Chapter Text
Almost 72 hours ago, he started his walk home from the library to his dorm.
Since then, his hands haven’t stopped shaking.
In his tiny cabin, they continue to tremble as they grasp his phaser, white-knuckled. Hazel eyes are locked on the door from where he sits at the edge of his temporary bed and have been since he quickly entered the room upon boarding the commercial spacecraft over an hour ago.
When he dreamed about journeying into space as he stargazed in his cadet reds, he never imagined it’d be like this.
----
The night is unusually warm for early springtime. Jim savors it with slow steps, breathing in the air that drifts from the bay, regulation boots tapping soft footfalls against the sidewalk beneath him. Even with graduation nearing, he’d never gotten over how starstruck campus, and San Francisco as a whole, had him on his first arrival. Growing up in a place like Riverside left one easily impressed by populated areas, and he still finds his gaze sweeping his surroundings throughout his journey home, never quite over the awe of being surrounded by so many glowing, yellow windows at night, so many people living around him and in the city beyond.
Confronted with the rest of the world suddenly at his doorstep, it’s easy to feel like a drop in the ocean or a speck of dust in the universe, though not exactly in a negative sense.
Those last few years in Iowa, the universe had felt impossibly far away. He couldn’t remember how long he had spent holed up in his bedroom, watching the world pass him by after that summer. Nothing was tangible– no career ahead of him, no five-year plan, no life to prepare for. Even the color of the farmhouse became theoretical, unknown.
Immersed in the world now and finally out of that indefinite staleness, he relishes in being that drop, that speck. The world is here, and he’s in it.
Hazel eyes turn to the moon above. It’s almost finished waning now, a great, glowing hangnail in the sky. With the sun long gone, he knows he’s kissed goodbye most of his opportunity for sleep pulling a near-all nighter with his “refrigerator” of a bookstack in the library. Midterms around the corner left him with little other choice. He’ll hate himself for it in the groggy morning, he knows– so he might as well enjoy the view while it lasts.
Lost in thought with his eyes on a sliver of milk, he does not register the footsteps that are gaining on him.
----
The light under the door to Jim’s cabin is dim in the simulated night aboard the vessel. Though he has forced himself into a horizontal position, his phaser has not left his grasp, and his eyes have not strayed from the entrance.
Shadows interrupt the stream of light with the footsteps of a passerby, making the cadet– no, civilian– tense over the thin sheets. Adrenaline pumps through him, a steady presence now. Exhaustion and hunger are making his body shake, though the thought of eating alone is enough to nearly make him gag.
Kirk can’t remember how much sleep he’s gotten over those 72 hours. There’s been passing rest, though mostly unintentional and in upright positions. His body aches with days-old need for sleep, but each time it begins to creep over him, flashes of that figure surface, that voice.
It’s not safe enough yet–
But Jim hasn’t exactly determined what safe enough means, either.
Hazel eyes flutter. He considers another caffeine pill, though the bile that remains at the back of his tongue from the result of his last attempt isn’t encouraging.
Jim never thought in this lifetime or the next that he’d be desperate to return to the little hell of midterms. He still hasn’t quite registered that he won’t be sitting at his Advanced Tactical Command exam at 08:00 tomorrow. The past three days feel much closer to a fever dream than reality, reminding him of those hazy periods as a teenager in in-patient care when he’d been drugged out of his mind and waking each morning panicked from vivid, warped nightmares that the meds always gave him.
No matter how hard he squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself out of sleep, he does not wake in his own bed.
----
The cadet’s dorm is no more than two minutes away, now. Having lived there for years, Jim is intimately familiar with the residential section of campus. Though he could stick to the sidewalks, he never follows them around here. It shaves off a good portion of his walk to cut through the grass behind the buildings that lie between him and his dorm, and it’s consequently the path he always takes. It’s muscle memory now, thoughtless.
The dark here never bothered him. Jim had always quite liked treading softly over grass in the transient bubble of evening, illuminated by nothing but the dim, yawning gaps of yellow in the dormitories beside him. This close to sunrise, most of them are snuffed out.
Even with the threat of midterms sitting days away, it’s almost peaceful.
In the darkest patch between two buildings, however, any chance at peace vanishes with a sudden impact of weight on his back, dragging him down into the earth.
