We Are Gonna Be Friends: Year 12
---
He wakes on an ice planet, far from anywhere he’s ever been in his life, and utterly, completely alone.
Hauls himself out of the pod, because really, stay there? And wait? Never.
“Acting Captain Spock has marooned me on Delta Vega in what I believe to be a violation of security protocol 49.09, governing the treatment of prisoners aboard a…”
There’s a sound, a stench, and a gaping maw, and then he’s running for his life, welcoming the uninterrupted clarity that comes with the survival imperative; one foot, second foot, one foot, second foot, repeat until eaten.
It’s the cave that saves him, the cave and a stranger. A stranger who is standing in front of him saying his name, and if this is the fucking weirdest dream he’s ever had, he’d really like to wake up. Right. Now.
--
The meld tears through him, laying him bare in the way that only Spock has ever been able to, and no matter what he said to this man about them not being friends, the truth is that he hadn’t realized how desperately, achingly he misses his Spock until this old bastard ripped the lid clean off it.
Now he knows. It’s an endless chasm in his midst, and he can’t find the way to close it again, not while this heartbroken Vulcan with Spock’s eyes is staring at him like he holds every answer in the calloused palms of his too-cold hands.
Jim can feel the weight of those eyes, and his gut rolls within him even as he scrabbles against the icy wall.
“So you do feel.”
Spock’s eyes are immeasurably vast and infinitely compassionate. Jim’s no fool; he’s been through Spock’s pain, and he knows that more than a little of whatever monstrosities lurk in his grey matter have bled across. He wipes at his eyes, simultaneously heartwrenched and freer than he’s been in years.
“Yes, Jim. I do.”
--
“I am emotionally compromised.”
The words pound through Jim’s head as he lets Cupcake haul him up the the bridge. Emotionally compromised. Jim shakes his head. He hadn’t been sure Spock was capable of such a thing.
Emotionally compromised. He can feel the fury building within him. Spock had certainly never been emotionally compromised over him, had he? He feels it with a solidity in his gut, settling as the turbolift doors open, letting his blood begin to run hot in his veins. The truth is, he thinks as he raises his head, Spock must have never cared for him at all.
Spock’s voice prods at his eardrums, sharp and short as it never was on Earth, picking picking picking at Jim, but this is the kind of conflict Jim loves best. The personal kind.
“Does that frustrate you? My lack of cooperation?” He tips his head, watching as Spock’s eyes flare at the intrusion of his personal space. “Does it make you angry?”
Are you angry, Spock? Were you angry?
There’s a flash across Spock’s face, and then it’s gone, but Jim knows he can do this, knows that whoever this straight-faced stranger is, Jim still holds all the cards, and he’s got the Ace up his sleeve.
“Are you afraid or aren’t you?”
Were you ever afraid Spock? Of anything? Of losing me? Of having lost me?
“I will not allow you to lecture me on the merits of emotion.”
No, of course not. You never did.
“What’s it like? Not to feel? Anger. Or heartbreak…”
You had me so fooled. I loved you, Spock. And now…
“Back. Away.”
Jim’s too far gone to even register the raising of the hair on his arms in response to the clear and present danger in Spock’s voice. He pushes forward, close enough to see Spock’s eye’s widen, close enough to taste his breath.
“You don’t feel anything. It must not even compute for you. You never loved her…” me
Spock is on him with a roar, and it’s only instinct that spares him in the next few seconds. He’s moving beyond thought, parrying and striking with the moves he learned from Sarek so many years ago, but it can’t last. Spock is impossibly fast and impossibly full of rage, and it’s all over before Jim can even figure out what is going on. He’s on his back on a console, and those fingers, Spock’s fingers are around his neck.
He gasps, once, twice, and then his eyes roll back as he is thrust into the meld again, crashing on a swirl of unrecognizable emotions. Guilt and pain and hatred and revulsion and a deep-seated longing that rivals the black hole of his own. A vast sea of remorse overridden only by blind rage, and all around him the discordant strings of a ill-used heart.
There’s a moment, then someone speaks, and all Jim can do is sag against the plastic as those hands leave his body entirely.
If he could follow them, he would, but he can’t even stand, so he breathes, rasping incoherently through his damaged throat as Spock vacates the bridge.
She’s looking at him like something she wiped off her shoe, and after the flood that’s still settling in his mind, he can only agree.
“I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Captain.”
He wants to laugh, burst into hysterics, but he can’t, he can’t.
“So do I.”
--
And then it’s over. Nero has fallen in the abyss, the lightning storm in space swallowing him whole, just as it spat him forth so many years ago. Earth is saved, and they are heroes.
He feels like he’s been living in a dream ever since the day of his academic hearing. Hell, ever since the day he met Pike in that bar, really.
Ever since the day Spock was taken away.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
The rest of the words are just noise; lips moving without any meaningful gravity. He nods, smiles.
