Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/170946.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Star_Trek_(2009)
  Relationship:
      James_T._Kirk/Spock
  Character:
      James_T._Kirk, Spock, Leonard_McCoy, Montgomery_"Scotty"_Scott, Nyota
      Uhura, Christine_Chapel, Keenser
  Additional Tags:
      First_Time, Established_Relationship, Age_Regression, Tarsus_IV
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-03-15 Words: 23265
****** Astral Bodies ******
by what_alchemy
Summary
     Jim knew what men liked: to possess and destroy. Planets, women,
     slim-hipped young men mucking out stables as distant Sol browned
     their glistening skin, it didn’t matter.
Spock extricated himself from Jim with care, mindful of his lover’s sensitivity
in the wake of orgasm. Jim gave a sigh at the separation, one hand weakly
clutching at Spock’s shoulder. He huffed a soft laugh as Spock paused to commit
this image to memory: Jim, panting, flushed, spattered with semen and gazing at
Spock with hopeless adoration.
“Oughtta take a holo, Spock.”
Spock did not answer but rose to his knees, stroking down the length of Jim’s
torso before leaning down and lapping up the stripes of ejaculate from Jim’s
chest and belly. Jim whimpered, tangling one hand in Spock’s hair and using the
other to trace the powerful line of Spock’s shoulders. He tried, as much as
possible, to soak up through his hands, through touch and muscle memory, the
feeling of his union with Spock. Of course there was the physical: smooth skin
taut over firm muscles, blazing as though with the heat of tightly controlled
Vulcan passions; his clean, masculine scent like a crisp, clear desert night;
his dark eyes and hot breath searing with the promise of ownership. Catching
Spock’s face between his hands and tugging him up for a deep, explorative kiss,
Jim reveled also in the connection beyond their bodies. Spock settled his hips
against Jim’s, two spent sets of genitals languishing against one another as
the lovers found belonging in the soft swipe of tongues and gentle sucking of
lips, in the two mouths that opened and sighed and found each other.
Jim groaned his loss when Spock rose to clean them up.
“You would regret the indulgence when the dried semen tore out your pubic hair,
Jim,” Spock admonished him, a pointed look and a raised eyebrow indicating that
Spock would never let Jim forget the heady beginnings of their sexual
relationship, the bald spot, and the thunderous yelp that had preceded it. Jim,
despite his languor, attempted his patented James T. Kirk Smile of Ultimate
Seduction. He pouted when Spock remained impassive.
“Just wish we never had to be separate is all.”
“We are not, ashayam.”
The endearment, seldom used between bouts of manliness and the security of
their mutual affection, caused Jim’s chest to constrict. He took a deep breath
as Spock turned him over and pressed a damp cloth to his asshole, swiping up
the length of his crack, wiping away sweat and lube and come. Discarding the
cloth, Spock continued to stroke Jim’s backside lightly, a gesture of his
appreciation for something that achieved perfection.
“You just love seeing your come in my ass, admit it,” Jim murmured, face
pressed into a pillow, voice muffled from amusement clear.
Spock spread Jim’s cheeks to examine the orifice within: raw and red with their
exertions, leaking semen, hot to touch. Spock smoothed a gentle thumb over
Jim’s anus, soothing the lingering discomfort. His penis made a valiant skyward
effort but was ignored.
“Yes, it moves me to see evidence of our coupling. As you are aware of all my
sexual proclivities, you are aware of this one. Logic dictates that if you have
such data, my ‘admitting it,’ as you say, could not further your knowledge,
merely confirm it.”
Jim laughed and sat up, turned to put his arms around his lover and clutch him
to himself tightly. They fell back against the bed and the pillows in a tangled
embrace, and Jim said into Spock’s mussed black hair, “Call my desire for
periodic verbal confirmation of previously held knowledge an illogical human
foible, if you want.”
Spock hummed into the space he occupied between Jim’s neck and shoulder.
“Curious,” he said, eyes fluttering shut, “the emotional needs of a human.”
Jim’s hand on Spock’s head catalogued the thick, silky quality of his hair, the
commitment to memory now an automatic, unconscious reaction to being in Spock’s
presence. Jim knew it was greedy, that his love was possessive and consuming
like a collapsing star, but still he wanted, needed more. Needed his hands and
his mouth all over Spock’s body, his cock in Spock’s mouth, his ass full of
Spock’s come, his face covered by Spock’s fiery fingertips and their minds
blending in long, interminable eternities called moments. He needed the oneness
of their union in body, mind and heart. He ached for their consumptive
singularity.
The stars blazed just outside the impenetrable tempered glass of the bedroom
window. Space so vast and clear, so swallowing in its omnipresence, seemed to
Jim to pause in recognition of their love, as if meeting its equal in enormity.
Yes, Jim thought as his breathing evened and deepened, eyes closing. It’s as if
even space knows it’s got nothing on us.
“Spock,” he whispered, neither sleeping nor awake now. Spock grunted from his
position on Jim’s chest, drowsy and disinclined to move.
“We’re bigger than space.”
Spock did not answer, whether due to sleep or the inherent dilemma or answering
such illogic, it could not be ascertained.
“Sometimes I wish,” Jim continued, mumbling and unaware, “that you were the
first one. To be inside. That what we have could be the only thing I’ve ever
had. This feeling bigger than space, the only feeling. Untainted. Instead. I
wish, sometimes. Is all.”
Great stars that dwarfed both Eridani and Sol rushed past them as the
Enterprise cruised at a leisurely pace through friendly space to her next
mission. Great stars flashed their fortunes at having met their equals.
                                       *
Jim became aware of an oppressive heat choking him away from sleep. Covered by
a sweaty sheet, he gasped, scrambling to get out from under the tangle, away
from the heat bearing down on him. With a frustrated grunt, he finally gained
purchase, sitting up on his knees and flinging the offending sheet away. He
paused at the unfamiliar surroundings.
“Holy shit,” he muttered, gazing out the window into wide open space, studded
brightly with an infinite number of stars. He jumped up and pressed himself
against the glass, careless of his nudity.
“Computer!” he called. “What is my location?”
A tinny, automated female voice answered, “Captain’s quarters on the starship
Enterprise NCC-1701, Captain Kirk.”
Jim couldn’t decide between gaping at the view or gaping at what he’d just
heard. He looked down at his naked body. Encountering nothing out of the
ordinary, he said, “Computer, what is the star date?”
“2262.71.”
“Oh, balls.”
Jim hurried into what appeared to be the bathroom and met his own familiar
reflection. He was as he’d expected: coltish, a bit gangly, perhaps too thin,
hoping to fill out in the next few years. Hoping to gain back what he’d lost,
knowing he asked for the impossible. Rings the color of fading bruises shadowed
his eyes. He averted his gaze, the weight of too much knowledge making him
falter. With his back to the mirror now, he leaned against the cool column of
the sink and took a few deep breaths as he’d been taught in Federation-
sponsored therapy.
Suddenly a door slid open – not the door he’d come though in, he noted with
mounting panic – and a tall, imposing Vulcan with no facial expression strode
in. And stopped as soon as he caught sight of Jim. Jim moved to cover his
exposed genitals even as he maintained eye contact with the Vulcan, who was now
openly gawking in what Jim was fairly sure was a terrible breach of Vulcan
decorum.
“Captain – Jim, are you quite all right?” came the deep voice, a little aghast,
Jim imagined.
“I’m naked.”
The Vulcan hastened to hand Jim a towel before averting his eyes quite
pointedly.
“Please explain.”
Laughter bubbled unbidden from Jim’s throat.
“Explain?” he echoed, voice rising in pitch, edging on hysteria. “You explain!
Why am I thirteen years in the future being called captain! Who are you? Why
are you in my bathroom? What’s happening?” Jim had begun to shake, clutching
the towel he’d wrapped around his hips in nervous fists.
The Vulcan seemed to have snapped out of his unbecoming stupor, stepping into
the captain’s quarters and slapping a comm device on the wall.
“Spock to McCoy. Come in McCoy.” He kept his eyes trained on Jim. Or rather, on
Jim’s shoulder.
“Jesus, Spock, do you know what time it is?”
“The captain is having an emergency, please come to his quarters immediately.
Spock out.”
“Spock! Spock, what kind of emergency, goddamnit?”
“Unknown. Come immediately. Spock out.”
The Vulcan rummaged through a closet and Jim took a cautious step out of the
bathroom after several calming breaths. When the Vulcan – Spock – emerged it
was with a t-shirt and pajama pants. A little too large, Jim noted, shrugging
and shuffling into them, but they would do. As for Spock the Vulcan, he seemed
to adjust his own clothes, sleek, unforgiving Starfleetwear, and stared
unwaveringly at a spot just to the left of Jim’s head.
“So you’re a Vulcan,” Jim put out into the ensuing silence.
“Affirmative.”
“And you just wander into your captain’s bathroom, your captain who happens to
be me.”
Here the Vulcan named Spock met his gaze. He could discern nothing in them.
“It is a shared bathroom, Mr. Kirk.”
In a flurry of crashes, beeping and expletives, a scruffy, harried looking man
with eyes bloodshot from interrupted sleep entered the quarters and Jim’s
personal space all at once. Jim began taking gulping breathes that did not ease
his discomfort.
“Jim, what the hell happened to you?”
“Hey, stop, stop, don’t –” Jim began pushing the man away from him, pressing
himself against the bulkheads, squeezing his eyes shut.
Immediately the man backed off, hands raised in surrender. He glanced at the
Vulcan, who managed an even graver expression than the one Jim assumed he’d
been born with.
“All right Jim. It’s okay, I’m not even near you. Listen. Just tell me what
happened.”
Jim looked at the two of them: the stiff-necked Vulcan in starched science
blues, the Southern man with a day’s worth of beard growth and a whirring
tricorder. Jim grasped for familiarity but met only vapors where he imagined
memories should be.
“I don’t know. Woke up here,” he said. Then he added, “naked.”
“I’m Dr. McCoy. This is Commander Spock. Tell me how old you are.”
Jim swallowed, remembering a time when the answer to that demand, among others,
determined whether you lived or died. He felt no menace from McCoy, but he’d
felt none from Kodos either, in the early days that make him sick to think
about now for their bright optimism. He could not remember this ship, being a
captain, knowing these two very different men, but he could remember that his
age in experience defied his age in years.
“Old enough,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”
If the doctor looked a bit sad at Jim’s declaration, Jim chose to ignore it. He
hated people’s pity, the bitterness like a fire in his gullet.
“He stated earlier that he found himself thirteen years in the future, doctor.
Assuming he ascertained the current star date, I speculate that the captain is
approximately sixteen Terran years of age.”
Studying his tricorder, McCoy frowned deeply and nodded. He looked about ready
to dispense good advice. Jim began to fidget, feeling enclosed in the space of
the quarters he could not remember as his own, encroached upon by these strange
men who looked at him with such concern and disappointment. He focused his eyes
on the door McCoy had busted in through. He knew there was no getting off this
starship, but surely there had to be someplace with more space, somewhere he
could stretch out his arms, somewhere less godawful hot—
“….and you could stand for some more protein in your diet, drink some fortified
milk too. You know, I might have some down in sickbay stashed away for a
special occasion, the real deal, not this reconstituted, regurgitate,
replicated sh-- ….garbage. Whattaya say, Jim, some nice Devarsian goats’ milk,
fresh outta sickbay’s fridger?” McCoy was attempting to smile; it was more
unsettling than the Vulcan’s flat, blank nonexpression.
“I believe Mr. Kirk would benefit from a walk around the Enterprise, Dr.
McCoy,” Spock said. The doctor shot him a sour look.
“You can be in charge of that, Mr. Sleep-is-for-the-weak. I’m running these
readings down to sickbay and cursing the day I met you people until Alpha
starts. We’ll need to debrief the senior staff at the start of shift and find a
way to fix this.” McCoy turned from the Vulcan and rounded his fire-eyed wrath
on Jim. “And you! Don’t think you’re off the hook, kid. You come down to
sickbay as soon as this hobgoblin’s done giving you the grand tour and we’re
having a talk about your diet.”
With as much fanfare as he’d arrived, McCoy exited the captain’s quarters, and
Jim was left, once again, with Spock. Spock, whose silent presence was like a
black hole sucking all the air out of Jim’s lungs, the room, the hallway and
the whole ship if Jim wasn’t quick. He ducked out of the sliding doors McCoy
had forced open and took a deep breath. The Vulcan regarded him with unreadable
black eyes from inside the captain’s quarters.
“I can look around on my own,” Jim told him, itching to leave this weird alien
with his watchful gaze and lack of inflection. “You must have duties to attend
to, so.”
“My duties, Mr. Kirk, include keeping myself appraised of your status. You will
not be left alone.”
Jim felt fear lick up his spine. He tried to quell it; after all, what was one
flint-eyed Vulcan in comparison to the innumerable horrors he’d already faced?
                                       *
McCoy sat, feet propped up on his desk in his office, with the padd in his lap
opened to Captain James Kirk’s confidential health file. He stared through it
without seeing, one hand cupping his haphazardly-shaven chin He paid no heed to
the few drops of blood beading up where he’d nicked himself. It didn’t matter
that he knew this file as well as he knew his secret liquor stash. It would
tell him nothing new, nothing he was not already aware of as Jim’s doctor and
Jim’s friend. But the file was a clinical recitation of facts, a digitized
document that could not capture the acrid stench of thousands of bodies piled
in the Tarsus sun; could not transmit the cold, clenching burn of a stomach
empty for weeks, months; could not reveal the all-consuming fear of being
caught or the depth of the blackest miasma of guilt and grief. Snarling, McCoy
flung the padd on his desk, dashing it against the bulkhead.
“Damnit, Jim!” he cursed. He heard a gamma shift nurse scurry to the far side
of sickbay to cower for the remainder of his shift. McCoy took a deep breath,
squeezing his eyes shut for the duration. Leaning forward, he wrote out in old-
fashioned pen and paper – more permanent, more immediate, more truthful, he
thought – the facts:
James T. Kirk, Captain. Regressed in body and mind to age 16
Cause: unknown
Immediate medical issues: malnutrition, stress response
Immediate command issues: en route to Zenzobar of the Third Outer Ring for
trade negotiations, Captain Kirk directly requested by Supreme Empress H’Lopia.
ETA: 72 hours.
Treatment:
McCoy sat tapping his pen into the corner of the page for countless minutes,
seeing nothing. The gamma shifters left and Chapel loomed in the doorway of his
office looking statuesque and well-rested, damn her.
“There a gnat in your britches, doctor?” Chapel’s voice was sly. He scowled at
her.
“For that, and not getting me a coffee, you get babysitting duty.”
“Excuse me?” she huffed, looking harassed. McCoy let himself feel a tingle of
satisfaction.
“Jim’s been turned into a teenaged angst bomb. You get to mind him while Spock
and I debrief the senior staff.”
“What am I supposed to do with baby Captain?”
“I don’t know, Christine. Make him clean the head with a toothbrush if it
strikes your fancy.”
McCoy did not examine the unholy gleam in his head nurse’s eyes before he
gathered his weary bones and trundled himself up to the bridge.
