Fic: Homecoming II, part 3, complete

[beederiffic]

Title: Homecoming II, part 3
Length: 7.5k
Everything else (warnings, ratings etc) same as part 1. ♥ to awarrington for the rescue mission and for general loveliness.

I don’t know this place. It’s dark and it smells funny and the air feels wet. It feels like it does when I’m having a dream but Mom says dreams aren’t real.

Someone’s hugging me, I think I know them but it’s not Mom or Sam. Sam doesn’t hug me these days.

There’s a strange man, he doesn’t look like any man I’ve ever seen before. He has black hair cut funny and pointy ears like out of a fairytale book. He is holding a little man by the front of the little man’s jacket. Maybe the little man’s a magical dwarf and the strange man’s a goblin. He shakes the magical dwarf and says a bad word that would make Mom mad at him, and tells the dwarf that ‘you will try’.

There are more magical dwarfs now, and they sound mad but frightened as they crowd around the strange man. But more grown ups come, two other men and a lady. Then someone holds my hand and we go sit in a small boat, which is fun, and one of the little men pilots it up a river to a lake. It’s pretty, there’s lots of birds and trees.

The strange man is putting a mask over his face and a small thing in his mouth. I’ve seen them on holovids and I want to tell someone that I know they’re for swimming under water as Mom says I should be proud that I know stuff, but I feel kind of shy so I don’t. The guy with the hairy face who is mad a lot is getting mad at the strange man, who is ignoring him and coming to sit by me in the boat.

The strange man has nice eyes. It’s like he’s smiling with them at me even though his mouth isn’t. He helps me put the mask on and gives me the breathing thing and tells me that we are going for a swim. I don’t want to, the water looks cold and deep and I’m not great at swimming yet, but I like him and don’t want him to think I’m a wuss puss like Sam calls me sometimes.

The little pilot dwarf is tipping something over the side of the boat into the water. It looks like a vase full of juice, a big one. It makes me feel thirsty and I ask if I may have something to drink, please, but the strange man shakes his head and says that we must swim first.

I’m scared. He holds my hand and smiles with his eyes at me, and tells me that he will not leave my side and will make sure that I am safe. Mom says sometimes it’s okay to trust grown ups and sometimes it isn’t, and he seems like one of the ones Mom would think it was okay to trust so I nod at him and say ‘Okay’ and he helps me jump into the water off the side of the boat.

The water is cold and super dark but the mask means I can see the man clearly and the tube lets me breathe like I’m still in the air when I remember to try it. It’s kind of fun and I think the man thinks so too as he’s looking at me through his mask with his eyes smiling like he’s having fun too, his hair floating around his head. He keeps holding onto my hand. He looks at a box thing strapped across his chest and points downward, and starts swimming that way pulling me with him so I kick hard as I can and try to swim with one arm. It’s tough and I get tired real fast.

He stops swimming. We’re deeper and the water is darker and colder here and I can’t see anything but him and some darker weeds or something behind him. We’re floating, kicking our legs a bit so we don’t sink deeper and he takes both my hands in his. His eyes aren’t smiling anymore and I get scared because I think he might be too. Then something touches my ankle, something that isn’t him, something that I can’t see and I open my mouth to scream, and my breathing tube falls out and starts to drop.

He lets go of my hand and tries to grab it but I’m scared and trying to kick away the thing touching me and waving my arm around in the water, and he doesn’t catch my breathing tube in time before it sinks. The thing touching me is on both my feet now, something soft that’s wrapping around my ankles and legs, like a snake maybe. The man takes his breathing tube out of his mouth, pushing it into my mouth and holding my mouth closed over it with a hand so I can’t scream or lose it again. Then he spins me around in the water, his arm wrapping around me like a hug with his hand still over my mouth, and I stop trying to scream because I have to breathe.

I can’t kick any more. The thing, the snake or whatever is holding me super tight and it hurts now and I start to cry. The man hugs me tighter, his hand moving from my mouth to fit over my face, his fingers opening up and pressing against my skin as he reaches with his other hand down between us, down along my back towards my legs, towards the thing. Then he pushes against my face harder and there’s light in my head and it’s silver like a flash of lightning . . .

Home. I know it the second I feel the sheet beneath my fingertips. Bones is sitting next to the bed with his eyes closed, which open as soon as I start to cough. He helps me sit up and hands me a cup of water.

