Dreaming Through the Noise (6/6)
Title: Dreaming Through The Noise (6/6)
Wordcount: ~5,000
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/Spock, Chapel, Pike, Bones
Rating: R
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: aksdjfhkajfhg I'm sorry you guys. This took waaaaay too long. BUT. It is finished.
Now, in this case, finished means that the two major storylines, the Kirk/Spock romance and the subplot with the Orion, are completed. Tied up in a pretty bow. The universe, however, is not. There will be timestamps. Especially for poor Bones. I tried really hard to tie him up in here (....:P) but he deserved more, a story of his own. So. Expect that someday, as well as probably vignettes with this Kirk and this Spock.
...Alright, I'll shut up now.
**
Spock saluted Pike with an almost embarrassed stiffness. Kirk followed him into the room, so close Spock could feel him radiating heat and Jim and he wondered if he'd ever get used to that, to the physicality as well as the mentality of having Kirk here.
"Christopher Pike." Pike said, standing and holding his hand out to Kirk. With a glance at Spock, Kirk took it, shaking firmly before letting go, and Pike gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk. "I understand you helped Spock here through a tough time. If he is be believed, maybe more than one."
Kirk licked his lips, frowned. "I'm not sure I...understand, sir."
Pike ignored him, looking at Spock for a long moment, a smile twitching at his lips. "Glad to see you okay again, cadet. I'd sure like to know what happened, but if you boys aren't ready to tell me, well..." He looked back to Kirk, and then to Spock again. "I suppose you've earned that trust."
Spock inclined his head, letting himself feel the gratitude that swept through him. "Thank you, sir."
Pike nodded, still looking at him, and Spock cocked his head. "Sir, from what I observed the last time we met, the Orion wounded you quite severely. I regret that I could not stay to help, but...events were beyond my control."
Pike nodded, sinking back into his chair. "Of course. Thankfully, you left me in the best possible hands. Whoever gets Cadet Chapel as CMO on their ship is a lucky man. She might be a motormouth, but she's steady in times of crisis." He studied Spock's face. "I'm fine, Spock."
Spock relaxed slightly. "And the Orion?"
"Ah, that'd be why I called you here." Pike straightened the stack of papers on his desk. "I know you said you couldn't read his mind, when I asked you before. But whatever was troubling you seems to have been solved. Is that still an impossibility? Because I'll have to mark down that you're unable to use the touch-telepathy common in Vulcans, if that's the case. We wouldn't want - "
"He's fine," Kirk interrupted Pike, a hint of glare in his eyes. "No need to mark anything down." He flicked his eyes to Spock, and then amended, "Sir."
Pike's lips twitched in amusement, but he raised his eyebrows at Spock, who nodded slightly. "Jim - Mr. Kirk is correct, commander. My previous telepathic capabilities have returned to me. Am I correct in assuming that you still wish me to examine Heled-Mar?"
Pike nodded. "Yes, you are. Although perhaps under more guard this time, yeah?" He grinned.
Spock inclined his head in acknowledgment. "I will do it." He said. "On one condition."
Pike looked surprised. "Condition? I know I didn't give you a direct order, Spock, but I assumed it was implied - "
"He didn't mean condition." Kirk said quickly. "He meant - he has a request."
Pike frowned at him. "I assume Cadet Spock can still speak for himself, Mr. Kirk."
Spock's lips tightened. "He is correct, sir. I misspoke. I have a request about the proceedings with the Orion."
Pike steepled his fingers. "And what is your request, Cadet?"
"I would like to have Jim with me." He said. "I have reason to believe that he might be of use."
Pike leaned forward, for the first time looking annoyed. "Oh? What reason? Or is that classified information?"
Spock saw Kirk's shoulders tighten, laid a cooling hand on his arm. The contact was immediate and soothing, but Kirk's mind tasted of suspicion and tension. Spock tried his best to ignore it, looked at Pike. "Though it would not have been wise for me to engage in a full mind-meld with the Orion the last time we met, I did catch a glimpse of his thoughts as I put pressure on his nerve-points. There's certainly something unusual going on. He seems to have some sort of arrangement with a cabal of very powerful Orion women. However, I also encountered some resistance. It is possible that in his travels he has acquired some rudimentary telepathic knowledge. On my own, I might be able to push past it." His fingers slid down and off Kirk's arm. "Jim and I together can break through it easily."
Pike sighed. "Yes, alright. Logical as always. I'll drum him up a pass to the briefing rooms. You're dismissed."
Spock stood, and Jim followed him out. He let them get all the way down the hall and turn a corner before he was pulling Spock aside, hands insistent on his chest. "You wanna know something interesting?" He said, searching Spock's face.
"I am generally fascinated by your insight," Spock answered, though he knew the question was rhetorical.
Kirk's hands were on his arms, now, just resting there, like it was natural. He was staring at Spock, though, like he was trying to figure him out. "I can feel it when you lie." He said at last. Spock started to turn away, but Kirk stopped him. "What was all that bullshit about telepathic resistance? You got a whole host of images from one nerve pinch. If anything, the guy's especially sensitive to telepathy, an open book to you. What do you need me for?"
Everything, Spock almost said, and Jim heard it through the palms of his hands, because his eyes immediately softened. "Oh, god." He said, and then laughed. Spock tried his hardest not to look affronted. "You...you made that up so that I would stay with you. You thought, God, Spock, you thought if I didn't have a reason I had to be here, I'd just leave?"
Spock didn't meet his eyes. "Last night you did what you had to to prevent me from dying. I appreciate that, and thank you, but I do not wish to ask more of you than you will give."
