Fic: Two Summers, 1-19
He and Sulu fence every other shift. There’s an unspoken agreement between them not to hold back. They just go at each other with everything they’ve got, to unleashed their restrained violence.
Spock would always hold back. It was necessary. Vulcan strength was just overwhelming to humans, and there was the fact that violence made Spock kind of uncomfortable. He saw it as a necessity, but the idea of using violence as a recreation never appealed to him. Jim tried to explain to him the fun of bar fights, and Spock didn’t get it at all. Well, they were different people.
He and Sulu have been fencing and sparring and fighting for a long time. They’re about the same height and weight, they’ve got different styles-you couldn’t ask for a better partner. The two are both careful not to fight exclusively with each other, since you can fall into a dangerous sense of complacency. Routine is not what any fighter ever wants. That’s why they partner up every other shift.
And it feels so good to lose himself in the motions of his muscles, to concentrate on not getting hit or launching a brutal attack or changing up your rhythm. All of the feelings melt and transform into something physical, something he can express that aren’t tears. They ooze out of his skin in the form of sweat, they burn his muscles as lactic acid, they take a back seat and for once, Jim doesn’t worry about death or change or tragedy. He’s in that zone.
This is how he usually processed his emotions, before Spock forced his hand. After exhausting himself, he’d hit the showers and feel everything inside him uncoil as the hot water streamed on his back and soaked into him. Then, for reasons he’s never really known but would never question, he would fuck Spock.
He loved it. He loved all the varieties of sex that he and Spock had. These fuck-Spock-after-fencing or judo or hapkido or boxing or whatever were a different flavor. Intimate with an aggressive edge, he remembers kissing Spock as he came, biting and bruising his mouth deliciously. After the bond, he would find out that Spock thought this type of sex they had was kind of weird, but that Spock still found it illogically erotic.
Now, Sulu’s still alive. They still fight-mostly fence, these days-after every other shift.
But Spock is gone. There is no sex. There is no aggression or intimacy, no fucking and no kissing. And he doesn’t want a replacement.
Sometimes Jim finds himself incredibly aroused after he emerges from his fresher but unable to do anything about it. Fantasizing about Spock like that just brings the grief back even harder, reinforcing the fact that he’s fucking alone in his fucking quarters, that Spock is dead and buried on Vulcan II and there is nothing he can do about it. He did it once, bringing himself off because he couldn’t stand it and quickly found out that sobbing and masturbating don’t make any sort of combination that’s in any way pleasurable. Maybe for some people it’s cathartic or some shit like that. Not for him.
He considers quitting his sessions with Sulu, and with the other security officers. It’s not an option. Jim’s a Starfleet captain. He needs to constantly train to take care of himself, and there’s also the morale factor. The security people really admire him for taking the time to get to know them. Their world consists of a different kind of currency, where status is measured by constant competition and friendship extended by helping the other person up after you’ve wiped them out.
They’re a tight knit community and they look out for Jim and the rest of the Enterprise. They’re the ones who put their lives on the line more often than any other crewmember, they’re the ones who know the cost of death and the loss of a comrade. They’re helping Jim, carrying him and seeing every mission through for their captain who has given so much and lost so much. The security personnel allow him to release his grief, spreading it among themselves and they try, in their own way, to fill a place that Spock left behind.
Because Spock was always there for his captain. He was never close to the Security Department like their captain or Sulu, but they respected him for the lengths he was willing to go for James T. Kirk and every single crewmember. Loyalty counts for a lot among soldiers, and Spock was nothing, if not loyal, to Jim.
Sulu tries to do that. Jim realizes that he chose Uhura and Sulu to be his second in command because Uhura provides Spock’s brains, Sulu provides Spock’s loyalty. He recognizes in Sulu’s eyes the same fierce determination to protect him and the Enterprise. His Lt. Commander doesn’t say much. Sulu’s always been easygoing, never one for too many words. He shows in gestures like fencing, that he’s got Jim’s back.
Jim wouldn’t have it any other way.
No, he would. He would have Spock alive and still with him.
Second to that, he wouldn’t have it any other way.