Title: Wings of Heroes Author: Istannor Series: TOS Part: 1/1 Rating: NC 17 Codes: K/S Summary: This is response to a challenge to write a mushy first time story with the Beth Midler Song in it: Wind Beneath My Wings. This is not Istannor Canon, but I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless. Also Starluck wanted me to write some more K/S. After this, back to my Logs and Letters. Thanks to The Doc of Science for her customary skills. E-mail any Feedback to Istannor @aol.com. Disclaimer: 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. Wings of Heroes "Jim?" "Over here, Spock." The room was pitch black. Even Vulcan eyes were unable to see the figure he knew was hunched in the corner. "They are waiting for us at the ceremony. Dr. McCoy sends a message to, "get the lead out"." "I'll be there." A weary voice drifted up from the inky darkness. "Why don't you go on without me, Spock? There will be 3 to 4 hours of speeches before they say anything substantial. No one will miss me for that period of time." Spock sat down next to his Captain. "I would rather wait for you, if I may." He spread out his legs in front of him and leaned back against the wall. He could feel Kirk huddled on the floor, with his arms wrapped around his knees. The hotel room had a shield over the windows designed for spacers who were uncomfortable with open views of the outdoors. Kirk had the shield in place and the illumination off, resulting in absolute darkness. The sat for a while in silence. "Are you distressed by the concept of the ceremony or what it commemorates?" "Both and neither. They are going to give me another damn medal I don't deserve and make me bow and say flowery words to the masses about the wonders of space and the magic of Starfleet. I don't feel it right now." "What do you feel, Jim?" He did not answer at first, but the Vulcan waited patiently for his answer. He knew in the past, he had always received an answer, no matter how painful the question. He seemed to remember that from Before. "Alone, a failure, unwanted by anybody except for what I can do, and not who I am." Spock felt him begin to rock slightly. "Most of all, I feel afraid." "What are you afraid of?" Spock held his breath. They had never had a minute to really talk since they had returned with the whales and it appeared the time was now. More of his true memories had begun to inch their way back to his consciousness, since he had boarded the Klingon ship to return to Earth. "This is probably not the time or the place to discuss this, Spock." "We must make the time. I know I continue to disappoint you in some fashion. I can sense it every time I am with you. You must forgive my lack of understanding or ignorance of your needs. I'm sure I would have known what bothered you before my death, but now I must ask you and you must tell me in words." "Your death. How can you say that so easily?" Spock felt his pain again and thought carefully before he responded. "That is a factual statement. To say otherwise would be irrational and to ignore it would be illogical. Please, Jim, tell me what you are afraid of." The words came out any whisper, forced past years of barriers against any similar admission, "I am afraid I will never be as good as I was. I am afraid I will mess up worse than I did this last time. Lord knows, getting you killed, your ship destroyed, the Genesis project completely destroyed, Scotty's nephew and 22 other crewmembers and scientists killed probably already put me on the all-time worst idiot list." A strangled sound bubbled up from the human to be caught before he would let it escape. "Spock, I got my only son murdered. His mother spent his whole life keeping him away from me to keep him alive, and he gets stabbed in the heart by a Klingon because they wanted something I couldn't give them." "Jim, David's death was not your responsibility. He attacked an armed, trained, Klingon warrior to defend Saavik, and he was slain. Had you been allowed a role in his upbringing, perhaps there would have been no protomatter in the Genesis machine. Perhaps with you in his life, he would have been a better warrior. He was what Carol raised him to be, and what he chose to be. I remember..." Suddenly, a memory flashed through his sight. "David's death was unfortunate, but it was the result of his and Carol's choices. We will get through this; I know this to be true. You must not blame yourself." There was no response, but he did not truly expect one. "What else do you fear, Jim?" Kirk laughed without any humor. "The list goes on. Now, I'm afraid whatever I did to drive you and Bones away from me, I will do again because I am no longer worth your faith in me. I am afraid everything I thought I was, was a lie, and worst of all they will give me a medal for being a failure." Spock turned his head in a look of disbelief. "You are afraid you will drive me away? When did you ever do that?" "You left me to go to Gol because of me." Gol. Memory flooded the Vulcan. < Spock did the only thing he could think of. "I love you, Jim." Kirk lurched back. "Stop this," he ordered harshly, as he tried to pull away from the iron grip of the Vulcan. Spock pressed on even as Jim continued to command him to stop. "I have loved you for as long as I have known you. I found myself wanting to smile with you and cry with you. I wanted to hold you and comfort you when you were hurt. I could not deny you anything. You were the bright center of