So This Is How It Feels (To Breathe In the Summer Air)
Title: So This Is How It Feels (To Breathe In the Summer Air)
Author: ladyblahblah
Fandom: Star Trek Reboot
Pairing: Spock/Kirk
Rating: NC-17, for the triumvirate of language, sex and violence
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Given what I've produced here, that's probably for the best. Title from lyrics by Poe.
Warnings: MIRRORVERSE. Repeated off-screen sexual assault, other implied torture, willful murder, consensual but violent sex.
A/N: Part of the Through the Looking Glass 'verse. Okay. Um. We've reached a subject matter that makes me profoundly nervous. BE ADVISED: there are references herein to violent and repeated non-consensual sex. If you're easily triggered, or if that's just not something you can deal with, do NOT read this. I've tried to skirt a very delicate line here, and hopefully I've succeeded. Massive thanks to 1lostone , anoncomment7 , ninjaboots , and xlcatloveress who all beta'd for me. You're all wonderful, and incredibly helpful in a variety of ways. With so much awesome on my side, it should go without saying that any remaining flubs are the result of my stubbornness and/or editing fail. Should, but apparently I felt compelled to say it anyway. Don't act like you're surprised.
Summary: “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” -Mahatma Ghandi
The first thing they take from him is his sense of time. There are no windows here, no clocks. There is only him, and the room, and the chains.
The second thing they take is his clothes, and after that-everything.
He measures time in guards now. It’s an imperfect unit of measurement, as some of them last longer than others. Still, he’s developed a system.
The one with the lighter hair, the one who likes to hold the chain as he fucks his face, lasts the longest. Possibly in retribution for the first time, when his cock had nearly been bitten off. He takes his time now; sessions with him are twice as long as those with the bearded one who likes him on his back, which are themselves twice as long as the young, skinny one who always takes him from behind.
The bearded one provides a sort of baseline; an average. Time is counted in how long it takes the bastard to pin him down and come in him, rutting like an animal.
He shifts, wincing. His body is a mass of bruises, cuts and scrapes. They haven’t used an agonizer on him once. Instead it’s been all whips and knives, their own fists, their own bodies. Nothing common, nothing expected, nothing he’s been specifically taught to withstand. It makes him think he might almost like them if he weren’t intent on killing every last one of them.
Over thirty guard units have passed since they last gave him food, and this is the first standardized method that they’ve used-starvation to break a prisoner’s will, weaken his resistance. Interrogation 101; he remembers it from his first year of command training, though the training itself is a fuzzy, indistinct memory. Still, it’s comforting to realize that some things are apparently universal.
He hasn’t broken yet, hasn’t stopped fighting, and it baffles them. He can tell by the tone of their voices, the increased violence of their hands on him, in him. All the others broke long ago. They collapsed, and acquiesced, and now go willingly when their masters call. They’ve become animals.
Not him. He is Human. He is Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the ISS Enterprise, and he will not break.
That’s what the voice at the back of his head whispers to him, reminding him, never allowing him to forget even for a moment. It’s the voice that keeps him striking out past the pain of pulled muscles and broken fingers, the voice that hisses angrily that they’re not meant to touch him, that they haven’t got the right.
They do anyway. His desires haven’t mattered since they found him. They have taken everything from him but his name, and his fury, and the ever-closer voice that whispers revenge, bloody and brutal.
He can hear footsteps in the hallway, heavy boots falling in a familiar pattern. There are other cells nearby, where other animals are kept, but they’re heading for his. He knows it without knowing how, and without caring. His body tenses, ready to fight again despite the fact that it’s hopeless. With one he can usually get in a bloody nose or a cracked jaw before he’s restrained, but when they come in twos or threes like this he’s lucky to score so much as a bruise. Now, weak with hunger and covered in blood that’s mostly his, he doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to manage that.
It’s not going to stop him from trying.
He’s already on his feet, powered purely by adrenaline and rage, when the door opens. The guard is one he doesn’t recognize. He stares at Kirk unseeing for a moment before a sharp blade moves across his throat, spraying blood in a hot arc. The body falls to the floor, head cracking unheeded on the stone floor, and Spock is left standing in the doorway.
He pulls a cloth from his belt and carefully, methodically cleans the blood from his knife and hands. Only when he is appropriately spotless again does he deign to lift an eyebrow.
“Captain.”
“Mr. Spock.” Relief floods through him, and the laugh he lets out is very nearly hysterical. “Took you long enough.”