Jim stared at him, hard. "More than I will give? Spock...Spock, you saw what I did to that woman. You...you more than saw it, and you're still here, still with me. There is no fucking way I'm letting you go." His hands slid down to Spock's, his fingers gentle. Spock could feel each of his callouses, rough on his skin, could feel what they were from - the smooth leather handlebars of a motorbike, here, between the thumb and forefinger. The rough wood of a shovel's handle on the lower pads of his fingers. Here and there a scar, from a knife, from a stone wall. His own fingers twitched and slid against Jim's, smooth, too smooth, having gripped nothing but paper. Blood-stained fingers and ink-stained, Jim's thought came, and Spock let him feel his smile.
Jim grinned up at him. "Good." He said, and then took Spock's hand the human way, more clasp than kiss. "Then c'mon."
Spock followed willingly, though he raised his eyebrows. "Might I inquire as to our destination?"
Jim's voice was lighter, more purely happy than he'd ever heard it. "You're going to meet Bones."
***
"Well, goddamn." Bones smirked when he opened the door. "He ain't imaginary." He cast a sardonic eye downwards, to the bottle hanging from his fingers. "That, or this stuff's stronger than I thought."
Jim laughed and hugged him, then turned to look at Spock. "Bones, as you've guessed, this is Spock. Spock..."
"Leonard McCoy." Said McCoy, holding the hand not wrapped around a mostly-full bottle of whiskey.
Spock gave a slight bow, eyeing the hand. "I have already learned about you from Jim, Doctor. I doubt you wish me to learn anything more private."
"What the hell are you - " McCoy frowned a moment - it seemed natural on his face - and then shook his head. "Oh, right. Touch-telepaths." He dropped the hand and went to lean against the room's single bed. He tipped the whiskey into his mouth, offered it to Kirk, who shook his head. He looked at Spock a moment, then shrugged and took another swallow.
"You are a Doctor, McCoy..." Spock mused, genuinely curious. "...And yet you willingly ingest overindulgent amounts of a poison that will slowly cripple your liver. Why?"
McCoy grinned, quick and cynical. "You are a Vulcan, Spock." He said, mocking Spock's clipped tones, "And yet you willingly subject yourself to someone who will slowly crack and tear away that tight-lipped control you've got on your emotions. Why?"
Spock stared at him, startled. It seemed the Doctor's disheveled appearance hid an astoundingly acute insight. He thought about the question for a few moments, flicking his eyes to Kirk. Jim's mouth was bowed in the tiniest of smiles, something confident and joyful, and Spock felt too full, too bright. Love, he wanted to say, but it was too huge a word for a room with so many people in it.
Bones' lips twitched. "Yeah," He said. "Me too." He squinted at Kirk. "So? What are you two doing here, anyhow?"
Jim licked his lips. "We...thought you might like to go somewhere with us. You know, have a celebration or something. God knows it's been a long time since we've had anything to celebrate, right?"
Bones studied him. "You're still trying to get me out of this piece of shit motel room." He stood straight. "And what happens when we're done celebrating, Jim? You and your Vulcan go back to your fucking sinshine-and-rainbows at Starfleet, and I come back here. To this piece of shit motel room and to this bottle and to the four fucking credits I have to my name." He stalked towards Jim, thrusting the bottle at Spock. Puzzled, Spock took it, and then McCoy was folding his arms, standing toe-to-toe with Jim. "Well I'm sorry that I'm not all over that plan, Jim! I get that you're happy. Hell, I can't blame you, can I? Your guardian angel came swooping down on a starship and saved you from the from the filthy life you were living."
"Actually," Spock started, still holding the bottle, "It was much more Jim that saved me - "
Bones turned to glare at him. "So you saved each other. You're each others' knights in shining armor. Fantastic. But I don't have one. I don't have an...an immortal lover or a imaginary brain-friend. I don't even have a damsel in fucking distress." He took a deep breath, turning back to Jim. "You want me to celebrate? You want me to be happy? Great! Tell me how."
Spock had been watching Jim's face throughout Bones' speech, noticing the tightening of his jaw, the change in tension around his eyes. All the things that would have told him, even if he couldn't feel it, that Jim was getting angry. This was a conversation that they'd had a thousand times; the script for it itched at the edges of Spock's mind.
"Enlist in Starfleet." Jim gritted out between clenched teeth. "You know they'd take you. You're an amazing doctor - "
"No." Bones made a frustrated noise and spun away, snatching back the bottle from Spock's hands. He sat on the edge of the bed, hands dangling off his knees.
" - and you'd be doing good, Bones." Jim pressed on, his tone more persuasive, now. "You'd be helping people, like you used to - "
"Do you want me to list the ways that space can kill a man?" Bones spat, staring Jim down. "Because I can."
Jim closed his mouth against further arguments, his eyes narrowed and sad. McCoy took another gulp of the whiskey and sighed. "You kids go celebrate." He met Jim's eyes. "God knows you deserve it."
"So do you," Jim muttered pointedly, but he led the way out of the motel room anyway. Spock followed, falling into rhythm beside him. They walked in silence through the dusk, the streets mostly empty as the sun set and took the warmth with it. Their breath steamed out in front of them in clouds, and Spock felt Jim slowly relax. This felt right, just the two of them, not touching, not needing to, nothing but footsteps on the pavement.
"I admit I was surprised to hear you reccommend Starfleet to Doctor McCoy," He said after a while.
Jim nodded. "A lot has changed in seven years," he said, and then, "Not every Captain is my father." The corners of his lips twitched up, and Spock thought, it will be hard not to smile at you, when the world is watching. It was a subtle thought, slipped into his mind like a whisper, and he waited for the scathing, cold voice, for the ridicule.
It did not come. He closed his eyes for a moment, steps aligned with Jim's, and searched for her, for any trace of T'Pring at all.
"There is something else," he said, opening his eyes. He stopped, and Jim looked at him, inquiring. Spock wet his lips. "T'Pring is gone. Perhaps she is merely silent, but if there are still ties to her, my connection to you is masking them."
Jim looked surprised, and then grinned, slow and triumphant. "Well that's wonderful! Isn't it? We ousted the bitch!"