                                       *
“Okay, so, let’s get our timeline under control here,” Sulu said, setting his
padd onto the table of the meeting room. The core bridge crew was there, along
with Dr. McCoy, Mr. Scott and Lieutenant Giotto from security. Chekov sighed,
familiar with Sulu’s love of lists: making them, reading them, making Chekov
read them, imagining that they at all helped him organize his thoughts and
actions. “Mr. Spock, you said you and the captain went to bed around 2300
hours? Sir?” Glancing up for confirmation, he took Spock’s stony discomfort as
such, and inserted ‘went to “bed”’ into the slot for 2300. “And you say you
woke up at 0400 for, quote, ‘meditation and optimal productivity,’ is that
correct?”
“Yes, Lieutenant, we have repeated the facts three times now. I was not present
for the Captain’s regression. We must move on to finding a solution to his
dilemma before we reach orbit around Zenzobar of the Third Outer Ring, and,
barring that, we must focus on completing the upcoming mission without him in
command.”
“Spock, the Supreme Empress is no one to take lightly,” Uhura said. “She was
really forceful about the Captain’s presence.” She looked hesitant for a
moment. “We may have no choice but to send him in as is.”
“Hey now –” McCoy began.
“Lieutenant, that is not an option,” Spock said. “The Captain’s mental state
and maturity level are --”
“The Keptin, he is sixteen, not so much younger from me at the beginning, but I
think the Keptin and me, we are very different sixteens.”
“Goddamnit, now, are we really talking about sending—”
“Can we focus on this list?”
“I think tempers are running a wee bit high right now, maybe we should stop for
a snack?”
Suddenly Giotto stood and slammed his heavy fists on the table. Everyone shut
up and stared at him.
“We have about three days to get Sunshine all growed up again,” he said, mouth
set in a tight line. “It’s smooth sailing to the outer rings, and we are all of
us the best of the best in our departments, and we will goddamn well find a way
to fix this before the mini captain even has a chance to mess up these
negotiations for us. Now do you people want to panic and argue about something
we have days to find a solution for or do you want to get this done?”
It was the most anyone outside of security had ever heard Giotto speak. Spock
recovered first.
“Indeed, Lieutenant Giotto makes a logical argument. The available resources in
the science and medical departments will assess any anomalies in Mr. Kirk’s
physical condition—”
“That’s just it Spock, I’ve been over it a hundred times. There are no
anomalies. He could stand to gain a few but otherwise, there are no physical
problems. He’s a perfectly fine sixteen year old kid.”
“I would thank you, doctor, not to interrupt me.” Spock managed to go even more
upright. McCoy thought that if that spine didn’t snap by itself, he might have
to snap it for the green-blooded bastard himself. McCoy clenched his jaw and
said nothing. “As I was saying, the science and medical teams will share
relevant data in the attempt to understand and reverse Mr. Kirk’s regression.
What is it, Mr. Sulu?”
Sulu put down is hand.
“I know I’m beating a dead horse, sir… Um, unnecessarily reiterating the issue,
but I really think we’re missing something between 2300 and 0500 when you found
the Captain in his current condition. The list could help. If you can think of
anything out of the ordinary, sir.”
“Leave the list,” Chekov hissed at him.
“Mr. Sulu, while I admire your attention to detail as a helmsman and crew
member, I must remind you that I have an eidetic memory, and I assure you, the
timeline you have developed is accurate and comprehensive.”
Sulu sat back in his chair with a sigh.
“What about crew morale?” Uhura asked after a moment of subdued silence.
“Should the captain’s condition be common knowledge or are we keeping it hush
hush for now?”
“He won’t be confined to quarters,” McCoy said. “It’d be torture for him, and I
don’t see the point. The crew will find out, might as well tell them outright
and not have some kind of mass freak out on board.”
“Do you think this will happen to anyone else?” Chekov asked.
“No, this kind of crap only happens to Jim Kirk, I swear.”
“It is a possibility, Ensign. Which is why we must find the solution as quickly
as possible. As Acting Captain, I will make the announcement to the crew as a
whole, inform Starfleet Command, and give the science and medical teams their
new assignments. Lieutenant Giotto, you will lead security sweeps on all decks
and increase detail in traffic-heavy areas, particularly near officers’
quarters. Meeting dismissed.”
                                       *
After a few hours of regaling him with tales of curious and vile space
diseases, Nurse Chapel plied Jim with a reconstituted cheeseburger for lunch
and a trip to an observation deck. He knew he was a cheap date, but the
observation deck afforded a far more spectacular view than the veritable
porthole in the captain’s quarters, not to mention that it was a wide open
space with plenty of comfortable furniture as well as private nooks for when a
guy might like to be alone with himself. Or with someone else. But he could
walk around the entire deck, look around himself, and see nothing but the stars
burning lightyears away in all directions. A person could breathe on this
observation deck.
Jim leaned against a railing at the far end of the deck, casting a sideways
glance at his taciturn companion. After telling him about degenerative
interspecies STDs, she seemed to have nothing else to say to him. “So,” he
fished for a conversation topic, “you like being a nurse in space?”
“I suppose it’s a little more interesting than treating overdoses and aircar
crash victims like I did before I joined up at the academy. Theoretically, I’ll
put in a few more years and get my MD after this mission’s over. Xenobiology,
and all.” She was looking at him more closely. Trying, he realized, to
recognize the man she knew in the boy she saw.
“Am I like him, then?”
“You are him, so. I mean, you’re the same person.”
“Yeah, but he’s done all this stuff,” Jim said, gesturing outward as if he’d
been to each star system he could see and had performed feats of heroics he
couldn’t remember at all of them.
Chapel turned back toward the stars, but she saw only Jim’s gaunt face in the
tempered glass, the startling blue of his eyes. They were the eyes of someone
who refused to be a victim, the eyes of a survivor, the eyes of her captain.
She chose her words carefully.
“Jim, somewhere in the trajectory of your life you’ve had to find a well of
strength and resolve. Sometimes you might feel weak, or helpless, or powerless,
but you have risen to the challenge and come out alive every time. The captain
is strong, and passionate, and loud, and colorful, and full of life, and he was
shaped by all you’ve endured, all that’s come before and all you’ll still face.
You are the reason he’s a great man right now.”
Jim leaned his forehead against the cool glass. He didn’t feel like the
blueprints of a great man. He felt as though by existing in this present, his
future, he was robbing himself of a bright life darting about among the stars,
a relic from the past tainting everything to come. He had the curious and
paradoxical desire to erase himself so that this shining future where he had
friends and inspired loyalty could be secure. He didn’t even know this
forthright woman in pressed nursing scrubs who stood by his side comforting
him, who looked wary that he might want a hug but was prepared to give one if
it became necessary. He suddenly didn’t want her to know him, to know how he
really was in the private recesses of his mind. Decayed, and depraved, and so
needy after so much loss.
“I think I want to go back to my quarters. I didn’t get much sleep last night.
I can get there myself,” he said, stepping away from her. She frowned.
“Jim, let me walk you there, at least.”
“Look, I know you just have your orders or whatever, but I swear I won’t tell
McCoy, and I’m pretty sure the Captain will go easy on you when he’s back.”
“Jim, wait.” She followed him with long-legged strides. He realized that he’d
have to run if he wanted to get away from her. “Look, I’m sorry if what I laid
on you back there was heavy. But I know you’re not a kid and I know you can
handle it. Let me walk you back to your quarters.”
“I’m not –”
“What?”
“I’m not good.”
Chapel stared at him, at the defiant tilt of his chin, the set of his jaw not
yet squared by manhood, the glinting eyes and determined mouth. He declared his
lack of goodness not with resignation or sadness, but as a gauntlet thrown down
at the feet of detractors. He spat it out as if it were a poison that should
make her recoil. But Chapel had a strong constitution, and she had seen her
share of the darkness residing deeply within all sentient beings. Some more
than others.
“Evil touches you. I know that.” She walked past him then, leading the way.
“Come on.”
                                       *
Spock’s duties as acting captain kept him from performing in his capacity as
science officer, and therefore kept him from working with the science
department on finding a cure for his bondmate. He knew he was being derelict in
his duties even now; 74% of his thoughts were occupied by the puzzle of Jim’s
condition. Further, he contemplated his off duty hours, commencing in just 37.3
minutes: should he attempt to spend them with Jim, who could not hide his fear
and contempt for Spock, but who nonetheless needed someone who understood him
fully, or should he assist in the search for a solution with the science team,
increasing their productivity and chances of success? He was aware of an
increased pressure to restore Jim’s age, as Admiral Komack, surly even in his
text transmissions, demanded that they send Jim into negotiations on Zenzobar
regardless of his condition. He ruminated on his options until –
“I wish you would shut up about the lists!” Spock’s keen ears picked up
Chekov’s irritated hissing from the helm. “They do not help you, only make you
procrastinate! You think you are doing something but you are not, Hikaru! I
wish -- ”
Spock stood abruptly.
“Lieutenant Sulu, you have the conn.”
In the corridors crew members gave their acting captain wide berth as he made
haste with his characteristic grace toward sickbay and Dr. McCoy.
He rapped on the door to McCoy’s office and did not fidget waiting for McCoy to
let him in.
“Dr. McCoy—”
“All I’ve been able to find is some obscure reference to some fountain of youth
in Devar XI, but Christ, we were there almost a month ago –”
“McCoy.”
“I mean, I guess it could be a delayed reaction or something, but I don’t
reckon--”
“Doctor, cease your illogical prattle at once.”
McCoy’s jaw snapped shut and he finally looked up from the text of the padd in
is lap.
“What?”
“I believe I have been remiss in… completing Lieutenant Sulu’s list.”
“Hold on, hold on –” McCoy stood, meeting Spock’s gaze levelly. “You’re
saying….you made a mistake?”
“Doctor—”
“You? The great and mighty infallible pointy-eared Vulcan god? A mistake?”
“A small omission and nothing more, Dr. McCoy. Are you more interested in
gloating or in saving your captain from a second adolescence?”
“I’m listening, oh fallen one.”
Spock straightened, clasping his hands behind his back and fixing his eyes on a
point on the bulkhead behind the doctor.
“As we fell asleep, the captain spoke to me of wishes. I did not give credence
at the time to words spoken as if in dreams.”
McCoy crossed his arms, a square hand coming up to squeeze his chin. He frowned
when the silence after Spock’s statement stretched.
“You have to keep talking or it still doesn’t mean anything, Spock.”
“It is private.”
McCoy threw his hands up and gave a grunt of disgust. “Spock! You goddamned
infuriating Vulcan, I’m a doctor, not a psychic! If this is relevant, you have
to tell me!”
Spock managed to straighten further.
“He expressed a desire that I…be first. In his mind and body both.”
McCoy gave no reaction. “And?”
“He wished, as in Terran tradition, on a star. On a great number of stars whose
energies are yet unknown to us.”
McCoy’s lips parted.
“I’ll be damned. He’s a virgin at sixteen?”
“Doctor, you make light of this.”
“Okay, okay. But you’re the scienciest scientist this side of the Velubian
system, and you’re telling me Jim is a nubile young thing again because he made
a wish like some nineteenth century damsel in distress? And some unknown
invisible hand of the universe was just dispensing wishes like candy to
starship captains last night?”
“I am not ‘saying’ anything. I am providing evidence that was previously
overlooked.”
McCoy sat down heavily, shuffling papers and padds into piles that passed for
neat on his desk.
“Okay, so let’s look at this from your proposed angle. Jim wished it, therefore
it is so. How the hell do we fix it? Wish really hard?”
“The answer is fairly obvious if we follow the hypothesis to its natural
conclusion, doctor.”
McCoy did not look at him. He propped his elbows on his desk and clasped his
hands in front of his face.
“That boy is in no state to be manhandled by the likes of you, Spock.”
“Doctor—”
“No, just hear me out on this one,” McCoy said in a gruff voice. “I’m happy for
you guys. Big crazy love and all that, it’s good. Jim deserves it. Hell, you
deserve it, and I will deny ever saying that if you go around telling people,
you walking computer. The universe may have spit out the last version of Jim to
ever be a virgin and delivered him into your hot little hands, but we both know
what he’s still recovering from, we both know he’s not well, and I’ll be
damned, Spock, if I stand by and let you take advantage of him while he’s like
this. Not to mention the fact that he’s underage.”
“Technically, doctor, he is 29.36 standard years of age. He was born in 2233;
it is now 2262.”
“You can’t even convince yourself of that logic.”
Spock shifted his gaze from McCoy to the sundry medical implements adorning
McCoy’s office. Ancient saws and cruel blades. Reminders, he knew, of the
medical field’s barbaric past. Reminders to be thankful for modern
conveniences, and reminders never to cease progress toward the easing of human
suffering.
“I am uncertain as to the course of action when we have found the solution, but
it is morally untenable. In the Standard vernacular, ‘the cure is worse than
the disease.’ The condition remains impossible to resolve.”
“It might not be the only solution. Hell, it might not be the solution at all,
Spock. There must be something organic to blame, we just haven’t looked hard
enough. Why are we only seeing zebras here?”
“I do not understand the reference to an extinct earth mammal in this context.”
“I just mean, Spock, that you’ve jumped to the most far-fetched conclusion
possible when there must be some simpler explanation.”
“Doctor, your insults are tiresome. I have offered a hypothesis that would
explain the captain’s condition and what would reverse it, whereas you have
merely read thousand year old fairy tales from a planet whose inhabitants prize
goats above children.”
“Look at yourself, Spock! An imprecise, hyperbolical statement? All that Vulcan
logic out the window the moment Jim might be threatened. Just like every time
you put yourself between him and phaser fire. If you can’t think clearly, Mr.
Spock, mark my words, I will pull you off duty to get a hold of yourself.”
“Is that a threat, Dr. McCoy?”
“It’s a goddamned promise, Spock. Now get out of my sickbay.”
                                       *
When Jim got back to the captain’s quarters, a yeoman had been by to tidy up,
but domestic upkeep did nothing for the smell. Nothing unpleasant or even
illicit, just – he knew what a room that was his alone smelled like. He shared
this space with someone on a regular basis, maybe even a permanent basis, and
when he pressed open the doors of the closet, he found crisp blue shirts among
command gold. Whirling around, he crossed the room to reach a bookshelf where
some holos flickered, propped up against books and bulkheads. There were a few
of him grinning, arms slung around a scowling Dr. McCoy; the locations varied
but the expressions did not. Sharing space and intimacy with the beleaguered
doctor suddenly seemed a very real possibility. There was one holo of Sam and –
Sam’s family, Jim realized with wonder. A few displayed groups shots of people
who must be part of his crew. But the holos that made the air thin and his head
dizzy were of Spock. The first was a portrait of Spock almost in profile, head
and shoulders occupying the frame, that Vulcan ear a delicately tapered arch,
eyes downcast as if in deep concentration of something off-camera, perhaps even
unaware that it had captured him in so exposed a moment. The only other holo of
Spock was also a candid shot that showed Spock and Jim leaning close to one
another in conversation, oblivious to their surroundings and even their
observer. They did not touch, but the riveted quality of the energy between
them gave Jim the sensation that his stomach had flipped. Those weren’t Dr.
McCoy’s blue shirts in his closet, it wasn’t Dr. McCoy in his bathroom easy as
he pleased this morning, and it wasn’t Dr. McCoy whose personal smells now
mingled with his own in this room, that combined scent the palpable
manifestation of their intimate association.
