Fic: Parting Of The Sensory (1/2)
Title: Parting Of The Sensory
Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Word Count: 5,745
Summary: He knows these feelings don’t belong to him, but that doesn’t make them any less real. For the st_xi_kink Fic Request Meme, Prompt: Nero is mindlessly focused in on Spock - on *hurting* Spock, even more so than just killing him. And he recognized Kirk "from earth's history". So he MUST know alllll about Spock & Kirk being the ultimate dream team, BFF's, fucking like bunnies, what have you. And now he's got Spock's captain here, beneath his hands. What better way to get revenge? Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009), Star Trek: Countdown. Vague references to Star Trek: The Original Series. Warnings for explicit violence, torture/abuse, and attempted non-con.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to Modest Mouse.
Author’s Notes: I’ve been reading a great deal about Kirk’s reaction to experiencing the feelings that Spock Prime may have associated with his Kirk, and considerably less about what Spock might do with such foreign emotions, particularly in his rather “compromised” psychological state. Thus, the inkling to explore that avenue fit into the parameters of this particular prompt (or two), and this was the result. Do me a favor and play along with the at times out-of-character emotionality and other plot devices of the like - particularly those involving communicators, transporter locks, conveniently-present prime-universe Vulcans, and most significantly, justifications for lingering psychic echoes in previously-owned spacecraft; apparently, those pesky emotional stains on the carpet come with the title and registration - who knew?
Parting Of The Sensory
Part I
When it comes down to the end, everything seems slower, everything seems to last forever; until in the blink of an eye, everything’s gone.
The breathless, endless seconds tick away too fast, and the situation at hand only worsens; the more Romulans they cut down - between Pike, propped carefully with a phaser in hand, and Jim himself, who’s taking out the enemy as best as his own two fists can manage - the more that seem to reappear to replace their fallen brethren, to the point where Kirk’s sure his lungs are on fire from the sheer exertion of keeping track of them all, let alone fighting them off. When he does manage to catch a breather, he can tell that Pike looks about to collapse entirely, the rush of adrenaline beginning to fade.
“Scotty,” Kirk hails the ship from his comm, eyeing the fast-approaching bulk of aggressors storming towards him from the depths of the ship with something very close to real fear. “Get us out of here.”
“Just a secon’, Captain.” The engineer’s voice is dimmed, muffled as Kirk tries his best to fend off two rather aimless-looking assailants by aiming his foot at their crotches and hoping to hell that their anatomy is similar enough that it slows them down, at the very least. “Locking on the two o’ ya, just hol’ still.”
Kirk lets out a sigh of relief, and he should know better - he should fucking know better because there are hands around his biceps before he can so much as empty his lungs. They pull at him, and he’s off-balance enough that he does not, cannot resist for that barest of instants where it might have mattered, where he might have managed to shake them off, to dislodge their iron grip. But that moment, that window of opportunity passes before it really arrives, and as he gauges the situation as best he can from the vantage point he has, he makes his decision - if it can really be called that; there’s no real choice to be made, in the end.
“Shit!” he groans as he feels his shoulder wrenched from its socket with a force that penetrates through his tendons, rattles down through his veins and drains the blood from him as he gasps against the pain. The world turns white for a second in time, and it’s only as it eases back into focus and the brightness doesn’t completely disappear that he notices the spiraling beam that begins to envelope the Enterprise’s true captain; notices that the same light fails to spin around him.
He swallows hard, knowing that he’s moving, he’s ducking too erratically for them to follow, recognizing that, of course, they’ll need more time; he’s blinking almost too quickly to see straight as a rapid-fire of fists and axes fly at him, simply outnumbered and buckling under the impact of ten blows for every one he manages to deflect. He chances a glance behind him, and it costs him what little combative footing he still clung to; Pike is gone, disappeared in that familiar swarm of light, and while Kirk feels an unnatural cold begin to seep into his bones as the Romulans overpower him, dragging him off to fuck-knows-where on this godforsaken vessel, he can at least feel the calming ease of knowing he followed his orders, for the first, and quite possibly the last time.
He’s on his back before he rightly knows it, boneless and bloody, and fuck, he’s been beaten at his own game, goddamnit. He doesn’t know if it’s wishful thinking or not when he sees the heartening cloud of white begin to grow around his limbs once more, but it’s a moot point as he feels his body heaved from the floor and tossed listless, lifeless against a control panel that stings and rips at his flesh as he slips down where the metal protrudes, where it catches and draws blood. He hears the deliberate crush of something steely, something substantial and electronic and his stomach churns because he knows, he knows that they’ve destroyed his ticket back to the ship, the tiny pieces of his now-useless communicator squealing unbearably underfoot, nails on a fucking chalkboard resonating like needles in his mind. Fists tighten quickly around his ankles and begin to pull, dragging him off as all delusion melts away, and any shred of light he may have seen succumbs to sheer and utter blackness.
_____________________________
There’s something about this vessel, Spock recognizes as he maneuvers the ship through the starlit ether, something uniquely tailored to his psyche that stretches beyond mere manufacturing, simple physical customization to fit his preferences, needs and inclinations that stretch across parallel existences to create the fundamental basis of what he is, at least, if not exactly who. No, there is something deeper here, some echo of a soul that resonates in his own, dwelling in the very walls and calling to him, speaking of the impossible in hushed tones just beneath his conscious mind, slowly insinuating, assimilating universal truths that don’t apply here, that aren’t facts in this world, but that nonetheless bleed into him, undeniable, and somehow fitting; inexplicably, somehow right.
The crackle of an incoming transmission sweeps across the silence as Spock pilots the intimately familiar Jellyfish through the blackest night he’s ever known. He tries to tell himself that there is nothing more that can be taken from him, there is nothing more that he can lose, and yet he tenses against his will as the Narada hails his vessel, the deep inhale that echoes across the link drenched in a sadistic satisfaction that sends a tight spark of hatred, a tendril of fear through his chest.
“Hello again, Spock.” Nero’s voice is predictably condescending, and Spock finds that he has nothing he wishes to say to this murderer, this perpetrator of a veritable genocide. He stares through the visual displayed before him and focuses beyond it on the goal of the taloned-ship itself, his target hovering in the vacuum of empty space between planets, as if taunting him, begging him to follow it into the void.
“You know, before you go,” Nero sneers, and the look of true malevolence in his eyes is so unfathomable, so antithetical to what Spock understands of the world, of what he is capable of processing without confusion or distance or postulation; so disparate from what he knows, what he can relate to and comprehend. “There’s one more thing I’d like you to see.”
“We have a tradition, you know, among my people,” the Romulan continues, and Spock feels his blood run thicker, hotter at the voice, at the mere, taunting existence of this Nero. Everything within him wants to believe that he is acting out of logic, acting for the good of the Enterprise, the good of her crew - for the good of all sentient life and the future of Earth and the highest standards of the Federation’s mission as he maneuvers the ship to the exact coordinates, plans the point of impact to destroy the mining vessel and its nefarious influence upon their reality once and for all. He wants to believe that it’s not the pounding of recrimination, of personal revenge that shudders through him with every breath, holding the controls in a death grip and forcing the ship to fly faster, to dive sharper, the bile in his throat only fueling that vengeful fire.
