the bill and a generous tip, and begs Gaila for a to-go cup of soda. Jim intends to spend the rest of his day figuring out how to make the cholesterol reader at home say good things. What was it Scotty said about magic monkeying with technology? Well, he’s got access to a prime source of magic. Spock can cast a spell on the damn thing.
He almost hits the threshold of the cafe when a word catches his ear.
Or, to be more precise, a name: George.
Jim joins the crowd of customers that have gathered by the booth where the interview is being conducted. He positions himself behind a lanky elf with a nose ring and a human who bathed in cologne.
“What about humans like Mr. Kirk?” McCoy is asking his interviewee in a tone of voice that reminds Jim of a newscaster. “Kirk disappeared right after his second son was born. Some people think he skipped town. Others say he crossed the River. Which do you believe in more probable?”
Jim stiffens without meaning to, nearly puncturing the styrofoam cup in his hand with his thumbnail.
Pike looks at no one but McCoy. “That’s a tough question. You would have to have known George to give a solid answer. He was… a legend, in some ways.”
“He was older than you, correct?”
“By five years. I knew him, but I wouldn’t have called us friends.” Pike’s head dips slightly as the man looks at his hands clasped in front of him. “I remember that he used to ride all over town on a motorcycle. Always on the move. Always with a destination in mind.” When Pike looks up, his gaze pins Jim’s direction quite easily. “Like father, like son, I suppose.”
Jim thins his mouth, not certain if he’s just been insulted.
Leonard stills briefly, then his nostrils flare. “Did he mention leaving Riverside?”
To hear his boyfriend ask that so easily makes Jim hate Leonard for a split second. But he knows McCoy isn’t trying to be callous. If anything, he probably thinks digging out the truth is the best thing he can do for Jim. Closure, and all that.
As much as Jim would love closure, he realizes he is also terrified of finding out the truth.
Take-A-Walk’s owner shakes his head, despite saying, “George Kirk tried his whole life to leave Riverside. Something always brought him back.”
Jim pushes through the crowd to stand at the front. “So what? He wanted to leave. Not everyone is happy living in one place their whole lives.”
Leonard’s head whips around. “Jim.” Then he looks to Chapel, communicating something to her silently.
Pike holds Jim’s gaze. “When your father met your mother, he stopped trying for a while. But if you ask me, whatever pushed at him refused to stay quiet. He couldn’t give up.”
Jim works to swallow a lump lodged in his throat. “Then what happened? Did he make it out? Did Riverside let him go?”
Pike just looks at him.
Jim moves next to the booth, shouldering aside the assistant with the sound mic. “I want an answer.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Then why are you talking like you do!” Kirk’s near-shout startles everyone.
Leonard reaches for Jim’s arm. “Jim, calm down.”
“Where’s my dad, huh? Go on. Tell me!”
Pike’s face is nothing but sadness. “Probably the only place he could go, son. The place he wanted to be.”
“Jim!”
Jim doesn’t heed the plea to stop. He skids down the gravelly bank. At the bottom, both of his shoes sink deep into the mud.
“Wait! Jim, wait for me!”
When he reaches the water’s edge, he clenches his fists and stares at the river in loathing. He doesn’t know who he hates: his father, himself, or the unconcerned realm on the opposite bank.
Jim’s boyfriend nearly knocks Jim over when he comes skidding down the bank. Jim reaches out without thought to keep McCoy from falling over.
In turn, Leonard grips his shoulders painfully tight. “It’s my fault, Jim. I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have—”
“Is that all I am to you?” Jim interrupts, demanding, needing to vent his anger somewhere—or on someone. “The product of a sad fairy tale, or some shit like that? Ah, how about this title for your next publication: Kids Abandoned by Their Fey Father!”
Jim regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. The pain in McCoy’s eyes matches the pain in his heart. He swallows, “Bones.”
“It’s okay, Jim. I deserved that. I crossed a line. I’m sorry.”
The thing is, Jim doesn’t really think he did. “I… just. I hate hearing about him.” He swallows harder. “I get it, Bones, I do. George Kirk is part of your research.”
After a minute, McCoy releases him. “It’s not just that.”
Jim can’t help it. His gaze shifts back to the water. “Do you really think he went there?”
“Jim, look at me.”
Jim closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he’s staring into McCoy’s face. He watches the man take a deep breath, as if drawing in courage for some unknown reason.
“I know you… have a difficult time hearing about your father, but I think finding the truth is important to you.”
Not if it tears my heart out, Bones. Jim licks his lower lip, keeps that thought to himself.
“Jim, what Pike said, I believe him. You’re more like your father than you think. George couldn’t leave Riverside. Neither can you. If we can figure out why, maybe we can break you free from whatever keeps you here.”
“We?”
Leonard presses his mouth flat for a second. “Spock and I have been working on this together.”
