Contact: jat_sapphire@yahoo.com
Rating: [NC-17]
Codes: S/Mitchell, K/Mitchell, K/S

Disclaimer: Star Trek, the characters, and that weird gel stuff are Paramount's, much though we all love to play with them. I don't make money at this.

Acknowledgements: This has been on my disk for a while--Animasola and Islaofhope betaread it before gaffiating. Morgan Le Fey also read it in draft, if I remember correctly.

~~

Gestures

~~

*Stardate 1021*

They used decontaminant gel.

The choice was logical, of course, as the gel was completely sterile and could even be ingested. It had a slightly acrid, clean scent that Spock found pleasant. Moreover, Spock's initial misgivings about this particular sexual act had been mostly medical. He had since done the requisite research and found that it was not as dangerous as he had initially supposed, but he had never communicated with Mitchell about those findings.

So, Spock thought, this was a gesture meant to reassure, and had he been human, he ought to have been grateful for it.

Oddly, that was not his reaction.

The gel felt cold to his skin. Of course it did; this was only to be expected, but somehow the sensation was not even slightly erotic, as the touch of chilly human fingertips was, or the cool velvet wetness of a human tongue. Spock felt more pleasure from the long stroke of Mitchell's other palm up and down his spine than from the fingers massaging and teasing his anal opening.

The whole sex act seemed to go too fast, which was also odd, as Mitchell's timing was usually impeccable. The way he swung his head slowly around to gaze at someone who spoke to him; the way he walked down the corridor, neither scurrying nor strolling; the way, when he ran, all the long lines of his body flowed--all these were pleasures to Spock, and had been before they began this sexual liaison. He remembered so well the occasion when he had first seen Mitchell dressed in the informal shorts and shirt that Captain Pike encouraged his crew to wear when off duty. Spock had been progressing down the corridor from Science Lab 7, and the door to the gym was 4.73 meters ahead of him at the moment it opened. Mitchell stepped out, his neck arched as he spoke a last few words over his shoulder to someone inside. He wore a t-shirt which had faded from black to a dark charcoal color with a gray sheen of tiny fibers; dark patches of sweat stained the cloth under his arms and at the small of his back. His shorts were also faded, now off-white with a pale maroon stripe instead of what Spock suspected had once been crisp white and red. Below the material his legs were long and the color of noonday sand, the hair on them brown dusted with bronze. Spock did not speak to him, though they had met and had shared duty shifts on six occasions. Instead he simply walked down the corridor behind the new officer, watching him, seeing the light catch those subtle corruptions of color, observing the movement of muscles and the gestures of his broad hands as he reacted to persons he passed.

After that, Spock often watched Mitchell when he felt he could do so without catching the man's attention. It was difficult, however, as Mitchell seemed to be watching Spock as well. One of them would look up from what he was doing and see the other turning away, the trailing effect of unacknowledged regard as real as a comet's tail. These incidents increased in frequency until it seemed to Spock that Mitchell was everywhere, had filled the ship's atmosphere with his scent and the sounds of his breath and movement, uncannily obvious to Spock even when he had his back resolutely turned on the navigator's station.

He felt endangered, as he had not since the days of his childhood, when the other children observed him so closely, looking for signs of his Human heritage. He had known then, with humiliating despair, that they would eventually find those signs--a too-emphatic gesture, a smile, even a choked-off laugh from time to time. Mitchell was watching for something else, but he was watching just the same.

Spock wondered if anyone now aboard the ship remembered, or would tell Mitchell, about the period of time when he had tried to adapt to the behavioral norms of the humans around him. He had shouted and smiled and gestured, but it was exhausting to keep up another shell around the Vulcan control around his real katra and its wild passions. Gradually he had relaxed into a normal level of logical behavior. The acquaintances who had enjoyed his assumed persona drifted away. Pike had asked him for an explanation, which he had given with a great sense of relief, and the captain had smiled very slightly and said, "You're a strange bird, Mr. Spock. I think you can go ahead and be a Vulcan without shocking people too much. Do you really think we're out here looking for aliens in order to see them acting just like us?"

Actually, he had thought so, and had found little since to challenge that opinion.

Now, for instance, Mitchell's penis had begun to enter him, and the man's hands rasped damply on Spock's sides, held his waist, petted him randomly--more, he suspected, for Mitchell's stimulation than for his. "Come on," Mitchell said, "c'mon, baby, let me in, let me know you're here," and one hand slid round the front of his throat as if Spock might be subvocalizing and Mitchell might feel a faint vibration there.

