Chapter Text
“Perhaps you do not understand.”
The Captain scoffed.
“Oh, I understood you quite clearly, Mr. Spock. I just refuse to allow it.”
The briefing room fell into a weary quiet, like a sehlat that grew exhausted with chasing after her endlessly troublesome cubs.
The firm line of Kirk’s mouth said: ‘try me.’
It only necessitated that Spock do exactly that.
His Captain, he had learned thus far (six months, eight days, seven hours, thirteen minutes, four seconds and counting) possessed two qualities which made serving under him incredibly difficult. The first was that he was undoubtedly, irritatingly stubborn. Once he had made up his mind, there seemed to be nothing his crew could do to redirect him. He was like a Terran dog with his jaws locked around a favored fixation, and nothing in the known universe could convince him to unclench his teeth.
“Captain,” Spock said as evenly as could be managed after the amount of time already wasted on a conversation that was not progressing nearly as much as he required it to, “you must realize this is our only opportunity to observe the Adjin interacting with Altimonium 462 prior to their migration out of the sector. Once they depart, we will be compelled to divert for a supply drop at– ”
“You have got to be shitting me,” Kirk laughed, incredulous. “Are you seriously reciting the mission brief to me?” He leaned forward, palms flat on the table. “I am literate, Mr. Spock. I am fully aware we’re on a time crunch. What I take issue with is your suggestion that you go down there alone. On a belief, no less.” He shook his head in a manner that appeared somehow both pitying and demeaning at the same time.
Spock took a measured breath, brow lifting regardless.
“Is that meant to be a personal affront to my evidence-supported reasoning, my logical faculties, or both?”
Sulu fully put his head in his hands next to him.
“Although you are supposedly aware, I am compelled to remind you,” Spock continued, “That the fungal spores released by Altimonium 462 exhibit measurable hormonal and neurological effects in humans in a near identical manner to that which we hope to observe in the Adjin, which are a small, virtually harmless species– unlike human beings, especially in an unpredictable state. Vulcan physiology, however, shows no comparable response. Scanners have confirmed this. Therefore, my being the sole landing party member is simply the safest choice, and the most timely, at that.”
“That is your opinion, Mr. Spock!” Kirk barked back, launching out of his seat at the head of the table. “An opinion I never asked for! Scanners confirm your theory that the mold won’t affect you, but you can’t know for sure it’ll be any different for you with your hybrid physiology than it would be for a human crewmember.”
His square, masculine fingers smoothed down his command tunic, which had ridden up 5.1 centimeters with his abrupt motion.
The second quality James T. Kirk possessed which made him an incredibly difficult Captain to serve under was that he was undoubtedly, irritatingly handsome. The kind of handsome that made you want to look away on instinct, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of being seen looking, unwilling to feed an ego that was already dangerously well-fed, bordering on obese.
“Bones,” Kirk peered down the table of ducked heads to locate the one person in the room who held his up, swivelling back and forth between them as if watching a sports match of some kind.
“Nope, don’t drag me into this,” said Dr. McCoy, hand cutting a horizontal slice into the air.
“Chief Medical Officer,” the Captain pressed on, “You confirmed yourself earlier that you could give no guarantee the pheromones would affect him or not affect him– you said that to me, right?” He didn’t wait for the doctor to answer, adding: “And if that’s the case, which it is, then Spock here would be in a position no different from the rest of a standard landing party, which is exactly what will be accompanying you, Mr. Spock.”
Spock stood slowly, meeting Kirk’s eye level across the table. “A single officer exposed to the hazard in question minimizes risk to the crew as a whole. Your stubbornity impedes you from this simple fact, and our window of opportunity is escaping us because of it. I will be perfectly content to report to headquarters that the Captain’s petty difference of opinion was what hindered us from both completing this survey altogether and what delayed us in our supply drop.”
“Ignoring the incredibly childish threat to tattle-tale because I don’t have the head to even acknowledge that, once again: what about the very real potential hazard Altonimonium 462 still poses to you?” Kirk demanded. “Or do you simply not count when you’re doing your math?”
“My chances of survival are statistically preferable to that of any human officer under the same conditions,” Spock said. “Including yourself.”
“Hold up, chances of survival? Are you hearing yourself? I– ”
“– It would be illogical for you to accompany the survey team,” Spock continued over his protests, undeterred. “Your presence would introduce unnecessary risk to the command structure of this vessel. The safety of the Captain is of paramount importance.”
“The spores are confirmed non-toxic, Spock. Even if I were affected, I wouldn’t die from it. And according to your own data, they’re only released when the organism perceives a threat– when approached the way a predator approaches.”
