tame this animal I have become, Chapter 4/10, Kirk/Khan, Rated M
Title: tame this animal I have become
Author: larienelengasse
Pairing: Kirk/Khan, Spock, Uhura, Bones, Scotty, Chekov
Universe: STID - Star Trek Reboot
Rating: NC-17 for violence and sex
Beta: alexcat
Artist: elladansgirl
Warnings: implied torture, violence, remembered canonical character death, & angst.
Author’s Note: Written for the 2013 OEAM Big Bang. Takes place after the events in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Title from the song “Animal I Have Become” by Three Days Grace; the lyrics fit my vision of Khan and Kirk’s relationship.
Summary: Sometimes a man has to take a stand. Sometimes he has to choose to his enemies over his allegiances. And sometimes doing the right thing changes a person.
Chapter Four
Kirk didn’t sleep that night. He could be wrong, so very wrong about all of this. Khan could kill him in an instant. Khan’s defective DNA, as Bones had called it, could override everything else and he could end up with a crushed skull for his trouble. If he was lucky, the augment would just disarm him and shoot him and make it quick.
Khan could take back his crew now, and then finish off the Federation and God knows what else and the deaths of all of those people would rest on his head.
Or, Khan could prove him right. Khan could prove that he was more than his DNA. That he truly was better at everything, even being human.
Kirk sat in an old overstuffed chair, sipping coffee and watching the sunrise over the mountains. He heard the floorboards creak upstairs, then heard the stairs groaning in like complaint as Khan descended. ‘Well, Jim,’ he thought. ‘This might be your last sunrise.’
“Mornin’,” he said as Khan entered the room. “There’s breakfast on the stove, and fresh coffee, if you drink it.”
Khan stared at Kirk in disbelief. The man did at least have the sense to keep the phaser on his lap.
“Planning to put me down, Captain?” He asked, moving to stand in front of Kirk with his back turned, stretching his arms over his head and bending from side to side, stretching out his muscles that had grown tired with disuse. He caught the Captain’s reflection in the mirror, and saw how Kirk’s eyes flicked to where his shirt rode up exposing part of his midsection. He could feel the confusion and indecision in Kirk’s mind like it radiated off him.
“Hoping I don’t have to,” Kirk answered, licking his lips. Why was his mouth dry all of the sudden?
“I am still unclear as to why you are doing this,” Khan said as he walked to the screen door and looked outside, placing his hands on the doorframe and leaning into it, stretching his chest and shoulders and enjoying the fresh spark of confusion it caused in Kirk. He knew what the man felt, even if Kirk didn’t know it himself. And he knew exactly what caused it and that gave him the upper hand.
“Because I don’t believe that human beings, augmented or not, should be used as pawns or lab rats. You cannot help the way you were born, Khan.” God his mouth was dry. He took a sip of his coffee.
Khan turned and looked at Kirk. “Meaning?”
“You were designed to be perfect, but your designers were themselves imperfect. They made you stronger, faster, and more intelligent, with bodies that healed at five times the normal rate. Your designers built you this way, but did nothing to repair what kept you from being truly human. The records said that they didn’t know how to. But at the core of your DNA, underneath all of that genetic engineering you are in fact, human.”
“You have clearly spent some time thinking about this,” Khan said.
“Yeah, I have,” Kirk answered.
“What if you are wrong, Captain? What then?”
“Then, we have a problem,” Kirk said flatly. “But I don’t think we do.”
Khan eyed the Captain suspiciously. “I have lied to you before.”
“Yep, you have.”
“You have no reason to trust me.”
“Not one.”
“Yet you are alone with me with a phaser set to stun. You’ve used that on me before. Have you forgotten how it turned out?”
“It would be hard to forget.” Kirk said as he looked up at Khan. “I am alone with you because I know I am right . . . about this, anyway.”
“You defy explanation, James Kirk.”
Kirk laughed at that. “Spock would agree.”
“You truly intend to reunite me with my crew.”
“I will try my damnedest.” Kirk rose from his chair, tucking the phaser in his belt. “I would like to believe that it is what you would do for me if our positions were reversed.” He paused on his way to the kitchen. “Actually, you did return me to my crew.”
“With the intent of killing you all,” Khan reminded him.
“Well, there is that.” Kirk walked into the kitchen. “Hungry?” he called.
