#K Project Fic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ridiasfangirlings · 2 months ago

Text

Title: Windows

Fandom: K Project

External: AO3

Pairings: Sarumi

Ratings/Warnings: T

Summary: Between them there was a window, and Fushimi would never reach through it on his own. Not yet, at least.

Notes: I wanted to get something written for Resurrection Fest, so have a little fic.

Frost curled along the edges of the window and Fushimi couldn’t quite see his reflection.

His breath came out in small clouds that hung in the air, snow settling on his shoulders, on the sleeves of his coat, and his cheeks were red. His fingers were frozen to the tips, no mittens—he’d lost them, maybe, or ‘that man’ had hidden them somewhere out of reach, it all came out the same in the end. The sky was a soft wave of navy, the stars just coming out and a hint of the moon above, covered by the clouds of winter. Around him people walked, flashes of brightly colored coats that blurred in the hazy surface of the window, and he couldn’t make out their faces. Unimpressive people talking about unimportant things, and no one stopped to ask what a six year old boy was doing out at this hour all alone in the middle of the city.

“We’re going Christmas shopping!” That man had proclaimed it proudly as he stepped into the house like a whirlwind, grabbing Fushimi by the wrist and eagerly dragging him out the door. Fushimi had barely managed to grab his coat and he didn’t doubt that Niki would have taken him outside barefoot if he hadn’t left a spare pair of shoes so close to the door.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, really. Maybe that Niki would shove him face first in the snow and laugh that he’d made a snow monkey, or wrapping Fushimi up in Christmas lights and putting a star on his head while singing about the Christmas Monkey Tree. It wasn’t particularly a surprise when he’d suddenly realized that he was in the middle of the city Christmas market and no one was holding his hand. Niki had likely already gone home to set some traps and was waiting to see if his son could navigate the way back all alone.

Fushimi didn’t want to go back.

He breathed warm air onto the window, letting it melt a clear circle through the frost. He touched it with a finger, scowling at the feeling of cold and wet, and traced the hazy line of his own reflection. Beneath his glasses he thought maybe he could see that man’s face and he lowered his head to let his chin dip into the collar of his coat. The snowflakes melted on his glasses and made spots in his vision. In the half light there was a reflection he didn’t want to see and he tried to look past it, through the glass where he didn’t have to meet his own eyes.

There were warm colored lights bobbing happily on the other side of the window. The frost made it hard to see anything but he could make out figures moving inside and the faintest hint of a Christmas carol being sung. There was one shadow smaller than the others, a figure shaped like a child, and another figure who placed a soft hand on the child’s shoulder. It was late so maybe they’d been out shopping, like a normal family. Maybe they’d held hands as they walked through the market, maybe the child had picked out a toy and they’d walked side by side on the way back home, and prepared a warm dinner for a frigid night.

Fushimi didn’t want to go back.

Someone shifted on the other side of the window, moving towards him, and Fushimi lowered his eyes and walked away. His fingers were red at the tips and he clicked his tongue quietly.

There was no point in looking at things he wouldn’t be able to grasp, and it was stupid to even bother.

The subway was nearly empty now, so late the evening after Christmas. All but the most dedicated of salarymen were still on vacation after all, sleeping off the holiday. For Fushimi, that was good. It meant no one even looked up as he stepped on the train and he was able to weave his way through the minimal crowd to find himself a lonely car and a seat by the window. As soon as he was alone Fushimi pulled the PDA from his pocket and opened up the jungle app.

His old jungle account was still active, as he had been promised so long ago, and the green light reflected in his eyes. A previous passenger had cracked open the window behind him and cold wind danced around his face, biting at his cheeks as he scrolled through the mission list. He was cold, but didn’t feel like moving to close the window.

There were plenty of likely missions, even today. Especially today, all things considered. From Hisui Nagare’s point of view Fushimi supposed it must be even more like a holiday. A birthday, of sorts. The mission Fushimi had chosen for his first had a large amount of available points and no takers, he only needed to make his way across town first to complete it in the dead of night.

Fushimi leaned his head back against the seat, mind working. Everyone started at E rank. He had two months – no, probably a month, maybe not even that – to reach J rank. If he failed, everything failed. If he succeeded...well, he probably wouldn’t live to see that either way. Fushimi smiled thinly as the train lurched to life, setting the PDA face down against the seat cushions. There wasn’t a point in thinking about that right now.

The subway moved into a tunnel and the window across from him showed his reflection against the darkness of the tunnel outside. He looked worn thin already, skin bone-white, back hunched, shadows under his eyes. He hadn’t eaten anything since leaving Scepter 4 besides a couple bars of Caloriemate and multiple cans of coffee, and the caffeine was the only thing keeping him awake and alert at this point. It was enough.

He ran a hand through his hair and watched the reflection in the window do the same. This would be his first mission for jungle. In a way it was more the beginning of the mission than even leaving Scepter 4 had been. He couldn’t turn back after this and he would have nowhere to run if things got bad. There would be no hero to save him.

(Not that he expected one, because Fushimi had never believed in heroes.)

(“Come chase me.”)

“Stupid.” Fushimi spat the word out low through gritted teeth. He didn’t expect Misaki to understand the import of those words – he didn’t even entirely understand them himself, why he’d bothered to say them. Why he hadn’t just disappeared into the night like smoke and let Yata draw his own conclusions when Scepter 4 inevitably broke the news of his betrayal to their erstwhile ‘comrades.’ Yata would yell and bluster like always and there would be no worrying about the final words that had been thrown his way, that had not been meant as a request or plea. Yata wouldn’t stop for a single breath to consider those words and to wonder what they had meant, to try and understand. Yata had long since stopped trying to do that, after all.

(Wasn’t that why he’d left the first time anyway, another long drive away from the place that had once been home, and that was when he’d learned never to be so weak as to think of any place as being ‘home’ ever again.)

The reflection in the window wavered, rippling like water. Fushimi’s vision felt blurry as he stared at it, trying to focus on the other side of the window that he couldn’t reach, the pane of glass between him and the world. In that image there was a person beside him, head against his shoulder, lightly asleep. Red hair fell against a tanned forehead, earbud falling out of one ear. They were two, in rumpled school uniforms, tired from a long day of walking to nowhere, talking about anything. Yata always fell asleep first even though he said he wasn’t tired, eyes drooping despite the noise of the train around them. Yata who would press his face against Fushimi’s shoulder, mouth slightly open, breathing softly.

And Fushimi there, unmoving. The reflection sat stock-still, as if afraid to move, as if a single twitch would break the spell, and Yata would wake and run away. A reflection of a memory, of a habit that had once been easy as breathing – side by side on the train on a winter night, a single frozen moment captured in the cage of the window, of a time Fushimi had once dared to wish would go on forever.

The image flickered and died as the train exited the tunnel and the bright lights of the city sliced through the reflection in the window, and Yata wasn’t there anymore.

Once again, only Fushimi staring at his own reflection, once again alone.

Fushimi’s PDA buzzed and he started slightly, shaken as if from a dream. Even as his fingers fumbled for it he looked to one side, as if he could still see the phantom of that reflection there in the flesh, as if he had somehow managed in that space between breaths to reach through the window and pull back the past that had long slipped from his grip. Dimly he remembered standing in the rain reaching for a sword and the hand he’d seen for only just a moment reaching beside him at the same time.

The memory made his expression twist and Fushimi deliberately let it fall from his mind as he opened his PDA and read the updated mission report sent from jungle. This was the important thing, the mission. He had a job to do, he had a use that he had to fulfill. Dreaming about the past was pointless, reaching for things beyond the glass was pointless.

He bought another can of coffee as soon as he left the train and drank it all in a single gulp, even though it made his throat feel tight and his chest ache. It was enough to wake him up anyway, and he headed out into the snow to complete his mission.

---

“Misaki, stay where I can see you!”

“Right, mom!” Yata responded in the affirmative but didn’t particularly slow his pace as he wandered around the shrine. His mom was busy keeping an eye on his siblings anyway, holding Megumi tightly by the hand so she didn’t wander off in her small kimono. His parents and siblings had dressed up for the first shrine visit of the year but Yata had decided not to, wearing a hoodie and sneakers instead. Dressing up was really for kids when you thought about it, kids and old people, and he was more of a grown up but not that grown up. Anyway, if they were going to be walking a lot wearing his sneakers just made sense, didn’t it?

Yata sighed and blew out a puff of breath, pretending to be a smoke dragon in the cold air. New Year’s wasn’t too bad – he’d gotten some money, so he and Saruhiko could go to the arcade the next time they had a chance, and he could buy his own snacks too. He still felt on edge though and a little gloomy, unlike himself. It was just that this time of year was always so heavy on family and it always made him feel a little like everything going on was for people besides him.

Yata glanced back at his mother, who smiled at him in a distracted way as she straightened Megumi’s clothes. Minoru was with Yata’s stepdad, pointing at one of the statues by the shrine steps and chatting about something Yata couldn’t hear. Neither of his parents seemed likely to move any time soon so Yata kept walking, hands in pockets, wandering inside the nearest shrine building. There were a few people inside, talking quietly and lighting some kind of incense that made Yata’s nose tickle. He couldn’t swallow a sneeze and took a few steps back as the adults turned to glare at him.

Anyone’s allowed in here, I can be here too, he thought peevishly. Even so Yata backed his way over to the wall, staring out the large circular window. The shrine was overlooking the stairs they had walked up earlier and Yata stared down at all the people going by below him, most dressed in traditional clothes and making their way from shrine to shrine.

Somehow that just made his melancholy sit deeper. All those families wandering together in a sea of bright colors below him, all belonging. Yata wondered if maybe he should have agreed to dress up after all.

Something caught his eye and Yata stood up straighter as he spotted a single slim figure walking alone, a lone shadow in that bright crowd, head down and even without being able to see it clearly Yata could guess at the gloomy expression that must be on that person’s face. He glanced briefly back at the adults behind him and then gave a quiet ‘okay!’ as he placed a hand on the lower curve of the window and in a single jump hoisted himself right through.

“Misaki!” He was pretty sure he heard his mother yell his name again but Yata ignored it, dashing down the shrine steps as fast as he could go. Multiple people climbing the stairs glared at him as he pushed his way by but Yata didn’t mind them, not when he had a more important goal.

A few steps from the bottom his unlaced shoes finally betrayed him and Yata tumbled down, landing roughly right at the feet of the exact person he’d be running so hard to catch up to.

“Saruhiko!” Yata ignored the stinging of his skinned knee as he sat up. Fushimi stared flatly back at him, as if Yata was a magician who had failed spectacularly on his last trick.

“Misaki.”

“What are you doing here? My mom made us visit a shrine for the new year. Well, I’m not very interested in that kind of thing, but Minoru and Megumi like it, you know? And we’re going to have yakisoba later too at home. It’s been really boring though, I haven’t seen you since the holiday and you barely answer your PDA.” Yata laughed nervously as he got to his feet, aware that his mouth was getting away from him. Fushimi shrugged languidly.

“I haven’t had time to check my messages.” There was something beneath Fushimi’s tone that Yata couldn’t entirely place but recognized nonetheless– a dark thing that was so often lurking beneath the still waters of Fushimi’ s gaze, and whenever Yata tried to grasp it he felt like he was approaching something dangerous and predatory.

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” Yata grinned at him. “Anyway, were you visiting the shrine?” The words had just slipped out of his mouth when he noticed it, the backpack on Saruhiko’s back.

“That is…” Fushimi looked away, somewhat awkward. “An internet cafe—”

“Right.” Yata let that sink in, and then shook it off like a duck shaking off water. “Anyway, if you’re not doing anything then come with us! Mom’ll definitely have plenty of yakisoba, I’ll bet we’d have extra without you and anyway! You barely eat anything as it is, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Sure it’ll be fine,” Fushimi repeated with a snort. “You haven’t even asked her.”

“Trust me, okay? I’m great at negotiating, Mom will definitely be convinced if I ask!”

Fushimi clicked his tongue again but didn’t seem like he was opposed to Yata trying, so Yata smiled and waved a hand at him.

“Come on! We’ll go ask.”

“Misaki…”

“Hmm?” Yata glanced back at Fushimi, who was looking up at the shrine with an inscrutable expression.

“Your parents are up there, but you came running down this quickly?”

“Well...I saw you through the window.” Yata laughed sheepishly. “I kinda...jumped out?”

“Idiot.” Fushimi shook his head but there was a ghost of a smile on his lips and Yata brightened immediately, reaching for Fushimi’s hand.

“It’s fine! I had to catch you, right? So let’s go!”

There was a gray haze settling over the city as Yata lazily propelled his skateboard down the street, moving slowly to avoid running into any of the crowds still milling about.

It was the new year, and despite the poor weather and late time there were still people wandering around near the shrines, making their new year’s wishes and celebrating in small groups. Yata found himself idly staring at the people as he passed and then quickly looked down at his feet, moving slightly faster as he made his way towards Bar Homra.

It had been a week now, since anyone had heard from Saruhiko.

Yata was trying not to be worried. Why should he be? Saruhiko wasn’t his friend anymore, wasn’t his comrade. He was Scepter 4’s problem now and beyond the tentative alliance between the clans there was really no need for Yata to be concerned about where he went or what he did.

Even so it was hard not to think about it. A whole week, and not a single sign of him. Yata knew better than anyone else that Saruhiko had nowhere else to go if he wasn’t at Scepter 4. He definitely wouldn’t have gone back ‘home’-- not that that place had ever been a home, and Yata dimly recalled Fushimi having mentioned once when they were still roommates that his old place had been sold anyway – and if he wasn’t with any of his coworkers there really wasn’t anyone else he could call on.

(He could have called me, and Yata couldn’t stop thinking about it. If Fushimi had called, would he have answered? Had he missed that last small window before things broke apart completely and he didn’t even realize it until it was too late?)

He slowed his skateboard as a group of revelers came down the steep steps of the shrine, standing awkwardly to one side as they passed. They were chatting quietly, smiling and discussing new year’s wishes, and Yata felt another pang in his chest. His fingers brushed against the face of his watch and he didn’t need to look to know that there hadn’t been a single answer to the messages he’d sent days ago.

