Archive of Our Own ^beta

The apartment complex Jim has recently moved to is falling apart slowly. It’s not in the worse condition—there’s still a roof over his head, though there are holes in the ceiling from which the rain falls through in three different places. One is located in the kitchen, the other is in the bathroom and the last is where the bed used to sit. Now it’s pushed from the wall and Jim put a bucket there instead, and one on the counter, and one in between the bath and the toilet.

Jim will boil the water in the morning, bringing the buckets outside one by one—which sometimes have to be changed before the night ends if it’s heavy rain—to pour in this big cauldron he found in one of the houses.

He’ll sit by the fire whilst it boils, read a novel, write about his day and this place and the past, his time as a teenager going through high school and his time as a young adult in Starfleet, all the straight guys he kissed over spin the bottle as a joke because that’s all it was to them, and alcohol, parties, the girls he liked who always loved him back.

Spock.

Spock, in that small ass bed in his bedroom on the ship, with his face right in front of Jim’s and their noses brushing, and Spock breathing calmly, with his mouth and his eyes shut like this is how it’s supposed to be and maybe it is, and it was, like that, with his hand under the pillow he shares with Jim, the other on his own bare, hairy chest.

Jim wouldn’t have imagined Vulcans to be so hairy, but then again it might just be him, like this, unlike anyone, and Spock is indeed hairy. He leaves a trail of dark hair behind, down the drain, in the sink when he shaves in the morning, in between Jim’s forefinger and thumb when he plays with it, twisting the hair on Spock’s arms who aren’t often bare, and underneath his bellybutton, and underneath his underwear, on his naked calves and his thighs.

Spock’s skin is hairy and warm, even from afar, and green, but just a tint, just a blush on the tip of his ears, on the apple of his cheeks.

Can’t sleep, Jim?

Of course not.

Leonard grunts behind him. Presses his body against Jim’s, tightens his grip around Jim’s chest, both hands firmly placed against his ribcage, an arm lying underneath Jim’s now thinner body, before heavy—s’good, more to love and Spock would agree, say what he says is logical.

Jim chuckles. Tries to put a hand over Leonard’s but it isn’t there, it wouldn’t be there, but lower; and Leonard’s lips are pressing a kiss against his nape, leaving a wet kiss there, on the last one of the bumps of his spine, hot and sticky and loving, loving because Leonard’s kisses were always like this and tired, often. S’because I’m an old man, he’d say. It’s because he drank too much. I don’t know how to do this anymore.

Jim doesn’t know how he’s doing it anymore. Laying on an empty bed in an empty apartment complex in an empty town, in cum stained underwear, stained of his pretending it was theirs, and a tee-shirt, hair to his chin, an unkept beard of too many months. Dry blood of a new wound.

He can never help thinking of them, before all this and what happened to them after, where they would be today.
Here’s what Jim knows for sure: the 5-year mission is over.

And here’s what Jim doesn’t: if Spock even came back to Earth after. If Leonard is with him, or back with the wife who left him or back to his hometown or in a backyard, somewhere else, tending to plants like Sulu taught him to; which ones need more sun or a light that mimics it, and water, or lack thereof, and conversation. Would he be enjoying the long mornings in bed, eating too many sweets within a single day, watching the sun set, adopting a pet? A cat for Spock. Drinking ten cups of coffee in a row. Building furniture from scratch without a plan. Making a solid base for a king-sized mattress even if they don’t need that much space. If they ever left space.

Jim sniffles. Blows his nose with a small piece of fabric torn from his tee-shirt. Stands, because there’s no point in trying to sleep more. Brings a bucket full of rainwater from the day before that he didn’t have the time or energy to boil then, pours it in the cauldron, lights a fire underneath, sits on a wooden chair that he took from a house a street away.

He opens a book and reads the same page over and over again.

The water is boiling. Soon, when it’s cooled down a little, he’ll pour it into separate jars and bottles and store them with the others in the basement of the complex that he uses as a storage room and he’ll wait some more, and he’ll read some more, and he’ll sleep some more.

This is the life he leads now.

Jim manually turns the crank of a train toy he picked up in one of the houses. It’s no longer than 15 centimeters, no higher than 5 and about as large as that. It must’ve been a child’s.

There is no apparent battery slot, and its lifespan isn’t carved in marble. It could stop at any moment.

Jim turns its crank once a day outside, by the old railroad, on a hill behind the bigger houses, next to a pond where no frogs ribbit and no crickets chirp. Jim then sets the toy on the ground, backs away quickly, waits for it to come to him, waits for it, waits

jumps before its face reaches his toes, with his eyes closed, only referring to the buzzing of its pipe, listening closely, hoping it’s near yet far enough to not touch him, because sometimes it does touch him, and he rolls down the hill—about three meters high—on his side. He’ll hurt himself once in a while, fall face down in dirt at the bottom and he’ll cry laughing when he wins against the machine and he’ll cry when he loses.

Jim manually turns the crank of the train toy. He’s at the top of the hill, with his eyes closed on the railroad, a light breeze in his hair, not even separating two greasy strands, searching for the buzzing of the train.

It isn’t there.

Jim opens his eyes and lifts an eyebrow. The train is almost exactly where he set it. It might’ve moved three centimeters forward. Jim walks up to it, turns the crank again; it spins and the sound it made has left.

