Title: Home (Multichapter fic with 35 parts)
Beta: Lissaea at Livejournal
Warnings, Themes and Tropes, etc.: bondage, torture, prostitution, explicit sex, drug use
Summary: The Vulcans need a new home planet, so the Enterprise and her crew set out to find one for them.
"They'd come all the way for this? Which mad astronomer had sent them out here? Whose twisted idea had it been?"
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or any of its characters.
– Home-Part 17 of 35 –
After Jim had stormed out of engineering he'd locked himself away in his quarters to work from his desk—in quiet—so he was not pleased when not an hour later his door chime rang. It was Spock. Jim stood in the doorway, and folded his arms over his chest.
"Captain, as your first officer, it is my duty to inform you when your performance is slipping. Also, I should inform you that Doctor McCoy wants 'to have you committed'."
So Bones had talked to Spock? Why? No, just … he couldn't let himself go there. He'd probably just talked to him about the examination he had to do so Spock could go back on active duty planet-side. Just listening to himself … man, this whole secret relationship thing was stressing him out.
But how the hell was he meant to relieve this stress? He couldn't talk about his problems to his crew. Even though Bones and Spock were his friends, he was still their commanding officer. As for Spock, he was already messing this guy up enough—he wasn't so self-centered to believe he might be the only one suffering from trying to keep this secret. No, he didn't need to add to Spock's problems. But he was-just by being stressed. And it wasn't getting better. It wasn't getting easier.
Spock was still standing outside his door, an expectant look on his face. He wanted to help. How nice. Jim didn't want his help, but turning him away would be like kicking a pu … fully grown panther.
"Oh, come in," Jim said, unwilling to talk to Spock in the middle of the corridor, even if it was currently empty.
He wanted to glare at Spock. If he even so much as mentioned that he should take a break, or relax or something, he would seriously chuck him out of an airlock so that he could get some peace and quiet.
Jim threw himself on his couch and put his legs up onto the table. Spock sat down next to him and reached for his hand. Jim looked up at the ceiling, but allowed him to take it. Spock held it, but did no more than that.
A heavy silence settled over the captain's quarters as neither spoke.
He was tired and closed his eyes. Sleep found him rather more quickly than it usually did.
When he woke up, he realized that he was lying down flat on the couch, with a pillow beneath his head and a glass of water on the table in front of him. His stomach rumbled; a plate of mac and cheese really wouldn't go amiss right now.
Spock was nowhere to be seen. He drank the water, and was staring into the bottom of the empty glass when the door chime rang.
It was Spock. He was holding a tray of food from the ship's galley-with two portions of dinner on it.
He put it down on the table in front of him and started eating. Jim didn't need any encouragement; he took his plate and tucked in.
The silence was less oppressive than it had been before and made a change to everyone trying to talk to him and voice their opinion. Being in Spock's company was relaxing and the sleep had done him good, but he was still tired.
"I sure flew off on one with Reid, eh?" Jim said.
Spock knitted his brow. "You raised your voice."
"I did a bit more than that, Spock."
"Mr Scott was impressed."
"Spock, are you trying to make me feel better?" He stared wide-eyed.
"No, I am simply stating facts."
"I nearly ripped the guy's head off!"
"I doubt your arms would be able to provide the 0.54 kilo Newtons of force necessary to detach a human head from its body."
Jim had had his fork half way to his mouth, but he stopped dead when he heard that.
"You know how much force it would take to rip someone's head off? How?"
"It is information readily accessible in the Starfleet databases."
"But why would you look up something like that?"
"Acquiring knowledge is always a good thing."
Jim laughed. Well, Reid could definitely have run into someone worse he supposed.
"Thanks," he said and put his hand on Spock's knee and squeezed it.
Spock lifted his spirits in such simple ways. He let of go of the Vulcan's knee, stroked his fingers along the strong jaw bone, extending the caress to the pale ear; it made him grin when he reached the point.
"You can stroke my ears too, Spock."
Spock did-it tickled and made him laugh.
"It is easier to please you than I had previously thought," Spock said.
"You know, once we've finished dinner, what would you like to do?"
"I might attempt to meditate. Would you join me?"
He eyed Spock.
