"The Motivations for Violence"
by: WaterShadow
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or gain profits from anything related to it, nor do I socialize with the various actors who have brought the characters to life.
Tangent: this story is a disconnected series of one-shots all based on one theme. Pairings are there, but only if you squint, or if I choose to make them more overt. I hope you enjoy!
Chapter One: Porcelain Steel
James T. Kirk knew what he was doing. He knew it was crazy, foolhardy, and probably exceedingly reckless. Bones would probably have the time of his life telling him just how stupid he was being. Maybe Bones would use some crazy old-time words, like "cockamamie" and "rabble-rousing."
Maybe Jim was doing it just so he'd be yelled at by the one person who knew how to do it in an entertaining manner.
He thought about that idea for a moment, and dismissed it. If he wanted to get lectured at the top of Bones' lungs (and how a guy could bellow like that and not be heard in the Engineering deck or even out in the cold depths of space, he'd never know), there were plenty of other things he could do for a lot less effort to get that. Like refuse to eat vegetables for three days, or conveniently forget about his peanut allergy and go to a Thai restaurant. There were, simply, easier ways to be verbally and physically (though Bones always denied such things) abused.
Today, Jim knew, he would do something to actually earn the tongue-lashing.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded to the tall, slender Vulcan who entered the training room and stood, arms clasped loosely behind his back and his feet slightly spread. Spock, the Vulcan in question, nodded back with his typical serenity. "You wished to see me, Captain?" Spock inquired, his body and face perfectly still.
Jim started pacing, unconsciously providing a foil to his first officer. "I did, yes, Spock," he replied. "Thank you for coming."
"But of course, Captain," was the response. The perfect at-rest posture uncoiled a little, and Spock ventured closer to Kirk. "May one inquire as to the reason of your summons?"
In the back of his mind, Jim felt a very dim amusement fighting with the rest of himself to make a smile appear on his lips. Not now, though. The amusement with Spock's always painfully correct language wouldn't be allowed to show on his face just yet.
Vulcans weren't the only ones who could keep from showing emotions.
"It's perfectly simple, Spock," Jim replied, forcing himself to stop pacing. He faced the Vulcan from a distance of a few feet, looking up to meet dark eyes. "I want you to hit me as hard as you can."
Vulcans, as a general rule, were difficult to shock. Their faces showed so little aside from consideration and curiosity (and often, to Jim's not-so-secret glee, confusion) that other expressions on their typically still faces were always new and interesting.
He'd managed to shock Spock, all right. His eyes, typically full of thoughts rarely voiced, were blank, and his eyebrows (both!) were raised. Jim had to fight a little harder with that amused hindbrain. No matter how adorable Spock looked right now (and it'd take torture with lima beans and Bones' more painful hypos to get him to admit that out loud), he doubted Spock would take kindly to his captain outright laughing in his face.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" Spock, even in his flummoxation, still hadn't dropped that vexatiously perfect speech of his. Jim allowed a rueful sigh to escape his lips. It would probably take a lot more than verbally-delivered surprises to make Spock lose the formality that he must have been steeped in since birth.
This time, Jim didn't bother to hide his grin, though he knew it probably looked a lot more like a hungry predator smelling prey than like a human expressing amusement. He repeated himself more slowly, as if speaking to a small child. "I want you to hit me as hard as you can."
Surprise and blankness slowly bled off Spock's patrician features to be replaced by the far more familiar raised eyebrow. "Captain, I do not understand."
"What's to understand?" Jim bounced on the balls of his feet and stretched his neck from side to side. "I want to spar with you, and I want you to stop holding back."
Spock frowned. Jim hated that downturned lip. It always made him feel like he was in front of the principal after pranking his teacher or something equally juvenile. "I do not think that would be advisable, sir."
"Jim," Jim said wryly.
"Jim," Spock acknowledged. "Jim, this is not a good idea."
"You won't hurt me, Spock," Jim said, starting to feel frustrated for the first time since entering the room. "I probably can't seriously hurt you either, so why the hell not?"
Instead of answering, Spock tilted his head at Jim, still with that eyebrow raised. It was a surprisingly birdlike gesture and conveyed his inquisitiveness without an actual change in expression. Jim, somewhere in his mind, wondered how he managed to do that.
"This had something to do with our previous mission, does it not?"
Jim gritted his teeth. "That has nothing to do with today-"
"I believe it does, sir," Spock said, still calm, still maddeningly respectful. "I believe-"
"I believe that you should dodge, Mr. Spock," Jim interrupted, not wanting to hear what would inevitably come next. He rushed the Vulcan, one fist raised.
