Title: (And I Wait) Without You
Beta: secret_chord25 whose brilliance knows no bounds; all remaining mistakes are mine
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: mostly T
Warnings: sexual content, implied violence, language
Summary: An obligatory amnesia story, but with a twist. Jim believes he has lost Spock, after seeing him die. Later he discovers that Spock is alive, but suffers from a memory loss. Jim wants Spock to remember everything, but he doesn't know what he's asking for.
He is going mad.
No; that wouldn't be entirely accurate. He has been going mad, slowly, for a long, long time. Now he knows he has reached his destination.
He's seeing the dead.
Jim closes his eyes, trying to come to grips with his new way of existence. Hi, I'm Jim Kirk, and I'm a schizophrenic. This is an anonymous meeting, right? It's not like anyone is going to want to call Starfleet or something.
Oh, God, he really is losing it.
He wasn't expecting this – who would? When the captain of the Antares sent him the field notes from his last mission solely for Jim's amusement, Jim was expecting nothing more than a glimpse into yet another alien culture; anything to help him fill another couple of hours of his life with the illusion of doing something, to distract him from the emptiness that has long replaced his middle name.
Jim watches the peculiar customs of the planet called Rytsy on his vidscreen, taking notes to give his hands something to do. From where he stands, the Rytsy are a strange people. They know of space travel, but aren't interested in it. They have no use for technology. They built a space port to trade with other species for goods, but they aren't overly friendly or hostile. Indifferent types; live and let live.
Their planet is a great depository of minerals, and the Rytsy take a good measure of them every year. They refine precious stones and create some of the most beautiful jewelry Jim has ever seen. They sell them, but mostly they're interested in the art of creation.
…Weird folks.
Jim's attention begins to slip and he forces himself to stay focused. The fight for concentration is now his constant companion. He's best at it when he's on the bridge or down on an away mission, but the moment his shift is over, his attention starts to wander and it never takes him where he wants it go. This place, if one could call it that, doesn't exist any longer.
Right?
As the tape progresses into showing the mining operation in progress, Jim chokes on his own breath suddenly.
Because one of the miners is Spock.
It can't be. It is absolutely, absolutely, impossible. Spock is dead. He's been dead for almost a year. He cannot possibly be mining emeralds on some godforsaken world.
Except that he is.
Jim freezes the tape; his voice breaks as he gives the computer the order. His eyes are focusing so hard they hurt, and still he tries to see more. But it is undeniably Spock – Jim would recognize that tall, slender silhouette anywhere. The strict, chiseled profile; the delicate curves of his ears; this look of total concentration on whatever it is Spock is doing.
It's him, or Jim really is insane.
The buzzer startles him into jumping. Right, he called Bones to come see him.
"Come in," he calls hoarsely.
The door slides open and Bones strides in, somber and grim. Bones is always somber and grim these days.
"What's up, Jim?" he asks, resolute and weary. "I was trying to save my ruined relationship with my bed."
Jim turns to take in his form; his eyes are dry, almost crusty.
"I need you to look at something, Bones. And then I need you to tell me if I'm crazy, and possibly relieve me of command after that."
Bones looks at him warily but doesn't say anything, and it's a marker of their new realm. No way would Bones have let something like that slide in the before times. No way. So many times in their long association, Jim had wished Bones would hold his tongue. When he was bitching about Jim's escapades at the Academy; when he was lecturing him on his recklessness on away missions; when he was bickering with Spock like there was no tomorrow. Now Bones is silent, and Jim wishes he would bring some of his snark back. He always seems to wish for what he can't have.
He stands up, and Bones takes his place in front of the vidscreen. Jim has skimmed it back a few minutes to let Bones get into the feeling of things. He releases the pause and settles in to watch Bones' face as Bones watches the tape.
He doesn't know what it is they have together.
They start off as uneasy coworkers, which remains bizarre, at best, for quite a while. Jim doesn't know what made Spock come back and request to be appointed first officer; he has never asked. Deep down, he knows that it's probably because he's afraid that if he did ask, the magic charm would dissipate and Spock would see the mistake he'd made.
They make a surprisingly good command team right from the start. Jim doesn't know if it's because of some strange fluke of destiny they'd been warned about or simply because they understand each other so well when it comes to taking action. They save each other's lives more times than Jim is consciously aware of, but he suspects the score would still be in Spock's favor – Jim's either more reckless or less fortunate than Spock is.
Somewhere in the middle of it, they evolve from brothers-in-arms to friends. Jim marks the change by the conversation about their childhoods that Spock initiates. Jim doesn't usually relish the topic, but he finds himself eager to speak because Spock asks and Spock is interested.
