Title: Along Comes a Stranger (17/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: AU. Jim’s life in Riverside is uncomplicated until two men, both equally mysterious and compelling, arrive in town, bringing with them the promise of change.
Previous Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

Short but I didn’t want the intensity of this hampered by anything else. Poor Jim.

Part Seventeen

A missing person report doesn’t get filed until 48 hours after the disappearance. Trelane isn’t dumb enough to keep Kirk that long. He informs Jim of this early on:

“This is not a kidnapping, Kirk—may I call you Kirk? I tire of the trivial formality of mister. As I was saying, there is no crime here.”

Jim wisely keeps his mouth shut.

Trelane taps a rhythm against his umbrella handle as he talks. “I do not coerce, Kirk—I provide incentive to assure cooperation. Would you like to hear what incentives I can offer you?”

“I don’t want your money,” Jim states without inflection.

Trelane laughs. “Good Lord, of course you don’t! Not a man like you. You’re too difficult, too much of a rebel. I won’t insult you with a bribe. No, I will merely say that I have connections, Kirk, ones which can ruin your life. Well, not yours precisely.” Trelane turns to look at Jim then. “Tell me, who would you give your life for, turn away from the righteous path and commit sin? Your mother?”

Jim clenches his hand into fists, saying nothing.

Trelane makes a hmm noise. “That Mexican hick you work under? Oh! But there is this lovely woman with whom you occasionally fornicate.” Trelane slips a gloved hand inside his jacket and produces a photo. He contemplates it with a smile. “It is said redheads are feisty in bed. Is the rumor true?” The small photo is turned around so that Jim has a clear view of Gaila standing in front of her lingerie shop, in the process of turning the door sign from Closed to Open.

Jim is fully prepared to strangle Trelane in the backseat of the car, except when he jerks forward with “you bastard!” on his lips, Trelane raises a forewarning finger.

“Ah ah. My driver has instructions to pull over at the mere hint of disturbance and shoot you through the head. I wouldn’t tempt fate.”

“You’re an asshole!” spits Jim.

“I am a man who gets what he wants, one way or another. Are you ready to listen?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Jim stares straight ahead, breathing heavily through his nose. What is he supposed to do? What can he do but let his captor talk?

“I am famished,” Trelane says instead of outlining his master plan—and Jim’s subsequent involvement—to conquer Riverside. “Shall we stop for a bite?”

Jim grits his teeth. “I don’t know you—and I sure as hell don’t want to eat with you.”

Trelane presses a button and says into a speaker built into the interior of the car, “Take us to the bistro, please.” The car slows at the next intersection and makes a right turn.

Jim folds his arms. “I doubt you want to be seen with a man in pajamas and slippers.”

This time Trelane both laughs and claps, wickedly amused. “How clever you are, Kirk! You are on the mark, we’ll have to do something about your attire. I patron this very refined gentleman’s clothing shop…”

Jim snarls, “What the fuck is the matter with you? You kidnap me, want to turn me into a criminal or something equally heinous, and yet ‘let’s go to dinner!’, ‘let’s go shopping!’ Fuck this, I want out right fuckin’ now!” He tugs on the door handle and curses. There is no door lock to undo, otherwise Jim would have tossed himself out earlier, moving car or not.

Trelane is no longer amused. “I have attempted to do this the harmless way, James Kirk.” A sharp rap on the roof with that ridiculous umbrella has the car rolling to a stop in a nearby alley.

Jim stills. When his door opens, a hulk of a man aims a gun at his face and tells him to get out of the car.

Trelane makes a little shooing motion at Jim. “Go on. Get out if that’s what you really want.”

Jim steels himself and slides out, unfortunately not in a position to throw himself at the giant without taking a bullet first. He hears Trelane’s voice from inside the car. “Do hurry up now, I am positively craving those little biscuits at the bistro!” says the politician without a care.

“Turn around,” orders Trelane’s giant.

Jim closes his eyes and does, albeit slowly. The last thing he notes, before the sharp crack to the back of his head, is that the sedan’s trunk has been popped open.

Shit, he thinks. Will he be alive or dead when his body is stuffed in the trunk?

All right, so this bad situation could be worse, Jim decides when he comes to and discovers he has a humongous headache and is tied to a chair.

