Spice

by eimeo

It's a question of biology... Vulcan biology. Towards the end of the 5 year mission, Kirk realizes that his feelings for Spock are requited, but Spock has already decided they can never be together. Kirk/Spock pre-slash to slash, with plenty of angst. (A full, clean copy for download - minus author notes, but including translations - is linked from the author's profile.)

29. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

He doesn't expect an answer, so when Kirk's apartment door slides open on the disheveled figure of his friend, it's a moment before Spock can compose his opening salutations. This allows Kirk to get in the first word.

"I don't imagine you'd listen if I told you to go away," he says.

Spock has had some twenty-five minutes since he emerged from the western exit of the conference center to see Starfleet's newest Admiral disappearing into the back seat of an aircar, and he has used it to consider his approach. One of the first things he decided upon was that it would not be wise to mention Ciana's instruction.

"Negative," he says.

Eyebrows twitch against a face of stone, and Kirk steps back to clear the entrance. It's as much of an invitation as Spock is likely to get, and he hesitates for only a moment before he steps across the threshold and into territory that he has, until now, successfully avoided.

Kirk stands just inside, watching quietly with pursed lips and squared shoulders as Spock draws to a halt and folds his hands behind his back for want of anything more productive to do. Restless energy hums around him like a thundercloud, and for a long, uncomfortable moment, he regards Spock with eyes that are almost hostile, as though he's waiting for him to speak. Then, with a deep breath, he turns on one heel and sets off into the apartment at a brisk clip.

"I warn you," he says over his shoulder as Spock decides that the best thing to do is follow, "call me 'Admiral' just once, and I may test my fist against that Vulcan jaw of yours."

An eyebrow arches; though their conversation has, on occasion, been strained - and, from time to time, openly belligerent - physical threat has never previously featured. As they emerge into the living quarters, Spock sees an open bottle of bourbon on the counter and an empty glass beside it, and, for a moment, he wonders if Kirk has had time to become drunk. The thought is easily dismissed: it has been less than half an hour since his friend left Starfleet HQ, and Spock knows that there was no alcohol at the function. But he'd be happier if he could be certain that his decision is based on an assessment of elapsed time versus human metabolic capacity, and not the fact that the idea in itself is unsettling.

"I believe your hand would disproportionately bear the brunt of any such altercation," he says instead, as Kirk comes to a halt next to his desk. With a sharp spike of something unnamable, Spock notes the image on the wall above him: Enterprize, drifting freely on an endless sea. He looks away.

"That's at least partially the point," says Kirk. His eyes are bright, defiant, but his face is drawn, and shadows darken the contours. For the first time, Spock has the opportunity to notice the grayish tint to his skin, the thick lines of fatigue, the quiet desperation that shrouds him. Under the weight of his companion's scrutiny, Kirk pushes himself off his perch on the table's edge and crosses to the counter, where he lifts the bottle and glass and glances back over his shoulder in open challenge.

"Disapproval, Spock?" he says as he presses the neck of the carafe to the lip of the beaker and bourbon floods the glass, spilling carelessly up the polished walls. Kirk meets his friend's eyes and holds them as he lifts it to his lips and takes a generous gulp, wincing as it clears his throat. "I've lost her," he says gruffly. "I think that's a damned good excuse for whisky at noon."

"Perhaps," says Spock. "If it was, in fact, noon."

A chuckle rumbles in the depths of Kirk's chest, but it is difficult to determine if it has been motivated by humor. He says, "I ought to remember who I'm arguing with."

It's an argument? That in itself is disturbing. Spock has seen Kirk immolated on the fires of righteous indignation, lit from within by certainty and indignation, cast in ice and granite by stubborn self-assurance; that is how he argues. The man across from him is listless, apathetic, as though the color has been drained from him. Spock folds his hands behind his back to counter a sudden urge to cross the floor, to take the glass and the bottle from his friend and place them safely out of reach. It's not the air of general instability, hanging around Kirk like a malignant cloud, that holds him back, but rather the proximity that the action necessitates, the risk of standing too close, of stepping into his circle of personal space with everything that entails. The thought of accidental contact - of the soft, unconscious brush of finger against finger - sends a network of cracks spiraling across Spock's failing shields; he simply cannot take the chance.