Spock inclined his head. "Perhaps...or perhaps she is waiting for something." He shook his head. "It should not have been that easy. When you were torn from me, I..." He swallowed, and Jim's fingers found his, casual and grounding. "I could feel it happening. It was painful, more painful than anything in the world. And while the bond I have with T'Pring is nothing but a fraction of the strength of ours, I can't help but be wary."
Jim searched his face, and Spock thought perhaps he was the only one in the universe for whom such a search would be anything but fruitless. "Then we'll be wary," he said, and they walked on into the gathering dark.
***
The briefing room was cold and bare, little except for the long table and the vid screen at one end, the simple strip lighting on the ceiling. Heled-Mar was seated at one end of the table, strapped to the arms of the chair, the long sleeves of his prison uniform tucked over his hands. A straitjacket, Jim told Spock, startled. Is he crazy?
"No. He has committed twenty four murders," Spock said back, "but inexplicably, he remains sane."
The man in Command Gold sitting in one of the other chairs at the table looked up at him, and then frowned. "Did you say something, cadet?"
Spock saluted, stepping a little in front of Jim. "Nothing of import, sir. Just remarking that it is curious that the Orion is still as coherent as he is. It is not the conclusion I would reach, were I examining him as a logical exercise."
The man still looked suspicious. "You're not here to use him as a logical exercise, cadet. You're here to give us a reason to end him."
Jim frowned. "Excuse me, sir, but there have been indications that more is going on here than just a simple murder case. It's possible that we can gain more by keeping him alive - "
The man's scowl deepened. " 'We?' Who are you, kid, and what makes you think you know what's best for Starfleet? You're not even allowed in this briefing rooms. Cadet, what is he doing here?"
Jim looked taken aback. "I - "
"Spock has requested that Mr. Kirk help him in his investigation of the Orion, John." Pike cut in smoothly, from behind them. "He has every right be to here." He slid into a chair across from the man. "Boys, this is Major John Drabus, the man who would have led the search for Heled-Mar, if there had actually been anything of a search."
Draybus' bushy eyebrows shot up. "Kirk? Not George Kirk's son?" He asked, surprised, and Pike chuckled, nodding. Drabus stood up, holding out a hand to Jim. "Well, I'll be damned! Why didn't you say so, kid? Great to meet you. Chris here ever get to telling you how much of a nerd he is over your dad?"
Jim took his hand, caught between resignation, disgust and amusement. Spock could feel him, tense and confused. "No, actually, he didn't."
Drabus chuckled, gesturing to Pike, who was staring very hard at his sheaf of papers. "This guy worshipped the man. Used to talk on and on about him, during his academy days. Wrote his thesis on him...why, he even had a Captain Kirk - "
"Can we get on with this, please?" Pike interrupted, and Spock noted with interest the slight quickness to his words, the several degrees of flushing on his cheeks. He nodded, and took his place, sitting along one edge of the table, nearest to the end where the Orion sat.
"Well now look who's all business!" The Major laughed, but he sank back into his seat. Jim took his, across from Spock, so that they were bracketing Heled-Mar at the end.
"Yes, well." Pike said tightly. "Excuse me if I'm not entirely comfortable sitting and joking in a room with a man who stabbed me last time I saw him."
Spock reached out and took Jim's hand. It wasn't entirely necessary - they were still to attuned, only days after pon farr, that they could converse even when they weren't touching. But it focused him, focused them both. He raised his other hand to the Orion's face. Heled-Mar watched his fingers with a sort of detached interest, didn't move even a fraction when they found his face.
"Fair enough," Drabus conceded, and then his voice was fading, the room was fading, to...
....the place in-between, the dream-Vulcan, the circle of koon-ut-kal-if-fee. Spock blinked, had only time enough to register Jim at his side, Jim's own surprise, and then, sharp and acrid, his fear -
Before he saw T'Pring. She was standing across the circle, looking loose and strange, her normally perfectly-coiffed hair blowing back behind her in a wind that shouldn't exist, not here in this place. Nothing was here that they did not bring with them.
Her pale hands were on the shoulders of Heled-Mar, who knelt in front of her, knees in the dust. His eyes were fixed on Spock, and he was trembling. T'Pring pet his head as if she were a human and he were her dog.
"He is perfect." She said, calm, and Jim stepped up beside Spock. "They have stripped him of everything nonessential. They have taken his guilt. They have taken his rage and his sorrow." Her fingers edged to Heled-Mar's neck, circling it lightly. "He is a glove, tailored for my hands."
There were too many questions for Spock to ask any of them, but here, he didn't have to. They dropped from his lips like rain, like lead, and he found he was sweating. Sweating in a heat that shouldn't have existed. He raised a finger to his lips, tasted salt.
Next to him, Jim asked in a voice too rough, "Who? Who did this to him?"
"How?" Spock finally managed, and T'Pring was looking at him, her eyes never once wavering to the blazing - blazing, yes, Jim was blazing-bright here, flame even when flickering with fear - figure at his side. "How are you here?"
Her eyes were dark. "I planted my seed when you first touched the Orion, Spock. He's an exceptionally useful psychic. So...open. Nothing but blank space, to do with as I please."
Spock stayed silent. He could hear Jim beside him, beautiful and terrified. He was remembering T'Pring - remembering the only thing he truly could, that Breaking moment long ago when her claws had torn him from his only friend, from half of his heart. And he was petrified that she would do it again.
"Yes." T'Pring breathed, and finally she looked at Kirk, raking him up and down with cold eyes, ice to his fire. "You fear rightly." She laid a hand flat on Heled-Mar's head, circled him. "Do you know what they thought of me, Spock? When you did not return, when you did not even send word that you would not return? When you did not release me nor claim me?" She stopped, looked at him. "For seven years already I was anathema, tied to one cursed. But when even my curse did not want me... Even Stonn, beautiful, stupid Stonn, grew tired." She lowered her eyes to Heled-Mar. "I swore to him that I would see you dead." She took her hand from Heled-Mar's head. "I intend to see that promise through."
