[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]

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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Would have been honored to be you... but I think I'm happy to be me. He leaned forward, their foreheads touching, breathing together. He slid his hands into golden hair.

I like this place.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Couldn't do this, if you were me.

Their breathing came evenly, matched. Their heartbeats, likewise. They probably didn't need to do either, here, but the mind remembered. Jim pushed against Kirk's hand, enjoying the feel of his fingers.

It's nice.

Safe. Boring--Jim pushed the thought away. Not yet. Let Kirk have this for now.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

It was a safety. The mind retreated when it couldn't handle everything being forced onto it, and Kirk's mind had retreated to... where, exactly? Maybe just to Jim himself.

Boring was better then terror.

But the mind would die, trapped forever. Eventually, it would need to face the truth.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

This kiss was slow, complete, given with all his being. Jim wrapped Kirk again in his arms and gave himself over. Safety. Kirk-style, it didn't exclude the scrape of teeth over tongue, the pleasure of touch, bodies pressed together.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

His body responded, as surely as it normally would have. Kirk offered all of himself over in turn, their pleasure matching as they touched, kissed, learned. They knew their own bodies and each others, but here, time felt limitless. Hands seemed to reach beyond skin and touch the nerves themselves.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim had noticed this before, Out There, wondering if it was just his imagination that made touching Kirk like touching himself, only different. But here it was clear, like the feedback from touching Spock only different yet again. Different, too, in that it was a pleasure of the mind and the mind's perception of the body.

Anything was possible here.

Jim focused on the sensation, on feeling Kirk's reaction as he brushed his hand over an arm, teased his shirt up, sucked lightly on his neck. Could he feel all of it? His lips, his skin? All one? Could Kirk feel the pleasure of his own fingers against Jim's scalp, scraping lightly, pulling just a little closer?

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Just for a single moment, then was a shiver that passed through them both when Jim's mouth touched his neck. Even here, unconsciously, could it remember the feeling of helplessness as a hand crushed around it, the sting of a needle piercing it? But the shiver was gone after a breath as if it had never been, and Kirk pressed closer to Jim's body.

His fingers trickled through hair, down to the back of the neck, stroking across broader shoulders. Jim always felt so good in his arms, so natural. Meant to be.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim licked a path from Kirk's collarbone to his jaw, up to his ear. Closer. Too many clothes. They didn't need them here. And then he was naked, because he had thought it, because he didn't need not to be. He wanted to give Kirk everything, whatever that was. He wasn't sure anymore, only that it was his to give.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Skin to skin. The idea was perfect in its idea, and so Kirk agreed. His body lost the clothing it had imagined, and they pressed fully together.

Can we be one? A coy tone to his voice. Inside and out.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that, more or less, what Jim had been thinking? Or was that Kirk? He had enough of his mind left to wonder if this would hurt anything, and he decided not. This wasn't like that mental space of Spock's, where bonds could be manipulated, that link with Kirk formed. No, this was still a dream.

They'd be their own men, still. On the other side.

Closer, Jim's mind whispered, and because he thought it, it happened. They began to merge, and it was much less disturbing than perhaps it ought to have been, fitting together like that.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

The warmth multiplied every second, gathering between them and growing strong and stronger. It never threatened to burn him alive, just warmed him from the inside out. His eyes closed, letting it happen, letting them slide closer and closer together.

It shuddered through him, as strong as sex, as hot as the memory of being pressed up against Spock deep in the mind meld.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Like the meld but not, like sex but not, this was something else entirely. Mingling, almost unconsciously, the memories they'd shared earlier flowing through and around them, combined with flashes of skin and lips and shared sensation. No barriers now. Jim didn't know exactly what it meant, would mean. He didn't want to be Kirk. Didn't want his life. But they could share this, here, not a permanent reunion but in its own way a culmination of the putting-back-together they'd been urged to from first meeting. Like magnets, they had circled, sliding against one another time and again.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim had no desire to be Kirk, and Kirk had none in return. He liked being himself, but wanted a part of Jim to be with him forever. It complimented the memories in his mind, filling in empty spaces that had bothered him - like a vid missing its beginning and ending, a novel with pages ripped out - and now he was finding those pieces.

They were one. Just for those moments, meant to be together, linked by the universe.

Thank you.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Joy enfolded Them, the color of Jim's laughter, of Kirk's smile. Gaining strength from the possibilities They represented, happy to shore up the places They were missing.

And then the feeling receded, the force of their respective personalities too much to remain mingled, and Kirk was in Jim's arms once more.

Always.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Always.

And with a simple thought, they were there again, on the ship. Kirk lifted his head and looked around, blinking. I wanted to find Bones...

There he was, asleep in a chair, leaning against the bed. The image made him smile.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

He was ready.

Jim's "plans," throughout this, had been more and less than conscious. He merely knew. Perhaps it was his dream-self's interpretation of the link between them, an effort to be what Kirk needed or wanted. And now it was time to bring him back. They were both needed.

You need to wake up, Jim. Jim's voice was quiet, firm. It's going to hurt. But you will be alive, and with Bones, and me, and your ship.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

...I am awake. Kirk looked silently to Jim, blinking. We are here. His voice sounded almost dreamy, distant. I can feel him.

He moved closer to Bones, brushing fingertips over the dark brow.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim shook his head.

No, Jim. His voice held a tinge of regret, that he had to do this. He's not here. We're dreaming. Do you understand? You cannot touch him. He cannot see you. Don't be alarmed.

Jim turned Kirk slightly, to face the bed.

That's you. He pointed across the room. Me. We're going to be okay. But you need to wake up. Let Bones know.