But Kirk is too brittle just now to deal in ambiguities. He sees only distance and reserve, and he reads it as distaste.

With a bitter smile, he swallows another worrying quantity of alcohol and says, "You could at least pretend you don't wish you were anywhere but here."

In fact, the opposite is true: Spock wishes it were possible for him to be anywhere else. He wishes he could manufacture some kind of wall of indifference against the need that draws him in, time and again, so that he's no longer certain whose summons he's answering: Kirk's or his own. But he says, simply, "I have expressed no such sentiment."

"You don't need to express it," says Kirk, with withering scorn. "It's in your face, my friend." Another harsh laugh, discordant as the scrape of metal on metal. "'Friend'," he says in a low voice. "We'll see about that now, I guess."

Anger flares, bright and dangerous, before Spock can catch it and force it back inside. "Indeed?" he says, acidly. "Perhaps you are referring to your abrupt disappearance for over a week and your failure to inform your colleagues or respond to any requests for assurance as to your condition?"

A sharp glance up, and surprise blanks the acrimony from Kirk's stare. "I don't see what that has to do with…"

"Evidently," snaps Spock, and he can hear the restless, relentless anxiety of the past days coloring his words in shades of fury as his controls struggle to reassert themselves. "However, I would suggest that, before you cast aspersions as to my intentions or motivations at this time, you consider in what light your own recent actions could be described as 'friendly'."

"I left in something of a hurry," says Kirk, but the residual vitriol in his voice is clearly the result of effort, and it's curling at the edges. "I had no idea when I would be back…"

"As I had no idea if you were living or dead," says Spock, though he's prepared to admit, even through the fog of indignation, that this is an exaggeration. However, Kirk does not know this, and that's what's important right now. "And yet, for reasons that I cannot presently explain, it is my disposition and my inclinations that are under attack. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to why my friendship towards you is rendered suspect by my desire to determine your wellbeing, while your cavalier - your cavalier treatment of me," he reiterates, as Kirk begins to protest, "is completely elided?"

The words have tumbled out of him, almost without his conscious volition, and he finds, now they are spent, that a fine tremor agitates his shoulders, that his heart is racing and his breath is rapid, shallow in his chest. Kirk stares at him for a long moment, eyes fixed but expressionless, while a thousand thoughts dance visibly just behind them.

At last, he says, "You're right." A sigh, and a hand rises to pinch the bridge of his nose, face crumpling as though his head aches. "Spock. I'm sorry. You're right."

He lowers himself heavily into the high-backed chair in front of his desk, loose-limbed and boneless, breath escaping him in a long sigh. "I've been an ass," he says. "To you, to… everyone. None of this is your fault, Spock. I'm sorry."

"The question of fault is irrelevant," says Spock, and if there's a tightness to his voice, a lingering tension, it's fading now. "It only remains to decide upon the next course of action."

A breath of gentle, weary laughter. "I'm not sure there is any 'next course of action'," says his friend. "Nogura's a son-of-a-bitch, but he's a clever son-of-a-bitch. God damn it. I should have known."

Spock's eyebrow arches; his frustration may be dissipating on a wave of mutual regret, but it allows for only so much latitude. "It has never been your nature to refuse a challenge," he says.

But Kirk shakes his head. "This is different," he says. A swift, fluid movement carries him to his feet and he paces to the window, glass in hand, to stare out over the striking azure glow of the Bay in late morning. "You know it is."

Yes. It is different, and Spock knows this. That's the truth of the matter. He can't define the cause beyond a deeply unsatisfactory, Because it is not the same, but Kirk is right. It's only that he's unaccustomed to finality in the face of insurmountable odds. Obstacles appear and recede, and sometimes they are difficult, sometimes they are formidable, sometimes it seems that they are impassable from every angle… Except that there's always a way through, some weakness that can be exploited, a buried, hairsbreadth fracture that they find together, just because everything looks different when their ideas spark off each other like currents in a Tesla coil. It occurs to Spock that he has, illogically, been relying on Kirk to know what to do next, and he's not sure, now, how to process the air of defeat that hangs heavily over the room without releasing all hope.

