“You’re gonna sit your ass down. NOW.”
“But –”
“Doctor’s orders. Take your but and sit it in a chair.” Bones tugged him relentlessly towards a couch against the wall of the lobby. Ignoring the curious glances, Bones sat them both down and pulled out his tricorder.
Kirk leaned forward and rested his head on his hand, feeling dizzy. Unexplained emotions - that he was pretty sure weren't his - were swirling in his blood.
Bones started scanning him. “Don't bother, it's not worth it,” Kirk said, batting at him with his free hand.
“Quiet, brat." Bones grabbed Kirk’s hand and pinned it to the couch, then continued with his scanning.
“Bossy bastard,” Kirk muttered. But he let Bones scan him without further complaint. It was a familiar pattern, one they'd fallen into at the Academy: Bones would attempt to care for him, Kirk would protest that his efforts were wasted on him, and then Bones would promptly scold him into submission, leaving a subdued Kirk confused and defenseless against a person who actually cared whether he lived or died.
Bones looked at the tricorder and shook his head. “Readings all over the damn place. With two nights’ worth of alcohol and Orion pheromones in you, it’s a right miracle you can stand.”
“It’s not the pheromones.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t kn -” Kirk froze, as inside his mind he suddenly wasn't alone. “Bones,” he whispered, eyes going wide. “Bones, there’s something in my head.”
“What?”
“I swear. It’s - it’s - wait.” Kirk blinked. With an aching twist of his stomach, he recognized the presence. “I think it’s Spock.”
Bones’s eyes widened. “Spock?" he repeated. "That goddamn telepath – what’s he – ”
“I don’t think he knows that I can feel him. He’s concentrating really hard.” Kirk closed his eyes, the alien presence of Spock in his mind painfully tempting. “He’s looking for something.”
"In your head?"
"Yes."
“How do you know?”
Kirk shook his head. “I don't know. I just do.”
“Well, what the hell is he looking for in your head?”
“No idea," Kirk whispered, eyes still closed. After all these weeks of longing and profound separation, to feel Spock's thoughts against his own was torture. "He’s worried, though.”
Bones scoffed. “That stone cold bastard never worries.”
"He’s worried now." Kirk winced as Spock's pain shot through him. "And guilty – oh my God, he feels guilty as sin, it’s awful. He’s burning up with it, like penance. He’s – oh - ”
The most horrible feeling of grief flooded Kirk’s senses, powerful enough to take his breath away. He doubled over involuntarily.
Bones grabbed his upper arms. “Jim! Stay with me. Talk to me.”
Kirk forced himself to open his eyes and meet his friend’s worried stare. “He found it,” he whispered. Spock’s heartache was nearly overwhelming him. His eyes fluttered shut again, his body weakening under the onslaught of Spock’s powerful unchained Vulcan emotions.
Bones tightened his hold on Kirk’s arms. “Found what?”
“It.” Kirk took a gasping breath, his consciousness fleeing as he sank into his own mind, losing awareness of Bones’s strength keeping him upright. “He thinks he’s too late. It’s - Spock - ”
It cannot be too late. Please. I cannot lose him.
“Jim!”
Kirk distantly heard Bones yell his name, but Kirk’s world had gone dark as the alien presence drew him deep into an extraordinary dual awareness. A familiar, yearned-for voice was inside him and surrounding him all at once. He swore he could feel Spock’s touch; that his entire body was being cradled in the palm of Spock’s hand.
I am here now and I will not abandon him again. Please, let it not be too late. There was real fright in Spock's voice. Please, I - I need him.
For a moment, the world was still.
And then Kirk’s mind suddenly exploded in a thousand points of light. A wave of euphoria, Spock’s euphoria, crashed over him; mixed with something else, some new and wonderful sensation that flooded Kirk’s senses and resonated in his soul.
Never alone again, t'nash-veh telsu, taluhk nash-veh k'dular -
Spock slipped into Vulcan in Kirk's mind, the unfamiliar sounds gentle and adoring, like Spock was speaking to something tiny and infinitely precious. His affection blossomed around Kirk like a warm blanket.
“Jim –”
Kirk let the words and the sensations wash over him like the heat of Vulcan after the barren cold of Delta Vega.
“Jim –!”
Who knew Spock could sound like this? Devoted, fond, protective –
“JIM!”
Kirk snapped back into reality, eyes flying open to find frantic hazel eyes staring into his own. Then another rush of dizziness hit him, and he had to close his eyes again. “You don’t have to shout,” he finally murmured, unable to resist cracking open one eye to see Bones’s reaction to his sass.
Bones’s expression became murderous. “The grey hairs on my head? You see them? Your fault. Every. Damn. One.”
“Mmmm.” Kirk tilted his head to the side to rest it against the back of the hotel couch, the fabric cool and silky against his flushed face. “You say the sweetest things.”
Bones rolled his eyes. “Spock gone yet?”
Kirk hesitated. “My head’s fine now.”
It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie. But it wasn't really truthful either, because Spock was definitely still there. Kirk could hear the faint murmuring of Vulcan at the back of the mind and could still feel Spock’s presence. But something made him feel that he should talk about it with Spock before he spoke with anyone else about whatever the hell had just happened.
He couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Spock was talking to in his head. A couple months ago, he would have given anything to believe that it was him that Spock was talking to. Now, however, he simply knew better: whatever Spock was so enamored with inside his mind, it was foreign. Maybe it was a by-product of proximity and telepathy, or some kind of Vulcan thing, but whatever it was, it had nothing to do with James Kirk.
He didn’t even hope. There would be no point. He’d been forced to accept that it was hopeless to long for Spock, and he’d be damned if he was going to rip that wound open just because he’d heard Spock coo at something in his head.
*****
