Fic: Struggle, 1/1. Kirk/Spock.
Jun. 19th, 2009 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katydidmischief posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
cjs_owndisclaimer. Not mine. Never have been and never will be. *sigh*
title. Struggle
rating. Teen
pairing. Kirk/Spock
summary. You've got everyone on edge including Bones – which I didn't think was possible, by the way.
notes. Worked on this for a few days. Still nervous about my characterization of Spock, so I appreciate constructive concrit.
Struggle Spock takes him home to New Vulcan the first shore leave.
It does not go well.
;;
The shuttle's rising further into the sky, heading toward the larger transport vessel that will return them to Spacedock and the Enterprise, and Spock's stony beside him, silent in a way that says he's less than pleased with how the visit went.
Jim can't really blame him. After all, it's not everyday that Jim manages to inadvertently insult no less than six diplomats, accidentally injure the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, and unintentionally mock most of Vulcan culture in less than ten minutes. And that was only in the first twelve hours of their arrival planet-side; there had been another four to follow, which Jim cringes to think of.
He reaches out to run two fingers along Spock's hand.
Spock pulls his hand back so quickly one would think he's been burned.
Slouching in his seat with a sigh, Jim knows he's sleeping on the couch and that fucking sucks.
;;
The first away mission after shore leave is a disaster – they've lost Ensign Teague (literally, because she's not dead, they just can't find her and Jim's had to make the command decision to send a second away team to her last location), there's honest-to-god bullets flying past their heads, and Enterprise can't get a lock on their signal no matter if it's Scotty, Chekov, or that hot redhead Jim was in Advanced Aerodynamics with.
Spock and Kirk are at the rear of the landing party with two more Ensigns he's calling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (in his head!) at point, and in between there's Uhura, who came only because the language they'd encountered with this race isn't in their databanks thus the universal translator is universally useless.
All three are peeling off rounds from their phasers at anyone who poses a threat, which is to say everyone, and running as fast as they can through the rugged terrain of the forest they've been chased into. Jim nearly goes flying over a root, but manages to somehow remain upright and keeping pace with the rest of his crew, though Bones is not going to be pleased that he's running on what may be a broken foot given how badly it's now throbbing.
They tumble from the edge of the treeline – again, literally – and are at the bottom of the ravine when Jim's communicator informs them that they've been locked on to, beaming in 5...
The natives peer over the side, smirking as they aim their weapons.
4...
Jim raises his in return.
3...
They fire.
2...
Jim fires back.
1.
;;
He dreams of loud nights spent in his room, his mother's voice too high-pitched for comfort and his stepfather's yowling about ungrateful children painful to hear. He dreams about the crush of a car against a quarry bottom, the noise of broken glass skittering together with smashed steel and torn leather.
And he dreams about the ship he'd seen being built in the drydock on the other end of town, the one he would later captain after saving the world, but not then. Then it had appeared more like a large-scale erector set with wiring and interior walls visible from the outside. He'd barely been able to make out the designation ID on the side of the nacelle and had briefly thought of the Kelvin.
Then his dreams change and he is filled with memories, recollections, of times far happier than the gloom of his childhood.
Meeting Bones, meeting Gaila.
Uhura, Sulu, Chekov.
Spock.
Oh, hell, they'd hated each other on sight. Jim wonders these days why when they are so clearly the balance for one another, the chocolate to his peanut butter.
The dreams begin to shatter.
And he wakes with Bones yelling over him, Chapel holding him down on the table, and his insides visible.
“I said to fucking double the anesthesia dose! Sedatives, now! Jim, stop fucking moving!” Bones sounds far angrier than Kirk can ever remember, wearing his surgical outfit, but he can't stop moving, the pain too intense and all he wants to do is curl up in a ball and die.
Then there's a hiss against his neck and the world dissolves.
;;
Spock finds Jim's stash of chocolate while searching through the drawers for loose fitting, comfortable pajamas as that is all McCoy is going to allow Jim to wear for the next month while he recovers.
It had always been his mother's favorite snack, kept out of the reach of little hands in cabinets, boxes, and dressers. No one had ever known if he, the half-breed, would be affected by it as the rest of Vulcan society was, or if liquor would be an agent of intoxication for him. He still did not know, abstaining from both to avoid the embarrassment that would inevitably come were he to lose control of himself.
