Chapter Text
James Kirk thrives under pressure.
It washes out all stress and uncertainty in the same way that adrenaline renders pain a distant note. When every tick of the clock demands laser-focus to save his own skin, or the skin of hundreds, thousands, millions, even billions of others— he’s at the top of his game. There is nothing too gruesome to stomach, no decision too difficult to make, and no fear thorny enough to paralyze him. There is only what has to get done, and how he’s going to be the one to do it; no room for no-wins.
It’s in the silence after, when the flood of adrenaline thins to a trickle and the red alert sirens are nothing more than a ringing ghost in his ears, that Jim finally wavers.
The ride back to Earth isn’t a particularly long one, but it is a crowded one. Nero is gone, and his ship is nothing more than debris being eaten up by a black hole, but the wreckage of his attack remains. There is still a scar in space where Vulcan once was, and there are still countless refugees aboard the Enterprise, far too many to comfortably host, and far too few to have saved from an entire planet.
To Jim’s credit, he manages to hold himself together until the ship docks, and the Federation Disaster Response Squad starts boarding to assist with the refugees.
Their uniform hasn’t changed much in over a decade, apparently. Still that same tacky shade of off-navy that prompts immediate nausea like some kind of fucked interpretation of a Pavlovian response. Kirk doesn’t look directly at them, but that doesn’t rid his skin of the feeling of arms clad in that same fabric gathering him up and carrying him onto a rescue ship, the memory blurry through the haze of the high fever he’d been burning up with. He was one of several sick kids that had been too weak to walk, having spent far too many days on death’s doorstep to get up from it on his own.
At the time, he had wanted to kick and scream, but that wasn’t much of an option with the whole on-death’s-doorstep thing.
He did plenty of that after, though.
“Captain?”
Spock’s looking at him with a mixture of caution and uncertainty. Jim is less disturbed by the expression than the fact that he can read it so easily. When the hell did he learn how to read it so easily?
A headache is starting to creep in. He knows the answer to that question, but he isn’t about to touch that with even a ten-mile pole.
“What, Spock?”
“The disaster response crew will be taking authority. You are free to return to campus.”
“Free to return? Not trying to kick me out anymore?” Good. Yeah, great. If there’s one capacity Jim retains in any scenario, world-ending or otherwise, it’s evidently his ability to say the first stupid goddamned thought that pops into his head. “Never mind, just— yeah. Okay. Comm me if anything comes up.”
Spock observes him for a long beat. Analyzes him, more like. The same intent stare he’d received across the podiums; the same he’d been leveled with in an icy cave a lifetime or two ago.
Jim leaves before he can say the second stupid goddamned thought that pops into his head.
----
The moment Spock steps into his apartment, he is struck with a profound sensation of absurdity.
It seems almost obscene, occupying a space that remains unchanged and perfectly indifferent to the complete loss of his homeworld. The cup he had used for his morning tea is still in the sink, and the fridge still hosts a container of leftover barkaya marak that he had intended to consume for dinner 4.3 hours ago. His personal PADD remains on the desk in his bedroom, which he had used to review updates to the Starfleet Academy student misconduct protocols in preparation for bringing charges of academic dishonesty against a cadet.
It would feel laughably insignificant now, were Vulcans capable of humor.
Spock seats himself at the desk. The action does not align with his prior intentions to promptly eat, shower, and rest once he had arrived at his apartment. It is an illogical choice, but after witnessing the rending of time and space, he is not certain any logical choice presently exists. There is no protocol to turn to for the destruction of an entire planet, nor the bridging of alternate universes that had made that destruction possible.
Located on the fourth floor of the eastern staff apartment complex, the window above his desk looks out over the grassy quad and the water beyond. This late into the evening, he would expect to see only the occasional cadet returning to their dorm after lengthy study sessions, but this is no typical night. Red smudges gather in circles like vultures above an unfortunate prey, no doubt trading stories about their first experience of duty beyond drills.
It takes Spock 6.3 seconds to realize that he is involuntarily looking for James Kirk.
He closes the window shade, then moves his attention to his PADD. There is little to be done tonight; debriefings will not begin until tomorrow, Captain Pike may not stabilize for days, and the formal restructuring of the Enterprise’s crew will take weeks at minimum, and months more realistically, considering many in line to continue serving aboard the ship still must complete their final semester as a cadet.
But there is one matter that can be addressed; one that requires nothing more than a single, formally signed message to dissolve the issue entirely.
He does this, he tells himself, because it is the logical action. The dissolution is warranted, and after hours steeping in a powerlessness he had never before experienced, reasserting his control over at least one subject grants him a desperately needed anchor.
He does not acknowledge that the same sensation that had driven him to scan clumps of cadets for a tuft of blonde hair had, too, urged him towards that blank message screen.
----
It’s 05:32 when Jim jolts awake at the buzz of his communicator.
He glances around with bleary eyes, features scrunched in confusion before the steady tempo of a biobed monitor reminds him that he’s in the ICU of the Starfleet San Francisco Hospital.
Pike is still asleep, as he had been when Kirk had made it to his hospital room. Sedated was the only information he was given, and only in an effort to shoo him away until visiting hours started in the morning. Jim isn’t technically family, and has no legal right to be here, but technically doesn’t mean much to someone estranged from their own blood. Chris and Bones are the only two people in this galaxy he’d consider family, and if either one ever lands themselves in the hospital, there’s no nurse in existence who could drag Jim out.
That, or the nurses in existence here simply gave up because there’s an influx of casualties from Vulcan and Starfleet alike, and there’s no time to deal with a stubborn, cranky cadet who would cause less problems just being ignored.
You can take the boy out of the degenerate problem child lifestyle, but you can’t take the degenerate problem child out of the boy, or whatever.
Through the window, the softening of the inky sky above indicates the oncoming dawn. In an hour or two, the scattered pinpricks of starlight will have faded altogether, painted over with the brilliant blue of a cloudless day. In daylight, the tiny dot of Vulcan’s system will turn as fleeting as a bad dream; not gone entirely, but just beyond reach. Kirk could pretend, maybe, that it had all been a nightmare, had the suffocating heat and noise of the Narada’s giant drill not been burned into his skin just as deeply as off-navy cloth.
In his pocket, his communicator buzzes again.
With a heavy sigh through his nose, Jim rolls his shoulders, stretches in an effort to pop joints made stiff from awkward sleep upright, and checks his messages.
It shouldn’t surprise him to see a ping from Spock, considering he’d invited that ping only hours ago and they’re still technically the acting command team of the Enterprise. Doesn’t make it any less weird, though, or make him any more eager to deal with reading whatever extremely verbose monologue the Vulcan’s sent him. He turns instead to an automated message from the academy’s judicial system.
What he expects is being acting captain is great and all but we’re still probably going to expel you or maybe since you saved the whole world we suppose a suspension will do, but what he gets instead is the incomprehensible, matter-of-fact notification that his accuser has dropped all charges, rendering the case void.
Once he remembers how to move, breathe, and carry sentient thought in general, he scrambles to open Spock’s ping. The essay that he had expected is nothing more than a clipped:
You should receive notification shortly that your academic misconduct case has been dismissed. We may discuss this further at a later date.
It seems like a safe bet that Vulcans don’t generally wait to discuss anything even a minute later than they have to, let alone a cheating scandal that they felt was important enough to bring to the attention of an entire goddamned school.
Jim starts a message pointing that out. Halfway through typing it up, he falters, then deletes the entire thing.
Somehow, shoving Spock’s emotional compromise in his face a second time seems like an asshole thing to do, and contrary to popular belief, Kirk’s trying to be less of an asshole.
----
Lieutenant Everly is standing at the front of the Computational Sciences Building’s main lecture hall.
Considering that Spock holds the first class of the day in this hall, and it is presently 10.9 minutes before the beginning of his lecture, the sight is unexpected. Moreover, the lieutenant has served as a head research assistant in the algorithms laboratory, but never as a lecturer. Even more perplexing, on the Vulcan’s approach, Everly appears as surprised as though he were the one regularly scheduled to teach at this time slot, and the Vulcan the unexpected guest.
“Lieutenant Everly,” Spock greets him. “For what purpose are you here?”
“The department assumed you’d… take some leave, sir,” Everly explains, each word hesitant; every syllable shaped like clay beneath careful hands. “I volunteered to cover for you.”
“I did not announce any intention to take leave,” the Vulcan reminds him. “As I am unharmed and in good health, it would be illogical to do so.”
“Right,” the lieutenant returns, not quite making eye contact now. “It’s just— with everything that happened, you know, we all thought you could use some time off.”
Spock does not point out that the Human concept of mourning is not universal, nor are the ways in which one should supposedly do so. Spock also does not point out that alluding to such a topic, rather than directly addressing it, serves no logical purpose. In his experience, these efforts are relatively futile and unproductive.
“I do not require it,” the Vulcan reiterates. “Is that all, Lieutenant?”
Everly opens his mouth, then closes it, eyeing him uneasily. After a beat, he nods with a stiff yes, sir, then leaves the hall.
Once the doors shut behind him, Spock closes his eyes, exhales, and takes 4.8 seconds to compartmentalize his irritation before proceeding with preparing his lecture.
It is trivial to ignore one odd stare; it should be just as trivial to ignore several. Receiving an entire lecture hall’s worth of them, however, poses a significant obstacle towards delivering the lesson with his full attention.
He had passed relatively few students on campus at the early hour in which he had journeyed here, and had paid no mind to their presence. Standing at a podium before an audience of them, he is now acutely aware that the majority of the cadets here are perceiving him not as a professor, but as a pitiable spectacle of a newly endangered species; one driven to such a low that a supposed pacifist had nearly strangled a cadet to death on the bridge of his own ship.
The general public will grow bored with the topic, eventually. The refugees will relocate, the news coverage will wane, and without any tangible reminders of the disaster, the vast majority of non-Vulcans will likely give the planet’s destruction no further thought. Whether days, weeks, or months from now, a new scandal will inevitably draw those odd stares elsewhere.
Knowing this should aid with enduring the temporary attention.
Beneath this knowledge, however, is the inescapable permanency of his own relation to the disaster.
Even after a 24-hour campus closure the prior day had given him ample time to regain his composure, no amount of meditation efforts have yet succeeded in progressing past a surface-level state. The slightest push into deeper territory brings with it the aftershocks of great tremors and breaths made nearly impossible through the dust-choked air. A home in which he had never truly belonged, but a home nonetheless, disintegrates around him as trivially as sugar in water; ancient mountains are rendered nothing more than a whirlpool of formless particles, taking with them a hand that had reached out to him, and the terror that had followed his failure to reach back.
The refugees will relocate, and the news will wane, but the galaxy will remain one planet lesser, and two halves of a hybrid untethered.
----
Jim considers skipping his lectures.
He could have made the excuse of being stuck at the hospital, had Pike not seen straight through him. Despite being weak enough that talking for even a minute seems to exhaust him, the old man still manages to order him back to his dorm the night before campus reopens. ‘ Acting’ anything doesn’t magically change the fact that you’re still a cadet, Jim. If you don’t graduate, you won’t have any place on the Enterprise, captain or otherwise.
Usually, Kirk would have argued back, even if only out of pettiness. After you get into enough fights, having the last word becomes a competitive sport, and man, does Jim love winning.
It doesn’t exactly seem like fair play to debate someone while they’re in a biobed, though.
So he goes home, and he tries to sleep, and his dreams of giant drills and off-navy uniforms leave him especially chipper in the morning for his classes.
Dermal regenerators had healed any bruising he’d been left with the first night after the Narada, but he draws enough attention throughout campus that he’s left feeling like he’s walking around with a glaring black eye, anyways.
Whether the attention is the result of his cheating scandal, getting into a fistfight on the bridge of a ship, getting marooned from said ship, taking part in saving the world, or all of the above, isn’t entirely clear. Negative or not, Jim still prickles beneath it. Processing what the fuck just happened to him and the rest of the galaxy— including the fact that a second Spock exists who had not only known some better, less fucked up version of him, but had loved him, too— is made no easier under a microscope.
Though he’s not sure that almost obsessively rereading his message from Spock counts as processing anything.
While waiting for his final class of the day to start, he doesn’t even notice his attention wandering this time until he already has the messaging interface back up on his communicator. He’s not sure exactly what he expects to get out of it, but the text doesn’t change. We may discuss this further at a later date. No hint of reasoning, no specificity for when Jim can even expect to hear from him next. Not even a how are you, though that’s probably less Spock dealing with his particularly irritating acting captain, and more just Spock being a Vulcan.
Every time Jim remembers that planet, he almost flinches.
Though he’s running on fumes from two nights of spotty sleep, he still feels wired after sitting through five lectures and a midday study session in the library. By habit, he starts out on the path back to his dorm, but he’s no more than ten steps out of the building before even just the thought of returning alone to his sardine can of a dorm room makes him more restless than he already had been.
Kirk slows to a halt on the sidewalk, glancing up at the darkening sky. Pinpricks of light peer back at him through the blue, a great expanse of fabric worn thin and weathered by the setting sun.
Involuntarily, his gaze lands on the constellation that Vulcan belongs to. Or belonged to, he guesses.
It’s about 18:32 now. Most staff are probably back in their apartments, and any who were unlucky enough to teach during the final time slot of the day must be packing up. All of the buildings will be empty soon, and their lights will flick off at 20:00, leaving the library a lone lighthouse on campus for cadets pulling all-nighters.
Kirk knows a stop by the Computational Sciences Building will be a waste of his time.
He turns around, anyways.
----
Spock entered his office 1.3 hours ago.
He had intended to spend his time here grading the midterms his students had taken earlier in the week. At present, however, only 5 of 98 tests have been fully reviewed.
There has been no instance in recent memory that his focus has ever been so fragmented and frayed. As a Vulcan adult, failing at such a trivial matter is no small humiliation, regardless of the absence of witnesses.
A population of billions has been reduced to thousands, and Spock can still hardly call himself one of them.
The sixth exam is displayed on his hoverscreen, no more than half-marked. This fact only returns to his awareness when a short crack sounds below him, and he glances down to see that he has unconsciously snapped the stylus in his hand.
4.3 seconds later, a knock sounds at the door.
Spock quickly discards the broken pieces into the bin beside his desk. When he beckons the visitor to enter, even he is surprised at the steadiness of his tone.
The door parts, giving way to that same tuft of blonde he has repeatedly found himself looking for. Now that he has found him, he still isn’t certain why he was looking to begin with.
“Cadet Kirk,” Spock nods— the title strange now, leaving his lips, though no less accurate than it had been days ago. “Do you require something?”
“I wanted to talk,” Jim answers. For all of his previous bravado, he is remarkably subdued this evening; though his head is still held high, the uncertainty in his gaze gives him away. “If you have a minute.”
The temptation to deny the request is significant. He is, after all, actively working; it would be no lie to assert that he is too busy grading to entertain any conversation with the cadet.
But beneath his wariness towards Kirk, there is also a curiosity that he cannot deny.
“You may sit,” the Vulcan allows.
“How are—,” Jim begins as he takes the chair in front of the desk, then visibly winces. “Never mind. That’s a stupid fucking question.”
“I am functioning adequately,” Spock intones, unblinking. “What did you desire to discuss?”
Light eyes search his for a beat. Kirk licks his lips, and Spock’s gaze flicks down towards the movement.
“Why did you have my case dismissed?”
He is surprised that Jim had not posed this question sooner, frankly. He does not seem to be the type to let anything alone until he has achieved whatever he desires.
“Your demonstrated proficiency as an acting captain made it clear that you have mastered what the command track seeks to instill in its students,” Spock replies. “Consequently, it was apparent that your alteration of the Kobayashi Maru simulation was not completed with the intent to deceive your instructors and obtain an unearned grade. Moreover, I calculated a 99.6% chance that your inevitable commendation would influence the judiciary board to dismiss the case. Preemptively doing so obviates the wasted time of all parties.”
He expects satisfaction from the cadet. The gaze that he receives instead is difficult to parse.
“…I want you to know that I appreciate that,” Kirk replies at length. “But I don’t want to be treated differently because of my joyride as a captain. I didn’t even earn that.” He exhales a quiet breath. “Fuck, I did the opposite of earn that.” Jim glances away, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m, uh, sorry about that, by the way. That was some of the worst shit I’ve ever said to anyone, and I’ve said a lot of stupid shit in my lifetime. I didn’t mean any of it.”
Beneath tattered mental shields, a flare of anger threatens to reignite the blaze that had nearly consumed him on the bridge. His hands tense in his lap, then relax.
As enraged as he had been at Kirk in that moment, the cadet hadn’t been the true root of that anger— and misdirecting decades of buried rage had nearly resulted in not only grievous injury, but in outright murder.
“It is I who should apologize,” Spock corrects sharply. “No verbal exchange warrants violence. The harm that I enacted upon you is inexcusable, and is made even further egregious by our difference in strength. I was aware that you would be unable to defend yourself against me, and I attacked you, regardless.”
