3/8/2011: Revised estimate of eventual length.
xxx
Title: Take One Breath. It was going to be called One Breath, but there are 49 other stories under that title and I like to pretend I'm a special snowflake.
Short Summary: Multichapter Kirk/Spock romance based heavily on canon. Spock's POV. There will be at least 10 chapters in this, maybe 12.
Rating: This chapter only is K+/PG for male shirtlessness and drug-induced slapping. I am anticipating adult content around Chapter 10-ish—somewhere near the end, at any rate.
A/N: This is written in a somewhat odd format, so I guess I should explain, huh? Sections 1, 3, 6, 9, and 11 are third-person and are (mostly) only indirectly based on canon. Sections 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, and 13 are second-person (CRAZY I KNOW) and dialogue-based (mostly). All of the dialogue in second-person sections is taken directly from original series episodes because I'm a sucker for canon-based romance.
A/N for fellow geeks: Specifics: 2 is from "Where No Man Has Gone Before", 4 and 5 are from "The Corbomite Maneuver", 7, 8, and 9 are from "The Enemy Within", 10 is from "The Man Trap", 12 and 13 are from "The Naked Time". If you noticed that I wrote the episodes into the fic in production order and not airing order, you win a tribble. Please don't feed it too much.
x 1 x
He flirts with Spock almost constantly.
Captain James Kirk is far from the first human to flirt with him—in fact, he is not even the first human male. The reason for this is obvious. One of the largest factors affecting human mate selection is genetic dissimilarity: humans are biologically driven to select mates outside their kin group, and for this reason, they experience subconscious attraction to that which is exotic. Being half Vulcan, Spock is almost as far from any human's kin group as it is possible to be while retaining fertility.
There is also a sociological component to the behavior. Humans make a practice of flirting with unattainable partners in order to advertise their high mating standards to the rest of the species. Humans also make a practice of flirting out of humor, which Spock does not understand at all, since it is illogical to engage in courtship behavior when one does not intend to mate.
However, it is not illogical enough to prevent Spock from flirting back.
x 2 x
"I'll have you checkmated your next move."
He turns around, he smiles. There is a freckle on the left side of his chin. "Have I ever mentioned you play a very irritating game of chess, Mr. Spock?"
"Irritating...ah, yes. One of your Earth emotions."
He makes his move. His satisfaction feels like the sun on your face. "Certain you don't know what irritation is?"
"The fact that one of my ancestors married a human female—"
"Terrible, having bad blood like that." He never misses his cue, regular as the day.
Let the corner of your lips turn up just a little; tease him when he teases you. Pretend he's gotten under your skin when he takes your bishop. Play the game. Watch him closely. Wonder what he wants from you.
You are not as good at this game as you are at chess.
x 3 x
The Captain always stands too close to Spock. Spock doesn't mind, of course—Vulcans do not "mind" things—but it is unusual. Humans do not usually stand closer to Spock than they have to, even when they are flirting. There are subtle differences in the way Spock's spine curves, the natural angle of his arm, the way he carries his head, that signal he requires a much larger personal space. Most humans read those signs subconsciously and react accordingly, but the Captain doesn't.
When Spock is at his station and the Captain wants a report, he doesn't stay where he is and request it. He comes right up to Spock and stands just behind him, close enough that Spock brushes against him when he stands. When Spock and the Captain walk down a hallway, the Captain's average distance from Spock is a mere 35 centimeters. At first, Spock purposefully kept far to the side in a futile attempt to preserve a more comfortable 56 centimeters between them; but the Captain would just close the distance again to compensate.
This is obviously unintentional on the Captain's part, for he is not the kind of man to make his crew uncomfortable on purpose. But Spock cannot help but notice that when the Captain and Dr. McCoy walk down a hallway together, the average distance between them is 56 centimeters.
x 4 x
"Has it occurred to you that there is a certain...inefficiency...in constantly questioning me in things you've already made up your mind about?"
He leans close. Today, his eyes are dark brown. "It gives me emotional security." The smile in his eyes holds you for one second, two seconds, three seconds until it is simply too much, and you must break away. You are always the first to break away.
He may play the game better, but when he said that, you felt like you were winning.
x 5 x
He fidgets constantly, his hands are clenched behind his back, and he cannot meet your eyes for more than a second. He is incapable of accepting loss. "There must be something to do. Something I've overlooked."
"Chess. When one is outmatched, the game is over. Checkmate."
He finally looks at you. This time it is his disappointment which feels like the sun on your face, and it is the sun of a sharp, angry, Vulcan summer. "Is that your best recommendation?" The venom in his voice burns you. His eyes are still dark brown, and you are still the first to break away, because he will always be much better at this game than you are.
"I'm so—" Cut yourself off. Take one breath. Take another. "I regret that I can find no other logical alternative."
His eyes cut you with their betrayal as he leaves. It takes you a moment to compose yourself enough to return to the scanners.