And Heled-Mar was moving, almost faster than Spock could see, racing over the sands towards him. T'Pring was controlling him and not controlling him, letting him do what had been instilled in him by a thousand women like her, a thousand heartless, manipulative aliens, their taste for power equal only to their taste for blood.
The Orion threw himself forward, lirpa in his hands, and Spock understood.
It was a challenge. It was all just a challenge, with this poor Orion slave in place of Stonn.
He dropped down under Heled-Mar's wild swinging, swung a precise fist up into his ribs, and used the Orion's momentary disorientation to sweep a hand back and wrench the lirpa from his grasp. Standing up, he slammed the blunt end of the lirpa down on Heled-Mar's still-bent back, knocking him to the ground, and stood over him. "There is no need for bloodshed."
But in a blink Heled-Mar was standing again, and armed, and Jim's thought came, Nothing but blank space...
Spock nodded grimly and gripped the lirpa. It seemed that as much as T'Pring could control the world around them, she couldn't control Spock or Jim themselves. And if they got to her...
Got it. Came Jim's thought, and Spock went on the offensive. He faked a jab to Heled-Mar's stomach, spun to aim a hit at his side. It connected, the rounded metal cracking into Heled-Mar's ribs, but the Orion spared only a blink for the pain, lips pressed silent together.
Spock did not look at Jim, but he knew he was edging around behind T'Pring. He could feel her eyes on him, and he planned to keep it that way. He blocked a blow from overhead, but the Orion recovered faster than should have been possible, slicing a long, shallow cut down the side of his chest, and Spock grit his teeth against the pain, jerking back. He caught Heled-Mar's lirpa and pushed, but the Orion was strong, honed muscle backed by a mind that that had been wrestling with Spock's for seven years.
But then the mind withdrew, and Spock threw Heled-Mar off with a grunt. In the corner of his mind he could feel the palms of his, Jim's, his hands around T'Pring's throat and her skin was cold and silent because they were Jim's hands, his own hands were...
...were being pulled from their arrangement on the Orion's face and Pike was peering at him, his confusion worry pouring into Spock through his hold on his wrists. "Spock," he was saying, from very far away, and Spock blinked, blinked, focused on his face. "Spock," Pike said again, "What's happening? You were shaking - "
And then Jim started screaming, head thrown back, eyes widened in pain and fear. Spock fought free of Pike's hold, almost backhanding him across the room, and gripped Jim's hand again, pressed shaking desperate fingers to the Orion's face and...
...and he surfaced to see T'Pring, cold-eyed and snarling, one hand pressed to her throat, the other thrust out in condemnation. Heled-Mar was leaning on one end of his lirpa, and there was pain pain unimaginable pain in his gut, because the other end was buried deep in Jim's stomach.
Blood stained the sand around him, pooling dark and impossible. Spock still gripped his hand, he could feel strong fingers against his palm, but there he was lying spread-eagled and dying, gasping and grasping.
Spock closed his eyes, focused on this place, on what it meant. Focused on T'Pring. Focused on the the way the sweat had run down his face.
There is nothing here that you do not bring with you.
The wind stirred around his boots, tiny tornadoes of sand and dust.
****
Spock watched Jim's eyelids. He moved his thumbs across Jim's cheeks, tracing the places he remembered freckles. The differences still took him by surprise sometimes, but the smile was just that same smile as in the cracked mirror in the dilapidated house so long before - the tongue the same tongue that had wrapped itself awkwardly around the syllables of the Vulcan language.
And the slow, sleepy, content uncurling of Jim's mind against his own, that, too, was familiar.
Jim's face shifted under his hands, his brows drawing together. T'Pring? He asked without asking. Heled-Mar -
His eyes flew open. "I - I was dying." He spit out, like he expected it to come out bloody.
Spock shook his head. "Not in a physical sense, although the lasting damage to your mind might have - "
"Spock." Jim searched his eyes, looked for the recent memories, for how Spock had gotten them out. Spock let him see some of it - the blistering heat, the tearing winds. Let him see the ruined stones around the circle, the shreds of silvered cloth. But when he delved deeper, Spock guided him gently but firmly away. "No." He said.
Jim folded his lips over something bitter. "I see."
Spock looked him in the eyes. "Were you aware that it takes a mere 168 newtons of force to break the neck of a human?" He asked, and then flickered his eyes away and back to Jim's face. "A Vulcan spine, it seems, is far more resilient."
Jim let out something that was almost a laugh. "Alright, I don't need to know. But...someday?"
Spock inclined his head. "Someday." He agreed.
They lay curled together for a while, thinking separately and together. "I don't understand." Jim finally said. "How can anyone be so...empty? He must have had some personality traits. He must have once been a person."
Spock thought a moment. "Some of the murders he commited quite young, and it seemed as if the women who shaped him were all powerful, but from different factions. He escaped prison against all odds, again and again. It follows logically that he was sort of a...common scapegoat, if you will. Someone raised for the specific purpose of getting away with murder, tacitly approved by Orion society because that is his use."
"God." Jim breathed, and Spock could only agree with the emotion behind it. "Perhaps Starfleet should investigate further into what was behind the Orion slave trade." He mused. "None of the women who had a part in his life seemed subservient, and the image they put forward in the Federation is that their women are oppressed and sold as commodities."
"Are we sure it wasn't the other way around? Was the whole slave trade a front?" Jim asked. "Spock, this is huge. If I hadn't seen accidentally into your mind that night in the bar..."
Spock smiled, slow and perfect. "If you hadn't kissed me, James Kirk, Starfleet would have been without some enormously important information."
Jim laughed against his face, all hot breath and amusement. "Well. It's a good thing I did, then, isn't it?"
Such a foolish question hardly deserved an answer, so Spock didn't give one.