“Sip it. Don’t gulp.”

“Remind me.” My voice is cracked and dry, like I haven’t spoken for awhile. “Didn’t we go through this scenario once already?”

“Jim. You’re back?”

“And how.” I reach up to squeeze his neck, pulling him down into one of those hugs where he pats my back awkwardly and allows me to hug him with one arm till I let him go. “Missed you, you old bastard. How long was I out?”

“Eight days. Wasn't happy about you being unconscious that long, but your scans showed increased cortical activity throughout your limbic system and Spock was adamant you were in some kind of healing trance. Lord knows I don’t like to mess too much with anything involving telepathy.”

I let him out of the hug, knowing he must be itching to scan something and, sure enough, Bones grabs his scanner and medical tricorder the second my arm’s dropped away, already frowning at the tricorder in anticipation.

“Where are the kids? Where’s Spock? ” I can feel Spock, feel the echo of the jolt of awareness he experienced when I woke still reverberating along the length of our bond. I can sense he’s not too far from me and it makes me wonder why he’s not in here, on me, right now. He should be and my question’s almost petulant. The corner of Bones’ mouth quirks up but he doesn’t stop scanning.

“Making his way back here at warp factor fifty, most likely. Pui-Shan browbeat them all into going for a nature walk, to get them out of the house for some air because your single-minded husband hadn’t spoken in three days and was beginning to scare the kids. She managed to guilt-trip a Vulcan, it was a sight to behold. She’s something, that girl. She’d make a better admiral than you.”

“Bullshit. I got my memory back, and happen to know for a fact that I’m an awesome admiral. Just like I was the most awesome goddamn captain that ever lived.” He flips the scanner off and I recline back in bed, pulling the sheet up over my stomach. “I knew I had to be, but there’s something to be said about knowing for sure.”

“You said you got it all back? You’re positive?”

“Yeah, I’m positive. Know what? The only good thing about my childhood was that it was a long time ago and got more so every day. It wasn’t much fun living various parts of it back over again.” I stretch out my legs, wondering if my body’s all kinds of fucked up after a week in bed, because everything feels okay, if a little achy, my limbs somewhat weak and woolly. I wouldn’t want to try to walk right now. “Why? Does the scan look like I’m missing something?”

“Impossible to tell. I can only compare your readings with those taken prior to the initial attack, but you’ve banked an additional four years’ worth of engrams since, so I’ve got nothing to make an exact comparison against. Not to mention that the vast majority of those memories were neuron soup ten days ago.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Bones.” He eyebrows at me like he doesn’t want to hear it but I sit up, not planning to give him an out. “I mean it. The journey to Ibahn’s a little fuzzy, but you brought me back. Thank you. I mean it, there’s no way I can’t thank you enough.”

“Like you’ve not saved my ass a few times over. I didn’t do that much. Thank your husband.”

“Trust me, I intend to. I’m planning to aardvark his aardvark over and over again in extremely heartfelt gratitude.”

“Figures. At least let me exit the room first.”

“Then start exiting. Soon as possible. Come on, Bones, scram.”

I’ve got the language of our bond back, all the understanding of its nuance and subtlety that I’d learned and lost, and I can feel it heating gently now the same way supersonic shock announces the presence of something coming your way fast. I can sense gratitude, joy, worry, love, disbelief, caution, exhaustion, exhilaration, all topped off with a heap of good old fashioned Vulcan horniness. I start laughing to myself, giddy with it, with Spock’s nearness, with everything that I remember about him and about us now. Bones pauses on his way out the room to look at me and ask why I’m laughing, and is almost knocked flying by a Spock-shaped battering ram that powers through the bedroom door and lifts me up, out of bed and into his arms, my legs wrapping around his hips like they’ve done a million times before in this bed alone.

“Spock. T’hy’la.”

His arms tighten around me further at my whisper and I’m cupping his jaw to press kisses all over his face, his closed eyelids, the tips of his ears, everywhere I can reach until he lays his head against my heart and holds me there as I stroke through his hair.

“Jim.” It’s like my name’s a prayer, some kind of incantation, such is the weight his gruff voice lends it.

“It’s me.”

