Fic: Follow You (Into The Dark) [Kirk/Spock, PG-13]
Title: Follow You (Into The Dark)
Author: The Moonmoth
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kirk/Spock, pre-slash
Words: ~2,100
Spoilers: Star Trek 2009
Warnings: Implied torture
Summary: “You always follow me,” he says, his voice half-challenge, half-question.
A/N: Written for help_haiti for the lovely heeroluva who asked for Spock and Kirk’s first mind meld. Huge, huge thanks to taste_is_sweet who rescued this fic with the power of her mind, and who deserves to be remembered in myth and song. Concrit is welcome.
A/N 2: This story now has a companion, which can be read here.
Follow You (Into The Dark)
by The Moonmoth
*
“Whoa, he’s spiking, Doctor McCoy.”
“Ten cc’s of neuroplene - get those restraints on securely, Ensign.”
In the shuttle’s cockpit, Spock listens to the erratic beeping of Nurse Chapel’s medical tricorder, the organic sounds of the security guard attempting to force the captain’s flailing limbs into the restraints, McCoy’s cursing. He does not will the shuttle higher, faster, because that would be illogical.
“No effect. He’s spiking again.”
“Another ten cc’s.”
“He’s seizing!”
“Neural stabilizers. Quickly, damnit.”
“Here, Doctor.”
“Ensign if you don’t get out the way I’m going to shove you out the nearest airlock just as soon as I have a spare hand.”
“He’s coming out of it, no clonic phase.”
“Good. Okay. Okay.”
There is a pause and Spock resists the urge to demand to know what is happening. He guides the shuttle through the remainder of the planet’s atmosphere and double checks his scans to make sure they are secure before instructing Ensign Zahrobska to take the helm.
McCoy glances up at him as he enters the rear compartment, eyes hooded. “What is his prognosis, Doctor?” Spock asks.
McCoy runs a hand tiredly down his face. It is approximately forty-five minutes since they retrieved the captain, and McCoy and Chapel have had no opportunity for pause since then. “His neural readings are off-the-chart unstable, and it’s affecting every system in his body - it’s probably only a matter of time before his heart stops again if we can’t get a handle on what’s causing this.” To Spock’s right, on the fold-down biobed, the captain jerks against his restraints, eyes squeezed tightly closed, a thick trickle of red blood seeping from his nose, garish against pale white skin.
“Do you have a hypothesis?”
McCoy glances at Chapel, who shrugs minutely. “It’s got to be something psionic - those Ostatian telepaths have done something to him,” he says, “but it’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Humans are usually psi null but his readings are spiking all over the place.”
Spock nods - he had felt the disturbance in the captain’s mind, even without direct contact between them.
“Psi readings climbing again, Doctor,” Chapel warns. “Looks like he’s building another spike.”
“Lemme see that,” McCoy growls, taking the tricorder.
“Doctor, in your opinion could Captain Kirk withstand further telepathic contact without incurring damage?” Spock asks, the note of urgency in his voice attracting McCoy’s attention.
“I have no idea. Why in the hell-”
“He’s spiking!”
“I believe I can help,” Spock says, and waits only long enough for the doctor’s brief nod before quickly leaning over Kirk’s straining body, one hand outstretched to his face.
He is struck for a moment at how easily the connection is formed, how little preparation he needs to focus himself for the joining of their minds, and then he is engulfed in blinding white and everything is pain and the sound of Jim’s voice, screaming.
.
Be still, Jim. Be calm. You are safe. I am here.
.
Laughter. It does not sound Human, too resonant, the pitch too deep. And overlapping that, Jim is screaming. It is hard to think, the bright white of Jim’s pain overwhelming his own senses. And then he realizes how deep he has inadvertently been drawn in - it should not have taken so little effort.
.
Drawing back slightly, Spock reaches out, threading his fingers through Jim’s mind. Sooner than he had hoped, he finds what he is looking for - crude, but effective - and switches it off. The screaming stops suddenly and the blinding white recedes, fading through grey until Spock is surrounded in enveloping blackness. The laughter dies with it, until Spock is deprived of all sensory input.
Captain? Jim?
There is no reply. Spock pushes a little harder but he can feel the force of Kirk’s will pressing down on all sides.
.
Spock reaches blindly in the dark, searching - while no longer in such pain, Jim has shut down around him with a level of completeness Spock would not have expected him to be capable of. But there is also something here, between their minds, not quite like familiarity, but - he knows what he is looking for, with a certainty not entirely founded in logic. He reaches out - no, he reaches towards.
.
