Chapter Text
Chapter Three
Avoiding each other may be a logical way to avoid romantic speculation. But also? It’s hell.
In the archaic, literary sense, a la Dante’s Inferno. In a darkly fantastic moment, Kirk can imagine himself switching places with Dante’s protagonist. Plunging through rings of hell, fending off jumpy red devils with pointy sticks. Being forced to dance atop hot coals, prodded by the aforementioned sharp and pointy sticks. Possibly naked. Probably in front of his entire command class when he first failed the Kobayashi Maru.
That version of hell might be preferable to this one.
Because now, thinks Kirk, Spock is extra forbidden. Even the stuff that wasn’t forbidden before, the friendship stuff, is out of bounds. Sure, he and Spock can still talk, in front of other people. In public spaces. From a safely calculated distance—one that keeps him too far away to smell Spock’s hair, indicating how long it’s been since the Vulcan has taken off his clothes and showered. Kirk has been reduced to periodically checking their shared bathroom for the smell of the sonic: an artificial, orange-rind scent laced into the vibrational spectra of the molecules. And that’s not all. Oh, no. Now, in the mess, he can’t grab Spock’s fork and put it in his mouth, in an attempt to rile the Vulcan up. It would throw up all kinds of red flags if he swirled his tongue over the tines lasciviously, while staring into Spock’s eyes.
Which he is something he used to do as a joke. As a friendship thing. Totally.
Kirk shakes his head.
Seriously, who has he been kidding?
He’s clearly had the hots for Spock, for a while. How the hell were those feelings so repressed, and how come he didn’t notice?
Oh, right.
Uhura.
UHURA. Who only broke up with Spock, what, a week and two days ago? Shit. It’s morally questionable enough to try and pick someone up on the rebound. But to be considering making a move on a friend’s ex, less than 10 days later? That’s low—even for Kirk. He’s an awful friend. And captain. But mostly friend. Shit.
This, and not the spectre of the trial, is the only thought that successfully armors Kirk against his newly-uncovered desire for Spock. That keeps him sitting in his command chair on shift, rather than walking across the bridge, closing in the distance, until between him and Spock there isn’t space for a single breath to pass through. It restrains Kirk against leaning over the tall Vulcan’s shoulder to smell his fine, black hair as he unnecessarily reviews their orders to visit the nearest base.
It’s respect for Uhura, and an ugly sort of guilt, that keeps Kirk from casting longing gazes after Spock when they say goodnight to each other at Spock’s door, after a long, silent, eyes-straight-ahead walk—during which their bodies were so far apart, an ensign had cartwheeled between them.
Which really wasn’t in protocol. What was that about?
It makes Kirk delete his messages to Spock before pressing ‘send’, at least a dozen times. It keeps Kirk from asking the questions he’s desperate to know the answer to. Like, What, exactly, happened at New Vulcan? And why don’t you seem all that upset?
And why did you spend so much time with me instead of your smoking hot fiance?
* * *
“What’s with the sad puppy eyes?” McCoy asks bluntly, dropping onto a bench across from Kirk in the mess. It’s been almost two full days since Kirk was ordered to play keep-away from Spock, and Kirk has never been more miserable. He feels worse than when Kirk was grounded, and he had to watch the Enterprise being refitted. Worse than the day Winona married Frank.
No, it’s not worse than Tarsus, but that place was a worse-than-Dante hellscape, and he’s not allowed to compare anything in his life to that.
So the last two days have been pretty much, just, the worst.
Impressed by Kirk’s silence, McCoy looks around, then chortles. “Let me guess. There wasn’t space for you at the hobgoblin’s table.”
“There was space,” mutters Kirk.
“Oh yeah? You two having a lover’s tiff?”
If only. But the only seat that had been available at the table was the seat directly next to Spock. And Kirk doesn’t trust himself not to let his leg creep over, brushing against Spock’s, more often than would be appropriate. The thrill of it would be awesome, but not worth it.
Yeah. . . It would be great if he actually believed that.
“Shut up, Bones,” Kirk says. Then he scowls into his plate. At his rubbery egg burger, untouched and growing cold. What he’d give to have the time to hack into the replicator system and plug in an override to get synthesized red meat back on his plate.
“You should eat something. Pining doesn’t become your pretty princess features.”
Crouching over his neglected food, Kirk says, “I said shut up.”
