[Out of Time, Out of Body] -- [Kirk and Kirk]

[kirktastic]

There is a certain moment that people take, where they close their eyes and take a slow, deep breath inwards. For that moment, right at the very peak of the breath, the world around vanishes, thoughts disappear, and the body seems to almost float. Try it. Slow, deep breath with the eyes closed.

Each breath was slow, deep, measured. It filled the lungs, as loud as the rush of the ocean on the beach. Underneath it all was the same slow, deep, measured toll of each heartbeat.

It was on the peak of one of those breaths that his eyes opened. White light spilled between his eyelids, then the world became fuzzy colors, then fuzzy outlines, then solid ones. He was staring at a ceiling. So he remained there, time unknown and unmeasured, staring. It was better then the darkness, at any rate.

Sickbay? Looked like the ceiling, at least. The picture of sickbay built in his mind as he heard the biobed's continuous digital beat, the sound of someone murmuring in the distance, the smell of antiseptic, the hum of something mechanical around him.

So, naturally, he sat up. He took a slow look around him, feeling strangely distant from everything, even himself. Bedsheets covered him, there was something glowing slowly around him, and yes, definitely in sickbay.

It should have been very strange to look back down at himself as he stood up, yet there was nothing. No panic, no terror, just a strange divorced feeling. Kirk shifted away, looking at himself, then finally away. His body still beat, still breathed, wouldn't miss him for now. Why was his skin bright pink like that?

He stepped away, unable to feel the cold floor under his bare feet.

Comments

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

You, too.

Jim leaned forward, kissing Kirk lightly on the forehead. They'd retrieved him. Jim couldn't quite remember from where, but he knew that Kirk had come back and he would be all right. Somehow. And Jim did need him. Had needed to meet him, to see himself mirrored and in some ways reversed but still thriving. Still him. Jim had seen himself too many times in hideous parody, a mockery of the man he thought he was. Kirk had reassured him.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk closed his eyes and leaned in against Jim, finding strength there. Something told him he was weak, could use the support that Jim gave. Here, wherever here was, pride and past wouldn't put a stop to that need so he could simply live it.

He let out a breath against warm skin. Glad we met, Jim.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim wrapped his arms around the other man, feeling his familiar shape, the warmth under his hands, the way Kirk's head fit in the crook of his neck and vice versa. He was still feeding him strength, still connected, and Jim could feel it here better than awake.

Yeah. If for nothing else, it is worth it for that.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

The space they had occupied vanished when it was no longer being concentrated on. Where they were ceased to matter and ceased to be, but Kirk had his focus on the touch of their bodies. When he looked down, just a glimpse, he could have sworn there was a golden light slowly passing between them.

...You protected me. He murmured, questioned. The memories that formulated that comment were too distant to be able to focus on.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim laughed, an easy sound, not denying the claim but denying the any special significance to it. It was merely what he'd had to do.

No more than you would have done.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

No, I would have too, but others wouldn't have.

Kirk shifted back so he could watch the last moments of that laugh, how it lit up Jim's expression. He smirked a little to himself, thinking driftingly that he had never met anyone as handsome as Jim.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Does that matter? Jim asked. We've never measured ourselves by others.

And if there were rules about this, they didn't apply to them. Not with that look in Kirk's eyes, distant and entranced and somehow still entirely focused on him. Jim couldn't resist that look turned on him. He never had been able to.

He leaned in again, brushing Kirk's lips with his.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

We wouldn't be where we are now if we did. The words came despite the fact that his lips were busy, nuzzling at Jim's, wanting to feel them and find the golden taste that came with them. He curled his arms around his counterpart, feeling more at home with himself then he could ever remember before.

Maybe being with Jim was home, in a way.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Where was he now? Jim pushed the thought away--for now, they were wherever they wanted to be, and right now, that was here. Together.

Jim.

They fit together like one person, so that fitting wasn't quite the right word. His tongue licked at Kirk's lips, requesting entry, wanting to be closer, though it was nearly extraneous as the connection flowed around and between them.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

His lips parted easily, the tip of his tongue passing over his lower lip to touch the tips together. It was an electric thrill that coursed from the simple touch, and it made him grasp at Jim's body tightly so that he could feel more of it.

He wanted to feel more, not sure what he was asking for fully, even as skin permeated skin.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

He didn't want to be Kirk. He was. And it was a different sensation from simple lust, though it occurred to Jim that this had never been simple, or rather that it had always been something more pure than that.

Which might have been the height of self-love, but was that so bad?

Jim sucked Kirk's lower lip into his mouth, thorough and gentle, one hand sliding up to thread through Kirk's hair. His laugh echoed around them, audible in their minds. Jim laughed a lot, and the mental version was just as warm, just as delighted with the world as the one that came from his throat.

What do you want, Jim? Anything. Kirk could have anything Jim was. There was so much of him.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Anything. Everything. Whatever you're willing to share with me. Kirk murmured, agreeing with anything. None of it matter, it all mattered. Thoughts had no tendency to stick with him, drifting off as light as air if he tried to concentrate on one fully.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

They already shared everything. Well, in a sense. Not their day-to-day lives, they weren't interchangeable. Jim felt far differently about Spock than Kirk did, and the same was true for unique aspects of Kirk's life.

But in another sense, there had never been any question in Jim's mind that their lives were intertwined somehow.

You already have me.

Skin to skin, they seemed to melt into one another without at all dissolving, just being. Which didn't mean the kissing wasn't nice.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

It went hand in hand with the small differences of their lives. They still had so much to live, and Kirk had catching up to do on years. It was their little differences, though, that kept them from being the same person. Kirk had no desire to be exactly the same, either, and he was glad for those differences.

