A Long-Standing Union Part I
I
Jim woke to the scratch of overstarched hospital sheets on his cheek, the low hum of machines, and the acrid scent of medical-grade sterilization. When he blinked away the bleariness of sleep, he met a dim room decorated in beige and grey, almost as if the room itself were designed to undercut its inhabitants’ spirits with a bland melancholia. In the chair pulled up to his bedside sat Jim’s bondmate, curled in on himself and slumped to one side with his mouth hanging open as he huffed out gentle snores. There was a bit of drool threatening to escape from the corner, and Jim couldn’t contain the curve of his lips at the sight. Smiling, however, involved moving muscles in his face, and he had no idea how, but they ached - in fact, everything ached, from his eyebrows to the soles of his feet, and an involuntary groan rumbled out of his chest.
Spock jerked awake, blinking furiously as he leaned in over the edge of the hospital bed. He set his arm over the rail and took Jim’s hand.
“Jim?” His voice was deep and gravelly from disuse, and Jim felt suddenly as if he hadn’t seen Spock for weeks, months, and his heart swelled to hear him.
“Hey,” Jim whispered. He frowned and cleared his throat. “Hey,” he tried again, but the word was still tremulous and weak.
“Do not trouble yourself, Jim,” Spock said with a squeeze of his hand. “I have been assured that we can return home today.”
“Am I on some good drugs?” Jim asked, voice muted. “Everything is… soft.” Spock’s fingers tangled with his, the salt and pepper of Spock’s hair, the brown of Spock’s eyes.
Spock’s other hand came around and settled on Jim’s thinning hair, stroking idly.
“Painkillers,” he said, “which should be wearing off. I have a prescription for a weaker one under the influence of which you will not seem so… altered.”
“Stoned,” Jim said. The smile stretched his face wide, and tiny flares of pain shot through him again. He shut his eyes against them and let out a puff of air. Spock’s thumb rubbed along his hairline, and through the bond, past the haze of drugs, Jim felt the thrum of Spock’s guilt and fear. “Don’t,” Jim murmured. “Not your fault.”
“I am sorry nonetheless, t’hy’la.”
Jim called up his strength and pulled Spock’s hand to his lips. He kissed each withered fingertip, each thickening knuckle. Spock crowded against the head of the bed where no rail blocked him and laid his head down beside Jim’s, forehead pressed to Jim’s temple.
“That can’t be comfortable,” Jim said.
“I find myself uncaring of my own comfort at this moment.”
Jim hummed and let his eyes flutter closed, Spock’s hand still pressed to his mouth. Spock’s pulse beat a warm rhythm against his lips.
-
Jim’s steps were ginger but he refused to take Spock up on his offer to carry him from room to room.
“I’m not a baby,” he’d grumbled as he hobbled to the bathroom. He had to piss constantly these days, and apparently the twenty-minute interval between leaving the city hospital and arriving at home on the outskirts of Shi’Kharuzh was enough to send his bladder into a panic.
“Call if you require assistance,” Spock said. His tone was mild, but Jim could hear the note of worry underneath. “I will begin meal preparations.”
Jim’s penis was still tender from the dermal regenerator treatments, so he handled it with exaggerated care. When he was finished, he shook off, dabbed at it with a bit of toilet paper, flushed and tucked himself back in his pants. At the sink he looked up and met his own eyes in the mirror. The color, he thought, used to be a brighter blue. But he used to be a lot of things, and those times had passed. Now he wore glasses, his hair was white, and his skin was weighted with wrinkles and spots of discoloration. His beard was coming through, silver and unkempt. He blinked, ran a hand through it. That hand shook, and his knees trembled.
“Spock,” he called out. He gripped the edge of the sink and Spock was there in an instant, arm around the small of his back.
“Are you all right, Jim?”
Jim waved a hand. “I’m fine, fine,” he said. “Could you get one of those tall stools so I can sit? I need a shave, but you’re gonna have to do it.” In the mirror he watched Spock nod and leave, and when he came back Jim sank gratefully into the stool, back pressed up against Spock’s front. Spock’s hands settled on Jim’s shoulders and Jim met his gaze in the mirror, a conduit for their intimacy. Spock broke the eye contact and moved away to gather Jim’s shaving things. He fiddled, he dawdled, and finally Jim said, “Are we gonna talk about this?”
Spock paused. His shoulders had hunched further inward from his habitual stoop, muscles locked and tense. He didn’t look at Jim.
“I suppose that would be the logical thing to do.”
Jim sighed. “Right,” he said. “Well. Why don't you lather me up, I’ll zip it, and you can tell me what you’re thinking while we get rid of this Grizzly Adams thing I’ve got going.”
“There is hardly a quarter inch of growth, Jim.”
“Yeah, yeah, and all of it patchy and terrible, I know. I’d do it myself, but-”
“I will attend you, t’hy’la,” Spock interrupted, moving to stand behind him. “That is my right and my duty.”
Jim’s jaw snapped shut. In the mirror he watched Spock rub the foam between his hands, and then those hands were on his face, smoothing the lather over his cheeks and along his jawline, under his chin and over his lip. It was soothing and, in another life, it would have been arousing. The early days of their courtship, that tumult of lust, seemed unreal by light of memory. The urgency of their affections had faded into a comfortable lull, and Jim didn’t think about it that often, but sometimes the longevity of their union absolutely flabbergasted him. Watching Spock, also greying and touched with age, as he moved around the bathroom taking care of him was one such moment.
Spock stepped to the sink again to rinse his hands, and he patted them dry on a towel. He plugged the drain and ran hot water into the sink. He tapped the razor in the water and came back around. Gentle fingertips on the crown of his head encouraged Jim to tip back so Spock could reach his neck, but no razor touched his skin. Spock held him there, head against stomach.
