We Are Gonna Be Friends: year ten
Title: In the Cold, Cold Night
Universe/Series: AU
Rating: hard R for language, underage sexual acts
Relationship status: First Time
Word count: 3612
Genre: h/c, angst, fluff
Trope: kid!fic, family, friendship
Warnings: language for this part, violence, abuse, hate-speech, homophobia, self-harm,, implied drug use and underage sexual activity.
Pairing: k/s, no others.
Beta: thanks to medea_fic for pinch-hitting for me. :)
Summary: written for this prompt on the kink-meme. which then ballooned like a motherfuc monster. Spock and Kirk meet as kids, to the theme of the White Stripes "We Are Gonna Be Friends"
A/N: dedicated with much love and humble adoration to 13empress . <3 you, bb.
So,originally supposed to be brief, now it is a 12 parter to the original theme of the song "we are gonna be friends", with each chapter named for a white stripes song. honestly? i wasn't even that huge a ws fan before i wrote this, but they've definitely grown on me. i recommend listening to the songs for each chapter- i'll try to include a you-tube link to the songs at the end.
to anyone who has stuck with this series- i am so sorry for the length between updates. the holidays (and the holiday fic commitments, whoops!) kind of slapped me upside the head. i have had most of this done for weeks, but just could NOT find the time to write the last little bit and slap it up. but just two more chapters to go, can you believe it? i can't. soon... SOON...
in any case, i am REALLY sorry for making you wait. i know how frustrating that is. thanks very much for bearing with me!
* this bit gets more angsty, heads up y'all, can't say i didn't warn you.
(approx. ages for this bit- 14/15 and 16/17)
Summer 2246
He’s spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly. He’d thought about comming someone; Chrissy, or Gary, or even Hikaru, the goody-two-shoes himself. But he’s just tired. Bored as he was, he still couldn’t muster up the energy to want to see anyone.
Anyone here.
The creek is low; murky water swirling stagnant in swampy pools, phantom paper clipper ships sailing down the low tide. Every other rustle of a leaf sounds like a murmur; illogical, he knows, but in the end he doesn’t stay long.
He makes his way down the creek to the edge of the corn fields, that fast expanse that stretches as far into the distance as he can see. It’s late summer now, and the corn is well over head height, whispering secrets to itself in the hot southwestern breeze. He trails along the edge, one hand out to drag through the stalks as he walks. He could lose himself in there, go deep into the maze and trace the labyrinth. But in the end he doesn’t. There’s no one in there waiting to find him, and finding himself just doesn’t seem worth the energy.
Cloud-watching is no better, though he gives it the longest amount of time. It’s easy to lay on his back in the dirt, so he persists. His mind is spinning, circling, following and abandoning a million thoughts a minute, but his body is enervated, heavy with a density he can’t explain or even chalk up to humidity.
The clouds are sluggish and few, stubbornly rounded and bland, but he stays until the dark comes creeping, moving the sky from non-descript blue to unremarkable gray, a perfect match for the heated expanse of dirt surrounding him.
The mosquitoes finally drive him back to the house, dragging his heels as he approaches silently, slumping up the steps to fall onto the porch swing, digging under the railing for his pack of smokes.
The first scar is accidental.
His cigarette is stubby, red coals glowing, when his padd pings to inform him of an incoming message. He reads it slowly, smoke twisting out of his nostrils as he exhales. Sets the padd down deliberately on the porch railing, careful that it doesn’t fall. His eyes stare unfocused into the distance.
Spock is abandoning him. Again.
Yes, he knows that the Andorian conference on the limits of warp-drive physics which took all of June was essential to fulfill the terms of Spock’s Advanced Engineering requirements. Likewise, the invitation to the VSA’s three week intensive on higher mathematics was an un-sought honor, and clearly Spock could not have turned it down. Three Vulcan weeks later, the conference was done and all of July was gone. Then it was a family vacation to New England in August, which Jim is sure was lovely, all picturesque and precious, just like the one-sentence postcards he pins on his wall.
Now? Now it is September, and Spock will be presenting a paper at an eight day symposium on Rigel IV concerning the ramifications of the latest molecular fluid dynamics modeling, followed by a jaunt to Seattle to meet with some bigwig from StarFleet’s science department, who is no doubt hell-bent on recruiting him to their ranks, and then a quick trip to Switzerland to observe one of the latest experiments near Genève.
Spock thinks he may be home by some time in mid October, barring any further unforeseen obligations.
Jim can feel his pulse racing. His skin feels tight, lacquered over his form and dried to stiffness. The blood rushes through his veins, too fast, too thin. He wants to explode, can see his hand shake as it brings the stub of cigarette to his lips.
The burn of embers on his arm is like a shot in the chest, adrenalin exploding throughout his system. He pulls the butt away from his skin and flicks it absently into the coffee can at his feet, breath hissing through his teeth. The circle of flesh is angry, reddened, and it hurts like a bitch, but Jim’s head feels clearer than it has in weeks. The pain throbs through the damaged nerve endings, focusing his attention and soothing the frantic need to transcend his own flesh, grounding him unarguably in his own skinny frame.
