Chapter Text
It started with a sore throat. Shortly after he failed the Kobayashi Maru for the second time. He’s making another attempt, he’s already scheduled it. He’ll find the answer. There is always a way out. There are no no-win scenarios, no matter what the designer of the test, Commander Spock, said.
James Kirk stood in his room, fixing his uniform as he got ready for class, cleared his throat. It could be allergies. There’s no way he caught a cold and there’s almost always something near enough to trigger his long ass list of allergies. He cleared his throat again as he put on his shoes.
“What did you do?” Bones asked, entering their shared room from the hallway, he’s between classes.
“Why am I always to blame?” Jim asked back, definitely not whining. “I didn’t do anything. The board ruled in my favor so I’m not suspended and nothing is going on my record.”
Bones rolled his eyes, tossing his padd on the bed and taking his shirt off as fast as possible. He hated to stay in his uniform longer than necessary. “I’m not talking about that stupid stunt you pulled last week at the bar, I’m talking about your throat. Do I need to examine you before you head out? Make sure you don’t pass along a sickness and start the whole academy on a virus?” He smoothed down his undershirt and grabbed his medical bag and started digging around while he was talking, not even waiting for an answer.
“I just woke up. It’s probably just morning voice, Bones. I haven’t been anywhere or with anyone to get sick. If it’s anything it’s probably just allergies.” He grabbed his stuff quickly so he could get out of the room before Bones found his tricorder.
“I thought you’d say that.” Bones replied casually as he turned around and stabbed something into Jim’s neck with probably more force than necessary.
“OW! What was that!?” Jim shouted, rubbing his neck as he tried to leave.
“Allergy shot. Have fun at class.”
Jim left the room, hand on his neck, still grumbling obscenities at Bones as he made his way to class. For all his childishness, the shot seemed to do a pretty good job. He didn’t have to clear his throat again most of the day. The soreness of it faded to a distance he’s able to ignore and it seemed like that was all it needed to be.
Until he was seated in Interspecies Ethics and saw a certain pointy eared Commander instead of his usual teacher.
“First off, I will begin by informing you all that Admiral Veruk’eth had a familial emergency today, which is why I am taking over all classes this week. As we are on similar teaching schedules, my replacement of him should cause no distress to your current course. I am Commander Spock. I teach this course on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.” After his announcements, he turned their attention to their padds and started in on the day’s scheduled course.
Jim had taken the Monday/Friday course of this class for the past two years, never once knowing that Commander Spock was even a teacher. He, stupidly, thought he was just an engineer. He literally only knew Commander Spock as ‘the bastard who made the stupid test’.
You know what? He nodded to himself, that’s on him. He should have done his research. You don’t just choose to have a vendetta on someone without doing research.
He’s midway through the class before his throat gets scratchy again. He cleared his throat a few times in 30 minutes before Spock decided he was being a nuisance.
“Cadet Kirk, do you have something to add?” He asked, voice even enough to pass for typical Vulcan stoic but with enough spark in his eyes for Kirk to understand he’s annoyed. He knows when people have a problem with him. He’s had years worth of study material.
“Allergies, sir.” He answered, hoping he sounded sincere enough to not cause any trouble. He really didn’t want to have another reason to go before the academy board so soon after he just had one.
Commander Spock nodded. “Very well, continuing on-” There’s only 15 minutes left in class and Kirk managed to clear his throat only twice more during that time.
Afterwards, when class was over and everyone was filing out, Commander Spock called Jim over and Jim stalled just long enough to make sure no one else was around if he was going to get his ass chewed out for causing a disturbance.
“Cadet Kirk, I’ve taken the liberty of writing down a few teas that might work well for soothing your throat.” He slid over a piece of actual paper with a list of teas written on it and Kirk’s eyebrows shot up as he took it and read over it. There’s quite more than ‘a few’. “As I do not know the nature or span of your allergies, I have included a variety. I surmise at least one of these will suffice.”
Kirk nodded, folded the paper, and stuck it in his pocket. “Thank you.” His hackles were still a little up so he shifted a bit and locked eyes with the Commander. It startled him how brown they were. How human they looked. Bright, like there was sunlight always hitting him. “If you don’t mind me asking, Commander. How did you know my name?”
Commander Spock raised an eyebrow. Whether it was at the tone Kirk couldn’t help using for ‘Commander’ or at the question, Kirk didn’t know.