He falls with a cry beneath the burden, though a large hand on his mouth muffles the sound. Through the force of the tackle, his messenger bag that he had lazily slung onto the edge of his shoulder has landed several feet away from him.
With his heart hammering in his chest, he realizes his phaser is not on his belt, but abandoned with the rest of his books in the bag that is now out of his reach. He moves his hand instinctively towards it, attempting to struggle his way out from under the figure on top of him, though his wrist is quickly pinned. With a significant size disadvantage, Jim can barely move beneath the weight that bears down on him, suffocating.
“James,” a deep voice chides above him, tinged with irritation and effort. The cadet instantly freezes, blood running cold in his veins. “You’re making this harder than it has to be.”
That voice.
It’s not possible. But–
Can’t be anyone else. I know that voice.
The sound drives a hot spike of panic straight through his core, flooding him with the feral, mindless terror of a wounded animal. He bites down on the fingers clamped over his mouth and the hand comes away with an enraged grunt. Thrashing, he manages to throw the man off of him, though Kirk’s pinned again as soon as he’s rolled onto his back.
In the darkness, he can barely make out the lines of the face above him–
But he doesn’t have to. He can see him clearly in his mind, no matter how desperately he wishes he couldn’t.
Before Jim can open his mouth to scream, there is a blade against his neck, pressing down with just enough pressure to sting.
“I see it in your eyes,” the man says, his voice low in the night. There is a fervor growing in his tone. “You know who I am.” The knife presses harder, drawing a bead of blood, and Jim hisses. His heart is beating hard enough that he thinks it might break free from his ribs. “Say it.”
The cadet’s mouth parts, but no sound leaves his lips.
“Say it!”
“Governor Kodos,” he chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut. Adrenaline has him in a vice grip now, and his body trembles with the force of it.
Breathe, Jim. Remember your training. Deescalate first. Bag second.
“Unfortunate for you.”
Hazel eyes open again. He forces himself to meet the governor’s gaze.
“What do you want with me?”
“I want nothing to do with you,” Kodos spits. “That is precisely why I’m here.” His fervor seems to only be flaring higher. Jim takes another breath, resists the urge to flinch.
“I thought you were dead,” Kirk grits out. “Whose corpse did they find?”
The governor scoffs. “One amongst thousands. Whom is of little importance.”
Rage and panic war in him. Images of his grandparents flash through his mind, of his cousin, and–
Tom.
Suddenly, he remembers the message he had received about his childhood friend’s death weeks ago. Details haven’t been released on the case due to the ongoing investigation, but it was labeled a homicide.
The blade against is throat is cold.
Play along. Breathe.
“What do you want with me?”
Through the inky black of night, he can just barely make out the contempt that paints Kodos’ features.
“I believe you’re smart enough to figure it out. Top cadet of your graduating class, are you not?”
Jim tenses.
How long have you been watching me?
“If you’re going to kill me, I want to hear the reason from your mouth.”
A beat, then two.
“The Tarsus Nine stand in the way of my freedom, my peace,” the governor spits at last. “I do not intend to spend the rest of my years looking over my shoulder.”
A term Kirk had never wanted to hear again in his life. The nine surviving children of the Tarsus IV Massacre– the only beings left alive in the universe who had seen Kodos’ face before his supposed death.
Four of them had died in the decade following the massacre: three through suicide, one due to lingering complications of malnutrition and injury. Tom’s recent death had made five, and it seems Jim is about to follow as number six.
Don’t give in. Remember your training. You aren’t dead yet.
“We had no idea you were alive,” Kirk counters. His hand moves in the grass, slow. Searching. His face remains carefully smoothed as fingertips brush with rock. “If anyone’s endangering you, it’s yourself. You could have stayed in hiding.”
“You have Tom to thank for your untimely death,” he snaps. “Your friend took it upon himself to seek me out. I cannot risk the rest of you following in his footsteps.”
Jim’s fingers tighten around the stone.
“You won’t have to.”
----
Kirk comes awake with a choked cry, bolting upright in bed as a loud chime sounds from the speaker above him.
Passengers, please prepare for imminent landing. We will arrive at the Vulcan spaceport in approximately fifteen minutes.
