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Chapter Text

Starfleet training was nothing but thorough. If the three-week survival course during the Academy hadn’t drilled basic first-aid into a cadet by the time it had run its course, the first few away missions would have hammered it into the brain circuits of the greenest of ensigns. It was no secret that deep-space exploration was not for the faint of heart.

Certainly, Kirk was no stranger to having to carry a fellow crewman in crisis situations. In fact, his first away mission aboard the Farragut could most succinctly be described to be FUBAR. Then-Lieutenant Kirk had had to carry the only other surviving member of the landing party to safety, and on a bad leg too.

Theoretically, he knew that their Vulcan counterparts weighed considerably more than humans because of their higher bone and muscle density. It was, however, one thing to be in possession of that particular fascinating factoid, and quite another altogether to be privy to that on a first-hand basis. That night after Kirk had finally filled in the proper documentation to promote the Enterprise’s resident Vulcan to the position of First Officer, finally sealing the wound in the duty roster left gaping after Gary’s death, he had moaned to Bones about how his new First Officer was simply too goddamn perfect in every way, how am I going to foster an “intimate command relationship” with a Vulcan who won’t give me the time of day outside of duties on the bridge ? He definitely hadn’t meant to get acquainted with Mister Spock in this manner, and with the landing party on the run from bloodthirsty natives while being cut off from ship-to-party communication, no less.

A sudden exhale of air, louder than a gunshot in the balmy air of this godforsaken Class M planet, was the only warning he had received before all 180 pounds — so he paid close attention to the health status of his First Officer, sue him — of corded Vulcan muscle and flesh ploughed into his side. The only indication that this wasn’t just the work of two Vulcan left feet was the wet starburst of heat that was beginning to seep steadily into his side when he manhandled Spock back into an upright position. That, and the nauseating tremour of the projectile — an honest-to-God arrow that would have torn into his torso if not for his First’s intervention — with each ragged breath Spock took.      

“Shit. God damn this to Orion’s hell!” Even as he swore with sufficient violence to put a Klingon to shame, Kirk was up and running, all but dragging the sagging weight of his First with him. To his credit, Spock managed to drag his feet along in a passable facsimile of motion, although the overall effect was more akin to moving in molasses.

“Captain.” Kirk couldn’t tell if his breathlessness was because of the exertion, blood loss, or the possibility that the arrow had pierced one of his lungs. “It would be eminently more logical for… for…” Spock’s speech faltered as they hit a snag, one among many, along the rocky forest terrain. Studiously ignoring the growing heaviness of his First’s body against his side, Kirk manoeuvred them round a thicket of trees and into a blessed pocket in the earth, a fortunately strategic spot behind a boulder.

“Commander. If you even begin to suggest that I should leave you here and get to the beam-down point myself, I’d have you busted down to Ensign, no, back to the Academy, faster than you can say the word ‘fascinating’,” Kirk gritted out, voice rough, shocking even himself with the heated vehemence in his voice. His hands, however, were infinitely more gentle as he pressed a strip of his tunic to the wound in Spock’s side. He fought the urge to smooth a hand over the heavy jut of the Commander’s brow, already breaking out into an unnatural sweat.  

A slow, owlish blink. “... fascinating.”

If the situation wasn’t so dire, Kirk would have laughed. The man sure had a hell of a sense of timing, and an understated brand of humour to boot. Why had he been so apprehensive that he wouldn’t be able to work well with his First Officer again? He filed that thought away to be re-examined at a later time, preferably when his First’s blood was mostly inside his body rather than outside.

The sounds of whistling arrows and pounding footsteps seemed to have died down for the moment. However, there was still the whole matter of regrouping with the rest of the landing party, which he had ordered to scatter and assemble at the original beam-down point as soon as the arrows had started bearing down on them. Casting a critical eye over his First slouched beside him, Kirk noted grimly that it was not going to be an easy task with a crewmember down.

He spared a moment to think of the rest of the crew — Sulu proved to be level-headed enough in crises but he hoped the junior grade officers in the science team would manage to pull through by following his lead — before he sprang into action. Communicator clutched in one hand, he moved into a crouch, placing one hand on Spock’s shoulder. “I hate to ask this of you but do you think you could stand?”  

As if anticipating his captain’s request or having reached the logical conclusion that they could not stay stationary in this hiding spot for long, Spock was already struggling to his feet, one hand braced against the boulder behind him. Those long, coltish legs that ate up miles of ground faster than any human could be capable of worked against him this time, folding like a house of cards beneath him. Was it his imagination or was the wound bleeding even more heavily now? The pain was definitely making its presence known, Vulcan control or no, as Spock let out a short grunt.