“I’m ready,” Jim said. Spock braced him with fingers on his jaw, stretching the skin taut, and then he began to run the razor over Jim’s face in long vertical strokes. Jim closed his eyes and Spock began to speak.
“I was foolish to believe that I had aged out of the time of mating,” he said, “and it was doubly foolish to believe once it began that the intensity would be mitigated by my age. It was - wishful thinking, and with that indulgence in illogic, I have injured you beyond forgiveness.”
Jim reached a hand up and grasped one of Spock’s wrist. Through the point of contact he pushed his protest, his Spock, there’s nothing to forgive. Spock paused and made eye contact through the conduit of the mirror briefly before dropping his gaze. He swirled the razor in the basin.
“I am a low beast,” he said in a deceptively level tone, “to sate my base desires on an infirm mate, to treat him with such lack of regard. To tear him. To revel in his cries and his blood.” His lips thinned when they pressed together has if to stopper his words. Jim watched his Adam’s apple bob with a convulsive swallow. His heart hurt, but he could say nothing as Spock cradled his face and began to drag the razor over his skin again. “The solution is clear.”
“And what’s that?” Jim murmured. Spock steadied Jim’s head and flicked away the whiskers beneath his nose. He turned Jim’s face to the side and paid careful attention to the line of his sideburns. He did not speak, and Jim was in no position to move his mouth. They sat in silence as Spock finished shaving Jim, and Spock’s eyes never rose to meet his in the mirror.
-
Following his grooming session, Jim felt the pain in his rectum begin to throb back to life, and with it all the soreness of his joints and muscles. He’d felt lucid, as if the narcotics had worn off, but now he knew they were gone completely. He’d intended to set up a nest on the couch in the living area instead of being confined to his bed like an invalid, but he needed a nap and a pain pill and the couch wouldn’t suffice.
“What’s that prescription you told me about?” he asked Spock when he changed course to the bedroom. Spock was at his side in an instant with two little containers rattling with pills.
“An antibiotic to ward off infection, a mild oral opiate to ease pain, and a topical ointment for both. You may take the oral painkillers once every four hours, but you will not be due another antibiotic until the evening meal.”
“And the ointment?”
Spock’s shoulder came up in a tiny shrug, a habit he’d grown into after years on the Enterprise. The innocent look on his face was his version of flirtation, and Jim laughed a little. He couldn’t resist leaning in to steal a kiss - just a brush of his dry lips over Spock’s.
“Right.” Jim steadied himself with a deep breath. “I’m gonna make a nest in bed, and probably go to sleep. But could you bring me a glass of water so I can take a pill?”
Spock nodded. “I will also prepare a light meal so you do not become nauseated.” There was a touch on the small of his back, and then Spock was gone. Jim sighed and made his way toward the bedroom, which was another floor up. He reached the stairs and they were a barrier he’d managed to forget about.
“Balls,” Jim muttered. He made a guttural grunt before gripping the rail and hauling himself up the stairs, each movement a strain on his legs, a flare of pain in his ass. By the time he got to the bedroom he was sweating and exhausted, and he had no idea how he’d gotten so old. He arranged two pillows beneath his head, one behind his back and one in front of him to be hugged by arms and legs as he lay on his side. He burrowed beneath the covers. His breath was labored, everything hurt, and he wanted to close his eyes, just for a moment.
When he woke, it was to Spock’s hand smoothing down his arm from shoulder to elbow. Jim craned around to blink up at him.
“I do not relish waking you, Jim,” Spock said, “but I thought you would rather the minor inconvenience than waking later in great pain.”
With more effort than he cared for, Jim sat up against the headboard and accepted the glass of water and pill Spock handed him. He swallowed the painkiller and half the water and thanked him. Spock took the glass back and set it on the bedside table beside a sandwich on a plate before climbing in beside him. Jim sagged against him while he fluffed up the blankets. Spock reached over him to get the sandwich, settling the plate on his lap.
“Eat,” he said, handing one half of it to Jim. The bread was nondescript, but under a leaf of lettuce was a thick slice of roasted turkey breast Spock knew he liked. It was expensive, raised on an organic farming commune south of the city, and Spock must have made arrangements to get it before Jim had even left the hospital. It had been almost eighty years since the establishment of the original colony on New Vulcan, and it was now home not just to Vulcans but to populations with whom Vulcans had made families: Terrans, Romulans, Remans, and myriad others who had originally come to offer aid, but stayed when they found themselves in love with a Vulcan, much as Jim had, once upon a time. Meat was still a luxury on a planet with a largely vegetarian population, but not one too difficult to come by, and Jim bit into his sandwich with zeal. To his delight, he found that Spock had smeared a generous dollop of cranberry sauce on the turkey.
“’s good,” he said after the first swallow. “You pamper me.”
Spock patted his thigh. “This is no hardship,” he said.
“Crumbs in the bed drive you crazy.”
Spock gave his tiny shrug. “I will change the sheets.”
Jim finished his sandwich while Spock told him about some of the goings-on at the Vulcan Science Academy: there was some scandal involving a scientist in charge of the DNA banks, but Jim was missing some crucial pieces of the puzzle and thus was not following very well. Jim put the plate on the bedside table and nestled into Spock’s side, head tucked under his chin.
“So there is a committee meeting to assess the severity of Stendor’s sabotage,” Spock was saying, “but of course I will remain here, with you. I am reasonably certain the board will come to the proper decision with all the evidence before them, even if I am not there.”
“Hey, wait.” Jim may not have had all the details, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t tell this was something Spock was invested in. He didn’t come home and gossip often, after all. “When is it? It’s not like I can’t be home alone for a few hours. Hell, I’ll probably be sleeping.”