Still, he finds it hidden behind a stack of neatly folded lounge pants and contemplates for a second finding out if he'd be affected and if so, why humans enjoyed drinking around periods of high stress.
He puts it down instead and calls his father.
;;
Jim's in quarters three days later, ordered to rest by a weary McCoy who'd finally gotten flustered enough with his best friend's antics to give in and release the bastard. Spock, still on rotation because he wasn't the one to take several bullets to the gut, is there every night after his discharge (Sulu kicks him off the bridge around 2000 hours and locks him out of the room with the blessing of every senior officer), looking weary and drawn for some unexplainable reason.
At least unexplainable to anyone who doesn't spend time with the Vulcan on a daily basis.
“You've been talking to your father,” Jim tells him one afternoon a week after the mission. He's dressed in loose, baggy cotton lounge pants, drawstring tied low to keep it off the incision marks in his belly. Bones may have said he didn't use the dermal regenerator because Jim needed to let the wounds drain themselves, but Jim's convinced it was more to do with teaching him a lesson.
“I have communicated with him, this is nothing new,” Spock responds, looking at him over the top of a dented PADD.
“No, but it always makes you twitchy,” Jim counters, turning to face his lover from the other end of the couch.
“Twitchy is a poor term to use in regards to my mental state as I am not experiencing any kind of muscle spasm...”
Jim growls. “You're high-strung, agitated, frustrating. You've got everyone on edge including Bones – which I didn't think was possible, by the way. Just fucking talk to me,” he demands, snapping at the man before him out of stress and concern.
“I cannot.”
And he goes, leaving Jim behind with his mouth dropped open.
;;
Jim only finds half the chocolate bar on the dresser when he enters their room an hour later.
The second half, he discovers, has been eaten by Spock who is apparently Vulcan enough to be affected by it; Chekov, off shift, had found him draped over the rec room pool table, babbling away, and had immediately called Bones who's standing before Jim now, pissed as hell.
“He's drunk, Jim,” he says and Kirk wants to laugh, except he can't because he knows Spock didn't imbibe for the fun of it.
Leaving Spock with Bones, he returns to quarters where he steels himself, gathering every last shred of bravado and courage he can.
He calls Sarek for the first time since Jim and Spock started sleeping together. He knows from the moment the transmission is opened that Sarek does not approve, but he's always known that – he's human, he's reckless, and he's going to break Spock's heart – and he's a little amazed when he manages to sound more or less authoritative.
Sarek tells him only that what Spock wants is a partner, not a lover and Jim's burrow furrows because damnit, those two things are one and the same.
Except they aren't and Jim blinks at the black screen.
;;
Jim heals, their relationship doesn't.
;;
The crew notices the change in their interactions, the way they no longer defer first to one another for everything including their personal lives. It doesn't help quiet the rumors when Spock is seen leaving his properly assigned quarters every morning for a week; after all, he's not slept there in nearly a year, having moved into Jim's quarters early on in the mission.
Bones tells him to stop being a fucking idiot.
Uhura tries to make sure the only available seats at meals are next to each other.
Chekov just looks between them wearily when he reports to the Captain.
And Jim tries to figure out what the hell happened between them because he's lost in a sea of confusion. Spock won't tell him why and he thought they'd had a good thing; perhaps there was more to what Sarek said than Jim realized.
He ponders that while he sits in a dirty cell on yet another away mission gone wrong, with his hands pressed over the gaping wound in Spock's gut. His blood is pouring through Jim's fingers, green and murky and clotting like globs of snot on the dirty floor, and he knows that Spock might not make it back to the Enterprise.
Spock sputters out a breath, a dribble of fluid escaping from the corner of his mouth. His eyes are hazy and unfocused, reminding Jim of how Spock had looked the night he'd gotten drunk. Only this time it's not chocolate that's got him inebriated, it's blood loss.
Bones' voice starts in his head, words like hypovolemia, hypothermia, and shock flit through his mind and Jim pushes harder against the shredded skin in the hopes of stanching the flow.