Jim can’t think of anything to say except “Why?”
The man huffs. “Really? We’re dating, and you don’t know why?”
A frown creases his forehead. “Because… you want to have a date outside the city?”
McCoy shoves his shoulder, not hard enough to hurt or make him stumble, just enough to inform him he’s a special brand of idiot. “For god’s sake. To make you happy. You want to see the world. We want to go with you.” The dumbass under Leonard’s breath isn’t flattering but Jim smiles, if a bit tremulously.
“That would be awesome, Bones.” Something occurs to Kirk, then. “But Spock… isn’t he more bound to this area than I am?”
Jim’s boyfriend sighs, an aggrieved sound. “No rules seem to apply to him, human or fey. Spock has a list longer than my elbow of places he wants to visit. I’d say he agreed to help you for his own selfish reasons but he is genuinely concerned that magic wants to keep you here.”
Jim blinks. “That sounds ominous.”
“Yeah, it does.” McCoy turns, marching doggedly up the river bank with Jim in tow. “So let’s get you away from Riverside before it eats you or something.”
“I love you too,” Jim says, a little more cheekily than he intends.
McCoy shoots him an unimpressed look. “Hurry up. You need to apologize to Mr. Pike.”
“I thought he’d duck the punch,” mutters Jim.
“Frankly, I’m all for letting him punch you back.” McCoy sighs a moment later. “Ah, Jim. I think you hurt his heart more than his face. You should fix it.”
“I will, Bones.”
McCoy slips an arm around Kirk’s shoulders, and together the men return to the cafe.
Christopher Pike is a lot more forgiving than Jim ever would be. Of course, the fact that Jim ends up hugging him might be a deciding factor (and, seriously, how could he not with Bones staring sternly at him over Pike’s shoulder, expecting him to do it). Then Pike pats his back, and the world rights itself again.
Pike finishes the interview with McCoy, sans George Kirk, and Jim helps Gaila tend customers as punishment for his wrong-doing at her insistence. By the time, he leaves the cafe, McCoy and crew are long gone. Gaila follows him out to his motorcycle, as her shift is also over, pausing by his side long enough to look him over and ask him, oddly, “Do you know why I came here?”
“Because Pike offered you a job?” he guesses.
“Because sometimes where you’re born isn’t where you belong.”
That leaves him staring at nothing long after she’s gone.
Jim has learned when to recognize his head is a little messed up. He’s also learned to hide it. Maybe that is why he doesn’t go home to McCoy and Spock right away.
The Lantern is a former haunt of his, one of three bars within the city limits that would welcome anybody regardless of what they were. For a while, it was a place to gawk at Truebloods getting drunk off their asses and, if one of them was amendable, a chance to hook up. Then ownership changed four years back, and the new owner, with his ties to the Pack, no longer allows elf-kind to darken the bar’s doorstep.
It’s still a decent place to grab a drink, and no one will ever think to look for him there.
Tonight, Jim wants—no, needs—this reminder of his past, which at times was pretty ugly. Forgetting who he used to be means he is liable to backslide. His life is meaningful now, he tells himself, as he walks into the Lantern’s smoky, dimly lit lounge. Just because old scars still have the power to hurt doesn’t make him weak.
He orders a whiskey and settles in for an hour, savoring the flavor and the burn along his throat. McCoy texts him in the meantime, and he promises to pick up the ingredients for Spock’s vegetarian lasagna on the way home.
Once Jim feels more like himself, he signals the bartender to take his empty glass away and lays his jacket across his stool, tucking his phone in his back pocket. He makes a trip to the restroom, returning to the bar to be met with a small surprise, something odd stuck inside one of his jacket pockets when he puts the jacket on. Removing the object with a frown, he discovers it isn’t paper, exactly, but a folded cocktail napkin with the Lantern’s logo.
Red writing stains the napkin, stating with bold certainty:
bring an end to old love
kindle fresh desire
you and I shall be bound forever
It’s nothing but a simple rhyme. No flourish of a signature at the end. No indication of teasing or joking.
Yet in the aftermath of reading the words, Jim is left feeling dizzy.
Someone obviously slipped the napkin into his jacket while he was gone. It isn’t that fact, however, which causes a chill to pass down his spine. Jim is certain neither Spock nor McCoy has been to this bar before, and absolutely not in the past ten minutes. The absence of their energy, which is like sunlight to his senses, remains a cold weight across his shoulders.
No, there is no possible way the note could be from them. But he recognizes the handwriting. That’s what chills him. If this letter did not originate with his partners, then neither did the previous two.
Beginning to feel a bit sick to his stomach, Jim’s gaze skips around the bar. He senses it then, a gaze on him, tracking his movement, but no one outwardly seems interested in him.
He flags down the bartender. “I found this in my jacket,” he says, pushing the napkin across the bar. “Did you see who put it there?”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” the bartender admits. He adds after skimming the note, “Man, that’s a hell of a thing to give somebody.”