He lifts my hands, his fingers finding mine in a kiss, lifting his head as we nuzzle against each other. My beautiful Vulcan. My soul. There’s nothing more to say as I drink him in and feel him do the same, his nose seeking out the back of my ear to rub, the touch of his lips and chin there as he scents himself with me. But then a second battering ram, Gray-shaped this time, enters the room to hit me hard, skinny arms snaking around my waist just as Lejiba’s wavering, tearful voice reaches my ears.

“You know, if you guys could not be all gross on each other for five minutes, it’d be really nice to say hi to Daddy.”

She’s not called me that in ten years. I pull apart enough from Spock to lift his arms, meeting his eyes so dark and profound as tears overflow mine, the kids ducking under our joined arms to wrap around me. This is all that matters in the universe, right here, in this bed. I got it all back, every second. How Lejiba’s hand was cold and so delicate when she darted out of the crowd and first slipped it into mine on Ooniuua. How Gray’s hand had clung to my finger with surprising strength two minutes after his birth, his eyes squinting up into mine and giving me the most disappointed look I’ve ever seen on another being. Too many instances of being wanted, and needed, loved and adored, ignored, resented, and hated too, sometimes. All of it and more, it’s all back. I remember now that I am always terrified beyond measure, because I’ve somehow managed to tear out my heart, break it into three, and let those three pieces exist outside of me in a galaxy full of danger that I’m in a position to know more about than most people.

I wipe my eyes with my shoulders, unable and unwilling to let go or untangle my arms. I hug Gray to my side harder and rest my chin on Lejiba’s head, smiling at Spock. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

“And you.” I kiss the top of Lejiba’s blue hair. “‘Worse sense of humor in the galaxy’, huh?” Lejiba pulls back to glare at me, the effect softened by her wet eyes and how beautiful she is in such a different way to how she was as a child.

“That you remember? Typical.”

“That, and also that you owe me Sonata Twenty-One, B flat major, because I won our bet. You thought you’d gotten away with that one. Blame Pops.”

“You call this winning? Anyway, forget it. There’s no challenge in the Schubert for any artist of worth and he’s so disgustingly sentimental.”

“Just like me. I’m calling it in, I want my Sonata.”

“What was the bet?” I can barely make it out, Gray’s face pressed into my stomach, but then he rubs his nose on my tunic leaving a smear of something I don’t want to examine too closely, and repeats it. “You said you bet with Lejiba. That’s gambling.”

“I was mad with Daddy before he went to Ibahn and was scared something would happen to him.” She tucks into me tighter still, her voice hiccuping with memory. “So he bet me a trip to Risa that he’d come back intact. I had to promise I’d perform this horrible piece for him if he returned from Ibahn okay.”

“And there’s a lesson to be learned there, son.” I ruffle Gray’s hair, tucking my head into Spock’s neck because I can’t get close enough to him right now. “If you’re making a bet you don’t want to lose, make it time-bound or someone else’s second chance might come and bite you in the butt.”

---

“Wow. That was . . .”

“Expeditious.”

I snort into his shoulder.

“That’s one word for it. Sorry. But you know damn well I’m only good for another five seconds once you get inside my head.” I push up into him further, feeling his asshole flexing around my dick, pushing me to the edge of oversensitivity before I pull out with a wince, rolling away and falling back to the bed beside him. “Whatever. It’s your fault.”

“Do you want me to apologize?”

“A little bit, yeah.” But I’m smiling against Spock’s lips as I say it, sighing with how good it feels with his tongue pushing against mine, aftershocks of a literally mind-blowing orgasm skittering around my nervous system as his leg wraps around mine, his dick hard and wet against my hip.

“I am sorry.”

“For what?” I tug him closer again to start kissing along his jaw, up over his chin to his mouth once more then along further to claim an earlobe with my teeth, my head every bit as turned on as ever by him even though my body is crying out for sleepy time.

“For being at fault. I apologize. I was in error.”

“How so?” I trace his ear with my tongue and he cranes his head towards me in a not-so-subtle hint until I suck gently at the pointed tip. It makes him groan, and his voice is a half-octave lower when he speaks again.

“I assumed your exclamation that you desired to, I quote, fill my man pussy with your hot cream, was a sincere one that you wished to have promptly fulfilled.”

“Fuck, Spock, don’t repeat it back to me. It sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

His humor, a touch smug this time, fizzes into my brain as I start to kiss down his neck, loving the creamy texture of his skin, as fine as ground pearls.