Spock’s arm tightened around him. “What if you require assistance to go to the bathroom? What if you fall?”
Jim rolled his eyes. The master bedroom was attached to a bathroom, and it was a trifling six feet away. “When’s the meeting, Spock?”
After a long pause, Spock said, “Tomorrow at 0700.” New Vulcan’s day had twenty-eight standard hours, and for some reason, Vulcans didn’t take this as an opportunity to sleep in. Jim was a fan of sleeping in now that he was in his dotage, and he had gotten used to waking in an empty bed.
“Spock,” Jim said. “I’ll be fine. I can get around and I have my pills, and I’ll do a lot of sleeping or reading or whatever. You should go. I want you to go. Have fun.”
A silent huff of breath served as Spock’s show of amusement, and he said, “Hardly ‘fun,’ Jim. Whatever else he has done, Stendor was once a great scientist who contributed much to our knowledge of biology. It will bring us no satisfaction to depose him.”
“Mph.” Jim pressed closer to his bondmate. Spock rubbed his arm. “In any case, you should go, say your piece, make sure they do the right thing there. I’ll be fine.”
“Very well,” Spock said. “But I will have my comm device on my person and turned on the whole time. And you will be sure to keep yours with you no matter where you go.”
“You worry too much.”
“I will prepare meals and snacks in advance. Should I bring a small refrigeration unit up here so you don’t have to traverse the entire house again?”
Jim sat up and cupped Spock’s face in his hands. His thumbs traced the strong line of Spock’s cheekbones. The brown eyes were big and imploring.
“Listen to me,” he said. “It’ll be half a day at the most. I’ll be fine,. You’re beating yourself up and it kills me.”
Misery crossed Spock’s expression, a deadening in the eyes.
“I’m killing you,” he said. “I’m killing you.”
Jim shook his head and pulled Spock in to hug him, arms tight around his neck.
“Don’t do that, t’hy’la,” he said. “Please don’t do that.”
Spock pried Jim off him and shifted to the side. Jim took both of his hands in both of his, but Spock let them lie there, inert in Jim’s grip.
“This is why the pon farr is a time of great shame, Jim. You have always been jocular in your references to it-”
“Spock, you gotta admit: we had some great ones.”
“Jim.” Spock clutched his wrist firmly. Too firmly. Delicate bones ground together and Jim suppressed the surprised grunt that threatened to slip. “We are not young men anymore. That has become painfully obvious. Even now, you do not comprehend the gravity of what I have done to you.”
“Oh, I get it,” Jim snapped. He yanked back his hands. “You’re the one who puts your head in the sand and pretends it’s not happening every single time. I’m just trying to make it easier on both of us.”
“You almost bled to death in my arms!” The words echoed off the walls of their bedroom and buzzed in Jim’s ears like sparks of lightning. The air left his lungs, and distantly he was aware that Spock was panting. Interminable moments passed when there was nothing but the sound of Spock’s breath and the roar of Jim’s blood in his ears, but quietly then Spock began to speak. “When the fever abated I held you, limp and lifeless, and I realized I was covered in your blood. Covered, Jim. I had never - I had never done such a thing, even in my most terrifying nightmares.”
Jim hadn’t bothered to ask about what he couldn’t remember once he’d woken at the hospital. He knew he’d torn, and that he’d been dehydrated, but the beginning of the pon farr was as clear as the moment he was living right now, and it went much as the last few had gone: a smoldering passion, a reaffirmation of their bond. Pon farr had always been, for Jim, a time when he was closest to Spock, when they were as thoroughly buried in each other’s minds as they could possibly be, when no barriers prevented them from complete knowledge of all that they were. It was a time of incredible intimacy, and he’d never feared it, never resented it the way Spock had. He’d never had a reason to. Despite his irrationality during the blood fever, Spock had never hurt him, and the most he’d gotten was a little dehydrated, a little sore, and a lot exhausted, but the best kind of exhausted there was. And Spock had been slowing down in recent years - the last one, about ten years ago because Spock’s Time had never been what one might call regular, had been downright tender by pon farr standards.
“What - what happened?” Jim asked, his voice a croak.
Spock clasped his shaking hands together in his lap and stared down at them.
“You are one hundred and three years old by Earth reckoning, Jim. And you are human.”
Jim clenched his jaw. “And I was human and damn old last time too, Spock. What about this time made it different?”
Spock shook his head. “I am unsure. Your tissues are thinner, weaker. Perhaps…” He swallowed back whatever he was going to say and turned his head away completely.
“Spock.”
He looked up on a sharp inhale and met Jim’s eyes. There was an unparalleled devastation there that tore at Jim’s heart.
“Perhaps the differences between our species’ aging rates are growing more apparent.”
Jim sat back against the pillows. He watched Spock for a long moment until Spock shut his eyes against the connection between them and turned his face away again. He moved to get out of bed, but Jim stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Because you’re more like middle aged and I’m more like elderly right now,” he said. “You’re still strong and I’m getting weaker every day.”
“Do not say such things.”
“Spock. It needs to be said.”
“No.”
“Who’s being illogical right now?”
“Do not mock me, Jim.” Spock brought a hand to his brow as if to hide from Jim’s gaze.
Jay lay back down and closed his eyes. He tugged Spock’s hand and met resistance. He sighed.
“Seriously, Spock? You’re not gonna let me hold your hand?”
Spock’s arm went limp and he allowed the touch, but he didn’t face Jim and all Jim saw was the broad, powerful line of his back.
