[Star Trek XI] Dreaming Through The Noise (2/4(?))

[danse_amore]

Title: Dreaming Through The Noise(2/?)
Wordcount: ~4,000 (11,000 overall so far)
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/Spock (Sort of Spock/T'Pring and later Spock/Uhura and Kirk/universe)
Rating: PG-13?
Disclaimer: I don't own them!
Summary: Spock remembered far too well the first night he heard Jim's mental voice - close to dawn on a dreamless night and he was pulled away from his bed, to a dark, alien kitchen and a terrified, alien mind.
Note: Up to 11,000 words and it'll probably be another two parts, each 5,000 words or so, before I'm finished. I may be wildly wrong about that, though. It's hard to judge, sometimes.

When he woke up, it was at the back of Jim's mind. Jim was staring at himself in the mirror, standing in his bedroom. He was swaying a bit on his feet, his eyes dull, and Spock wondered how long he'd been standing there, how long he'd been keeping himself awake. Waiting for Spock. Jim, he said gently, unsure if the other boy had felt him arrive.

"Hey." Jim rasped, blinking. "You're okay. Or, maybe you're okay. I guess I should have slept, but I - what if there was nothing but black? When you fell, it was like...it was like before we knew what we were doing, and we would both be asleep at the same time. Nothing but dreamless space."

I believe I will recover relatively quickly, Spock said. Judging by the strength of my opponents and even factoring in my own miscalculation of the force needed to free me from Stonn's grip, I am unlikely to have any broken bones or lasting damage. Bruises and a headache should be the only lasting effects, once I awaken.

Jim laughed a little and sagged, stretching out a hand to the mirror for stability.

Spock twitched a frown at him. You, however, appear to be quite fatigued. Perhaps if you sit -

"No." Jim cut him off. "I want to see you - or you to see me, whatever, I just." He ran a hand through his hair. His face was drawn and nervous. "Spock, what if you die?"

An illogical fear, as I have just outlined the severity of my injuries. Spock countered, not that calling Jim "illogical" had ever done anything to make him change his mind, and he had a growing suspicion of what Jim had meant.

"No, I mean. I know you're not, but what if you were dead, right now? And you were here? Would you just live inside my head for the rest of my life?" His eyes were steady, now, staring at himself, at Spock lingering in his mind.

They were both silent for a moment. Such a situation would not be entirely disagreeable, Spock finally thought.

Jim blinked at him. "Don't be an idiot. You don't want my life."

Not if you were not here to share it with me, no, I do not.

Sometimes Spock wondered how much control either of them really had over what they were saying, when they spoke mind to mind. More often, he wondered that he did not mind speaking only what he felt into the whirling storm of Jim Kirk's brain.

Jim stared at him through his own eyes, surprised and touched and understanding, an emotion he seemed to have a monopoly on in Spock's life. Spock wished he had a body to squirm away from his gaze, or at least lower it, but he did not, so instead he said, You never took me driving.

Jim licked his lips and stepped back from the mirror. Right. "Yeah. Perfect." He bounced a little on his toes, and the leaped down the stairs two at a time.

I didn't mean at this precise moment, Spock thought, slightly alarmed. You're exhausted -

I just watched you get the shit beaten out of you. Felt you get the shit beaten out of you. And I couldn't do anything. Trust me, I need this. He sprinted through his kitchen, hooking his step-father's keys off the table, and slammed his way out through the door.

Just because I have put myself in unnecessary, irrational danger does not mean you have to do the same, Spock said severely, and Jim grinned fiercely into the dawn. "So you admit you were being an idiot?"

I had a lapse in control, yes. Spock conceded.

"You can say that again." Jim hesitated a split second before jogging toward the convertible, vaulting over the side into the driver's seat. What I don't understand is why. They've used your mother before, what made this time different?

Spock thought about that. He was unsure what it was exactly that had triggered the molten rage that had raced through his blood. He groped for an explanation. They were not just using my mother, but humanity in its entirety.

And humanity in its entirety is a shining ball of virtue and rainbows that you need to protect with your fists? Jim snorted. Dude, you of all people know that's not true. Just look at Frank, and you see that Stonn guy's point.