“Then I must apologize once more.”

“No.” I prop my chin on his chest, raking my fingers up through his chest hair to smooth over his cheekbone with my thumb as he looks down at me, his liquid eyes so breathtaking that I reach up further to trace the tips of the thick fringe of eyelashes while he blinks at me, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “You never have to apologize for anything else, ever again. When it comes to husbandly duties, melding with a monster squid and fighting it for the contents of my mind pretty much gets you a lifetime pass out of the doghouse.”

“I fail to comprehend how canine habitation-”

“Except for that!” I flick his nipple and he hisses, narrowing his eyes at me, his dick twitching against my hip. “There is no way in hell you grew up with human relatives and don’t know every active idiom back and forth.”

“It seems that my lifetime pass is a conditional one.”

“It is. And here I was trying to say thank you.”

He curls against my body, reaching to pull at my hip so I roll to face him, his lips rubbing against my neck as his hand follows the contours of my back to cup my ass.

“I do not wish to claim it as an altruistic act on my part, which accepting your thanks without comment or correction would imply. I was reclaiming that which is mine.”

“And repaying a debt.”

“Which would be illogical, given that no individual invested in said-debt continues to exist within our reality, to my knowledge.”

I knew it. Ever since I’d gotten the whole story out of Spock’s counterpart, about everything they’d done for each other, about how the other Kirk once gave up everything, losing even his son in the process, to get his Spock back . . . ever since then, I knew it hung in the back of Spock’s mind. One small part of the weights and balances that seem to make up Spock’s moral universe, a box on a checklist left unmarked. They were about the age we are now, the other me’s son not that much older than Lejiba. I can’t allow myself to dwell on that thought so I tweak his earlobe instead.

“Silly, illogical Vulcan.”

“I would remind you that the cephalopod was many times my size and mass, and a powerful telepath.”

“My point stands.”

He thinks about it for a moment. “Conceded.”

But I’ve recovered a little energy now and his last word’s spoken up to me with another hint of a smile where I’m kneeling over his prone body, my toes brushing up his inner legs while I begin to kiss his shoulder, moving across his collarbones to the other, speaking between each kiss that I press against his perfect skin.

“You may legitimately lay claim to the credit for what I’m about to thank you for. While I was healing, I lived it all again, all my lost memories unrolling out in front of me. So I want to thank you for giving me back our first kiss.”

It was after two non-dates. I thought they were dates, especially the botanical exhibition, so nervous I had to wipe my hands on my pants until I near wore a hole in them before I chimed at his door to ask him if he was ready to beam down with me. Then fucking Sulu got him all science-geeked-out about some cloning tech on show, and I didn’t see him again the rest of the night because Bones was on a downer and in a mood to bitch. Next time, I asked Spock to dinner because we were swinging by DS3. I picked the Kravag Norr place specifically because I knew there was no fucking way any of the other crew would go anywhere near it. Spock brought a stack of procedural reviews with him that had a deadline approaching. So, shitty, violent food, and we worked through it. I got to rub my knee against his under the table twice. That the knee- rubbing alone had made it all worthwhile demonstrates how long I’d been stuck in the Crush from Hell over my oblivious First.

Our third non-date date. A courtesy visit to New Vulcan mainly to give Spock a little peace of mind. Not that he'd showed any sign he needed it. The colony invited the crew to participate in a small cultural arts festival that was taking place in order to formally recognize the colony’s efforts to revive Old World arts. Even though the opera lasted four hours and mostly sounded like elephant seals mating, it had an undeniable romance to it, an ancient tale about a Vulcan warrior’s search for ultimate truth. I invited Spock in for a friendly chat once we beamed back on-board, planning to ask him if he was okay or if visiting the colony and his father had unsettled him in any way. Instead, he beat me to the punch, the door closing behind him with a hiss as he raised an eyebrow, ‘Elephant seals, Captain?’ and made me realize that every Vulcan within a ten meter radius of me must’ve heard my whispered aside to Scotty. I’m just about to comm Sarek to officially apologize when Spock reaches out, taking my hand in his and sliding his fingers against my own in a friendly manner.

“Your presence was enlightening, Jim. Thank you. Good night.”

“I didn’t know then, that it was our first kiss.” I lift his hand with my own, lacing our fingers and pulling his to my mouth, kissing over each fingertip in turn as his eyes go heavy-lidded. “So I need to thank you for giving me back our second kiss, too.”