A bead of sweat rolls off the blonde’s temple. Glancing down, he notices how hard he’s panting, trembling. The phaser rattles in his grasp. He forces the weapon out of his hand for the moment, bringing his face to his palms with a whimper conceded only to the private of his quarters. It’s the last chance for weakness he’ll have for some time. The man that must step off of the vessel is a calm, composed, intelligent person. One who will settle seamlessly into his assignment, attract no attention.
A minute later, he opts for a water shower in his sardine can of a bathroom, knowing them to be nonexistent on Vulcan. Better wash the sweat off before it comes pouring again in the oppressive air of the desert planet.
He’d never liked heat. It reminded him of a summer he’d rather forget.
Of all the damned places I could have chosen.
With a sigh, he exits his cabin, keeping a palm over the concealed phaser beneath his jacket at all times.
The port is crowded with passengers coming and going from vessels, the vast majority of which are black-haired and pointy-eared. Many give him glances as he walks by, though their expressions are inscrutable. He gets the feeling that there’s disdain there, but he supposes that that’s the emotional human in him making assumptions.
In the crowd, anxiety prickles his back. He quickens his pace, straining to see around the irritatingly tall species.
Being short doesn’t exactly help me avoid sticking out.
Nothing to be done about it now.
He’s not sure who he’s looking for, but he knows they’ll be waiting by a shuttle pod outside of the port. Once he’s free at last of the packed terminal, he scans the city street around him, questioning what exactly a pod will look like– and which owner of shiny, perfectly cropped black hair is the man he’s seeking.
“Mr. Samuel Kurtz?”
Jim spins around, willing down the panic that threatens to surface at the presence of a figure at his back. Dark eyes watch him from above, as unreadable as the other sets he had been met with before.
“--Yes, that’s right. Call me Sam, please.”
There is a long beat of quiet in which he questions whether he’s already overstepped his bounds, though the Vulcan acquiesces at last with a nod.
“Very well. I am Spock.”
The urge crosses Kirk to extend his hand, a cultural fumble he just barely sidesteps. Instead, he offers a smile.
“Nice to meet you, Spock. I take it you’re my host?”
“That is correct. I will escort you to my home first, after which we will tour the academy.”
Academy. His heart aches at the word, though he knows he doesn’t have any choice but to acclimate to his new school.
“Sounds great. Thanks, Spock.”
An angled brow raises.
“It is only my duty as your assigned host.”
Jim’s smile turns somewhat awkward. He has the feeling he’s going to encounter more than a few tough crowds here.
“...I suppose you’re right. I appreciate it, regardless.”
They settle in the small space of the pod, which hums as it begins its smooth journey across ShiKhar. The interior is pristine and minimalist– something he guesses he should expect from the majority of spaces he’ll inhabit here. The walls are a solid cream color and the floor is made of simple, gray tile. Two benches sit across from each other, which currently hold the human and Vulcan, and an oval-shaped window occupies the wall to Kirk’s right. Scrolling text above it notes their location and time until arrival, which currently reads 04:01 Standard minutes.
Spock makes no effort at small talk, and so Jim does not, either.
The blonde’s hands are trembling again where they rest on his knees. Brown eyes immediately spot the movement, almost scrutinizing, then flick back up to Jim’s with a shred of curiosity. Swallowing, the human averts his gaze to the window and makes an effort to still himself.
Get a grip, Jim. You have to stay under his radar. Acting neurotic isn’t helping.
But every time he blinks, he sees Kodos’ face, those wild eyes above a glinting blade, and his stomach threatens to empty again.
He swallows against another flood of saliva.
The pod doors slide open in front of a tall, sand-colored apartment building, bringing in the air that’s continuing to warm with midday’s approach. When Jim steps out onto the sidewalk, flecks of black swim in his peripheral with the wave of vertigo that the heat and his empty stomach produce. He places a hand on the pod’s exterior to steady himself, keeping his gaze away from the Vulcan that is watching him once more.
“Are you well?”
“Fine,” he answers. After a deep breath, he straightens back up. “Just a little seasick from the trip. It’ll pass.”
Dark eyes fix onto his. He gets the distinct sensation he’s being picked apart by sight alone.
“...Very well,” the Vulcan acknowledges after a beat. With a nod, he guides the human into the building.