“Well.” Jim scratches along his sideburns onto his beard; dirty fingernails cut with scissors, sighs, “had to happen someday.”

He throws the toy on the other side of the hill, where a desert begins.

The wind blows small sandstorms there. Makes the water in the pond shake like small animals were residing in it. There aren’t. Jim would know since he spends a lot time of there, swimming, sitting on the edge, contemplating. He doesn’t bathe there; he bathes in a bucket the size of a child because it would be too long, and it would take too much water to fill in a bath. He washes himself with unscented soap bars, washes his face with a charcoal facewash, scrubs his dead skin off.

He walks down the hill, his body held back at an angle, holes in his shoes and his pants at the knees, thighs, ass. A lot of the clothes he found were women’s and children’s. Jim only found a few pants that fit him well, a few shirts, a few pair of shoes, now all used, boots, cowboy hats, stray hats. Jim thinks this might’ve have been one of those communes where women stayed at home to take care of the children whilst their husband went away, like it used to be on Earth and like it used to be on Earth there is no electricity here. The town once had access to it; there are broken lightbulbs in houses that Jim never cleared out to prove it, wires on lampposts.

Jim did try to make it work again. Found every circuit breaker in every house; most of them in basements or in between the second and third floor in apartment complexes. Tried finding the nearest power plant, left town, walked east (if the desert is west, but it could be east) spent two nights in a forest so deep he never saw the end of it, slept in a badly set-up tent made for four adults, his arms laid wide and his legs wide open yet not a wall to touch the tip of his fingers and toes to. He went home before getting lost in that forsaken place; walked west (or east) in the desert—never found anything but sand. He followed the train tracks, diverted from his path, almost got lost that time with only one day worth of food ahead. Decided artificial lighting wasn’t worth dying for, or the heat of a stove in a household. It’s not like he would’ve known what to do when he would’ve gotten there, anyway. Jim’s shirt was never red.

Well.

Once, drenched in the blood of his crewmen when they landed.

He remembers being transported onto a vessel from whom they’d gotten a distress signal, going in first with only a nurse—Leonard was elbows-deep in a red shirt’s body, literally—and two security guards.

Were they attacked then? Jim remembers intertwined limbs and blood splatters and Spock calling him by his first name through the communicator, on the bridge, in front of everyone like they weren’t there, and

the vessel disappeared, and

he disappeared.

He blacked out, like when you’re too drunk. He only remembers stumbling off the ship onto green grass, holding onto somebody, a body, Spock’s voice calling for him from somewhere else, for Jim.  
“I’m on a planet, Spock. It’s—euh. I don’t know. Fuck. I don’t know. It’s like—it’s-s not Earth but it’s like. Euh. I can’t send you my position? Can you see me? It’s probably near.”

“What happened, Jim?”

“I-I don’t… I don’t know… I don’t know. I-I think we were attacked.” Jim checks the pulse of the man he pulled from the vessel. “I think they’re all dead.”

Spock is quiet.

Sulu’s voice, through ruffling, muffled sounds, probably Spock’s hand blocking the communicator’s speaker, stating there is nothing in this part of the galaxy for hundreds of light years, Mr. Spock. I don’t understand how we are even able to get through to the captain.

What does it mean?

He’s not here. I… there are no ways to tell where he is.

Sir? Chekov.

Ensign? Spock asks, his throat in his hand.

We’re under attack, Mr. Spock. Uhura’s voice is calm despite the chaos around.

“Spock? Is everything alright?” Jim asks, knowing the answer to that.

Maybe he just wants to hear Spock’s voice one more time.

We need to leave, Sir.

“Go. Please.”

“But Ji—”

“Leave. Mr. Sulu? Do you copy?”

“Yes captain, but—”

“There’s no time. You know what needs to be done.”

“Y-yes, captain.”

“Jim…”

“It’s okay Spock.”

“All communication will stop when we—”

“I know. I-I know, Spock.”

“We won’t be able to get through to you again Jim. We won’t be able to localize you. We won’t be able to get—”

“It’s okay. I know. It’s okay Spock. You can handle it. I know you can handle it. It’s okay.”

Jim? You’re not serious Spock you fucking cold-blooded asshole you are not leaving him behind you cannot do this Spock JIM? JIM! GODDAMN IT SPOCK YOU FUCKING—LET ME SPEAK TO HI

“

Jim pours himself a glass of whiskey. Asks “won’t you give me another one, handsome?” replies “oh, but of course, love.” He lifts the almost empty bottle and empties it.

There’s a mirror behind all of the empty bottles. His own image is being reflected back to him; he looks 10 years older than he did before. It’s only been 3, however. Over a thousand days already.

Jim gulps down the liquid. It burns through the thick layers of the inside of his stomach to his skin, his shirt warm against his hand.

It smells like Leonard here though he stopped drinking in the end.

His shirt drenched in alcohol, the bad days hungover over the toilet, head in between his hands, holding his head and pulling his hair out, reminiscing his ex-wife and the life he had to leave behind, asking Jim what am I doing here? Telling Jim there is nothing for me here.

Shirt soaked in water from the shower head as Jim dragged him under it still dressed, and Leonard mumbling I can do this on my own you know yet he could barely stand, his knees gave up on his body so Jim sat him down, he washed his hair and he washed his face, the leftovers in the corner of his lips, and he brushed his teeth, shaved his 3-days beard. Leonard rested his forehead against Jim’s forehead and apologized, promised I’m gonna stop for real this time, didn’t, and Jim kissed his freshly shampooed head of hair, lost fingers in his name.
Kissed each tear as they fell to Leonard’s cheeks.