And then… it happens. They are halfway into the second year of their five-year mission. There is nothing remarkable about this particular evening; there's been a birthday celebration and Jim is pleasantly relaxed when he and Spock enter his quarters to share one more drink, and a talk.
They've been doing that a lot lately – talking. Spock is usually sparse with words, especially as they relate to anything personal, but Jim seems to have touched some invisible base with him. He now knows that Spock likes Walter Scott and Edgar Allan Poe; is fascinated by ice sculpture; is allergic to orange juice; and dislikes the color lemon-yellow with a passion.
Spock knows things about Jim, too, now – things that nobody else, not even Bones, knows. Spock knows that when Jim was five, he wanted to be a confectioner; that he used to be scared of the neighbor's dog; that he tried ecstasy when he was fifteen but never actually went for black powder; that he always sleeps with some kind of light on when he's alone (and Spock knows why).
Jim doesn't know what brings it on just then. Maybe he's had a little too much to drink or maybe it's the aura of warmth that Spock projects that make him do it, because he doesn't even think of what he's doing. It's just that Spock is right there and the surge of affection for him suddenly overwhelms Jim. He reaches out instinctively, and Spock takes his hand. It's better, but not enough, so Jim kisses him.
Jim kisses him, and Spock doesn't choke him. Jim slides his hands under Spock's tunic, and Spock lifts his hands to help him take it off. And then Spock pushes him down on the bed, and Jim has seen all and then some where sex is concerned, but he never knew it could be like this, and his last coherent thought that night is that maybe there is something to all that talk about trust after all.
He wakes up the next morning and immediately has a panic attack because he's alone. He sits up on the bed, perspiring and suddenly nauseous, but then Spock walks out of his bathroom, hair slightly damp and wearing only his pants.
Jim wants to say something but is struck speechless as Spock walks over to his – Jim's – drawer and pulls out a spare regulation t-shirt. They aren't exactly of the same build, and the fabric hangs a little more loosely on Spock's frame than it usually hugs around Jim. But most people wouldn't notice. Most people aren't Jim.
"I assume you do not mind?" Spock asks. As if Jim could.
Jim shakes his head slowly. He is still unable to utter a word. Spock glances at him and lifts an eyebrow, then walks over to the bed and sits down on the edge gingerly.
"Jim." He takes Jim's hands in his own, as if talking to a frightened child. "You are engaging, I believe, in the human custom of 'freaking out.' It is entirely unnecessary."
"But…" Jim manages, "last night—"
"—was extremely enjoyable," Spock interrupts him gently. He presses his thumb to Jim's lower lip and rubs it tenderly before getting up to his feet. "I will see you on the bridge, Captain."
Despite Spock's words, Jim does freak out for the whole day, which seems to amuse the Enterprise's first officer to no end. His panic gets old by the end of the day, though, and the next morning as he runs into Spock in the turbolift, Jim can't help a grin. They repeat the whatever-it-was two nights after that, then do it again the night after that. It becomes something to be expected, and suddenly there's a whole new set of things Jim knows about Spock.
His eyelashes are soft, and his navel is sensitive; he has a small birthmark where his left thigh meets his body, and he's almost self-conscious about it; he gives the most wonderful, complex, sophisticated massages, but turns into a melted heap of a Vulcan when Jim does something as simple as running his fingers through Spock's hair. When Jim does that – just that – Spock would allow him to do anything with him, because his enjoyment of this simple action is not even erotic so much as it is pure bliss that goes deeper than desire and totally escapes words.
And it's only fair that Spock learns something new about him, too. Like – that Jim can't relinquish control voluntarily, but loves, needs, to have it torn from him; that he likes to stay connected for as long as possible; that he can never stay put in his sleep; that he babbles and never remembers what he says as his orgasm is mounting, and that he likes to kiss for hours after that; that he's not a screamer, but can beg pretty much shamelessly – and this is a discovery to them both, because Jim has never known anyone who could reduce him to begging before.
They are a little wild, Jim thinks. It's the desperation of adolescence and adult need. It's never having enough time and always remaining hungry. It's wariness of each other's injuries and adrenaline-induced frenzy. It's glances speaking volumes when they're in public, something that neither of them can help. It's remaining the most efficient command team ever and hiding their new layer zealously, without any kind of agreement, simply because neither of them has anything else that is entirely theirs and they are not ready to share this, not by a long shot.