At the window, a sideways glance over his left shoulder throws Kirk's profile into grayish silhouette against the sunlight, and he offers a sad smile into the space that separates them.

"I thought as much," he says, and turns back to the ocean.

Silence descends: their oldest enemy. It rings in Spock's ears as he scrambles for the words that make this all right. But he realizes, even as the seconds lengthen, that there is nothing to say; if he knew what those words might be, he'd have said them long before now. So he stands quietly in the still room, spine straight, hands folded at the small of his back, muscles aching with unactuated motion, and watches his friend contemplate the play of frosted sunlight on distant waves.

"Those things he said about me," says Kirk softly, after a moment. "I never…. That's not…" A sound of frustration, and he tries again. "I'm one man. I'm a better man for serving with you. But I'm not the man he described."

"I cannot concur," says Spock.

Gentle laughter. "I had a feeling you wouldn't. But it's true, nonetheless." Slowly, reluctantly, Kirk turns back into the room, twisting the glass speculatively in front of his chest. It is empty. "Did Bones send you after me?" he asks.

"He did not," says Spock.

A philosophical nod. "Ciana, then." Spock says nothing, but the silence is an answer in itself, and the squared shoulders sag a little, as though the effort of holding them in place is suddenly more than Kirk can manage. "It's not her fault. Not really," he says. "It's mine. I let this happen, though I'm damned if I know what else I could have done."

"The admiralty's decision is not binding," says Spock. "Perhaps McCoy's objections…"

But Kirk is shaking his head before his friend can finish the sentence. "Nogura announced it in front of a roomful of journalists," says Kirk. "I'd call that pretty damned binding."

"Nevertheless, there is protocol…"

Kirk glances up, and his expression is bleak. "You know Admiral Nogura as well as I do. Do you think he would have done what he did if he couldn't make it stick?"

A beat, and Spock is forced to answer, "No. I do not."

Kirk nods. "No," he agrees softly, almost a whisper. "It's over, Spock." A sad smile plays around the corners of his mouth. "You know what this means, of course? We'll never serve together again."

Yes, Spock knows this, but abstractly, as though it is reversible, always reversible. Indignation spikes, forcing words onto his lips that he cannot speak: I have followed you this far; I will follow you again. All it takes is a quiet nod in the right direction; a passing comment about his interest in resuming a teaching position, perhaps, and suddenly the future shifts, gravomanipulation trials on Delta-03 become a billet in San Francisco and an imaging suite across the Bay. The future is mutable, but will Kirk see it as such? Or will he see compromise and sacrifice - his own and his friend's - and count the cost too high? That's not even a question. Spock knows the answer before the thought is fully formed, and it's like ice-cold lead in the pit of his stomach.

He says, "That is not certain…"

"Spock!" It's a sound of impatience, of exasperation, and it's not unexpected. It's exactly as he thought it would be. "Please. Don't patronize me. Where else in the galaxy do our worlds intersect if not on the bridge of a starship?"

This is, almost word for word, a replica of Spock's own thoughts in the moments after Nogura's casual declamation closed the doors on their former life forever. And, if he can answer, anywhere; anywhere at all, if we force it to be so, it's only half a truth. It's not answering the question that Kirk is asking, but rather the question Spock wants to answer.

Quietly, he says, "Nowhere."

"Nowhere," echoes Kirk. A beat, and then he says, softly, "I've lost you too."

Too much has passed between them to misunderstand his meaning, and there is nowhere to hide from the words or from the unblinking scrutiny that follows them. They sink into the sudden hush, and Spock is aware of a sense of great distance rushing in to fill the space between them as he struggles to find an answer that is neither a confirmation nor a lie. He wants to deny the truth of that sentiment, but desire and desperation will not mend the rift that has been torn between them now. The fact is that, while they are together, however that may be contrived, there is hope. There is possibility. It is that sense of the unattainable, just out of reach, that sustains them both; it allows them to prevaricate and to postpone the moment where they have to confront this irresolute longing, where they have to define what it is that they are doing. It is neither safe nor judicious, but safe has never worked for either of them.

Safe cannot survive a separation.