Fall 2246
Jim hasn’t been to school in a good two and a half weeks, or at least that’s his best rough estimate. Because really- why? He still does most of his assignments, if for no other reason than sheer boredom, and besides, they update to his padd automatically, so it’s not like he actually needs to be physically present. But going to class? What’s the point?
The barn is warm, even in early November. The sun heats it during the morning, and by the afternoon it’s more than comfortable if you have a jacket. He spends a lot of time out here these days; he’s got a few things he’s working on besides his scooter, though admittedly, getting his rickety old two wheeler going well enough to break the speed limit was a real thrill.
Most of his time, though, he spends with his baby.
Josephine.
Josephine is a 2153 Chevy Bel Air, and she, Jim thinks, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. The story goes that his dad had won her gambling some night, and had used her shamelessly to pick up mom, whom everybody knew had the hots for a well-tuned engine. Jim doesn’t know. All he knows is that when he found her, she wouldn’t even turn over, and now she purrs like a big cat.
Or a Vulcan.
Dark grey, with sleek lines that stretch from the very back bumper all the way to the tiny round lights at the front. She curls like a wave, arcing to spill under the pressure of wind onto the road. Thank heaven the barn was watertight- there was quite a bit of dry rot, but no rusting to the body. All the fluids had to be drained, and then the engine cleaned, and tuned. Some of the parts had frozen up and had to be replaced. But all of those things can be done. None of the damage is irreparable.
It’s late into the afternoon, and the light is fading as he takes one last rub at Josephine’s fender with the old cloth in his hand. The last rays of light are gleaming on her mirrored chrome, and he lets himself relax into a moment of pure bliss before his eyes rise to the door.
There is, in the doorway, a figure.
Jim squints- the barn door faces west, the setting sun casting the figure in dark relief against the glow of the firey orb. Characteristics are impossible to distinguish, but also unnecessary- it is the utter stillness that gives it away.
Jim feels his heart freeze in his chest. The moment holds, stretching infinitely between the space of one heartbeat and another, suspended in the grasp of the honeyed light and endless.
“Spock…” he breathes, and the figure detaches itself from the doorframe and walks inevitably toward him.
Spock is taller than when Jim last saw him, impeccably pressed and formal. Jim feels suddenly filthy and childish in his flannel jacket and stained jeans, rubbed with engine grease and barn dust. He rubs his hands anxiously on his thighs, once, twice, and then Spock is unexpectedly in front of him, close, and Jim can feel his heat, can smell him, but Spock’s face is still, shuttered, mask-like in its vacancy. Jim can’t breathe, can hear the blood roaring in his ears, see the spots in front of his eyes. He reaches out a hand, snags a finger in Spock’s collar, and it’s then that the Vulcan façade splits and crumbles, emotion washing across the familiar features as he moves suddenly to grasp Jim by the hips and pull him close. Jim doesn’t even remember it happening, but his arms are wound around Spock’s neck and his face is buried in his shoulder, and his name is a ceaseless prayer on Jim’s lips as he whispers unknowingly into Spock’s shirtfront.
The first touch of lips is gentle, reassuring. The second is fierce, needy. The third is mindless, primal, and so far beyond conscious thought that Jim is not sure he will ever come down again. Spock’s fingers skitter across the meld points, and Jim thrusts himself even closer, begging through touch for the mindlink they both crave.
“Please. Please.”
It has been too long. The slide of Spock’s mind on his is not a slide so much as a flood, a whirlpool that rips at the currents and eddies of Jim’s consciousness, plunging them both into a vast spiral of cohesion, of communion. Jim can hear his voice cry out as if from a great distance, can feel that they have made it into the back seat of the car, that they are pressed skin to skin, mind to mind.
Without warning he is ripped from the vast mental galaxy and slammed into his body, the link shimmering across and through them. Spock’s hands are hot in every place they touch, and Jim feels as though it is only a matter of seconds before his physical self explodes in ecstasy. Desperate, he can’t touch enough, he can’t reach enough, he can’t press himself close enough.
god, spock, missed you so much. So fucking much. Missed you.
Jim…
The world is lost in the catastrophic rupture, the unspeakable rapture of touch and taste and here and now and (mine).
Later, as Jim is falling asleep, he clutches his fists in the front of Spock’s shirt, the vinyl of the bench seat cool beneath them. If he could put himself inside Spock and stay there, he would. He pushes his forehead against Spock’s chest, wrapped in Vulcan heat and empathy, and for the first time in months feels himself again.
Winter 2247
He can hear them from down the hall, so he goes to sit outside the door, back against the wall to listen. He has no idea if they think they’re being quiet or not, but it really doesn’t matter. He quit caring about being caught eavesdropping years ago.
“Goddammit, Winona, I told you, I have no idea where he went!”