I lean into him, my thigh between his, his hands guiding my head as I press my lips against his and push into his mouth with my tongue.

I get a bright idea: we’ve got shore leave coming up on a planet with a largely subtropical climate and large tracts of mountainous forests. I decide to take Spock camping so I can seduce him. Not even a Vulcan can resist the erotic draw of a night under canvas, right? I get it all figured out, comming ahead to make sure the Staztians have invented tents. They have, so I organize a cosy little domed number, a stove, sleeping bags but not cots because, in my head at least, we’ll be too busy rolling around naked to worry much about where we’re going to sleep.

Bones is grouching as usual about shore leave and how I never take any decent personal time, so I tell him I’m planning a camping trip once we get to Stazt IV in order to shut him up. He thinks it’s a great idea and invites himself along, and I’ve got absolutely no legitimate reason to tell him he can’t come, considering I haven’t dared tell him I’m planning on making my move where Spock’s concerned. Bones made it clear months back when I drunkenly confessed my growing obsession with Spock that I’d probably get my dick nerve-pinched right off if I ever made a move in that direction. Then he laughed at me on and off for an hour, so I haven’t mentioned it since. He suggests I invite Spock, too, so we’ve got someone to poke fun at.

I get Bones drunk as fast as I can. His tolerance is up after a year spent serving with Scotty, so it’s well on its way to dawn when he finally passes out face down in the middle of our single tent. I follow the path Spock excused himself down earlier, finding him meditating on a rocky ledge facing the coming dawn, the sky beginning to lighten at the far horizon. I sit next to him, a foot or so away, not wanting to disturb him, just wanting to look at him, so pale and perfect in the fading light of three moons.

But he opens his eyes and looks at me, regarding me without expression or comment, and I’m still more than a little drunk so I whisper his name and lean towards him to clumsily press my mouth against his chin before figuring out where his mouth is and trying again. He doesn’t make a sound, his lips unmoving against mine before he opens them and begins to kiss me back, his tongue moving against mine. We turn towards each other and kiss, simply kiss, on and on, nothing else as the sun rises. It’s better than any sex I’ve ever had. Then he breaks the kiss, his fingers stroking mine, and gives me what is so very nearly a smile, his face unnaturally rosy in the light of the fuchsia dawn. The morning’s birds leave the branches all around us, carrying my heart up into the air on feathered wings.

I’m working my way down his body now, tonguing and nipping at each flat nipple, my fingers tugging at his chest fuzz then following the fine trail that leads to the dark bush that’s the same silken texture of the hair on his head, so soft and glossy, curling around my fingertips. I lick over his hipbones, tracing the very tip of my tongue down the length of his cock before rubbing my face into his crotch, loving the feel of all his fine fuzz against my skin. He moans, his legs stretching wider apart as his fingers slide into my hair to hold my head with no hint of direction or control. I pull his legs so his knees are tucked over my shoulders, settling onto my stomach as I lift his heavy erection to my mouth, kissing his dripping slit before licking his flavor off my lips.

“I want to thank you for the memory of the first time we fucked.”

I suck him down, deep into my throat as he gasps and arches off the bed into me, his fingers tight in my hair.

I read it over ten times, my knuckles pressed to my mouth so I don’t do anything stupid in front of the bridge crew. Squealing like a lovesick captain who just got booty-commed by his very proper Vulcan officer over at Sciences springs to mind. Or jumping out of my chair and doing an impromptu dance on the viewscreen platform, although that’d make it tough to hide the boner I’m currently sporting, my legs crossed as I read Spock’s comm over one more time. He wants to meet in my quarters, at nine, to further discuss our camping trip. Unless he’s interested in knowing exactly where Bones forgot to apply insect repellent, after that kiss it can only mean one thing.

I’ve showered. I’ve shaved, and trimmed other stuff. I’m in jeans and a blue button-down, because I know my strengths. Barefoot, because I know it’s sexy and a little vulnerable. No underwear, because I’m all about ease of access. Clean sheets. Unobtrusively-positioned lube. Low lights. A bottle of wine. Snacks, even, veggie ones. I’m so fucking smooth I can hardly believe it myself.

