Future King

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Star Trek (the 2009!movie verse)/Merlin crossover
Summary: One James T. Kirk is acting more worrisome than usual.
Word Count: 2212
Rating: Gen
Note: hints of !ship but can be read as just bromance too /grin
(also I forgot what I'd written a day later so there's an abandoned path outtake. I'm guessing I might be sleep deprived, maybe.)

         Bones always has something to worry about. A large portion of the source of that worry is one idiot named James T. Kirk.          Another decently high portion of worry is the dangers of space, all those unknown diseases they have yet to find (and they probably will find because Jim has a good nose for danger).
         Lately, Jim’s been taking his mind off of the space outside the hull and hostile critters macroscopic and microscopic, because he’s been acting more and more worrisome lately.
         First there was the sunny disposition he’d randomly adopted a few weeks back after returning from an Away Mission. According to Spock, sometime in between being on the planet and being in the transport room, he’d developed an ear-splitting grin, never mind the wounded arm. “What’s wrong with you?” are the first words out of his mouth—admittedly, not very flattering, but damn it, he didn’t become a doctor to spout pretty, empty words at his patients.
         “Can’t I just be happy to be back home?” he asks, smile not dropping at all. He’s not even a little bit worried about it. Which—likely—means there’s nothing there, because while a lot of people would miss it, Bones has known him long enough to be able to catch all those little nervous flinches he has when he’s lying.
         “Shut up and stop moving,” he says instead, because he can, and he runs extra scans.
         All he finds is extra serotonin, which, yeah, maybe someone injected him with extra but other than that there’s nothing even dangerous about it. He’s going to monitor those levels for a few days, though.
         “That’s my worrywart,” he says with a smile, slapping Bones’ arm.

         One morning when there’s nothing much going on in the medbay and all he’s doing is going through the inventories he realizes it’s been weeks since he’s heard Jim complaining about the paperwork. It’s just his luck that he realizes this about a minute before Kirk strides, sunny and friendly and acting like he owns the place (which, well, he kind of does, he’s the Captain and it is his ship, but the Medbay is still his territory and not Jim’s and he thinks Kirk actually approves of him being possessive about the place even though it makes no goddamn sense).
         And he sees Bones’ expression and his smile drops a little and he hesitates, just a little. “Bad time?”
         “Ahh, is any time a bad time, Jim?”
         Now he looks slightly paranoid. “Is that a trick question?” he asks hesitantly.
         Rather than increase his paranoia (no matter now amusing it is), Bones replies, his grumpy tone just a little lessened, “Have you been doing your paperwork?”
         Jim frowns, eyes still wide with worry. “What, why? Did I miss something?”
         Now it’s Bones’ turn to be concerned, because Jim only actually tries to behave when he’s reliving bad memories or is otherwise worried about something. As much as he likes to grumble about Kirk learning responsibility and growing up, a quiet, subdued Jim is actually a bad sign for his mental health. Kid’s not himself if he’s not causing some kinda trouble. “Naw,” he answers slowly, to point out that he’s noticed something’s wrong. “Y’ just haven’t been jawin’ my ear off about it.”
         Jim’s face goes blank, then thoughtful, then wry. “Oh, yeah. Well, I’ve had a lot of practice. Makes it go faster.”
         Bones’ fingers twitch, like he’s going to summon a hypo straight into his hands, and Jim’s seen the motion enough to hold his hands up in surrender.
         “I—uh. I may have also discovered that I can watch old Earth vids while doing boring things like that.” He’s sheepish, but it’s enough to calm some of Bones’ worries. “I do check everything after!” he adds, which is actually a little bit of a concern, since mistakes in your reports are some of the easiest ways to get into trouble as a Starship Captain. With the brass, at least, if not on planets.

         And then there was the gal’treb riding. Close enough to horses, even if they were actually insects, biologically, so Kirk managed to get Bones to come along. They’d been horse riding before, back on Earth, and it was almost worth beaming down to the planet to experience it.
         He’d teased Jim about how lumpy he seemed on a horse, the blond grinning back and pointing out that there hadn’t been any horses around for him to ride in Iowa, just corn.
         Now Jim was grinning, leading the creature around easily without bouncing unnaturally in the saddle like a sack of potatoes.          Like he was born to this.
         Two new skills Jim somehow acquired over the past few weeks, with no hint of training. If one counted patience as a skill, which, vaguely, Leonard guesses it probably is. One that he was even bad in beforehand, and one that he’d never bothered to apply to things he found boring before. Had Kirk been replaced by a doppelganger or something?
         “Bonesey, you’re gonna lose the race!” Jim yells, looking way too pleased about the whole thing, and leans forward. The gal’treb takes off, six legs pounding against the dirt, and Bones refuses to lose to a kid who hadn’t had stables when he was even younger than he is now, and so he files the thought under ‘examine later’ and leans forward himself, gal’treb pushing off the ground in a soaring leap before hitting the ground running. At least his racing partner is every bit as competitive as he is—and he’s not talking about the maybe-Jim-maybe-clone.