Quickly Jim turned the holos of Spock around to face the collection of books he
did recognize. Spock, the Vulcan with the wooden expression and the smoldering
eyes. Did Spock know him, really? Was Spock aware of how damaged he was in
thought and deed? I must have lied, Jim thought. I must have lied and he has no
idea what I am and if he did he wouldn’t be here. Jim swallowed back the rising
nausea. Great man, my ass.
He went back over to the window where he watched the stars flicker in the
distance. He realized he had no idea of his exact location in the galaxy, or
even that of their destination. He had vague knowledge of the outer rings being
small, rocky planets on the border between the second and third quadrants, rich
in precious gems and sitting on top of a store of dilithium crystals, but not
much else. Jim realized he was very far from Earth and thought of his mother
for the first time. But her visage was bitter and pinched and silent in his
memory, and he forced her down like bile.
The image of his future self with Spock was not as easily tamed. The alien he
found so disquieting occupied this bed with him. Conjecture indicated that here
in this room Spock had held him, kissed him, taken ownership of him, kept him
from the consuming blackness. He had sudden insight into what he must do: to
secure his future and keep the happiness he’d seen on his own face in all those
holos, he must not let Spock see the depths of depravity and despair he plumbed
in the darkest hollows of himself, must not let Spock see all that he’d done
when he’d run out of options on a putrid planet just an arm’s reach from hell.
Must not let Spock see and know and leave.
Jim knew what men liked: to possess and destroy. Planets, women, slim-hipped
young men mucking out stables as distant Sol browned their glistening skin, it
didn’t matter. And Jim could imagine, had read about and jacked off to, all the
depraved acts that could keep them satisfied. Satisfied and disinclined to
asking questions. He saw himself reflected in the glass, superimposed among the
stars, a reedy, fatherless thing desperately searching for comfort, for
immolation, for anything that could eradicate the crawling darkness inside him.
Maybe Spock would even make it good for him, if they’d been together a long
time. If a Vulcan could care.
Settling into the bed, Jim hugged a pillow to himself, and when he slept, he
dreamed that the stars were eyes that judged.
                                       *
Spock’s long strides faltered as he rounded the corridor of the officers’
quarters toward the captain’s and first officer’s. While he kept the first
officer’s quarters for workspace, meditation, storage of his few belongings,
and periods of necessary solitude, he had not truly stayed in them for 2.7
years. He hesitated at the captain’s door before knocking.
The door glided open at Jim’s command, but Spock had not expected that he would
be propped up in bed, sheets pooled around his hips, blinking at him with
bleary recognition through the open partition.
“I apologize. I did not know you were resting. I can return at a more
convenient time, if you wish.”
“No. No, um, it’s fine, don’t worry. Stay.”
Jim didn’t move, nor did Spock, standing in the wider space of the living area
and gazing unobstructed at the boy whom his bondmate had become. The boy from
whom his bondmate had grown. He felt conflict at the thought of his
hypothesis’s conclusion. He did not wish to commit morally reprehensible acts
upon an underaged body and mind unable to consent by law, yet he could not deny
the appeal of his bondmate’s current – previous? – lithe young form. If his
conclusion required ethical justification, he told himself that his mind and
blood would not cleave to this Jim, indeed, to any being too young to consent,
without the existing anchor of their bond, the strength of their union. Spock
had erected his shields the moment he found Jim naked in the head, but a
cursory exploration at the edges of his mind provided Spock with the familiar
thrum of Jim’s mood: apprehension and arousal in equal parts. Spock closed
himself out again, unwilling to use his superior telepathic abilities to his
own advantage.
They did not speak but continued to regard each other from different rooms.
Spock saw in Jim’s expression the moment he made a decision, spurring him to
push aside the sheets and swing his legs onto the floor.
“You and me are together, right?”
“Indeed, we are both occupying the captain’s quarters at this time, Mr. Kirk.”
Jim rolled his eyes, sitting up straighter.
“No, you know what I mean. We’re like, boyfriends, or whatever.”
“We are bonded in the Vulcan form of marriage.”
Jim’s eyes widened. Spock realized he had been expecting a more casual
relationship, perhaps of the sort common to human teenagers. “Oh,” he said,
seeming to lose his nerve and looking down at his hands.
“Perhaps you would enjoy a refreshment, Mr. Kirk? In the past, your adult self
interfered with the engineering of the replicator and it now dispenses a
favored beverage, lemonade. I am told it is a passable facsimile.”
Jim peered at him from inside the bedroom, assessing. He padded barefoot out
into the living space to join Spock at the table, sliding in across from where
Spock had taken a seat. Spock input a request for a mild tea and a cold
lemonade and waited, feeling Jim’s gaze appraise him.
“So how long have we been Vulcan married?”
“Two years, four months, twenty days, four hours and…. thirteen minutes.”
“Huh. And were we together before? I mean, were we in a mutually satisfying
monogamous romantic relationship beneficial to both parties? Before.”
“Indeed, Mr. Kirk, our relationship commenced approximately one and a half
standard years before our bonding.”
“Approximately.”
“There is disagreement as to the exact date of commencement.”
“And do you call me Mr. Kirk the whole time? Because I gotta say, more than a
little kinky.” Spock noted that the patented James T. Kirk Smile of Ultimate
Seduction was in its infancy and not terribly effective.
“I can call you James, if you prefer,” Spock said mildly, knowing Jim
associated the use of his given name with impending punishment. Jim looked
suitably sour at the prospect.
“Why not just Jim?”
“Very well. Jim. And you may call me Spock.”
Jim looked amused. “As if I’d call you anything else, Acting Captain.” Spock’s
control did not slip even as Jim’s words and tone unwittingly echoed their
interactions during the Narada incident, unsettling him.
The replicator chimed and Spock set Jim’s lemonade in front of him before
carefully handling his own cup of tea. Jim continued to study Spock, scanning
his features as if for any flicker of recognition or feeling. He began to
fidget as the silence persisted.
“Any progress on making me old again?”
“There have been two…theories.”
“Oh, so what are they?”
“They are confidential at the moment.”
“Oh come on! I’m the subject right, so how can you not tell me? What is it,
electroshock treatment or something? I think I could take it.”
“There will be no electroshock treatments, Jim.”
“Then what?”
Spock chose a proven method of defense: prevaricate and distract. “Theories
must be tested, Jim. If one proves sound, we will implement it. Would you care
for a game of tri-dimensional chess?”
                                       *
By the time Jim and Spock had finished two games, Jim was unable to conceal his
admiration for Spock, and, by extension, his future self for managing to marry
Spock.
The novelty of having found someone who not only challenged him but beat him
had not waned in the face of defeat. Spock also had a staggering breadth of
knowledge in a variety of subjects ranging from Federation-wide historical
events (though he made no reference to the one Jim hated and knew most
intimately) to the social castes of the tree people of Kartasia III. Plus, he
might never be a stand up comedian, but after a few suspicious comments, Jim
had the feeling he’d spent a lot of time catching his breath laughing in
Spock’s presence.
Of course, Jim was not one to overlook the fact of Spock’s striking appearance.
Alien, yes, with his upswept brows and the ears that required no mention, the
blood pumping green beneath porcelain skin, but Jim had lost his grip on what
so disturbed him about Spock that morning. Spock was totally masculine in his
beauty, nothing soft or curved in the sharp lines of his face and body. And Jim
could sense power there, pulsating tightly coiled and deceptive in the lean
sinews of Spock’s spare form. He found that as the afternoon subsided into
evening, more and more he craved that potent might, burned with biting urgency
for oblivion in Spock’s immersive presence.
He’d felt this before in the company of powerful men, his frantic heart forcing
overheated blood southward in eager teenaged optimism. Only a tenuous thread of
anxiety had kept Jim from slithering like a low, begging thing into the beds of
such men: Hank, his mom’s chief farmhand, whose fading prison tattoos stretched
over burly muscles used for a lifetime of labor; Coach Nunez, who’d never
stopped asking him to join the wrestling team even after he’d been barred from
extracirriculars altogether for truancy; Mark Song, who had his own holding
cell at the Riverside police station and served him drinks on the sly at the
Orbit with a dangerous glint in his black eyes.
Jim frowned at the planes of the chess board, hardly seeing where Spock mounted
his offensive on Jim’s queen. Spock was not like those men. Spock was… his
husband. His husband who was being kind to him, and making clever jokes, and
playing chess with him. No, Spock was not to be counted in their company.
A comm device whistled.
“McCoy to Spock.”
“Spock here.”
“I’d like you and Jim to come to the mess for dinner. I need Jim eating
specific food.”
Spock met Jim’s eyes over the game. Jim shrugged his assent.
“We will leave immediately, doctor. Spock out.”
Jim hopped to his feet and stood near the closet.
“I should wear something better than pajamas, maybe,” he said, pressing the
door open. He rifled through the civvies pushed to the far left of the closet
for something where he wouldn’t look like a scrawny kid playing dress-up with
his dad’s clothes. He found a pair of jeans that might fit him; his future self
appeared to favor tight jeans a size or two down, and these might drag on the
floor a bit but he could pull them off. With a furtive glance at Spock, who
still sat straight up and proper at the work table they’d been playing on, Jim
shucked the black cotton pants Spock had handed him in the morning and turned
toward the closet, ostensibly for modesty, but really to display his bare ass
as he stepped slowly into the denim. When he turned back around, zipping up the
fly, Spock had clasped his hands on the table and appeared to be resolutely
studying the game he’d all but won. Smirking, Jim made a show of stripping off
the oversized white t-shirt and slipping into one of the snug black Starfleet
issue undershirts. If he failed at putting on a stunning show of grace, he
chose to ignore it and announced that he was ready to go.
In the mess hall, McCoy sat at a corner table opposite Nurse Chapel. When Jim
and Spock joined them, Jim sliding in next to Chapel and Spock next to McCoy,
McCoy slid a tray of food at Jim with perhaps more force than necessary.
“I wanna see you eat all of that,” he said, jabbing a finger towards the tray.
Jim looked down to see slices of a large steak lying on a bed of dark greens. A
cup of replicated fruit sat in the right corner, and a stubby breadstick in the
left. For dessert Jim got a –
“Yogurt, are you serious right now?”
“It’s key lime flavored,” McCoy growled.
When Jim turned his eyes on Spock for support, Spock only said, “The doctor is
an expert in nutrition.”
Jim looked at Chapel then, meeting only an incredulous look accompanied by a
shake of her blonde head. With a sigh, he speared a slice of steak, catching
greens on the end of his fork and shoveling the entire mass into his face with
barely contained gusto. Truthfully, he still felt profound relief to behold
food in all its forms. He kept up the dessert racket to comfort the adults who
so often hovered over him, not only wanting him to eat and smile and achieve,
but to be as spoiled and entitled a teenager as the sullen youths who crowded
deserted drug store parking lots and sneered at passersby unworthy of their
august presence. It passed for normal, made his mother feign exasperation,
deflected from the putrescence roiling in his gut and his spirit. Jim ate
quickly and silently, McCoy and Chapel bickered over sickbay rosters and
reconstituted grapes and the ethics of treating such and such a people for this
and that foul parasite while Spock interjected every so often to tell them they
were being illogical. But Spock’s eyes and attention stayed on Jim, who felt
impossibly young and laid bare under the weight of that unwavering gaze.
*
Spock was jostled awake in the darkness of the first officer’s quarters by a
cool, lissome, naked body sliding into his bed. He went rigid at the intrusion,
at the chill press of human skin and – desire destruction need shame admiration
– emotion against the entire length of him.
“Jim,” he hissed, the short syllable swallowed as if it never was when Jim
sealed his pliant mouth over Spock’s and forced his tongue past Spock’s teeth.
“Mmmph,” Spock grunted, moving to sit up. Jim was a limpet clasping Spock’s
body in a trap of spindly limbs. Spock wrenched his mouth away and heaved in
the breath stolen from him, holding Jim’s bony shoulders steady.
“Come on, Spock,” Jim whispered, his voice hoarse. His lips were parted for
quick breaths, his eyes large and intense and expectant in the dark, his hand
flexing in the hair at the back of Spock’s head, urging him forward. “I can
make you feel good. Please, Spock.” Thwarted by Spock’s unyielding hold on his
shoulders, Jim gave an experimental roll of his hips.
“No,” Spock said in his firmest voice, even as his body betrayed him. This was
his bondmate so wantonly straddled atop him, wanting him, and his blood did not
deliberate on Jim’s regressed physical state. Jim ground with more confidence
into Spock’s traitorous lap.
“I know you want it, Spock. I can feel it.” Jim’s hand was on his erection,
squeezing with a loose, inexpert grip. He tried leaning close to Spock’s ear.
“Know you want it, come on.”
With a snarl, Spock pitched Jim to the ground. He realized abruptly that he was
on his feet looking down at the transformed body and anguished eyes of his
bondmate. Remorse bloomed hot and bitter at the base of his spine before he
could exert control over it, and he kneeled to reach Jim, sprawled and shaking
on the floor. Jim scrambled to get to his feet, skin ablaze in the human
physiological reaction to humiliation, and he shoved Spock’s hands away. “Jim,
allow me to –”
“Fuck you, Spock! Jesus, fuck, stop looking at me, stop looking at me! Don’t
you look at me, you fuck!” A fist collided with Spock’s ear, and then Jim was
gone, darting through the shared bathroom into the captain’s quarters.
Spock stood naked in the barren bedroom of the first officer’s quarters for a
moment and felt quite keenly the absence of Jim as he knew him: four inches
taller and sixty pounds heavier, reconciled with the darkness inside himself
instead of drowning in it, stubble on his jaw when he kissed him with so much
tenderness. He had tamped down on the sensation of desolate solitude earlier as
he sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge, when he answered Jim’s familiar
chess moves, when he’d dipped the bed with his lone weight in this stark room
when he required rest and could not bear to test his own hypothesis regarding
Jim’s dilemma. He had pushed it down deep with the ease of a half Vulcan
outcast terribly accustomed to loneliness, but now he allowed himself a single
moment of illogic to miss his captain, his lover, his bondmate, before donning
a robe and following the boy his bondmate had become into the captain’s
quarters.
He found Jim crouched next to the bed shivering, a sheet wrapped around him
despite the temperature controls still being set to the compromise between
Vulcan-normal and Earth-normal.
“Go away,” Jim muttered into his arms, head tucked low.
“I apologize for …shoving you, Jim. I did not intend to cause you harm,” Spock
said, seating himself cross-legged in front of Jim, who still did not look up.
“Please leave,” came the reply.
“I must explain myself. If, after you have listened to me, you would still
prefer that I leave, I will of course vacate your quarters.”
Jim was silent, his harsh breath echoing off the bulkheads.
“I confess that you were correct in my assumption that I desire you.” Here Jim
lifted his head slightly and cracked one eye to peer at him. “I find you a
compelling, dynamic individual regardless of your incarnation. There is even
reason to believe that…intimate contact between us could possibly return you to
your proper state –” Both eyes now peeked from above arms crossed over knees. “
–but I am unable to justify perpetrating an act of molestation against you,
despite the logic which dictates that I must.”
“How is it molestation if I sit on your penis begging for it?” Jim mumbled into
his arms, eyes scowling and face flushing.
“You are below the age of consent.”
“You’re my husband.”
“Do you believe that my status as your spouse implies that I have open rights
to your body at any time, regardless of your mental state or desires?”
“Yeah. Well, I mean, no, but –”
“It is my duty as your bondmate to keep you from harm, Jim. Even from yourself,
or myself.”