Then the door chimes and I answer it in person because I’ve been hovering there for the last two minutes, aware he’d chime at twenty-one-hundred precisely. So the door slides back and Spock’s standing there dressed all in black, this nubbly, tactile-looking knit that clings to everything. My mouth drops open and I stand there and catch flies and look up and down him for a full sixty seconds while I fully admire just how thoroughly it clings. To everything. By the time I’ve manage to close my mouth and stand aside enough to invite him in, I’m halfway to creaming my jeans and my asshole’s started doing an impromptu dance all of its own.

The door’s not completely closed behind him before he reaches out with a snarl and grabs me to him, and a passing and, I’m assuming, surprised ensign is treated to a brief glimpse of Spock shoving his tongue past my opening lips as I suck at his mouth and hold on to anything I can grab hold of. I’m naked before we even make it to bed, Spock disdaining my planned ease of access by simply ripping the shirt off me, buttons flying in every direction as he bites over my chest towards my nipple. I’m bent backwards looking at a button on the floor muttering ‘Wow, Rand’s going to get in a serious piss about all these buttons’ when Spock shoves his hand into my jeans and I stop thinking for the next forty minutes.

He’s fixated on my ass. I come the first time bent double on my knees on the bed, ass high, Spock’s fingers digging into my cheeks as he growls into my asshole and tongue-fucks me senseless. The second time I come is keening through gritted teeth as he bounces me back on him hard after his first orgasm has hit, his hand coaxing my dick to keep me coming until I have to pull myself off him and curl up on the bed whimpering as wave after wave of sensation passes through me. The third time I come, I’m not even entirely sure that’s what’s happened because he’s in my head and I’m riding through his with him as he fucks me deeper still, my feet hooked around his neck as ecstasy explodes through every atom of my body. Even if I hadn’t been head over heels with Spock before this, it’s safe to say the sex meld nails it. So to speak.

“And the first time we made love. You’ve given that back to me.” I nuzzle it into his inner thigh, biting there before working my way back to his cock. “You remember?”

“Of course.”

“You knew how I felt before I’d ever spoken it out loud. You knew it the minute you first touched me after Stazt.” I drop my head and suckle at his tip, unable to get enough of the honeyed musk that pours out of him when he’s this ready to come.

“Yes.” It’s terse, a definite hint of impatience that makes me smile against him, teasing him with my tongue.

“So why was it different when I said the words? You already knew I was in love with you.”

“I recalled the words of my mother.” Only Spock would be this comfortable discussing his mom while getting his dick sucked, his fingers threading through my hair while I close my eyes and deepthroat him again. “When I was a child, she once told me that the primary difference between Vulcans and Humans was that Vulcans are fully at ease with words but not with the sentiments behind them. She said that Humans are the opposite, that they revel in emotion but seldom have the ability or desire to state those emotions with complete honesty. She said that, as a child of the two worlds, I’d grow to recognize when the two states combined, rare occurrences that she said had worth beyond any measure of value.”

He cups my chin with his fingers, pulling me off him, smearing the spit and precum on my lips with the ball of his thumb. “When you told me that you loved me, it was the first time that I was truly able to understand her meaning.”

His touch is hesitant with none of the intensity of how it’s been between us over the last month, uniforms shed hastily, boots kicked off, accidental scratches and hickies and a knot the size of a walnut on my head after he throws me onto the bed one night and I manage to headbutt the wall on my way down. But tonight, after I blurt it out after a kiss that makes me believe I’ll never want to kiss another person my whole life, it’s all gentleness, his hands slowly undress me with silent reverence while I try to figure out if he didn’t say it back because he’s Vulcan or because he isn’t in love with me.

He senses my perplexity through his touch against my skin, his eyes glowing with emotion that I want to shake out of him. Is this what being in love with a Vulcan means? It’s the first time that I’m ready to do the whole emotional commitment thing, and I fall for someone who may be completely unable to reciprocate. Freud would’ve had a field day with the way my head works.

Then he’s moving deep inside me, rocking his hips hypnotically rather than slamming against me hard, stoking a slow burn deep inside as I bite my lip and moan and feel like I’m ready to die. His hand reaches out for my face and I lick his palm before it settles there, waiting for this, wanting him in my head so I can access all that buried heat, the smoldering madness that is Spock’s need for me. It’s addictive, driving my own climax to headier heights each time we fuck as Spock’s building, raging libido sweeps through me like forest fire. But, this time, he spreads his fingers across my face and leans down to open my mouth with his as his mind penetrates mine.

