keelywolfe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
keelywolfe) wrote2009-06-23 09:47 pm
keelywolfe) wrote2009-06-23 09:47 pm
FIC: Universal Translation 1/1 (ST:XI, Kirk/Spock)
Universal Translation
By Keelywolfe
Fandom: ST:XI
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Vulcans don't do touching.
Notes: I got the idea for this after speculating with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sithdragn about the nature of touch telepaths and how sensitive, exactly, Spock is. Well, if you take TOS into consideration, he was pretty darned sensitive. So here we are. :)
~~*~~
Over the years, Spock had gained familiarity with dozens of different languages, some fluently, some only enough to prevent an interstellar incident. It is the two languages he learned first, his earliest memories of a strong Vulcan voice mingling with a gentle, kind Human one, that always intrigue him the most. In both languages there are words that have no equivalent and cannot be translated without much difficulty and misunderstanding, and even as a man of both worlds, Spock has found that he cannot always mediate.
The word that has been haunting him lately, of which Vulcan has no approximation, is seduction. Intellectually, he knows what it means, in terms of a sexual relationship. It is an enticement, a tease, and he understands it. Intellectually.
In practice, he is every bit as Vulcan as his father and his Standard fails him as he tries to interpret what is happening to him, if it is happening at all. After all, he cannot claim it is intentional. He does not believe that it is; only that James Kirk is the man that he is and his interpretations of Vulcans are as feeble as one might expect.
The issue at hand, so to speak, is the touching. Kirk is, as they say, a touchy kind of man, a slap on the shoulder, a punch on the arm. He has gotten into the habit of touching Spock in the fond manner of a Human and yet, he doesn't comprehend Vulcan physiology, does not translate Spock's reactions into a form that that he understands.
The first time Jim's bare fingers brushed the back of his neck, absently, it was like an electric shock, the sharp taste of azure through his mind was indescribable, emotion that was not his own assaulting his mental shields and the mind touch of James Kirk was both fascinating and brief. His captain moved away before Spock had lost his tenuous control and he had managed to answer Kirk's question with no indication of what had just happened.
Surely it was unintentional; Kirk was a touching man and a handshake here, the graze of a fingertip there, was hardly an imposition in Human terms and Spock had never corrected him on it. A miscalculation on his part as there was no means of bringing it to his Captain's attention now without offering explanation, and that was the one thing Spock had no intention of giving. One did not need to guess what lay beneath the surface of the man, but that the reality of it was almost more than Spock could bear was not something he was going to bring to Kirk's attention.
And perhaps he still could have acclimated himself, steeled against every little touch if Kirk had not proved to be so perfectly unpredictable and capricious, if he hadn't, in a word, been himself.
A week could pass without so much as brush-by and then, in the middle of a delicate mediation between two warring planets, Kirk would lean over him, ask him a question on some probability and his hand would be on the back of Spock's chair, his fingertips cool just beneath the line of his hair and there it would be, the mental touch of James Kirk would be banging against his mental shields like an errant child, begging to be let in. No memories, nothing personal, but his surface thoughts were more than enough, chilly fingers let loose in Spock a supernova of heat. It was to his shame that Spock had yet to learn how to guard against it and he would sit there, his voice calm and emotionless while inside he burned with Kirk's passions, his own erection hidden beneath the console.
It was that instance when he began to suspect; with each barely-touch he received surface thoughts only but was there not a smirking sensation within it? Not humor, no, but a satisfaction, as though perhaps Kirk knew exactly how he was affecting his first officer, using his own unabashed sexuality as a tease to break through Spock's control? Or perhaps not, it was difficult to sense any true emotion past that first burst and the touches were too brief, too capricious for him to gather any additional information.
If he was, then it was certainly something Spock had experienced before. As his childhood had proved, Vulcans themselves took occasional satisfaction in provoking an emotional response in their peers and at the Academy, there had been the odd cadet who had tried as well, unwilling or unable to understand the ways of Vulcans and it was those Humans who thought to correct what they perceived as wrongs within a culture that they did not understand.
With Kirk, no, with Jim, as he was so often corrected, there were no conclusions Spock could draw about his behavior. None of his previous experiences had prepared him for this.
So he did nothing, held his emotions in check as Kirk went about perhaps blissfully unaware, perhaps not, of his effect on his first officer and things had gone on much as before.
Until now.
It had only been a minor detail, a calculation on the time frame it would take for the Enterprise to arrive at their next destination. He had expected Kirk to lean over him to look at his console, had braced himself against the light scrape of a fingertip or worse, a hand against him but he couldn't have prepared himself for the searing contact of a cheek touching his own. Only just brushing Spock's as he leaned in, the briefest point of contact but in that moment Spock had been filled to bursting with it, a rush of heat/want/need that poured into him from Kirk until he was overflowing and to his horror, a sound had escaped him, tiny and lost.