"Oh," said Spock obligingly, relaxing his sphincter as much as he could, "uh...uh..." timing his sounds with Mitchell's small thrusts.

And the sensation was intriguingly complex, with the muscles strained in this unlikely and unaccustomed way ... a sense of fullness which Spock had not previously thought of as pleasurable, a pushing friction which seemed to radiate outward from the intruding penis. He flexed his spine a little, raising his ass and his shoulders, and Mitchell leaned forward and thrust harder and faster. Yes, this was pleasing.

In their initial sexual encounter, Mitchell had begun by moving very slowly, had touched with a restraint that made Spock think there was more information available about touch-telepathy than the Vulcan elders would consider good. But as they kissed the first time, as Mitchell opened his lips and his jaw and pressed closer, Spock reached for the rough, thick hair and slid his fingers nearly to the meld spots, and Mitchell did not react. Spock let his guard down a little, accepting Mitchell's tongue into his mouth, and found a mind so unlike his own that it was a wonder they could use the same language. A fascinating maze of desire and ambition, hunger and greed, and a lonely self-doubt that flickered tantalizingly behind the other motivations. Spock moved one hand over the round-edged ear and into the hair, so like sehlat fur, until his palm cupped the back of Mitchell's head. Rubbing a little, softening his mouth, Spock suckled the cooler tongue and stroked cheekbone and temple and jaw and throat, and an odd tenderness rose like floodwater between them.

Then, breaking that first kiss, Mitchell took a deep breath, quickly, and the movement of his diaphragm was almost like a sob. He pulled Spock's hand down to his crotch, grinding their bodies and mouths together, the edges of his teeth suddenly more prominent and his mind closing with an almost audible snap, like the lid of a box. When he pulled his head back, his lips swollen and wet and his teeth glinting in the red light of Spock's Watcher, his eyes were slits and he pushed down hard on Spock's shoulders. Without speech, Spock sank to his knees and took Mitchell's penis from his trousers. Spock's lips pursed against the head and he pressed slowly forward. Mitchell gasped and the organ jumped in Spock's mouth. "So hot, my God, so hot," and Mitchell grabbed the edges and tips of Spock's ears, thrust hard twice, and orgasm burst from him.

Then he pushed Spock back with a force that would have knocked over another human, pulled his pants together and was gone, all in silence.

They had progressed a good deal since that time, Spock thought, though many of Mitchell's reactions were still mysterious to him. What, for instance, was the special value of this act to him? Was the way it mimicked procreative sex important to Mitchell? To human males in general? Was there a human version of pon farr, some sort of lower-grade compulsion? The joking, coarse talk of the human cadets at Starfleet might bear this out.

And it might go some way toward explaining why it was that Mitchell had pursued Spock, nearly silently, as if compelled, without any of that euphoria that Spock associated with the human state of being in love. Mitchell had an iron drive to initiate, to control, to regulate their sexual encounters, a pattern Spock had allowed to form out of curiosity. It fascinated him that any human being (beside his own mother, who never had), especially one younger than himself, should call him "baby."

It made him wonder whether Mitchell was somehow projecting some other desire into their sexual encounters.

Now, as if still aware that Spock's mind was not wholly absorbed in this pleasure, Mitchell leaned forward over Spock's back and began to nip at shoulders and neck, teeth pinching briefly but hard. Spock would wear those marks for some while. Mitchell's hands locked on Spock's upper arms, and the jolts of his thrusts moved Spock's knees a small distance each time. Perhaps two centimeters when the push was hardest. Surely this would cause pain to most of Mitchell's sex partners?

Once, after Mitchell had knelt over him, braced his arms stiffly and fucked into Spock's mouth with force that bruised even Vulcan flesh, Spock had asked him, "Is this ... intensity ... normal for you?"

"No," and Mitchell had leaned a shoulder against the wall and laughed a little, one foot still raised, partly inside the trouser-leg. "No, Mr. Spock, you bring out something special in me." He pushed himself upright, finished pulling on his trousers, and took a few quick steps nearer to Spock. Reached out, gently for once, and touched the hinge of his jaw, stroked down onto his throat. The cool touch quieted both of them, and Mitchell's still face had a charm that Spock had not seen in him before. Then the fingers retreated, Mitchell's expression hardened, and the moment was over. "Tell me it's not the same for you," Mitchell said, turning away to get his tunic as though he did not even need to hear Spock's response.

