The list, if printed out onto paper, would've been long enough to run the length of Kirk's entire arm twice. Spock read it aloud in his staccato monotone, barely giving himself time to breathe in between words. He had timed his pace to match the captain's down to the step, utterly synchronized as they traversed the corridors of the Enterprise. He tapped his vidscreen as he talked, patently oblivious to the mounting unrest in his captain's face.
"Okay. Spock, seriously? Are you really gonna read me the inventory list? We're on shore leave, give it a rest."
Spock paused, calmly bookmarking his place with a single tap to the screen. He folded his arms behind his back and took in his captain's agitation the only way a Vulcan can.
"We are not released from duty until the Enterprise docks and the crew has departed the ship entirely."
"That's a technicality."
"Vulcans embrace such technicalities. Until the ship docks, I intend to carry out my regular duties as planned."
Jim stops him, cutting off their briskly-paced harmony. He looks at him earnestly, enunciating his words with a gesture.
"That's great. Really. But do me a favor and relax, okay? Three weeks, Spock, and then you can beat me to death with your inventory lists as much as you want. Go home, Spock. Do… Whatever it is Vulcans do for fun. Right?"
Spock looks down at his vidscreen, then slowly shuts it off and places it behind his back with all the diplomacy he can muster. Kirk's lips hitch, smiling half-heartedly. He claps him on the shoulder, and then carries on the way he was before. Spock watches him, their synchronization broken. Then he frowns, tapered eyebrows strung together. He reopens his vidscreen, typing at a brisk consistency. McCoy replies almost immediately, which Spock notes as odd and files it away for later review.
'What do you mean Jim's acting weird? Spock, only page me for a medical emergency. This can wait.'
'I must disagree, doctor. I believe the captain's odd behavior directly correlates with your line of work. I myself have noticed physical symptoms and out-of-place behaviors.'
'Okay, you've got my attention. Tell me what you know.'
Spock compiled a list of anomalies in the captain's behavior and dated each of them, the earliest having manifested days before. He sent McCoy his evidence and waited the appropriate amount of time for the CMO to review it.
'I'll make Jim submit to a physical before he leaves the ship- it's standard procedure anyway.'
'Thank you, doctor.'
'Don't thank me, Spock. It makes me uncomfortable.'
The burning had started again.
It clawed, viciously hot, at the underside of his skin.
Bones had bitched and whined for an hour until Jim had sat down on a medical berth. But unsurprisingly, his results had come back as painfully normal.
There was nothing, physically, wrong with Jim. But the burning continued no matter how many times he reassured himself with that fact. It had been continuing for eight years, and he was quietly, desperately afraid that he knew why.
The rain descends in thick rivulets over London, overcasted sky hanging low like a watercolor painting, streetlamps bathing the avenues yellow. Jim hikes his duffel up over his shoulder, the bag full of his limited assortment of personal items- Starfleet had substituted any and all superfluous needs with regulation-issue replacements.
London breathed in and out around him, undulating like river water as he caught the H shuttle to his flat uptown.
When he stepped down off onto the grated platform he was met by a one-man welcoming committee.
The collective atoms of everything around him scattered, repiecing themselves at their basest levels when he remembered to breathe again. Rain troughed at his chin, streaking his face, dousing his hair. It beaded off his soft leather jacket and dripped onto his shoes, but he stood there still, savoring the feeling of a flower of unmatchable loathing bloom in the center of his chest. It felt as though chains had been lashed around his ribs, slowly crushing his lungs.
Khan's svelte build and features were muted by the strikingly ordinary clothes he wore- a button-down, pants, shoes the precise color and sheen of ink, a jacket.
Kirk pivoted on one heel, feeling his teeth lock into a viselike grip, and brusquely began to walk away. He expected that Khan would let him go, let him walk away with hatred stiffening his posture and face eloquent with rage. But in a move that was disarmingly Spock-like, the war criminal fell into step beside him.
"You've got a lot of balls, being here." Jim remarks as they exit the station. Uptown London opens up before them. There were more trees here, the air a little easier to breathe. The shuttle transports ran high above their heads, magnetized to the monorails they ran along, quietly zipping back and forth.
"Are you going to attack me, Captain, the way you did before?" Khan's voice was even, casual, quiet enough for Jim to hear and Jim alone.
"We both know that won't benefit either of us."
"I don't know," Jim growls, "punching you in the face a few times might be beneficial to me."
Khan glances him over with his analytic, cold blue eyes. They were like pale diamonds boring into Jim with a savage sort of glitter.
He knows he shouldn't talk to him, the same monster who murdered the closest thing Jim ever got to a father- Christopher Pike- in cold blood, the same cruel terrorist who had threatened the lives of his precious crew. Speaking to him was showing him a kindness that he didn't deserve. It was excusing the brutal horror he had inflicted that could never be forgiven.
"You won't." Khan replies, and it isn't a challenge or a question but a statement. A known outcome.
"Why are you here?"
"You are in pain."
Jim jerks farther from him, thrown, and his hands twitch with the need to curl into fists, trying to mollify the agony that runs rampant through him. Khan notices, though, just as he notices every other miniscule motion the captain displays. His eyes are less like diamonds now, and more like scalpels. Jim can feel them cutting into his skin.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Finally the stoic calm breaks in Khan's face, replaced by basic contempt.
