Star Trek AOS Fic: Combien de Temps, Part 1
Title: Combien De Temps
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Jim/Spock, Bones, OCs
Spoilers: ST:ID
Content Notice: Lots and lots of smut and angst; angsty smut; smutty angst. Also: hurt/comfort; off-camera torture and violence; cuddling
Word Count: ~23,000
Summary: Five times Jim and Spock screwed before they realized it really meant something.
A/N: This is my story for Kirk/Spock Big Bang. Takes place immediately after the events in ST:ID.
I was so very fortunate to receive simply amahzing art by sanwall here and by raja815 here; they may be slightly spoilery.
This also fills the "dungeons" square on my H/C Bingo card.
Chapter 1
There is an ancient Vulcan legend, of the warrior bond - t’hy’la it was called. To be t’hy’len was the highest form of bonding, deeper and more profound than a familial or even a marital bond, and was considered to be a great honor. T’hy’len lived together, loved together, fought and died together. A warrior whose t’hy’la had been killed in battle rarely survived him long. Their deeds and their bond were to be celebrated for the ages, their parting a tragedy to fuel epic ballads.
Over the intervening millennia, the significance of the word and, indeed, the warrior bond itself, morphed in a variety of ways, gradually falling out of favor in the time of Surak, but reappearing in later centuries. Today it had variable definitions and, according to its context, meant “brother,” “friend,” or even “lover.”
Spock looked upon Jim Kirk in his hospital bed more than two weeks after the battle with Khan - two weeks after he watched him die - and thought they might be t’hy’len.
After a fashion.
They had fought at each other’s sides. They would - they both knew - lay down their lives for each other. There could be no more profound link between two friends. But he found the realization of this fact difficult to parse with the reality of their relationship to date. All he knew was that in Jim’s presence he felt something his own feelings were inadequate to express, and he did not like that uncertainty.
He also found himself lately with an illogical need to remain at Jim’s side, as if by his mere presence he might prevent him from coming to further harm. He knew this was irrational, and yet -
“You brought a chess set?” Jim asked, struggling to sit up in his bed. It was one day after he regained consciousness, 25.8 hours since he thanked Spock for saving his life. Spock held the set between them as if it were a shield.
“We have not played in some time.”
Jim blinked at him; there was something open in his face, something Spock would name, “gratitude” if he didn’t know better.
Spock set up the game on a nearby antigrav table that he positioned over Jim’s lap, then took a seat.
“You take white,” Jim said, and Spock spun the game 180 degrees. He moved a pawn and watched as Jim reached out a hand to move one of his own. His hand shook, however, and he knocked over his Queen-side rook. “Dammit!” he cursed, and fumbled to right the piece, knocking over three others in the process.
“Is something wrong? Are you in pain? Shall I inform Doctor McCoy?”
Jim’s face colored, though if it was from embarrassment or something else, Spock could not tell. “No, it’s - he already knows. There’s some lingering nerve and muscle damage, but it’s supposed to go away in a few days.”
“Do you require assistance?” Spock reached out to set the fallen pieces back into their places, finishing by moving the pawn Jim had been reaching for into the space he appeared to have intended for it to go.
“I do not, Commander,” Jim said, his voice containing the steely note he affected when he delivered orders on the bridge. Spock rested his hand in his own lap and straightened his spine. “It’s your move,” Jim added, his voice gentler.
They played to a draw, Spock ignoring Jim’s failing hand-coordination. Neither of them had his head in the game at any rate - it was clear each of them had other things on their minds. “Shall we play another?” Spock suggested, and Jim agreed, yawning.
Spock rose. “You need rest. I will return tomorrow for our rematch.”
“You don’t have to go,” Jim said, fumbling to grasp Spock by the wrist. At the touch, Spock perceived a flurry of Jim’s surface thoughts and emotions.
i’m scared Spock
help me not be
They were the words Jim had spoken two weeks ago - a memory - and Spock heard them in his dreams every night. Jim’s fear was replaced by shame and he pulled away. Spock turned his wrist quickly and held him lightly. “You need not -“ he began.
“Spock, I -“
sorry, sorry, sorry
shit you’re a touch telepath
please don’t leave
god, so pathetic
Spock dropped Jim’s hand as he realized he’d transgressed; he did not mean to read his friend, had only meant to reassure, or so he told himself.
“Do not -“ apologize, Spock had been about to say, but to say it would admit he’d read Jim’s thoughts. He caught a look of anxiety on Jim’s face before he looked away, and he stood there, frozen with indecision over whether to stay or leave.
He was saved by Doctor McCoy entering the room, a nurse in his wake. Without looking at either of them, he began waving a tricorder over Jim and frowning at the readout.
“What’s the prognosis?” Jim asked. Spock noticed Jim had settled a neutral expression on his face and marveled at his ability to mask his emotions; he was not sure he’d been very effective at it himself.
“I’m afraid you’ll live,” McCoy answered tersely. “Now get outta here.”
“Wh-what?” Jim asked, incredulous.
“You’re being discharged.”
Jim’s mouth hung open in disbelief as Spock said, “Doctor, surely the Captain requires additional time to recuperate.”
“Which he can do at home.”
“He was in a coma just two days ago.”
“And now he’s not. His vitals are strong, and he’s eating and all seems more or less normal.” He eyed Jim. “You feel normal?”
“Yes?”
“You promise to report to Outpatient Services for PT every day for the next two weeks?”
“Yes!”
“Then you’re cleared to go.”
Spock, incredulous, was dismayed to hear his voice raise an octave as he protested, “Surely Starfleet Medical does not require the bed. I, therefore, am at a loss to understand -“
“Shut it, Spock,” Jim hissed at him.
Spock raised an eyebrow and regarded his captain. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t look a gift discharge in the mouth.”
“Jim, I must protest most strenuously,” Spock began, but something in Jim’s eyes - something desperate - made him stop. “How will you get home?”
“I’ll call a cab.”
“Nonsense, I have a transport just outside.”
“There you go.”
Spock could feel his mouth pressing into a very thin line and it took a concerted effort to make it stop. “This is highly illogical.”
“So noted,” McCoy said. “Now, can we give the man some privacy while he gets dressed? The nurse here will get you some clothes.”
Spock followed McCoy out into the hallway, where he stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “Doctor, your willingness to discharge the Captain when he is clearly in no shape to be away from medical supervision is highly irregular.”
“Listen, don’t give me any guff, I’m doing it for his own good, OK?”
Spock blinked. “I fail to see -“
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you, because you don’t know him like I do.”
“I -“ Spock closed his mouth; McCoy was right, and it pained him to admit it.
“He’s scared shitless, and keeping him here’s not doin’ his recovery a lick of good. Do you think he’s over what’s happened?”
“I do not.” Jim had literally died, and adding to that, Admiral Marcus’s actions had affected all of them in a most distressing way. It was a hard thing to realize your superior officer was prepared to murder an entire starship’s crew to cover up his intention to start an intergalactic war.
“Well, I don’t want to do this, but if he’s at home, he’ll be more comfortable. Being here is putting him under too much stress.”
“Doctor, if the Captain is emotionally compromised, it must be reported.”
“I won’t do that to him, and neither will you, Commander. Look, he’ll get over it in his own time, I’m sure of it. But keeping him in the hospital is exactly the wrong way to do it. And I won’t clear him for duty until I’m convinced he’s doing all right, if that means anything to you.”
Spock could plainly see the concern for Jim written on McCoy’s face, and knowing he would not wittingly clear Jim for duty before he was ready, he reluctantly chose to comply with the doctor’s recommended course of action. Nevertheless, he needed to be sure of one thing. “You are certain he is physically capable of being on his own?”
“I’m a doctor first, and his friend second. I wouldn’t let him out of here if I didn’t think he would do all right.”
----
“Jesus, this is hard. What the hell was Bones thinking letting me out of the hospital?” Jim looked up at the remaining stairs ahead of them. Just one flight to go and they’d be at his front door.
“I might ask, ‘What were you thinking when you hired rooms in a four-story walk-up,’ but it is clear…” Spock adjusted his grip around Jim’s back and huffed a little breath of air out through his lips, “that you were not thinking!”
“It’s in a historic neighborhood,” Jim protested, grunting as he lifted his left leg to mount one more step.
“I could carry you,” Spock offered, not for the first time.
“You will not!” Jim ordered, and they struggled up the remaining stairs to Jim’s door.
Once inside, Spock helped Jim to his bed and deposited him on it rather more clumsily than he intended, then stood back and straightened out his uniform jacket. “Do you require anything?” he asked, struggling to regain his breath.
“Some water? And my PADD - it’s on the coffee table.”
Spock went to fetch the requested items and then settled himself in the living area on the couch.
“Spock,” Jim called after several moments. “You sticking around?”
Their voices echoed off the empty walls of Jim’s apartment; he had clearly never really moved into the place, as many of his belongings remained in boxes in the office.
“Someone must remain with you to ensure you do not fall and injure yourself.”
“I’m not going to crack my head open or anything.”
“You will forgive me if I do not believe you. You barely made it up a half flight of stairs before you required assistance.”
“Are you going to shout at me all afternoon, Spock, or will you come in here and have a normal conversation?”
Spock refrained from sighing and rose.
“If you’re going to stay, you should hang out with me,” Jim said as soon as he appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.
Spock raised an eyebrow. “What does this entail?”
Jim rolled his eyes. “Hanging out? You just - you hang out. Come over here and sit down.”
Spock approached the bed and sat on its edge with his back perfectly straight. “Is this acceptable?” he asked after several moments.
Jim sighed. “You might be more comfortable if you sat over here.” He indicated the vacant other half of the bed.
Spock complied, sitting with his back against the head of the bed, feet hanging over the side to prevent dirtying the duvet with his boots.
“There, isn’t that nice?” Jim asked.
“It is no different than when I sat over there.” A further minute passed. “Does this fulfill your definition of ‘hanging out’?” Spock asked.
“Yes. It’s what friends do. We’re friends, right?”
Spock looked at Jim, their eyes locking.