Jim shakes his head. “Spock— Jesus, don’t apologize to me. You had just lost your whole fucking planet. Losing your mind when someone gets in your face about that is more than a little warranted. And I’m fine, so there’s nothing to apologize about, anyways. I’ve had way worse in bar fights over way more idiotic shit.”
Angular brows twitch closer to one another. The claim could have been another pointless display of bravado, but his tone is matter-of-fact; not bragging, but blunt. Kirk’s disregard for his life is not a cocky exaggeration; it is an honest, unflinching truth, presented as casually as a weather report.
“You have shockingly little concern for your safety.”
Jim stiffens in his chair. The flicker of surprise that passes through his expression speaks for itself.
“Look, just—,” Kirk glances away with a hard exhale. “If you want to apologize, then I forgive you, alright? Can we just call it even?”
Spock can still feel the ghost of the pounding pulse he had wrung beneath his hands. A mere conversation is far from the degree of consequences he should be facing for his deplorable actions.
But there are still the aftershocks of tremors; the air coated in dust. The body heavy with sleepless sleep.
At length, he acquiesces, “That is acceptable.”
Jim seems to sag somewhat in his chair. The gaze that had been largely cast away returns to him, searching again.
“Pike’s going to be recovering for a while,” Kirk notes. “Maybe a few months, maybe a year. The parasite did a lot of damage to his nerves.”
“I am aware.”
“He told me they’re already talking about replacements,” the cadet continues. “For captain of the Enterprise. Do you think they’re looking at me?”
Spock’s brow twitches upwards. “Although an unconventional choice, it is likely. I have no desire for captaincy. Others may be considered, but they will have had no experience with leading a flagship, as you now have.”
He expects, again, some satisfaction; for the cadet to sit taller, to flash a cocky smile.
But just barely, at the very edge of the Vulcan’s awareness, there is instead a foreign wisp of fear, made tangible through tattered shields.
The longer he observes the Human across from him, the less he understands him.
“Could you help me?”
Spock blinks. Before he can restrain the reaction, his brows creep towards his bangs.
“‘Help you’?”
“You’ve got command experience,” Jim elaborates. “And a lot more time in space than I do. You’ve served on starships, and you know what it takes to lead them. If they pick me, I need to be ready for that.” He pauses, licking his lips again. The movement distracting, again. “I’m not asking you to give me a full-on crash course, but if I could bounce command scenarios off of you or prep some strategies, that’d go a long way towards me being even remotely ready. And I know I’m not yet.”
If Spock had been forced to theorize Kirk’s motivations for visiting his office, this possibility would hardly have crossed his mind at all. A cadet in line to be the valedictorian of his graduating class is highly likely to be prideful and unwilling to admit to weakness. It had not occurred to Spock to even attempt offering any advice, considering that advice and this cadet often appear to mix as well as oil and water.
But this is no facade; no shiny mask of toothy smiles and confidence. This is the meeting of an open gaze, bared and vulnerable.
Were it anyone else, he would almost certainly have declined the request and redirected them to the appropriate study materials, or perhaps to other mentors with more time in their schedules for tutoring.
And yet—
And yet, Spock nods, and cyan eyes light up with relief, causing his heart rate to increase by 7.9 beats per minute.
“Thanks, Spock. Seriously.” He stands, glancing towards the forgotten hoverscreen. “I’m sure you’re busy. I’ll, uh, ping you to figure out a better time to talk next.”
“That is acceptable,” the professor intones automatically. The light in the cadet’s smile matches the light in his gaze, a warmth rivaling that of a sun which Spock will never see again.
The door whisks closed behind him. Though perfectly unchanged, the office feels suddenly, illogically colder.
Notes:
thank you so much for reading!! i’ve been wanting to write this for a pretty long time and feel like it was a huge lost opportunity not to explore the fallout of the narada and the tentative growing friendships + character growth that led up to graduation and the enterprise’s relaunch. i’m really excited for this one and i hope you’re enjoying so far!! :)
Chapter Text
Kirk wakes breathless.
This time, it isn’t giant drills or off-navy uniforms that do him in. It’s memories that aren’t memories— not his own, at least. Memories of himself and Spock almost a decade older, commanding a bridge they had never fought on, looking at each other in a way utterly foreign to Jim in this universe, whether from particular Vulcans or anyone else in the galaxy.
The meld in the icy cave, which was supposed to have been a straightforward exchange of information about Nero and the black hole device, was much more like having a bunch of puzzle pieces dumped into his brain. There are tiny shards of memories left floating about, but not enough to fit together into any larger picture. It’s all glimpses, and colors, and sounds— and far more emotions than he would have ever thought possible for Spock, had he never met other Spock.
The love that had carried him in that universe feels more like a rock wedged into Kirk’s chest now; something he can ignore easily enough, but once he notices it again, he becomes painfully aware of the weight that pushes back against every breath, and the jagged edges crammed up against each rib, making every expansion and contraction of his lungs a grating, punishing thing.
It’s been a long time since Jim mastered the art of forcing himself back to sleep after a bad dream, but this isn’t just another nightmare that holds no real threat over him in the present. This is a shadow he can’t get out from beneath, knowing now how much light could have been in his life if Nero had never forced his way into it.
He sits up in his bed, scrubbing his face with shaking hands. A glance at the chronometer tells him it’s hours yet before dawn comes back around.
For a second, he entertains the idea of laying back down.
Then he blinks, and he sees brown eyes again, crinkled at the edges, far softer than any Vulcan has any right being. Than anyone has any right being, for that matter.
Jim puts that in a box, and puts that box in a closet, and barricades the closet door shut, and replicates himself a shitty cup of coffee.
----
“Discussions are underway regarding the selection of a suitable planet to establish a colony on. The council could benefit from your expertise.”
Several responses come to mind, the loudest being I was unaware that the council has developed a newfound interest in the advice of a half-breed.
“They may contact me at any time with questions,” is what Spock says instead. On the screen of his PADD, a twitch of his father’s brows is just barely discernible. “I will be unable to attend their meetings for the duration of the semester due to conflicting obligations.”
“Your primary obligation is to Vulcan,” Sarek reminds him. “There are many officers in Starfleet with the capacity to perform your present role, and very few Vulcans to assist with our efforts to rebuild.”
It is unsurprising to observe that after a decade of not speaking to one another, his father is still in the habit of assuming that his son is not logical enough to come to these considerations independently. It is, however, just as agitating as it had been in his youth.
“The spring semester ends in approximately 7.3 weeks,” Spock replies. “I will reevaluate my position in Starfleet at that time.”
Sarek is silent for a long beat, his gaze both neutral and critical. “I see that you have made up your mind on this subject and cannot be reasoned with. I believe this conversation has reached its logical conclusion.”
“I agree that continuing this exchange would be unproductive,” Spock answers, only just keeping the sharp edge from his tone, if only to avoid giving his father the satisfaction of an emotional response. He holds up a ta’al. “Live long and prosper.”
“Live long and prosper.”
The screen darkens, leaving Spock with only his reflection. In the afterimage of his father, it’s plain to see how much he resembles him.
His eyes, however, have always been his mother’s.
Spock sets his PADD down on his desk, rises, and exits his bedroom. He does not notice that his hand is clenched into a fist until he reaches for his kettle.
----
The second time Jim visits Spock’s office, he becomes aware of a crucial piece of information that he had been too distracted to notice the first time around:
It’s hotter than a fucking sauna in here.
Kirk wouldn’t be surprised if Spock had been too polite to turn down tutoring him, and this is his method of trying to indirectly torment him out of coming here instead. From what he’s seen of Spock and Other Spock, it’d be fairly in line with his M.O. As someone who enjoys fucking with people, Jim can easily spot a fellow connoisseur of fucking with people, and Spock very obviously enjoys fucking with people. Nobody would make a secretly unwinnable exam simulation if they didn’t enjoy fucking with people.
Unfortunately, are you fucking with me? doesn’t seem like the most tactful way to say hello to someone who’s supposed to be doing you a favor, and so he greets him instead with the understatement of the century, “Little hot in here, Spock.”
One of Spock’s brows twitches upwards. “You did not object to the temperature during your previous visit.”
“Well, I wasn’t staying long enough to get heat stroke then.”
“It would not be possible for a Human to obtain heat stroke at the present ambient temperature in this room, regardless of the duration of time spent here,” the professor intones. Still, without breaking eye contact, he instructs, “Computer, lower room temperature by two degrees.”
“Lowering room temperature.”
“Is this satisfactory?”
Jim can’t tell if there’s a challenge in Spock’s gaze, or disdain, or just plain annoyance. Either way, he bites his tongue and forces a smile, knowing well enough when to stop poking a Vulcan.
Though he’d had about a million other assignments he should have been working on, he’d spent a good chunk of his time last night writing a script to crawl through starship records from the past few decades and collect all red and yellow alerts he could access at his classification level. As it turns out, shit goes wrong frequently in space, even if it’s only a few minutes spent trying to identify a non-Federation craft that ultimately ends up harmless. There are hundreds upon hundreds of alert records for every ship— some older vessels nearing even a thousand.
Although it’ll be a pain to sort through, analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly of starship records seems like a pretty damn effective method to prep for an early captaincy— and Spock’s advice could go a long way in helping select what to analyze in the first place.
Jim, however, gets no further than projecting some summary stats onto a hoverscreen before the professor objects,
“A student must begin with fundamental lessons before proceeding to case studies. This line of analysis will not yet be beneficial for your learning.”
Kirk huffs, straightening in his chair. “You said yourself that I’ve shown mastery of—”
“The standard material of the command track,” Spock acknowledges. “This material is meant to be augmented with experience aboard a starship, not to serve as a replacement for it. Assuming your selection for captaincy, you do not have the luxury of accumulating such experience beforehand.”
A cold spike of fear jolts through him; one he’s been feeling more and more often, as of late. The sensation only heightens his frustration.
“So you think I’m fucked, then,” he scoffs. “Why even have me come here if you can’t teach me?”
“I did not state that I ‘think you are fucked’,” the Vulcan intones with a slight twitch of his brow. “I am attempting to convey that before we analyze emergency scenarios, we must first cover everyday obligations. Leading a ship through an emergency is only one small fraction of captaincy. The majority of your time will be spent managing your crew.”
Oh. No, yeah, that checks out.
“Every point that I make ‘checks out’,” Spock replies with raised brows. “I am not in the habit of conveying falsehoods.”
Jim blinks. He opens his mouth to ask if he actually said that out loud, then closes it, deciding against risking coming off as even more of an idiot than he already is tonight. He shakes his head as if to clear it. “Fine. Yeah. Where do you want to start, then?”
Spock, unsurprisingly, starts with seemingly the most boring shit he could think of. Probably to torment Jim out of coming here. Again.
After nearly an hour of discussing the minutiae of crew organization and duty rotations, Kirk is about ready to knock his head into the Vulcan’s desk. Still, he knows that analytical gaze has been locked on him this entire time, just waiting for him to crack and admit that captaincy is more than he signed up for— and Jim is determined not to show even the slightest bit of doubt.
Even if he is questioning exactly what he signed up for.
When he finally stands to leave, he feels more than a little relief. With as much tension as he’s in need of shaking off, he’s already considering the routes to the nearest bars when he glances up at Spock, and old images of crinkled brown eyes hit Jim hard enough that it almost winds him.
“Cadet?”
The eyes on him are far from crinkled now— there’s no familiarity there; no warmth. Still analyzing. Still waiting for him to falter.
Kirk takes in a breath, exhales slowly. The rock crushes up against his ribs.
“I meant to ask— do you know how I’d get into contact with a refugee staying here on Earth? There was someone I, uh— had a conversation with that day, and we didn’t get a chance to finish it.”
Spock’s eyes narrow briefly. “To whom do you refer?”
It takes about one millisecond for Jim to realize this was a bad idea. A very bad, potentially universe-ending-paradox-causing idea, according to whom he refers.
“I didn’t catch his name?” he smiles nervously, the statement coming out more as a question with the jump his pitch takes.
The professor searches his gaze warily. He’s silent for long enough that Kirk is on the verge of retracting the question before he finally answers, “The Friends of the Federation shelter located on 5th Street is serving as the primary housing for refugees that have not selected alternative accommodations. Aside from my father, I have no further knowledge of the contact details of any other individual refugee.”
An automatic thank you has Jim opening his mouth, but he hesitates, soundless. It’s an innocent enough statement, but a double take brings with it the knowledge that Spock is almost entirely isolated from any other Vulcans coping with their planet’s loss. If he only has his father left, it’s possible that old friends had perished with Vulcan, or extended family hadn’t made it offworld in time.
But in all of the rare, clipped references Spock’s made towards Vulcan’s demise, the only individual loss he has ever referenced has been his mother.
“Cadet? Do you require anything else?”
Jim swallows, forcing himself back down with a shake of his head. “No. Yeah. Thanks.”
Though the night air is mild enough, Kirk crosses his arms as he quickly walks across campus. Many of the stragglers he passes on the sidewalk are paired up; some with arms slung around shoulders, others holding hands.
His throat is parched, but there’s a deeper need below; one he hasn’t filled in weeks. One that has old images grating rock against rib.
A bar stool beside a decent-looking man doesn’t ease the pressure entirely, but it’s the best he can get.
----
The stares haven’t ceased, but their frequency is on a steady decline.
Throughout the entirety of his walk past the hospital’s lobby and up to the 6th floor, Spock attracts only three stray glances. The points of his ears and sharp lines of his brows seem to have become less of a magnet for attention, and though the public scrutiny has not entirely abated, he is thankful for any degree of relief.
He is uncertain what state he will find Captain Pike in; of the two visits he has been paying weekly, approximately half have found the captain either asleep or heavily fatigued. This time, thankfully, he appears lucid on the Vulcan’s approach.
“Captain.”
“Commander,” Pike smiles slightly. The right half of his face struggles to complete the expression. “What gossip have you got for me today?”
“I come with an inquiry,” Spock corrects, seating himself beside the biobed. “Cadet Kirk mentioned that you possess knowledge of Starfleet Command discussing his candidacy for captaincy of the Enterprise.”
Graying brows raise slightly. “I assumed you already knew.”
“I inferred.”
Pike observes him curiously. “What was your question, then?”
“Given your knowledge, how likely do you believe it is that they will move forward with his selection?”
“Pretty likely,” the captain answers. “We lost a lot of men. Morale is going to be in the gutter for a while. Starfleet needs a breath of fresh air, and a young captain with a recent commendation could be just that.” He pauses, searching Spock’s gaze. “Does that bother you?”
“As a Vulcan, nothing ‘bothers’ me,” the commander denies. “I do, however, have concerns regarding the prudence in his selection.”
“But you’re helping him prepare,” Pike points out. “So you do see his potential.”
Spock’s brows twitch upwards. “I only began tutoring him yesterday. How are you aware of this?”
“Jim’s here most days,” the captain explains. “He mentioned yesterday that he’d be seeing you.”
When the cadet had first referenced his conversation with Captain Pike, Spock had assumed he had been referring to a call— or, at most, perhaps a singular visit. The knowledge that Jim visits more often than the captain’s first officer is unexpected enough to briefly silence him.
“I was unaware of your close relationship with Cadet Kirk.”
“I’m not surprised,” Pike replies. “He’s never been forthcoming about anything personal.” He exhales a soft, almost amused breath. “You two are more alike than you realize.”
The Vulcan’s brows twitch. He suspects that the captain is more cognitively impaired than he had previously estimated on his arrival.
“I find the comparison inaccurate.”
“So would he,” the captain smiles again, a knowing look in his gaze.
Spock calculates a 98.9% chance that continuing this line of conversation will be useless with Pike in his present state. For the remainder of his visit, the commander turns their discussion to other matters, careful to keep the subject as far from James Kirk as he can.
No matter the lucidity or lack thereof that the words had been spoken with, echoes of the assertion continue to plague Spock after he departs from the hospital.
You two are more alike than you realize.
It is a theory with little merit. Spock does not share significant similarities with most Humans, let alone one as brash as Cadet Kirk. Moreover, a preference for privacy regarding personal matters is hardly an uncommon trait.
If this alone had plagued him, the Vulcan would have been able to quickly compartmentalize and disregard the matter.
But alongside it are echoes simultaneously more insistent and less clear:
The growing, inexplicable ease with which he can sense strong emotions in Kirk’s mere presence, and the intangible pull that comes with them.
----
It’s been over three hours since he woke up, and Jim’s massive headache still hasn’t gone away.
In all fairness, the two glasses of whiskey he’d downed at the bar may have something to do with that headache. Or the fact that he’d had no water during the following hour he’d spent in a stranger’s apartment before dragging himself back to his dorm. Where he proceeded to fall asleep without having any water.
You’d think your mid-twenties would age you out of this kind of stupidity, but Jim Kirk is nothing if not stubborn.
The pain meds and two glasses of water he’d downed after crawling out of bed have barely helped. It’s nearly enough to make him bail on his plans and bury himself back beneath his sheets, but with the weekend offering only a fleeting reprieve from his classes, he knows today will be one of his only opportunities to execute what is in all likelihood a terrible fucking idea, but something he has to see through, regardless.