At least, not in words.
Wordcount: ~5,000
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/Spock, Chapel, Pike, Bones
Rating: R
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: aksdjfhkajfhg I'm sorry you guys. This took waaaaay too long. BUT. It is finished.
Now, in this case, finished means that the two major storylines, the Kirk/Spock romance and the subplot with the Orion, are completed. Tied up in a pretty bow. The universe, however, is not. There will be timestamps. Especially for poor Bones. I tried really hard to tie him up in here (....:P) but he deserved more, a story of his own. So. Expect that someday, as well as probably vignettes with this Kirk and this Spock.
...Alright, I'll shut up now.
**
Spock saluted Pike with an almost embarrassed stiffness. Kirk followed him into the room, so close Spock could feel him radiating heat and Jim and he wondered if he'd ever get used to that, to the physicality as well as the mentality of having Kirk here.
"Christopher Pike." Pike said, standing and holding his hand out to Kirk. With a glance at Spock, Kirk took it, shaking firmly before letting go, and Pike gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk. "I understand you helped Spock here through a tough time. If he is be believed, maybe more than one."
Kirk licked his lips, frowned. "I'm not sure I...understand, sir."
Pike ignored him, looking at Spock for a long moment, a smile twitching at his lips. "Glad to see you okay again, cadet. I'd sure like to know what happened, but if you boys aren't ready to tell me, well..." He looked back to Kirk, and then to Spock again. "I suppose you've earned that trust."
Spock inclined his head, letting himself feel the gratitude that swept through him. "Thank you, sir."
Pike nodded, still looking at him, and Spock cocked his head. "Sir, from what I observed the last time we met, the Orion wounded you quite severely. I regret that I could not stay to help, but...events were beyond my control."
Pike nodded, sinking back into his chair. "Of course. Thankfully, you left me in the best possible hands. Whoever gets Cadet Chapel as CMO on their ship is a lucky man. She might be a motormouth, but she's steady in times of crisis." He studied Spock's face. "I'm fine, Spock."
Spock relaxed slightly. "And the Orion?"
"Ah, that'd be why I called you here." Pike straightened the stack of papers on his desk. "I know you said you couldn't read his mind, when I asked you before. But whatever was troubling you seems to have been solved. Is that still an impossibility? Because I'll have to mark down that you're unable to use the touch-telepathy common in Vulcans, if that's the case. We wouldn't want - "
"He's fine," Kirk interrupted Pike, a hint of glare in his eyes. "No need to mark anything down." He flicked his eyes to Spock, and then amended, "Sir."
Pike's lips twitched in amusement, but he raised his eyebrows at Spock, who nodded slightly. "Jim - Mr. Kirk is correct, commander. My previous telepathic capabilities have returned to me. Am I correct in assuming that you still wish me to examine Heled-Mar?"
Pike nodded. "Yes, you are. Although perhaps under more guard this time, yeah?" He grinned.
Spock inclined his head in acknowledgment. "I will do it." He said. "On one condition."
Pike looked surprised. "Condition? I know I didn't give you a direct order, Spock, but I assumed it was implied - "
"He didn't mean condition." Kirk said quickly. "He meant - he has a request."
Pike frowned at him. "I assume Cadet Spock can still speak for himself, Mr. Kirk."
Spock's lips tightened. "He is correct, sir. I misspoke. I have a request about the proceedings with the Orion."
Pike steepled his fingers. "And what is your request, Cadet?"
"I would like to have Jim with me." He said. "I have reason to believe that he might be of use."
Pike leaned forward, for the first time looking annoyed. "Oh? What reason? Or is that classified information?"
Spock saw Kirk's shoulders tighten, laid a cooling hand on his arm. The contact was immediate and soothing, but Kirk's mind tasted of suspicion and tension. Spock tried his best to ignore it, looked at Pike. "Though it would not have been wise for me to engage in a full mind-meld with the Orion the last time we met, I did catch a glimpse of his thoughts as I put pressure on his nerve-points. There's certainly something unusual going on. He seems to have some sort of arrangement with a cabal of very powerful Orion women. However, I also encountered some resistance. It is possible that in his travels he has acquired some rudimentary telepathic knowledge. On my own, I might be able to push past it." His fingers slid down and off Kirk's arm. "Jim and I together can break through it easily."
Pike sighed. "Yes, alright. Logical as always. I'll drum him up a pass to the briefing rooms. You're dismissed."
Spock stood, and Jim followed him out. He let them get all the way down the hall and turn a corner before he was pulling Spock aside, hands insistent on his chest. "You wanna know something interesting?" He said, searching Spock's face.
"I am generally fascinated by your insight," Spock answered, though he knew the question was rhetorical.
Kirk's hands were on his arms, now, just resting there, like it was natural. He was staring at Spock, though, like he was trying to figure him out. "I can feel it when you lie." He said at last. Spock started to turn away, but Kirk stopped him. "What was all that bullshit about telepathic resistance? You got a whole host of images from one nerve pinch. If anything, the guy's especially sensitive to telepathy, an open book to you. What do you need me for?"
Everything, Spock almost said, and Jim heard it through the palms of his hands, because his eyes immediately softened. "Oh, god." He said, and then laughed. Spock tried his hardest not to look affronted. "You...you made that up so that I would stay with you. You thought, God, Spock, you thought if I didn't have a reason I had to be here, I'd just leave?"
Spock didn't meet his eyes. "Last night you did what you had to to prevent me from dying. I appreciate that, and thank you, but I do not wish to ask more of you than you will give."
Jim stared at him, hard. "More than I will give? Spock...Spock, you saw what I did to that woman. You...you more than saw it, and you're still here, still with me. There is no fucking way I'm letting you go." His hands slid down to Spock's, his fingers gentle. Spock could feel each of his callouses, rough on his skin, could feel what they were from - the smooth leather handlebars of a motorbike, here, between the thumb and forefinger. The rough wood of a shovel's handle on the lower pads of his fingers. Here and there a scar, from a knife, from a stone wall. His own fingers twitched and slid against Jim's, smooth, too smooth, having gripped nothing but paper. Blood-stained fingers and ink-stained, Jim's thought came, and Spock let him feel his smile.
