The captain turns up the heat in his quarters, hangs up his dress uniform top and tugs a worn black t-shirt on. He moves with ease, face and body relaxed. He pours himself a tumbler of ruby liquid that spills volatile vapors around us. He considers a moment, and pours another which he pushes to the corner of the desk nearest me. "Have a drink, Mr. Spock." He sits, puts his boots up on the desk, ankles crossed. I lift the tumbler and sip it. I remain standing. I wait.
I sip my drink, cradle it on my palm resting on my thigh, rock back to the limit of the desk chair. My mind is completely clear. I may have to substantially pick up the pace of my drinking. He's not sitting down. He knows I'd prefer it. I consider what I might say to bridge his understanding to something inside of me that I haven't fully acknowledged. A pit opens before me and it requires all of my courage to continue to stare into it.
"Suddenly you don't mind being made uncomfortable by human failings, Spock?" Spock puts the drink down with a clunk of heavy glass on fabricated surface. I watch him bank his renewed anger. I breathe in all the way, even past the point where my chest feels tight despite shedding the dress uniform. "All right," I say, nodding slowly. "Before you lose your composure. I'm scared to be closer to you. Scared from so many aspects I'm not even sure I can identify them all for you." Spock stares. He slides over to the guest chair, lowers himself onto it. He sits with back softly bent, shoulders rounded.
The captain puts his feet down, leans forward, keeps talking. "You wanted to hear it. Now you have. That's pretty much the heart of it." I look around his quarters. "I have not noticed that I concern you in that manner, Captain." "Not you, Spock. I frighten me. My spectacular history of failure frightens me." He sits back with his usual air of confidence. "I'm going to royally screw this up. And I have it pretty good right now." His voice becomes reverent. "I have the command I want and I have a brother and friend by my side." He bites his lips again and holds them that way as he raises his drink.
I project a curious expression at the captain. He so certain I am a party to his assumptions. He snorts lightly into his tumbler. "Spock," he says with a pained smile. "I know the signs. And your anger confirms it." I look away, feel my ears and neck flushing. "Oh, my Vulcan friend." He takes a gulp of his drink, stares at it while swallowing hard. When the liquid catches the light, it is a jewel in his fingers. He stares at it a long time. "My God, I'm seriously considering it." His eyes widen and he shakes his head. He puts his free hand over his kneecap, arm tight to his thigh and sits that way, holding to himself.
"I've been out here in space so long I've gone through myself and out the other side." I sound ridiculously wistful. Spock sits unassumingly. Not angular and solid. A simple presence. The lighting in my quarters isn't candlelight on a lake, but it has its own romance. It has the romance of memory, of shared stress and companionship. And it highlights his midnight black hair with a blue matching the dress uniform he still wears. I down the rest of my drink. The legendary Captain Kirk's gut is feathery and useless to him.
With every turn of my tainted logic, I am hollowed out more completely. I ache to steeple my fingers before me, rest my mind, put the present aside so that logic can emerge without the painful entanglement of emotion. But a such a purely Vulcan action would separate us. So I sit with my hands loosely intertwined in my lap. It occurs to me that he may be waiting for me. "I do not know what words are appropriate at this time, Jim." His lips wrinkle. "Don't feel badly. I'm a wreck over here." I raise a thoughtful brow. "That is illogically reassuring to hear."
Spock is not equipped to communicate this way. He's already too far out of his depth. "Are you all right?" Spock looks up with his usual steadily curious mien, and I am unspeakably relieved. "Yes." His voice is warm rough silk. I smile the smile that only emerges for him. I sigh through my nose. "You willing to take this risk?" His eyes drift away, his shoulders come forward. "I require better knowledge of precisely what you are proposing." "That sounds like my Spock." His brows go up. We are falling back into our usual interaction and the terror is letting me slip free.
"I'm proposing no barriers between us." With these words I begin exuding sweat into my t-shirt. "Don't get me wrong. We are really close, you and me. Closer than I ever thought possible. Even in Fleet. But we still keep aloof. Both of us do this. Because we both need something from being together and we both need something from being apart." I push my empty tumbler around. "I guess what happened is I discovered my reasons for keeping apart have become invalid." Spock is so very present there across the desk. If I imagine getting up and touching him, my whole body starts to vibrate.
"Explain. Please." It is my turn to experience the uncertainty that was gripping my captain minutes ago. He nods as if we are in a conference. "I trust myself now to keep my duties and my personal life in their proper places. I didn't used to. And we've melded, what, eleven, twelve times? Your Vulcan sensibilities are an aside as a result. But please correct me if I'm wrong." He works his lips with his teeth. "The last few melds. . ." He looks away. "I'm pretty sure you needed them at some deep level. I didn't say anything because I'm flattered and Great Bird knows I'd like to be more to you." The captain's voice is reassuringly factual. I find the air in the room to be too thin, when in reality it is ridiculously rich in oxygen. He doesn't seem to notice my struggle. "That's what I mean by the reasons becoming invalid. For me. That is."