[Fic] Under the Dark [Chapter Four]
Under the Dark
» Fandom: Star Trek (STXI Universe)
» Classification(s): Supernatural, Mystery, Suspense, Romance, Action/Adventure
» Pairing(s): Kirk/Spock, Uhura/Scotty, Sulu/Chekov; brief Kirk/Gaila
» Summary: Spock might be Riverside's first ever vampire, but forgive Deputy Kirk for not being overly enthusiastic about it.
Chapter Four - Puzzle Pieces
Jim had third shift the next day and dozed well into the afternoon, even after the warm body next to him whispered, "Taking off with Ny, sweetheart. Gotta feed the cat," and slipped out of his arms.
As he lay drowsing in the long stretch of summer sun across his bed, he felt the bed sink and a finger on his bottom lip, tracing its shape as it slowly curved under the soft touch. "Mmmm," he breathed out.
Will you come to me?
With a strangled gasp Jim jerked fully awake, hand clapped over his mouth and staring wildly around the sunny room. The sunny, empty room.
"Gaila?" he called into the silence.
No one answered him.
"Christ," he breathed, and let his hand fall back.
He couldn't explain even to himself why he'd said yes. Here, in broad daylight, it seemed like the worst kind of stupidity-the kind of brazen, reckless thrill-seeking he'd set aside after Pike bullied him into the academy and brought him home to Riverside. Jim knew himself well enough, had lived through enough catastrophes of his own making to recognize the sick curl of dread and excitement in his gut as more addictive than cocaine. It hummed through his body when he licked his lips and felt an echo of that spark, and could almost taste the copper-sweet salt of blood-
Jim groaned and turned over, curling around a pillow. Fucked up, that was so fucked up, he was not imagining burying his face in that long white neck and doing a little biting of his own.
He was. Goddamnit.
At the time, 'yes' had seemed to be the only answer he could give, the only one he'd wanted to give. But, really, how could he trust his reactions around a man- being- who was capable of making Jim do or say anything he wanted?
Jim tucked his chin over the edge of the pillow. Still. There was something about Spock- the way he spoke, his awkward apologies, the oddly hesitant look in his eyes when he'd leaned in to kiss Jim. It was… he supposed he might call it endearing, in the loosest sense of the word. It got harder to remember that Spock was, by species definition, a murderer the longer Jim dwelled on the breathless rush of his words the night before.
Will you come to me?
He shivered, and clutched the pillow tighter.
When Jim finally wandered downstairs in an old pair of sweatpants and nothing else, there was a message on the pad next to the phone. Went to work, Nyota's fluid handwriting spelled out. Call me.
"Scotty's Pub and Brewery, a wee slice o' Scotland in th' fair state o' Iowa," came the Scotsman's thickest Highland burr.
"I thought you were a Bar and Grill?"
"Aye, that too," Scotty said agreeably. "What can ah do for ye, Jim?"
"Is Ny around?" He ambled towards the fridge as he spoke, wondering if there was any sausage left.
"'Tis nae a switchboard I'm running, Jim," the man said disapprovingly.
Jim yawned, scratching idly at his stomach. "Mm, yeah. Sorry, she asked me to call."
Somewhere on Scotty's end of the line, Nyota said, "Is that Jim? Come on, I promise I'll be just a minute, 'kay?"
"Fine, fine," the Scotsman muttered, but for her his tone softened, less grumpy and more… affectionate. Jim raised an eyebrow.
"Jim?"
"Your boss likes you," he said accusingly as he opened the fridge and grabbed the orange juice.
"I like to think so," she answered dryly. "After all, he signs my paychecks."
He took a long drink straight out of the carton, then set it aside to grab eggs and some cheddar from the cheese drawer. "Yeah, sure. Mmm-mm, breakfast time."
"Did you just get up?" She sounded scandalized.
The fry pan was still on the stove, excellent. "Maybe," he allowed as he started cracking shells.
"That's disgusting, it's three in the afternoon!"
He grinned. "You're just jealous 'cause you're working a double. Whadya want, Nyny?"