Jim grinned up at him. "Good." He said, and then took Spock's hand the human way, more clasp than kiss. "Then c'mon."
Spock followed willingly, though he raised his eyebrows. "Might I inquire as to our destination?"
Jim's voice was lighter, more purely happy than he'd ever heard it. "You're going to meet Bones."
***
"Well, goddamn." Bones smirked when he opened the door. "He ain't imaginary." He cast a sardonic eye downwards, to the bottle hanging from his fingers. "That, or this stuff's stronger than I thought."
Jim laughed and hugged him, then turned to look at Spock. "Bones, as you've guessed, this is Spock. Spock..."
"Leonard McCoy." Said McCoy, holding the hand not wrapped around a mostly-full bottle of whiskey.
Spock gave a slight bow, eyeing the hand. "I have already learned about you from Jim, Doctor. I doubt you wish me to learn anything more private."
"What the hell are you - " McCoy frowned a moment - it seemed natural on his face - and then shook his head. "Oh, right. Touch-telepaths." He dropped the hand and went to lean against the room's single bed. He tipped the whiskey into his mouth, offered it to Kirk, who shook his head. He looked at Spock a moment, then shrugged and took another swallow.
"You are a Doctor, McCoy..." Spock mused, genuinely curious. "...And yet you willingly ingest overindulgent amounts of a poison that will slowly cripple your liver. Why?"
McCoy grinned, quick and cynical. "You are a Vulcan, Spock." He said, mocking Spock's clipped tones, "And yet you willingly subject yourself to someone who will slowly crack and tear away that tight-lipped control you've got on your emotions. Why?"
Spock stared at him, startled. It seemed the Doctor's disheveled appearance hid an astoundingly acute insight. He thought about the question for a few moments, flicking his eyes to Kirk. Jim's mouth was bowed in the tiniest of smiles, something confident and joyful, and Spock felt too full, too bright. Love, he wanted to say, but it was too huge a word for a room with so many people in it.
Bones' lips twitched. "Yeah," He said. "Me too." He squinted at Kirk. "So? What are you two doing here, anyhow?"
Jim licked his lips. "We...thought you might like to go somewhere with us. You know, have a celebration or something. God knows it's been a long time since we've had anything to celebrate, right?"
Bones studied him. "You're still trying to get me out of this piece of shit motel room." He stood straight. "And what happens when we're done celebrating, Jim? You and your Vulcan go back to your fucking sinshine-and-rainbows at Starfleet, and I come back here. To this piece of shit motel room and to this bottle and to the four fucking credits I have to my name." He stalked towards Jim, thrusting the bottle at Spock. Puzzled, Spock took it, and then McCoy was folding his arms, standing toe-to-toe with Jim. "Well I'm sorry that I'm not all over that plan, Jim! I get that you're happy. Hell, I can't blame you, can I? Your guardian angel came swooping down on a starship and saved you from the from the filthy life you were living."
"Actually," Spock started, still holding the bottle, "It was much more Jim that saved me - "
Bones turned to glare at him. "So you saved each other. You're each others' knights in shining armor. Fantastic. But I don't have one. I don't have an...an immortal lover or a imaginary brain-friend. I don't even have a damsel in fucking distress." He took a deep breath, turning back to Jim. "You want me to celebrate? You want me to be happy? Great! Tell me how."
Spock had been watching Jim's face throughout Bones' speech, noticing the tightening of his jaw, the change in tension around his eyes. All the things that would have told him, even if he couldn't feel it, that Jim was getting angry. This was a conversation that they'd had a thousand times; the script for it itched at the edges of Spock's mind.
"Enlist in Starfleet." Jim gritted out between clenched teeth. "You know they'd take you. You're an amazing doctor - "
"No." Bones made a frustrated noise and spun away, snatching back the bottle from Spock's hands. He sat on the edge of the bed, hands dangling off his knees.
" - and you'd be doing good, Bones." Jim pressed on, his tone more persuasive, now. "You'd be helping people, like you used to - "
"Do you want me to list the ways that space can kill a man?" Bones spat, staring Jim down. "Because I can."
Jim closed his mouth against further arguments, his eyes narrowed and sad. McCoy took another gulp of the whiskey and sighed. "You kids go celebrate." He met Jim's eyes. "God knows you deserve it."
"So do you," Jim muttered pointedly, but he led the way out of the motel room anyway. Spock followed, falling into rhythm beside him. They walked in silence through the dusk, the streets mostly empty as the sun set and took the warmth with it. Their breath steamed out in front of them in clouds, and Spock felt Jim slowly relax. This felt right, just the two of them, not touching, not needing to, nothing but footsteps on the pavement.
"I admit I was surprised to hear you reccommend Starfleet to Doctor McCoy," He said after a while.
Jim nodded. "A lot has changed in seven years," he said, and then, "Not every Captain is my father." The corners of his lips twitched up, and Spock thought, it will be hard not to smile at you, when the world is watching. It was a subtle thought, slipped into his mind like a whisper, and he waited for the scathing, cold voice, for the ridicule.
It did not come. He closed his eyes for a moment, steps aligned with Jim's, and searched for her, for any trace of T'Pring at all.
"There is something else," he said, opening his eyes. He stopped, and Jim looked at him, inquiring. Spock wet his lips. "T'Pring is gone. Perhaps she is merely silent, but if there are still ties to her, my connection to you is masking them."
Jim looked surprised, and then grinned, slow and triumphant. "Well that's wonderful! Isn't it? We ousted the bitch!"