That broke the connection, Kirk turning to look at him at him, a frown on his face and there was only concern in his guilelessly pale eyes, as though such things as Spock had just felt weren't hidden behind them, as if he didn't know.
"Are you all right?" Kirk frowned, "You look a little...flushed."
And when he would have laid a hand on Spock's forehead, such a Human gesture, Spock moved away, only just preventing himself from flinching. Another touch so quickly on the heels of that one would have been more than he could stand.
"Yes, Captain, I believe I am fatigued. With your permission...?"
"Yeah, sure, hit it," Kirk waved absently in the direction of the lift. "Shift is almost over anyway."
"Thank you," Spock managed, his tone even, and he spared a moment to be grateful that no one else on the bridge was paying them any mind, all their attentions focused on their own workstations and none on the Vulcan who was nearly fleeing from the mind touch of his own Captain and the sharp, heady desire that had just punched a hole through every mental shield he had. It was those tatters that he clutched to him, forcing calm as he walked quickly to his own quarters where solitude and mediation waited for him.
~*~
There was a tremor in his hands as he lit a small candle, an extravagance that he rarely used but felt no compunction about using tonight, not with Kirk's emotions still guttural and blade-sharp inside him, tipping into him like a pitcher filled with light. Always, always, Jim felt like contrasts, heat and chill, cutting and gentle, and he shouldn't want to drink in that feeling, should not. Would not.
He settled himself, drawing deep breath after another as he eased into meditation that would pull James Kirk from his thoughts, lancing him like an infection. Before he could even his breathing, his door alarm chirped, persistently.
"Enter," Spock said quietly, unwise, he knew, but nonetheless, he allowed his Captain, the object of his difficulties, to enter.
"What's going on?" Kirk asked bluntly and if his eyes on the bridge had held nothing but concern, then here was the passion Spock knew lay in him. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared, and the memory/emotion that still clung stickily inside Spock tangled through his calm.
"There is nothing going on, Captain," Spock told him, silently marveling at the composure in his own voice. Perhaps he could manage this, reassure Kirk that it was merely fatigue and with a few days of solitude he could learn to deal with this and no one would be the wiser, save him.
"Damn it, I'm worried about you! You've been acting strangely the past few weeks!" Kirk exclaimed, his face tight and angry. As if he didn't know exactly what he was doing, as if he didn't know, did he know, did he not, did he...
"Would you talk to me?" Cool hands against his face that Spock had no time to evade and there, there, faintly callused palms rasping against late afternoon stubble and he has no idea just how deeply Spock was affected, telepathically as blind and dumb as most humans but his true wants were like an echo, deep, heavy resonance ricocheting back between them and Spock was distantly aware of his control splintering into fragments like fine Andorian crystal, did not have the ability to block it, and if he were honest, truly honest in the depths of his thoughts, he hadn't really been trying.
Because it's James Kirk, and being in the sphere of his attention is like being bathed in the sun, and his desire isn't a flash, it is a deep, slow burning, and the taste of his mouth beneath Spock's is utterly human, the wetness of his tongue lax with surprise for the briefest of moments before he responds. The heat of his want exploding between them and Spock had only thought he'd felt passion in those little touches.
This is passion, like comparing gleaming grains of sand to the shimmering expanse of a desert and his hands shake as he strips off Jim's shirt, pulling it over his head and bare skin, so bare, silky coolness beneath his hands as he touches, unable to not touch, not now and the softness of his bunk beneath them barely registers.
Surprise/confusion/oh, Spock, this is...tangles between them, surface emotions and words caught in the web of it, and Jim is not resisting, helps him tug off his trousers and here is some heat, finally, hot, stretched skin in his palm as he strokes and Jim chokes on whatever words he might say, eyes closed and his lips open and wet, begging for another kiss. Spock can give him that much, so much bare skin against his own, emotions that he has never, never felt swamping him, battering against his deeper shields but that he will not allow, will not, instead lets himself fall into the surface, wading ankle-deep only in the shallows of James Kirk's thoughts.
