Spock gave Jim the side-eye. It was not the first time Jim had suggested he didn’t want to go with Spock to his father’s hotel in San Francisco.
Currently they were on leave between Enterprise missions. Sarek was on Earth and in San Francisco at the same time, performing ambassador duties.
Spock had, he thought wisely, suggested it was the perfect time for Jim and Spock’s father to become better acquainted.
“Technically you have already met him.”
“Are you…you’re talking about the time I emotionally compromised you, aren’t you?”
Spock hesitated. It was not something either of them liked to talk about. Jim felt guilt and Spock shame.
“Yes.”
Jim shook his head. “Great first impression.”
“Jim my father bears no ill will toward you regarding that. He is anxious to become more familiar with you as my mate.”
Which Jim was. They were fully bonded and had been for some time. Spock did not understand Jim’s hesitation.
He had absolutely no doubt Jim loved him and was fully committed.
“What is your hesitation in having dinner with my father at the hotel?”
“Parents of significant others do not like me.”
Spock was unaware Jim had ever had this experience before, so he stopped walking and made the query.
“Which significant other have you—”
“Back in Riverside. Before I enlisted. I was supposed to meet this girl’s mom and dad, right? Well. Turns out I had met one of them before and had a one-night stand with them.” Jim shook his head and winced. “Beyond awkward.”
“Which one?”
“Which…that doesn’t matter, Spock. The point is we were all mortified. That was the end of that.”
“You have not had a prior liaison with my father,” Spock pointed out.
“No, I know. But…”
Spock could not hide the fact he was disappointed. However, he would do anything to avoid hurting Jim in any way. “I will meet my father for dinner without you.”
“Spock—”
“It is fine, Ashaya. I wouldn’t want you to feel forced or uncomfortable.”
“No, I’ll go. I know it’s all part of it and I’d have to anyway. It’s just…I love you and I hate the idea of your dad not liking me.”
“I do not believe that will be the case, Jim, but if it is, that will change nothing between us. You are the most important being in my life and will remain so.”
Jim sighed. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Negative.”
Jim laughed then and leaned in to kiss Spock. “You are so meeting my mom.”
Cadet Ashayam, the second story in my Starfleet Academy Series (which I started after closing out the Professor-Cadet series. The first story in Starfleet Academy Series is The Fling.
This is another story Mylochka did art for (Fanart) Cadet Ashayam. This might have been one of the last she did for me as it was done in September 2019 and I want to say she disappeared from doing artwork right after that.
Cadet Ashayam made its debut on August 31, 2019 and was finished May 15, 2020 and was only about 10,000 words and nine chapters. Who doesn’t love an amorous lovesick Vulcan?
Spock was now staring at him, looking straight into Jim’s eyes. “I very much desire to kiss you.”
“Well. Again. I’m flattered. Really. But right now you aren’t thinking like yourself.”
“You do not want to kiss me?”
“Beyond belief,” Jim admitted. “But you’re under the influence and saying stuff you don’t mean, and I’m going to make sure you get home. Okay?”
“Very well, Cadet Ashayam.”
This was a fun and flirty story and ends with Happily Ever After. What more could one ask for?
Logically, Spock had no reason to rush to the hospital. He had already been informed that his boyfriend, Jim Kirk, was stable and in good condition, and yet he found that he was rushing to be at Jim’s side, nevertheless.
He’d received the somewhat terse message from Jim’s difficult best friend, Leonard McCoy. He’d been forced to finish the course he’d been instructing before he was able to leave.
As soon as Spock stepped through the open door of the hospital room, he felt calmer. More relieved.
Jim sat up in the bed, hair adorably rumpled, a cup of something in his hands. His glance went straight to Spock. His expression brightened immediately and it was all Spock could do not to respond in kind.
“Spock!”
McCoy had been standing beside the bed talking to Jim. He frowned at Spock.
“Just a few minutes. He needs rest.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jim said as Spock made it to his side. “Barely a scratch.”
“Doctor McCoy advised you had been struck by a hover car.”
Jim rolled his eyes. “It was a hover cart. You know the kind that the delivery guys use.”
“It knocked him to the ground and he hit his head,” McCoy said. “Got a concussion.”
“It really was nothing.” Jim smiled. “But I’m glad you’re here. Tell Bones I can go home.”
“You’re staying overnight for observation.”
“Oh come on. Spock, tell him it’s nonsense.”
“Now see here—”
Spock touched his fingers to Jim’s. “I bow to the doctor’s judgement, Jim.”