my universe. You were the only friend I had ever had and the only one I ever wanted. I did not know what to do." Kirk was pushing him away, fighting to make him let go, but Spock was relentless. "Do you not understand? A Vulcan does not feel these things." Spock could not have stopped even if he had wanted to. Kirk was screaming at him to stop, to leave him alone. "I left you because I was afraid to tell you those things. I left you because I was ashamed of feeling like that about you. Jim, I am so sorry. Regret is not logical, I know. There are no other words to fit what I need to say to you. I beg you to forgive me. I betrayed your trust and our friendship because I was afraid of loving you. I have no excuses. I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I ask it of you nonetheless." He let go of his Captain. Now he had done all he could. "Please," he whispered. The last word was torn out of Spock's breast and with it fell the first tear of pain that the adult Spock had ever allowed another to see him shed. The sight silenced his Captain. It was more than James Kirk could seemingly bear. He dropped to the floor as if shot. Spock watched all the anger, loneliness and betrayal that Kirk felt rush at him, overwhelm him. The Vulcan and the Human were freed of the cage they had locked their feelings in. Kirk had written that he had given up on friendship. His letter said he only wanted living tools. Now, this had happened. "How dare you? How dare you say that to me?" The more he said the words the more enraged the human became. "You love me. You love...me? What in Hades' name do you know about love? You left me without so much as a frigging word. Without any warning, you Mr. Logic and Lord of Rationality, Spock of Vulcan, put a message on my machine to tell me you were gone. Just like that, after five years of being each other's shadow. You were my best friend, my brother. I never ever let anyone in like I did you. No secrets, we promised, and what did you do? The first chance you got, you, and Bones ran like scared rabbits. How am I supposed to trust you again? You had my heart, Spock, and you just spaced it without looking back. Fuck you." He said it in a voice that shot a phaser blast to Spock's chest. Kirk leaped to his feet and reached up to grab the unresisting Vulcan by his shirt and threw him against the bulkhead. "Fuck you." He screamed, past caring. He walked over to him and took him again by the front of his shirt, still screaming. "You want to be my friend, my brother. You tell me you love me and it's all supposed to be fine. I was about to kill myself because I had lost every last thing that was important to me. Everything, and two of those "things" chose to leave me without looking back." "I thought I had to go, Jim. I thought, at the time, it was best for you, for us both, if I left." "Why? Nobody drove you away. I never asked you to do a single thing for me, Spock. I never tried to remake you. You tell me how in the hell I'm supposed to trust you again? Why should I treat you any differently than I would a Romulan Commander? At least I know what to expect from an enemy. I've been shot, knifed, beaten, phasered, crushed, tortured, and raped. All of that put together didn't hurt one tenth of what you did to me. What you did almost killed me. I was this close." He held up a hand with two fingers only an inch apart. "I had a fully charged phaser out and ready to blast my own head off. I wanted to stop hearing the sound of your voice chanting in my head." Kirk released the limp Vulcan and turned away to cross the room and lean against the opposite wall. "I don't want you inside me anymore, Spock. You're too dangerous." Spock had to strain to hear his final words, spoken so softly towards the wall. "Leave me alone, Spock. I have no weaknesses when I'm alone." > Another wave of memory hit him. <"As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end, My life for thy life, my honor for thy honor. All that I have, all that I am belongs to thee to use as thee will. Thy back will never be unguarded. Thy wife and children shall be as mine own. Only in death will I leave thee, and with death I will avenge thee. This I swear. I am your T'hy'la now and forever." Spock repeated it again in Standard, but he saw that Kirk had understood the Vulcan. Spock's heart sang as Jim spoke. "All that thee are, I will honor. All of thy enemies, I will battle. All of thy burdens, I will carry with thee. Thy wife and thy children are as my own. Only death will sunder us. With my blood I will succor thee, with my life I will avenge thee. I am your T'hy'la now and forever." > The memory was overwhelming. He found it hard to believe that the emotional exchanges that he had just recalled had been factual. Perhaps his contact with McCoy had contaminated his memories. It was still too confusing. He realized he required more insight. "Lights," the Vulcan commanded and turned to look at his Captain. Jim was thinner since the refusion, fatigued, hair darker and shorter than it had been, and worse of all, the aura that always surrounded him during their first five year voyage was muted and tinged with profound regret and sorrow. There was only the barest of fires left in this human who he was beginning to know again. He felt a vague stirring of even more memories from Before, in his other life, and tried to grasp them, but they slipped away. "Was it your custom to sit in the dark and be melancholy