Frank is not all of humanity, Spock thought. Nor was it he of whom I was thinking when I struck. Stonn was implicating...my human half.

And who - oh. Oh. Jim sat for a moment, and then turned the key. Beneath him, the old automobile hummed to life, and Jim's mind seemed to purr right along with it. He smoothed his hand over the worn leather of the seats, patted the dashboard like it was an animal to be tamed.

I don't really see how it could be, but I hope this is worth all the things I have to thank you for, Jim thought, and Spock sent him a small curl of a smile.

Jim did something with the controls of the car and then they were moving backwards, the sudden wind of acceleration plastering their hair to the back of their head. He slid something up and they reversed, shooting forward with a screech of synth-rubber tires.

Spock had been transported in hovercars before, smooth metal capsules completely closed off from the sky outside them. They moved with little to no noise, slipping unobtrusively through the orange skies of Vulcan, almost apologetic.

There was nothing apologetic about the way Jim Kirk drove a red Corvette. His hands were sure and swift on the wheel, his foot heavy on the accelerator. They sped towards the rising sun, eyes fixed on the light breaking across the horizon. As the needle on the dial spun them faster and faster, the wind filled Jim's grin and puffed his cheeks outward, and he gulped and swallowed the air with his laughter. Sock felt a sort of joy, a thrumming, humming love of speed fill up Jim's mind, buoying him up and making him float on a wave of freedom. He felt himself drifting - could almost feel something against his hand, not Jim's, could almost hear someone calling his name, but he scrabbled and clung to this feeling here, because no, not yet.

Jim swung them along dirt roads and then off of them, into a wide green field freshly mown, where the air smelled like dust and dirt and growing things. It was a smell Spock had only ever experienced through Jim's nose - the dry, parched plants of Vulcan smelled entirely different than the sweetness of cut grass. Jim spun to a halt, carving circular ruts into the dirt of the field, and slipped out of the driver's seat. He stood, staring, as the sun crested the horizon, his chest heaving with adrenaline. There was an ache in his mind, a knot of worry and sorry and guilty that started to loosen as the morning came up golden.

It is not your fault. Spock thought. I will be fine.

I know. Jim responded, and he did, Spock could feel it. But you shouldn't have to fight alone for us both.

I am not alone, thought Spock, and then he was.

He was lying in his own bed, in his own room. In the corner his mother sat, looking up without speaking at his father. Both of their faces were tight with worry.

He closed his eyes, trying to return to Jim and the warm Iowa dawn, but there was a dull, throbbing pain in his head that chased away all chance of sleep.

"Mother," he managed, his tongue thick in his mouth., and Amanda's eyes snapped to him. She hurried to his side in a rustle of multi-layered skirts. "Oh, Spock, it's okay. You're going to be fine."

"I know," He said, quickly. He flicked his eyes from her to his father. "Do the professors believe T'Pring's version of events?"

Sarek turned to regard him closely. "Do you accuse her of lying?"

It was a many-layered question. His parents surely did not believe that he had attacked Stonn unprovoked. However, the social stigma against telling a lie, especially one to a figure of authority, was such that an accusation on Spock's part would result in months and months of legal hearings and testimonies from all involved. Spock had no doubts that Stonn and his friends would back T'Pring's story, and the only other witness was currently on Earth, standing in a field and watching the sun rise. Besides, Spock thought bitterly, even if he was here, even if he had been here physically, he's human. And it is common knowledge that humans lie at every opportunity.

So for all intents and purposes, it would be his word against that of three well-respected Vulcan youths.

He dropped his eyes. "How does this effect the bonding ritual? Am I considered unfit, as dangerous as I am?"

Sarek stepped to the foot of his bed. "Quite the opposite. I have spoken to T'Pring's parents and we agree that this might be the best thing to stabilize you. If you have these violent tendencies now, ponn farr will only exacerbate them, and it is logical that we prevent that by any means necessary. As such, if you will rise and prepare yourself, we will proceed to the place of koon-ut-kal-if-fee."

Spock blinked at him, startled. "The ritual was scheduled for three days from - from the fight. Surely I have not slept so long."