“It’s a tradition of marking.”
The glint in Nero’s eyes is maniacal, askew - it shines with the light of the mad, and Spock feels his body stiffen, his blood run just a little colder, because where madness reigns, logic has no place. “We wear our sorrow, Spock,” the voice continues as long fingers run the lines of ink upon olive skin indicatively. “We wear it so we will always remember.” There is a surge of guilt that lingers at that, just for an instant beneath the anger, the adrenaline, and it’s gone before Spock can wonder at it in the periphery. Nero tilts his head, leaning into the viewer with purposeful hate. “Somehow, I think it might be more effective to paint your sorrow, your shame, in a different way,” he sneers, and then lower, more scathing: “Burn it somewhere you won’t forget to look.”
The figure that appears, jerked upwards by scarlet-smeared hair to consume the screen, isn’t one that Spock indentifies immediately, to be honest - because the man thrust before him is supposed to be anywhere but still on that ship - but the pieces aren’t long in coming together, in stealing his breath and blindsiding him, despite the inevitability of it all.
As it stands, Spock doesn’t owe James Kirk a thing, not a thing; not by any compensatory standards that he can summon to mind, not by any stretch of either human imagination or Vulcan logic - so it’s completely beyond the realm of his carefully cultivated reason, the dagger of utter despair that shoots through him, penetrating hard and fast and without relent when he sees the face of the young captain, barely recognizable for the bruising and the swelling and the blood, his left cheek torn open and weeping crimson across his split and battered lips, his eye swollen shut above it and already violet with the broken vessels that had yet to spill onto the surface.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” Kirk growls, but the malice etched against his bruised features is washed away when he coughs, jagged peaks of red staining the unnatural swell of his lips as he chokes violently, the color of the blood all the brighter, all the more grave with the shine of his saliva, mingling against the sheen of light as he swallows down the tang, licking clumsily and wincing as he hisses; “Goddamnit.”
The display that follows those words, those perfect final words filled with such fire, is something out of a nightmare - something distant and unreal and so disconnected, but still vivid, still rubbing true against the deepest corners of the mind, brushing harsh and abrasive with the promise of real loss behind the illusion, the facts behind the farce. A voice, something soft and toneless but insistent, swirls around his subconscious for the barest of instants, the narrator of a dream, almost, and Spock blinks, trying to grasp it as it dies against the whir of thoughts assaulting him - the promise of its words, whatever they were, haunt him for a moment too long, lodging deep against his psyche as he breathes out, the rush of air seeming to aid in easing open his eyelids and setting aside the incomprehensible call.
Spock watches, stone-faced, as Nero leers closer to the Captain, pummels his face harder and faster, and it takes moments only - moments that feel as light-years, that weigh as heavy - before Kirk stops fighting against the binds at his ankles and wrists, before the most crucial battle the young human faces becomes the one to breathe against the break of his nose, around the endless stream of blood that seems to pour from his features, out from under his tongue and between his teeth and the open skin that slices across both cheeks now, bleeding him for the slaughter. He doesn’t so much as flinch when Nero begins to dig his boot into the space between Kirk’s ribs, doesn’t bite against his lip when Kirk moans into the impact in agony, trying his best to swallow the blow even now. He doesn’t choke back the scream that teases at the back of his throat when Kirk falters, when he stills without breath, long enough to note across the feed, and he doesn’t imagine that his world stops for just the blink of an eye when it looks as if all is lost for that one moment to end all moments hence - doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief when the mangled mouth of Jim Kirk quirks - not a smile, but trying desperately in spite of everything, unwilling to go down without the last laugh he can possibly steal from this life; and if Spock’s pulse is pounding just a little harder, if his hands grip the controls tighter but less effectively - somehow boneless now, and unfeeling - he doesn’t notice, cannot know it.
Spock tenses when Nero throws the limp frame of his captive to the floor, his tied limbs managing to fall at awkward angles despite their binding, suggesting multiple breaks along them, given their incapacity to support him even the slightest bit as he slumps to the ground. His reflection against the flooring is stark on the screen, somehow intensified, the contrast enhanced as he shines ghostly pale against the slick black of the ground, hanging to life by the weakest of grasps but still hanging, because Jim Kirk was the sort that simply grabbed with his free hand when one began to slip, groping and clinging until the bitter end. And Kirk doesn’t move, doesn’t waver as Nero retrieves his Teral'n, retracting the blades on the staff before pressing those still posing a threat at the tip just against his victim’s skin, thrusting the missing spokes out again with unforgiving force, letting them skewer straight through the flesh of his arms and twist angry patterns, cut delicately into the shapes of half-hearted stars.
The sound of Kirk’s agony as muscle is torn straight from its bone sends ripples through what calm remains in Spock’s mind, and the tremor of it sets off aftershocks through his entire being in the form of whispers, the slightest intimations of meaning that drive a protective edge alongside his reaction to the brutality he is witnessing, and suddenly the atrocity of each stab into Kirk’s limbs, each jab and pull that cuts dangerously close to vital organs along his torso, missing them just barely, or perhaps not missing them at all, for all that Spock can tell; suddenly the utter wrongness of what he sees is more personal. The voice washes over him like a storm of secrets, each revealing something unforeseen about the man he’s watching suffer, telling him the most intimate details of the Captain, making him seem closer to Spock than his own skin, his own beating heart.
The slices, the breaks of flesh and muscle, of tendon and vein all the way down to the bone in places, unfathomable places; they leave gaping holes as Nero tires of the game, out of which seep the very strength, the very essence of the man he knows - inexplicably knows - Jim Kirk to be, leaving a shell of something lesser, something broken in its place. Spock shudders as the murmurs at the back of his mind crescendo to a roar, their presence hollow and unsettling rather than comforting, emanating an aching, sadistic sense of longing; the kind that’s tangible, that reaches between parsecs, palpable even across the infinite threads of time itself.
Spock feels the deep well of emotion that resides below, far below his conscious mind, his throbbing heart, the hidden and rejected foundation of everything he is; he feels that seat of passion begin to come undone, the levees around it begin to give. He tries desperately to calm it, to reign it back again, but it is for naught - the voice of his father melts into that of his beloved mother, a sacred sound now lost to the fires of destruction, to the emptiness of space - sacrificed to the stars, at the hands of this vermin before him: ‘Do not try to,’ it calls to him, soothing the burn in him with a thing more powerful than logic, more menacing than reason or stoicism, stoking the flames of feeling and replacing the embers with something greater, something more.