“Will you please look at me?” Jim said. Spock pulled his hand away and swung his legs back on the bed to arrange himself at Jim’s side. He pulled Jim to his chest, entangled their legs. He held too tightly, but Jim let him. When Jim spoke, his lips brushed Spock’s pulsepoint, which beat like the wings of a hummingbird. “Even if I’m alive for the next one-”
“T’hy’la-”
“Shh, just listen,” Jim said. He felt Spock swallow. “Even if I’m alive for the next one, which no one can guarantee, I won’t be able to go through another pon farr with you. So. That’s where we are. And we’ll have to come up with a solution.”
Spock threw his entire leg over Jim’s body and crushed him in a hug. Jim gurgled and gasped Spock’s name until he let him go.
“I know what to do,” Spock said.
Jim craned his neck up to look Spock in the face. “What?”
“You will protest, but you must understand it’s the only way.”
“Spock. Just say it.”
“Chemical castration.”
Jim pushed Spock off of him and sat up without care to the bolts of pain that lit his ass and traveled up his spine. He gaped at Spock, who lay prone beside him, bangs askew.
“Jesus Christ, Spock, that’s the worst thing I have ever heard.”
“It is the only guarantee, Jim.”
“It is not! And it’s- It’s really short sighted! You could live another hundred years. You could have kids, and a fulfilling relationship with someone else.”
Spock propped himself up on his elbows. “You must know that there can be no one else, Jim. You are the chosen companion of my life. After you, I will be alone. I choose to be alone.”
Jim rubbed at his eyes which suddenly stung. “Okay. Listen. That’s really sweet, I guess, but Spock, I don’t want you to be sad and alone for the rest of your life. I want - all I have ever wanted was your happiness. The fact that your happiness included me was this insane bonus that I got to enjoy for almost my entire life. And I will continue to enjoy it until I’m dust. But I… I don’t want you to lock your heart away, Spock. It’s too big and full of love and vitality. It would be a waste.”
“My counterpart lived alone until his death.”
“And you envy that, Spock, really?” Jim pressed his palm to Spock’s side, above his heart. “Spock, my heart broke for him. Every time I saw him until he was gone, I felt like someone punched me in the gut. The way he’d look at me.”
“He comported himself with dignity. He never betrayed his t’hy’la.”
Jim frowned. When he and Spock had been together for about ten years, they’d gotten a call from New Vulcan asking if Jim would attend a most serious matter having to do with Spock’s counterpart. It turned out to be pon farr, which Jim had become familiar with two years previously, and after long talks and even longer silences, Spock agreed to allow Jim to ease the elder Spock through his Time. And he did so then and again eleven years later. Two years after that, Spock went to sleep one night and never woke up. When Jim got the news he locked himself in the head of the captain’s quarters on the Enterprise and cried bitterly, cried hard, cried like he hadn’t since he was fourteen and ran out of tears on a godforsaken planet whose memory he’d buried deep, cried until he choked and puked and had nothing left in him to wring out. Even now, decades later, he felt a lump form in his throat at the thought of Spock, any Spock, leaving the universe so permanently.
“Well,” he said after clearing his throat. “We don’t have any extra Jim Kirks lying around this time.”
Spock’s expression darkened, his mouth turning downward and his brows drawing together.
“You make light of this.”
Jim sighed. “No. No, I don’t. I’m just saying it’s not a betrayal, Spock. You could never betray me by continuing to live and love and - and contribute to society like you always have. I don’t want you to do what he did - to do the misplaced nobility thing and pine your days away. It’s not just sad, it’s kind of pathetic.”
“I thought you harbored… affection for him.” Now the brown eyes were accusing, though Jim couldn’t tell if it was because Jim had loved another Spock, or if he hadn’t loved him enough not to question the way he’d wasted his final years.
“I did,” Jim said. “I do. And he did a lot of great things for the colony, and for peace with Romulus. But Spock, he was lonely. He was so lonely it hurt him all the time. He was so lonely his health deteriorated and he died sooner than he had to.”
Spock squeezed his eyes shut. “Then he merely hastened his journey to meet his Jim again.”
“Spock!” Jim landed a harmless blow on Spock’s shoulder and Spock opened his eyes again. “Are you serious right now? Are you really giving me the ‘dying for each other is romantic’ clap trap? I can tell you right now - his Jim never wanted for him to waste himself like that, and I certainly don’t want you to live some kind of barren, sterile, acetic life where you moan about your lost lover until you wither away and die!”
“Vulcans do not moan,” Spock said.
Jim barked out a single laugh. Fondly, he brushed Spock’s protruding lower lip with a thumb.
“You do pout though,” he said. He counted out five breaths until he said in a conversational tone, “You know, you’re being really illogical about this. This is the way of things, the cycle. We age, we die. Just happens that I’m gonna do it sooner than you. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life in mourning because of something natural. Kaadith, right Spock? We’ve had seventy-seven years, and that’s a lot more than most people get. And there’s at least a few more in us.”
“It will not be enough,” Spock said, bitter. “Even if you lived a hundred more years, it would not be enough.”
Jim swallowed down the thickening in his throat. “I love you too, Spock,” he whispered. He lay back down and set his head on Spock’s chest. When Spock’s arms came around him this time, they were limp, as if sapped of strength and the will to fight. “We’ll figure this out and no one’s getting castrated, for Christ’s sake. Don’t worry, for now.”
“I cannot abide the thought of hurting you again.”
Jim was getting an idea. He might be too old for pon farr , but he wasn’t too old for a brilliant turn. He decided he’d start on it tomorrow while Spock was away. For now, he nuzzled Spock’s throat and breathed in the deep perfect scent of him.
“You won’t,” he said. Then, “Spock?”
“Hm.”
“Wanna apply my ointment?”
