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The Many Names and Faces of James Tiberius Kirk

Chapter 5: Refrain

Summary:

It is inevitable, really. If anything, JT is surprised it took this long for his luck to run out. But it has, and now he's locked up in a dungeon of all things. The only blessing is knowing that somewhere out there, his kids are alive and safe still. He'll give up his life ten-fold, if it means Kodos can't get his hands on them.

Notes:

This one is... rough. There is a general recap of the events of this chapter in the end notes if you aren't comfortable reading about torture and attempted execution. It isn't super explicit, but look out for yourself!
I'm fairly proud of this chapter, so I really hope you all like it. Enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

There’s a pipe dripping somewhere down the hall. Every two-and-forty-two-hundredths seconds, a bead of water falls into the bucket underneath it, splashing in the water collected there. It’s how JT keeps track of the hours that pass by when he’s bored and alone in his cell. Anytime he’s in his cell he’s bored and alone, not to mention cold, hungry, exhausted, and a million other words for miserable, but it’s all still better than when he’s out of his cell. Drip, Drip, drip. He wonders what that water tastes like. It’s probably lukewarm and flavored by the rusty pipes it runs through, but what he wouldn’t give to feel it dripping onto his tongue. When was the last time he was deemed worthy of a sip of water? It had to have been more than two days ago. 71,404 drips ago. 71,405. 71,406. 

His luck had run up three weeks ago, out on what was supposed to be a routine day out with Nat (and by a day out, he meant they’d located a guard’s armory and were going to steal as many phasers as they could carry in their four hands). It wasn’t their first rodeo. JT never let his confidence leech his concentration, he’d sat watching the concrete building for twelve hours straight before considering it safe and empty enough for him and Nat to approach. They even knew where all the cameras and motion sensors were. They’d been smart about it, maybe even smarter than they’d been about the previous few locations they’d visited, but still they were punished. Apparently, he hadn’t accounted for the government's increased attention on them. They were in and out in under five minutes, but the hover cars and trucks full of armored guards were there in four and a half. 

He and Nat gave as good as they got. They exchanged fire with the men for a solid fifteen minutes, and a good number of them were sprawled out, bodies cooling, by the time the two kids had to retreat and make a break for it. Wait, no, that’s not quite how it ended up going down, was it?

She’d already emptied the battery of one phaser. Three more, full of charge, sat at her feet, and four at his. They were crouched behind a concrete half wall, trying to catch their breaths and find a way to make it out of this alive. They’d talked about it before, what they’d do if they were pinned down on one of their outings, but neither really believed it would happen. Not some sense of immortality and infallibility, not really, but they figured one of the guards shots would strike true long before they had an opportunity to make a break for it. Still, they’d made the plan. All they had to do was stick to it. 

JT pulled in a deep breath. There wasn’t time to freeze up and think too slow-fast. He hadn’t done that in months. He’d learned to tamp down that instinctual reaction, after - well. He didn’t freeze anymore. He made eye contact with Nat, trying to block out the phaser fire that struck the wall they were taking shelter behind and that made dust rain down on them. She met his eyes in return. They both knew the plan. She reached out and ran her fingertips down his cheek, etching his features into her memory. They both leaned forward and met each other in a brief kiss that made his lips ache with the pressure and desperation of it. She nodded and picked up her phasers. 

This would be the last time they saw each other, if everything went to plan. 

JT leaned out around the side of the wall, firing off short bursts that forced the guards to seek shelter and halt their own volley for a few precious seconds. In the next second Nat fled the opposite direction, hunched over almost in half and not once looking back. JT didn’t let his eyes follow her, either, not even when she reached the treeline and faltered. The guards began firing back at him, and he barely managed to duck back behind the wall before a blast of energy occupied the space his head had a moment ago. 

It went on like that for a few more minutes, JT doing his best to hold his ground and kill as many as he could in the time he had left. The power bank bar of his phaser flashed red and he threw it aside with a growl. One left. He had to make it count. 

The guards started pushing forward. They finally picked up on the singular source of fire and took advantage of it. They also noticed when he started having to conserve his energy. A bolt of bright, burning pain lanced up JT’s arm and he shouted, throwing himself back and behind the shelter of his wall as he clutched his forearm. Blood immediately began welling up in a large, irregular circle branded on his right arm that had vaporized the first few layers of skin. Fuck, whoever designed phasers deserved to burn in the tenth ring of hell. JT blinked tears of pain out of the corners of his eyes and reached for his phaser. His hand met bare dirt. There, a few feet away and fully out of cover, his last phaser saw on the ground. He heard a chorus of voices begin approaching when they were no longer met with enemy fire. 