‘Making a wish at New Year’s, that can’t hurt at all you know.’ A voice in his head that sounded distinctly like Totsuka whispered, and Yata found himself picking up his skateboard and walking towards the temple. A few people glanced at him as he passed – most of the people here were dressed traditionally, as opposed to Yata’s hoodie and sneakers, and he was carrying around a skateboard – and Yata ignored them. A group of kids had circled around a man selling charms and several girls were eagerly exchanging fortunes, and Yata carefully stepped past them towards the shrine itself. There weren’t as may people here but he still felt out of place, as if everyone here had more of a right to be making wishes than he did – it wasn’t like Yata had really believed in this stuff, not in a long time. He’d made wishes and bought fortunes with everyone else when Totsuka took all of Homra out to the shrines on New Year’s, but he’d always just seen it as going through the motions, not something you took seriously. But now, standing here with a sincere wish, Yata felt like an imposter who had slipped inside when no one was looking. He leaned against one of the open circular windows instead, taking a deep breath of cold evening air, and wondered if he should just get going back to the bar the way he was supposed to be. His eyes swept the crowd outside, noting the way it had just started to snow again.

As his eyes rested momentarily on the girls and their fortunes Yata spotted the briefest flash of green.

Something about it made him stop, his breath catching, and he was about to lean out the window before he checked himself.

What are you even doing, stupid? Yata didn’t know why he’d frozen, what it was he thought he’d seen. It couldn’t have been who he thought it was. Did Saruhiko even own anything green?

(A memory, bubbling up from the depths of his mind:

“You can’t buy that one, Saruhiko! It’s green!”

A tongue click, familiar annoyance.

“I didn’t know you were a fashion critic now, Misaki.”

“W-well, no, but...shouldn’t it be red?” Not like Yata didn’t have other colors in his wardrobe too, but he’d

started having the vague feeling that, as a member of the Red clan, he should be wearing more red. Saruhiko didn’t seem to agree, face twisting in displeasure, a look that suddenly reminded Yata of the expression Fushimi had made when Yata had shown him the new Homra logo he’d placed on his skateboard.

“I’m buying this one.”

“Okay, okay, maybe it’s fine if it’s green – but why the fuck is there fur on it?”

“It’s warm, Misaki. Not all of us are hot-blooded idiots who don’t need to wear coats even in the winter.”

“It’s girly.”

“I’m not buying it for you.” On the contrary, Yata was pretty sure Saruhiko had bought it just to annoy him, because Yata had made a comment about the color, especially when Fushimi insisted on wearing it the next time they went out with the rest of Homra, Fushimi in his stupid green coat standing apart from everyone else.)

Had it been that coat? It was late. His eyes could have been playing tricks on him, making him see things in the fog that weren’t really there. And even if it had been Saruhiko it was too late anyway – what was he supposed to do, jump through the window and chase him down?

(You did, once.)

Saruhiko didn’t want to see him anyway. Fushimi hadn’t answered a single call or text that Yata had sent his way. Even if Yata had run after him, what would he have said? Would Fushimi have even listened? That guy never listened to anything he didn’t want to hear, Yata knew that better than anyone.

Even so, there was a tightness in his chest as Yata turned back towards the shrine, swallowing down a wish, and hoping that half-seen flash of green wouldn’t haunt him later.

Fushimi walked slowly through the back alleys, hands stuffed in his pockets. His stomach grumbled and he ignored it, clicking his tongue quietly.

His PDA vibrated softly, making him aware of a new message, and he pulled it out to check. Misaki, as expected.

[You’re late, Saruhiko! Kamamoto’s gonna eat everything if you don’t get here soon, so hurry up!]

Fushimi clicked his tongue again, scowling. As if he wanted to go eat with everyone anyway.

He hadn’t gone on the mission with the rest. Instead Kusanagi had asked him to go talk to a supplier across town, someone who handled deliveries for one of Kusanagi’s many businesses. There were things happening with a rival gang and Kusanagi didn’t feel comfortable leaving Yata and company to it alone — and Fushimi wouldn’t have either, though he didn’t really want to go with them himself — so he’d asked Fushimi to meet with the supplier instead. By the time Fushimi had returned to the bar it was empty, a note on the counter for him and his phone buzzing with missed messages from Misaki.

[Kusanagi-san said he’d treat us all to hot pot for kicking those guys asses! Mikoto-san is coming too, so hurry up and get over here, Saruhiko]

[Hey, did you see my message? We’re gonna eat without you, are you coming?]

[Kusanagi-san said he left the address for you at the bar. You’re gonna miss all the fun! You better not be hiding at home again]

Stupid. Fushimi grimaced and stuffed the PDA back in his pocket. Like he wanted to spend time with all those idiots anyway. And he doubted they wanted to spend any time with him, for that matter — he was the only one who’d been singled out not to go on the mission, after all. Kusanagi had said something about Fushimi being a ‘trustworthy kid’ but who knew what he was insinuating with that. That he could only trust Fushimi with numbers, maybe, or to work on his own instead of with the group.

And that was fine, being on his own. He’d always been able to do things on his own. It was stupid Misaki who kept waving his pride around and yelling ‘everyone, everyone,’ saying pointless things about spending time with their ‘comrades.’

Misaki’s comrades, maybe. Not Fushimi’s.

The streets got lighter as he stepped out into a busier area of the city. Small shops and family restaurants lined the street and pedestrians moved busily from one shop to another. The streetlights were lit brightly and it gave the entire scene something of a cheery feel, which made Fushimi’s head pound more than anything. His eyes scanned the street signs, looking for his destination.

Ultimately he found the restaurant fairly easily. It was even more brightly lit than the streets around it and there was a huge picture window right in the front. From where he stood in the shadows of a lamppost Fushimi could see that Homra had taken the spot right by the window — of course they had — and Yata was sitting right there in the middle, talking with his mouth full as he put Kamamoto in a headlock. Totsuka was laughing and making calming motions with his hands while Kusanagi had a slightly exasperated look. Mikoto was leaning against the window, eyes half closed, but when Anna beside him held out a piece of meat he opened his mouth to take it.

The whole thing looked warm and cozy, a large group having fun. It made Fushimi want to be sick.

His eyes slid over to Yata again, who had finally sat back down and was picking at a piece of meat. His eyes were down, focused on his food, and Fushimi found himself taking a step closer towards the circle of light made on the street by the lamp beside him.

Misaki. Look at me.

It was a ridiculous thought and he was annoyed at himself for wanting it. Even so he found himself waiting, as if Misaki would look up any moment and their eyes would meet, and he’d hurry outside to meet Fushimi.

Look at me.

Yata shifted, chewing on a piece of meat, and then raised his head. Fushimi froze, a hand reaching out despite himself, and then Yata smiled and looked over at Mikoto.

It was like a shock of cold water over his head and Fushimi bit his lip as he turned on his heel and walked back into the darkened alley he had just come from.

He wasn’t hungry anyway.

—

Fushimi stared down at his PDA as he continued to nurse his single cup of water. In the reflection of the big picture window in front of him he could see a waitress pass by, giving him a frigid glare, and he clicked his tongue quietly. He would have ordered something but everything on the menu had looked entirely unappetizing. Of course it would be like Hirasaka to ask to meet at one of the fanciest diners in Shizume City. Fushimi expected he would be paying for her meal and chalked it down to just another one of the necessary expenses of the mission.

He opened his jungle account and checked his point balance again. He was N rank now, but with the points Hirasaka was meeting him to deliver he would be U. By his calculations he would be J before too long, and then the mission would really start.

One of the waitresses sighed pointedly behind him and Fushimi didn’t bother to turn and look at her. Instead he glanced idly out the window, stuffing his PDA in his pocket and taking another slow sip of his water. The diner was three floors up on a high rise and surrounded by windows on all side, to give a full view of the city below. Fushimi had taken a spot by one of the windows, a small table for two, and he wondered if the waitresses were taking him for a jilted boyfriend. The thought made him snort. In any case Hirasaka wasn’t late yet — ‘time is money,’ is what she would likely say if he asked, and she never arrived anything but strictly on time. It was Fushimi who was early, taking a moment to finally rest his aching body and sit down.

He felt sore all over and strained thin. So far he’d mostly managed to find places to sleep for the night, mainly cheap hotels and internet cafes (the latter would be easier and certainly cheaper than the former, but the first night he’d found himself staying at one it had been hard to breathe and harder to sleep, choked by memories of an empty house and the person who had once promised him that he didn’t need that kind of home). His knife harness had started digging into his shoulders of late and he knew he’d have scars there eventually but Fushimi couldn’t bring himself to care. He wasn’t stupid enough to take it off even to sleep, not when he was a traitor in unfamiliar territory, and it wasn’t like a few more scars to what he already had would be a problem.

(And what were scars to a dead man walking anyway?)

One of Fushimi’s hands reached up, sliding under his jacket and resting on his shoulder as he subtly shifted the harness beneath to give some peace to the chafing skin. Once there might have been someone who would have yelled at him about doing such a thing but he was on his own now. Hirasaka wasn’t the type to comment on the condition of the person that was paying her beyond verifying that his body would last long enough for the payment to post and anyway, even if she would have tried he would have responded with something biting about not paying for honesty. Their relationship was transactional and that was how Fushimi liked it best. Simple. Qualitative. No expectations beyond the payment that they had agreed upon and the missions each would complete, and that was all.

Below him Fushimi could see crowds of people on the sidewalks, making their way through the city. Most had their faces buried in their PDAs, and he didn’t doubt that there were countless jungle members among them. Hisui Nagare’s network was vast, thousands of ‘pseudo clansmen,’ who carried just a small piece of the King’s power within them, that could be taken away should they fail in their King’s missions.

(Fushimi’s hand hovered for a moment over his chest with the sudden urge to scratch at that scar that never faded, even now.)

He looked back at his PDA again, opening jungle and looking idly over the mission list. Not seeing anything worth doing for the moment Fushimi switched the view to one he’d discovered himself, a list of all email addresses and names associated with jungle. It had been hidden deep within the files of the app and clearly not intended to be accessible to the public. It had been trivial for Fushimi to uncover though, and the fact that there had been no consequences for doing such a thing was tantamount to Hisui Nagare giving him permission to do so. There was no reason for Hisui to keep the files even accessible from the jungle app otherwise, unless he wanted to see if anyone would seek them out.

Fushimi remembered a small NPC wandering across his screen, calling his code far too beautiful, and scowled as he scrolled through the list with a thumb. Names flashed by, most useless to him, though there were a few he recognized instantly as lesser government officials and civil servants and he made a mental note to give those to Munakata (assuming either of them ever met again of course, and he laughed darkly to himself). The names scrolled by, hundreds and hundreds of users in the jungle network and then—

Yata.

Fushimi froze his scrolling and didn’t even realize his breathing had stopped until he read the full name. Yata Minoru.

Of course. Jungle is popular with kids. Fushimi clicked his tongue lightly. It wasn’t any business of his though. Misaki should be the one to deal with his own siblings, it wasn’t Fushimi’s job to bother with them at all.

There was a sudden small explosion below and several diners stood up, yelling. Fushimi didn’t move but looked up, gazing out over the city. There was a man on the streets below, crouched down and holding out a shaking hand that glowed red. In front of him was a smoking crater in the street.

That had been happening more and more too, as a result of the Slate’s slow awakening. New Strains being born constantly, drawing the attention of the general public to the menace around them that the Golden clan had tried so hard to hide. Fushimi clicked his tongue again. It wasn’t like he’d ever had a particularly high opinion of the Gold King but really, hadn’t that guy put any failsafes at all in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening the moment he croaked?

He was about to look back down at his PDA again — Strains like this were Scepter 4’s job to handle, so if Hirasaka didn’t get here soon he would need to change the meeting place to avoid being seen — when a flash of white caught his eyes. Fushimi found himself staring down at the crowd and at the small figure in a sweatshirt riding a skateboard who had just appeared on the screen and was trying to disperse the crowd. Dimly he was aware that Kamamoto was there as well, crouching down by the newly awakened Strain, but Fushimi’s eyes were fixed only on one person.

Misaki.

No matter how much he didn’t want it he couldn’t stop the way his pulse started to race slightly, a small flush rising on his cheeks. His fingers twitched for a knife — come on, let’s play Misaki — and he swallowed hard, hand moving up to scratch at his chest instead. Yata was right there below him, oblivious, but close enough that if he looked up he could see Fushimi in the window.

Look up.

Not that he needed it. This was a mission, and Yata was just a liability. Being seen now could cause all sorts of problems. It was best if they didn’t see each other ever again, when it came down to it.

Look up at me.

Come chase me.

(Save me.)

“Employer.” Hirasaka’s voice shocked him out of his stupor and Fushimi shook it off like a dog coming out of the water. She was standing calmly behind him, expression locked tight, and he didn’t even want to know what she’d read on his face, what he’d been stupid enough to let show if only for a moment.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Misaki already skateboarding back into the crowd. The PDA in Fushimi’s hand still had the name of Yata Minoru on it, one finger poised above it.

Fushimi clicked his tongue again and sent off a brief message, then blocked the account he’d sent it to from responding. Hirasaka stood there in silence and Fushimi turned away from the window to face her.

“Well? Do you have the points?”

—

Yata woke to the sounds of pouring rain and static, and a pounding headache.

The lights of the bar were dim, especially with the storm that had flown up outside swallowing up the usual daylight that would normally paint the walls in sunshine. Instead the bar was dull and dark, lit only by the occasional flash of lightning and the bright spot of the TV playing static in the middle of the bar.

The last Yata remembered he’d left the TV on, playing one of Totsuka’s old videos. It must have reached the end while he slept and Yata groaned slightly as he sat up and went over to the TV. His fingers fumbled around the controller for the VCR and he vaguely recalled Totsuka’s bright voice telling him that this old technology wasn’t so hard to handle once you got used to it.

(“Why can’t you just put these on digital or something…?”

“Hmm….well, there’s something nice about using the old fashioned way, don’t you think?”)

The memory welled up and made him stop for a moment, swallowing hard. Yata quickly wiped a hand across his eyes and waited for the tape to signal it was ready to start over again. He hit ‘play’ and stood there for a moment, watching the screen.

