Work Text:
1. inform
Assemblies almost always meant someone had done something wrong. Once in a while they were stupider than that and they meant that the Academy was about to do something stupid and wrong. Bones didn’t have a set opinion either way. He slouched in his seat with his knee half into the chair next to him and waited for Jim to fall into place next to him.
When everyone was seated and Jim was there (grinning, always grinning), the instructor cleared his throat, stepped up to the microphone and explained today’s grand display of stupidity.
“Survival training. You have one hour.”
2. prepare
“Do you know what this is about?” Bones demanded. If there was something stupid the Academy was doing, it was damn near a sure bet the world’s-greatest-captain-to-be knew what the fuck was going on.
Jim just shrugged. “Sounds like survival training.”
Funny bastard, he was. Bones frowned at him and Jim winked at him. “I can think of a hundred things I’d rather do than get stuck in the wilderness with you.”
Jim’s laugh was as infectious as his grin. “Any of those things involve naked bodies and a barrel of butter?”
“What?” Bones demanded but Jim was already leaving.
3. plan
A fucking desert. Bones pulled the collar of his shirt up over his mouth to keep the sand the shuttles were kicking up out of his throat. It whipped against his clothes while he stood there in a crowd of a hundred cadets in street clothes milling around and looking confused.
“Bones!” Jim shouted. He was jogging across the desert with a jacket in one fist, a bag over his shoulder and a bright gold sash tied around his waist.
“What the hell is that?” Bones demanded when Jim was close enough.
“It means that I’m the captain,” Jim said.
4. organize
Jim caught a geeky looking kid that spent a minute sputtering about the cold until Jim gave him a coat and a red scarf to tie around his arm. The geeky looking kid took the communicator that Jim handed him and said it’d take a minute to turn that into a loud speaker.
“Do you like the desert?” Jim asked.
“No,” Bones said.
“Me neither,” Jim whistled shrilly over the din of feet on sand and the murmuring worries of a hundred idiots that hadn’t packed water, warm clothes or good shoes. “How about we get out of?”
“Oh sure.”
5. establish
“Who made you the captain?” was the demand of someone that must have been destined to be a security officer.
Bones rubbed his face and sighed at Jim’s side. Uhura was rolling her eyes and fiddling with her own red scarf.
“Who knows where we are?” Jim asked back. “Who actually brought water with them? Who wants to stay in this desert for a week? Give me forty-eight hours and I’ll have us back on the lawn at the Academy.”
The shouting that exploded at those words was nearly deafening. Jim looked at his watch like they were wasting time.
6. act
It took over an hour to pass out the colored scarves, split the cadets in groups of ten and convince everyone that walking was better than standing. Bones walked with Jim. They followed a kid with a gold scarf around his elbow and a compass in his hand.
“You’re going to lead us all out of this desert?” Bones asked.
Jim was smiling up at the twinkling stars. “Call me Moses, Bones.”
“Do you even know where the hell we are?” Bones demanded.
“Relax,” Jim mumbled back. “I know exactly where we are.”
“Where’s that?” Bones asked.
“Under the stars.”
7. assess
Ten minutes to rest after two hours of walking.
Jim hadn’t been hated as brightly and thoroughly as he was hated by every single glaring face down the line. There were three medical officers in this mess of a situation and Bones was the only one that had thought to bring his medkit. So he walked the line of sagging, tired, sore-footed, shivering, thirsty cadets with Jim and offered advice and little cures where he had them.
“There’s a town,” Jim said when they were going back to the front of the line, “We’ll stop; get everyone food, good shoes.”
8. communicate
Six hours into walking with nothing but more of the same everywhere they looked, Jim was still whistling a pretty song under his breath. “Look at that sunrise, Bones.”
“Look behind us,” Bones said, “We’ve got to stop. They’re going to get together and decide to kill you and elect a better captain.”
Jim slung his arm across Bones’ shoulders. “They don’t have to like me.”
“You’re not listening, we’re not going get out of this desert, they’re going to kill you and bury you here.”
Jim laughed but he called a stop and gave them thirty minutes to rest.
9. transport
There were cadets everywhere. The whole sleepy town of wherever-the-fuck was overrun with them: Cadets in the diner; cadets on the sidewalks; cadets staring at the bus routes with lustful eyes; cadets in the stores buying water, jackets, shoes and a line of cadets standing outside a real bathroom just waiting for their turn.
“This is crazy,” Uhura remarked to him.
“That’s about right for Jim,” Bones assured her.
Jim came back with a bag full of packaged food, a gallon of water and a map. “So,” he said as he chewed on a biscuit, “I got us a ride.”
10. transport
One hundred bodies were not meant to be slam packed into the back of a freighter that seemed to be better served to carry furniture. The ride was less than smooth across the mountains, the air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and everyone was laying one on top the one next to them. Sore legs, sore feet, full stomachs—everyone wanted to sleep.
