Unbroken (Kirk/girl!Spock, Star Trek XI Mirrorverse, R)
Written for sacred_20 prompt #13: Sanctuary. Many, many thanks to spookyfbi, who humored me with extensive Socratic Method discussion; and to dissociate, who beta read.
A/N: This is in the same universe as Perfumed. I don't necessarily want to be known as "the chick who wrote that whole slew of mirror fics where Spock is the Captain's girl", but alas, the heart ships what it ships. Anyway, this particular piece is an exploration of the aftermaths of a nuked Vulcan in the mirror universe. Honestly I don't know why Spock is a girl (except that maybe spookyfbi is too awesome), but it just feels this way, somehow.
Title: Unbroken
Author: Renata Lord (snowlight)
Pairing: Kirk/girl!Spock, XI Mirrorverse
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2,200
Disclaimer: There is a company called Paramount....
*
Kirk told himself he would give her twenty-four hours. He started cracking the security code to her door at the mark of twenty. He succeeded at twenty-two.
"You sure you want to do this?" McCoy was right behind him when the moment came, with that usual detached interest. "I'm seriously getting sick of having you in med bay on my turf. Security measures are a bitch."
"Careful there, Bones. People might start to think you cared." The captain chuckled humorlessly. He took a deep breath and punched in the code.
The door slid open. The lights were off, and no sound came out. Kirk looked to the guards posited at both sides of the entrance.
"Pending further order, you are to come inside to retrieve me after five minutes."
He wasn't sure about her psychiatric condition, but judging from their previous sparring records, he estimated he could reasonably hold out for that long without incurring permanent damage, should it come to blows. He rather hoped it didn't, since it was Spock. But on the other hand, it was Spock.
The guards saluted. Kirk spared one last look at McCoy's smirk, and went in.
*
Using the captain's override, Kirk instructed the computer to turn the lights on at ten percent. Barely enough luminosity for the Terran eye, but he didn't want to further agitate a potentially deadly Vulcan. The room looked quite in order aside from her uniform in an usually messy pile on the floor, which was a surprise given Spock's presumed condition. A very peculiar smell and vibrations of a sweltering heat, however, radiated from the bathroom's direction.
Seven seconds later Kirk was standing by the bathtub, overlooking the naked, sleeping form of his first officer.
Almost entirely submerged in water, she looked....fragile; but that must have been a distinctively human figment of imagination. Perhaps it was the way her short hair fanned out in the water, revealing a face that was for once free of silent disapproval. Or the way her hands were folded neatly over her abdomen, right above her heart. Or the way her legs were slightly bent at the knees, as if she wanted to curl up in the heat and stay there.
As touching a picture as this was, Kirk wanted his second in command back. He tightened his grip on the phaser.
"Spock."
The Vulcan didn't open her eyes, but she did acknowledge his presence. Pale lips were pressed into a hard line, and there was it again, the familiar scowl.
"Captain, your visit is ill-advised."
She sounded almost fine. Kirk wanted to convince himself of that. Regardless of planetary annihilation, these were Vulcans, the species with the longest stick up their asses in the entire Empire. At least outwardly, Spock hadn't even reacted that badly to the loss. She simply sat down at her station for a while before saying, "Captain, I shall be in my quarters. Please see to it that I am not disturbed."
Except she left without waiting for a response from him.
He may have a reputation of being brash and cocky, but James Kirk didn't get command of the Empire's flagship at this age by being a self-deceiving fool. This one was his, and for better or worse, he knew her better than that.
"If you don't want me coming in, make your security code harder to crack next time." The human shrugged, trying to keep the tone light. "What's that smell coming from the sink?"
"Vomit."
He'd never seen her throw up. Wouldn't have dreamed of it. This was getting fascinating.
Kirk leaned down, half-kneeling by the tub. His right hand remained on his phaser, but he reached out with his left hand, touching Spock's forehead cautiously. The Vulcan's body convulsed violently at the contact. Some of the water sloshed over the rim, drenching his uniform. Kirk kept his hand there, however, and eventually the thrashing subsided. He felt like he was fifteen and in Iowa, soothing his injured horse before putting it down. Dark blood and coarse breath on white snow.
Easy there now. Easy. Good girl.
He blinked that quiet whisper in his head away, faintly startled. Spock wasn't broken like that. He would never allow it.
Yet the Vulcan did look as pale as death itself. Kirk watched her outer set of eyelids twitching under his fingers, the way she held herself through bouts of shivering. The only reason he hadn't gotten pummelled yet was probably because Spock's body was too busy fighting an internal war. Butwhy? Unlike the Arethsians, the Vulcans didn't share a pan-species collective consciousness; and Spock had made it very clear that she never cared much for Vulcan except possibly her father's political muscles. And even that she defied when she joined Starfleet against Sarek's wishes. Had to get away from all that fucking boring logic, no doubt.