Images of an older time, shortly after he’d joined Homra. Everyone was laughing and Totsuka moved the camera in close, taking in each face. Yata found himself wishing that Totsuka had turned the camera on himself more often — what if Yata forgot his face one day, what if he forgot the warmth that used to be here. What if everyone forgot, and Homra stayed an empty bar forever.

“Saru-kun, wave to the camera!”

The camera swung and focused in on a sour face in glasses, and Yata sucked in a breath between his teeth.

He was aware that most of the guys had left in pairs, when Kusanagi told them that he was going overseas and closing the bar for now. Akagi and Bandou had gone together, talking quietly. Dewa had grabbed Chitose by the wrist, Fujishima had put an arm around Eric and walked off like that. Even Kamamoto was busy watching Anna.

There was one guy who should have been by Yata’s side now, and he wasn’t.

“Idiot,” Yata huffed quietly. Why was he even thinking about that guy right now? He didn’t need a traitor by his side. Just because Mikoto was — just because Homra was —

The Fushimi onscreen put a hand on the camera lens, pushing it away, and Yata could hear Totsuka’s laugh and his own voice telling Saruhiko to come join the rest of them. He raised a hand and paused the tape, the other hand clenching into a fist. That guy had never listened to anything, really. And now everything was a mess, and Yata was just here alone feeling pathetic wishing for things that had long disappeared.

There was a flash of lightning and for just a moment Yata thought he saw a silhouette in the shadow thrown up against the wall. He turned, glancing out the window, and in the darkness he could almost make out a person standing nearby wearing a blue coat.

“Saruhiko?” He couldn’t stop the longing in his voice and Yata swallowed hard, trying to pull his scattered pieces together.

Lightning flashed again and there was nothing standing in the darkness, just rain and an empty street. Yata gave a small laugh, pressing a fist against his forehead as he sank back down on the couch.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why did he even think he’d seen anything? And even if he had, what would be the point in going after it? Saruhiko was gone. Maybe not a the way Totsuka was, not the way Mikoto was —

— at least he’s still alive —

Saruhiko had made his choice, and it wasn’t Yata. Chasing after him in the rain, how pathetic would that be. What would that show of Homra’s pride, going after a traitor because he didn’t want to be alone.

Still, Yata found himself sitting up, looking outside and waiting for lightning to illuminate the street again. Maybe if he saw something for sure…

But there was nothing out there, and Yata sank back down on the couch to fall back into a fitful sleep.

—

The sound of splashing accompanied Yata’s steps as he made his way through Shizume’s shopping district, poncho pulled over his head and his skateboard tucked under one arm. The streetlights were reflecting wavy and bright on the wet streets and visibility was too poor for Yata to ride, so he had no choice but to make his way back towards the bar on foot.

Despite the rain the streets were still crowded as people hurried from shop to shop, trying to avoid the weather as they enjoyed the last of the new year deals. The stores and restaurants were brightly lit and as he walked Yata found his eyes drawn again and again to the windows.

It wasn’t like he was looking for anyone in particular. It was just, if that guy was around…

Don’t be an idiot. Yata bit his lip, hands tightening over his skateboard. How long had it been now, since anyone had heard a word from Fushimi? All of Yata’s attempts at calling him had failed, his number either blocked or ignored. Fushimi hadn’t answered any of Yata’s emails either, including the one that he’d sent through the old, long-unused mail app that he wasn’t even sure Fushimi still had on his PDA anymore. Trying that had been a gamble but Yata couldn’t help it — he just needed something.

Come chase me, that’s what Saruhiko had said before he’d left Mihashira Tower. How was Yata supposed to do that if he couldn’t even find Fushimi? Was it just a parting shot after all, Fushimi leaving behind one last taunt before he disappeared into the darkness forever?

Yata stared into window after window, looking at diners in restaurants and shoppers busy in stores. There was a hair salon and he ducked his head as a woman getting her hair cut glared at him through the window.

I-I just looked like some weirdo pervert right there, didn’t I? Yata gave a heavy sigh, pulling his hood further over his head and wishing his cheeks didn’t suddenly feel so hot. He needed to get back to Homra anyway, he had some intel to deliver to Kusanagi. Kusanagi might have news too, about Saruhiko….well, it wasn’t likely, because Yata was sure Kusanagi would have emailed him if they’d found anything but still…

Yata looked up again into another window, as if drawn by some unseen force. Fushimi had to be somewhere, right? He wouldn’t have left the city, but that didn’t really narrow it down. It wasn’t like Yata could just keep looking in these windows, and one day their eyes would meet just like—

-- like one day their eyes would just meet and Yata stopped, stared --

—a flash of blue, surprised, meeting his eyes for the briefest of moments and Yata skidded to a stop, almost fell —

“Saruhiko!” It had just been a glance, only that, through the window of what looked to be an electronics shop. Yata moved forward without even thinking, palms flat against the wet glass of the window as his skateboard clattered to the pavement, eyes straining to see past the crowd for the person he knew he’d just seen, if only for a moment. He knew Saruhiko had seen him too, that their eyes had definitely met, Fushimi’s eyes widening for just a breath as he recognized Yata standing there outside.

Door, door… Dimly Yata knew that it was too late already, that he’d paused too long, and it wasn’t like he could just go through the window. Yata paused, taking a deep breath as he bent down to retrieve his skateboard. It was stupid, wasn’t it? He couldn’t catch Fushimi now. Maybe it hadn’t really been Fushimi at all, only another figment of his imagination like that half-seen green coat in the crowd by the shrine.

No. It was Saruhiko. Yata took another steadying breath, staring back through the window. A couple people inside glanced out at him and Yata ignored them, scanning the crowd once again for those blue eyes that he knew far too well.

It was too late. Saruhiko had been here, had definitely been here, but the moment his eyes had met Yata’s he’d fled.

Still. He was alive. He’d been here, with just a window between them, and he was alive.

Yata took another deep breath, steadied himself, and one hand rested on his watch. He would send another message, make another call, and as he started walking back towards the bar Yata kept his eyes on the windows.

---

Fushimi’s fingers clenched against the crisp white fabric of the hospital sheets, eyes staring up at the bright lights on the ceiling that were certainly going to give him a headache as soon as the painkillers wore off. For now though the lights merely made his eyes feel itchy and everything else was vaguely hazy around him. There was an almost pleasant fog in his head and he wasn’t sure if it was entirely from the painkillers or just from the simple fact that he could finally breathe, that after weeks of being constantly on guard he could at last relax. All the pent up adrenaline had finally run out, allowing him to feel the exhaustion that he’d fought back for weeks while continuing his mission. Now at last the mission was over, the danger had passed, and Fushimi was lying there in a hospital bed with a bandage around his thigh and drugs pleasantly pumping their way through his system.

He hadn’t particularly wanted to go to the hospital but Munakata had insisted, stating that Fushimi’s wound needed to be looked at and that Scepter 4’s own infirmary was likely to be insufficient. Fushimi suspected that the second half of that statement at least was a lie and that this was more Munakata’s way of insuring that Fushimi got some proper rest and didn’t try to immediately go back to his old duties. He hadn’t been allowed a laptop and his Scepter 4 PDA, the one he’d left behind at headquarters and traded for a burner to use his jungle account on, was likely still in his room where he had left it that cold Christmas Eve night. Without his electronics he felt restless and bored but Munakata had been firm about not allowing either, and had brought him a small puzzle from the gift shop instead that Fushimi had promptly dropped on the floor.

At least he’d gotten a room by the window, to allow a bit of sunshine in to paint the walls of the sterile room. Normally Fushimi wasn’t one for sunshine, preferring the artificial lights of the indoors, but after so many days wandering in the darkness of jungle’s underground headquarters being able to see the sun was like a breath of fresh air after drowning.

There was a light tapping at the window — tree branches scraping against the glass, probably, and Fushimi rolled his head slightly towards it. There was a fuzzy silhouette on the other side of the window and he reached for his glasses as the tapping sound was repeated, more insistently this time. Fushimi slipped his glasses on and the figure waiting outside the window came into sharp focus.

That’s...Fushimi paused, tempted to just roll over and go back to sleep, but the sight outside was so patently ridiculous that he couldn’t help but lean close and pull the window open.

“What are you doing, Misaki?” The words were slightly slurred, not as sharp as he would have liked, and Fushimi quietly cursed the painkillers that he’d been enjoying so much just a moment prior.

“Shh, just let me in, okay?” Of course it was Misaki, because only Misaki would be stupid enough to climb a tree next to a hospital and sit there in the branches looking like a child who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“You do realize that this hospital has a front door, Misaki?” Fushimi responded, flatly unimpressed and not moving an inch to let Yata inside.

“I know that!” Yata sputtered and almost lost his balance, grabbing a tree limb for support. “The lady at the desk wouldn’t tell me which room you were in, she said it was some kind of privacy thing? But then I saw you in the window and this tree didn’t seem too hard to climb, so…”

“The Captain left people all over the first floor. You could have just asked one of them, idiot.” Vaguely he was aware that this was too easy, far too easy — they had barely talked, and he was already falling back into the old habits, into that comfortable back and forth with Misaki under the shining leaves, as if no time at all had passed, as if he hadn’t shattered everything between them.

“W-well, yeah, but I didn’t recognize any of those guys, so I didn’t think they’d let a member of Homra…”

“Aren’t we in an alliance?” Fushimi snorted, lip curling slightly. Yata didn’t seem to notice or mind though, simply shrugging in reply.

“I figured those guys might not tell me, and since I saw you here I could just come up by myself.”

“You’re lucky security hasn’t seen you and thrown you out already. Should I call a nurse right now, Misaki? Tell them that an annoying bird is outside my window.”

“Come on, don’t act like that Saru! I came up all this way to check on you, you know.” Yata swayed again in the tree, carefully adjusting his balance.

“I didn’t ask you to.” Fushimi tried to keep his voice cold but the painkillers were rebelling against him, and it came out drowsy and petulant instead.

“Yeah. You’re not very good at that.” There was a smile on Yata’s face that Fushimi couldn’t quite read — stupid, he was definitely getting slow and stupid from the drugs if he couldn’t read the open book that was Misaki’s expression, but there was something fond and something sad about it, and his brain rebelled against reading between those lines. “I heard from Kusanagi-san that they took you here though and I got kinda worried. You didn’t look so great when I left.”

“I’m fine. Captain’s just going overboard doing unnecessary things.” Just like everyone else around him, fussing for no reason, and Fushimi clicked his tongue.

“You don’t look so fine. You’re pale as a ghost Saruhiko, what were you even eating down there? Did jungle feed you?”

“Why does everyone always care so much about what I eat?” Misaki hadn’t been the first to ask him about the status of his meals, the Lieutenant and Akiyama had both said the same on the way to the hospital and it was nothing but annoying.

(Come to think, Totsuka had asked him the same, once upon a time, and he hadn’t even bothered then to think about the reasons. It irritated him, vaguely, that there was something everyone else seemed to understand that he wasn’t able to grasp, and the painkillers made him wonder if Yata would explain it if Fushimi could ever swallow his pride enough to ask.)

“Because we’re worried about you, idiot!” Yata leaned forward as if he was going to swipe at Fushimi’s head and Fushimi moved back. Yata gave a small yelp and grabbed onto the branches again. “Will you just let me in already?”

His voice was so plaintive that Fushimi couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped his lips, or the sudden warm flush that spread through his body when Yata smiled at the sound of it.

“Come back in the normal way, if you want to so badly.”

“I’m already up here, just let me in!” Yata said. “Seriously, you’re always such a contrary guy….”

“Since when do you know me so well,” and it came out petulant again, the bitterness refusing to come to his lips when he wanted it to.

(And suddenly he wasn’t sure if he wanted it to, and everything felt dizzy around him at the realization.)

“Yeah, well, you promised to tell---” The words cut off as a branch broke under Yata’s foot and this time he did start to fall, scrambling for a hold—

—and without even stopping to think Fushimi found himself leaning forward, leaning out, straight out the window with a hand outstretched and reaching to catch Yata’s. Yata grabbed hold of his hand and Fushimi bit back a grunt as he pulled, Yata swinging his feet to plant them against the outer wall and pushing up as Fushimi pulled him back, back through the wide open window and onto the bed, where they lay panting side by side. There were leaves in Yata’s hair and small broken twigs that had scattered on the mattress from when Fushimi had pulled him inside, and a soft breeze came from the open window to settle over them both like a blanket.

“Idiot.” Fushimi was panting hard, a sudden throbbing in his leg from the movement, and he felt Yata’s breath on his cheek as Yata gave a sheepish laugh.

“I got inside, didn’t I?”

“You could have fallen and broken your head open, moron.” He was so very aware suddenly, of how close they were, of how he had let go of Yata’s wrist but Yata was still holding onto his hand, and the hospital bed felt very small.

“We’re in a hospital, if I’m gonna break my head open it’s better if I do it here, right?” Yata was still smiling and Fushimi could almost see himself reflected in Yata’s bright open eyes.

“And then everyone could see how empty your head is.”

“I don’t need to hear that from the guy who couldn’t even say when he wanted to be saved.” Yata’s voice was light but there was a seriousness beneath the tone that made Fushimi scowl.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t say stuff honestly like that. And you didn’t need to anyway.” Yata’s hand tightened over his.

“Misaki…” The words were stuck in his throat and Fushimi couldn’t tear himself from Yata’s gaze. They were side by side, face to face, and he wondered what reflections Yata was seeing in his own eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me now, okay?” Yata murmured, inclining his head towards Fushimi’s so that their foreheads almost touched. “I mean, I wanna know eventually. Even if you have to say it so that an idiot can understand, I want to be that idiot. But right now you can just rest and feel better, all right?”

“I didn’t ask you for permission,” Fushimi grumbled. He wanted to look down, look away, click his tongue and roll onto his back away from the window, away from Yata’s gaze, but he felt slow, exhausted, and he could only keep his eyes on Yata’s. “But...I’ll think about it.”

“Yeah. That’s all I want.” Yata laughed softly. “Anyway, thanks for making sure I didn’t break my head open.” “Next time you try to come through the window I’ll let you fall,” Fushimi stated, and the lies that usually rolled off his tongue so sweetly got tangled between his head and his mouth so that the words came out thin and brittle.