Spock does not look amused, not even to his bondmate’s eyes. His gaze sweeps over Kirk’s body, cataloguing the damage. Then he turns, speaking to someone in the hallway. “See to the others. I will handle Captain Kirk.”
He steps into the cell and closes the door behind him.
Kirk doesn’t dare speak as Spock approaches. Those deep brown eyes are furious, but his hands are gentle as he begins to run them over Kirk’s limbs to check for broken bones. Though Kirk’s fingers have healed, they’ve set so awkwardly that he knows Bones will have to re-break them. Other than that, the damage is largely superficial.
Spock seems to come to the same conclusion, and he skims his hands over Kirk’s shoulders, letting his fingers brush over the thick metal collar. Kirk can sense the emotions his bondmate won’t admit to as they roil through him: rage and fear and jealousy and lust, all tangled together behind a façade of perfect blankness. Fingertips trace the broken skin at his neck where the collar has rubbed him raw. Then Spock’s hand shoots into his hair and grips, and pulls, and forces Kirk’s head back.
“You have allowed others to touch that which is mine.”
Kirk has never heard the other man so quietly furious. He wants to protest, to strike out at the accusation, but somehow the instant the words are out of Spock’s mouth, they’re absolutely true. Nothing has been taken from him but what he’s given, what he’s allowed. He closes his eyes in gratitude, and when he opens them again it’s to see Spock loosening his belt.
“What are you doing?” Kirk’s voice is rough from lack of water, from the abuse his throat has taken, but most of all from the heat in Spock’s eyes.
“I do not care for the marks they have put on you.” Spock pushes Kirk to his knees as he opens his pants. “Your body is mine.”
Then his cock is in Kirk’s mouth, his throat, Spock’s hand still gripping his hair to anchor him, and with every thrust more and more memories fall away. Kirk has already forgotten how his captors tasted, how they felt. There’s only Spock, full and hot and heavy and perfect, and Kirk might as well have never done this before with anyone else.
He pulls away too soon, and Kirk can’t stifle his moan of disappointment. Spock, however, does it for him, sealing their mouths together and plunging his tongue past Kirk’s swollen lips. Then his mouth is traveling down, over the shadow of a beard that has grown on Kirk’s jaw, down his neck, along his chest and shoulders.
His mouth is hot, hot enough to burn. With his teeth he opens barely-healed cuts, lapping at the blood that begins to flow. His hands are no longer gentle; they dig roughly into Kirk’s flesh causing new to bruises blossom and bloom. With every new mark he creates, he banishes the memory of those that came before, and fresh pain washes over Kirk’s skin, cleansing him.
By the time Spock turns him over Kirk has forgotten any touch beyond his bondmate’s. There’s only ever been Spock hauling his hips up, Spock’s hand wrapped around the collar to hold his upper body flat against the cold, uneven stones, and Spock’s tongue tasting and teasing his entrance. Long, clever fingers join that tongue, thrusting inside, and there has only ever been Spock’s low growl of pleasure. He moves deep and fast, rough and punishing. There is more blood, more pain, and Jim pushes back eagerly into the grounding sensations.
Spock is in him, hard and ruthless, his hips a metronome as he fucks the memory of any others out of Kirk. There is no part of his body that hasn’t been touched, tasted, reclaimed. The floor abrades his chest, his knees, and he reaches back as best he can, searching. He feels Spock release his grip on the collar; their fingers brush softly, and then Kirk is coming for the first time since the pirates picked him up.
He goes loose, boneless. He doesn’t bother to fight it, not when he knows how Spock loves fucking him when he’s limp and defenseless like this. His bondmate doesn’t last much longer, his free hand tightening painfully on Kirk’s hip as he comes. Shortly afterwards Kirk feels himself being gathered up, too weak to protest as Spock lifts and carries him out, stepping carefully over the dead guard and the spreading pool of blood.
“Jim,” he says softly. “The crew can not see you in this state. You must walk.” There are fingers at Kirk’s temple then, and the parts of his brain that register pain and exhaustion simply cease to function. Spock sets him on his feet and he stands easily, looking around with suddenly alert eyes.
“How long will this last?”
“Approximately fifty-eight point three seven four minutes. Slightly longer if you will consent to sit for a portion of the time.”
“A little sore for that,” Kirk says with a wry look, plucking the communicator from Spock’s belt. “Transporter room, this is the Captain. Two to beam up.”
There is a surprised pause, and a stuttered, “Yes sir!” and then the familiar walls of his ship are forming around him again. The small crowd in the transporter room looks up, astonished, though Lieutenant Sulu looks more irritated than anything.