The air inside is cooler, though only just so. Even in the climate-controlled space of Spock’s apartment, Jim can still feel perspiration gathering on his back.
He is guided through a tidy kitchen, past a tidy living room, and into a tidy bedroom that sits empty and waiting for a guest. There is a bed, a dresser, and a desk, which are all devoid of anything but the bare necessities. That’s fine by Jim– he didn’t have the chance to bring much of anything, and doesn’t intend to overstay his welcome, either. For now, he just needs a new planet and a locked door to sleep behind. Anything extraneous to survival seems suddenly frivolous after his meeting with the grass.
Offering quiet thanks, he takes a moment to himself to unpack his few belongings. There is a handful of outfits he’d grabbed from the first vendor he could find, most with their tags left untouched. He has a new communicator and phaser that he had swiped from Starfleet’s excess inventory, untied to him with logs carefully altered to ensure they would not be registered as missing. The only other possessions to his new name are the toiletries that he had purchased from San Francisco’s port before boarding the passenger vessel. The rest of his life– worn sweaters, dog-eared books, antique photographs, trinkets from home– sits left behind in his dorm, unoccupied since he had set off for the library a lifetime ago.
By now, an investigation must be ongoing. Starfleet’s top cadet, vanished from campus without a trace only months before graduation– now there’s a headline for San Francisco.
Lucky for him, his new residence happens to be the only Federation planet whose presence is entirely void from Starfleet, and the only population who seemingly couldn’t give less of a goddamn about it.
----
As rock makes impact with skull, the blade slips against Jim’s throat.
The pair comes apart with sharp cries of pain. Kirk scrambles backwards in the grass with a hand clamped to his neck, warm and wet with his own blood. The large shadow of the governor has fallen onto his back, though is quickly attempting to return upright.
The cadet’s legs are shaky and tight with adrenaline. He nearly trips in his effort to break into a sprint, stumbling a few steps over uneven terrain. There are footsteps behind him again, a hissing voice that the ringing in his ears is drowning out.
In the distance, a crimson splotch of cadets are laughing loudly on the sidewalk, swaying together beneath the round light of a streetlamp above. Thirsty Thursday, Kirk’s mind supplies helpfully through his panic.
The footsteps behind him have stopped. Jim doesn’t.
He runs on burning legs past his dorm, past the edge of campus, and into the empty expanse of the city’s outskirts.
He keeps running.
Streets blur together. Wide stretches of factories streak in his peripheral, then darkened houses, apartments. There is a glowing sign ahead for a public restroom. A quick glance around him, and he hurries inside.
In the mirror, his face is pale and splotched with shadows under wide eyes. There is grass sticking out of short, disheveled tufts of dirty blonde and staining his uniform in green-brown patches. He removes a stiff hand slowly from his neck, palm red and cracked with drying blood. A minute tinge of relief: the cut is shallow, already reduced to a thinning stream.
Autopilot takes over a numbing body. He presses a trembling bunch of napkins to the cut, applying pressure for one minute, then two. Washes his hands. Shakes the grass out of his hair. Nothing much to be done about the uniform.
The adrenaline is draining. The vacuum it leaves behind brings with it despair and anxiety, bitter, thick things that sink heavily into the pit of his gut.
He empties the contents of his stomach into the sink, continuing to gag even after the bile has stopped. Jim does not realize he’s crying until he registers the slickness of tears rolling over his cheeks, dripping off his chin.
More napkins, dragged over clammy skin.
He smells rotting grain and his stomach shudders again, though there’s nothing left to offer the basin.
Back into the night, the warmth feels oppressive now. Kirk continues quick steps, navigating to the commercial district on muscle memory alone. There are replicator kiosks that will draw little attention, conveniently operated at all hours. He’d never had reason to use one until now, though the learning curve is nonexistent. A few taps generate a blue button-down shirt and pants, nondescript civilian clothes. Staring blankly for a beat, then two, he replicates a pair of glasses while he’s at it. The cadet changes quickly in an alleyway, leaving his ruined uniform and contacts in the first trash shoot he sees.
The day blurs.
Long hours in a motel room, the normally ever-turning gears of his mind stuttering, struggling to develop a plan through the haze of Tarsus that scrambles his thoughts and threatens to overpower years of therapy and a carefully crafted cocktail of medication.