As Kirk kept caressing her forehead, a speckle of memory bubbled on the surface of his mind, ominous but persistent. Year two at the Academy. Instructor Jawol's class on Internal Security. Something about the extent of telepathy; the fate of I.S.S. Intrepid. The Vulcans never admitted to the possibility, of course, but Jawol had seen the immediate effects of that ship's demise on his engineering officer, a highly telepathic Vulcansomeone like Spock. Now, take that doomed ship, and multiple the tallies by a million, a hundred million....
"You felt them dying."
For the first time in a long while, James Kirk felt a twinge of horror. Fucking stupid telepaths and fucking stupid Vulcans getting themselves blown up by a fucking Romulan, of all things. He stared at her face and saw her dark eyelashes trembling just slightly, and suddenly he was back in Iowa, with the winter wind howling through him, freezing every vein.
He blinked again. No.
"It's still there in your head?"
Spock growled, showing very white, very tightly clenched teeth. It wasn't a remotely pretty or feminine sound.
"Captain."
This was probably the last warning he'd get, the last chance to turn back with his tail between his legs and let Spock work out the shock on her own; but Kirk didn't like that prospect, didn't want to get shut out from this mess. He had a right. As her captain, her direct superior, the only Terran to ever get to her in whatever degree, he had the goddamned right, and he was going to use it.
The five minutes mark was fast approaching, too. He wouldn't want the crew to think he couldn't control his own first officer.
Kirk flicked open his communicator.
"Security, previous order amended. No action necessary," he called into the device crisply before pressing the entirety of his palm against the side of Spock's face.
"Let me."
It was as much a request as he would ever utter, and as much a demand as she would ever acquiesce to.
*
Spock's skin was surprisingly cold. Normal temperature for a human, but not for a Vulcan who had been practically soaking in a sauna. Even in the dim light, Kirk noticed the little goose bumps on the part of her shoulder that was barely above water. He had an impulse to kiss them. He did not.
Instead, he traced the lines of her cheeks, her jaw, and her pointed ears. He applied pressure evenly and steadily, trying to give Spock something to focus on amidst the pain. He knew he should keep talking, too, that was good for a distraction.
"Do you need to take shore leave?" The captain offered half-heartedly.
He didn't really want to let her out of his sight under these circumstances, but the Empire's information networks were bursting with news, speculations, as well as reports from the negotiations already underway. That buzz would persist until things settled down and the internal power structure rearranged itself. Near extinction brought on by planetary destruction makes for a politically sensitive time, and a Vulcan lucky enough to survive the genocide would do well to situate herself in the middle of the happenings.
Spock tensed palpably under his fingers.
"I have no desire to return to Vulcan." She made a sound that just barely masked a hint of derision at the fallacy of returning to a planet which had been sucked into a black hole. "Or to rejoin the Diaspora. Historically, whenever a regional Vulcan population faced localized extinction, the females were pressed to regenerate the race, with medical aid if necessary."
It was a sterile statement, but the human could hear the distaste in the intonation.
"Given the present situation, it is highly likely that they would attempt to usurp control of my body."
"They won't," Kirk said a little too quickly.
It was by reflex, really. But when he saw Spock opening her eyes and looking at him, he realized what had just been said. Rather improbably, he meant it too. Vulcans can go to hell. They don't have a claim on her. They aren't on this ship every day having to deal with her prissiness, her obstinacy, and her fucking amazing brilliance. They all but cast her out when she snubbed their precious little science school to join Imperial Starfleet. Well, as the old Terran saying goes, finders keepers.
"The only way they're going to take you off this ship is in a coffin." He promised, fingers pressing against the hollow of her throat, the skin there was deceptively soft. "Even then, I'd make sure your cold, dead body isn't in it."
"As always, Captain, your territoriality is most illogical."
"Well, all the logic in the quadrant didn't save your planet from getting blown up, did it?" It was a cheap shot. He was good at those.
He prepared for a direct blow, but the touch that came instead was unexpected. Spock's hands snaked out to catch both of his wrists, her grip solid and immovable as promethium handcuffs. Kirk fought the instinct to struggle and allowed himself be pulled aside by the hand, so they were face to face.
Spock was almost smiling. It gave her the cruel visage of a vengeful deity.
"James," she breathed against him and it was his turn to feel the goose bumps. "If you are attempting to elicit an emotional response from me, you are succeeding."