"Come now, Kirk. After eight years you still believe I could be so naive. I thought you would have learned not to underestimate my abilities."
They're on the cusp of a street corner, under a crosswalk light, the sidewalk bathed in dull red before them, night beginning its shift over that outlying suburb of London to gently lull its inhabitants to sleep. Jim looks sharply at Khan, pure broiling hatred on his face, etched into every pore, written across his body.
"Underestimate your abilities? I haven't underestimated a single move you've made since you tried to kill my crew. You murdered a handful of Starfleet officers in cold blood because you wanted revenge for something that hadn't happened yet. You attacked my First Officer, knocked out my Chief Engineer, and crushed Alexander Marcus's skull between your hands. Don't think I don't know what you are or what you're capable of. Don't you dare."
Khan's eyes are bright, whether in interest or anger, Kirk can't make out. When he speaks, his voice drips with emotion from low in his chest.
"And what am I? Do you really think you can look me in my eyes and tell me what I am? You, who lies about the pain you can hardly stand?"
Jim's very being is cold, ice-water replacing his blood. it feels as though steel has wrapped itself around his bones. Any emotions he had simply freeze in the tundra of his body, nullified and useless. The crosswalk light is green, throwing shadows across their bodies, but neither man moves.
"Oh," Khan breathes, drinking in the horror and fear on Kirk's face, "I know about your ill-kept secret, Kirk. Did your doctor think he was the first who tried to synthesize my blood? There have been others who tried to make a weapon out of what lies below my skin, tried to make themselves as fast and strong as I am. Marcus himself hired a team to make a serum out of my blood that could make mortal men better."
Jim's fingers curled into fists, nails biting deep into the skin of his palms, hurricane-force pain ripping him open from the inside. A small, almost pitying smile played across Khan's lips, as if debating whether to take hold or not.
"Have you told them, yet? Your First Officer and your CMO, that your very blood is rebelling?"
"There's nothing-" Jim manages, voice strangled.
"No, there isn't," Khan interrupts. He knows this conversation. He's walked these words before, "Not physically. You see, Kirk," The smile he wear morphs into a smirk, knowing and imperious, "pain is perception."
The flower that had begun to bud in Kirk's chest, harboring poisonous hatred, was now fully exposed, petals and thorns piercing his body like prying fingers, blood hot and itching against his skin.
"What happened to them- the people who took the serum?"
Khan's gaze moves languidly to the crosswalk in front of them. The light had long since turned an angry red, spilling over his pale features, making him look like a creature straight from the depths of hell. The wind had changed the rain into a few spitting stormclouds overhead, the streets emptied out like spare change from pockets.
"They couldn't handle the repercussions- the… side-effects. Their biological lifespan increased, and for a time they were even a bit stronger than they had been before. But the pain ultimately overcame them, the same itch in their veins, the same hunger. My blood, as it seems, is like liquor- pleasantly volatile."
Jim's expression turned instantly to horror, the hatred in him stalled by the rapid growth of a new emotion- undiluted fear. Khan observed it spread across his face with measured ease.
"Withdrawal."
"Your reputation doesn't do your mind justice, Kirk. Yes, withdrawal. They all became addicted to my blood, and invariably they all died when supply did not meet demand. Marcus was horrified, shut down the program. It seems that I cannot be duplicated," He smiled at him quietly, but it was in no way a friendly smile, "only immitated."
Jim's vision reeled, the pain in his arms biting into his skin with serated teeth. Like magma rising in the throat of a volcano, the bile of panic brimmed at the back of his mouth, tasting of acid.
He tore away from Khan, leaving him standing with an unreadable demeanor at the crosswalk. Jim went home, breathing hard and moving as fast as he dared. He fumbled with the keys to his flat, pain breaking his vision into a dozen fragments. Once inside he dropped everything, leaning against the door, tasting his breath and closing his eyes. Everything around him seemed muted and out of focus. His pulse resonated in his ears, the rhythm of his breath like a second heartbeat. This was a pain foreign to him, stronger than any appeasing sedative. He couldn't grasp that the same thing that had saved him was now slowly destroying him. His heart pumped hard, sending an ache through his body. He'd given up taking painkillers months ago- his body had begun to dissolve them faster than they could dissolve their opiates. Tylenol, aspirin, ibuprofen, advil; useless.
Kirk sunk to the floor, dumping his duffel out. Two holoframes dropped from the cloth bag, a cell phone, cordless earbuds, his wallet, a number of printed photos, and a vidscreen. He picked this last item up with hands that tremored, tapping and typing without thinking about what he was doing.
He logged into the Starfleet database and drew up the appropriate file. Scanning it, he found what he was looking for and shut the device off. He sat, staring at the dark screen, a single line of digits running through his thoughts as his mind began to work again.
He repeated Khan's nine-digit identification code until each individual number became meaningless. It could be used like any phone number, any email address, any pager number. He picked up his cell phone, balancing it between either hand, its weight shifting from one palm to another as he juggled it idly.
He wouldn't've done it, he knew, if it wasn't for the dry, throbbing pain that ran throughout his body. He felt it up his spine, down his arms, under his eyelids, across his fists. It was omnipresent and vicious. And it made him type the nine numbers and the message, and send it. As soon as it was done, Jim let his head roll back and tried to unmake himself to a time before the pain existed.
'Eight years ago I saved your life', the message to Khan read.
'Help me.'