He wants to speak, but the words escape him once more. Kirk closes his eyes, and Spock realizes that he has taken his own answer from the silence.

"Then can we stop pretending?" says his friend quietly. "For now, for once, can we stop lying about what this is and say the goddamn words?"

Spock cannot pinpoint the moment when he realized he was in love with Kirk; it feels, illogically, as though the knowledge has always been there. He cannot remember what it was to exist without this open wound in the center of his soul; it defines his sense of himself. And it's like a riptide, dragging him down a little further with every breath and every movement.

In a low voice, edged with a disturbing tone of desperation, he says, "What would it profit either of us?"

Hazel eyes snap open, beneath brows arched in disbelief. "Does everything have to be a scientific equation with you?" snaps Kirk. The anger is almost a relief; it tears them away from a dangerous place into deep, treacherous waters where the sadness and desire can be turned into something that's easier to handle. Spock opens his mouth to reply, but his friend is not finished.

"Let me make it simple for you," says Kirk. "This is my life. My life is Starfleet. It takes, and I give, and that's the way it will always be. You know that. You understand that. Strip everything away, and that's what's left: endless duty, service that will never be finished, service that will never be enough. And there were two things that made it all right: there was my ship" - a beat; a deep, resolute breath - "and there was you."

The words enter the charged air with a certain sense of inevitability, like the first trickle of water through a fracturing dam wall. Spock draws in a breath as something shifts between them. It feels as though they've been walking a long road in darkness, stumbling down the path that leads them to this place, and, if he should have known - and he should; he could have guessed from the way his friend's eyes scoured the room like a starving man, from the way Spock turned to track his movements, waiting to be seen - if he should have guarded more closely against this moment, if he ought to fight a little harder to turn them back while they still can… Kaiidth. It feels as though this was always coming, no matter what.

So he looks up now, directly into Kirk's eyes, and he says, "Only one of those is lost, Jim."

But Kirk only laughs a bitter laugh and rolls his eyes, pivoting a half-turn away from him.

"I lost you long before I lost my ship," he says.

"You are mistaken."

Another half turn, so that Kirk faces him again. "If I'm mistaken, then why aren't you here of your own volition? Goddamn it, Spock, my CO had to order you to come. When did this become about duty?"

"You are mistaken," says Spock again, and he can hear a dangerous note of intemperance clouding the edges of his words. "My reluctance to follow you was not rooted in disinterest. I believe you understand this very well."

"You think I understand this?" snaps Kirk. He shakes his head with a loaded smile. "Spock, if I understood the first thing about this then I wouldn't feel like I've been walking on broken glass and eggshells around you for almost a damn year. The only thing I understand is that I have to censor every word that comes out of my mouth when I'm around you, I have to police every look and every movement, in case, God forbid, I say something that makes one of us have to think about what happened on Vulcan." A laugh that has nothing to do with humor trembles his shoulders, twists the air. "And you know what's so ironic about that? It's that hardly an hour goes by when I don't think about it. And you can tell me that it's not the same for you, but you'll be lying and we both know that."

Hardly an hour? If there has been a day when the memories have released him for as long as that, Spock cannot remember it. He can feel a network of fractures splinter the last fragments of his shields as naked resentment bubbles to the surface. It colors his voice as he answers, "And since I have given you my answer, I ask again: what would it profit either of us to acknowledge this?"

Spots of red flush his friend's cheeks. "You can ask where the profit is, Spock; I'm asking you what it's cost us to deny it? Do you want me to tell you that I understand? I don't. I know what I want and I believe I know what you want - no, I'm sure I know what you want, Spock; you can tell me I'm wrong if you like. But I think I know you very well. I think I know you just about as well as any man living or dead. So I'm asking you to tell me that I'm wrong. Go ahead. Tell me."

And so here it is. They've finally arrived at a place where there is no more room for prevarication and nowhere left to hide. And Spock finds he cannot regret this.

With a kind of detached relief, as though he is watching himself from a distance, he lengthens his spine and looks directly at his companion. And he says, "I will not."

