Title: Home (Multichapter fic with 35 parts)

Beta: un-beta'd D: D: D:

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 23 of 35 –

Jim woke up. He moved his head. Argh! A pounding pain, wrapped tightly around his entire skull, forced him to still. He lay on the floor panting and sweating as if he'd just run the Academy marathon. Bones would kill him for all the damage he'd done to his brain last night, but it had been unavoidable. He just hoped they'd gotten all the information they needed, as there was no way he was going to survive another night of this.

He didn't yet dare to open his eyes. They were thumping in their sockets trying to escape. It was not the first time he'd woken up in such a mess, but it was the first since joining the Fleet. He'd used to drink himself in a coma voluntarily? Urgh, he'd been such a self-sabotaging idiot.

As he waited for his brain to stop cramping, he became aware of the foul taste in his mouth; his tongue was furrier than a tribble's coat. He opened his eyes and allowed them adjust to the light before gingerly pushing himself into an upright sitting position on the floor. So, where to start? What had happened last night? He looked around—a mirror with a gilded frame hung on the wall. Right, so he'd somehow walked back to Quol's ship, or been dragged back.

He tried to get up, but it felt as if someone had turned up the gravity controls to simulate being on Saturn's surface, and he collapsed back onto the floor.

"Anyone here?" he called out.

No reply. Fine, he'd get up. He could do this, his body just didn't want to, but it would damned well do what it was told. Muscles protested and blotches of grey sparked at the edges of his vision, but he managed to get up and stagger out of the living quarters to the cockpit—no Chekov, no Howard, and no sign of Spock either.

Okay, don't panic. There's no reason to be alarmed, you don't even know what happened. Clearly you weren't found out, or you'd be dead. He'd most likely been carried back to the ship, so the others were probably around somewhere. First things first-he had to find a miracle hangover cure.

He stumbled out of the ship. There was a smell in the air that hinted of breakfast—breakfast of the black liquid variety with three sugars, no milk. At the edge of the hanger deck he spotted the source: a small stall or café or whatever it might try and call itself. He lumbered over to it. The pirates around him were in as bad a state as he was.

He ordered an Andorian coffee from one of the local woman behind the counter. Behind him one of the pirates sniggered. Jim turned around and saw the man was pointing at him, no, at his upper arm. Jim groaned. Now that he'd been made aware of his arm, the skin there did feel more than just a little tight, and itched like a Cardassian mosquito bite. Other pirates were now looking his way too and laughing. He clapped the flat of his hand down over it, covering the area completely.

For this Bones wouldn't kill him, no, he'd do something worse, like laugh at him or hypo-spray him for fun. Right, how bad could it be? He lifted two fingers. 'I heart-', right, please, please don't let the next words be 'my Vulcan'. He'd definitely never be able to explain that particular tattoo to Bones.

He removed his hand. Okay, so it wasn't actually that bad-'that bad' in this case meaning the second worst, rather than the actual worst case scenario.

'I heart data substations'.

What the hell had happened last night?

A waitress brought him his Andorian coffee-ten times as strong as the replicated stuff he got on the Enterprise. The smell of the steaming hot brew alone was enough to drive away the feeling that his brain was full of cotton wool men which were occasionally using jackhammers on his skull. He took a large gulp that burnt his tongue Aaaaahhh! The coffee cleared his mind. It was like pulling back the curtains in the morning; last night's memories came flooding in like the light.

Vig had indeed started pushing even more alcohol and drugs their way. The questioning had gone rather well though, as Jim had learnt far more from Vig than Vig had from him; he asked whether they were planning attacks on the Enterprise, why they were interested in Saketh and so on. That was good.

But then he'd taken more Meekon, really not a good idea in hindsight, but he hadn't had any choice in the matter.

Then he'd felt a hand down his pants.

"Sp'ck."

But it wasn't Spock, it was a man wearing a red shirt that reflected the light in a blinding fashion. In his sockets Jim's eyes were beating in time with his heart, and he couldn't focus anymore, all he could see was a wall of red. Around him all the sounds were dulled, too. The room spun around him as he was dragged to his feet and away from the table.

"Lemme go."