Jim’s eyes on his were unreadable, their color as vibrant as ever Spock recalled them being. Again, his memory returned to that horrible moment in Engineering, when he watched that intense color fade as Jim died mere inches from him while he was powerless to prevent it.
”I want you to know why I couldn’t let you die. Why I went back for you.”
“Because you are my friend.”
He closed his eyes.
“Something’s wrong,” Jim observed.
“It is nothing.”
“Spock, by now, I can tell when something’s bothering you. Spill, and that’s an order.”
Spock chose his words carefully, talking around his true thoughts as deftly as he could. “It has been extremely difficult for me to recover my emotional stability since the events of two weeks ago.”
Watching you die has gutted me, is what you might say, Jim he thought, but did not say.
“No amount of meditation or reflection has aided me in my attempts to recover the equilibrium I had enjoyed before. It is discomfiting.”
“’These are the times that try men’s souls,’” Jim quoted Thomas Paine.
“Please elaborate.”
“We were all of us betrayed by a man who had sworn not only to uphold the values of the Federation and of Starfleet, but by one who was supposed to always have our backs. It’s hard to come back to reality with your principles intact, much less any sense of innocence or idealism.”
“I do not think I had much innocence to lose.”
“Then I think you’re lying to yourself. I think you had a great deal of faith in Starfleet - as did I, as did every man and woman aboard the Enterprise - and that faith has been all but destroyed. It shakes a person up, makes him question everything.”
“Such a reaction is not very logical.”
“These are illogical times, Spock.” Jim licked his lips and lay back against the pillows piled beneath his back. “But you’ll get over it. I’ll help if you want.” He smiled slightly, the expression chasing the seriousness of their conversation out of the room.
Spock turned his face away from him, unconsciously mirroring Jim’s position on the bed with his head resting back against the headboard. This loss of idealism to which Jim referred was the very least of the matters troubling him, but he was loath to admit it to the very person upon whom those troubles rested. Spock had hoped that spending time in Jim’s company, seeing him awake and alive and healed would put a stop to, or at least lessen the intensity of, his illogical fear that his friend would die again.
----
“No!”
Spock opened his eyes to a darkened room. Jim had dropped off to sleep as they talked earlier, and Spock had returned to the living room to attempt to ease his own mind through meditation. As usual lately, it provided little relief from his troubling thoughts, and the low, desperate moan coming from the bedroom roused him almost the second it was uttered. He rushed to Jim’s bedside to find him asleep, as he’d left him, but his face was contorted, reflecting some inner emotional turmoil.
“Spock!” he said, and by the light filtering through the bedroom windows from the street outside, Spock could see the tears streaming down his friend’s face. He sat down beside Jim and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Jim.”
Jim opened his eyes with a startled intake of breath, his eyes finding Spock’s in an instant. “It’s you,” he said after a moment.
“It is.”
“You didn’t leave.”
“I told you I would remain to assist you should you require it in your recuperation. I still believe Doctor McCoy was in error when -“
“No, I mean you didn’t leave me when I died,” Jim interrupted.
“I - no, I did not.”
“You stayed,” Jim said, “you stayed with me.”
“I could no sooner have left than shed one of my arms, Jim.”
Jim took a shuddering breath and it was in that moment that Spock realized he was sweating and trembling. “You are shaking - are you fevered?” Spock rested the back of his hand against Jim’s forehead.
here with me
stay
don’t go
pleasepleaseplease
Jim’s emotions - fear, desperation, anguish - assaulted him, and it was all Spock could do not to flinch away, to maintain the brief contact required to ascertain if he had an elevated temperature or not.
“I keep reliving it in my dreams,” Jim confessed.
Spock didn’t need to ask what he meant. “Are not dreams a way for sentient beings to process what has happened to them? This is perhaps your subconscious doing the work it must to make you well.”
“Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.” He turned onto his side, facing Spock, and wrapped his arms around himself, his shivering not abating.
At a loss as to what to do, Spock placed his hand on Jim’s shoulder and patted him clumsily; his mother had done the same for him when he was a child, and he recalled it had soothed him.
“Spock?” Jim asked at length.
“Yes?”
“Is that all the work you’ve done on your b-bedside manner?”
“It is insufficient.” Spock was slightly dismayed.
“Think you could maybe just, stay here? Like before, in the bed?” Jim asked, his voice muffled, since he’d tucked his face against the bedding.
“That is highly irregular.”
“It’ll be better if you’re here,” Jim replied through chattering teeth.
Spock regarded the distress that was written in Jim’s every tensed muscle and trembling limb and could not help but be moved. He went around to the other side of the bed and kicked off his boots, then stripped off his uniform jacket and shirt, placed them carefully on the back of a nearby chair, and laid himself atop the covers as he had been before. Jim, meanwhile, had turned over to face him and squirmed closer, his arms still hugging himself tightly as he nudged up against Spock’s side.
“You’re really warm,” Jim murmured.
“Vulcans’ basal body temperature is several degrees above that of human norm, so there is no doubt you will find me… palliative.”
“It’s nice.”
Spock recalled tales of t’hy’len past who comforted each other through great hardships, injuries, and illnesses.
“Maybe it’d be better if you got under the covers - retain all that Vulcan body heat.”
Spock searched Jim’s face for any sign of insincerity but could discern none. He pushed the covers back and slid his legs beneath them, lying down on his side with his head on one of the pillows. Jim got closer and he was, indeed, palpably cooler than Spock’s own body. Remembering once again the soothing gestures his mother would employ, he rubbed a hand up and down Jim’s upper arm to warm him. Humming, Jim wriggled closer, his front now flush against Spock’s, and before he knew it, had pulled Spock’s arm around himself, resting his head just beneath Spock’s chin. Spock resisted the instinct to freeze up.
“There, that’s good, that’s perfect.”
“Do you think you might sleep again?” Spock asked stiffly.
Jim nodded.
“That is good, for McCoy impressed upon me the need for you to rest sufficiently.”
“He’s an old worry-wart.”
“He has your best interests in mind.”
“That’s what he says.”
“He saved you.”
“He does that all the time.”
You do not die all the time, Spock did not say as he shored up his mental shields and tightened his arms around Jim, ignoring the fact that it felt very right.
----
“No, no, no.” Jim was dreaming again.
“Jim,” Spock said, instantly awake. His body tensed against as Spock became aware of the overwhelming sense of fear pouring off of Jim along every inch of skin where their bodies touched. He fought to contain his reaction and to raise his mental shields against the onslaught.
“All alone,” Jim whimpered in his sleep, reacting to a nightmare they were both experiencing.
“You are not. I am here.”
empty
yawning, screaming emptiness
nothing
there was nothing there
quiet, so quiet
nothing there
Jim’s emotions were like a tsunami within Spock’s mind, swamping his shields and making them crumble. He gasped as he struggled to raise them again and failed. The only thing to do would be to disengage physically, but that would be difficult since in his dream-induced terror, Jim had latched on to Spock’s body like a limpet.
don’t want to go
please
Spock!
These last words were uttered aloud, but by Spock himself, Jim’s anguish filling him so completely it supplanted his own controls, his own thoughts and feelings. He knew he must put a stop to it. He alone must take action or risk permanent damage to his own mind. He wracked his brain for an answer, even as the emotions Jim experienced in his nightmare filled him to overflowing.
pleasepleaseplease
I don’t want to die
A meld - a meld would work, but Spock would not do that to a non-consenting mind, to do so would break the most basic laws of Vulcan.
“Spock!” they both thought, cried out, felt.
Perhaps it was some vestige of Jim’s incursion into his mind, perhaps it was something he subconsciously wanted, but Spock did the only thing he could think of and kissed Jim.
The fear plateaued as awareness returned and Jim’s eyes opened wide. He pulled away from Spock, a shocked gasp on his lips. His emotions did not retreat from Spock’s mind, but with his consciousness, so too a kind of control exerted itself, and Spock could shield once again. He still felt Jim’s turmoil, but it no longer threatened to overwhelm him.
And then Jim kissed him back.
Through their contact, Spock could feel Jim’s terror subsiding quickly. Within the space of a thought, it morphed into something else entirely as Spock returned the kiss; there was a sense of comfort being taken, and of relief.
needthisneedyouplease
Almost out of instinct, Spock felt his own left hand coming up to caress Jim’s face. Jim made a small, desperate mewling sound as he opened his mouth to allow Spock’s tongue access.
pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
Spock could tell that Jim was not so much begging for his attentions as he was in need of them, and Spock knew it was his role as Jim’s t’hy’la to give them to him. Soon, Jim’s hands were fumbling at the closure of Spock’s uniform pants - he’d forgotten he’d worn them into the bed - but whatever vestiges of the nerve damage Jim had referred to earlier in the day must have remained, for he made a sound of frustration in the back of his throat. Spock obligingly undid his own pants, gasping as Jim shoved his hand inside to bring his half-hard member out into the close air beneath the covers. Jim bit Spock’s bottom lip and, when Spock hissed, ran the flat of his tongue over it to soothe. Spock groaned as Jim began to stroke him to full hardness, reaching down and around to cup Jim’s still-clothed buttocks and pull their groins closer.
God! he heard or felt Jim say, the desperation the man felt now centered on their sexualized activity instead of the terror at being alone forever. Spock, for his part, was satisfied to have helped his friend to this point and, if he told the truth, he himself had a need for this. Jim’s death had affected him more profoundly than he would admit to anyone, perhaps even himself, and to offer this small comfort - to help him to feel less fear, less loneliness - to get over this trauma made it worth it.
Spock ran his hand along the waistband of the drawstring pants the hospital had sent Jim home in and managed to push them down to his knees in three movements. Jim fumbled to pull Spock closer, but soon gave it up, his arms trembling. “I can’t. I still can’t do anything,” he whined.