The words hang between them, red hot and treacherous. Spock can feel the rapid beat of his heart against his flank, blood pounding a hummingbird rhythm in his ears. Kirk stares at him for a moment, and the world seems to readjust itself, pieces sliding into place, a tectonic reordering of the confusion that has haunted them for many months - longer, perhaps; for as long as this dangerous potential has surrounded and blanketed them, for as long as they have known each other. Kirk starts to speak - a low, frustrated growl that sounds like, "Then why…?" but it dies in his throat as his feet suddenly animate him, forcing him across the space that divides them. Three rapid steps, no more, but it feels as though he's crossing a galaxy; as though gravity draws them inexorably into each other's orbit. There is no way to fight it, even if he could find the energy or the will. And so, as blunt, square fingers reach inelegantly for Spock's cheek, as a hand rises to grip the back of his neck, to tangle in his hair and pull his head downwards, he does not hesitate. He lowers his face to Kirk's and crushes their lips together; it's not possible to do anything else.

A sound of surprise escapes his friend, buried in the hollow of his mouth as it opens to meet Spock's. Tongues collide, tangling and coiling, drinking in the flavors that have hummed in his memories for a thousand restless nights. Iron and salt and rust; the buttery scent of Human skin and the sharp, spiced pine of Kirk's aftershave… His body is warm beneath Spock's hands, heat flooding through the fabric of his dress blues where Kirk's fingers gouge his skin as he pulls him closer. Their bodies fit together like lengths of planed wood, flesh pressed close against flesh, and Spock can feel himself hardening, can feel Kirk's arousal tight against him. For a few whited-out, hazy minutes, all he can process is the rush of sensation, the surrender, and it's a relief, a release, as though he's been floundering in deep water for many months and he's finally broken the surface. For these few moments, his body is in charge, and by the time his brain catches up again, it's far, far too late to stop.

Kirk's hands are in his hair, raking the length of his spine, gripping the flesh of his buttocks to pull him closer, and his mouth is demanding: teeth clashing against teeth, scraping over Spock's jaw as he trails ungentle lips roughly from mouth to neck to collarbone. Spock fists his hands in Kirk's dress tunic, gripping the cloth as it resists him, slides against his skin: brushed satin was never meant to be clutched between heedless fingers. He feels rather than hears the low groan of pleasure in Kirk's throat as their erections align, as the last vestiges of rational thought dissolve. He can feel an answering hardness grinding against his as Human hands snake down the length of his back to fasten on his hips, holding him in place as Kirk rocks against him. It's both hesitant and utterly abandoned: as though his friend is uncertain of his welcome, but completely beyond restraint. It sends sparks of pleasure along the length of Spock's swollen cock, and he thinks he makes a sound, though it could just as easily have come from Kirk; in any case, his companion grins around the noise as it echoes in the empty space of their joined mouths, and he thrusts forward, again and again.

A focused, determined pressure edges him backwards, and Spock can feel himself shifting in tiny increments, feet shuffling against the bristle of the carpet tiles. Their legs tangle, hobbling them as they move, and Spock knows where they are going, though his eyes are not open to track their progress across the room. The back of his calves connect with the cushions of Kirk's narrow couch and they tumble together, a mess of heat and limbs and need. The fall separates them and Spock finds himself thrusting upwards, seeking contact once more, but Kirk arches his hips out of the way and presses down with his mouth instead, seeking out Spock's with an open-eyed kiss that is almost gentle. A hand slides down between their two bodies, grazing his stomach, his hip, seeking out the iron-hard length of Spock's cock where it's leashed to his stomach by the tight fabric of his pants. Fingers contract, cupping the head through the cloth and Kirk pulls his head back a little, far enough that he can meet Spock's eyes. His gaze is dark, uncertain; disordered but contained behind that familiar, granite-faced determination that has steered them through uncounted dangers.

The message is simple and very clear: this is the moment where Spock can end it. One word, and Kirk will disentangle them; will push himself to his feet, step back and straighten his tunic; will cross the room, arousal tenting the front of his pants, and stand by the window, breathing roughly, while Spock collects himself and slips quietly from the apartment. Spock knows he will do this, because he knows his friend. He can feel the vulnerability, the indecision, cloud the air between them, and he can feel the small tremble in the hand that rises to trace the line of his jaw, breath ghosting waves of warmth and moisture across the sensitized skin of Spock's lips. He knows what he needs to do; there is no question of that. He needs to stop this. But the words line up in his throat and collide, and all he can think about is what it cost him, last time, to break away from this touch. Maybe Kirk is right. Maybe, in the final analysis, denial is what will tear this apart. Maybe it's too late to turn back now.