Part of him knew this was wrong. He knew he shouldn't attack Spock, who was his friend, who was concerned in his own inscrutable way, who only had his welfare at heart-
-who was dodging and moving to grab his jabbing right fist, doubtless to put him into a submission hold and force him to yield. One of Spock's favorite tricks, if he'd ever own up to such a thing.
Jim was having none of it. Just as Spock's warm, large hand closed around his wrist, Jim wrenched his hand backward to break that grip, and elbowed his slightly taller first officer in the abdomen.
Attempted to elbow, that is-Spock had moved back, out of range, raising his hands in the human gesture of defense. "Jim, this is not-"
Jim did not want to hear that, thankyouverymuch. He rushed the Vulcan again, ignoring the part of him screaming about how stupid this was, how potentially suicidal, and how wrong it was to attack his friend, and the other parts of him were screaming for the thud of flesh on flesh, the frustration of command, the sheer helplessness he had felt on that mission-no, don'tthinkofthat...
And Spock, somehow sensing a hesitation in Jim faster than Jim could cover for it (stupid Vulcan reflexes, how dare they be faster than his?), got an arm around his throat and smoothly knocked his feet out from under him, letting him land face-first onto the soft padding of the gym floor.
Jim did not fail to notice that the arm threatening his throat was also responsible for preventing him from being knocked out from below or crushed by Spock's considerably heavier body from above.
"Damn it," he choked out, feeling the warmth from Spock's body atop him and around his neck. "Damn it, fight me!"
"No," Spock said into Jim's ear, very softly. "That will not help you."
"Yes it would," Jim muttered peevishly, knowing he sounded less than half his age and not caring. "It'd make me feel better!"
"Perhaps you should turn your aggression on those who have aroused it," Spock said conversationally, neither removing his arm from around Jim's throat or getting up.
Jim took a deep breath. Another. "I'm not some damsel in distress," he enunciated as clearly as he could. As clearly as anyone within a muscle twitch of being strangled could.
"Clearly not, Jim," Spock said. Jim noted that he was STILL not getting up. "You are certainly not a woman."
Jim laughed, and then choked on Spock's arm. Spock then took the hint and loosened his hold, though to Jim's growing annoyance, STILL didn't get up. If Spock weighed less, Jim could easily have done a pushup and gotten him off that way, but Spock was heavier than he looked. Stupid heavy-gravity worlders.
"Jim, what happened on the last mission is not a descriptor of your being, or perceived manliness," Spock said, after a few moments of silence that Jim was steadfastly refusing to think was awkward. "You were in an untenable situation, and in those circumstances, it is both logical and prudent to accept outside help."
"Being held captive by those women armed with pointy sticks doesn't put a dent in my 'perceived manliness,' you said?" Jim ground out sarcastically, really wishing Spock would get off his back. Literally.
"Quite, sir," Spock said, seemingly not taking notice of the potential suggestiveness of their position. Something that Jim was trying harder and harder to ignore as time went on. "Those women, as you put it, were all over two meters tall, the gravity on that world was heavier than Earth-standard, and you were being held in a cage suspended from a branch of a tree." Pause. "They appeared to reproduce in a parthenogenic manner, so capturing an atypical looking, to their thinking, person in the away team was only logical." Another, slightly longer pause, and a minute shift of position. "They did appear to greatly appreciate the golden nature of your shirt."
"Yeah," Jim said, rolling his eyes even though he knew Spock wouldn't see it. "Everyone's crazy for a sharp-dressed man, I guess."
"So, you see?" Spock continued. "Requiring additional personnel to effect your rescue is not in any way seen as emasculating to a culture and species that does not have men, so your embarrassment is illogical."
"If only telling me that worked, Spock," Jim sighed, relaxing into the mat. He felt Spock's weight settling more evenly on him and decided that while being pinned down like this was initially annoying, in a strange way, it was also comforting and comfortable.
"Virility has nothing to do with strength or self-reliance, Jim," Spock murmured. "You are as you ever were."
"So says the guy who nails me to the mat without breaking a sweat," Jim grumbled.
"Only to say that I would be happy to spar with you when you are not in so dangerous a mood, Jim."
"On one condition, then, Spock."
"Sir?"
"If you LET ME UP."
I tend to get ideas for fics when I go through stuff in real life. What I post depends on my mood, and this mood wasn't good, though what came of it, hopefully, was. Please let me know what you think!