“I just, I just want to keep you,” Jim said it a rush. “I just want you, Spock,
what’s wrong with that?”
“Jim, you desire not only sexual gratification from me, but castigation for
imagined transgressions in the form of rough, demeaning intercourse. I will not
become party to injuries both emotional and physical to your person.”
Jim’s head shot up. “What? How did you --- What the hell are you – I never ---”
“Jim,” Spock said, laying light fingertips on Jim’s sheet-covered knee and
ducking down to meet Jim’s eyes. “I know you. I know all of you.”
Jim’s face transformed into a caricature of itself, contorting in horror and
panic. He began to hyperventilate, bunching the sheet in his fists as he shook
his head side to side. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no –”
“Jim, listen to me. Inhale slowly through your nose, exhale slowly through your
mouth. Be still. Be still, ashayam.” Spock had come around and lain a hot hand
on Jim’s back through the sheet, maintaining an eighteen-centimeter distance
between their bodies. Jim moaned through the restoration of his own very human
controls, and then he was silent with his head in his arms and his breathing
steady.
They remained huddled between the bed and the bulkheads for nineteen minutes
and forty-three seconds. At last Jim shifted to look at Spock and said, “Stay
with me? Don’t leave. Don’t leave.”
Spock inclined his head in acquiescence. Jim rose and clambered without
pretense of grace into the bed, still wrapped in the sheet. Spock slid in
behind him, their bodies molding together chest to back, hips cradled in hips,
knees into knees. After arranging the covers, Spock slung an arm around the
diminished body of his bondmate, who closed his eyes and slept without
dreaming.
                                       *
When Jim woke, Spock was propped against the bulkhead beside him, robe lashed
to his body preserving all modesty, padd and stylus in hand. Jim recalled the
events of the night before with sudden clarity and groaned, setting a hand to
his eyes as if to block out his mortification. But Spock was still there,
reading reports and writing up memos in bed, as if Jim really were his husband,
nothing left to hide between them. Spock had implied that he was aware of all
of Jim’s most jealously kept secrets, his burning shame and the leprous stains
devouring his spirit. All this, and still Spock had stated outright that he
wanted Jim. Something nagged at the edges of Jim’s memory, tantalizing him with
its significance. Then, like the sun emerging from behind clouds to illuminate
the sleep-dazed corners of his mind, he knew.
“Did you say we had to have sex to get me back to normal?” he blurted. He
seemed to have startled Spock, who whipped his head to one side to look at him.
He still lay prone, swaddled in the sheet, just the top half of his head
exposed.
“That is my hypothesis, yes,” Spock answered with some reluctance.
“How’s that work, then? You got magic Vulcan sperm or something? Come one, come
all, heal all your ills?”
Spock set his padd flat in his lap and regarded him with what Jim detected as
fond vexation.
“No, Jim. Vulcan ejaculate is analogous to human ejaculate and has no
supernatural properties, as I am sure you are aware.”
“Then what’s the deal?”
Spock inched his backside backward to sit up straighter against the bulkhead,
hands pressed into the bed.
“It is not logical, per se,” he equivocated.
“Bring on the illogic then,” Jim pressed him. “I’d love to hear this.” He saw
Spock take a moment to formulate his reply.
“I believe the catalyst for the transformative events of two nights ago was
your expression of a wish to …give your virginity to me, though it was
impossible. It was not, I believe, a romanticized notion of giving yourself to
me born of antiquated Terran ideals conflating worth with sexual purity,
rather, it was a gesture of entrusting me with your security. Your early sexual
encounters were not…pleasant, Jim.”
Jim watched Spock fold his long-fingered hands over the pad in his lap. Spock
did not shy from his gaze, though Jim felt himself shrinking inwardly at the
thought of the things he must have done with Hank, the Coach, Mark, innumerable
other rough and tumble men. The things he’d must have allowed them to do.
Begged them to do. He shut his eyes against Spock’s easy acceptance of him,
against the promise and weight of Spock’s unconditional devotion, tucking his
nose into the sheet to burrow deeper.
“I still don’t get how it would fix me,” he whispered.
“It was my impression that wishes upon stars required no scientific
explanation.”
Jim barked out a humorless guffaw, still not opening his eyes. “Funny, from
you.”
“Indeed, that is essentially what the doctor implied as well.” There was a
pause. “He also implied that I would – what is the phrase? ‘Grasp at hay’ to
find a resolution.”
Jim felt a heaviness settle over him. It was the first time he’d truly
considered Spock’s perspective: he’d lost a captain and a partner, and despite
his impassive demeanor, he missed the man whose place Jim had taken. He would
go to any lengths to get that man back, even eschewing logic when logic
provided no viable answers. He dislodged his head from his cocoon and looked at
Spock, heart aching. He realized that Spock’s fealty was not his to snatch up
and hoard like so much non-perishable food. Spock was for his future.
“I hypothesize,” Spock continued, “that if we engage in sexual relations as per
the terms of your wish, thereby fulfilling it, the regression process would
reverse itself and you would once again be an adult and the captain of this
starship.”
“And your husband.”
“And my husband.”
Jim wriggled, encased yet in the sheet, toward Spock until he lay against
Spock’s side. Spock poured out heat like a star going supernova. After a
moment, one of those fevered arms settled over Jim, soothing, not restraining.
“So we have to. Even if you don’t want to, you know, take advantage. I promise
not to ask for anything bad.” He craned a bit to get a look at Spock’s face.
Jim thought he could see skepticism there before he settled back with his face
mashed against Spock’s hip.
“We will not reach Zenzobar of the Third Outer Ring for approximately two days.
I believe it would be beneficial for us to spend time in each other’s presence
and communicate frequently so as to avoid more… misunderstandings.”
“So you wanna hang out and talk?”
“Essentially, yes. If the efforts of the science and medical teams in regards
to your case prove futile, and we must …copulate, I will strive for a wholly
positive experience. Providing such will require trust and mutual
understanding, which we do not yet have between us.”
Translation, Jim thought: you don’t want some damaged kid throwing himself at
you and then freaking out again. Out loud, he said, “Heh, I think you just
promised me the lay of my life, Spock.”
Warm fingers threaded gently into his hair. Jim’s heart skipped a beat at the
contact.
“So it seems, Jim.”
                                       *
“Drink up,” McCoy grunted as he set a tall glass of milk in front of Jim in the
mess before alpha shift. His tray clattered as he slid in next to Spock,
staring at Jim and his glass of milk with an expectant expression. “Well?”
“I don’t like milk too much.”
“That’s not just any milk, Jimboy. That milk’s gonna turn you into a man.”
McCoy leaned back, crossing his arms and giving Spock a smug smirk.
Jim frowned.
“But I thought –”
“Christ, did this hobgoblin tell you he needed to deflower you?”
“Doctor, I am reasonably certain—”
“Betcha just ate that right up, too, huh Jim?”
“Hey! Shut up!” Jim stood, scowling at McCoy, a hot blush crawling up his neck,
tinting his ears, flooding his face. The mess hall went quiet and McCoy looked
contrite.
“Sorry, Jim. Just forgetting you’re not – you, sometimes.”
Jim sank back into his seat, burning with embarrassment. Spock leveled a
derisive eyebrow at McCoy, setting down his utensils.
“Doctor, I assume you have data to support your milk hypothesis. Please
elaborate.”
Looking rather pinched, McCoy pushed his tray to the side and leaned forward.
“Me and Christine’ve been reading up on those Devarsian goat myths, and in
every single one, youths and maidens and old men are healed by the power of
goats’ milk. And Spock, remember how I about died when I saw some for sale at
that farmers’ market? This is my last container of it, still good and
everything.”
“That is illogical. There is no evidence that what has befallen Jim originated
from Devar XI. Our presence on the planet was minimal and occurred over four
weeks prior to Jim’s regression.”
“And what makes this less logical than your gonzo ‘wish upon a star’ statutory
rape theory?” McCoy barked, eyebrows arching wildly, a finger thrust into
Spock’s personal space. “I thought as long as we were trying out flights of
fancy on this tin can that drinking a tall glass of alien goats’ milk was as
likely to cure him as drinking a tall glass of fully grown Vulcan male!”
“Doctor, the expression of the wish and the timing of the regression suggest
that—”
“Know what Spock? I think you want it to be some kinda crazy wish Jim made in
bed with you. This is your fantasy come true, you’d love to fix up your broken
boy with the power of your big, Vulcan---”
“Ears!” Jim hollered, getting to his feet again. The mess hall was vacant now,
the exodus unnoticed amid the fracas of such lively discussion. McCoy’s jaws
snapped shut as Jim chugged the Devarsian goats’ milk and flung the glass
behind his shoulder, careless of the shattering. Then he threw his arms out and
snarled, “Well? Come on, McCoy, where’s my big boy body now? Huh?”
He stood panting in the empty mess, McCoy gawping at him, Spock’s fixed gaze as
intense as ever.
“Jesus,” McCoy breathed. “Jesus, I’m sorry, Jim. I swear I’m not trying to be a
jackass about this, I just. I want you to be well, and whole, and innocent, I
guess.”
Jim snorted, lips twisting in a sneer. “You’re a long time too late for that
shit, doctor.”
“Aw, Jim, it’s not like that.”
“Yeah? What the hell’s it like then?”
“It’s like all this shit that happened to you is just that: shit that happened
to you, outta your control, and you did your best under the circumstances. It
doesn’t make you bad, Jim. I wish you could see that.”
“You have no idea about anything, and you’re trying to keep the only one who
does away from me. Why are you doing this? Why are you punishing me?”
McCoy rounded the table and grabbed Jim by the shoulders in a harsh grip. “No,
Jim. No.” He shook him. Spock was on his feet in an instant, prying McCoy off
of Jim.
“Doctor, unhand him. I apologize, Jim. The doctor is incapable of restraining
himself. He is often guilty of letting his emotions rule him.”
“Don’t you even start, Spock, I swear to God.” McCoy backed off. “A body might
think you were on the verge of an emotion. I’m sorry again, Jim. You need to
know I never meant you harm.”
Jim wrapped his arms around himself in a defensive position, hunching his
shoulders. McCoy shot him a penitent look.
“I gotta get to sickbay. You just… well. You just hang in there.”
When McCoy was gone, Jim sat again, bowing his head over his breakfast. He
forked some of the pancakes and rubbery, reconstituted sausage into his mouth,
chewing slowly. Spock remained upright and rigid, staring at Jim’s back,
appetite gone.
“He’s gone, you know. You can sit down.”
“I am aware, Jim.”
“Then come here and sit down and stop staring at me.”
Spock sat, but kept his eyes on Jim’s downturned face.
“You feel shame though it was McCoy who disgraced himself, not you.”
“No one said humans are logical, Spock.” The pancakes and sausage were steadily
disappearing. Relaxing his spine almost imperceptibly, Spock picked up his
spoon to stir his porridge.
“Dr. McCoy has a forceful personality, but he is your closest friend, Jim. You
knew and held him in high esteem long before we met. He was truthful when he
stated that he meant you no harm. He and I share a contentious relationship,
but after a fashion, we are also friends.”
“I can’t see how.”
“You must trust the man you became.”
When Jim’s plate was clean, Spock stood.
“Perhaps you would derive pleasure from visiting the bridge today, Jim. You are
technically still Starfleet personnel.”
Jim brightened, slung the trays into the receptacles, and matched Spock stride
for stride on the way to the bridge.
                                       *

When the doors to the bridge opened, Spock glided in with purpose, but Jim hung
back in the doorway, awestruck. Every surface shone as if waxed daily, every
piece of equipment was sleeker, smaller, and probably faster than he’d ever
seen, not to mention that technology he’d never even bothered imagining, and
the viewscreen… The viewscreen comprised the entirety of the far wall, stars
and planets and assorted masses studded in the blanket of space, the
Enterprise’s protective shroud. Jim realized he was gaping when he saw a pretty
communications officer looking and him and suppressing a smile without success
as if familiar with his brand of enthusiasm. He shot her back a shrug and a
sheepish smile, fully entering the bridge.
With an upturned palm and sparing gestures, Spock began indicating the bridge
crew and introducing them. “Helmsman and chief navigator, Lieutenant Sulu and
Ensign Chekov. Chief communications officer Lieutenant Uhura. Systems analyst
Lieutenant Xingtao, tactical officer Lieutenant Commander Ahrens.”
Jim nodded at each of them, feeling small in the face of their smiles and
shared looks and warm welcomes. He swallowed, suddenly dizzy.
“You may sit at the science station, Mr. Kirk,” Spock told him, directing him
to a data console next to the chief communications officer as he sat in the
command chair. Jim turned his attention to the science station, taking measured
breaths and ignoring the cold lick of discontent at Spock’s brusque
professional manner. Nothing personal, he reminded himself as Spock and the
navigator discussed route mapping, Spock’s eyes never alighting on Jim. Jim
straightened his spine and tried to act like an officer who deserved to be on
this magnificent bridge. Scrolling through the data, Jim skimmed a lot of dry
analyses of the compositions of nearby gaseous bodies and their positions in
space until, not three minutes after he had sat down, he was sure he was done
with the science station.
“How you doing?” came a low query from the chief communications officer. Uhuru?
He turned to face her.
“Okay,” he said. She cocked her head.
“You don’t sound so sure.”
He shrugged, looking back down into the data console. “I’m just causing
problems for people. It would be better if I changed back.”
“They’re working on it in the science labs,” she said. Then she gave a soft
laugh. “Not sure what medical’s doing, though.”
“You heard about that?”
“Honey, everybody heard about that. How’s the goats’ milk settling in?”
Jim couldn’t help breaking into a smile. “Kinda sloshy,” he whispered.
“You’ll be okay, Jim. And if we have to send you into negotiations as is, I’ll
make sure you’re totally prepped.”
“What’s with that anyway? I mean, why can’t that princess deal with someone
else? Spock’s gotta be a way better choice than me right now. Or, you know,
anyone.”
Uhura barked out a short laugh, then looked around to make sure no one heard
her. She leaned back in when no one gave her the stink eye and said, “Your
totally fabricated reputation precedes you, Kirk.”
Jim’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“The outer ringers’ only desirable resources are precious gems and dilithium.
They’ve had to scrap for pretty much everything else, and part of that means
building themselves up, dressing themselves up. If you’re rich, you drip with
jewels, you can afford the right clothes, the right lifestyle, the right social
circle, whatever. What is beautiful is what is valuable, and that includes life
forms. Some of them, like Supreme Empress H’Lopia, throw their power around and
demand to deal only with beings of, quote, ‘exceptional physical beauty.’ And
by deal with, I mean sleep with. She heard wildly exaggerated stories about you
all across Federation space and decided you were her next target.”
Jim stared. “Huh. I didn’t know news of my total hotness had reached all over
the galaxy like that.”
Uhura laughed again, adjusting her personal comm device. “Well,” she said in a
teasing tone, “there’s no accounting for taste.”
“She just hasn’t seen the rest of you yet. She’ll be throwing me over for that
super buff helmsman as soon as we reach orbit.” Jim thrust a thumb over his
shoulder in the general direction of the helm.
“We’ll see. She’s pretty insistent, and, ah, shrill, and I hear Komack owes her
a favor for the crazy rock he’s got on his wife’s hand right now.”
“Starfleet Command can force me to sleep with someone even though I’m Vulcan
married?”