Perhaps it's involuntary, perhaps it's just that his body knows what it wants and presses its advantage in the wake of his mind's indecision, but Spock's hip twitches reflexively, rolling his cock in Kirk's grip, and the sudden wave of pleasure forces his head back against the pillows, forces his eyes shut, forces a noise that's halfway between a sigh and a groan out from the depths of his throat. And this is all it takes to undo so many years of care, so much fear and doubt and anxiety. So many hidden looks, so much longing, so many nights in the quiet dark, hand fisted around himself, pumping a miserable release from a body that wants and can't be made to stop wanting. So much love, so much despair, so much shame: it crumbles now like a wall of sand as they scramble to close the narrow space that separates them.

Spock presses upwards as Kirk bears down on him, hand crushed between their groins as he closes his mouth over Spock's. His fingers flex against the solid flesh of Spock's penis, but the hand retracts, gripping the sensitized skin as Kirk pulls it free, and it settles against the cushions beside Spock's head. Kirk flattens his body against Spock's, sliding into place, sucking in a breath as their erections grind together. He thrusts, hard, and a tiny, nasal sound of pleasure escapes him; again, and Spock arches his neck against the cushions. A third time, and there's nothing left but instinct and a crippling, shattering need.

It's clumsy, it's uncoordinated, it's inelegant; mounting urgency overwhelming rhythm and finesse as every stroke drags them closer to a precipice that approaches with alarming speed. Kirk's breath is rapid, uncontrolled, small noises of arousal forcing their way out of his throat as he pulls back, nips at Spock's lower lips with gentle teeth. His eyes are dark and hooded; they fix on Spock's chin, his hairline, his chest, skittering away from his gaze, for which Spock is profoundly grateful. He cannot meet his friend's stare and find him so disordered; he cannot see himself reflected in it, see the evidence of what he knows he must not do. And so he closes his eyes, bucks up into the solid line of his friend's pubis, cocks colliding, sliding, writhing against each other, while a roar builds slowly in his ears, in his spine, in his belly. And when Kirk suddenly stiffens, lets out a fractured cry; when his left hand tightens around Spock's arm, right hand fisting into a claw at his back, when he feels warm wetness soak through the fabric at the head of his cock, it's as much as it takes to send Spock catapulting after him. The world whites out, and there is nothing but the crash of pleasure, shorting out his brain, sucking him out of himself and into a hazy darkness beyond.

This is where the fracturing begins.

-o-o-o-

The first thing he is aware of is the labored rasp of Kirk's breath and a boneless pressure on his chest, as of a Human body prostrated by fatigue. Spock is not sure how long they have lain like this, though he thinks it's no more than a few minutes; it is difficult to assimilate his thoughts into any kind of coherent order beyond the aftershocks of orgasm. They skitter around the edges of his consciousness, whispering to him, as his body floats on a wave of warmth, release and exhaustion. It would be easy to let go, to drift into sleep with his friend - his lover - pressed tight against him, arms fixed around Spock's waist, and the scent of him - his skin, his hair, his arousal and his orgasm - filling the air, filling his head. Spock has imagined this more times than he is prepared to number; countless days and nights of wanting, of aching, of need. It would be easy to slip into uninterrogated peace and stillness now, to let the curling fibers of lethargy drag him down into unconsciousness and just sleep until he's through with sleeping. There will be time, later, to sort through what this means, to process and to evaluate, to make sense of their new reality. It would be easy to release himself into the tidal pull of lassitude, succumb to oblivion for as long as it takes to recuperate too many nights with neither rest nor trance. It's just that his unquiet mind will not let him go.