"Do me a favor, and on your way into town drive Gaila to the bar? She's working the last half of my late shift and I don't want her walking there in the dark."
He propped the phone against his ear with his shoulder and worked the sausage packet open. "Yeah? You doing something tonight?"
"Relaxing at home. It's her punishment for the hangover I woke up with this morning."
He laughed. "Sure thing. Time?"
"Ten."
The third shift started at eleven. "No problemo."
"Great! I'll call and tell her."
He yawned again, and started dropping sausage in the pan. "I'll be there around nine-thirty, then."
"Thanks, Jim. It's only a couple of blocks, I know, but… I'd just feel better."
She didn't have to mention Marlena or Janice, but they were there in the unspoken pauses. "I got you, Ny," he said, humor draining out of his voice. "No worries."
They rang off and Jim made his breakfast, cheese omelet and links with maple syrup. He finished the carton of orange juice and plated up extra food for Winona. He could see her ridiculously oversized gardening hat bobbing around the azaleas through the kitchen window.
He'd been thinking of starting some sanding work on the Harley, but the minute he stepped outside Winona had him hauling and spreading fertilizer. They worked like that, side by side and muddy up to their elbows in the loamy vegetable plots, until the light dimmed and the sun slowly sank below the treeline.
He'd been seeing a lot of sunsets recently, he mused as he drove along 130th towards town, windows down and the radio blaring. This one wasn't particularly showy, just a long clear gradient from blush mauve in the west to inky indigo in the east. Even that faint color was gone completely by the time he pulled up to the curb at Gaila's duplex and honked, tapping the wheel in time with Guns n' Roses.
Axel's last scream segued into the opening chords of "Smoke on the Water", one of the few things Jim had ever learned to play on the battered old guitar he'd lugged around San Fran. God, that must have been, what, six or seven years ago, now? He let his fingers form the familiar patterns and sang along, a little tunelessly, but no one had ever accused Jim Kirk of having true talent. He honked again, impatiently, and after "Layla" and "Hotel California" he pulled out his phone.
"C'mon," he muttered as it rang. "Pick up the- ahhh, damn it." The voicemail message chirped how happy it was that he'd called, and Jim shoved the cell into his back pocket and turned off the truck.
Just as he was trotting up the front steps, the door of the second apartment opened and Mrs. Colt stuck her head out, her graying hair in curlers. "Jim Kirk, I know that wasn't you blaring your horn at ten on a Tuesday night," she said with stiff disapproval.
"Sorry, ma'am," he said, chagrined. The woman had been his algebra teacher a decade ago and he'd never really stopped being afraid of her. "It won't happen again, I promise."
She sniffed, but retreated, door snapping closed behind her. "Old bat," he muttered, and continued on to Gaila's door.
He knocked much more lightly than he might have otherwise, and it shifted inward under his knuckles, not quite latched in place. It brought him up short. "Gaila?" he called, softly.
Only silence greeted him, and trepidation ran like icewater down his spine. He touched the door again and pushed it inward, slowly. "Hey, Gaila?"
Light from the streetlamps swept across the floor, illuminating everything inside with a pale orange glow. He didn't even get it open all the way before he was rushing inside, skidding through the pooled blood and dropping to his knees beside the figure reaching mutely out to him from the linoleum floor. "Oh God, oh God oh God- help! Mrs. Colt!"
He'd only seen pictures of Janice and Marlene; the murders had happened out of the county and professionally weren't his responsibility. It was different, brushing back Gaila's sodden hair from her face and hearing her gasp wetly for air, her bar uniform slashed to bloody ribbons across her chest and collar. "Mrs. Colt! No, no, don't try to talk, baby, just stay still, okay?"
Gaila's eyes were wide and glassy with pain, but she clutched weakly at his sleeve and rasped something, face imploring him to understand. He could only stare down at her as her lips shaped one three-syllable word, over and over.
"Jim? What's- dear Lord-"
"Call 911," he ordered tersely, already reaching for his own phone and hitting speed dial. "She needs to get to a hospital as soon as possible."