He gestured sharply toward the display. “Which I won’t be. I’ll be standing a nice, safe, ten meters back while you and the rest of the team take scans. I’m going on this mission, that’s final.”
“No,” the Vulcan said at once.
Kirk blinked.
“Fucking excuse me? Just no, full stop?”
Spock raised a brow.
“It is well that your hearing is intact, at the very least.”
The particular shade of red that flooded the Captain’s face was one the Commander had never before observed in nature.
Ultimately, Kirk’s recommendation prevailed. It had actually been he who ended up ‘tattling’ to Starfleet Command, and they had sided with him regarding standard landing party protocols. One medical and xenobiology specialist each respectively accompanied them down.
Now, boots crunched over slate-colored rock veined with pale fungal bloom as Spock surveyed the expanse of the terrain. The Adjin were likely to pass through within the next fifty minutes or so.
“Tricorder readings confirm directional consistency,” Spock said. “The herd is migrating from the eastern valley.”
“Then we’ll get eyes on that valley,” Kirk gestured vaguely east. “Doctor Lerin, Lieutenant Maro– circle northeast and keep scanning any Altimonium 462 you come across. We’ll take the high ground and let you know when we see them approaching.”
“Captain, I should accompany Doctor Lerin, while you and–”
“No, Mr. Spock,” he cut off, smiling a cold smile, “You can babysit me, since you were so worried about my apparent safety. You carry on, gentlemen,” he waved off the other two officers.
Spock wished briefly that he were skilled in the maneuver of eye-rolling as Doctor McCoy was.
Against his reasoning, the party split.
Kirk and himself climbed the larger mesa ahead of them, crossing its rocky plateau until they reached the northeast side. Once they arrived, Spock was able to view the officers as blue thumbprints against the backdrop of pale greys and lavenders.
Kirk tapped at his communicator: “Kirk to Maro.”
The first issue of the evening presented itself in a sizzle of static.
Spock watched Kirk’s thick brows furrow, fiddling with the communicator again. “Kirk to Maro, come in, please. Doctor Lerin?”
“The Enterprise is still responding,” Spock noted after a brief check. “The interference must be localized.”
“Well, we can still see them, so that’s something,” Kirk muttered, pacing the rocks. “Great. Don’t worry, I’ll detail the technical complications in my report, so you don’t feel compelled to try and threaten insubordination again. Admiralty really wouldn’t be pleased if you were to make a habit of snitching anytime you didn’t like my decisions.”
Wind whipped at their faces, carrying a faint, sweet scent which disturbed Spock’s nose. He sniffed, deciding Kirk’s statement needed no reply.
“You know, I never would’ve bet money on you being the cavalier type,” Kirk continued by way of a non-sequitur.
“How wise of you not to, as betting from a command position is both illegal and inappropriate,” Spock peered over his shoulder at him. “Not to mention, largely out of practice in Federation society.”
Kirk stepped backward, scoffing, “Okay, now you’re really just being a dick for the hell of–”
“– Jim!” he hissed, reaching out for him too late.
Kirk’s boot sank 15 centimeters into the patch of soft ground he’d stumbled upon, and a pale mat of mold burst beneath his weight. A fine, dusky cloud of spores promptly erupted, littering his pants with purplish specks.
“Oh, fuck me,” Kirk groaned, “Of course.”
And thus the second issue of the evening presented itself.
The two officers below were in no apparent danger, it seemed– wearing masks now from what Spock could make out while squinting– standing a careful fifteen meters away from the Adjin, who had made their appearance, miniature horselike creatures pawing at the rocks underfoot, attempting to graze from the mold while it burst intermittently to deter the creatures from doing so. Its pheromonal emissions are a crucial defense mechanism to protect itself from the Adjin, and causes the recipient to feel an uncontrollable urge which aims to occupy the victim so acutely they forget about the fungus altogether.
“The Enterprise is still en route from the drop at Ilthinium I, so we’ve got at least fifteen minutes until they make it back into beaming range. I can’t be driven to insanity in that short a time-frame, right?” the Captain chuckled nervously to himself, rubbing his fingers over his communicator as though it were a talisman of some sort.
Kirk was sweating so profusely now the evidence of it hung around him in the air: an unnatural, acrid stench due the effect of the pheromones. It ran in rivulets over his temples, down the sides of his sharp jaw.
“Seventeen point two four minutes,” Spock couldn’t help but correct, adding: “I had warned you, Captain, of this particular outcome.”
With that, he held out his tricorder.
Kirk gnashed his teeth like the kahm-yokulsu of old, groaning and scrubbing his damp face with a fist, muttering ‘jesus christ’ all the while.
“I cannot guarantee how the symptoms will run their course in that time-span, but your vitals appear relatively in order, so for now I can only conclude it is, in fact, non-lethal. However, had you done as I asked, you would not find yourself to be in this position.”