The streetcar ride to 5th street is just long enough for his thoughts to begin to wander. Though the breeze through the open windows is cool, he still feels his face warming as a realization hits him just as ruthlessly as a hangover:
His one-night stand had looked an awful lot like Spock.
The guy didn’t have a Vulcan’s pointy ears or sharp brows, but he did have the height to rival one. Probably the most damning part of his appearance was that he’d not only had black hair, but bangs, too— maybe not as severely cut, but bangs nonetheless.
What’s even worse is that Jim had not only happened to go home with him— he’d passed on two other perfectly good-looking men before him. Men who did not have the tall, dark-haired, fucking bangs look going on.
Kirk shrinks slightly in his seat, covers his face, and mutters a muffled, “Fucking hell.”
He’s never been one to make the greatest decisions two glasses deep, but it’s been a while since he’d last cringed at one of those decisions.
By the time he makes it to the shelter, most of the confidence he’d drummed up for the visit has drained from him. At the entrance, he considers turning back, but the weight in his chest has been made no lighter by the night before— if anything, it’s only been pushed aggressively to the forefront of his attention. Given that he’d rather go for a second round of running from giant alien monsters on Delta Vega than admit even a fraction of this shit to Spock, going directly to the source is his only option left for figuring out how to un-fuck his head from the meld.
But at the front desk of the shelter, he realizes he has no clue how to actually ask for Other Spock without giving the name of someone who should very much not be Other Spock.
“I’m looking for, uh— a Vulcan,” Jim announces, intelligently. “He’s old— I don’t know his exact age. He’s got— uh, bangs? Gray… bangs.”
“The vast majority of Vulcan men have bangs,” the clerk points out. “And there are many elderly refugees here. Could you be more specific? You don’t have a name?”
Jim glances around. Several Vulcans are watching the exchange with blank stares.
He clears his throat, turning back to the desk. “His name— right. Uh, I don’t know how to pronounce it. I think he’s— related to the… Earth ambassador?”
“Mr. Selek?” the clerk asks. “He’s the only S’chn T’gai here.”
“Jim?”
Kirk turns on his heel, meeting the surprised gaze of a Vulcan who’s halted at the front entrance. In all of his genius, Jim manages only to stare back like a deer in headlights before Other Spock approaches.
“Mr. Selek,” the clerk greets him. “This man was looking for you.”
“Selek,” Jim echoes with a scrunched brow. “Uh— right. Yeah.” He glances around the lobby, then lowers his voice somewhat. “I wasn’t sure where to find you, so I thought I’d check here. Guess I got lucky.”
“You have had enough instances of ‘good luck’ that you have caused even a Vulcan to believe in the concept,” Other Spock replies, a tiny smile on his lips. “Come. We may talk in my room, if you are amenable.”
It’s a cramped space, just large enough to fit a narrow twin bed, a desk, and a dresser. Even at the desk’s chair, Jim’s close enough to nearly brush knees with the Vulcan seated on the edge of his mattress— something that he expects to feel wildly awkward about, but he doesn’t. The weight in his chest urges him not to pull away, but to draw closer—
And by the look in dark eyes, he knows Other Spock can see straight through him.
“I suspected that our meld may have left an unintended impression upon your mind,” the Vulcan admits. “I apologize. In the aftermath of Vulcan’s destruction, I was not thinking rationally. I was in no state to meld with anyone, least of all you.”
Kirk blinks, his brows drawing closer together. “Why me?”
“I was not prepared to resist the pull of your mind,” Selek elaborates. “As I have unintentionally shown you, we were bonded in my universe. My mind instinctually sought to reestablish this bond. I did not have the capacity to simultaneously prevent its reformation and fully control the flow of memories between us; I prioritized the former.”
“Bonded,” Jim swallows. “Like… married, right?”
“It is the Vulcan equivalent of marriage,” he affirms.
Kirk shakes his head and glances away, exhaling a confounded breath. Marriage alone is enough to make his head spin, let alone to Spock of all people.
“I apologize, Jim,” Selek says, his weathered voice softened. “I did not intend to burden you with these memories.”
“I’m guessing you can’t take them back?” Jim asks with a sardonic smile.
“I do not desire to risk an unintentional bond again,” the Vulcan affirms. “I am still emotionally compromised.”
Although it’s a subtle change, the elder Vulcan appears more weary, and his posture more weighted.
And the weight in Kirk’s chest grows heavier, too.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” he admits, quieter. “I feel so— fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know how to hide all of this from you.”
“Jim,” Selek lets out a soft breath. “I can assure you that you need not conceal any emotion from me.”
“You, maybe,” he acknowledges with a short, humorless laugh. “Younger you hates me.”
“If he and I are true iterations of one another, that cannot be the case. To know you is to love you. I could do nothing else.”
Flashes of crinkled brown eyes flit past his awareness, mirrored in hazel with familiarity, trust, love— all of it utterly foreign to Jim, here.
You may be the same in this universe, he thinks. But I’m not.
----
Spock wakes to a pitch-dark room.
This is already an anomaly in and of itself. Barring the exception of an altered schedule, he regularly sleeps from 02:00 to 06:00, after which he rises to a sky that has already begun to lighten. He requires no alarm clock to reliably wake at the correct hour; as a Vulcan, his internal clock allows for precisely controlled sleep schedules without the usage of exterior aids.
The present time, however, is 04:26.
He wakes not to a calm, rested state, either; his breathing is rapid, and his heart racing. As he sits up in bed, he places an unconscious hand over his side, feeling the floundering organ beneath his palm as he forces his breaths to slow, and his pulse to relax.
More troubling than any of these aberrations is the fact that looking back upon his sleep does not reflect the dreamless rest of a controlled mind, but rather the imagery of a dust-choked sky above crumbling canyons.
He has seen this imagery repeatedly in meditation, but never in sleep. Vulcans do not dream, and although Spock had inherited the detested trait from his Human blood, thorough meditation has always enabled him to keep his unconscious mind in check. Although meditation has not proved particularly fruitful as of late, he had not anticipated dreams to begin slipping through the cracks.
Shame threatens to overcome him, but as he examines the contents of the dream more closely, a final aberration gives him pause:
A fleeting glimpse of an off-navy uniform, and a resulting wave of nausea as ruthless as the throes of a dying planet.
Notes:
jim: my spock definitely hates my guts
his spock: *space-googling an Am I Gay quiz*thank you so much for reading!!! i really appreciate all of the support so far and hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)
Chapter Text
Kirk’s rebound trip to the bar doesn’t go any better than the first.
He vows to leave with the first man who catches his attention, but despite the bar being even more populated tonight with plenty of fish around to catch, Jim can hardly even bring himself to flirt. Every time he leans in to flash a smile or tilt his head, all he can think of is himself shooting those same looks across the bridge in another life, and how infuriatingly, inexplicably wrong it feels to direct them at anyone else.
It’s bullshit— he knows it’s bullshit. None of those memories mean anything here. Maybe in some other life without daddy issues, mommy issues, space premie issues, and a whole lot of other fucking issues, he had been capable of settling down. Capable of even wanting to settle down in the first place.
But that isn’t his life here. Whether he’s a captain, a cadet, or some nobody hick, settling down will never be in his nature. If he can’t stand even staying the night in someone else’s bed, he sure as hell isn’t going to let anyone put a ring on his finger.
He spends over an hour at his bar stool ordering drink after drink in the hopes that the alcohol will loosen him up and get him out of his head. Jim is nearly finished with his fourth, internally weighing the costs and benefits of just leaving at this point to become a celibate monk, when a man takes the stool beside his—
A man who is, unfortunately, not a handsome fish to catch.
“You’re goddamn lucky you’ve got me as a friend,” Bones scowls. “Interrupting my beauty sleep to drag your ass home at your big age. Unbelievable.”
Jim blinks slowly. He wonders how long the room has been spinning for. It wasn’t doing that a drink ago, he’s pretty sure.
Wait— is he on his fourth or his fifth? He’s not this much of a lightweight. He decides it’s definitely his fifth, because his ego is already one wrong look away from crumbling into dust.
“Drag my— you— I don’t need a chaperone, Bones.” The assertion would probably be more convincing if it wasn’t slurred. “How’d you even know where I was?”
The doctor silently pulls out his communicator, opens his messaging interface, and holds the screen out to him with a flat look. Several messages from their conversation are displayed.
CDT James T. Kirk: Iam so fucking cooked i cant ewen fish
CDT Leonard H. McCoy: What?
CDT James T. Kirk: Fish. Fishing for men . in the sea.
CDT Leonard H. McCoy: By “sea” do you mean a dingy bar you’ve got no business being in at 23:41?
CDT James T. Kirk: thats not fair i do have businbss here
CDT Leonard H. McCoy: Ok. What exact bar is your businbss in?
Kirk blinks. He pulls out his own communicator, squinting at the unopened message notification through his swimming vision.
“Oh.”
“I stopped in two other goddamned bars before this one. Next time you pull this shit, I’m putting a tracker on you.” McCoy stands from his stool. “C’mon. We’re leaving.”
“I’m not leaving,” Kirk huffs. “I haven’t even finished my drink!” He gestures emphatically to a glass that has roughly a thimble of liquor left in it.
“You’ve had enough,” the doctor states in that tone he gets when he’s about to deliver an hour-long lecture if Jim doesn’t shut the hell up immediately, and the room is spinning way too hard to survive an hour-long lecture in, so Jim does shut the hell up immediately.
“You can’t keep doing this when Starfleet decides to make you their poster boy,” McCoy chides him as he helps Jim down the street. Although Kirk had stubbornly insisted on walking independently at first, that had lasted for a grand total of two minutes before he tripped and faceplanted into the sidewalk. Which fucking hurt, by the way. “Captains can’t get themselves blackout drunk in public.”
Jim holds up one finger. “M’not blackout drunk.” A second. “Not gonna be a poster boy.” A third. “Don’t even know if they’ll pick me.”
“We all know they’re going to,” Bones dismisses. “I thought you were past this shit, anyways. Why did you drink this much?”
“…It’s complicated.”
To make the second understatement of the century.
----
Spock does not dream again for the following two nights.
He wakes at the precise time he had intended to after four hours of peaceful, perfectly uneventful rest. It is tempting to simply label the nightmare as an outlier to be disregarded and forgotten, but there remains a lingering suspicion that such a simple outcome is unlikely to prove true. He plans to maintain extended periods of meditation before sleep for at least the next five days to ensure that the aberration does not become a pattern.
Throughout the following Monday, the stares of students and staff alike continue to lessen. Spock is able to complete a full lecture only slightly below his baseline level of efficiency and focus, which is a much-needed improvement to anchor himself to; some small shred of proof that Vulcan’s demise had not condemned him, too, to lose the Vulcan within him.
He almost begins his consequent tutoring session with Cadet Kirk in a neutral mood.
Almost.
But when the cadet walks in, seats himself, and says a simple hello, all Spock can do is stare.
“…Uh, Spock? What’s up?”
Spock struggles to tear his gaze off of the bruises and scrapes that mar the side of Kirk’s brow, his cheekbone, and his chin. What he asks is, “Did somebody harm you?”
What a buried, deeper, simmering voice wants not to ask, but to demand, is Tell me who harmed you.
He carefully compartmentalizes the urge, along with the surprise and perturbation it deals him.
“Oh— ha, no,” Kirk denies with a sheepish grimace, absently touching the healing mark on his cheek. “Not unless you count a sidewalk as somebody. I tripped.”
Foreign wisps of embarrassment curl around the edges of Spock’s mental shields. Had he been unable to sense the emotion, he would have immediately assumed the cadet to be lying.
“That is uncharacteristically clumsy of you,” he observes. There was a reason that Pike had selected Jim for the beam-down to the drill; there was also a reason that in spite of the numerous Romulans he had encountered with Kirk on the Narada, the pair had always made it out of every encounter relatively unscathed compared to their attackers. With the amount of combat training Kirk has, it is difficult to imagine him stumbling and being unable to catch himself to avoid damage to his face.
The embarrassment in the air thickens, sharpened with a faint but discernible edge of agitation.
“I’m fine,” he dismisses. “Can we just get started?”
Ending the session before it begins is what Spock should do. He is clearly in a compromised enough state that he cannot fully subdue either the incursion of ungovernable thoughts from deep within or the incessant tide of emotions that laps at the borders of his mind. With every additional second he spends in the cadet’s company, he incurs a steepening risk of allowing his composure to crack in front of him again. The inexplicable strength with which Jim’s mind reaches out towards his almost makes him suspicious that forcing such a loss of composure is Kirk’s very goal.
But he is psi-null; without extensive teaching, he should not be able to project anything, let alone do so without physical contact.
There is something deeper here than insubordinate cadets or senseless fights; something curled up at the base of Spock’s skull, threatening to awaken from centuries of slumber.
He exhales slowly under his breath. There will be time to analyze this further in meditation tonight.
“Very well.”
The evening’s discussion centers primarily around protocol for promotions, demotions, and disciplinary actions. Jim, once again, appears rather subdued, which Spock automatically attributes to boredom towards the subject. The cadet’s eagerness for captaincy has clearly never included paperwork or people management.
But there is something off about his demeanor; not mere boredom, but distance. In spite of remaining fully engaged in the session, there is the distinct sensation that Kirk is unreachable in a manner he had not been before.
Dark eyes flick towards the bruising on the side of his face.
There is something that the cadet is withholding from him, but then again, the commander is no open book, either.
----
“What’s going on with you?”
Kirk glances up from his PADD to see that the old man who he’d thought was asleep in his biobed is actually very much awake, watching him with a slight frown. Jim straightens in the seat he’d been slouching in, returning a cautious, “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean,” Pike challenges. “I know you well enough to know when something’s wrong. You look like you’ve barely slept in days, and you’ve got no reason to be pulling all-nighters this week, which means something’s eating at you.”
Jim shifts uneasily in his chair. “It’s just stress. Potential impending captaincy doesn’t make my schedule any lighter.”
“Classes never wear you this thin,” Pike argues. “And a little extra studying with Spock won’t change that.” He raises his brows slightly. “Unless it’s Spock bothering you.”
It’s complicated, is what he’d say if he wanted to make the third understatement of the century.
But unlike Bones, Chris actually knows the commander, and Jim isn’t certain whether even the slightest allusion to his present mess might make its way back to the source of it. At which point the very much not ideal universe-ending-paradox might happen.
“We’re not exactly two peas in a pod,” Kirk attempts to joke, his laugh somewhat weak. “But we’re not about to get into another fist fight. We’re fine.”
The captain studies him for a long beat.
“I hope so,” he responds at length. “You have a lot you can learn from him. It’s good you’re taking advantage of that while you can.”
“I’m sure I’ll still be learning from him on the ship, too,” Jim points out.
Pike pauses, his gaze changing somewhat, though the new emotion there is difficult to parse.
“He probably won’t be in Starfleet by then,” he warns the cadet. “But there are other good candidates being considered for your XO.”
The news should be nothing but a relief. Being stuck in a command team with someone who hates him would already be bad enough, but that person also being his alternate universe husband makes that about a trillion times worse.
But instead of its weight being lightened, the rock in Jim’s chest promptly plummets into his stomach.
“He’s resigning?”
“He’s considering it,” Pike corrects. “He just became a member of an endangered species. His priorities have changed.”
Kirk doesn’t know what to say to that. Wouldn’t be able to say anything, regardless, with how tight his throat has become.
“If you want to keep him on the Enterprise, you should tell him that sooner than later,” the captain advises. “You two make one hell of a team. It’s worth fighting for.”
Yeah, that’s great and all, but what exactly is he supposed to say? Hey, I know your entire planet got decimated, but you should consider staying with me because I don’t know how to do this without you, even though I barely fucking know you?
“…I’ll think about it.”
Whether he wants to or not.
----
The time is 03:52.
Spock is not asleep, but upright in bed; not rested, but breathless. He places a hand over his side, feels the rabbit-quick thudding of his heart. Again, there is dust-choked air, and again, there are glimpses of silhouettes in off-navy, nestling nausea deep within his stomach.
He rises with the intent to fetch his meditation mat, but finds himself in his kitchen instead, standing in darkness before the electric kettle that begins to softly babble in the night.
When he was still young enough to experience regular dreams, his mother used to make him a cup of tea after particularly frightening ones, insisting illogically that the soothing drink would ward off any further nightmares. He did not truly believe her then, just as he holds no such belief now.
And still, he stands with a warm mug in hand, breathing in the same herbal scent he had decades ago.
At his kitchen table, he watches ribbons of steam unfurl from the tea’s surface, reaching up towards the ceiling before fraying into nothingness. His eyes dip lower as he examines tonight’s dream again, vision clouding with off-navy and dust.
No one had been clothed in such a color on the surface of Vulcan that day. Neither had anyone aboard the Enterprise, nor the Narada. It was not until docking at Earth that he had witnessed the Federation Disaster Response Squad board the ship while clad in that exact color. They had arrived well after the red alert had ended, and though many people aboard the ship were still in need of treatment and aid, there was no longer any general emergency. He can discern no logical reason for his unconscious mind to be blending such a detail with the chaos of Vulcan’s demise.