“Let me,” Spock whispered, turning them so Jim was on his back. He shoved his own pants off of his legs and levered himself over Jim with his own, strong arms. Jim spread his legs and Spock lowered himself between them, their twin erections bobbing against each other as Spock eased his body atop Jim’s. As he looked down, he saw the expression on Jim’s face was clear and open, lips slightly kiss-swollen and parted, blue eyes as bright as ever, and he longed with a yearning he would not name to make sure that face and those eyes would never again know the fear and doubt he’d been sensing in him all day. As Spock dipped his head down to take Jim’s lower lip between his again, he poured as much of that sentiment as he could into the gesture. And even though there was no way Jim could know he was doing it, not without a meld, the message evidently got across.
yes
Spock rotated his head to the side to get a better angle for the kiss, then reached down with his hand to line up their erections, using the copious amounts of pre-ejaculate they had both produced to lubricate the way. He began a languid thrusting against Jim, who responded by lifting trembling arms up to rest his hands on Spock’s shoulders, straining his own head up to deepen the kiss they shared.
Soon, Spock began to escalate his movements, thrusting with more force against Jim, who moaned into their kiss, the exhale into Spock’s mouth a delicious counterpoint. Spock wanted to swallow it down, as if doing so would preserve some part of Jim within himself. After many more minutes of this, Spock felt the telltale tightening in his scrotum that signaled he was close to climax; Jim, apparently, was close too, for he pulled his head away and rested it against his pillow, eyes closed and breath held. Spock lowered his head until he was resting his forehead against the pillow beside Jim and, with one final thrust, felt his seed spill out, warm over his hand and against Jim’s belly. Jim’s own orgasm followed close behind, and when Spock raised his head to watch his face, he was biting his bottom lip so hard he thought it might bleed; Spock illogically wished to see that.
Spock lowered himself to the side, and Jim turned his head to catch his lips in one, final kiss.
needed that
“Indeed.”
----
Spock woke in the morning to find himself alone in the bed; he could hear the shower running in the adjacent bathroom, and eventually sat up, scanning the room for his clothes. Before he could get out of the bed, the bathroom door opened, and Jim came out, a towel around his hips.
“You appear to have gotten your strength back,” Spock noted.
Jim smiled. “I still feel a bit shaky, but last night was very -“ he paused, at a loss for words.
“Restorative?” Spock suggested.
“Yes,” Jim agreed. “Never let it be said that a good night’s -“
“Sleep,” Spock supplied.
“…won’t do a man some real good,” Jim finished with a smile that rapidly faded.
They looked into each other’s eyes for a minute, then began to speak at once.
“Spock, about last night -“
“Jim, we need to discuss -“
“You go first.”
“I insist that you do. Captain.”
Jim paused when Spock referred to him by his rank, but plowed on after a moment. “Thank you, Spock, for what you did for me last night. You reminded me I was alive, that I could live. I don’t know if you will truly realize what you’ve done for me. I will be forever grateful.”
Spock did not feel reminding Jim that he knew precisely what it had done for him would serve much of a purpose. “I would offer similar sentiments.”
“But I’m still your commanding officer, and you are still in a relationship with Nyota, and -“
“You need not speak of it further, Jim, for I believe we are of one mind on this. While wholly satisfying and exactly what we each required in the moment, it cannot be repeated.”
Jim looked relieved, and though his feelings on the matter were exactly as he’d stated, Spock couldn’t help a small and illogical stab of disappointment that he ruthlessly suppressed.
Kaiidth, he thought. What is is. In days long past, t’hy’len had spouses and families separate from the warrior bond. It did nothing to lessen their importance to each other, and it would not here.
They were t’hy’len, it was what would be.
Chapter 2
Spock found it… unchallenging… to abide by their agreement never to speak of their encounter.
Jim made a full recovery, with no evidence that the distress he had shown that night affected him further. Spock, for his part, only felt a dimension had been added that deepened their friendship, and allowed them a more complete understanding of each other than they had enjoyed before. He never felt the need to confess it to Nyota, as it would have unduly hurt her. That their relationship ended shortly afterwards he attributed to coincidence.
As the command team, Spock and Jim were together very often over the year it took for the Enterprise to be repaired and re-launched, supervising repairs and upgrades. During that time, their friendship grew into one of the closest relationships Spock had ever enjoyed with a person not in his family. They even spent their free time together, playing chess or having dinner, until eventually, Doctor McCoy started teasing that they were like an old married couple.
Three months into the five-year mission, a call came for them to perform a survey of a planet in the Naamans system, preliminary evaluations that were necessary to determine if it would make a suitable world for future colonization. They began their survey on the smaller of two major continents, near the planet’s equator. Indications were that the planet had long ago been prone to much seismic activity, and Starfleet Command wanted the Enterprise to make a first-hand survey.
It took some hours for Spock and the geologists on his team to unload and set up the surveying equipment. They had to take a shuttle to the planet’s surface, since the equipment necessary to perform the evaluation was both complex and delicate. Doctor Renton, the chief geologist aboard ship, had begun to calibrate the machinery when Spock found his attention drawn by an intriguing species of insect as it fluttered past. Similar to an Earth-type butterfly but many times smaller, he followed it with his tricorder extended, taking readings of its anatomy and cell structure, intending to share them with the ship’s entomologist.
As he watched the creature flutter among the delicate flowering plants that grew beside a nearby stand of slender, wispy trees, he was struck by the almost frangible nature of the flora, as if they had evolved to be as light as possible. Before he could take more readings, he was hailed by Doctor Renton.
“Doctor Renton to Commander Spock, please come in.”
He pulled his communicator out and flipped it open. “Spock here, go ahead, Doctor.”
“Sir, our preliminary readings are concerning.”
“In what way?” Spock still had his eye on the delicate butterfly-like creature, but Renton’s next words got his complete focus.
“The planet’s crust is particularly stratified here and, I fear, unstable. We should plan to leave as soon as we can.”
“Are we in immediate danger?” he asked, already moving back the way he’d come.
“I’m sure we can take the time to - “
Renton’s voice was cut short by a strange rumbling sound that Spock heard both through the comm and around him. He quickened his pace. “Doctor Renton?” he called to her as he moved, but the only answer he got was a shocked gasp. He came within sight of the shuttle in time to see, to his horror, the entire shuttle, as well as the surveying equipment and the three people standing beside it, disappear into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up beneath their feet.
Spock slid to a halt beside the area, but had to scramble backwards as the earth in the vicinity began to crumble beneath his feet. “Spock to Enterprise,” he said urgently into his communicator, “the shuttle and three members of the Away Team have fallen into a sinkhole.”
“Acknowledged, sir,” came Chekov’s excited voice.
“Spock,” came Jim’s voice over the comm, “our sensors aren’t picking up anything that seems overly concerning, are you certain -“
“Enerprise,” Spock said urgently, “my team has disappeared. Do you have a lock on them - can they be beamed out?”
“Negative, sir,” Chekov replied. “There is a high concentration of iron in the soil that is making getting a lock difficult from this distance.”
Spock inched closer to the edge of the cave-in and peered down; there appeared to be a series of caves, but he could not determine how deep they were. He could make out the front end of the shuttle, its running lights still on, but no sign of his team.
“We’re arranging a search and rescue team to send down to you. Meanwhile, Spock, we’ll beam you to safety,” Jim advised.
“Negative, Captain. I must stay here with my staff.”
“Understood, but don’t do anything stupid.”
Spock raised an eyebrow as if Jim were standing right in front of him; if only the Captain could see his withering look.
A faint sound from somewhere behind him got his attention, and Spock spun around. Had he heard a cry for help? Walking towards where the sound was emanating, he kept his tricorder outstretched to search for life signs.
“Doctor Renton!” Spock called as loudly as he could, but the sound he’d heard was not repeated.
Suddenly, he felt a rumbling beneath his feet. He tried to jump aside, but the ground beneath him began to tremble and fall away, as if he was standing on the edge of a sand dune.
“Spock! What’s happening?” came Jim’s voice.
“Captain,” he managed to respond, “I believe there is another sink hole opening -“ his words were cut off as the ground gave way beneath his feet and he felt himself sliding down, along with a large mass of earth and rocks, into an underground cavern, the bottom of which he could not see. He landed on his back with jarring and painful suddenness and lay there, stunned, for a split second, before the remaining earth that had been dislodged by the cave-in completely covered him, cutting off his air. Desperately, he clawed at the soil and rock that had fallen around him, but to no avail - more and more of it kept coming at him. Finally, the crushing weight of the earth pressing on his torso and the dwindling supply of air around him combined to overcome him and he did not have even a moment to contemplate his regrets before blackness took him.
----
Awareness returned very slowly - in discrete snippets that he would take the time to be fascinated by if he didn’t find them so confusing.
Spock!
Don’t do this, dammit.
Please don’t do this.
Regardless of his will to respond to the prompting, he found he could not compel himself to answer.
Think he’s coming out of it.
About time.
Damn hobgoblin’s gonna be the end of me!
When Spock opened his eyes, he found himself in the stark, white confines of a treatment room in the ship’s medical bay. Turning his head to the side, he could discern Doctor McCoy conversing with a young nurse, though he could not hear what they were saying.
“Look who’s up then,” McCoy said, coming over to wave a medical tricorder over Spock’s supine form. “You are a sight for these sore eyes.”
Spock raised an eyebrow, but if the worry lines around the doctor’s eyes were any indication, he was telling the truth. Still: “If your eyes are giving you discomfort, Doctor, I would encourage you to seek treatment from the ship’s ophthalmologist.”
“Smartass Vulcan. Your vitals look good. How do you feel?”
Spock did a quick self-assessment. “I am operating at peak efficiency.”
McCoy glanced up at him over the tricorder. “So, these Vulcan healing trances… were you going to share that bit of information with your ship’s CMO?”
Spock was surprised. “It is a basic fact of Vulcan biology; when the body is very gravely injured, Vulcans enter into a deep trance that is revitalizing to our tissues and systems.”
“And since you Vulcans are so damned tight lipped, there’s almost none of it in the medical texts! You realize we thought you were dead, don’t you? It was a near thing for the ship’s coroner.”
Spock felt a stab of dismay. “I did not. I apologize, but I did not know that such a fact had been omitted from the public record. I will endeavor to correct it.” He tried to sit up, but McCoy seemed to take pleasure in the act of pushing him down more forcefully than was strictly necessary.
