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origin of love
In the first universe, they are friends.
The sun, Spock says, shines no more brightly than his James. Kirk laughs, clear and bright, and takes a sip of his drink as he looks up at the stars. The vast expanse comforts him and he hopes that one day, he will be among them.
“The sun is not here right now though, is it, Spock?” He holds up his hand, palm out, and Spock takes it in his.
“You’re enough to me.” He turns his gaze to the stars.
They are friends, but if you look closely, they are so much more, and they both know it. It’s a silent unspoken truth, and they take it into their touch every night, and every morning they see it when they wake by the others’ side. It’s easy and natural, more than anything should be, clear as the cycle of the seasons and the rise and set of the sun. The sun, Spock says, the sun shines in your smile.
It’s cheesy and he laughs quietly when saying it, but Kirk knows he means it every time. They live quietly and unremarkably, but happy.
It’s never this easy again in the other versions.
sparks fly
In the next life, fate plays a joke on them, or so it seems. Jim grows up wondering why his father had to be the one to die in that car crash and why his mother has never been the same since. He grows up wondering why it feels like a string has been cut that once tied him to the love of his parents. He wonders why, even so, he feels another string tugging on his heart every now and then. Sometimes he doesn’t feel it for months, even years, but there are a few times it pulls on him so tightly he loses his breath. The first time this happens, he collapses after a lecture in college and his friend runs to his side worriedly.
“Jim, what the fuck was that?!”, Bones asks - no, yells - and Kirk has no answer, only the sense that he just missed something important.
He doesn’t know, of course, that only a few hundred metres away from him, Spock sits on a train passing by, on his way home for his mother’s funeral. Grief overwhelms him and he almost misses the lurch of his heart as they pass yet another town. He writes it off as a symptom of his grief, but even he doubts this explanation. It hadn’t been grief that overwhelmed his heart then, but love. Overpowering love, in a way he hadn’t felt before. It terrifies him, but there’s a comfort in it too, a comfort he doesn’t yet understand.
It happens again when he returns to the university he teaches at and it pulls him from his uneasy dreams. Some hundred metres away, Kirk is trying to get with a girl at a party and just as he’s about to pull his most charming smile, all breath leaves his body. He still gets her, of course, making the best out of a bad situation and the nagging question at the back of his mind wondering why nothing ever lasts for him. Neither does this girl, or the next, or the guy after that. He says that he likes it that way but secretly, buried deep inside his heart, he wishes for a true bond, like his mother and father had.
Spock marries a childhood friend and they live quietly and unremarkably, but by no means happily. Kirk keeps bouncing from one relationship to the next for years, never satisfied, always feeling empty. He lives fast and unpredictably, but never truly happy. They each feel the invisible string that never ceases pulling at their hearts. They feel it even when it’s quiet and they’re far apart, and they never stop wondering about the doubt it has planted in their minds until their last breaths. They are unaware that they die at the exact same moment, many miles apart. Of course, they are also unaware of each other’s existence.
homemade dynamite
Then there’s the one where Kirk is a movie star and Spock an exasperated journalist after a good story. Kirk jokes that their relationship is like it was written for a fanfiction, but with less happy endings and a lot more hurt and heartbreak.
“In our next life, Spock, I hope we’re happier.” He says with a smile and Spock feels the sadness seep through the facade.
“James,” he sighs, “none of that makes sense.” and he kisses Kirk as if to prove to him that they are happy.
They’re in a good phase, a bubble of drunken happiness and loving kisses, and Spock refuses to acknowledge that they never last. It’s illogical, and he doesn’t like trusting his feelings over his reason like this, but with Kirk, he’s willing to take his chances. Even after every time it goes wrong, after every time he’s allowed his heart to be hurt, after every time he put himself back together only for Kirk to breeze into his life again. His mother worries for him and Nyota calls him an idiot (the worry doesn’t escape him), but he is enthralled by Kirk and can never quite place why. Every time Spock leaves, Kirk asks him why he came back in the first place, and he never has an answer. The first few times, he tries. “Your charm, of course.” he says, then “Because you asked me to.”, then “Because I love you still.”, and then he just stays quiet. He leaves quietly, feeling like he’s abandoning his fate every time but not knowing how to stay.
He never stays away for long, always drawn back in as if by a spell. It’s hard to escape Kirk, his face on posters and magazines everywhere. His dazzling smile shines down on Spock everywhere, as if calling to him. “Come back to me, Spock” he hears from the posters at his local cinema; “I can love you better, darling” he imagines Kirk smiling on a magazine cover saying to him. It’s ridiculous and embarrassing and Kirk would never say those things. And yet, Spock keeps coming back to him. Call it love, or self-destruction, or idiocy. Any of them will do, but none of them can explain it.
Kirk spends most of his life in a blur. Being raised in such a callous industry will do that to you, his mother says. It almost sounds like an apology. When he repeats it to Spock many years later, he knows it was meant to be one. Coming out of his mouth it does not sound like one; it sounds like the prayer of a desperate man trying to hold on to the one good thing in his life and watching it slip away despite it all. He jokes in their first meeting that people leaving him is the one constant in his life, but unlike everyone else he’s met, Spock doesn’t laugh. He pauses and looks at Kirk, a question in his eyes that Kirk doesn’t want to answer. He later understands this as a sign of care, love even.
“In our next life, Spock, I hope we’re happier.” he says, making it sound like a joke but deep down desperately believing it. Spock dismisses it, but kisses him like he understands. Which, of course, he does. Kirk knows he does because of the look in his eyes every time he leaves. It’s never Spock’s fault, he’s painfully aware of how much Spock wants to stay every time, and how impossible it is for him to stay in the centre of Kirk’s self-destructive hurricane. He wishes he could stop, and continues on, losing himself more with every drink, every fling, every party, every job he despises more than the last. He does it because he doesn’t know anything else until he meets Spock, and then he does it because he has gotten too used to the blur and doesn’t remember how to get out of it. Parts of him don’t want to, too comfortable in the mess, and he hates those parts more than anything else. He’s better when Spock is around, hesitantly letting himself be loved and loving back. They’re happy sometimes and it’s then that Kirk imagines themselves moving to a remote cabin in the woods and living out their lives in comfort and peace, together. It’s the daydream that keeps him going even at his worst, even every time he makes Spock leave. It’s like the sun, warming his numb limbs and number heart, like a mirage in the desert.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. They spend years in their limbo, until everyone grows tired and they grow apart. Gossip sites fill with questions about their relationship, if there’s more than professionalism or friendship, but no one ever confirms anything. Speculation is all there is, and all there remains. James Kirk retires his career after writing a memoir laying out his tumultuous life. He is hailed as an icon, lauded for his bravery of coming out and being honest about his addictions. He hears none of it, and spends his last decades in a cabin in the mountains enjoying the quiet peace.
Spock finds his long-sought story and as accolades and assignments come pouring in, the part of him yearning for a purpose settles. Kirk keeps a scrapbook of all of Spock’s articles and Spock’s copy of Kirk’s memoir remains his most-read book through the years. Kirk sent him a copy, signed: For my beloved. Always yours, James T. Kirk.
a case of you
Holistically speaking, they are in love. Their lives converge as if the entire universe and fate had conspired to bring them together (and Kirk will later insist that they did), with a series of impossible events, unexplainable phenomena, and many other things that are larger than words can describe.
Kirk waltzes into Spock’s life in a yellow leather jacket (fake leather, he insists), with a winning smile and incessant bravado. Well, he doesn’t waltz as much as fall through Spock’s window unannounced. Doesn’t fall as much as breaking into Spock’s apartment through his window. Whatever. There is a point to it, okay? Kirk knows this man is important to his investigation. He doesn’t know why or how, but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. All he knows is that it’s absolutely vital that he makes this man his friend - no, partner. Detective partner.
There’s a murdered millionaire and his missing daughter. That’s how it starts. The murdered millionaire’s former bodyguard, Nyota Uhura, joins their investigation and Kirk is delighted. He loves people, loves meeting people, and loves most of all people who stick around. He’s not used to that and expects Spock and Uhura to leave at any moment. They don’t, though. Uhura is determined to solve the mystery that resulted in her employer’s death and Kirk is her best lead. She seems to like him, like his kindness and far-fetched sounding theories that always end up being true. She doesn’t say it, but Kirk knows, and he’s glad to have her around. She’s the only one of them who can really handle herself in a fight.
Spock is different. He tags along because first, his job is involved, then his sister, and eventually because he can’t tear himself away. Kirk knows, because he can always tell. Call it a gut feeling, or magic, or coincidences. Or perhaps love. Of course, he would tell you it’s the inter-connectivity of all things and quite obviously him and Spock are connected by more than just coincidence. The universe always places him exactly where he’s meant to be. It’s fate. Possibly. Whatever it is, there’s no point denying it: him and Spock are meant to be together.
There is an argument between Spock and his sister, Michael. It’s explosive in a way Kirk had never witnessed before, and it worries him. She leaves, and Spock retreats into himself, just when Kirk had managed to draw him out of his shell. No matter. He knows Michael is right, of course, right to be hurt by Spock’s lies, despite his good intentions. He also knows that Spock isn’t a bad person, despite what he believes of himself. He decides that alongside the investigation, he has a second mission, the secret one, the one only he knows: to show Spock that he can be loved, that love is worth letting down your walls for, even if you end up getting hurt. There are beautiful things beyond those walls and to close yourself off from them is more painful than letting them hurt you. Kirk knows this, as he knows so many things, because it’s fate. He is meant to be with Spock, after all, meant to love him.
Kirk keeps asking questions. He wants to know more about Spock, who remains a mystery even to him, the holistic detective who knows almost everything. Well, almost. Most things. Perhaps all people are so hard to read - he wouldn’t know; after all, no one has ever stuck around as long as Spock has. Spock rarely answers his questions, and if he does they’re usually accompanied by an exasperated sigh. He likes to pretend he doesn’t care about Kirk, pretend that they are not friends (because he is a terrible person, he tells himself); he likes to pretend his heart doesn’t flutter at the sight of that brilliant smile. Kirk remains undeterred by his rejections, barrelling on with stories and strange questions and, most importantly, his holistic investigation. They have a murdered millionaire’s daughter to find, after all. Or a dog. He’s not entirely sure, they both seem to be important.
Some shark-kittens (kitten-sharks?), time travel, holistic assassins, and other strange events later, Spock has resigned himself to the fact that he simply will never be rid of Kirk. He’s not sure he wants to be anyways, but no one but him needs to know this. He’s unaware that everyone knows. It’s written on his face. Well, everyone but Kirk knows. Kirk expects Spock to leave at any moment and has resolved to make as much as he can of their limited time together. The one thing he knows about people is that they all leave eventually, and though Spock and Uhura have stayed longer than most, he doesn’t expect them to be any different. Not that he blames them, far from it. He understands that he is difficult, too much to handle for most people, a ball of unending energy that he doesn’t always know where to channel. His brain fires off thoughts faster than he can follow, and his mouth forgets to stop itself before speaking every one of them. He’s lonely, has been for all his life, and he is used to it. Every person he meets is met with the full force of his being because he’s trying desperately to make the most of what he knows is limited time before they leave. He also knows it’s often the reason they leave, but he can’t stop himself. And so as the end of their case draws near, his anxiety grows, an ever-widening pit in his stomach. Fate always places him exactly where he needs to be, and he hopes despite knowing better that maybe this time, they are meant to stay.
They find the daughter (and the Corgi, but that’s a different, longer story). Kirk expects Uhura to leave then, but she doesn’t. She only asks what their next case is with a smile on her face. He realises she’s planning to stay and reciprocates her smile. They find Michael and her new friends, and her and Spock make up. They hug, fiercely and tightly, and Kirk expects Spock to leave with her then, but he doesn’t. He waves a goodbye to Michael and the Rowdy 3, and turns around to Kirk and Uhura with a smile. “Where next?” he asks, and Kirk doesn’t waste a moment before crashing into him with a kiss, tries to channel everything he is and everything he feels into it. He hears Uhura chuckle quietly and open the door of their car, presumably to give them a semblance of privacy. Spock kisses him back, so much love in it that Kirk feels he’s going to explode with it right there and then. He doesn’t, of course, but he does get many more of those kisses as the years go on. Time proves that love is hardier than people say, that it can withstand even the toughest trials if it is true - and their love is.
good guys
Spock knows he has lived many lives before this one, a seemingly endless cycle of loving and losing. “A soulmate”, the old wizard says, “is a precious thing.” and Spock agrees. He doesn’t remember his face, but he remembers the love he felt for him and his heart aches.
The Castle is cold and the prince cocky and Spock knows it must be him. The epitome of an impossible love: A wizard with a destiny and a prince who has been raised to hate magic since the day he was born.
Spock has his heart and mind so set on the prince, he almost misses the young knight who wanders into his predetermined world and upsets everything. He almost misses the way he looks at Spock with stars in his eyes and a soft smile, the kind of look reserved only for that which a person loves most: the sight of home, the smell of rain after long weeks of drought, or the one who some call a soulmate. Spock almost misses the way he keeps gravitating towards the knight, the way he can’t stop seeking him out despite himself. He should love the prince, he tells himself, and lets the knight sleep in his room. He loves the prince, he tells himself, and doesn’t deny when the knight asks about his magic. He starts wondering if he had been wrong, tries to push the thought aside, and doesn’t think about how the knight is the only person who has accepted him since he’s arrived at the Castle - the only one who has seen all of him and doesn’t love him any less for it. It’s a familiar feeling to Spock, as familiar as the magic in the tips of his fingers and the dip of his bed when he lets the knight stay with him.
It doesn’t end well, of course. There is an evil to defeat - there always is - and the knight knows what he has to do. He presses a kiss to Spock’s temple; Spock, who is bruised and exhausted and holding the barely breathing prince in his lap. “I have loved you and always will.” the knight says, and walks into the portal. Spock remains, breath faltering. Spock remains, and curses himself for being so blinded by what he called destiny.
The prince lives, until he doesn’t. Spock lives, waiting for destiny to return, until his bones are brittle and his lungs rattle with every breath. “James…” he whispers, and dies.
it’s nice to have a friend
“The worst one” Spock would say later, “was the one when I remembered everything, and you didn’t.” Kirk would give him a pained look, one of guilt that he knew was unnecessary, and yet still felt it. But that was the future, and far away.
They were friends first, and Spock was careful not to move too fast. He wasn’t sure if Kirk remembered, but he realised quickly that it was unlikely. Kirk was friendly, as he was with everyone, but no more than their other friends. But by the time he realised, Kirk was already seeing someone else, and the longer he waited for them to break up - no, he wasn’t waiting for it. He wouldn’t admit it, anyways. He felt like it would make him a bad person. But the longer he waited, the clearer it became that it was unlikely. Scotty would jokingly call Spock a lovesick puppy, referring to the way he would pine after Jim and let him get away with more than he should. Bones would snort and call him delirious, referring to the way Spock would admonish Kirk on almost anything and give him that stern look that Kirk found it impossible to lie to. Of course, he was neither. Uhura asked him, once, why he looked at Kirk the way he did. He didn’t answer, but she understood. It was never brought up again.
And so he kept watching Kirk walk away from him. He tried, once, to explain. They were drunk, a result of a particularly frustrating day at work, and after everyone else had left it was just the two of them, the stars, and a couple of beers. And Spock talked. Said how it felt like he’s known Kirk more than a lifetime, like they were bound together by something unexplainable, how he ached every moment he was in Kirk’s presence but wanted to be nowhere else. To his surprise, his friend listened; listened and whispered “I know”. Spock wanted to kiss him then, claim him wholly and entirely as his, but that new thing between them felt so fragile and small, he didn’t want to risk hurting it. Instead, he reached out his hand to Kirk’s, and they sat silently with their fingers intertwined. Spock goes home reluctantly and prays to Gods he doesn’t believe in that Kirk won’t forget, or worse ignore, what happened.
He prays in vain. He doesn’t hear from Jim the next day, or the day after, and when he decides to pay a visit, he walks into the apartment building to the sight of Kirk and his girlfriend happy and content, messing about as if nothing ever happened. Perhaps nothing ever did, perhaps he had dreamed it. He turns around and leaves. For what is love, if not letting the other be blissful? He could not destroy this; the smile on Kirk’s face and the glow of their still-young love. They would grow old together, have children, and Spock would become Uncle Spock and remain by Kirk’s side, as if he’s always been there and always will be. It’s where he is meant to be and although Kirk’s love-struck smile is not meant for him in this universe, he knows it will be again in the next, and the thought eases the hurt.
angel with a shotgun
Demon hunting was not a pretty business. Kirk’s father had died because of it and his mother had been absent most of his life in her hunt for revenge. Demon hunting was dangerous business, Kirk knew this, so he was not surprised to find himself trapped in purgatory. It was a risk of the job, nothing else, and he was making his peace with it. Little could surprise James Kirk; he’d seen it all, or so he thought. To find himself crawling out of his own grave, drawing breath once more after what seemed like an eternity in purgatory...well, that one did surprise him. It surprised Bones even more, understandably, to have Kirk standing once more at his doorstep, alive against all odds.
“I saw you die, you bastard.” He chokes out, and pulls Kirk into a tight hug. They leave it at that, neither of them inclined towards overtly emotional scenes.
It bothers Kirk, though, that he has no idea how he got out. All he has to go on is a handprint on his shoulder, deep and red like a burn mark, yet it doesn’t hurt or feel any different from the rest of his skin.
“Some angel obviously loves you very much.” Scotty jokes when they see him, hoping for some answers, and he has no idea how right he is.
“Come off it, man, there’s no such thing.” Bones downs his drink and the conversation returns to their current hunt. A wraith of sorts has been haunting these parts, Scotty tells them, a young woman if the locals' accounts are anything to go by. It’s routine. The young woman turns out to be a little girl, no more than eight years old, and they banish her with little casualties.
Scotty’s throwaway comment keeps nagging at Kirk though, and so he brings it up again as Bones is tending to a cut on his arm.
“Why not?”
“Why not what, Jim?”
“Why’s there no such thing as angels? There’s demons, it’s not a far stretch.”
Bones sighs. “Well, if there are any, they’re real dicks, leaving the hard work to us.”
Kirk laughs. Bones isn’t wrong, and they both know it. It’s easier to believe angels aren’t real than to face the other option: that they’re real, and doing nothing about the mess they’re in down on earth. They’re not far off from the truth with that, as it turns out not many weeks later.
“I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.” the strange man says, and Kirk swears he can feel Bones’ annoyance radiating off him.
“You...what?”, he ends up saying, eloquently. The man cocks his head curiously.
“You do not remember?”
“I...no. I was dead and then I was crawling out of my own damn grave and giving Bones here a heart attack.”
“Don’t forget your new handprint tattoo.”
“Right. That was you ‘gripping me tight’, I’ll assume?” Kirk turns back to the man. “You have a name?”
“Affirmative.” An uncomfortable silence falls, the man obviously not aware that they were wanting to actually know his name.
“And?” Bones finally adds.
“Oh. You wish to know. I am Spock. I am...what you humans would call an angel. I saved you because your purpose is not yet served.” and Kirk can hear Bones mutter something that sounds suspiciously like “that fucker”. Of course Scotty had hit the bullseye without even knowing it. Typical. He’d have a field day with this when they tell him.
“You...I...purpose? What are you saying, man?”
“Eloquent as always, Jim.” Bones says, and claps him on the back, “Well, if you don’t mind, Spock, we should get somewhere more comfortable to talk ‘bout this. Preferably somewhere with drinks. Lots of them.”
This is how their years-long life of routine gets shaken up. Spock adds more chaos to their lives than they thought possible. It turns out that he had saved Kirk without permission from his “higher ups” and they hadn’t been happy. There had been a plan, one that involved him staying in purgatory a lot longer and becoming a vessel for an archangel. Suddenly Jim was more glad than ever that Spock had saved him. Being a vessel did not sound fun in any sense, and he valued having control of his own body.
Surprises don’t cease coming still. For one, Kirk finds himself more and more endeared by Spock, by his clumsy attempts to assimilate to humanity, by his fascination with anything and everything, no matter how mundane. Bones jokes about him being smitten, and Kirk doesn’t mention just how uncomfortably right he might be with that.
When they team up with Sulu and Chekov for a hunt, he’s not surprised that Sulu clocks his emotional state immediately. He doesn’t question him about it, just offers a drink and they sit in silence. Sulu knows better than the others how dangerous emotional attachment of any kind is in their business, let alone romantic attachment. Even if you don’t add the whole “oh, he’s also an angel” business, the chances for happiness are almost impossibly low. Kirk knows about Sulu’s history, even if they rarely speak about it, and he knows that Sulu knows exactly what is going on in his mind. It’s easier to try and pretend you don’t care about anyone more than the next stranger and although they all know they’ve come to see each other as family, they don’t talk about it. Mentioning it means putting a name to it and by putting a name to it, it becomes a target. No one wants to lose their family because they were too stupid to be quiet about it.
In the end, his stubbornness doesn’t matter. Years down the line and many deaths and near-deaths later, Spock looks at him the way no one else ever has, and tells him he loves him. And what was Kirk supposed to do then, turn around and leave? It would break more than Spock’s heart if he did, he knows, and he can’t bring himself to do it. “So what if it’s stupid and reckless, isn’t that his style?” he thinks, and pulls Spock in for a kiss. Fuck it, right? They’ve died enough times to know that this is precious enough to risk another death, even permanent.
like the dawn
Once there was a famous pirate captain. He sailed a ship through the skies faster than any other and every merchant feared him. Always at his side was his First Officer, and with them a crew more loyal than any other. They would appear at the most unexpected of times and strike fear into the hearts of those who saw them.
They didn’t start out like this, of course. Before the Captain was a pirate, he was a promising pilot in the Academy. And before that, he was a reckless teenager looking to prove himself, looking for a purpose and instead finding a missing piece of himself. His First Officer did not start out as a pirate. He was a prodigy and the son of a diplomat, following a path designed for him long before he was even born. When he strayed from it, he found his true destiny.
They meet like many do, at school. Kirk causes trouble wherever he goes, and Spock just tries to keep his head down and his grades up. His classmates are rarely kind to him, having learned their prejudices from their parents and unwilling to give them up just yet. Among the taunts and jeers, Spock learns to shut out the world and keep his emotions in check. “Do not give them a reaction. They do not deserve it.” his father said to him on his first day, and he repeats it in his head like a mantra until he can hear nothing else. They do not deserve it. They do not deserve it, and yet every fibre of him vibrates with anger. They do not deserve his rage, but he wants to retaliate, just once, he wants to show them exactly what it is they are mocking so carelessly. He doesn’t of course. They do not deserve it. He mistook his father’s lesson as a guide to never stand up for himself, but Kirk never had such lessons.
Kirk causes trouble wherever he goes, and Kirk really doesn’t like bullies. He likes fighting, though, so when he sees Spock’s tormentors at their favourite pastime, he steps in. A seemingly small action in the grand scheme of the universe, and yet it changes their paths with no going back. Spock doesn’t like Kirk, he’s well aware of the troublemaker even if Kirk doesn’t even know his name. He knows that Kirk’s father died a war hero, and he knows the way Sarek speaks of the son as if he was everything wrong with the world. Kirk causes trouble wherever he goes, and that includes the embassy Kirk’s mother works at, as does Sarek.
And yet, when Kirk steps in to release Spock from his bullies, the sun frames him like a saint and the disgust he expects to rise up from his stomach doesn’t come. They become inseparable after that, to the dismay of Sarek and the relief of their teachers. Spock keeps Kirk from doing anything too stupid, and Kirk teaches Spock about standing up for himself. Spock finds in their friendship that emotions can be beautiful and warm, and Kirk finds that there are better highs to chase than the adrenaline of throwing yourself into danger. They are an inexplicable team, and everyone wonders why they look so much more complete together than apart.
“His very touch has corrupted you, Spock.” Sarek says on the day of their graduation, and Spock finds that anger is not reserved for your enemies, but can be sparked all the same by those who claim to love you.
“Corrupted me?” is what he replies, although it’s not what he wants to say.
“You were on a path to greatness, before. You were destined to be a paragon of our people, of diplomacy; you were going to do great things. Look at you now.” Spock knows he is referring to his decision to join the Academy alongside Kirk instead of going to the university his father had chosen for him many years ago. He knows this, and that there is much more underneath. His father knows, as he does, that his love for Kirk extends far beyond that which is expected of two friends.
The Academy is not what they expect, simply a repetition of their school and the prejudices Spock had hoped to leave behind. Kirk, still as hot headed and protective as always, doesn’t let things slide and soon he finds himself suspended. He doesn’t bother returning, and soon Spock joins his side. Piracy seems so much better suited to them, anyhow, two misfits of society who were never going to fit in.
Once there was a famous pirate captain. His name was James Tiberius Kirk and he was known to sail his airship where it was needed most; a haven for those society shunned and mistreated. He treated his crew kindly and loved them as a family, and he loved his First Officer most of all. When the skies were quiet and the world let them breathe, you would find them on the deck of their ship with hands intertwined, talking silently.
“Your very touch has corrupted me, James.” The Officer would be found to say fondly.
“Corrupted?” The Captain would reply with a knowing smile.
“Yes. I didn’t know love before you.” The Officer would press a kiss to the Captain’s temple, a sign of affection that he never dreamed he would perform so often.
“What would you do without me, Spock.” The Captain would say, and they would watch the horizon in comfortable silence.
two slow dancers
They’re happy in the next one, or an approximation of it. Well, no, Kirk dies, again. But fortunately for them, Spock has the ability to revive him. Only, he cannot touch him ever again, or Kirk dies, and that is too much for Spock to bear.
So they compromise.
Clingfilm kisses and gloved touches are a poor substitute, but it’s the best they can do. Spock puts his love in the pies he bakes, doesn’t say a word about it but Kirk smiles every time he eats a slice and calls Spock a sap. He pretends he has no idea what Kirk is on about, but a little of his heart melts every time. Bones says they’re disgustingly in love, and Kirk jokingly slaps his arm every time. It’s such a small touch, and yet it makes Spock yearn more than anything. To touch Jim’s skin, to feel that warmth just once more, and his fingers itched with the feeling. Every time this happens, Uhura would soon find him in the kitchen of his shop, intensely working the dough of another pie. She doesn’t say anything, just sets out another tray and asks if he needs her help. If he says yes, she gives him a long hug, one of those that say “I know it’s hard, but I love you” and helps him with the dough.
Jim is intent to bring his murderer to justice, but this is easier said than done, especially since he didn’t see their face. Lucky for him, Spock is not only a pie maker, but also a brilliant mind who has been solving murders with Uhura and Bones at his side for many years. Of course, usually talking to the murdered helps their investigation, and usually they don’t stay revived long. But Jim Kirk has always been an unusual case, especially if you asked Spock. Which you shouldn’t, since his opinion is biased, and you would know by the way he looks at him.
Many things are discovered in the next few weeks: the best-tasting combination of ingredients, a secret of Kirk’s family, the feeling of lips against lips through a variety of barriers, who murdered Kirk and why (it was an misunderstanding, really, which makes it all the more tragic), the love of a found family, and why clowns are so damn creepy. Kirk starts keeping bees on the top of their apartment building, and Spock makes a habit of watching him in the warm light of the late afternoon. There are many secrets in the world, as they find out, but their love is not one of them. It’s quiet and subtle, but no secret to anyone who deigns to give them a second look, which is almost everyone because the warmth that radiates from Kirk is irresistible. Everyone who meets him is immediately charmed, and when they taste one of Spock’s pies, they’re prone to exclamations of surprise and delight. Kirk smiles at Spock then, as if to say “See, you’re not as rigid as you like to pretend” and saunters over to the customers to chat.
Death is not the finale for people like them. They know their days are numbered but they know just as well that beyond their living days there is an infinitude of universes in which they live forever. Death is merely a chapter in the unending book of their love.
“Did you ever bring anyone else back, like you did me? For more than a few moments, I mean.” Kirk asks in the late afternoon sun, tending to his bees.
“No. Just you.”
“Why?”
Spock hesitates. A small question for a much too complex problem. There are no words, he thinks, and says “Because I could not bear to live without you again.”
Kirk smiles, as if he knew the answer already. “Even death isn’t final for you.”
“Everything is final to me. The world just keeps proving me wrong.” Spock replies quietly, reaching out with hands aching to touch his lover’s skin. He settles for threading their gloved fingers together, and hoping for a day far in the future where there is no distance between them.
cosmic love
It begins and ends with the stars.
The cadet smirks, blatant disrespect written on his face.
“How the hell did that kid beat your test?” someone asks.
“I do not know.” It irks him, more than it should.
Kirk’s life, like so many of them before, is marked by instability and abandonment. He shoulders it with seeming ease and a smile on his face, but secretly wonders what he did in a previous life to deserve this. He’s the epitome of a no-cares attitude, projecting an image of ease and charm. It’s all fake, of course. Night plagues him with guilt and nightmares and if the circles under his eyes are a bit deeper every year around his birthday, no one mentions it. No one, until Bones, who asks if he’d had a bit too much to drink, but Kirk can read the underlying worry in his voice. He smiles and laughs, an answer meant to be affirmative, but Bones can read him like a book and if he’s a little bit more gentle with Kirk in the following days, neither of them mention it.
Nothing phases Kirk, not even the Kobayashi Maru test. Especially not the Kobayashi Maru. See, he doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios, and he knows that if you can’t win through the conventional routes, there’s always another way. He’s the paragon of delinquency after all, and combined with his brilliant mind, that is a very dangerous being to challenge. Spock wouldn’t know this, of course, because he doesn’t know Kirk yet, and Kirk doesn’t yet know that there is more to the Kobayashi Maru than proving that nothing can stop him, not even death.
Fate has a funny way of going about things. Kirk doesn’t like Spock because he resents anyone in a position of authority (with the exception of Pike) and because Spock’s comment about his father cut deeper than he’d like to admit. He doesn’t like it when other people are right about him, even less so when they state it with such ease, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He doesn’t rile Spock up on purpose, but if it’s a side effect of his efforts to save the Enterprise then, well, he’s not complaining.
Spock loathes Kirk. Of course he does. Kirk has no respect for authority, the duties of a Starfleet captain or officer, and least of all for the lessons one must learn from life. Kirk breezes through life as if it’s the easiest thing in the world and doesn’t stop to remember the privilege of even being at Starfleet, of not having to prove time and time again that you belong here among these people who are so different from you. Spock doesn’t like Kirk for good reason, and the Kobayashi Maru cheat is only the tip of the iceberg. Still, he has a hard time denying that this delinquent is much smarter than he looks, much smarter than the image he projects. But that’s just another reason for Spock to dislike him. It’s logical: the kid’s got a smart mind, and yet does nothing with it but use it to defy every authority and system he comes across. It’s infuriating, or it would be if fury was something Spock let himself subject to. Which it isn’t. Neither is the strange vault his stomach does whenever Kirk is near.
Delta Vega is enlightening in a million ways. It isn’t until it is all over that Kirk really assesses what happened. He’s sitting with Bones on the eve of the beginning of their journey, and it’s then he first says it out loud.
“We weren’t just friends, Bones. We were...I...” His voice falters, finding the reality of it too complex, too large to put into simple words.
“Damn, Jim, I can’t read your mind. You trying to tell me that you and that pointy eared bastard were, what, boyfriends?”
“Something like that.”
“Well…” Even Bones falls silent. The very idea of this would have seemed beyond ridiculous not too long ago, but now even he can’t deny that since they’ve gotten over their initial animosity, his friend and Spock made a good team. Kirk knows that Bones knows this, knows that almost anyone could see this now, and he is as baffled by it as they are. If you’d told him before that he soon would feel something amicable towards Spock, he’d have laughed in their face. It doesn’t seem so laughable now.
“Well,” he claps Bones on the shoulder and gets up, “we’ve got five years of space to figure it out. What’s the rush?” He chuckles at Bones’ groan at the mere mention of the length of their journey, and leaves.
They are two years into their journey, and Spock makes no indication that he feels anything towards Kirk beyond the respect of a co-worker and perhaps the beginnings of friendship. And anyway, he’s with Uhura. Kirk respects them both too much to get in the way, and the love of another life is no reason to prevent that which could be in this life. That was another life, and in this one they are friends, nothing more. Still, Spock’s betrayal - well, seeming betrayal, Kirk later admits - stings more than it should.
In the most unfortunate turn of events, he doesn’t realise he’s in love with Spock until their still-young friendship is put to the test and Kirk almost loses everything because of Spock’s actions. He wants to be mad at him, angry even, but he can’t find it in him. Spock only did what he thought was right, and who is he to put blame to that? He loves Spock because he is so unlike him, because he keeps him in check and balances him out, and he knows he would love him less if he was a Jim Kirk 2.0. He’s dated those before, and it didn’t go well. Still, he has the creeping suspicion that Spock doesn’t even realise why Kirk went back for him, why he couldn’t let him die on that volcano. The human emotions still elude Spock at times, and this is most likely one of those.
He asks, not many hours later.
“Do you understand why I went back for you?” He searches Spock’s face for a hint of recognition, and is met only with vague confusion. Kirk doesn’t have time to think on it further for a long time, and when he does there is a radioactive core at his feet, his desperate attempt to save his ship and crew.
Spock is unfamiliar with his own human emotions. Decades of repression make it difficult to refamiliarise himself with them, and it’s a slower process than he likes. He wonders if this is why, despite every sign, he doesn’t realise the extent of his feelings for Kirk until it is too late. He remembers distantly a time when the sight of Kirk set fire to what he thought was anger within him and he had to spend an unusual amount of effort to keep his emotions in check. It wasn’t anger then, he realises now as the dams break within him and a rage floods through him - real and hot and overflowing and there is no space in his mind not occupied with the thought of revenge.
Sitting by Kirk’s bedside later, he wonders how he ever felt anything but love for him. His sleeping face betrays the soft core that lies behind the confident front of James T. Kirk. Spock’s sleep - sparse as it is - is plagued by Kirk’s death, playing over and over in his head like a film he doesn’t want to see but is unable to leave. “I want you to know why I couldn’t let you die, why I went back for you.” the dying Kirk in his dreams says, and Spock’s heart stops every time. Because you love me, he thinks, and says “Because you are my friend.” because he is incapable of putting any other words to it. He wishes now that he had said something, anything else. But the moment is gone, and he is lucky to be sitting by Kirk’s side with even a chance of him waking up.
McCoy keeps him out of the room in the days after Kirk wakes up.
“He needs rest, Spock, keep your lovesick puppy face away, it doesn’t work on me.”
“Doctor, I am not…” Spock starts, before realising McCoy was most likely using a turn of phrase he is unfamiliar with. Those few days somehow stretch out longer than the two weeks Kirk was being kept in a coma. Then at least he had been able to see him, watch his sleeping face for hours on end, until McCoy reminded him that he still had other duties to perform.
Now, he just has seemingly endless time and nothing to do with it but stare at nothing and wonder how it had been possible for him to miss how much he loved Kirk. Love, like fate, has a funny way of doing her thing. Spock thinks about his mother, about his father’s admission to him many years too late. He wonders if Sarek had allowed himself to admit to his son that even he, as a Vulcan, was not only capable of experiencing love, but also welcomed it. Spock wishes, yearns for a reality in which he knew that love was good and kind, that love was something that enhanced everything you are, that love did not diminish your logic or reason. Live long and prosper, he thinks, they should tell you that your best self is the one who has experienced love, and didn’t reject it. He’s had to learn it the hard way, and some nights he lies awake wondering how many opportunities he missed of looking love right in the eye and walking away without knowing.
“Do you understand why I went back for you?” he remembers Kirk asking, and wants to slap himself for saying nothing then. “Because you love me,” he wants his past self to say, “as I love you.” His past self stays quiet, of course, and only cocks his head in curious confusion. It’s infuriating to play back the past, and realise how much he’s missed. Sometimes Kirk was much smarter than he was, despite being so unreasonable. But booksmarts and logic don’t get you everywhere and Kirk, unlike Spock, had a knack for reading people and understanding them. It’s what makes him such a good captain and such a frustrating person to be around sometimes.
“Spock-” Kirk barely gets out, before almost being knocked over by a hug of such force he briefly wonders just how much Spock keeps his strength in check most of the time.
“Whoa, hey, what’s that for?” He chuckles. Spock’s hug is stiff, betraying just how little he does this, if at all, but he won’t catch Kirk complaining. It’s also comforting and warm in a way that immediately relaxes Kirk. He misses it immediately when Spock pulls back.
“You died, Jim.” The look on Spock’s face is earnest, trying to communicate something Kirk can only guess at.
“Right.” He says, unable to get anything else out. He doesn’t want to think about what would have been if it had been Spock in his place, if he’d had to watch him die. He doesn’t want to think about it, and yet his mind has done little else every night since he’s woken up. Bones had scolded him every morning for not resting properly, but Kirk was hesitant to reveal to him the worry that kept him awake.
“Right.” He says again, realising he has been staring into Spock’s eyes for a little too long. He goes to pull out of Spock’s hands still loosely holding his wrists, with the beginnings of a sentence on the tip of his tongue.
Spock, however, pulls him back, holds Kirk’s face in his hands and looks at him with an intensity that takes his breath away, quite literally.
“Jim.” Spock says, and falls silent for a moment. Kirk doesn’t move, too afraid to disturb this fragile moment. He feels something in the tips of his fingers, a warmth and electricity spreading through his arms to his face. He forgets what he wanted to say. He forgets where he is or what had happened, a moment caught in stasis seemingly stretching forever.
“Jim,” Spock begins again, “I have been, and always shall be, yours. I need you to know-”
Kirk doesn’t let him finish; he cuts off Spock’s admission with a kiss.
Not much else needs to be said after that, and yet they do. There is an entire universe of feelings between them, stretching from one to the other in an impossible way defying space itself and twisting time to its own needs; to their needs. The moment stays, and stretches for an eternity, until they are both old and grey and take their little impossible universe to death and beyond with them.