“This is hilarious.”
Kirk must admit, if it weren’t happening to him, he’d agree. As the situation stands, though, he just wishes he they could land on the starbase and get over all this already.
He’s starting to imagine things. Like, that he’s not the only one casting longing gazes across the room. Spock would be more surreptitious, of course. Spock is never anything but subtle. Kirk can sense—imagine, he corrects himself—the Vulcan’s attention, sometimes, psi-null as he is. Like an itch on the back of his neck.
If only it were something he could feel. Like Spock’s warm, humid breath as they talk quietly. The brush of his fingers while playing chess. The heat of his shoulder, the sculpted bone of it fitting hard beneath his hand, the muscles pliable--
“How’s Uhura doing?” he asks McCoy, because he has to get his mind off of this, stat, or else he’ll need to be getting off, period.
McCoy sticks a forkful of creamed spinach into his mouth. “What’ya think? Why aren’t you paying attention, yourself?”
“I am,” Kirk protests. Then sighs, because his heart isn’t in it. “We’re not talking. I think she’s mad at me for the whole trial thing.”
“The whole trial thing,” repeats McCoy.
Kirk doesn’t appreciate it when members of his command team repeat his words, merely to point out how unprofessional they sound.
“Yeah, the trial.”
“Uh-huh. Ya think it might be anything else?”
Kirk scowls. “Are you my friend or not?”
“I’ve got some brandy in my office when you’re ready to come clean,” says McCoy.
“What doesn’t seem clean about me? Hey! Bones! Where you going?”
“To eat with someone who’s less of a wet ’n dishonest blanket,” says McCoy, heading to the table where Scotty has sat down with a pretty lieutenant from engineering.
“I see through you, too, you know,” Kirk calls out after his friend. Then he pushes away the pathetic atrocity that is an egg burger. As it is, he’s not going to get a square meal. Or good conversation. If only there were a way to hack into McCoy.
Well, there is Saurian brandy. Should push come to shove.
Begrudgingly, Kirk figures he might as well head to his room, do some more work, and head to sleep. They’ll be on the base soon enough, and he has a feeling that as bad as things have been onboard the Enterprise, they’ll only get worse once he’s off it.
* * *
He can’t sleep.
* * *
In the middle of his much-fought-for shut-eye, Kirk’s padd lets out a ‘ping’. His eyes pop awake in a flash. Four years ago, he instructed the computer to only allow emergency messages to interrupt his sleep. Since then, he’s been thrust into waking by genuinely distressing reports: a visual anomaly, a distress call, a sighting of a warship on the scanners, an overtaxed engine stressed by Scotty’s relentless tinkering—
But this ‘emergency’ is nothing along those lines.
It’s a message from Spock. Private channel.
Efficiency would call for Kirk to ask the computer to read it out to him. To keep his eyes shut, better allowing him to return to his REM cycle again, afterward. But instead Kirk calls for the lights to go up to twenty percent, and he swings his legs over the side of the bed and scrambles to get to the message, to look at it for himself. Bleary-eyed, he wobbles to his chair and knocks into the table, groaning before reading Spock’s message aloud, mouthing the words as if he could imagine them sounded out by Spock himself.
Brooks is going to meet us when we arrive at the base.
That’s the message.
Which. . . Okay, it’s good to know their lawyer will be close at hand when they arrive. But… Why? Why did that need to be sent in the middle of Kirk’s sleep cycle, flagged as an emergency to ensure Kirk saw it? Surely the lawyer also sent a message to Kirk, including that same information. Logic would tell Spock that his message could wait.
Unless, sending it wasn’t about logic.
As the thought cements itself in his mind, Kirk’s heartrate accelerates. To the point where the organ nearly beats itself out of his ribs.
It wasn’t logic it wasn’t logic it wasn’t logic.
This message didn’t need to be sent. What Kirk is looking at, really, is the Vulcanized version of: I miss you.
He actually groans aloud.
* * *
The USS Enterprise is in the process of signaling to land on the starbase when the call comes through. Kirk is seated in his command chair, entering into the docking procedures with the assistance of his full command team minus Spock. The Vulcan commander has visited the science lab, supervising the progress of multiple projects prior to going off-line due to the trial.