Nero’s vile hands are clenching tight around Jim’s throat, and Spock finds himself more than slightly affected, because he knows what that neck feels like, knows exactly how fast that heart can beat, how franticly it can work the blood through those veins; how that chest - sculpted and slender and solid - can heave desperately, strain endlessly against the heel of a palm as his own shameful need to silence, to subdue drives the air from the lungs beneath, drawing the life from his body like poison from a wound.
Jim is barely breathing, barely moving, and Spock feels the loss of something he never had before spark in his chest at the thought that his Captain is already lost; but Nero is still standing over him, crouched like a predator just waiting to devour its prey, just looking for the opportune moment. He hauls Jim’s dangling body up to its thoroughly shattered knee caps, watching with sadistic pleasure as the man’s wasted frame crumples each time, finally propping Jim against his shins and steadying him with the inside sole of his boot, daring him to fall one last time.
Nero sheds his upper garments, revealing slick skin and the tails of commemorations in raven ink, and his chest heaves almost wantonly as he wraps strong arms around Jim’s middle, hauling him upwards far enough to grasp at his stomach and steady him sufficiently whilst Nero’s clumsy fingers play tellingly with the fastens on Jim’s uniform trousers.
Spock feels loathing erupt within him as he understands what Nero means to do, how he means to defile the Captain; the soul-deep hared that’s tinged with a possessive need that he does not recognize except for the sounds, the breaths that tell him he belongs to the feeling, that it is his own, urging him in a voice too familiar to deny, despite what it may say.
“Does he mean so little to you, Spock?” Nero murmurs, death on his tongue as he sneers somewhere between where Jim kneels, unaware and unawake and entirely at the mercy of this creature’s evil, now more than ever. “Does it not so much as move your stoic Vulcan heart to witness the excruciating demise of the great Captain Kirk?”
And everything happens very quickly then, spanning the whole of time and space and the infinite depth of himself. With a raw, nearly feral cry of anguished rage, Spock can fight the voice no longer, cannot evade its call, and the sensation of memory that assaults him at once threatens mercilessly to consume him, to wash across him like the tides of the sea or the torrents of a storm - perhaps both, he thinks, as he succumbs to the pull of the most violent and the most beloved of forbidden emotions, wrapping around him and seeping into him without restraint, without relent. There are no images, no words, just breaths of recollection like sighs, the slightest intimations of sensation, like reflections as seen through fog and glass - the vaguest impressions, and yet so profound, so breathtaking; the barest echoes of a soul that is tied to him, somehow, that knows him better than he knows himself. How it calls to him, how it was reaching him now he does not know, cannot see, but it is irrelevant, inconsequential. All that matters is that when it is over - and it lasts only an instant, only the most fleeting touch of feeling - he finds that he knows something he had forgotten, has discovered something he had denied; he has realized a thing anew, and learned to read the darkest, deepest, most sacred corners of his soul. And what he finds there, what he can now understand, makes everything seem suddenly very stark, very clear.
Somewhere, some time, in some plane of existence that is not his own but feels true enough, claims some kinship to his deepest self; in that world, James T. Kirk was essential to him. He does not yet know how, and he can not even speculate as to why, but the man was - and somehow is, here and now - inexplicably, as necessary to his survival as the beat of his heart or the blood in his veins. It was not he who felt thus, and it was not the broken man he sees stretched across his viewscreen to whom the feelings belonged, but somehow they are still connected, still viable - still real enough to call out to something ancient and forgotten in Spock’s lonely, aching soul and latch onto it without reason or care, against even the Vulcan’s own conscious will. And beyond all logic, he cannot fight it - the bruised and bloody face of a man he barely knows, can barely bring himself to tolerate, even, is the same face that resonates with these thoughts, these inclinations that have latched onto him and taken hold like a virus, a plague; like the most perfect sense of completion that he’s ever dared desire, ever shamed himself to need.
The Enterprise is firing on the Narada with deadly precision, and Spock knows that he’s close enough, that the collision course he’s set will be seen through with or without a pilot - the enemy’s vessel is distracted enough with battling an enemy more formidable than he, now that the flagship herself has taken it to task, and he knows that it’s time to abandon his post and trust that Mr. Scott has managed a lock on Kirk somehow, has ensured both of their safe returns; this is the logical chain of events, this is what reason dictates as his course.
And yet logic is somehow absent as Spock continues to stare not at the fast-approaching spires of the vessel which he is about to impact, but at the soul-wrenching image of his captain... his friend, something tells him, his dearest friend - if not now, then someday, somewhere; his closest confidant in a future unknown, his one and only, his...
T'hy'la
He cringes as he feels the truth behind the claim, though the emotion, the connection behind it is borrowed somehow; foreign, so new and yet so undeniable that it shakes him to his core. Not this man, not them, but Spock is not centered, not focused enough to make the distinction. The pain in his chest, the effort of breathing as he sees the endless stream of blood leak from the image projected on the screen splits him in two, and nothing matters but to relieve the tension, the bone-deep ache. The whys and the hows are nothing but semantics, nothing more than petty details as emotions not his own penetrate ever deeper, ever more real, and take hold, consuming him until he knows nothing else, can process nothing else. His world is narrowed to a single understanding: lose James Kirk, and lose yourself.
His pulse hums shrilly at the very center of his torso, setting him off-balance and making everything seem more breathless, more urgent, and he realizes with sudden certainty that he cannot chance it. He has to see this mission through himself, to the very end; for if he cannot save the Captain, he will make certain that those who seek to do him harm will have no chance to proceed, that they will whither and burn and that Jim will be safe, if only in the very last of his moments. Spock will see to this, even if it costs him everything; it is the very least that he can do.
His heart trills to the point of dizziness, aching with a longing that he doesn’t comprehend, cannot identify with but that still manages to consume every part of him as his mind whirls against the warning, streaming lights that pass like dying stars beyond. Just a little further, that’s all it will take; moments now, just moments....
_____________________________
“Cuttin’ it a wee bit close there, Commander!”
The urgent shout, weighted by its accent, seems to reach Spock’s ears before he materializes fully, before he processes the transporter room, the reality of what he catches on the monitors behind the controller panel - his ship crashing into the Narada, wreaking destruction and extracting retribution, plunging the hellish vessel into a crimson implosion of matter and space and sending it back into the abyss from whence it came.
And James Kirk with it.
“Take me back down, Mr. Scott.” The room freezes at the harsh demand, the way that Spock refuses to move from the pad. The engineer’s hands pause over the lock screen as the man blinks, confused and slightly intimidated.
“Sir, I-” he begins to protest, but Spock doesn’t have the time for his objections, Kirk doesn’t have time for it.
“Do it now!” he shouts, and the sound is frighteningly evocative of the scene on the bridge just a short time prior; himself lost to rage and passion, his hands tight around the neck of the man he now sought above all things to save.
Apparently the suggestion of his previous lapse in control is not lost on the others, because Mr. Scott engages the sequence to reverse the course once more, his eyes wide with apprehension but his fingertips steady, sure as they glide across the panel, initiating the beam.