Sarek inclined his head. "Indeed not. However, under the circumstances, we have decided that the ritual should be enacted as soon as possible. If you have no further objections, I shall expect you in the main hall in thirty minutes."

Spock felt numb. His tongue was thick and his head ached and he was cold, under the warm, layered blankets, but he had no choice. No objections that his father would recognize. And, after all, their logic was sound. He nodded, precise and respectful. "Of course, father."

Sarek turned and glided from the room. Amanda put a hand on Spock's. Through her fingers he could feel her worry, her relief, her doubt. "You don't have to do this, Spock."

He looked her in the eyes. "You do not believe that, or you would be fighting with him."

She dropped her face. "I am...afraid for you. When ponn farr comes. But I also...I don't want you to be bonded to someone who would let you be hurt so."

Anger sprang to life somewhere in the back of Spock's mind, where Jim should have been. "You say that this is not required of me. But I have no other recourse. There is no one on Vulcan who would accept me, after what I have done. She is still willing, even after I am shown to be violent, savage, and irrational. I am sure she has her own logic behind her actions. Perhaps when I am bonded to her, I will be able to understand them." He carefully untangled his hand from hers. "I am unsure I will ever understand yours."

His mother drew back as if he had struck her. "Spock..."

"I apologize if it causes offense, but I would be alone." He turned his face away from her, and finally, she rose and left the room.

Spock sat up in bed. He stared at his reflection in his darkened computer screen and tried to reach through the back of his head, call Jim to him. They weren't ready for this. They had no idea what would happen - they had to prepare. Prepare yourself, his father had said, but how could he, with half of him gone?

He slid from bed and dressed slowly in the ceremonial robes laid out for him, feeling each second tick by as he waited for Jim.

Two minutes before he was supposed to be in the main hall, he finally left his rooms. He walked slowly down the halls, hoping for that slow, soft uncurl of another mind in his. It didn't come.

He met his parents in the main hall. Both of their faces were impassive, although his mother's eyes sparkled with something like hurt. He wanted to apologize to her, but he didn't know the words. He followed her, silent, out of his house and down the steps, hesitating for the barest moment on the threshold of the hovercar that awaited them.

When Jim finally did slide into his mind, sleepy-happy-lazy, Spock nearly jumped up from his seat, he was so tensed for his arrival. Immediately, the sunshine caught in Jim's mind vanished, replaced with sharp worry. Spock, what -

They have pushed the ceremony forward in reaction to the fight, he thought quickly. His mind was shivering with his effort to keep it still, to keep it calm. He could feel its edges soften into Jim's, feel the Human's steadiness seep into him. I am travelling to be bonded. We...we are to be bonded, this day.

Today? Right now? But we haven't...Spock, we're not ready for this! Jim thought. Spock felt his surprise, his fear, like flame.

I know. They sat silent for a while, Spock's eyes on the orange skies and floating spires outside the windows. The aircraft slid silently away from the outskirts of the city, across the cracked, windswept desert, and began to spiral downwards.

I don't understand. Jim thought, a bit desperately. If it would not get her free of us, why did T'Pring lie?

I...do not know. Spock thought back, unable to keep a bit of his jangled, mournful mood out of his mindvoice.

His parents stood, and the door to the aircraft opened as they touched down. In his mind, Jim was crafting an image. It was rare that he did so, that he struggled to project anything other than words into Spock's mind, but he was doing it now, steadily building up a clear picture: his own hand, small and calloused, palm upwards in offering.

Spock closed his eyes for a moment against the welling-up of emotion in his throat, and placed his own mental hand in Jim's. He carefully imagined lacing their fingers together - not the sensual twining of a Vulcan kiss but something stronger, born of trust. An anchor.

Opening his eyes, he followed his parents to the place of koon-ut-kal-if-fee.

Before them was a circular structure, walls of orange stone arching up to the sky. No ceiling kept the harsh desert sun from their heads. In the center of the clear space inside the walls there was a raised dais, on which stood a octagonal metal gong.

The walls were lined with impassive Vulcans in their shining silver ritual cloths, standing shoulder to shoulder like an army of statues. Standing in the archway opposite Spock and his parents was T'Pring and hers, all of them also garbed in rich, patterned silver. Her hair was drawn up in a complicated, elegant knot, exotic blue flowers placed expertly here and there to draw attention to the line of her neck, the delicate point of her tiny ears.