Spock is entirely certain that he could walk the length of the Enterprise’s corridors from stern to nacelles without the benefit of visual input; despite the fact he has never melded with the captain before, it is a similar sensation navigating Jim’s mind.
There are strange... the closest word he can use is ‘reverberations’, like the echoes of words just out of the range of hearing. But these are Jim’s thoughts. It is as though he has somehow been able to muffle them, though Spock is unsure how.
He follows them through the darkness, reaching out, reaching towards.
You are safe, Jim.
...no...out...get out!
The impression of fingers slipping through his grasp, a sharp withdrawal, and then in the distance, a doorway appears, a bright rectangle of light against the black. Spock goes towards it.
.
He comes out into bright sunshine, in the middle of a field of some kind of crop, the stems thick and green, reaching approximately one meter above his head. The air is still and of a warmth approaching comfortable, and only the faint rustling of wide green leaves breaks the silence.
Glancing down he notices that he is wearing the attire of the Ostatian telepaths. This perhaps explains Captain Kirk’s reluctance to open his mind to Spock. Understandable but, under the circumstances, unacceptable. He concentrates for a moment, and when he looks down again he is dressed in his Starfleet issue science uniform.
Somewhere off to his left there is an indrawn breath. Spock freezes, listening carefully.
“Captain,” he says. “Captain Kirk. I am not here to cause you harm.”
Slowly, he turns his head, scanning through the stalks - corn, Jim’s mind supplies subconsciously - listening for the quiet breathing. A movement draws his attention and his gaze drops to a bright blue eye, much lower than he had expected, and a child’s voice shouts, “No! Leave me alone!” and he is gone, tearing away through the corn.
.
Spock does not immediately follow. Instead, he reaches into Jim’s mind, deeper than he has gone previously, and carefully gives a gentle tug, just enough to guide his attention. At the same time, he unlocks a handful of carefully selected doors in his own mind - memories.
Only then does he begin to negotiate the corn, and as he walks, he folds Jim’s mental landscape so that between one step and the next he is emerging into a small dusty clearing, no more than three meters in diameter. On the opposite side stands a Human boy, perhaps thirteen years old, bright blue eyes and blonde hair, battered leather jacket that is on the cusp of being too small for him, caught between flight and curiosity.
They stare at each other for a moment, and then the boy speaks.
“You always follow me,” he says, his voice half-challenge, half-question.
“Yes,” Spock says simply.
“Even that time when the Klingons got me.” A flash of dark cell, buzz of forcefield, smell of blood.
“Yes.”
“Even when you saw me die.” The ring of the transporter beam, lifeless body, McCoy restarting his heart right there on the pad.
“Yes.”
“Even when I told you not to.” Jim running into a firefight so that the away team could escape.
“Yes.”
The boy looks up at him, squinting against the sunlight. “Why?”
“You are my captain,” Spock says. “Losing you would be unacceptable.”
“I didn’t ask you to come here,” the boy says angrily, taking half a step forwards.
“You did not,” Spock agrees. “Nevertheless, it is time for you to come back.” And Spock lifts them both from the cornfield to the bridge of the Enterprise, changing the boy’s dusty clothes to Starfleet command gold.
He looks down at himself, then up at Spock, then turns and takes in the bridge before running a finger along the arm of the captain’s chair, and when he turns back to face Spock he is a meter taller and very much himself again. He gives Spock a considering look that seems to last for a very long time.
“Okay,” Jim says. “Let’s go.”
.
Spock resurfaces to find himself sitting on the edge of a biobed in sickbay. His back aches from where he has been twisted around, fingers pressed to Jim’s face. Jim lies on his back, still clothed in his ripped and filthy uniform, skin pale and blood dried around his nose, a bruise blooming across his jaw, but when his eyes inch open they are bright and blue and alive.
“Hey,” Jim says, voice rough.
“Jim. How are you feeling?”
“Never better,” he says, the corner of his mouth turning upwards wryly. Then, more quietly, “Thank you, Spock.”
There is a snort and a rustle of fabric and McCoy wakes from his slouch in a chair by Jim’s bedside - Spock had not noticed him before.
“Thank God,” he says sincerely, seeing Jim conscious, and reaches for his tricorder. “Chapel, get over here.”
It is only when McCoy attempts to begin scanning Jim that Spock realizes he has not yet removed his hand from Jim’s face. He does so now, with a sensation akin to reluctance, and stolidly ignores the doctor’s insistence that he leave to get some rest.
“You know what was weird?” Jim asks him later, rolling his head to the side to look at Spock, who is drafting his mission report in the chair by the bedside.