“Sure you will.” Yata’s voice was teasing, lined with a relief that Fushimi couldn’t understand, and Yata hadn’t let go of his hand yet.

He supposed that he could pull away still, whenever he wanted. He could close his eyes against Yata’s gaze, and pull away from that hand that kept reaching for him again and again.

But Fushimi was tired, and warm, and he decided he could leave the window open for a little bit longer.

#sarumi #Fushimi Saruhiko #Yata Misaki #k project #kfest2k24 #fic #I've been really busy the last couple weeks so I couldn't do anything super long but enjoy this offering #she says posting a 9k fic...

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indeedcaptain · 8 months ago

Text

Regulatory Relations, chapter 17: The Therapist

Hello!! Thanks for your patience with how long this chapter took!! Real life was lifing. Hope you like it.

Also posted on AO3 here.

☆☆☆

Section 31.

Kirk could hear the soft shuffle of boots on metal grating, the gentle beeps and whistles of a starship at work, but all he could focus on was the sway of Elise’s silver hair in front of him. He walked between four armed officers in the unluckiest four-leaf clover he could imagine. One of the officers behind him prodded him in the back with a phaser rifle every time he slowed his pace, making it impossible to get a good glimpse of anything beyond the black and chrome hallways. It was dark, unfriendly compared to the easy gleaming white of the Enterprise, and the agents’ night-black uniforms swallowed all of the remaining light.

Elise did not look back at him.

She was smaller than he remembered. Of course, he had still essentially been a child when he had met her: she had been larger than life compared to everyone else, the first person after Tarsus who did not treat him like he was breakable. But in her light-filled office with the tree-lined windows on the Academy grounds, she had always worn soft khakis, a cardigan, a blouse with evenly spaced buttons. Those clothes had been shed like snakeskin in the intervening years. The angular black Section 31 uniform fit her too well, elegant like a tailored suit, and it made Kirk ache to see it. He could not look away. Her boots struck the metal walkways with ringing surety, and every passing crewman nodded formally at her. She did not acknowledge them.

April trailed a step behind her. In the dim ambience of this forbidding ship and next to the titanium set of Elise’s shoulders, the man seemed to shrink. They followed her up into the rest of the ship until they arrived at a turbolift. Finally Elise turned around again, and her pale eyes gleamed in the fluorescent lighting. She looked at the officers.

“Dismissed,” she said, and her voice was gentle. Kirk’s mockery of an honor guard nodded, turned sharply, and departed down the hall. The turbolift door opened, and she stepped inside. April took one of Kirk’s arms and steered him into the lift. His hands were still bound behind his back, and his shoulders were starting to cramp. His gold shirt was tacky with Spock’s blood, clinging to his skin and cooling uncomfortably. He itched with it: with knowing that Spock had been hurt, had been dying, with not knowing if Bones had been able to staunch the bleeding and repair the damage. But Scotty had been able to beam him out, and that was better than nothing.

The lift doors closed, and Elise turned those gentle eyes on him. Her skin creased deeply at the corners of her eyes, and even her eyelashes were gray now. “I’m so glad you’re here, captain,” she said. She smiled, inviting him to join in her good humor. “Goodness, you’re all grown up now! And so accomplished. A captain of a starship, just like you always wanted.” Her voice was smooth, warm and familiar, the cadence of her words soothing and easy. Kirk held her gaze and let his lip curl, his eyes burning. But his anger didn’t seem to phase her in the slightest.

“Deck seven, please,” she said to the lift, and it started to move. She continued conversationally, “I’ve watched your career with no small amount of interest, dear.” Bile rose in the back of Kirk’s throat. “You were so serious all the time when you were young, so studious. But it paid off, didn’t it? Youngest captain in Starfleet, and on the flagship itself. I was so proud of you.” She glanced at him, a smile playing around the corner of her lips as she considered him. His hands shook with anger behind his back, and he clenched them into fists. The doors slid open, she stepped out, and April pushed him forward with one hand on his elbow. They followed her down the empty hallway, their footsteps echoing eerily. “Your resilience has always been one of your greatest strengths, and you don’t even seem to realize you have it.”

There was one door at the end of the hallway, and Elise led them directly to it. She pressed her hand to a plate embedded in the wall. It whirred and beeped before the door swished open, and she stepped inside. Kirk and April followed. A harsh white light blinked on as they entered, illuminating the dark space in front of them with unforgiving clarity.

Kirk stumbled backwards in horror. April’s unyielding hand against his back kept him from escaping before the door slid shut. It locked with a musical chirp. The room was all gray metal, with one single reclining chair in the center, upholstered in an uncannily cheerful mint green. The color burned his eyes, or maybe it was what was anchored into the ceiling above it: a device that Kirk had not seen in over a year, since he had returned to a similar room to find a dead doctor beneath an unholy light.

The neural neutralizer winked at him from the ceiling.

“You were the one to report the situation with Dr. Adams to Starfleet, were you not?” Elise’s voice echoed off the plain metal walls.

“The machine was destroyed,” Kirk said, and his voice came out hoarse. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the haunting shadow of the chair alone in the center of the room, the painful illumination of the neutralizer above it. Something in him cringed away from it, remembering what it felt like to be trapped beneath it.

“We rebuilt it, and improved it,” Elise said, as though it should have been obvious. “As soon as I read your mission report, I knew I needed it.” She crossed the room to an unobtrusive door set into the wall, and nodded to April, who shepherded Kirk forward. “Relying on trust, obedience, on discipline and loyalty… those things might work for you, captain, but they don’t work for me.” The door before her opened. She stepped inside before drawing Kirk towards her by the elbow. He ripped himself from her grasp.

April stepped forward to join them in the tiny room, but she placed a gentle hand in the middle of his chest. It was a possessive gesture, a disrespectful one. “Why don’t you go take a seat, Robert?” April’s eyes widened.

“I---”

“Take a seat, Robert.” The door slid shut. Elise depressed a button, and the aluminum wall in front of them slid open, revealing a tinted plexiglass window. Through the glass, Kirk saw April cross ponderously to the chair and drop into it. As he placed his wrists on the arms of the chair, two thick metal cuffs snapped down around them. Kirk and April both flinched.

“I used to rely on the natural plasticity of the brain,” Elise said, and she turned to Kirk to wink at him. His shoulders ached in earnest now. “When we worked together, for example. The human mind is so susceptible to suggestion, to persuasion… it didn’t take a lot to convince someone of what would be best for them, especially when they are so young.” Kirk’s stomach clenched. “But thanks to your helpful efforts, we’re able to assure almost one hundred percent reliability.” She smiled down at the control panel at her fingertips, and tapped at a sequence of buttons with a causal confidence that implied frequent repetition. The computer in front of her booted up and she selected a program, too quickly for Kirk to read any of what the screen displayed.

“Almost?” Kirk asked. She turned to look at him again as the computer whirred, scanning his face intently.

“There is something about you, captain, that makes even the best soldiers hesitate,” she said. She shook her head, disappointed, and some young and vulnerable part of Kirk still hated to see it. “The admiral is useful, but he relies too much on regulation. Not checking you for that second device, assuming you only carried standard equipment… he should have known better than to underestimate you. And now I’ve got another loose thread to tie up.” She sighed. “I must say, I’m not a fan of loose ends.”

The computer in front of her read: PROGRAM INITIATED. RUN?

“He said you wanted me for something,” Kirk said. His mind wheeled as he hunted for an angle that he could exploit, to get himself out of his bindings, to get back to the hangar and steal a shuttle. “Is that true?”

Elise leaned her hip against the computer table. Over her shoulder, through the window, April stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. The neutralizer had not yet come on, that horrible yellow-white light not yet bathing the room in its terrible illumination.

“You’re special, Jim,” she said again, and her face was earnest. “I knew it before, and I know it now. I need someone special at the helm of this ship.”

“I would prefer to remain on the Enterprise,” he said, and she laughed like he had made a terribly clever joke. It was light, and airy, and her eyes twinkled when she looked up at him again before tapping a key on the console. The neutralizer blinked on.

The admiral in the chair roared, throwing his head from side to side. “Robert is skilled in many ways, but he’s best at the diplomatic side of things. You marrying the telepath was a threat to our security, but I recognized it as the opportunity that it was. Are you bonded, by the way?”

Kirk blinked at the question, but before he could even decide to lie or not she nodded calmly. “I had thought not,” she said. Her steady flow of one-sided conversation, her familiar and comforting cadence, felt like it was filling his head with cotton fuzz. He was thirty-five, captured with his arms behind his back. He was eighteen, sitting on her couch, desperate for a friend. He was twenty-two and terrified that someone would look at him and see behind his confident facade. His shoulders ached, and his mind was near-numb with disbelief and shock.

April’s screams trailed off in the room in front of them. He stared slackly at the light, which whirred as the intensity of the illumination rose and fell. Kirk could just barely hear the gentle murmuring of a recording--- Elise’s own voice?--- playing in the room.

“For my own curiosity, dear, would you mind elaborating on how, exactly, you were able to tell your Mr. Spock about your past?” Elise said, as if she were asking about something as casual as the weather. “You were zipped up tight when last I saw you.”

“Uncuff me and we can talk,” Kirk said. Elise clasped her hands in front of her.

“I would, Jim, but at this point I’m just not sure if I can trust you yet.” Her eyes were analytical as they scanned over his face. Even despite the years, the wrinkles that she now wore, the silvering of her hair, she was so familiar to him. And she thought that he was familiar to her; familiar enough that she knew him, understood him, could read him. She had watched him through the years, and wanted him now.

And there it was--- Kirk found his angle. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and the glass wall in his mind slid down between the half of him that screamed for Spock and the Enterprise and the half that was going to do whatever it took to get back home. He hesitated, like he was going to say something else, and crumpled his face for just a second.

“It’s not like I could hurt you,” he whispered, and his eyes dropped to the floor as his voice cracked. “I could never hurt you.”

Even as April whimpered near-inaudibly in the next room, Kirk kept his eyes downcast as Elise took a step towards him. His shoulders slumped and his spine bent, as if he were revealing the depths of his exhaustion. She reached out for him, pushing his chin up with one bent finger to meet her eyes, and he laid down his mask. He let it all shine out of his face: his fear for Spock, his anger at her and at Section 31, and beneath all of that, beneath the years of Starfleet and exploration and the Enterprise, the fury and fear and grief of the child that had witnessed the annihilation of his home on Tarsus.

“Oh, my dear Jim,” she said, and her eyes lit up with a horrible joy. “You really couldn’t.” She placed her hand gently against his cheek, and he closed his eyes and leaned his head into it. “What have you been feeling, all these years?”

More love and joy than I ever expected to find. “I’m so tired,” he said. “I’m tired of hiding. Tired of feeling the way I do.”

“I’m sorry, Jim,” she said. “I really am. I hope it brings you comfort that it’s all been for the greater good.” He fought to keep his face neutral, and failed. He screwed up his face instead and pushed it further into Elise’s cool hand. Her skin was soft, papery with age. “Did you tell anyone but Mr. Spock?”

Kirk shook his head. Technically, Spock had been the one to tell Bones. He lifted his face from Elise’s hand and opened his eyes.

“Good,” Elise said, her voice soothing. “That’s good. You’ve been so strong, Jim.” His heart clenched in his chest. He turned to look at April through the window, lying quietly under the neutralizer. If he played his cards right and convinced Elise that he would come quietly, he could keep himself from ending up in the same position anytime soon.

“What does Section 31 do?”

Elise turned to look at him curiously. He put a little bit of himself back into his face--- just a hint of the fire that burned in his stomach, that moved him forward. “If I’m going to be your captain, I need to understand the mission.”

“The consummate professional,” she said approvingly, and smiled. She tapped the console controller, and the faint strains of the recording faded away as the light over April dimmed. Once the light was completely off, the cuffs around April’s wrists snapped open. “You were my proof of concept, did you realize that?”

“No,” he said, and he did not have to fake his surprise. “What does that mean?” He followed her as she opened the door between the control booth and the neutralizer room and strode to April’s side. He stared up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes.

“Robert,” she said gently. “How do you feel?” Slowly his eyes flicked towards her, and finally focused after several moments of struggle.

“Fine,” he said.

“You seem a bit tired,” she said. “Why don’t you go lay down?” April sat up and swung his legs down over the side of the chair. He blinked a few times before refocusing on her.

“I think you’re right,” he said, and shook his head lightly. “I think… I think I’m feeling a little under the weather.”

“Go rest,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Certainly,” April said. “Thank you.” He stood and departed without ever once acknowledging that Kirk was there. He wasn’t sure that April would have recognized him if he had.

“What’s his role in all this?” Kirk asked, once the door had slid shut behind him.

“He’s the big man around here,” Elise said, playful, and Kirk followed her as she turned to leave the room.

“It seemed like he answers to you, though,” Kirk said, and Elise nodded.

“Oh, yes, he does,” she said easily, and Kirk’s stomach sank. As an admiral, April could easily have been instated as the formal head of any branch of Starfleet, and should have had oversight of it. But that would have required him acting under his own agency, and Kirk was rapidly coming to the deeply unpleasant conclusion that April might not have been his own man for a long time.

“So he’s the head on paper, and you…?”

“Clever boy,” Elise said, and gave him another approving smile as he shadowed her down the silent hallway and back into the turbolift. “No one knows 31 better than I do, or understands the needs of the Federation like I do. And no one can politic better than April. When I had the opportunity to work with him, I leapt for it. And the rest, as they say, is history.” They rode the turbolift in silence until the doors slid open, and he followed her out. His shoulders were cramped painfully. He breathed around the ache the best he could, and he tried not to think about the hole in Spock’s ribcage. They walked down another hallway, each blank-eyed crewman they passed stopping to nod to Elise, before she lifted her hand and pressed her eye to a dual scanner system and opened a door.

“My office,” she said, and swept him in with a magnanimous arm. It was a small room, but elegantly outfitted; a neatly organized desk, a chair, a small couch, and a table. She had a window. Through it, Kirk could see the stationary stars that surrounded them. Given enough time, he thought he could figure out where in the galaxy they were. She entered behind him as the door closed and crossed to sit on the desk, one leg dangling down off of it.