This is what it feels like to lose.
x 6 x
If Spock could be shocked, Spock would be shocked. In fact, when Spock extrapolates from the current unacceptably emotional state of his mind, he calculates that he will become capable of shock in approximately eight days, and experience shock with regularity in fourteen.
The Captain should not be able to cause such irrational behavior in him with five words and a look. The Captain should not be able to predict that he would request permission to come along before Spock had finished speaking. The fact that the Captain could do the former means that Spock is developing an unacceptable degree of emotional attachment to his superior officer; and the fact that the Captain had done the latter meant that Spock's behavior was becoming predictable on an emotional basis. Both of these facts are profoundly disturbing.
Spock could have dismissed these two incidents as aberrations brought on by stress if he had not caught himself smiling five times in the past week. Fortunately, a Vulcan smile starts in the ears, and humans never saw Vulcan ears, though they noticed them all the time.
There it was again—Spock had felt glad that nobody noticed him smiling. This really was getting out of control.
x 7 x
"Yeah?" His voice is muffled by the bulkhead.
"Mr. Spock."
"Come in." You do so. He is shirtless. It would be illogical for you to be disturbed by this, so you are not. "Yes, Mr. Spock, what is it?"
"Is there something I can do for you, Captain?"
"Like what?" His torso and arms are the same golden color as his face.
"Well, Dr. McCoy seemed to think I should check on you." You try to conceal the crack in your voice by altering your posture.
"That's nice." He approaches you with his familiar rolling saunter. He is the only human you know who can saunter. "Come on, Spock, I know that look. What is it?"
"Well, our good doctor said that you were acting like a wild man...demanded brandy."
He laughs. His bareness has a strange gravity; all the air in the room has been drawn to him. You would find this phenomenon fascinating if it were not so difficult for you to breathe. "Our good doctor's been putting you on again."
"Well, in that case, if you'll excuse the intrusion, Captain. I'll get back to my work."
He removes the shirt around his neck. This startles you, since you failed to notice the shirt was there at all. The muscles in his shoulders ripple. "I'll tell him you were properly annoyed."
"Captain." You leave hastily.
The problem is that you didn't want to leave at all.
x 8 x
His walk is purposeful, decisive, just as it should be. He is standing too close, just as he always does.
"All sections report ready, sir."
"Good." There is a dimple in his left cheek, just above the freckle. "Thank you, Mr. Spock, from both of us."
"Shall I pass that on to the crew, sir?"
"The imposter's back where he belongs—let's forget him." His smile is like swimming in molasses, and he and you are caught together—
He heads back to the captain's chair. Yeoman Rand catches him on the way; what she says is unimportant, and he politely cuts her off. You quickly mute the inexplicable joy this gives you. She continues to you.
"The...imposter had some interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman?"
x 9 x
What did the Captain mean? 'If this doesn't work'...what? Spock had nodded and said he understood, but now he knows he hadn't.
At the time, Spock had understood something, just for a second—but then it had slipped away, oil on water. Maybe he had thought the Captain meant 'If this doesn't work, kill me'. Yet if it hadn't worked, the Captain would have died on his own in the transporter. 'If this doesn't work, take over as Captain' was just as illogical a thing to say, since Spock was First Officer and would thus automatically become Captain if the Captain died. Spock could think of other things the Captain could have meant; but 'If this doesn't work, remember me as a whole man' was unnecessary, 'If this doesn't work, take care of the crew' was redundant, and anything else was increasingly implausible.
'If this doesn't work...' then what? Spock was a stone-age aborigine trying to figure out what keeps a spaceship up; Spock was a fish breathing air; Spock was a Vulcan living with a herd of humans who spoke in riddles...
'If this doesn't work...'
What did it mean?
x 10 x
You stride in, you understand the tableau in a second: the creature, transfixed by hunger, and him, transfixed by the creature. His dynamism, his glow, his gravity, his aura of untouchability are all completely gone from him, and it is almost the most horrible thing you have ever seen—but there is no time for horror.
"It's killing the Captain! Shoot it, doctor, quickly!"
"No...no!"
You briefly struggle with the doctor, but just as there is no time for horror, there is no time for a fight. The unreasonable panic building in your chest drives you between the too-still figure and the predator.
"It's killing the captain! Shoot, quick!"
"I won't shoot Nancy!"
"This is not Nancy. If she were Nancy, could she take this?" You aren't really trying to prove your point, all you want is to hit it, to hurt it—
Eventually, the doctor takes his shot and the creature dies. No lasting harm has been done, but you felt your panic, you knew your anger.
When the Captain was threatened, you lost control.
Some of your behaviors are, from the human point of view, very curious. Chief among these is your habit of keeping data tables about yourself, your actions, your motivations; but it is necessary to keep such data, for there can be no logical thought without knowledge of the self. One of these data tables is a list of facts about yourself which you cannot ever afford to forget.
When the Captain was threatened, you lost control. This becomes the twenty-first item on that list.
x 11 x
In retrospect, Spock's shamefully emotional behavior is easy to explain: he has a...'crush'. Once he realizes this, everything else makes sense.
