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There was something inhuman in the captain’s scent.
Spock did not understand it at first; it was something full and earthy, something like forests and the rot of leaves in late autumn, darker than the musk that human men exuded when they fucked or fought. He did not understand it, and so he studied it.
He observed in the ship cafeteria, as the captain laughed and argued with his officers. He observed the white flash of the captain’s canines and the spark in his uncanny golden eyes. The captain ate voraciously, with an enthusiasm that Spock had never felt. Meat and potatoes and bread and more meat were torn to shreds as the captain eschewed human traditions like silverware and decorum in favor of eating with his hands. He looked up, trapping Spock with those eyes as he caught him in the act of staring, and he licked each broad finger clean with a red, red tongue. Spock looked away.
Spock observed the captain in the Medical Bay, where he spent more time than he cared to in the company of one Doctor Leonard McCoy, who was an insufferably emotive man and yet, despite the xenophobic tendencies of his rhetoric, never once blinked or argued about the indiscreet necessities of Spock’s Vulcan biology. McCoy kept Spock in platelets, laughingly referring to the plastic pouch of blood he handed over as a juice box, despite the indiscriminate disgust with which most of humanity beheld their Vulcan counterparts. Though Spock spent more time in the bay than most for preventative measures, the captain was there more. He flirted with the nurses and badgered the doctors, all while trailing that unfamiliar scent that sent something in Spock’s still, cold heart flying like prey down a deer path. The captain seemed to burn hotter than most humans, the heat of his skin tangible even at a distance, and he glowed under the unflattering fluorescents of the medical bay. But then, when the only eyes on him were Spock’s and McCoy’s, the captain would accept a syringe to the trapezius, wincing and rolling his neck, before flashing that crooked, sharp-toothed smile at Spock and departing.
The captain vanished for three days at a time, when it seemed like the ship was not in danger and they were flying through empty stretches of uninhabited space. “You have the conn, Mr. Spock,” he said, and with a nod to the doctor he disappeared into the turbolift. Spock held the conn, though there was very little that required his attention, and when his shift ended he dispassionately paced the hall that led from his laboratory to the ship’s physical recreation centers. Rot and wood and autumn: he could smell it. The captain was gone and yet that scent remained. Spock peered into the gymnasium, where the smell was strongest, where it seemed like it should have been dripping from the captain’s fingers and down the strong column of his spine, but there was only a small contingent of Operations officers, security staff and Lieutenant Uhura from Comms and one of his biologists. There was something inhuman in their scent, something familiar-unfamiliar and predatory, and Spock walked swiftly back to his quarters, tonguing at one of the sharp fangs hidden in the upper ridges of his jaw. When the captain reappeared, his gait had changed. Spock observed him, and wondered.
Spock watched Captain Kirk eat, and watched him lick his fingers, and watched him accept shots from the doctor with poor grace. He watched the physical contact between Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew, and he did not understand. At first, there were only some who Kirk touched frequently; his officers, who he would take by the arm, or the young security ensigns that he would grab by the scruff of the neck and shake like disobedient puppies. But as the ship sailed further into the deep dark, the list expanded: Kirk’s aggressive physicality was catching, and there were rules in operation that Spock could not parse. Ensigns watched movies in sleepy piles in the recreation rooms. Engineers climbed over and around each other in Jeffries tubes, sliding past each other. The security officers wrestled and the comms team sat in each other’s laps and the navigation staff stood too closely to each other in staff meetings. Captain Kirk moved through his people like a stone through water; they bent to his presence. Over chess games and meals and missions, as the captain slowly pulled him closer into his orbit, Spock bent to him too. And through the whole ship, faintly wafting from the gym or from the captain’s quarters or Uhura’s console seat, was the scent of a forest on a planet long, long left behind.
The away team had beamed down with six--- Captain Kirk, Spock, Uhura, two security officers, and a biologist. The people on the planet had been described in the mission briefing as friendly, peaceable, curious. As the first security officer crumpled with an arrow through the breastbone, Spock thought that perhaps their superior officers spent too much time at desks with reports and too little time thinking critically about the missions they assigned. He ripped the arrow from the dead officer’s chest to hurl it back the way it had come, listening to the way their assailants scattered, and looked to Captain Kirk for orders. Kirk’s eyes were glued to the dead officer’s wound, golden eyes wide with fury, and silent tears had already begun to streak down Uhura’s cheeks. “Emmett,” she whimpered, and Captain Kirk snapped back into motion. He ordered Uhura and the biologist to return to the ship with the body of Emmett, and gestured for Spock and the second security officer to follow him. They prowled through the palm-like forests of the planet, the captain uncannily silent in the lead. A twang, a swish, the twitch of a branch to his left: Spock stepped forward to put an obstacle between the captain and the path of the projectile. When the captain turned back to look at him, eyes widening in horror, Spock smelled forests and rain. He dropped to his knees as the captain’s head snapped backwards, their hands hitting the sandy earth simultaneously. As Spock slumped to the ground, unable to resist gravity any longer, he watched blood and fur and sinew erupt from the broad shoulders and too many sharp teeth burst from the handsome mouth and thought, Oh.