“Onto the Narada,” Spock growls, the surge of adrenaline, of needy, desperate energy coursing rapidly through his veins. “Energize.”
_____________________________
He’s never known his reflexes to react so quickly, never known his hands to be so steady or his aim so true; he’s never felt sheer terror quite like this before, and it’s what fuels him, that unfamiliar wash of fear, the rush of the no-win scenario he’d wasted so long trying to comprehend.
So much makes sense in those moments, as he cuts down every Romulan in his path, stunning at random and stealing the unconscious thoughts of these vermin, commanding them through sheer force of will to know where their captain is, to know the location of his prisoner. He sees things hazily in the stark contrast that logic seems to invert, and the image strikes him as sound; blurred around the edges, he can finally grasp what it is that Jim Kirk stands for, the sense of boundless determination that he embodies, an idealistic realism that changes the course of events simply because his will remains unbroken.
And somewhere unacknowledged, unbidden, Spock knows that this is the only reason they’re all still alive. The realization drops like lead in the pit of his stomach, clenches around his lungs as he runs faster, blasting at the enemy as he tears through the dank levels of the ship.
He finds himself at a loss, breathless and stone-stiff as he stops, the sight before him unconscionable, unreal - the hulking form of Nero looking down at the Captain with a lecherous, hateful satisfaction is unfathomably vile as he breathes heavy over the limp slab of meat that was once recognizable as James Kirk.
“I know you’re there, Spock,” the timber of Nero’s voice is low, and deliberately cruel, even for the likes of him. The sound resonates sickeningly along the planks of metal that encase them, his eyes glinting wickedly in the subtle glow of failing technology, his sneer triumphant, even in defeat. “I know you’ve come.”
“You loved him, know you,” the Romulan continues, taunting him, slowly tempting him away from the safety of the shadows by twisting the knife in his stomach, plunging it straight up through his heart. “Another life, perhaps, but you loved him. Held him above all others. Would have given your life for his.” Spock grates his teeth, hugging the darkness close as he drops feather-light steps across the floor, employing every shred of vengeful self-control to keep himself from breaking, from leaping forth and running full-stop at his enemy, fists flailing. “I could see it in your eyes.”
Everything drops away for a split second, the drive of blind emotion simmering at the edges of his consciousness as his eyes clear and follow Nero’s down to the crumpled form at his feet, the torn fragments of Jim’s Starfleet uniform barely covering him, barely even noticeable for all the blood.
“It’s a shame you’re too late,” Nero hisses mockingly, driving his heel hard along Kirk’s sternum in emphasis, to prove that the lifeless mound of broken flesh and bone would not protest. A sick feeling drives through Spock’s chest as he realizes that the captain does not move, doesn’t so much as flinch - that his refined sense of sight cannot detect the rise of his chest, the sounds of squealing alarms and deteriorating ship functionality making it impossible to discern any single breath above the din.
The sequence of motions that lead him to hover silently at Nero’s spine is automatic, and he isn’t entirely aware of having moved at all until his hands are around that murderous throat, and sheer rage overtakes him. “I would inform you that you may come to rue the day you’d committed such atrocities,” Spock whispers, venom dripping from the syllables in the space between the stoic words, the level growl that stops everything, commands respect. “Robbed so much from so many.” His breath is heavy, malicious on the ink-blotted skin, and given their shared ancestry, logically, this should be a more challenging confrontation; the struggle under his hands should be more intensive, more frantic; but he doesn’t dwell. He feels stronger, more powerful than he’s ever felt before, and it’s intoxicating in that instant, watching the blood drain from the face above his hands, feeling the futile gasps for air against where his palms are wringing bruises into decorated skin.
“But it would be futile,” he spits, lost to the desolate pit of fury as his eyes burn, the color of ash, of death. “You won’t last that long.”
He’s about to snap the thin, pathetically weak vertebrae under the pressure of his hands, destroying the life vibrating across the nerves with a single stroke, a single thought, when the Narada heaves, the end of the vessel imminent as Nero slips from his grasp at the force. Watching his temporarily-incapacitated enemy tumble from sight, Spock breathes shakily, realizing that the time they have his limited; admitting almost regretfully to himself that he’s no murderer as he crouches grievously at Kirk’s side.
“Captain,” Spock murmurs, the vision of him at close proximity more heart-wrenching than before as Spock takes in his broken face, lacerations that reach all the way to bone littering his skin, the angry protrusion of bones from flesh, splitting tissue and veins in the pursuit - all of it hits him in an instant and he feels lightheaded, the fluid scent of degradation, of blood and sweat and sour hatred overcoming him. He leans closer, though, undaunted as he steels himself, opening communications with the Enterprise and signaling for retrieval as he slips his arm beneath Jim’s shoulder blades, gingerly raising him up, careful not to disturb him more than absolutely necessary as he presses his sensitive fingertips to the carotid artery, waiting until he can convince himself that the flutter, something so faint that it would certainly have been missed by human hands, is real; is truly there.
“Jim,” he breathes, overwhelmed by a sense that this has happened before, more than once; that this loss was not the first, nor the last. It kills him, just a little, to think that anyone would have had to feel this; to think that he might have to feel it again.
One final glance at the writhing, gasping Romulan sprawled on the floor, and Spock swallows the regret at watching the empty vacuum take his life, when Spock himself can no longer deny the part of him that wants nothing more than to spill that blood himself.
When they materialize back aboard the Enterprise, everything moves in slow motion; Mr. Scott is absent, but McCoy’s waiting for them, and while Spock stares blankly at the turmoil unfolding around them, braces himself against the shudder of the entire vessel and realizes that because of him, because he’d gone back, they’d placed the entire ship in danger, risking it too close to the singularity and endangering every soul aboard.
He is pained, but he is not sorry.
Jim is lifted from his hold between blinks as Spock regains some composure, enough to make out the conversations unfolding around him, noting the voice of their helmsman calling back and forth with engineering from the bridge, the loss of their warp core and the narrow escape from immediate danger as they set a course back to Terran soil; the harsh bark of McCoy’s tone as he gives orders, the edge of true terror to the words that infuses itself by proxy into the horrified moans passing for replies from his staff as they move to support Jim between them, gaping at the sheer extent of his physical damage. Spock breathes deeply, closing his eyes against the sudden brightness of the ship as his vision clears, and tries to control the heat that runs rapid though him in time with his pulse.
Torn between terror and relief, between fear and joy, vengeance and shame, he watches from eyes outside his own as Jim’s limp and battered body is carried quickly towards sickbay, staring numbly at the creases of his palms, convinced that the stain of blood is visible there for the whole of the crew to bear witness to, to pass judgment on: the death of Vulcan, the death of Romulus, the death of innocence, of delusion, the death of himself as he understood himself to be; all heavy on his hands.
Shaking, though not enough for anyone to notice, he takes his leave.