He feels… empty, in a way he can't satisfactorily describe to himself. It's not just the vacancy, the desolation, that follows climax; it's more than that. It's the sense that something fragile has finally broken. It's the sense that part of him, part of who he is, was bound up in a fight that he's just lost. In the blackness behind his eyes, he sees a white face, blue eyes clouded with buried pain, and a bright, brittle smile that cuts anger and confusion into a young boy's soul. He hears a soft, clear voice, honeyed Human lies that injure where they are supposed to heal, and high whine of panic, like a faraway siren, sounds in the depths of his skull.

From nowhere, rushing at him like a nightmare out of the post-coital fog, it hits him: see what I have done.

Adrenalin spikes, a disorienting lurch that twists his guts and catches his breath in his throat. A quizzical noise rumbles in Kirk's chest, soporific and lazy with sleep, but Spock hears it only abstractly, as though it comes from a great distance. It's possible he responds, though he can't say how or what form it takes; only that there is no further sound from his friend. Or maybe it's simply that it's lost behind the thunder of blood in his veins as Spock concentrates on settling the sudden burst of horror that spins him through layers of lethargy and into frozen vigilance.

See what I have done.

Pretense was all they had. It was the only thing that was holding them back, locking them into a place where they could manage this. What's left when that final refuge is gone?

…a rapid, lightning-fire glance up from the science console, and the Captain's eyes are on him, trailing contentment from some part of his soul that he has long since ceased to acknowledge. A stray touch, warm Human flesh like sunlight on the fabric of his uniform; gentle, generous laughter that accepts him more completely than the dictates of regulation and command impartiality. Skin the color of milk and roses, bleached by the mirror-light of T'Khut, and the certainty of love - unconditional, absolute, and profound - reflected in a face he's wanted for longer than he can remember…

But the image twists abruptly, fragments; the face contorts in pain; the body cowers away from him, and there is only sorrow, remorse, and loss…

Ah, but I withheld, says an indignant corner of his psyche. Even in the depths of abandon, I did not take more than was safe to take…

It's not enough, though. It's semantics. It's sophistry. There is no safe. Safe is not what they do. This was the decision he took long ago, bathed in the ambiguous glory of his new-found self-knowledge: this thing, this dangerous thing, must be contained, it must be bricked up and buried where it cannot cause harm. Because Spock knows his friend: given a choice between secure contentment and reckless joy, he will not hesitate. He won't even understand the question, but he doesn't know what he's asking for. One of them has to be reasonable.

A movement at his shoulder, and Kirk's voice, close to his ear, whispers, fiercely, "Don't go."

Later, Spock will remember that voice and wonder if Kirk knew, even then. It's the voice of a lover, not a commander. There is no confidence in it.

"Negative," says Spock, but his voice is thin and dry. It sounds to him like the voice of a man struggling for air as a vise tightens around his chest, and he knows, suddenly, that he is lying.

…I've come to take you home, dear, she says, and she smiles but she stands awkwardly, as though her body is trying to bend in on itself, and her eyes are bright, too bright, burying something that she doesn't want him to see…

No, he cannot pinpoint the hour he realized he was in love with his friend, but he can pinpoint the moment, the second, he realizes that this love will destroy them both. It's like a chain, shackling them together, dragging them down into an ocean of darkness. It cannot be managed and it cannot be contained; it was hubris to imagine that he could make it safe for either one of them. Shame chills his stomach, spreading tendrils of self-disgust beneath a pool of cooling semen that testifies to the utter dereliction of his self-control. And it will always be this way, he understands abruptly, because without this part of him he no longer understands himself: the man that he has become is half of a shared soul. This cannot be. This cannot be. For both of their sakes, he needs to make this stop.

Spock makes himself open his eyes, makes himself drag his gaze from the desolate contemplation of a hairline crack that fractures the white plaster ceiling above, makes himself tilt his head, hair rasping against the fabric of the cushion as he seeks out two hazel eyes that are fixed, already, on him. Kirk's eyebrows are arched in a gesture that Spock does not recognize, face locked and frozen into an expression that Spock cannot read. It's an effort not to look away, but he will not allow himself that, not now.

I've come to take you home dear, she says.

And his shadow-self answers, Yes.

Kaiidth.

END OF PART II

-o-o-o-

A/N: I know it feels like we're still a thousand years away from any kind of resolution, but I promise we're not. It's closer than it looks. Thanks for reading!