“Captain...” Spock moans. He reaches out one hand, slick with blood and cold, and touches Jim's face, murmuring, “T'hy'la.”
Jim's not sure how to answer an outright declaration of love, of affection, and is saved by the glow of the transporter beam as they escaped their prison.
;;
He realizes, standing beside Spock's bed in an imitation of how the man had for Jim, that this is what Sarek meant. Partners, not lovers; a subtle difference that Jim has been trying to understand, but missing by a mile with every hypothesis and now he's here, beside the man he's loved for so long and unwilling to leave.
“Spock's going to be fine, Jim, now go take a goddamn shower – you stink,” Bones demands, cutting into his thoughts. “I'll call you when he starts waking up.”
Jim hems and haws, wanting to bathe because he does smell, but unsure if he even cares. Then Bones brandishes a hypo at him and Jim steps backward. “How about a compromise?” he implores with his hands up in front of him, “I'll shower here and change and I'll even lay down on the nice cot in your office. I just don't want... I don't...”
“Aw, hell, Jim,” Bones mumbles with a sigh. “I know you're in love with the bastard, but you need to get the crap from the planet off of you before I've got you in the next bed.”
But he points him toward the bathroom just the same and waits five minutes before setting a pair of clean scrubs out on the sink for his best friend, knowing Kirk's likely forgotten that his uniform is coated in dirt, bacteria, and blood. He returns to Spock's side to check his vitals one more time, confirming it'll be close to four hours before the man wakes from medicated unconsciousness.
The perfect amount of time to either let Jim nap or knock some sense into his thick skull.
;;
Spock is the one sore this time and Jim aches a little for him when Spock can't get comfortable in their bed. Even with the lights off and the room pitched into black, Jim can feel the dampness on the linens, the taut line of his flank, and he reaches for his communicator to call Bones, only to be stopped with a hand on his wrist.
“No,” Spock states. “I am only unable to obtain sleep due to...”
“The giant painful wound that's barely healed under your shirt? The broken ribs that are knitted but still hurt?” Jim raises an eyebrow, a perfect rendition of Spock's though it is unseen, then kisses Spock's temple, saying, “Let me take care of you.”
Silence forms between them, heavy and telling, and he relents.
;;
Their second trip to New Vulcan ends much better than the first.
Sarek still dislikes him, but Spock bonds with Jim anyway.
title. Struggle
rating. Teen
pairing. Kirk/Spock
summary. You've got everyone on edge including Bones – which I didn't think was possible, by the way.
notes. Worked on this for a few days. Still nervous about my characterization of Spock, so I appreciate constructive concrit.
It does not go well.
The shuttle's rising further into the sky, heading toward the larger transport vessel that will return them to Spacedock and the Enterprise, and Spock's stony beside him, silent in a way that says he's less than pleased with how the visit went.
Jim can't really blame him. After all, it's not everyday that Jim manages to inadvertently insult no less than six diplomats, accidentally injure the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, and unintentionally mock most of Vulcan culture in less than ten minutes. And that was only in the first twelve hours of their arrival planet-side; there had been another four to follow, which Jim cringes to think of.
He reaches out to run two fingers along Spock's hand.
Spock pulls his hand back so quickly one would think he's been burned.
Slouching in his seat with a sigh, Jim knows he's sleeping on the couch and that fucking sucks.
The first away mission after shore leave is a disaster – they've lost Ensign Teague (literally, because she's not dead, they just can't find her and Jim's had to make the command decision to send a second away team to her last location), there's honest-to-god bullets flying past their heads, and Enterprise can't get a lock on their signal no matter if it's Scotty, Chekov, or that hot redhead Jim was in Advanced Aerodynamics with.
Spock and Kirk are at the rear of the landing party with two more Ensigns he's calling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (in his head!) at point, and in between there's Uhura, who came only because the language they'd encountered with this race isn't in their databanks thus the universal translator is universally useless.
All three are peeling off rounds from their phasers at anyone who poses a threat, which is to say everyone, and running as fast as they can through the rugged terrain of the forest they've been chased into. Jim nearly goes flying over a root, but manages to somehow remain upright and keeping pace with the rest of his crew, though Bones is not going to be pleased that he's running on what may be a broken foot given how badly it's now throbbing.