McCoy smiled and bounced up and down. “Well. That’s good then. Just a few minutes.”
And McCoy left them alone.
“You look worried,” Jim said softly.
“I am. Or was. I feel better now.”
“It really was just a small thing. I’ve got a hard head.”
“Hmm. Still I am glad it was not more serious.” Spock sat on the edge of the bed when Jim scooted over. “If you would like to delay—”
“No. No way. We’re leaving on Saturday for Vulcan to meet your parents.”
Spock nodded. “Very well. What is that you have?”
“Bones’ nasty broth. I’d kill for some coffee.”
“How about tea?”
“A milkshake?”
“Tea.”
Jim sighed. “Okay. And a cookie.”
Spock’s lips quirked. “And a cookie.” He kissed Jim’s forehead and went to fetch the tea and cookie, letting out the last of his worry and tension as he did so.
Jim sat straight up, gawking at the figure sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Sp-pock?”
Then he threw his arms around Spock as Spock’s arms came around his. Spock’s arms tightened and held him very close.
Tears sprung to Jim’s eyes before he could stop them. A gasping sob escaped.
“I am here, Jim, I am here,” Spock whispered.
“Are you even real?”
Spock pulled away but only to frame Jim’s face with his hands so that he could kiss him. Spock’s warm lips crushed his, kissing him as though he needed to make up for a year’s time.
Spock broke the kiss, panting. “I am real.”
“But…how are you here? I thought…”
“I could not leave you, Jim. You are my T’hy’la. My bondmate. You are…everything. I have spent the last year trying to find a way for us to be together. My brother was working on a way to help me.”
“I’m going crazy, Spock. I don’t want to live like this.”
“Nor do I.” Spock put his hand on Jim’s face and in a moment Jim felt a burst of warmth and then so much love and tenderness.
“Is that the bond?” he asked, awed.
“Yes, ashayam. I unshielded. I will never keep you out of my mind again.” He blew out a long breath and leaned their heads together. “No matter how we live it must be together.”
Jim swallowed and nodded. “God, it feels so good to have you here.” More tears fell down his cheeks. “If this is a dream, I never want to wake.”
“I must concur. But if it is a dream, we are both having it.”
Spock kissed him again. “Will you come with me?”
“To the future?”
“Yes. I do not wish to take you from your family, however—”
“They’ll be okay.” Jim felt his pulse racing. “Dad knows. We’ve talked. Mom and Sam don’t, but I think Dad would tell them, I don’t know, but he said they’d all be okay. Spock, I could do it. I can go with you.”
“The other way that we have figured out is to have me stay here, with you in this time.”
Jim frowned. “How would that work? I mean with your different physiology.”
“Leonard McCoy. He said if the only way was for me to come here to be with you, he would come here too, to be my doctor.”
Jim blinked, startled. “Yeah?”
“Yes, Jim. Whichever way we choose, there will be times when we could use the technology my brother has developed to cross over to either the past or the future. Not often, not even as much as every year, but it could be done.”
“Not without risk though,” Jim guessed.
“Yes, there is still the chance something could go wrong.” Spock took Jim’s hands in his. “The choice is yours, T’hy’la. For me, the choice is to be with you, wherever you wish. Where I am from is more familiar to me, but I can adjust to anything, do anything, to be with you.”
Jim pulled away and rose. He ran his hand over his face. “I need coffee.”
Spock got up too. “Come.”
They left the bedroom and went out to the kitchen of Spock’s apartment. Jim silently made a pot of coffee, his mind a whirl of thoughts, mostly confusing ones.
“What do you want?” he asked Spock, when he turned from the coffeemaker after he set it to brew.
“To be with you.”
“Me too. Do they have coffee there?”
Spock smiled slightly. “They do, yes.”
Jim closed his eyes. “My family and friends are here. Your family and friends are there.”
“Yes.”
“Here you would always have to hide your true self, there I would have no idea what’s going on, really. But I could learn.”
“Here the weather is good, there it sucks.”
Spock chuckled softly, making Jim’s eyes open in surprise.
“Pros and Cons,” Jim explained. “I can’t help but go through them.”
“I understand.”
“You would outlive me.” He got that thought from Spock. For he’d somehow been given the knowledge that Vulcans outlived Humans by a number of years. “When I die, if you were here, you’d be able to go back there.”
“Theoretically.”
“Theoretically,” Jim agreed. “I don’t know what to do, Spock.”
