Understanding
Title: Understanding
Author: cmdr_spock
Pairing: Spock/Kirk
Rating: pg
Summary: Kirk's serial cheating weighs on Spock. Set sometime after 'Journey to Babel', TOS era. Done for 20_est_relships .
It wasn't easy to watch Kirk basically sleep his way around the universe. It bothered him even before they became a couple and more so after. He let him though. Let him hop from one female's bed to another all, as Jim would put it, for diplomacy's sake. He didn't think it had anything to do with diplomacy. His father was an ambassador and even Sarek raised an eyebrow at Jim's purported antics when rumours would cross his path. He couldn't see his father having sex with the opposing side just to secure a treaty. He still gave Jim his freedom, although Jim would return to him after a night or two with a girl, guilt obviously weighing him down, his golden eyes not quite daring to meet Spock's.
He first thought that perhaps this guilt would bring Jim into line, but it was only a few occasions of him slipping into his first officers bed, freshly showered but Spock's more finely tuned sense of smell, still smelling another on what should be his and his alone and he knew that guilt wouldn't be enough. It hurt deeply, although it was something he would never admit. He simply refused to discuss it and would prevent Jim from bringing it up as well, even if it was couched in an apology for what he had done. It was the one selfish act he would allow himself because he knew it frustrated Jim not to come clean, to apologize. If he was going to hurt, to ache this bad, he wanted Jim to feel it too. Not logical, not the way to handle things, his Vulcan half told him, but his Vulcan half didn't offer any suggestions on how to deal with a human mate. He could have asked his father, but he didn't care to bring this relationship to his father's attention. He had disappointed him enough and they were finally speaking to one another again after eighteen years of stony silence. He could ask his mother, but he didn't want to risk her accidentally saying something to his father.
So, he kept quiet. Occasionally he would let the anger he felt come out when they were sparring and Jim would barely be able to walk away from the exercise mat. He would ask Spock to spar again though. Maybe he knew and accepted this form of punishment for what he did. Spock would never ask although the question of why Jim kept straying especially when his guilt was so obviously overwhelming and inescapable, never left his mind completely. He learned to satisfy himself with depth of Jim's guilt and the bruises the man would sport after a sparring session and his facade of not caring.