Spock inclined his head. "Perhaps...or perhaps she is waiting for something." He shook his head. "It should not have been that easy. When you were torn from me, I..." He swallowed, and Jim's fingers found his, casual and grounding. "I could feel it happening. It was painful, more painful than anything in the world. And while the bond I have with T'Pring is nothing but a fraction of the strength of ours, I can't help but be wary."
Jim searched his face, and Spock thought perhaps he was the only one in the universe for whom such a search would be anything but fruitless. "Then we'll be wary," he said, and they walked on into the gathering dark.
***
The briefing room was cold and bare, little except for the long table and the vid screen at one end, the simple strip lighting on the ceiling. Heled-Mar was seated at one end of the table, strapped to the arms of the chair, the long sleeves of his prison uniform tucked over his hands. A straitjacket, Jim told Spock, startled. Is he crazy?
"No. He has committed twenty four murders," Spock said back, "but inexplicably, he remains sane."
The man in Command Gold sitting in one of the other chairs at the table looked up at him, and then frowned. "Did you say something, cadet?"
Spock saluted, stepping a little in front of Jim. "Nothing of import, sir. Just remarking that it is curious that the Orion is still as coherent as he is. It is not the conclusion I would reach, were I examining him as a logical exercise."
The man still looked suspicious. "You're not here to use him as a logical exercise, cadet. You're here to give us a reason to end him."
Jim frowned. "Excuse me, sir, but there have been indications that more is going on here than just a simple murder case. It's possible that we can gain more by keeping him alive - "
The man's scowl deepened. " 'We?' Who are you, kid, and what makes you think you know what's best for Starfleet? You're not even allowed in this briefing rooms. Cadet, what is he doing here?"
Jim looked taken aback. "I - "
"Spock has requested that Mr. Kirk help him in his investigation of the Orion, John." Pike cut in smoothly, from behind them. "He has every right be to here." He slid into a chair across from the man. "Boys, this is Major John Drabus, the man who would have led the search for Heled-Mar, if there had actually been anything of a search."
Draybus' bushy eyebrows shot up. "Kirk? Not George Kirk's son?" He asked, surprised, and Pike chuckled, nodding. Drabus stood up, holding out a hand to Jim. "Well, I'll be damned! Why didn't you say so, kid? Great to meet you. Chris here ever get to telling you how much of a nerd he is over your dad?"
Jim took his hand, caught between resignation, disgust and amusement. Spock could feel him, tense and confused. "No, actually, he didn't."
Drabus chuckled, gesturing to Pike, who was staring very hard at his sheaf of papers. "This guy worshipped the man. Used to talk on and on about him, during his academy days. Wrote his thesis on him...why, he even had a Captain Kirk - "
"Can we get on with this, please?" Pike interrupted, and Spock noted with interest the slight quickness to his words, the several degrees of flushing on his cheeks. He nodded, and took his place, sitting along one edge of the table, nearest to the end where the Orion sat.
"Well now look who's all business!" The Major laughed, but he sank back into his seat. Jim took his, across from Spock, so that they were bracketing Heled-Mar at the end.
"Yes, well." Pike said tightly. "Excuse me if I'm not entirely comfortable sitting and joking in a room with a man who stabbed me last time I saw him."
Spock reached out and took Jim's hand. It wasn't entirely necessary - they were still to attuned, only days after pon farr, that they could converse even when they weren't touching. But it focused him, focused them both. He raised his other hand to the Orion's face. Heled-Mar watched his fingers with a sort of detached interest, didn't move even a fraction when they found his face.
"Fair enough," Drabus conceded, and then his voice was fading, the room was fading, to...
....the place in-between, the dream-Vulcan, the circle of koon-ut-kal-if-fee. Spock blinked, had only time enough to register Jim at his side, Jim's own surprise, and then, sharp and acrid, his fear -
Before he saw T'Pring. She was standing across the circle, looking loose and strange, her normally perfectly-coiffed hair blowing back behind her in a wind that shouldn't exist, not here in this place. Nothing was here that they did not bring with them.
Her pale hands were on the shoulders of Heled-Mar, who knelt in front of her, knees in the dust. His eyes were fixed on Spock, and he was trembling. T'Pring pet his head as if she were a human and he were her dog.
"He is perfect." She said, calm, and Jim stepped up beside Spock. "They have stripped him of everything nonessential. They have taken his guilt. They have taken his rage and his sorrow." Her fingers edged to Heled-Mar's neck, circling it lightly. "He is a glove, tailored for my hands."
There were too many questions for Spock to ask any of them, but here, he didn't have to. They dropped from his lips like rain, like lead, and he found he was sweating. Sweating in a heat that shouldn't have existed. He raised a finger to his lips, tasted salt.
Next to him, Jim asked in a voice too rough, "Who? Who did this to him?"
"How?" Spock finally managed, and T'Pring was looking at him, her eyes never once wavering to the blazing - blazing, yes, Jim was blazing-bright here, flame even when flickering with fear - figure at his side. "How are you here?"
Her eyes were dark. "I planted my seed when you first touched the Orion, Spock. He's an exceptionally useful psychic. So...open. Nothing but blank space, to do with as I please."
Spock stayed silent. He could hear Jim beside him, beautiful and terrified. He was remembering T'Pring - remembering the only thing he truly could, that Breaking moment long ago when her claws had torn him from his only friend, from half of his heart. And he was petrified that she would do it again.
"Yes." T'Pring breathed, and finally she looked at Kirk, raking him up and down with cold eyes, ice to his fire. "You fear rightly." She laid a hand flat on Heled-Mar's head, circled him. "Do you know what they thought of me, Spock? When you did not return, when you did not even send word that you would not return? When you did not release me nor claim me?" She stopped, looked at him. "For seven years already I was anathema, tied to one cursed. But when even my curse did not want me... Even Stonn, beautiful, stupid Stonn, grew tired." She lowered her eyes to Heled-Mar. "I swore to him that I would see you dead." She took her hand from Heled-Mar's head. "I intend to see that promise through."