His analysis turns from the dream to his eidetic memory of the event, combing back over every interaction that had occurred during and shortly after docking. There had been a brief greeting of the squad, an exchange with his father to discuss who onboard was most in need of assistance, and several fleeting interactions with passing refugees. None of these events were particularly noteworthy.
But there is one other exchange that gives him pause, both now and at the time it had occurred.
Kirk had been visibly fatigued for the duration of the Enterprise’s journey back to Earth, which was to be expected. After docking, however, he had appeared almost lost, his gaze distant and his posture stiff. During periods of much more intense stress, the acting captain had had no difficulty commanding his ship, but in the relative calm of the squad’s arrival, he had gone almost entirely mute.
At the time, Spock had not concerned himself with the change in behavior, assuming it to be the simple inevitability of Kirk’s overexertion catching up to him. The amount of physical and emotional stress he had pushed through was already significantly beyond an average Human’s limits.
But when he reexamines his conversation with the acting captain, the subtle tension in his features that he had taken for exhaustion appears much closer to poorly concealed fear. His posture had turned from confident to subtly withdrawn, as though he were a wounded animal coiling in the back corner of a cage, preparing for a defensive strike. This behavior did not resemble any Spock had previously observed in him, whether under intense stress or otherwise.
After Kirk had departed from the ship, no other interactions of note occurred, and certainly none in regards to the Federation squad.
It is a fact that should be irrelevant to Spock’s analysis of his dreams.
But there, at the base of his skull, remains a nameless presence that has begun to stir. It is a hot, heavy thing, smoldering low but steady in wait of something Spock cannot place.
A product of stress, he attempts to explain away. A figment of an unordered mind.
He ignores the fact that this figment is far more ancient, and far more damning, than any transient disturbance of the mind.
----
The sky has decided to crack open.
Not on a planet-ending scale, to be fair, though the sheer degree of downpour currently hammering the bay doesn’t feel too far short of it.
The rainy season should already be making its way out of San Francisco as spring marches on, but evidently, it’s decided to go out with a bang. Campus isn’t quite underwater yet, but several parts of the city have already begun flooding. As a precaution, the Academy’s shut down all operations for the day— a blessing or a curse, depending on exactly how skilled your professor is with providing their lesson materials online.
And Kirk is lucky enough to have plenty of study materials for all of his classes—
All of his official ones, anyways.
But tonight was supposed to be another tutoring session in a campus building that is very much closed, with a professor who is almost certainly avoiding stepping even an inch out of his apartment. It seems like a safe bet that a previously desert-dwelling Vulcan wouldn’t enjoy a stroll through a drizzle, let alone a downpour. He can’t even imagine what Spock would look like in the rain. A very disgruntled wet cat, maybe.
As easy as it would be to simply brush the session off and take a rain check, the increasing whispers about a probable captaincy becoming an almost definite one are steadily bringing Kirk’s anxiety to a boiling point. Top that off with the fact that the person who’s best equipped to be his first officer might be dipping from Starfleet altogether, and Jim is near-desperate to learn as much as he can while he still has the time for it.
And if Spock really might be gone soon, his window to get those tutoring sessions in is steadily closing.
That’s the only reason Jim is motivated to see him tonight. Obviously.
He shoots off the first ping with the expectation of an ensuing argument at the very least. It’s a simple message— asking if they can still have their session at the usual time, and offering to drop by the professor’s apartment to make it easier on him— but nothing is ever simple with Spock. He’s already preparing himself for a minimum 30-minute debate on this.
But to his utter shock, he receives in reply a succinct, That is acceptable.
It takes several dumbfounded minutes of staring at the message before he recalls that he has to get ready to leave his dorm if he’s actually going to leave his dorm.
Jim spends an extra minute on his hair tonight— or two, maybe ten— but there’s no particular reason for it. Maybe it gives him a little confidence boost, is all—
At least, it does until he steps outside to discover that the wind has decided to spice things up by making the previously vertical rain nearly horizontal.
Kirk shields himself against it as best he can with his umbrella, but by the time he reaches the apartment building’s lobby, he’s muttering curses and shaking off water into tiny puddles on the tile that the now-broken umbrella did little to protect him from. He discards it into a trash chute with an unintelligible grumble.
During the elevator ride up, he tries to slick the darkened blonde strands back from his face as best he can, but several stubbornly continue springing free to droop over his forehead. In the middle of his third attempt to tidy his hair, the elevator issues a pleasant chime to announce its arrival at the fourth floor, and Jim is forced to give up with a long-suffering sigh.
Hardly seconds after he knocks on the professor’s door, it swiftly whisks open, causing Kirk to startle. Spock, too, is briefly taken aback— though his only giveaway is the slow lift of a brow.
“You are wet.”
Jim is incredibly tempted to say something stupid. It’s heroic, really, that he manages to restrain himself.
“Didn’t notice,” he snarks instead. “Can I come in, or am I gonna have to go back out into the biblical floods out there?”
The eyebrow lifts higher. Slowly, Spock steps to the side to allow him entrance.
An intense warmth inside the apartment that likely would have otherwise been uncomfortable is a much-welcomed haven to the shivering cadet. He strips off his soaked uniform jacket, relieved to see that his black undershirt had mostly been kept dry under the thick layer of fabric.
He turns back around in search of a hook to deposit the garment on, but freezes when he realizes Spock has been staring at him. Most of his expression is blank, but there’s some subtle intensity in his gaze that’s difficult to place.
Jim suddenly feels bare.
“Is there, uh— somewhere I can put this?” he manages after a beat, gesturing uselessly with the red jacket.
Spock blinks, seeming to become aware of himself again. He reaches out a hand, coming dangerously close to touching Kirk’s fingers as he accepts the jacket.
Deeper in the apartment, the professor appears to have already set up at the kitchen table, his PADD still lit up beside a chair that’s been pulled back. Jim settles into the seat across from it, taking a lazy minute to fetch his things from his backpack, if only for an excuse to hide his face as he gets a grip on his nerves.
But then Spock is sitting across from him, and the table is much smaller than the desk that’s usually between them, and it’s the closest they’ve been for more than a fleeting moment since Jim had been pinned between a cracked console and a hand around his neck.
A strange rush of heat jolts through him, tangling awkwardly with his nerves. For the barest second, he thinks he sees Spock’s expression change with some minuscule movement— but it’s gone as soon as it came.
“So, uh— what did you want to focus on tonight?”
“I believe we may begin with case studies of yellow alerts. I identified several from your repository that would be suitable starting points for analysis of emergency command decisions.”
Jim blinks, then straightens in his seat. “Wait— really?”
“Yes, ‘really’,” Spock echoes dryly. It’s unexpected enough to draw a startled laugh from the cadet, and rather than the illogical Human look he expects in response, dark eyes—
Crinkle at him?
It’s subtle, only a slight movement that lasts for a few seconds, but with countless replicas of that expression burned into stolen memories, it’s enough to take Kirk’s breath away.
Once he gets a grip on himself, he glances away and clears his throat. “Yeah— uh, yeah. Good. Sounds good.”
Doing great, Jim.
He’s determined to come off like a normal, not mind-fucked student, but this close to Spock, there’s nowhere to hide. Every time a wave of nerves distracts him from the conversation, or he stares maybe just a little too long at the unfairly attractive professor across from him, the resulting curiosity in dark eyes is easy to spot.
The longer he sits with him, the louder Pike’s assertion grows: If you want to keep him on the Enterprise, you should tell him that sooner than later.
There probably isn’t much time left until Spock makes his final decision. For all Jim knows, he could already be in the middle of talks to formalize a position in Vulcan’s rebuilding efforts. The sooner rather than later window is swiftly closing.
He spends the entirety of the tutoring session trying to work himself up to it, even if he still doesn’t know what the hell to say. Something has to be better than nothing— he tells himself this over, and over, and over.
But just as the session reaches its end and Jim readies himself to finally bring the subject up, Spock speaks first.
“I believe the Federation Disaster Response Squad will be submitting a report to us tomorrow regarding their operations on the Enterprise. It will not require the both of our signatures. I am able to read and acknowledge it alone, if you desire to focus your time on your coursework.”
And all at once, any air Jim could have used to speak is gone from his lungs.
The sharp turn from heated nerves to icy fear leaves him in whiplash. Though the apartment is nearly as sweltering as Spock’s office had been, Jim feels colder than he had when he’d been shivering his way into the building.
There is something deeper than curiosity across the table; something more intent. Something knowing.
Kirk is on his feet before he registers the fact that he’s moving at all, surprising the both of them. He only just manages to force a short, slightly hoarse, “I’ll read it. But thanks.”
Jim is already back out in the biblical floods before he realizes he left his jacket behind.
----
Spock remains at his kitchen table for 21.1 minutes.
For the entirety of the duration, he cannot shake the aftertaste of fear that stains his shields, a bitter presence that chills him in spite of the unchanging heat. Hints of many emotions had skittered past his shields in Kirk’s presence, all faint enough to allow for a plausible deniability of their existence, but there is no denying the fear that had reached across the table and gripped his shields hard enough to crack them.
It is the same fear that had permeated Jim’s features some time ago; the same that colors Spock’s dreams. It is the distinct, measured terror of an old fear kept on a short leash; one far older than Vulcan’s destruction.
Such a clear transference is impossible without a bond. Should be impossible.
But against all reason, he has continuously felt Jim’s mind without touch.
The sensation had not been present at the time of the academic hearing. Considering the cadet’s visible levels of frustration with which he had faced his accusation of academic misconduct, it can be safely assumed that had there already existed the capacity to sense his emotions without touch then, Spock would have felt something. Neither had he felt Jim’s frustration during their first argument on the bridge that had resulted in the cadet being marooned, even when that frustration had escalated into a fight with security officers and a brief nerve pinch that had swiftly rendered him unconscious.
But Spock had felt the bright, unmistakable presence of Kirk’s mind through the hand wrapped around his throat, and in what he had thought was merely a frenzied delusion after letting go, had continued to feel echoes through tattered shields— and had felt the shiver of something at the base of his skull, gone as soon as it came. In the consequent ongoing emergency, there had been no time to acknowledge any of this, and in the quiet after, no room for anything aside from grief.
The Vulcan stands. A red jacket remains in the closet beside his front door, nearly dried now. Spock reaches out, then hesitates, his hand hovering in the air before it. His palm buzzes with the memory of Kirk’s skin.
He withdraws with a sigh under his breath.
Notes:
thank you so much for reading!!! it’s been a bit of a rough week for me, i almost didn’t get this out on time but am very glad i managed to finish 😅 i hope you enjoyed the chapter!! :)
Chapter Text
It takes almost an hour to completely dry off.
Without even a broken umbrella to shield him against the deluge, Jim returns to his dorm looking like he’d hopped into a shower fully dressed. What should have been a matter of simply stripping down and toweling off, though, turns into endless stalling as an encroaching haze gradually worms its way through his thoughts, slowing all movement and constantly derailing his attention into the blurry void. For a good twenty minutes, he sits simply shivering on the floor of his dorm, wrapped in only a towel while his hair continues to drip onto his face and shoulders.
The tremors only remind him of the endless shivering that had come with his fevers those last couple days on Tarsus; how every joint ached, and his entire body felt ready to crack apart at the seams. His memories of that period are spotty at best, but some of the ones that have stayed with him the most vividly. At one point in his delirium, he thought he had seen the ghost of his father stepping off of a rescue ship, looking exactly like the old pictures of him in his science blues, arms outstretched to carry his child home.
But that wasn’t the shade of blue that had reached out to him.
With a decade and a half of distance between then and now, he doesn’t think of Tarsus often. Can go entire weeks, sometimes, without even a passing thought of that place.
But ever since facing the disaster response squad again, those wounds feel less scabbed over and more torn open fresh.
Nobody has any knowledge of that period of his life, save for a few estranged family members and Pike. Not a single crewman on the Enterprise could have been aware of any relationship he’d had with the squad— not anyone conscious, anyways.
But the way Spock had looked at him across the kitchen table hadn’t felt like a question, or a curiosity. It had felt more like being under the microscope of a lab experiment.
It could just be paranoia. Probably is. Wouldn’t be the first time Tarsus had clouded Kirk’s judgment, or even the first time he’d been needlessly suspicious of someone seeing straight through to the hungry child within him. It’s not exactly like he’s been thinking clearly about Spock lately to begin with.
Knowing that and believing that are two different things, though.
----
Given a delayed campus opening and several busy days ahead of him, Spock takes the opportunity to seek out his father.
The very notion is something he would have found preposterous only a month ago; not speaking with his father had served him far better than continuing to engage in an antagonistic relationship with him. There was nothing productive to be gained from any interactions with him— not as long as Spock remained in Starfleet and off the Vulcan path.
But now, with his mother gone and the majority of his species eliminated, he has few other options from which to seek help with as sensitive of a matter as a potential spontaneous bond. As far as official records presently indicate, no more than five experienced psychic healers had survived the planet’s destruction, and they are doubtlessly busy continuing to aid hundreds of Vulcans who had lost their bondmates in such a sudden, violent fashion. Without any realistic option for professional help, his father is rendered the only Vulcan who Spock would even consider approaching for advice on the subject.
As unpleasant as that advice may be to obtain.
It is 08:00 when Spock arrives at the lobby of what was previously a Federation-owned building under renovation. The usage of the building has been reallocated to provide space for Vulcan administrative affairs— what is left of them, at least. From the limited conversations he has had thus far with his father since Vulcan’s destruction, Spock is aware that he is presently working from an office in this building, and estimates it likely that he will have arrived early with ample time to spare before the first scheduled council meeting of the day.
Indeed, just as the professor steps into the lobby, he spots Sarek waiting at the elevators across the room. Only 2.6 seconds later, a short chime sounds, and the doors of the leftmost elevator glide open.
Quickly advancing towards him, Spock calls out to his father, mindful to keep his volume loud enough to be heard, but low enough to avoid an unnecessarily jarring disturbance to the space. The elder Vulcan turns back towards him, and though many of his features are those of Sarek’s, the wrinkles set into his face are slightly too deep, and his eyes too Human.
Spock freezes in place, but the elder does not appear fazed by his presence at all. The Vulcan approaches with only the simple, placid statement, “I am not our father.”
Spock had, on some level, been aware of the possibility of an encounter with an alternate self. This possibility had formed after Nero had first referenced his future actions that would cause the demise of Romulus, and had further been solidified by that small shuttle that had welcomed him as Ambassador Spock— a craft far too advanced for such a greeting to have been a simple error.
He had failed to consider the possibility of that ambassador not only living amongst the refugees on Earth, but evidently taking part in Vulcan’s remaining government.
“There are so few Vulcans left,” the ambassador continues, as though answering that unspoken question, “we cannot afford to ignore each other.”
Spock’s brows twitch closer to one another. A million questions flit past, momentarily quieting him.
“If you believe that to be the case, why have you neglected to contact me?”
The elder glances around the lobby. All other occupants have continued about their business, but given the sensitive hearing of their species, anyone in the room could be passively eavesdropping, whether intentionally or not.
“Let us speak in my office.”
The journey to the room takes only 1.31 minutes, but the elevator ride and consequent walk down the halls seems to stretch on much longer. Endless unspoken questions weigh Spock down more heavily with each passing step, every new query branching off into subqueries and subqueries of subqueries, an exponential flood of hidden truths.
“I intend to interfere as little as possible in your life,” the elder explains as he seats himself at his desk, gesturing for Spock to take the chair across from him, “as well as the fate of this universe. I do not belong here. I estimated it to be likely that we would inevitably come into contact with one another, and that allowing this to happen organically would pose less of an unnecessary influence than purposefully seeking you out.”
His reasoning is sound. This is unsurprising, Spock supposes, given that this Vulcan is also Spock, and his reasoning is always sound. Still, he is left with the distinct sense that this is far from the whole truth.
“You came to this universe from Nero’s original timeline?”
“Indeed, though quite unintentionally.”
Spock pauses. “And you expect to remain here?”
“Even in my time, we do not have a complete understanding of alternate universes or the bridges between them. It is highly unlikely that I will identify a reliable means of returning to my own universe before my natural death. Consequently, if I wish to continue leading a productive life, I must establish one here. I have adopted the name of Selek in order to maintain discretion.”
Spock knows the answer to his next question. He does not desire to ask it.
“Aside from myself, who is aware of your true identity?”
Judging by the elder’s gaze, he knows this of him, too.
“Our father,” he answers at length. “And James Kirk. You marooned him to the same location Nero had sent me.” His brows raise slightly. “An intriguing decision, if I may add. Jim would have been less likely to be accosted by hostile alien wildlife in the ship’s brig.”
Spock’s jaw twitches. “I could not have accounted for the malfunctioning navigational system that failed to deposit him at the entrance of the Starfleet outpost.”
“Could not have,” Selek echoes, “or failed to? I am well aware that we were emotionally compromised. You need not pretend otherwise.”
The commander searches his gaze for a long beat, rigid in his chair. It takes several shallow breaths to begin regaining control of his breathing.
