Title: The Vigil: Kirk Author: Istannor Series : TOS Part: 1/1 Rating NC I7 implied m/m and language Synopsis: Set during the second five year voyage after Spock has declared his intentions to bond with Kirk and Kirk has refused, adamantly and repeatedly out of fear of causing Spock to die like all those who went before. Kirk has been injured on a routine diplomatic mission and during his recovery everyone has thoughts on what should happen for Kirk and Spock in the future. This is Kirk's voice. These are the characters of paramount and Viacom, they own them I only check 'em out from the library. I promise to bring 'em back. The Vigil: Kirk Oh shit. Not again. Sickbay, pain, I must be in Kansas. Damn, this hurts. Concentrate, wall it off. Pain is an illusion. It doesn't exist. Breathe, JTK, take a deep breath, then, open your eyes. Okay, better. I'm a liar. Where's Spock? Okay, there he is. We have to stop meeting this way, my friend. He's fallen asleep, watching over me. It's funny, but true. I'd die of heartbreak, if I woke up here and Spock wasn't beside me. When I feel his presence in my head, I know it will be okay. Without it, I'd be deaf. I hear it all the time. It helps keep me sane and leads me away from despair. I will let you sleep. So sorry, my friend. I'm sorry I keep putting you through this. I'm so sorry I cause you pain. I'd rather die than hurt you unnecessarily but I can't stop what I do. It's the price I have to pay for continued existence. I just can't stand by and not do. So what if I die. My life as hostage, always. It's my way to deal with it all. When I do something, act, fight, refuse to give up, all the death and destruction and hopelessness is pushed back one inch more. I can feel the dragging force of it wrapped around me. I push out with all my strength, all my belief, and for one more day reality bends to me. I can shape things with my will. My desire is the diamond cliffs and all the waves have to break and retreat. I try to keep the innocents safe like I promised. I get my reward every day. Every dawn I see on new trackless land, I am paid. I am paid with the awe I feel as I think about this gloriously deadly and beautiful galaxy we travel. Every nebulae that glows in the dark pays me. Every child that doesn't die under a phaser pays me. Every famine that doesn't happen, pays me tenfold. Every time you smile your secret smile at me, I am paid more than I was ever worth. One day, I'll tell you that, so you'll understand. You deserve to know. You deserve more than I can ever give you. You picked the wrong one, my friend. I'm too flawed to have you. I'll only destroy you like I have all the rest. I've told you that and you don't believe me, yet. Look at you now. You're already on the edge, and I have never even kissed you. What would happen when you finally realize that you can't protect me, can't defend me, because I have seen the enemy and it is me? What would happen to your love then? One day, you'll realize that there is nothing here to love. I am all cold obsession and drive. The Kirk in the mirror had no choice. I do, and still I chose winning, above all. The flames are an illusion. They only seem to warm you. I suck you in and then blam, your scorched, crisp toast. You should know better than anyone. I sent you out into a space amoebae to die. I burned your eyes to darkness. I took you away from Leila Kolomi. I took you from Gol. I sent you into the arms of the enemy to lie for me. What kind of inhuman monster does all these things? Me, I do them. I'll smile at you because I love you, and I'll kill you because I need to. You keep telling me about all the times I've saved you, or forgiven you. Shit, Spock, I have to forgive, because I have done so much that needs forgiveness. Please, forgive my trespasses. You need to keep your distance, or just run. If I survive your loss, I'll go on doing what I do best. Once, I wanted you more than I wanted breath, more than I wanted this ship, but you left me and when I turned to look at why, I saw the truth of myself. I am the passion that destroys and consumes. I am the decision that kills. I am the music that lures all I love to their death. You are the one person I love too much to love. If I kill you, I'll have nothing left, not even my pain will fill the void anymore. You are my peace, my quiet joy, my warmth in the long night. I remember when I first saw you, when I stepped on the ship, my ship. I looked up and I saw you looking at me. Your eyebrow rose ever so slightly and your pupils blackened into pools that pulled me in. I felt safe for the first time in nineteen years. I saw that you would be my haven. I knew then. I was right my friend; you are my respite. I love you. I will never tell you, because I want you to live. I will lie each and every day that dawns to keep you safe, if I have to. What would it be like to feel your hair, to kiss your ears? I know ways to pleasure you that even your mind can't conceive. All these years, all those beds. I've screwed my way across Federation territory and beyond. I've slept with women that most men could never get to touch. I thought I was in love, again and again. I don't regret it, but I'm still alone. After all these years, I find that I want a quiet conversation with you more than all those prior years of late night nameless fucks in rooms that echoed. Sometimes my iron-trap memory is not so wonderful a thing. I wish I could forget. Let's see. Ruth, she wanted a young pliable up and comer who was willing to just get it up and come, wasn't me. Janice, brrr, she was psychotic by the end, almost killed me twice. Carol wanted my genes but not me. She took my son from me Spock, she destroyed me. She made me worse than my father. She still won't let me see him. Edith, died because I did not love her enough to give up the future. Reyna died because I taught her to love.. Ariel Shaw wanted her career more than me. Lori left me, long before she died screaming in that transporter beam. She said I was a ghost, no longer real even to myself. What a list of successes. I have been a boy wonder, galactic sex machine, and a giant flop at love and life off a starship. I leave behind a cemetery of stone markers. They are testimonies to dead women and relationships, even one dead man, Gary. Well, I know you figured out that