Wipes each tear with a dirty handkerchief as they fall to his cheeks, in this empty bar mimicking the aesthetic of the Far-West. Wooden doors almost touching but never quite.

Leonard would’ve loved this place.

Hate it then.

Jim places the empty bottle next to the other empty bottles on the first shelf, in front of the mirror. He walks to the back store, counts how many bottles he has left before he runs out.

A few of red wine and white, untouched vodka except the bottle Jim opened on Chekov’s birthday last year. A lot of beer. Names he doesn’t know on unopened tagged boxes; alcohol from the land. No more whiskey.

There is no winter here, nor is there autumn, or spring, and it’s never exactly summer either. The weather must’ve been similar someplace on Earth but not where Jim grew up.

Well, that’s not true, the seasons do change it’s just subtle, like how the wind picks up, how it twirls, how the green’s greener or yellower, and darker, but never brown or white, covered in snow for there is no snow, but the sky is a navy blue in the winter, and the nights are colder. There are no sound except for Jim’s teeth clattering, and the rubbing of hands under bedsheets, and the pace of his breathing accelerating as he thinks of Leonard holding him close every night on the Enterprise, his big hands closing around Jim’s belly, stroking skin lower that his belly, his bare chest against Jim’s bare back, bending his knees within the shapes of Jim’s knees, leaving kisses on the nape of his neck, where his hair ends and the last one of the bumps of his spine forges his skin, and it’s wet, and there’s Spock, shyly brushing the back of his fingers against Jim’s jawline, brushing hair back from his forehead, tracing each bone beneath his skin, drawing circles around Jim’s clear brown eyes, outlining his lips and Jim, with his lips slightly parted, thinking it’s getting hot in here, under the bedsheets and the colorful hand-knitted blanket on top of them.

There is no summer here; it’s more like Death by Daylight with the heat that the sun brings. It reminds Jim of a planet they visited, him and Spock and Leonard, and Uhura was there, too, to help them communicate.

The heat was unbearable. Even Spock’s armpits were soaked, sweat dripping down his forehead onto his straight eyebrows, his naturally perfect bangs a mess.

The only thing coming from Leonard’s mouth were curse words for three days straight; cursing whatever god above them, cursing the captain, cursing the one big room they were given to share with the ambassadors of the planet.

The heat isn’t typically unbearable here, but it’s warm enough that even a shirt and short shorts feel like too much, and despite there not being anyone around Jim prefers to wear at least a garment if not two.

A bottom and a top.

Black pants and a yellow sweater.

A skirt.

This sheer, long skirt down to his ankles in this faint baby blue, picked from what was probably an old woman’s closet, in a house that is strangely still standing amongst a street full of broken-down houses.

It feels nice, light. Paired with a white tank top slightly tucked in. He’s not wearing anything else beside it, underneath. It’s freeing but a little uncomfortable at first if he’s honest, but then he’s walking on what could be a short boulevard and he’s walking to the rhythm of a song he doesn’t remember the name of nor most of its lyrics but this one phrase that he sings over and over and over again in his head and it’s nice. He’s getting used to it. A little warm still, sweat tangled in curly hair.

The wind pushes the fabric against his skin, enhancing the sheerness of the material, how thin it actually is, the exact shape of his dick,

and he’s spinning around in it, looking through every window like someone’s gonna stare back at him, watching him walk past their house in nothing but a tank top and this light baby blue skirt with nothing underneath, and the thought of it makes Jim’s heart beat faster and his saliva thick in his mouth and he has to spit it out in their front yard.

He looks up and there’s no one. The blinds are shut. He laughs. Starts swaying to the rhythm of this one song he knows one phrase from. It’s old. The Beach Boys, maybe. A song his dad listened to. A song Leonard listened to, danced to though he did not dance, grabbed Jim by the wrist and brought him close and grinded against him as if it was a sexy sultry song but all it was were guitars and percussions and happy like they were, dancing to the Beach Boys on a spaceship.

He imagines Spock at one of the windows. He imagines Leonard beside him. He imagines them in a crowd on the street; Spock’s head higher than everyone else’s, his slender arm waving Jim hello. Goodbye.

Farewell.

So there is winter, or something like winter and there is autumn and there is spring, and there is summer, oh there is summer, and he dances throughout it in this silky skirt, and it is silky, like Spock’s hair on his fingertips, and the weather’s exactly like it is somewhere on Earth except this isn’t Earth, and it doesn’t feel like the Earth, or anywhere Jim has ever been to for all that matters for two things are missing

there is no Leonard,

there is no Spock.

There is only him and his hands when the wind picks up in October.

Jim wakes up to the sound of the wind quietly blowing, water running somewhere near, from the roof into a bucket already full spilling on the old, soggy wooden floor.

A hole has appeared in it. The rain runs from the roof to the third floor (Jim’s) to the second.

Jim pushes himself off the mattress, stretches his arms, lifting in the process the already cropped shirt he fell asleep in, the word baby bedazzled, plastered across his chest. He found it in a teenage girl’s bedroom. It doesn’t really fit him.