Bones answered his phone after a single ring. "Jim, so help me God-"
"Gaila's been attacked," he cut in. "It'll be fifteen minutes at least to get an ambulance down from Iowa City, can you-?"
"I'm coming," Bones said, and hung up.
Two minutes later, Gaila was slipping into unconsciousness and Bones burst in, shoving aside the small crowd of neighbors milling around the open door. Before he'd even finished kneeling he snapped, "Towel, sheets, now," and Jim ran for them while he took Gaila's hand and crooned, "Hey, darlin', it's Len. I know you're tired, but I need you to stay awake, stay with me, that's right."
When they'd met three years ago, Bones had been on an extended leave of absence from a seven-figure salaried position as trauma surgeon in Atlanta. It had taken a few days and several bottles of whiskey, but Jim had managed to coax out most of the story: Bones worked too much, saw Jocelyn and their baby girl too little, and by the time he'd realized the danger and applied for that leave of absence, the damage had been done. One hellish divorce and custody battle later, Leonard McCoy fled the state on a Greyhound going north, with the vague idea of visiting cousins in Montana. He'd met Jim, instead.
He still worked as a surgeon, but a small-town hospital like Mercy General saw a lot less trauma than Atlanta. Still, by the time the EMTs arrived, Bones had most of the bleeding stopped and Gaila was still partly lucid. She kept repeating that single word, hand curled in Jim's sleeve and her eyes staring beseechingly into his.
A blonde EMT with the name CHAPEL on her lapel had Gaila loaded onto a gurney and out the door in under a minute. What looked like half the neighborhood had gathered around the house by this point, though Sulu and Finnegan had shown up and were in the process of cordoning off the area. Sulu caught his eye and nodded towards the duplex, eyebrow raised in silent question. Jim waved him off and followed Bones to the ambulance, where the EMTs had already lifted Gaila into the back and under Bones' supervision were beginning IV drips.
"Let's get this boat moving," Chapel said, pulling herself up and into the bay. "Doc, you riding with us?"
"Yeah, Jim too," Bones said, moving to follow her.
A voice behind them coughed and corrected, "No."
Jim looked back, and there stood Agent Komack, impeccable suit and composed expression apparently unhindered by the late hour and press of people surrounding them.
"I'm afraid Miss Vro will have to continue on alone. The two of you will be riding with me."
Flabbergasted, Bones stared blankly at the man. "And just who the hell are you?"
"Jump in or get left, Doc," Chapel said urgently, braced against the ambulance's door.
Komack reached into his jacket and flipped out his badge. "FBI, Agent Komack."
"Dr. McCoy?"
"Take her," Bones said in disgust, stepping down and back.
"But-" Jim began, and turned in time to see the doors swing closed on Gaila's blood-streaked face.
But not before her lips shaped those same three syllables.
"More coffee, deputy?"
Jim lifted his head and looked at Komack, too tired to muster a glare. "Just how much longer am I going to be here?"
The man shrugged, easing into the seat across the table. Behind him Jim's reflection stared back from the two-way mirror, eyes shadowed and sullen, mouth pressed in a tight, angry line.
Komack had opened a folder on the table and was leafing through it lazily. Morrow had done the same thing when Jim had first been brought to the interrogation room- not their own at the county seat, but one of the moldy old rotboxes at the Iowa City PD. Three hours later and Jim was still there, the dried blood flaking off his arms and onto the polished Formica surface of the table.
"The events as described by Dr. McCoy and Mr. Kirk are thus," the agent said eventually, for the benefit of the camera and recording devices behind the mirror. "Two pm: Gaila Vro leaves 1055 East 130th Street, the Kirk residence, having spent the night with James Kirk. Mr. Kirk, did you engage in sexual relations?"
"Yes," Jim said through his teeth.
"Would you say that you and Miss Vro are dating, Mr. Kirk?"
"No," he said curtly, just as he had the first and second times he'd been asked the question. He didn't owe the fucking FBI any explanation of his love life.
"Would you say that Mr. Spock and Nyota Uhura are dating?"
I think you have perhaps misunderstood something.
"…no."