He tried to twist his body away from the man who was leading him away. Where was he? His whole vision was continuously swimming upwards, but never going anywhere at the same time. He was still in the bar, only a few meters from the table, he realized once they came to a standstill.

"Jim, it's me."

He looked up. It was impossible to keep Spock's face in the centre of his vision, but he could tell something was wrong. Spock's brow was furrowed, and his mouth was twisted into a grimace.

"Man, you look wors'n I do!"

"Jim, I must leave," Spock said.

"Need you here Spock, the drugs and the ale've gone to my head."

"I'm also aff … affected, which is why I must leave. Jim."

Spock placed his hands on Jim's shoulders, which allowed Jim to feel the tremors that ran through his friend's body.

"Our friendship's … 's important," Spock continued. "And that's why I must go. Now."

Then he turned his head to look over Jim's shoulder. "But I'll take that red-shirted bastard with me. It'll look less sus … less suspis … better. And'll get him away from you and Chekov."

"But he'll be with you!"

"I'll get rid of him, Jim." A sardonic grin spread across Spock's features.

God, the Vulcan must be wasted. At least it made him look more Romulan. Spock still hadn't let go of him and Jim thought he wanted to say something else, maybe he wanted to kiss him. When he suddenly let go and rushed off, Jim was left confused and disorientated. He looked around. Then he finally saw him again-Spock was dragging the pirate wearing the red shirt out of the bar. He started to walk after them. None of it made any sense, but that was probably because he was too far gone already.

"Jim, where you goin'? Gettin' lost?" a voice said.

He drew himself up and looked around. It was Vig. He plastered a stupid grin onto his face and ambled back to the drinking table.

As soon as he sat down Vig pushed some colorful powders his way.

"Waz this?"

He must have taken those offered drugs, but where the memory should have been was only a blank page in his mind. The next thing he remembered was Chekov shaking him.

"Vake up! Are you alright?"

"'m 'wake."

There was laughter. The world was spinning around him, the table, the pirates, and Chekov all turning so fast; and yet they also stayed in the same place. He tried to focus on Chekov, look him in the eye to let him know he was okay, but he couldn't.

He closed his eyes and let his head flop to the side. That was better. He couldn't feel what he was doing with the rest of his body, his senses too numbed to tell.

His mind was going quiet as his thoughts slowed down. It was odd, when he tried to meditate, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't clear his mind. Now it was a struggle to fill it with any thoughts.

When all thought had vacated the plane of his consciousness, it seemed as lonely and as cold as the space between the stars. Then it was as if he'd crashed into a planet. He was in a memory, really in it. All the sensations his body picked up that he wasn't even aware of, all this thoughts and everything, his mind had stored them all and now he was there again: in his quarters, Spock sitting across from him on the floor.

'You must slow your brainwaves, Jim.'

Why should he do that? But the memory was playing itself out and so he knew why—he'd lashed out at Reid and Spock wanted to help him calm down. He let himself be washed along in the stream of his memories.

'Are they too fast?' he asked.

Spock reached for Jim's face with his hand; his touch was feather light. After running his fingers across the left side of his temple he withdrew his hand again.

'At 36 Hz they are within normal parameters for an alert adult human, however, to reach a meditative state you must slow them to 7 Hz.'

'Did you just read my thoughts?'

'As I have previously explained, that is not how my telepathy works. And I would never engage in a mind-meld with you without your permission.'

'Yeah, I remember-your hands aren't telepathic, they're just really sensitive. So ... how do I slow my brainwaves down?'

'Focus on nothing, silence your thoughts.'

'Alright, sounds easy enough.'

It wasn't of course. The first thought that came to his mind was 'am I doing this right?' and it went downhill from there in his attempt to silence his mind.

After ten minutes he gave up and opened his eyes. Spock was clearly not having any problems finding a deep meditative state and Jim didn't want to disturb him. He got up and walked over to his desk.

Search terms: slow + brainwaves + meditation + humans. He read the first few articles on the topic in the Starfleet database. It took the masters of Zen upwards of twenty years to control their minds to the degree Spock had asked of him. Right joker Spock was. The information he found brought home to him how different Vulcans and humans were, though. While he could readily believe that Spock had been practicing six hours a day for over twenty years to control his mind, he doubted the final state his mind achieved was at all similar to that of a Zen master after the same amount of training.

