tame this animal I have become, Chapter 2, Kirk/Khan, Rated M
Title: tame this animal I have become
Author: larienelengasse
Pairing: Kirk/Khan, Spock, Uhura, Bones, Scotty, Chekov
Universe: STID - Star Trek Reboot
Rating: NC-17 for violence and sex
Beta: alexcat
Artist: elladansgirl
Warnings: implied torture, violence, remembered canonical character death, & angst.
Author’s Note: Written for the 2013 oeam_bigbang. Takes place after the events in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Title from the song “Animal I Have Become” by Three Days Grace; the lyrics fit my vision of Khan and Kirk’s relationship.
Summary: Sometimes a man has to take a stand. Sometimes he has to choose to his enemies over his allegiances. And sometimes doing the right thing changes a person.
Chapter Two
“You and I are alike. Is this what you would want? Would you not want it to end? Is it not a mercy?”
Kirk gasped and sat up in his bed. He was sweating, his heart was pounding, and every hair on his body stood on end. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and groaned, the sound almost breaking into a cry. He had not slept through the night once since he had woken from the coma.
Khan’s voice. It was with him all the time, growing louder, more urgent, less like a memory and more alive.
He closed his eyes. “I won’t let this happen,” he whispered. “If I can’t free you, I will kill you.” He swallowed a lump in his throat upon saying the words.
Long moments passed and all Kirk could hear was the sound of his own ragged breathing and the pounding of his heart. He lay back in the bed, his weary eyes staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to kill you,” he whispered, “but I should. And I don’t know why I don’t.”
“You have a conscience.”
“I think you do too.”
Kirk rolled out of bed and poured a scotch straight up, then downed it, grimacing as he welcomed the burn of alcohol. He looked at a bottle of pills on his bedside table. He popped the top off and placed one on his tongue, pouring another scotch and drinking it down with one tip of the glass.
He had to get some sleep before he completely lost it. Talking to this voice in his head was clearly a step in a bad direction, never mind the fact that he had a voice in his head in the first place. Tomorrow, he would find out all he could both about Section 31 and the augment program. Then he would know what to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kirk entered Engineering and looked around, smiling and nodding at the skeleton crew that worked to repair the Enterprise’s systems. He paused when looking at the warp core. He barely remembered going in there, let alone not coming out.
“Mr. Scott,” Kirk said with a somewhat forced smile, leaving the warp core doors and walking toward his Chief Engineer. “She’s looking good. If I didn’t know better I wouldn’t even know she had almost been destroyed.”
“Aye, Captain. She is beginning to recover. In no time she’ll be stronger and faster than she was before. It’s good to see you up and about.”
“How are the repairs going?”
“Very well, Captain. Though, I could do with a wee bit more help rebuilding the impulse drive unit.”
“Scotty,” Kirk said quietly, leaning in. “I need your help.”
“Captain?”
He placed his arm around Scotty’s shoulders and led him away, speaking quietly in Mr. Scott’s ear, “I need you to tell me everything you know about Section 31.”
“I know as much as you do, Captain.”
“Tell me what you remember about what you saw off Jupiter.”
Scotty frowned but nodded, walking through the Engineering section with his Captain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kirk entered his apartment after the formal inquiry in front of Starfleet Command and found Scotty, Spock, and Bones waiting for him.
“Gentlemen,” he said, before stopping at the bar and fixing himself a scotch on the rocks. “What can I do for you?”
“Where in the hell have you been?” Bones asked. “You missed your appointment. We were supposed to meet before the inquiry.”
“I went to the archives to do some reading,” Kirk answered. “I’m fine, Bones. Stop being such a mother hen.”
Bones held up one of his diagnostic instruments. “You’re not fine. Your vitals are way off the chart. You haven’t been sleeping-”
“Will you stop? Just…” he placed his hand on Bones’s wrist. “Just stop being a doctor for . . . I don’t know, five minutes?”
“You have requested a leave of absence, Captain. Is there something you would like to tell us?” Spock asked.
“You’ve what?” Bones asked.
“Okay…” Kirk answered with no small amount of surprise. “Word gets around quickly. I need some time to recuperate,” he said. “I thought of all people, you’d approve, Bones.” Kirk took a drink of his Scotch. “Frankly, it was Command that recommended it, if you could call it that.”
“They placed you on administrative leave?” Bones asked.
“They suggested, and I use that term loosely, that I take it.”
“You are planning something, Captain,” Spock said. “We would know what it is.”
“I’m planning a fly-fishing trip, Spock.”
“Fishing?” Spock arched an eyebrow.
“Yeah, fishing. Fresh air, sunshine, the great outdoors.”