“You guys certainly took your sweet time,” Kirk says, stepping down from the pad easily as they watch, agape in equal parts at his nudity and his injuries. “I was starting to get bored. Mr. Sulu, is the cargo stowed?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Good! Target phaser banks on the place and blow it to high hell, will you?” He stretches. “I’m beat. Mr. Spock, I’ll leave things in your capable hands.”
“Very good, Captain,” is the calm reply, though Kirk can’t help grinning at the furious jealousy he can sense at the way the assembled crew checks him out as he leaves.
A shower, a hot meal, a round with Bones, and approximately fifteen hours of sleep later, and Kirk is feeling more like himself. He and Spock sit in his Ready Room, going over the last of the paperwork.
“The other slaves are all aboard? No casualties?”
“There were three found dead upon our arrival; Dr. McCoy has requested their bodies for research purposes, and I took the liberty of obliging him. The others are secured in the cargo hold.”
“Good, good,” Kirk murmurs, draining his coffee. “Any citizens?”
Spock checks his notes. “Of the seventeen recovered, five are registered with the Empire.”
“Anyone important?”
“Negative.”
“Good. Lose the documentation, and we’ll unload them first. Off-the record, which means Starfleet never has to know about them.”
A single eyebrow wings up. “Piracy, Captain?”
“Making the best of a bad situation, Mr. Spock. They’ll get enough from the sale of the other slaves, not to mention the raiders when we’ve finished with them.” He stands, stretching. “Anything else?”
“One thing, Jim.” The use of his name alerts him; this is not his First Officer speaking, but his bondmate. It’s intriguing enough that he pauses.
“Oh?”
Spock claims, frequently and vociferously, to neither comprehend nor appreciate the Human concept of romance. However, as he stares at the pale-haired man bound naked on their bed, Kirk can’t help but think that moments like these give lie to the statement.
“Just what I wanted,” he murmurs. His fingers dance across the blades that Spock has assembled-a blend of Human and Vulcan weaponry. He glances at Spock from under his lashes. “Are you going to join me?”
“Not at this time. For now, t’hy’la, I believe I simply wish to watch.”
Their fingers brush, and Kirk is humbled by the love that pours from each of them into the other. With a smile, he turns to enjoy his present.
Author: ladyblahblah
Fandom: Star Trek Reboot
Pairing: Spock/Kirk
Rating: NC-17, for the triumvirate of language, sex and violence
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Given what I've produced here, that's probably for the best. Title from lyrics by Poe.
Warnings: MIRRORVERSE. Repeated off-screen sexual assault, other implied torture, willful murder, consensual but violent sex.
A/N: Part of the Through the Looking Glass 'verse. Okay. Um. We've reached a subject matter that makes me profoundly nervous. BE ADVISED: there are references herein to violent and repeated non-consensual sex. If you're easily triggered, or if that's just not something you can deal with, do NOT read this. I've tried to skirt a very delicate line here, and hopefully I've succeeded. Massive thanks to 1lostone , anoncomment7 , ninjaboots , and xlcatloveress who all beta'd for me. You're all wonderful, and incredibly helpful in a variety of ways. With so much awesome on my side, it should go without saying that any remaining flubs are the result of my stubbornness and/or editing fail. Should, but apparently I felt compelled to say it anyway. Don't act like you're surprised.
Summary: “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” -Mahatma Ghandi
The first thing they take from him is his sense of time. There are no windows here, no clocks. There is only him, and the room, and the chains.
The second thing they take is his clothes, and after that-everything.
He measures time in guards now. It’s an imperfect unit of measurement, as some of them last longer than others. Still, he’s developed a system.
The one with the lighter hair, the one who likes to hold the chain as he fucks his face, lasts the longest. Possibly in retribution for the first time, when his cock had nearly been bitten off. He takes his time now; sessions with him are twice as long as those with the bearded one who likes him on his back, which are themselves twice as long as the young, skinny one who always takes him from behind.
The bearded one provides a sort of baseline; an average. Time is counted in how long it takes the bastard to pin him down and come in him, rutting like an animal.
He shifts, wincing. His body is a mass of bruises, cuts and scrapes. They haven’t used an agonizer on him once. Instead it’s been all whips and knives, their own fists, their own bodies. Nothing common, nothing expected, nothing he’s been specifically taught to withstand. It makes him think he might almost like them if he weren’t intent on killing every last one of them.