He is barely aware of his hands still moving, of Jim's, gleaning knowledge from their connection and it is surprisingly easy to turn Kirk onto his knees, spread him beneath him and the sound he makes when Spock licks at the dark entrance of his body is gratifying at the least, better still when Spock crawls over him and presses inside and yes, there is more heat here, slick and tight, and Jim makes a soft, broken little sound into the blankets, his breath hitching each time Spock thrusts into him and there is a shimmer of pain, buried inside that passion, a thousand tendrils of feeling that cling and entangle between them and would that he could examine each one, cup each into his palm and hold it close. The nature of passion refuses to allow it and the hoarse cry that escapes him is both a denial and a triumph, the wash of pure pleasure that is and isn't his own, and all he can do is bask in both, in the sunlit wonder inside James Kirk.
~*~
Afterward, there is calm and Spock speculates that there is another Human word for this: irony, as he is quite certain that finding calm after this particular storm is the last thing he would ever expect.
They are still bare against each other, the hands that have been merely a tease the past months are stroking him lazily, smooth palms cool against his bare skin and Kirk...Jim's emotions are a low murmur at the back of his mind, like slow moving water. No arousal, not yet, not water, after all, but a banked fire that could easily flare to life again and Spock closes his eyes, slowly inhaling.
"Not that I'm complaining," Jim said drowsily. "But what the hell was that?"
A perfectly reasonable question and one that deserves a concise answer. It is most unfortunate that Spock does not have one at the ready and he contemplates it for a long moment, considering, before he finally settles on the simplest explanation.
"Your touch is pleasant."
The roaming hands on him still, the bed giving under Jim's weight as he shifts up onto his elbow and Spock has a brief moment to regret having said anything as he meets skeptical blue eyes.
"Pleasant?" Jim repeats, his head tipped slightly to the side as though he can hear the words that lay unspoken beneath that, and perhaps he has not given James Kirk's linguistic ability enough credit. They are still touching, the entire lengths of their bare bodies pressed against each other but the only emotion Spock is gleaning from him is that lingering calmness.
"Pleasant," Jim says it again, rolling the word over his tongue and his tone is lower, one that Spock has no trouble understanding, already tilting his head upward in anticipation of a coming kiss. The fingers that instead stroke lightly over his own in an unmistakable fashion are a surprise and he cannot conceal his sharply indrawn breath, his shiver as Jim's fingers drift slowly upward, brushing lightly over Spock's lips in a way that is uniquely Vulcan, as no Human has ever touched him.
"You feel pretty good, too," Jim murmurs against his ear and Spock nods helplessly, the returning wash of passion/heat over him already hazing his thoughts but he is able to consider how appropriate it is that James Kirk does not require translation before Spock pulls him down into an embrace.
Some gestures, he thinks, should be universal.
-finis-
By Keelywolfe
Fandom: ST:XI
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Vulcans don't do touching.
Notes: I got the idea for this after speculating with
sithdragn about the nature of touch telepaths and how sensitive, exactly, Spock is. Well, if you take TOS into consideration, he was pretty darned sensitive. So here we are. :)~~*~~
Over the years, Spock had gained familiarity with dozens of different languages, some fluently, some only enough to prevent an interstellar incident. It is the two languages he learned first, his earliest memories of a strong Vulcan voice mingling with a gentle, kind Human one, that always intrigue him the most. In both languages there are words that have no equivalent and cannot be translated without much difficulty and misunderstanding, and even as a man of both worlds, Spock has found that he cannot always mediate.
The word that has been haunting him lately, of which Vulcan has no approximation, is seduction. Intellectually, he knows what it means, in terms of a sexual relationship. It is an enticement, a tease, and he understands it. Intellectually.
In practice, he is every bit as Vulcan as his father and his Standard fails him as he tries to interpret what is happening to him, if it is happening at all. After all, he cannot claim it is intentional. He does not believe that it is; only that James Kirk is the man that he is and his interpretations of Vulcans are as feeble as one might expect.
The issue at hand, so to speak, is the touching. Kirk is, as they say, a touchy kind of man, a slap on the shoulder, a punch on the arm. He has gotten into the habit of touching Spock in the fond manner of a Human and yet, he doesn't comprehend Vulcan physiology, does not translate Spock's reactions into a form that that he understands.
The first time Jim's bare fingers brushed the back of his neck, absently, it was like an electric shock, the sharp taste of azure through his mind was indescribable, emotion that was not his own assaulting his mental shields and the mind touch of James Kirk was both fascinating and brief. His captain moved away before Spock had lost his tenuous control and he had managed to answer Kirk's question with no indication of what had just happened.
Surely it was unintentional; Kirk was a touching man and a handshake here, the graze of a fingertip there, was hardly an imposition in Human terms and Spock had never corrected him on it. A miscalculation on his part as there was no means of bringing it to his Captain's attention now without offering explanation, and that was the one thing Spock had no intention of giving. One did not need to guess what lay beneath the surface of the man, but that the reality of it was almost more than Spock could bear was not something he was going to bring to Kirk's attention.