In humans it apparently further opened up the mind to their creativeness and intuition, allowing connections to be made in an instant. He was already good at that when fully alert-but it was a distinctively un-Vulcan like way of reaching a decision. He didn't know what meditation did to Vulcan brains, but he'd bet his life it was the exact opposite.

As quickly as he'd been plunged into that memory, he was ripped out of it. Then he was falling into another one—he was in his quarters again. The lights were dimmed and Spock was with him. Ah, the plot was thickening; there was a common theme to these memories.

He swiped his tongue over the tip of Spock's cock. This time they weren't meditating.

He looked up at Spock's face—no reaction. The coldness of Spock's cock was stinging his tongue already.

'Hey,' he said softly.

His knees clicked as he got up off the floor and sat down on the bed next to Spock, one hand trailing through the dark chest hair, the other moving to stroke Spock's cock, setting a leisurely, but firm rhythm.

Why was he so nervous? It was Spock he was talking to, there was no one else he trusted more—and no one he wanted more than anything to see come unraveled. Maybe Spock needed more stimulation?

'Do you want to fuck?' he whispered.

It wasn't sophisticated and he wasn't even sure it was sexy. He could already feel his own erection flagging. He hadn't allowed anyone to take him for years now. It wasn't that he thought it might hurt, he knew it wouldn't, as Spock would be careful. But how would Spock react to his question? He'd never cared for someone's answer before, not really, but around Spock he felt exposed.

He looked into brown eyes so large they filled most of his field of vision.

'You inside me,' his lover finally replied.

He was pulled out of the scene.

There were other memories too, and while before he thought it was him crashing into them, now he realized that they were rushing towards him—coming to fill the void in his consciousness. All the memories were of him and Spock, working together, talking, having sex, or simply enjoying each other's company. A question crossed his mind. In a place so devoid of thought, it exploded onto the barren landscape of his mind like a supernova. Why hadn't Spock told him about his breakup with Uhura? It had been the first time Spock had let him down. The thought's afterglow still lit up his consciousness. Before it could fade, he was deep inside another memory.

'Captain, I must apologize-.'

Jim knitted his brow and stopped Spock midsentence. 'What are you apologizing for?'

The colors were more vivid and every sound louder than it should have been, as if he was in a state of hyper-awareness. The lines around Spock's mouth were visible to him now.

'That I did not inform you that Lieutenant Uhura and I are no longer in a romantic relationship.'

As Spock said those words the light in his eyes dulled and he slouched his back and shoulders. Jim shuffled closer to his friend and hugged him tight. That hadn't happened; this was new. He could control the scene!

'Why didn't you tell me earlier, Spock?'

'I thought Nyota and I would resume our relationship. But now you have forced me to admit to myself that it is not our destiny be together.'

Was this his subconscious mind being all awesome and putting together all the pieces of the jigsaw for him? Even the pieces he hadn't even known he'd had, since of course he'd only picked them up subconsciously? He needed to know more-he couldn't let such a powerful trance state go to waste!

'What do you really think of me, Spock? What do you feel for me?'

But around him the room started to darken, and the shapes lost their solidity, as the drug pulled him from the edge of consciousness it had held him on into the depths of unconsciousness.

Jim took another sip of the strong Andorian coffee. Bloody hell. He still didn't know how he'd gotten the tattoo, but that didn't matter. He'd probably tried to prove to Vig that he really was a mechanic. Most importantly—Spock. Where was he, was he okay? He'd probably left because he was worried that he was going to give the whole group away by not being able to control himself after drinking so much of the Romulan ale. So he should have gone back to the ship. But he'd left with that sleazy pirate guy … there were too many possibilities to consider.

He gulped down the rest of the coffee, paid, and rushed back to the ship. He searched it top to bottom-which didn't take long. No one was wasn't there.

Calm yourself down. Maybe they'd just all woken up before him, after all they'd had a hell of a lot less drugs and drinks, since he'd tried to consume enough to get a small army high so that they wouldn't have to.