He’s taken me somewhere else. A place inside that was hidden from me before, somehow. I feel the simmering heat of his desire all around me, witnessing the flare of pleasure as I hike my hips and clench on him hard, but mostly it’s something else that lifts me up, that threads through every part of me that it feels like I’m held aloft by a shimmering, swirling entity made of silver light. I can feel that it’s him, and that it’s a mass of emotion that’s too big, too powerful and unguarded to put a name to. He adores me, every heartbeat, every molecule, every word I’ve ever said to him.

He didn’t have to say it. He took me inside his heart and showed me instead.

There’s too much else to say right now, too much to thank him for. I’d thought it was enough when I’d returned to my family and to loving him, that I still had the life we’d built together if not the memories of us doing so. I didn’t realize how much I’d lost, I had no idea at all until he risked his life to force its return, and I don’t know if I’ve got enough years left in me to thank him for everything that he's given back to me. But I look up along his trembling body at his face now, which has lost all its poise, his guard down, and see this side of himself that I remember now he’s only ever shown me.

I don’t yet have the strength for this but I trust his hands to support me as I straddle his hips, pushing myself back down onto his soaking prick, impaling myself inch by inch as he leans his forehead against my chest and struggles to maintain a shred of control. Then his arms wrap around me tight, his hips surging up to lift my body onto the pyre of his own as he surrenders to a fire that’s been burning inside us both for twenty years.

---

“I can shoot him, right? I’m sure there are special laws for admirals.”

He’s got his hand on Lejiba’s ass. Not her hip, not her waist, her asscheek. He’s squeezing it and she giggles and play-slaps his shoulder. Spock tilts his head at them, lips pursed.

“Regrettably, there are no special laws for admirals in this instance.”

“Spock, he’s slime. He’s pus. For fuck’s sake, he has a self-inflicted parasitical infection.” A woeful trend, a living tattoo created by implanting light-emitting parasites subdermally in the idiotic subject’s chosen pattern. Lejiba’s new friend has a sparkling, color-changing chihuahua riverdancing across his forehead. He squeezes Lejiba’s ass again. “That’s it. She’s Jim Kirk’s daughter, goddammit! That little punk.”

“Patience, husband.”

“You’re no help. That’s your baby girl he’s manhandling. Now is not the time for Vulcan reticence!”

“I am attempting to formulate a scenario in which Mr. Sparxxx,” Spock carefully articulates the additional consonants, “Might somehow trip and fall onto my hand.”

“Your pinching hand?” He nods, still staring at the back of Douche Boy’s head with narrowed eyes, and my heart sings a little song. “There are so many reasons why I love you.”

“Indeed.”

We’re nearly all the way across the campus, Lejiba dragging Sparxxx up the steps in front of us. Okay, I hate him and want him to die slowly and in a lot of pain, but it’s wonderful having her home after her year’s transfer in Nova Mundus ended a month back. The trees are beginning to drop their leaves now, fall finally setting in and I turn my collar up against the breeze coming from off the bay, walking closer to Spock and wishing I’d had his forethought and worn a scarf. I feel his posture change beside me, a minute stiffening as his step pauses almost imperceptibly, and look up to see the cause of it marching across the campus towards us, trailed by two assistants.

“Father.”

“My son. Admiral Kirk.”

“It’s Jim, Sarek. No uniform. See? Jim. Go nuts, try it out.”

He looks down his nose at me for a beat, then turns his attention back to Spock.

“Your daughter has an unusual measure of social confidence for her years. May I ask if that young man is professionally trained or merely an enthusiastic amateur student of gynecological examination?”

They’re leaning against a column, and Sparxxx’s roving hand has slipped around Lejiba’s hip and is fondling . . . areas. A red mist descends.

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to enjoy it, too. He’s dead meat. He’s lunch.”

“Jim . . .”

The gentle reproach in Spock’s voice reminds me why we’re all here. I guess it wouldn’t be very supportive to Gray if I slaughtered his sister’s boyfriend across the steps of his school auditorium. Spock’s fingers find mine for a brief touch before he takes control, leading his father up the steps to Lejiba, inviting her to introduce her companion to her grandfather. Sparxxx whips his hand away in the face of so much frosty Vulcan politeness, and his chihuahua lives to dance another day.