Below his nervousness, below his blankness, Spock hated her.

One of the soldier-statues stepped forward, drawing a small mallet from his robes. With a flourish, he struck the gong in the center of the ring, three times. Driven by his father's palm at his back and some faint, inescapable knowledge of what must be done, Spock stepped forward. T'Pring mirrored him, their steps measured. They stepped to the dais and lowered their heads, folding their hands in front of themselves. In Spock's mind, Jim clutched him tighter, and Spock returned the grip.

Two Vulcan officials produced racks of ceremonial bells and began to circle the pair, shaking them. The bells were high and jangling, dislodging something stubborn in Spock's mind. He could feel himself straighten, feel himself lift his head. He raised his hands, borne up on the strange music, and he saw T'Pring already staring at him, the pupils of her eyes blown wide. She parted her perfect, pink lips, and spoke to him.

"Spock," she said, and then wrapped her tongue around his ceremony-name, his clan-name. At first he thought she was speaking almost too-quietly for him to hear, but her words were oddly clear. It was only after the faint thread of confusion (so faint) from Jim's mind that he realized it was because she was speaking to him - only him. Just the pieces of his mind that were still, and always had been, Spock.

The Vulcans around the walls started to intone something, slow and proper, but Spock couldn't hear them, his eyes glued to T'Pring's. She raised her hands, flicking her wrists, and he matched her. The chanting sped up, and suddenly T'Pring thrust her hands forward, palms meeting his with a soft clap! of flesh on flesh. Spock started, his eyes rolling back in his head as her mind stabbed into his. It was nothing subtle, nothing beautiful - nothing but an invasion made smooth by the words around them, by the bells, by the place.

Parted from me? Never parted. T'Pring's mindvoice was like ice, flung in his face after a warm dream. He struggled to keep hold of Jim's mental hand, scrabbled at it like a lifeline, but he could feel it slipping away. T'Pring's hands rubbed obscenely over his own, her fingernails catching and scarping against his skin. Never and always touching....and touched. She twisted the age old greeting into something sinister and strange, something that tugged hungrily at his mind, pulled him away from the place where he and Jim met. He felt that gap yawning, and his mouth gaped in a silent sob.

Spock. Came Jim's mindvoice, nothing more than a whisper now. I can't -

T'Pring curled cruel fingers against his wrists, and Jim was gone.

Weak-mind, weak-mind. T'Pring crowed, her mental voice childish and unpolished. Spock supposed, in the part of his mind that still possessed any logical reasoning at all, that she hadn't done this before, had never had cause to speak only mind-to-mind.

It didn't stop her from doing so now. His vision returned, and he found her staring at him, face inches from his. Shapeable, forgettable. Placeholder for true worth. Excuse.

Spock felt her, strange and cool, slide into the place that Jim should have been. She filled it up with smooth edges and a kind of clean, awful logic, filled it up completely and left no room for more. Spock hated how perfectly she fit, hated how no matter how much he scrabbled and tugged at her edges she stayed.

And, despite himself, a sort of calm washed over him. T'Pring's hands gentled on his, and suddenly her touch was not so harsh, but almost soothing. Settle feathers, fighting bird, she thought at him, and he couldn't even bring himself to bridle at the open contempt in her mind.

Slowly, the bells stopped ringing, the Vulcans stopped chanting, and, in the silence, Spock was free to pull away, step back and lower his hands and his head. T'Pring did the same, and he felt her presence in his mind recede.

Jim's did not return.

He walked back to his parents. His father stood proud and straight, approval radiating from him. It was clear that he knew nothing of what had really happened - he had seen a bonding ceremony, for a bonding ceremony had taken place. He assumed that Spock would be happy, whole, in what he had gained, and did not spare a thought towards what he might have lost.

His mother smiled at him, her eyes bright with tears, and for the first time Spock envied her ability to cry.

Over the next few days he began to learn to live with the constant, cold presence of T'Pring in his mind. It was like and unlike what he had had with Jim - to be awakened to two minds at once was powerful and strange, and he only could tell what she thought, what she felt, when one of them made the effort. Neither of them did.