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>>>>>>>>>> Part II Here
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Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Word Count: 5,745
Summary: He knows these feelings don’t belong to him, but that doesn’t make them any less real. For the st_xi_kink Fic Request Meme, Prompt: Nero is mindlessly focused in on Spock - on *hurting* Spock, even more so than just killing him. And he recognized Kirk "from earth's history". So he MUST know alllll about Spock & Kirk being the ultimate dream team, BFF's, fucking like bunnies, what have you. And now he's got Spock's captain here, beneath his hands. What better way to get revenge? Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009), Star Trek: Countdown. Vague references to Star Trek: The Original Series. Warnings for explicit violence, torture/abuse, and attempted non-con.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to Modest Mouse.
Author’s Notes: I’ve been reading a great deal about Kirk’s reaction to experiencing the feelings that Spock Prime may have associated with his Kirk, and considerably less about what Spock might do with such foreign emotions, particularly in his rather “compromised” psychological state. Thus, the inkling to explore that avenue fit into the parameters of this particular prompt (or two), and this was the result. Do me a favor and play along with the at times out-of-character emotionality and other plot devices of the like - particularly those involving communicators, transporter locks, conveniently-present prime-universe Vulcans, and most significantly, justifications for lingering psychic echoes in previously-owned spacecraft; apparently, those pesky emotional stains on the carpet come with the title and registration - who knew?
Parting Of The Sensory
Part I
When it comes down to the end, everything seems slower, everything seems to last forever; until in the blink of an eye, everything’s gone.
The breathless, endless seconds tick away too fast, and the situation at hand only worsens; the more Romulans they cut down - between Pike, propped carefully with a phaser in hand, and Jim himself, who’s taking out the enemy as best as his own two fists can manage - the more that seem to reappear to replace their fallen brethren, to the point where Kirk’s sure his lungs are on fire from the sheer exertion of keeping track of them all, let alone fighting them off. When he does manage to catch a breather, he can tell that Pike looks about to collapse entirely, the rush of adrenaline beginning to fade.
“Scotty,” Kirk hails the ship from his comm, eyeing the fast-approaching bulk of aggressors storming towards him from the depths of the ship with something very close to real fear. “Get us out of here.”
“Just a secon’, Captain.” The engineer’s voice is dimmed, muffled as Kirk tries his best to fend off two rather aimless-looking assailants by aiming his foot at their crotches and hoping to hell that their anatomy is similar enough that it slows them down, at the very least. “Locking on the two o’ ya, just hol’ still.”
Kirk lets out a sigh of relief, and he should know better - he should fucking know better because there are hands around his biceps before he can so much as empty his lungs. They pull at him, and he’s off-balance enough that he does not, cannot resist for that barest of instants where it might have mattered, where he might have managed to shake them off, to dislodge their iron grip. But that moment, that window of opportunity passes before it really arrives, and as he gauges the situation as best he can from the vantage point he has, he makes his decision - if it can really be called that; there’s no real choice to be made, in the end.
“Shit!” he groans as he feels his shoulder wrenched from its socket with a force that penetrates through his tendons, rattles down through his veins and drains the blood from him as he gasps against the pain. The world turns white for a second in time, and it’s only as it eases back into focus and the brightness doesn’t completely disappear that he notices the spiraling beam that begins to envelope the Enterprise’s true captain; notices that the same light fails to spin around him.
He swallows hard, knowing that he’s moving, he’s ducking too erratically for them to follow, recognizing that, of course, they’ll need more time; he’s blinking almost too quickly to see straight as a rapid-fire of fists and axes fly at him, simply outnumbered and buckling under the impact of ten blows for every one he manages to deflect. He chances a glance behind him, and it costs him what little combative footing he still clung to; Pike is gone, disappeared in that familiar swarm of light, and while Kirk feels an unnatural cold begin to seep into his bones as the Romulans overpower him, dragging him off to fuck-knows-where on this godforsaken vessel, he can at least feel the calming ease of knowing he followed his orders, for the first, and quite possibly the last time.
He’s on his back before he rightly knows it, boneless and bloody, and fuck, he’s been beaten at his own game, goddamnit. He doesn’t know if it’s wishful thinking or not when he sees the heartening cloud of white begin to grow around his limbs once more, but it’s a moot point as he feels his body heaved from the floor and tossed listless, lifeless against a control panel that stings and rips at his flesh as he slips down where the metal protrudes, where it catches and draws blood. He hears the deliberate crush of something steely, something substantial and electronic and his stomach churns because he knows, he knows that they’ve destroyed his ticket back to the ship, the tiny pieces of his now-useless communicator squealing unbearably underfoot, nails on a fucking chalkboard resonating like needles in his mind. Fists tighten quickly around his ankles and begin to pull, dragging him off as all delusion melts away, and any shred of light he may have seen succumbs to sheer and utter blackness.
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There’s something about this vessel, Spock recognizes as he maneuvers the ship through the starlit ether, something uniquely tailored to his psyche that stretches beyond mere manufacturing, simple physical customization to fit his preferences, needs and inclinations that stretch across parallel existences to create the fundamental basis of what he is, at least, if not exactly who. No, there is something deeper here, some echo of a soul that resonates in his own, dwelling in the very walls and calling to him, speaking of the impossible in hushed tones just beneath his conscious mind, slowly insinuating, assimilating universal truths that don’t apply here, that aren’t facts in this world, but that nonetheless bleed into him, undeniable, and somehow fitting; inexplicably, somehow right.
The crackle of an incoming transmission sweeps across the silence as Spock pilots the intimately familiar Jellyfish through the blackest night he’s ever known. He tries to tell himself that there is nothing more that can be taken from him, there is nothing more that he can lose, and yet he tenses against his will as the Narada hails his vessel, the deep inhale that echoes across the link drenched in a sadistic satisfaction that sends a tight spark of hatred, a tendril of fear through his chest.
“Hello again, Spock.” Nero’s voice is predictably condescending, and Spock finds that he has nothing he wishes to say to this murderer, this perpetrator of a veritable genocide. He stares through the visual displayed before him and focuses beyond it on the goal of the taloned-ship itself, his target hovering in the vacuum of empty space between planets, as if taunting him, begging him to follow it into the void.
“You know, before you go,” Nero sneers, and the look of true malevolence in his eyes is so unfathomable, so antithetical to what Spock understands of the world, of what he is capable of processing without confusion or distance or postulation; so disparate from what he knows, what he can relate to and comprehend. “There’s one more thing I’d like you to see.”
“We have a tradition, you know, among my people,” the Romulan continues, and Spock feels his blood run thicker, hotter at the voice, at the mere, taunting existence of this Nero. Everything within him wants to believe that he is acting out of logic, acting for the good of the Enterprise, the good of her crew - for the good of all sentient life and the future of Earth and the highest standards of the Federation’s mission as he maneuvers the ship to the exact coordinates, plans the point of impact to destroy the mining vessel and its nefarious influence upon their reality once and for all. He wants to believe that it’s not the pounding of recrimination, of personal revenge that shudders through him with every breath, holding the controls in a death grip and forcing the ship to fly faster, to dive sharper, the bile in his throat only fueling that vengeful fire.