The image of his messenger bag rises, abandoned somewhere in the grass behind the dormitories, still holding his phaser.
Need a weapon. Plan later.
Back to the outskirts of town in the blanket of the following night, Jim looks over his shoulder every minute. He sees Kodos in his peripheral, though each time he jerks his head towards the figure, there is nothing there but impassive concrete.
The security code on the lockers is trivial to bypass, child’s play compared to the Kobayashi Maru stunt he’d pulled months earlier. The inventory log even moreso.
Then the motel again, grasp white-knuckled on the phaser, eyes on the door.
Think. Can’t stay here.
The feeds show nothing yet. No missing student, no reappearance of a war criminal, nothing noteworthy. The holo flickers with images of a parade that had taken place several blocks away from where Jim trembles at the edge of his temporary bed, sheets untouched.
He turns off the news, shifting focus instead to the schedule of outgoing flights that he pulls up on the glowing screen of his new communicator, grim features illuminated in the dim light of the room.
Think.
Somewhere far away. Far from Starfleet. From Kodos. Somewhere he doesn’t have to be Jim.
Can’t stay.
His heart aches with the thought of friends and family, no doubt concerned by now at his lack of contact. He’d spill everything to them if he could, say goodbye, hug them one last time.
But he knows Kodos– knows a man who killed thousands without batting an eye would do anything to get to him, tear through anyone in his path. They’re safer this way. Anyone he touches in his escape off planet would become an instant target.
Jim must be the ghost that the governor wants him to become.
There, in the schedule, less than two days away:
ShiKahr, Vulcan.
He knows nobody that’s ever been there, knows almost nothing about the secretive species.
A search of lodging opportunities on the planet quickly brings up a broadcast on an exchange program at the Vulcan Science Academy, seeking foreign students with a background in organic and computational sciences.
He sees Sammy walking across the stage of Berkeley’s auditorium in his graduation gown, shaking hands with the dean of the Life Sciences department, preparing for his move to Deneva to begin his career with a doctorate in biology. He remembers the trembling of his mother next to him as she had cried tears of pride and the broad smile of his father beyond her, grounded for the first time in over a year to see his son off.
Jim begins an application.
----
Considering he’s joined an exchange student program, Jim had come to expect that he would– well, see other exchange students around.
In the ten minutes he’s spent following Spock around the halls of the Vulcan Science Academy, however, he hasn’t seen a single student from offworld– and the stares he’s getting leave him wondering if anyone else has seen one, either.
“So, uh,” he starts awkwardly, drawing dark eyes to glance back at him as they head towards an elevator. “Am I the only human here?”
“Indeed,” Spock confirms. He waves a motion in front of the control panel and an elevator car immediately chimes its arrival, the sound lower and less obtrusive than most others Kirk’s come across on Earth. “You are the first student to apply to the program.”
“Oh,” Kirk states, intelligently.
A brief bubble of silence settles between them on the ride to the 8th floor.
“Why did you decide to become a host?” Jim asks. “Or were you not given a choice?”
Spock glances at him again. Though his face seems blank, his brows just barely twitch upwards.
“I determined it would be a suitable opportunity for expanding my knowledge of other cultures,” the Vulcan intones. “Furthermore, I require a teaching assistant for my courses, as you have already been made aware.”
Jim nods. “Computational biology and algorithm development, right?”
“Correct.”
The hall they step into is much like the rest of the building: Polished stone floor, the same gray as the walls and high ceilings. Bookending the hallway are large sets of windows on either side that give expansive views of the city that the school lies at the heart of, a convenient two-minute walk from Spock’s apartment.
Lucky me. Any longer and Jim might sweat to death during his daily commute.
Spock leads him into a room that Kirk can only assume is his office, judging by the singular desk and array of holoscreens that float blinking and locked. Jim takes one of the chairs across from the professor, willing the tension out of his frame and the tremble from his fingers. Here, at least, seems safe enough, considering another human’s presence in the school would be a little more than noteworthy and he’s currently sitting next to an alien with several times the strength and speed than even the best trained human could ever hope to reach.
Safe enough, Kirk’s brain helpfully supplies, Assuming Kodos doesn’t pay off some Vulcan to kill you instead.
Jim’s stomach flips with a wave of anxiety. He swallows back more saliva.