Kirk sunk in his fingers in deep, wanting to learn more, hold more, taste more. He had little to no concept of what he was actually doing, just a completely freed mind that was missing its higher 'learned' parts and far more of its instincts.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim, slightly more in control, had enough presence of mind to realize that here, they were anything. Could do anything. He had manipulated the space around them, created his Enterprise. Now there was just them and yet, somehow, they retained their original forms. The mind created patterns that were followed on instinct, maps that guided movement and thought and interaction.

Jim wanted to see what Kirk would do, where he would go, freed like this. He had gone over his ship, come to Jim, in the name of comfort. Escape. What else? What else could Jim do for him? What was Jim Kirk, here, in this shared place? Were they the same? Different?

His lips ghosted across Kirk's jaw, his neck, before pulling back to watch him. Jim's eyes seemed to gleam faintly.

Show me, he said. Show me what you feel. What you want.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Show me? The words made sense, but not the concept. Show me. Show me what you feel.

What he felt.

Okay.

What came was a burst, shattering in all directions. Images, memories, that flickered faster then a kaleidoscope. Not just distinct memories, but memories attached to certain feelings. Jim's warmth came matched with things like being curled up in someone's arms, what might have been a camp fire or a trash barrel fire, the summer's heat in California. His laughter came with happier feelings, a Christmas tree at an odd angle, the rush of a motorcycle with someone at his back, the joy at seeing a roomful of cadets, instructors, and Starfleet board standing on their feet for him.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

It was unexpected, like a mind meld but different. Warmer, wrapping around him, some of the memories so familiar they could be his own and some like dreams half-remembered. Scattered and human and so Jim Kirk, Jim gathered them up, laughing again, his own response coming unbidden.

Iowa, Starfleet, his parents patiently showing him the stars, the family dog, the flush of his third Kobayashi Maru, Gary (before the end), diving into the Pacific (freezing cold) just so the sun would feel that much warmer when he lay out on the sand. Things that made him think of Kirk.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Memories encouraged memory. Sometimes it was like finding the match in the pile of upturned cards, two pictures that were the same - the old farmhouse in Iowa, for example, two that were similar yet not the same - their image of Starfleet (which Kirk almost shyly showed as being something he had dodged most of his life), and some that were very different - like the idea of parents.

Jim had had Gary, Kirk had had Bones. They had lost different people (thousands of his friends, gone, thanks to Nero).

The Pacific Ocean would always be freezing cold, and the memory made Kirk shiver.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Their minds turned the memories over together, acknowledging, perhaps filing away, perhaps only registering the same/difference and the emotions attached.

Good things, Jim thought, RuthandCarolandJanet, the Farragut but not the cloud thing, his first shore leave after his first away assignment, the heady thrill of his first command, stepping onto the bridge of the Enterprise, going home on leave and realizing he loved it but loved the stars more, Sam seeing him off with his family (but not Deneva), the "walking stack of books" he once was.

Jim held Kirk close again, but were they even separate any more?

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

He matched those memories again, showing Sam as he knew him now with the memory of a long, long gap, several definite memories of beautiful males and females throughout his life, the memory that was sweet of Spock returning to the bridge after Nero, and.. and..

The memory of his first mind meld, which in turn triggered more of Jim's memories, not his own. These were not Kirk's own, not even viewed from his stand point. From the feel of it, Spock's stand point. Jim when he was younger, older, things yet to happen.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

It was almost Jim's undoing. At first, he didn't know what he was seeing--it was himself, but not, because you can't see yourself in your memories, was it Bill, the show, something else?

Spock.

Jim through Spock's eyes, unrequited and loyal, through moments Jim remembered and others he didn't because they had happened yet or because their significance was known only to Spock. Watching him, always watching him, the fire of pon farr, knowing he'd killed his captain, decisions disagreed with but orders followed, irritation at human irrationality mixed with admiration for human instinct, missions accomplished, lives risked for one another willingly, minds in tune despite vast differences and no bond between them, a pair of golden eyes, hands too ready to land on an arm, a shoulder, Spock reaching back for a touch knowing it was a mistake but unable to help himself; then later, seeing him again after long absence (where did you go, Spock?), the futility of kohlinar etched in the lines of Jim's face as his eyes crinkled up in greeting, distances too difficult to breach, Jim reaching and letting his hand fall away, remembering Jim in a sea of half-familiar faces, climbing back slowly, Jim never knowing, never seeing, because Spock had never let him.

There was more, but Jim had to stop it. It was not pain, but there was something, too much, too fast, in the flood.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk stopped them easily, a smile light on his lips, heard more in his 'voice'. They're a part of me, now, those memories. They weren't, at first. But now, they don't seem weird or strange. I still get nightmares, once in a while, and they don't come as easily... but he remembered you. He was more then a hundred and fifty years old, but he remembered you more then anything else.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, was Jim's automatic reaction. For that to be put on you. For me--someone you don't know--to be held up in front of you. And I'm sorry... for him. That he didn't tell me, and I didn't push him. If we hadn't come here... those are the memories my Spock would have.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Don't be sorry. Kirk smiled still, taking Jim's face in his hands, their eyes meeting. Don't be. You weren't held up in front of me, I didn't even really realize who it was for a while. I wish... I could have spoken with him more. I want to know him more.

...can't say what might have been, Jim. My whole life would have been different if Nero hadn't come through that portal and attacked the Kelvin. So thinking about 'what might have been'... won't help anyone.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim's eyes laughed back into Kirk's.

I know. You'd have been me.

He'd wanted to know the old man more, wanted to force down that self-imposed wall between them. But he had those memories now, had Spock, had Jim.