Prologue Part I Part II
Jim woke to the scratch of overstarched hospital sheets on his cheek, the low hum of machines, and the acrid scent of medical-grade sterilization. When he blinked away the bleariness of sleep, he met a dim room decorated in beige and grey, almost as if the room itself were designed to undercut its inhabitants’ spirits with a bland melancholia. In the chair pulled up to his bedside sat Jim’s bondmate, curled in on himself and slumped to one side with his mouth hanging open as he huffed out gentle snores. There was a bit of drool threatening to escape from the corner, and Jim couldn’t contain the curve of his lips at the sight. Smiling, however, involved moving muscles in his face, and he had no idea how, but they ached - in fact, everything ached, from his eyebrows to the soles of his feet, and an involuntary groan rumbled out of his chest.
Spock jerked awake, blinking furiously as he leaned in over the edge of the hospital bed. He set his arm over the rail and took Jim’s hand.
“Jim?” His voice was deep and gravelly from disuse, and Jim felt suddenly as if he hadn’t seen Spock for weeks, months, and his heart swelled to hear him.
“Hey,” Jim whispered. He frowned and cleared his throat. “Hey,” he tried again, but the word was still tremulous and weak.
“Do not trouble yourself, Jim,” Spock said with a squeeze of his hand. “I have been assured that we can return home today.”
“Am I on some good drugs?” Jim asked, voice muted. “Everything is… soft.” Spock’s fingers tangled with his, the salt and pepper of Spock’s hair, the brown of Spock’s eyes.
Spock’s other hand came around and settled on Jim’s thinning hair, stroking idly.
“Painkillers,” he said, “which should be wearing off. I have a prescription for a weaker one under the influence of which you will not seem so… altered.”
“Stoned,” Jim said. The smile stretched his face wide, and tiny flares of pain shot through him again. He shut his eyes against them and let out a puff of air. Spock’s thumb rubbed along his hairline, and through the bond, past the haze of drugs, Jim felt the thrum of Spock’s guilt and fear. “Don’t,” Jim murmured. “Not your fault.”
“I am sorry nonetheless, t’hy’la.”
Jim called up his strength and pulled Spock’s hand to his lips. He kissed each withered fingertip, each thickening knuckle. Spock crowded against the head of the bed where no rail blocked him and laid his head down beside Jim’s, forehead pressed to Jim’s temple.
“That can’t be comfortable,” Jim said.
“I find myself uncaring of my own comfort at this moment.”
Jim hummed and let his eyes flutter closed, Spock’s hand still pressed to his mouth. Spock’s pulse beat a warm rhythm against his lips.
-
Jim’s steps were ginger but he refused to take Spock up on his offer to carry him from room to room.
“I’m not a baby,” he’d grumbled as he hobbled to the bathroom. He had to piss constantly these days, and apparently the twenty-minute interval between leaving the city hospital and arriving at home on the outskirts of Shi’Kharuzh was enough to send his bladder into a panic.
“Call if you require assistance,” Spock said. His tone was mild, but Jim could hear the note of worry underneath. “I will begin meal preparations.”
Jim’s penis was still tender from the dermal regenerator treatments, so he handled it with exaggerated care. When he was finished, he shook off, dabbed at it with a bit of toilet paper, flushed and tucked himself back in his pants. At the sink he looked up and met his own eyes in the mirror. The color, he thought, used to be a brighter blue. But he used to be a lot of things, and those times had passed. Now he wore glasses, his hair was white, and his skin was weighted with wrinkles and spots of discoloration. His beard was coming through, silver and unkempt. He blinked, ran a hand through it. That hand shook, and his knees trembled.
“Spock,” he called out. He gripped the edge of the sink and Spock was there in an instant, arm around the small of his back.
“Are you all right, Jim?”
Jim waved a hand. “I’m fine, fine,” he said. “Could you get one of those tall stools so I can sit? I need a shave, but you’re gonna have to do it.” In the mirror he watched Spock nod and leave, and when he came back Jim sank gratefully into the stool, back pressed up against Spock’s front. Spock’s hands settled on Jim’s shoulders and Jim met his gaze in the mirror, a conduit for their intimacy. Spock broke the eye contact and moved away to gather Jim’s shaving things. He fiddled, he dawdled, and finally Jim said, “Are we gonna talk about this?”
Spock paused. His shoulders had hunched further inward from his habitual stoop, muscles locked and tense. He didn’t look at Jim.
“I suppose that would be the logical thing to do.”
Jim sighed. “Right,” he said. “Well. Why don't you lather me up, I’ll zip it, and you can tell me what you’re thinking while we get rid of this Grizzly Adams thing I’ve got going.”
“There is hardly a quarter inch of growth, Jim.”
“Yeah, yeah, and all of it patchy and terrible, I know. I’d do it myself, but-”
“I will attend you, t’hy’la,” Spock interrupted, moving to stand behind him. “That is my right and my duty.”
Jim’s jaw snapped shut. In the mirror he watched Spock rub the foam between his hands, and then those hands were on his face, smoothing the lather over his cheeks and along his jawline, under his chin and over his lip. It was soothing and, in another life, it would have been arousing. The early days of their courtship, that tumult of lust, seemed unreal by light of memory. The urgency of their affections had faded into a comfortable lull, and Jim didn’t think about it that often, but sometimes the longevity of their union absolutely flabbergasted him. Watching Spock, also greying and touched with age, as he moved around the bathroom taking care of him was one such moment.
Spock stepped to the sink again to rinse his hands, and he patted them dry on a towel. He plugged the drain and ran hot water into the sink. He tapped the razor in the water and came back around. Gentle fingertips on the crown of his head encouraged Jim to tip back so Spock could reach his neck, but no razor touched his skin. Spock held him there, head against stomach.