And perhaps he still could have acclimated himself, steeled against every little touch if Kirk had not proved to be so perfectly unpredictable and capricious, if he hadn't, in a word, been himself.
A week could pass without so much as brush-by and then, in the middle of a delicate mediation between two warring planets, Kirk would lean over him, ask him a question on some probability and his hand would be on the back of Spock's chair, his fingertips cool just beneath the line of his hair and there it would be, the mental touch of James Kirk would be banging against his mental shields like an errant child, begging to be let in. No memories, nothing personal, but his surface thoughts were more than enough, chilly fingers let loose in Spock a supernova of heat. It was to his shame that Spock had yet to learn how to guard against it and he would sit there, his voice calm and emotionless while inside he burned with Kirk's passions, his own erection hidden beneath the console.
It was that instance when he began to suspect; with each barely-touch he received surface thoughts only but was there not a smirking sensation within it? Not humor, no, but a satisfaction, as though perhaps Kirk knew exactly how he was affecting his first officer, using his own unabashed sexuality as a tease to break through Spock's control? Or perhaps not, it was difficult to sense any true emotion past that first burst and the touches were too brief, too capricious for him to gather any additional information.
If he was, then it was certainly something Spock had experienced before. As his childhood had proved, Vulcans themselves took occasional satisfaction in provoking an emotional response in their peers and at the Academy, there had been the odd cadet who had tried as well, unwilling or unable to understand the ways of Vulcans and it was those Humans who thought to correct what they perceived as wrongs within a culture that they did not understand.
With Kirk, no, with Jim, as he was so often corrected, there were no conclusions Spock could draw about his behavior. None of his previous experiences had prepared him for this.
So he did nothing, held his emotions in check as Kirk went about perhaps blissfully unaware, perhaps not, of his effect on his first officer and things had gone on much as before.
Until now.
It had only been a minor detail, a calculation on the time frame it would take for the Enterprise to arrive at their next destination. He had expected Kirk to lean over him to look at his console, had braced himself against the light scrape of a fingertip or worse, a hand against him but he couldn't have prepared himself for the searing contact of a cheek touching his own. Only just brushing Spock's as he leaned in, the briefest point of contact but in that moment Spock had been filled to bursting with it, a rush of heat/want/need that poured into him from Kirk until he was overflowing and to his horror, a sound had escaped him, tiny and lost.
That broke the connection, Kirk turning to look at him at him, a frown on his face and there was only concern in his guilelessly pale eyes, as though such things as Spock had just felt weren't hidden behind them, as if he didn't know.
"Are you all right?" Kirk frowned, "You look a little...flushed."
And when he would have laid a hand on Spock's forehead, such a Human gesture, Spock moved away, only just preventing himself from flinching. Another touch so quickly on the heels of that one would have been more than he could stand.
"Yes, Captain, I believe I am fatigued. With your permission...?"
"Yeah, sure, hit it," Kirk waved absently in the direction of the lift. "Shift is almost over anyway."
"Thank you," Spock managed, his tone even, and he spared a moment to be grateful that no one else on the bridge was paying them any mind, all their attentions focused on their own workstations and none on the Vulcan who was nearly fleeing from the mind touch of his own Captain and the sharp, heady desire that had just punched a hole through every mental shield he had. It was those tatters that he clutched to him, forcing calm as he walked quickly to his own quarters where solitude and mediation waited for him.
~*~
There was a tremor in his hands as he lit a small candle, an extravagance that he rarely used but felt no compunction about using tonight, not with Kirk's emotions still guttural and blade-sharp inside him, tipping into him like a pitcher filled with light. Always, always, Jim felt like contrasts, heat and chill, cutting and gentle, and he shouldn't want to drink in that feeling, should not. Would not.
He settled himself, drawing deep breath after another as he eased into meditation that would pull James Kirk from his thoughts, lancing him like an infection. Before he could even his breathing, his door alarm chirped, persistently.
"Enter," Spock said quietly, unwise, he knew, but nonetheless, he allowed his Captain, the object of his difficulties, to enter.
"What's going on?" Kirk asked bluntly and if his eyes on the bridge had held nothing but concern, then here was the passion Spock knew lay in him. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared, and the memory/emotion that still clung stickily inside Spock tangled through his calm.
"There is nothing going on, Captain," Spock told him, silently marveling at the composure in his own voice. Perhaps he could manage this, reassure Kirk that it was merely fatigue and with a few days of solitude he could learn to deal with this and no one would be the wiser, save him.