He looked from the small couch to the chair across from it, and the table between them, and gave Elise a wry half-smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes.

“Come sit with me?” Kirk asked plaintively. “Like old times?” Despite the strain on his wrists, his whole arms on fire now with discomfort, he sat on the little couch and leaned back as best he could. She smiled and took the chair across from him, crossing her legs at the knee. The sense of deja vu was dizzying.

She pulled out her padd and tapped a button. Behind his back, the two cuffs linking his hands together unlatched. His shoulders loosened with a painful jerk, and he exhaled harshly.

“In front of you, please, Jim,” she said, and he did as he was told. As he brought his wrists back together, the magnets in the cuffs reactivated, locking them together. He rolled his neck and shoulders out as the blood flowed painfully back through his arms and into his fingers. “Better?”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.” She studied him, and he let her. His shirt was still stained with Spock’s blood, dried to a near black, and he could feel the fine grit of Kindinos VI on his skin, in his hair. Spock’s blood had dried in the wrinkles of the palms of his hands, under his fingernails, and he could feel the tight tackiness of where Spock’s bloody hand had landed on his neck.

Spock had promised to come for him. All he had to do was stay out from under the neural neutralizer and, if he was lucky, steal a shuttle. But Spock would find him--- his crew would find him. They would not abandon him. Through this litany of hope and prayer, he kept his face on the tired side of neutral.

“If you want me to work for you, I want to know what you’re doing,” he said, after two minutes of Elise’s careful scrutiny.

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” Kirk said. He gestured at the ship around him as best he could with his hands bound. “All of this--- it’s followed me since Tarsus. I know 31 was on Tarsus. I want to know why.” The familiar nausea that came from talking about the colony rose in his esophagus, and he swallowed hard. Elise watched him carefully.

“Alright, Jim,” she said. “I’ll make you a deal. I want to ask you some questions, and in return, if you answer honestly, I’ll answer some for you.”

Kirk settled back against the couch, the angry muscles in his back unclenching with the support, and crossed his legs at the knee. He laced his fingers together in his lap and gave her another tiny, tired smile. “That works for me.” He met her eyes. The intervening years since their last session hadn’t dulled their clever light. She leaned forward, pen in one hand, padd in the other, and for a half-second Kirk felt like he was eighteen and utterly alone in the world again. But he inhaled, and he leaned in towards her too, forcing his body language to be open and trustworthy. He was not eighteen, and he was not alone. His crew and his husband would find him. All he had to do was lie, and he had plenty of practice.

“Does speaking about the colony still distress you?”

“Yes.”

“What physical reactions do you experience when you discuss your experiences on Tarsus IV?” She watched him as she said the name, and his slight twitch wasn’t entirely faked.

“Nausea is the big one,” Kirk said. “Lightheadedness. Erratic heartbeat and difficulty breathing. Difficulty speaking. General panic.”

“Any loss of consciousness?”

“No,” Kirk said, silently adding, Thank goodness! “Why did 31 save Kodos?”

“That’s curious,” Elise mused, tapping her stylus against her padd. “It was never about Kodos. 31 only went to the planet to see if any of his research was salvageable. Finding him alive was a happy accident.” Kirk felt a little thrill at the confirmation that Spock’s hypothesis had been correct, a little pride in his husband’s sharp mind. “Would you mind elaborating on how you felt when you divulged your experiences to the Vulcan?”

“All of the above,” Kirk said. “It was… unpleasant is a bit of an understatement. I never was able to say it out loud. In the end, I just showed him. In a mind-meld.”

“Ah,” Elise said, a horrible curiosity on her face. “Such a fascinating edge case. I knew the telepathy was a threat to our secrecy, but I did not consider the forms it might take before a marriage bond. That’s clever, Jim, very clever.” She nodded at him like he’d accomplished something important and looked down at her padd before meeting his eyes again. She smiled sadly. “But you are not bonded.”

“No.”

“And why is that, Jim?”

Kirk swallowed and looked out the window, away from Elise. The shuttle that had taken him to this ship had been traveling at sublight speed for the last section of their journey; even if it had been able to achieve warp, they couldn’t have gone too far from Kindinos. “I didn’t want him in my head full-time,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want him to know… how bad it still was. For me. Or for him to have to feel what I felt.”

“Oh, Jim,” Elise said, and her face shone with concern. Kirk wanted to hit her. “That must have been hard for both of you. I understand those bonds are important.”

He thought of Spock’s steady surety, thought of ad astra per amorem and no caveats, and held them in his heart even as he said, “It was. It is.” He cleared his throat. “What experiments were being run on Tarsus?”

“Oh, those,” she said, and flapped one hand dismissively. “They didn’t end up leading anywhere useful. The governor had a background in genetic manipulation and bioengineering. He was the primary investigator for our attempt to create a biological weapon that could be used against some species while leaving others unharmed.”

Kirk stifled the part of him that screamed at the injustice of the idea and lifted an eyebrow sardonically. “Was it supposed to be used against humans?”

Elise gave him a warm, bemused look. “No,” she said. “It was nowhere near complete when waste material broke containment and got into the water system. It got into the reservoir, which contaminated the irrigation system, and…” She made a light, floating gesture with one hand. All that pain and suffering and death, reduced to a hand wave. Kirk’s lungs felt like they were filled with cement. “Experiment failed, and the PI revealed some… unfortunate beliefs once he though his career was ending. The only loose end after Kodos burned it all down and we grabbed him and the data was one kid who refused to die, and those that he saved.” She smiled at him, and it was like ice. I must say, I’m not a fan of loose ends.

“You’re only alive because one of our soldiers made a mistake,” she said kindly. “A happy accident for you, but one that never should have happened.”

“What did you mean, that I was your first?”

“I think it’s my turn, Jim,” she said, tutting at him and frowning theatrically, and he gestured in front of himself in a ‘go ahead’ movement. “What is your relationship like with your parents these days?”

Kirk actually laughed out loud. It was involuntary, and too loud in the quiet office, and hurt his throat. “I asked you for Federation secrets and you want to know how things are at home? After all these years?”

“It’s important, dear,” she said earnestly. “For the both of us.”

“It’s fine,” he said, and she tutted at him.

“Be honest, Jim, or this won’t work out.” On ‘this,’ she flicked her stylus back and forth between the two of them. Just Jimmy and Elise against the world. He could be honest. He just had to tell her what she wanted to hear until his crew came for him.

“Did you know that Sam died?” Kirk blurted out. Elise slowly set her stylus down on her padd.

“I did not,” she said.

“The Enterprise got the call that something was wrong on Deneva. But by the time we got there, Sam was already gone. We lost his wife shortly after. His son survived, but it was a close thing.” Kirk closed his eyes. “I was the one to tell our parents. I haven’t talked to them since.” It had been a horrible call. Winona had stared at him with that haggard thousand-yard gaze, and George had stepped out of frame without muting the mic. Kirk had heard his muffled weeping across thousands of lightyears and had been unable to do anything to help. They disconnected the line. Three hours later had found him slumped in a Medbay chair, positioned so he could keep an exhausted, protective watch over both Spock and Peter as they lay their biobeds.

“Oh, Jim,” Elise said. “I know how much he meant to you. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” Kirk said, and closed his eyes to collect himself before opening them again. “Without him around, I don’t keep up with my folks much.”

“I see,” Elise said, and took another note on her padd. “That’s quite the loss. Have you been able to share that with anyone?”

Had he talked about it? No. But he had spent late hours silently tinkering with Scotty in the engines when he couldn’t sleep. He had played chess with Spock when he couldn’t bear to sit in his quarters alone, listened to Uhura explain her translation work when his mind was too loud, drank with Bones in his office when he had forgotten how to laugh.

He hadn’t spoken about it. But he didn’t have to. His friends had supported him anyway.

Kirk met her gaze. “No,” he said. “I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you remember?” Kirk asked quietly. “I have to be the bulkhead.”

Elise’s eyes lit up. “Very good, Jim,” she said. She leaned back in her chair and tilted her head gently. He refused to let it remind him of Spock.

“What did you mean, that I was your proof of concept?”

“I don’t think you understand, Jim, just how dangerous you were when you returned from Tarsus. The youngest son of George and Winona Kirk, half-dead, and telling a story about how a mysterious black shuttle whisked away the man responsible for the death of an entire colony? Not to mention that you could have refuted the entire mission report if you had ever seen it.”

“I was just a kid. No one listened to me,” Kirk said.

“You would have become a symbol,” Elise countered. “Tarsus itself was bad enough for our reputation. We couldn’t allow the damage to be multiplied. Every splinter group that wants to weaken us would have used you to slander the work of the Federation.”

“I don’t think it counts as slander in a court of law if it’s true,” Kirk said mildly, but Elise’s hawkish eyes speared him through.

“It doesn’t matter if it was true. The Federation is only as strong as people believe that it is. One of 31’s most important mandates is to protect that image. Once the Valiant picked you and the other kids up, I received my orders.”

His kids. Their faces spun through his mind. He owed it to them to keep her talking, and to find the truth. “And what orders were those?”

Elise smiled, pressing her lips together. “To keep you silent. All of you. To ensure that none of the details that you witnessed and remembered could be compiled to disprove the official Federation record of what occurred on Tarsus. It gave me the opportunity to test a theory of mine, and the success of that theory changed the trajectory of my career and 31.”

Whatever expression Kirk was holding on his face dropped off. “What theory?”

“The extent to which brain plasticity could be manipulated through cognitive behavioral therapy. This general concept has been known for centuries, of course. Trauma rewrites the neural pathways in the brain; healing requires rewriting them again. I simply…” She picked up her datapen again and twirled it in her wrinkled, dextrous fingers. “It sounds unkind when I say it now, but it was what was best for you, and best for the Federation.” She met his eyes. “I do hope you’ll believe me.”

“What did you do to us?” His voice was flat. He had to keep himself calm, keep her thinking that he was considering staying. He unclenched his hands and smoothed his hands down his thighs.

“I was able to link your physiological post-traumatic stress response to the idea of sharing what you had seen. If sharing details about the colony triggered a post-traumatic episode, you were less likely to do it. But I did not believe that alone to be sufficient; there also had to be a positive reason. Not just ‘I don’t want to do this because X,’ but ‘I want to do this because Y.’ For you, of course, that meant linking remaining silent to being a good captain.” Elise smiled at him, warm and familiar, and his stomach heaved. He stared at blankly her in horror as she continued. “And for years, you did beautifully. You’ve done so well for yourself. But then your star kept rising, and you became more and more well-known among Starfleet.”

She tapped her datapen firmly against her padd. “And then a little bird told me that you and a certain telepath were more than friends. Your public profile, and Spock’s ties to Vulcan, and the possibility of you bonding… surely you can see why you together became a threat to be neutralized.”

Kirk’s throat was as dry as that desert planet. “Our marriage, a threat to the whole Federation? Because I witnessed one crime twenty years ago? I can’t believe…”

“Jim,” Elise interrupted, infinitely patient. “Can you even imagine the political upheaval if T’Pau claimed you as a son of her clan and then discovered that Starfleet had tried to develop an androphobic bioweapon and nearly killed you in the process? You could have destroyed everything we’ve built since 2063.”

If it can be destroyed by the truth, then it deserves to be. He looked away from her smiling, lying face, out the window. White stars, black space. Everything she had told him roiled within his mind.

“I imagine you have a lot to think about. I’ll let you get some rest,” Elise said. She tapped something into her padd, and her office door unlocked. “We have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow.”

“What happens tomorrow?” The door slid open to reveal two black-uniformed officers, standing at attention, staring blankly forward. Their faces were slack in an uncanny way, no shifting eyes to indicate their attention was drawn in any direction.

“Your treatment begins.”

Tomorrow. The idea of being subjected to the brutal loneliness of the neutralizer again encased his heart in ice. But the wait gave him more time to find a way out, and he had already endured it once before. He could survive it again. He nodded, as if the fact that she had brainwashed an entire crew of Starfleet officers into silence was in any way less than abhorrent.

She flicked her hand at him, and the guards each seized one of his arms.

“So what next?” Kirk asked. She nodded at the guards, and they started marching him backwards out the door.

“Your first mission will be cleaning up the mess you made on Kindinos VI.”

He blinked. “You didn’t get the dilithium?”

“Of course we did,” she said. “But April’s mission was to ensure that Spock could not relay any information to his family. Your actions have only prolonged the inevitable.” She followed him to the door and laid one hand on his shoulder, peering up into his face. Her hand burned like a brand, even through his shirt.

“I’ll use that wonderful machine to ensure your compliance, and then your first mission will be to tie up our little loose end.” Kirk’s stomach dropped. She smiled gently at him. “I really am so happy that you were able to confide in someone, Jim. Your resilience is truly admirable. I just wish it had been anyone else.” She stepped back and the door slid shut. Kirk stared at the closed door as the guards manhandled him in the opposite direction.

She was going to wipe his mind clean and send him to hunt Spock down. He, who knew Spock better than anyone, understood the way he thought, would be able to find him no matter where he hid.

Waiting passively for rescue was no longer an option. He had to warn his crew.

☆☆☆

The two officers marched him down the oddly silenced hall and then into the turbolift, where one of them ground out, “Deck three.” Both were men of indeterminate complexion, sallow from lack of sunlight, with eyes that never seemed to lose focus on the wall in front of them. They were about his height, and carried themselves with the comportment of fighters. They both carried phasers, and had comms at their hips.

He would have to steal their comms. One, definitely, but both if possible. But how?

“Work here long?” Kirk asked conversationally, and tried to catch the eye of the one on his right. Their grips were painfully tight.

“Ten years,” he said, and shoved Kirk forward when the turbolift opened. Kirk stumbled slightly. The sliding doors revealed not a deck of quarters, as Kirk had hoped, but a nondescript hallway so long that he could see the curve of the ship far ahead.

“A long time,” Kirk agreed, and turned to the one on his left. He started dragging his feet as they walked; he didn’t think it unreasonable for him to be sluggish after the day he’d had. He wasn’t sure what time it was, or how much time had passed; it seemed impossible that he had been kissing Spock in their quarters only earlier that day. Lefty redoubled his grip on Kirk’s arm, dragging him forward. He let out a semi-stifled groan.