“I’m ready,” Jim said. Spock braced him with fingers on his jaw, stretching the skin taut, and then he began to run the razor over Jim’s face in long vertical strokes. Jim closed his eyes and Spock began to speak.
“I was foolish to believe that I had aged out of the time of mating,” he said, “and it was doubly foolish to believe once it began that the intensity would be mitigated by my age. It was - wishful thinking, and with that indulgence in illogic, I have injured you beyond forgiveness.”
Jim reached a hand up and grasped one of Spock’s wrist. Through the point of contact he pushed his protest, his Spock, there’s nothing to forgive. Spock paused and made eye contact through the conduit of the mirror briefly before dropping his gaze. He swirled the razor in the basin.
“I am a low beast,” he said in a deceptively level tone, “to sate my base desires on an infirm mate, to treat him with such lack of regard. To tear him. To revel in his cries and his blood.” His lips thinned when they pressed together has if to stopper his words. Jim watched his Adam’s apple bob with a convulsive swallow. His heart hurt, but he could say nothing as Spock cradled his face and began to drag the razor over his skin again. “The solution is clear.”
“And what’s that?” Jim murmured. Spock steadied Jim’s head and flicked away the whiskers beneath his nose. He turned Jim’s face to the side and paid careful attention to the line of his sideburns. He did not speak, and Jim was in no position to move his mouth. They sat in silence as Spock finished shaving Jim, and Spock’s eyes never rose to meet his in the mirror.
-
Following his grooming session, Jim felt the pain in his rectum begin to throb back to life, and with it all the soreness of his joints and muscles. He’d felt lucid, as if the narcotics had worn off, but now he knew they were gone completely. He’d intended to set up a nest on the couch in the living area instead of being confined to his bed like an invalid, but he needed a nap and a pain pill and the couch wouldn’t suffice.
“What’s that prescription you told me about?” he asked Spock when he changed course to the bedroom. Spock was at his side in an instant with two little containers rattling with pills.
“An antibiotic to ward off infection, a mild oral opiate to ease pain, and a topical ointment for both. You may take the oral painkillers once every four hours, but you will not be due another antibiotic until the evening meal.”
“And the ointment?”
Spock’s shoulder came up in a tiny shrug, a habit he’d grown into after years on the Enterprise. The innocent look on his face was his version of flirtation, and Jim laughed a little. He couldn’t resist leaning in to steal a kiss - just a brush of his dry lips over Spock’s.
“Right.” Jim steadied himself with a deep breath. “I’m gonna make a nest in bed, and probably go to sleep. But could you bring me a glass of water so I can take a pill?”
Spock nodded. “I will also prepare a light meal so you do not become nauseated.” There was a touch on the small of his back, and then Spock was gone. Jim sighed and made his way toward the bedroom, which was another floor up. He reached the stairs and they were a barrier he’d managed to forget about.
“Balls,” Jim muttered. He made a guttural grunt before gripping the rail and hauling himself up the stairs, each movement a strain on his legs, a flare of pain in his ass. By the time he got to the bedroom he was sweating and exhausted, and he had no idea how he’d gotten so old. He arranged two pillows beneath his head, one behind his back and one in front of him to be hugged by arms and legs as he lay on his side. He burrowed beneath the covers. His breath was labored, everything hurt, and he wanted to close his eyes, just for a moment.
When he woke, it was to Spock’s hand smoothing down his arm from shoulder to elbow. Jim craned around to blink up at him.
“I do not relish waking you, Jim,” Spock said, “but I thought you would rather the minor inconvenience than waking later in great pain.”
With more effort than he cared for, Jim sat up against the headboard and accepted the glass of water and pill Spock handed him. He swallowed the painkiller and half the water and thanked him. Spock took the glass back and set it on the bedside table beside a sandwich on a plate before climbing in beside him. Jim sagged against him while he fluffed up the blankets. Spock reached over him to get the sandwich, settling the plate on his lap.
“Eat,” he said, handing one half of it to Jim. The bread was nondescript, but under a leaf of lettuce was a thick slice of roasted turkey breast Spock knew he liked. It was expensive, raised on an organic farming commune south of the city, and Spock must have made arrangements to get it before Jim had even left the hospital. It had been almost eighty years since the establishment of the original colony on New Vulcan, and it was now home not just to Vulcans but to populations with whom Vulcans had made families: Terrans, Romulans, Remans, and myriad others who had originally come to offer aid, but stayed when they found themselves in love with a Vulcan, much as Jim had, once upon a time. Meat was still a luxury on a planet with a largely vegetarian population, but not one too difficult to come by, and Jim bit into his sandwich with zeal. To his delight, he found that Spock had smeared a generous dollop of cranberry sauce on the turkey.
“’s good,” he said after the first swallow. “You pamper me.”
Spock patted his thigh. “This is no hardship,” he said.
“Crumbs in the bed drive you crazy.”
Spock gave his tiny shrug. “I will change the sheets.”
Jim finished his sandwich while Spock told him about some of the goings-on at the Vulcan Science Academy: there was some scandal involving a scientist in charge of the DNA banks, but Jim was missing some crucial pieces of the puzzle and thus was not following very well. Jim put the plate on the bedside table and nestled into Spock’s side, head tucked under his chin.
“So there is a committee meeting to assess the severity of Stendor’s sabotage,” Spock was saying, “but of course I will remain here, with you. I am reasonably certain the board will come to the proper decision with all the evidence before them, even if I am not there.”
“Hey, wait.” Jim may not have had all the details, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t tell this was something Spock was invested in. He didn’t come home and gossip often, after all. “When is it? It’s not like I can’t be home alone for a few hours. Hell, I’ll probably be sleeping.”