Jim is afraid to give it a name, this something they have between them. Spock asks him once and only once, almost timidly. For all his 'no freaking out' bravado, Spock is just as scared – he only hides it better. When Jim hesitates, Spock kisses him and never asks again. Jim promises then, to himself, that he will find that answer, that name or something, for both of them, because he needs it, wants it, craves it, too. Because it will cement them and chase away their fears.
Because Spock is worth it.
He spends a year working on that one, and is almost ready to accept the incredible, improbable, unfathomable truth and share it with Spock. He's almost ready when Starfleet sends them to Pollax.
Jim doesn't know, at first, that Spock is gone. Later he will ask himself how it is possible that Spock has been taken, has been hurt so badly, tortured, violated, and finally killed, and Jim doesn't know about it. But he doesn't just then; he really doesn't.
He concludes negotiations with the Pollaxians, promising them that the Federation won't stand for piracy and that they will deal with the Nausicans, who have been hindering trade. He calls Spock, who took the opportunity to explore the planet and has been taking tricorder readings of the settlement and its surroundings.
Spock doesn't answer.
It's unusual, but Jim isn't worried, not at first. The Pollaxians are peaceful as sheep and, besides, it wouldn't be the first time for Spock to become so fascinated by something he's studying that he would get slightly distracted. Jim beams up alone and asks Scotty to give Spock another thirty minutes to indulge his passion for exploration and then beam him up. Scotty grins at him. Spock's quirks are well known to the crew by now.
Thirty minutes slip by and go unnoticed. Jim assumes Spock is long aboard, but decides to check before giving the order to leave orbit.
And that's when he gets concerned and then downright alarmed, because Scotty sounds anxious over the intercom, and suddenly they can't find Spock anywhere.
Reality transforms into the longest seventy-two hours Jim has ever lived through, but neither the search parties nor the natives discover what's become of the Enterprise's first officer. That's when they receive the transmission, and it's so graphic and sharp that half the junior staff on the bridge is vomiting while the senior set watches, steady and stone-faced.
They find him – what's left of him – right where the message says, at one of the outer moons; an L-class world, too cold to live on. Jim doesn't beam down, sending McCoy and his people instead, because he's the captain and the Nausicans can't be too far away. He paces the bridge restlessly until the transporter room signals that the away team is onboard. Jim clenches his fists and orders them out of orbit.
He has known Leonard McCoy for almost six years by then; they'd been through thick and thin together. Jim had never heard Bones' voice shake until that day.
'Don't go in there, Jim.' The hand on Jim's shoulder is trembling.
But of course Jim goes. 'I need to see him.'
'It's not him... I mean, you won't be able to—'
It's not Spock. This shapeless, repulsive mass of distorted tissue is not – could not ever have been – a living person.
'Transporter scramble.' McCoy speaks breathlessly behind him. 'Without the DNA analysis, we'd never know it was Spock.'
'We do know that they tortured him before they did this,' Jim says, voice flat and matter-of-fact. Steady; foreign. Not his.
'I don't get this!' McCoy snaps angrily, smashing his fist into some unfortunate medical apparatus. 'Don't they know we'll hunt them down for this? The fuckers are dead – deader than dead, for fuck's sake! He was Starfleet – he was Vulcan! Don't they get—'
'Bones,' Jim says, very quietly. 'Shut up.'
He walks out, without looking back. He knows their orders, having just talked to Starfleet. Hunting down the Nausicans isn't a suitable task for a flagship; they're needed at the Klingon border. Some other vessel, a smaller vessel, will deal with the obligations to the Pollaxians. As for Spock, Starfleet is sorry, but their resources are limited and they have to prioritize.
The worst of it is that Jim actually understands.
He goes to his quarters and waits. Spock always comes to him two, sometimes three hours after their shifts end. They eat a light meal and talk some, and then... It's not always sex, though. Sometimes Jim just needs to hold Spock, or needs to be held. Sometimes he needs Spock to guard him through the night, and only Spock would do that without asking for an explanation. Jim waits.
Spock doesn't come.
It's all right, though, because sometimes Spock needs to stay up late, working in the labs when some of his experiments are in their vital stages. On those nights, Jim would doze off on the bed without taking his clothes off until Spock comes and helps him, sleepy and warm, out of them. Jim trusts Spock's hands with whatever they're handling: a tricorder, a phaser, or – him. He doesn't trust anyone else's hands quite the way he trust Spock's.
Spock doesn't come.