Gary tried to get too close. I never wanted him that way. Maybe, if I had loved him enough, I wouldn't have had to kill him. Dunno. What in the hell do you want with me? What reason do you want me to write on your tombstone? Ah no, when I just think about you dying, I hurt worse than these friggin' holes in my gut. I should have let you be. If I had never made you shed your skin, my dreams might be safe now. You have taken over those, too. All night, I hear your voice calling me. All day, I love to watch you talk to me. I could sit until Sol grew cold and watch the words float out. I watch your lips move and imagine them on my skin, soothing me. I wish I could let go. It's not because I don't trust you. I trust you enough to close my eyes and jump off Mt. Selaya. I know that you'll snag me before I hit ground zero. I trust you enough to tell you I do get afraid. I trust you enough to tell you that I can't stand by and let anyone suffer. It's an obsession I've had since the age of thirteen. It drives my life and occupies the place my soul should be. I have to be on this ship. It's not just the ship, though I do truly love her. I finally realized what it is. It's the power the ship gives me. I'm one of the most powerful people in Federation space as long as I command this ship and this crew. I can save worlds Spock, civilizations, little children left behind to die by insane adults. I can beat the monster under the bed and the bogeyman in the closet. I know I can. I know I'm better at it than anyone has ever been before, but it's not enough. I am always a second slower than I want to be. Too many die before I get there. Too many die to help me do it. I have never forgotten a single face of my dead. Being the best doesn't matter worth shit if the competition sucks. I can't be distracted. You'll distract me with love and happiness. I have to do better, be better. I have to win. Maybe the nightmares will finally stop. You could take away my nightmares. You could heal me, I know you could. I can sometimes imagine once, just for a second, letting you hold me when I weaken, just until the tremors stopped, just until the pain left. You could make my nights warm and safe, if I let you. I won't. I need my pain. You would take it away. I can't kill anybody on my own. Without my pain, I can't stand to hurt anyone. I need my pain, or else I'll hesitate, and we'll all die. I will wedge my very soul into the hole, if I have to use it, to plug up the dike and keep us safe. ........... I have never wanted a man before. I have never wanted another man since, not Bones and not Gary. I don't want a man now. I want a Vulcan, human, hybrid, telepathic, male. My god, I want you. I want your strength and your tenderness. I want your loyalty. I want your trust. I need you to always be by my side. I will die before I ever fail you. I will never disgrace you. I will probably destroy you. Suppose, I let myself love you. What would it gain? You would die with me, 150 years or more before your time. Now, you can find somebody else. What would it gain to kiss you every where until my lips were raw with wanting? What would it gain to touch you and suck you until your back arched to me and you cried out my name in passion? What would it gain to lick your tears as they fell, and swallow your laughter as it flowed from your mouth? I could surrender all that I am to you, why bother? I could tell you that with you beside me I would never taste another's flavor or desire another's smile. So what? If I could, I'd give all that I am or will ever be to make you happy, but I can't. Maybe if I said yes we could have love, joy, inestimable belonging. It could gain me my dreams. No, no, no, not worth it. I am your death, Spock. Avoid me. Let me continue to just exist. I've been content, happy, even joyful as I am, alone. You and McCoy are better men, and friends, than I could have ever hoped for. Even Gary resented me. You never have. I bet you think I have lots of friends. How wrong you are. I have lots of people that want something from me and don't really know me. You are the first two that ever looked at me and saw the real me, and didn't run away screaming. You think I might be a little too intense? ha I know what affect I have on people. I count on it. I play with it. Don't think for a second that I'm uncomfortable with it. It's a tool nothing more, just like my face and my body and my dick and my brain. I use me worse than I'll ever use you. I love you more than I'll ever love me. Once, just once I'd like to kiss you. But, I won't. I love you and I feel you in my head. At night, when I am alone, I sense you near me. I want to come to you and lay down beside you. I want to hold you through the night. I want to let you kiss me and love me and make me come again, and again, and again. God, how many times should we change the sheets. Forget the sheets, we can love on the floor and the wall and the chair. I don't need anything but you, oh sweet mercy, I want you. I can feel you in me, where no one has ever touched me. For you, and only you. I would trail my tongue down one ear, than the other. I'd do it so slowly, so I could taste you. I want to trail kisses down your face until I reach your lips. Those lips that speak to me in my dreams. Let me kiss you and suck you, until you beg me to fuck you. No, I don't want to fuck you. I want you to take me, make me forget, chase away all my dragons. Tell me, Jim, you're so tight. Yes, lick me. Spread me. Touch me. I want you to touch me. Make me beg. Yes. I want you . I can feel you fill me, slowly. Good, that's good. Faster, now deeper, deeper. I want you so deep, I can taste you in my mouth. Yes, I can feel it. Deeper. Yes. Faster. Spock, deeper. Ah ah. So good. I can't come, the stitches will break. More, don't stop T'hy'la, more. I'm yours. Oh, shit . Ah, deeper, harder, harder. I can feel it. Yes, I can feel it. More. Yes. Ah, Ah, yessss. You are a freak, Kirk. Who else would have an orgasm, in sickbay, with your gut open, and a Vulcan sleeping at your side. Won't Bones be surprised, when he changes these dressings? See what I mean, Spock. I'm crazy. No, don't wake up, go on dreaming of better times. Today, or tomorrow, the answer will still be the same. I am not for you. I am not for either one of you. I am meant to die alone. 1