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Dva t'Koh-nar [Part Five: Dashaya]
. Dva t'Koh-Nar .
"Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of a cultural fear of emotional vulnerability and exposure, the feeling of being completely exposed in some way."
Part Five: Dashaya
Logic.
Logic stated that the most immediate problem would be to speak to Lieutenant Uhura. Regardless of the future as it pertained to Captain Kirk, he did not deserve to string her along while remaining dishonest. That decided, he strode over to the wall console. "Lieutenant Uhura, this is Spock."
"...Uhura here, what is it, Spock?"
"Can you please come and see me in my quarters?" He leaned against the wall, his forehead resting against one arm. He was going to hate himself. He already hated himself and there was nothing he could do about it.
"...Yes sir, right away."
Uhura passed Kirk on the way out. "Did you have a good sleep, Captain?"
Kirk laughed both in embarrassment and amusement at the absurdity of the question in his own mind, and he cryptically answered with a small smirk, "You could say that."
The rest of the crew was still gossiping with smirks as Uhura left - they had a suspicion where she was headed.
"...Spock, what's wrong," she said immediately, as the doors closed behind her. He hadn't moved from his pathetic wall-leaning.
He looked over at her and swallowed, bowled over by the enormity of what he was about to do. He wished he could just tell her, he wished she was only everything she'd begun as - a very good friend, who he could confide in about anything. But something... something had changed and he could not do that any longer, not about this. It made him feel suddenly, painfully lonely. "...Everything," he murmured.
"...Tell me about it?" She looked so concerned, so understanding, but it only served to make Spock feel worse.
"Nyota... we have to end this."
She stared at him, disbelievingly, for a long time. "...What? But..... why?"
He shook his head, slowly. "I... I am ashamed to tell you but... perhaps it would be better, than living a lie." He looked up to make eye contact with her; it was the respectful thing to do, no matter how much it hurt him. "...Nyota, I do not love you. I like you very much, and I respect you as a friend and as a comrade, and I do believe you are very beautiful but... I do not love you. It would be not be fair, or proper, to maintain the semblance of a relationship when I know I cannot return your emotions."
The silence that stretched between them was long and painful, and to Spock it felt like the shards of a million threads of glass breaking, shattering into diamond dust between them. "...Very well," she finally said, and her voice was quiet, controlled. He had the utmost respect for her near-Vulcan control over her emotions. "I... respect your judgement. Sir." She turned to leave, and as the door opened, she added, "I would like some time alone for a short while. The Captain has returned to the bridge, if you could make my excuses, I'd be most grateful."
"Yes... yes, of course." Spock pulled himself together. He couldn't deny that of her, as frightened as he was of facing the world.
Back on the bridge, after Uhura left, Kirk turned to the rest of his bridge crew with a puzzled expression. "Just what is so funny?"
Sulu was the one who answered, through a grin. "Just presumption, Captain, but the First Officer hasn't been seen and Lieutenant Uhura just got a call that made her eyes light up." Another round of chuckles swept the room.
Kirk's face turned into his usual lascivious smirk and he leaned back in his chair. "Is that so? Well, let's just hope the First Officer is in a much less crabby mood than usual when he returns to the bridge."
That provoked a laugh, and Sulu's face broke into a grin. He liked having Kirk as a captain. He knew how to defuse tension. "Well, you can never really tell what Spock's feeling, can you? Not to be disrespectful, sir."
That just made Kirk chuckle. "Well, he's got a few changes of expression. When his eyebrow goes up, he's angry, when his eyebrow goes up, his disapproving, when his eyebrow goes up..." Another burst of laughter. Kirk liked to see his crew laughing. "...Even if Commander Spock has a stick up his rear end most of the time, he does his job well, and that's all that matters."
Sulu chuckled. "You really don't hate him, huh? Even with... everything that happened?"
Kirk's answer to Sulu's question was surprisingly easy, a wry smirk touching his lips, "No, I don't. We all act and react in different ways to stresses and dire situations, and unfortunately Spock's reaction left me marooned on a forgotten planet. Then I provoked him, so it really isn't his fault that I almost died."
Sulu smiled. "You're a good man, captain sir. I'm glad to be under your command."
The doors swished open, and Spock stepped out, looking troubled, which was certainly saying something. He reached over to Uhura's station and picked up her communicator earpiece, so he could monitor the frequencies while performing other duties.