“It’s a tradition of marking.”
The glint in Nero’s eyes is maniacal, askew - it shines with the light of the mad, and Spock feels his body stiffen, his blood run just a little colder, because where madness reigns, logic has no place. “We wear our sorrow, Spock,” the voice continues as long fingers run the lines of ink upon olive skin indicatively. “We wear it so we will always remember.” There is a surge of guilt that lingers at that, just for an instant beneath the anger, the adrenaline, and it’s gone before Spock can wonder at it in the periphery. Nero tilts his head, leaning into the viewer with purposeful hate. “Somehow, I think it might be more effective to paint your sorrow, your shame, in a different way,” he sneers, and then lower, more scathing: “Burn it somewhere you won’t forget to look.”
The figure that appears, jerked upwards by scarlet-smeared hair to consume the screen, isn’t one that Spock indentifies immediately, to be honest - because the man thrust before him is supposed to be anywhere but still on that ship - but the pieces aren’t long in coming together, in stealing his breath and blindsiding him, despite the inevitability of it all.
As it stands, Spock doesn’t owe James Kirk a thing, not a thing; not by any compensatory standards that he can summon to mind, not by any stretch of either human imagination or Vulcan logic - so it’s completely beyond the realm of his carefully cultivated reason, the dagger of utter despair that shoots through him, penetrating hard and fast and without relent when he sees the face of the young captain, barely recognizable for the bruising and the swelling and the blood, his left cheek torn open and weeping crimson across his split and battered lips, his eye swollen shut above it and already violet with the broken vessels that had yet to spill onto the surface.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” Kirk growls, but the malice etched against his bruised features is washed away when he coughs, jagged peaks of red staining the unnatural swell of his lips as he chokes violently, the color of the blood all the brighter, all the more grave with the shine of his saliva, mingling against the sheen of light as he swallows down the tang, licking clumsily and wincing as he hisses; “Goddamnit.”
The display that follows those words, those perfect final words filled with such fire, is something out of a nightmare - something distant and unreal and so disconnected, but still vivid, still rubbing true against the deepest corners of the mind, brushing harsh and abrasive with the promise of real loss behind the illusion, the facts behind the farce. A voice, something soft and toneless but insistent, swirls around his subconscious for the barest of instants, the narrator of a dream, almost, and Spock blinks, trying to grasp it as it dies against the whir of thoughts assaulting him - the promise of its words, whatever they were, haunt him for a moment too long, lodging deep against his psyche as he breathes out, the rush of air seeming to aid in easing open his eyelids and setting aside the incomprehensible call.
Spock watches, stone-faced, as Nero leers closer to the Captain, pummels his face harder and faster, and it takes moments only - moments that feel as light-years, that weigh as heavy - before Kirk stops fighting against the binds at his ankles and wrists, before the most crucial battle the young human faces becomes the one to breathe against the break of his nose, around the endless stream of blood that seems to pour from his features, out from under his tongue and between his teeth and the open skin that slices across both cheeks now, bleeding him for the slaughter. He doesn’t so much as flinch when Nero begins to dig his boot into the space between Kirk’s ribs, doesn’t bite against his lip when Kirk moans into the impact in agony, trying his best to swallow the blow even now. He doesn’t choke back the scream that teases at the back of his throat when Kirk falters, when he stills without breath, long enough to note across the feed, and he doesn’t imagine that his world stops for just the blink of an eye when it looks as if all is lost for that one moment to end all moments hence - doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief when the mangled mouth of Jim Kirk quirks - not a smile, but trying desperately in spite of everything, unwilling to go down without the last laugh he can possibly steal from this life; and if Spock’s pulse is pounding just a little harder, if his hands grip the controls tighter but less effectively - somehow boneless now, and unfeeling - he doesn’t notice, cannot know it.
Spock tenses when Nero throws the limp frame of his captive to the floor, his tied limbs managing to fall at awkward angles despite their binding, suggesting multiple breaks along them, given their incapacity to support him even the slightest bit as he slumps to the ground. His reflection against the flooring is stark on the screen, somehow intensified, the contrast enhanced as he shines ghostly pale against the slick black of the ground, hanging to life by the weakest of grasps but still hanging, because Jim Kirk was the sort that simply grabbed with his free hand when one began to slip, groping and clinging until the bitter end. And Kirk doesn’t move, doesn’t waver as Nero retrieves his Teral'n, retracting the blades on the staff before pressing those still posing a threat at the tip just against his victim’s skin, thrusting the missing spokes out again with unforgiving force, letting them skewer straight through the flesh of his arms and twist angry patterns, cut delicately into the shapes of half-hearted stars.
The sound of Kirk’s agony as muscle is torn straight from its bone sends ripples through what calm remains in Spock’s mind, and the tremor of it sets off aftershocks through his entire being in the form of whispers, the slightest intimations of meaning that drive a protective edge alongside his reaction to the brutality he is witnessing, and suddenly the atrocity of each stab into Kirk’s limbs, each jab and pull that cuts dangerously close to vital organs along his torso, missing them just barely, or perhaps not missing them at all, for all that Spock can tell; suddenly the utter wrongness of what he sees is more personal. The voice washes over him like a storm of secrets, each revealing something unforeseen about the man he’s watching suffer, telling him the most intimate details of the Captain, making him seem closer to Spock than his own skin, his own beating heart.
The slices, the breaks of flesh and muscle, of tendon and vein all the way down to the bone in places, unfathomable places; they leave gaping holes as Nero tires of the game, out of which seep the very strength, the very essence of the man he knows - inexplicably knows - Jim Kirk to be, leaving a shell of something lesser, something broken in its place. Spock shudders as the murmurs at the back of his mind crescendo to a roar, their presence hollow and unsettling rather than comforting, emanating an aching, sadistic sense of longing; the kind that’s tangible, that reaches between parsecs, palpable even across the infinite threads of time itself.
Spock feels the deep well of emotion that resides below, far below his conscious mind, his throbbing heart, the hidden and rejected foundation of everything he is; he feels that seat of passion begin to come undone, the levees around it begin to give. He tries desperately to calm it, to reign it back again, but it is for naught - the voice of his father melts into that of his beloved mother, a sacred sound now lost to the fires of destruction, to the emptiness of space - sacrificed to the stars, at the hands of this vermin before him: ‘Do not try to,’ it calls to him, soothing the burn in him with a thing more powerful than logic, more menacing than reason or stoicism, stoking the flames of feeling and replacing the embers with something greater, something more.