He stormed out of the ship and strode towards the café again. He asked some of the people there if any of them had seen his friends. They'd seen the humans, they said. Chekov and Howard hadn't liked the look of the café and had gone in search of somewhere else-possibly to buy the raw ingredients for breakfast and prepare it themselves. But the Romulan, they said, hadn't been with them.

Jim wandered on, eyes on the lookout for his men. He found Chekov and Howard walking towards him, each carrying a bag of food. It did look better than Quol's horrible rations, but was now really the time? He tried not to be too harsh on them, the two had never had to deal with the fallout from Romulan ale before.

"You'd have been better off with Andorian coffee," he said.

"We just thought-."

Jim cut them off with the wave of a hand. "No time. Do either of you have any idea what happened to Spock?"

"Ve've not seen him since he left last night. You vere talking to him, ve thought you knew where he'd gone."

"Sir," Howard said, "I think some of the pirates from last night, we met them just now, the large dark blue one with the scales who looks like a fish and the one who looks like a giant ant… ."

Jim made a mental note not to let Howard be part of any diplomatic landing party-ever.

"… they said they will talk to you about the attack on the Enterprise. We said we'd get you straight away, as they are leaving for a raid in an hour."

"Ensign Howard, you take all this back to the ship and then start looking for Spock straight away. Chekov, do you still have any of Quol's latinum left? Good-lead me to these pirates."

The pirates had a fair bit to say, but Jim was dubious as to how useful all the information he'd collected from them was. That included last night's round too. Really, when he thought about it, the most important thing he'd learnt was how exactly the pirates were organized and what kind of character Kroth was. The whole operation hinged on Kroth. Taking this visionary leader out of the equation and they'd fall back into anarchy and not be a threat to anyone.

He was very impressed with Kroth he hated to admit. The Klingon really had got them all to stand to attention and work as a unit. The guy at the bar back on the spacestation had not been wrong to state that they were a force to be reckoned with. They truly could be a threat to Saketh in particular. This guy not only had this one base, no, he had a couple of fast ships and could move around easily. The only way to get rid of the threat was to eliminate him, although Jim knew he'd come with far too few men to attempt to take him out. They'd all be dead in a heartbeat.

He watched the pirates take off for a raid. He wished he'd been able to sabotage them somehow, but there hadn't been the opportunity to do so. Him and Chekov turned back to head for the ship. Hopefully Howard had found Spock.

They found Howard standing outside the ship looking like a nervous wreck. This wasn't good. An ice cold fear ran through him.

"What happened to Spock, do you know? Where is he?" Jim said.

Howard swallowed. "Um, sir. I found him."

"Yes, so why is he not here, man?"

"Um, well I didn't talk to him, or see him for that matter, but… ."

"But what, Ensign? I expect you to pull yourself together and give me a straight answer." He didn't care right now what state Howard was in after the night before.

The talking to worked and Howard stood to attention in front of his captain. "Sorry, sir."

Jim waved his hand to get him to carry on.

"I asked around. He's over in section 3 of this base, that's in the living section of the civilian inhabitants of the base. In a brothel, sir."

Jim's insides went cold at the thought. It was probably too late, probably had been by the time Howard had found out. He wasn't to blame-don't rip the ensign's head off. Images of Spock bound and gagged flashed in front of his mind's eye leaving him feeling sick to the stomach. He bit his tongue. Don't shout at the guy. Spock in a brothel? It hadn't occurred to him that maybe Spock had been drugged and kidnapped? Maybe they wanted to sell him off into slavery.

Jim's skin crawled and prickled.
"Take me there immediately," he said and the worry in his voice must have been evident, the emotion in his eyes, because Howard's own eyes went wide and he ran off, Jim and Chekov easily able to match his pace.

As Jim ran, various scenarios raced through his mind. Spock had been out of it a bit for a while now, of course-Bones hadn't been too happy with his scan results and he'd been acting odd. But last night, on top of all that, Spock had been drunk; he'd decided to leave because he clearly hadn't trusted himself not to say something that would give them away as Starfleet officers. He might have been stronger than the human he'd left with, but what if the pirate's friends had shown up? It would have been all too easy for someone to take advantage of Spock in the state he'd been in.