Jim stands up on two clumsy feet, takes the bucket to the cauldron, spills about a quarter in the stairs; lights a fire with new dry logs of wood stored in the basement, kindling, tinder. He doesn’t have many matches left. Every single one counts.

Jim goes back inside and tries his best to patch the hole in the ceiling of the apartment on the second floor with a plank of wood and nails, standing on the last stair of a small ladder on the tip of his toes. It’s useless; soon another hole will grow.

He boils two cauldron worth of water and stores them in empty jars with the others and extinguishes the fire. He packs enough water for the day in a bag, the clothes he brought to this place—baby on a pink shirt, that long, baby blue skirt, three white tank tops and a black ripped tee-shirt, blue jeans, a purple windbreaker, a light green sweater that looks like the yellow sweater he wore for almost 4 years. A toothbrush. It’s not new but it seemed almost new. Like it was used no more than 5 times.

It’s hard scavenging things like these; toothbrushes, underwear, nail clippers (he hasn’t found any that aren’t completely useless anyway yet, so he uses craft scissors instead, to cut his nails and his hair and his beard when it grows too long thus becoming impossible to shave with a cheap razor) razors, too; they’re either too cheap or they’re filthy.

Jim is filthy. He pours water from a bucket he didn’t boil into the child’s size bucket and gets a few jars of still warm water from the basement, undresses, sits with his knees to his chin in his bath. Simply passes water through his hair (he hasn’t used shampoo in over a year) scrubs each limb with a small towel and rubs a bar of soap directly upon his rigid skin. He washes it off with a few liters of warm water, then he gets out, wipes himself dry and kneels, naked, to shave. His skin feels strange without the beard. His jaw feels too square. His cheeks feel rugged. Flushed red. His Adam’s apple throbs, more apparent than it was before. His skin feels… tight. Like there’s no room to breathe. His chest feels the same.

He puts on a flannel that he leaves unbuttoned except these two in the middle. It’s this deep blue with diamond shapes upon, who themselves are crimson and cream, and the blue shines through the middle. Grey checkered pants. White—or what used to be white—sneakers.

He holds the palm of his hand flat against one of the walls in the apartment, by the front door, and says goodbye. With his bag in his arms full of clothes and the necessary items to maintain decent hygiene.

He has moved so many times within the past decade. Seen so many different sights, different wallpapers, some with bricks imitating the exterior of the house, some with animals imitating life. White or blue paint in bathrooms. Yellow, orange, anything warm in kitchens. Green couches. Velvety. An armchair, no televisions, dusty books on dusty bookshelves, vintage wood bookcases in bedrooms, double beds.

There are usually dishes still in the sink, an old smell, like someone died here.

Jim arrives at his new place. It’s that house that he took (stole?) the long, baby blue skirt that goes down to his ankles from. It’s the house that is still standing amongst of the ruins. It’s one of the houses that survived whatever happened here.

Jim could’ve probably lived in it from the beginning, but he wasn’t looking for anything spacious then, rather something small like his quarters on the ship. He is alone after all, but it doesn’t really matter now. He needs something sturdy, and by the looks of it Jim could probably live here until his body becomes another mark in the wall, another perfume.

The house smells clean. There are no dishes in the sink. No broken windows. No holes on the ceiling, on the walls, on the floor. There are stairs to a basement, a door closed. Jim leaves his bag by the front door and heads to that one.

There are board games in the basement. There is an empty aquarium. There is a rug, on the floor, by a couch, with streets on it and houses and driveways, an elementary school, a fire station, a hospital. There is an old hospital in this town too. There are aluminium beds all over and metal instruments, different from the ones used by Leonard. There is no blood on any of the two floors. There is a basement there too, but it is only accessible by the elevator.

Jim walks up the stairs.

There are no stains anywhere. No marks. No body.

Jim never actually found a body. There was nobody when he arrived. Not even insects, no animals, and of course no humans except the ones he brought with him in the vessel.

The only lifeforms were the plants and himself, though he did entertain the idea that this was all purgatory, that he never made it out alive to begin with, that he never actually talked to Spock one last time. He almost believed it for some time.

It’s the oddest thing, this feeling. And this house. And the cat.

It was faint, almost inexistent, like perhaps the wind was blowing harder but it wasn’t yet winter.

Jim was reading a novel he’d read about 20 times by then, lying in a bed, not in his home but in a house by the pond from where he’d just come from, lying on top of a towel he laid down on a dirty mattress. His legs draped in heart-printed tights ripped in between his thighs, his hair on his shoulders still damp. It’s usually warm out in the daytime, even at this time of year.

He had rested the book against his face, open at the page he had gotten to, somewhere in the middle, blocking the sunlight.

A character in the novel had Leonard’s name. Leonard’s face. That’s how Jim pictured him, deep brown hair turning grey, eyes the same.

Or were they blue, like his uniform, like rainwater filling up the pond until it spills on the rocks. Jim doesn’t remember now.

The noise came from outside. The top half of the window in the living-room is broken, and Jim had left the door to the bedroom open. He had left the front door open too.

The noise came from inside. Sounded like something light had fallen to the ground, or something heavy on the rug. Maybe the half-empty can of palm hearts Jim left on the round table by the leather couch. The rug will dry and the smell will stain.