before I died? If this is normative for you I do not wish to intrude. I must admit, though feelings are not logical evidence, I do not feel your current behavior is within your acceptable pattern. Am I correct in that conclusion?" His only answer was a groan. "Jim?" "Please leave, Spock. Lights off." The Vulcan got up to comply. After all, he knew a polite request should not be rejected. He walked unerringly towards the door and was stopped by a shooting pain through his head and a vaguely screamed negation of his actions. "How do you feel, Spock? " His mother's voice rang out in the silence. Indeed, how did he feel? The only answer was...wrong. Leaving was wrong and something he would have never done before. "No." He heard his voice whisper. "No." He said it much louder. It sounded correct. "I beg your pardon." Kirk whispered in a voice full of disbelief. "No, I do not wish to leave. It is not appropriate to leave you in pain and alone." 'It won't be the first damn time I've been alone...or in pain." A whispered expletive came from the dark. "Please, Spock leave. You're making it worse." "I do not believe I made it worse before for you. I have read my Logs. We were extremely close. We melded; we shared everything. Why would we not share this current difficulty you are experiencing? Please, tell me what I did to assist you through these times in the past." Kirk snapped with a low growl of frustrated rage and pain, "Goddammit, Spock, leave me alone!" The Vulcan reared back like he had been slapped. He knew it was not the Human's custom to curse at him. James Kirk never cursed at him; his T'hy'la never cursed at him. He now knew without a doubt, he should not leave. "No, you will not make me go," A song played through his mind. "You are my hero." He whispered the remembered words. "You are my hero. I am nothing without you. You are the wind beneath my wings." He paused, a half remembered room appeared and the sound of music played in the background. He looked down as phantom hands full of a gift wrapped in green silk, reached out towards him, while a ghostly voice whispered to him, < "This is for you because you are the wind beneath my wings, Spock. I am nothing without you at my back. This is my way of saying thank-you. It's not much, but it would mean a lot if you would accept it from me." He looked down and began to unwrap the ghostly package. Inside was a Pegasus, carved in the purest, greenest emerald and suspended in a globe that swirled with an invisible wind. In the skies above it, the constellations of the Vulcan night sky flickered in all their glory through a procession of views to correlate with a planetary watcher. It was magnificent. Spock remembered falling into the chair. "Jim, this is too much." He felt a hand lay on his shoulder and looked up to see a younger version of the Human who now watched him in silence, looking down into his eyes. "You are my hero, Spock. I'll never take back those words. I can do anything, save worlds, galaxies, destroy all our enemies, as long as you are with me." He saw his own hand reach up and gently stroke the side of the human's face. "I still have no intention of letting you go on that mission alone. I hope you are not trying to distract me." He heard the human's laughter fill his heart and felt the warmth renewed. "No, I hadn't thought of that, but that's not to say I wouldn't have tried. I'm speaking from my heart, Spock, and I'll take you on the mission." "In that case, I accept the gift and your decision, since a hero should be generous." > "I am your hero," Spock whispered out loud. "Lights on. What did you say?" He felt the pain radiate across the room from the human who looked at him in shock. "I said, I am your hero. I remember you telling me that a long time ago, in another life. You told me I was the wind beneath your wings, and then you laughed and apologized for sounding "mushy". I did not think it was mushy, Jim. It made me feel more special than I had ever felt in my life." He went and sat down next to the human again. "Obviously my Logs and the refusion process have neglected certain facts. I wish you to tell me how I comforted you in the past." Kirk looked up at him and a faint glimmer of hope ran over his features. "Spock, you are not ready for this." "You are wrong, Admiral James Tiberius Kirk. I think I have always been ready for this or for anything we required to succeed. Please, show me." Kirk ran his hands through his hair anxiously, looked at the Vulcan with a sideways glance, and then took a long sigh which signified he had decided to move forward. "First, you would put your arm around me." "Like so?" "No, lower, around my shoulders." Spock moved to comply. It felt right. Suddenly his touch brought to him a feel of Kirk's burning presence. A ghost of the same presence flared and danced in his memory. "Then you would hug me and pull my head onto your chest." Spock followed the instructions. The human's head bowed down against him and rested on his chest. A faint sigh of longing escaped from the bowed form, and Spock could sense the human's anxiety heighten. It was not "right" for Jim to feel anxious in this position, in his arms; this he also now knew. It felt good to feel Jim against his chest. It felt so good to know his embrace had been needed before, and was still, if Jim's reaction was any indication. "Next..." The Human became unbearably tense in his arms and time began to slow. An inkling of some great