The night Sam Kirk walks into the Kirk family farmhouse his little brother throws a fucking beer bottle at his face. He misses. If he'd hit, the next several years might not have happened.



Jim is twenty years old and his life is a fucking mess.

He's no longer in the goddamn hospital every other month, but still in mandatory therapy until he ages out of the system on his 21st birthday. His therapist has worked with him since. Well. Since he got mandated one by the University of Iowa's children's hospital when they brought him home and nursed him back from the brink of being starved to death. Sam isn't here about Tarsus though. He's here because he heard little Jimmy just got out of a stint in county for petty theft.

Why's a guy stealing bread in this day and age? Jim doesn't give him a satisfactory answer. He can't. There isn't one. He'd been better until he'd left his personal device at home for a weekend boke trip. Without his meal schedule Jim can't function. But see, his body doesn't tell him when he's hungry anymore either, so Jim hadn't noticed until it was day three and he started hurting. All sense left him. Next thing he knows he's sitting in a jail cell being watched while he eats the food they gave him because anyone can see Jim Kirk is still too thin. Jim hates it. That look of fucking pity.

He was home and on his fourth beer of the evening when his fucking older brother strides in like he hasn't been gone for the last damn near decade of Jim's life.

"Sober up. I want you to come into town with me tomorrow and take a test." Sam had said. Jim thinks he told his brother to fuck off. He thinks he tried, but he might have stormed off so the other didn't see him break down into tears. He dodges Sam for three days before they bond over noon breakfast talking about when their mom finally found out about and ditched Frank. Sam asks where Winona sent him then, since neither of them believes for a second she stayed Earthside to raise him herself.

Jim lies.

But the lie works. And so he lets Sam drive them into town chattering the whole time about Starfleet. He wants Jim to take an aptitude test. If he passes, well. Dear ol' big brother's gonna whisk him away to San Francisco so they can enlist together. Sam got in, you see. Second attempt, so maybe Jimmy won't be going with him Right away.

"Jim." Jim corrects him. He's toying with the idea of maybe letting Sam talk him into this, but he's not forgetting the last damn near decade so easily. Not forgiving it yet, either. He tells himself he'll take the stupid test to shut his brother up. And hell, maybe he'll even beat his 'big bro' and pass on a first try. He aces it, hangover and all. Sam seems real keen on congratulating himself for giving Jim pointers the last couple days and Jim doesn't argue much.

A change of scenery seems like a decent idea.

All he wants to take fits into a single duffel bag he tosses into the back of Sam's beater of a truck and they make for San Francisco...