“Is that why you asked Mr. Scott to illegally access the databases containing information about Section 31?” Spock advanced toward Kirk.
“I’m sorry, Captain. But you know how persuasive Spock is when he wants to know something.” Scotty looked incredibly guilty.
“Dammit, Jim! What are you up to?” Bones barked.
Kirk let out an exasperated sigh. “All you need to know is I am going fishing to get my head back together. I’ll return when Starfleet command decides where they’re going to put me. It’s clear from their inquiry that they have no intention of giving me my ship back. I thought you’d approve, Bones. A little R&R, isn’t that what you’ve been demanding I get for the past two weeks?”
“If I thought for one damn minute that you were actually going fishing, I might.”
“Apparently, going fishing is a euphemism. Would you care to enlighten us, Captain?” Spock asked, standing inches from Kirk.
“He means to break the son of a bitch out, that’s what he means to do!” Bones groused. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? He’s a murderer, Jim!”
Kirk set the glass of Scotch down a little harder than he intended. “What they are doing is criminal. You all know it is wrong. It is bad enough to be highly classified and they are outright denying that they’re doing any of it!”
“Captain, they are keeping him in cryostasis, indefinitely. He is not aware of his surroundings or his condition,” Spock said.
“Bullshit,” Kirk growled. He looked at Scotty. “Tell them.”
Mr. Scott sighed. “They mean to wake the poor bastard up.”
“Tell them Scotty; tell them all of it,” Kirk said, his voice level but laced with anger.
“They’re going to wake him up and study him. That’s what the sealed records said,” Scotty answered.
Bones frowned. “Are they waking all of them up?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s just Khan,” Scotty answered.
“This goes against everything we believe in, everything we were told the Federation stands for,” Kirk said.
“I don’t think it’s wrong. Frankly, I’d kill the son of a bitch if his blood weren’t worth its weight in gold,” Bones said.
Jim pointed at Bones. “You don’t mean that. They’re going to keep him sedated and bleed him and experiment on him, forever! You tell me, Bones. What will that be like for him? Will he be conscious? Will he know?”
Bones didn’t want to answer the question. He hadn’t quite thought of it this way before. He hadn’t quite thought past his hatred of the augment. He hadn’t quite thought of him as human.
“Will he know?!” Kirk shouted.
“Yes.” Bones finally answered. “They’ve got to bring him out of cryostasis to do it, in order to get accurate readings from him. They’ll keep him in a chemically induced coma. He won’t be able to communicate or move, but he’ll be aware. He’ll hear everything, feel everything.”
“And he’ll grieve,” Kirk said. “He’ll grieve thinking his crew members are dead and he is powerless to help himself. He’ll suffer for as long as he is alive, and we all know that will be a very long time. You tell me, who between them is the monster now? Khan or Starfleet?”
Kirk’s friends fell silent. Bones and Scotty were studying the toes of their boots but Spock looked him straight in the eye.
“You are correct in that they are wrong to take this action, Captain. While their intent to cure disease is logical and even noble, their methods are an inhumane punishment. At the very least it is unethical, and it is in direct violation of the principles upon which Starfleet was built.”
“I know everyone thinks I should walk away from this,” Kirk said. “But I can’t do that. I can’t pretend this isn’t happening, but I can save him and his people.”
“Save them?” Bones asked, incredulous. “And when he wakes? What then?”
“I’m telling him the truth, about all of it. About the repercussions of his genetic modifications, about how we tricked him about his crew members, everything.”
“Is that wise? Will this not further solidify his resolve to destroy Starfleet?” Spock asked.
“I don’t know, Spock. But Starfleet has done nothing but lie and manipulate Khan since the day they woke him up. The ones who created him in the first place only did so to use him. I learned a lot by reading the records of the augment program. He has never known friendship or kindness or loyalty or truth from anyone other than his own kind. They were all taken from their biological mothers as infants. They’ve not known even the love of their own parent. Maybe it’s time we told him the truth. Maybe it’s time that someone showed him that we’re not all the same.”
He sighed and picked up a book lying on his desk. Printed books were rarities, and the one he held was very old and very valuable. As he opened it, the spine cracked softly and he said, “Admiral Pike gave me this book when I completed my first year at the Academy.” He turned to a bookmarked page. “He once quoted Machiavelli to me from this book. It says: “A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.” He caressed the page before closing the book and laying it back down.
“Machiavelli was at best a political animal, and at worst ruthless, but these words have meaning to me. Maybe they’re a bit naïve, but I think they still hold true. Christopher Pike was that good man that I aspire to be. Though Khan caused his death, I believe that Pike would say that we have to do what we can to right these wrongs, despite the enormity of them.” Kirk looked at his friends. “We have all tried to be the best we can be. Starfleet is supposed to be a beacon of peace and knowledge and truth, and I cannot, will not stand by and let its mission be tainted by the power hungry that are polluting its ideals.”