barrier being breached came to mind. On the other side he saw ocean waves, sand, and the bright sun of Vulcan calling to him. A figure was outlined in the mist, laughing and calling to him with a voice full of love. He wished to cross that barrier and return to that place. He knew it was home, not the one he had left on the Klingon Bird of Prey, but the one he had lost, which had held his soul. "Jim, please continue." Kirk grasped him tightly and continued. "Next, you would run your hand through my hair, especially the part at the front which never stays in place." Long warm fingers stroked soft brown hair. No, stroked was not descriptive, Spock luxuriated in the texture and wondered at the small tremors which ran up and down the human. He did a quick assessment of his own state, and found he was also aroused, pulse was elevated by 15%, pupils were dilated, nipples were erect, hearing and his sense of smell had become focused on this human. He pulled the human closer, and wondered at the lack of resistance. He waited, but Kirk did not continue. Suddenly, he needed to know everything. The Human remained silent. Spock leaned back and gently cupped the Human's chin and tilted the face up to look at him. His eyebrow rose to signify inquiry. Kirk bit his lower lip and then rushed the rest out, full steam ahead, "Then, you would kiss my forehead and my lips." "Show me." Kirk leaned forward and whispered the lightest of feathers across his lips. It sent a thrill coursing though Spock's body, which seemed to begin in his ear-tips and roam across his entire surface. His eyes closed against his will in an attempt to shield themselves from the sun's bright glare. But there was no sun, only Jim, kissing his lips. The nictitating membranes could not discern the difference, or perhaps it was Spock who could not. Kirk kissed his lips again and then caressed his ear-tips. He thought for a moment he would melt. He moaned and Kirk pulled back. The voice was unusually husky as it continued, "Sometimes you would do that for so long I would fall asleep in your arms, like a child. I felt so safe with you. No matter who I had to kill, or what I had just done, with you I was safe and cherished." Spock felt his chest contract and his heart began to beat so rapidly he felt a moment's light-headedness before he was able to slow it down again. He heard Kirk continue from out of the distance, "It was the only thing that kept me going, that and stubbornness. Sometimes..." "Jim, please, do not deny me knowledge which was once mine." The barrier began to crumble. Now he smelled the water-filled breeze blowing in from the beach on the opposite side. He saw the waves break on the dunes and rush over sand, tan and red mixed in a pattern he had never seen before. The breeze was too full of salt to be a Vulcan breeze and there was too much red sand in the water for it to be an Earth ocean. Mixed, all of it mixed, one grain of sand with the other, one impression with the next. His breath stopped. He knew what was next. "Sometimes we made love for hours." Kirk tensed and waited for him to pull away and leave in disgust. "Ahhh," Spock gusted out in complete and joyful comprehension. The barrier shattered, and the sound of its breaking was melodious. His mind was flooded with memories, sights, smells, tastes, but most of all emotions of love, complete and unquestioning love. He crossed onto the sand and felt arms encircle him in welcome. He was home. "We were lovers, no, we were more than that, were we not?" The human nodded. "We were bonded. That explains so much I did not comprehend." He fell silent and the Human watched him as the silence stretched out into the inky black of the unknown. Spock savored the knowledge and turned it over to look at it from every possible angle. It was logical. They flowed together like sand and water, like particles of sand, like a wave over the beach. Together, inseparable, but each distinct in their identity, yet seamless in function. The one thing he was missing was back; his puzzle was complete. Spock stood up and looked down at the Human with a look that caused the man to shake, ever so finely. " We do not have hours, since we must be at the ceremony." He bent down and picked Kirk up as if he weighed nothing and crossed over to the bed. "We do, however, have an hour and a half. Perhaps I can make you remember why I am your hero in that span of time." He laughed out loud at the look on his Human's face and then he laid his Captain down and stretched out beside him. He looked directly into the hazel eyes which had once filled his daily thoughts. "I had life, yet I was empty. I had knowledge and it served me not. This is what I was lacking and you would have denied it to me out of some sense of misplaced protectiveness for my feelings. I had no true feelings until I met you. You were the one that made me real. In my own private logs, I admitted it years ago. It seems I did not tell the complete truth, even to myself. Do not ask me to leave again; I will not go." Kirk's face lit up in a smile that freed his soul from any last traces of despair. "Do you remember all of the words to that song?" Kirk asked him gently and Spock shook his head to say no. Kirk cupped the face of the person who now remembered he had filled every void the human ever had, and recited the words which came from deep in his memory, whole and unsullied, to fill them both with love. It must have been cold there in my