Jim sighed. Lifted the novel, memorized the page yet put it down the same way on the unused left pillowcase upon the phantom of someone’s face. He stood up. Looked around for a shirt as if he was heading out to welcome someone. Went through the wardrobe, feeling like a thief, feeling like he wasn’t supposed to see this, feel this, his fingers against different fabrics, always a bit rough against his fingertips. He came across a blue long sleeve shirt that has a black, mock neck collar, which he buried his face in, breathing in what he hoped to be Spock but it smelled like something that had never been worn.

Leather squeaked in the living-room.

“Hello?” Jim called, looking out the door into the kitchen, grasping at the blue shirt, his voice cracking, his mouth thick with saliva from fear and thirst. He shouldn’t have been scared yet his heart was pumping and his stomach was torn in between butterflies and rabbits. He shouldn’t have been scared but the only response he got was another squeak. He shouldn’t have been scared, so he withdrew his grip on the shirt and walked out, his feet gentle against the floor, his thighs chafing.

And there is was. A cat on the leather couch.

Jim laughed.

Something genuine, something that rumbled in his belly and his throat and jerked back his shoulders and made his body shudder.

The cat is black except from its paws that are white. It was looking at Jim with its head tilted to the side.

Jim cleared his throat, laid a hand flat ahead as to welcome it even though Jim’s a bit allergic to cat hair and said “hey, it’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you” in the gentlest of voices. The cat walked up to him, the couch squeaking against its pads. It bumped its head against Jim’s fingertips and started purring loudly. Jim didn’t say anything, he stood there and let it.

When the cat had settled and seemed to trust him, like it didn’t want to hurt him, like he didn’t want to hurt it, he started to brush through the cat’s hair from the top of its head to the thin end of its tail. Jim had always been weary of cats, for they are sly and impulsive or that’s what he was lead to believe at least, but the cat brushed its teeth against Jim’s knuckles and never bit him. It closed its eyes as Jim scratched its chin, discovering a new trail of white hair there like a neck beard. Jim pat every inch of its body and remarked it wasn’t thin and didn’t seem unhealthy. It showed no signs of starvation, no signs of pain, no signs of infection. Its eyes clear and its mouth pink.

“Where do you come from, huh, kitty?”

Jim spoke to it as if it were to answer him and, for a minute, almost wished it did.

“You must’ve walked a long way. There’s nothing around here.” Jim snickered. “You hungry? Here.” He broke into tiny parts the palm heart that was remaining in the can that didn’t fall to the ground. “Good huh? Yeah… how the hell did you even survive out there? It must’ve been lonely. God it must’ve been lonely…”

Jim cleared his throat once more. Bit down his quivering bottom lip. Sniffled. Held on to his jaw like it were to fall down. “Good kitty” he whispered, in the gentlest of voices, “come here” he asked, in the gentlest of voices, through a lot of ugly sniffling and hard breathing

inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale he repeated to himself.

He walked away and the cat followed him. The pads of its paws against the kitchen tiles, the wooden floor in the bedroom, the cotton towel upon the mattress, Jim’s skin.

Inhale, exhale. The blue shirt smelled like a new cupboard, but Jim still decided to take it to bed with him. He hugged it tightly. The cat made its own bed upon Jim’s belly, and careful as to not hurt him it kept its claws retracted. Its fur was warm against Jim’s skin, his weight heavy on his body.

The cat fell asleep like this. With its small head resting against a sleeve of the shirt Jim was holding onto. Its throat rumbling, its blue eyes slowly closing, looking at Jim. A clear blue, just like Leonard’s.

It’s nice having a cat around. Not necessarily because it’s a cat, though it’s soft to the touch and warm, but because it’s alive, and it’s not him. It’s not only him anymore.

The house is nice too. Nicer than his apartment. And the one before that. And the one before that one.

He lounges in the living-room for hours, sips cold tea; there is an unlimited reserve of it. It seems like no one drank anything else besides it. His favorite mug is small, white on the inside and black on the outside with two yellow dragons meeting on the opposite side of the handle; one looks menacing and the other almost like it’s anticipating a fight, a reunion, the ending.

Jim likes dancing. Or if someone was watching maybe they wouldn’t say it’s dancing, but maybe that it’s moving. Swaying, contorting his body to intangible music.

The cat to his feet rubbing itself against his calves, and Jim, lifting each foot carefully, dancing around it. Swaying around it. His arms then in the air, up and forward, following the tilt of his head, now along his body, around his body, grasping onto itself, his hands tightening on his ribcage until each finger leaves a mark on each rib. Red marks like stamps, like hickeys. He leaves hickeys along his shins to his knees because he can’t get any higher than this and stamps around his neck, marks all over his body like they aren’t from his hands alongside a few accidental cat scratches that he disinfects with the vodka he doesn’t drink except that one time on Chekov’s birthday.

He names the cat. Bill, short for Billie or Billy because Jim doesn’t know its sex and quite frankly doesn’t want to look for it.

He dances until it hurts to be standing. Until there are blisters on his toes. There are already blisters on his toes, on the palm of his hands. Bill licks them and it stings but Jim leaves it be, because it’s different at least, and it feels good that a creature he just met would care enough about him to want to treat his wounds, though it’s not much of a help; Bill’s tongue is stiff, rugged. It’s the thought that counts, his mother would say, and he would wince.