“How the fuck can you say that to me? I leave you with my kids…”
“Yes, that’s right. You left me.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Frank. Man the fuck up. What are you, twelve? Don’t whine at me that I abandoned you. You’re a grown man, and I entrusted you with the care of my children. Now you tell me that not only has my oldest son run away, which I heard from him, not from you, thank you very much, but that you have no idea where he’s even gone? What the fuck is your malfunction?”
“My malfunction? Fuck you, Win. I’m not the one who ditched my kids like some day old trash to go running about the universe. Nuh-uh. You can’t pin none of this on me. Not your run-away kid, and not your delinquent one either.”
Jim pulls the lighter out of his pocket, pushes up his sleeve. He can feel the anger burning inside him, turning and pushing and making his heart race. He wants to scream, to punch, but he can’t, he can’t. Nothing he says or does will make any difference, and the push/pull between burning rage and despairing apathy is too much.
“My delinquent son?” His mother’s voice is resigned, defeated. “What is Jimmy doing now?”
The line of small circles up the inside of his forearm has gotten longer than he realized, but he can’t resist. The pain is as addictive as pills, he knows, but he can’t find it in himself to mind, to think that it’s anything but dumb, really. A coping mechanism, he knows, but so what? It’s his business, no one else’s.
“He doesn’t go to school anymore. They’re going to flunk him out of this year.” Frank’s voice almost sounds pleased. “He’s doing drugs, but that’s nothing new. Running around with that Gary Mitchell boy. And that freaky alien kid.”
Jim flicks the lighter, holding the button down so that the metal begins to glow. He hadn’t known they were flunking him. The empty hallway roars in his ears. He doesn’t have a smoke on him, so the lighter will have to do.
“Is he being safe? How the fuck would I know, Win? If he’s sleeping around, the little fucker deserves what he gets.”
The flame gusts out, and he upends the lighter onto the thin skin over his veins, pressing the searing metal into his flesh for a count of three, tears welling in his eyes as he hisses out through his teeth.
There’s the release; the rush of endorphins to his brain, the flaming singe of nerves all throughout his arm, the blister rising already as he pulls the lighter away, an angry half moon of pain flaring up at him. He bares his teeth, shoving the lighter back into his pocket.
“Hang on- thought I heard something. Your little punk’s probably listening at the door again.”
He tries to stand, but he’s too light-headed. It slows him down, having to fumble for the walls to get himself upright.
The door bursts open, Frank’s face purpling at the sight of him. Jim yanks his sleeve down, sneering for all he’s worth at the face of the man before him.
“You little fucker.” Frank’s got his arm now, his fingers pressing into the thin muscle of Jim’s bicep. “How long have you been out here?” He gives Jim a shake. “How long?”
Jim kicks him in the shin, and Frank snaps, throwing him up against the wall so his head thunks against the plaster. Jim sees lights flicker at the edge of his vision, and fights the nausea rising in his gut.
“You piece of shit. You know what they told me down at the bar? Do you? He seizes Jim again, pushing his face close. “They said that you’re taking it up the ass from that freaky little fuck of a friend of yours.” He laughs, loud and full. “I told them not even you were stupid enough to let that sorry piece of shit lay his hands on you. Even if you did bend over for some of the boys, you’d draw the line at the goddamn alien.” He laughs again.
Jim is flying, his head floaty and strange, and when he doesn’t respond Frank leans in, looking at him closely for the first time.
“No…” He breathes incredulously. “No, you wouldn’t…”
Jim looks away.
The hand across his face comes before he expects it, pushing his cheek hard into the wall.
“You goddamn filthy little shit. You have! You have been goddamn letting some freakish in-human thing put his paws all over you? Put his green fucking dick up your ass?” There’s a blow to his ear that drops him to the ground. He curls up, closing his eyes and remembering how Spock beat the bullies, then cleaned him up after. A boot lands in his stomach and he retches, but he hasn’t eaten in a while. There’s not much to cough over.
“You… you…” There’s an almost lost note in Frank’s voice. He’s really shocked, Jim realizes through the haze filling his brain. Shocked and genuinely horrified. “You pansy-ass little bastard.”
Jim hadn’t realized Frank cared, and he laughs helplessly to himself.
Frank shoves at him with the toe of his boot, leaning forward to spit down on his head.
“I don’t ever fucking want to see your face. You hear me? You stay the fuck out of my way, you cock-sucking little slut.” His voice is high, tight. “I don’t ever want to lay eyes on you again.”
Jim stays alert long enough to hear footsteps disappear down the stairs, then lets himself slide into blessed oblivion.
Spring 2247
“Dammit, Spock, I swear you’re cheating!”
“Vulcans do not…”
“Cheat, I know, I know. Dammit.”
Spock cuts his eyes sideways. Jim is concentrating so hard on manipulating the projection of the little racing car on the screen that his tongue is sticking out the side of his mouth. It is unexpectedly endearing.
“It is hardly my fault that Vulcans have superior reflexes and timing which give us a natural advantage.”