JT’s lip twitched up. They ought not expect him to be harmless, not until he was cold and dead and buried under six feet of cement. From two leather sheaths strapped to his thighs he drew twin blades, each a foot long and just sharpened that morning. Ignoring the tremor in his right hand, he crouched and waited for the first guard to turn the corner.

His nightmares often featured the sound of flesh being rended, along with a cacophony of screams and sobbing. That day provided enough material for a hundred nights. 

He expected to be killed then and there. His blades had been wrenched from his hands, fingers broken for good measure. Burns littered his skin from glancing shots that had slowed him down enough to be disarmed. The bodies of six guards were spread in a ring around him, his blood mixed with their dripping down his forehead and into his eye. He expected them to force him to his knees and put the red-hot end of a phaser to his forehead and pull the trigger. He didn’t expect them to bind his hands and feet, gag and blindfold him, throw him in the back of a truck with a few of the more sadistic guards. After that, he didn’t expect to make it back to the compound they were taking him to. 

He sure as hell didn’t expect to see the antagonist featured in his nightmares when he woke up in a damp prison cell. 

Three weeks ago, JT had seen Kodos again. The man had been some strange mix of ecstatic and enraged to see him. He’d punched him hard enough, and enough times, to fracture his cheekbone and knock out his loose molar. He hadn’t been very entertained when JT spit the tooth at him. JT thought it was hilarious.

The governor probably expected he’d lose his fire at some point during his stay there. To be honest, JT half expected it too. But nothing the guards and the torturers and the sadists dressed in lab coats did could compare to what four grain guards had done eight months ago. JT laughed in their faces every chance he got after they were done with him, if he managed to hold onto his consciousness. As the weeks dragged on, that happened less and less. 

Heeled footsteps echoed down the hallway, breaking JT out of his reminiscing. He cracked open dry and swollen eyelids and forced a grin onto his face when he saw who was approaching. The split in his lip, courtesy of the meathead who was forced to bring JT his meals and who didn’t appreciate being called dollface, ripped open a hair more and blood began to bead up on his skin. 

Kodos stopped in front of his cell door. He was dressed immaculately, as always, crisp white shirt and grey slacks with an ironing crease down the front. Leather gloves had become a staple since the time he split his knuckles open raining blows on JT’s face. His loafers had a one inch heel. They looked like the type of shoes his grandma would wear, if she was still alive. Kodos’ face scrunched up in righteous anger. Whoops, looked like he’d said that out loud. 

“You look like shit, James.” The same thing he always said when he came to visit. 

JT couldn’t care less what the bastard thought. “You like today's look? Give your compliments to Dr. Fisher, he wanted to know what the insides of my eye sockets looked like. He probably has pictures, if you want to ask.” 

It had hurt worse than a lot of the things they put him through. Cold metal instruments had wrapped around his eyeball and pulled and he’d screamed and twitched and thrown up on himself, strapped down to an exam table. JT didn’t even twitch as the memory washed over him, just relished in the feeling of finally being able to blink again. 

“This could be over, you know.” The man always managed to look so sympathetic, every time he came down here to do his little spiel. That might have been what JT hated most about their back-and-forth. 

“What, and deny them their fun? I would never-”

“Just tell us where your band of fugitives is, and you don’t have to suffer anymore.” 

They did this every time. Kodos wasn’t even original, maybe that was the worst part of this.

“What, so you’ll go out there all kill them all, then come back and finish the job you started with me? Even if I did know where they are, which I DON’T, what the hell did I even do to make you believe I’d turn them in? Really, Adrian, I thought we knew each other better than that.”

Kodos motioned for the guard beside him, whom JT had dubbed Babydoll, to open the cell door. JT let himself have a moment of weakness, closing his eyes and letting out a deep sigh, beginning his sequence of mental exercises he always did when being ‘encouraged’ to betray his kids. 

Two and two is four. Four and four is eight. The first blow struck his cheek bone, still fractured and swollen from their first session and a popular place for him to start. Eight and eight is sixteen. Blood and spit flew from his lips as his head was jerked to the side, jaw smarting. Sixteen and sixteen is thirty-two. A fist buried into his stomach. Good thing I haven’t eaten this week. Thirty-two and thirty-two is sixty-four. Another strike to his temple. Sixty-four and sixty-four is one hundred-twenty-eight. A hand gripped his hair and held his head in place and a quick succession of blows met his face. Blood dribbled down his face and the back of his throat. One-twenty-eight and one-twenty-eight is two-fifty-six. Two hands wrapped around his neck and squeezed. He tried to gulp down and breathe and found nothing. Two-fifty-six and two-fifty-six is - is - fuck-

Five-twelve. JT opened his eyes slowly, ignoring the way his vision swam and warm blood stung. His lungs were burning. His face was probably starting to tinge blue. He made eye contact with Kodos, relishing in the crazed rage he saw there. He forced his lips into a smirk. 