As Kirk recalls learning over a game of chess they played together an unacceptably long number of days ago, Spock has been particularly fascinated by a series of botanical experiments spearheaded by Lieutenants Bradley and Davikt. Kirk likes the idea of plants, and the fact they exist, and that’s about where his interest stops. When a call comes in from that same lab, initially, he listens perfunctorily.
He has a whole impending, unjust legal trial to deal with, after all. A potential ‘end of his career’ situation, due to jealous superiors who have critically misread and over-glamorized his dating life and sexual exploits. And the lieutenant patched through the comm sounds calm and measured. So much so, that Kirk is taken off guard when said lieutenant casually drops the word ‘explosion.’
“What explosion?” Kirk demands of the comm.
“It’s no big deal,” reports said lieutenant.
Kirk’s entire body is a frisson of tension. “Explain, Lieutenant.”
“Yessir. Well sir, it was a fairly common, garden-variety, if you can forgive the pun, explosion. Ensign Davikt was analyzing a lab result with Commander Spock’s assistance, and not paying attention to the warning signs of the Saurian sympho-flower, the very same used in Saurian brandy, when it was preparing to release—or one should say, detonate—its pollen, which is rainbow colored, sir, and—according to our nutraceutical stability test results, we suspect that the pollen—”
Enough of that. Kirk’s mouth is dry, his tongue sticks briefly to the roof his mouth before he can interrupt to ask: “How is Commander Spock?”
Coughing comes from the other side, unseen. Of course now the lieutenant is finding it hard to speak, after his long-winded, inefficient answers. Unless the coughing was coming from Spock? No. He doesn’t think that’s how Spock’s coughing sounds.
Why does he know how Spock’s coughing sounds?
“Answer me, Lieutenant!”
“I’m not sure,” says Lieutenant Bradley. “It’s hard to say—well, hard to speak to be more precise, but—oh, he’s down, sir, he’s down!”
Kirk’s thoughts spins out. Spock must’ve been at the work station right beside Bradley. Of course the Vulcan would’ve been affected by the explosion, but how badly? His flank would’ve been facing the sympho-flower. What if the explosion got him; what if it was a direct hit? Could it have gotten his heart?
What if he’s bleeding out?
How fast can Vulcans bleed out, and why has Kirk never demanded this exact information before? How did he always take it for granted that McCoy would save him?
“…to Med-bay. Captain Kirk? Captain!”
“Captain,” says Uhura, sharply.
Kirk comes back to the present, horrified at his lack of focus. He’s able to snap back to form, listening a few seconds longer before sending instructions and medical personel down to the lab, assigning the right people to help the matter be contained, and getting them—rather than the unhelpful Bradley—to confirm that his Spock is, in fact, okay.
And he is. Spock, though thrown to the floor from the impact, is ultimately fine. Sure, he may have rainbow tie-dye coloring to his skin for a few days, but it’s more of a temporary tattoo than anything serious. The lab cleanup even goes smoothly, in the end. The situation is handled.
But the situation wasn’t handled as well as it could have been. As it should have been. And Kirk knows it’s his fault, for that moment of inattention. Of blanking out when he needed to be taking the lead. Of worrying about Spock to the point where he could only hear rushing blood and wind in his ears, and nothing else at all.
Kirk can’t believe this.
He’s becoming… no.
He’s become emotionally compromised.
* * *
But not like, compromised-compromised. Just the garden variety.
In other words: still fucked.
* * *
Gareth Brooks, lawyer-extraordinaire, seems to agree. Shortly after the Enterprise lands, he give Spock and his temporary tie-dye face a plainly confused look. Then he shakes his head and pulls Kirk aside, well in sight of the Federation security detail that’s been assigned to hover near him and Spock, in case either of them decide foolishly, and uncharacteristically, to become flight risks.
The admiralty’s reticence to make a public spectacle is the only silver lining Kirk can see in this moment. Besides Gareth Brooks, the security detail, a landing crew of mechanics and assorted personal assistants, and one perplexed-looking local Federation official, no one greets the Enterprise upon landing. No adoring crowds or belittling journalists.
It’s almost comforting.
Unfortunately, his lawyer is anything but that.
“I’ve wrangled myself an office set-up,” Gareth explains to Kirk, taking him down the chrome-metal lobby of the Federation hotel where Kirk is, essentially, being kept on house arrest. “This way.”