“Aside from your personal coursework, you will be expected to lead three lab sections, which are each held once a week, as well as assist in grading and exam construction. You must also choose two one-hour periods for a regular cadence of office hours each week.” Spock pauses, head tilting minutely. “You should expect difficulty from our students.”
Kirk blinks. “Sorry?”
“The exchange program is not held in high regard,” the Vulcan elaborates. “The majority of the student body are against the concept. My species does not generally welcome outsiders. The program was largely influenced by Federation pressure to provide more opportunities for cultural exchange and travel.”
Jim swallows.
“Oh,” he repeats. Shaking his head minutely, he amends, “Well, I guess I have my work cut out for me, then.”
Spock does not respond, though his curious gaze does not leave the human.
“What do you think?” Kirk asks. “If you could have gotten a Vulcan teaching assistant instead, would you still have chosen to host an ‘outsider’?”
The Vulcan is silent for a moment.
“I am not unfamiliar with the presence of outsiders, nor am I repulsed by the notion. I hold no ill will towards you, if that is your inquiry. You have no need for such concern.”
Huh.
Though the urge is there to continue shooting questions, more than a little curious about Spock’s difference in attitude towards him from everyone else he’s encountered so far, Jim refrains from doing so. Better not to test his good favor.
“You are injured.”
Kirk blinks several times. In his chest, his heart rate picks up.
“What?”
“Your neck,” Spock comments placidly, as though pointing out the weather. “There is a cut.” Dark eyes pause at the site, then return to hazel, narrowing for a beat before returning to their neutral state. “Do you require a dermal regenerator?”
“No,” Kirk quickly waves off. “Just, ah, a shaving incident. It’s almost healed now, anyways.” He fidgets uncomfortably with the frame of his glasses, nudging them back up his nose with a knuckle.
A brow lifts. He can’t tell if the Vulcan buys it. Can’t really tell much of anything about him, really. The sensation is somewhat unnerving.
“You would benefit from increased care during such an activity in the future.”
A fraction of tension releases from Jim’s posture, relieved that he isn’t being pressed. He gives a short, awkward laugh.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The walk back home is silent, though Kirk is quickly getting used to existing in the quiet with Spock. As clingy as the sweat is beneath the harsh eye of the sun, it was still a stroke of luck to secure a spot here– perhaps one of the easiest places in the galaxy to maintain privacy. Aside from the occasional curious observation, his host seems to have no desire to pry into his personal life. In his wordless presence, Jim feels strangely safe.
Can’t relax, he reminds himself. Not yet.
In Spock’s apartment, he takes his second shower of the day, overly conscious of his disheveled state in front of the unruffled Vulcan. With the steady arrival of evening, at least, perspiration does not immediately follow the sonic waves once he’s out from beneath their cleansing reach.
To some surprise, he’s invited to share dinner at the kitchen table. Although his gut reaction is to decline and retreat to the isolation of his room, Jim knows he hasn’t had a full meal since he’d begun his study session days ago. Even in the cooler air, he still feels weak.
Images of skin taut to bone overlay his vision, of empty ration boxes.
He sits at Spock’s table, anyways.
“Are these living arrangements acceptable?”
Blonde brows shoot up, the question nearly enough to make him jump. They had eaten in silence for several minutes with no sign of any conversation to come.
Once he recovers, Jim nods. “Of course. I appreciate your hospitality.”
Though his features hardly change, Kirk thinks he sees a tinge of something– relief? satisfaction?-- ripple through brown eyes.
Jim takes care of the dishes, that ever-ingrained midwestern politeness taking over, even in spite of Spock’s insistence that doing so is not necessary. In the quiet of the kitchen, interrupted only by the clatter of plates beneath a sonic head, a strange sense of domesticity overcomes him.
Don’t, he chides himself, though weakly. Can’t relax yet.
But his body is heavy, and he’s exhausted with keeping himself taut.
Lying in bed, his breathing still stutters with waves of anxiety and grief. His mind pingpongs between heartache and fear, homesickness and anger. Hazel eyes squeeze shut, and the fever dream still does not dissipate.
The Tarsus Nine stand in the way of my freedom, my peace. I do not intend to spend the rest of my years looking over my shoulder.
The tears come again, hot and heavy.
Neither do I, Kodos.