“There will be time for that later.” The doctor once again hefted his tricorder. “Now let me make sure you’re really OK.”
“Doctor, surely the detailed readouts of the biobed provide the data you need to ascertain my state of health. I assure you, I feel perfectly fine.”
McCoy gave him a glare and Spock lay there until the good doctor was satisfied. “Well, there’s nothing else for it - I have no choice but to release you.”
Spock sat up again.
“But I’m putting you on restricted duty for the next two days.”
Spock opened his mouth to protest, but McCoy interrupted him. “I don’t care if you’re feeling ‘adequate’ or ‘acceptable’ or whatever word you want to use to underplay it, but you almost died, Spock, and you will rest for another 48 hours and that’s an order.”
“Very well,” Spock sighed.
But McCoy wasn’t done grousing. He kept muttering to himself as he gathered up his equipment and a tray of hyposprays he’d not had the opportunity to use. “Who ever heard… such a thing… healing trance. Damn hobgoblin biology…” Spock could still hear him for some minutes after he’d left the room.
A few minutes later, the nurse brought him some clothes to change into - uniform pants and standard-issue black undershirt -and he made his way to his quarters. His internal body clock had already informed him of the time that had passed, but in the week he’d been in the trance, he surmised much paperwork had accumulated, and so he sat at his desk and began to work through it determinedly. He was relieved to learn that none of the Away Team had been more seriously injured than a few broken bones and contusions, and a report on the planet’s status - the ground was merely a thin shell above an intricate array of underground caverns - made it a wholly unsuitable place for colonization.
He was halfway through his own report on the mission when the door to his quarters beeped.
“Enter,” he called, and turned in his seat. Standing in the doorway was Captain Kirk, face carefully neutral, but hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Jim, may I help you?”
Jim walked into the room stiffly and stood inside the door just far enough to allow the sensors to close it behind him. “I see you are recovered?” he said.
“I am quite well.” Spock had, by now, become adept at reading most human body language, but Jim’s manner was confounding; he was smiling, but his eyes were stony.
“Quite well. That’s good to hear.”
“I am pleased to have learned the others on the Away Team survived with little serious injury,” Spock said, wondering at his sudden need to fill the silence between Jim’s speeches with statements of known facts.
“Yes, it’s a testament to their training. Your Science staff are very professional, you are to be commended, Commander.”
Commander was it? Spock got up from his desk and stood at attention. “Captain, I am unsure what has displeased you, but your manner would suggest -“
“My manner… Spock, you almost died.”
“Indeed, I think I did not.”
“Your life signs indicated otherwise.”
“Federation personal sensor equipment is clearly not sensitive enough for a Vulcan’s physiology. I have already worked out a way to re-calibrate my own personal device so as not to repeat the error.”
“Re-calibrate? Spock, do you not see what this - I thought you were dead!” Jim took a step forward, followed by another and another. At this close range, Spock could see a character in his eyes, a degree of anguish he had not observed before.
“Jim, I -“
Jim grabbed Spock’s biceps with his hands and squeezed; despite the layer of clothing he wore, Spock could feel his friend’s roiling thoughts and emotions punch through to his mind as soon as he made contact. A sense of fear and loss so profound it stole his breath was followed by a tumble of sudden thoughts.
how can he be so calm
kill him myself
can’t even think about -
The thoughts were strong enough to be shouts as Jim stepped closer into Spock’s personal space and caught his lips in a demanding kiss. He opened his mouth to protest, but Jim only pressed the advantage, shoving his own tongue inside Spock’s mouth and plundering as if it were some invader. Spock took an involuntary step back and stumbled, but Jim’s hands were around his back in an instant, supporting him and pulling him closer.
Jim! was his wordless - what, protest, statement, censure? He could hardly tell. As had happened upon Jim’s recovery from his coma, Spock found the massive onslaught of Jim’s emotions so strong they nearly swamped his mental shields. He attempted to shore them up, pushing to erect them in a stronger way, but at one, silent entreaty from his friend he desisted.
please
The word was a plea, an imprecation, his tone filled with so much loss and want and need that Spock surrendered to the mass of desperate, grasping human who held him in his arms.
Spock pulled his head back to catch his breath. “Yes,” he said as Jim pressed his lips against his throat, sucking a mark against the pulse point there and then licking over the spot soothingly. “Yes,” he repeated, with the sudden and surprising knowledge that the sentiment might not be his alone.
Ignoring it, Spock raised his hands and buried them in Jim’s soft hair, his fingertips splayed, pressing, pulling him closer. He felt Jim’s hands moving underneath his shirts, fingers pulling, grasping him closer with almost bruising force. Again Spock gasped and again, he murmured, “Yes.” This time, he was certain the word was coming from them both.
Jim, meanwhile, had slowly dropped to his knees before Spock, and was looking up at him with eyes so large and filled with desire that the pupils had almost obliterated the pale blue irises. Spock reached out to him, but Jim pulled away, hands traveling from Spock’s torso to the waistband of his pants. There was a question in the blue eyes, and again an unspoken request, please.
Jim undid Spock’s trousers swiftly, pushing them to pool around his feet unnoticed. Leaning forward, he rested his face in the crook between Spock’s thigh and groin.
do want
Spock felt Jim’s thought at the very center of his mind, reverberant and insistent, but again Jim looked up at him, as if for guidance or permission. This time, Spock’s murmured “Yes” was his own.
Jim leaned forward fractionally, his open mouth breathing moistly over Spock’s rapidly-filling penis, a light brush of teeth over the weeping head. Spock felt slightly dizzy and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back as he gave in to the sensations. Jim buried his face in Spock’s crotch, breathing in his scent deeply, and when he finally reached up to pull Spock’s briefs down, Spock gave an involuntary shudder as skin finally touched skin.
want
need
wantyouneedyou
Jim ran his fingertips up and down Spock’s erect shaft, lightly, ghostingly, concentrating his attention on it as if discovering it for the first time. He opened his eyes and watched as, with two fingertips, Jim gently guided it to his open mouth. Jim closed his eyes as he wrapped his lips firmly around the head, sucking it tentatively at first, tongue swirling lightly at the tip, the sensations making Spock groan and his toes curl.
After a moment, Jim took the shaft of Spock’s penis more firmly in hand, his mouth creating suction so mind-blowingly perfect Spock momentarily lost all will to think or move. All he knew was this wet, hot sensation, and he groaned yet again. In response, Jim began to move, taking Spock’s length further and further into his exquisite mouth. Spock had to look away - the image of Jim’s mouth stretched by the girth of his engorged penis too much, the slurping sounds he was making bordering on obscene. He let his head fall back again and stared at the ceiling. Then Jim began to move.
All thought and reason left him as he realized the tip of his penis was bumping against the back of Jim’s throat. He dropped what remained of his shields and let Jim’s emotions fill him up.
Lust. He felt lust and longing, a touch of fear and a hint of a loneliness so profound and deep it seemed bottomless. But that was only a fleeting impression. The lust and desire began to overtake them both as Spock felt his testicles tightening in the telltale sign that he was about to reach his climax.
“Jim I,” Spock began, his voice was barely audible. He cleared his throat. “I must warn you-”
In response, Jim shook his head, glancing up at Spock with eyes that were heavy-lidded with desire.
yeah
wantyouneedyou
want only this
only you
The emotion pouring into Spock from Jim was nearly incapacitating as Spock struggled to maintain control over his physical actions. Here was Jim before him, wanting him, taking him, and the passion he felt, the lust and need, filled him to overflowing. He cried out, dropped his hands to rest on Jim’s head, fingertips digging into the soft scalp. He tried but failed to contain himself, and soon his hips were pumping into Jim, who made choking sounds as he struggled to adjust. Jim put both his hands on Spock’s hips to steady him; Spock slowed but did not stop - he was beyond the ability to do so.
wantyouneedyou
only you
only you
only you
Spock looked down and saw that Jim had managed to take in the whole of Spock’s length, and he could feel the head of his penis hit the back of Jim’s throat, which had relaxed somewhat to accommodate. The sight verged on too much and Spock was forced to close his eyes. A moment later, he felt the first, hot spurt of his semen issue from his body. He cried out once more, held Jim’s head against his groin for a moment that was simultaneously too long and not long enough. Another moment later he was spent, and a sudden trembling in his legs threatened to bring him to his knees.
He must have made some small sound of distress, because Jim was suddenly beside him, easing him into a sitting position on his desk, his arm around Spock’s shoulders. Spock was shuddering from the aftereffects of his climax and from the remnants of Jim’s emotions bleeding through into his mind.
shit, something’s wrong
you ok?
did I hurt you
With an effort, Spock pulled almost violently away from Jim and all at once the strong emotions and the thoughts he felt ceased. Spock took a shuddering breath, as he tried to center himself, to get his emotions under some sort of control.
Jim held his hands up and away from him, a bewildered look on his face. “Spock?”
“Jim, I -“ Spock found he could not control his body; he did not know if the shaking in his limbs was from his release or from the emotional transference.
“Here, come here,” Jim said. With gentle hands, he tried to help Spock to his feet, but Spock pulled away; Jim settled for pulling his pants up for him.
“I am sorry, I -” Spock kept repeating as walked slowly toward his bed.
“It’s OK,” Jim kept answering, hovering beside Spock but not touching him.
Minutes later, Spock sat with his back against the pillows in a half-seated position against the backboard of his bed; Jim handed him a cup of hot tea and took a seat at the foot of the bed, an unreadable expression on his face.
“I apologize for my reaction,” Spock said at length.
“Don’t be. I think it’s me who should apologize - you’re still recovering from your injuries.”
“Just because your initial approach was assertive, it does not follow that it was not wanted,” Spock pointed out.
“It was wrong.”
“You were… overwrought.”
“You make me sound like a hysterical schoolgirl. It was unprofessional, and it won’t happen again.”
Jim stood and straightened out his uniform shirts, then turned to go, pausing just inside the door. “But when you died - or… almost died, whatever - I nearly lost my mind, Spock. I felt like a piece of me had been yanked away that I would never get back, do you know what I mean?”
Spock did know what he meant, but before he could open his mouth to reply, Jim had gone.