"That's why you don't belong with Vulcans," Kirk said as smoothly as he could despite the onslaught of pain. He thought he could hear the bones cracking, just a little. "You belong with me."
"Delusions of grandeur." Spock hissed and let go of his wrists. With one swift movement, she pushed herself to sit up in the tub. One press to a button on the wall drained the water, and her wet body rose before Kirk's hungry eyes, magnificent in the dying light.
Kirk stood up behind her as she headed out of the bathroom door, her footsteps light but once more certain.
*
He leaned on the door frame watching as she dressed herself with the usual fastidiousness. Spock made no attempt to hide her body from his gaze, but neither did she put on a display. Her movements remained efficient as she stepped into black panties and regulation trousers with easy grace.
Spock had first showed up at the Enterprise wearing a man's uniform, and since the captain didn't say anything about the matter, nobody was going to comment. It was a damn shame with those legswhich, like every other part of her, were silk wrapped over steel.
She donned the conservative blue blouse and finished dressing by tying the golden sash neatly over her waist.
"You look nice." He nearly whistled.
Spock said nothing but was immediately at the desk, not sitting down but fingers flying on the computer keyboard all the same. As she perused through what was undoubtedly an avalanche of communications, her eyebrows arched and an intent light came to her eyes. Kirk knew that look well.
"What happened?" He asked in Vulcan.
Spock's eyes remained fixated on the screen, as if wanting to ascertain each word.
"My father has demanded that I should join him on Terra. It appears that he wishes to make an example of me, as none of his full-blooded children survived. I am to be bonded to a suitable Vulcan male at the first opportunity."
Kirk almost laughed. Fancy that, Sarek still thinking he can make Spock do anything. But it's doubtful he would even have much political muscle left, what with the genocide and all. James Kirk was a betting man, and he was willing to wager that if he played his cards right, the Empire's flagship captain would trump the emissary of a newly decimated species.
"So," he said casually, rubbing his wrists. "What are you going to do about it?"
Spock did look up at him then. She gave him a little not-smile.
"As I have always done."
That was all needed to be said. The Vulcan straightened up and re-tied the sash, even though it was already immaculate, and she was very much the first officer of the Enterprise again.
"Report to bridge for Alpha shift at 0745, Commander."
"Acknowledged, Captain." Spock saluted and watched Kirk walking out, both of his wrists looking red but otherwise perfectly normal.
*
Finis
A/N: This is in the same universe as Perfumed. I don't necessarily want to be known as "the chick who wrote that whole slew of mirror fics where Spock is the Captain's girl", but alas, the heart ships what it ships. Anyway, this particular piece is an exploration of the aftermaths of a nuked Vulcan in the mirror universe. Honestly I don't know why Spock is a girl (except that maybe spookyfbi is too awesome), but it just feels this way, somehow.
Title: Unbroken
Author: Renata Lord (snowlight)
Pairing: Kirk/girl!Spock, XI Mirrorverse
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2,200
Disclaimer: There is a company called Paramount....
*
Kirk told himself he would give her twenty-four hours. He started cracking the security code to her door at the mark of twenty. He succeeded at twenty-two.
"You sure you want to do this?" McCoy was right behind him when the moment came, with that usual detached interest. "I'm seriously getting sick of having you in med bay on my turf. Security measures are a bitch."
"Careful there, Bones. People might start to think you cared." The captain chuckled humorlessly. He took a deep breath and punched in the code.
The door slid open. The lights were off, and no sound came out. Kirk looked to the guards posited at both sides of the entrance.
"Pending further order, you are to come inside to retrieve me after five minutes."
He wasn't sure about her psychiatric condition, but judging from their previous sparring records, he estimated he could reasonably hold out for that long without incurring permanent damage, should it come to blows. He rather hoped it didn't, since it was Spock. But on the other hand, it was Spock.
The guards saluted. Kirk spared one last look at McCoy's smirk, and went in.
*
Using the captain's override, Kirk instructed the computer to turn the lights on at ten percent. Barely enough luminosity for the Terran eye, but he didn't want to further agitate a potentially deadly Vulcan. The room looked quite in order aside from her uniform in an usually messy pile on the floor, which was a surprise given Spock's presumed condition. A very peculiar smell and vibrations of a sweltering heat, however, radiated from the bathroom's direction.
Seven seconds later Kirk was standing by the bathtub, overlooking the naked, sleeping form of his first officer.