Komack only nodded. "At approximately three thirty pm, Miss Uhura called the Kirk residence, and communicated to you, Mr. Kirk, that she would like you to accompany Miss Vro to work. Both Miss Vro and Miss Uhura are employed as waitresses at the establishment known as Scotty's Bar and Grill, correct?"
"Correct."
"And this same establishment was the site of a vampire attack two nights ago, the night of the seventeenth?"
"Attack on a vampire," Jim corrected.
Komack steepled his fingers. "Was Miss Vro in any way involved in this attack?"
Jim leaned forward, voice rough and angry as he said, "No. As far as I know, she'd hardly ever seen Spock. Or the Craters for that matter. Now, I would be very much obliged, Fed, if you would cut the crap and let me out of here so I can go to the hospital and see how she's doing."
"In her statement," Komack continued, as if Jim had never spoken, "Miss Uhura says that she introduced Mr. Spock to Miss Vro two weeks ago, after making Mr. Spock's acquaintance at her place of work. Is that true, to the best of your knowledge?"
"Yes," Jim responded, beyond annoyed.
"And you yourself first met Mr. Spock last night, in the course of the attempt on his life?"
Jim let the question hang a little too long, and the agent lifted a brow. "Yes or no, deputy, was that your first meeting?"
"Yes," he said, and the lie didn't even sting.
"And according to your account of the incident, Mr. Spock left the scene before he could be detained and questioned."
"…That's correct." He was the victim, Jim thought viciously.
The agent flipped the page. "The morning of the twentieth, the perpetrator of that attempt was found dead less than half a mile from your home."
Komack paused there, as if waiting for elaboration. When Jim only sat silently he moved on. "On the evening of the same day, Miss Uhura reports that Mr. Spock visited your home. How would you characterize that visit?"
Jim gritted his teeth. "Friendly."
Komack tapped his pen against the paper. "And Mr. Spock didn't do or say anything that would lead you to believe he was responsible for Mrs. Crater's death?"
"No."
The agent tilted his head, an expression of polite disbelief in place. "And you don't find it a strange coincidence?"
"I don't know what you want from me!" Jim exclaimed, shoving back from the table. "I've answered all of your questions, and all of Agent Morrow's questions. The answers won't change."
"We're just trying to build a complete account of events, deputy," Komack said. His tone was probably meant to be soothing, but came across as snidely patronizing. "I'm sure you recognize the necessity, with two women dead and another gravely injured."
"I recognize the necessity of knowing when I'm being dicked around with and demanding my attorney," Jim snapped, and moved to stand.
Komack held his gaze. "I find it very interesting that the one common thing that connects these three women, apart from locality, seems to be you."
Brought up short, Jim stared at him. "What?"
Komack gave him a thin smile. "We have serial killer on our hands, Deputy Kirk. Now, with such high marks at the academy," he tapped another folder lying in front of him, "I'm sure you understand basic profiling. If victims are young white females from middle-class backgrounds, how likely is it that the killer in question is a young white male from a middle-class background?"
"You can't seriously-" he began hotly, but Komack rolled right over him.
"Of course, this killer emulates vampire kills." A pause. "If he is not, in fact, a vampire himself. Mr. Spock remains another viable suspect in that regard, especially when you consider that all three victims were known to associate with vampires, and, in Miss Vro's case, Mr. Spock in particular."
Jim opened his mouth to protest, and realized he had nothing to base his defense on. He had no proof that Spock was innocent, and first-hand knowledge that the vampire could and would use glamour, would kill.
And Jim had said yes to him. Jesus.
"Last but certainly not least, there is your friend Dr. McCoy."
"What?" Jim blurted, shocked out of his spiraling thoughts. "You can't be serious."
Komack smiled more broadly, sly and malicious. "Tell me, are you aware of the circumstances under which he regained custody of his daughter?"
"It was hardly a secret," Jim said. "The courts ruled Jocelyn an unfit parent."
"Yes. For reasons of unsafe lifestyle changes."
He wondered where the hell the agent was going with this. "Yeah, so Joss started drinking and hanging out with the wrong crowd. So what?"