“Yeah, Vulcans rule, humans drool. But…” and here Jim leans ever closer to the graphic display, before reaching sideways in a lightning fast move to slap at the controller in Spock’s hand, “…humans are better at creative thinking. Yatta!!”
Jim turns grinning to Spock as his little car crosses the finish line where the holographic crowd of cartoon characters waves and yells. Spock’s car has crashed into a barrier.
“At cheating.”
Spock examines his controller closely. Somehow the battery seems to have become loosened and fallen out when Jim slapped at it, causing a short out in the controller itself and causing his race car to fail. The angle of his eyebrows clearly indicates that he is beginning to suspect sabotage.
“Eh, whatever.” Jim’s grin is undiluted. He flops down on his back, arms above his head. “I still won.”
“Jim”
“Yeah?”
Spock fastens a stern look on him, betrayed by a glint of amusement and a twitch in the corner of his mouth.
“You will return the battery.”
Jim smirks. “Oh, fine, if you insist.” He pulls a hand from behind his head, and holds out his arm palm up, small metal disc easily visible. “Here.”
He knows what’s happened the second he sees Spock’s eyebrows descend to form a point over his nose. Jim’s shirtsleeves, which are eternally too short, have ridden up, and the skin which reaches from his wrist up to his elbow is visible. His heart takes a pitfall into his gut, and he snatches his hand back, but he is not fast enough. The heat of a Vulcan grip has immobilized his forearm, and the vast strength which Spock so rarely uses is in full effect. Jim squirms, but it is useless.
“Jim.” Spock’s voice is flat, calm, and unyielding. “You will explain to me what has happened to your arm.”
The sneer is sliding across his face before he can catch it, his body folding in around his core in defense as he pulls his arm taut in Spock’s unwavering grasp.
“Nothing happened to my arm, Spock.”
There’s a flash of what looks like pain deep in those loam-dark eyes, but Spock’s expression is implacable, his grip unyielding.
“Do not lie, Jim. It is unbecoming.”
“Unbecoming? Unbecoming?” Jim laughs, a harsh sound in the tense air. “For fuck’s sake, Spock, I’d have thought someone with a brain as big as yours could come up with something better than ‘unbecoming’”. He pulls again, and there’s that look that flashes again in the corners of Spock’s mouth.
Jim slumps suddenly to the bed, letting his arm go slack in the circle of Spock’s hand. He knows that look, knows it all too well.
Rejection.
He can’t do this to Spock, it’s not his fault, not really. He sighs and looks away.
“It’s just… it’s very logical, you know.” He’s not looking, but he can almost hear Spock’s eyebrow rise in skeptical response. “It’s a simple coping mechanism to facilitate the assimilation of environmental stressors. The adrenalin rush provided by selective self-mutilation allows the practitioner to experience a momentary high, a relief from whatever circumstance provokes the behavior.”
Spock has unbuttoned the wrist of his sleeve and is rolling it up to his elbow, his fingers and thumb gently caressing the outline of each marked and puckered wound, each digital kiss a questioning benediction.
“Surely you have not needed such extensive relief?”
Jim can hear the beginnings of self-reproach and guilt in Spock’s voice, and the concavity in his chest where his heart should be warm and pulsing feels just slightly more like a black hole.
“I have a compulsive personality.”
Spock’s hands have reached his elbow, pushing the flannel out of the way, his fingers warm and gentle in a way that Jim just can’t stand anymore, so he pulls his arm free with a jerk, and Spock lets him. It’s only going to be a minute before Spock thinks to check the other arm, and heaven forbid it occur to him to question why Jim’s only been bed-sharing with the lights out recently, so Jim schools his face into passivity and stands.
“I just… I just need a minute, Spock. Some fresh air. Ok? I’ll be right back. Just a minute.”
A minute. An hour. A day. His feet are stepping for the door, and Jim can see that Spock knows, knows him and his fight or flight instinct, and is letting him make his break for freedom.
“I’ll be right back.”
He tries to mean it, but it sounds dead even past the rushing in his ears. He can see that Spock doesn’t believe him for a minute, so he grabs the door and wrenches it open, pounding down the stairs and into the chill dark.
The night is wide and dark and deep, and as his feet set up a pounding rhythm on the pitch-black road, he tips his head back to view the wheeling stars which skim the edge of oblivion.
If only, he thinks. If only he could be swallowed up in that endless abyss, drunk down and transformed by the cold, cold night.
Cold Cold Night
I saw you standing in the corner
On the edge of a buring light
I saw you standing in the corner
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
You make me feel a little older
Like a full grown women might.
But when you gonna grow colder
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
I hear you walkin' by my front door
I hear the creakin' of the kitchen floor
I don't care what other people say
I'm gonna love you anyway
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
I can't stand it any longer
I need the fuel to make my fire bight
So don't fight it any longer
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
And I know that you feel it too
When my skin turns into glue
You will know that it's warm inside
And you'll come run to me
In the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
Universe/Series: AU
Rating: hard R for language, underage sexual acts
Relationship status: First Time
Word count: 3612
Genre: h/c, angst, fluff
Trope: kid!fic, family, friendship
Warnings: language for this part, violence, abuse, hate-speech, homophobia, self-harm,, implied drug use and underage sexual activity.