Kirk passes under the door frame, wary he’s being brought into the makeshift office, and surprised he’s being brought in without Spock. But his gut signals nothing; he has no instinctive fear of his lawyer. It’s strange, if anything, that he feels as much innate trust toward the guy. That he’s willing to drop his cheery facade for someone who’s almost entirely a stranger.
“You don’t seem well,” says the lawyer the moment the door has closed and the noise seal activated to soundproof against the waiting guards outside. “Better chin up, Kirk. Don’t want it to be obvious to the media that something’s afoot.”
“They aren’t here yet.”
“Harumph,” says Gareth. “They’ll know soon enough.”
Kirk shrugs. He’s spent his entire life being dissected by the media, so he expected the gift of the trial’s anonymity was a temporary feature at best.
“If I look like a kicked-puppy, they might find me sympathetic.”
“I’ve heard about you, Kirk.”
“Have you?” asks Kirk, amused by the non-sequitur.
“My sources say you you’re a chaotic optimist. You don’t believe in no-win scenarios. But you’re also a realist, perceptive. Maybe a genius, though frankly, I’m not buyin’ it just yet. I’ll give you this, at least: seems like you’re able to see the bigger picture when other folks get caught in the weeds. From your attitude, I’m guessin’ you already have figured you’re set to lose this case. That it’s stacked against you. So you’ve already moved on, taking a look at the bigger picture. Thinking you can win the court of public opinion, if not your own trial. Am I on the right track here?”
That makes Kirk grin. Because it’s right, and also, because Spock would be derailed by the anachronistic metaphor.
What is this track of which you reference, says Spock’s voice in his head. Kirk imagines him cocking his head slightly to the side, the angular lines of his face catching the light. And how could you be on it?
“You might be onto something,” says Kirk to Brooks. “I’ve more enemies than friends in the admiralty, of late.”
“Do I look like I give a shit about that?” says the lawyer, cutting to the chase as usual. “I get paid a higher commission if you win. Captain Kirk, you are going to get off because I’m working my tail off here. I know you are, too, so don’t stop now. From my reports, you’ve done a good job acting goody-two-shoes on your ship.”
Kirk would feel more proud of the feedback if it hadn’t required days of excruciating torture to perform.
“Yeah?”
“Except,” Brooks says pointedly, “You’ve been sending messages to Spock every waking hour for the last three days.”
Kirk shrugs. “So? We’re good friends.”
“You haven’t sent any to Dr. McCoy.”
“Spock and I are really good friends. Besides, he just broke up with his fiance. He’s going through a crisis.”
“A manufactured crisis,” says the lawyer.
Up to this point, Gareth Brooks’s behavior has been relatively predictable to Kirk. Clever, but not saying anything that’s truly surprising. Gareth reads him well, but Kirk’s good at that, too.
He shifts in his seat. “Go on,” says Kirk.
“Spock requested that I look into certain Vulcan matters, in order to prepare for this case.” Kirk remembers. “Captain Kirk, this is confidential information, I’m certain you will use with equanimity and valor.”
The pinch of the lawyer’s eyes indicates he doesn’t quite believe his own words. Kirk leans forward in his chair, unable to restrain his interest. What kind of confidential information could Gareth have ferreted out?
Brooks looks at him straight-on.
“The elders of New Vulcan do not believe that your commander ever intended to marry Uhura.”
“What?” Kirk says, stupidly.
“Indeed. They found him, apparently, to be deep in denial, and chewed him out for it.”
“What??” Kirk says again, as the blood rushes out of his head. This cannot be real. Spock and Uhura have been in love, since forever. Why would he only pretend to plan to marry her? Did he really not know he didn't want to marry her? Spock? Mr. Meditation-central, I-keep-my-feelings-close-so-no-one-else-needs-to-know-them, because-I'm-so-in-control-of-them, be in denial?
“Apparently you are both gifted in this area.”
“I’m not in denial,” says Kirk. “I’m in love with Spock. See? No denial.”
The lawyer stares at him.
Kirk stares back.
“Damn,” says Kirk after a while.
Brooks pinches his nose. “For the sake of your case, we’re going to pretend you didn’t say that to me.”
“Probably best,” Kirk agrees.
“Maybe denial was a better approach. We can’t win this if you’re in love with him.”
“Wish you’d told me that three days ago,” Kirk mutters.