“You were the reason Cadet Kirk was able to beam back aboard the Enterprise,” he states. Something that could be a question, but is too flat to truly pose any query.
“I was.”
Spock pauses, his eyes narrowing for a fleeting second. “You instructed him to provoke me.”
“I did,” Selek acknowledges.
Briefly, the professor shakes his head, exhaling a confounded breath. “Why did you send Kirk aboard when you alone could have explained the truth?”
“Because Jim belongs in command,” Selek answers, “and us at his side.” He pauses, something in his gaze changing. Softening, almost. The sight sends a flicker of shame through the younger Vulcan. “I could not deprive you of a connection that will define you both in ways you cannot yet realize.”
Spock’s palm buzzes. His hand tenses in his lap, relaxes again.
More questions flit past. He opens his mouth to give voice to one, then pauses, his brows twitching as realization begins to creep over him.
“Did you meld with Cadet Kirk?”
A pause, this time. “…I believed it necessary to convince him of my identity and fully convey the context of Nero’s attack.”
Spock expects to feel immediate judgment towards his alternate self; perhaps even disdain. What he intends to voice is the irresponsibility of such a decision, citing the recklessness of engaging in an unstable connection with a defenseless psi-null.
What he does not expect is the hot hand of anger that seizes him, its reach rising from deep within, the stirring of an ancient, ruthless thing—
And borne by the flame, what comes out of his mouth instead is a hissed, “You had no right to his mind. He is not yours.”
The moment the words leave him, all breath escapes along with them.
In the past several weeks, he had believed himself to be making steady progress towards regaining his composure and repairing his mental shields, however slow that progress may be.
The anger within him now, though a fleeting, fast-burning thing, leaves him feeling just as undone as he had on the bridge.
The elder is unflinching, and his gaze sober. When he speaks again, his voice is somewhat lowered. “You cannot run from your emotions regarding James Kirk. Do not attempt to do so.”
Spock dips his head; closes his eyes. His mouth thins to a tense line as he slowly exhales, seeking uselessly for some semblance of stability to grasp onto.
Even after leaving for campus, his shields continue to waver, as though the slightest increase in pressure could force them to fold. Though he manages to compartmentalize his agitation towards his alternate self, he cannot shake the realization that has set the entire world around him off-kilter.
It was not fear, shock, or mere coincidence that had caused Kirk’s mind to reach out to his through the palm at his throat.
It was recognition.
----
Jim considers skipping his next tutoring session.
He has an abundance of credible excuses: two projects imminently due, a quiz scheduled at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow, and the snowballing exhaustion that comes with one too many late nights studying. Of all people, an Academy instructor shouldn’t hesitate to accept his need to focus his time on more urgent tasks for his actual classes.
But if there’s anything that feels worse than facing Spock after practically running from his apartment, it’s hiding from him because of it.
Kirk spends the entire walk to the Computational Sciences building repeatedly telling himself that he’s capable of being normal in Spock’s presence, old wounds and idiot brains and permanent mind-fucking notwithstanding.
In spite of his best intentions, he still locks up the moment he meets dark eyes.
It takes several seconds for him to realize the slow lift of angled brows is a result of his failure to say anything, whether a hello or a sorry for being slightly to moderately insane in front of you or perhaps were you fucking with me this time? Because it felt like you were fucking with me this time.
He clears his throat and settles for a simple, somewhat awkward greeting instead, his gaze averted as he fetches his PADD from his backpack.
“Your returning travel to your dormitory must have been unpleasant,” the professor posits. “I was somewhat concerned for your well being.”
Jim freezes, glancing back up at the gaze fixed on him. The scrutiny he expects isn’t quite there— but that doesn’t make his next question any easier to force out.
“What do you mean?”
Because you were clearly mentally disturbed.
“You left behind your uniform jacket,” Spock clarifies. “In combination with the severe rain and wind chill, this could have resulted in hypothermia if you did not promptly raise your body temperature after returning indoors.”
Jim blinks once, twice. The uneasy fight that had been rising within him falters.
“I was, uh— okay. But thanks.”
The Vulcan slowly nods. It looks almost like he wants to ask something else, but strangely, there’s an underscore of uncertainty there. Spock— and any Vulcan in general, Jim guesses— almost never seems uncertain about anything. Not outwardly, at least.
After a beat, Spock exhales.
“I desired to make you aware of the fact that I have been in communication with my alternate self,” he notes. “Or ‘Selek’, as he has deemed himself here. He informed me that you already became acquainted on Delta Vega.”
Kirk’s eyes widen. He glances around the office, then at the window behind Spock, but the universe doesn’t appear to be collapsing. Not that he really knows what a collapsing universe would look like.
“Wait— you met him? Like, face to face?”
“Indeed,” Spock affirms, his brow furrowing minutely.
“And nothing… happened?”
The furrow deepens. “Elaborate.”
“I mean— no signs of any reality-breaking… paradoxes?”
If Spock hadn’t been looking at him like he was insane at the apartment, he definitely is now.
“For what reason would you expect a paradox to occur?”
“That’s what you said,” Jim defends. “Old you, I mean. He said he couldn’t come with me to the Enterprise because you two could cause the universe to end if you met each other, or… something like that. It would have been way fucking easier to just bring him with me.” His brows lower. “Wait— I could have just fucking brought him with me?”
Spock seems to buffer for several seconds. There is the tiniest twitch of his features that looks close to irritation, but it’s gone as soon as it came.
“…Yes,” he answers at length. “You could have.”
Kirk huffs an offended breath. “Are you this cryptic in every goddamned universe?”
“Considering that I have only one other reference point, I cannot theorize my pattern of behavior across many universes,” the Vulcan points out. “Moreover, while I cannot speak for my alternate self, I am not in the habit of being ‘cryptic’.”
The cadet snorts. The brief surprise in Spock’s gaze is almost enough to make him forget his frustration with the subject altogether.
“I think I’ve got a pretty good theory,” Jim mutters under his breath, well aware that the professor can still hear him. The tiny resulting twitch in Spock’s brow makes it hard not to crack a smile.
It’s infuriatingly difficult to stay irritated with him.
Though Kirk is more than a little terrified to find out what else Spock’s learned from Selek, the professor evidently doesn’t have anything else to say on the subject. In only seconds, a hoverscreen is back up with the repository of alert logs, and that appears to be that.
Jim hopes that’s that.
But either he’s going crazy again, or the professor is looking at him differently— the change small enough that it could easily just be in Kirk’s head. He tries to tell himself it’s nothing more than paranoia, but every time dark eyes meet his again, he can’t help but wonder.
When Spock hands him his forgotten jacket at the end of the session, he seems even more careful than usual to ensure their fingers don’t brush.
----
Now that he is aware of what to look for, it is difficult to think of anything else.
Jim’s proximity brings with it not only a barrage of vibrant emotions, but the distinct sensation of a thread joining that dynamic mind with his own. It passes straight through his mental shields as easily as a starship cleaves a warpstream in two, driving a brilliant line through the space between them and shining light upon a darkness not known until it was gone.
Every moment that Spock spends in his presence, he is gripped with the nearly irresistible urge to reach out and grasp hold of that thread. It is not a superficial, fleeting desire for connection, but rather a need unfurling from the base of his skull, unshakeable now that it has been woken.
The Vulcan’s only mercy is that this fledgling bond has not been solidified in ceremony. With enough physical distance, it becomes a mere muffled note at the edge of his awareness; one that is easily compartmentalized, even if the need it has dredged up is not.
There are still several weeks left before the end of the semester. Spock has not yet reached a point where he must formalize his decision of whether to stay with Starfleet or leave to join his people’s efforts to rebuild.
But a decision, it seems, has already been made for him; one that has no logical alternative.
As vehemently as he had once denied his capacity for emotional compromise, it is no longer only his grief which could hinder his duties to the Enterprise and to Starfleet. To accept a role as first officer while simultaneously possessing a psychic connection with anyone aboard the ship is already an introduction of compromise; for that person to be his captain foments a potential for compromise even more egregious in severity and consequence.
There is only one solution to this matter.
And yet—
And yet, every time Jim smiles, or tilts his head, or lets loose that brilliant laughter, Spock is struck with the single-minded desire to grab hold of the thread between them and never let go.
He resolves to restrict their interactions to their tutoring sessions. Jim has shown far too much aptitude, too much motivation, too much passion for Spock to deny him of this, at the very least. With the right nurturing, he could truly make an exceptional captain, and if the professor has already taken on the responsibility of assisting him with preparing for that role, he is obligated to see it through— not only for Jim’s sake, but for the sake of Starfleet as a whole.
Although a total avoidance of interaction altogether would be the most effective method with which to resist the pull of the bond, it is only a matter of weeks before these tutoring sessions end, and there will be time enough for separation then. In the meantime, Spock is determined to limit close proximity to these sessions alone.
And then the next weekend arrives, bringing with it a message received late enough into the evening that he has already begun preparing to meditate. A pack of fresh incense is in his hand when the chirp sounds, which he reluctantly sets down with a sigh.
The presence of Jim’s name at the beginning of the notification causes a slight frown to twitch at his lips. As he reads the remainder of the message, his frown only deepens.
CDT James T. Kirk: are captains allowed to get drunk?
Although he has no need for an external clock, he glances at the time displayed in the corner of the interface, affirming that it is 22:51.
He could simply not respond. It is late enough for a delayed reply to be expected.
LCDR S’chn T’gai Spock: Becoming heavily inebriated is inadvisable in any context.
Only seconds later, another message appears.
CDT James T. Kirk: guess they shouldnt have picked me
Spock stares at the reply. He fails to notice the crease that has formed in his brow.
This is not his first time interacting with an inebriated Human. It is rather difficult to avoid, given that intoxicating substances are frequently used for both leisure and socialization within the species. That does not make it any less unpleasant, or him any more willing to repeat such an interaction.
There is no productive use in responding.
LCDR S’chn T’gai Spock: Are you heavily inebriated?
CDT James T. Kirk: heavily is sbjective
CDT James T. Kirk: the bartender still likes me soprobably not
Spock’s blood pressure has slightly elevated. He notes that his pulse has also increased by 8.2 beats per minute.
LCDR S’chn T’gai Spock: At which establishment are you currently located?
CDT James T. Kirk: why do you wanna know
CDT James T. Kirk: jealous?
Stunned into stillness, the Vulcan only manages to stare at the final word on the screen until another message arrives several beats later:
CDT James T. Kirk: joking. joking
He is uncertain what Kirk could possibly find humorous about the accusation. He ignores the fact that his pulse has increased by another 5.3 beats per minute.
LCDR S’chn T’gai Spock: I inquire in order to ascertain your safety. Your communications have implied that you are indeed heavily inebriated and alone at a public establishment.
CDT James T. Kirk: ouch lol
CDT James T. Kirk: im not alone . couple guys bought my last few drinks
Spock hardly registers that he is moving at all until he has already changed out of his meditation robes and back into civilian clothing. Logic dictates that he should halt and evaluate his next course of action.
He exits the lobby of his building 1.7 minutes later.
Several more prompts fail to solicit the exact establishment where the cadet is located. It is of no matter. The thread between them, however weak with distance, still grants him a vague indication of which direction Kirk is located in.
He also neglects to analyze the prudence in engaging this closely with the bond.
It takes a total of 9.4 minutes for him to reach the correct bar. Amidst the unpleasantly loud music and rather strong fragrance of various alcoholic beverages within, James Kirk is slumped forward on a barstool with his head barely supported by the hand his cheek rests on. His eyes are half-lidded, and his smile lopsided as he interacts with the male on the stool beside him, who is leaning in to hear him over the noise.
It is possible that this is a perfectly innocent interaction. It is also possible that the man is an acquaintance of Kirk’s whom Spock has not previously met.
He does not notice the tension coiled tight within him until it becomes audible in the raised voice that interjects, “Cadet Kirk.”
Both men turn towards him, Kirk’s eyes wide enough to verge on owlish. The sight would be almost endearing, were Spock’s blood not currently running hot enough to burn.
“Spock? What’re you doing here?”
“Escorting you back to campus,” he replies curtly. “Immediately.”
The male beside the cadet begins to argue the point. When Spock turns to look at him, he flinches, then quickly stands from his stool, raising his hands and issuing a barely intelligible string of whoa-hey-hey-relax-man-we’regood-relax before promptly retreating to the furthest empty stool.
The Vulcan’s brows twitch in confusion. He glances at the mirror across the bar, which reflects back his own features contorted in unhidden, blatant aggression.
With no small degree of shock, he forces his expression to return to neutrality.
“What the hell— you— how’d y’even know where I am?”
Spock exhales slowly, willing his tone to steady. “…I inferred.”
It is not technically a lie.
Jim grumbles something unintelligible, then slurs, “You’re not allowed to say you’re not cryptic ever, ever, ever again. You’re the most cryptic fucking… I swear… you both…”
He appears to lose the train of thought. With a long sigh under his breath, Spock manages to peel the cadet from his barstool and lead him outside.
“It is highly dangerous for you to lose your mental faculties while alone in a public setting,” the professor admonishes him, though not harshly.
“My faculties are fine,” Kirk mumbles. He is swaying against the arm currently wrapped around him to prevent him from falling.
It isn’t a long walk, but it’s slow-going with the cadet barely on his feet. Though Spock is vaguely aware of rumors regarding Jim’s history with frequenting bars, it is somewhat distressing to imagine him attempting to return home alone in this state.
As they near campus, the professor comes to the realization that he does not, in fact, know where ‘home’ is for the cadet.
“Which building is your dormitory located in?”
Jim makes a noise that lies somewhere between a hum of consideration and a confused moan. “The big one?”
“All of the buildings are identical in size. What number is yours?”
“Mm… good question.”
Spock comes to a halt on the sidewalk, peering down at the cadet with a mixture of disbelief and distress. “You do not recall your building?”
“Nope,” Kirk answers, popping his lips on the ‘p’.
The professor exhales a confounded breath. He glances at the pathway to the student dormitories, then down the sidewalk that leads to his apartment complex.
It is likely that Pike is aware of Jim’s building number, but the time is nearing midnight, and he is almost certainly asleep— as will be any other contact Spock attempts to seek help from. It will be necessary to identify the correct building through his own means.
“…I will bring you to my apartment first. I am able to utilize the student database to determine where you are housed.” A somewhat invasive action, perhaps, though less invasive than utilizing a meld to retrieve the buried information.
“Smart,” Kirk praises, wobbling slightly in his hold. He adds a slurred, “You’re always so smart.”
It is something Spock would have taken for sarcasm or thoughtless nonsense, had he not felt the thread between them humming with a genuine affection. Though both curious and startled, he raises his shields against the feeling and continues guiding him down the sidewalk, resolving to maintain his full attention on the task of returning Jim home.
After depositing the cadet safely on the couch, Spock turns to fetch his PADD from his desk, then hesitates, glancing back at him. Jim’s eyes are heavily lidded, and he is leaning back against the cushions, seeming to barely be keeping himself upright.
“Do not fall asleep,” he instructs. “I estimate that I will require no more than 2.7 minutes to locate your housing information.”
Kirk only responds with a noncommittal hum. Spock sighs under his breath, then retreats into his bedroom.
When he does return 2.7 minutes later, it is to a cadet who is, despite the instruction he received, very much asleep. It is a heavy enough sleep that his mouth is ajar where his head rests against the arm of the couch, and his breathing is tinged with a slight, but discernible snore.
By now, Spock should come to expect that Jim is highly unlikely to do as he is told.
That does not make the issue of the slumbering cadet on his couch any easier to resolve.
Notes:
bones: don’t ever do that shit again
jim, very much doing that shit again: well! i guess it’s time to make this someone else’s problemthank you so much for reading!!! <3
Chapter Text
Kirk’s pretty sure he’s discovered what death feels like.
He’s had hangovers before, but almost definitely none as crippling as this. His head is pounding hard enough that even the task of opening his eyes upon waking is too agonizing to attempt. Instead, he groans and turns to press his face into his pillow in order to block out what little light had been hitting his eyelids, which might as well have been as bright as a fucking supernova.
It takes several minutes of lying in abject misery before he realizes that his pillow feels… weird.
He blindly flops his hand around, determining that he’s not actually in his bed, or any bed for that matter, but on a couch. The fact is somewhat surprising, but not particularly shocking— it’s far from the first time he’s ever woken up somewhere after a night of drinking with no memory of how he got there. Nothing much can really faze him at this point in his life, so long as he hasn’t wound up in a ditch, which has happened more times than he’d care to admit.
There are a lot of ditches in Riverside, in all fairness.
But he isn’t in Riverside anymore, and it’s been a solid few years since he’d last drunk himself into a complete blackout.
The last thing he clearly remembers is getting the ping from Command that his captaincy had been finalized on the contingency that he graduates on time. Everything after that is a blur of getting away from the suddenly claustrophobic space of his dorm, slamming back several glasses about as fast as he could get his hands on them, and then… nothing.
Kirk resolves to investigate exactly where he’s found himself. He turns to crack one eye open, winces at the immediate stab of another ice pick through his pounding skull, and goes back to pressing his face into the cushion until the resulting wave of nausea passes.
