Title: Count on Me
Characters: Kirk, Spock
Rating: K
Word Count: 323 (too lazy to cut it down, yes)
Warning/Spoilers: Immediately pre-Enterprise Incident. Spoilers for that episode.
Kirk finally whirls from his restless pacing, face twisted into that particular expression that indicates unhappy obedience to a distasteful duty, and tightly folds his arms in an unconscious gesture of self-defense.
"You do understand what you're getting into, Commander?" The usage of his title and not his name, as is the human's wont when they are alone, betrays more than anything else the tense state the man's nerves are in. "If we fail, the Federation will disavow any knowledge of our actions, we'll go down in history as traitors, and most likely we'll be dead."
He is silent, for no answer is sufficient at the moment.
"And if we succeed," and Kirk snorts a mirthless laugh, "we'll probably be either dead or close to it, we'll have compromised any moral code we possess, and we'll never get recognition for our sacrifices. Is that something you're really willing to do, Mr. Spock? Risk the ship and your position aboard her, your very life even, over this idiocy of a covert mission for a Federation that doesn't even begin to grasp the risks involved?"
"If I decline," he answers slowly, gently, for he can sense the solitary pain the human is radiating (and yet the captain is unselfishly promising to find some way to allow him to refuse the mission they have been given so ruthlessly), "…if I decline, you will perform it alone, will you not?"
Kirk looks away, ashamed. "I have no choice," he snarls bitterly.
He intentionally steps into the human's personal space. "Then I believe my response is, as you humans would put it…count me in."
Kirk has not retreated from his supportive advance, which is an improvement over the last hour's argument, and now looks at him in a mixture of fond sadness, eyes soft.
"No, Mr. Spock," the captain responds after a moment, his features finally relaxing into a half-smile. "The correct phrase is 'you can count on me'."