Kirk's eyes immediately deserted whatever he was looking off at at the sound of the door. "Commander. Is there something wrong with Lieutenant Uhura?"
"She requested a short amount of personal time, and asked if I would take over in her stead for the time being. This, I am doing." It was almost too easy to tell that something had gone wrong. Even if his voice was stiff and clipped, he seemed distracted, saddened, and unusually unfocused.
Kirk watched him for a long moment, trying to understand him, but soon he broke off and sat back in his chair. "All right, let's maintain course and try to get to Betelgeuse as quickly as possible. Kick it up to Warp Four, Sulu."
[ + ]
That evening, Spock was just leaving the rec room when he ran into Kirk - not literally, though just barely. "Ah, Captain," he said in a quiet voice, his eyes remaining fixed on the floor.
"Spock." Kirk was giving him another hard, piercing look. "I was looking for you. Would it be okay if we spoke privately?"
Spock shut his eyes, then nodded, drawing in on himself more and more. He had to keep himself together. Had to. "Yes, I think that would be best. My quarters are closer, if you don't mind." He started to lead the way, hands clasped behind his back.
The silence was palpable between them. Spock wished, desperately wished that the past week could just vanish into thin air, that he and Kirk were still playing chess and talking about Mudd's Women and that none of this, none of this electricity and attraction had sparked between them.
And yet... he had a very sneaking suspicion that it had been there all along.
The sparks in their eyes, looking and speaking with only glances as they fought together, threw everything on the line and trusted each other with all they had. The skin of his neck, cool to his warm Vulcan hands but somehow still heady and passionate with the feeling of life pulsing under it.
He had kissed her back because he knew Kirk was watching.
And that was the real reason that had got themselves into this mess. If none of that had been there, Kirk would have kissed him over the chessboard, but he would have pulled back, laughed at the green flush across his cheeks, and made a crack that Mudd should have brought some men for sale, too.
But it wasn't just a kiss, and it wasn't just that night. It was the beginning of something that had been building for far longer than he'd ever realized.
When they reached his quarters, he sat down on the bed, his forehead coming to rest in his hands. "...I suppose you knew that we were together. It was not much of a secret, I'm afraid." There would have been a dry sarcasm in his voice, had he not been in so much turmoil. He was afraid of Kirk - afraid that he would not take this seriously, that he would slip back into one of his cocky fronts and destroy everything they had.
"Yes," came the quiet murmur, far quieter than he'd been expecting from the usually-loud captain. He was serious, Spock realized. He was completely and utterly serious.
He looked up as his hands slid down, giving Kirk a very pointed, accusing glare. "I had to break it off with her. It would not have been fair otherwise."
"I figured." His eyes were hard and deep and unrelenting, but accepting, at the same time. And Spock suddenly realized what so many people on the Starship Enterprise already had. James Kirk might be a playboy and might be an ass and might be the most cocky, headstrong bastard in the history of Starfleet - but there was nothing than mattered more to him than the health and wellbeing of his crew. There was nothing that mattered more to him than his friends, and Spock was quite shocked to come to the realization that he was considered one of them.
He slowly tipped to one side, until he was lying with his cheek on the pillow and his knees drawn up tightly to his chest. Anyone with an understanding of body language could see that he was feeling vulnerable, and in need of protection. ".....I don't understand," he finally murmured, and his voice was soft and distant. "I don't understand what you make me feel."
Kirk, to his great surprise, let out a frustrated chuckle and said, "Well, you aren't the only one."
Spock was quiet for a long moment, his face looking mild and thoughtful. His eyes were focused on Kirk's hands, just watching them, as he pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. "...I never thought that you, of all people, could be confused by emotions."
"Hell, it happens all the time." Kirk liked to talk with his hands, and Spock, as he admitted it with no small amount of trepidation, enjoyed watching them. He always had. He'd just never noticed it before. "Most people consider it a fact of life." Then, as he noticed Spock's scrutiny, he leaned in and started petting at his hair.
"Mmm." His eyes drifted shut, and he smiled. "...As if all my Vulcan training was for nothing."
James swore he felt his heart flutter at the way Spock looked more relaxed and happy just from a simple touch from him. Ugh, this was disgusting. Not that he'd really complain about it, since he felt a small smile coming to his lips as well.
"Sometimes...it really is okay to be human."