         The next time doesn’t happen within his line of sight. Sulu’s the one who passes along the story, since he’s there. Jim’s managed to tick off yet another alien species somehow, and they’re running along thin bridges with gaping chasms. The aliens were supposed to be capable of joining the Federation, given the subspace transmission. The ones they ran into on the planet somewhat resembled the ones from the transmission, but were completely feral, barely capable of understanding rudimentary speech (but enough to take offense at something Jim said). Later, Spock will puzzle over what happened to the civilization, but there are enough of them that they can’t just hang out and calmly look for any clues that might happen to be laying around. It’s one of the few times Bones can applaud Jim for having a sense of self-preservation. It’s rare. (It doesn’t mean he’s not going to yell at him later, because he still manages to get himself hurt anyway, but he’s going to yell at him less and hope that’s something the Captain actually understands.) There’s not room enough to draw or use phasers, so Sulu has out his sword. It’s enough to briefly encourage a few of their pursuers to back off, and on occasion it also knocks a few off the edge.
         The problem is that there are occasionally horizontal bridges and they’re in danger of being cut off. Sulu glances forward to check on the Captain as he slashes wildly, trying to discourage their pursuers, and…
         And the Captain’s holding a sword, too. At least he looks surprised by it, considering that they haven’t had time to slow down and grab anything on the bridges, and the Captain hadn’t been carrying a sword at any point.
         What’s perhaps even weirder is that he looks like he knows what he’s doing. With the sword, that is. He’s swinging even less wildly than Sulu.
         He doesn’t comment on it. Doesn’t make a joke. He just keeps running.
         The sword is gone by the time they get beamed up, and a question by Sulu gets sidestepped easily in the same way Kirk always does when he doesn’t feel like answering a question. He stops asking Sulu for a demonstration or lessons or sparring, which is definitely a change, and a worrisome one, because Jim is obsessed with learning and trying out dangerous, stupid stunts.

         On occasion, there’s a weird accent that comes out. It’s usually only a word here and there. Bones doesn’t completely recognize it. It’s early English, he thinks, maybe from the former United Kingdom, and he’s pretty sure he’s only ever heard something similar in early twentieth and twenty-first century…what were they called? Vids?
         Although he quickly scratches this off his growing list of ‘things to be concerned about’ that he finally started documenting as ship’s doctor when he walks in on Jim laughing at one of those stupid early shows with similar accents. It’s probably Jim’s odd nostalgia quirk combined with recent watching habits.

         Which probably also explains his odd knowledge of monarchies. Well, aside from the fact that they’ve been on planets with monarchies before, and he’s never shown this special understanding of them before. It’s the sort of thing Jim would actually read about on his off hours. Hell, maybe he just did that between two missions, and that’s why.

         The imaginatively named “Cupcake” exclaims something about him actually using tactics and strategy on an away mission, but it’s Uhura who points out that anyone, even the most bratty Captain, can grow up sometime. Jim had grinned, slung an arm around her shoulder, and promised, “Hey, if it makes you feel better I’ll just be one of Peter Pan’s boys and never grow up.” Still, he is doing well, less wounds and losses both for himself and any Starfleet officials under his command. Though it’s less Jim growing up and more feeling like he can be mature without being compared to his father.

         Most of all, it’s a feeling like something had randomly changed for his friend, without much in the way of specific evidence, but Jim always waves off any of the concerns.
         That’s why, when Jim disappears during an away mission for the first time in a while, Bones is especially frantic. And even more so when he finds his Captain.
         “Jim, that’s a dragon,” he points out, like those brilliantly blue eyes aren’t actually working and the Captain can’t see the monster curled in front of him.
         “It’s fine. I mean, he was a dick, but what is it called in the ‘regs? Emotionally compromised? Genocide can do that to a person.” And his words don’t mean any sense. He turns back to the creature apologetically, like it’s Bones who’s reacting incorrectly to the situation. “He doesn’t remember, but I do, and I understand.”
         The golden-scaled beast rumbles. Bones stumbles back, trying to pull Jim away too, but he gets shrugged off. “He always was stubborn,” the thing says in English, and with the way Jim’s mouth twists into a smile, he—
         Was that actually a dragon laugh? Were they both laughing at his expense?
         “Jim. What is going on,” he demands, voice shaking.
         Blue eyes glance in his direction, and whatever he sees makes the amusement drop out of those eyes to be relaced by concern. “Bones, breathe,” he insists. “Meet a dragon. He attacked a village, but they’d slaughtered his people. Even knowing they’re intelligent.”
         The horror in his eyes is soon mirrored in Bones’, who swears, loudly and colourfully. “Is there anything I can do?” He’s gruff but compassionate.
         The dragon studies him, carefully, before inclining his head regally. “Thank you, Doctor, but no. This happened a long time ago, and I escaped my tormentors.”
         Jim adds, “His people believe that everything reincarnates. Like Buddhism. Apparently our past selves were there the first time around.”
         “What were we doing, being damn fools?” McCoy asks, not entirely sure he really wants to know the answer.
         The Captain grins widely. “Some things don’t change, right?”
         “I feel that is as much a part of your destinies as anything else.” The Dragon seems amused, if dragon expressions are anything like human expressions. It quickly sobers, though. “I suppose the more exact answer is that while the two of you hurt me, I was not any more civilized.”
         “But with reincarnation, we have a chance to get it right this time around,” Kirk insists, and sometimes he’s so goddamn optimistic. On the other hand, Jim would argue that it isn’t optimism, either, since it’s not like it just happens by itself. It needs hard work as much as it needs belief.
         “I like this version of you better, Captain,” the dragon compliments. “It was good to see you again as well, Doctor,” and then he spreads his wings and flies away.
         Jim looks faintly nostalgic as he watches, and it’s so wistful that Bones feels like he has to say something. “So, d’ya remember anything of this other life?”
         Kirk looks vaguely uncomfortable. “Well, being able to fly would be great, but I’m pretty sure I was never a dragon in a previous life.”
         “I think dragons are probably better at not being so reckless,” Bones teases, and Jim’s real, blinding smile is back, and in that moment, the restless, worried part of him that’s been building up for all these weeks trying to figure out how Jim’s changed settles. It’s like he has all the answers, right there at his fingertips. All the pieces of the puzzle, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s still Jim. Always has been. It’s still his best friend.