"The former Mrs. McCoy's unsafe lifestyle change was her decision to date a vampire," Komack said, eyes narrowed faintly and boring into Jim's. "The sole change she made, I believe. But that was enough for Dr. McCoy to file, and for the courts to rule in his favor. And who's to say they aren't right?" The man leaned forward, that wolfish gleam entering his eye. "Anybody easy or desperate enough to fuck a vampire probably deserves what they get."
Jim surged up the table, slamming his hands down on the open folders in front of the agent. "We are done here," he said, low and venomous. "Done. If you have nothing to hold me with, I am leaving and I'm taking Bo-Dr. McCoy with me."
Komack inclined his head. "It is your constitutional right to refuse questioning without a subpoena."
"Damn right it is," Jim said.
Komack made a great show of shuffling and tucking pages back into their folders. "As you leave the station, though, I'll have to ask you to leave your badge and gun. You're suspended from duty until this case is closed."
"What-? I don't answer to you," Jim snarled. "The sheriff is the only man who can take my badge." Pike would never agree to it, either.
"Sheriff Pike is missing," Komack said, watching him steadily. "And the undersheriff has agreed that while you remain under investigation, it's best that you're removed from the process."
Ignoring for a moment the laughable irony of being benched by Cupcake, Jim said, "Pike's missing? Since when? What happened?"
Komack's gaze dropped back to his papers. "Yes. Since last night. No one knows what happened, or he wouldn't be missing."
"But- are you looking into it?"
Komack snorted. "Mr. Kirk, we're looking into everything."
Jim's mind was racing now, trying to think back to the crime scene and what direction, what car the sheriff had left in.
"I suggest you take the opportunity to leave, before I do find something to charge you with," Komack suggested without looking up. "With your record, it shouldn't be hard."
"Fuck you," Jim said shortly, and slammed the door on his way out.
Bones was waiting for him in the deserted lobby, looking worn out and grey around the edges. He was reading a copy of the Iowa City Press-Citizen with a headline shouting "UNDEAD AND UNWANTED". The photo was of picketing crowds outside a building Jim recognized as Fangtasia, black siding and red neon looking even more garish and campy in broad daylight. In the sidebar there were small headshots of Marlena and Janice, and reeking of hysteria, the question "VAMPIRE SERIAL MURDERS?"
"Hey." Jim sat next to him. Bones squinted tiredly at him before yawning and folding the paper closed.
"Hey, you sorry sumbitch." The Georgia drawl always came out more when Bones was tired.
"Have you been out here long?"
Bones yawned again, hand over his mouth. "Mmmm, not too long. They accuse you of murder?"
"Yeah."
Jim wanted to ask Bones why he hadn't told him Jocelyn was dating vampires. It seemed like the kind of thing that, after the '09 anti-discrimination laws passed, she might have tried to have overturned- the woman was a lawyer, after all. But the man hadn't so much as mentioned her in months.
Bones put a hand on his arm. "Called the hospital. Gaila's still unconscious, but stable. They think she'll make it."
Something in Jim eased with that, and he managed a weak smile. "Thank God."
"Have been." Bones grinned too, soft with fatigue. "Ny's with her. Scotty closed the bar early and drove her out there."
"Hm," Jim said as they fell in step. "Think something's going on there."
"What? Nyota and Scotty?" Bones looked at him, eyebrow raised. "I thought she was seeing that vampire."
"Uh-" A kiss like summer lightening, like a burning ember. "I think they're just friends."
Bones' face darkened, a small change Jim wouldn't have caught if he hadn't known the man so well. "Hard to be friends with something that wants to eat you, Jim."
Will you come to me?
Jim had to physically shake off the memory, and the sudden feeling that he was missing a very important appointment. The smile he offered Bones now was bright and fake. "Hey, we'd better get out of here before they change their minds, right? Taxi's on me this time."
It was closing in on four in the morning by the time Jim dropped Bones off at his apartment and drove back to the Kirk farmstead. He entered the house, grabbed a flashlight from the utility drawer, and was back out the door before the screen had stopped swinging.