“Well, no, but you always manage to let ’em down easy. I don’t know how you do
it, Kirk, but I’ve seen you turn the most aggressive suitors into harmless
kittens who thank you when all’s said and done and they haven’t gotten you in
the sack. Sometimes I still can’t believe it when it happens.”
Jim glanced at Spock in the periphery of his vision. “Obviously I’m just that
smooth, Lieutenant.” Uhura laughed again, swinging her seat back to face her
console.
Alpha shift passed slowly, peppered with conversation with Uhura. At lunch,
alternates relieved the bridge crew so they could eat in the mess. He was
spared McCoy’s fussing, but not Chekov and Sulu’s bickering. Spock and Uhura
shared a quiet discussion about the fascinating language of Samargol V’s native
fleabats, and Jim sat silently spooning soggy replicated pasta into his mouth
until it was time to go back to the bridge and the hard ergonomic seat at the
science station.
After interminable stretches of time during which Jim counted his arm hairs,
mooned over Spock, tried to eavesdrop on Sulu and Chekov’s conversation and let
himself be mesmerized by Uhura’s sparkling earrings, something worthwhile
finally happened. Lieutenant Sulu steered them through an unanticipated
asteroid belt with the ease and agility of a bird soaring free on the wind. Jim
leaned back in the seat, captivated by the images on the expansive viewscreen,
the starship tilting into curves, sailing over and under and around the debris
with staggering grace. The bridge crew had ceased all conversation, all
extraneous noise-making, to allow Sulu full concentration on his task. When
they reached the end of the string of space debris, Jim couldn’t help letting
out an exhilarated whoop and clapping his hands together once. Sulu took a deep
breath and let his shoulders slump a little in relief. Chekov chattered at him
and patted his shoulder, grinning. The bridge hummed with the crew’s collective
satisfaction.
The jovial mood was short lived, broken when Spock sprang to his feet and moved
toward the viewscreen.
“Magnify unidentified object,” he said. There, a speck on the edge of the
viewscreen expanded, and the crew beheld a clunky, outdated vessel drifting
without power. “Hail at all frequencies, Lieutenant Uhura.”
“Nothing, Captain. Communications are completely down. They’re broadcasting a
general distress signal, but no recorded SOS and no answers to our hails.”
“Sir, life support systems reporting significant damage, defaulted to minimum
use mode,” Xingtao said. “It looks like a private science vessel, Earth-
manufacture. I’m unable to determine what happened to it without more data.”
“Mr. Ahrens, report to security and ready an away team with environmental
suits.”
Ahrens stood at attention. “Sir, will you be beaming over with us?”
Spock’s eyes flickered almost imperceptibly toward Jim. “Negative, Tactical
Officer. In addition to security personnel, bring Lieutenant Murphy-Stone from
sciences and have her fitted with a camera for a vid-feed to be broadcasted
directly to the bridge viewscreen. Dismissed.”
Spock was at the science station in two long steps, clasping his hands together
behind his back.
“It would be best if you returned to your quarters or visited the observation
deck, Mr. Kirk.”
“I’d rather stay. I mean, I’ll be thinking about what could be happening no
matter where I am on the ship, anyway.”
“Certain things cannot be unseen, Mr. Kirk.”
Jim clenched his jaw and glowered at Spock. “And I think I know that better
than anyone, Mr. Spock.” He saw resignation pass over Spock’s eyes, the moment
Spock gave in, but Jim saw no fondness qualify the concession and so felt no
satisfaction, only resentment at being made to feel like a child and a burden.
He dug his heels into the floor on either side of his seat at the science
station, crossing his arms over his body, tucking his fists into his armpits.
“Very well, Mr. Kirk. You will remain silent and stationary for the duration.”
Spock went back to the command chair without sparing Jim another glance, and
Jim swallowed back a hot rage bubbling up in his throat. Uhura leaned over and
touched his arm, sympathy coloring her expression. He closed his eyes so he
wouldn’t have to see her seeing him.
Tense minutes passed until the viewscreen flickered and flared into an image of
the landing party’s position on the unidentified vessel. They had beamed into
the corresponding transporter room, a gray, empty place with dim lighting.
“Can you hear me, Captain Spock? Come in, Captain Spock,” came a female voice
through the bridge-wide comm speakers. On the viewscreen, crew members flanked
her and fanned out as they stepped into the corridor. The viewscreen went
black, and the bridge heard only breathing and shuffling. One by one the
landing party turned on their flashlights.
“Affirmative, Lieutenant. Have you scanned for life signs?”
“Yes, sir. Nothing alive within range. Oxygen levels low, but able to support
life. I’m trying to get a read on why this ship is dead in space, but so far
there’s no relevant data.”
The landing party moved through the corridors, shining their lights through
open doors, exposing vacant, stagnating rooms. Sometimes, spatters of blood,
much of it brown with age, appeared on walls where the light fell on them.
“Lieutenant Murphy-Stone, have you encountered any casualties?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Exercise caution, Lieutenant. Attempt to reach the bridge.”
“Yes, sir.”
The security personnel moved quickly and silently, flashlights scanning the
premises, phasers set to stun. Murphy-Stone brought up the rear, the buzzing of
the tricorder and the rubbing of the environmental suit against itself as she
walked the only sounds on the bridge of the Enterprise. The barren starship’s
lights sputtered now and again, exposing in flashes a sturdy, utilitarian
vessel with equipment destroyed and strewn along its floors, all of it smeared
with iron-based blood. And there were the bones.
“Oh hell,” Murphy-Stone whispered, the sensitive microphone of the camera
picking it up and delivering the soft curse onto the bridge of the Enterprise.
When the away team came across bones picked clean, they averted their lights.
They made their way to the bridge, stepping over broken, blood-stained
bulkheads, tendon-lashed human bones and crushed science gear, pointing phasers
round every corner.
As the away team approached the bridge, a sense of foreboding flooded Jim’s
core. Dread began to flatten his lungs and he gripped the seat of his chair in
an effort to steady himself. He felt sweat prickle along his hairline and down
his back. On the viewscreen, Murphy-Stone and Ahrens stood back as the three
men from security forced the bridge door’s wide and filed in. No bloody tableau
confronted them, no sickening horrors awaited them there. Jim let out a shaking
breath.
“There’s a text document on screen at the helm, sir,” Murphy-Stone reported.
“It looks like… it looks like an account of what happened here.”
“The main points, Lieutenant.”
“There was a calculation error, or maybe intentional sabotage. They ran out of
fuel and their warp drives powered down, as well as their sublight engines.
They went as far as they could on fumes under impulse power, not even a parsec.
An unknown computer virus jammed all communications, destroyed 70% of the life
support generators and forced the food replicators offline. There was… there
was only a limited store of nonperishable food items.”
The roaring in Jim’s ears wasn’t interference from the comm devices, but the
rush of his own frenzied blood, his jackrabbit heart railing against the cage
of his ribs. That which he couldn’t unsee was upon him again. Paralyzed, Jim
could not tear his gaze from the viewscreen, could not even think to regret
defying Spock’s earlier suggestion to leave the bridge.
“The crew lasted four months and then….” Murphy-Stone seemed unwilling to say
it.
“That’s enough, Lieutenant,” Spock said, sparing her the task. “Return to the
transporter room and beam back immediately. We must warp out of this area of
space as soon as your party returns to the Enterprise.”
The away team made haste away from the bridge, the camera mounted on Murphy-
Stone’s shoulder jostling with her efforts. Suddenly, the image pitched and
Murphy-Stone was on the ground, her flashlight skittering away from her, a
shriek piercing the air.
“Lieutenant!” It was Ahrens, back in an instant, flashlight thwarting the
camera. The Enterprise bridge crew could only listen as a flurry of shouts and
curses accompanied the thuds of bodies colliding with bulkheads, the floor,
other bodies, and finally, finally, the dull blast of a phaser set to stun.
“Mr. Ahrens, report. Report, Mr. Ahrens,” Jim heard Spock demand distantly. The
sound of harsh breathing filled the bridge. The camera had not restored visual.
“Mr. Ahrens, that’s an order.”
“We’re fine, sir. Shaken, but all fine,” Murphy-Stone panted.
“Murphy-Stone is unharmed, Captain,” came Ahrens’ voice. “She was attacked by a
survivor and there was a scuffle. I killed him. I killed him, sir. It was set
to stun but I killed him.”
A wave of nausea sent Jim’s vision swimming. He lurched up and stumbled out of
the bridge, heedless of Spock calling his name after him.
                                       *
McCoy was lurking near the bridge bathroom, contemplating entering the bridge
to try to apologize to Jim again, when a tornado of limbs slammed into him with
the force of all Jim’s torment behind it. The pair of them toppled to the
ground, McCoy’s head smacking against the floor tile. He groaned. Jim slid off
him and lay facedown on the floor, no strength left in his quaking body,
gagging through tearless, wracking sobs. McCoy propped himself up by his
elbows, watching his captain, reduced in more ways than the obvious, break down
under the enormous weight of his own guilt. McCoy shifted to a sitting position
and carefully laid a hand between Jim’s prominent shoulder blades. Suddenly Jim
reeled, eyes wide, and he scrambled toward a toilet where he heaved his lunch,
his breakfast, and all his sour bile. Through it all McCoy rubbed warm circles
on his back.
“Easy now. There you go, darlin’, let it out. There you go.” He murmured
comforting nonsense now and then, his gruff voice reverberating between the
bathroom bulkheads. Jim hugged the cool toilet in the aftermath, sweaty and
quivering and unable to summon the strength to move or tell McCoy to fuck off.
McCoy pressed the flusher for him.
“It’s all right now, Jim. You’re all right now.”
“Never be all right.
“Yeah? Well there’s a starship you captain says otherwise. They don’t just give
starships to anyone off the street, you know.”
“They ate each other on that other one.”
“What?”
“There was a ship, and a distress signal. He sent a rescue party with no one to
rescue; they all ate each other. And then they killed him.”
McCoy was silent, piecing together a story to go with Jim’s disjointed
narrative. It was a familiar story, dressed up nice and new with different
players and costumes, but it was still the same old horror show. McCoy didn’t
need to hear the gritty details to know them and ache in response.
“I know, Jim. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t know. You don’t know.”
“Tell me, darlin’. Tell me how it is.”
Jim pulled away from the toilet and McCoy’s soothing hand on his back to glare
at McCoy with accusing blue eyes.
“It’s like there was no food left and they kept waiting for someone to come
save them and no one came, no matter how many waves they sent, or how many
people died and then some of them got so hungry they turned on you like dogs.
They turned on you when the food was gone and the police patrolled for race
betrayers and all you could do was hide and try to keep the little ones alive
and still they’d find you, they’d find you, understand?” Jim rubbed his face
with his hands, pressing his fingers to his eyes as if to block out what he’d
been living with for so long.
“No,” McCoy said. Jim looked at him. “No, I’ll never understand. No one can,
not without living through it. But you did Jim. You lived through it and you’re
here and you’re strong and you’re breakin’ hearts all over the galaxy.” Jim was
shaking his head, not hearing McCoy’s attempt to lighten the mood, maybe not
hearing McCoy at all.
“You don’t know what I did. You don’t know what I did.”
“All right. How ’bout I tell you what I did, then?”
“You’re a doctor. You save people, boo hoo.”
McCoy snorted. “You think you got the market cornered on pain and guilt and bad
deeds done, boy? Are you so far gone that you think you’re the only one who
feels as deep as you do?” Jim’s eyes were two blazing points in that
thundercloud face.
McCoy sighed and stretched his legs out in front of him, back against a
bulkhead. He wished, not for the first time, that Starfleet uniforms weren’t so
closely tailored to the body so he had room for a discreet flask. That lack,
more than anything, proved that stars didn’t just bestow wishes on the needy.
He was needy, goddamnit, and he still had to hide his liquor away in his desk’s
false bottom.
“You ever heard of pyrrhoneuritis? Well, it’s a wasting disease. Disgusting
thing, eats away at you, breaks you down, leaves you in agony. There was no
cure. My dad got it, and there was nothing I could do. Sat by his bed listening
to him moaning while I pored over the medical texts again and again. Thought I
could buy time injecting him with painkillers and tri-ox compound and total
bullshit that never did a goddamned thing. He eventually used all the breath he
had left to beg me to let him die. Not just let him die, but make it happen. My
father lay there in his bed asking me to kill him, Jim.”
Jim mouth hung open, his face bloodless, attention rapt. McCoy forced himself
to go on.
“So what could I do? What could I do Jim? A few weeks later, a goddamn handful
of days, really, someone on the Trebalum colonies found a cure. For
pyrrhoneuritis! Hundreds of years of fatal affliction and bam! They cleared
that shit right up just weeks too late to save my dad. I went over and over it:
if I’d just waited, if I’d found it faster myself. I sent myself straight into
hell, couldn’t think of anything but his wasted body disintegrating while I
watched. I destroyed my marriage, I lost my little girl. I killed my father
Jim. I killed him.”
“I killed him,” Jim echoed in a hollow voice.
McCoy nodded.
“I killed him,” Jim said again. “He found us and grabbed Kevin but I was
quicker. I was quicker.”
“And you saved Kevin, and yourself, and all those other kids, kept them safe
until the shuttles came. You know what he would have done if you hadn’t killed
him, Jim. It’s no shame. You’ve got to stop torturing yourself.”
“Have you?”
McCoy’s answering smile was wry. “Touché.”
“Maybe…” Jim hesitated. “Maybe people like you and me, no matter what our
reasons were to do it, maybe we don’t get to be happy. You know?”
McCoy swore he felt his hair going gray. “Aw, hell, kid. You are happy. On this
boat, with that pointy-eared bastard, doing what you were born to do. And you
deserve that happiness. You know that, don’t you?”
Jim looked bleak. “I don’t see how. I don’t see how anyone can stand to look at
me.”
Without thought McCoy leaned over and gathered Jim to his chest in a crushing
embrace. He heard Jim’s bones rub together, and Jim let out a strained gurgle
before McCoy abruptly freed him, awkwardness pervading the moment.
“Oh,” Jim said.
“Sorry,” McCoy muttered. “Just— just don’t talk like that, would you?”
Spock arrived with his characteristic silence, hovering in the entryway with
badly concealed concern. Jim looked up at him with naked hope on his face, but
then he seemed to wilt and looked back at the ground. The heavy ball of
conflict McCoy had been dragging around about where his diaphragm usually was
for the past two days felt lighter as he watched Spock and Jim each trying to
hide what they meant to each other, both failing rather spectacularly. This is
how it had been for them, in the beginning, while everyone around them waited,
biting their nails in anticipation of the inevitable. Over the course of the
mission, McCoy had watched these two men become the best possible versions of
themselves as they strove to be worthy of each other, whole and healed. Jim was
still a hopeless flirt occasionally crippled by self-doubt, but he had found an
abiding peace at Spock’s side, in his role as captain, by his own measure of
judgment. And where once he was a raw, unVulcan nerve of barely contained anger
and vulnerability, Spock was calmer and more self-possessed too, eternally
working to reconcile emotion with logic, human with Vulcan, passion with
temperance. Not that he wasn’t still an uptight, condescending bastard who
claimed to have no feelings most of the time, but McCoy could admit, in the
private recesses of his mind, that Spock was not just tolerable but admirable.