Over thirty guard units have passed since they last gave him food, and this is the first standardized method that they’ve used-starvation to break a prisoner’s will, weaken his resistance. Interrogation 101; he remembers it from his first year of command training, though the training itself is a fuzzy, indistinct memory. Still, it’s comforting to realize that some things are apparently universal.
He hasn’t broken yet, hasn’t stopped fighting, and it baffles them. He can tell by the tone of their voices, the increased violence of their hands on him, in him. All the others broke long ago. They collapsed, and acquiesced, and now go willingly when their masters call. They’ve become animals.
Not him. He is Human. He is Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the ISS Enterprise, and he will not break.
That’s what the voice at the back of his head whispers to him, reminding him, never allowing him to forget even for a moment. It’s the voice that keeps him striking out past the pain of pulled muscles and broken fingers, the voice that hisses angrily that they’re not meant to touch him, that they haven’t got the right.
They do anyway. His desires haven’t mattered since they found him. They have taken everything from him but his name, and his fury, and the ever-closer voice that whispers revenge, bloody and brutal.
He can hear footsteps in the hallway, heavy boots falling in a familiar pattern. There are other cells nearby, where other animals are kept, but they’re heading for his. He knows it without knowing how, and without caring. His body tenses, ready to fight again despite the fact that it’s hopeless. With one he can usually get in a bloody nose or a cracked jaw before he’s restrained, but when they come in twos or threes like this he’s lucky to score so much as a bruise. Now, weak with hunger and covered in blood that’s mostly his, he doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to manage that.
It’s not going to stop him from trying.
He’s already on his feet, powered purely by adrenaline and rage, when the door opens. The guard is one he doesn’t recognize. He stares at Kirk unseeing for a moment before a sharp blade moves across his throat, spraying blood in a hot arc. The body falls to the floor, head cracking unheeded on the stone floor, and Spock is left standing in the doorway.
He pulls a cloth from his belt and carefully, methodically cleans the blood from his knife and hands. Only when he is appropriately spotless again does he deign to lift an eyebrow.
“Captain.”
“Mr. Spock.” Relief floods through him, and the laugh he lets out is very nearly hysterical. “Took you long enough.”
Spock does not look amused, not even to his bondmate’s eyes. His gaze sweeps over Kirk’s body, cataloguing the damage. Then he turns, speaking to someone in the hallway. “See to the others. I will handle Captain Kirk.”
He steps into the cell and closes the door behind him.
Kirk doesn’t dare speak as Spock approaches. Those deep brown eyes are furious, but his hands are gentle as he begins to run them over Kirk’s limbs to check for broken bones. Though Kirk’s fingers have healed, they’ve set so awkwardly that he knows Bones will have to re-break them. Other than that, the damage is largely superficial.
Spock seems to come to the same conclusion, and he skims his hands over Kirk’s shoulders, letting his fingers brush over the thick metal collar. Kirk can sense the emotions his bondmate won’t admit to as they roil through him: rage and fear and jealousy and lust, all tangled together behind a façade of perfect blankness. Fingertips trace the broken skin at his neck where the collar has rubbed him raw. Then Spock’s hand shoots into his hair and grips, and pulls, and forces Kirk’s head back.
“You have allowed others to touch that which is mine.”
Kirk has never heard the other man so quietly furious. He wants to protest, to strike out at the accusation, but somehow the instant the words are out of Spock’s mouth, they’re absolutely true. Nothing has been taken from him but what he’s given, what he’s allowed. He closes his eyes in gratitude, and when he opens them again it’s to see Spock loosening his belt.
“What are you doing?” Kirk’s voice is rough from lack of water, from the abuse his throat has taken, but most of all from the heat in Spock’s eyes.
“I do not care for the marks they have put on you.” Spock pushes Kirk to his knees as he opens his pants. “Your body is mine.”
Then his cock is in Kirk’s mouth, his throat, Spock’s hand still gripping his hair to anchor him, and with every thrust more and more memories fall away. Kirk has already forgotten how his captors tasted, how they felt. There’s only Spock, full and hot and heavy and perfect, and Kirk might as well have never done this before with anyone else.
He pulls away too soon, and Kirk can’t stifle his moan of disappointment. Spock, however, does it for him, sealing their mouths together and plunging his tongue past Kirk’s swollen lips. Then his mouth is traveling down, over the shadow of a beard that has grown on Kirk’s jaw, down his neck, along his chest and shoulders.