“Alright, easy, easy.” Kirk caught his First Officer by his elbows but that scarcely prevented him from pitching almost all the way into the bracket of his arms.  The Vulcan stiffened like a cat dropped into bathwater for all of five seconds before easing against his body a little too comfortably, as if he couldn’t hold himself up for a second longer. Tamping down the red alert that was beginning to blare in his head, he spoke, a little too quickly, to the ruffled cap of dark hair, “I hope this doesn’t offend your Vulcan sensibilities, Mister Spock, but it looks like I’d have to carry you.”

That was easier said than done, however. Kirk wasn’t one to overly pride himself on his physique, although he wouldn’t deny that he put work into it. He had a regular gym routine and swam often but it was for functionality more than anything, just as how any other Starfleet officer who was cleared to go on regular away teams was required to adhere to a certain standard of physical fitness. He was confident he could carry a grown man, potentially even a stockier, heavier individual.

Oh boy, but a Vulcan proved to be a whole different matter.  

When the third attempt of trying the fireman’s carry on his injured First turned out futile, with Spock all but grimacing in pain, breaths coming out shorter and shallower than before, Kirk gave it up as a lost cause. Time was running out, and that was one resource they did not have in spades. He had to get Spock up to Sickbay, stat. Silently, and not for the first time, he cursed whatever was imbued in the vegetation that ran some kind of natural interference against ship-to-party communication.  

In the end, the only configuration that worked was with Spock draped across his back like a backpack, Kirk’s hands circling his wrists. It wasn’t ideal for more than one reason. Spock was evidently the taller of the two of them so his feet inevitably dragged along the ground as they shuffled off slower than he would’ve liked in an absurd, off-rhythm gait. Kirk was also loathe to use his First’s already weakened body as an unintentional shield against further deadly projectiles, despite rather morbid reassurances otherwise that it was “more logical to concentrate the injuries in one party to preserve the chances of at least one of us returning to the ship alive”.

It was to their great relief — not that the Commander would admit to it — that the ominous rustling of leaves that had been doggedly tailing their slow progress toward the clearing revealed themselves to be Lieutenant Sulu and Ensign Barrows, a little bruised and banged up but sans arrows in their sides. Sulu didn’t react to the queer sight of the Commander draped over the Captain, although Barrows blinked a little too furiously for it to be excused as a physiological response to the planet’s muggy atmosphere.

“Lieutenant, status report. Any sign of the rest of the away team?” Kirk tried to modulate his breathing but it was a little difficult with the weight of a full-grown Vulcan pressed against his back, not to mention the sheer heat pouring off his First.  

“No, sir. We split up a few miles back. Jefferson got hit but Wong seemed to have some clue about what’s pissing off the locals so badly. Something about the frequency of our tricorders or our communicators messing with their heads.” On one hand, it was refreshing to have an explanation for how and why their simple planetary survey had turned into such a shitstorm. On the other hand, it made Kirk feel even more personally responsible for not having had the foresight to prevent said shitstorm, made even worse by the fact that two of his crew were still missing and his First Officer had been shot.

God, what a shitshow.

Where the hell were Jefferson and Wong? He itched to establish contact with the ship but if it were true that the communicator frequency were somehow compounding the natives’ aggression or perhaps even acting as a homing beacon… He worried at his lower lip with his teeth. The figure at his back seemed to grow heavier by the second. He was certain Spock would be a lot more comfortable in a supine position but he knew it was necessary to be up and ready to go at once.

“Spock?” No response. “Commander, report!” Only an indistinct murmur against the nape of his neck. The pulse under his fingers was hummingbird fast and thready. Barrows was staring wide-eyed at the Vulcan slumped against his back, and even Sulu had a grim expression on his face.

Kirk glanced up sharply toward the tangle of vegetation as a loud crash rang across the clearing, followed by the telltale whistle of arrows. One hand reaching back to grasp at Spock’s uninjured side, he barked into his communicator, “Kirk to Enterprise. Do you read? Prepare for beam-up from original beam-down coordinates.”

Just as two more figures crashed through the thicket of trees, the slumped figure of Jefferson leaning heavily against Wong, he felt the figure draped across his back go completely slack.

No!

“Enterprise, six to beam up! Medical team to standby at transporter room. Jefferson and Spock down, I repeat — ”   

All the factoids, the dos and don’ts, about Vulcans went hurtling out of the window. His hand found Spock’s, his grasp bruising, even as the sparkle of the transporter beam encroached into the periphery of his vision.