Pairing: k/s, no others.
Beta: thanks to medea_fic for pinch-hitting for me. :)
Summary: written for this prompt on the kink-meme. which then ballooned like a motherfuc monster. Spock and Kirk meet as kids, to the theme of the White Stripes "We Are Gonna Be Friends"
A/N: dedicated with much love and humble adoration to 13empress . <3 you, bb.
So,originally supposed to be brief, now it is a 12 parter to the original theme of the song "we are gonna be friends", with each chapter named for a white stripes song. honestly? i wasn't even that huge a ws fan before i wrote this, but they've definitely grown on me. i recommend listening to the songs for each chapter- i'll try to include a you-tube link to the songs at the end.
to anyone who has stuck with this series- i am so sorry for the length between updates. the holidays (and the holiday fic commitments, whoops!) kind of slapped me upside the head. i have had most of this done for weeks, but just could NOT find the time to write the last little bit and slap it up. but just two more chapters to go, can you believe it? i can't. soon... SOON...
in any case, i am REALLY sorry for making you wait. i know how frustrating that is. thanks very much for bearing with me!
* this bit gets more angsty, heads up y'all, can't say i didn't warn you.
(approx. ages for this bit- 14/15 and 16/17)
Summer 2246
He’s spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly. He’d thought about comming someone; Chrissy, or Gary, or even Hikaru, the goody-two-shoes himself. But he’s just tired. Bored as he was, he still couldn’t muster up the energy to want to see anyone.
Anyone here.
The creek is low; murky water swirling stagnant in swampy pools, phantom paper clipper ships sailing down the low tide. Every other rustle of a leaf sounds like a murmur; illogical, he knows, but in the end he doesn’t stay long.
He makes his way down the creek to the edge of the corn fields, that fast expanse that stretches as far into the distance as he can see. It’s late summer now, and the corn is well over head height, whispering secrets to itself in the hot southwestern breeze. He trails along the edge, one hand out to drag through the stalks as he walks. He could lose himself in there, go deep into the maze and trace the labyrinth. But in the end he doesn’t. There’s no one in there waiting to find him, and finding himself just doesn’t seem worth the energy.
Cloud-watching is no better, though he gives it the longest amount of time. It’s easy to lay on his back in the dirt, so he persists. His mind is spinning, circling, following and abandoning a million thoughts a minute, but his body is enervated, heavy with a density he can’t explain or even chalk up to humidity.
The clouds are sluggish and few, stubbornly rounded and bland, but he stays until the dark comes creeping, moving the sky from non-descript blue to unremarkable gray, a perfect match for the heated expanse of dirt surrounding him.
The mosquitoes finally drive him back to the house, dragging his heels as he approaches silently, slumping up the steps to fall onto the porch swing, digging under the railing for his pack of smokes.
The first scar is accidental.
His cigarette is stubby, red coals glowing, when his padd pings to inform him of an incoming message. He reads it slowly, smoke twisting out of his nostrils as he exhales. Sets the padd down deliberately on the porch railing, careful that it doesn’t fall. His eyes stare unfocused into the distance.
Spock is abandoning him. Again.
Yes, he knows that the Andorian conference on the limits of warp-drive physics which took all of June was essential to fulfill the terms of Spock’s Advanced Engineering requirements. Likewise, the invitation to the VSA’s three week intensive on higher mathematics was an un-sought honor, and clearly Spock could not have turned it down. Three Vulcan weeks later, the conference was done and all of July was gone. Then it was a family vacation to New England in August, which Jim is sure was lovely, all picturesque and precious, just like the one-sentence postcards he pins on his wall.
Now? Now it is September, and Spock will be presenting a paper at an eight day symposium on Rigel IV concerning the ramifications of the latest molecular fluid dynamics modeling, followed by a jaunt to Seattle to meet with some bigwig from StarFleet’s science department, who is no doubt hell-bent on recruiting him to their ranks, and then a quick trip to Switzerland to observe one of the latest experiments near Genève.
Spock thinks he may be home by some time in mid October, barring any further unforeseen obligations.
Jim can feel his pulse racing. His skin feels tight, lacquered over his form and dried to stiffness. The blood rushes through his veins, too fast, too thin. He wants to explode, can see his hand shake as it brings the stub of cigarette to his lips.
The burn of embers on his arm is like a shot in the chest, adrenalin exploding throughout his system. He pulls the butt away from his skin and flicks it absently into the coffee can at his feet, breath hissing through his teeth. The circle of flesh is angry, reddened, and it hurts like a bitch, but Jim’s head feels clearer than it has in weeks. The pain throbs through the damaged nerve endings, focusing his attention and soothing the frantic need to transcend his own flesh, grounding him unarguably in his own skinny frame.