He looked out the window. “I know this doesn’t make any sense to you. It barely makes sense to me, but I know I have to do something or I’ll never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.”
“He is just as likely to kill you as spit on you, you know,” Bones said.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Kirk said. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Bones shook his head in exasperation. “You really think that by simply showing him kindness that you can change who he is? Leopards don’t change their spots, Jim.”
Spock frowned, but looked his at his friend resolutely. After a few moments, he said: “If you are determined to do this, we will help you.”
“Have you lost your mind too?” Bones barked at Spock.
Spock raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond.
Kirk stepped forward. “No. I am not risking all of your careers as well as your lives on this. This one is on me.”
“You cannot do this alone. You will need assistance,” Spock protested.
“You’ll need me to get you past the security systems,” Scotty said.
Bones uttered a sound akin to a growl, then he spoke: “And you’ll need me to disconnect him and keep him sedated while we figure out where to hide him. You’ll also need me to wake him up, if you’re fool enough to do it.”
“If we get caught…” Kirk began.
“We will all be subjected to court martial,” Spock finished in his customary matter-of-fact tone.
“You’re going to have to lie, Spock,” Kirk said. “No one outside of this room can know what we are doing.”
“I cannot lie, Captain. But, I believe I can avoid answering certain questions.”
Kirk put his hand on Spock’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“I am not doing this for Khan,” Spock said. “But you are correct about the danger this poses to the future of Starfleet. I cannot stand by and watch this institution be destroyed from the inside.”
“I’ve got a friend who owes me a favor,” Scotty said. “He’s a salvage man. He repos old ships and sells the scrap.”
“And just how does a junked ship help us?” Bones asked.
“They’re not all junk,” Scotty answered with a sly grin, “and they can’t be traced.”
“We will need something inconspicuous, a cargo ship would be optimum, as Hangar One receives several deliveries per day.” Spock said. “And then there is the matter of stealing sixty-three cryotubes.”
Kirk sat on his desk and watched his friends plan the entire thing out. A smile spread across his face. ‘No, Khan. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to help my family. Nor is there anything they would not do to help me,’ he thought.
Chapter Three
Author: larienelengasse
Pairing: Kirk/Khan, Spock, Uhura, Bones, Scotty, Chekov
Universe: STID - Star Trek Reboot
Rating: NC-17 for violence and sex
Beta: alexcat
Artist: elladansgirl
Warnings: implied torture, violence, remembered canonical character death, & angst.
Author’s Note: Written for the 2013 oeam_bigbang. Takes place after the events in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Title from the song “Animal I Have Become” by Three Days Grace; the lyrics fit my vision of Khan and Kirk’s relationship.
Summary: Sometimes a man has to take a stand. Sometimes he has to choose to his enemies over his allegiances. And sometimes doing the right thing changes a person.
Chapter Two
“You and I are alike. Is this what you would want? Would you not want it to end? Is it not a mercy?”
Kirk gasped and sat up in his bed. He was sweating, his heart was pounding, and every hair on his body stood on end. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and groaned, the sound almost breaking into a cry. He had not slept through the night once since he had woken from the coma.
Khan’s voice. It was with him all the time, growing louder, more urgent, less like a memory and more alive.
He closed his eyes. “I won’t let this happen,” he whispered. “If I can’t free you, I will kill you.” He swallowed a lump in his throat upon saying the words.
Long moments passed and all Kirk could hear was the sound of his own ragged breathing and the pounding of his heart. He lay back in the bed, his weary eyes staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to kill you,” he whispered, “but I should. And I don’t know why I don’t.”
“You have a conscience.”
“I think you do too.”
Kirk rolled out of bed and poured a scotch straight up, then downed it, grimacing as he welcomed the burn of alcohol. He looked at a bottle of pills on his bedside table. He popped the top off and placed one on his tongue, pouring another scotch and drinking it down with one tip of the glass.
He had to get some sleep before he completely lost it. Talking to this voice in his head was clearly a step in a bad direction, never mind the fact that he had a voice in his head in the first place. Tomorrow, he would find out all he could both about Section 31 and the augment program. Then he would know what to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kirk entered Engineering and looked around, smiling and nodding at the skeleton crew that worked to repair the Enterprise’s systems. He paused when looking at the warp core. He barely remembered going in there, let alone not coming out.