"You bring out something in me," Spock admitted, "that I had not realized existed."

"Good," Mitchell said. "Hate to think this was one-sided," and he was at the door already, a tough and glinting smile over one shoulder before he left.

Spock thought of that again as Mitchell stiffened and ejaculated, each pulse of cool liquid a separate sensation. Yes, quite pleasant, if a little strange. Spock, aware that his own arousal was at peak, shifted his weight to one side so as to lift his other hand and give his own organ a few quick strokes, pinching a little between the ridges, the last stimulation he needed for his own orgasm. He cupped his hand over the cockhead to catch his own sperm.

Mitchell groaned, lying on Spock's back, the softening penis still inside Spock.

After a few seconds, Spock said, "Gary," on the theory that rank and surname were inappropriate at a moment like this.

Mitchell started, as if with a static shock, and knelt up.

Spock slid off the bunk and took his handful of semen into the washroom. While there, he wiped at the dripping human semen on his thighs. Mitchell was at the door when Spock turned to leave.

"I'm a mess, too," with a gesture. "May I?"

"Certainly." Spock allowed himself a little humor: "Be my guest."

"Oh, my," Mitchell said, wetting a cloth at the sink, "an idiom!" He wiped, then rubbed a little harder, wincing. "Not easy to get that gel off."

"It will soak into the skin, I think, as it does in normal use."

Mitchell grimaced. Spock was not sure why.

After approximately twelve seconds, so that Spock assumed this was a new subject, Mitchell said, "It better not stain my uniform pants. I've only got one other pair, and the new first officer's on board tomorrow."

"Can you not have another pair replicated?" It was odd to have an actual conversation with Mitchell. Spock tried to remember if they had ever conversed before.

"I s'pose." Another of those brief, cough-like laughs. "I keep thinking he'll, I don't know, just know. Take one look and deduce it: new pants equals ...." He shook his head.

Spock raised an eyebrow, wondering why Mitchell had not completed the sentence.

Glancing at him, Mitchell said, "Oh, take my word for it. I know the guy. Jim Kirk sees through your skull. Right through to the other side. And makes you like it, unlike Number One Ice Maiden." He twisted past Spock and out into the bedchamber, where he pulled on first underwear and then pants, t-shirt and then tunic, with an efficient grace Spock much enjoyed watching. Mitchell looked up again, caught Spock's eye, and returned the gaze soberly. "Come to think of it, you two are a lot alike. Good thing I got to you first," with another jaunty grin. Spock always found the expression just slightly unconvincing.

"Got to me?" he asked.

Mitchell just shrugged as if he didn't really know what he meant either. He tugged at the bottom of his tunic a little and went to the door. Then he hesitated--another unheard-of thing--and looked back.

"Did you, was it," he said, and stopped again.

"Yes," said Spock. "It was pleasurable."

Mitchell nodded. "Yes," he echoed. Spock heard him breathe in, evenly, and then in a different, public voice, he said, "Transporter Room One at 900 hours."

Spock had known this was the time of the new first officer's arrival, but nodded. The door opened; Mitchell went out; it slid closed behind him. The sound was familiar, and so was the sight. Yet Spock stood, letting the chill air from the corridor raise bumps on his skin.

He suspected he had missed something. Something was missing. He missed ... what he had not yet known.

And that was wholly illogical, so he put the thought from him, turning back to the bed to tidy it, adjusting his mind for sleep. He wanted to be rested tomorrow, to greet his new fellow officer and find out whether Mitchell's assessment seemed apt ... whether Spock chaSarek and James T. Kirk had anything in common.

~~

* Stardate 5935.7*

There was someone else in the room. Jim woke knowing it, lay thinking about it, listening, breathing evenly, eyes still closed. The person moved almost soundlessly, and Jim could not have explained how he knew when the sense of presence shifted from office area to near the dividing grille, from grille to dresser, from dresser to bedside. Whoever it was now stood behind Jim, and he thought, Must be Spock.

It made perfect sense--Spock moved that silently, trod with similar weight, had every right to be in the cabin while Jim slept--and yet ... and yet.

It didn't feel like Spock.

Jim tried to turn and could not. Tried to open his eyes--and could not.

What's going on?

He could feel his own pulse quicken, his muscles tightening just a little, but he was paralyzed, wrapped tight in the remnants of sleep, if nothing more sinister.