"Subtlety is not your forte, Spock. But sure, you could teach me a few tricks. Some techniques to try on my own?"
He didn't really need to meditate, that wouldn't deal with the cause of his problems. But just having Spock around was improving his mood enough to allow himself to relax a little, and his heart warmed at the thought of spending more time with Spock.
"Certainly, if that is what you wish."
Jim laughed. Spock would turn him into a Vulcan yet.
It was good to get off the Enterpriseand down to Saketh again; Jim closed his eyes at the feel of the cool wind on his face. It was refreshing. He just wished Spock could have accompanied him. After teaching him some meditation techniques last night his first officer had broached the topic of the Katric Ark. He'd explained that while he'd prefer to be the one to examine the chamber, he'd rather Jim or Sulu examined it now than waiting for the doctor to declare him fit for duty.
At the thought of going back into the underground city he felt some trepidation, but most of the city was secure and had been examined now. It was only the Katric Ark that they'd kept off-limits. Whether it really was the cause for Spock's alarming behavior or not was still unclear, but he really needed to understand what had happened to his first officer and the Ark was currently their best guess.
Sulu stepped up to him. "Sir, are you ready to go?"
Jim nodded his head. "Let's do this."
Jim looked down at the tricorder readouts; a detailed layout of the Katric Ark appeared on it. He studied it.
"Do we have any idea yet why our scanners can map out every underground chamber apart from this one?"
"No, Captain," Sulu answered. "By all accounts our tricorders should be able to scan the Ark just as well as any other chamber. But always … nothing."
The tricorder in Jim's hand blinked … it showed a detailed map of the Ark chamber that lay just meters ahead of them.
Jim studied it then looked up again. "Well, since we've get no readings at all from it, we'll just have to go in blind and find out what's going on. Spock's the only whose mind this place has been messing with, we should hopefully be fine."
The chamber was just as he remembered it; just as intimidating.
"I can't help but feel like we're not supposed to be here," Sulu whispered.
Jim nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Let's … let's just take some readings and get out of here again as quickly as possible."
The tricorder readings were interesting, Jim thought. There patterns in the polycrystalline matrix of the stones … .
He looked at Sulu. "My tricorder's still not reading anything."
"Mine isn't either."
"Fine, let's see if there's something here that isn't screwed down that we can take back to the ship where we've got better sensors."
Two nights later, Jim was sitting on the floor of his quarters trying to meditate. He'd hoped that his trip to Saketh would have solved the mystery of what had affected Spock, but they were no closer than they were before. The science department was still looking over the carved stones they'd brought back the Ark. So far all they'd told him was that they were stones. That had carvings on them. Thanks for that, guys!
Jim took a deep breath—he realized his meditation session wasn't going very well. Then the door chime rang.
"Come in," he said.
It was Bones. He got up off the floor.
"Bones, sit down. Can I offer you anything?" he asked anxiously.
There was no way he wanted things to stay strained between them. They had to make up somehow, or he'd soon find a way to actually get those 0.45 kilo Newtons of force to take someone's head off.
Bones smiled, sat down, and accepted a drink.
"How're you, Jim?"
"Fine, thanks, yourself?"
Bones smiled. "I'm good, and glad to hear you're doing alright, kid. Cheers!"
They raised their glasses and sipped their drinks.
"You know I'd never tell anyone, don't you?" Bones said.
"I know." Jim chuckled quietly. "I know you wouldn't and I'm really sorry that you're in this position, I wish that I could have prevented it. I … I didn't know if this would go anywhere, but now I think it might. Still—and I have my reasons for this, you've gotta trust me—I can't bring myself to inform the admiralty and make this relationship public knowledge."
"Shit, I really hope you know what you're doing. But don't worry, I'm not going to try and find out who it is," Bones said. "And don't tell me-I've changed my mind. If I knew then maybe I would find myself forced to report it, which I don't want to do."
"Yeah, I think it's best too if you don't know, in case they do find out—the less you know in that case, the better; you shouldn't have to pay 'cause I'm not following regulations. I don't feel good keeping it a secret, but the alternative is worse."