T'Pring seemed content to ignore his existence in every area but academic. He did come to learn her reasons, as he had speculated to his mother - whether this was because she consciously focused on them or because they slid through during the initial bonding he did not know. Shapeable, she'd thought, and she believed it - in her mind, Spock was weak and strange, something to be pushed away or pulled to her on her whim. She assumed he would not last long - or if he did, and the time of ponn farr came, she would challenge him and appoint Stonn her champion and he would die all the same.

It became clear that Stonn was her chosen bond, but her family would not agree, having made their vows with Sarek and Amanda already. Spock, then, was expendable - he could be anyone, really. His half-breed status was nothing but a convenient excuse for the challenge, when the time came. No one would doubt T'Pring's reasons for not wanting to bond with a Vulcan so fundamentally disadvantaged.

It was brilliant, in a way. Perfectly and beautifully logical.

Every night, Spock closed his eyes against the shadows of his room and reached, sought out that bright spark of friend and brother and a thousand other words that did nothing to describe Jim. And every morning he would wake, blurry-eyed and exhausted, from dreams of nothing but starless space.

His classes no longer held his interest. Without Jim's bright enthusiasm they were little more than challenges to be worked through, methodically and well. T'Pring seemed determined to best him at every turn, and it was only some faint vindictiveness towards her that kept him on his toes, kept him ahead. Being truly angry at her, he found, was impossible - it was like being angry at a part of himself that he had no control over, which was the highest kind of illogical.

He would stare at himself in the mirror, sometimes. Did he look different, now? Was he emptier, thinner, were his ears more pointed and his eyebrows more slanted? The bruises from the fight were beginning to fade, yellowish-green against his pale skin. He pushed his fingers into them, savoring the dull ache, and remembered.

Jim's laugh, filling his mind completely. Jim's voice speaking haltingly in Vulcan. Jim's freckles, standing out in his pale face where he stood swaying in front of his mirror. You shouldn't have to fight alone for us both.

He wondered if Jim was remembering, too, from his bedroom in Iowa. He wondered if he pushed his head into his pillows and grasped for Spock's mind, wondered if he were beginning to wonder if Spock and all his world were just a strange waking dream, the companions that a lonely boy's mind might create. If Vulcans were given to such wild imaginings, Spock might be wondering the same thing. But they were not, and he could not believe that Jim Kirk was not real - if he lost even those bright memories he might be altogether empty.

His mother worried about him. She pressed him for details of his schooling, wondered if he were being bullied or insulted. She wondered if perhaps nightmares were troubling his sleep, some unforeseen side-effect of the bond. Spock smiled a little, at that, though there was no humor in it, and shook his head to the rest. Words did not come often from his lips. He felt no need for them, outside of answering the questions of his instructors.

One night his mother came to his room as he was slipping on his sleeping-clothes, tying their knots against his now-unmarred flesh. She paused in his doorway, her face a half-smile.

He turned to look at her, eyebrow raised, and she chuckled. "I came to tell you that I'm leaving for a while. They've got an influx of new recruits at the Starfleet base in Iowa and they need my transla - " She stopped. "Goodness, Spock, what's wrong?"

Spock discarded the tie he had snapped off of his shirt and released his clenched fists. "Nothing." He denied. "I was...unaware that there was a Starfleet base located in the state of Iowa."

His mother had learned almost Vulcan-esque eyebrow control, and made use of it now. "And you being unaware of an obscure fact of Earth geography was surprising enough to warrant destroying your clothes?"

Spock smoothed his shirt, impassive. "It can be mended simply enough."

She watched him, puzzled, as he finished the other ties and sat down on his bed. "I suppose it can." She admitted, and then shook her head. "Anyway, I'll be back in a few months. Don't let your father pressure you too much about the admittance exams, alright? The preliminaries are almost a whole year off, and it's a big decision. There are other options besides the Science Academy. Remember that."

She turned and left. Spock, his legs folded under him in meditation, watched her go. "I will," he said, and felt something like hope take hold. When he slept that night, he let his mind rest. There was work to be done.