Spock opened his eyes beneath the harsh lights of the medical bay, his upper fangs itching in the recesses of his jaw and an ache burning in the back of his throat. An enormous tawny wolf paced between his bed and another, occupied by a man who surely should have been dead and disposed of by now, but instead lay quietly beneath a softly beeping heart monitor. Uhura slumped in a chair nearby. The wolf stopped at Spock’s side, uncanny golden eyes framed in a predator’s face, and his hot breath fanned across the ice of Spock’s skin. He smelled of meat, and rot, and a forest that Spock had never seen. McCoy appeared over the captain’s shoulder, datapad in hand, and looked between Spock and the wolf. “Questions or comments, Mr. Spock?”
Spock considered the wolf, his shaggy fur and enormous claws, the teeth and flicking ears and golden eyes. The captain’s aggression and protectiveness, the gravity he exerted upon everyone who served under him whether they carried that inhuman scent or not, the constant hypos and occasional disappearances, the tactile social laws that governed life for the crew upon the ship---
Not a crew, but a pack. The captain’s pack, and he its alpha.
“None,” Spock said, voice rough with disuse, and Captain Kirk pressed his cold, wet nose to the skin between his neck and shoulder before pacing back to Emmett and Uhura. Spock sat up with difficulty, and when Uhura caught his eye and recognized his curiosity, she smiled.
“It’s harder to kill a wolf than a man, Mr. Spock,” she said. He thought he understood.
The rest of the pack still did not touch him—unconsciously put off by his diet or his stillness or his chill—but Captain Kirk did. It started with a hand on his shoulder as he passed by Spock’s console, then it was their knees pressing together beneath the table as they shared a meal, then it was their arms brushing as they walked side-by-side through the hallways, and then it was one grabbing for the other on missions. Captain Kirk’s touch always lingered longer than was strictly necessary. Spock, who had never before been the object of such attention, did not know what to do with the sudden warmth of the captain’s hands. Wolves were warm in a way that Vulcans never were.
Spock thought, foolishly, that he was growing warmer because Captain Kirk insisted on touching him. The heat built in him, thawing him from the inside out, and he relished it as he relished being the subject of the captain’s quiet focus.
Then he burned.
“You will transport me down to the planet and then you will leave,” Spock growled at McCoy.
“If we turn around now, we might be able to—”
“You know as well as I do that we would not make it to Vulcan before my body destroys itself,” Spock said, and the doctor closed his eyes.
He had hoped that he would be spared this curse of his people, this burning need for conquest that ran contrary to every tenet of logic that he had ever tried to embody, but he was not. He could not look at the delicate throats of his crew, could not be near their overwhelming minds and bright emotions, could not risk their lives after he had spent years protecting them. As Spock’s body burned and shed weight, his fangs descending from his jaw, the captain grew worried, and paced too closely to him and touched him too frequently. It took all of his willpower to keep what little distance remained between them.
He would not harm the captain.
The planet that McCoy found for him was suitable for his needs, in that it was entirely empty of sentient life. He would meditate until he had either passed through the flames or died. But here, far from his ship, he would not sate his hunger on the trusting, pliant bodies of his crew or their open, undefended minds. Spock paced through the trees on the planet alone.
He twitched awake to the hum and shimmer of a transport beam. Kirk, red-faced and furious, stalked towards him. Spock pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, fighting every instinct that would have him reaching for his mind.
“Captain,” Spock said. Kirk spun in his shaky vision, golden with warmth and vitality.
Kirk hissed, “How dare you?”
“You must leave,” Spock said, locking his hands behind his back. But Kirk didn’t hesitate, stomped into his space and jammed his forearm against Spock’s neck. He pressed him hard into the tree behind him. His eyes were cold and unforgiving. His arm was a burning brand against Spock’s throat. Spock salivated at the heat, the dynamic explosion of thought and emotion that passed between their bare skin, and his fangs extended fully. He dug his fingers into the tree bark.
“I will not feed on our crew,” Spock said.
“So you came here to die instead?”
“There is a possibility that I will not die.”