Almost entirely submerged in water, she looked....fragile; but that must have been a distinctively human figment of imagination. Perhaps it was the way her short hair fanned out in the water, revealing a face that was for once free of silent disapproval. Or the way her hands were folded neatly over her abdomen, right above her heart. Or the way her legs were slightly bent at the knees, as if she wanted to curl up in the heat and stay there.
As touching a picture as this was, Kirk wanted his second in command back. He tightened his grip on the phaser.
"Spock."
The Vulcan didn't open her eyes, but she did acknowledge his presence. Pale lips were pressed into a hard line, and there was it again, the familiar scowl.
"Captain, your visit is ill-advised."
She sounded almost fine. Kirk wanted to convince himself of that. Regardless of planetary annihilation, these were Vulcans, the species with the longest stick up their asses in the entire Empire. At least outwardly, Spock hadn't even reacted that badly to the loss. She simply sat down at her station for a while before saying, "Captain, I shall be in my quarters. Please see to it that I am not disturbed."
Except she left without waiting for a response from him.
He may have a reputation of being brash and cocky, but James Kirk didn't get command of the Empire's flagship at this age by being a self-deceiving fool. This one was his, and for better or worse, he knew her better than that.
"If you don't want me coming in, make your security code harder to crack next time." The human shrugged, trying to keep the tone light. "What's that smell coming from the sink?"
"Vomit."
He'd never seen her throw up. Wouldn't have dreamed of it. This was getting fascinating.
Kirk leaned down, half-kneeling by the tub. His right hand remained on his phaser, but he reached out with his left hand, touching Spock's forehead cautiously. The Vulcan's body convulsed violently at the contact. Some of the water sloshed over the rim, drenching his uniform. Kirk kept his hand there, however, and eventually the thrashing subsided. He felt like he was fifteen and in Iowa, soothing his injured horse before putting it down. Dark blood and coarse breath on white snow.
Easy there now. Easy. Good girl.
He blinked that quiet whisper in his head away, faintly startled. Spock wasn't broken like that. He would never allow it.
Yet the Vulcan did look as pale as death itself. Kirk watched her outer set of eyelids twitching under his fingers, the way she held herself through bouts of shivering. The only reason he hadn't gotten pummelled yet was probably because Spock's body was too busy fighting an internal war. Butwhy? Unlike the Arethsians, the Vulcans didn't share a pan-species collective consciousness; and Spock had made it very clear that she never cared much for Vulcan except possibly her father's political muscles. And even that she defied when she joined Starfleet against Sarek's wishes. Had to get away from all that fucking boring logic, no doubt.
As Kirk kept caressing her forehead, a speckle of memory bubbled on the surface of his mind, ominous but persistent. Year two at the Academy. Instructor Jawol's class on Internal Security. Something about the extent of telepathy; the fate of I.S.S. Intrepid. The Vulcans never admitted to the possibility, of course, but Jawol had seen the immediate effects of that ship's demise on his engineering officer, a highly telepathic Vulcansomeone like Spock. Now, take that doomed ship, and multiple the tallies by a million, a hundred million....
"You felt them dying."
For the first time in a long while, James Kirk felt a twinge of horror. Fucking stupid telepaths and fucking stupid Vulcans getting themselves blown up by a fucking Romulan, of all things. He stared at her face and saw her dark eyelashes trembling just slightly, and suddenly he was back in Iowa, with the winter wind howling through him, freezing every vein.
He blinked again. No.
"It's still there in your head?"
Spock growled, showing very white, very tightly clenched teeth. It wasn't a remotely pretty or feminine sound.
"Captain."
This was probably the last warning he'd get, the last chance to turn back with his tail between his legs and let Spock work out the shock on her own; but Kirk didn't like that prospect, didn't want to get shut out from this mess. He had a right. As her captain, her direct superior, the only Terran to ever get to her in whatever degree, he had the goddamned right, and he was going to use it.
The five minutes mark was fast approaching, too. He wouldn't want the crew to think he couldn't control his own first officer.
Kirk flicked open his communicator.
"Security, previous order amended. No action necessary," he called into the device crisply before pressing the entirety of his palm against the side of Spock's face.
"Let me."
It was as much a request as he would ever utter, and as much a demand as she would ever acquiesce to.
*
Spock's skin was surprisingly cold. Normal temperature for a human, but not for a Vulcan who had been practically soaking in a sauna. Even in the dim light, Kirk noticed the little goose bumps on the part of her shoulder that was barely above water. He had an impulse to kiss them. He did not.
Instead, he traced the lines of her cheeks, her jaw, and her pointed ears. He applied pressure evenly and steadily, trying to give Spock something to focus on amidst the pain. He knew he should keep talking, too, that was good for a distraction.