He watched a drop roll off the tip of Jim’s pert nose and land on his bottom lip. His tongue darted out to lick it away, leaving a residual glisten.
Then he was looking at a series of cracks webbing across the higher tier of the mesa’s surface in great detail, because he was spun and shoved against it bodily. Kirk plastered himself to Spock’s back forcefully enough to draw the air from his lungs.
“Shut up. For once in your life, just shut the fuck up,” he snarled, hot breath puffing and teeth scraping threateningly against the back of his neck.
Ah. So his obsession would drive him to violence, Spock reasoned. It made sense for their argumentation throughout the day to culminate in such a manner.
Then he felt Kirk’s pelvis grind against his backside, a centralized rigidity nudging at him there, and all sense of reasoning left him at once.
“6,147 points of interest on this planet, you said before, during the briefing. 6,147 points of interest and all that damned fungus could manage to turn my attention toward is you,” Kirk gritted out through audibly grinding teeth. “You’re all I can ever think about, and you’re insufferable to me. Most brilliant mind in the galaxy, and you only use it to think up new ways of being a cunt.”
It was not often that Spock was shocked into silence, but it only lasted for seconds, until Kirk’s wet lips molded themselves to the nape of his neck and left behind an unexpectedly gentle kiss there.
“This is not your will, Captain,” he rasped, cheek and jaw scraping against the rock in front of him, “The mold– ”
“The what?”
It seemed the effect of the pheromones had progressed to the stage wherein the victim forgot about the fungus entirely. Solely focused on their attraction, their urge. It occurred to Spock that nowhere in his research did it state the urge, the desire, stemmed from falsehood.
He snaked his left arm out from where it was pinned to his middle, and raised it to make contact with Jim’s hand, braced and bracketing him on the rocks. The moment his fingers brushed Kirk’s knuckles, a heady wave of lust and indeterminably mixed feeling burned him.
So, Jim wanted him. He occupied Jim’s thoughts. He occupied Jim’s thoughts regularly enough to the point that this alien fungus had decided to target and use it against him, determining it to be a weak point of his.
Jim’s hand moved away, somewhere behind him he could no longer reach.
He found that to be a rather undesirable development. The thought made him exhale raggedly.
Was he being affected by the spores as well? He could not be certain, for his thoughts didn’t seem fixated on any one particular thing, but were rather darting around frantically and sporadically. He was dizzy.
“Captain,” he inhaled, wiggling against the hard surface in front of him, “You must restrain yourself, and try to focus on anything else for now. Back away. Even if officers Maro and Lerin do not find us soon, the Enterprise surely will, and if you are found in this state–”
“I thought I had told you to shut the fuck up. Stars,” he huffed against the crook of his neck. “You’re such a bitch, Spock. You’re just like any bratty, know-it-all girl I knew in school. You even try to snitch like one.”
His lips trailed up to his ear and rested lightly against it as he continued, whispering: “Do you know what your obsession is? Martyrdom. Making yourself out to be a tool. Do you wanna be a tool instead of a man, is that it?”
He punctuated the question with a nip to the pointed tip of his helix.
Arousal tightened and dropped deep in Spock’s core.
“No,” he denied, shaking his head minutely. It occurred to him, then, that he could easily overpower Jim and remove himself from the rocky barrier he was trapped against. He was no longer pressing himself forcefully upon him. He remained where he was, despite himself, as he spoke: “Hardly. Your speech is nonsensical as your actions, you must desist.”
“You don’t give the orders, Spock. Did you forget that?”
Spock opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out when Kirk’s hand reintroduced itself by wrapping around his throat.
Finally, he tried again, “Jim, I may arguably be of sound mind, but you clearly are not, and afterwards– if you come to regret your behavior here…” he trailed off, swallowing. The pressure increased with the motion.
Jim’s thumb brushed back and forth over his trachea, then lightly dug in. His hand was hot, moist, inviting with the suggestion of a tempest of emotion underneath the skin. It would be so trivial to penetrate his thoughts through that welcome opening. Spock could smell the minerals underneath his short, ragged fingernails from the climb up the rocks, feel the rough calluses on the plump meat of his palm.
“I remember when you choked me on the bridge, you didn’t do it like this. No, you put your hand just so– ” he adjusted his grip to squeeze the carotid arteries on each side. “You limited flow to the brain, but steered clear of the windpipe… you know there’s a certain… euphoria that comes with the release. Partake in a lot of BDSM in your free time, Commander?”
Spock blanched.