"Is it?" Spock didn't move, he liked the way the captain's hands on his hair felt too much to move, but his brow furrowed slightly. "What if I lose control again, what if this interferes with my duties. I've become uncertain and I don't know how to adapt."
Kirk thought about it for a while. Spock had also come realize that the captain really did think before he spoke, all the time. Everything he said was calculated to draw a very specific response - and too often, that response was an unfavorable one. He could not understand where he'd acquired that habit, but he was very glad that it was not his goal right now.
"There are times that bring out the worst in all of us, but we deal with things the best we can when we come against them." Spock's eyes slid open, dark and uncertain to Kirk's true blue. "More so in you than anyone else. You react exactly how you're going to react, and I react the way I do - and when you fuck up, that's when I'm there for you. You got that?" The hand stilled its motion, but it didn't move.
"It's comforting to hear you say that, sir," Spock murmured, his voice an emotional flatline. "But I have to do better than that. I cannot let myself become compromised with emotions in any circumstances."
"Another part that comes with being human, Spock... none of us is perfect, no matter how much we'd like to be."
Spock was silent for a long time, and after a minute, he cut his eyes away. "...I am not human, Jim. Part human, yes, but I cannot allow that to interfere with the training I've been given. I told you once that we make a good team, and I can't be of any use to you if I'm not in control of my mind."
"The rest of us on the ship are human, on the inside anyway, and all of us have managed to get by. You've... more than proved to me, and everyone else, that you are worthy of my trust."
Their eyes met again, and what Spock saw there scared him far more than anything he'd ever encountered before. Whatever it was, it was big and painful and emotional, and it chilled him to the core.
"...I do not wish to pursue a relationship with you," he said in that quiet, unassuming tone.
"Heh." He could hear the change, hear the word 'relationship' set off a chain reaction that flipped the switch from 'serious' to 'arrogant bastard'. "I don't do relationships."
Spock smirked slightly. "It would be illogical. It is generally frowned down upon for a captain to enter into a relationship with one of his subordinates." He looked away, then, back down at the floor. "....That aside, I think that... perhaps... it would not be unreasonable to occasionally associate on a physical level." Pretty words were good at making anything sound genial. "...I do not think I have the self-control to resist you for so long again."
Kirk pushed away slightly and smirked back, that mischievous look coming into his eyes, "That is something I think we both can agree on."
previous [ + ] next
"Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of a cultural fear of emotional vulnerability and exposure, the feeling of being completely exposed in some way."
Part Five: Dashaya
Logic.
Logic stated that the most immediate problem would be to speak to Lieutenant Uhura. Regardless of the future as it pertained to Captain Kirk, he did not deserve to string her along while remaining dishonest. That decided, he strode over to the wall console. "Lieutenant Uhura, this is Spock."
"...Uhura here, what is it, Spock?"
"Can you please come and see me in my quarters?" He leaned against the wall, his forehead resting against one arm. He was going to hate himself. He already hated himself and there was nothing he could do about it.
"...Yes sir, right away."
Uhura passed Kirk on the way out. "Did you have a good sleep, Captain?"
Kirk laughed both in embarrassment and amusement at the absurdity of the question in his own mind, and he cryptically answered with a small smirk, "You could say that."
The rest of the crew was still gossiping with smirks as Uhura left - they had a suspicion where she was headed.
"...Spock, what's wrong," she said immediately, as the doors closed behind her. He hadn't moved from his pathetic wall-leaning.
He looked over at her and swallowed, bowled over by the enormity of what he was about to do. He wished he could just tell her, he wished she was only everything she'd begun as - a very good friend, who he could confide in about anything. But something... something had changed and he could not do that any longer, not about this. It made him feel suddenly, painfully lonely. "...Everything," he murmured.
"...Tell me about it?" She looked so concerned, so understanding, but it only served to make Spock feel worse.
"Nyota... we have to end this."
She stared at him, disbelievingly, for a long time. "...What? But..... why?"
He shook his head, slowly. "I... I am ashamed to tell you but... perhaps it would be better, than living a lie." He looked up to make eye contact with her; it was the respectful thing to do, no matter how much it hurt him. "...Nyota, I do not love you. I like you very much, and I respect you as a friend and as a comrade, and I do believe you are very beautiful but... I do not love you. It would be not be fair, or proper, to maintain the semblance of a relationship when I know I cannot return your emotions."