It's weird, because when Jim thinks about it – actually thinks about it – he knows that Spock won't. He'd filed the appropriate forms himself, after all; he had sent a message to Sarek. He's pretty sure he'd delivered a eulogy. So he knows this, he really does – knows intellectually that Spock is dead, that it's senseless to expect him to just turn up in Jim's quarters again like nothing happened.
He waits nonetheless.
It's not a conscious decision or anything, but this sense of tugging anticipation seems to be engraved into his muscle memory. Two months later, he still has to remind himself not to set up a second plate when he prepares a meal. Six months later, he still falls asleep in his clothes with the lights on. He still waits every evening without fail, still wonders what keeps Spock from arriving every morning – inevitably, it's Jim's first conscious thought of the day.
The crew is angry at first, with the Nausicans and with Starfleet, but they try not to express themselves too violently out of respect for Jim. He discovers suddenly that he and Spock had been the lousiest conspirators ever, because as it turns out, everyone knew.
Everyone knew.
Jim had never let it slip even with Bones, and Spock had never uttered so much as a word to Uhura, and they had never, never, engaged in anything more than friendly in public, had never been caught in flagrante, had never even stolen a chaste Vulcan kiss under the table or planetside – and still, from the bridge crew to the chef's cat, every single person onboard was in the know. Maybe even earlier than Jim and Spock themselves, Jim thinks bitterly. Pike calls him, for crying out loud, and his condolences are anything but professional. He promises to keep an eye on the Nausicans and never rest until justice is served.
Jim doesn't much care about justice; it's a Pyrrhic victory if he can't have Spock back. And he can't, because from where Spock had gone, anyone has yet to return.
The crew walks on eggshells around him, though they try not to show it. Jim does his level best to meet them halfway. He eats enough not to upset Bones' radar; he agrees to take some of Bones' sedatives to help him sleep. It's strange, really, since he's never been much of a sleeper, because – well, there's life to live in the waking world, and sleep's drastically overrated. Now he sleeps like it's the best activity he's ever been introduced to, and it probably is. It doesn't hurt so much when he's sleeping. His days become a struggle to get to the moment when he can go to bed again.
Bones catches him pretty fast, though, and cuts off his allowance. Jim doesn't complain, even though he misses the drugs, sometimes to an extent that makes him climb the walls. He starts dreaming of the pretty little pills more often than he dreams about Spock, which is weird but probably for the best. Dreaming of Spock always entails waking up in tears. Jim hates it; he's never been that person.
He hates what he has become.
His libido turns itself off like a light, as if Jim was born without it. It's beyond 'out there' weird, because when Jim was with Spock, he wanted anytime. Since they never discussed it, they'd never actually arrived to any kind of pact regarding others; there seemed to be no need. Jim would still look, even though he'd never touch anymore. Occasionally someone would catch his eye, and he would entertain certain thoughts, and then he would look at Spock – lean, graceful, too-hot-for-hell Spock – and Spock would meet his gaze and smile with his eyes, and the mix of trust-certainty-possession in them would leave Jim gasping for air and wishing he could jump his partner right that instant.
He doesn't want anyone. Bones asks him carefully once, during his physical, and it's the first time Jim actually thinks about it in almost nine months. He realizes then that he no longer looks. He doesn't look, doesn't fantasize, doesn't jerk off in the shower, doesn't have wet dreams, doesn't – he just doesn't. And he's not bothered by it, which is probably the weirdest part. He should be freaked out, maybe even panicked – but he can only shrug vaguely. He really doesn't care beyond some faint sense of surprise.
Bones sighs, shakes his head, and says nothing.
Three months after that, Jim is hit with a frightening realization. He sits in the main rec room, watching it being decorated for the New Year's party, and it strikes him like a lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky.
He loves Spock. That's the name of what was between them, the answer to Spock's question. And it's every bit as real and there now as it has been all along.
Dear gods in heaven.
He's in love with a dead man.
'You have to move on, Jim,' Bones tells him quietly at some point. 'Spock wouldn't have wanted for you to—'
Jim has to stop him. He can't go there, can't listen to what Spock would or wouldn't have wanted. It's too early for that, and Jim just can't, he can't; he's only just realized that other thing – that incredible, unfathomable, wondrous thing – and he's not ready to listen to any of this. It's too early, way too early, for this.
Besides, in any case, it's too late.
End notes (not story related): I appreciate the warnings about someone stealing my storylines, guys. Thank you for caring. To be honest, I'm kind of at a loss why anyone would do that, but I'm hoping this was not a malicious intent, but probably just a case of liking the story too much. I dunno. I find endless pleasure in creating my own storylines and I wish that every author would experience the same.
Thank you all, I didn't know so many people cared!