“Sorry, gentlemen,” he said, yawning hugely. “I’m sure you can forgive me for being dead on my feet after today.” As they passed down the hallway, he noticed that every twenty paces there was a rectangle embedded in the wall, like the outline of a doorway. This couldn’t be the crew’s quarters--- there would be far more people around, and he had yet to see a single soul besides his escort.

But if they were taking him to the more likely and less desirable location, the brig, and this ship was built the same way that most Starfleet ships were, they would be coming up on---

There. Stairs. Kirk braced himself as they continued their inexorable march, keeping pace with their steps, until---

He flung his foot out into empty space. He let himself drop. The gravity of the ship caught him and dragged him downward, and with his weight came his guards. The three of them dropped down the four stairs, and he twisted them all until one was nearly in front of him. Kirk tried to brace his fall with his hands in front of him, but all he managed to do was tangle them in the officer’s uniform in front of him. They all crashed to the ground in a graceless heap.

“Sorry,” Kirk wheezed, ankle and wrists throbbing, as he disentangled himself from the guard groaning beneath him. In the gap between their bodies he liberated the comm from his belt and slid it into the waistband of his pants. It rested on the flat of his hip. The other officer flipped him over and yanked him to his feet without a word. Even when his face was only inches from Kirk’s, he didn’t seem to really see him. There was a distance behind his eyes that Kirk couldn’t bridge, even looking intently into them.

“Where were you posted before this ship?” Kirk asked. But the officer just shook his hands free of Kirk’s soiled shirt and grabbed his arm again. The other staggered back to his feet and took the other.

“Where are you taking me?” Kirk asked. But neither officer responded. Their footsteps echoed down the hallway. The rectangles in the walls grew further and further apart. If this ship was similar to the flagship, there would be another set of stairs that descended to the lowest level of this deck. But he didn’t think the stairs trick would work so neatly the second time. And it wouldn’t have; as they approached it, the officers slowed, tightening their grip on his elbows and steering him down the stairs first. If his suspicions were correct, they should have been approaching a checkpoint where another crewman would be stationed; but there was no one in sight. The hallway curved gently ahead of them and they proceeded down it until there was only a blank white wall in front of them.

“Looks like we ought to turn back now,” Kirk said, but his jocular tone did not seem to have any effect on the statue-like men. Their silence and focus unnerved him. One officer nodded to the other, who stepped behind Kirk and grabbed both his arms from behind. The now-freed one laid his hand against the blank wall, on the outside of a faint etched outline. A square glowed around where his hand rested, blinking red and then green. Then the outline deepened, recessing further into the wall, until a door removed itself and swung inward to reveal a dimly lit, square room with no windows.

“I’m alright out here, actually,” Kirk said. He had thought that they were taking him to the brig; he had expected the familiar energy shield, an officer operating said shield, a situation where he could rely on human error and his own human ingenuity to get him out. He bucked against the hold of the officer, spinning over his shoulder, and realized in a flash that he had, in fact, been on the brig deck the entire time. He recognized the rectangles for what they were.

The whole deck was lined with solitary confinement cells.

He needed that second comm. He had no idea where in space he was, how far he was from the Enterprise, and if his crew had any idea where he had gone. He was going to need a second battery.

The officer who had opened the door still had his comm clipped to his belt. Kirk needed him to chase him down and get him close, without losing the comm he’d already taken or getting beaten senseless.

“Please,” he said. “I get claustrophobic.”

The man blinked. “Rough for a starship captain,” he said, sounding almost for a second like a person with thoughts and feelings, before the light in his eyes shuttered again. “Get in.”

“No, thank you,” Kirk said, and he stomped hard on the instep of the man holding him. The officer hissed, his grip loosening, and Kirk spun out of his arms and ran. The other one dashed after him.

Six steps--- turn--- fake a stumble--- and he leapt for him as Kirk turned to face him, wrapping both arms around him as they both hit the ground. Kirk’s head bounced against the floor painfully, his arms trapped between himself and the other man, but his hands were exactly where they needed to be.

He slid the second comm from the belt and palmed it as the officer flipped him unceremoniously from his back onto his stomach, smashing his hands between his body and the floor. Painful. Perfect. Kirk could feel the other comm pressed against his forearm by his body weight, and the sharp edge was comforting. The man grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and yanked him to his feet, and he heard the familiar sound of the seams snapping by his ear as he snuck the second comm into his pants.

“Careful,” he wheezed, and his voice was weak from having the breath crushed out of him. “This is my only shirt.”

The officer stared impassively at him. He pulled his phaser from his belt and leveled it at Kirk. “Inside.”

Kirk raised his bound hands in a placating gesture. “I got the message, thanks.” The officer pressed the muzzle of the phaser against the back of his neck and pushed him forward. Kirk kept his hands in the air as he walked towards the cell. The one whose foot he had stomped on glared sullenly at him.

“Nice working with you, gentlemen,” Kirk said, when he was fully within the cell and turned to face them. One man tapped the wall next to the cell and the door swung shut, leaving Kirk in the dim red light of solitary confinement.

He stood, waiting, but he heard neither returning footsteps nor the quiet swish of the door mechanism. He didn’t want to risk pulling out the comms and having them confiscated immediately. Instead, he stood, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, taking stock of his injuries.

There was a scorched section of his back; likely where he had been stunned by the phaser on Kindinos. His head throbbed, both from the stunning and from unpleasant bounce against the tile floor moments ago. His shoulders and back ached from the hours he had spent with his hands bound behind his back. His wrists chafed against the smooth metal of his cuffs.

And the worst wound; Spock’s blood on his hands, caked in his shirt, beneath his fingernails, the dirt of that God-forsaken planet in his hair and on his skin. He closed his eyes and breathed. Spock’s ribs, exposed to air; Spock’s unfocused eyes, the deep brown that he loved most; Spock’s weak voice rasping, “Ashayam.” For one second, Kirk let himself think of his husband. He let the memories wash over him, of being awoken that morning by Spock’s hand against his face, Spock in his arms in the shower the night before.

He pulled his mind away from home and instead thought of the Spock rule: on any dangerous away mission, Spock would be where Kirk was. Spock had promised to come for him. His fear and love for Spock threatened to overwhelm him; he let it fill his chest, and he held it in his heart. Then he gently put those feelings behind the glass wall in his head, pulled the two comms out of his waistband, and settled into the corner of his cell to take them apart.

Stealing both comms had been the right decision. Kirk spent the first chunk of time fiddling with just one of them, listening to chatter on different channels, before discovering that the comms of this cursed ship were on a closed radio band; they were designed to be on a discrete circuit, not used to communicate outside of their unit.

Not an insurmountable challenge, but an inconvenient one. He tore one fingernail prying the cover off of the comm’s housing, and stuck it furiously in his mouth when it bled. The salty tang of it turned his stomach and forced him to remember that he had not eaten since breakfast that morning, and the fact that he didn’t have to use the bathroom meant that he was probably nearing dangerous levels of dehydration. Working with tiny pieces of machinery, with his hands bound together, in dim red light, was giving him a headache. But his alternative was gambling that his crew would find him before Elise stuck him beneath the neural neutralizer, and the cost of being wrong would be Spock’s safety. He pressed on.

An hour of solitary confinement later found him hearing Scotty’s voice in his mind, explaining how he had used a separate battery to boost the comm’s range. Scotty’s goal had been to keep the comm locked to the transporter, but maybe the same concept could be used to send a message out into the great vast beyond. He hadn’t heard a single sound from outside his cell, though whether that was because he was on the farthest edges of the row of cells or because it was soundproofed was anyone’s guess.

Despite the fancy dark exterior of the comm and the closed-circuit programming, this was still just one step away from a standard-issue Starfleet comm. He squinted as hard as he could at the tiny insides, ignoring the tension headache that the red light was giving him, and eventually overrode the limiting factor. He listened carefully, but heard nothing. Nothing to indicate that there was a ship nearby; nothing but silence on all channels around him. It was almost a little eerie; not even static crackled over the radio waves.

He methodically opened the second comm up, ignoring the fact that he bled a little bit onto it, and removed the battery and power cable from it. He pinched the tiny cable between his fingers and threaded one end onto the other battery’s cathode and the other onto the anode.

A tiny spark arced between the battery and the wire, lighting his corner of the cell with pure white light for just a second. Kirk rolled his neck and shoulders out for five glorious seconds, holding the connected comms carefully in his lap.

Now his message. He needed something that wouldn’t disintegrate into jibberish as it soared through space, something that wouldn’t get caught up in background noise. Something Uhura would recognize. Uhura, who loved languages and codes, who had spent nearly as much time learning dead Terran languages as live alien ones. Kirk bit the inside of his lip as he smiled and began tapping his message onto the comm’s signal pad.

Three short taps. Three long holds. Three short taps.

Three taps. Three holds. Three taps. He sent his SOS in Morse code out into the universe and prayed that she would hear it among all the other noise. He tapped it over and over again, remembering the letters of Morse code, before switching to N-R-L N-T-R-L-Z-R. He sent that message a few times before switching back to SOS. His stomach grumbled in earnest, and the exhaustion of the day swept over him.

Kirk laid down on the cold tile floor, facing the back corner, with his jerryrigged comms between him and the wall. He alternated between sending SOS, SOS, SOS and NRL NTRLZR over and over again until the power light on his little miracle machine finally went out. He patted it gratefully, slid his hands under his head, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

☆☆☆

There was a tiny beep in Kirk’s cell. Wakefulness and exhaustion slammed into him in a one-two punch as the door hissed open. He held himself still, curled on his side and still facing the wall, as two sets of footsteps entered the cell.

“Stealing, Jim?” Elise’s sugar-sweet voice dripped with disdain, the rotten core of a candied apple. “And I thought we were finally getting to be on the same page. I hope you enjoyed communicating with the rest of the ship and not much else.”

Kirk rolled over and pushed himself up. His wrists had swollen while he slept, chafing against the skin-warmed metal of his cuffs, and his neck ached from the uncomfortable angle.

“Your officers make for poor conversationalists,” he said. His voice was rough from sleep, and his shirt was veritably glued to his skin with an unpleasant mix of bodily fluids, both his and Spock’s. He didn’t think he was ever going to be able to wash the smell of blood and grime off of himself.

“They know better than to talk to the uninitiated,” Elise said.

“So that’s what you’re calling it? An initiation?”

“Sure.” She smiled. Kirk could feel the little comms experiment pressing into him, where it was hidden from view. “Nearly everyone here joined 31 voluntarily. The neutralizer only makes mistakes less likely. I think you’ll find the process much more pleasant than before.”

“Well, there was a lot of room for improvement,” he said. Elise made a sharp gesture, and the officer who stood behind her came around and inspected the ground of the cell. His movements reminded Kirk of a bloodhound. He stalked to the back corners of the small room, and his eyes alighted on the comms behind him. He swept them up, carelessly knocking his knee into Kirk’s shoulder, and the tilting movement made every taut muscle in his body ache.

“Both retrieved,” the officer said, and then his brow furrowed. In the dim red light, the wrinkles in his forehead made him look positively devilish. He held the comms out to Elise, cradling them as they were connected in both hands. She looked down at them, tilting her head in curiosity. For a moment she stared blankly, eyes tracing the connections between the two comms. As emotions flitted across her face, Kirk wondered if she would strike him where he sat. Then she sighed.

“Such a clever boy,” Elise said. “I am so looking forward to seeing what you can accomplish for me.” She made a lifting gesture, and the officer pocketed the comms and hauled Kirk to his feet.

“Clear my schedule,” Elise said to the officer. “I see no reason to delay the captain’s appointment with the neutralizer.”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said, and shoved Kirk forward through the door. After hours in the dim light of the cell, the standard white light of the hallway pierced through his head like an ice pick. His legs felt oddly disconnected from his body, and an aching emptiness permeated his belly. He fought to keep his eyes open against the overwhelmingly bright lights.

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” Elise said to him as he staggered down the hallway and up the stairs. “You may have gotten your little message out, but this ship has a unique cloaking capability that will make it look like it came from nowhere.”

“It seemed pretty visible to me when we arrived,” Kirk croaked. He was parched.

“Visible to the eye,” she said. “Invisible on scanners.”

That got Kirk’s attention. “This ship can’t be seen on sensors?”

“Not at all,” she said. When she caught Kirk’s eye, she smiled co-conspiratorially. The discrepancy between her actions and her demeanor gave Kirk whiplash. “It’s quite interesting, really.”

“I’d love to learn more,” Kirk said, and he groaned as the officer jerked his shoulders up as they climbed the second set of stairs. “Please, tell me all about how Section 31 is using secret technology that could be shared with the rest of the Fleet.”

Elise frowned at him. “It will be shared,” she said. “This agency and this ship serve as the final testing ground for many of the technologies you have come to rely on, captain. All we do is for the security of the Federation, even if you don’t approve of the methods. I hope you can remember that.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said. The cell-lined hallway seemed shorter upon exiting than it did entering. He was running out of time--- as they approached the turbolift, his heartbeat kicked up in tempo.

“How does it work?” The look Elise gave him made it clear that she recognized that he was stalling for time, but she indulged him.

“The cloaking, or the neutralizer?”

“Both.”

She laughed lightly. “The cloaking is just a matter of overwriting the ship’s natural signal emissions--- comms, engines, light, heat--- with a pattern that looks like nothing. As soon as we can figure out how to replace nothing with an imitation of the background noise of the galaxy, it will be virtually flawless unless in visible range. I am so looking forward to having your engineering capabilities at my disposal, captain.” The turbolift soared upwards, taking them back to the deck where she had punished April upon their arrival. “The neutralizer, though… that’s my proudest achievement. Can you imagine, captain, the end of punitive measures for disobedience? A galaxy without prisons? A one hundred percent success rate for rehabilitation?”

Kirk stared at her as she placidly watched the deck display of the lift. “All you’re doing is turning the mind into a prison,” he said.