It wasn't precisely that he intended to confront Spock, or that he was so eager for a continuation of the kiss- although that was twisted up in it too. His mind roiled now with an uneasy mixture of curiosity, suspicion and fear, a combination that had never failed to draw him in before.
Jim wanted… he just wanted to see Spock. That was all.
He walked south on the edges of the sloped drainage channel, a narrow stripe of ditch weed between waist-high fields of corn. The moon was new and the rain from the night before made the ground soggy, but he managed to pick his way across and in ten minutes had reached the old family cemetery that separated the Kirk farmstead from the Grayson place.
The stones here were weathered and nearly illegible, spotted with lichen and moss where they stood under the trees that ringed the graves, maybe fifty by fifty feet of unkempt grass and clover.
In daylight it was a lonely place, full of the sense of things lost and forgotten. At night, it was creepy as all motherfucking get-out, and his grip on his flashlight tightened to the point of pain. As children, Sam and Jim had played here more times than he could count, scared shitless and jumping at every twig snap and skittering animal in the overgrown rosebushes. He passed through as quickly as possible, almost tripping on one of the crying cherub markers near the far entrance and righting himself with a curse.
He was surprised, once he emerged from the woods and onto the Grayson property, that it actually did look like someone had been working on the place. A lot of the saplings and underbrush had been cleared from around the house, and raw earth and timber showed where he remembered outbuildings standing. He kept his flashlight on his feet and followed tire tracks right up to the front porch.
The house looked much the same as it had when Jim had been a kid and an abandoned building had been the best kind of playground. The stairs and most of the veranda had long since rotted away, but were easy enough to scale when you were ten and nimble as a monkey. It was a bit trickier, now. He had to heave himself over the edge and crawl forward as the old plank wood groaned and swayed threateningly under him.
Plywood remained in place of windowpanes, and it occurred to him that Spock might prefer that. He'd said he was remodeling… what would a vampire-designed house look like? No windows would mean better protection from the sun. No kitchen, because vampires ate on the hoof, as it were. Maybe just a standalone fridge for the synthetic plasma crap and donations? Hell, probably no bathrooms either. Or only a single tiny powder room for the occasional human guest.
Jim reached the front door eventually, skirting carefully along with his hands braced against the house and the flashlight in his teeth. He had to hold himself at an awkward angle to reach the door, but he managed to get close enough to knock, and waited.
And waited.
Patience was never a virtue of his, and prudence even less so; after he knocked again and no one answered, Jim stretched to try the knob. The door swung inwards with a shriek of rusted hinges, and Jim edged gratefully into the deeper darkness of the house.
"Hello?" he said, sweeping his flashlight across the room. Dusty photos, peeling paint and yawning black doorways were briefly illuminated. "Spock?"
Somewhere beyond the beam of his light, there was the faintest rustle of fabric. That was Jim's only warning before a pallid hand shot out and gripped him by the throat, pulling him forward into the room.
Jim threw his weight backward and the hand only tightened further, until he could feel cartilage shift and crackle. The flashlight dropped from his fingers and rolled across the floor, illuminating one wall of distressed fleur-de-lys papering and a moth-eaten sofa while he struggled wildly against whoever held him.
Out of the silent dark, a disembodied voice asked, "How does this creature come to call you so familiarly, sa-kugalsu?" It was female, disinterested, and vampire. He would recognize that timbre anywhere, the way the words seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
"Release him." Spock may have been commenting on the weather for all the emotion in his voice, but there were undertones that eddied around Jim's awareness as threat and danger, and Jim's eyes darted wildly around the room in search of him. "He comes by invitation, as you yourself did not."
The hand around his throat dug in so viciously that Jim started twisting against the pressure like a stray dog on a catchpole. "No human must know of your resting place. It is one of the first tenets of Surak."
Jim's head was swimming from the lack of oxygen, but his eyes were adjusting to the dim light now; an unmoving shape in the corner he had taken for furniture suddenly resolved itself into Spock, looking as wooden as the chair he sat on. Jim collapsed slowly to the floor, and the vampire's fixed expression never wavered.
"The first of Surak's tenets is to offer violence to no living thing. You forget yourself, T'Pring."