Kodos swore and let him go, backing up a few feet to avoid the spray of blood as JT hacked and coughed and sucked in precious air. When he finally caught his breath (it took way too long, his body was getting so weak, any day now…) and looked back up at the governor, the smirk was firmly back in place. It widened when he saw the man pulling off his gloves. 

“What, are we done so soon? I thought we were just getting started. Man, you got me all excited for nothing.” 

Kodos ignored him, turning and calling out for Babydoll to open the gate again. He said something to the man as he stepped out, something JT didn’t manage to pick up, his ears still ringing from his temporary deprivation of oxygen. The guard entered the cell and grabbed JT by his upper arm and yanked him up from the chair he’d been sitting in. 

“Ooh, are we going on a field trip? Is it the zoo? Please let it be the zoo,” he babbled as he was dragged down the hall, stumbling and letting Babydoll do most of the work moving his body. Kodos walked in front of them. 

They went further than JT was used to. Usually when he was taken out of his cell to be tortured, they only went around the corner, maybe to the cell block adjacent to his own if they were doing something special. Never up the stairs Kodos always came down. Sharp tingles of anxiety, like a mouthful of pins, flared up in his gut. He pushed it down.

Kodos stopped before a heavy wooden door. JT took the moment to look around, blinking thick eyelids as he took in the room they were in. 

It was nice. Nicer than anything he’d seen in the past year and change. The floors were scuffed but freshly cleaned. JT felt a bit bad about the trail of blood he must be leaving in his wake. There wasn’t much furniture in the room, just a few arm chairs and side tables. One of the chairs was obviously more comfortable than the others, overstuffed and bearing creases of frequent use. There was a bottle of some kind of liquor sitting out on a little side table, and a few glass tumblers. It must be a welcoming room, JT realized, where Kodos entertained his guests. 

“How come I’ve never been in your sitting room, Adrian? You know, you catch more flies with honey-” He was yanked along, sentence cut off as Babydoll dragged him out the door that had been opened when he was distracted. The sunlight outside burned his eyes and JT screwed them shut, wincing and ducking his head for a split second before forcing himself to straighten up and walk with confidence. His eyes were taking their sweet time adjusting to the change in lighting, but his ears worked fine enough. He heard the rumble of a not-too-distant crowd. Babydoll dragged him up a short set of stairs and onto a flat platform. The sound of the crowd got louder and louder, then fell into an unnatural hush. 

It took a long moment before JT could open his eyes and not be blinded by stabbing pain and bright white light. When he finally did, a stone dropped in his stomach. He was standing on a wooden stage, looking out at a massive crowd of people. There must have been a thousand there, maybe more. It was almost exclusively young adults, majority male and human. They all wore drab clothes that hung off their frames and belts bearing extra notches. Their faces were gaunt and hollow. They stared up at JT without emotion. 

In the back of the crowd, he thought he saw a flicker of short black hair and a short, tanned girl. When he squinted he saw only weak twenty-something year olds. JT shook off Babydoll’s loosening grip on his arm and turned to Kodos. 

The man beside him couldn’t be identified as governor Kodos. He couldn’t be identified as anyone, on account of the black mask he wore to cover his face, all but the haunting blue eyes watching him with glee. An executioner's hood. He had walked, docile, to his own execution. A familiar manic fire was in the man’s eyes for the split second JT stared him down. Then Kodos turned to address their audience. 

“People of Tarsus IV, you have been gathered here to witness another execution of a fugitive, who has been stealing from the grain storages that feed you, who has destroyed resources needed to protect you and killed the brave men who swore to keep you safe. For these crimes, and the crime of sheltering other fugitives who he refuses to turn in, he is to be executed publicly. Rest assured, the others will be found in time and brought here to face justice. After all: when one breaks the rules, one is punished.” 

“Kind of leaving out an important part of your slogan, aren’t you?” JT’s voice was hoarse and cracked from puberty and strangulation, but stronger than he expected it to be. All eyes shot to him, the audience shocked that he had the balls to speak at all. Kodos ground his teeth together, glaring at JT from under his hood. “How are you planning to punish the all, governor? Because two broke the rules this time. Actually, more like nine, if we’re counting here.” A murmur broke out in the crowd, quickly falling to silence when Kodos’s hand lashed out and slapped JT’s cheek. The crack echoed off the buildings around them, and JT dabbed at the blood flowing faster from his lip with his tongue. 