He isn’t dead. Small miracle, that.

He squints, not that he can see much in the dark. Wherever he is smells awful, like mold and rotting wood. (Perhaps pine?) Typical kidnap victim in an abandoned warehouse, maybe? At least Trelane does something predictable. And unfortunately remembered to gag Jim.

Kirk groans, wishing now that he had never left Spock’s house. Better to make-out with Bones’ sweetheart than end up at the mercy of a madman. But he hadn’t wanted to encourage Spock, not when Jim is certain Leonard won’t agree to whatever off-the-wall suggestion the lawyer intends to make—and, shit, Jim doesn’t want to lose Bones, give the man a reason to leave him, even if it means Jim has to pretend he can be happy alone.

Kissing Leonard makes Jim tingle down to his toes.

Kissing Spock has the same effect.

What is wrong with Jim? How can he be so mixed up?

A door slams somewhere in the dark. Jim swallows, puts aside his wandering thoughts, and futilely wiggles his bound wrists. He can’t break the hold or the rope securing his legs and chest to the chair. What do the action heroes do in the movies at this point? Break the chair with their amazing strength?

The chair barely wobbles because of his weight pinning it down. Jim rocks a little harder. No result. Okay, momentum. He jerks himself to the side, once, twice, again, almost there… and the chair pitches over with him in it.

But now he has scraped his cheek against the dirty concrete floor and made his head hurt worse and he can’t move. Half of his face pressed to the floor, still tied up.

FUCK! Jim screams against the gag, frustrated and pissed and afraid.

For a long time (minutes? hours?) no one comes. He thinks he hears a rat scurry by his head. His leg would throb if it wasn’t numb. There’s an itch on his right elbow driving him nuts. And Jim might be perspiring because he is nauseous from not having eaten in at least twelve hours.

This could break a man, Jim thinks with despair. If he were stuck, left here and never found…

The distant sound of a door creaking on hinges cuts through the silence. Then footsteps—the best damn thing Kirk has heard in ages.

A light clicks on and shines in his face. He squeezes his eyes shut until the light moves away, and when Jim looks again, he cannot really see who is holding the small flashlight.

“You are quite comfortable, Kirk?”

Trelane.

Jim’s response (which is along the lines of “up yours, motherfucker”) is muffled. Trelane squats and leans into Jim’s view so that Kirk can see the face of his captor.

With a gloved hand, Trelane works the gag out of Jim’s mouth. Kirk spits and swallows several times, wets his cracked lips, until Trelane says, annoyed, “Done?”

“Yeah,” croaks the man. “Rag tasted like armpit.”

“Would that I could keep you around solely for your humor, Kirk. Are you ready to listen now?”

“Was last time,” Jim retorts, feeling kind of dizzy even though he is stationary, “but you wanted to play games, Trelane.”

“No, I was hungry—and you were rude. But I think you have endured enough punishment, don’t you?”

Jim says nothing, neither willing to garner more time in the dark tied to a chair nor willing to beg for his release.

Trelane’s mouth curves. “So much pride. Ah well, we are all very prideful. You are forgiven.” Then the man stands up and orders someone else, “Help him up.”

The giant is back, skulking like a shadow. Jim feels the power in the man’s arms as Jim is lifted, chair and all, and settled into an upright position.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Jim complains to Trelane.

The man leans on his umbrella. “That shall be remedied—if you listen.”

Jim tilts his chin up, initially stubborn, but his sense kicks in and he nods.

“Excellent. As I said before, and I shall briefly mention now, I can find a way to tear your life to pieces, Kirk, rather easily. You may think you can handle dying, brave man that you are, but rest assured it won’t be you that I hurt, at first. And you won’t be able to stop me either.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you this already—to be Mayor of Riverside.” Trelane’s face smooths, all traces of childish pleasure and good humor gone. “Your… family friend, shall we say, Robert Wesley is a favorite of the townspeople. Why shouldn’t he be? The man has been mayor for a long time. Yet even the best of men find their time runs out.”

Leaning very close to Kirk (Jim smells the man’s strong cologne), Trelane says shortly, “I want you to ruin Wesley. I don’t care how you do it or at what cost, only that it gets done. Soon.”