“Only a handful of students in my 4 years of running the Kobayashi Maru scenario have ever attempted the test twice. I still remember all of their names. As for a third time, you are the first.”
Jim smiled, was this a compliment? Was he calling Jim tenacious? Was he impressed?
Commander Spock inclined his head. “Your reaction indicates you believe this to be a good thing. In fact, it is not. To take the test multiple times reinforces my thinking that you have not learned what it is set out to teach.” Jim's smile almost dropped but he kept it up in good faith and nodded at the Commander. Spock nodded back, choosing to ignore the spark in Cadet Kirk’s blue eyes that reminded him about rip currents, and started to gather his things, ready to leave his class for the day and get ready to supervise more tests in the scenario.
Jim turned to leave first, waving goodbye at the Commander as he went. “I’ll see you in two weeks.” He said as he left.
Spock stopped for a moment, a slight down tilt of his mouth. He would see Cadet Kirk Friday for the next class. But no. Jim meant for his next attempt at the test.
Kirk, once out in the hallway and lost in the flow of cadets heading to their next class, opened the list of teas Commander Spock had given him. He was allergic to most of them. But some, he allowed, sounded good enough to try. If anything it would be like allergy Russian roulette. He’d either find things he could drink or he’d find a few more items to add to his ‘do not touch’ list.
He coughed a few times on the way to the cafe he knew was nearby, just off campus. He stopped long enough to order something and then went to the bathroom to continue coughing. He had a hard enough fit once in the stall that he bent over the toilet just in case he made himself puke. He could feel something in his throat and he coughed hard enough to force it out.
“What the fuck?” He whispered, staring down at three small leaves, deep violet edged in iridescent blue.
He didn’t tell Bones about the leaves. He barely believed it himself. He left the cafe that day, almost forgetting his tea but turning and grabbing it when the barista called his name urgently, and damn near ran to his room.
Bones was gone, probably at another class, but he left his bag on the bed where it had been when he attacked Jim earlier that morning. Jim went through it looking for the tricorder and scanned himself once he found it.
Normal readings except for a slight uptick in allergen response. He flicked through it and found none of the tea ingredients, no dust or pollen that was currently in the air. The only thing he could find on the list was Kal’ta, a plant that wasn’t native to here and shouldn’t have been in his drink. So where the hell was it coming from to irritate his allergies?
He threw the tricorder back in Bones’ bag and flopped onto his own bed. Maybe someone had gotten it and it was in their room. Maybe someone made a perfume out of it and was wearing it nearby. There could’ve been any reason in a long list of reasons why a non native plant was irritating him.
There was, however, no reason for coughing up leaves.
James T. Kirk spent none of his time thinking about it.
Two weeks later he was on a ship and headed to a distress call from Vulcan. He didn’t have time to think about the week before and how he repeatedly kept coughing up blue leaves in various toilets and trash cans. He had made his way through about half of the list of teas Commander Spock had given him and he had a name to give Bones for why his throat was getting itchy to begin with.
The only downside to that was the periodic stabbing he got from a hypospray.
Then, he was way too busy to think about the leaves. They all were.
At some point, after a whole fucking planet was destroyed and Spock decided to leave Captain Pike for dead, Kirk woke up on an ice planet called Delta Vega. Covered in bruises. On a fucking. Ice planet. For suggesting they stick around to save Captain Pike.
That was very nice of acting Captain Spock.
Kirk was glad that he only had to stop once during his trek across the planet to cough up his stupid blue leaves. Any more than that and he could’ve very well been EATEN by the monsters that acting Captain Spock had left him to deal with on his own.
Then. Well. Then he met someone very interesting.
Kirk’s heart was broken. He felt nothing but pain and anguish until he was able to separate those feelings of Spock from his own. ‘Emotional transference’, Spock had called it. Luckily, those memories and emotions directly shared by Spock were the only things he got. And the few answers to questions he directly asked.
If any others had come through to him it surely would’ve been some sort of interference with a time travel/alternate reality paradox rule set or… something. Spock told Kirk not to mention to Captain Spock that he even existed. There had to have been rules about something for him to mention that.
Kirk had taken a second to cough up a few more blue leaves and when he asked Spock about it, he only shrugged. So it was either a secret that he couldn’t reveal, or it was something that his Kirk didn’t have to deal with.