Nero’s vile hands are clenching tight around Jim’s throat, and Spock finds himself more than slightly affected, because he knows what that neck feels like, knows exactly how fast that heart can beat, how franticly it can work the blood through those veins; how that chest - sculpted and slender and solid - can heave desperately, strain endlessly against the heel of a palm as his own shameful need to silence, to subdue drives the air from the lungs beneath, drawing the life from his body like poison from a wound.
Jim is barely breathing, barely moving, and Spock feels the loss of something he never had before spark in his chest at the thought that his Captain is already lost; but Nero is still standing over him, crouched like a predator just waiting to devour its prey, just looking for the opportune moment. He hauls Jim’s dangling body up to its thoroughly shattered knee caps, watching with sadistic pleasure as the man’s wasted frame crumples each time, finally propping Jim against his shins and steadying him with the inside sole of his boot, daring him to fall one last time.
Nero sheds his upper garments, revealing slick skin and the tails of commemorations in raven ink, and his chest heaves almost wantonly as he wraps strong arms around Jim’s middle, hauling him upwards far enough to grasp at his stomach and steady him sufficiently whilst Nero’s clumsy fingers play tellingly with the fastens on Jim’s uniform trousers.
Spock feels loathing erupt within him as he understands what Nero means to do, how he means to defile the Captain; the soul-deep hared that’s tinged with a possessive need that he does not recognize except for the sounds, the breaths that tell him he belongs to the feeling, that it is his own, urging him in a voice too familiar to deny, despite what it may say.
“Does he mean so little to you, Spock?” Nero murmurs, death on his tongue as he sneers somewhere between where Jim kneels, unaware and unawake and entirely at the mercy of this creature’s evil, now more than ever. “Does it not so much as move your stoic Vulcan heart to witness the excruciating demise of the great Captain Kirk?”
And everything happens very quickly then, spanning the whole of time and space and the infinite depth of himself. With a raw, nearly feral cry of anguished rage, Spock can fight the voice no longer, cannot evade its call, and the sensation of memory that assaults him at once threatens mercilessly to consume him, to wash across him like the tides of the sea or the torrents of a storm - perhaps both, he thinks, as he succumbs to the pull of the most violent and the most beloved of forbidden emotions, wrapping around him and seeping into him without restraint, without relent. There are no images, no words, just breaths of recollection like sighs, the slightest intimations of sensation, like reflections as seen through fog and glass - the vaguest impressions, and yet so profound, so breathtaking; the barest echoes of a soul that is tied to him, somehow, that knows him better than he knows himself. How it calls to him, how it was reaching him now he does not know, cannot see, but it is irrelevant, inconsequential. All that matters is that when it is over - and it lasts only an instant, only the most fleeting touch of feeling - he finds that he knows something he had forgotten, has discovered something he had denied; he has realized a thing anew, and learned to read the darkest, deepest, most sacred corners of his soul. And what he finds there, what he can now understand, makes everything seem suddenly very stark, very clear.
Somewhere, some time, in some plane of existence that is not his own but feels true enough, claims some kinship to his deepest self; in that world, James T. Kirk was essential to him. He does not yet know how, and he can not even speculate as to why, but the man was - and somehow is, here and now - inexplicably, as necessary to his survival as the beat of his heart or the blood in his veins. It was not he who felt thus, and it was not the broken man he sees stretched across his viewscreen to whom the feelings belonged, but somehow they are still connected, still viable - still real enough to call out to something ancient and forgotten in Spock’s lonely, aching soul and latch onto it without reason or care, against even the Vulcan’s own conscious will. And beyond all logic, he cannot fight it - the bruised and bloody face of a man he barely knows, can barely bring himself to tolerate, even, is the same face that resonates with these thoughts, these inclinations that have latched onto him and taken hold like a virus, a plague; like the most perfect sense of completion that he’s ever dared desire, ever shamed himself to need.
The Enterprise is firing on the Narada with deadly precision, and Spock knows that he’s close enough, that the collision course he’s set will be seen through with or without a pilot - the enemy’s vessel is distracted enough with battling an enemy more formidable than he, now that the flagship herself has taken it to task, and he knows that it’s time to abandon his post and trust that Mr. Scott has managed a lock on Kirk somehow, has ensured both of their safe returns; this is the logical chain of events, this is what reason dictates as his course.
And yet logic is somehow absent as Spock continues to stare not at the fast-approaching spires of the vessel which he is about to impact, but at the soul-wrenching image of his captain... his friend, something tells him, his dearest friend - if not now, then someday, somewhere; his closest confidant in a future unknown, his one and only, his...
T'hy'la
He cringes as he feels the truth behind the claim, though the emotion, the connection behind it is borrowed somehow; foreign, so new and yet so undeniable that it shakes him to his core. Not this man, not them, but Spock is not centered, not focused enough to make the distinction. The pain in his chest, the effort of breathing as he sees the endless stream of blood leak from the image projected on the screen splits him in two, and nothing matters but to relieve the tension, the bone-deep ache. The whys and the hows are nothing but semantics, nothing more than petty details as emotions not his own penetrate ever deeper, ever more real, and take hold, consuming him until he knows nothing else, can process nothing else. His world is narrowed to a single understanding: lose James Kirk, and lose yourself.
His pulse hums shrilly at the very center of his torso, setting him off-balance and making everything seem more breathless, more urgent, and he realizes with sudden certainty that he cannot chance it. He has to see this mission through himself, to the very end; for if he cannot save the Captain, he will make certain that those who seek to do him harm will have no chance to proceed, that they will whither and burn and that Jim will be safe, if only in the very last of his moments. Spock will see to this, even if it costs him everything; it is the very least that he can do.
His heart trills to the point of dizziness, aching with a longing that he doesn’t comprehend, cannot identify with but that still manages to consume every part of him as his mind whirls against the warning, streaming lights that pass like dying stars beyond. Just a little further, that’s all it will take; moments now, just moments....
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“Cuttin’ it a wee bit close there, Commander!”
The urgent shout, weighted by its accent, seems to reach Spock’s ears before he materializes fully, before he processes the transporter room, the reality of what he catches on the monitors behind the controller panel - his ship crashing into the Narada, wreaking destruction and extracting retribution, plunging the hellish vessel into a crimson implosion of matter and space and sending it back into the abyss from whence it came.
And James Kirk with it.
“Take me back down, Mr. Scott.” The room freezes at the harsh demand, the way that Spock refuses to move from the pad. The engineer’s hands pause over the lock screen as the man blinks, confused and slightly intimidated.
“Sir, I-” he begins to protest, but Spock doesn’t have the time for his objections, Kirk doesn’t have time for it.
“Do it now!” he shouts, and the sound is frighteningly evocative of the scene on the bridge just a short time prior; himself lost to rage and passion, his hands tight around the neck of the man he now sought above all things to save.
Apparently the suggestion of his previous lapse in control is not lost on the others, because Mr. Scott engages the sequence to reverse the course once more, his eyes wide with apprehension but his fingertips steady, sure as they glide across the panel, initiating the beam.