“Yes, Mr. Spock? What are the odds?” Kirk’s voice was as hard as Spock had ever heard it, brimming with a rage that Spock did not understand. Rather than admit to the captain that the odds were so small as to be not worth calculating, he closed his eyes. He could not think clearly with the captain’s skin against his, his clever mind within arm’s reach.
“I will not save my life at the expense of another’s,” Spock said quietly.
“That’s not your decision.”
“It is.”
“Your life is mine ,” Kirk snarled. “Not yours. You are mine.”
Spock opened his eyes. Kirk’s face was very close to his, pupils blown wide, the hazel nearly obscured. A muscle twitched in the side of his jaw, and his forearm was an unyielding titanium bar against Spock’s throat. His body pressed into his, digging his hands into the tree behind him, setting Spock’s skin on fire with his proximity.
“I will not feed on you,” Spock said, and watched as the captain’s eyes dropped to his lips and then returned upward. If he were in control of himself, he would use his superior strength to remove Captain Kirk from his personal space and logically explain the drives that animated all Vulcans upon reaching maturity. He would explain that blood was no longer enough, that he needed someone’s mind, their psionic energy, that weaker minds could be subsumed entirely and their bodies left an empty husk.
But he was not in control.
“You will,” Kirk said, temper replaced with the supreme confidence that his every order would be followed. Spock opened his mouth to refuse, to assure both the captain and himself that he would not take him, he would not bite---
But Captain Kirk bit him first. His teeth sunk into the meat of his neck. The leash Spock had kept on himself snapped. He lunged forward, desperate, but Kirk danced backwards out of his grip. Kirk was inhumanly fast, inhumanly strong, and the welcome scent of forest and rot washed over Spock.
“You can have me,” Kirk said. His sharpening teeth glinted under an unfamiliar moon. “But you have to catch me first.” Kirk shifted, bloody and raw, and four clawed feet hit the earth.
The Vulcan hunted the wolf through the shadows of the trees. The night-birds fell silent as two predators played dangerous games. Spock stalked after Kirk, following the bright streaming emotions of his quick mind. Kirk would allow him close enough to dig his fingers into the tawny fur, to strain to slide his hand against the face in the way that would allow him access into the mind, and then he would twist free and run again.
The moon rose until it started falling towards the opposite horizon, casting dancing shadows over the soil. The fever in Spock burned through his bones. He was exhausted, dragging himself corpse-like towards the wolf in the dark, following the scent of forest and captain and pack. He halted to listen. He was surrounded by his scent. The light wind rustled the grasses and trees, hiding the captain from him. He was half-blind with hunger, and staggered on his feet. He wanted to call out, to ask the captain why he would come to this planet only to tease him, but he had no tongue to speak with.
He dropped to his knees in the center of the clearing. Kirk had won, but Spock knew not the prize he sought. He rolled his head back to look up at the lightening sky, aching for a reprieve from the burning.
Then there were teeth in the back of his neck, claws at the base of his spine. He toppled forward, barely catching himself before he hit the ground, and fur and muscle slid bloody and wet across his skin as the captain shifted back. His sharp predator teeth dulled into something more human, but did not release him.
Spock submitted. Every point of contact between himself and the captain was kindling to the fire, and he was running out of body and soul to burn. He had not the strength to fight any longer.
Kirk flipped him onto his back, straddling his hips, face aglow. He leaned down and pressed his hand to Spock’s throat. “Have you proven your point, Mr. Spock?” Spock blinked at him. The captain was nude, as he always was after shifting, his uniform shed with the trappings of civilization hours and miles ago. His skin burned even through Spock’s clothing, his hand a firebrand, his breath hot and damp. With his other hand he grabbed Spock’s wrist and dragged it to his face.
“No,” Spock rasped. He fought to find his voice. “To feed from you… is to bind you to me. Forever.”
Kirk grinned, and it was crooked and wolfish. He slid his fingers between Spock’s, forcing them apart. He pressed Spock’s splayed fingers to his face, and his mind leaked through Spock’s skin.
“No,” he said. “It binds you to me.”
Spock lurched up, fingers tensing against the captain’s face, and flipped them. The captain’s body was hot beneath his, bare and stained with the bloody aftermath of shifting, and Spock dragged his tongue against his chest. Emotion flooded into him as the captain arched up against his mouth, lust and victory and possession. Spock sank his teeth into the soft skin above the captain’s collarbone and arched back against him. The captain’s quick mind drove into his thoughts as Spock drank from him; not a passive participant, but a conqueror in his own right. Spock felt claws sink into his mind as surely as his fangs had into him.
“Mine,” Jim said, and threaded his fingers through Spock’s hair. He dragged Spock’s head back, forcing him to release the bite, and his blood dripped from Spock’s open mouth to his chest.