Spock’s arm tightened around him. “What if you require assistance to go to the bathroom? What if you fall?”
Jim rolled his eyes. The master bedroom was attached to a bathroom, and it was a trifling six feet away. “When’s the meeting, Spock?”
After a long pause, Spock said, “Tomorrow at 0700.” New Vulcan’s day had twenty-eight standard hours, and for some reason, Vulcans didn’t take this as an opportunity to sleep in. Jim was a fan of sleeping in now that he was in his dotage, and he had gotten used to waking in an empty bed.
“Spock,” Jim said. “I’ll be fine. I can get around and I have my pills, and I’ll do a lot of sleeping or reading or whatever. You should go. I want you to go. Have fun.”
A silent huff of breath served as Spock’s show of amusement, and he said, “Hardly ‘fun,’ Jim. Whatever else he has done, Stendor was once a great scientist who contributed much to our knowledge of biology. It will bring us no satisfaction to depose him.”
“Mph.” Jim pressed closer to his bondmate. Spock rubbed his arm. “In any case, you should go, say your piece, make sure they do the right thing there. I’ll be fine.”
“Very well,” Spock said. “But I will have my comm device on my person and turned on the whole time. And you will be sure to keep yours with you no matter where you go.”
“You worry too much.”
“I will prepare meals and snacks in advance. Should I bring a small refrigeration unit up here so you don’t have to traverse the entire house again?”
Jim sat up and cupped Spock’s face in his hands. His thumbs traced the strong line of Spock’s cheekbones. The brown eyes were big and imploring.
“Listen to me,” he said. “It’ll be half a day at the most. I’ll be fine,. You’re beating yourself up and it kills me.”
Misery crossed Spock’s expression, a deadening in the eyes.
“I’m killing you,” he said. “I’m killing you.”
Jim shook his head and pulled Spock in to hug him, arms tight around his neck.
“Don’t do that, t’hy’la,” he said. “Please don’t do that.”
Spock pried Jim off him and shifted to the side. Jim took both of his hands in both of his, but Spock let them lie there, inert in Jim’s grip.
“This is why the pon farr is a time of great shame, Jim. You have always been jocular in your references to it-”
“Spock, you gotta admit: we had some great ones.”
“Jim.” Spock clutched his wrist firmly. Too firmly. Delicate bones ground together and Jim suppressed the surprised grunt that threatened to slip. “We are not young men anymore. That has become painfully obvious. Even now, you do not comprehend the gravity of what I have done to you.”
“Oh, I get it,” Jim snapped. He yanked back his hands. “You’re the one who puts your head in the sand and pretends it’s not happening every single time. I’m just trying to make it easier on both of us.”
“You almost bled to death in my arms!” The words echoed off the walls of their bedroom and buzzed in Jim’s ears like sparks of lightning. The air left his lungs, and distantly he was aware that Spock was panting. Interminable moments passed when there was nothing but the sound of Spock’s breath and the roar of Jim’s blood in his ears, but quietly then Spock began to speak. “When the fever abated I held you, limp and lifeless, and I realized I was covered in your blood. Covered, Jim. I had never - I had never done such a thing, even in my most terrifying nightmares.”
Jim hadn’t bothered to ask about what he couldn’t remember once he’d woken at the hospital. He knew he’d torn, and that he’d been dehydrated, but the beginning of the pon farr was as clear as the moment he was living right now, and it went much as the last few had gone: a smoldering passion, a reaffirmation of their bond. Pon farr had always been, for Jim, a time when he was closest to Spock, when they were as thoroughly buried in each other’s minds as they could possibly be, when no barriers prevented them from complete knowledge of all that they were. It was a time of incredible intimacy, and he’d never feared it, never resented it the way Spock had. He’d never had a reason to. Despite his irrationality during the blood fever, Spock had never hurt him, and the most he’d gotten was a little dehydrated, a little sore, and a lot exhausted, but the best kind of exhausted there was. And Spock had been slowing down in recent years - the last one, about ten years ago because Spock’s Time had never been what one might call regular, had been downright tender by pon farr standards.
“What - what happened?” Jim asked, his voice a croak.
Spock clasped his shaking hands together in his lap and stared down at them.
“You are one hundred and three years old by Earth reckoning, Jim. And you are human.”
Jim clenched his jaw. “And I was human and damn old last time too, Spock. What about this time made it different?”
Spock shook his head. “I am unsure. Your tissues are thinner, weaker. Perhaps…” He swallowed back whatever he was going to say and turned his head away completely.
“Spock.”
He looked up on a sharp inhale and met Jim’s eyes. There was an unparalleled devastation there that tore at Jim’s heart.
“Perhaps the differences between our species’ aging rates are growing more apparent.”
Jim sat back against the pillows. He watched Spock for a long moment until Spock shut his eyes against the connection between them and turned his face away again. He moved to get out of bed, but Jim stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Because you’re more like middle aged and I’m more like elderly right now,” he said. “You’re still strong and I’m getting weaker every day.”
“Do not say such things.”
“Spock. It needs to be said.”
“No.”
“Who’s being illogical right now?”
“Do not mock me, Jim.” Spock brought a hand to his brow as if to hide from Jim’s gaze.
Jay lay back down and closed his eyes. He tugged Spock’s hand and met resistance. He sighed.
“Seriously, Spock? You’re not gonna let me hold your hand?”
Spock’s arm went limp and he allowed the touch, but he didn’t face Jim and all Jim saw was the broad, powerful line of his back.