The only other thing was. Spock had mentioned that he and this Spock would be friends. Or that they were friends. Alternate him was friends with alternate Spock, that much could have been true. Kirk couldn’t imagine how it would happen in this reality. This Spock had marooned him on an ice planet.
It was only by sheer luck and amazing skill that he even made it back to the Enterprise.
Then. Acting Captain Spock had to be emotionally compromised. He left the bridge and control of the ship to Kirk.
The bruises on Jim’s skin only furthered to serve as fuel for his original Kobayashi Maru vendetta.
Mister Spock, however, being completely unaware of that vendetta, or perhaps furthering his own somehow, came back on bridge to volunteer for Kirk’s plan. Kirk’s plan that had originally gotten him marooned on a fucking ice planet, not even two hours ago. Fine. He wants to help? Let him.
It’s not too much later that Kirk realized they are in fact a very good team. Not something he would have ever thought about back in the main room at the academy when he was being held on trial for cheating on a fixed test being run by Commander Spock.
He’s not sure Spock feels the same, but to his respect, he’s at least playing nice.
When Captain Kirk takes command of the Enterprise properly, First Officer Spock is ready and volunteering to do so. Maybe older Spock was right about them being friends. Maybe that could actually happen.
It’s all very exciting and Jim is genuinely pleased, genuinely looking forward to all the future has to offer after such a bumpy start. So much so, that he doesn’t even think about blue leaves again.
Until a year later.
“Shit.” He muttered through a scratchy throat. Spock had stabbed him in the back. His friend Spock. He was reassigned to the USS Bradbury. Kirk himself was reassigned as First Officer, thankfully enough, still on the Enterprise. He cleared his throat as he entered the room and sat into the seat next to Captain Pike.
All in all, Spock had been an emotionless bastard about the whole ordeal but Kirk was narcissistic enough to admit to himself that he knew Spock better than Spock thought he did. They had been working together for a year by that point. He knew there was genuine remorse for filing that report that got him demoted. He knew Spock didn’t intend for him to get in trouble. That Spock didn’t mean for them to be separated. That, however, didn’t change the outcome. Didn’t change the hurt he felt from being betrayed by his friend.
Kirk shifted in his seat as First Officer and cleared his throat again.
Then, beyond all belief, everything went to shit even further.
After being reinstated as Captain, Kirk made sure his first request after the mission approval, was to reinstate Spock as his First. He knew, despite the fucking stab in the back, that they worked well together and that they were friends and that he needed Spock to make sure he wouldn’t kill himself doing exactly the things he is want to do.
It annoyed him, god did it ever, but he knew he needed someone to keep his ego in check. He knew that person had to be Spock.
Right after Scotty resigned from the ship, Kirk found himself coughing in the bathroom of his quarters. It could have been nerves. It could have been anger. It could have been just the fact that he lost the only father figure he ever had and then immediately lost a friend, in a different, but still largely impactful way.
It could have been explained as all of the above, really. What couldn’t be explained, was the handful of tiny leaves floating in the toilet water. It was the only thing there besides the bile and what was possibly stomach acid. He coughed again out of reflex, another little leaf dropping to join the others.
“Well shit.” He whispered.
The next few hours were, as usual, very busy for him. He started to wonder if his little leaves were an omen. A harbinger of worse things to come for him. Considering the track record, so far they were two for two.
The next few weeks were even worse than those original hours.
Knowing that he had left the ship in Captain Spock’s capable hands, he wasn’t too worried about dying. He made the climb to the reactor, kicked the warp core back into place, and he felt pretty damn good about the whole thing. Aside from, the uh, you know, the radiation poison that was killing him.
But still. It was pretty fucking cool to see Spock admit finally that they were friends. It only took Jim literally dying for Spock to admit it.
Poor Scotty saw it happen. Spock did too but Kirk was sure that with the way he purged emotion, Spock could deal with it much better than Scotty would.
No one realized that Spock would break his emotional barriers immediately and go full tilt murder-Vulcan.
And in that vein, no one realized then that the worry should have been on Bones too.
Bones refused, absolutely would not under any circumstances, allow this to be where James T. Kirk ended, how he would go down in history as dying.
So he didn’t.
After Jim woke up two weeks later, he didn’t think about the strange leaves that seemed to precede his worst moments in history. He didn’t need to. He didn’t see them again.
For another year at least.