Part 2
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Jim/Spock, Bones, OCs
Spoilers: ST:ID
Content Notice: Lots and lots of smut and angst; angsty smut; smutty angst. Also: hurt/comfort; off-camera torture and violence; cuddling
Word Count: ~23,000
Summary: Five times Jim and Spock screwed before they realized it really meant something.
A/N: This is my story for Kirk/Spock Big Bang. Takes place immediately after the events in ST:ID.
I was so very fortunate to receive simply amahzing art by sanwall here and by raja815 here; they may be slightly spoilery.
This also fills the "dungeons" square on my H/C Bingo card.
Chapter 1
There is an ancient Vulcan legend, of the warrior bond - t’hy’la it was called. To be t’hy’len was the highest form of bonding, deeper and more profound than a familial or even a marital bond, and was considered to be a great honor. T’hy’len lived together, loved together, fought and died together. A warrior whose t’hy’la had been killed in battle rarely survived him long. Their deeds and their bond were to be celebrated for the ages, their parting a tragedy to fuel epic ballads.
Over the intervening millennia, the significance of the word and, indeed, the warrior bond itself, morphed in a variety of ways, gradually falling out of favor in the time of Surak, but reappearing in later centuries. Today it had variable definitions and, according to its context, meant “brother,” “friend,” or even “lover.”
Spock looked upon Jim Kirk in his hospital bed more than two weeks after the battle with Khan - two weeks after he watched him die - and thought they might be t’hy’len.
After a fashion.
They had fought at each other’s sides. They would - they both knew - lay down their lives for each other. There could be no more profound link between two friends. But he found the realization of this fact difficult to parse with the reality of their relationship to date. All he knew was that in Jim’s presence he felt something his own feelings were inadequate to express, and he did not like that uncertainty.
He also found himself lately with an illogical need to remain at Jim’s side, as if by his mere presence he might prevent him from coming to further harm. He knew this was irrational, and yet -
“You brought a chess set?” Jim asked, struggling to sit up in his bed. It was one day after he regained consciousness, 25.8 hours since he thanked Spock for saving his life. Spock held the set between them as if it were a shield.
“We have not played in some time.”
Jim blinked at him; there was something open in his face, something Spock would name, “gratitude” if he didn’t know better.
Spock set up the game on a nearby antigrav table that he positioned over Jim’s lap, then took a seat.
“You take white,” Jim said, and Spock spun the game 180 degrees. He moved a pawn and watched as Jim reached out a hand to move one of his own. His hand shook, however, and he knocked over his Queen-side rook. “Dammit!” he cursed, and fumbled to right the piece, knocking over three others in the process.
“Is something wrong? Are you in pain? Shall I inform Doctor McCoy?”
Jim’s face colored, though if it was from embarrassment or something else, Spock could not tell. “No, it’s - he already knows. There’s some lingering nerve and muscle damage, but it’s supposed to go away in a few days.”
“Do you require assistance?” Spock reached out to set the fallen pieces back into their places, finishing by moving the pawn Jim had been reaching for into the space he appeared to have intended for it to go.
“I do not, Commander,” Jim said, his voice containing the steely note he affected when he delivered orders on the bridge. Spock rested his hand in his own lap and straightened his spine. “It’s your move,” Jim added, his voice gentler.
They played to a draw, Spock ignoring Jim’s failing hand-coordination. Neither of them had his head in the game at any rate - it was clear each of them had other things on their minds. “Shall we play another?” Spock suggested, and Jim agreed, yawning.
Spock rose. “You need rest. I will return tomorrow for our rematch.”
“You don’t have to go,” Jim said, fumbling to grasp Spock by the wrist. At the touch, Spock perceived a flurry of Jim’s surface thoughts and emotions.
i’m scared Spock
help me not be
They were the words Jim had spoken two weeks ago - a memory - and Spock heard them in his dreams every night. Jim’s fear was replaced by shame and he pulled away. Spock turned his wrist quickly and held him lightly. “You need not -“ he began.
“Spock, I -“
sorry, sorry, sorry
shit you’re a touch telepath
please don’t leave
god, so pathetic
Spock dropped Jim’s hand as he realized he’d transgressed; he did not mean to read his friend, had only meant to reassure, or so he told himself.
“Do not -“ apologize, Spock had been about to say, but to say it would admit he’d read Jim’s thoughts. He caught a look of anxiety on Jim’s face before he looked away, and he stood there, frozen with indecision over whether to stay or leave.
He was saved by Doctor McCoy entering the room, a nurse in his wake. Without looking at either of them, he began waving a tricorder over Jim and frowning at the readout.
“What’s the prognosis?” Jim asked. Spock noticed Jim had settled a neutral expression on his face and marveled at his ability to mask his emotions; he was not sure he’d been very effective at it himself.
“I’m afraid you’ll live,” McCoy answered tersely. “Now get outta here.”
“Wh-what?” Jim asked, incredulous.
“You’re being discharged.”
Jim’s mouth hung open in disbelief as Spock said, “Doctor, surely the Captain requires additional time to recuperate.”
“Which he can do at home.”
“He was in a coma just two days ago.”
“And now he’s not. His vitals are strong, and he’s eating and all seems more or less normal.” He eyed Jim. “You feel normal?”
“Yes?”
“You promise to report to Outpatient Services for PT every day for the next two weeks?”
“Yes!”
“Then you’re cleared to go.”
Spock, incredulous, was dismayed to hear his voice raise an octave as he protested, “Surely Starfleet Medical does not require the bed. I, therefore, am at a loss to understand -“
“Shut it, Spock,” Jim hissed at him.
Spock raised an eyebrow and regarded his captain. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t look a gift discharge in the mouth.”
“Jim, I must protest most strenuously,” Spock began, but something in Jim’s eyes - something desperate - made him stop. “How will you get home?”
“I’ll call a cab.”
“Nonsense, I have a transport just outside.”
“There you go.”
Spock could feel his mouth pressing into a very thin line and it took a concerted effort to make it stop. “This is highly illogical.”
“So noted,” McCoy said. “Now, can we give the man some privacy while he gets dressed? The nurse here will get you some clothes.”
Spock followed McCoy out into the hallway, where he stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “Doctor, your willingness to discharge the Captain when he is clearly in no shape to be away from medical supervision is highly irregular.”
“Listen, don’t give me any guff, I’m doing it for his own good, OK?”
Spock blinked. “I fail to see -“
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you, because you don’t know him like I do.”
“I -“ Spock closed his mouth; McCoy was right, and it pained him to admit it.
“He’s scared shitless, and keeping him here’s not doin’ his recovery a lick of good. Do you think he’s over what’s happened?”
“I do not.” Jim had literally died, and adding to that, Admiral Marcus’s actions had affected all of them in a most distressing way. It was a hard thing to realize your superior officer was prepared to murder an entire starship’s crew to cover up his intention to start an intergalactic war.
“Well, I don’t want to do this, but if he’s at home, he’ll be more comfortable. Being here is putting him under too much stress.”
“Doctor, if the Captain is emotionally compromised, it must be reported.”
“I won’t do that to him, and neither will you, Commander. Look, he’ll get over it in his own time, I’m sure of it. But keeping him in the hospital is exactly the wrong way to do it. And I won’t clear him for duty until I’m convinced he’s doing all right, if that means anything to you.”
Spock could plainly see the concern for Jim written on McCoy’s face, and knowing he would not wittingly clear Jim for duty before he was ready, he reluctantly chose to comply with the doctor’s recommended course of action. Nevertheless, he needed to be sure of one thing. “You are certain he is physically capable of being on his own?”
“I’m a doctor first, and his friend second. I wouldn’t let him out of here if I didn’t think he would do all right.”
----
“Jesus, this is hard. What the hell was Bones thinking letting me out of the hospital?” Jim looked up at the remaining stairs ahead of them. Just one flight to go and they’d be at his front door.
“I might ask, ‘What were you thinking when you hired rooms in a four-story walk-up,’ but it is clear…” Spock adjusted his grip around Jim’s back and huffed a little breath of air out through his lips, “that you were not thinking!”
“It’s in a historic neighborhood,” Jim protested, grunting as he lifted his left leg to mount one more step.
“I could carry you,” Spock offered, not for the first time.
“You will not!” Jim ordered, and they struggled up the remaining stairs to Jim’s door.
Once inside, Spock helped Jim to his bed and deposited him on it rather more clumsily than he intended, then stood back and straightened out his uniform jacket. “Do you require anything?” he asked, struggling to regain his breath.
“Some water? And my PADD - it’s on the coffee table.”
Spock went to fetch the requested items and then settled himself in the living area on the couch.
“Spock,” Jim called after several moments. “You sticking around?”
Their voices echoed off the empty walls of Jim’s apartment; he had clearly never really moved into the place, as many of his belongings remained in boxes in the office.
“Someone must remain with you to ensure you do not fall and injure yourself.”
“I’m not going to crack my head open or anything.”
“You will forgive me if I do not believe you. You barely made it up a half flight of stairs before you required assistance.”
“Are you going to shout at me all afternoon, Spock, or will you come in here and have a normal conversation?”
Spock refrained from sighing and rose.
“If you’re going to stay, you should hang out with me,” Jim said as soon as he appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.
Spock raised an eyebrow. “What does this entail?”
Jim rolled his eyes. “Hanging out? You just - you hang out. Come over here and sit down.”
Spock approached the bed and sat on its edge with his back perfectly straight. “Is this acceptable?” he asked after several moments.
Jim sighed. “You might be more comfortable if you sat over here.” He indicated the vacant other half of the bed.
Spock complied, sitting with his back against the head of the bed, feet hanging over the side to prevent dirtying the duvet with his boots.
“There, isn’t that nice?” Jim asked.
“It is no different than when I sat over there.” A further minute passed. “Does this fulfill your definition of ‘hanging out’?” Spock asked.
“Yes. It’s what friends do. We’re friends, right?”
Spock looked at Jim, their eyes locking.