“Will you please look at me?” Jim said. Spock pulled his hand away and swung his legs back on the bed to arrange himself at Jim’s side. He pulled Jim to his chest, entangled their legs. He held too tightly, but Jim let him. When Jim spoke, his lips brushed Spock’s pulsepoint, which beat like the wings of a hummingbird. “Even if I’m alive for the next one-”
“T’hy’la-”
“Shh, just listen,” Jim said. He felt Spock swallow. “Even if I’m alive for the next one, which no one can guarantee, I won’t be able to go through another pon farr with you. So. That’s where we are. And we’ll have to come up with a solution.”
Spock threw his entire leg over Jim’s body and crushed him in a hug. Jim gurgled and gasped Spock’s name until he let him go.
“I know what to do,” Spock said.
Jim craned his neck up to look Spock in the face. “What?”
“You will protest, but you must understand it’s the only way.”
“Spock. Just say it.”
“Chemical castration.”
Jim pushed Spock off of him and sat up without care to the bolts of pain that lit his ass and traveled up his spine. He gaped at Spock, who lay prone beside him, bangs askew.
“Jesus Christ, Spock, that’s the worst thing I have ever heard.”
“It is the only guarantee, Jim.”
“It is not! And it’s- It’s really short sighted! You could live another hundred years. You could have kids, and a fulfilling relationship with someone else.”
Spock propped himself up on his elbows. “You must know that there can be no one else, Jim. You are the chosen companion of my life. After you, I will be alone. I choose to be alone.”
Jim rubbed at his eyes which suddenly stung. “Okay. Listen. That’s really sweet, I guess, but Spock, I don’t want you to be sad and alone for the rest of your life. I want - all I have ever wanted was your happiness. The fact that your happiness included me was this insane bonus that I got to enjoy for almost my entire life. And I will continue to enjoy it until I’m dust. But I… I don’t want you to lock your heart away, Spock. It’s too big and full of love and vitality. It would be a waste.”
“My counterpart lived alone until his death.”
“And you envy that, Spock, really?” Jim pressed his palm to Spock’s side, above his heart. “Spock, my heart broke for him. Every time I saw him until he was gone, I felt like someone punched me in the gut. The way he’d look at me.”
“He comported himself with dignity. He never betrayed his t’hy’la.”
Jim frowned. When he and Spock had been together for about ten years, they’d gotten a call from New Vulcan asking if Jim would attend a most serious matter having to do with Spock’s counterpart. It turned out to be pon farr, which Jim had become familiar with two years previously, and after long talks and even longer silences, Spock agreed to allow Jim to ease the elder Spock through his Time. And he did so then and again eleven years later. Two years after that, Spock went to sleep one night and never woke up. When Jim got the news he locked himself in the head of the captain’s quarters on the Enterprise and cried bitterly, cried hard, cried like he hadn’t since he was fourteen and ran out of tears on a godforsaken planet whose memory he’d buried deep, cried until he choked and puked and had nothing left in him to wring out. Even now, decades later, he felt a lump form in his throat at the thought of Spock, any Spock, leaving the universe so permanently.
“Well,” he said after clearing his throat. “We don’t have any extra Jim Kirks lying around this time.”
Spock’s expression darkened, his mouth turning downward and his brows drawing together.
“You make light of this.”
Jim sighed. “No. No, I don’t. I’m just saying it’s not a betrayal, Spock. You could never betray me by continuing to live and love and - and contribute to society like you always have. I don’t want you to do what he did - to do the misplaced nobility thing and pine your days away. It’s not just sad, it’s kind of pathetic.”
“I thought you harbored… affection for him.” Now the brown eyes were accusing, though Jim couldn’t tell if it was because Jim had loved another Spock, or if he hadn’t loved him enough not to question the way he’d wasted his final years.
“I did,” Jim said. “I do. And he did a lot of great things for the colony, and for peace with Romulus. But Spock, he was lonely. He was so lonely it hurt him all the time. He was so lonely his health deteriorated and he died sooner than he had to.”
Spock squeezed his eyes shut. “Then he merely hastened his journey to meet his Jim again.”
“Spock!” Jim landed a harmless blow on Spock’s shoulder and Spock opened his eyes again. “Are you serious right now? Are you really giving me the ‘dying for each other is romantic’ clap trap? I can tell you right now - his Jim never wanted for him to waste himself like that, and I certainly don’t want you to live some kind of barren, sterile, acetic life where you moan about your lost lover until you wither away and die!”
“Vulcans do not moan,” Spock said.
Jim barked out a single laugh. Fondly, he brushed Spock’s protruding lower lip with a thumb.
“You do pout though,” he said. He counted out five breaths until he said in a conversational tone, “You know, you’re being really illogical about this. This is the way of things, the cycle. We age, we die. Just happens that I’m gonna do it sooner than you. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life in mourning because of something natural. Kaadith, right Spock? We’ve had seventy-seven years, and that’s a lot more than most people get. And there’s at least a few more in us.”
“It will not be enough,” Spock said, bitter. “Even if you lived a hundred more years, it would not be enough.”
Jim swallowed down the thickening in his throat. “I love you too, Spock,” he whispered. He lay back down and set his head on Spock’s chest. When Spock’s arms came around him this time, they were limp, as if sapped of strength and the will to fight. “We’ll figure this out and no one’s getting castrated, for Christ’s sake. Don’t worry, for now.”
“I cannot abide the thought of hurting you again.”
Jim was getting an idea. He might be too old for pon farr , but he wasn’t too old for a brilliant turn. He decided he’d start on it tomorrow while Spock was away. For now, he nuzzled Spock’s throat and breathed in the deep perfect scent of him.
“You won’t,” he said. Then, “Spock?”
“Hm.”
“Wanna apply my ointment?”
Prologue Part I Part II