“Please,” she said, turning to him. She met his eyes without hesitation, without any sign that she felt remorse at all. “Captain, I understand that this is a difficult proposition for you. But you interacted with April for years without ever realizing that anything was different about him. He maintains his career, his marriage, and most of his own agency. The only thing that I have asked him to change is his priorities.”

“And I’m sure you asked him so politely,” Kirk said acidly. Elise lifted one shoulder and dropped it in a dainty shrug.

“I believed then that I knew what was best. His success as an advocate for 31’s work within the admiralty has proven me right.”

“If you’re doing what’s right, why not let people work for you of your own accord? Why use the machine?” The doors opened and the officer shoved him forward again. Elise walked quickly down the hallway towards that ominous door.

“You are not listening,” Elise said, her words sharp and staccato. “I am simply removing human error from sensitive decisions. The officer who didn’t shoot on Tarsus; April trying to separate you and Spock instead of simply eliminating him like I asked. And there are a hundred different examples that I could list that aren’t about you.”

She pressed her hand to the panel in the wall and the door slid open. The reclined chair with its open metal cuffs waited for Kirk, waiting to swallow him whole.

“You’re not removing human error,” Kirk said desperately, digging his heels into the tile and pushing backwards against the officer holding him. “You’re removing the humanity.” The officer threw him forward into the room and he toppled to his knees, muscles screaming as he fought to remain upright with his hands still bound.

“We will have to release his current restraints to secure him in the chair,” the officer said to Elise. Kirk staggered to his feet. She considered him, padd held gently in front of her in both hands.

“One hand at a time, perhaps.” The officer nodded, and approached him.

Kirk fought like a hellcat, thrashing and kicking and full-throated yelling, but the officer moved inexorably, unphased by any of his attacks, and in less than five minutes he was cuffed into the chair beneath the neutralizer. The officer’s broken nose dripped blood and his eye was already blackening from where Kirk had been able to land a few good hits, but an entire day without food and water made him weak and dizzy. Elise watched carefully.

“Imagine how strong you’ll be when your impulsivity is finally tempered,” she said. “You could have learned a thing or two from your Vulcan.” He closed his eyes. The cuffs on the chair were looser than his restraints, but bumping his abused wrists against the metal was excruciating. He couldn’t pull his hands through.

“Do not be afraid, Jim,” Elise said, and came to stand next to him. Her pet officer stood bored by the door. She laid her hand on Kirk’s shoulder and he thrashed again, just to see her flinch away. She looked at him, disappointment in him clear on her face, and he let his lip curl back in a snarl. This was the woman in whom he had put his trust? He had allowed her guidance to keep him blind for too long. The scales had fallen from his eyes. She was a shell of a person, seizing every drop of control she could because she feared everything around her.

The worst thing, Kirk thought, was that she completely, one hundred percent believed in what she was saying. She truly believed that what she was doing was right for her crew and the Federation. Her fear had blinded her completely.

He held her gaze, and for a moment he thought that she would delay further, try again to convince him to join her voluntarily.

Then the blaring siren of a red alert split the air.

Elise sprang to the comm unit in the wall, tapping at the button. “Captain here, situation report, now,” she snapped.

The voice coming out of the speaker crackled. “Something just dropped out of warp and is hiding in our blind radius, sir.”

“Identify.”

“Unclear, sir. We couldn’t get a read on it; it was too fast. It might have been a shuttle.” Kirk closed his eyes as sharp-edged hope flared to life inside his chest.

“Find it and destroy it,” Elise commanded. “Battle stations. Commander, you have the conn. I am not to be disturbed.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer ended the comm, and the screaming siren of red alert continued until Elise stalked to the control room and hit something on the console that silenced everything that wasn’t Kirk’s own breathing. Through the plexiglass window Elise gestured at her officer, and he slid out into the hallway beyond. For a moment the distant sound of the red alert bounced down the hallway and into the room; as the door slid shut, everything fell quiet.

“This is normally a gradual process, but your actions have unfortunately made that impossible,” Elise said. “It may be painful, but you’re strong. You’ll be fine.” Kirk strained against the cuffs, pressing bruised skin against the metal, but there was no give. He heaved his body off the chair, arching up, but there was no escape. His bones would break long before the metal did.

“Calm down, Jim, please,” Elise said, her voice low and soothing in a way that he remembered from a thousand afternoons in her office. In his mind’s eye he saw her creased khakis and soft cardigans, her understanding eyes and smiling mouth. The control booth’s door clicked shut and he heard something whir to life above him.

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away from the neural neutralizer. Even from behind his eyelids he could see the illumination increasing, slowly intensifying like a sunrise. Over an intercom came Elise’s voice, gentle, coaxing, undeniable. “It’s going to be okay, Jim. It’s all going to be okay. Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to lay down some of your burden?” Something in him was responding to her voice, turning towards it like a moth to flame, but he locked it down and kept his eyes screwed shut. The light outside of his eyelids was blinding, even with his eyes closed.

“No,” he said aloud. “Thanks, but I do not. I’m not listening.” The volume of Elise’s voice increased, and he could barely hear himself think.

“You’re so tired, Jim,” she said. “Tired of hiding, tired of lying, tired of having to be in control for every minute of every day. Open your eyes and you can rest.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Kirk said, but he could no longer hear his own voice over the rasping of the intercom’s static and Elise’s gentle voice. She was right, though--- he was tired. He had been tired before he thought he was going to lose Spock to another ship, the mundane fatigue of labor and responsibility, and the past week of revelation after revelation had done a number on him. The past day alone would have exhausted him. What if he did open his eyes?

Almost the second the thought materialized, his eyelids started to open without his permission. He shook his head fiercely and redoubled his efforts. He was not going to become the captain of this dark and horrible ship. He was not going to let Elise take his agency from him. She might think that offering mercy was human error, but he did not. He never would.

“Your old crew would understand, Jim,” Elise called. It felt like she was in the room with him, bending over him, speaking directly into his ear. He felt her voice crawl over him, sinking into him, pushing everything else out. “They would be happy for you if you just gave in. They know that it’s only a matter of time until you make a mistake, or crumble under the pressure, and none of them want to be there when it happens. They wouldn’t trust a captain like you if they knew what you really felt. Open your eyes, Jim.” Her voice, the glare and hum of the neutralizer, were stripping away his fortitude. He was exhausted, starving, dehydrated, and afraid. The cuffs around his wrists burned. The light cutting through his eyelids felt like it was draining something vital and warm and alive from his chest--- everything that made him who he was. Her voice was a time machine that took him back to when he was eighteen and friendless, sitting on her couch for the first time with shaking hands.

“If you open your eyes, you can let all that go,” she said. “I can make you perfect, Jim. Isn’t that what you want? Open your eyes, and you’ll never have to fear letting your crew down again. You would be unassailable, impenetrable, infallible. All you have to do is look up.”

He tried to yell out, but his jaw was clenched so tightly that he couldn’t open his mouth. His teeth ground against each other. His mind whirled through a maelstrom of his worst moments, each of the days that had threatened to break him: Sam’s death and Spock’s blindness, Edith’s death, Gary’s death, Kevin suffering in silence to protect him, every time he had lost a crew member on his watch, every time he asked his bridge crew to endure the unendurable in the name of their mission, every time he had made the wrong decision in a life-or-death situation. How could he be so vain as to think that they would grieve if he were gone? Beneath the light of the neutralizer, a yawning cavity of loneliness opened in his chest. It devoured his heart whole.

His eyelids were slowly opening against his will. She was right. He was so tired. He didn’t have the strength to keep fighting. The light that peeked around his eyelashes was so warm and inviting. He hadn’t felt the sun on his face in so long. If he opened his eyes, maybe the loneliness would go away.

“You’re doing so well, Jim,” she said. “I want you to listen to me.”

He was listening. He didn’t want to be alone.

“Open your eyes. Let go of your old crew, your old life. Let go of Spock. Let go of everything that isn’t right here.”

He obediently pulled their faces into his mind to say goodbye. He saw the bridge of the Enterprise in his mind, his crew stationed around it, and for one heartbeat, time seemed to freeze. The light outside of his eyelids was searing him now, but for a second, the depths of his loneliness disappeared.

He was Jim Kirk. His crew was coming for him. He was not alone.

“They mean nothing to you now,” Elise said, and Kirk squeezed his eyes shut again. Elise did not know him anymore. She never could have understood who he had become. Someone like her could never understand the power that came from putting your trust in hands of the people around you. The light of the neural neutralizer burned and burned like the sun itself hung above him, but Kirk ignored it. Elise turned the volume up on the intercom, spilling hatred and fear and isolation into the room, but Kirk ignored it. In his mind was the bridge, and the crew who had become his friends who had become his family.

He sat in the center chair, legs crossed, hands unbound, and Chekov and Sulu turned around to smile at him. Sulu, who had been the first to joyously respond on the day that Kirk announced his wedding, and Chekov, who had been the only person on the ship to see and understand what lay between the captain and the commander.

Uhura sat at her console with padds scattered around her, one elegant hand pressing her earpiece tighter, her warm brown eyes alight with mischief as she waved a graph of subspace comms usage at him, as she explained to him what he had been too complacent to understand. He remembered her kindness even after he and Spock had fought, years of friendship and trust summed up in the handover of a single cup of hot coffee.

Bones leaned against the bannister that ran around the upper level of the bridge, a stalwart presence even when he wasn’t supposed to be there. His Georgia drawl, his shrewd blue eyes, his unflagging faith that Kirk could and would get better someday--- Kirk saw all of it in the careless wave of his hand.

Scotty lay on his back beneath a console panel, and when Kirk looked at him, he raised his wrench in a salute with a smile and lowered himself again. Kirk remembered Scotty’s silent company whenever he needed a moment to think, his unflagging acceptance of the captain’s presence deep in the heart of the ship, the ingenuity that allowed Kirk to save Spock when he had been mortally injured.

Kirk turned over his shoulder to look at Spock, and flowers grew over the place in his chest where loneliness had taken up residence. Spock turned away from his sensors to meet Kirk’s gaze, and Kirk inhaled sharply. In the warm ambience of his mind’s eye, Spock glowed. Everything from the sharp dark lines of his hair and eyebrows, to the deep woodsy brown of his eyes, to his soft lips, to the set of his shoulders felt like sunshine. The light of the neural neutralizer was a pale comparison, a shameful imitation of what Spock was to him. Spock tilted his head slightly, and Kirk’s eyes traced the elegant lines of his jaw and neck.

“For better and for worse,” Kirk said.

“No caveats, ashayam,” Spock said. Beloved. He was beloved, by Spock and by his crew, and he loved them too. Regardless of his secrets, regardless of his failures, he was loved. Nothing and no one could take that from him.

Outside of his mind he could hear Elise’s voice going higher in frustration, and he became suddenly, brutally aware of someone’s hands on his face. He snapped out of the comfort of his mind to find Elise’s officer with his hands on Kirk’s eyes, trying to pull his eyelids open. Kirk roared, thrashed his head from side to side, and snapped at the man’s hands, trying to bite him.

Elise cried, “Sedate him!” The light of the neutralizer still burned above him, and his face ached with the effort of keeping his eyes shut. He heard the door into the hallway open as the guard ran for something. The red alert siren still shrieked through the air.

Then, over the ship-wide intercom, someone shouted, “Security to engineering! They’ve---”

There was a thud, and a muffled thunk, and someone with a familiar brogue cried, “Oh, no ye don’t! Now!” Something clicked.

Somewhere in the center of the ship, there was a frisson of electricity. A circuit closed. Then a thunderous shockwave exploded outward, shaking every single one of the millions of tiny pieces that made up the ship. The neural neutralizer went black, plunging the room into darkness. Kirk felt the pulse of energy through his body, through the chair, rattling his bones and pressing him up against the cuffs.

For three full seconds, Kirk heard exactly how quiet the galaxy was. No humming engine, no background roar of life support; the only sound in the room was his heartbeat in his ears, and the enormity of the vacuum of space outside a ship that had just gone entirely dead.

Oh, no ye don’t. There was a Scotsman on this ship, one that had just done something absolutely heinous to the engine, and Kirk couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud in relief as the quiet drone of the backup life support kicked on. He had outlasted the neutralizer with his heart and mind intact, and his crew had come for him.

From the hallway he heard footsteps at a rapid clip, and the thick clunk of an automatic door being manually forced open. Elise’s last words before the blast rang through his head again, and fear exploded in his chest. If they sedated him, he could do nothing to help his crew. He would be defenseless against Elise. They could take him wherever they wanted.

“Stun him!” Elise’s voice was high and harsh with panic in the darkness. Kirk heard someone fumble a phaser, then heard it hit the ground, and he was filled with savage pride as the officer in the hallway yelled, “It’s shorted out! Everything’s out!”

The footsteps grew closer as Elise fell silent in the darkness. He were nearly at the entrance to the neutralizer room, and a syringe would work even if the phaser didn’t. Kirk needed a way to defend himself, and his hands were still cuffed to the bed. If he could get even one hand free…

The officer was nearly to him. He was out of time. He gritted his teeth, and thought of Spock, and with an almighty roar he pulled backwards with all his strength. One of the bones in his hand snapped. With an awful dragging underneath his skin and his hand and wrist on fire, his right hand slid free of the cuff. The footsteps halted, just to his right. He closed his eyes, even though it made no difference in the pitch black, and listened.

The officer’s flight down the hallway had increased his respiration, and Kirk could hear him breathing. He was only five feet away.

The officer took a tentative step towards the chair, his pants swishing gently, and Kirk thought he heard him extend a cautious arm outward. If he was reaching out with his fingertips---

Kirk counted to three before the officer took another step.

One, two, three. Another.

As the officer took one last step, the whisper of cloth on cloth unbearably loud in the silence, Kirk rolled over the side of the chair. His wrist rotated terribly inside the cuff, and his breath came out in a hiss as his feet hit solid ground on the other side of the chair.

He heard the officer lurch forward, heard his hands slap desperately against the now-empty chair. Kirk clenched his fist, counterbalanced against his cuffed wrist, and lifted his leg. He snapped out at the knee as hard as he could over the chair.

The top of his foot connected with awful solidity, and the only noise the officer made was a soft exhale as he stumbled away and crumpled to the ground. The syringe that had been in his hand, hidden by the darkness, clattered on the tiles, rolling away into a corner.