shadow, To never have sunlight on your face. You were content to let me shine, that's your way. You always walked a step behind. So I was the one with all the glory, While you were the one with all the strain. A beautiful face without a name for so long. A beautiful smile to hide the pain. Did you ever know that you're my hero, And everything I would like to be? I can fly higher than an eagle, For you are the wind beneath my wings. It might have appeared to go unnoticed, But I've got it all here in my heart. I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it. I would be nothing without you. Did you ever know that you're my hero? You're everything I wish I could be. I could fly higher than an eagle, For you are the wind beneath my wings. Did I ever tell you you're my hero? You're everything, everything I wish I could be. Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle, For you are the wind beneath my wings, 'Cause you are the wind beneath my wings. Thank you, thank you, Thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings. Spock gathered him tightly and kissed him with a whisper of a desert wind. He closed his eyes and smiled again, the slight, half-smile Jim had always known was for him alone. "Jim...," he gusted out like the fresh cool breeze presaging the desert rains. "I wish to remember even more right now, and let the ceremony be damned." He reached down again and engulfed the human in kisses which seemed to last for as long as the Earth turned on its axis. "T'hy'la," he cried out in joy, "how could I ever have forgotten this?" Each piece of clothing he stripped with a kiss; each limb he stroked as he licked it from end to end. It was his, all he surveyed was his and had belonged to only him for years. Men and women had come to claim this from him. They had looked at his Kirk and saw something they wanted, but now he remembered it had always been kept for him alone. This lip he kissed had been his. He sucked it long and hard and dived into the mouth that tasted of fruit he loved. He rolled on top of his beloved and soaked in the passion which caressed him, the recognition of flesh that knew flesh. This was his. He smelled the human arousal which greeted his desert senses and teased the memories from their recesses. They had spent hours in touch and loving one another, in the life before. They had reveled in each other, never allowing their skins to part. He had learned all he knew of passion from this man and bathed in ripples of limitless orgasms because he was loved by this man. "Jim, adun, Lasha adun, touch me, move in me, never let me go," He fell on his Jim and consumed him with reborn memory and rekindled flame. He burned, not the flame of Pon Farr, but a fire which consumed nonetheless. Touch, a breeze across the skin, lips, feather light and crushing hard. "Jim..." Somewhere he felt a caress around his dark and special place only Jim had touched. "Spock, please, I need you, I need you ..." He was on his back, and he felt his T'hy'la lying on him. Memories flooded him, feelings, smells, joy, completion filled him. He remembered...he remembered.. "Jim..." he whispered and he shifted position. He leaned towards the Human and took the golden penis in his mouth to bathe it, taste it, know it as he once had known it in the Before Time. He felt his love rear back, tense with the need to come, "No, in me, only in me." Spock tried to pull Jim back down on his chest and felt the Human's hesitation, his fear. "This is new to you, Spock. This is the first time... for you. I do not want to hurt you." Jim ached with his need, but he stayed poised above, never wanting to cause pain. This was the Jim he knew. It was so good to be home. Spock said nothing, just pulled his bronze heart forward to fill him. His mind burst, memories flooded him. He heard Jim gasp and still he pulled him deeper until Jim lay panting on his chest, not even a millimeter was between them. "Do not ever send me away again," the Vulcan demanded. "Spock," Jim cried out and then he moved, slowly, gently, then faster, harder, then slowly, in and out, until the ground moved and the lights flashed in his head. Again Jim slowed, "No, not yet, I want to do this forever," he gasped out. Slow and deep, fast and shallow. Spock's mouth was bathed in kisses, his lips were sucked and bit until he could stand it no more. He grabbed Jim's rear and rammed him in and pulled him out again and again until it became torture. Scenes flashed by in his mind, and remembered words assailed his ears. "I love you," Spock heard the whispered words follow a trail down the years. "I remember, I remember," he screamed and they came, and came, and came. Much later, the buzzer from the front door awoke Spock. "Hey, Jim, where the hell are you?" McCoy's voice filtered in over the intercom. Spock lifted his head to find his beloved asleep on his chest. Even the intercom had not awakened him. He turned over and hit the voice only button. "It is Spock, Leonard. We will be late for the ceremony. We are catching up on old times." McCoy laughed. "How is Jim?" "Currently, he is asleep." "Shit, you must of worn him out and goodness knows he needed it. Spock, I will keep them busy as long as I can. How much more catching up do you plan to do?" "We should be there in another hour." "Damn, Spock, you guys are my heroes." Spock smiled, cut the connection, and leaned down to awaken his own personal, bonafide, dyed in the wool, hero. THE END