Jim’s eyes on his were unreadable, their color as vibrant as ever Spock recalled them being. Again, his memory returned to that horrible moment in Engineering, when he watched that intense color fade as Jim died mere inches from him while he was powerless to prevent it.
”I want you to know why I couldn’t let you die. Why I went back for you.”
“Because you are my friend.”
He closed his eyes.
“Something’s wrong,” Jim observed.
“It is nothing.”
“Spock, by now, I can tell when something’s bothering you. Spill, and that’s an order.”
Spock chose his words carefully, talking around his true thoughts as deftly as he could. “It has been extremely difficult for me to recover my emotional stability since the events of two weeks ago.”
Watching you die has gutted me, is what you might say, Jim he thought, but did not say.
“No amount of meditation or reflection has aided me in my attempts to recover the equilibrium I had enjoyed before. It is discomfiting.”
“’These are the times that try men’s souls,’” Jim quoted Thomas Paine.
“Please elaborate.”
“We were all of us betrayed by a man who had sworn not only to uphold the values of the Federation and of Starfleet, but by one who was supposed to always have our backs. It’s hard to come back to reality with your principles intact, much less any sense of innocence or idealism.”
“I do not think I had much innocence to lose.”
“Then I think you’re lying to yourself. I think you had a great deal of faith in Starfleet - as did I, as did every man and woman aboard the Enterprise - and that faith has been all but destroyed. It shakes a person up, makes him question everything.”
“Such a reaction is not very logical.”
“These are illogical times, Spock.” Jim licked his lips and lay back against the pillows piled beneath his back. “But you’ll get over it. I’ll help if you want.” He smiled slightly, the expression chasing the seriousness of their conversation out of the room.
Spock turned his face away from him, unconsciously mirroring Jim’s position on the bed with his head resting back against the headboard. This loss of idealism to which Jim referred was the very least of the matters troubling him, but he was loath to admit it to the very person upon whom those troubles rested. Spock had hoped that spending time in Jim’s company, seeing him awake and alive and healed would put a stop to, or at least lessen the intensity of, his illogical fear that his friend would die again.
----
“No!”
Spock opened his eyes to a darkened room. Jim had dropped off to sleep as they talked earlier, and Spock had returned to the living room to attempt to ease his own mind through meditation. As usual lately, it provided little relief from his troubling thoughts, and the low, desperate moan coming from the bedroom roused him almost the second it was uttered. He rushed to Jim’s bedside to find him asleep, as he’d left him, but his face was contorted, reflecting some inner emotional turmoil.
“Spock!” he said, and by the light filtering through the bedroom windows from the street outside, Spock could see the tears streaming down his friend’s face. He sat down beside Jim and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Jim.”
Jim opened his eyes with a startled intake of breath, his eyes finding Spock’s in an instant. “It’s you,” he said after a moment.
“It is.”
“You didn’t leave.”
“I told you I would remain to assist you should you require it in your recuperation. I still believe Doctor McCoy was in error when -“
“No, I mean you didn’t leave me when I died,” Jim interrupted.
“I - no, I did not.”
“You stayed,” Jim said, “you stayed with me.”
“I could no sooner have left than shed one of my arms, Jim.”
Jim took a shuddering breath and it was in that moment that Spock realized he was sweating and trembling. “You are shaking - are you fevered?” Spock rested the back of his hand against Jim’s forehead.
here with me
stay
don’t go
pleasepleaseplease
Jim’s emotions - fear, desperation, anguish - assaulted him, and it was all Spock could do not to flinch away, to maintain the brief contact required to ascertain if he had an elevated temperature or not.
“I keep reliving it in my dreams,” Jim confessed.
Spock didn’t need to ask what he meant. “Are not dreams a way for sentient beings to process what has happened to them? This is perhaps your subconscious doing the work it must to make you well.”
“Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.” He turned onto his side, facing Spock, and wrapped his arms around himself, his shivering not abating.
At a loss as to what to do, Spock placed his hand on Jim’s shoulder and patted him clumsily; his mother had done the same for him when he was a child, and he recalled it had soothed him.
“Spock?” Jim asked at length.
“Yes?”
“Is that all the work you’ve done on your b-bedside manner?”
“It is insufficient.” Spock was slightly dismayed.
“Think you could maybe just, stay here? Like before, in the bed?” Jim asked, his voice muffled, since he’d tucked his face against the bedding.
“That is highly irregular.”
“It’ll be better if you’re here,” Jim replied through chattering teeth.
Spock regarded the distress that was written in Jim’s every tensed muscle and trembling limb and could not help but be moved. He went around to the other side of the bed and kicked off his boots, then stripped off his uniform jacket and shirt, placed them carefully on the back of a nearby chair, and laid himself atop the covers as he had been before. Jim, meanwhile, had turned over to face him and squirmed closer, his arms still hugging himself tightly as he nudged up against Spock’s side.
“You’re really warm,” Jim murmured.
“Vulcans’ basal body temperature is several degrees above that of human norm, so there is no doubt you will find me… palliative.”
“It’s nice.”
Spock recalled tales of t’hy’len past who comforted each other through great hardships, injuries, and illnesses.
“Maybe it’d be better if you got under the covers - retain all that Vulcan body heat.”
Spock searched Jim’s face for any sign of insincerity but could discern none. He pushed the covers back and slid his legs beneath them, lying down on his side with his head on one of the pillows. Jim got closer and he was, indeed, palpably cooler than Spock’s own body. Remembering once again the soothing gestures his mother would employ, he rubbed a hand up and down Jim’s upper arm to warm him. Humming, Jim wriggled closer, his front now flush against Spock’s, and before he knew it, had pulled Spock’s arm around himself, resting his head just beneath Spock’s chin. Spock resisted the instinct to freeze up.
“There, that’s good, that’s perfect.”
“Do you think you might sleep again?” Spock asked stiffly.
Jim nodded.
“That is good, for McCoy impressed upon me the need for you to rest sufficiently.”
“He’s an old worry-wart.”
“He has your best interests in mind.”
“That’s what he says.”
“He saved you.”
“He does that all the time.”
You do not die all the time, Spock did not say as he shored up his mental shields and tightened his arms around Jim, ignoring the fact that it felt very right.
----
“No, no, no.” Jim was dreaming again.
“Jim,” Spock said, instantly awake. His body tensed against as Spock became aware of the overwhelming sense of fear pouring off of Jim along every inch of skin where their bodies touched. He fought to contain his reaction and to raise his mental shields against the onslaught.
“All alone,” Jim whimpered in his sleep, reacting to a nightmare they were both experiencing.
“You are not. I am here.”
empty
yawning, screaming emptiness
nothing
there was nothing there
quiet, so quiet
nothing there
Jim’s emotions were like a tsunami within Spock’s mind, swamping his shields and making them crumble. He gasped as he struggled to raise them again and failed. The only thing to do would be to disengage physically, but that would be difficult since in his dream-induced terror, Jim had latched on to Spock’s body like a limpet.
don’t want to go
please
Spock!
These last words were uttered aloud, but by Spock himself, Jim’s anguish filling him so completely it supplanted his own controls, his own thoughts and feelings. He knew he must put a stop to it. He alone must take action or risk permanent damage to his own mind. He wracked his brain for an answer, even as the emotions Jim experienced in his nightmare filled him to overflowing.
pleasepleaseplease
I don’t want to die
A meld - a meld would work, but Spock would not do that to a non-consenting mind, to do so would break the most basic laws of Vulcan.
“Spock!” they both thought, cried out, felt.
Perhaps it was some vestige of Jim’s incursion into his mind, perhaps it was something he subconsciously wanted, but Spock did the only thing he could think of and kissed Jim.
The fear plateaued as awareness returned and Jim’s eyes opened wide. He pulled away from Spock, a shocked gasp on his lips. His emotions did not retreat from Spock’s mind, but with his consciousness, so too a kind of control exerted itself, and Spock could shield once again. He still felt Jim’s turmoil, but it no longer threatened to overwhelm him.
And then Jim kissed him back.
Through their contact, Spock could feel Jim’s terror subsiding quickly. Within the space of a thought, it morphed into something else entirely as Spock returned the kiss; there was a sense of comfort being taken, and of relief.
needthisneedyouplease
Almost out of instinct, Spock felt his own left hand coming up to caress Jim’s face. Jim made a small, desperate mewling sound as he opened his mouth to allow Spock’s tongue access.
pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
Spock could tell that Jim was not so much begging for his attentions as he was in need of them, and Spock knew it was his role as Jim’s t’hy’la to give them to him. Soon, Jim’s hands were fumbling at the closure of Spock’s uniform pants - he’d forgotten he’d worn them into the bed - but whatever vestiges of the nerve damage Jim had referred to earlier in the day must have remained, for he made a sound of frustration in the back of his throat. Spock obligingly undid his own pants, gasping as Jim shoved his hand inside to bring his half-hard member out into the close air beneath the covers. Jim bit Spock’s bottom lip and, when Spock hissed, ran the flat of his tongue over it to soothe. Spock groaned as Jim began to stroke him to full hardness, reaching down and around to cup Jim’s still-clothed buttocks and pull their groins closer.
God! he heard or felt Jim say, the desperation the man felt now centered on their sexualized activity instead of the terror at being alone forever. Spock, for his part, was satisfied to have helped his friend to this point and, if he told the truth, he himself had a need for this. Jim’s death had affected him more profoundly than he would admit to anyone, perhaps even himself, and to offer this small comfort - to help him to feel less fear, less loneliness - to get over this trauma made it worth it.
Spock ran his hand along the waistband of the drawstring pants the hospital had sent Jim home in and managed to push them down to his knees in three movements. Jim fumbled to pull Spock closer, but soon gave it up, his arms trembling. “I can’t. I still can’t do anything,” he whined.