He was tilting at windmills keeping them apart, and he knew with the steadfast
certainty of a zealot that Spock would never hurt Jim, would lay down his life
before letting Jim come to harm. He had done so countless times in the line of
duty, as Jim had for him, the pair of them causing their kindly family doctor
to develop ulcers and high blood pressure he was unable hide from Chapel’s
eagle eyes. McCoy, with great effort and a deep breath, took his own advice and
let it go.
Standing up, he met Spock’s eyes. McCoy marveled at the thought that he’d once
found them inscrutable and impossibly alien. “You taking care of this ship,
Acting Captain?”
“I endeavor to perform to the highest standards of duty and keep her in good
repair until such time as her rightful captain is restored, doctor.”
“Glad to hear it, Spock. Glad to hear it.”
At the edges of McCoy’s line of vision, he saw Spock kneel down in front of Jim
before he took the scenic route back to sickbay.
                                       *
In the early hours of ship’s morning, some time before the start of alpha
shift, Jim woke sweating, pinned by a heavy arm. Trying not to dislodge said
arm, he dragged the blanket and sheets off of himself, sighing in relief when
the body heat generated beneath them dissipated. Despite Jim’s efforts, the
action roused Spock, who remained immobile with his head mashed against Jim’s
shoulder for a moment before he sat up with a precipitous jerk.
“I have overslept,” he said, the slightest hint of horror coloring his voice.
His immaculate hair was awry, much of it perpendicular to his head, the
straight bangs listing upwards and to one side. Jim thought his heart might
burst at the sight.
“What? Alpha shift doesn’t even start for like an hour.”
“I am accustomed to waking early to complete ship’s business and maximize
productivity,” Spock said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, robe
slipping off his shoulder to reveal a tantalizing swath of pale, unblemished
skin.
“Spock, wait.” Jim shot out a hand, grabbing Spock by the wrist. “Please, just,
wait.”
Spock turned his head to look at Jim over his shoulder, pulling the robe in to
cover himself. “Are you still unwell, Jim?”
“No. I just— like you here, with me. So stay?” He tugged a little on Spock’s
arm. Spock paused before complying.
“A few more minutes only, Jim,” he warned, opening his arms so Jim could burrow
into his robe-clad chest like he had the night before.
Jim hid his grin in the silken black fabric, inhaling deeply of Spock’s
particular warm scent. It made his whole body tingle.
“Maybe you were just really tired last night,” Jim offered. For him, at least,
the events of the day had wrung him dry and left him exanimate. He’d crawled
into bed after a forcible dinner, thankfully taken in the captain’s quarters
rather than in the mess, and pleaded with Spock not to go back to his own empty
rooms next door.
“Vulcans require less sleep than humans.”
“I’m noting that that statement neither confirms nor denies whether or not you
were really tired and needed more rest than usual.”
“You have discovered me. I shall have to find new tricks.”
Laughing, Jim pushed himself upright to look Spock in the face. His amusement
faded at the open reverence and the olive blush he found there. Slowly he
brought his hands up to cup Spock’s head, and Spock’s eyes fluttered shut. Jim
leaned in, careful of his morning breath, and set a feathery kiss on Spock’s
parted lips. Emboldened by the quickening of Spock’s breath, Jim pressed a
fuller kiss into his mouth, the tip of his tongue flickering to taste the
sweetly curved lower lip. Stroking Spock’s high cheekbones with the pads of his
thumbs, Jim tilted his head to the side and held Spock to himself as he trailed
his tongue just inside Spock’s mouth, sucking lightly on his lip. A rumble
erupted from Spock’s chest, and he pulled Jim forward, wrapping his arms around
his back, further deepening the kiss. Jim moaned at the increased contact and
the searing tongue in his mouth, slinging a leg over Spock’s hips and rocking
forward.
Spock parted from him, a took his hands from his face, holding them slack.
“We cannot do this now, Jim.”
“But we have to, right? So why not now?” Jim punctuated his question with a
shallow thrust of his erection into Spock’s thigh.
Spock smoothed Jim’s own sleep-tousled hair down, hands coming round to cradle
the back of his head. He rested his forehead on Jim’s.
“There is not sufficient time. I must perform my daily ablutions and ingest
sustenance before reporting to the bridge in forty-three minutes.”
“You’re going early? Come on!”
“I have much to attend to today, particularly if I intend to resolve our
dilemma most thoroughly in my off-duty hours.”
Jim perked up, wrapping his arms around Spock’s neck and his legs around
Spock’s hips to give him a full-body hug. He caught the tip of an ear and
kissed it. This further enflamed him and he gave into the urge to rut his
engorged cock against Spock’s stomach.
Spock easily disentangled himself, placed Jim on the edge of the bed and stood
up. Jim pouted up at him, throat issuing inarticulate sounds of disbelief, his
penis a swollen column straining forward, thwarted by the cotton of his
Starfleet-issue briefs.
“You will not distract me, Mr. Kirk,” Spock admonished him. “However, I would
be cruel to leave you in such a state, and cruelty is abhorrent to me. Vulcans
are pacifists.”
He kneeled before Jim, hot hands parting his knees. Jim’s breathing hitched as
Spock eased the waistband of his underwear down, encouraging him to lift up at
the hips so he could discard them altogether. Spock set his nose into the
thicket of bronze curls at Jim’s groin, filling his lungs with Jim’s intimate
scent and sighing. He curled a tight fist around Jim’s cock and pumped it,
passing his palm over the sensitive head just as he set the flat of his tongue
against the base and licked a long, hot stripe upward. Jim couldn’t hold back a
high-pitched yowl. Spock sealed his sweltering mouth over the head, applying
devastating suction even as he slid the entire length of Jim’s cock into the
wet cavern of his mouth, up and down in an unfaltering, punishing rhythm
supplemented by a hand at the base and a hand cupping his balls. The visual
confirmation of Spock devouring his dick intoxicated him, and he forced his
eyes to stay open.
Spock was moaning continually around his cock, a blush high on his cheekbones,
cocoa eyes half lidded with arousal and sending sparks up Jim’s spine when he
met them with his own. Jim too was making undignified noises, bellowing curses
and benedictions in equal measure into the silent captain’s quarters, in full
view of everlasting space and innumerable stars. Jim fought the urge to throw
his head back, close his eyes and thrust forward with abandon, not wanting to
miss a moment of Spock’s expert fellatio. I need to remember exactly this, he
told himself, twisting a hand into Spock’s disheveled black hair and using the
other to keep himself upright as he screamed his release, flooding Spock’s
mouth with spurts of thick semen. What Spock could not swallow dribbled past
his lips, but he stayed where he was, mouth stuffed with cock, easing Jim
through the twitchy aftershocks, milking the last of the ejaculate from Jim’s
spent loins into his own welcoming throat. Jim allowed himself to collapse on
the bed panting as Spock extracted himself, cleaning Jim up with gentle swipes
of his tongue. When he was finished, he pressed wet kisses to Jim’s concave
stomach, Jim’s hands coming up to toy with his hair.
“Tell me you’re not going to the bridge right now,” Jim implored him. “At least
let me suck you off too.”
Spock stood, looming over him, amusement lighting his eyes, enormous erection
bobbing unabashedly for attention through his open robe. Jim eyed it hungrily.
“As I stated earlier, there is insufficient time. We will have ample
opportunity when I am off-duty, Jim. As I endeavor to be on the bridge in
thirty-nine minutes, I must now make haste.” Spock stooped to kiss him, and Jim
tasted his own sperm in Spock’s mouth, a sharp, organic flavor. The thought of
his come rocketing down Spock’s throat sent another bolt of arousal racing
through his cock, into his ass and up his spine, lighting his nipples and the
back of his neck. He moaned when Spock pulled away. “Patience is a virtue,
Jim.” With that, Spock disappeared into the bathroom between their quarters.
With a frustrated groan, Jim buried his head under a pillow and began to count
the minutes to 1600 hours.
                                       *
“They must have their own lube, Doctor,” Chapel commented with an innocent arch
of her brow as McCoy placed a new bottle of lubricant into the small medical
bag he was preparing for Jim. So far it contained an enema kit, disposable
hypoallergenic washcloths, a hypo with a muscle relaxant, a hypo with a
painkiller, medicated ointment, and several old-fashioned latex condoms just to
make McCoy feel better about the whole thing. So maybe he went a little
overboard. He felt ridiculous, like a Victorian mother preparing her daughter
for her wedding night with euphemisms and speeches about duty. Only much more
practical. In space. Starring an unsmiling half-Vulcan with prehensile eyebrows
as the dashing suitor.
“Might as well be really prepared,” he said. “This one has a numbing agent.”
“Not to dwell on the scary visual or anything, but I’m sure Spock knows what
he’s doing.”
“Well Jim doesn’t. I can’t trust him not to do something monumentally bone-
headed during this whole… ordeal.”
“He’s more together than you give him credit for. This one and the standard
issue.”
“Ha! Where have you been the last four years while I’ve been sewing his body
parts back on?”
“I’ve been here, Leonard. I’ve been right here.”
Silence and tension percolated through McCoy’s office. He suddenly couldn’t
breathe.
“Well,” he said gruffly, dumbfounded and blinking at her. “Well.”
Chapel rolled her eyes and took the bag from in front of him, stepping just
outside his office door. “And he’s always been fine. He’s made of tough stuff.
So. I’ll take this to him and you can sit in here fretting about God knows what
all by yourself.”
Chapel was out of sickbay and in the turbolift before McCoy sank back down and
called himself a twice-damned, flea-bitten old fool of a country doctor.
                                       *
Chapel had commed the captain’s quarters and checked the observation deck she’d
shown him the other day before giving up and asking the computer for Jim’s
location. She supposed it was unimaginative of her to think that he would be
twiddling his thumbs all day in his quarters waiting for Spock to get off shift
and ravish him. When the computer reported that he was in engineering, she felt
as panicked as McCoy, horror spreading through her as she envisioned Jim
causing all manner of mayhem on the deeper decks with Lieutenant Commander
Scott and Lieutenant Keenser. She shook off the uncharitable thought and made
her way down seventeen decks into the bowels of ship, where she always imagined
Scott lived like some kind of genius recluse scribbling equations on the
bulkheads, even though she knew his quarters were right next to McCoy’s. She
seldom saw him anywhere near the officers’ quarters.
When she finally found Jim in what seemed like the farthest corner of the
remotest engineering deck, he was not causing mayhem but shining a flashlight
into a Jeffries tube from a ladder. Keenser’s legs dangled down from the top
perch and Chapel could hear Mr. Scott barking orders at him from inside. Jim
saw her approaching and shot a smile at her before tucking his lips between his
teeth to suppress a wider grin. He flicked his eyes upward to indicate the
squabbling engineers.
“I have a Ph. D in warp mechanics!”
“Och, aye, Dr. Keenser Butterfingers! How did you even manage this anyway;
you’re made of rocks!”
“Maybe if the chief engineer didn’t spill marmite everywhere he goes, this
wouldn’t have happened!”
“Don’t blame this on me, you wee cave gnome! I’ve seen your productivity logs!”
“Oh yeah? Who put the coolant in the plasma injectors last week because he
sensed a bottle of Romulan ale being opened three decks down?”
“That has nothing to do with this!”
“You’re lucky I caught that before we all exploded!”
“Gentlemen!” Chapel interjected in a booming voice, leaning close to Jim to
peer into the tube. Scott’s mouth hung open and Keenser’s obsidian seeing-orbs
shifted side to side as the pair of them shut up and stared down at her.
“Nurse Chapel! What a lovely surprise, visiting us poor sods down here in
engineering. To what do we owe this supreme pleasure?” Scott asked when he
recovered.
“I’d like a moment with Jim, if you can spare him. Got a bit of medical
business to discuss with him.”
Scott waved her off. “Of course, of course, it’s no bother. Hand us that torch
before you go, would you, lad?”
Jim passed the flashlight off to Keenser and stepped off the ladder.
“See you guys later,” he called up. Keenser waved at him, and Scott nodded
distractedly. Jim and Chapel were just out of earshot when the engineers
resumed their verbal assault on one another.
”How’d you hook up with those two?” Chapel asked him as made their way out of
the lower decks.
“They were in the mess at lunch and Scotty asked if I wanted to see a warp
drive. Then we dismantled one of the broken impulse engines, then one of the
ensigns reported the problem you saw us ‘fixing.’ What’s up with you?”
Chapel lifted up the medical bag. “Sex kit.”
Jim reddened and looked around to see if anyone had heard.
“Oh, calm down. Everyone does it, alone or with other beings, but no one wants
to admit it.”
“No, it’s just… does everyone know what the cure is?”
“I think just me and McCoy. And Spock, obviously. And anyone who heard McCoy
yesterday in the mess. And anyone they told.”
“So, everyone.”
“Looks like.”
The turbolift finally got to engineering and the doors parted before them. They
entered and the turbolift lurched upward.
“Well, that’s awkward,” Jim said after a moment, still red-faced and unable to
meet Chapel’s eyes.
“No, what’s awkward is I’m going to show you how to use this enema.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Show me?”
“Okay, tell you.”
“You know, I think I can figure it out.”
“It’s not as intuitive as you think it is. Not just this but the entire process
of anal intercourse.”
“Please don’t ever say ‘anal intercourse’ again.”
“And there are other things you can do, you know. Penetration’s not everything.
Men are always trying to stick their penises places when some skilled frottage
or intercural sex will do the trick. And if you have any questions, I can
answer them.”
“I think I’ll be okay.”
“Jim—”
“Nurse Chapel, I do know how this goes. What guys do.” He gave an insecure
little shrug. “So, I’m gonna be fine and you don’t have to worry.”
The turbolift doors parted on the officers’ deck and Chapel walked side by side
with Jim to the captain’s quarters. At the door, he turned to her.
“Really,” he said. “No worries.” He gave a perfunctory, strained smile, waiting
for her to leave.
“I’m coming in, Jim. You can’t get rid of me till I’ve shown you everything in
this kit and embarrassed you some more.”
“This is what’s awkward,” Jim sighed, punching in his code and letting them
both into his quarters.
                                       *
Despite his enthusiasm, and his prolonged impatience when Spock made him wait
until after dinner, the time came to ‘test the hypothesis,’ as Spock kept
calling their impending intimacy, and Jim was strangely hesitant. Hyperaware of
his narrow shoulders and visible ribs, he felt suddenly shy around Spock, shy
and unworthy and undesirable. His early morning gusto seemed far away, and so
did Spock, who gazed at him over the chess board now, as indecipherable as the
day Jim woke up in the wrong time and place.
“You are uncomfortable,” Spock said redundantly. Jim shrugged and looked down
at his chess pieces unseeing. “If you would prefer, we do not have to engage in
sexual relations tonight, or at all. The science team and junior medical
personnel are still analyzing your case and searching for a rational solution.
We can wait, and Supreme Empress H’Lopia will recover from the disappointment.”
Jim could not hold back a smile, though it came out wan. He mustered his
courage. “How about we just go to bed and see what happens?”
“Jim, I am not interested in an encounter that would be detrimental to your
emotional well-being.”
“But I feel better in bed with you. You know? Less thinking, more feeling.”
Spock’s eyes betrayed his uncertainty, but he rose and passed into the bedroom
nonetheless. They divested themselves of their clothing, Jim convinced Spock to
forego his modesty robe, and they settled into the bed with Jim’s head on
Spock’s chest, the stars blazing in space just outside the window. Nimble
fingertips carded through Jim’s hair, and tranquility stole over him.