"He brings a weapon," the female vampire countered. Jim could see his captor a little better now as well, enough to be shocked at the ease with which she held him. She was as fair and dark-haired as Spock, but where Spock was tall and lean with muscle, T'Pring was small and delicate, her features sharp and beautiful in their inhuman perfection.
Spock lowered his head an almost imperceptible amount. "His position in human society is such that he is often armed. I repeat, release him."
Something throbbed like it might snap in his throat, and spots ate across his vision. What if T'Pring didn't release him? Would Spock sit there and watch him die?
Another voice rang out in the room, soft as a whisper but striking Jim's ears like hammer blows. "What is this human to you, Spock? Have you fallen so far that you feed as your ancestors did?"
Jim nearly choked on his own startled exclamation as a third vampire materialized at T'Pring's side. He had been standing there the entire time, Jim realized, his shape distinct and obvious against the deeper darkness. Yet Jim hadn't seen or sensed him at all.
Still sitting across the room, Spock looked, if anything, bored. "No living blood has touched my lips since last I felt the fire."
The hand on his neck flexed, wrenching a tiny sound from Jim. The roar of his own blood in his ears threatened to drown out the third vampire's response. "Then you cannot have reason to refute the necessity of-"
One moment Spock sat in the chair, and the next he loomed in front of them. His eyes were terrifying, black holes no light escaped from. "He is mine."
The words sank into the room like stones dropped in a well: impassive, implacable, echoes rippling out in waves over an undercurrent of deadly intent.
The pressure around his throat disappeared so suddenly that Jim fell backwards, collapsing at Spock's feet. The vampire shifted as if to steady him, but that lethal edge was still vibrant in Jim's head and his body jerked away from Spock's touch instinctively. He stayed sprawled on his side, wheezing in panicked gasps, as his fingers found the grip of his gun and clung there.
From the flashlight's weak beam against the opposite wall, Jim could see that they were in what had once been a sitting room, stairs to the right, an ancient moldering grandfather clock standing against the wall. The hardwood under his knees was warped and knobby with age, the wallpaper pattern barely discernable under decades of dust.
The room was empty now, but for Jim and Spock.
Jim looked around wildly, trying to find any sign of where T'Pring and the male vampire had gone, panting into the rough wood floor.
Spock took a step towards him. "Don't," Jim rasped out. "Don't move." He brought the gun up, the fine trembling in his hands make it waver.
"James," the vampire murmured, still and solemn. "Calm yourself."
Jim let out a shaky, harsh laugh, looking down the barrel at Spock's blank face. "Calm myself? The fuck I'll calm myself, what the- what the hell was all that?"
His voice sounded like he'd put his vocal chords through a meat grinder, and his throat ached and stung when he breathed. He coughed, and then couldn't stop, trying to keep the barrel level even as he curled in on himself. The liquid he coughed onto the floor was dark and viscous in the dim light.
A touch to his shoulder and Jim jackknifed up, Spock's grip firming when he tried to jerk away. "Calm yourself," the vampire said again, and his hand slid to cup the nape of Jim's neck. His eyes were brown again, brown and somehow soft.
Oddly enough, it helped. When his chest wasn't heaving, his throat throbbed less, and as his breathing steadied the raw panic quieted, too.
"Okay," he breathed. "Okay. What the hell just happened?"
Spock's brows drew together as he parsed this question. "You desire explanation of T'Pring's actions."
Oh God, laughing hurt. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be nice."
Spock sat back on his heals, letting his fingers slide from Jim's neck to stroke gently along his collar.
"In order to live amongst humans in peace, vampires of my clan follow a strict code of conduct, put forth by our chieftain in the fifteenth century anno domini."
"Surak," Jim murmured, and Spock nodded.
"Yes. He was a great man, and a farseeing one. He saw we could not live as we were, as mad wolves in the pasture, or we would surely be hunted to extinction. Those who followed him, who tamed the fire, were called Vulcan's sons."
"The fire?"
"Bloodlust. It… comes on us much like a flame. We are consumed."