Gray’s so small up there on the platform. He’s already skipped ahead two grades and Pui- Shan’s discussing his advancing another in a few key subjects, but the classmates at his back look like a football team in comparison, burly eight year olds picking their noses to see how far they can flick the results and giving each other dead arms as he steps up to the podium and onto the crate it takes for him to be able to see over the top. Another year up and you might as well throw him to the wolves. But his fingers are steady as he keys up his prize-winning essay, his hands firm on the edge of the podium, his eyes regarding us, his audience, with total calm.

“My Two Dads: a paper on dual heritage parenting by Grayson Kirk.”

Five minutes later, I’m trying really hard not to look at Spock because I know that, if I do, I’ll lose it and start laughing in a way I won’t be able to stop. He’s six years old, where the hell is he even getting this stuff from? I’m so glad Bones is off-world again. Even Sarek’s ear tips have flushed a delicate sage, his eyebrows hitting high orbit every few minutes, especially when Gray treats the auditorium to a short but descriptive paragraph of the differences between the instances of Spock’s melds with Gray and those Spock has with myself. Gray’s solemn voice continues in its high pitched monotone and I stuff the knuckles of one hand into my mouth, turning away from Spock because just the sight of him out the corner of my eye is threatening to burst the dam. I’m proud and appalled and have no idea where we’re heading with this.

“Therefore the conclusion I am inclined to draw after recording quantitative observations over the past year is that, although my dad’s intuitive, affectionate and, some might argue, entirely improvisational parenting techniques have provided me with a key example of emotional intelligence as much as my Pops’ intellectual vigor, adherence to logic and the constant pursuit of scientific discovery have molded the growth of my rational being, there are also additional factors in my development that have inherent merit and cannot be disregarded.

“My parents are not a simple reflection of their individual cultural identities. My Human father’s staunch respect for cerebral occupation and for academic achievement has not only held sway over my own educational and recreational activities, but also played a key role in my very existence, for I do not believe that my Vulcan father would have initially acted on his sexual attraction to Dad, nor would he continue to focus on Dad to such an extraordinary degree, if he did not recognize Dad to be his intellectual equal.”

“You’re damn right.” It’s only a mutter but I’m something of an expert in the aural capabilities of Vulcans these days and I pitch it just so Sarek can’t miss it.

“In the same vein, Dad has recognized in Pops a person who, regardless to the social mores and cultural hegemony of his home world, has a depth of private emotionality that matches his own, enabling their partnership to thrive, becoming both famous and infamous, known throughout the galaxy and one that exists in two realities that we know of. I am a child of this union and am confident that it is both the binary nature of my fathers’ primary personalities in addition to the secondary traits that consolidate their similarities, that allow me to stand here before you today to state that we are all children of mixed heritage on a varying scale of diversity, and to encourage you to explore your own duality as an expression of self. I am not the sum of my fathers: I am a celebration of their differences, and a reflection of their harmony. I am two loves made one. Thank you very much.”

There’s a stunned silence for three seconds before Lejiba and I jump to our feet to start applauding and whooping, stamping our feet with approval while everyone else claps politely and look at each other as if more than a little shell-shocked. Lejiba leans backs over her seat towards me.

“I think we can safely say we know where he gets his ego from.”

“Ah, you obviously weren’t listening.” I wag my finger, taking my seat again now an older boy is preparing to read his essay on a subject that I doubt will be anything like as entertaining as Gray’s. “Pops’ and my similarities are consolidated. Nothing’s simply my fault any more.”

“Dad, he called himself ‘a celebration’.”

I look at Gray, up on the stage happily swinging his legs in his seat now his part’s done, oblivious to the expressions of suspicious awe on the older kids around him. I notice Lejiba snuggling against her dumb ass of a boyfriend who, wandering hands and parasitical infestations aside, was considerate enough to come with her family to listen to her kid brother give an inappropriately detailed lecture on the nature of birthright. Then my eyes are drawn as ever to Spock, his hair gleaming in its usual silken cap, the line of his nose leading to an eloquent eyebrow as he catches my eye over his father’s shoulder, the cast of his mouth which tells me that he’s every bit as proud and as horrified as I am. I look at him and know that twenty years is nothing, that we’ve barely on started our journey together. He’s a smart kid, Gray. A celebration? I couldn’t have put it better myself.