“See? This is nice,” he said.
“Indeed.”
“No excitement on the bridge today?”
“I performed the Heimlich maneuver on Ensign Chekov.”
“What happened?”
“He was partaking in a mid-afternoon fruit snack, pieces of which became lodged
in his trachea when Lieutenant Sulu made an inappropriate innuendo about Ensign
Chekov’s private life.”
“But he’s okay?”
“Affirmative. He refused to go to sickbay and spent the remainder of the shift
unresponsive to the Lieutenant’s queries and apologies.”
“Are those two space married too?”
“They are not involved to my knowledge.”
“Hmm. Maybe they’d chill out if they were.”
“It is not my habit to speculate on the private lives of my fellow crew
members.”
“Sorry.”
“It is of no consequence, Jim.”
Jim stroked idly through the downy black hair on Spock’s chest, thumb catching
a delicate olive nipple.
“Spock?”
“Yes, Jim.”
“What was it like when you first had sex?”
When Spock didn’t answer, Jim shifted to look into his face. He met a furrowed
brow and downturned mouth.
“It was… an experience I would not care to repeat.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I mean, did it hurt, or… You don’t have to say, if you don’t
want.”
“It was not physically painful, Jim,” Spock said. He seemed to flounder for the
proper words. “I was unaware of my own proclivities at the time. I mistook the
feelings of admiration I held for a woman dear to me for romantic and sexual
feelings. The result was a relationship that was disappointing and distressing.
As time passed, it eroded our esteem for each other. Subsequent events led me
to conclude that I am homosexual, and my friend and I terminated our romantic
relationship amicably.”
Jim lifted a hand to trace Spock’s eyebrows, cheekbones, jaw.
“But we’re good together. No erosion?”
“Correct. We have occasional disagreements, but I would characterize our
relationship as… highly satisfying and beneficial.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “Okay.” He laid his palms on Spock’s stomach, feeling the
lean, solid musculature there. He leaned down to set the tip of his tongue
against the target of Spock’s nipple, then he grazed it with his teeth, drawing
a hitch in Spock’s breath. He splayed a hand on Spock’s right pectoral, moving
downward to trace the line of Spock’s body hair with his tongue. He dipped into
the shallow hollow of Spock’s navel, sucking lightly when Spock let out a quiet
groan. His cock began to fill as he reached Spock’s groin and the thick,
springy hair there. He’d been thinking about this all day, letting himself get
half hard at the thought of stuffing his face full of cock. Spock’s penis was
stirring in its sheath, thickening, the tender head peeking out of the opening.
Jim nosed around in the hair around it, breathing in the musky scent with
zealous appreciation. Spock’s legs fell open and his hands settled in Jim’s
hair. Jim put his mouth around Spock’s sheath, using gentle suction, his tongue
darting and flicking around just inside. Spock’s penis surged within its
sheath, lengthening with surprising force, the sudden invasion of Jim’s mouth
causing him to gag. Jim pulled back and tried to accommodate the entirety of
the slick column, stretching his jaws wider. Spock’s hands on his head eased
him off completely, and he met Spock’s eyes, lips still parted in welcome.
“Go slowly, Jim,” he murmured. “Do not take too much in your mouth.”
Squeezing the base of his own erection to stave off his excitement, Jim nodded
and bent back to his task. He gripped Spock’s fully exposed, fully engorged
penis, encountering a thin patina of viscous fluid, Spock’s personal store of
lubricant.
“That’s convenient,” Jim said with a laugh in his voice, pumping up and down
and finally feeding the velvety head into his mouth. He clamped his mouth down
and sucked, but Spock hissed and went rigid, partially sitting up against the
bulkhead.
“Gently, Jim. Be mindful of your teeth.” Spock rubbed his fingers along the
base of Jim’s skull to soothe the admonition. Jim slackened his mouth,
summoning up saliva to ease the passage. He wrapped both hands around the base
of Spock’s cock, where his sheath had retreated. He squeezed his lover there,
earning a pleased groan. More of the slick fluid welled up from the sheath, and
Jim swept it up the length even as he used his tongue to whirl around the head,
keeping up a moderate suction.
“Very good, Jim. That’s very good, you are, you are doing so well. You are
extraordinary.” Spock was going breathless, on the verge of babbling or moaning
or both, and Jim felt a hot swell of pride simultaneously with a thunderstroke
of arousal. He whimpered around Spock’s girth, eliciting more fluid from the
collapsed sheath and transferring one hand to his own cock, jerking it roughly,
without finesse. He continued to jack Spock’s dick into his siphoning mouth,
losing the rhythm sometimes, but too deep in the sensation to care. His jaw
began to ache with the exertion of bobbing up and down, forced wide around
Spock’s impressive cock, but the dull burn spurred him on, and he concerted his
efforts to providing friction and suction at a frantic pace. The hand on his
own cock flew, sweat began to trickle from his hairline, and he couldn’t
contain a continuous whine from rumbling out around the cock in his mouth.
Spock sat up and extracted his cock from Jim’s grasp. Jim hummed a complaint,
but Spock swallowed it in a deep kiss. Spock held Jim to himself as if
devouring him, his tongue and lips consuming Jim’s entire being, lighting his
spine as if with phaser fire.
Spock pulled Jim down to lie on top of him, their erections hot and needy and
leaking against each other. Jim reached down to squeeze them together and broke
away from Spock’s mouth with a gasp at the sensation, eyes wide and trained
upward.
“Jim, Jim,” came Spock’s litany. “Jim, you will penetrate me now.” Spock’s
hands roamed down Jim’s back and gripped his buttocks with an edge of force Jim
found both painful and electrifying.
“Huh?”
“I wish for you to penetrate me. I will prepare us.”
Dazed, Jim paused to drink in the sight of Spock, debauched, lips swollen, cock
slick with spit and lubricating fluid, legs akimbo. All his to suck and cherish
and touch, and his to fuck apparently. He was not sure that was how it was
supposed to go in the plan he was sure Spock had drawn up.
“But I thought you’d do me.”
“We must be thorough in our testing of the hypothesis, Jim. And, it would give
me pleasure to have you inside me.” Spock dug around in the bedside table
before producing a half-used bottle of lube. Jim sat back on his heels with his
cock in both hands to watch astonished as Spock turned to one side, lifted a
leg, and reached back with a long fingered hand to circle around the tight,
pileous ring of his own asshole, massaging and stimulating it. Two lube-slicked
fingertips breached the sphincter, and Spock gave an unselfconscious groan at
their entrance.
“Oh, fuck,” Jim moaned as we watched Spock finger himself, stretching his
asshole open and rubbing the greasy slick inside. He felt the inexorable
approach of his own climax and squeezed the base of his cock mercilessly to
halt it. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, Spock.”
Spock sat up and swatted away Jim’s hands, pouring lube onto Jim’s copiously
weeping cock. He wiped the entire length with it before settling back into the
pillows and gripping the backs of his knees to hold his legs open. His thick,
heavy phallus lolled against his stomach unheeded, dribbling pre-ejaculate from
the head and lubricant from the base. The sight of the winking, wet hole
between Spock’s creamy asscheeks suffused Jim with a primal need to possess, to
plunder, to ravage.
“Now, Jim. Please.”
Eagerly Jim shuffled forward on his knees between Spock’s spread legs, lining
up his cock with Spock’s hole. The snubbed end of his cock seemed impossibly
huge against the tiny anus.
“I… I don’t think it’s gonna fit. Oh God, Spock.”
“It will fit, Jim. You are not hurting me. Penetrate me now, Jim, now.” Spock
rocked slightly and Jim surged forward, thrusting into Spock, forcing past the
grasping ring. Jim bellowed at the tight, wet heat, Spock’s rectum clenching
like a smooth, seizing fist around his aching cock. He gave a shallow thrust
that devastated him. Spock’s hands swept up and down his back, tangling in his
hair, fondling his ass. Spock licked the inside of Jim’s mouth, spread open-
mouthed kisses all over his face, caught his lips between his teeth. With just
a few more plunges into Spock’s wringing rectum, Jim began to wail, powerless
to stop the needful sound, helpless against the crashing tide of his climax.
“Fuck, oh fuck, Spock, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m –” Jim’s shout rent the air
as his entire body jerked with the effort of emptying his balls into Spock’s
ass. He thrashed through the reverberations until he sagged, spent, into
Spock’s open arms.
When he roused himself from his stupor, Jim became aware of Spock’s hands
rubbing his back. He was also aware of Spock’s scorching cock throbbing,
trapped between their bodies. He propped himself up and peered down at it.
“I’m sorry, I came really quick,” he said. He passed a hand over it, squeezing
it in supplication and apology and affection. Spock trailed a hand down the
side of Jim’s face, shaking his head in dismissal.
“You are exquisite,” he said. Jim moved so that he lay only partially on top of
Spock, tilting Spock’s head down to kiss him with long, unhurried sweeps of his
tongue, lips lingering at lips.
Their kisses subsided into lazy nuzzles, and Jim fought the urge to fall
asleep.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hmm.”
“You’re still hard, and my ass is still all untouched-virgin-y. I got it all
clean and everything, earlier. Would be a shame to waste it.”
Spock set his mouth against the pulse point in Jim’s neck, sucking lightly. He
moved behind Jim’s ear, drawing out a whine.
“I suppose I would be remiss if I did not satisfy the conditions of my
hypothesis within the given parameters,” he rumbled against Jim’s neck. Jim
huffed out a laugh.
“It’s your duty as a scientist,” he whispered into a fine pointed ear. Spock
covered him then, enveloping him in heat and strong arms and dizzying kisses.
This is what he had craved for so long, someone powerful and heavy and
unbreakable to lie solid against him, to own and absorb all that he was. He’d
erupted wildly in the face of Spock’s submission, but Jim’s low-down primitive
thump, the familiar compulsion to be taken that always pulsated along Jim’s
spine, slavering eternally for consummation, now blazed in fulfillment as Jim
gave himself over to Spock’s will. Spock’s hips settled into Jim’s own, that
fiery pillar thrusting into Jim’s groin, leaving a trail of wetness from Jim’s
stomach to his balls. Jim’s hands roamed ravenously over Spock’s sides, his
smooth hips and firm, compact ass. Jim’s cock, young and fervent, stiffened
under Spock’s weight. Jim brought his legs up to wrap around Spock’s back,
grinding their cocks together, but the friction was minimal, the loose press of
their genitals a maddening tease.
“Spock,” he urged, “come on, I need you, Spock. I need you to fuck me.”
With effort, Spock pulled back. He rose on his knees between Jim’s open thighs,
stroking up and down Jim’s flanks.
“Jim, you must tell me if you wish to make use of Dr. McCoy’s muscle relaxant
or numbing lubricant.”
Jim shook his head emphatically in the negative. “No, no I don’t want to dull
anything. I want to feel everything, every bit of you in me.”
Spock nodded as if unsurprised. Maybe he’d expected that, knew exactly how Jim
wanted it. The thought further ignited him, his ass throbbing in anticipation.
“Turn over, on your knees.”
Jim gave a thrilled little moan and scrambled to comply, propping himself up on
his elbows and raising his ass into the air, spreading his knees. He felt
Spock’s hands pass over his cheeks admiringly before spreading them, exposing
his hole to the relative cool of the room. Jim buried his face in the pillows
and moaned at the sensation, reddening at the thought of Spock studying the
most private, intimate center of him like he would a lab report, his asshole
quivering in reaction. Spock blew a light stream of breath over it, and Jim
trembled and gave a shout. Then Spock’s face was there, pressed hot between his
cheeks, inhaling the heady smell of Jim’s crack and ass.
“You cleaned yourself,” he murmured, snuffling around Jim’s perineum, his taint
and hole, teasing.
“Fuck. Fuck, yeah, I did, Spock, do it. Do it, I’ve thought of this so much,
God, please, Spock,” Jim begged.
Spock took mercy on him then, applying the flat of his tongue to his taint and
laving up to bathe Jim’s hole, the tip flickering over the clenching muscle of
his anus and the million sensitized nerve endings there. Jim keened, rocking
his ass backward in wanton abandon.
“Fuck, yes, there Spock, eat my ass, eat my ass.”
Spock held Jim’s hips steady and proceeded to plunder Jim’s asshole, whirling
the tip of his tongue around the outside and pressing inward, transferring
saliva to ease the way. He thrust his tongue inside with indefatigable
determination, loosening the tight ring incrementally. He sucked Jim’s asshole
even as he snaked his hot tongue inside it, eliciting strangled wails and a
litany of filth.
“Yeah, yeah you love that asshole, you love sucking my ass don’t you, Spock,
yes, yes, God, keep going, fuck, I’ve thought about this, I’ve wanted you so
long, Spock, yes, eat my ass,” Jim babbled, pushing his ass back into Spock’s
mouth. Spock gripped his asscheeks and lashed his tongue to Jim’s hole,
pressing deep inside as the twitching sphincter opened under his ministrations.
He sucked the outer ring, grazing it carefully with his teeth, rubbing a thumb
into Jim’s taint in a circular pattern. He massaged the sphincter with the tip
of his tongue and it bloomed open in welcome. Jim’s words had devolved into
high-pitched, needy sobs that echoed between the bulkheads. Careless of the
undignified position, he settled onto his shoulders, face mashed into the bed,
and reached back with both hands to spread his cheeks wider, rutting back on
Spock’s wonderful invading tongue. Spock laid an arm across Jim’s lower back to
help him along, working his tongue inside Jim with ease. When Jim’s asshole and
crack were swamped with Spock’s saliva, and Spock’s tongue finally met no
resistance as it plunged wholly into Jim’s deepest core, Spock eased back and
set Jim’s hands back on the bed. Jim moaned, turning his ass up and rocking on
his knees to plead for more.
“Don’t stop, I need you, I need you.”
Spock replaced his tongue with a long, slender finger, slick with lube. It
rubbed the slack outer rim of Jim’s asshole before dipping inside and moving
minutely between the quavering walls of his rectum. Accompanying it was a low
burn, but the stretch and the width made him hum with satisfaction. Spock
applied more lube and gave shallow thrusts in and out, then pressed tenderly
along Jim’s inner walls, tracing the tubular sleeve of his rectum with gentle
pressure to slacken him further.
“That’s good, Spock, fuck that’s so good,” he moaned, pushing back to encourage
his lover. Spock slid in a second finger alongside the first with minimal
difficulty, then twisted them and curled them inside.
“Fuck! Fuck, Spock there!” Jim screamed, heaving up onto his hands to gain
better leverage with which to fuck himself down onto Spock’s hand. Spock had
alighted on Jim’s elusive prostate and was pressing it with merciless accuracy.
Jim wailed his exquisite pleasure, oblivious to his volume as he demanded
“more, more, more, more, more.”
Spock accommodated him with the addition of a third finger, Jim’s ass clenching
around the tighter squeeze.
“Jim, you must tell me if you experience pain.”
“No, God no, no pain, just keep going, keep going, Spock. You’ll fuck me soon,
yeah?”
“Yes, Jim. Remember our conversation about patience.” Jim felt the slick
pressure of Spock’s cock against his thigh, but Spock’s ministrations were
leisurely; he seemed content to bring Jim to the brink of madness with his
mouth and hands.
“Talk, Spock. Tell me what it feels like in my ass. Please,” Jim begged.