“What? No, I do not know what would give you such a notion. The last thing I intended in that instance to suggest…”
Sweat was beginning to trickle down Spock’s spine, which was concerning, as he had never before sweat in his life other than when he had fallen especially ill once as a child. He was so hot now. His uniform clung to him, clung between his legs– he was leaking copious amounts of slick into his underwear, he realized. Feverish with arousal.
“Don’t play dumb, baby.” His mouth left Spock’s ear, moving to kiss his way along his jaw, his cheek.
Spock’s eyes fluttered shut. Respiration suddenly seemed more difficult than usual.
Kirk’s voice dropped huskier as he asked, “Do you actually have experience with that sort of thing, or do you just do your research? Tell me, are you a closet pervert, a wannabe freak? When you fantasized about the chance to actually do what you’d obviously been reading up on, did you imagine yourself as the one doing the choking or the one being choked, I wonder?”
With that, he moved his thumb back to his trachea, a threat. Still, the force was nowhere near dangerous for Spock.
Jim began rolling his hips again, little involuntary movements. “Stars, I should just make this–” he pressed still harder for emphasis, “disappear. Just crush your Adam’s apple. You’d still look pretty, I promise. Maybe you’d be even prettier, because you wouldn’t back-sass anymore. What do you think?”
If the spores hadn’t certainly affected him by now, then he must surely have gone insane, with the loud, wanton moan that escaped his lips. His own eyes widened in surprise.
“Oh,” Jim breathed, leering against Spock’s cheek. He felt the sharp edges of his smile drag back down the column of his neck. “You like that, do you? Why, you really are a freak.”
His fingers fluttered along his throat in succession, like playing keys on a piano, before receding.
That would not do. Spock’s free hand shot out, capturing and luring two digits to his mouth so he could suck them inside. Iron and salt on his tongue.
Jim groaned long and low, like it was his cock he had his mouth on.
“Good,” he said shakily, “That’s it. Fuck, you’re dirty. Taking my filthy fingers like they’re dick.” His other hand slid down to Spock’s hip, inching its way toward the junction of his groin. Spock shamefully widened his stance without hesitation, and a disappointed whine stuck in his throat when that hand didn’t move any further, thumb just rotating in circles. It was almost sweet, soothing. Maddening. He was mad.
“Vulcans have genital pockets, don’t they? Keep everything tucked safe inside,” his thumb rubbed more insistently, dipping closer and closer into the space between his legs.
Spock arched into his touch, pressing more firmly into the thick erection behind him. He panted.
“I bet it’d feel so good to stick my cock into that wet Vulcan cunt. I bet you’d take me so well.”
The statement had him dripping more slick into his uniform pants. His head dropped back onto Jim’s shoulder, mouth dragging off of his fingers. Please, please, he wanted to say.
“I think I get it. It’s not just that you want to be a tool, is it?”
The Vulcan was no longer sure himself, because he wanted only to cry out: please, please, use me, yes! Use me!
“It’s that you aren’t much of a man at all.”
His eyes blinked open, dazedly.
“I don’t understand your meaning.”
“I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius,” Kirk retorted, “You don’t realize shit for shit, do you? Didn’t realize I wanted this, wanted you. Now I wish you’d realize I don’t ever want to hear any more of your fucking whining unless you’re whining for my cock, girl.”
A confused burst of arousal wracked through his body, leaving him shuddering.
“Stop it, you are making no sense– ”
“Bup bup bup, shush, tool. Do you want this or not?” His fingers tapped on his inner thigh. “You want my hand on your pussy? Ask nicely, and I’ll give it to you.”
Lightheaded, his lips parted to utter the words, but before he could speak them, his communicator chirped:
“Enterprise to Commander Spock, come in, Commander. We tried contacting the Captain but had no luck–”
He jolted backward, knocking Kirk away from him so abruptly the man landed flat on his back with a whap and a loud oof!
Spock whirled around, offering him an arm even as he was struggling to remove his communicator from his belt and flip it open one-handed to gasp:
“S-Spock here.”
Had he been so occupied he missed the sound entirely? Completely unacceptable! He tried to regulate his breathing quickly, redirect bloodflow away from his arousal. Were his pants obviously soaked in the front? He glanced down at himself as he pulled Kirk to his feet, who was muttering curses and groaning his discontent at being interrupted.
“We’re in beaming range now, sir, if you’re ready.”
“Yes, two to– four to beam up,” Spock berated himself internally for the blunder.
“Wait, Spock–” Jim spluttered, tightening his grip on Spock’s wrist, but the glimmer and lights of beam-up were already circling around them, and that was the last thing he managed to say before his vision went white.
Spock stood dumbly on the transporter pad when he rematerialized, and Dr. McCoy was already rushing up to Jim’s feverish form, jabbing him with a hypospray.
He watched as Jim’s blue eyes sobered, and promptly widened with horror.