Jim was leaning back against the cool metal wall, elbows across his bent knees and watching the crew sleep. Bones could see it, the man that Jim wanted to be.
“Get some rest, Bones.”
11. consult
This time they walked on the edge of a highway. Half on one side, half on the other, enjoying the breeze of the passing cars, ignoring the stare of little kids pressed against the glass and wondering what crazy shit these people were doing.
“How did you know where we were?” Uhura asked, “Nobody was supposed to know.”
“The captain always knows,” Jim answered. “If he doesn’t know, he knows how to find out.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Uhura asked.
What the hell did she think it meant? Jim used his smile (or his dick) to get answers.
12. rest
Late in the afternoon the procession stopped, Jim nodded and directed everyone off to the side of the highway. They looked like piles of puppies, curled up with one another in the grass. Bones sat and rubbed his calves and thought fondly of the dorm bed he’d left behind.
Jim dropped down to sit next to him, offered him a vacuum-packed ham sandwich. “Gibson’s going to watch them. I’m going to take a nap.”
“What’s it got to do with me?” Bones asked.
Jim yawned, turned, head in Bones’ lap and pulled his shirt over his face. “You’re my pillow.”
13. command
“How long have we been walking!”
“I can’t go on!”
“We should have stayed.”
Bones crossed his arms over his chest while Jim nodded at every valid shout that was screamed at him. These people were hungry, tired, overworked and content to die in a desert. There were maybe fifteen of them but the other eighty some odd of them standing their quietly might have been thinking the same.
“You can go on,” Jim said, “you will go on because we can’t go back.” There was no give in his voice. If he’d wavered, they would have eaten him alive.
14. delegate
Jim sidled up to the curly-haired woman in the bus-driver’s uniform. “Are you the one driving that bus parked outside?”
“I sure am,” she said before she glanced at Bones and then at Uhura. Stared at Uhura. “What difference does that make to you?”
“Well,” Jim said. He looked at Uhura, “Me and my friends need a little ride we were wondering where you were heading and what you might want for giving us a ride.” His fingers twitched and Uhura moved forward with a smile and a flick of her hair to smile big at the nice bus driver.
15. share
Jim was looking at his watch again, one arm around Bones’ waist. There wasn’t enough room for everyone to have their own seat, people had to share laps. Except Uhura who sat real pretty in the front with the driver and chit-chatted about nothing in particular.
“You’re insane,” Bones said. Not that it mattered, not that it was true. Jim was probably a genius and this was probably better than sitting on their asses in the desert. He shifted in Jim’s lap and Jim’s hand was under his shirt.
“It only seems that way,” Jim said, “look at the stars.”
16. protect
“Whoa!”
It was a big fucking dog. The sort of dog that was sort of a monster and Bones was a doctor, not a veterinarian. He had a sedative in his bag and some idea of how much it took to knock out a fucking beast of an animal that was chasing them down the side of the highway. Jim taunted it with sandwiches and wrestled it down. Bones jabbed it with a sedative.
Fifteen idiots with nothing better to do bitched about animal rights while Jim’s arm bled puddles in the dirt.
“That’s enough!” Jim shouted, “Let’s move out.”
17. treat
They found shade and a rest stop and Jim ordered the groups into their own sections and gave them a few hours to sleep off the heat of the day. Bones dragged Jim into the women’s bathroom to scrub his arm clean. Dermal regenerators were just too expensive to hand out to cadets so all he had was strips of cloth torn off his shirt.
“Does it hurt?” Bones asked.
“Feels great, Bones.” Jim flexed his hand and winced, rubbed his palm across the makeshift bandage and then leered at Bones’ belly. “You look a little stupid,” with a grin.
18. time
Jim was checking his watch again, half turning to check the procession behind them. They were walking slow now and nobody could blame them. Little sleep, bright sun, tired feet. Jim didn’t push them but so far, just far enough that they’d meet whatever goal he had set for them, not so hard that they abandoned him.
“How long have we been walking?” Uhura asked.
“Just walking?”
Her answer was a glare.
“Twenty four hours,” Jim answered, “We’re almost there.”
“It’s been longer than that,” Bones said. Because the sky was getting dim again—not dark, but dim.
Jim nodded.
19. scout
There was no ride in Vacaville. Jim stood on the street corner with his hand over his eyes, squinting into the glint of the sun off all shiny glass. There were plenty of people willing to stare at the crowd of a hundred half-starving cadets lying around on the sidewalk with their shoes off while they stuffed their faces with hamburgers, pizza and fries and drank their weight in all the wrong things.
Bones sat on a bench and rubbed his neck and stretched his toes. The tired crew was trading jokes now; they were so close to home now.
20. provide
Bones wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying exactly. He could see them, silhouetted in the gray light of the evening. The man with the truck and the broad gut was talking low and filthy. Jim was standing real close with his hands on his hips and his ever-present fuck-me smile on his face. They shared a laugh that wasn’t funny at all.
The crew wasn’t looking, didn’t see how that man nodded his head that-way and Jim ran his tongue over his lips. It was a ride—how much do you want it?