Once he finally manages a modest squint, he registers that he’s in an empty living room. The lines around him are fuzzy, barely illuminated by an oncoming dawn that filters through closed curtains. He’s still fully clothed, save for wherever his shoes have wound up, and there’s a pleasantly soft blanket covering him. It smells vaguely familiar— like traces of incense and spice.
The most important things he registers is that it’s still way too fucking early to be up after a night out, and that he appears relatively safe here. Satisfied that there’s no immediate urgency to deal with wherever the hell he’s wound up, he rolls away onto his side, buries his face into the cushions, and gratefully allows the heavy hand of exhaustion to pull him into a brief reprieve from his splitting headache.
The next time Kirk opens his eyes, he remembers exactly why the smell of the blanket is familiar.
He shoots upright, then grips his forehead with a groan, the pain of a fresh ice pick and swell of nausea only made worse by the adrenaline that courses through him, leaving him with only just enough room for the semi-coherent thought of what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck—
“Jim.”
For a second, he almost doubts where he is.
The voice that reaches him is gentle enough to be almost entirely unrecognizable; something that threatens to stir foreign memories of another time and place. The sound pulls his gaze up to the Vulcan currently peering at him from a generous couple paces away, seeming caught between concern and hesitancy. He’s dressed down in civvies— probably the first time Kirk’s ever seen him in anything but a uniform.
Attempting to process all of the above would probably be easier if he didn’t feel like death warmed up. A mixture of confusion, shock, nerves, and heat hits him about as ruthlessly as the invisible knife that’s currently stabbing his brain over and over, rendering his effort to articulate anything of use only resulting in a graceful, “You— what— how the fuck—”
“You were under the influence of a significant amount of alcohol last evening,” the professor quickly interjects. “I attempted to assist you in returning home, but you did not recall the location of your dormitory. You fell asleep here before I was able to retrieve that information.”
Jim’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. “You were at the bar?”
Spock glances away. “I received communications from you that were… concerning in nature. I sought you out in order to ascertain your safety.”
A slow drip of mortification begins to join the uneasy mix.
He retrieves his communicator from his pocket, undeterred by the brightness that stabs straight into his miserable brain. It hardly registers over the horror of reading back over a conversation history that he has absolutely no memory of— one that makes him want to crawl into a hole and bury himself alive about as soon as possible.
“Fuck,” he says, intelligently. Then, “Fuck— I’m sorry, Spock, I don’t remember sending this shit—”
“It is of no consequence,” the Vulcan assures. Still not quite looking at him. “The disturbance is far preferable to the danger you would have encountered while attempting to return home alone in such a state.”
Kirk shakes his head, only half-suppressing a wince at the resulting flare of pain. “You had no obligation to do that—”
“I do.”
Jim is helpless to do anything but stare. Spock finally meets his gaze, but in spite of thousands of transplanted memories of that same face, the emotion there is unfamiliar; too difficult to parse.
“What— because I’m your student? Or your captain?”
He waits for a monotone recitation of regulations, but it doesn’t come. The professor does not answer immediately, and every additional second of silence only surprises Kirk more than the last.
Just as he’s on the verge of awkwardly changing the subject, Spock finally states, “You are welcome to stay as long as you require to prepare for your walk to your dormitory. There is a replicator in the kitchen if you desire sustenance. I suggest drinking a significant quantity of water to address your dehydration. If you will excuse me, I have work I must attend to.”
Jim blinks once, twice, only just managing a short nod and an automatic, “Yeah, uh— yeah, sure. Thanks.”
The cadet stares until the door to Spock’s room whisks closed behind him. As his senses sluggishly return to him, the abject misery of his hangover reasserts itself over his attention, leaving little room for anything but the singular goal of forcing himself out the door and back into his own bed.
But for the entire walk home, that little sliver of his remaining focus is fixed wholly on the texture of the soft blanket that had covered him; the incense and warmth that had created, if only for a few fleeting hours, a sense of total safety.
The sheets in his dorm never felt thin to him before today.
----
Spock has nearly one hundred student projects to review, an ongoing lab experiment to monitor, two lectures to prepare for, and several communications from both the council of elders and his father that he has yet to answer.
He spends 5.5 hours in meditation.
The flame that had sparked in Selek’s office and flared to a blaze at the bar proves no trivial matter to be addressed, scalding him every time he attempts to grasp it. Though far from his first experience of anger, frustration, or even possessiveness, the bond only feeds into the fire, amplifying it to levels beyond decades of training in compartmentalization. With every effort to snuff it out, the golden thread only latches onto him tighter, urging him closer, echoing the singular word that threatens to consume him:
Mine.
It is not merely Human weakness, but pre-Surakian; barbaric.
Every additional hour he spends in meditation is no more fruitful than the last. If anything, his repeated failure to contain the blaze only unravels him further, cementing the looming threat above his head of another complete loss of control.
If the unfamiliar man at the bar had challenged him instead of fleeing, how long would it have taken for him to resort to physical violence?
His lack of an immediate answer to the point is more unsettling than the thought itself.
The sun is already nearing the horizon by the time Spock forces himself to rise and prepare for a largely sleepless night addressing the work he had put off. After changing out of his meditation robes and consuming a brief dinner, he checks his messages with the intent to ensure nothing urgent has arisen before settling in to focus on his work, but is halted in his tracks by a string of unread messages.
CDT James T. Kirk: Wasn’t really sentient this morning. Not sure if I thanked you, but thanks for letting me crash on your couch. I know it wasn’t exactly your choice.
CDT James T. Kirk: There is one thing bothering me though
CDT James T. Kirk: I don’t remember much and our conversation isn’t filling in all the gaps. I’m pretty sure you’re not a regular at any bars around here. How did you know where to find me? Did Bones put you up to that? Or Pike?
At the edge of Spock’s awareness, the thread continues its endless, gentle tug on his attention; an incessant, wanting thing.
In spite of his best efforts, he cannot quite regain total control over his uneasy breathing.
LCDR S’chn T’gai Spock: I visited what I believed to be the most likely establishment based on several variables. I was not wholly certain of your location.
It is, to some degree, a truthful explanation. Depending on one’s definition of truth.
CDT James T. Kirk: Seriously?
CDT James T. Kirk: I mean, that’s kind of impressive
CDT James T. Kirk: Guess you know me better than I thought
I know you far too well, is what Spock thinks. And it would benefit us both if I knew you less.
Knowledge, unfortunately, is in the habit of being irrevocable.
He closes his eyes, exhales, and pockets his communicator.
----
Drunk texting your first officer— who is maybe soon to be not your first officer— probably isn’t the absolute worst thing a guy could do after getting news of his promotion to captaincy, but it sure is up there.
Then again, Jim’s always liked to aim high.
The blackout and resulting idiotic messages may be behind him now, but working up the nerve to tell Spock the fact that he’s slightly desperate to keep him on the Enterprise isn’t. And the former hasn’t exactly made the latter any easier to accomplish.
After the great first impression he’d already made with the Vulcan, he can’t exactly imagine that getting sloppy drunk and taking over his couch helped improve Spock’s opinion of him. And Spock doesn’t particularly come off as someone who would enjoy having a sloppy captain to babysit.
With a mountain of coursework that one too many wasted nights has allowed to snowball, Jim has little room to worry about it for the rest of the weekend. For once, he keeps his head down and glues himself to his textbooks, even if only to ensure that he has absolutely no mental capacity to cringe for the hundredth time at his drunken messaging spree. For a while, at least, he can go back to pretending he’s nothing more than a cadet clawing his way to the title of valedictorian, with the after still some far-off unknown for future Jim to figure out.
Kirk winces slightly. He’s not sure he wants to think about the existence of any future Jim, considering that if any other doubles come barging their way into this universe, it’ll likely snap what tiny shred of sanity he has left to cling to.
As relieving as it is to ignore the worst of his looming responsibilities for a couple days, the end of the weekend brings with it Pike’s release from the hospital, and there’s no hiding from an upcoming captaincy when you’re in the middle of visiting the home of the captain whose quarters you’re about to steal.
It’s his first time seeing the old man since getting the ping from Command, and from the first look in his eyes— pride, concern, and a poorly-hidden tinge of sadness— Chris already knows his fate.
“Don’t give me that look,” Pike chides him in lieu of a greeting, only then making Jim notice the frown that’s unconsciously taken over his lips and the slight knitting of his brow. The captain directs his hoverchair to the side to allow him entry. “You deserve it, Jim. You need to act like it.”
“You deserve it more than I do,” Kirk argues as he steps past the threshold, his tone somewhat low. The space he enters isn’t quite blank, but it’s not particularly homey, either— an obvious mark of an officer who’s far more used to being offworld than grounded. There are bare necessities, maybe a framed picture here or a trinket there, but little else to mark the space as the captain’s. Even after years in San Francisco, it’s Kirk’s first time seeing it at all, considering Pike had spent almost all of his waking hours either at his office or out on an assignment.
Maybe a few months ago, he would have readily agreed with Pike’s assessment. Achieving an early captaincy by any means necessary had been the exact reason Kirk had abandoned the sticks for the city, and breaking the record for earliest promotion by nearly a decade of age should make him feel satisfied, proud, and fucking ecstatic, not ladened by guilt and dread and an honest to God terror—
But, well.
“If you really believe that, then you better serve her well for me,” Pike challenges him. “You’re one of the only souls I’d trust to take my place in the chair. You’ll have the best and brightest under your command, and the largest ship in the fleet. What I deserve is to see you lead that ship to do great things.”
Pike’s always been good at forcing Jim into uncharted territory. There are no passive aggressive comments to navigate here; no simmering outbursts to tiptoe around. This home is lightyears from the farmhouse in far more ways than location or decor— which is as unnerving as it is relieving.
Chris looks nothing like Frank, but bad memories have never been in the habit of being shaken so easily.
Jim only nods, not quite trusting himself to speak.
Though Pike insists that he’d only invited him over for a meal, Kirk still readily takes to the task of helping clean up a home that hadn’t been used for almost two months. Anything to keep his hands occupied— and their conversation far away from starships or Vulcans or looming responsibilities— is a welcome distraction.
But it’s only a matter of time before the captain finally broaches, “Talked to Spock yet about his decision?”
Jim freezes where he’s bent over the open dishwasher, glancing at the old man who’s evidently been watching him. After a beat, he continues adding to the stack of plates in his hands, forcing his focus briefly onto the reliable weight of ceramic; how the glazed surfaces play off of one another with muted clinks.
“Hasn’t come up,” he sidesteps.
“He’s tutoring you on captaincy, and the subject of your first officer hasn’t come up?”
Kirk turns towards the cabinets, pressing his lips together with a sigh through his nose. “I haven’t found the right time,” he amends.
“There is no other time than now,” Pike points out. “And it sounds likely that he’ll be leaving. Command thinks so, at least.”
“Then what can I do about it?” Jim snaps. He sets the plates down and grasps the edge of the countertop, his jaw tensing. “If he wants to leave, he’s going to leave. If anyone’s going to change his mind, it’s not me.”
Silence settles over the kitchen, broken only by the hum of the AC and the distant ticking of a clock. It’s quiet enough for Kirk to hear his own breathing; to become painfully aware of every uneasy shudder of air forced from lungs straining against rock, the weight in his chest only heavier now than it had been on Delta Vega.
He forces a glance over his shoulder. The captain is watching him with a stare that makes one question whether they’ve been reverted to their toddler years for the privilege of throwing an authentic temper tantrum.
“It’s not like you to act helpless, Jim.”
For a fleeting moment, the simmering frustration swells to a boiling point, tensing every muscle and sharpening his tongue, compressing weeks of stress and uncertainty and fear into a firecracker primed to blow—
And in the next breath, the firecracker fizzles, and the puffed up cadet can do nothing but deflate all at once.
Kirk glances away, his gaze dipping to his white-knuckled grip on the counter. The weight in his chest feels as deep of a well as the black hole that had consumed Vulcan, an intangible hunger that gnaws ceaselessly at anything and anyone in its reach, as damning as it is inescapable.
With scenes of another universe woven between every thought, he’s not all that sure what’s like him anymore.
----
Spock is halfway through filling his kettle when his communicator chirps.
The screen on the kitchen table is illuminated with an incoming call. He had expected this, given that he had returned a message from his father only 5.3 minutes ago, and Sarek often prefers the efficiency of spoken conversations over typed ones—
But on his approach, it is not his father’s name that greets him on the screen.
He glances towards the time displayed in the corner, verifying that it is, indeed, 21:03.
“Spock here.”
“Hey.” He fails to suppress the quickening of his pulse at the simple syllable. “Uh, sorry for calling you this late, but I need to talk about… something.”
It is somewhat relieving to hear that Jim’s speech is not slurred, given the odd hour. However, it is difficult to theorize why the cadet would be calling him at this time for any other reason— and any situation that eludes even an educated guess is always an uneasy one.
“To what do you refer?”
A pause. “Can we talk in person? I can come to you.” The cadet lets out a soft, nervous laugh. “I promise not to fall asleep on your couch again.”
The fact that the latter notion is not a displeasing one only surprises Spock more than the request itself.
His response should be an automatic denial. Would have been, were it anyone else. There is still work to be completed before his coming lecture in the morning; one he has not yet finished planning, which is almost certainly a more urgent matter than anything Jim desires to discuss.
But he responds instead, “That is acceptable.”
After returning his communicator to the table, he fetches the forgotten kettle. Spock steps towards the stove, then pauses, glancing back at the sink.
Somewhat reluctantly, he fills the kettle with an extra cup of water.
The knock comes only 4.2 minutes later. Though the sound is expected, it still makes the Vulcan’s pulse quicken further.
A nervous air hangs around the cadet at his door, which only appears to worsen as Jim makes his way towards the table. By the time he’s seated, he’s fidgeting with his hands, the movement appearing unconscious.
“Do you desire tea?”
Cyan eyes fully meet his for the first time, the initial surprise there giving way to an emotion Spock cannot parse. Even over the muted bond between them, Jim’s state of mind isn’t wholly clear.
“Sure,” the cadet answers, somewhat hoarsely. He clears his throat, then repeats, “Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”
The acceptance is strangely pleasing. Spock does not linger on the feeling.
Kirk automatically wraps his hands around the mug he’s given, tapping his thumbs absently against the surface. He appears to be particularly interested in staring at an invisible spot on the wall.
“What did you desire to discuss?”
Jim lets go of the mug, squirming slightly in his seat. His stare moves to a spot somewhere behind the Vulcan’s head.
“Are you leaving Starfleet?”
The cadet’s nerves, though muffled by the shields between them, are loud enough to be felt over the bond. Though his restlessness is plain on his features, the intensity of the anticipation behind the question is not. It is yet another glimpse into Kirk’s state that he would not have seen without the bond— and yet another act of trespassing, intentional or not.
“I have not yet made a formal decision,” he answers carefully, forcing his attention away from the shivering thread. “But I have been offered a position at the Vulcan Science Academy, which will be amongst the first rebuilding efforts. In the interim, I would be assisting with planning, as well as the continued education of the surviving students.”
Kirk’s hands return to his mug. The movement of his fingers is illogically distracting.
“And you want to do that? Leave for New Vulcan?”
Spock should not want to do anything. Decisions based on desire are irresponsible; childish. An embarrassment for any Vulcan adult to indulge in.
“It would be a logical choice,” he hedges. “There are few Vulcans left to aid the establishment of the colony. Furthermore, I would not be the optimal selection for your first officer.”
Jim’s gaze finally returns to his, startled. “What— why would you think that?”
The thread shudders with distress, tugging fiercely at his attention. In an effort to subdue it, Spock rushes to explain, “A command team cannot be formed around a bond without risking compromise—”
And the thread goes taut with shock, and the lazy ascent of steam from twin mugs is the only movement at the kitchen table.
Jim’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. His tone is lower, almost strained as he echoes, “A bond?”
“A friendship,” Spock stiffly amends.
Public knowledge of Vulcans has always been limited to the bare minimum, and bonds are certainly not included in that minimum. No Human should know of any special meaning behind the word.
No Human that has not been granted that knowledge by another Vulcan.
But Kirk’s complexion is distinctly paler than it was seconds ago, and the movement of his hands has ceased, and the thread has stilled.
A short, uneven breath leaves the cadet. He swallows, shaking his head in a tiny, absent movement.
“You’re not as good of a liar as him.”
Notes:
thank you SO much for reading!!! this week has been another rough one and i'm really glad for the opportunity to get to decompress with some writing and share with you all <3
total chapter estimate is now up, but as always if that changes i'll update in the next note!
Chapter Text
In the time that Jim’s known Spock, he’s seen him enraged, grieved, exhausted, amused— an array of emotions he never would have thought possible just from that first glimpse at him across the podiums.
Tonight, though, is the first time he’s seen him speechless.
Spock either has no rebuttal, or he’s too startled to give one. Probably for the best, considering that a single additional syllable of denial would be enough to make the cadet’s poorly-contained clusterfuck of emotions hit their boiling point.
Unlike Spock, Jim has more than a few choice words perched on his tongue. He settles first for a tense, “How long?”