“The probability that you are about to enlighten me is ninety-eight point three three percent.”
Jim pauses, looking at Spock quizzically. “What’s the other one point six seven percent for?”
“I am as yet unsure, Captain, but it is my experience to always allow for the unpredictable where you are concerned.”
“Very logical,” the captain agrees seriously, before yawning into his hand. “So, back to the subject of mind melds. Your mind is nothing like Old Spock’s.”
Spock lowers his PADD and raises an eyebrow. “Indeed. I was not aware you had melded with my counterpart.”
“Down on Delta Vega,” Kirk says dismissively. “You keep such tight control over everything. He was a lot more - open.”
“Perhaps I will be unfortunate enough to suffer from similar senility in my old age,” Spock returns dryly.
“No,” the captain says thoughtfully, “I think he was just in the habit of letting me see whatever I wanted - my counterpart, I mean.”
“Perhaps,” Spock says, allowing his expression to convey how unlikely he thinks this to be.
“I liked it,” Kirk says, blue eyes resting levelly on his, and Spock is momentarily at a loss for how to respond.
“Vulcans value their privacy,” he says eventually.
“Well, despite the trauma and pain and general unpleasantness, I kind of liked it with you, too.”
Spock frowns, curious despite himself. “Can you elaborate?”
“It felt... like you,” Jim says simply, shrugging. “I liked being in your mind.”
“In fact, our minds were joined,” Spock corrects.
“Spock,” Jim sighs, “The point is, if at some point you wanted to do it again, under less stressful conditions, I would be up for that.” He yawns again and shifts under the covers, attempting to get comfortable.
Spock feels it would not now be prudent to point out the usual cultural limitations on mind melds of the type Jim appears to be seeking. The fact is, for someone as divided as Spock, who has lost his homeworld and so much more, finding a place that feels so much like home is not something he thinks he can let go of. Jim had said he had enjoyed the way Spock’s counterpart had let him in so easily, but the captain is not aware of the unusual level of concentration Spock had had to exert simply to prevent the same thing. Like fighting something natural.
He looks down at Jim, whose eyes have fallen closed, and allows himself to feel for a moment the strange way his chest seems to expand at the sight, the instinctive need to follow, and stand beside.
“When you are fully recovered, I will consider it,” he says quietly.
Jim smiles without opening his eyes. “Really?”
“Really. For now, rest. I will be here when you wake.”
Author: The Moonmoth
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kirk/Spock, pre-slash
Words: ~2,100
Spoilers: Star Trek 2009
Warnings: Implied torture
Summary: “You always follow me,” he says, his voice half-challenge, half-question.
A/N: Written for help_haiti for the lovely heeroluva who asked for Spock and Kirk’s first mind meld. Huge, huge thanks to taste_is_sweet who rescued this fic with the power of her mind, and who deserves to be remembered in myth and song. Concrit is welcome.
A/N 2: This story now has a companion, which can be read here.
Follow You (Into The Dark)
by The Moonmoth
*
“Whoa, he’s spiking, Doctor McCoy.”
“Ten cc’s of neuroplene - get those restraints on securely, Ensign.”
In the shuttle’s cockpit, Spock listens to the erratic beeping of Nurse Chapel’s medical tricorder, the organic sounds of the security guard attempting to force the captain’s flailing limbs into the restraints, McCoy’s cursing. He does not will the shuttle higher, faster, because that would be illogical.
“No effect. He’s spiking again.”
“Another ten cc’s.”
“He’s seizing!”
“Neural stabilizers. Quickly, damnit.”
“Here, Doctor.”
“Ensign if you don’t get out the way I’m going to shove you out the nearest airlock just as soon as I have a spare hand.”
“He’s coming out of it, no clonic phase.”
“Good. Okay. Okay.”
There is a pause and Spock resists the urge to demand to know what is happening. He guides the shuttle through the remainder of the planet’s atmosphere and double checks his scans to make sure they are secure before instructing Ensign Zahrobska to take the helm.
McCoy glances up at him as he enters the rear compartment, eyes hooded. “What is his prognosis, Doctor?” Spock asks.
McCoy runs a hand tiredly down his face. It is approximately forty-five minutes since they retrieved the captain, and McCoy and Chapel have had no opportunity for pause since then. “His neural readings are off-the-chart unstable, and it’s affecting every system in his body - it’s probably only a matter of time before his heart stops again if we can’t get a handle on what’s causing this.” To Spock’s right, on the fold-down biobed, the captain jerks against his restraints, eyes squeezed tightly closed, a thick trickle of red blood seeping from his nose, garish against pale white skin.