"I trust that this is all worth it to you," Bones grumbled. "I'm being serious. I know why you flipped out in Engineering. The stress of this relationship is getting to you—you have enough on your plate without adding to your worries. Maybe you need to sit down and think about what your priorities are."
Jim stared at the glass in his hand. The doc had a point.
He was about to ask Bones how he'd found out in the first place when the door chime rang again. It was Spock.
Jim jumped. Then he scolded himself. Bones didn't even suspect it was Spock, he was sure of that. Well, not absolutely sure, but pretty sure. With all the bars they'd been to at the academy, Bones knew his tastes—but he hadn't met any of the half-dozen people he'd had short flings or one-night-stands with, apart from Gaila. As far as Bones was concerned his ideal date looked, well, more female for a start. His ex-girlfriends Carol and Ying had both been quite fond of Bones.
He briefly wondered what Carol was up to these days, they hadn't talked since they broke up just under a year ago. With Spock it was completely different from how it had been with her. He really liked Spock; he loved him as a friend, deeply. He wondered briefly if that was what Bones had been talking about when he'd ridiculed his idea of love-that love was attraction, was sex. Because … it didn't matter that he was having sex with Spock, his feelings for Spock would be no different if he wasn't.
"Am I interrupting?" Spock inquired.
"No, not at all," Bones said. "I don't want to delay an important meeting or anything. And Spock, remember to call me so we can arrange that physical."
Spock nodded as Bones left the room.
The conversation was swirling around in Jim's mind. Was it worth all the paranoia, worth putting Bones in a horrible position … worth his sanity as a captain?
Jeeze, this was so important! He didn't want to lose the closeness he had with Spock now, but he couldn't continue like this, that much was clear.
"Jim?"
"Mmmmh? Sorry, I was just thinking."
Then Spock kissed him.
He'd have to talk to Spock, but it didn't have to be tonight, did it?
"We need to follow those murderers," Scotty said, "before the trail gets too cold. Sir."
"I realize that, Mr. Scott," Jim replied.
His chief engineer clenched his jaw.
"Scotty," Jim said, walking past the other senior officers in the briefing lounge to stand next to him, "we're going to get to the bottom of this."
When Scotty nodded, Jim looked around the table. His eyes came to rest on Spock.
"I have plotted an approximate trajectory for the pirate ship based on the data our long range sensors picked up after the attack," Spock said. "They appear to have headed for the Dessica system."
"There are several starbases within a few light-years of Dessica. It'll be a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack," Uhura said.
"Right," Jim replied. "Sulu, what's the status of our investigation on Saketh? How long do you need?"
"We can finish today. I've still not got anything new on the Katric Ark, but we'll try some more scans today on the artifacts we brought back. We all in all, we finally have the basics covered so we can report everything back to Headquarters."
"Good. Send me the details when you get them. We have to get this right and highlight all the positives. I don't want to lose this planet to some pirates."
He saw Spock raise an eyebrow at that.
"We'll do our best to understand the pirate threat so we can present it as a problem that can be solved."
"And how are we going to do that now?" Bones asked. "Let's backtrack here to what Lieutenant Uhura was saying … all these lawless starbases to visit, but we're in the fleet's flagship. The minute any pirates see us they'll all be gone quick as lightning."
Jim studied the locations of starbases on the map. "There's one that the Federation have dealings with. I suggest we start our search there. We'll be more likely to find people willing to talk to us there and we can pick up supplies."
Scotty nodded. "Yeah we need a new base-grid for one of the plasma networks, we're running low on titanium sheets and don't get me started on the powercouplers. If they have any dilithium crystals, well, we need one, but I'd need to see some excellent trader credentials to pick one up from such a scumbase."
"Anything else you need, Mr Scott?"
"A new cage for my tribble and some deli-sandwiches wouldn't go amiss."
With that, the meeting ended. As his senior staff left the room, Bones stopped Spock.
"Physical, zero seven hundred hours tomorrow morning."
Spock tilted his head to one side slightly. "I have not forgotten, Doctor."
"No, didn't think you would, but then again I just want to make it clear that this is non-negotiable. I won't accept any 'oh, the warp core was overloading, so I couldn't come' bullshit. I know we're heading away from Saketh, but you're getting a full physical and psych examination before you set foot on that space station we're going to."