Khan was, in fact, starving. He followed Kirk into the kitchen then joined him at the table for breakfast.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been four days. Often they sat in the same room without speaking, and sometimes they discussed various options in terms of freeing his crew. Khan would stare at the image on the data pad and Kirk often found it heartbreaking to watch. Khan’s emotions were walled off now, as were his thoughts, but Kirk didn’t need to have a telepathic or empathic connection to know what the augment was feeling. He could read it in his eyes.
Other times, Kirk would go about his business, reading, cleaning a gun, carving small pieces of wood with a knife, and sitting still as stone, Khan would watch him perform mundane tasks. Khan studied him, observed the sense of calm that these small actions provided the Captain and he wondered what it must be like to feel calm. He didn’t know if he ever had felt peace. He wasn’t sure if that kind of peace and satisfaction was a sign of weakness and inferiority, or if it was truly desirable.
Even then in those quiet moments, there was something stirring inside him, just under his skin. It threatened to flare when he thought of Starfleet, of what Marcus and Section 31 had done and put him through. It was as much an exercise in intellectual curiosity as anything - he wanted to see just how much control he really had over his “defective,” as Kirk had called it, DNA.
On a balmy morning they walked through the woods, toward the river, sticking to the cover of the trees. Kirk carried a fishing pole and a small basket and walked ahead of Khan, leading the way. He still carried the phaser, but he assured Khan it wasn’t to use on him.
“I might need it for defense, if anyone finds us,” Kirk said.
“I believe I am a far deadlier means of defense than a phaser set to stun,” Khan replied.
Kirk smirked at that. “Yeah, well, you’re turning over a new leaf, remember?”
Kirk detailed for Khan the methods they used to break him out, he told him of dying in the warp chamber and waking up after Bones used Khan’s blood to bring him back to life.
Khan didn’t say much, he merely listened and tried to wrap his head around why someone to whom he had shown such cruelty would show him such kindness in return. It did not make sense. He tried to think of any angle in which Kirk’s actions gave him the advantage. His experiences and his encoding told him it was weakness, but something inside him began to suspect that it was not.
It was also obvious to him that select members of Kirk’s crew aided the Captain in liberating him from the clutches of Section 31 - he had heard them even while sedated. His cruelty had not been limited to just James Kirk. He had tried to kill everyone on board the Enterprise, and still they helped to save him. Only a good Captain inspired that kind of loyalty.
He had pieced together from what Kirk was saying about how he felt physically after the transfusion that Kirk heard him when he was in cryosleep. Khan’s DNA was integrating with Kirk’s own. It was Kirk’s voice he had heard in sleep, Kirk’s presence that he felt once he was woken. Kirk’s story confirmed what Khan suspected all along.
“You heard me,” he interrupted Kirk mid-sentence. “When I was in cryosleep. You heard me speak to you.”
Kirk stopped dead in his tracks, so Khan knew he was right.
“I thought I was losing my mind,” Kirk said. He looked up through the trees. “Did you know it was me?”
“I wasn’t certain,” Khan responded. “I only felt a presence. I asked you to kill me.”
“Jesus!” Kirk spun around. “Why did you do that? After everything you did, after how hard you fought to survive, to make Starfleet pay, why did you want to die?”
“I had nothing left to live for,” Khan said matter-of-factly. “I believed my crew dead. Starfleet had defeated me, captured me, and enslaved me, again. Death was better than imprisonment.”
“And now?”
“Now, I have reason to live,” Khan answered. What he didn’t say was: ‘because of you.’
“Come on,” Kirk said. “We need to get down to the river before it gets too hot. The fish bite best in the mornings and we’re going to need something for dinner.”
Khan was changing, in small ways. He could feel it. Time alone with this human was changing him. It remained to be seen whether or not it was for the better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sun was climbing higher in the sky and the glare off the water was causing Kirk to squint. If it weren’t for the fact that he was crotch deep in ice-cold water, he would be sweating his balls off.
Khan stood on the shore, hidden inside the tree line, his eyes scanning the surroundings. If someone found both of them there, he was in no danger of dying - he was far too valuable alive. Kirk on the other hand: Khan knew they’d drop the man where he stood without a second thought. Alone, the Captain was only doing what he told Starfleet he would be doing, fishing. As long as they were not seen together there was a chance this would work, but he knew the percentages were against that result. Khan watched as Kirk flicked his wrist, sending the line out into the stream. Then, he heard something.