His mouth is hot, hot enough to burn. With his teeth he opens barely-healed cuts, lapping at the blood that begins to flow. His hands are no longer gentle; they dig roughly into Kirk’s flesh causing new to bruises blossom and bloom. With every new mark he creates, he banishes the memory of those that came before, and fresh pain washes over Kirk’s skin, cleansing him.
By the time Spock turns him over Kirk has forgotten any touch beyond his bondmate’s. There’s only ever been Spock hauling his hips up, Spock’s hand wrapped around the collar to hold his upper body flat against the cold, uneven stones, and Spock’s tongue tasting and teasing his entrance. Long, clever fingers join that tongue, thrusting inside, and there has only ever been Spock’s low growl of pleasure. He moves deep and fast, rough and punishing. There is more blood, more pain, and Jim pushes back eagerly into the grounding sensations.
Spock is in him, hard and ruthless, his hips a metronome as he fucks the memory of any others out of Kirk. There is no part of his body that hasn’t been touched, tasted, reclaimed. The floor abrades his chest, his knees, and he reaches back as best he can, searching. He feels Spock release his grip on the collar; their fingers brush softly, and then Kirk is coming for the first time since the pirates picked him up.
He goes loose, boneless. He doesn’t bother to fight it, not when he knows how Spock loves fucking him when he’s limp and defenseless like this. His bondmate doesn’t last much longer, his free hand tightening painfully on Kirk’s hip as he comes. Shortly afterwards Kirk feels himself being gathered up, too weak to protest as Spock lifts and carries him out, stepping carefully over the dead guard and the spreading pool of blood.
“Jim,” he says softly. “The crew can not see you in this state. You must walk.” There are fingers at Kirk’s temple then, and the parts of his brain that register pain and exhaustion simply cease to function. Spock sets him on his feet and he stands easily, looking around with suddenly alert eyes.
“How long will this last?”
“Approximately fifty-eight point three seven four minutes. Slightly longer if you will consent to sit for a portion of the time.”
“A little sore for that,” Kirk says with a wry look, plucking the communicator from Spock’s belt. “Transporter room, this is the Captain. Two to beam up.”
There is a surprised pause, and a stuttered, “Yes sir!” and then the familiar walls of his ship are forming around him again. The small crowd in the transporter room looks up, astonished, though Lieutenant Sulu looks more irritated than anything.
“You guys certainly took your sweet time,” Kirk says, stepping down from the pad easily as they watch, agape in equal parts at his nudity and his injuries. “I was starting to get bored. Mr. Sulu, is the cargo stowed?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Good! Target phaser banks on the place and blow it to high hell, will you?” He stretches. “I’m beat. Mr. Spock, I’ll leave things in your capable hands.”
“Very good, Captain,” is the calm reply, though Kirk can’t help grinning at the furious jealousy he can sense at the way the assembled crew checks him out as he leaves.
A shower, a hot meal, a round with Bones, and approximately fifteen hours of sleep later, and Kirk is feeling more like himself. He and Spock sit in his Ready Room, going over the last of the paperwork.
“The other slaves are all aboard? No casualties?”
“There were three found dead upon our arrival; Dr. McCoy has requested their bodies for research purposes, and I took the liberty of obliging him. The others are secured in the cargo hold.”
“Good, good,” Kirk murmurs, draining his coffee. “Any citizens?”
Spock checks his notes. “Of the seventeen recovered, five are registered with the Empire.”
“Anyone important?”
“Negative.”
“Good. Lose the documentation, and we’ll unload them first. Off-the record, which means Starfleet never has to know about them.”
A single eyebrow wings up. “Piracy, Captain?”
“Making the best of a bad situation, Mr. Spock. They’ll get enough from the sale of the other slaves, not to mention the raiders when we’ve finished with them.” He stands, stretching. “Anything else?”
“One thing, Jim.” The use of his name alerts him; this is not his First Officer speaking, but his bondmate. It’s intriguing enough that he pauses.
“Oh?”
Spock claims, frequently and vociferously, to neither comprehend nor appreciate the Human concept of romance. However, as he stares at the pale-haired man bound naked on their bed, Kirk can’t help but think that moments like these give lie to the statement.
“Just what I wanted,” he murmurs. His fingers dance across the blades that Spock has assembled-a blend of Human and Vulcan weaponry. He glances at Spock from under his lashes. “Are you going to join me?”
“Not at this time. For now, t’hy’la, I believe I simply wish to watch.”
Their fingers brush, and Kirk is humbled by the love that pours from each of them into the other. With a smile, he turns to enjoy his present.