It is embarrassing and inconvenient, but to deny the fact would be irrational. One cannot master emotion without acknowledging emotion. The logical solution is not to attempt to suppress the crush, but to prevent it from affecting Spock's actions. So Spock takes steps.
He is careful not to allow himself to stand, or walk, or sit, closer to the Captain than he always has. He does not ever ask the Captain if he is free to play chess; the Captain has always been the one to initiate, and it will stay that way. He keeps away from the gym between 0700 and 0800 to avoid encountering the Captain shirtless again. However, the strange courtship game that the Captain is playing with Spock must go on, for two reasons.
The first is that if he changes his behavior, the Captain will ask questions that Spock cannot answer.
The second is that Spock suspects his crush would grow stronger if it had no outlet. That is not a favorable outcome.
x 12 x
It hits you in the corridor, right after you leave Nurse Chapel. The corridor undulates before you, as if it is underwater; the echo of the engines pulses sluggishly in your ears. The world is so full of unbearable feeling—a black ocean in the mind, bearing down on you—
Take one breath. Take another. Straighten your shirt. This is a thing of the mind, and the mind can be controlled.
"Mr. Spock, would you please acknowledge?" The bridge. You take twelve steps, but the air in your lungs has turned to black tar. Stop in the briefing room; you can't show up sobbing on the bridge, you're no good to them like this, you're no good to anyone, you are not in control of your emotions.
"I am in control of my emotions." 'Control'. One cannot control a flood. Do you remember? 'Earth religions from 1500 CE to 2000 CE'—a Terran called Noah—
"I am an officer. An officer...my duty." Honor thy mother and father, but you sold your mother for control—shall cast them into a furnace of fire—depart from me, you who are cursed—
"My duty is to..." to your Captain, Captain, I'm sorry, I regret that I can find no way out of hell, Captain, no way to, to, to. Two. Two. Four. Six. Six. Six times six...you can't remember what comes next, the ocean came back and the numbers are sinking, they leave a trail of blood in the water, it's time to drown so think of your mother and don't look back
so much blood in the water
x 13 x
somebody is saying something irrelevant over the intercom doors hiss open and you know even with green-from-blood water roaring in your ears that it's him you would know it was him if you were blind, deaf, and incapable of haptic perception
"Where have you been? What happened?"
"My mother. I could never tell her I loved her." you have been to nowhere, where nothing ever happens
"We've got four minutes. Maybe five." he's darkly frantic and full of lightning
"An Earth woman, living on a planet where love, emotion, is bad taste." why are you babbling about your mother when what you really want to say is-
he grabs you, pulls you "We've got to risk a full-power start. The engines were shut off. No time to regenerate them. Do you hear me? We've got to risk a full-power start!" he shakes you, and his lightning burns you through his fingers, a clean pain, a dry pain, centered 2.36 centimeters behind your sixth right rib
"I respected my father, our customs. I was ashamed of my Earth blood—" he hits you, an ugly electric shock. you almost remember what you wanted to say. "Jim. When I feel friendship for you, I'm ashamed."
close, but it wasn't quite right, because if it were, he would not be striking you "You've got to hear me!" CLARITY—His hand in yours, caught easily, a life saver thrown to you in your black ocean. Your head breaks the water for the first time in what feels like years. "We need a formula! We've got to risk implosion!"
"Never been done—" You force yourself to let go of his hand—a mistake, the water's back in your ears what was he saying "Understand, Jim. I've spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings."
he hits you again, and it hurts, it hurts so much, why does he hurt you—why—and then he's on the floor, and you know it's because you hit him, and—and—Oh.
Take one breath. Take another. Cough up the black tar. Shake the bloodied water out of your ears.
"We've got to risk implosion. It's our only chance!" He's practically spitting now.
"It's never been done."
"Don't tell me that again, Science Officer! It's a theory, it's possible. We may go up into the biggest ball of fire since the last sun in these parts exploded, but we've got to take that one in ten thousand chance!"
The intercom chirps. "Bridge to Captain. Engineering asked, did you find—"
"Yes, I found Mr. Spock, I'm talking to Mr. Spock, do you understand!" You can see it in his eyes; his black ocean is a lightning storm, and instead of drowning he's on fire. He realizes it at the same time you do. "I've got it, the disease...Love. You're better off without it, and I'm better off without mine. This vessel, I give, she takes. She won't permit me my life, I've got to live hers..."
"Jim."
"I have a beautiful yeoman. Have you noticed her, Mr. Spock? You're allowed to notice her. The Captain's not permitted—" A very small part of your brain is crushed that he thinks she's beautiful. A larger part of your brain ignores the very small part, since Vulcans cannot be crushed. The rest remembers that—
"Jim, there is an intermix formula."
From there it is simple. He rambles a bit more; you give the formula to Mr. Scott; the Enterprise continues on her mission.
You have struck your superior officer. This is the twenty-second item on your list.