Within minutes Kirk had a fish. He began reeling it in when he felt Khan’s hand on the back of his neck.
How the fuck had he come up behind him in the water so silently?
“Someone is coming,” Khan said quietly into Kirk’s ear.
“Shit.”
“You need to come with me, now, or you are a dead man, again.”
Kirk pulled the fish off the line as quickly as he could without fumbling and dropping it. He tossed it back into the river and turned around making for the shore as fast as possible. He shed his waders and gathered his gear with the intent of stashing it in the bushes. He did not want to leave an obvious sign of where they had been in case Khan’s senses were off.
Without warning Khan grabbed his wrist, pulling him close and turning as the rocks on the shoreline exploded from a phaser blast. Khan shielded him from the debris that flew through the air, though a single piece caught Kirk on the cheekbone, breaking the skin. They bolted for the cover of the trees, Khan dragging Kirk into the woods by the wrist.
He followed Khan at a run, leaping fallen branches and ducking low ones. It didn’t occur to him until they stopped running that he had nearly matched pace with the augment. That should not have been possible.
“Your weapon,” Khan said.
Kirk gave Khan the phaser without even questioning him, which was the first clue he should have had that something in his mind wasn’t right. But then, the augment was twice as good a shot as he was. He wiped at the blood that ran down his face as Khan changed the setting to kill. “Who is shooting at us?”
“Who do you think?” Khan said, scanning the woods.
“You’re bleeding,” Kirk said.
“I will be fine,” Khan answered evenly.
“I can’t let you kill-”
“Be quiet,” Khan admonished.
He turned quickly and fired over Kirk’s shoulder, and Kirk just barely got to Khan’s arm in time. The blast went wide of its target, and a Starfleet officer owed James Kirk a debt. Though that same man almost blew his head off. The tree they were standing by exploded from the phaser blast.
Khan head-butted Kirk so hard that he saw stars. Kirk heard phaser fire as he began to black out. Khan then hoisted the unconscious Kirk over his shoulder.
Chapter Five
Author: larienelengasse
Pairing: Kirk/Khan, Spock, Uhura, Bones, Scotty, Chekov
Universe: STID - Star Trek Reboot
Rating: NC-17 for violence and sex
Beta: alexcat
Artist: elladansgirl
Warnings: implied torture, violence, remembered canonical character death, & angst.
Author’s Note: Written for the 2013 OEAM Big Bang. Takes place after the events in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Title from the song “Animal I Have Become” by Three Days Grace; the lyrics fit my vision of Khan and Kirk’s relationship.
Summary: Sometimes a man has to take a stand. Sometimes he has to choose to his enemies over his allegiances. And sometimes doing the right thing changes a person.
Chapter Four
Kirk didn’t sleep that night. He could be wrong, so very wrong about all of this. Khan could kill him in an instant. Khan’s defective DNA, as Bones had called it, could override everything else and he could end up with a crushed skull for his trouble. If he was lucky, the augment would just disarm him and shoot him and make it quick.
Khan could take back his crew now, and then finish off the Federation and God knows what else and the deaths of all of those people would rest on his head.
Or, Khan could prove him right. Khan could prove that he was more than his DNA. That he truly was better at everything, even being human.
Kirk sat in an old overstuffed chair, sipping coffee and watching the sunrise over the mountains. He heard the floorboards creak upstairs, then heard the stairs groaning in like complaint as Khan descended. ‘Well, Jim,’ he thought. ‘This might be your last sunrise.’
“Mornin’,” he said as Khan entered the room. “There’s breakfast on the stove, and fresh coffee, if you drink it.”
Khan stared at Kirk in disbelief. The man did at least have the sense to keep the phaser on his lap.
“Planning to put me down, Captain?” He asked, moving to stand in front of Kirk with his back turned, stretching his arms over his head and bending from side to side, stretching out his muscles that had grown tired with disuse. He caught the Captain’s reflection in the mirror, and saw how Kirk’s eyes flicked to where his shirt rode up exposing part of his midsection. He could feel the confusion and indecision in Kirk’s mind like it radiated off him.
