| ST: TOS S2 Fic, Part 1/5: "Other Lives" - Kirk/Spock - R |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|02:05 am] |
Title: Other Lives
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS (S2)
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: R
Notes: This will be the first piece out of five in my S2 fic arc, which itself follows from my five-story S1 arc (which begins here - I strongly recommend reading those first). This piece falls not so long after the first four episodes of S2, with particular emphasis upon "Amok Time" and "Mirror, Mirror." As with the first sequence, there's music holding all of this together. The song in question is "This Is Me," by Girlyman. I find that they're very little-known outside the Northeast U.S., so I suppose I'm imagining a future where they're still haunting the airwaves (or the minds of the musically-inclined).
Summary: Other choices and other selves don't always occur in parallel universes.
[Part 5/5 of the previous arc, Until Death, can be found here.]
This old highway is just a lonely patch of blue and gray,
and late at night, my memory obfuscates my line of sight.
In my mind, I really had no choice, the stars were cold—
in my eyes, they hung there in dark skies, just still and old.
—This Is Me, Terran 21st-century
*
If, in the Vulcan mindset, there were such a thing as disorientation, Spock imagined that it would feel much like this: the very fabric of the universe being yanked out from under them, a Victorian Earth-magician's parlor diversion with dire, time-bending consequences. He could not be sure as to whether the glasses of water had remained unspilled, or if he had seized upon the wrong trick as a metaphor. It was entirely possible that the hydrogen-and-oxygen compound had been transmuted into wine.
In the wake of koon-ut-kal-if-fee, Spock had experienced a swifter recession of the blood fever than he had ever believed possible. The revelation that his mixed heritage, the offending substance in his veins itself, had not been sufficient to fully spare him the vagaries of pon farr had, nonetheless, been enlightening. Spock had not chosen unwisely, and he had, seemingly against all logic, set up for himself an inadvertent safeguard. He had heard Jim mutter against charms and wards, but had his lover realized the ironic truth in those words shot through with ghostly superstition?
Jim's kiss had been less than gentle that night, as if some part of him had still not forgotten Spock's insensate, star-blinded fury. Even safely out of orbit and far away from Vulcan, the wind with its dust-flecked sense of spite had hunted them down and haunted their flesh with the memory of cudgel blows and whiplash. Spock had awakened the next morning to a rare occurrence, his Captain awake before him, those quick eyes taking in every mark his teeth and hands had left.
"Spock," he had murmured, as if to apologize, "I shouldn't have—"
"I killed you," Spock had responded, simply. "It is no less than I deserve."
And there had been more, then, for some small endless space, as if neither of them cared for anything but to devour the other whole. Guiltily, Spock had realized that perhaps plak tow was not truly gone, but dormant, satisfied to wait out of carefully controlled penance for these stolen nights and moments between bridge shifts and risk-filled reconnaissance missions. It had taken at least a week to fade, if not longer, and the resulting constellations of shared scars had not solely been earned in the challenge. Masu vi'plak, water into blood. They had quenched each other.
Ever since, Jim had taken to treating Spock with rare circumspection in their moments of privacy. If, in the Vulcan mindset, there were such a thing as annoyance, then Spock was certain that Doctor McCoy would doubtless have a field day with what was going on between the proverbial lines. I will not break, t'hy'la. Jim had been duly chastised, although his habitual tenderness, ashaya-tun, had returned.
Having been confronted with his Captain's brutal mirror-image, alike and yet not, some forty-eight hours later, had been nothing less than equivalent to the petty human gesture of a slap in the face. Spock's mind still reeled with it, and even in moments such as this, closing on the edge of sleep, disquiet emerged victorious.
"You're awake." Even thick with exhaustion, Jim's voice was as distinct as the stir of his breath against Spock's nape. "Come on, Spock. Out with it."
Irritation cut through in the wake of his unsettled thoughts. "I am very frequently awake at this hour, regardless of how fatigued my human colleagues may be."
Jim snorted. "Colleagues. Is that what they're calling it these days?"
Spock frowned at the wall, which he could only dimly discern. "I did not intend humor in this matter, but if it makes our discussion easier for you to bear—"
"Discussion?" Jim echoed, by now fully awake. "We're having a discussion?"
"It would appear so, Captain." Spock closed his eyes and laced his fingers absently with Jim's. He would let Jim think on that for a few long seconds, if only to sober him.
"Didn't we establish some kind of...hmmm, I don't know, no-business-in-the-bedroom rule? Or did I drink so much earlier in Bones's quarters that I'm not thinking straight?"
"If you had included me in the discussion to which you are now referring, we might have circumvented the need for this one. Tell me, do you intend to withhold further details of my other self from me indefinitely?"
"As a matter of fact, no, I—" Jim halted mid-sentence, his breath coming next in a flabbergasted burst. "Spock, what are you talking about?"
It was too late to deny the slow, strange unfurling of hurt, some peculiar accident of biology so far gone that Spock knew there would be little to no chance of reversing it. Whatever had happened as a result of his altered fate, Spock would have to learn to live with it. Had it been pity in his mother's glance, a parent's privilege of forewarning?
"I am merely referring to your ill-advised choice of company immediately following what will undoubtedly prove to be a humbling experience for all parties involved."
Unexpectedly, Jim kissed his shoulder. "See, you talk like that when you'd rather be shouting at me. Why don't you just let it out?"
Spock tucked his chin into the pillow, his mind racing. Seven years old and possessed of instinctive apprehension: yes, he had felt it, had known something even then of what time felt like when out of joint. Kuv nam-tor ri'lasha, i'nam-tor.
"I didn't know they'd translated the play into Vulcan," said Jim, softly.
"If it be not to come, it will be now," Spock repeated aloud. "Good poetry, and wise."
He could almost see the quirk of Jim's lips. "You weren't so different. Not like me."
Spock rolled to face him, searching the outline of his features. "What makes you believe you were so different?" he asked, feeling instantly, inexplicably apologetic. So mercurial, this new self. How could he have forgotten from one moment to the next?
That well-worn quirk of the lips, this time visible. "Call it a hunch."
Spock turned away from him again, offering his consideration to the daftly patterned sheets. The impression of his own lips flashed strongly against the blackness: Jim's familiarity with Spock's features was as certain as Spock's sense of his, except...
"Illogical," he muttered, drawing Jim's knuckles up to his chin to find only smoothness there. How had such a tasteless human grooming choice caught on?
"Plus," Jim added, his grin plain as day against Spock's ear-tip, "it made you look ten years older. For a Vulcan, that's pretty significant."
Different after all, Spock decided, and closed his eyes. If Jim was so skilled at detecting wakefulness, then he was going to have to work for it.
- Continue: Reverse Mirror - |
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