“Let me,” Spock whispered, turning them so Jim was on his back. He shoved his own pants off of his legs and levered himself over Jim with his own, strong arms. Jim spread his legs and Spock lowered himself between them, their twin erections bobbing against each other as Spock eased his body atop Jim’s. As he looked down, he saw the expression on Jim’s face was clear and open, lips slightly kiss-swollen and parted, blue eyes as bright as ever, and he longed with a yearning he would not name to make sure that face and those eyes would never again know the fear and doubt he’d been sensing in him all day. As Spock dipped his head down to take Jim’s lower lip between his again, he poured as much of that sentiment as he could into the gesture. And even though there was no way Jim could know he was doing it, not without a meld, the message evidently got across.
yes
Spock rotated his head to the side to get a better angle for the kiss, then reached down with his hand to line up their erections, using the copious amounts of pre-ejaculate they had both produced to lubricate the way. He began a languid thrusting against Jim, who responded by lifting trembling arms up to rest his hands on Spock’s shoulders, straining his own head up to deepen the kiss they shared.
Soon, Spock began to escalate his movements, thrusting with more force against Jim, who moaned into their kiss, the exhale into Spock’s mouth a delicious counterpoint. Spock wanted to swallow it down, as if doing so would preserve some part of Jim within himself. After many more minutes of this, Spock felt the telltale tightening in his scrotum that signaled he was close to climax; Jim, apparently, was close too, for he pulled his head away and rested it against his pillow, eyes closed and breath held. Spock lowered his head until he was resting his forehead against the pillow beside Jim and, with one final thrust, felt his seed spill out, warm over his hand and against Jim’s belly. Jim’s own orgasm followed close behind, and when Spock raised his head to watch his face, he was biting his bottom lip so hard he thought it might bleed; Spock illogically wished to see that.
Spock lowered himself to the side, and Jim turned his head to catch his lips in one, final kiss.
needed that
“Indeed.”
----
Spock woke in the morning to find himself alone in the bed; he could hear the shower running in the adjacent bathroom, and eventually sat up, scanning the room for his clothes. Before he could get out of the bed, the bathroom door opened, and Jim came out, a towel around his hips.
“You appear to have gotten your strength back,” Spock noted.
Jim smiled. “I still feel a bit shaky, but last night was very -“ he paused, at a loss for words.
“Restorative?” Spock suggested.
“Yes,” Jim agreed. “Never let it be said that a good night’s -“
“Sleep,” Spock supplied.
“…won’t do a man some real good,” Jim finished with a smile that rapidly faded.
They looked into each other’s eyes for a minute, then began to speak at once.
“Spock, about last night -“
“Jim, we need to discuss -“
“You go first.”
“I insist that you do. Captain.”
Jim paused when Spock referred to him by his rank, but plowed on after a moment. “Thank you, Spock, for what you did for me last night. You reminded me I was alive, that I could live. I don’t know if you will truly realize what you’ve done for me. I will be forever grateful.”
Spock did not feel reminding Jim that he knew precisely what it had done for him would serve much of a purpose. “I would offer similar sentiments.”
“But I’m still your commanding officer, and you are still in a relationship with Nyota, and -“
“You need not speak of it further, Jim, for I believe we are of one mind on this. While wholly satisfying and exactly what we each required in the moment, it cannot be repeated.”
Jim looked relieved, and though his feelings on the matter were exactly as he’d stated, Spock couldn’t help a small and illogical stab of disappointment that he ruthlessly suppressed.
Kaiidth, he thought. What is is. In days long past, t’hy’len had spouses and families separate from the warrior bond. It did nothing to lessen their importance to each other, and it would not here.
They were t’hy’len, it was what would be.
Chapter 2
Spock found it… unchallenging… to abide by their agreement never to speak of their encounter.
Jim made a full recovery, with no evidence that the distress he had shown that night affected him further. Spock, for his part, only felt a dimension had been added that deepened their friendship, and allowed them a more complete understanding of each other than they had enjoyed before. He never felt the need to confess it to Nyota, as it would have unduly hurt her. That their relationship ended shortly afterwards he attributed to coincidence.
As the command team, Spock and Jim were together very often over the year it took for the Enterprise to be repaired and re-launched, supervising repairs and upgrades. During that time, their friendship grew into one of the closest relationships Spock had ever enjoyed with a person not in his family. They even spent their free time together, playing chess or having dinner, until eventually, Doctor McCoy started teasing that they were like an old married couple.
Three months into the five-year mission, a call came for them to perform a survey of a planet in the Naamans system, preliminary evaluations that were necessary to determine if it would make a suitable world for future colonization. They began their survey on the smaller of two major continents, near the planet’s equator. Indications were that the planet had long ago been prone to much seismic activity, and Starfleet Command wanted the Enterprise to make a first-hand survey.
It took some hours for Spock and the geologists on his team to unload and set up the surveying equipment. They had to take a shuttle to the planet’s surface, since the equipment necessary to perform the evaluation was both complex and delicate. Doctor Renton, the chief geologist aboard ship, had begun to calibrate the machinery when Spock found his attention drawn by an intriguing species of insect as it fluttered past. Similar to an Earth-type butterfly but many times smaller, he followed it with his tricorder extended, taking readings of its anatomy and cell structure, intending to share them with the ship’s entomologist.
As he watched the creature flutter among the delicate flowering plants that grew beside a nearby stand of slender, wispy trees, he was struck by the almost frangible nature of the flora, as if they had evolved to be as light as possible. Before he could take more readings, he was hailed by Doctor Renton.
“Doctor Renton to Commander Spock, please come in.”
He pulled his communicator out and flipped it open. “Spock here, go ahead, Doctor.”
“Sir, our preliminary readings are concerning.”
“In what way?” Spock still had his eye on the delicate butterfly-like creature, but Renton’s next words got his complete focus.
“The planet’s crust is particularly stratified here and, I fear, unstable. We should plan to leave as soon as we can.”
“Are we in immediate danger?” he asked, already moving back the way he’d come.
“I’m sure we can take the time to - “
Renton’s voice was cut short by a strange rumbling sound that Spock heard both through the comm and around him. He quickened his pace. “Doctor Renton?” he called to her as he moved, but the only answer he got was a shocked gasp. He came within sight of the shuttle in time to see, to his horror, the entire shuttle, as well as the surveying equipment and the three people standing beside it, disappear into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up beneath their feet.
Spock slid to a halt beside the area, but had to scramble backwards as the earth in the vicinity began to crumble beneath his feet. “Spock to Enterprise,” he said urgently into his communicator, “the shuttle and three members of the Away Team have fallen into a sinkhole.”
“Acknowledged, sir,” came Chekov’s excited voice.
“Spock,” came Jim’s voice over the comm, “our sensors aren’t picking up anything that seems overly concerning, are you certain -“
“Enerprise,” Spock said urgently, “my team has disappeared. Do you have a lock on them - can they be beamed out?”
“Negative, sir,” Chekov replied. “There is a high concentration of iron in the soil that is making getting a lock difficult from this distance.”
Spock inched closer to the edge of the cave-in and peered down; there appeared to be a series of caves, but he could not determine how deep they were. He could make out the front end of the shuttle, its running lights still on, but no sign of his team.
“We’re arranging a search and rescue team to send down to you. Meanwhile, Spock, we’ll beam you to safety,” Jim advised.
“Negative, Captain. I must stay here with my staff.”
“Understood, but don’t do anything stupid.”
Spock raised an eyebrow as if Jim were standing right in front of him; if only the Captain could see his withering look.
A faint sound from somewhere behind him got his attention, and Spock spun around. Had he heard a cry for help? Walking towards where the sound was emanating, he kept his tricorder outstretched to search for life signs.
“Doctor Renton!” Spock called as loudly as he could, but the sound he’d heard was not repeated.
Suddenly, he felt a rumbling beneath his feet. He tried to jump aside, but the ground beneath him began to tremble and fall away, as if he was standing on the edge of a sand dune.
“Spock! What’s happening?” came Jim’s voice.
“Captain,” he managed to respond, “I believe there is another sink hole opening -“ his words were cut off as the ground gave way beneath his feet and he felt himself sliding down, along with a large mass of earth and rocks, into an underground cavern, the bottom of which he could not see. He landed on his back with jarring and painful suddenness and lay there, stunned, for a split second, before the remaining earth that had been dislodged by the cave-in completely covered him, cutting off his air. Desperately, he clawed at the soil and rock that had fallen around him, but to no avail - more and more of it kept coming at him. Finally, the crushing weight of the earth pressing on his torso and the dwindling supply of air around him combined to overcome him and he did not have even a moment to contemplate his regrets before blackness took him.
----
Awareness returned very slowly - in discrete snippets that he would take the time to be fascinated by if he didn’t find them so confusing.
Spock!
Don’t do this, dammit.
Please don’t do this.
Regardless of his will to respond to the prompting, he found he could not compel himself to answer.
Think he’s coming out of it.
About time.
Damn hobgoblin’s gonna be the end of me!
When Spock opened his eyes, he found himself in the stark, white confines of a treatment room in the ship’s medical bay. Turning his head to the side, he could discern Doctor McCoy conversing with a young nurse, though he could not hear what they were saying.
“Look who’s up then,” McCoy said, coming over to wave a medical tricorder over Spock’s supine form. “You are a sight for these sore eyes.”
Spock raised an eyebrow, but if the worry lines around the doctor’s eyes were any indication, he was telling the truth. Still: “If your eyes are giving you discomfort, Doctor, I would encourage you to seek treatment from the ship’s ophthalmologist.”
“Smartass Vulcan. Your vitals look good. How do you feel?”
Spock did a quick self-assessment. “I am operating at peak efficiency.”
McCoy glanced up at him over the tricorder. “So, these Vulcan healing trances… were you going to share that bit of information with your ship’s CMO?”
Spock was surprised. “It is a basic fact of Vulcan biology; when the body is very gravely injured, Vulcans enter into a deep trance that is revitalizing to our tissues and systems.”
“And since you Vulcans are so damned tight lipped, there’s almost none of it in the medical texts! You realize we thought you were dead, don’t you? It was a near thing for the ship’s coroner.”
Spock felt a stab of dismay. “I did not. I apologize, but I did not know that such a fact had been omitted from the public record. I will endeavor to correct it.” He tried to sit up, but McCoy seemed to take pleasure in the act of pushing him down more forcefully than was strictly necessary.
“There will be time for that later.” The doctor once again hefted his tricorder. “Now let me make sure you’re really OK.”