Fall 2246
Jim hasn’t been to school in a good two and a half weeks, or at least that’s his best rough estimate. Because really- why? He still does most of his assignments, if for no other reason than sheer boredom, and besides, they update to his padd automatically, so it’s not like he actually needs to be physically present. But going to class? What’s the point?
The barn is warm, even in early November. The sun heats it during the morning, and by the afternoon it’s more than comfortable if you have a jacket. He spends a lot of time out here these days; he’s got a few things he’s working on besides his scooter, though admittedly, getting his rickety old two wheeler going well enough to break the speed limit was a real thrill.
Most of his time, though, he spends with his baby.
Josephine.
Josephine is a 2153 Chevy Bel Air, and she, Jim thinks, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. The story goes that his dad had won her gambling some night, and had used her shamelessly to pick up mom, whom everybody knew had the hots for a well-tuned engine. Jim doesn’t know. All he knows is that when he found her, she wouldn’t even turn over, and now she purrs like a big cat.
Or a Vulcan.
Dark grey, with sleek lines that stretch from the very back bumper all the way to the tiny round lights at the front. She curls like a wave, arcing to spill under the pressure of wind onto the road. Thank heaven the barn was watertight- there was quite a bit of dry rot, but no rusting to the body. All the fluids had to be drained, and then the engine cleaned, and tuned. Some of the parts had frozen up and had to be replaced. But all of those things can be done. None of the damage is irreparable.
It’s late into the afternoon, and the light is fading as he takes one last rub at Josephine’s fender with the old cloth in his hand. The last rays of light are gleaming on her mirrored chrome, and he lets himself relax into a moment of pure bliss before his eyes rise to the door.
There is, in the doorway, a figure.
Jim squints- the barn door faces west, the setting sun casting the figure in dark relief against the glow of the firey orb. Characteristics are impossible to distinguish, but also unnecessary- it is the utter stillness that gives it away.
Jim feels his heart freeze in his chest. The moment holds, stretching infinitely between the space of one heartbeat and another, suspended in the grasp of the honeyed light and endless.
“Spock…” he breathes, and the figure detaches itself from the doorframe and walks inevitably toward him.
Spock is taller than when Jim last saw him, impeccably pressed and formal. Jim feels suddenly filthy and childish in his flannel jacket and stained jeans, rubbed with engine grease and barn dust. He rubs his hands anxiously on his thighs, once, twice, and then Spock is unexpectedly in front of him, close, and Jim can feel his heat, can smell him, but Spock’s face is still, shuttered, mask-like in its vacancy. Jim can’t breathe, can hear the blood roaring in his ears, see the spots in front of his eyes. He reaches out a hand, snags a finger in Spock’s collar, and it’s then that the Vulcan façade splits and crumbles, emotion washing across the familiar features as he moves suddenly to grasp Jim by the hips and pull him close. Jim doesn’t even remember it happening, but his arms are wound around Spock’s neck and his face is buried in his shoulder, and his name is a ceaseless prayer on Jim’s lips as he whispers unknowingly into Spock’s shirtfront.
The first touch of lips is gentle, reassuring. The second is fierce, needy. The third is mindless, primal, and so far beyond conscious thought that Jim is not sure he will ever come down again. Spock’s fingers skitter across the meld points, and Jim thrusts himself even closer, begging through touch for the mindlink they both crave.
“Please. Please.”
It has been too long. The slide of Spock’s mind on his is not a slide so much as a flood, a whirlpool that rips at the currents and eddies of Jim’s consciousness, plunging them both into a vast spiral of cohesion, of communion. Jim can hear his voice cry out as if from a great distance, can feel that they have made it into the back seat of the car, that they are pressed skin to skin, mind to mind.
Without warning he is ripped from the vast mental galaxy and slammed into his body, the link shimmering across and through them. Spock’s hands are hot in every place they touch, and Jim feels as though it is only a matter of seconds before his physical self explodes in ecstasy. Desperate, he can’t touch enough, he can’t reach enough, he can’t press himself close enough.
god, spock, missed you so much. So fucking much. Missed you.
Jim…
The world is lost in the catastrophic rupture, the unspeakable rapture of touch and taste and here and now and (mine).
Later, as Jim is falling asleep, he clutches his fists in the front of Spock’s shirt, the vinyl of the bench seat cool beneath them. If he could put himself inside Spock and stay there, he would. He pushes his forehead against Spock’s chest, wrapped in Vulcan heat and empathy, and for the first time in months feels himself again.
Winter 2247
He can hear them from down the hall, so he goes to sit outside the door, back against the wall to listen. He has no idea if they think they’re being quiet or not, but it really doesn’t matter. He quit caring about being caught eavesdropping years ago.
“Goddammit, Winona, I told you, I have no idea where he went!”