Behind him, whoever it was breathed out in a whispering laugh that chilled Jim's blood. This was not Spock. It was a sound that a Vulcan simply would never make.

Weight dragged the mattress down behind him as the person sat, and a broad hand rested on Jim's hip, warm through the thermal coverlet. The hand shoved a little; Jim's frozen body stirred; the mattress shifted as the other body moved--

Gary. This was how Gary had slipped into Jim's cabin more than once, years ago, touching without a word, urging Jim onto his stomach for the sex act Gary wanted, in the dark silence Jim tolerated. A pretence of secrecy. It made Gary hot.

They'd both been junior officers then, and no secrecy had been necessary either when they became a couple or when they stopped being one. Jim hadn't thought there'd been any bad feelings, or anyway he hadn't remembered any. They'd been kids, practically, and kids had lovers and discarded them and made friends again, and nobody cared.

Years ago.

Now Gary was dead.

And pushing Jim onto his face again, positioning him to be fucked.

Jim tried to fight, he tried to breathe, to speak, to open his eyes, and he couldn't do any of it, had no control, and that was terrifying and enraging.

Gary was laughing again, louder now, definitely Gary's laugh. The bastard!

Let me go, Gary, damnit, stop it! And he didn't believe in ghosts, never had. Let me GO!

Gary had been nearly omnipotent, nearly immortal, mind-bogglingly dangerous, when Jim had killed him. Was it possible that ... that Gary hadn't ... no, no, and Jim wasn't sure whether he meant that Gary couldn't be alive or that being fucked by either a ghost or a god was the last thing Jim wanted. A finger was working into his ass, twisting and pushing, and he couldn't even tense up.

Or he could be dreaming. That would make sense, and then it would soon be over, no matter how bad it got. And how bad could it get? Jim had never dreamed being physically hurt before, much less raped. This would be rape--the finger was rough and unlubricated, and there was some pain already.

The trouble was, it didn't feel like a dream. The coverlet over Jim, the mattress under him, the fabric of the pillow cover against his cheek, the way being pushed over had rubbed his skin against the sheet, the air whistling through his nose, which was bent a little to one side... no, it felt real. Awake. He must be awake, but that was not possible.

Spock! Spock! SPOCK!

His throat hurt though he had made no sound; he was on his back although he had not moved; the fingers that settled on his face, the palm cupping his shoulder, were obviously, immediately, not Gary's.

His lips moved so feebly that it wasn't even a whisper--Spock--but the mind that enveloped his knew what he had meant to say and all that he would have said.

Yes. Jim. Warm and real as sunlight. Rocking, flowing, ebbing like the ocean--Spock was amused at the image--deep, strong, complex, innumerable threads of thought holding Jim. A wholly different cocoon than the dream-paralysis.

Jim breathed, and felt Spock breathing, the thud of his own heart calming, the patter of Spock's faster pulse still normal in his side. Jim opened his eyes, and the dim glow of the emergency light at the door lit a few stray hairs of Spock's, the tip of one ear, the end of his nose. Jim began to smile, his lips stretching slowly, lazily now that the nightmare was gone. He felt Spock blink. He blinked himself.

"Yes," he said, his voice heavy with sleep. "Spock." Reached for the sleek head and pulled it down, kissed Spock slowly with all the illogical gratitude and euphoria of love.

Their minds were full of light, shining together. Their mouths smiled against each other. Spock shifted to one side and they lay front to front, every limb touching, moving only enough to feel each other's skins. Spock's fingers brushed through Jim's hair, and Jim hummed for the pleasure of making a willed sound.

"You," they both said when their lips parted.

Eventually, Spock pushed against the bed as if to get up, but Jim wrapped an arm and a leg more tightly around him and said, "Stay here."

After a moment, Spock said, "We will dream together if I do."

Jim stretched his neck a little, kissed Spock's chin, said, "Exactly."

Spock lay back down, so near in the narrow bunk that no intruder, not even a thought, would dare squeeze between them.

When Jim woke again, he wasn't sure that Spock had slept at all. The brown eyes opened just after his own, and neither of them had changed position. Jim had a pale, dry memory of rushing air in his mind, and that was all, if it could be called a dream.

"That is the summer wind, in the desert near my father's house," said Spock.

A kiss on the dry, soft, fine-pored skin above Spock's collar bone was Jim's only reply. Spock shivered a little, but did not move away.

~~

*end*

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