“Tyler?” Elise’s voice was querulous with fear, high and sharp in the dark room.

“Not Tyler,” Kirk said, and he bared his teeth.

“A neat party trick,” she said, trying and failing to hide the disquiet in her voice. “Are you planning on breaking your other hand now, too?” As the adrenaline of the brief fight wore off, the ache in Kirk’s thumb intensified from mildly uncomfortable to a sharp, stabbing pain.

“Maybe,” Kirk said. “Depends on if you intend to try sedating me again.”

“I might,” she said. “This would be easier if you would just come with me, Jim. I don’t understand why you resist so. I could give you everything you wanted.”

“Everything?” He just had to keep her talking, now. He heard her moving around, pressing the comms button, running her hand along the wall for something. But he knew ships, and he knew Scotty: if his madman of a chief engineer truly had set off an electromagnetic pulse from within the ship itself, nothing that wasn’t set up with three or four redundancy systems would be coming on anytime soon. There was a metallic clicking. Kirk was still on his feet, but unable to turn to keep his face to her. She circled the room like a shark around a meal, one hand still dragging against the metal wall panels.

But then, so inhumanly quiet he almost missed it, there was one single footstep in the hallway beyond. “You know nothing about what I want,” he said loudly. There--- in the second after he stopped speaking, one more quiet footstep, and then nothing.

“I know you, James Kirk,” Elise hissed, and her voice came from across the chair, on the side of the room near the door. It sounded like her foot was sliding around on the floor, but he couldn’t tell. Was that sound just his heartbeat pounding in his ears, or was someone approaching with leopard grace? “I have known you since the day you were picked up from Tarsus and I will know you until the day you die.”

“Your memory is finally failing you,” Kirk said. “We didn’t meet until I enrolled at the Academy.” He was talking louder than necessary, he knew--- half to cover the sound of whoever might be approaching, and half out of fear.

Something struck the wall with a musical glass tinkle, and Kirk heard the shifting of her clothing as she bent to pick it up. The sedation syringe---

“Sweet boy. Naive boy,” Elise said. “You met me when you enrolled. But I already knew you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was already assigned to your case by the time we met in person.” Kirk said nothing, and Elise laughed softly. She had said that earlier, and his brain had skipped past it to the more important details: she had received her orders even before Kirk and his kids had made it back to Earth. “You had figured out so much of the rest that I had thought you had figured this out too.”

“Not this time,” Kirk said. “What did you do?” Right outside the door, Kirk heard something; a semi-familiar two-part slide. It might have been nothing. But it might have been the sound of someone settling into one of the four defensive Suus mahna postures. He heard Elise move slowly towards the chair in the center of the room. It stood between Kirk and her like a bulkhead.

She sighed, and he heard the subtle click of a syringe cap popping off. “You never questioned how your parents managed to do every single thing wrong?”

Kirk stood up straight in shock, the cuff yanking him back down by his bruised wrist.

“I was the one who guided them through welcoming home their traumatized boy. I was the one who told them that you needed to be kept close, that you needed to see your friends, that you needed to be treated like nothing had happened. And when those things failed, I convinced them that the best thing they could do for you was to let you go.” Her hard voice got closer and closer, and he edged away as far as he could. He was unsteady on his feet, his head spinning with this last betrayal.

“I know you, Jim. I know you because I made you. And I know that you have always been, and you will always be, alone.” There was a flurry of movement, and Kirk flinched backwards, trying to dodge but still expecting the prick of the needle.

Then Elise choked.

“He is not alone.” Spock’s voice in the dark was quiet, ragged, vicious in its fury. Kirk had never heard anything so beautiful in his entire life. He heard the sound of continued struggle, clothing against clothing, a thump as if Elise had been lifted off the ground and had kicked the chair between them.

“Jim, are you well?”

They were on a near-dead spaceship after Kirk had almost had his mind wiped and Spock had almost been shot to pieces. The question was so inappropriate, so one-hundred-percent pure Spock understatement, that it snapped Kirk out of his fear for the moment. Kirk laughed, and his voice broke. “Better now,” he said, as his throat swelled with relief and gratitude and love. He heard Elise coughing, struggling to suck in air.

“What are your orders, captain?” Spock’s tone was serious, his voice soft and low. In the quiet of the room Kirk could hear Elise fighting for each breath, and with a rush of gravity he knew that, if he asked, Spock would kill this woman for him without question. For an awful, dizzying second, the cold and calculating part of him considered it. If Spock killed her right here, she would never be able to hurt him or his kids ever again. It would weaken Section 31. He would have revenge for what she had done to him and his family, both blood and chosen.

But revenge was not justice, and he was not her only victim. Her death would only erase the evidence of her crimes, and he was not convinced enough of the existence of Hell to bet that she would atone for her sins in the next life. But he could make damn sure that she paid for them in this one.

“Incapacitate her,” Kirk said. “I want her to stand trial for crimes against the Federation.”

“Certainly, captain,” Spock said, and with another swish of fabric the sounds of Elise’s struggles stopped and Kirk heard her body slump to the chair. “Are you restrained?”

“Yes,” Kirk said, the word hissing out as the shock wore off and his wrist and hand throbbed anew. Spock swept around the chair and his hands found Kirk’s shoulders. As Spock’s hand reached him, pressing against him, Kirk’s heart settled a little further. Spock had come for him. The nightmare was almost over.

“Ashayam,” Spock said hoarsely, the endearment breaking over him like a wave as Spock’s thumb traced a line down his neck, and Kirk threw his free arm around Spock’s waist, burying his face in his shoulder. They stood for a moment, as close as close could be. Kirk inhaled the scent of Spock’s skin; not his normal spice and incense, but antiseptic and copper. But he was solid, and alive, and standing of his own volition in the half-circle of Kirk’s arms. His blood flowed. His heart beat. He lived.

“I was so afraid for you,” Kirk murmured, his lips against Spock’s shoulder.

“I promised that I would come for you,” Spock said. He stroked one hand over the back of Kirk’s head before following the path of his shoulder and arm to find the cuff that bound him to the chair. “Please remain still.” Kirk did as he was told as Spock wedged his narrow fingers into the cuff and tore it open. It broke off from the chair and clattered to the ground. The blood flowed uncomfortably back into his fingers, prickling like a dermal regenerator, but the cool air against his chafed wrist was soothing. Spock ran his hands over Kirk’s shoulders once more, as if assuaging his own concerns about Kirk’s well-being.

“We should depart with haste,” Spock said, and his voice was gravelly.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Kirk kept one hand on the small of Spock’s back as Spock hoisted Elise’s unconscious body over one shoulder and led them back into the hallway. “How did you get up here? The lifts are all down.”

Without answering, Spock led him down the dark hallway towards the lift. But as they walked further from the neutralizer room, Kirk saw a warm orange glow emanating faintly from a low point in the hallway wall. They pulled up even with the entrance to a Jeffries tube, and Kirk looked down. Zip-tied every ten rungs was a glow-stick, and Crovath, the Andorian security officer who had attended Spock’s hand-to-hand sessions, sat comfortably on one of the rungs.

“Good to see you, captain,” Crovath said agreeably, and Kirk’s face crumpled with emotion as he reached down to pump the other man’s hand.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” Kirk said. At Spock’s insistence, he climbed into the tube first. Crovath led the way, he proceeded in the middle, and Spock with Elise’s body slung over his shoulders brought up the rear. Kirk used the elbow of his right hand to grab the rungs, rather than messing with his broken thumb, and his wrist throbbed with every grip. He had never been happier in his life to be in such pain. They climbed down through the semi-darkness for at least ten minutes before Crovath put a hand against Kirk’s calf.

“Wait here, sir,” the officer whispered, and he clambered the rest of the way out of the tube. Kirk and Spock waited in silence until the man’s antennaed head poked back into the tubes.

“All clear, sirs. Mostly.” Kirk finished climbing down and shook out his left hand as Spock followed him out into the dimly lit engineering bay. Glowsticks rested on every available surface.

“What does mostly mean?” But he turned over his shoulder to wait for Spock, and his stomach dropped out of his body as Spock stepped out of the tube. The front of Spock’s shirt, grayscale in the dim light, was soaked to black. “Put her down!”

Spock did as he was told, allowing Elise to slide gracelessly to the ground, and swayed on his feet without his burden. Kirk braced him, one hand on his back, one on his side, and gaped in horror at the blood leaking through his shirt, dripping down onto the floor beneath him.

“Spock!”

“It is unimportant,” Spock said, and his eyes were focused and flinty when Kirk looked up at him, aghast. Crovath picked up Elise in a fireman’s carry and nodded to Kirk.

“We tried to keep him from coming, sir, but he would not have it.” His antennae twitched as he gestured for them to follow deeper into Engineering. “We are nearly there.” Kirk pulled Spock’s arm over his shoulder to take more of his weight and wrapped his arm securely around his waist. They turned a corner, and Kirk beheld one of the most welcome sights he had ever seen: One and Two guarding a pile of zip-tied Section 31 engineers, Scotty at the manual controls of an airlock, and Laila guarding one unperturbed Robert April, who sat in the chief engineer’s chair with his legs crossed and his hands bound. Not a single one of them carried a phaser; they prowled around their captives empty-handed with a nearly Vulcan level of grace and power.

The front of the airlock opened as Scotty turned and beamed at them. “All according to plan, Mr. Spock?”

“Just so, Mr. Scott,” Spock said, but there was a burble of liquid in his throat, and he coughed. Then a hurricane of blonde and blue appeared, and suddenly Christine Chapel was standing on his other side, delicately tugging at Spock’s shirt.

“You said you would try not to pull the staples,” Nurse Chapel said, and her tone was only slightly accusatory.

“It was unavoidable,” Spock said, but he acquiesced to her pulling his shirt up slightly to peer beneath it.

“Staples?” Kirk asked faintly, redoubling his grip on Spock’s waist, but no one listened to him.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” Scotty urged, and Kirk and Chapel bundled Spock towards the airlock as Scotty passed through it to the dark and silent shuttle anchored on the other side. Scotty cycled the airlock and dove into the shuttle as One and Two made a circle around the officers, ensuring that those unlucky enough to be on their warpath were still unconscious, and Laila backed carefully away from April, never taking her eyes off of him. Crovath met them by the door as April watched impassively.

Beyond the airlock window, the shuttle lit up. The warm light of the Galileo was so comforting that a wave of exhaustion swept over Kirk. His crew had come for him. Spock had come for him. They had prevailed against an entire ship of Section 31 officers through their ingenuity and courage.

Then a flurry of angry motion caught his eye, and he turned to see Elise squirming hard against Crovath’s unmoving grip.

“Unhand me!” Her scream echoed off the Engineering machinery and the cold, still engine. “Robert! Robert!”

Admiral April looked at her across the deck with cold apathy in his eyes. “Yes?”

“Help me!” She shrieked in anger and wriggled harder, but Crovath was inhumanly strong and an experienced security officer. He only clamped his hands harder down around her wrists and ankles. “Help me! I am your commanding officer!”

April closed his eyes as the airlock door cycled open again in a rush of cool air. Kirk watched in sick fascination as he bent double where he sat, wheezing hard, before throwing himself backwards. His head tilted up to the ceiling. His throat twitched and clicked. He jerked his head hard to one side, his legs uncrossing as if to propel him across the room, before they crumpled beneath him. April knelt for a moment, head bowed, before he stood and considered her coldly, as still as if he had been carved from marble.

“Starfleet regulations prohibit the captain and the first officer from leaving the ship at the same time, except in extraordinary circumstances,” Admiral April said. He looked from Elise to where Kirk stood, Spock leaning heavily against him, and he inclined his head. “I don’t believe this circumstance qualifies.”

Kirk grinned broadly as Spock reached out with a trembling hand and pinched Elise’s neck again. She fell still and silent as they crossed over the airlock threshold and into the shuttle. Scotty cycled the airlock again as Crovath strapped Elise into the furthest bench seat and stepped up to claim the pilot’s seat. Scotty took the navigator’s chair as One, Two, and Laila strapped themselves onto the benches.

“Lay him down,” Christine demanded, and Kirk obliged. As Crovath steered the shuttle away from that cursed ship, Kirk slid himself and his husband down to the floor as Christine pulled a travel medbag from beneath one of the benches. Kirk sat with his back against the wall, Spock’s head pillowed on his thigh, as Christine brought out a pair of shears and clipped Spock’s shirt open. She sighed, hands on her thighs as she surveyed the damage, and Kirk’s breath was sucked out of him in one painful gust.

Spock’s chest was a battlefield. The entirety of his ribcage and both pectorals were bruised a deathly purple-black. The burned skin puckered painfully, weeping clear liquid and green blood. Leading in a train-tracks trail from his stomach to the top of his sternum were at least fifty tiny metal clips. Some of them held the phaser wound closed, but some of them had torn through his skin, leaving the wound open again and bleeding freely. Christine tutted at him as she bent over the popped staples with pliers and antiseptic.

“Spock,” Kirk said, horrified and awed at Spock’s sheer resilience, and ran his hand over Spock’s hair. His hand trembled, and his body ached. In the light of the shuttle, his wrists were rubbed raw, and his broken hand was swelling like a balloon. Spock’s eyes were closed, his breathing even and undisturbed but for the slight gurgling in his throat and lungs. His eyelids twitched as his heartbeat slowed, and Kirk looked up at Christine. She held the pliers in one hand as she pulled out her tricorder with the other and scanned Spock.

“Healing trance,” she mouthed, and her eyes crinkled as Kirk exhaled. He adjusted himself to ease the angle between Spock’s neck and the ground. He bent over, against the protestations of his body, to press his lips against Spock’s pale forehead, right between those pointed eyebrows.

“For better and for worse,” Spock murmured.

“Against all dangers, as long as we both live,” Kirk said, smoothing his swollen hand over Spock’s hair as Christine worked, and he fell asleep upright with Spock’s head in his lap as Scotty flew them home.

#regulatory relations #my writing #fake married #kirk/spock fan fic #k/s fan fic #i'm never doing this cross posting thing again i'm just posting ao3 links next time i do a long project

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