Beneath the ever-present analysis, something flickers through dark eyes; unease, maybe, or simple guilt.
“I believe it resulted from our physical contact during our altercation on the bridge,” Spock answers at length. When Kirk’s eyes widen, he quickly adds, “I was not immediately aware of its formation. I dismissed the notion as impossible until I learned of your meld with Selek.”
Pinpricks of cold race from Jim’s scalp down through his body. He’d hoped, or maybe had just been willfully ignorant to the possibility, that Selek had kept that detail of their meeting to himself. The confirmation that Spock is well aware of the fact— has been for weeks— sends that clusterfuck of emotions from overwhelming to nauseating.
And if Spock is aware of their meld, if he knows just how deeply Selek’s mind touched his—
Kirk dips his head and squeezes his eyes shut, as though anything could block out the endless scenes of a life far from his own.
He’d never been remotely certain how Spock would react if he ever learned of the alternate lives they’d lived together, but running away from Starfleet hadn’t even crossed Jim as a possibility. Running away with a fucking bond between them, at that. Though he hadn’t ever placed much trust in the claim that he didn’t need to hide anything from Spock, he figured the worst that could happen would be Spock giving him the Vulcan treatment, all silent disdain and blank formalities.
It’s almost bleak enough to make Jim laugh. Either Old Spock doesn’t know himself at all, or he’s playing another giant cosmic fucking joke on him.
“You want to leave because of me,” Kirk says— something that had formed in his head as a question, but comes out on far too flat of a tone to really be asking.
He can’t force himself to look at the professor anymore, but in his peripheral, he sees him tense up.
Bingo.
Kirk isn’t sure whether he’s glad that his Spock is a bad liar, or if it would have been more merciful for him to take after his elder self.
“That is not—”
“Don’t,” he snaps, seeming to surprise the both of them with the suddenness of his interjection. Jim stands from the table, if only to redirect the restless, white-hot energy in him that begs to be let out through fists. The mortifying threat of angry tears is enough of a distraction, at least, that his hands stay open at his sides. “You don’t owe me anything here, you don’t have to like me— we’re not them. But that doesn’t mean you have the right to feed me bullshit.”
Spock’s brows twitch closer to one another with a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Jim, I do not—”
“Just—,” Kirk holds his hands up, splaying his fingers wide. “If you want to go, then go. You can deal with asking Selek what to do about the bond.” That word on his tongue, spoken in countless foreign memories but never here, inches the threat of angry tears closer. “I’m not in the mood to get fucked around with again.”
The columns of steam have dissipated, leaving the mugs on the table lukewarm. A muted flicker of curiosity crosses Jim, wondering how the untouched drink would have tasted; if it would have been anything like the spice he can smell on Spock when he gets close enough, or like the soft blanket he’d been covered with.
His throat feels painfully tight.
This time, when he flees the professor’s apartment, he has the coherency and resolve to mean it.
----
Spock is not certain how much time passes.
He does not touch his mug, nor the one that sits in front of an empty chair. A chirp of his communicator fails to rouse his attention, as does the distant chatter of colleagues walking past his apartment door.
It is only once a pang of hunger pierces through him, and the reality of the physical world presses its weight back upon him, that he is finally forced from the table.
The motions of his night routine feel as numb now as they had those first few hours after returning home from the Narada. At the time, he had been convinced that he would master that loss just as he had mastered every other emotion; that with enough discipline, he would never feel as hollow again as that day had left him.
It had not occurred to him until tonight that loss is not something reserved only for the dead.
In the weeks past, the notion of leaving Starfleet had been intangible; a theoretical, better future that would save him from disarray. Jim’s rather jarring introduction to this future had been the hunger pang to drag the theoretical into the physical. New Vulcan is no longer a distant ideal, but rather a place where he will go, and Jim will not follow.
Beneath the weight of this newfound reality is not only dread, regret, or uncertainty— there is also troubled confusion, fixed on a simple, fleeting statement that he had failed to gain clarity of at the time of its assertion.
We’re not them.
Humans are often prone to mistakes in their wording while in agitated states. Spock would have assumed this to be the case, had those words not been spoken with a waver of emotion that had struck deeply enough to shake the foundations of the bond between them.
The words remain with him as he forces himself to eat, clean the dishes, and change into his evening clothes. He passes over his meditation robe for regulation sleepwear, finding the heaviness of his body too deep for the mat to bear.
Meditation would not have saved him from dreaming, regardless.
----
It’s just past 02:00 when Kirk jolts awake.
He lurches upright fast enough to make his head spin, stoking the nausea that images of off-navy always dredge up. Though his stomach is empty— has been for longer than he can remember— he knows from enough restless nights that his body will try its damned best to empty it anyways unless he forces himself to calm down in the next minute or two.
Jim’s never really been one for breathing exercises, having mostly sneered at them in what sporadic therapy he’d been forced through as a teenager, but he’s willing to try almost anything tonight. It’s not only tacky uniforms or giant drills bringing the taste of bile to the back of his throat, but scenes from a life that’s drifted even further from his own, more mocking now than they already had been.
After control over his body slowly returns to him, he gets up to splash cold water on his face, the shock to his senses welcome. The reflection he meets in the mirror has dark shadows under the eyes, mussed hair, and a slightly dead look around the edges that particular dreams tend to leave him with. He can already hear the astute observation he’s bound to get from Bones: You look like shit.
He wonders if he was on Tarsus in that other life, too. Probably not, considering everything seems to have been quite peachy for that hazel-eyed bastard.
At the uncomfortable rush of memory of his own Spock, he slumps to the floor of his bathroom with a moan, thunking his head back into the wall.
With his head spinning like a carousel at the time, the concept of being mind-linked with someone hadn’t had a chance to really sink in. Now, in the uncomfortable stillness of night, if he focuses the entirety of his attention on a strange sensation at the edge of his awareness, it’s something that feels distinctly similar to the connection they’d had in another universe— much weaker, a shadow of what it had grown into over decades spent at each other’s sides, but unmistakable now that he knows to look.
T’hy’la, a deep voice murmurs over the tides of space and time. Never and always—
Jim thunks his head back into the wall again. It doesn’t fix anything, but the resulting ache is a much more merciful target for his attention.
----
Spock has never been particularly pleased with his alternate self.
It was his actions that had ultimately set off the domino effect ending in Vulcan’s destruction, and even disregarding the catastrophic chain of events, it was Selek who hid his existence— Selek, who melded with a Human and willfully neglected to address any negative outcomes he had caused, intentional or not.
Now, however, Spock holds no simple wariness towards the elder Vulcan, but rather something that borders dangerously close to contempt. Something has occurred to cause Jim to react in such an extreme emotional manner— to hold any knowledge of what a bond is to begin with— something that Selek had withheld from him that morning in his office.
Spock does not announce his intention to visit before journeying back to the Vulcan government’s temporary headquarters. He consequently finds Selek in the middle of a meeting, and regardless of whether it is the fire in his gaze or the tension that binds his frame, the elder is wise enough to depart early in order to speak alone with him.
“I did not anticipate our crossing paths again so soon—”
“You have withheld information from me,” Spock swiftly cuts him off, his hands balling into fists at his sides. Though Selek has seated himself at his desk, the younger Vulcan remains standing.
“I have withheld information from everyone in this universe,” Selek points out, unflinching. “You are aware of my intent to minimize my influence on this timeline.”
Spock’s jaw twitches. “You have withheld information from me that could endanger Cadet Kirk’s health.”
The elder’s brows twitch towards his bangs. “The mere transference of memories without modification or destruction cannot cause psychic harm in and of itself. I did not damage Jim’s mind.”
Spock freezes, stilling so thoroughly that he fails to take in any air until his lungs begin to burn with its absence.
“‘Memories’?”
Selek pauses, studying him for a long beat. “I apologize. Based on your claim, I assumed that Jim had shared this information with you.”
The professor takes a sudden step forward, his fists tightening at his sides. “What memories?”
“My memories,” Selek answers calmly. “Memories unrelated to Nero that I had not intended to transfer through our meld. If he has not chosen to share this matter with you, I am uncertain of the prudence in speaking any further on the subject. I can assure you that I have disclosed all other pertinent information.”
“I am not certain that our definitions of pertinence would align,” Spock snaps before he can restrain himself. He takes a steadying breath, but it does little to calm him. “Moreover, I have a right to know—”
“Have you attempted asking him?”
Spock’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. Before he can formulate a reply, Selek continues, “If you are concerned with Jim’s health, allow him to trust you enough to disclose this with you. Seeking to obtain information about his state behind his back will only damage that, and by now, you are likely aware that Jim is not one to trust easily.”
The professor’s fists twitch, then slowly release at his sides. He glances away, his gaze dipping towards the floor, unfocused. With a tone low enough to barely be audible, Spock corrects, “He is now aware that I chose not to disclose the existence of a bond with him. I have already lost his trust.”
For a long beat, there is silence. Then, Selek echoes with an audible tinge of surprise, “You have bonded with him?”
Spock closes his eyes, exhaling a tense breath. “At a surface level. I believe it is the result of your meld with him and our skin contact on the bridge.”
Even simply acknowledging the bond aloud only seems to make the muted thread hum louder, and the cracks in his shields drive deeper. Spock desires to place light years of distance between himself and that thread just as much as he desires to align his fingertips to psi-points he has ached to touch for far longer than he has been willing to recognize.
“Then it is all the more important that you reestablish communication with him,” the elder asserts. “If you approach him with honesty, he will receive you.”
Spock shakes his head in a slight movement. “I do not believe he desires anything from me aside from the severance of our bond.”
“Ask him,” Selek repeats. “You have seen where assumptions lead.”
Beneath the humming thread and the cracked shields, there is not only anger threatening to break through to the surface; another presence lies beneath the noise, quieter but crueler, striking not with heat, but with a chill cold enough to burn.
There is fear.
----
If finals weren’t rapidly approaching, Jim probably would have skipped his classes in favor of regressing to a minimally sentient mound of blankets on his bed.
As it stands, his scores on the exams he’ll be taking next week probably won’t be helped by breaking his otherwise perfect attendance record— and with a captaincy riding on his graduation, he can’t afford to slip up now. Bombing any of his finals hard enough could mean the letter grade of a single class pulling the rug out from under his feet, leaving him with no ship and nothing to make all those stupid tutoring sessions mean anything.
Given that his little apartment visit left him with the feeling that he’s already had a rug or twenty pulled out from under him, he counts himself lucky that he even manages to drag himself to his classes. He may not be quite steady on his feet, and his head might be thoroughly fucked, but he can at least half-heartedly listen to his lectures and make recordings for a later, hopefully more sane Jim to go back over during exam prep.
He’s even starting to think he’s managing to pass as a somewhat-functioning person until Bones approaches him in the mess hall at lunch, takes one look at him, and observes, “You look like shit.”
“Thanks, Bones. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”
McCoy directs a flat look at him as he settles across the table. “I’m not here to make you feel special, I’m here to make sure you’re not on death’s doorstep. Are you hungover?”
“No,” Kirk quickly defends. Not today, at least, he thinks with a belated, internal wince. For all Bones knows, he’s been sober since the doctor tracked down his sorry ass on his failed fishing trip. “It was just… a long night.”
Bones hums, the sound not entirely convinced. “Behind on classes?”
“More than a little,” Jim admits, grateful for any change in subject that will let him stop thinking about a stupid professor for more than a few seconds at a time. “I’m probably gonna have to lock myself in my dorm until—”
“Cadet Kirk?”
The cadet in question freezes, hoping for several blind seconds that his thoroughly-fucked brain is just playing tricks on him—
But when he glances up, he’s met with the sight of a professor clad in black, towering over the table with his hands clasped behind his back. Well, probably not trying to tower over anyone, given the hesitancy that’s just barely visible in dark eyes. Standing in an irritatingly tall manner is probably a more apt description.
“I’m here, too, you know,” McCoy complains, forcing the two men to break their silent stare.
With a slight twitch of his brow, Spock nods at the doctor, then returns his attention to Kirk. “May I have a word with you?”
Jim’s thoroughly-fucked brain is definitely playing tricks on him.
If he was alone at the table, he probably would have come up with some impressively innovative ways to tell the professor to fuck off, considering he has about as much desire to talk to him as he had when he’d stormed out of his apartment. With Bones watching the exchange, though, Jim is more motivated to conceal anything being off between them, knowing the headache of an interrogation he’d get later would be much worse than dealing with Spock for a few minutes.
“Sure,” he forces, rising from his seat and glancing at his friend. “I guess I’ll be back soon.”
The small plaza and branching sidewalks outside are covered with clumps of cadets sharing their lunches under a spotless sky and a pleasantly warm sun. The pair attract more than a few curious glances as Spock leads Jim towards an empty bench, far enough away from the entrance that the campus chatter softens to a murmur.
“I do not intend to engage you in an extended discussion at this time,” the professor begins, somewhat stiff where he sits about as far from Kirk as he can get on the bench. “I am certain your schedule is full, as is mine. However, I desired to request a discussion this evening, if you are amenable.”
The cadet’s brow furrows. He shifts uncomfortably before glancing away, suddenly interested in a distant clump of red on the plaza. “I don’t have much else to say to you, Spock.”
“The matter is important,” Spock insists. “And urgent. I apologize for any distress that I have caused you. I do not intend to do so again.”
Jim could point out the dramatic fucking understatement that causing distress is. He could also point out that intent won’t mean anything once the professor is gone.
It’s annoyingly difficult to point out anything with dark eyes on him, warmed by the sun and earnest— almost nervous, if the sleep deprivation isn’t playing tricks on Kirk’s sight.
The cadet sighs under his breath.
“Fine. But I can’t stay long.”
And if the sleep deprivation isn’t playing tricks on him, there’s a little relief there, too.
----
The passage of time does not change.
Though Spock knows this, the day still appears to progress at a crawl. Counting the bloated progression of seconds is nearly intolerable, and no matter the importance of any task he engages with, he struggles to reorient his attention towards anything but evening’s approach.
He plans to meditate before Jim’s arrival, but by the time he arrives home, there is only an hour left until their scheduled meeting— far too little time to adequately address the cold presence that continues to creep through the cracks in his shields. It is the same chill that has impeded his ability to maintain control over his physiological functioning since departing from Selek’s office, and as the meeting time creeps ever closer, the chill only bites deeper.
The knock at his door is both a relief and an upheaval.
Again, the desire to gain light years of distance and the desire to reach out grate against one another, distracting enough that he does not consciously register that he is leading Jim into his living room until he is already seated with him on the couch, nothing obstructing them but space.
Spock does not acknowledge the fact that this is pleasing, nor the fact that the table would have been a perfectly adequate place for a discussion. He keeps his hands folded in his lap.
“I believe there has been a miscommunication between us,” he cautiously begins. “Are you under the impression that I am aware of the details of your meld with Selek?”
Kirk’s mouth parts silently. It takes several seconds for him to manage, “...Yes? You talked to him, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Spock acknowledges. “But he disclosed only that he had engaged in a meld to demonstrate the context of Nero’s attack, and that he had transferred more information than he intended. I do not hold any further knowledge of the event.”
The expression across from him is difficult to parse, even as overly expressive as the Human tends to be. A slight tension is woven through his features, and emotions flicker through widened eyes too quickly to grasp. With his sensitive hearing, Spock is able to detect that his breaths have turned slightly more shallow.
“Jim,” he continues at length, his voice lowered. “What did he show you?”
Kirk watches him for a beat, then exhales a weak laugh. “I really don’t think you want to know.”
Cold shudders through the cracks in his shields, forcing tiny fissures to expand into spiderwebs of fault lines. Spock’s pulse is significantly above its normal resting rate.
Even he is not certain of his own desire until the words come, regardless: “I do.”
Jim breaks his gaze, swallowing.
“I mean— I don’t know where I’d start,” he admits. “How to even explain…”
The cadet laughs again, humorless. His lips remain slightly parted, but he does not speak. Spock waits for him to continue, despite the fact that waiting is swiftly growing just as intolerable as counting any length of time spent apart.
When Jim finally meets his gaze again, there is a tinge of fear far too familiar for comfort.
“Can I just show you?”
Spock’s brows twitch upwards. He ignores the further increase in his pulse, and the brief floundering sensation in his side. “You refer to a meld?”
The cadet nods. “I’d just… rather you see it for yourself.”
The pads of Spock’s fingertips ache.
“I cannot fully anticipate what impact engaging in a meld may have on our bond,” he warns. “Doing so may be unwise.”
“It can’t really get much worse than this,” Jim muses with a humorless smile. “Right?”
There is a baser part of Spock’s mind that considers the notion of engagement with the bond rendering anything worse as absurd; that insists nothing would be worse than failing to reach out.
“I cannot be certain,” he states, far too unwilling to admit to a simple fact than he should be.
Kirk lets out a sigh under his breath. “Just do it before I change my mind.”
He is quickly finding himself incapable of denying Jim anything. The thought should be more troubling than it is.
There is no time to contemplate the matter; not after the pads of his fingertips meet Jim’s psi-points, and all thought flees but the illogical, irresistible desire to join with a mind made for his own.