Jim sits down on the couch, velvet under his thighs caressing his skin. Bill jumps in his lap and licks the wounds in his hands and rubs its damp nose against them.

It’s sunny outside. The sun shines through the large window to Jim’s left and illuminates the whole room, including the kitchen to his right and the entrance to a bedroom that he doesn’t use behind him. A sealed bathroom. If there is a body in this house it would be there. A dining room in which the blinds are shut and the table is set. If there are ghosts they are eating well.

Jim eats in the bedroom upstairs. Sleeps in the bedroom upstairs. Bathes in the bedroom upstairs in a child’s size bucket.

He doesn’t really scout for anything anymore, but in the first few days of moving he makes laps back and forth in between his old apartment building and this house. He makes a list of the rations, learns there isn’t much left anymore. This isn’t a big town, probably couldn’t be considered a town; everybody probably knew each other, called each other by their first name, and you’d probably know what a lot of them looked like naked, and you’d probably date your best friend’s ex-boyfriend. They probably met in that one big building and probably danced. Celebrated Christmas together, if that’s something they celebrated. There’s only one grocery store, though it was already in ruins and there wasn’t much to scavenge from it, the hospital, barely any clothing or convenience stores.

Jim’s theory is that no one died, that they just left; that they had enough of this, being alone in a commune full of lonely people,

but where did they go?

Bill follows him around. Wherever Jim goes. Waits for him by the rocks around the pond. Waits for him by the doorstep when Jim asks to be alone. Sleeps on the left pillow, on Jim’s stomach, puts its head upon Jim’s chest, listens to his heart beating. Bill brings him back sticks like a dog that Jim uses in the yard to hang the big cauldron upon above the fire; he gathers rocks and puts down wood; logs, kindling, tinder. He won’t have to go back to the apartment anymore. He just has to wait for the rain to come.

It doesn’t rain for two weeks when winter comes. Jim doesn’t bathe for a month. He scrubs his dead skin off in the pond, swims in it again in the evening. He counts the jars and bottles in the basement. Prays for the rain to come.

Leonard’s birthday comes before. Jim misses it. He only realizes it three days later.

Leonard would’ve been 46 this year.

Leonard is 46 this year.

Jim celebrates it. He doesn’t drink, mainly because of the absence of whiskey in the back store in the bar a few streets down but also to keep Leonard sober from within him, to keep himself sober, too, because he’s seen what alcohol can do to someone.

He finds a roof he could access from the emergency stairs on the side of an apartment complex and he lays down there, with Bill on his side, to watch the night sky.

The view’s different than from the inside of the Enterprise. With Leonard by his side cursing the fact that they’re gonna be stuck in space for five goddamn years and Spock’s eyebrow lifted.

That did get to Jim sometimes, like it would it get to anyone; the claustrophobia of the ship; the endlessness of space; if it was worth it; this frame.

The stars shine brightly from down here. Almost as bright, actually. There is Bill’s loud purring. A raindrop in between his eyebrows.

There is nothing for him here anymore.

There aren’t enough resources to last another year. There’s not enough food for the two of them, and maybe he could pick up gardening, grow some fruits from seeds that he could possibly find somewhere, vegetables, make his own bread from scratch but that would take some time, and this weather’s not the most adequate and he’s not sure there’s even enough of that—time. Something that’s been piling up for so long, that Jim always wanted less of; 12 to 20 hours to waste everyday depending on how much he slept. Now it’s running out.

Jim packs his bags again except this time it’s for somewhere else; somewhere new, if he can find someplace like that. He’s tried before but abandoned too quickly and came back.

He might come back. He might not find anything again but at least he’ll go further this time, staring with the forest once more that he can’t see the end of or above because the trees are tall and the leaves still in abundance despite winter on the tip of his tongue, just a bit grey, closing in sunrays. It’s safer than the desert. If he doesn’t divert from his path he shouldn’t get lost, and there shouldn’t be anything waiting for him, lurking in the dark.

He might die, he thinks, tries not to think. He’ll die here anyway if he stays. If it’s not from the lack of resources, it’ll be from loneliness.

And he tries not to think of what’s waiting for him deep in the forest. He tries to think there is someone.

Jim packs enough water to last him and Bill a week even if it’s heavy; canned foods that he hopes are still good despite the expiration date (he hasn’t gotten sick from eating them yet); dried fruits; nuts; crisps he kept for a special occasion that are most likely stale; the last cans of tuna for the cat. A sleeping bag. A toothbrush and toothpaste and a comb, a razor, scissors for his hair and his nails and to protect Bill and himself in case. A change of clothes—mainly underwear and tank tops, the long-sleeved blue shirt, a pair of tights and sweatpants and the skirt, a purple windbreaker and a sweater, socks made out of alpaca fleece. A journal and a flashlight. He leaves all of the alcohol behind.

The first night in the forest is cold. Colder than he’s used to.

Jim sleeps in the same tent he brought before, and it’s still too big but Bill makes it cozier; two bodies instead of one, with his arms stretched against the hard floor (the sleeping bag doesn’t make much of a difference in terms of comfort) and his legs wide open, wind sneaking in tickling his feet.

Bill is walking all over him, all over the tent. Smelling every corner, licking the fabric; it winces from the taste of it. Jim laughs. It’s earnest. Hurts in his chest.

The second night isn’t so bad. Jim’s back is sore from the first and from his bag and another he holds in his arms and so are his legs from the walk.