“Do you have a hypothesis?”
McCoy glances at Chapel, who shrugs minutely. “It’s got to be something psionic - those Ostatian telepaths have done something to him,” he says, “but it’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Humans are usually psi null but his readings are spiking all over the place.”
Spock nods - he had felt the disturbance in the captain’s mind, even without direct contact between them.
“Psi readings climbing again, Doctor,” Chapel warns. “Looks like he’s building another spike.”
“Lemme see that,” McCoy growls, taking the tricorder.
“Doctor, in your opinion could Captain Kirk withstand further telepathic contact without incurring damage?” Spock asks, the note of urgency in his voice attracting McCoy’s attention.
“I have no idea. Why in the hell-”
“He’s spiking!”
“I believe I can help,” Spock says, and waits only long enough for the doctor’s brief nod before quickly leaning over Kirk’s straining body, one hand outstretched to his face.
He is struck for a moment at how easily the connection is formed, how little preparation he needs to focus himself for the joining of their minds, and then he is engulfed in blinding white and everything is pain and the sound of Jim’s voice, screaming.
.
Be still, Jim. Be calm. You are safe. I am here.
.
Laughter. It does not sound Human, too resonant, the pitch too deep. And overlapping that, Jim is screaming. It is hard to think, the bright white of Jim’s pain overwhelming his own senses. And then he realizes how deep he has inadvertently been drawn in - it should not have taken so little effort.
.
Drawing back slightly, Spock reaches out, threading his fingers through Jim’s mind. Sooner than he had hoped, he finds what he is looking for - crude, but effective - and switches it off. The screaming stops suddenly and the blinding white recedes, fading through grey until Spock is surrounded in enveloping blackness. The laughter dies with it, until Spock is deprived of all sensory input.
Captain? Jim?
There is no reply. Spock pushes a little harder but he can feel the force of Kirk’s will pressing down on all sides.
.
Spock reaches blindly in the dark, searching - while no longer in such pain, Jim has shut down around him with a level of completeness Spock would not have expected him to be capable of. But there is also something here, between their minds, not quite like familiarity, but - he knows what he is looking for, with a certainty not entirely founded in logic. He reaches out - no, he reaches towards.
.
Spock is entirely certain that he could walk the length of the Enterprise’s corridors from stern to nacelles without the benefit of visual input; despite the fact he has never melded with the captain before, it is a similar sensation navigating Jim’s mind.
There are strange... the closest word he can use is ‘reverberations’, like the echoes of words just out of the range of hearing. But these are Jim’s thoughts. It is as though he has somehow been able to muffle them, though Spock is unsure how.
He follows them through the darkness, reaching out, reaching towards.
You are safe, Jim.
...no...out...get out!
The impression of fingers slipping through his grasp, a sharp withdrawal, and then in the distance, a doorway appears, a bright rectangle of light against the black. Spock goes towards it.
.
He comes out into bright sunshine, in the middle of a field of some kind of crop, the stems thick and green, reaching approximately one meter above his head. The air is still and of a warmth approaching comfortable, and only the faint rustling of wide green leaves breaks the silence.
Glancing down he notices that he is wearing the attire of the Ostatian telepaths. This perhaps explains Captain Kirk’s reluctance to open his mind to Spock. Understandable but, under the circumstances, unacceptable. He concentrates for a moment, and when he looks down again he is dressed in his Starfleet issue science uniform.
Somewhere off to his left there is an indrawn breath. Spock freezes, listening carefully.
“Captain,” he says. “Captain Kirk. I am not here to cause you harm.”
Slowly, he turns his head, scanning through the stalks - corn, Jim’s mind supplies subconsciously - listening for the quiet breathing. A movement draws his attention and his gaze drops to a bright blue eye, much lower than he had expected, and a child’s voice shouts, “No! Leave me alone!” and he is gone, tearing away through the corn.
.
Spock does not immediately follow. Instead, he reaches into Jim’s mind, deeper than he has gone previously, and carefully gives a gentle tug, just enough to guide his attention. At the same time, he unlocks a handful of carefully selected doors in his own mind - memories.
Only then does he begin to negotiate the corn, and as he walks, he folds Jim’s mental landscape so that between one step and the next he is emerging into a small dusty clearing, no more than three meters in diameter. On the opposite side stands a Human boy, perhaps thirteen years old, bright blue eyes and blonde hair, battered leather jacket that is on the cusp of being too small for him, caught between flight and curiosity.
They stare at each other for a moment, and then the boy speaks.
“You always follow me,” he says, his voice half-challenge, half-question.
“Yes,” Spock says simply.