The salient point is this; Spock is here. Is going to continue to be here. With him.
With him.
--
He sits through the whole first shift, zoned out on the surreality of his life. He signs his name to the requisite bureaucracy forms, checks and double checks their headings against their orders. Teases Chekov about his curls.
Then it’s over, and he’s in the turbolift, moving blessedly away from the bridge. Makes it to his door, keys the entry code, and steps in.
“Captain!”
There’s someone behind him, but he doesn’t look back, never look back, just steps forward and forward again until he’s in the center of the room. There’s a heated hand on his arm, and he doesn’t know what to say what to do, so Spock turns him around slowly, never loosening his grip.
“Jim…”
He can tell he’s staring, but he can’t form words, and that look on Spock’s face is taking him back to Spock in the cornfields with pollen in his hair, Spock with his lips pressed red from kissing, Spock with his face gone utterly still as the officer hauls him to his feet.
Spock with the look of hope crossed with determination as he settles into the chair of the Jellyfish, intent on saving everything, no matter what the cost.
Spock’s eyes are wide in his sockets, the skin around them crinkling with tension, and it’s been nearly fifteen years since he’s had a chance to look at the topography of this face so close up.
“What now?” His voice is thin, so he coughs, tries again. “What now, Spock?”
Spock’s mouth twitches, and Jim couldn’t say for anything if it was in a smile or a wince. He raises a green-tinged hand to trace the curve of Jim’s cheek.
There is a flash, and they lock eyes. A blue spark burns itself out in the afterimage of their peripheral vision.
“We start again.” Spock’s voice is firm, his shoulders squared, and Jim feels like he can breathe fully for the first time in over a decade. “We start over.”
Jim nods once, raising his finger to touch lightly to Spock’s wrist.
“This time…”he breathes, rewarded by the fierce look in those dark eyes, “this time on our terms.”
Same Boy You've Always Known
You fell down of course
and then you got up of course
and you started over
forgot my name of course
then you started to remember
pretty tough to think about
the beginning of december
pretty tough to think about
You're looking down again
and then you look me over
we're laying down again
on a blanket in the clover
the same boy you've always known
well I guess I haven't grown
the same boy you've always known
Think of what the past did
it could 've lasted
so put it in your basket
I hope you know a strong man
who can lend you a hand
lowering my casket
I thought this is just today
and soon you'd been returning
the coldest blue ocean water
cannot stop my heart and mind
from burning
everyone who's in the know says
that's exactly how it goes
and if there's anything good about me
I'm the only one who knows
He wakes on an ice planet, far from anywhere he’s ever been in his life, and utterly, completely alone.
Hauls himself out of the pod, because really, stay there? And wait? Never.
“Acting Captain Spock has marooned me on Delta Vega in what I believe to be a violation of security protocol 49.09, governing the treatment of prisoners aboard a…”
There’s a sound, a stench, and a gaping maw, and then he’s running for his life, welcoming the uninterrupted clarity that comes with the survival imperative; one foot, second foot, one foot, second foot, repeat until eaten.
It’s the cave that saves him, the cave and a stranger. A stranger who is standing in front of him saying his name, and if this is the fucking weirdest dream he’s ever had, he’d really like to wake up. Right. Now.
--
The meld tears through him, laying him bare in the way that only Spock has ever been able to, and no matter what he said to this man about them not being friends, the truth is that he hadn’t realized how desperately, achingly he misses his Spock until this old bastard ripped the lid clean off it.
Now he knows. It’s an endless chasm in his midst, and he can’t find the way to close it again, not while this heartbroken Vulcan with Spock’s eyes is staring at him like he holds every answer in the calloused palms of his too-cold hands.
Jim can feel the weight of those eyes, and his gut rolls within him even as he scrabbles against the icy wall.
“So you do feel.”
Spock’s eyes are immeasurably vast and infinitely compassionate. Jim’s no fool; he’s been through Spock’s pain, and he knows that more than a little of whatever monstrosities lurk in his grey matter have bled across. He wipes at his eyes, simultaneously heartwrenched and freer than he’s been in years.
“Yes, Jim. I do.”
--
“I am emotionally compromised.”
The words pound through Jim’s head as he lets Cupcake haul him up the the bridge. Emotionally compromised. Jim shakes his head. He hadn’t been sure Spock was capable of such a thing.
Emotionally compromised. He can feel the fury building within him. Spock had certainly never been emotionally compromised over him, had he? He feels it with a solidity in his gut, settling as the turbolift doors open, letting his blood begin to run hot in his veins. The truth is, he thinks as he raises his head, Spock must have never cared for him at all.
Spock’s voice prods at his eardrums, sharp and short as it never was on Earth, picking picking picking at Jim, but this is the kind of conflict Jim loves best. The personal kind.
“Does that frustrate you? My lack of cooperation?” He tips his head, watching as Spock’s eyes flare at the intrusion of his personal space. “Does it make you angry?”