Notes:
thank you so much for reading!! sorry this was a smidge late, it’s been a bit of another hectic week, but i'm really glad to have this chapter wrapped up! <3
i made a post about this on tumblr (@jimtranskirk) but also wanted to update here, i’ll likely be posting some non-trek fics soon and you may see one up in the next week or so! i’m a bit nervous as it’s quite the change after years of being a single-fandom account, so i’m hoping not to bother any subscribers too much 😅 i’ll be posting related fic updates on a sideblog that i’ll have a link to on my main soon, so if you’d like to see any writing updates, catch me on tumblr! if i wind up a little later than expected again on the final chapter for this fic, i’ll also be sure to post an update there :)
Chapter Text
Spock opens his eyes.
The colors and lights around him are far brighter than the apartment, taking several seconds to adjust to. As his vision clears, he registers that he is no longer in his domicile, nor any location on Earth at all, but on the bridge of a starship.
A science console winks in front of him. Its design is slightly different from what his eidetic memory reports; some buttons altered, certain labels changed. Still, he knows this belongs to the Enterprise. The rest of the bridge is much the same: certain small differences are present, but the whole is unchanged.
So, too, is the man who enters his vision to lean a hip against the science console— his golden hair and the lines of his features unmistakable, but hazel present where cyan should be.
“I have a proposition,” Jim says, a crooked smile playing at his lips. “And I’d like you to hear me out, Mr. Spock.”
Spock has many questions he desires to ask, the least of which involves uncovering this proposition. And yet, the words leave him before he can so much as register the thought: “I’m listening, Captain.”
“Play chess with me,” Kirk requests. “My quarters, 20:00. I know you’re a grandmaster who probably believes he can’t be beaten by some measly Human, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
What Spock thinks is, Your quarters? Are you presently captain of the Enterprise? What has happened—
But what he says, instead, is, “I do not doubt that to be the case.”
And a brightened smile all but drowns him.
The bridge rapidly dissolves into darkness, as though being broken down by the transporter to be reassembled elsewhere. Once the atoms realign, they are formed not in the same pattern, but instead compose a starship captain’s quarters.
Spock reaches out to take a chess piece in hand— a black rook. Its weight is solid in his grasp, and its ceramic texture cool.
I have been here before, he thinks, illogically. I have sat at this board hundreds of times.
He pays no mind to where he places the rook— pays no mind to anything but this strange sensation of familiarity until a voice declares, “Checkmate.”
The manner in which Jim is looking at him is far from the simple pleasure of victory. There is something else there— something he has seen hints of in cyan, but never as blatantly as it’s now being directed at him from across the desk.
It is a pure, unmistakable affection.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Jim smiles. The flirty disposition he had begun the game with is overshadowed now by a growing earnestness; one that causes the useless organ in Spock’s side to flounder. “I don’t think I’d be able to do this without you.”
And again, Spock’s next words come automatically on a lowered voice, “I am glad to be here with you.”
The captain’s smile brightens too much to bear, a sun that threatens to burn the Vulcan for his reckless closeness. When he turns to look back, the scene has dissolved and reassembled into the quiet wilderness of an unfamiliar alien world.
Beside him, there are shadows under hazel eyes. Though his gaze is appreciative of the landscape around them, there is an exhaustion that dulls what otherwise should have been vibrant.
“On my world, the nights are very long,” Spock hears himself speak, drawing the captain’s attention back to him. “And the sound of silver birds against the sky…”
His focus strays from his continuing speech to the distant sensation of a squeezing in his side. His world no longer exists; not where he is from. But here…
“…You could come with me for a rest. You would feel comfortable there.”
Jim’s startled expression ebbs into a sad smile. He leans his shoulder against Spock’s, and when his first officer makes no move to pull away, allows his head to rest on the Vulcan’s shoulder.
“All the time in the world…,” Kirk murmurs.
And the world dissolves again.
The scenes begin to blur, a carousel steadily picking up speed. Everywhere, there is Jim— sometimes elated, sometimes angry, sometimes falling apart at the seams— and everywhere, there is Spock at his side, as though he has always been there and always will be. He follows him through endless red alerts, dragging shifts, exciting missions, and places where no man has gone before— and eventually, he follows him to an altar on a planet long gone, grasping hold of the fledgling thread between them and weaving it into a true bond, a t’hy’la bond, unbreakable.
And it is here, playing both the subject and the observer of this incomprehensible scene, that he feels a sadness not his own— a bitter envy, hopeless and resigned, underscored by a faint strain reminiscent of the surface tension of a drop of water threatening to break.
And then the drop bursts, and the atoms dissolve into nothingness.
It is only once he’s thrown from Jim’s mind that he recalls he had been engaging in a meld to begin with. Never before has he experienced another’s memories so acutely— perhaps because the mind that had recorded them is supposedly the very same as his own, or perhaps for no logical reason at all, as is often the case with any matters where Jim is involved.
By the time Spock fully registers his return to his apartment, Kirk has already stood from the couch and taken several steps away. His body is tense, shaking slightly with his arms folded over his chest, and though he glances towards the front door, he does not retreat any further.
“I told you,” he says without turning back, his voice hoarse. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”
Spock slowly stands. His hand twitches, rising to reach out, then withdrawing, uncertain how to navigate the tangled lines between them now.
“Jim—”
“I’m not him,” Kirk interrupts, speaking to some distant point near the door. “I never will be. Whatever you saw— whatever you think you might want, I can’t give that to you. I can’t be him for you.”
An agitated Human is unlikely to desire any form of physical contact. Even as tactile of a person as Jim is, that trait will almost certainly be overshadowed during surges of anger.
But in spite of what he would have perceived months ago, it is not anger causing the man before him to shake, or any manner of frustration pulling his wavered tone taut enough to snap.
It is a grief that Spock is far too familiar with: one for a life that could have been, but will never be.
Before the professor is fully conscious of the action, he has already reached out, placing a careful hand on Kirk’s shoulder. Even through the fabric of his shirt, he can feel the spike of surprise that accompanies the shiver of the bond.
“I do not desire for you to be him,” Spock corrects, his voice lowered. “I desire for you to be you.”
Jim turns to look at him, his lips parted. Perhaps more sharply than anything else he has felt tonight, Spock is stricken with a pang through his side at the cadet’s simple, disbelieving, “Why?”
Why does the planet turn, or the moon shine, or the sun rise again?
Though there is no stern father or smug peer to look down upon him here, he cannot give voice to such an emotional response. Shame remains a bitter presence on the back of his tongue; one he has never quite been able to wash out, no matter how devoutly he follows Surak’s teachings.
But if there is one matter in which even Surak would concede logic, it is this.
“Because we are t’hy’la,” Spock answers. “Regardless of appearance, the course of our histories, or our present circumstances. I failed to recognize this before, but I know it to be true now.”
Kirk’s eyes are shining. His muscles are taut as though prepared to run, but he remains fixed in place.
“That doesn’t mean you have to love me,” he argues, his voice brittle. A resurgence of bitter hopelessness colors the bond, even stronger now than it had been during the meld, just as difficult to swallow as the taste of shame.
Spock is not certain if there exists any words to sufficiently retort such a statement. Anything short of a meld seems inadequate to convince Jim of the whole truth; to fully convey the depth of his feelings that are rooted far deeper than mere reactions to memories of another space and time.
And so, rather than attempting to debate the matter, he steps forward to pull Kirk closer.
He has not shared a Human hug with anyone since he had last hugged his mother well over a decade ago. The exact hours, minutes, and seconds of the event are lost on him, as is anything but the feeling of Jim in his arms, stiff at first, then melting in his grasp. Although the shock and disbelief doesn’t abate as fully as Spock would have hoped, relief becomes the dominant note that hums along the thread between them.
And for now, it is enough.
----
Kirk really did mean to study for his exams.
Admittedly, in the past couple weeks, there have been times he has procrastinated on that with absolutely no intention of returning to productivity anytime soon. The stress of an impending captaincy and simultaneous mindfuck doesn’t always make schoolwork particularly appealing, even if that schoolwork could stand directly in the way of his captaincy.
Tonight, though, he was serious about returning to his dorm in at least a vaguely timely manner so he could actually sit his ass down and start preparing.
The fact that he finds himself in Spock’s bed at 22:40 instead of studying is something he blames entirely on the professor.
Despite the fact that he’s still just as clothed as he’d been when he walked through the door, minus only his jacket and boots, Kirk feels more bare here than he has in anyone else’s bed he’s ever shared. There’s no plan here— no plain intentions from both parties to have a little fun and split before the sun rises. There’s only a pleasant sleepiness, a strange sense of comfort, and a Vulcan who continues to watch him like he’s stumbled across some previously undiscovered species.
Really, Jim’s not far off from holding the same sentiment, considering that actually staying a full night in someone else’s bed is uncharted territory for him.
As bizarre as the thought feels, he almost begins to surrender himself to it, but just as his eyes grow heavy enough to slip closed, he realizes that something is… off.
It had been a tiny nagging sensation at the edge of his awareness, but as more time passes in close proximity with the professor, the sensation of his presence over the bond becomes more clear— as does the sensation that he’s holding something back.
“What’s bothering you?” Jim murmurs, struggling to keep his eyes open. In the dim lighting, the tinge of surprise he catches in the Vulcan’s gaze is enough to nudge him further towards alertness.
“To what do you refer?”
“You tell me,” Kirk insists. “The bond goes both ways. You feel… I don’t know. A little tense.”
The room is quiet enough to hear Spock’s breathing; how it pauses for just a beat too long before continuing its steady tempo.
“I hold no negative emotions regarding you or the bond,” the Vulcan reassures. “The disturbance is unrelated.”
Jim frowns slightly. “What is it?”
There is silence again, gaping wide enough that he almost wonders whether the professor is banking on him falling asleep before he can nag the answer out of him.
But then Spock admits, quieter, “Seeing Vulcan through my alternate self’s memories was more compromising than I anticipated.”
Oh. God, Kirk hadn’t even been thinking about that. His own bitterness towards the bonding ceremony had drowned out anything else in the meld— but stopping to think about that for even a second, he recalls that not only was the ceremony on Vulcan, but Spock’s mother was there. Even if only through a brief glimpse, he had witnessed Amanda older than he’ll ever see her here.
“Fuck— I’m sorry,” Jim says, and for an embarrassing few seconds, that’s the only thing his brain can produce. Occupying the space of someone else’s grief is just as foreign to him as sleeping beside anyone, and no easier to intuit how to navigate.
Particularly when his last handling of this specific subject involved hurling the worst insults he could come up with in order to goad him into a fight.
He doesn’t have many more inspiring words now, but when he reaches out, at least, Spock doesn’t pull away. Jim inches closer until he can get his arm around the Vulcan, closing the gap between them and tucking his head against his shoulder. A few beats pass before the professor weaves an arm around him, and with the silent concession, Kirk begins to rub slow, mindless patterns into his back and murmurs, “It’s okay to be compromised. I would be, too.”
Rich words coming from him, he knows. But with the way that Spock holds him just a little tighter, it seems that the message gets through.
----
For the first time in weeks, Spock wakes from a dreamless sleep.
There is a Human plastered against him, still dozing as the light of the early sun begins to peer through the curtains. From the skin contact where Jim’s forehead brushes against the Vulcan’s collarbone, he can sense that he has not been dreaming, either. A usually vibrant mind hums now at a single note, warm and content, dormant for the time being.
There is work to be done, and no logic in prolonging it any further.
Still, Spock has no desire to move. He tells himself it is simply to avoid waking Jim, not quite ready to acknowledge how displeasing the thought of losing his physical contact has already become.
Even without any disturbance, Kirk gradually comes awake only 28.8 minutes later. His nose wrinkles slightly as though in protest of being forced back into the waking world, and it is only after several groggy blinks that he seems to realize where he is.
“Oh,” he says.
Well beyond Spock’s control now, the corners of his lips twitch upwards. Though it is only a slight movement, Kirk seems to pick up on it by the small smile he automatically mirrors in response.
“Good morning, Jim.”
Light eyes glance around the room, then return to him. “What time is it?”
“06:58.”
“Shit—,” the cadet curses, removing himself somewhat regretfully from the Vulcan’s grasp. “I’m gonna be late for my first class if I don’t get back to my dorm, like, five minutes ago.”
“In that case, it would appear that you will be late regardless,” Spock lifts a slight brow, admittedly somewhat amused at the huff he receives in reply.
“I know, Spock.”
It is strangely pleasing, seeing Jim again in this context: his hair mussed, still blinking the sleep from his eyes. Even as the Vulcan assists in fetching the jacket that the cadet had misplaced the prior evening, he is tempted to urge him to stay; to drink in this allowance of imperfection, if only for a little longer.
“Sorry,” Kirk hurriedly adds at the door, “for, uh— leaving like this.” A slight coloring of red is visible on his face, though Spock isn’t certain whether this is due to fluster or the exertion of a quick departure. “I’ll see you later?”
“Indeed.”
Jim’s small smile, though visible for only moments before he leaves, remains an afterimage in the Vulcan’s mind for the remainder of the morning.
He takes 49.6 seconds longer to make his bed than his previous average. A significant portion of that time is lost due to continual distractions: the traces of Kirk’s scent that linger in the sheets, resurfacing images of blonde hair splayed against the mattress, and a ghost of a body clinging to his own, openly trusting even in the most intimate vulnerability of sleep.
The most vivid of all, however, is the quiet murmur of reassurance that had reached him in the night, and the sensation of arms steadying him until the tides of grief had ebbed again.
It remains unclear whether dreams of off-navy have any true relevance to Jim, but if those dreams had indeed been grief unknowingly shared in return, Spock only hopes that the next time they reoccur, he is there to steady him until the tides ebb for him, too.
----
Kirk isn’t as terrified as he thought he’d be.
Nervous, sure. Intimidated, absolutely. Still completely fucking uncertain whether this is a terrible idea— yeah, that too.
But when he says I relieve you to Pike, and I am relieved reaches back across the stage, the paralyzing wave of fear he had expected doesn’t come. It isn’t easy having hundreds of sets of eyes on a moment as life-altering as this, but with a couple familiar faces in the crowd— and the reassurance of the old man next to him— it’s a discomfort that he can shoulder far easier than he had expected.
Getting the hell off of the stage and out of that auditorium is still a relief, though.
“How does it feel to have the honor of calling me Captain for the foreseeable future?”
“Like I need another drink,” Bones grumbles as he slides out of the opposite side of the booth. “You want anything?”
Jim glances down at his beer. Though it’s the only drink he’s had so far and his glass is nearly empty, he doesn’t particularly want to ruin the night by getting dragged home drunk again.
Starship captains aren’t exactly supposed to do that, after all.
“I’m good,” he waves him off. Once the doctor disappears towards the bar, Jim turns to the Vulcan at his side, who’s had nothing but a cup of water with him since they’d first sat down. “I know this isn’t exactly your scene. Promise I won’t make you stay much longer.”
“I am adequate,” Spock dismisses, though Kirk isn’t sure who exactly he’s trying to fool. Without shields muting the bond, his displeasure for the setting isn’t exactly difficult to feel, even if it isn’t overly blatant. “We may stay for as long as you desire.”
It has to be some kind of achievement, getting a Vulcan to have it bad enough for you to let you drag them to the most unpleasant Human establishments possible.
And yeah, maybe it isn’t the most private setting, but after sparing a quick glance around to make sure nobody’s paying any particular attention to their table, he can’t stop himself from leaning in for a kiss— brief, but savored, anyways.
When he sees the resulting tiny crinkle of brown eyes, he knows he’s got it just as bad, too.
“You two can’t be canoodling like that around the ship, you know,” Bones complains, sliding back into the booth with a fresh bourbon in hand.
“We’re not canoodling.”
“I also disagree with the descriptor,” Spock chimes in. “Common usage of the term implies excessive acts of—”
The doctor groans loudly, directing a long-suffering look at the ceiling. “God save me, trapped in a goddamned tin can in space dealing with you two.”
“Your service aboard the Enterprise is voluntary,” Spock reminds him with a raised brow.
“You could always send the captain a transfer request,” Jim adds, unable to hold back his laughter at the glare he receives. The bond buzzes softly with amusement, flooding his chest with a warmth he still doesn’t quite know what to do with.
It doesn’t scare him as much, now that there’s no countdown looming to figure things out. He’s got time enough.
Notes:
thank you SO much for reading!!! i really enjoyed the chance to explore the time gap in the ‘09 movie and i hope you enjoyed!! <3
i mentioned in my previous note that i’m planning to post works in a new fandom soon, and currently i’m planning on posting my first on sunday! some OLD old brain rot came back… and i’ll be having a little fun with some kakairu fics <3 i’ll be making related posts and writing updates with a new sideblog on tumblr you can find @irukaka :) and as usual, you can find my main/trek blog @jimtranskirk!
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apparently on Chapter 2 Fri 14 Jun 2024 07:12PM UTC
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flipthebits on Chapter 2 Fri 14 Jun 2024 10:47PM UTC
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