“Doctor, surely the detailed readouts of the biobed provide the data you need to ascertain my state of health. I assure you, I feel perfectly fine.”
McCoy gave him a glare and Spock lay there until the good doctor was satisfied. “Well, there’s nothing else for it - I have no choice but to release you.”
Spock sat up again.
“But I’m putting you on restricted duty for the next two days.”
Spock opened his mouth to protest, but McCoy interrupted him. “I don’t care if you’re feeling ‘adequate’ or ‘acceptable’ or whatever word you want to use to underplay it, but you almost died, Spock, and you will rest for another 48 hours and that’s an order.”
“Very well,” Spock sighed.
But McCoy wasn’t done grousing. He kept muttering to himself as he gathered up his equipment and a tray of hyposprays he’d not had the opportunity to use. “Who ever heard… such a thing… healing trance. Damn hobgoblin biology…” Spock could still hear him for some minutes after he’d left the room.
A few minutes later, the nurse brought him some clothes to change into - uniform pants and standard-issue black undershirt -and he made his way to his quarters. His internal body clock had already informed him of the time that had passed, but in the week he’d been in the trance, he surmised much paperwork had accumulated, and so he sat at his desk and began to work through it determinedly. He was relieved to learn that none of the Away Team had been more seriously injured than a few broken bones and contusions, and a report on the planet’s status - the ground was merely a thin shell above an intricate array of underground caverns - made it a wholly unsuitable place for colonization.
He was halfway through his own report on the mission when the door to his quarters beeped.
“Enter,” he called, and turned in his seat. Standing in the doorway was Captain Kirk, face carefully neutral, but hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Jim, may I help you?”
Jim walked into the room stiffly and stood inside the door just far enough to allow the sensors to close it behind him. “I see you are recovered?” he said.
“I am quite well.” Spock had, by now, become adept at reading most human body language, but Jim’s manner was confounding; he was smiling, but his eyes were stony.
“Quite well. That’s good to hear.”
“I am pleased to have learned the others on the Away Team survived with little serious injury,” Spock said, wondering at his sudden need to fill the silence between Jim’s speeches with statements of known facts.
“Yes, it’s a testament to their training. Your Science staff are very professional, you are to be commended, Commander.”
Commander was it? Spock got up from his desk and stood at attention. “Captain, I am unsure what has displeased you, but your manner would suggest -“
“My manner… Spock, you almost died.”
“Indeed, I think I did not.”
“Your life signs indicated otherwise.”
“Federation personal sensor equipment is clearly not sensitive enough for a Vulcan’s physiology. I have already worked out a way to re-calibrate my own personal device so as not to repeat the error.”
“Re-calibrate? Spock, do you not see what this - I thought you were dead!” Jim took a step forward, followed by another and another. At this close range, Spock could see a character in his eyes, a degree of anguish he had not observed before.
“Jim, I -“
Jim grabbed Spock’s biceps with his hands and squeezed; despite the layer of clothing he wore, Spock could feel his friend’s roiling thoughts and emotions punch through to his mind as soon as he made contact. A sense of fear and loss so profound it stole his breath was followed by a tumble of sudden thoughts.
how can he be so calm
kill him myself
can’t even think about -
The thoughts were strong enough to be shouts as Jim stepped closer into Spock’s personal space and caught his lips in a demanding kiss. He opened his mouth to protest, but Jim only pressed the advantage, shoving his own tongue inside Spock’s mouth and plundering as if it were some invader. Spock took an involuntary step back and stumbled, but Jim’s hands were around his back in an instant, supporting him and pulling him closer.
Jim! was his wordless - what, protest, statement, censure? He could hardly tell. As had happened upon Jim’s recovery from his coma, Spock found the massive onslaught of Jim’s emotions so strong they nearly swamped his mental shields. He attempted to shore them up, pushing to erect them in a stronger way, but at one, silent entreaty from his friend he desisted.
please
The word was a plea, an imprecation, his tone filled with so much loss and want and need that Spock surrendered to the mass of desperate, grasping human who held him in his arms.
Spock pulled his head back to catch his breath. “Yes,” he said as Jim pressed his lips against his throat, sucking a mark against the pulse point there and then licking over the spot soothingly. “Yes,” he repeated, with the sudden and surprising knowledge that the sentiment might not be his alone.
Ignoring it, Spock raised his hands and buried them in Jim’s soft hair, his fingertips splayed, pressing, pulling him closer. He felt Jim’s hands moving underneath his shirts, fingers pulling, grasping him closer with almost bruising force. Again Spock gasped and again, he murmured, “Yes.” This time, he was certain the word was coming from them both.
Jim, meanwhile, had slowly dropped to his knees before Spock, and was looking up at him with eyes so large and filled with desire that the pupils had almost obliterated the pale blue irises. Spock reached out to him, but Jim pulled away, hands traveling from Spock’s torso to the waistband of his pants. There was a question in the blue eyes, and again an unspoken request, please.
Jim undid Spock’s trousers swiftly, pushing them to pool around his feet unnoticed. Leaning forward, he rested his face in the crook between Spock’s thigh and groin.
do want
Spock felt Jim’s thought at the very center of his mind, reverberant and insistent, but again Jim looked up at him, as if for guidance or permission. This time, Spock’s murmured “Yes” was his own.
Jim leaned forward fractionally, his open mouth breathing moistly over Spock’s rapidly-filling penis, a light brush of teeth over the weeping head. Spock felt slightly dizzy and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back as he gave in to the sensations. Jim buried his face in Spock’s crotch, breathing in his scent deeply, and when he finally reached up to pull Spock’s briefs down, Spock gave an involuntary shudder as skin finally touched skin.
want
need
wantyouneedyou
Jim ran his fingertips up and down Spock’s erect shaft, lightly, ghostingly, concentrating his attention on it as if discovering it for the first time. He opened his eyes and watched as, with two fingertips, Jim gently guided it to his open mouth. Jim closed his eyes as he wrapped his lips firmly around the head, sucking it tentatively at first, tongue swirling lightly at the tip, the sensations making Spock groan and his toes curl.
After a moment, Jim took the shaft of Spock’s penis more firmly in hand, his mouth creating suction so mind-blowingly perfect Spock momentarily lost all will to think or move. All he knew was this wet, hot sensation, and he groaned yet again. In response, Jim began to move, taking Spock’s length further and further into his exquisite mouth. Spock had to look away - the image of Jim’s mouth stretched by the girth of his engorged penis too much, the slurping sounds he was making bordering on obscene. He let his head fall back again and stared at the ceiling. Then Jim began to move.
All thought and reason left him as he realized the tip of his penis was bumping against the back of Jim’s throat. He dropped what remained of his shields and let Jim’s emotions fill him up.
Lust. He felt lust and longing, a touch of fear and a hint of a loneliness so profound and deep it seemed bottomless. But that was only a fleeting impression. The lust and desire began to overtake them both as Spock felt his testicles tightening in the telltale sign that he was about to reach his climax.
“Jim I,” Spock began, his voice was barely audible. He cleared his throat. “I must warn you-”
In response, Jim shook his head, glancing up at Spock with eyes that were heavy-lidded with desire.
yeah
wantyouneedyou
want only this
only you
The emotion pouring into Spock from Jim was nearly incapacitating as Spock struggled to maintain control over his physical actions. Here was Jim before him, wanting him, taking him, and the passion he felt, the lust and need, filled him to overflowing. He cried out, dropped his hands to rest on Jim’s head, fingertips digging into the soft scalp. He tried but failed to contain himself, and soon his hips were pumping into Jim, who made choking sounds as he struggled to adjust. Jim put both his hands on Spock’s hips to steady him; Spock slowed but did not stop - he was beyond the ability to do so.
wantyouneedyou
only you
only you
only you
Spock looked down and saw that Jim had managed to take in the whole of Spock’s length, and he could feel the head of his penis hit the back of Jim’s throat, which had relaxed somewhat to accommodate. The sight verged on too much and Spock was forced to close his eyes. A moment later, he felt the first, hot spurt of his semen issue from his body. He cried out once more, held Jim’s head against his groin for a moment that was simultaneously too long and not long enough. Another moment later he was spent, and a sudden trembling in his legs threatened to bring him to his knees.
He must have made some small sound of distress, because Jim was suddenly beside him, easing him into a sitting position on his desk, his arm around Spock’s shoulders. Spock was shuddering from the aftereffects of his climax and from the remnants of Jim’s emotions bleeding through into his mind.
shit, something’s wrong
you ok?
did I hurt you
With an effort, Spock pulled almost violently away from Jim and all at once the strong emotions and the thoughts he felt ceased. Spock took a shuddering breath, as he tried to center himself, to get his emotions under some sort of control.
Jim held his hands up and away from him, a bewildered look on his face. “Spock?”
“Jim, I -“ Spock found he could not control his body; he did not know if the shaking in his limbs was from his release or from the emotional transference.
“Here, come here,” Jim said. With gentle hands, he tried to help Spock to his feet, but Spock pulled away; Jim settled for pulling his pants up for him.
“I am sorry, I -” Spock kept repeating as walked slowly toward his bed.
“It’s OK,” Jim kept answering, hovering beside Spock but not touching him.
Minutes later, Spock sat with his back against the pillows in a half-seated position against the backboard of his bed; Jim handed him a cup of hot tea and took a seat at the foot of the bed, an unreadable expression on his face.
“I apologize for my reaction,” Spock said at length.
“Don’t be. I think it’s me who should apologize - you’re still recovering from your injuries.”
“Just because your initial approach was assertive, it does not follow that it was not wanted,” Spock pointed out.
“It was wrong.”
“You were… overwrought.”
“You make me sound like a hysterical schoolgirl. It was unprofessional, and it won’t happen again.”
Jim stood and straightened out his uniform shirts, then turned to go, pausing just inside the door. “But when you died - or… almost died, whatever - I nearly lost my mind, Spock. I felt like a piece of me had been yanked away that I would never get back, do you know what I mean?”
Spock did know what he meant, but before he could open his mouth to reply, Jim had gone.
Part 2