“Hoping I don’t have to,” Kirk answered, licking his lips. Why was his mouth dry all of the sudden?
“I am still unclear as to why you are doing this,” Khan said as he walked to the screen door and looked outside, placing his hands on the doorframe and leaning into it, stretching his chest and shoulders and enjoying the fresh spark of confusion it caused in Kirk. He knew what the man felt, even if Kirk didn’t know it himself. And he knew exactly what caused it and that gave him the upper hand.
“Because I don’t believe that human beings, augmented or not, should be used as pawns or lab rats. You cannot help the way you were born, Khan.” God his mouth was dry. He took a sip of his coffee.
Khan turned and looked at Kirk. “Meaning?”
“You were designed to be perfect, but your designers were themselves imperfect. They made you stronger, faster, and more intelligent, with bodies that healed at five times the normal rate. Your designers built you this way, but did nothing to repair what kept you from being truly human. The records said that they didn’t know how to. But at the core of your DNA, underneath all of that genetic engineering you are in fact, human.”
“You have clearly spent some time thinking about this,” Khan said.
“Yeah, I have,” Kirk answered.
“What if you are wrong, Captain? What then?”
“Then, we have a problem,” Kirk said flatly. “But I don’t think we do.”
Khan eyed the Captain suspiciously. “I have lied to you before.”
“Yep, you have.”
“You have no reason to trust me.”
“Not one.”
“Yet you are alone with me with a phaser set to stun. You’ve used that on me before. Have you forgotten how it turned out?”
“It would be hard to forget.” Kirk said as he looked up at Khan. “I am alone with you because I know I am right . . . about this, anyway.”
“You defy explanation, James Kirk.”
Kirk laughed at that. “Spock would agree.”
“You truly intend to reunite me with my crew.”
“I will try my damnedest.” Kirk rose from his chair, tucking the phaser in his belt. “I would like to believe that it is what you would do for me if our positions were reversed.” He paused on his way to the kitchen. “Actually, you did return me to my crew.”
“With the intent of killing you all,” Khan reminded him.
“Well, there is that.” Kirk walked into the kitchen. “Hungry?” he called.
Khan was, in fact, starving. He followed Kirk into the kitchen then joined him at the table for breakfast.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been four days. Often they sat in the same room without speaking, and sometimes they discussed various options in terms of freeing his crew. Khan would stare at the image on the data pad and Kirk often found it heartbreaking to watch. Khan’s emotions were walled off now, as were his thoughts, but Kirk didn’t need to have a telepathic or empathic connection to know what the augment was feeling. He could read it in his eyes.
Other times, Kirk would go about his business, reading, cleaning a gun, carving small pieces of wood with a knife, and sitting still as stone, Khan would watch him perform mundane tasks. Khan studied him, observed the sense of calm that these small actions provided the Captain and he wondered what it must be like to feel calm. He didn’t know if he ever had felt peace. He wasn’t sure if that kind of peace and satisfaction was a sign of weakness and inferiority, or if it was truly desirable.
Even then in those quiet moments, there was something stirring inside him, just under his skin. It threatened to flare when he thought of Starfleet, of what Marcus and Section 31 had done and put him through. It was as much an exercise in intellectual curiosity as anything - he wanted to see just how much control he really had over his “defective,” as Kirk had called it, DNA.
On a balmy morning they walked through the woods, toward the river, sticking to the cover of the trees. Kirk carried a fishing pole and a small basket and walked ahead of Khan, leading the way. He still carried the phaser, but he assured Khan it wasn’t to use on him.
“I might need it for defense, if anyone finds us,” Kirk said.
“I believe I am a far deadlier means of defense than a phaser set to stun,” Khan replied.
Kirk smirked at that. “Yeah, well, you’re turning over a new leaf, remember?”
Kirk detailed for Khan the methods they used to break him out, he told him of dying in the warp chamber and waking up after Bones used Khan’s blood to bring him back to life.
Khan didn’t say much, he merely listened and tried to wrap his head around why someone to whom he had shown such cruelty would show him such kindness in return. It did not make sense. He tried to think of any angle in which Kirk’s actions gave him the advantage. His experiences and his encoding told him it was weakness, but something inside him began to suspect that it was not.