Are you angry, Spock? Were you angry?
There’s a flash across Spock’s face, and then it’s gone, but Jim knows he can do this, knows that whoever this straight-faced stranger is, Jim still holds all the cards, and he’s got the Ace up his sleeve.
“Are you afraid or aren’t you?”
Were you ever afraid Spock? Of anything? Of losing me? Of having lost me?
“I will not allow you to lecture me on the merits of emotion.”
No, of course not. You never did.
“What’s it like? Not to feel? Anger. Or heartbreak…”
You had me so fooled. I loved you, Spock. And now…
“Back. Away.”
Jim’s too far gone to even register the raising of the hair on his arms in response to the clear and present danger in Spock’s voice. He pushes forward, close enough to see Spock’s eye’s widen, close enough to taste his breath.
“You don’t feel anything. It must not even compute for you. You never loved her…” me
Spock is on him with a roar, and it’s only instinct that spares him in the next few seconds. He’s moving beyond thought, parrying and striking with the moves he learned from Sarek so many years ago, but it can’t last. Spock is impossibly fast and impossibly full of rage, and it’s all over before Jim can even figure out what is going on. He’s on his back on a console, and those fingers, Spock’s fingers are around his neck.
He gasps, once, twice, and then his eyes roll back as he is thrust into the meld again, crashing on a swirl of unrecognizable emotions. Guilt and pain and hatred and revulsion and a deep-seated longing that rivals the black hole of his own. A vast sea of remorse overridden only by blind rage, and all around him the discordant strings of a ill-used heart.
There’s a moment, then someone speaks, and all Jim can do is sag against the plastic as those hands leave his body entirely.
If he could follow them, he would, but he can’t even stand, so he breathes, rasping incoherently through his damaged throat as Spock vacates the bridge.
She’s looking at him like something she wiped off her shoe, and after the flood that’s still settling in his mind, he can only agree.
“I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Captain.”
He wants to laugh, burst into hysterics, but he can’t, he can’t.
“So do I.”
--
And then it’s over. Nero has fallen in the abyss, the lightning storm in space swallowing him whole, just as it spat him forth so many years ago. Earth is saved, and they are heroes.
He feels like he’s been living in a dream ever since the day of his academic hearing. Hell, ever since the day he met Pike in that bar, really.
Ever since the day Spock was taken away.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
The rest of the words are just noise; lips moving without any meaningful gravity. He nods, smiles.
The salient point is this; Spock is here. Is going to continue to be here. With him.
With him.
--
He sits through the whole first shift, zoned out on the surreality of his life. He signs his name to the requisite bureaucracy forms, checks and double checks their headings against their orders. Teases Chekov about his curls.
Then it’s over, and he’s in the turbolift, moving blessedly away from the bridge. Makes it to his door, keys the entry code, and steps in.
“Captain!”
There’s someone behind him, but he doesn’t look back, never look back, just steps forward and forward again until he’s in the center of the room. There’s a heated hand on his arm, and he doesn’t know what to say what to do, so Spock turns him around slowly, never loosening his grip.
“Jim…”
He can tell he’s staring, but he can’t form words, and that look on Spock’s face is taking him back to Spock in the cornfields with pollen in his hair, Spock with his lips pressed red from kissing, Spock with his face gone utterly still as the officer hauls him to his feet.
Spock with the look of hope crossed with determination as he settles into the chair of the Jellyfish, intent on saving everything, no matter what the cost.
Spock’s eyes are wide in his sockets, the skin around them crinkling with tension, and it’s been nearly fifteen years since he’s had a chance to look at the topography of this face so close up.
“What now?” His voice is thin, so he coughs, tries again. “What now, Spock?”
Spock’s mouth twitches, and Jim couldn’t say for anything if it was in a smile or a wince. He raises a green-tinged hand to trace the curve of Jim’s cheek.
There is a flash, and they lock eyes. A blue spark burns itself out in the afterimage of their peripheral vision.
“We start again.” Spock’s voice is firm, his shoulders squared, and Jim feels like he can breathe fully for the first time in over a decade. “We start over.”
Jim nods once, raising his finger to touch lightly to Spock’s wrist.
“This time…”he breathes, rewarded by the fierce look in those dark eyes, “this time on our terms.”
Same Boy You've Always Known
You fell down of course
and then you got up of course
and you started over
forgot my name of course
then you started to remember
pretty tough to think about
the beginning of december
pretty tough to think about
You're looking down again
and then you look me over
we're laying down again
on a blanket in the clover
the same boy you've always known
well I guess I haven't grown
the same boy you've always known
Think of what the past did
it could 've lasted
so put it in your basket
I hope you know a strong man
who can lend you a hand
lowering my casket
I thought this is just today
and soon you'd been returning
the coldest blue ocean water
cannot stop my heart and mind
from burning
everyone who's in the know says
that's exactly how it goes
and if there's anything good about me
I'm the only one who knows