It's Easier to Run
Captain James T. Kirk leaned against the doorway, watching his friend play a game of chess against the computer. From what he could see, the slender fingers were being beaten by the mechanical voice. It didn't surprise him, yet it didn't chase down any knowledge of the intelligence the other man possessed. Had the computer been programmed differently, Kirk knew it would've had its motorized ass handed to it several times over.
The captain watched the elegant fingers make their next move, effectively capturing a white rook with their black knight. A few moves later, though, the computer had completed a checkmate.
"Maybe next time," was all Kirk said.
The man inside the room stood and walked over to him, a smile in his eyes. Kirk wondered how deep that smile went at that moment. "Captain, you and I both know that assuming the computer can be beaten is illogical."
"Spock," Jim started, yet never finished. He meant to bring up the emptiness he knew his friend quelled within him. The pain of being a half-breed; a freak...all of the stares as a child of two worlds on Vulcan. The pure, unadulterated rage and hurt the taller man felt but wouldn't let anyone see.
Sometimes Jim watched Spock sit in a chair and stare at the wall. He often wished the half-Vulcan had projectors in his eyes so he could see what those blank stares really meant. There was always a tempest going on behind those blank stares, he could feel it.
He wanted to reach over and take one of those slender-fingered hands in his and scream that everything would be fine if he'd just let go. If he could just get over the damned notion that suppressing emotions was alright and natural. It was killing him and Jim was tired and sore from watching his closest friend commit suicide by not letting himself express any feeling at all.
Did Spock really care that it was hurting his own mother? Even the first time Kirk had met Amanda, he caught one glance she threw her son's way and he knew beneath those thick layers of unfaltering love was the thin sheet of disdain for putting her through so much hurt. She watched him grow up in a painful cocoon and did her very damn best to protect him, and all he could do was pretend nothing was happening. Even trying to put the ship and his duties before his own father. Because that's what he thought was right.
Jim knew Amanda also had layer upon layer of love for Sarek, and he also knew there was that paper-thin layer of hatred for forcing her to let him raise their son with such dangerous views on emotion.
Hell, even Jim had that thin layer of hatred....
"Captain?"
Jim gazed up at the man in front of him. He wanted his First Officer to break down. As horrible as it sounded, he wanted the man to start sobbing harder than he'd ever seen a man sob before in his life. He wanted to know his friend was alive in there.
In the meantime, he could only hope.
"It's easier to run, Mr. Spock," he murmured at length. "But that doesn't make it better."
He and Spock watched each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then the half-Vulcan spoke.
"That may be so," he said, his voice low. "However, that is all I know how to do."
Jim watched him walk away.