“Mr. Scott,” Kirk said with a somewhat forced smile, leaving the warp core doors and walking toward his Chief Engineer. “She’s looking good. If I didn’t know better I wouldn’t even know she had almost been destroyed.”
“Aye, Captain. She is beginning to recover. In no time she’ll be stronger and faster than she was before. It’s good to see you up and about.”
“How are the repairs going?”
“Very well, Captain. Though, I could do with a wee bit more help rebuilding the impulse drive unit.”
“Scotty,” Kirk said quietly, leaning in. “I need your help.”
“Captain?”
He placed his arm around Scotty’s shoulders and led him away, speaking quietly in Mr. Scott’s ear, “I need you to tell me everything you know about Section 31.”
“I know as much as you do, Captain.”
“Tell me what you remember about what you saw off Jupiter.”
Scotty frowned but nodded, walking through the Engineering section with his Captain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kirk entered his apartment after the formal inquiry in front of Starfleet Command and found Scotty, Spock, and Bones waiting for him.
“Gentlemen,” he said, before stopping at the bar and fixing himself a scotch on the rocks. “What can I do for you?”
“Where in the hell have you been?” Bones asked. “You missed your appointment. We were supposed to meet before the inquiry.”
“I went to the archives to do some reading,” Kirk answered. “I’m fine, Bones. Stop being such a mother hen.”
Bones held up one of his diagnostic instruments. “You’re not fine. Your vitals are way off the chart. You haven’t been sleeping-”
“Will you stop? Just…” he placed his hand on Bones’s wrist. “Just stop being a doctor for . . . I don’t know, five minutes?”
“You have requested a leave of absence, Captain. Is there something you would like to tell us?” Spock asked.
“You’ve what?” Bones asked.
“Okay…” Kirk answered with no small amount of surprise. “Word gets around quickly. I need some time to recuperate,” he said. “I thought of all people, you’d approve, Bones.” Kirk took a drink of his Scotch. “Frankly, it was Command that recommended it, if you could call it that.”
“They placed you on administrative leave?” Bones asked.
“They suggested, and I use that term loosely, that I take it.”
“You are planning something, Captain,” Spock said. “We would know what it is.”
“I’m planning a fly-fishing trip, Spock.”
“Fishing?” Spock arched an eyebrow.
“Yeah, fishing. Fresh air, sunshine, the great outdoors.”
“Is that why you asked Mr. Scott to illegally access the databases containing information about Section 31?” Spock advanced toward Kirk.
“I’m sorry, Captain. But you know how persuasive Spock is when he wants to know something.” Scotty looked incredibly guilty.
“Dammit, Jim! What are you up to?” Bones barked.
Kirk let out an exasperated sigh. “All you need to know is I am going fishing to get my head back together. I’ll return when Starfleet command decides where they’re going to put me. It’s clear from their inquiry that they have no intention of giving me my ship back. I thought you’d approve, Bones. A little R&R, isn’t that what you’ve been demanding I get for the past two weeks?”
“If I thought for one damn minute that you were actually going fishing, I might.”
“Apparently, going fishing is a euphemism. Would you care to enlighten us, Captain?” Spock asked, standing inches from Kirk.
“He means to break the son of a bitch out, that’s what he means to do!” Bones groused. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? He’s a murderer, Jim!”
Kirk set the glass of Scotch down a little harder than he intended. “What they are doing is criminal. You all know it is wrong. It is bad enough to be highly classified and they are outright denying that they’re doing any of it!”
“Captain, they are keeping him in cryostasis, indefinitely. He is not aware of his surroundings or his condition,” Spock said.
“Bullshit,” Kirk growled. He looked at Scotty. “Tell them.”
Mr. Scott sighed. “They mean to wake the poor bastard up.”
“Tell them Scotty; tell them all of it,” Kirk said, his voice level but laced with anger.
“They’re going to wake him up and study him. That’s what the sealed records said,” Scotty answered.
Bones frowned. “Are they waking all of them up?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s just Khan,” Scotty answered.
“This goes against everything we believe in, everything we were told the Federation stands for,” Kirk said.
“I don’t think it’s wrong. Frankly, I’d kill the son of a bitch if his blood weren’t worth its weight in gold,” Bones said.
Jim pointed at Bones. “You don’t mean that. They’re going to keep him sedated and bleed him and experiment on him, forever! You tell me, Bones. What will that be like for him? Will he be conscious? Will he know?”
Bones didn’t want to answer the question. He hadn’t quite thought of it this way before. He hadn’t quite thought past his hatred of the augment. He hadn’t quite thought of him as human.
“Will he know?!” Kirk shouted.