The moment his feet found solid purchase on the transporter pad, he was swiftly manoeuvring Spock onto his uninjured side. Now, in the bright light of the transporter room, it was evident that there was so much blood. Green stained the velour of Spock’s science blues liberally. There was no doubt that the same green had seeped into the back of his gold tunic  and into the skin of his hands, from where he had tried to staunch the flow of life with a scrap of his own tunic. It must only have been the span of a single breath but time seemed to freeze and elongate, milliseconds tripping over each other into an eternity. Spock just lay there, precious lifeblood leaching onto the transporter room floor.

The moment shattered when he was gently but firmly pushed to the sidelines as Bones and his team got to work. Left with nothing to do but to leave his injured crew members in the capable hands of his medical team, he turned to head out of the transporter room.

His hand felt strangely bereft all the way to the bridge.

It was unsurprising to find Kirk at the gym at this hour. It wasn’t entirely shocking to find him at the weights. McCoy was well aware of his routine and strongly encouraged it, what with the calorie intake the captain was known to indulge in and the wonders working out could do in terms of stress relief.  What was interesting, however, was the single-minded intensity in his gaze as he worked through his routine.

It was the same look he had in his eye before he told the Admiralty to go fuck themselves. Not in those exact words, of course. The captain didn’t necessarily enjoy wearing the hat of a diplomat but in the times that he was required to, he wore it just fine.

The captain did seem to be hitting the gym more often than usual, ever since that botched planetary survey more than a week ago. Don't think he hadn't noticed how Kirk had increased the intensity of his workouts, too. CMO's prerogative, and all. Oh, McCoy was a doctor and a man of science. Sure, he was no paragon of logic like a certain pointy-eared hobgoblin but he knew correlation when he saw it. It was only a matter of teasing out the truth from the horse’s mouth. It was the duty of every ship’s CMO to assess the mental state of all crewmembers, and everyone knew that crew morale aboard the ship was intricately tied up with that of the captain’s.  

More than that, Kirk definitely looked like he needed a friend. Lord, the look on his face when he had beamed up, covered in green…

“What brings you to this neck of the woods, Bones?” Kirk huffed out between reps, his face bisected by the pole of the barbell. To the side, Lieutenant Kyle, his spotter for the evening, nodded a polite greeting.

McCoy held his tongue until Kirk finished his last few reps, wordlessly handing him a bottle of water as he toweled the sweat off his face and caught his breath. Kyle nodded again in their direction as he took his leave. McCoy waited until the automatic doors swished to a close before he retorted, good-natured, “why, can’t a man take an interest in keeping fit now and then?”

Kirk’s face, flushed from exertion, quirked into a wry grin. “Be my guest! Sure you don’t get sick of that since that’s what you do on duty shift all the time?” His teasing tone wasn’t exactly reflected in his eyes, however. There was a tension to the lines of his shoulders and his back, and a lingering flintiness in his gaze.     

McCoy grunted, mock-affronted. He was not going to be fooled that easy. “Well, since I’m on the job twenty-four seven, you look like you could use something for all that tension ya got building up.”

Kirk made a non-committal noise, swinging the towel above and over his shoulders. Oh, if that was how it was going to be, he was not going to pull his punches. Sometimes, pulling words out of Kirk was even worse than coaxing emotion out from a damn Vulcan.  

“The hobgoblin’s due to be back on light duty today, y’know,” McCoy offered into the silence, casually leaning against the bulkhead.

“I know.” Aha! The slight shiftiness in Kirk’s gaze did not go unnoticed. Being a physician had trained him to be very observant indeed.

McCoy hummed. Time to take a step back a little, survey the situation. “I noticed you’ve switched up your routine. Finally decided to push yourself on the weights, huh?” Kirk had always been demanding of his physique in the same way he was of his command, probably because his body was an extension of his mind and both were crucial for a starship captain with over four hundred lives under his charge. His recent standards for himself had risen beyond that, though. If he didn’t know better, he would have called it almost obsessive.

Kirk’s gaze slid up to his face, and then quickly moved elsewhere at his non-sequitur. He shrugged. “I figured a little more upper body strength wouldn’t hurt on away missions.”

Ah, and that was the crux of the issue, wasn’t it? Now, to hammer in the nail right on the head. “And here I was thinking you’ve got a special someone to impress.” Maybe laying on the Southern drawl a bit thick was somewhat excessive but it sure got the reaction he expected.

Kirk’s head snapped up, his face flushing a deeper red. “What… Is that what you think?”

McCoy held his gaze evenly. “You tell me.” When no further response was forthcoming, he ventured on. “Y’know, you don’t have to feel guilty over the hobgoblin taking the metaphorical bullet for you, right? Hell, he doesn’t blame you. For all its worth, he’s as grateful as a Vulcan can be without outright showing emotion.”  

Kirk snorted mirthlessly and was silent for a long time.