“I know, right?” Jim balls the napkin up. “I guess I’ll just pitch it.”
“I recommend washing your hands after you do.”
Jim frowns. “Why?”
“You never know what’s in people’s blood,” says the man, turning away afterward, his head wagging back and forth in disgust.
Jim thumbs loose a corner of the napkin-ball to look at the red letters again, recognizable now to his eyes as much too blotchy to be written in regular ink. A blood message. How had he missed that?
He shudders and promptly chucks the offensive thing into the men’s bathroom trashcan, where he washes his hands several times.
He’s drying his hands on his jeans on his way out, paying so little attention to his surroundings that he walks into a person.
The woman stumbles, and Jim catches her.
Her face lights up. “Jim!”
Jim releases her. Bobbed brown hair, wide brown eyes, only about as tall as his chin. “Hello?”
“It’s Jan,” she insists. “Jan Lester!”
Oh great, he thinks. “Jan… wow, been a long time.”
“Oh, Jim, I know.”
When the woman reaches for his hand, he steps back. Though she keeps smiling, the friendliness in her gaze disappears. Intuition rings like an alarm inside Jim’s head: Something wrong, something wrong.
Her cold gaze is suddenly tear-bright, like an actress turning on the waterworks for the camera. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“I…” How is he supposed to respond?
“You don’t.” Jan’s voice becomes accusatory. This time she reaches out with the command, “Come to me. If you come to me, you’ll remember.”
He’s as shocked as if she had issued a summons, for his body obeys without question. First, his left foot slides forward, then the right. Shock and confusion devolves into horror. “What the hell?” he chokes out.
Jan looks smug. “The spell worked.”
The combination of panic and adrenaline douse Kirk’s body like cold water, helping him turn his body aside at the last moment. He moves awkwardly, stiff-legged, past Lester and the booths, out the Lantern’s back entrance to the street, where he chooses a direction at random.
Spell? Spell? His brain repeats the word endlessly, making him break out in a cold sweat. No way. Not possible.
But his heart cannot seem to stop pounding. He keeps his momentum, though he stumbles once or twice, going down the sloped, empty street to where the traffic makes a steady rattle at a busy intersection. His fingers don’t want to cooperate in handling his cell phone. He drops it to the pavement. Starting to bend over to get it, he hears the scrape of shoes behind him and thinks, Shit, keep going.
There’s something definitely wrong with him, battling for control of his body.
He can barely make out the line of cars at the red light through the darkness but is hopeful when someone latches onto the back of his jacket to jerk his gait out of sync and spin him around with a furious strength.
It’s Jan, now fisting her hands into the front of his t-shirt. “Where do you think you’re going, Jim? You can’t leave. You’re mine.”
That final declaration knocks Jim’s thoughts awry, a magic not his own enveloping him, smothering his will even while his brain screams in denial. “Yours,” his mouth repeats dutifully.
The woman slides her hands from his chest to his hair and digs in there. Jim isn’t able to stop her from pulling his head forward and kissing him. She only releases him after his mouth stays slack against hers.
The anger in her face slowly fades, morphing into a childish kind of delight. “I missed you, Jimmy.”
Who are you? Why are you doing this to me? Don’t. Please, stop this.
But Kirk cannot speak a word.
“Now we can be together.” She presses her lips chastely to his cheek. “Forever.”
That’s like a slamming of a door in Jim’s mind, a sealed fate, cutting him off from himself. He ceases to think.
Jan smiles once more, leaning into her docile lover’s side, slipping her arm through his, and says, “Let’s go home.”
Some notes:
1. Jan – aka Janice Lester – is introduced in TOS. It’s canon that she and Kirk were in a relationship at the Academy but broke up due to strain on their relationship, as Janice believed a disparity between genders at the Academy kept her from succeeding while Kirk had no problems. That may have been true, as Kirk seemed to acknowledge it when they met years later in the episode “Turnabout Intruder”. Well, long story short, Janice lured her ex into a situation where she could take over his body via a consciousness-swapping device. Chaos ensued. She’s just as crazy here.
2. I’ve been a fan of fey things for over twenty years. In my teens, I would read anything that mentioned Faerie, and eventually came across an anthology series I particularly enjoyed, Welcome to Bordertown. It allowed various authors to write in the same world-scape, building a seamless continuity over several short stories and poems. In that world, Faerie had reappeared, magic and all, in the modern times. The town closest to that realm became known as Bordertown, a somewhat lawless, very unique city for misfits both fey and human. I thought our cast of characters would fit well in a place like that.
Related Posts:
- River Bound (5/5) – from February 27, 2018
- River Bound (4/5) – from February 27, 2018
- River Bound (3/4) – from February 22, 2018
- River Bound (1/4) – from February 14, 2018