The silence that stretched between them was long and painful, and to Spock it felt like the shards of a million threads of glass breaking, shattering into diamond dust between them. "...Very well," she finally said, and her voice was quiet, controlled. He had the utmost respect for her near-Vulcan control over her emotions. "I... respect your judgement. Sir." She turned to leave, and as the door opened, she added, "I would like some time alone for a short while. The Captain has returned to the bridge, if you could make my excuses, I'd be most grateful."
"Yes... yes, of course." Spock pulled himself together. He couldn't deny that of her, as frightened as he was of facing the world.
Back on the bridge, after Uhura left, Kirk turned to the rest of his bridge crew with a puzzled expression. "Just what is so funny?"
Sulu was the one who answered, through a grin. "Just presumption, Captain, but the First Officer hasn't been seen and Lieutenant Uhura just got a call that made her eyes light up." Another round of chuckles swept the room.
Kirk's face turned into his usual lascivious smirk and he leaned back in his chair. "Is that so? Well, let's just hope the First Officer is in a much less crabby mood than usual when he returns to the bridge."
That provoked a laugh, and Sulu's face broke into a grin. He liked having Kirk as a captain. He knew how to defuse tension. "Well, you can never really tell what Spock's feeling, can you? Not to be disrespectful, sir."
That just made Kirk chuckle. "Well, he's got a few changes of expression. When his eyebrow goes up, he's angry, when his eyebrow goes up, his disapproving, when his eyebrow goes up..." Another burst of laughter. Kirk liked to see his crew laughing. "...Even if Commander Spock has a stick up his rear end most of the time, he does his job well, and that's all that matters."
Sulu chuckled. "You really don't hate him, huh? Even with... everything that happened?"
Kirk's answer to Sulu's question was surprisingly easy, a wry smirk touching his lips, "No, I don't. We all act and react in different ways to stresses and dire situations, and unfortunately Spock's reaction left me marooned on a forgotten planet. Then I provoked him, so it really isn't his fault that I almost died."
Sulu smiled. "You're a good man, captain sir. I'm glad to be under your command."
The doors swished open, and Spock stepped out, looking troubled, which was certainly saying something. He reached over to Uhura's station and picked up her communicator earpiece, so he could monitor the frequencies while performing other duties.
Kirk's eyes immediately deserted whatever he was looking off at at the sound of the door. "Commander. Is there something wrong with Lieutenant Uhura?"
"She requested a short amount of personal time, and asked if I would take over in her stead for the time being. This, I am doing." It was almost too easy to tell that something had gone wrong. Even if his voice was stiff and clipped, he seemed distracted, saddened, and unusually unfocused.
Kirk watched him for a long moment, trying to understand him, but soon he broke off and sat back in his chair. "All right, let's maintain course and try to get to Betelgeuse as quickly as possible. Kick it up to Warp Four, Sulu."
[ + ]
That evening, Spock was just leaving the rec room when he ran into Kirk - not literally, though just barely. "Ah, Captain," he said in a quiet voice, his eyes remaining fixed on the floor.
"Spock." Kirk was giving him another hard, piercing look. "I was looking for you. Would it be okay if we spoke privately?"
Spock shut his eyes, then nodded, drawing in on himself more and more. He had to keep himself together. Had to. "Yes, I think that would be best. My quarters are closer, if you don't mind." He started to lead the way, hands clasped behind his back.
The silence was palpable between them. Spock wished, desperately wished that the past week could just vanish into thin air, that he and Kirk were still playing chess and talking about Mudd's Women and that none of this, none of this electricity and attraction had sparked between them.
And yet... he had a very sneaking suspicion that it had been there all along.
The sparks in their eyes, looking and speaking with only glances as they fought together, threw everything on the line and trusted each other with all they had. The skin of his neck, cool to his warm Vulcan hands but somehow still heady and passionate with the feeling of life pulsing under it.
He had kissed her back because he knew Kirk was watching.
And that was the real reason that had got themselves into this mess. If none of that had been there, Kirk would have kissed him over the chessboard, but he would have pulled back, laughed at the green flush across his cheeks, and made a crack that Mudd should have brought some men for sale, too.
But it wasn't just a kiss, and it wasn't just that night. It was the beginning of something that had been building for far longer than he'd ever realized.
When they reached his quarters, he sat down on the bed, his forehead coming to rest in his hands. "...I suppose you knew that we were together. It was not much of a secret, I'm afraid." There would have been a dry sarcasm in his voice, had he not been in so much turmoil. He was afraid of Kirk - afraid that he would not take this seriously, that he would slip back into one of his cocky fronts and destroy everything they had.