He starts a fire outside that burns for a few hours, writes by it. Firstly, about how much he believes he’s walked, how many hours approximatively. Secondly, about how it went; good, his condition; the days aren’t too warm since there isn’t much sunlight and there’s a chill breeze, but it’s not cold enough for his extremities to change in color. He keeps his body hydrated. Bill seems healthy too, if not a bit tired, but so is he.

The fourth day he starts to think there really is nothing but trees to be seen. Mud from the rain on his shoes from the night before. Nothing to be heard, but Bill’s loud purring, water bottles in his bag now lighter, mud on the sole of his shoes.

It’s about three, if Jim had to guess, from how the sun is piercing through the foliage. He takes a deep breath and absorbs its energy like he was a plant.

The seventh day should be the last. It isn’t, because on the sixth day Jim sees the end in the distance. An entrance. Light.

It was time.

He holds on tight to both of his bags and runs and “come on Bill we’re getting out of here!” twists his ankle in the thrill of his excitement.

So he limps to it.

And he reaches it.

The first thing anyone asks Jim is

“have you been here all along?

Alone?”

and the answer isn’t as simple as “yes, I have” but that’s what he replies. He’s too worn out.

Sprawled in a bed with his ankle wrapped in a white bandage, resting against a pillow, in a house half-way between broken and perfect, with people sitting in front of the bed with their legs crossed and their elbows in their lap and their chin in their hands, looking at Jim with this intrigued look on their face, Jim cries.

Jim cries for a long, long time.

They are 59, spread around town.

60 now.

None of them are human except Jim, though all of them have what resemble human physiognomy and would blend in perfectly on Earth with him.

They have a leader who takes the decisions and divides the tasks and goes to Jim when she’s in dire need of help with handling the title, because she knows Jim used to be a captain, because she doesn’t want to carry alone this burden, and he understands.

Her name is Mia and Rose is the name of her child. Her husband passed away before Rose’s birth, and Mia doesn’t talk about him often, or how it happened, but Jim can imagine it has something to do with these ruins and the ghost town he lived in.

Dante is a nurse. He helped Jim recover from his injury though Jim carries it with him, when it’s pouring rain and the air is humid and his bones seem to be imprint of it.

Dante is (looks) a few years older than Jim, is taller than Jim, an inch, two. A scar crosses his right eyebrow and reaches above his hairline, buried in dark brown hair turning grey. His eyes are a deep shade of grey too and they’re big like a puppy’s, and he looks at Jim in that way, with his lips slightly parted and his eyes slightly closed like this isn’t the first time he’s had to do this, find somebody new, and Jim has this tremor in his fingers like this is the first time he’s had to since.

Dante’s hands are magic. They massage Jim’s ankle back to life every night, and trace a new path within pre-existing lines, and caress skin that hasn’t been touched in too long and slip underneath clothes that only his hands ever reach for.

Jim tells Dante about Leonard and Spock. Leonard’s sentimentality and grumpiness and selflessness. Spock’s mannerisms and trust and unparalleled love. How he misses them; the way Leonard held him, his arms tightening around Jim’s belly as he fell deeper into sleep, how he would always leave kisses on his nape; Spock’s breath still peachy in the morning, his bangs a bit tousled, the tip of his ears green as Jim would scoot closer to him, his body still sound asleep.

Dante tells Jim about the community. How Mia has been a great help to everyone, how she’s taken on this job with no complains, how much she cares for the children because she wants them to have a childhood despite the circumstances that brought them here, because they weren’t always here.

About Rohan, who left with the other group who followed the river down south. Josephine, who never made it here. Kei, who is here; Jim has met them before, they get along well. Kei has a bright smile and kind eyes. And a nice ass, Dante says, chuckling, shaking his head. There’s this thing they do when they’re embarrassed—they’ll shut their eyes tight and pretend no one can see them since they can’t see anyone themselves, like suddenly they’re invisible. It’s… silly but, I don’t know, kind of makes my heart ache.

Bill leaves during the daytime and returns to Jim at night, most nights.

Jim learns that Bill is probably around 7 or 8, that Bill is not her name, that she belonged to somebody else; Jon, or John, who passed away in the fall.

“Where were you today, huh? Did you have fun?” Bill purrs loudly under Jim’s fingers as he scratches under her chin. “You like that huh?”

“You know she’s not gonna answer you, right?”

Dante’s voice is hoarse. It always reminds Jim of Spock, and his hands of Leonard, and Jim probably reminds Dante of Rohan; his brown eyes, the freckle above his pubis, under his left heel, the shape of his fingernails, and Josephine; his hair golden under the sun, the faint pink of his lips in the evening, his eyelashes. Kei from the way he kisses him.
“Hm. Yeah. I wouldn’t want her to answer me anyway, but she can hear me. She listens. And I think she likes it when I speak to her. Tell her about my day. I didn’t have anyone else before, you know. She’s sort of like my best friend.”

Bill sleeps at Jim’s feet when she’s there. She’s the first thing he sees in the morning when she climbs on his chest and rubs her face all over Jim’s, making Jim’s eyes burn for the next ten minutes. She’ll then climb in Dante’s lap and he’ll pet her whilst Jim holds a damp towel over his face, groaning, yet still extending a hand to Bill.