Spock sighed, it was soft and low. He nodded. “Then allow me to choose for you, ashayam. We will stay here on Earth. In your time. Doctor McCoy will come here as our friend and my doctor. And you will have your friends and family with you.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“What is not fair is to be apart. Everything else is workable, Jim. I want your choice to make you happy.”
The coffee had finished so Jim turned and filled his mug with coffee. It was the Dad mug Jim had found so long ago now. It seemed an eternity but really wasn’t and even though it kind of felt like it, he had not loved Spock for an eternity.
He took a few sips of coffee.
“This place, this city…it’s my home.”
Spock nodded.
Jim set his coffee mug down.
“But my home is you now, Spock. I want it to be. I love you. What we have, I think, is the love of a lifetime. I feel you everywhere. This…” He gestured around. “This is my old life. My future is you. With you…in the future.”
Spock’s warm chocolate eyes gazed at Jim intensely. “Are you sure, T’hy’la?”
Jim smiled and kissed him. “I’m sure.”
Spock drew him close and into his arms once more. “You’re my future too.”
Jim had no idea why he was there. It was stupid and pointless. He knew that.
After he had returned to his time, without Spock, he’d gone to Spock’s apartment and found all that Spock had left behind. Even now it was empty, not rented by anyone else, because Spock had, apparently paid the rent well in advance, not wishing to bother with it. He’d been gone a year, and yet according to Jim’s now former apartment manager, the place was still leased for another six months.
Jim came there to this apartment in San Francisco every once in a while. Just to remind himself of Spock and yes, he knew it was crazy.
Here he was again. Just sitting on the couch, staring into space, wishing for something he couldn’t have.
He’d made himself coffee with the coffeemaker Spock bought for him. And that hurt his heart, to remember that.
When he came here, he brought food with him, cream for his coffee, and just soaked it up, he guessed.
Jim was pretty sure his dad understood. But he knew he got strange looks from Sam and his mom. Once Sam told him that he needed to move on and find love elsewhere, but Jim knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not for him.
Sometimes, Jim tried to reach Spock with his mind but nothing ever happened, and he knew Spock had somehow “shielded” things between them anyway.
Hope sprang eternal or so the saying claimed but he was fast losing any hope he’d ever had, which admittedly hadn’t been much.
With another six months on the lease here, Jim had to make the decision whether to continue coming or just give up. He’d never been one to give up before, but this situation was different. Spock was in the future and for all Jim knew he had forgotten there was any past.
I do not belong there, in your time.
Spock had made his position pretty clear. And he’d also made sure to have Jim go back to his time. Perhaps Spock paid more attention to Sarek than Jim thought he would.
He leaned his head back against the couch.
“This is stupid. You’re an idiot. Coming here for an entire year to an empty place that doesn’t even have a trace of Spock in it.”
Jim had spoken out loud.
There was no response, of course.
****
Jim woke in the dark sometime later, stretched out on his back on Spock’s bed. Next to the bed, on the floor, was an empty pizza box. Jim had pathetically stuffed his face before lying down.
He had no idea what had awakened him, so he stayed still, listening. It was pitch black and he couldn’t see a thing. He’d left his cell phone on the table by the bed, so he reached blindly for it and activated it so he’d have a light.
He found a text from Sam.
Hey, are you doing okay?
It came through hours ago. He’d call Sam in the morning.
After a bit, he closed his eyes again, not able to figure out what woke him.
He slept again fitfully.
When he woke again, it was to fingers stroking across his face.
Jim blinked rapidly.
“Shh. T’hy’la, it is all right.”
One more to go, either tomorrow or Tuesday…we will see.
It’s been a while so I thought I’d get some pictures up of May here in So Cal. How long will this last considering we are on mega water restrictions? Who knows.
In other news, I am going to be working a lot of Over Time at work on a project for a few months so that’s going to cut even more into my writing. Sorry to say.
Someone commented recently about me working on Spirk fic on AO3 for pretty much a decade, which is close to true (9 years in August) and though they were complimentary it also got me thinking. How long is too long? I don’t know.
Palm trees and jacarandas are everywhereThe trees are indeed aliveRoofers on their mission to replace the whole complex’s roofs purple flowersMore flowers but they are wiltingThe Jacaranda trees are madly bloomingLots of purple/lavender flowers aroundJacarandas bloom in spring but do their best to lose their blooms by summer as you can see! LOLMy little front yard decorated for spring and Memorial Day
Spirk (with a small dose of Pinto) 