Fic: Two Summers, 1-11
Jim discovers that grief is not all sadness. That he has the ability to smile and laugh. It makes him feel kind of twisted up inside, as though happiness itself is a kind of desecration to Spock’s memory. Spock would probably scoff at the idea, but Jim still feels pangs of guilt that he’s not mourning all the time.
He still feels Spock’s absence keenly. But it seems that humans aren’t made to be sad constantly. Shouldn’t they, though? If he loves Spock, if he lost Spock, shouldn’t he just be unable to function at all?
It’s a kind of demented logic, one that Bones is familiar with. Jim knows that his best friend is watching him closely, ready to with a hypospray should he show the slightest sign of shattering. Jim finds it annoying, just has he finds himself smiling at a joke that Bones makes. He doesn’t know what to make of the fact that he can smile. The past few months, Jim feels like he’s been alternating between numbness and a pit of sorrow.
When Spock was suppressing his emotions, is this what it felt like? When he was exploring his human side, was it something like this-an uncertainty that the emotion was even allowed to exist? If their places had been reversed, Jim would tell Spock, assuming that Jim could reach Spock from beyond the grave, that it’s ridiculous he feels guilty about something as simple as smiling. Go for it. Do what you want. I won’t hold you back.
Spock probably wouldn’t say it that way, but the general idea is similar. It’d be more along the lines of ‘living according to the purely speculated will and desire of a deceased individual is illogical.’
He gets confused sometimes. He wishes he had an eidetic memory, because he isn’t sure if his “Spock would” thoughts are actually based on Spock, or if he’s just projecting in some sort of demented psychological loop. It gets probably gets philosophical from there, but Jim’s just tangled up in emotion. This isn’t who he is. He wants a way out.
Then again, grief isn’t who he is either. Bones used to think that Jim was made of Teflon, the way he just bounced back from trauma after trauma after trauma. He doesn’t like to deal too deeply with grief or other heavy emotions. He’s developed his own ways of coping with the stresses and for the most part, they’ve worked out pretty well for him. Bones had scores of complaints, but Starfleet didn’t so Jim could just keep going as he always had.
Spock forced his hand.
Now he finds himself struggling to make sense of everything he feels, the contradictory things that rise and fall in his heart, the way that his grief seems to shift and change.
He’s changed.
Spock was always changing him. Forcing him to reconsider his plans as captain, pushing him to become a better leader, supporting him with his immovable loyalty, extending an offer of friendship, opening him wide open with depth of his love. There is no part of Jim that Spock has not touched and changed in some way. It wasn’t that Spock told him what to do or that he was flawed or that he couldn’t be more screwed up. Well, sometimes it was. But Spock never took Jim aside and said, as his brother did once and Bones did multiple times, that something was wrong or broken and Jim needed to see to it before he went off like a time bomb and destroyed the universe.
Spock just was. By his very presence, he transformed Jim in ways that he could never have guessed.
And now it seems that even in death, Spock is changing him. By his absence, he’s transforming Jim and Jim’s not sure where the hell this is going. Is it like a car off a cliff? Because that’s what it feels like.
Spock’s always changing him, and reflecting on it a little, he finds that the change was usually for the better. Is it because he wanted to be a better person for Spock? Or Spock just naturally brings out the goodness in him? Or are the changes really more independent of Spock, who was a catalyst, the man who tipped the first domino?
This grief thing’s changing him, and he’s not sure he likes it. He’s turning into an old man. He’s more quiet and serious, he’s not so much fun. He hesitates sometimes at taking risks. Jim Kirk never turns down the opportunity for some extra adrenaline. He’s made his name and reputation off it. It’s who he is. He resents Spock for taking his invincibility away from him.
Granted, objectively speaking he still takes way more chances than your typical Starfleet captain, or any officer. But the point still stands.
This isn’t him, this person who’s unsure whether it’s okay to laugh after your lover has died. Fuck it, he’s always made his own rules and broken them too. If he wants to laugh, he’ll laugh. If he wants to smile, he’ll do it because he’s alive and not even Spock could keep him from doing something he wanted when he had his heart set on it. Why should that change just because Spock’s dead?
Spock forced his hand and the bastard didn’t even have the balls to stick around to see Jim’s cards.
Because James T. Kirk cheats. He bluffs and lies through every situation, he beat that stupid unbeatable test with it, he’s saved their asses a dozen times over. It’s in his blood, it’s in his charm, it’s in the way his blue eyes can blaze and look so fucking honest while he’s actually just bullshitting everything.
It doesn’t matter that Spock’s always been able to call him on his bullshit.
Spock’s dead.
And as the truth of that statement hits him again, slicing through the ten thousand ways he’s always been able to lie to himself, he manages a wry smile.
Spock always was a vicious winner.