“Onto the Narada,” Spock growls, the surge of adrenaline, of needy, desperate energy coursing rapidly through his veins. “Energize.”
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He’s never known his reflexes to react so quickly, never known his hands to be so steady or his aim so true; he’s never felt sheer terror quite like this before, and it’s what fuels him, that unfamiliar wash of fear, the rush of the no-win scenario he’d wasted so long trying to comprehend.
So much makes sense in those moments, as he cuts down every Romulan in his path, stunning at random and stealing the unconscious thoughts of these vermin, commanding them through sheer force of will to know where their captain is, to know the location of his prisoner. He sees things hazily in the stark contrast that logic seems to invert, and the image strikes him as sound; blurred around the edges, he can finally grasp what it is that Jim Kirk stands for, the sense of boundless determination that he embodies, an idealistic realism that changes the course of events simply because his will remains unbroken.
And somewhere unacknowledged, unbidden, Spock knows that this is the only reason they’re all still alive. The realization drops like lead in the pit of his stomach, clenches around his lungs as he runs faster, blasting at the enemy as he tears through the dank levels of the ship.
He finds himself at a loss, breathless and stone-stiff as he stops, the sight before him unconscionable, unreal - the hulking form of Nero looking down at the Captain with a lecherous, hateful satisfaction is unfathomably vile as he breathes heavy over the limp slab of meat that was once recognizable as James Kirk.
“I know you’re there, Spock,” the timber of Nero’s voice is low, and deliberately cruel, even for the likes of him. The sound resonates sickeningly along the planks of metal that encase them, his eyes glinting wickedly in the subtle glow of failing technology, his sneer triumphant, even in defeat. “I know you’ve come.”
“You loved him, know you,” the Romulan continues, taunting him, slowly tempting him away from the safety of the shadows by twisting the knife in his stomach, plunging it straight up through his heart. “Another life, perhaps, but you loved him. Held him above all others. Would have given your life for his.” Spock grates his teeth, hugging the darkness close as he drops feather-light steps across the floor, employing every shred of vengeful self-control to keep himself from breaking, from leaping forth and running full-stop at his enemy, fists flailing. “I could see it in your eyes.”
Everything drops away for a split second, the drive of blind emotion simmering at the edges of his consciousness as his eyes clear and follow Nero’s down to the crumpled form at his feet, the torn fragments of Jim’s Starfleet uniform barely covering him, barely even noticeable for all the blood.
“It’s a shame you’re too late,” Nero hisses mockingly, driving his heel hard along Kirk’s sternum in emphasis, to prove that the lifeless mound of broken flesh and bone would not protest. A sick feeling drives through Spock’s chest as he realizes that the captain does not move, doesn’t so much as flinch - that his refined sense of sight cannot detect the rise of his chest, the sounds of squealing alarms and deteriorating ship functionality making it impossible to discern any single breath above the din.
The sequence of motions that lead him to hover silently at Nero’s spine is automatic, and he isn’t entirely aware of having moved at all until his hands are around that murderous throat, and sheer rage overtakes him. “I would inform you that you may come to rue the day you’d committed such atrocities,” Spock whispers, venom dripping from the syllables in the space between the stoic words, the level growl that stops everything, commands respect. “Robbed so much from so many.” His breath is heavy, malicious on the ink-blotted skin, and given their shared ancestry, logically, this should be a more challenging confrontation; the struggle under his hands should be more intensive, more frantic; but he doesn’t dwell. He feels stronger, more powerful than he’s ever felt before, and it’s intoxicating in that instant, watching the blood drain from the face above his hands, feeling the futile gasps for air against where his palms are wringing bruises into decorated skin.
“But it would be futile,” he spits, lost to the desolate pit of fury as his eyes burn, the color of ash, of death. “You won’t last that long.”
He’s about to snap the thin, pathetically weak vertebrae under the pressure of his hands, destroying the life vibrating across the nerves with a single stroke, a single thought, when the Narada heaves, the end of the vessel imminent as Nero slips from his grasp at the force. Watching his temporarily-incapacitated enemy tumble from sight, Spock breathes shakily, realizing that the time they have his limited; admitting almost regretfully to himself that he’s no murderer as he crouches grievously at Kirk’s side.
“Captain,” Spock murmurs, the vision of him at close proximity more heart-wrenching than before as Spock takes in his broken face, lacerations that reach all the way to bone littering his skin, the angry protrusion of bones from flesh, splitting tissue and veins in the pursuit - all of it hits him in an instant and he feels lightheaded, the fluid scent of degradation, of blood and sweat and sour hatred overcoming him. He leans closer, though, undaunted as he steels himself, opening communications with the Enterprise and signaling for retrieval as he slips his arm beneath Jim’s shoulder blades, gingerly raising him up, careful not to disturb him more than absolutely necessary as he presses his sensitive fingertips to the carotid artery, waiting until he can convince himself that the flutter, something so faint that it would certainly have been missed by human hands, is real; is truly there.
“Jim,” he breathes, overwhelmed by a sense that this has happened before, more than once; that this loss was not the first, nor the last. It kills him, just a little, to think that anyone would have had to feel this; to think that he might have to feel it again.
One final glance at the writhing, gasping Romulan sprawled on the floor, and Spock swallows the regret at watching the empty vacuum take his life, when Spock himself can no longer deny the part of him that wants nothing more than to spill that blood himself.
When they materialize back aboard the Enterprise, everything moves in slow motion; Mr. Scott is absent, but McCoy’s waiting for them, and while Spock stares blankly at the turmoil unfolding around them, braces himself against the shudder of the entire vessel and realizes that because of him, because he’d gone back, they’d placed the entire ship in danger, risking it too close to the singularity and endangering every soul aboard.
He is pained, but he is not sorry.
Jim is lifted from his hold between blinks as Spock regains some composure, enough to make out the conversations unfolding around him, noting the voice of their helmsman calling back and forth with engineering from the bridge, the loss of their warp core and the narrow escape from immediate danger as they set a course back to Terran soil; the harsh bark of McCoy’s tone as he gives orders, the edge of true terror to the words that infuses itself by proxy into the horrified moans passing for replies from his staff as they move to support Jim between them, gaping at the sheer extent of his physical damage. Spock breathes deeply, closing his eyes against the sudden brightness of the ship as his vision clears, and tries to control the heat that runs rapid though him in time with his pulse.
Torn between terror and relief, between fear and joy, vengeance and shame, he watches from eyes outside his own as Jim’s limp and battered body is carried quickly towards sickbay, staring numbly at the creases of his palms, convinced that the stain of blood is visible there for the whole of the crew to bear witness to, to pass judgment on: the death of Vulcan, the death of Romulus, the death of innocence, of delusion, the death of himself as he understood himself to be; all heavy on his hands.
Shaking, though not enough for anyone to notice, he takes his leave.
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>>>>>>>>>> Part II Here
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