Trelane produces a business card, black except for a number printed on the front. He tucks it under one of the loops of rope across Jim’s chest. “If you need monetary assistance, you may call this number. Otherwise we shall not speak again, you and I. Keep in mind that going to the police won’t help you—” Jim thinks of Rand and knows Trelane’s threat to be true. “—and should you tell another soul of our conversation, I will have your tongue—and that of your companion’s—cut out.”

There is an almost maniacal gleam in Trelane’s eyes, like he dares Jim to ask him to prove his capability as a villain.

Jim only says, “I listened. Now let me go.”

The weirdly cheerful manner is back and Trelane thumps his umbrella against the ground as a toddler might beat a grubby fist on the tabletop for his parents’ attention. “I do enjoy these chats! There is one final thing to oversee.” He holds his hand out to the side impatiently. The giant flicks open a sizable pocket knife—Jim’s heart leaps at the sight of it—and places it in the palm of Trelane’s hand. The man tucks his umbrella under his arm and grasps Jim’s head with his free hand.

Jim tries to pull back but Trelane says, “Don’t. The knife might slip.”

Jim’s eyes follow the blade until he can’t see it anymore, only feels it sliding past his ear, and closes his eyes, certain he might puke on Trelane in another second. But he doesn’t, and when the grip on his chin is gone, Jim opens his eyes to find Trelane grinning at a lock of Jim’s blond hair held between forefinger and thumb.

“A keepsake,” explains Trelane. “A memento of this moment we have shared.” Then the man turns away, dismissing Jim altogether, and tells his lackey, “Cut his bindings. Shoot him if he tries anything foolish. I will be in the car.”

Coins hit the ground. A quarter rolls until it hits one of Kirk’s feet. “For the pay phone outside, Kirk,” the politician calls over his shoulder as he vanishes in the dark. “In case you need to call a cab.”

Jim is weak, aching, and sick to his stomach. He resolutely doesn’t think of fighting as the rope is loosened and his hands freed. He hangs in his chair, face down, listening until the echo of the other man’s footsteps is gone. Only then does Jim tug his arms out of the ropes and work on those binding his legs.

Standing up is almost impossible in the beginning, with cramped muscles and the painful sensation of feeling returning to his lower limbs. Hobbling is the best he can manage, but Jim is quick in his escape, determined to get away from this stinking place.

He finds the pay phone in the corner of an abandoned, weed-cracked parking lot. Using the change Trelane had left behind, Jim calls Gary Mitchell. The man answers on the second ring.

“Gary?” Jim whispers, the phone now shaking in his hands. “Gary?”

“Jim? Oh God, Jim! Where are you? I heard your bike—bottom of the gravel pit, the south highway—“

The words are starting to flow in and out. Jim gulps air, hunches over thinking don’t pass out. “—frantic—search party—”

Gary is babbling, relieved and angry.

“Gary,” Jim interrupts, and he isn’t near tears (he is). “I need—I need you to come get me, okay? Only you.”

“Jim, are you all right? Where are you?”

“Old lumber mill. Gary, please, only you, okay?”

“Your mom—”

“Only you!” he yells into the phone.

There is a heartbeat of silence. “Okay, just me, son. Don’t go anywhere. Promise me.”

Jim manages, “Promise.”

“Jim…”

“Just come get me, Gary.” Jim hangs up, stumbles a few feet away, and vomits.

When he is done, feeling marginally better, Kirk sits on the ground and waits. He’ll think of something to tell people. Gravel pit isn’t all that far from here. Lost control of the bike, hit his head. Wandered until he found a pay phone.

Trelane’s smart, is giving him all the right pieces to build a convincing tale.

Except the blow he suffered is to the back of his head; his wrists are marked with rope burns from struggling; and his wallet is at Spock’s.

But Jim will think of something, a good lie, and no one will be the wiser.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Along Comes a Stranger (28/28) – from July 10, 2011
• Along Comes a Stranger (27/28) – from July 9, 2011
• Along Comes a Stranger (26/28) – from July 5, 2011
• Chapter of Doom – from July 4, 2011
• Along Comes a Stranger (25/28) – from June 30, 2011