Title: Survivor's Guilt
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: 1,110
Warnings: vague descriptions of genocide
Summary: For this prompt at buckleup_meme and the hc_bingo prompt embarrassment - He can tell Bones about this.

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He can't hide the way his breath catches in his throat when Bones pauses, no longer palpating his right hand to make sure nothing had been broken in the fight. Jim closes his eyes, willing Bones to ignore it, to move on and pretend he didn't happen, but Jim can hear the question rising in his throat before it's even voiced.

"Jim? What is…?" Bones' fingers are probing deeper into his flesh, trying to get a better feel of the object, the size of a grain of rice, embedded in the muscle at the base of Jim's thumb.

"It's my tag," Jim says, trying to keep his voice light. "I'm really a superhero, and it's how the government tracks us."

Jim suddenly feels like it's ten years ago, and he's talking to a Starfleet psychiatrist on one of the ships that had finally arrived too late. His hand had been heavily bandaged, then; he'd tried to cut it out of his own hand, and the infection had festered. The rounds of antibiotic treatments had led to him currently being allergic to so many of them.

He rips his hand away from Bones, not liking the way he had stopped to consider the fleshy underside of Jim's thumb, the blurry, brown hook that marks where the tag had been injected.

Bones' entire manner shifts to that of someone trying to calm a scared dog. Bones had been standing over where Jim was sitting at the foot of his bed, but now Bones is sliding to kneel on the floor, resting his hands on Jim's knees and looking up into his eyes. "I know that's not really a birthmark, Jim. The edges are faded, and palms produce less melanin." He takes Jim's right hand back into his own. "What does the tattoo mean, Jim?"

Jim closes his eyes, unable to stop the way his face and ears are flushing red. Bones has known that Jim was on Tarsus for a few months now, and it was only after when Bones didn't start treating him like a psychology study that Jim switched to have Bones on record as his doctor. Jim has no problem telling people that he had been there, but it's the way that they always act different around him once they know that he can't stand. It had happened with his own mother, but the sudden difference with her hadn't hurt nearly so much as Jim thought it would if it had changed how Bones saw him, as well. He's only known Bones for about a year, now, but Bones is the only one he's ever known that Jim feels like he can depend on.

He can tell Bones about this.

Jim takes a deep breath before opening his eyes but looking over Bones instead of at him. He can't look at him if he hopes to keep his voice from wavering. "It was a two," Jim starts, tracing his left index finger over where the entire tattoo had been. "Scanning the tags pulled up a list from Tarsus' main computer hub about our strengths and weaknesses, a pros and cons list for why we should live," Jim snorts. "The doctors did the tags, and then the government divided us into groups. Everyone got marked with a number, zero through five."

"Like grading livestock for slaughter." The anger in Bones' voice startles Jim. He still forgets that there are people who value his life.

"Everyone marked with a four or a five was executed before anyone caught on to what was happening. The only threes I saw were a brother and a sister whose parents had told them to hide in the woods. Even added together they were still younger than I had been."

Jim shifts, uncomfortable with Bones' careful scrutiny, with the way he's started stroking his thumb along the tattoo and the tag embedded underneath it. "Did you-" Bones pauses, the question still balanced on his tongue but it's like he's afraid to learn the answer. "Were you trying to make it look like a three?"

"What?" He forces himself to make eye contact. "God, no, Bones, I… I just kept picking the scabs off and didn't trust the way that the colonists were just accepting of what was being done to them. The government was saying it was to control rationing, and everyone just believed them. Then when I was hiding and insane with hunger, I thought the tag was a locator, too; I tried to scratch it out."

The haze of adrenaline from the fight is wearing off, making Jim more aware of his hand feeling him he hit a brick wall. It's not the same pain as his hand had felt when the tattoo was healing or when he'd carved an open wound that got infected, but it's making him remember all the same. He wants a cold compress for the swelling and a hypo for the pain, but he's not going to ask for them, not until he tells Bones everything.

"The 'Fleet doctors didn't believe us when we told them the tags existed and what was on them. When the capital burned and Kodos died, the computer records went with him. I was eighteen when programmers were able to fix the system and find out that we'd been telling the truth. Official apologies were sent out, but I deleted the message before even listening to it."

Jim's voice did crack at his next admission. "Now it's another reminder of a time I could have died but didn't." He turns away again, feeling his face burn even darker with shame, with a guilt that started the first time he had learned that his father had died so he could live. So many have died in his place, and now he thinks he's going to be a starship captain, asking even more people to risk their lives for him? Who the hell does he think he is?

He doesn't even register the tears clinging to his eyelashes until he feels Bones brushing them away before kneeling higher to kiss Jim's forehead, his mouth, and then right on top of the tattoo. Jim gasps, and Bones takes it as his cue to sit next to Jim on the bed, wrapping his arms around Jim to hold Jim tight. Jim presses his face into Bones' neck, overwhelmed by what he's shared, and just lets himself get lost in how Bones smells and the soothing circles he's rubbing into Jim's back.

"I shouldn't be alive, Bones," Jim whispers, completely drained.

He feels Bones' grip tighten. "Maybe," Bones replies, his voice rough with emotion. "But I'm glad you are."