“Yes.” Bones finally answered. “They’ve got to bring him out of cryostasis to do it, in order to get accurate readings from him. They’ll keep him in a chemically induced coma. He won’t be able to communicate or move, but he’ll be aware. He’ll hear everything, feel everything.”
“And he’ll grieve,” Kirk said. “He’ll grieve thinking his crew members are dead and he is powerless to help himself. He’ll suffer for as long as he is alive, and we all know that will be a very long time. You tell me, who between them is the monster now? Khan or Starfleet?”
Kirk’s friends fell silent. Bones and Scotty were studying the toes of their boots but Spock looked him straight in the eye.
“You are correct in that they are wrong to take this action, Captain. While their intent to cure disease is logical and even noble, their methods are an inhumane punishment. At the very least it is unethical, and it is in direct violation of the principles upon which Starfleet was built.”
“I know everyone thinks I should walk away from this,” Kirk said. “But I can’t do that. I can’t pretend this isn’t happening, but I can save him and his people.”
“Save them?” Bones asked, incredulous. “And when he wakes? What then?”
“I’m telling him the truth, about all of it. About the repercussions of his genetic modifications, about how we tricked him about his crew members, everything.”
“Is that wise? Will this not further solidify his resolve to destroy Starfleet?” Spock asked.
“I don’t know, Spock. But Starfleet has done nothing but lie and manipulate Khan since the day they woke him up. The ones who created him in the first place only did so to use him. I learned a lot by reading the records of the augment program. He has never known friendship or kindness or loyalty or truth from anyone other than his own kind. They were all taken from their biological mothers as infants. They’ve not known even the love of their own parent. Maybe it’s time we told him the truth. Maybe it’s time that someone showed him that we’re not all the same.”
He sighed and picked up a book lying on his desk. Printed books were rarities, and the one he held was very old and very valuable. As he opened it, the spine cracked softly and he said, “Admiral Pike gave me this book when I completed my first year at the Academy.” He turned to a bookmarked page. “He once quoted Machiavelli to me from this book. It says: “A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.” He caressed the page before closing the book and laying it back down.
“Machiavelli was at best a political animal, and at worst ruthless, but these words have meaning to me. Maybe they’re a bit naïve, but I think they still hold true. Christopher Pike was that good man that I aspire to be. Though Khan caused his death, I believe that Pike would say that we have to do what we can to right these wrongs, despite the enormity of them.” Kirk looked at his friends. “We have all tried to be the best we can be. Starfleet is supposed to be a beacon of peace and knowledge and truth, and I cannot, will not stand by and let its mission be tainted by the power hungry that are polluting its ideals.”
He looked out the window. “I know this doesn’t make any sense to you. It barely makes sense to me, but I know I have to do something or I’ll never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.”
“He is just as likely to kill you as spit on you, you know,” Bones said.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Kirk said. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Bones shook his head in exasperation. “You really think that by simply showing him kindness that you can change who he is? Leopards don’t change their spots, Jim.”
Spock frowned, but looked his at his friend resolutely. After a few moments, he said: “If you are determined to do this, we will help you.”
“Have you lost your mind too?” Bones barked at Spock.
Spock raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond.
Kirk stepped forward. “No. I am not risking all of your careers as well as your lives on this. This one is on me.”
“You cannot do this alone. You will need assistance,” Spock protested.
“You’ll need me to get you past the security systems,” Scotty said.
Bones uttered a sound akin to a growl, then he spoke: “And you’ll need me to disconnect him and keep him sedated while we figure out where to hide him. You’ll also need me to wake him up, if you’re fool enough to do it.”
“If we get caught…” Kirk began.
“We will all be subjected to court martial,” Spock finished in his customary matter-of-fact tone.
“You’re going to have to lie, Spock,” Kirk said. “No one outside of this room can know what we are doing.”
“I cannot lie, Captain. But, I believe I can avoid answering certain questions.”
Kirk put his hand on Spock’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“I am not doing this for Khan,” Spock said. “But you are correct about the danger this poses to the future of Starfleet. I cannot stand by and watch this institution be destroyed from the inside.”
“I’ve got a friend who owes me a favor,” Scotty said. “He’s a salvage man. He repos old ships and sells the scrap.”
“And just how does a junked ship help us?” Bones asked.
“They’re not all junk,” Scotty answered with a sly grin, “and they can’t be traced.”
“We will need something inconspicuous, a cargo ship would be optimum, as Hangar One receives several deliveries per day.” Spock said. “And then there is the matter of stealing sixty-three cryotubes.”
Kirk sat on his desk and watched his friends plan the entire thing out. A smile spread across his face. ‘No, Khan. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to help my family. Nor is there anything they would not do to help me,’ he thought.
Chapter Three