"Damn it, I'm worried about you! You've been acting strangely the past few weeks!" Kirk exclaimed, his face tight and angry. As if he didn't know exactly what he was doing, as if he didn't know, did he know, did he not, did he...
"Would you talk to me?" Cool hands against his face that Spock had no time to evade and there, there, faintly callused palms rasping against late afternoon stubble and he has no idea just how deeply Spock was affected, telepathically as blind and dumb as most humans but his true wants were like an echo, deep, heavy resonance ricocheting back between them and Spock was distantly aware of his control splintering into fragments like fine Andorian crystal, did not have the ability to block it, and if he were honest, truly honest in the depths of his thoughts, he hadn't really been trying.
Because it's James Kirk, and being in the sphere of his attention is like being bathed in the sun, and his desire isn't a flash, it is a deep, slow burning, and the taste of his mouth beneath Spock's is utterly human, the wetness of his tongue lax with surprise for the briefest of moments before he responds. The heat of his want exploding between them and Spock had only thought he'd felt passion in those little touches.
This is passion, like comparing gleaming grains of sand to the shimmering expanse of a desert and his hands shake as he strips off Jim's shirt, pulling it over his head and bare skin, so bare, silky coolness beneath his hands as he touches, unable to not touch, not now and the softness of his bunk beneath them barely registers.
Surprise/confusion/oh, Spock, this is...tangles between them, surface emotions and words caught in the web of it, and Jim is not resisting, helps him tug off his trousers and here is some heat, finally, hot, stretched skin in his palm as he strokes and Jim chokes on whatever words he might say, eyes closed and his lips open and wet, begging for another kiss. Spock can give him that much, so much bare skin against his own, emotions that he has never, never felt swamping him, battering against his deeper shields but that he will not allow, will not, instead lets himself fall into the surface, wading ankle-deep only in the shallows of James Kirk's thoughts.
He is barely aware of his hands still moving, of Jim's, gleaning knowledge from their connection and it is surprisingly easy to turn Kirk onto his knees, spread him beneath him and the sound he makes when Spock licks at the dark entrance of his body is gratifying at the least, better still when Spock crawls over him and presses inside and yes, there is more heat here, slick and tight, and Jim makes a soft, broken little sound into the blankets, his breath hitching each time Spock thrusts into him and there is a shimmer of pain, buried inside that passion, a thousand tendrils of feeling that cling and entangle between them and would that he could examine each one, cup each into his palm and hold it close. The nature of passion refuses to allow it and the hoarse cry that escapes him is both a denial and a triumph, the wash of pure pleasure that is and isn't his own, and all he can do is bask in both, in the sunlit wonder inside James Kirk.
~*~
Afterward, there is calm and Spock speculates that there is another Human word for this: irony, as he is quite certain that finding calm after this particular storm is the last thing he would ever expect.
They are still bare against each other, the hands that have been merely a tease the past months are stroking him lazily, smooth palms cool against his bare skin and Kirk...Jim's emotions are a low murmur at the back of his mind, like slow moving water. No arousal, not yet, not water, after all, but a banked fire that could easily flare to life again and Spock closes his eyes, slowly inhaling.
"Not that I'm complaining," Jim said drowsily. "But what the hell was that?"
A perfectly reasonable question and one that deserves a concise answer. It is most unfortunate that Spock does not have one at the ready and he contemplates it for a long moment, considering, before he finally settles on the simplest explanation.
"Your touch is pleasant."
The roaming hands on him still, the bed giving under Jim's weight as he shifts up onto his elbow and Spock has a brief moment to regret having said anything as he meets skeptical blue eyes.
"Pleasant?" Jim repeats, his head tipped slightly to the side as though he can hear the words that lay unspoken beneath that, and perhaps he has not given James Kirk's linguistic ability enough credit. They are still touching, the entire lengths of their bare bodies pressed against each other but the only emotion Spock is gleaning from him is that lingering calmness.
"Pleasant," Jim says it again, rolling the word over his tongue and his tone is lower, one that Spock has no trouble understanding, already tilting his head upward in anticipation of a coming kiss. The fingers that instead stroke lightly over his own in an unmistakable fashion are a surprise and he cannot conceal his sharply indrawn breath, his shiver as Jim's fingers drift slowly upward, brushing lightly over Spock's lips in a way that is uniquely Vulcan, as no Human has ever touched him.
"You feel pretty good, too," Jim murmurs against his ear and Spock nods helplessly, the returning wash of passion/heat over him already hazing his thoughts but he is able to consider how appropriate it is that James Kirk does not require translation before Spock pulls him down into an embrace.
Some gestures, he thinks, should be universal.
-finis-
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