Spock was looking at Jim's lips, and Jim realized he could still taste blood in his mouth.
"The invention of synthetic blood was a boon like no other to us, for now no creature need be harmed to feed our appetite. Vulcan society as it now stands abhors the taking of human companions for nourishment when there is a viable, nonviolent alternative. This is why T'Pring was discomfited by your presence." Spock's voice grew deeper with each word, until it had reached a basso purr. Jim shivered, feeling the vibrations under his skin.
"James," Spock sighed, and leaned closer to him, eyes fixed on the quick dart of his tongue as Jim wet his lips nervously. "You are injured."
"Spock, wait," Jim tried to say, but then Spock's own tongue lapped at the same spot. "Oh."
"James," the vampire said, this time with a note of urgency. "I- wish… I would like to kiss you, again. May I?"
"Hngh," Jim managed, whole body shuddering as that urgency translated to a sensation like a long, slow stroke of cool fingers up his spine. God, that voice.
"Yes?" Spock's hands were on his hips now, thumbs rubbing tiny circles in the hollows, and there was a reason why this was a bad idea but Jim was having a hard time remembering it.
Spock pressed a small kiss to the dip of his chin, and Jim gasped, "Yes."
It started with the softest contact, Spock's mouth brushing against his almost sweetly. Spock's tongue flicked out, wetting the seam between Jim's lips, and Jim moaned and parted them, reaching for that teasing tongue with his own.
The kiss deepened, and Spock's softness gave way to avid hunger, delving into Jim's mouth as if determined to map every inch of it. Jim sucked lightly, and was rewarded with a strangled groan as Spock pressed him back to the floor.
Like this, it was even better. Spock's hands slid up Jim's sides to cradle his head as he bit at Jim's mouth. Jim wrapped his arms around those thin shoulders and tried to remember if anyone had ever kissed him like this, like they wanted to crawl inside him and never leave.
Spock drew back a tiny distance and Jim blinked dazedly. "Wha…?"
"You are injured," the vampire said, and bit his own tongue.
At the first drop of blood on his chin, Jim's eyes opened wide and he said, "Spock, wait."
The vampire didn't seem to hear him, already swiping his bleeding tongue across that small drop and spearing into Jim's mouth again, where the coppery sweetness exploded across Jim's palate. Jim let out a shocked sound, his hands sliding up to fist in Spock's hair. He pulled the vampire down, hard, to chase after that taste like liquid gold across his tongue.
Spock's body collapsed onto his, startlingly heavy for his size. It barely registered above the heat Jim could feel building in his body, the low pleased noises he could feel more than hear as he suckled at the small wound. It was healing too quickly, and Jim sank his teeth into Spock's lower lip with a mindless growl.
Spock shuddered against him, pressed closer, and whispered, "Drink."
Jim blinked, and snapped back into himself. "No," he panted, twisting his head away. "Damn it, let me go!"
He shoved at the vampire's grip until Spock's arms loosened enough that he could scramble backwards until he hit the wall, breath coming hard and fast.
Spock crouched in the middle of the floor, eyes drowningly dark. "No?" he asked.
The room was getting lighter, and a quick glance to the window confirmed that dawn was mere minutes away. Thank God. "I can't do this. I will not do this, Spock."
Spock sat slowly back, absently licking at the sluggishly bleeding mark on his lip. Jim looked away.
"… I do not understand," the vampire said, voice low enough to raise all the hair on the back of Jim's neck. "You do not wish to- to kiss?"
Jim laughed brokenly, and it was pain-free. "I want to kiss you more than I want to keep breathing," he confessed, and rose unsteadily to his feet. "But I can't." Jim's gun was on the floor by Spock's hand. He'd have to leave it, because if he didn't leave now he never would.
Spock looked up at him, confusion writ large in his uncharacteristically open expression. "James. Please explain."
"I'm sorry," Jim said, and turned and fled out the door into the brightening blue of the summer dawn.
Author Note: New minor characters! J.M. Colt was Captain Christopher Pike's yeoman in the unaired pilot of TOS. Christine Chapel served under Bones as the head nurse aboard the Enterprise.
<< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >>