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I don't believe in no-win scenarios, one true love, or destiny. I take my risks, make my luck, and if the universe is prepared to give me the win, who am I to decline?
So when the best First Officer in the fleet requests, cajoles, begs, and risks a court martial to get himself home to Vulcan, my instincts are to throw the diplomatic mission to the solar wind, stuff-shirted desk jockeys of Starfleet be damned.
Spock is avoidant, furtive, impulsive in his distress. He fumbles through an awkward explanation of his needs. Sex or death is the bottom line. A part of me insists there must be an alternative. Enterprise is a big enough ship, we're a modern society, surely there must be another way.
I read between the lines, hear what Spock isn't saying amid all his babbles about biology, birds and bees, and salmon of all things. For an advanced civilization that prides itself on logic, modern Vulcan society (or at least the upper crust of which Spock is a member) is carrying a great deal of shame.
Spock has already rejected the one member of the crew who is both sufficiently fond and unafraid of him to offer what he needs. He cast Chapel out like a bowl of plomeek soup. Incompatible? Perhaps. The body needs what it needs. I suspect there is a component to what Spock needs that no one aboard this ship can fulfil, but he hasn't said.
He hasn't rejected Bones or me either; that thought is one I'm holding and examining even as I beam down to Vulcan. We're permitted, he informs us, as friends of "the male". Ever the scientist, Spock; he studies his condition objectively even as he suffers.
The ceremonial grounds are barren, but the marriage party is practically a display of whimsy for Vulcans. There is grave music and solemn fanfare, costumes and what passes for royalty among their kind. T'Pau appraises us. I think she finds us barely acceptable. She accepts us in any event.
I believed we were attending a wedding. Spock believed the same. Unlike me, he expresses no betrayal, no shock when the blessed event turns to gladitorial combat. He protests as best he can, unflappable as ever to all outward appearances. But the fight is to the death. Sex, death, or murder.
I can't help but read malice in the Vulcan contingent. It strikes me as I heft the lirpa that T'Pring's choice of champion is unusual. Moreover, her timing is atrocious. Would it not be courteous to inform your betrothed of your waning interest some time before he departs from his life and his senses to reunite with you? Would it not be logical to prevent such an outcome?
Logic has abandoned us. Spock is a demon with the lirpa, his face a monstrous mask of rage, a terrifying distortion of his usual placid expression. He wields his weapon with a skill and a strength I cannot match as I struggle to control the fight, to keep it bloodless. I won't lose him to this.
I have to speak with him, get through to him somehow. If we could stop and touch, I might be able to communicate my thoughts. Sex or death: I know what I choose. I know whose side I'm on.
When the blade meets my chest, as sharp and precise as the Spock of yesterday, the trickle of dark blood reminds me that the air is thin and hot. Spock swings at me wildly. He backs me up to the dais. These are not the smooth, practiced movements of our sparring and I begin to suspect that somewhere in there, Spock is fighting his impulses.
I duck as the counterweight flies at my head and the gong sounds its death knell at it cracks and plummets. Better that than my skull.
My pounding heart and my gasping breath claw at me even after I've relieved Spock of his weapon. The sand of the ceremonial grounds is sharp, the ground down remnants of ancient mountains scraping at me, sticking like velcro to the lining of my tunic, and clinging to my wounded skin. Contact comes without warning as I fall on him and we grapple with the same weapon. I'm almost too winded to move in time, slide my hands along the shaft to meet his, and shout his name in my mind.
Spock!
I send the plea like a carrier pigeon into a thunderstorm. Spock's eyes are dark and I recognize nothing of my friend in their hollow depths. We struggle for control. Spock is stronger and only my position gives me the advantage, lets me hold on as long as I do before he breaks the blade and tosses me on my ass. He chases me around the dais and I feel the opportunity slipping away.
I flip him onto his backside a moment later in a desperate bid to get some space, catch my breath, plan my next move. Black spots flicker across my vision as he runs me down and I stare at him in disbelief. I can't wrap my head around Spock pinning me to the sand with murderous intent. I still can't understand it even as he lunges, as I curl away, and Bones shouts Spock's name.
The lirpa pierces the sand next to my ear and I propel Spock back with a timely kick. We're two-for-two on tossing each other down.
"Kroykah!"
T'Pau can stop this. Spock freezes as if the word itself has stilled his blood. I watch him, wondering if I can risk moving closer. I want to speak with my friend, obtain his insights, share my plan. My vision clouds as I rise to my knees. My heart sinks at the knowledge that my body will not permit me to stand.
I stay there on my knees, panting, bleeding, nausea rising, as Spock holds himself ready to pounce. Bones joins me with a hypo. He doses me with triox and advises me to kill my friend.
Acid rises in my throat and I toss out something flippant. Bones and his henpecking bring out my callous side. I fall back on cool, unaffected, perfectly in control when I'm anything but. It never works to get Bones off my back, but I'm sure not ready to lose it in front of the Vulcans.
T'Pau calls for the ahn-woon and I'm trusting my doctor as I rise and take the weighted strap, but my thoughts are turning to mist. Spock has me down again before I can recall whatever imperative drove me to take up arms against my second in command. As he closes in to strike, the notion that I have to touch him is all that crystallizes in my murky mind.
The moment our hands meet, I'm swept into the storm with him. The drive to wound, to take, to overcome someone is all I know in the seconds we're connected. I throw him from me, scrabble for my ahn-woon, and panic when he falls on me again.
The second his hand is on my face I'm caught up again, swirling in the raging ache, the anger and despair of holding such a vast need. His burning becomes mine as we roll over the sand locked together, limbs entwined in a tangle that would set my blood simmering in any other circumstance. I manage two swats to the side of his head before I recall what I'm doing.
I'm still sluggish and it's only once his hands are around my neck that I can muster the energy to call for him again.
Spock!
He pulls me up with the strap and I hold on with all I have as he drops me back against the well of hot coals on the dais. My vision is darkening again as the strap presses on my throat and I'm reminded of a class I took once with a girl I wanted to sleep with. This one was far outside the Academy walls and involved straps just like the one Spock is holding. Spock and I don't have a safe word and even if we did, it might not change anything.
I rally again. Shout into my mind and hope he can hear.
Let me in!
Our eyes meet. His are still dark with the fever. I could be fooling myself, but I think I see a hint of uncertainty. I try once more.
Please, Spock. It's me. It's Jim.
My vision darkens all the way and I think I've failed, except I'm falling. There is nowhere to fall so far on the ceremonial grounds. It's the storm again only now I'm inside it, falling through the terrible winds and lashing rain, buffeted by sand and noise. I plummet until the noise becomes dulled, softer and my body lighter.
I land on a pile of cushions when the noise has dampened almost entirely. When I look down, my body is one I haven't seen in decades. There is a large window with a view of the storm outside still howling away. I turn my head. The thundering in my ears is replaced with weeping.
A small figure sits in grey flowing garments against the wall farthest from the window, face hidden. I move closer and reach out with a skinny arm.
"Why are you crying?"
The boy lifts his head. Spock. He's angry. "Why are you here?"
"I think I asked to be here. Are you hurt?"
"She never wanted me. She said we would be close forever. That she would never leave."
"T'Pring." This body has no context for that word. Skinny, pre-pubescent Jim Kirk has never seen the sands of Vulcan.
I sit beside him against the wall. His face is turned away.
"I know. I know she left. I'm sorry. I won't leave."
"You can't promise that. It isn't the same for you."
"Spock, look at me." He does. I touch the back of his hand where it rests inside the great grey sleeve. "No one can promise forever. But I can promise as long as I have."
I stretch out a pinky finger and wiggle it when he stares at it. Spock mimics the pose and I lock our fingers together. I grab his wrist and pull him up. As we rise our bodies grow larger, heavier and a familiar set of stairs appears across the hall.
"Come on." I tug on him and he follows me out and up towards my off-campus apartment from my final year at the academy. The place was my sanctuary from academic life. I shut the doors and close the curtains to block out the storm.
"You OK?" I ask.
Spock is closer to the one I first met. Only a trace of his boyish features remain.
"We cannot run from a storm."
"No, but we can wait it out." I sit beside him on the bed. I want to link our fingers again but I'm uncertain he'd welcome it.
He studies me like a specimen he can't classify. His gaze is burning and I look away, splay my hand over the quilt.
"You know, I never brought a date back here. It was selfish, I guess. I wanted this all for myself. A place to keep the world at bay."
"Jim, we may not have time."
"What does time mean here?" I ask, but I can hear the storm outside screaming through the window. It's louder again and I know he's right.
He reaches for me, takes my hand in his and I'm overcome with fatigue. "Jim, it is getting late."
I look up into his face as I fall back on the bed. "Don't let go," I whisper and press a kiss to his palm.
"I will not."
"Spock?"
"Yes, Jim."
"I think you're going to kill me."
"I will try not to do so."
"This is only the start. Don't end it."
"If it is within my power–"
The window bursts inwards and we're swept up into the tempest, clinging to one another, not letting go until we fall to the sand again.
I watch as the rictus of rage on Spock's face melts into disbelief and then horror. My body has gone slack. I can't move or feel a thing and I stare at Spock, hold the image of his face in my mind until consciousness leaves me.