They tumble from the edge of the treeline – again, literally – and are at the bottom of the ravine when Jim's communicator informs them that they've been locked on to, beaming in 5...
The natives peer over the side, smirking as they aim their weapons.
4...
Jim raises his in return.
3...
They fire.
2...
Jim fires back.
1.
He dreams of loud nights spent in his room, his mother's voice too high-pitched for comfort and his stepfather's yowling about ungrateful children painful to hear. He dreams about the crush of a car against a quarry bottom, the noise of broken glass skittering together with smashed steel and torn leather.
And he dreams about the ship he'd seen being built in the drydock on the other end of town, the one he would later captain after saving the world, but not then. Then it had appeared more like a large-scale erector set with wiring and interior walls visible from the outside. He'd barely been able to make out the designation ID on the side of the nacelle and had briefly thought of the Kelvin.
Then his dreams change and he is filled with memories, recollections, of times far happier than the gloom of his childhood.
Meeting Bones, meeting Gaila.
Uhura, Sulu, Chekov.
Spock.
Oh, hell, they'd hated each other on sight. Jim wonders these days why when they are so clearly the balance for one another, the chocolate to his peanut butter.
The dreams begin to shatter.
And he wakes with Bones yelling over him, Chapel holding him down on the table, and his insides visible.
“I said to fucking double the anesthesia dose! Sedatives, now! Jim, stop fucking moving!” Bones sounds far angrier than Kirk can ever remember, wearing his surgical outfit, but he can't stop moving, the pain too intense and all he wants to do is curl up in a ball and die.
Then there's a hiss against his neck and the world dissolves.
Spock finds Jim's stash of chocolate while searching through the drawers for loose fitting, comfortable pajamas as that is all McCoy is going to allow Jim to wear for the next month while he recovers.
It had always been his mother's favorite snack, kept out of the reach of little hands in cabinets, boxes, and dressers. No one had ever known if he, the half-breed, would be affected by it as the rest of Vulcan society was, or if liquor would be an agent of intoxication for him. He still did not know, abstaining from both to avoid the embarrassment that would inevitably come were he to lose control of himself.
Still, he finds it hidden behind a stack of neatly folded lounge pants and contemplates for a second finding out if he'd be affected and if so, why humans enjoyed drinking around periods of high stress.
He puts it down instead and calls his father.
Jim's in quarters three days later, ordered to rest by a weary McCoy who'd finally gotten flustered enough with his best friend's antics to give in and release the bastard. Spock, still on rotation because he wasn't the one to take several bullets to the gut, is there every night after his discharge (Sulu kicks him off the bridge around 2000 hours and locks him out of the room with the blessing of every senior officer), looking weary and drawn for some unexplainable reason.
At least unexplainable to anyone who doesn't spend time with the Vulcan on a daily basis.
“You've been talking to your father,” Jim tells him one afternoon a week after the mission. He's dressed in loose, baggy cotton lounge pants, drawstring tied low to keep it off the incision marks in his belly. Bones may have said he didn't use the dermal regenerator because Jim needed to let the wounds drain themselves, but Jim's convinced it was more to do with teaching him a lesson.
“I have communicated with him, this is nothing new,” Spock responds, looking at him over the top of a dented PADD.
“No, but it always makes you twitchy,” Jim counters, turning to face his lover from the other end of the couch.
“Twitchy is a poor term to use in regards to my mental state as I am not experiencing any kind of muscle spasm...”
Jim growls. “You're high-strung, agitated, frustrating. You've got everyone on edge including Bones – which I didn't think was possible, by the way. Just fucking talk to me,” he demands, snapping at the man before him out of stress and concern.
“I cannot.”
And he goes, leaving Jim behind with his mouth dropped open.
Jim only finds half the chocolate bar on the dresser when he enters their room an hour later.
The second half, he discovers, has been eaten by Spock who is apparently Vulcan enough to be affected by it; Chekov, off shift, had found him draped over the rec room pool table, babbling away, and had immediately called Bones who's standing before Jim now, pissed as hell.
“He's drunk, Jim,” he says and Kirk wants to laugh, except he can't because he knows Spock didn't imbibe for the fun of it.