Jim’s task is always to look over half of the commune whilst Mia takes care of the other half; to offer help where it’s needed, play hide and seek with the children when they ask for him, learn from Maggie how to take good care of a garden. Dante is on stand-by or curing the common cold and rashes, usually, burns, cuts, trying to find a cure to deathly sicknesses in his spare time; holding an annual check-up for the seemingly healthy residents.

“Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Good. Does the ankle still hurt?”

Jim shakes his head. “I mean, sometimes, if I’ve been standing all day you know or like helping move heavy material. When it rains.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary then.”

“No, no.”

“Good. That’s good. Excellent even. Anyway other than that you’re perfectly healthy so you’re good to go. I’ll meet you later at home, okay? I still have to see all of the kids today.”

“Mm.” Jim hums. Dante leans in to kiss him as he’s sitting on the edge of an old table in what would’ve been a clinic and nibbles at his bottom lip, extorting a moan from Jim’s throat. Dante pulls back a mere second later, pulls on his shirt that Jim had lifted up, leaving Jim hanging. Jim sulks and Dante laughs. “Yeah whatever.” Jim puffs, jumping down from the table. He rolls his eyes and Dante smiles. “Thanks for nothing, Bones.”

Sometimes Jim has to remind himself of this: Leonard isn’t here. Spock isn’t here. These legs aren’t theirs, the mouth whispering baby, the forefinger tracing over each letter on his shirt, stopping when its reached Jim’s nipple.

Jim’s mouth waters and he licks his lips open and he has to remind himself of this:

breathe in, breathe out,

but fuck it’s hard when Dante is looking at him with that stupid grin.

Jim has to remind himself of this: home isn’t anywhere. Home isn’t the Earth or space, but home can be a person. Home could’ve been Spock. Home could’ve been Leonard and it must’ve been them; it was them, but it can be here as well, with Mia on the ground and Dante in this house and that house

back in Iowa with his brothers and his parents

“I get it you know. I mean I know you know that but I still want to say it. I just… know how hard it is to lose someone, and by lose I don’t mean by death necessarily, but like never really getting closure, not knowing what they’re doing or who they’re with or how they’re doing, and I think that’s the toughest one to stomach, isn’t it? You just wonder how they’re doing, if they’re feeling the same you are feeling, that—not emptiness but this sort of missing piece. And you wonder if they’re happy. If they’re happier.”

Jim would say he’s happy.

There’s the longing and that missing piece that won’t return to him, this hole in his chest that he can almost see, that he can clearly see, that he sometimes hopes Dante doesn’t see too but Dante sees it, and he has to remind Jim that it’s okay, I get it, and there’s the bad days and the worse days and the nightmares about them actually being dead and there’s the dread, and there’s thinking that they might be unhappy whilst he’s here in the arms of another man who does make him happy, in this community that does make him happy, on this planet that isn’t so bad after all, and there’s this itch, that maybe they’re not together anymore because he’s not there with them and then he feels disgusting, he feels selfish, because he wasn’t the glue holding them together from the start; he’s seen it firsthand, the way were, quick to disagree and quick to understand each other’s point and quick to make up, if they were to raise their voices, the way their hands met, how well Leonard knew Spock; where he likes to be touched, what he likes to eat, read, drink, when he wants to be left alone, when to stop. He’s heard it, the I care for you, the I love you though rarer, quieter, the I’m in love with you in the captain’s quarters, in sickbay, slipped on the bridge and in between salad bites and a coughing fit.

They loved each other as much as they loved him.

They love* each other

*Jim has to remind himself of this: he’s never going to know this.

*Jim has to remind himself of this: there is a very thin possibility that he’s ever going to know this.

*Jim repeats it over and over and over and over

“Do you think you’ll ever see Rohan again?”

“Rohan? Hm, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t really think about it too much anymore, but I mean I guess I’d be lying if I were to say that I don’t hope for it sometimes. I-I guess a part of me is still a bit hopeful, but I also feel like I have everything that I need here, a lot to be thankful for, a lot that I wouldn’t trade for the chance of seeing him again. Just—you know things end and that’s just the way it is, so, I don’t know. And I think maybe I don’t need to… know. I’m not sure I even want to.”

The entrance to the forest is in sight from the window in their bedroom.

Jim was awakened by Bill being her usual needy self and wanting to be pet in the middle of the night and he’s having difficulty going back to sleep so he watches over Dante for a while, his loud snoring accompanying Bill’s purring.

He stands by the window, watches the trees in the distance; their leaves dancing, their trunks seemingly moving, waking. The wind sings a song Jim knows through and through.

Do you think you’ll ever see them again? Dante had asked after,

and Jim had shrugged.

What would you do, if you did?

There, behind that one tree, so tall it hides in the clouds in the sky, Spock’s even bangs peeking out, his pursed lips, his blue eyeshadow beaming under the moonlight; Leonard’s forehead wrinkles in a sharpie from side to side, his peppered hair and tired eyes, mouths drawn in a name

“Jim?”

Dante calls for him half-asleep. “Everything ok?”

Jim nods, looks out and back; Dante’s hair is getting longer. Almost long enough to put in a ponytail. Jim, on the other end, cut his short again.

“come back to bed baby...”

“Coming.”

Jim takes one last look out. He smiles and walks back to Dante, and he lies directly upon him, and he places a kiss on his pouty lips.

“I’m here.”