"Do you need to take shore leave?" The captain offered half-heartedly.
He didn't really want to let her out of his sight under these circumstances, but the Empire's information networks were bursting with news, speculations, as well as reports from the negotiations already underway. That buzz would persist until things settled down and the internal power structure rearranged itself. Near extinction brought on by planetary destruction makes for a politically sensitive time, and a Vulcan lucky enough to survive the genocide would do well to situate herself in the middle of the happenings.
Spock tensed palpably under his fingers.
"I have no desire to return to Vulcan." She made a sound that just barely masked a hint of derision at the fallacy of returning to a planet which had been sucked into a black hole. "Or to rejoin the Diaspora. Historically, whenever a regional Vulcan population faced localized extinction, the females were pressed to regenerate the race, with medical aid if necessary."
It was a sterile statement, but the human could hear the distaste in the intonation.
"Given the present situation, it is highly likely that they would attempt to usurp control of my body."
"They won't," Kirk said a little too quickly.
It was by reflex, really. But when he saw Spock opening her eyes and looking at him, he realized what had just been said. Rather improbably, he meant it too. Vulcans can go to hell. They don't have a claim on her. They aren't on this ship every day having to deal with her prissiness, her obstinacy, and her fucking amazing brilliance. They all but cast her out when she snubbed their precious little science school to join Imperial Starfleet. Well, as the old Terran saying goes, finders keepers.
"The only way they're going to take you off this ship is in a coffin." He promised, fingers pressing against the hollow of her throat, the skin there was deceptively soft. "Even then, I'd make sure your cold, dead body isn't in it."
"As always, Captain, your territoriality is most illogical."
"Well, all the logic in the quadrant didn't save your planet from getting blown up, did it?" It was a cheap shot. He was good at those.
He prepared for a direct blow, but the touch that came instead was unexpected. Spock's hands snaked out to catch both of his wrists, her grip solid and immovable as promethium handcuffs. Kirk fought the instinct to struggle and allowed himself be pulled aside by the hand, so they were face to face.
Spock was almost smiling. It gave her the cruel visage of a vengeful deity.
"James," she breathed against him and it was his turn to feel the goose bumps. "If you are attempting to elicit an emotional response from me, you are succeeding."
"That's why you don't belong with Vulcans," Kirk said as smoothly as he could despite the onslaught of pain. He thought he could hear the bones cracking, just a little. "You belong with me."
"Delusions of grandeur." Spock hissed and let go of his wrists. With one swift movement, she pushed herself to sit up in the tub. One press to a button on the wall drained the water, and her wet body rose before Kirk's hungry eyes, magnificent in the dying light.
Kirk stood up behind her as she headed out of the bathroom door, her footsteps light but once more certain.
*
He leaned on the door frame watching as she dressed herself with the usual fastidiousness. Spock made no attempt to hide her body from his gaze, but neither did she put on a display. Her movements remained efficient as she stepped into black panties and regulation trousers with easy grace.
Spock had first showed up at the Enterprise wearing a man's uniform, and since the captain didn't say anything about the matter, nobody was going to comment. It was a damn shame with those legswhich, like every other part of her, were silk wrapped over steel.
She donned the conservative blue blouse and finished dressing by tying the golden sash neatly over her waist.
"You look nice." He nearly whistled.
Spock said nothing but was immediately at the desk, not sitting down but fingers flying on the computer keyboard all the same. As she perused through what was undoubtedly an avalanche of communications, her eyebrows arched and an intent light came to her eyes. Kirk knew that look well.
"What happened?" He asked in Vulcan.
Spock's eyes remained fixated on the screen, as if wanting to ascertain each word.
"My father has demanded that I should join him on Terra. It appears that he wishes to make an example of me, as none of his full-blooded children survived. I am to be bonded to a suitable Vulcan male at the first opportunity."
Kirk almost laughed. Fancy that, Sarek still thinking he can make Spock do anything. But it's doubtful he would even have much political muscle left, what with the genocide and all. James Kirk was a betting man, and he was willing to wager that if he played his cards right, the Empire's flagship captain would trump the emissary of a newly decimated species.
"So," he said casually, rubbing his wrists. "What are you going to do about it?"
Spock did look up at him then. She gave him a little not-smile.
"As I have always done."
That was all needed to be said. The Vulcan straightened up and re-tied the sash, even though it was already immaculate, and she was very much the first officer of the Enterprise again.
"Report to bridge for Alpha shift at 0745, Commander."
"Acknowledged, Captain." Spock saluted and watched Kirk walking out, both of his wrists looking red but otherwise perfectly normal.
*
Finis