"Yes," came the quiet murmur, far quieter than he'd been expecting from the usually-loud captain. He was serious, Spock realized. He was completely and utterly serious.
He looked up as his hands slid down, giving Kirk a very pointed, accusing glare. "I had to break it off with her. It would not have been fair otherwise."
"I figured." His eyes were hard and deep and unrelenting, but accepting, at the same time. And Spock suddenly realized what so many people on the Starship Enterprise already had. James Kirk might be a playboy and might be an ass and might be the most cocky, headstrong bastard in the history of Starfleet - but there was nothing than mattered more to him than the health and wellbeing of his crew. There was nothing that mattered more to him than his friends, and Spock was quite shocked to come to the realization that he was considered one of them.
He slowly tipped to one side, until he was lying with his cheek on the pillow and his knees drawn up tightly to his chest. Anyone with an understanding of body language could see that he was feeling vulnerable, and in need of protection. ".....I don't understand," he finally murmured, and his voice was soft and distant. "I don't understand what you make me feel."
Kirk, to his great surprise, let out a frustrated chuckle and said, "Well, you aren't the only one."
Spock was quiet for a long moment, his face looking mild and thoughtful. His eyes were focused on Kirk's hands, just watching them, as he pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. "...I never thought that you, of all people, could be confused by emotions."
"Hell, it happens all the time." Kirk liked to talk with his hands, and Spock, as he admitted it with no small amount of trepidation, enjoyed watching them. He always had. He'd just never noticed it before. "Most people consider it a fact of life." Then, as he noticed Spock's scrutiny, he leaned in and started petting at his hair.
"Mmm." His eyes drifted shut, and he smiled. "...As if all my Vulcan training was for nothing."
James swore he felt his heart flutter at the way Spock looked more relaxed and happy just from a simple touch from him. Ugh, this was disgusting. Not that he'd really complain about it, since he felt a small smile coming to his lips as well.
"Sometimes...it really is okay to be human."
"Is it?" Spock didn't move, he liked the way the captain's hands on his hair felt too much to move, but his brow furrowed slightly. "What if I lose control again, what if this interferes with my duties. I've become uncertain and I don't know how to adapt."
Kirk thought about it for a while. Spock had also come realize that the captain really did think before he spoke, all the time. Everything he said was calculated to draw a very specific response - and too often, that response was an unfavorable one. He could not understand where he'd acquired that habit, but he was very glad that it was not his goal right now.
"There are times that bring out the worst in all of us, but we deal with things the best we can when we come against them." Spock's eyes slid open, dark and uncertain to Kirk's true blue. "More so in you than anyone else. You react exactly how you're going to react, and I react the way I do - and when you fuck up, that's when I'm there for you. You got that?" The hand stilled its motion, but it didn't move.
"It's comforting to hear you say that, sir," Spock murmured, his voice an emotional flatline. "But I have to do better than that. I cannot let myself become compromised with emotions in any circumstances."
"Another part that comes with being human, Spock... none of us is perfect, no matter how much we'd like to be."
Spock was silent for a long time, and after a minute, he cut his eyes away. "...I am not human, Jim. Part human, yes, but I cannot allow that to interfere with the training I've been given. I told you once that we make a good team, and I can't be of any use to you if I'm not in control of my mind."
"The rest of us on the ship are human, on the inside anyway, and all of us have managed to get by. You've... more than proved to me, and everyone else, that you are worthy of my trust."
Their eyes met again, and what Spock saw there scared him far more than anything he'd ever encountered before. Whatever it was, it was big and painful and emotional, and it chilled him to the core.
"...I do not wish to pursue a relationship with you," he said in that quiet, unassuming tone.
"Heh." He could hear the change, hear the word 'relationship' set off a chain reaction that flipped the switch from 'serious' to 'arrogant bastard'. "I don't do relationships."
Spock smirked slightly. "It would be illogical. It is generally frowned down upon for a captain to enter into a relationship with one of his subordinates." He looked away, then, back down at the floor. "....That aside, I think that... perhaps... it would not be unreasonable to occasionally associate on a physical level." Pretty words were good at making anything sound genial. "...I do not think I have the self-control to resist you for so long again."
Kirk pushed away slightly and smirked back, that mischievous look coming into his eyes, "That is something I think we both can agree on."
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