It was also obvious to him that select members of Kirk’s crew aided the Captain in liberating him from the clutches of Section 31 - he had heard them even while sedated. His cruelty had not been limited to just James Kirk. He had tried to kill everyone on board the Enterprise, and still they helped to save him. Only a good Captain inspired that kind of loyalty.
He had pieced together from what Kirk was saying about how he felt physically after the transfusion that Kirk heard him when he was in cryosleep. Khan’s DNA was integrating with Kirk’s own. It was Kirk’s voice he had heard in sleep, Kirk’s presence that he felt once he was woken. Kirk’s story confirmed what Khan suspected all along.
“You heard me,” he interrupted Kirk mid-sentence. “When I was in cryosleep. You heard me speak to you.”
Kirk stopped dead in his tracks, so Khan knew he was right.
“I thought I was losing my mind,” Kirk said. He looked up through the trees. “Did you know it was me?”
“I wasn’t certain,” Khan responded. “I only felt a presence. I asked you to kill me.”
“Jesus!” Kirk spun around. “Why did you do that? After everything you did, after how hard you fought to survive, to make Starfleet pay, why did you want to die?”
“I had nothing left to live for,” Khan said matter-of-factly. “I believed my crew dead. Starfleet had defeated me, captured me, and enslaved me, again. Death was better than imprisonment.”
“And now?”
“Now, I have reason to live,” Khan answered. What he didn’t say was: ‘because of you.’
“Come on,” Kirk said. “We need to get down to the river before it gets too hot. The fish bite best in the mornings and we’re going to need something for dinner.”
Khan was changing, in small ways. He could feel it. Time alone with this human was changing him. It remained to be seen whether or not it was for the better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sun was climbing higher in the sky and the glare off the water was causing Kirk to squint. If it weren’t for the fact that he was crotch deep in ice-cold water, he would be sweating his balls off.
Khan stood on the shore, hidden inside the tree line, his eyes scanning the surroundings. If someone found both of them there, he was in no danger of dying - he was far too valuable alive. Kirk on the other hand: Khan knew they’d drop the man where he stood without a second thought. Alone, the Captain was only doing what he told Starfleet he would be doing, fishing. As long as they were not seen together there was a chance this would work, but he knew the percentages were against that result. Khan watched as Kirk flicked his wrist, sending the line out into the stream. Then, he heard something.
Within minutes Kirk had a fish. He began reeling it in when he felt Khan’s hand on the back of his neck.
How the fuck had he come up behind him in the water so silently?
“Someone is coming,” Khan said quietly into Kirk’s ear.
“Shit.”
“You need to come with me, now, or you are a dead man, again.”
Kirk pulled the fish off the line as quickly as he could without fumbling and dropping it. He tossed it back into the river and turned around making for the shore as fast as possible. He shed his waders and gathered his gear with the intent of stashing it in the bushes. He did not want to leave an obvious sign of where they had been in case Khan’s senses were off.
Without warning Khan grabbed his wrist, pulling him close and turning as the rocks on the shoreline exploded from a phaser blast. Khan shielded him from the debris that flew through the air, though a single piece caught Kirk on the cheekbone, breaking the skin. They bolted for the cover of the trees, Khan dragging Kirk into the woods by the wrist.
He followed Khan at a run, leaping fallen branches and ducking low ones. It didn’t occur to him until they stopped running that he had nearly matched pace with the augment. That should not have been possible.
“Your weapon,” Khan said.
Kirk gave Khan the phaser without even questioning him, which was the first clue he should have had that something in his mind wasn’t right. But then, the augment was twice as good a shot as he was. He wiped at the blood that ran down his face as Khan changed the setting to kill. “Who is shooting at us?”
“Who do you think?” Khan said, scanning the woods.
“You’re bleeding,” Kirk said.
“I will be fine,” Khan answered evenly.
“I can’t let you kill-”
“Be quiet,” Khan admonished.
He turned quickly and fired over Kirk’s shoulder, and Kirk just barely got to Khan’s arm in time. The blast went wide of its target, and a Starfleet officer owed James Kirk a debt. Though that same man almost blew his head off. The tree they were standing by exploded from the phaser blast.
Khan head-butted Kirk so hard that he saw stars. Kirk heard phaser fire as he began to black out. Khan then hoisted the unconscious Kirk over his shoulder.
Chapter Five