And Heled-Mar was moving, almost faster than Spock could see, racing over the sands towards him. T'Pring was controlling him and not controlling him, letting him do what had been instilled in him by a thousand women like her, a thousand heartless, manipulative aliens, their taste for power equal only to their taste for blood.
The Orion threw himself forward, lirpa in his hands, and Spock understood.
It was a challenge. It was all just a challenge, with this poor Orion slave in place of Stonn.
He dropped down under Heled-Mar's wild swinging, swung a precise fist up into his ribs, and used the Orion's momentary disorientation to sweep a hand back and wrench the lirpa from his grasp. Standing up, he slammed the blunt end of the lirpa down on Heled-Mar's still-bent back, knocking him to the ground, and stood over him. "There is no need for bloodshed."
But in a blink Heled-Mar was standing again, and armed, and Jim's thought came, Nothing but blank space...
Spock nodded grimly and gripped the lirpa. It seemed that as much as T'Pring could control the world around them, she couldn't control Spock or Jim themselves. And if they got to her...
Got it. Came Jim's thought, and Spock went on the offensive. He faked a jab to Heled-Mar's stomach, spun to aim a hit at his side. It connected, the rounded metal cracking into Heled-Mar's ribs, but the Orion spared only a blink for the pain, lips pressed silent together.
Spock did not look at Jim, but he knew he was edging around behind T'Pring. He could feel her eyes on him, and he planned to keep it that way. He blocked a blow from overhead, but the Orion recovered faster than should have been possible, slicing a long, shallow cut down the side of his chest, and Spock grit his teeth against the pain, jerking back. He caught Heled-Mar's lirpa and pushed, but the Orion was strong, honed muscle backed by a mind that that had been wrestling with Spock's for seven years.
But then the mind withdrew, and Spock threw Heled-Mar off with a grunt. In the corner of his mind he could feel the palms of his, Jim's, his hands around T'Pring's throat and her skin was cold and silent because they were Jim's hands, his own hands were...
...were being pulled from their arrangement on the Orion's face and Pike was peering at him, his confusion worry pouring into Spock through his hold on his wrists. "Spock," he was saying, from very far away, and Spock blinked, blinked, focused on his face. "Spock," Pike said again, "What's happening? You were shaking - "
And then Jim started screaming, head thrown back, eyes widened in pain and fear. Spock fought free of Pike's hold, almost backhanding him across the room, and gripped Jim's hand again, pressed shaking desperate fingers to the Orion's face and...
...and he surfaced to see T'Pring, cold-eyed and snarling, one hand pressed to her throat, the other thrust out in condemnation. Heled-Mar was leaning on one end of his lirpa, and there was pain pain unimaginable pain in his gut, because the other end was buried deep in Jim's stomach.
Blood stained the sand around him, pooling dark and impossible. Spock still gripped his hand, he could feel strong fingers against his palm, but there he was lying spread-eagled and dying, gasping and grasping.
Spock closed his eyes, focused on this place, on what it meant. Focused on T'Pring. Focused on the the way the sweat had run down his face.
There is nothing here that you do not bring with you.
The wind stirred around his boots, tiny tornadoes of sand and dust.
****
Spock watched Jim's eyelids. He moved his thumbs across Jim's cheeks, tracing the places he remembered freckles. The differences still took him by surprise sometimes, but the smile was just that same smile as in the cracked mirror in the dilapidated house so long before - the tongue the same tongue that had wrapped itself awkwardly around the syllables of the Vulcan language.
And the slow, sleepy, content uncurling of Jim's mind against his own, that, too, was familiar.
Jim's face shifted under his hands, his brows drawing together. T'Pring? He asked without asking. Heled-Mar -
His eyes flew open. "I - I was dying." He spit out, like he expected it to come out bloody.
Spock shook his head. "Not in a physical sense, although the lasting damage to your mind might have - "
"Spock." Jim searched his eyes, looked for the recent memories, for how Spock had gotten them out. Spock let him see some of it - the blistering heat, the tearing winds. Let him see the ruined stones around the circle, the shreds of silvered cloth. But when he delved deeper, Spock guided him gently but firmly away. "No." He said.
Jim folded his lips over something bitter. "I see."
Spock looked him in the eyes. "Were you aware that it takes a mere 168 newtons of force to break the neck of a human?" He asked, and then flickered his eyes away and back to Jim's face. "A Vulcan spine, it seems, is far more resilient."
Jim let out something that was almost a laugh. "Alright, I don't need to know. But...someday?"
Spock inclined his head. "Someday." He agreed.
They lay curled together for a while, thinking separately and together. "I don't understand." Jim finally said. "How can anyone be so...empty? He must have had some personality traits. He must have once been a person."
Spock thought a moment. "Some of the murders he commited quite young, and it seemed as if the women who shaped him were all powerful, but from different factions. He escaped prison against all odds, again and again. It follows logically that he was sort of a...common scapegoat, if you will. Someone raised for the specific purpose of getting away with murder, tacitly approved by Orion society because that is his use."
"God." Jim breathed, and Spock could only agree with the emotion behind it. "Perhaps Starfleet should investigate further into what was behind the Orion slave trade." He mused. "None of the women who had a part in his life seemed subservient, and the image they put forward in the Federation is that their women are oppressed and sold as commodities."
"Are we sure it wasn't the other way around? Was the whole slave trade a front?" Jim asked. "Spock, this is huge. If I hadn't seen accidentally into your mind that night in the bar..."
Spock smiled, slow and perfect. "If you hadn't kissed me, James Kirk, Starfleet would have been without some enormously important information."
Jim laughed against his face, all hot breath and amusement. "Well. It's a good thing I did, then, isn't it?"
Such a foolish question hardly deserved an answer, so Spock didn't give one.
At least, not in words.