“You use your witty retorts to delay the inevitable, James.” (“You think I’m witty? Aww.”) “You will die today, there is no way to escape your fate.”

“I’d hope not. Wouldn’t want to be oh-for-two, would we?” He couldn’t help but smirk when Kodos let out an audible growl. His smirk grew more forced when a familiar black pistol was drawn. 

“Yes, you remember this weapon, don’t you? It failed to do its job before, but rest assured, it will not miss this time.”

Kodos raised the gun in the air, aimed at JT’s forehead. JT stepped forward to meet the barrel and leaned into the cold metal. 

“You can kill me, Adrian. You can kill my cousin, you can kill my kids. You can kill thirty thousand colonists. But you’ll answer for your crimes, and when you die and go straight to Hell, I’ll be fucking waiting.” 

The man adjusted his grip on his gun, fingers twitching, the bottom edge of his hood folding and creasing as he smiled beneath it. “See you in a few years, then, James.”

A single shot rang out. As far as comparison to last time, JT thought he’d handled this execution a lot better. Maybe his ‘fearlessness in the face of death’ would get him something in hell. Probably not. 

 

Was it supposed to take this long to lose consciousness and die?

 

JT blinked and took in the bright sunlight hitting him in the face. He was still alive. Interesting. He’d heard the crack of an archaic gunshot, though, hadn’t he?

The crowd he stood before was loud, raging and screaming and beginning to jostle the platform he stood on. Kodos was no longer in front of him, and instead lay sprawled on the stage, two hands clasping his abdomen. Blood seeped out from between his fingers. The man looked up and met JT’s eyes, something parallel to fear in there. JT crouched and picked up the pistol that had been dropped at his feet, checked to make sure the chamber was full. 

“Same time next week?” He smirked and turned to leave, hoping to blend into the crowd during the pandemonium. Instead, he found himself face to face with Babydoll and another guard. JT ducked under the hands that reached to grab him, dancing away a few feet and raising his newly claimed gun. He fired twice. Two bodies hit the floor. More of the civilians were watching him now, faces guarded and fists clenched. A ripple moved through the crowd, starting near the rear, as if someone was pushing their way through towards the front. 

“I don’t want any problems with the lot of you,” JT started, lowering the weapon and addressing the crowd at large. 

“You’re a criminal! You should be tried and punished accordingly!” someone shouted from the middle of the group of people. 

JT winced, brows furrowing. “You’d trust the word of that mad man? I’m fourteen. He tried to execute me a year ago for sneaking out of school. What sort of criminal justice system utilizes draconian law in this day and age? And on children! I was a child, still am one, and any laws I break, I break for the sole purpose of keeping other children he would have otherwise killed, alive. 

“Governor Kodos does not have your best interest in heart. He never did. He only wants power, and will do just about anything to get it. He shot up a school, starved those he deemed ‘undesired,’ and murdered hundreds of ‘threats to society’ - innocent, hungry people - in a single day. He was on the wrong side, and the history books will remember that. Do you want to be remembered the same way, as supporting a genocidal maniac? Do you want my blood, and the blood of my children, on your hands?”

At some point, the city square had gone silent. He could only hear his own voice filling the space, and the not-too-distant sound of boots marching towards them. Then the murmuring started up again. A set of hands reached out and grabbed a hold of his arms, pulled him to the edge of the platform and down onto the cobblestone street. JT raised his eyes and met the gaze of an older man. Thick ropes of scar tissue covered his arms. He wore thin and stained clothes, just like the rest of them. So this was Kodos’ selection of the ‘worthy,’ still suffering and slowly dying. 

“My niece was at the boarding school. I… She didn’t make it out. But some of you kids did?”

JT nodded. It took a second to find his voice. “I tried to save as many as I could. It wasn’t enough, but. I got some out, and I’ve just been trying to keep them alive since.”

He had tried to avoid thinking about his kids for the past three weeks. Where they were now, how they were managing with his absence, if they were still alive at all. A sharp dagger of fear was thrust into his gut when he realized he might not be able to find them again. The wilderness was vast, and those kids knew it front to back, blindfolded. They could very well be a hundred miles away by then. He might never see his kids again. 

A hand grabbed his elbow suddenly. JT jerked, swinging out to strike his attacker with a closed fist that was ducked. A head of short black hair bobbed back into view, along with a half-empty smile. The breath left his lungs in a short burst and his vision narrowed in on the tanned face in front of him. 