“Even that time when the Klingons got me.” A flash of dark cell, buzz of forcefield, smell of blood.
“Yes.”
“Even when you saw me die.” The ring of the transporter beam, lifeless body, McCoy restarting his heart right there on the pad.
“Yes.”
“Even when I told you not to.” Jim running into a firefight so that the away team could escape.
“Yes.”
The boy looks up at him, squinting against the sunlight. “Why?”
“You are my captain,” Spock says. “Losing you would be unacceptable.”
“I didn’t ask you to come here,” the boy says angrily, taking half a step forwards.
“You did not,” Spock agrees. “Nevertheless, it is time for you to come back.” And Spock lifts them both from the cornfield to the bridge of the Enterprise, changing the boy’s dusty clothes to Starfleet command gold.
He looks down at himself, then up at Spock, then turns and takes in the bridge before running a finger along the arm of the captain’s chair, and when he turns back to face Spock he is a meter taller and very much himself again. He gives Spock a considering look that seems to last for a very long time.
“Okay,” Jim says. “Let’s go.”
.
Spock resurfaces to find himself sitting on the edge of a biobed in sickbay. His back aches from where he has been twisted around, fingers pressed to Jim’s face. Jim lies on his back, still clothed in his ripped and filthy uniform, skin pale and blood dried around his nose, a bruise blooming across his jaw, but when his eyes inch open they are bright and blue and alive.
“Hey,” Jim says, voice rough.
“Jim. How are you feeling?”
“Never better,” he says, the corner of his mouth turning upwards wryly. Then, more quietly, “Thank you, Spock.”
There is a snort and a rustle of fabric and McCoy wakes from his slouch in a chair by Jim’s bedside - Spock had not noticed him before.
“Thank God,” he says sincerely, seeing Jim conscious, and reaches for his tricorder. “Chapel, get over here.”
It is only when McCoy attempts to begin scanning Jim that Spock realizes he has not yet removed his hand from Jim’s face. He does so now, with a sensation akin to reluctance, and stolidly ignores the doctor’s insistence that he leave to get some rest.
“You know what was weird?” Jim asks him later, rolling his head to the side to look at Spock, who is drafting his mission report in the chair by the bedside.
“The probability that you are about to enlighten me is ninety-eight point three three percent.”
Jim pauses, looking at Spock quizzically. “What’s the other one point six seven percent for?”
“I am as yet unsure, Captain, but it is my experience to always allow for the unpredictable where you are concerned.”
“Very logical,” the captain agrees seriously, before yawning into his hand. “So, back to the subject of mind melds. Your mind is nothing like Old Spock’s.”
Spock lowers his PADD and raises an eyebrow. “Indeed. I was not aware you had melded with my counterpart.”
“Down on Delta Vega,” Kirk says dismissively. “You keep such tight control over everything. He was a lot more - open.”
“Perhaps I will be unfortunate enough to suffer from similar senility in my old age,” Spock returns dryly.
“No,” the captain says thoughtfully, “I think he was just in the habit of letting me see whatever I wanted - my counterpart, I mean.”
“Perhaps,” Spock says, allowing his expression to convey how unlikely he thinks this to be.
“I liked it,” Kirk says, blue eyes resting levelly on his, and Spock is momentarily at a loss for how to respond.
“Vulcans value their privacy,” he says eventually.
“Well, despite the trauma and pain and general unpleasantness, I kind of liked it with you, too.”
Spock frowns, curious despite himself. “Can you elaborate?”
“It felt... like you,” Jim says simply, shrugging. “I liked being in your mind.”
“In fact, our minds were joined,” Spock corrects.
“Spock,” Jim sighs, “The point is, if at some point you wanted to do it again, under less stressful conditions, I would be up for that.” He yawns again and shifts under the covers, attempting to get comfortable.
Spock feels it would not now be prudent to point out the usual cultural limitations on mind melds of the type Jim appears to be seeking. The fact is, for someone as divided as Spock, who has lost his homeworld and so much more, finding a place that feels so much like home is not something he thinks he can let go of. Jim had said he had enjoyed the way Spock’s counterpart had let him in so easily, but the captain is not aware of the unusual level of concentration Spock had had to exert simply to prevent the same thing. Like fighting something natural.
He looks down at Jim, whose eyes have fallen closed, and allows himself to feel for a moment the strange way his chest seems to expand at the sight, the instinctive need to follow, and stand beside.
“When you are fully recovered, I will consider it,” he says quietly.
Jim smiles without opening his eyes. “Really?”
“Really. For now, rest. I will be here when you wake.”