Then, he started pacing, his hands worrying away at the towel in his hands.  “We pride ourselves on our mission of exploration and seeking out new civilisations and lifeforms but how much do we know about our non-Terran allies back home, our non-Terran comrades serving on this very ship?”  

McCoy frowned but did not react otherwise to his non-sequitur. In the amount of time he had known him, Kirk’s logic might seem circuitous or even unusual at times but often managed to set off the fuse that ignited flashes of brilliant intuition. He was careful to keep his drawl to a minimum as he responded, “I’d say we’ve come a long way since the UFP was founded. Heck, since First Contact.”  

Kirk waved a hand through the air, slicing the air in agitation. “That’s exactly it. We have a wealth of information in the ship’s computer, ready for perusal at any given time. Starfleet training predisposes us to remember basic xenobiology but how could it compare to the inborn ability to parse the nuances of human micro-expressions or the unerring speed and precision with which you can locate the human heart?”

McCoy met his perturbed stare head-on. He briefly regretted having to be the one to drive the knife into an already gaping wound. If it was any consolation at all, he made sure that his voice was modulated to sound as gentle as possible. “Or the capability to shoulder the weight of a half-conscious Vulcan?”

It had the intended effect.

Kirk stilled. Closed his eyes, took a deep breath, as if not trusting himself to speak. The two ends of the towel, draped over his shoulders, were held taut by two clenched fists. Grasped any harder, and it would reach its breaking point for sure.

“I need him, Bones. I don’t know, I’ve known him for a grand total of what, three months, half of which was spent being intimidated by that graceful eyebrow of his and tiptoeing around Vulcan cultural mores but there’s one thing I know, even more than I know my soul. I need him. Damn it, Bones. I need him.”  

Those three words were pregnant with the implication that this budding relationship, whatever it was, went beyond what was expected of the usual command dynamic between Captain and First Officer.

McCoy was the first to break the silence. “You know, when I signed on to be CMO of the Enterprise, I didn’t know just how batty her captain was going to be.” With a flourish, he spread out his arms. “I can see it now, the headlines of the ship’s newsletter. ‘Want to bench press a Vulcan in thirty days? Try this gym routine’!”

For a moment, the doctor grew apprehensive about whether he had crossed a line. He considered himself one of the captain’s closest confidantes aboard the ship but he knew he was toeing the line a little this time. Kirk really did have a soft spot for the Vulcan, one the size of Andromeda. One would have to be a fool not to see it.

He relaxed when he spotted the sides of Kirk’s eyes crinkling. Kirk broke into a rueful grin and slapped him on the back. “Don’t you start getting ideas now, Bones. Stick to your hypos and tricorders, Doctor! Leave the clickbait out of your Sickbay.”  

As they strode out of the gym side by side in companionable silence, McCoy noted that Kirk didn’t exactly deny honing his body strength for the express reason of being able to carry his First Officer. 

Chapter Text

Hello! I know some of you might be wishing that this would be an actual chapter update and I really didn't want to get anyone's hopes up by posting this as a chapter (if anyone still happens to be subbed to the fic/to me, I'm so sorry if this became a false alarm!) but I didn't quite know how else to reach out and I didn't want to just mark this as abandoned/on indefinite hiatus without some kind of explanation or closure. I also apologise if this little note has come rather late! 

Anyway, long story short, a lot of things have happened since I first posted this first chapter, both good and bad (and of course, a whole global pandemic, among other things). The reasons for having stopped writing/posting here (and Tumblr as well) are many, varied, and largely personal; I can only say that I found myself wishing so many times over the many months of absence that I could find the will to dive back in but part of me shied away from coming back when I wasn't able or ready to write with that same spark and love. Somehow, I also felt I had lost the ability to bring words onto the page and all I could do was consume words from others, strange as it sounds. Still, fandom continued (and still continues) to give me comfort even while I am not actively creating content. 

But really, I just wanted to say: thank you so much to everyone who has read this story (or any of my ST works). You were (and still are) the reason I keep on writing, even if I may not exactly be doing so right now, and especially not in the capacity that would give more chapters to this fic. To those who have left lovely comments, reading them gives me great joy and I may try to slowly reply to them if I can. Apart from the frenetic bout of posting in another fandom (which mostly worked as an escape from reality that helped me through a really, really difficult time that year), unfortunately, I'm not sure if I will be posting new fic/chapters, ST or not, any time soon, especially as I am soon embarking on another long journey (for graduate studies this time). I hope you understand! Spirk, and the lovely Trek fandom, however, have been and always will be old cherished friends to me and I really hope that one day, I will once again step aboard the Enterprise bridge with you. 

Maybe I will see some of you around (and I hope to!) when I do happen to lurk on here/Tumblr ever so often, or whenever I decide to resume fic writing again. LLAP my friends!