Leaving Spock with Bones, he returns to quarters where he steels himself, gathering every last shred of bravado and courage he can.
He calls Sarek for the first time since Jim and Spock started sleeping together. He knows from the moment the transmission is opened that Sarek does not approve, but he's always known that – he's human, he's reckless, and he's going to break Spock's heart – and he's a little amazed when he manages to sound more or less authoritative.
Sarek tells him only that what Spock wants is a partner, not a lover and Jim's burrow furrows because damnit, those two things are one and the same.
Except they aren't and Jim blinks at the black screen.
Jim heals, their relationship doesn't.
The crew notices the change in their interactions, the way they no longer defer first to one another for everything including their personal lives. It doesn't help quiet the rumors when Spock is seen leaving his properly assigned quarters every morning for a week; after all, he's not slept there in nearly a year, having moved into Jim's quarters early on in the mission.
Bones tells him to stop being a fucking idiot.
Uhura tries to make sure the only available seats at meals are next to each other.
Chekov just looks between them wearily when he reports to the Captain.
And Jim tries to figure out what the hell happened between them because he's lost in a sea of confusion. Spock won't tell him why and he thought they'd had a good thing; perhaps there was more to what Sarek said than Jim realized.
He ponders that while he sits in a dirty cell on yet another away mission gone wrong, with his hands pressed over the gaping wound in Spock's gut. His blood is pouring through Jim's fingers, green and murky and clotting like globs of snot on the dirty floor, and he knows that Spock might not make it back to the Enterprise.
Spock sputters out a breath, a dribble of fluid escaping from the corner of his mouth. His eyes are hazy and unfocused, reminding Jim of how Spock had looked the night he'd gotten drunk. Only this time it's not chocolate that's got him inebriated, it's blood loss.
Bones' voice starts in his head, words like hypovolemia, hypothermia, and shock flit through his mind and Jim pushes harder against the shredded skin in the hopes of stanching the flow.
“Captain...” Spock moans. He reaches out one hand, slick with blood and cold, and touches Jim's face, murmuring, “T'hy'la.”
Jim's not sure how to answer an outright declaration of love, of affection, and is saved by the glow of the transporter beam as they escaped their prison.
He realizes, standing beside Spock's bed in an imitation of how the man had for Jim, that this is what Sarek meant. Partners, not lovers; a subtle difference that Jim has been trying to understand, but missing by a mile with every hypothesis and now he's here, beside the man he's loved for so long and unwilling to leave.
“Spock's going to be fine, Jim, now go take a goddamn shower – you stink,” Bones demands, cutting into his thoughts. “I'll call you when he starts waking up.”
Jim hems and haws, wanting to bathe because he does smell, but unsure if he even cares. Then Bones brandishes a hypo at him and Jim steps backward. “How about a compromise?” he implores with his hands up in front of him, “I'll shower here and change and I'll even lay down on the nice cot in your office. I just don't want... I don't...”
“Aw, hell, Jim,” Bones mumbles with a sigh. “I know you're in love with the bastard, but you need to get the crap from the planet off of you before I've got you in the next bed.”
But he points him toward the bathroom just the same and waits five minutes before setting a pair of clean scrubs out on the sink for his best friend, knowing Kirk's likely forgotten that his uniform is coated in dirt, bacteria, and blood. He returns to Spock's side to check his vitals one more time, confirming it'll be close to four hours before the man wakes from medicated unconsciousness.
The perfect amount of time to either let Jim nap or knock some sense into his thick skull.
Spock is the one sore this time and Jim aches a little for him when Spock can't get comfortable in their bed. Even with the lights off and the room pitched into black, Jim can feel the dampness on the linens, the taut line of his flank, and he reaches for his communicator to call Bones, only to be stopped with a hand on his wrist.
“No,” Spock states. “I am only unable to obtain sleep due to...”
“The giant painful wound that's barely healed under your shirt? The broken ribs that are knitted but still hurt?” Jim raises an eyebrow, a perfect rendition of Spock's though it is unseen, then kisses Spock's temple, saying, “Let me take care of you.”
Silence forms between them, heavy and telling, and he relents.
Their second trip to New Vulcan ends much better than the first.
Sarek still dislikes him, but Spock bonds with Jim anyway.
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