“Yours,” Spock breathed. They looked at each other for a moment, Jim’s blood on Spock’s mouth, Spock’s blood in Jim’s teeth, and everything that was not heat or fever faded.
Jim rolled them. He shoved his forearm into Spock’s mouth and Spock bit down. He shredded what was left of Spock’s clothing from him, shirt fluttering into ribbons, pants tossed carelessly aside. Jim’s lust rolled from him in waves. Spock’s jaw went slack around Jim’s forearm, eyes rolling back in his head, as Jim stuck his fingers first into his mouth and then, achingly slow, pressed them into Spock’s sheath.
Spock keened. Jim reared back, straddling his thighs, and pulled his arm out of Spock’s mouth. “Look at you,” he said, and he smiled as he crooked his fingers inside Spock, pressing against his uneverted lok. Spock squirmed, but Jim held him in place with thighs and fingers. He curled the pointer of his free hand into Spock’s upper lip and pulled, exposing the descended fang. He pressed his thumb against the sharpest point of it, and laughed, whipping his hand away, when Spock tried to bite down, all the while sliding his fingers further into Spock. Drunk on Jim’s blood, his lust and excitement and anger, the scent of forest and sex, Spock could only thrash and arch. Jim lowered himself over Spock until they were chest to chest, one hand still pressed tightly into Spock’s sheathe, and he gently pulled his forearm from Spock’s mouth to brace himself.
When Jim slid inside him, either moments or years later, Spock clutched him to him and sunk his teeth into the soft skin at the curve of his neck. With every beat of Jim’s heart, pushing blood through his veins and into his mouth, he could feel the bond growing between them. It throbbed with their movement as Jim rocked into him, filling the small odd space inside his sheath alongside his lok, pressing him open until he thought he would split. Jim’s breath was rough against the shell of his ear. His blood was hot over his lips and tongue, inhuman in taste and flow. But his mind—that was what Spock had needed, burned for. Through the connection of their skin and Spock’s hand against his face, he could pull Jim’s mind to him, revel in its dynamic elegance and the way it claimed him in turn. There was no risk of subsuming the captain entirely—theirs would be a binary star system of a bond, push and pull, action and reaction. Spock hunted Jim’s mind down the paths of his thoughts as Jim rutted into him, one broad and possessive hand on his hip to keep him in place. Engorged to bursting on Jim’s blood, thoughts saturated to dripping by Jim’s mind, Spock flipped them to straddle Jim’s hips and force Jim deeper into himself.
Jim came with a ragged howl. Spock came with him.
The fever broke.
Chill swept through him as the burning died out. His breathing slowed and his fangs retracted into his jaw, leaving him with his lips pressed to the bite marks in the captain’s neck. Jim’s arms remained around him as he softened and slipped out, dragging his nails lightly up and down Spock’s spine. Ejaculate, both his and the captain’s, dripped from him as his abused lok shifted inside him and his sheath closed. After his breathing had stabilized, Spock lifted his head to meet Jim’s eyes.
“It was not within the bounds of your duty to do this for me,” Spock said. Jim rocked forward even as his arms remained locked around Spock, shifting to lever himself into a standing position. Only then did he allow Spock to unwrap his legs from his waist and stand of his own volition.
The bond buried in Spock’s mind was warm when Jim said, “Would you believe me if I said that I wanted to?”
Spock followed Jim through the woods under the rising sun, back to where he had abandoned his clothing and presumably his communicator. Every ten or fourteen steps, Jim would turn back to look at him, and the bond continued to warm Spock from within. The Vulcan bond had deleterious effects on some humans, to the detriment of their agency and selfhood, and the ship would suffer if the captain lost his decision-making capabilities—but then again, the captain was most certainly not human. Spock halted and focused his will on pulling Jim back to him, convincing him to halt and turn back.
“That’s not going to work on me,” Jim called over his shoulder, and continued forward. With mixed relief and disappointment, Spock caught up to him.
“I had thought that you might be in my thrall,” Spock said. Jim laughed, and the sudden noise startled two nearby birds out of their tree.
“No,” he mused. “What do you think of being in my pack, instead?”
Spock considered this. He analyzed the warmth of the captain’s hands on his own skin, and the respect he commanded from the crew, and Spock’s own place within it. He weighed loyalty, and duty, and the captain’s emissions, still dripping between his thighs within the shredded remains of his pants. He considered the smell of a forest he had never known and yet had come to associate more with comfort than he ever had the creosote of Vulcan.
“Acceptable,” Spock said. Jim grinned, and then he howled.
In a starship high above their heads, his pack howled in return, and called them home.