“Please.”
“I am not skilled at ‘dirty talk,’ Jim.”
“Tell me anyway, tell me, tell me.”
“Your sphincter and rectum are tight around my fingers. The walls are smooth
and lubricated and stimulate my fingers’ highly sensitive nerve endings. It
inflames my desire to penetrate you with my penis.”
“Oh God, do it, do it, you should fuck me now, Spock, fuck me now.”
Spock was silent, pouring more lube over Jim’s ass and into the hand half
buried inside, working it in without regard to the rude sounds that ensued. Jim
pumped roughly at his seeping cock, all his swirling, shameful fantasies
falling away in the face of the ecstatic reality of Spock’s possession of him.
Soon, Spock would breech Jim’s deepest recesses, press his claim and his cock
and his staggering devotion into Jim’s foundation. Jim knew that when he came
with Spock’s entire being infusing his, he would gain back his freedom.
Jim felt the blunt head of Spock’s penis at his anus.
“Jim, this is more difficult than fingers. You must breathe and bear down.”
Jim did as told, a grunt passing his lips as the first inches of Spock’s thick
cock slid into him. His hard on flagged, then wilted completely. He couldn’t
distinguish between the burn of Spock’s dick and the burn in his ass, but his
whole body buckled under the flames. He whimpered and pressed himself low into
the bed, Spock’s penis splitting him too wide as he pressed in deeper. For a
panicked moment, Jim felt like he might tear, like he might defecate, like his
might scream and scramble away, but Spock’s hands were rubbing up and down his
back and ass, soothing. Spock was in to the hilt, balls nestled against Jim’s,
and he dipped a thumb into Jim’s crack to rub around his widely stretched
asshole, lube and massaging pressure easing the searing agony.
“Breathe, Jim.”
Jim realized he’d been holding his breath and exhaled, relaxing slightly around
Spock’s girth. They remained like that for long moments, Jim facedown on the
bed with Spock kneeling behind him stroking his flanks, intimately connected.
“Are you well, Jim?” Spock asked when Jim finally felt like he could breathe
without strain.
“I think so. It hurts a little, still.”
“I will be careful.”
With that, Spock gathered Jim up so he was on his knees, back pressed into
Spock’s chest, Spock’s arms entwined around him. Spock trailed nipping, licking
kisses between Jim’s shoulder blades, along his neck and behind his ears,
before he drew Jim’s head back and kissed his open mouth, sucking on his lower
lip. Spock’s hands wandered across Jim’s chest and stomach as if Jim’s body
were a map of pleasure they were following. He cupped Jim’s genitals, Jim’s
erection yet unrecovered, and began a gentle rocking motion that stimulated
Jim’s insides without sending flashes of pain ricocheting between all his
nerves. The hand unoccupied with resuscitating Jim’s erection came up to splay
on his chest, fingertips on a nipple, teasing with the scrape of a nail. Jim
sighed and began to roll his hips in response, cock stirring in Spock’s hand.
Spock’s cock bumped Jim’s prostate, and Jim groaned, humping into the pressure,
his cock filling fully once more. Spock stroked it through a few more easy
undulations before Jim bent back down low to the bed to improve the depth of
penetration.
“I’m ready now,” he said, pulling off Spock’s length a little and then easing
back onto it. The burn was less intense, and the throbbing from his prostate
lit his ass with a brighter, eclipsing rapture. Spock drew back and sunk
forward slowly at first, rhythm steady and slow, letting Jim get used to him in
his body. Jim gasped and whined each time Spock jolted his prostate, and he
began to meet Spock’s thrusts, his own encompassing need soaring beyond
thought, beyond rationality, beyond his sense of self. He felt like he had
somehow merged with Spock altogether, that they were one writhing body reveling
in its unity before the watchful stars. Spock sped up, sawing in and out of
Jim’s ass, urgency mounting. He jacked Jim’s cock with just the right amount of
punishing pressure, rammed into his prostate with precise aims of his penis,
and then Jim was howling as he came explosively, pumping thick ribbons of come
all over the sheets and Spock’s unfaltering hand. His thighs gave out, and he
collapsed onto the bed, heedless of the mess.
Behind him, Spock was issuing his own series of grunts and gasps. Jim felt his
ass flutter around Spock’s deeply buried cock, the powerful orgasm still
resounding throughout Jim’s body. Spock stiffened and held Jim down with
bruising force, giving a short, harsh shout as he filled Jim’s ass with a
scalding flood of come. After Jim milked him dry, Spock was careful not to
crush him as he sunk boneless into the bed, dislodging his penis from Jim’s
hole with practiced care. Jim wrapped his arms around him in an instant, and
they shared languorous kisses as they sagged against each other.
“That was intense,” Jim said after a few minutes of listening to their
breathing even out.
“Indeed,” Spock agreed. He shifted to meet Jim’s dazed eyes. “Are you in any
pain? Do you require Dr. McCoy’s analgesic salve?”
Jim grinned. “You need to stop bringing him up while we do dirty things to each
other. I’m gonna have nightmares of him taking notes while we fuck or
something.”
“Jim, I am being serious. I can apply the ointment if you experience
discomfort.”
Jim regarded Spock with a heady burst of affection. He made a compelling image:
a debauched Vulcan prince against the backdrop of stars. Jim felt immeasurably
fortunate at having shared himself with Spock instead of the first lowlife to
drag his narrow ass into the back of a barn, or alleyway, or truck bed. Then he
felt the chill trickle of certainty that this was a temporary gift. He knew
he’d have to cede to the Jim who belonged here, knew he wasn’t going to be able
to stay much longer.
“Yeah. Yeah, why not,” he said, swallowing past the thickness that had gathered
at the base of his throat. Turning a mischievous look on his lover, he added,
“Maybe you can kiss it better, too.”
                                       *
Spock roused at his habitual 0400 hours. He sat upright when sleep fully ebbed
from his consciousness, and he looked at the shape under the sheets beside him.
A conglomeration of emotions, illogical all, quivered at the edge of his mind,
but he disregarded them. He tugged the sheet down to Jim’s waist, revealing the
broad shoulders and sculpted musculature of his bondmate, restored to his
proper age. Bubbles of relief and affection burst within him, and he allowed
himself the luxury of giving in to them, touching Jim’s back as if to confirm
his existence. Jim stirred, shifting onto his other side and squinting at Spock
in the dark.
“Hey. Getting up now?” he asked, voice sleep-rough and deep. His eyes drifted
back downward.
“I believe I will forego my pre-shift routine, today,” Spock answered. Jim
cracked an eye and grunted, the sound a neanderthal expression of disbelief.
Taking in Spock’s gaze, he was suddenly as awake as Spock.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Jim’s hands flitted over his torso, as if checking for
injuries.
“Jim, do you not recall the events of the last 2.96 days?”
“Did you get hurt? Why can’t I remember?”
“I am unharmed, Jim. Cease worrying.” Spock held Jim’s fussing hands in his
own, pressing them to his chest. He reached out to sooth the furrow from his
bondmate’s brow. “We are both unharmed.”
“Did I take a blow to the head? Is that why I’m not remembering the last few
days right now?”
“Allow me to explain. You regressed in body and mind to your sixteen year old
self, but you have been restored.”
Jim sat back, still frowning.
“Oh, wow. I do remember that. But it feels like I did it a really long time
ago.” He set a hand on Spock’s thigh, stroking through the hair, pensive. Then
he grinned and jabbed a finger into Spock’s chest. “You! You totally justified
sexing me up without any logic at all!”
“It was quite logical to follow my hypothesis to its natural conclusion, which
happened to be intercourse. I will be informing Dr. McCoy of my superior logic
before alpha shift commences.”
“But your hypothesis wasn’t based on logic!”
“There are many unknown forces in the universe, Jim, and one cannot apply
reason where one does not have sufficient data. I contend that your condition
was the result of one such force. This is not a failure of my logic, but a
rational concession to the fact that all the workings of the universe are yet
unknowable.”
Jim was half-pouting, half-smiling, a look that meant he was teasing him and
Spock was somehow ‘no fun.’
“I didn’t mean to insult your logic, Spock. I just wanted to poke a bit of fun
at you.”
Spock did not answer but pulled Jim to himself and settled them curled together
back into bed.
“I am gratified that you have been restored, Jim.”
Jim linked their hands. They lay in silence for a seven minutes and twenty-two
seconds, both ruminating on events of the past 2.96 days. For Jim, these events
were thirteen years in the past.
“Spock?”
“Yes, Jim.”
“What you did was right. I mean, not just because it would undo the regression.
But because it was the right thing to do for me, for how I was back then.
Trying to find any way to self-destruct. I remember the things I did to erase
myself with Mark and Hank, trying to get the pain on the outside to match the
pain on the inside, but I also remember you, and how gentle you were. Like I
was precious. So it was the good, right thing to do by me, Spock.”
“You are precious to me, Jim. T’hy’la.”
Jim kissed Spock with invigorating facility, holding his face in both hands,
and Spock allowed himself to be immersed in the turbulence of Jim’s lust,
feeding it with his own. The 2.96 days since he had seen his bondmate in his
rightful mind and body seemed a cruel, unacceptable interval, and he held Jim
tightly, arching into his riotous affections. He lifted one hand to rest his
fingertips on Jim’s psi points, and they were not separate but together, two
consciousnesses cascading together in dazzling bursts of color. There was no
gravity or direction, only blooming passion that sent them soaring through
infinite space as one surging force, powerful and tender as the ancient and
enduring sparks of love.
When they parted, lungs heaving for breath, they were splattered with semen and
glistening with perspiration, Jim straddling Spock, foreheads resting against
one another. They pressed soft, lingering kisses against each other’s mouths,
intertwined their hands and lay back to spend the remaining hours until alpha
shift absorbing the perfect serenity of their reunion.
                                       *
McCoy pulled at the collar of his dress uniform, shifting his weight from foot
to foot in the transporter room as he, Jim and Spock waited for Scotty and
Keenser to arrive.
“Does the quartermaster do this on purpose?” he groused. “I feel like I’m
suffocating in this thing. Why do we have to dress up anyway?”
“Cultural sensitivity, Bones. Didn’t you read Uhura’s debriefing?” Jim slapped
McCoy on the back.
“The people of the outer rings place much importance on the appearance of
wealth, doctor. We must enter negotiations on their terms to ensure the optimal
outcome.”
“Yeah, yeah, I read it too, Spock. I don’t have to like it. And I certainly
don’t know why they want the CMO in on the deal. Not like I’m eye candy like
certain starship captains we could talk about.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Bones. I saw the way that goat herder’s harem
looked at you.”
“You were invited, doctor. To refuse would be an unforgivable insult.”
Scotty arrived in a full formal kilt, while Keenser swam in the plain, sand-
colored formal robes favored by the upper echelons his people, the A’Soroni of
the Kynorbian Sun. McCoy boggled at them.
“Looking good, Scotty!” Jim crowed. “You regulation under that thing?”
“You’d better believe it, Captain!”
“Are you two serious right now?” McCoy seemed to address neither engineer in
particular. “What happened to your dress uniforms?”
“It said fancy. This is the fanciest thing I’ve got,” Keenser said. He pulled
at the fabric sagging around his hip. “Maybe I lost some weight and it doesn’t
fit.”
“I don’t think that’s the problem. Scotty, is that a manpurse?”
“You’ve no sense of culture, Dr. McCoy,” Scotty said. “This is a sporran, and
it’s gonna save our arses when the negotiations drag.”
“Hmmph, and how’s it supposed to do that?”
“I may have a wee flask inside.”
McCoy suddenly very much liked Scotty’s sporran, but Spock turned those
judgmental Vulcan eyebrows on him.
“Lieutenant Uhura’s debriefing statement did not mention that imbibing alcohol
while engaged in trade negotiations is traditional on Zenzobar of the Third
Outer Ring.”
“Well, no, but me and this overgrown stalagmite are only there to beg for a few
parts anyway. Had a bit of a mishap down in engineering, is the thing, and
we’ve got loads of shiny things to trade. Show him the gear.” Scotty jostled
Keenser, causing his robe to dip further.
“Quit it,” Keenser grumbled, jerking swaths of fabric back up. From somewhere
within them, he produced a toolbox. When he opened it and the assembled trade
team gathered round to peer inside, they saw only engineering flotsam.
“Um… Keenser, what is this crap?” Jim waved a hand over it.
“Stuff from broken sublight engines. We’ve got some ball bearings all polished
up, a couple gold-plated gears, they’ll eat it right up.”
“You guys are gonna have to be on your own with those,” Jim said. “All right,
let’s get this party started.”
The five of them took their places on the transporter pad. “Energize!” Jim
called out.
Their atoms reassembled like drizzling rain in the Hallowed Hall of Bejeweled
Glory. They were met by Supreme Empress H’Lopia, two aides, and a team of three
advisors, all of them wrapped in sumptuous fabrics studded with sparkling gems
in every imaginable color. The Supreme Empress was distinguishable by the
gilded ring she wore around what appeared to be her head. The outer ringers
were not humanoids; they resembled jagged cliff faces more than anything else,
their slate-like exoskeletons assembled in segments to provide ease of
movement, their gleaming eyes blinking out from fractures toward the tops of
their bodies.
The Supreme Empress glided with surprising grace to meet the team from the
Enterprise. Jim had his arm raised halfway in the traditional outer ring
gesture of greeting when the Supreme Empress stopped in front of Keenser.
“It is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain James Tiberius Kirk
of pleasing form. I am the Supreme Empress H’Lopia of Zenzobar of the Third
Outer Ring. I hope my form exceeds expectation.” She spoke accented but precise
Standard, her voice like sandpaper on a band saw. Scotty gaped at Keenser.
“Er – sorry, there’s been a bit of a mistake. I’m Captain Kirk,” Jim said,
leaning in and breaking out the James T. Kirk Ultimate Smile of Seduction.
Supreme Empress H’Lopia turned to him, scrutinizing him from his Starfleet
boots to his deliberately tousled hair, the plates that comprised her face
pinching inward in obvious disgust.
“I’m Lieutenant Keenser, engineering,” Keenser put in.
“Captain Kirk of abominable shape, I find you gravely disappointing. The text
reports were not accurate.” Whirling to face her aides, she barked, “M’Harok of
moderate attractiveness! I demand vid-feeds accompany all textual news from now
on!”
Jim leaned in to whisper into Keenser’s hearing holes as the Supreme Empress
continued to berate her staff. “You might have to take one for the team here,
buddy.”
Keenser shrugged, dislodging his robes again, and it was possible he looked
eager. Jim shared a look with Spock, who merely quirked an eyebrow. Scotty was
wrist deep in the sporran dangling above his crotch, and McCoy inched closer to
him in preparation. Spock came to Jim’s shoulder, whispering into a rounded ear
the traditional outer ring apology he should offer the Supreme Empress.
“Madame,” Jim raised his voice and addressed Supreme Empress H’Lopia,
interrupting her screed. “I apologize for the offense of injuring your eyes
with my displeasing form. If you prefer, you may deal with Lieutenant Keenser
exclusively.”
The Supreme Empress considered the offer for only a moment. “Captain Kirk of
abominable shape, I accept. Lieutenant Keenser of pleasing form may choose one
advisor from among you who offend my senses, and the rest may depart.”
Before beaming back up, Spock confiscated Scotty’s entire sporran.
The End
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