Bones hated the man.
21. conference
“Shit,” Jim whispered when he came back without a ride. Every muscle in his body was quivering tight as he looked over his shoulder at where the man had gone without getting what he wanted. “I need a great idea, Bones. I mean something fucking brilliant.”
Bones was too tired for fucking brilliant. He rubbed his thighs and didn’t think about how he wanted to hurt that filthy fucker that wanted Jim in all the wrong ways.
“You play cards, don’t you?” Jim said, “poker?”
“Sure,” Bones answered.
Jim nodded and looked at the crew, at his watch, at Bones.
22. maneuver
The bar was too bright for this late into the evening. Jim was shifting on his feet, staring at his watch and how the hours were slipping away. The man across the table was wearing an ascot and Bones wasn’t too sure what that should mean. Poker faces sometimes meant poker clothes.
Bones was filthy, exhausted, with chapped lips, a ripped shirt and a man at his elbow that wouldn’t be still. His opponent was clean, dry, smirking with an ascot and a small parade of recreation vehicles.
“God damn,” the man said when he lost.
Bones didn’t even smile.
23. listen
There were three RVs. There were a hundred extra people to stuff into them and three hours to sit around on cramped little couches watching holo-home-movies. Bones sat in the front with the driver, sitting sideways in the seat, yawning, head against the glass and listened to the story of the Grand Canyon.
“You’re a damn good poker player,” the man, George, said when he’d forgiven Bones for beating him.
“My Daddy taught me,” he mumbled back. Jim was wedged against the back of his seat, craning his neck around to look at Bones.
“Damn good poker player,” George repeated.
24. watch
“Sleep,” the captain commanded and nobody argued with him for a minute. They fell into their piles, their little groups of ten and found a soft patch of grass in the park to lay on. They slept on their sides so their scarves were showing.
It was early morning; the stars were still hanging over their heads. Bones pushed his toes in the sand to rock the swing he was sitting on. He stared at the stars—he’d never cared much about them. His mother called them nature’s nightlights. He’d never wanted to see them any closer.
Still didn’t, mostly.
25. Navigate
“It’s nine miles to Point Richmond, we should be able to find a ride across the Golden Gate bridge and we’ll be back on the lawn of the Academy before dawn,” Jim said.
“How did you find out where we were going?” Bones asked around the metal links on the swing. He watched the stars reflect light in Jim’s fucking blue eyes, watched the light glint off his damp lips and white teeth.
“Don’t ask me that,” Jim whispered. He dreamed of his life when he looked at the stars—Bones wondered why he’d never noticed before.
“Idiot.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
26. march
A cadet with a red scarf on his elbow started a song three-quarters of the way back, sounded like an old marching song and it echoed up the line until every one of them knew the words and moved their legs in time with the beat.
Kirk grinned down at his watch and elbowed him in the side. He never said see; he never said I told you so.
They sang loud as they marched, three hours on a stretch of dark road that ended in a half asleep down and the familiar smell of home just beyond that bridge.
27. lead
It was four AM in a city they didn’t know all that damn well. There was nobody around to sweet talk into offering a ride to a hundred smelly bodies. Home was one short ride away and the crew were all milling around Jim in a broad circle with anxious eyes. Bones was half lost in the crush of bodies, arms across his chest and just smiled.
They probably couldn’t remember when they stopped hating Jim. At least four of them still did. But, every single one of them was leaning in close, waiting to be told what to do.
28. direct
Taxis.
It took forty minutes to call every listing in the phone book to get enough taxis willing to drive them across the bridge to the campus. The groups of ten were fractured into smaller groups of five and they all piled into twenty taxis and had themselves a real fine parade.
Jim sat in the front and shared stories about surfing with the driver. Bones yawned and daydreamed about sleeping for the next five days. It wasn’t going to happen, but it was nice to dream about anyway.
“Old man,” Jim said as he pointed through the windshield.
Home.
29. accomplish
So there they were, when the dawn swept across the campus and the red-suited cadets swarmed out of their dorms: one hundred dirty cadets in puppy piles laughing themselves sick with giddiness. Jim was sitting on the steps, knees spread wide, elbows back and a grin that could have fueled a starship.
Bones thought someone should thank the cocky fucking bastard for what he’d done. Then again, if they did, Jim’s head would swell and explode. It was enough that the curious cadets led to amazed professors.
“How did you get here?” they demanded.
Jim smiled like he couldn’t stop.
30. inspire
The next year, people were still talking about it. They called it the Trek of 2257. One person had told two and before anyone was even sure how it happened, everyone was sure that Jim had fought off a yeti and carried three unconscious crewmembers on his back two hundred miles over the mountains.
Nobody really, honestly believed it—not really.
The people that had been there, they knew the man that Jim dreamed about being, the man that he could be. Maybe that was why Bones risked his own career to drag Jim onto the Enterprise.
Maybe it wasn’t.