“How the fuck can you say that to me? I leave you with my kids…”
“Yes, that’s right. You left me.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Frank. Man the fuck up. What are you, twelve? Don’t whine at me that I abandoned you. You’re a grown man, and I entrusted you with the care of my children. Now you tell me that not only has my oldest son run away, which I heard from him, not from you, thank you very much, but that you have no idea where he’s even gone? What the fuck is your malfunction?”
“My malfunction? Fuck you, Win. I’m not the one who ditched my kids like some day old trash to go running about the universe. Nuh-uh. You can’t pin none of this on me. Not your run-away kid, and not your delinquent one either.”
Jim pulls the lighter out of his pocket, pushes up his sleeve. He can feel the anger burning inside him, turning and pushing and making his heart race. He wants to scream, to punch, but he can’t, he can’t. Nothing he says or does will make any difference, and the push/pull between burning rage and despairing apathy is too much.
“My delinquent son?” His mother’s voice is resigned, defeated. “What is Jimmy doing now?”
The line of small circles up the inside of his forearm has gotten longer than he realized, but he can’t resist. The pain is as addictive as pills, he knows, but he can’t find it in himself to mind, to think that it’s anything but dumb, really. A coping mechanism, he knows, but so what? It’s his business, no one else’s.
“He doesn’t go to school anymore. They’re going to flunk him out of this year.” Frank’s voice almost sounds pleased. “He’s doing drugs, but that’s nothing new. Running around with that Gary Mitchell boy. And that freaky alien kid.”
Jim flicks the lighter, holding the button down so that the metal begins to glow. He hadn’t known they were flunking him. The empty hallway roars in his ears. He doesn’t have a smoke on him, so the lighter will have to do.
“Is he being safe? How the fuck would I know, Win? If he’s sleeping around, the little fucker deserves what he gets.”
The flame gusts out, and he upends the lighter onto the thin skin over his veins, pressing the searing metal into his flesh for a count of three, tears welling in his eyes as he hisses out through his teeth.
There’s the release; the rush of endorphins to his brain, the flaming singe of nerves all throughout his arm, the blister rising already as he pulls the lighter away, an angry half moon of pain flaring up at him. He bares his teeth, shoving the lighter back into his pocket.
“Hang on- thought I heard something. Your little punk’s probably listening at the door again.”
He tries to stand, but he’s too light-headed. It slows him down, having to fumble for the walls to get himself upright.
The door bursts open, Frank’s face purpling at the sight of him. Jim yanks his sleeve down, sneering for all he’s worth at the face of the man before him.
“You little fucker.” Frank’s got his arm now, his fingers pressing into the thin muscle of Jim’s bicep. “How long have you been out here?” He gives Jim a shake. “How long?”
Jim kicks him in the shin, and Frank snaps, throwing him up against the wall so his head thunks against the plaster. Jim sees lights flicker at the edge of his vision, and fights the nausea rising in his gut.
“You piece of shit. You know what they told me down at the bar? Do you? He seizes Jim again, pushing his face close. “They said that you’re taking it up the ass from that freaky little fuck of a friend of yours.” He laughs, loud and full. “I told them not even you were stupid enough to let that sorry piece of shit lay his hands on you. Even if you did bend over for some of the boys, you’d draw the line at the goddamn alien.” He laughs again.
Jim is flying, his head floaty and strange, and when he doesn’t respond Frank leans in, looking at him closely for the first time.
“No…” He breathes incredulously. “No, you wouldn’t…”
Jim looks away.
The hand across his face comes before he expects it, pushing his cheek hard into the wall.
“You goddamn filthy little shit. You have! You have been goddamn letting some freakish in-human thing put his paws all over you? Put his green fucking dick up your ass?” There’s a blow to his ear that drops him to the ground. He curls up, closing his eyes and remembering how Spock beat the bullies, then cleaned him up after. A boot lands in his stomach and he retches, but he hasn’t eaten in a while. There’s not much to cough over.
“You… you…” There’s an almost lost note in Frank’s voice. He’s really shocked, Jim realizes through the haze filling his brain. Shocked and genuinely horrified. “You pansy-ass little bastard.”
Jim hadn’t realized Frank cared, and he laughs helplessly to himself.
Frank shoves at him with the toe of his boot, leaning forward to spit down on his head.
“I don’t ever fucking want to see your face. You hear me? You stay the fuck out of my way, you cock-sucking little slut.” His voice is high, tight. “I don’t ever want to lay eyes on you again.”
Jim stays alert long enough to hear footsteps disappear down the stairs, then lets himself slide into blessed oblivion.
Spring 2247
“Dammit, Spock, I swear you’re cheating!”
“Vulcans do not…”
“Cheat, I know, I know. Dammit.”
Spock cuts his eyes sideways. Jim is concentrating so hard on manipulating the projection of the little racing car on the screen that his tongue is sticking out the side of his mouth. It is unexpectedly endearing.
“It is hardly my fault that Vulcans have superior reflexes and timing which give us a natural advantage.”