Nat was standing in front of him. 

Words escaped him. 

Then she was punching him, hard, in the shoulder, and he almost crumpled to the ground when she struck the swollen, recently-dislocated and relocated joint. Her eyes widened and she reached out, stabilizing him, wrapping an arm around his ribcage and forcing her way into one of his armpits. 

“Jay-motherfucking-T, don’t you EVER pull this shit again. Do you know how terrifying it was, watching you up there antagonizing your would-be murderer? God, you are the dumbest boy I have ever met.”

He couldn’t do anything but gape, sucking in short and shallow breaths as he tried to comprehend what was happening. 

“I- Nat, what the hell- why are you- how-

“Not the issue at hand here, Jay. We’ve got to get the hell out of dodge before those guards show up and finish what I started.”

Wait, what? “ You shot Kodos?!”

“Gotta say, a gun works a lot better than a rock.”

“Hold on-” 

But Nat was already beginning to drag him away, doing her best to skirt around the edge of the group of people. While he’d been stuck in his bubble up against the stage, the rest of the crowd had been getting more and more disorderly. The marching of boots almost upon them. If they wanted a chance at survival, after everything Nat had done, they had to leave now. 

And so they did, slipped out through an alley cluttered and crowded with bags of garbage and puddles of excrement and who-knows-what. They made it three blocks away before the phaser fire started up. Four more before the city fell silent. 

They passed by the last street full of houses as the star was setting. Nat pulled him into a small grove of trees, the branches thick enough that they couldn’t be seen through them. As soon as they slowed to a stop, the first time they’d stopped moving since the shooting started, she pulled him into a tight hug. 

His bruised torso ached something brutal, and he could have sworn something shifted where it wasn’t supposed to. That didn’t matter. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed back. 

“I wasn’t sure I was going to make it in time.” Her words were muffled against his chest, but when he tried to pull back to hear her clearly she burrowed in deeper. He settled on running one hand up and down the back of her head. 

“You did though. You saved my life, I guess.” 

“Just returning the favor.” They both chuckled, and neither commented that it was more watery than usual. 

At last she pulled back and held him at an arm's length, trying to take in his state of being in the dim light of one moon. 

“God, JT, what did they do to you?” One hand reached up to caress his cheek. Her fingertips got too close to his eye socket and he flinched, hard, jerking his face away and almost tripping over his own feet. She dropped her hands back to her sides. 

“It was fucking hell, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t like the pity in her eyes. The way she articulated her every move, hesitated before touching him. He understood it. He knew he was frail, that even though he’d made it out of that cell he wasn’t in the clear yet. Didn’t mean he had to like it. 

He cleared his throat, then winced at how far the sound seemed to carry in the night. “How are the rest? Is everyone okay? I know you guys moved after I was caught, did you manage to find some place decent? How’s Tom handling everything? Is-”

“Woah, woah, slow down. Everyone’s alright, though spirits haven’t been the best since you got snatched. We managed to relocate to a little cave to the north east, I don’t know if you remember but we crashed there for a bit a few months ago. Leadership of the group fell on T’lak, and she’s been doing her best but we were really hurting without you. Everyone’ll be glad  to have you back.”

JT let out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and slumped forward. His kids were okay. He was going to see them again. It was going to be okay.

They didn’t spend the night in that small cluster of trees, only rested there long enough for him to catch his breath, and for her to convince him to swallow a few gulps of water and a handful of foraged nuts. Then they were off again, Nat leading the way and JT trying his best not to slow her down. She set a punishing pace, and JT didn’t complain once. It would be a four days journey, and he didn’t want anything to delay him from seeing Kevin and T’raya and everyone again. 

Notes:

General recap: JT was caught by Kodos and his guards and has been held captive, alone, for three weeks. Over the three weeks, he has been subjected to a number of different torture methods trying to get him to tell them the whereabouts of the rest of his kids, along with just wanting to cause him pain and in the name of "research." Eventually, Kodos gets sick of trying to get information from JT and brings him out to the town square, planning to execute him. Nat somehow found her way into the city, however, and thwarts this second execution attempt. JT and Nat are able to get away from town, but aren't in the clear yet, as they still have to get back to the kids - wherever they might be, at this point.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this one! I think I had a bit TOO much fun writing this part of the story, but what's done is done! If you liked this chapter and are enjoying this fic, feel free to drop a comment! You can also contact me on tumblr at megmachine, I'd love to hear from y'all. Much love! <3