“Yeah, Vulcans rule, humans drool. But…” and here Jim leans ever closer to the graphic display, before reaching sideways in a lightning fast move to slap at the controller in Spock’s hand, “…humans are better at creative thinking. Yatta!!”
Jim turns grinning to Spock as his little car crosses the finish line where the holographic crowd of cartoon characters waves and yells. Spock’s car has crashed into a barrier.
“At cheating.”
Spock examines his controller closely. Somehow the battery seems to have become loosened and fallen out when Jim slapped at it, causing a short out in the controller itself and causing his race car to fail. The angle of his eyebrows clearly indicates that he is beginning to suspect sabotage.
“Eh, whatever.” Jim’s grin is undiluted. He flops down on his back, arms above his head. “I still won.”
“Jim”
“Yeah?”
Spock fastens a stern look on him, betrayed by a glint of amusement and a twitch in the corner of his mouth.
“You will return the battery.”
Jim smirks. “Oh, fine, if you insist.” He pulls a hand from behind his head, and holds out his arm palm up, small metal disc easily visible. “Here.”
He knows what’s happened the second he sees Spock’s eyebrows descend to form a point over his nose. Jim’s shirtsleeves, which are eternally too short, have ridden up, and the skin which reaches from his wrist up to his elbow is visible. His heart takes a pitfall into his gut, and he snatches his hand back, but he is not fast enough. The heat of a Vulcan grip has immobilized his forearm, and the vast strength which Spock so rarely uses is in full effect. Jim squirms, but it is useless.
“Jim.” Spock’s voice is flat, calm, and unyielding. “You will explain to me what has happened to your arm.”
The sneer is sliding across his face before he can catch it, his body folding in around his core in defense as he pulls his arm taut in Spock’s unwavering grasp.
“Nothing happened to my arm, Spock.”
There’s a flash of what looks like pain deep in those loam-dark eyes, but Spock’s expression is implacable, his grip unyielding.
“Do not lie, Jim. It is unbecoming.”
“Unbecoming? Unbecoming?” Jim laughs, a harsh sound in the tense air. “For fuck’s sake, Spock, I’d have thought someone with a brain as big as yours could come up with something better than ‘unbecoming’”. He pulls again, and there’s that look that flashes again in the corners of Spock’s mouth.
Jim slumps suddenly to the bed, letting his arm go slack in the circle of Spock’s hand. He knows that look, knows it all too well.
Rejection.
He can’t do this to Spock, it’s not his fault, not really. He sighs and looks away.
“It’s just… it’s very logical, you know.” He’s not looking, but he can almost hear Spock’s eyebrow rise in skeptical response. “It’s a simple coping mechanism to facilitate the assimilation of environmental stressors. The adrenalin rush provided by selective self-mutilation allows the practitioner to experience a momentary high, a relief from whatever circumstance provokes the behavior.”
Spock has unbuttoned the wrist of his sleeve and is rolling it up to his elbow, his fingers and thumb gently caressing the outline of each marked and puckered wound, each digital kiss a questioning benediction.
“Surely you have not needed such extensive relief?”
Jim can hear the beginnings of self-reproach and guilt in Spock’s voice, and the concavity in his chest where his heart should be warm and pulsing feels just slightly more like a black hole.
“I have a compulsive personality.”
Spock’s hands have reached his elbow, pushing the flannel out of the way, his fingers warm and gentle in a way that Jim just can’t stand anymore, so he pulls his arm free with a jerk, and Spock lets him. It’s only going to be a minute before Spock thinks to check the other arm, and heaven forbid it occur to him to question why Jim’s only been bed-sharing with the lights out recently, so Jim schools his face into passivity and stands.
“I just… I just need a minute, Spock. Some fresh air. Ok? I’ll be right back. Just a minute.”
A minute. An hour. A day. His feet are stepping for the door, and Jim can see that Spock knows, knows him and his fight or flight instinct, and is letting him make his break for freedom.
“I’ll be right back.”
He tries to mean it, but it sounds dead even past the rushing in his ears. He can see that Spock doesn’t believe him for a minute, so he grabs the door and wrenches it open, pounding down the stairs and into the chill dark.
The night is wide and dark and deep, and as his feet set up a pounding rhythm on the pitch-black road, he tips his head back to view the wheeling stars which skim the edge of oblivion.
If only, he thinks. If only he could be swallowed up in that endless abyss, drunk down and transformed by the cold, cold night.
Cold Cold Night
I saw you standing in the corner
On the edge of a buring light
I saw you standing in the corner
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
You make me feel a little older
Like a full grown women might.
But when you gonna grow colder
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
I hear you walkin' by my front door
I hear the creakin' of the kitchen floor
I don't care what other people say
I'm gonna love you anyway
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
I can't stand it any longer
I need the fuel to make my fire bight
So don't fight it any longer
Come to me again in the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
And I know that you feel it too
When my skin turns into glue
You will know that it's warm inside
And you'll come run to me
In the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
In the cold cold night
In the cold cold night