Chapter Text
“Remarkable,” McCoy couldn’t help blurting out, shifting his gaze somewhere over Spock’s shoulder. Spock turned to see what had provoked such vivid interest.
T’Pring stood frozen in the tall arched doorway. Noticing Spock’s attention, she inclined her head, greeting those present with the ta’al gesture—and just as silently as she had appeared, she was gone.
“Hold on, I don’t get it,” Kirk protested, turning to Spock. “Did you actually marry her? After that underhanded setup?”
“I’m with Jim,” Bones added, less explosive than the captain, but just as thoughtful. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll slit your throat in your sleep?” McCoy voiced his concern bluntly, without ceremony.
“You are both misinterpreting the situation,” Spock replied, already irritated that he would have to explain certain subtleties of his culture and customs.
“And how exactly could anyone misinterpret it?” McCoy smiled with interest. Jim backed him up, nodding eagerly and fixing his eyes on the Vulcan, waiting for clarification. Yes—for humans, everything seemed obvious.
They were staying at Spock’s estate within Shi’Kahr, having graciously accepted the invitation. None of them wanted to return to the ship, and the desire to relax in an informal setting happened to align perfectly for all three. Especially since they had only one night on the surface before the Council Assembly, after which—Jim assumed—the attempts on the Councilor’s life would cease. Either the would-be assassin would be eliminated, or the one who hired them, if their patience finally ran out.
“It’s nighttime,” Kirk explained the obvious. “She’s in your house… you’re puritans. Isn’t this like the eighteenth century? Compromise a lady—marry her. Right?”
“You have a poor understanding of Vulcan traditions.”
“Oh, if you’re about to tell me your ‘not-wife’ is virgo intacta,” Jim smirked at McCoy’s choice of words, “I’m going to be laughing for a long time. Because T’Pring, unlike you, is clearly not an ascetic.”
“I will explain,” Spock inclined his head. Both men looked at him with open interest; Jim even set his glass aside and leaned forward with his whole body. “T’Pring is not my wife. She is my property.”
“Care to elaborate?” McCoy said, intrigued. “Property?” He emphasized the word pointedly.
“That is the most accurate term available in Standard,” Spock agreed. “I could attempt a linguistic explanation, but neither of you speaks Vulcan. But yes. She chose combat, and I prevailed. I believe we all remember this quite well.” He cast an apologetic glance at Jim, then refocused on the doctor, as though it were critically important that McCoy understand. “I refused to take her as my wife. Not out of fear of the scenario you described, Doctor…”
Jim smirked, recalling McCoy’s colorful “slit your throat.”
“Stonn,” Spock paused, choosing his words carefully, “also refused her. Her clan could not accept T’Pring back. In such cases, a woman becomes property in the household of the one who holds the greater legal claim to her.”
“And you were the lucky one?” Jim nodded knowingly.
“I would say—unlucky.”
“But essentially, that’s slavery,” McCoy snapped.
“No,” Spock cut him off. “She chose combat and understood what she was risking. What she could lose. And how, under the most unfavorable outcome, it might end for her. She chose risk. Such… harsh rituals are dictated by logic. If women knew refusal carried no consequences, our species would die out.”
“Yeah, logically,” Jim nodded, accepting the internal consistency of the argument—especially considering the biological imperative of pon farr.
“You say T’Pring is property,” McCoy began. “What exactly does that mean?”
Spock looked at him in surprise—the human was clearly irritated, unsatisfied with the explanation.
“An analogy, Spock!” Bones rolled his eyes. “I need an example. I’m not as flexible in perception and comprehension as Jim.”
The aforementioned Jim snorted and looked at the doctor with evident delight.
“Calm down. You were right. Slavery is the closest concept. She is now Spock’s property—stripped of all civil rights—and he has full authority to dispose of her as he sees fit. Like an asset. An inanimate object.”
“I don’t like it…”
“Strange,” Jim said with mock surprise. “And what about the call of your ancestors’ blood? You never told me, but I know—you dug through the entire archive and then spent two weeks looking suspiciously contemplative.”
“What are you talking about?” Spock asked. McCoy now genuinely looked irritated.
“That someone in your lineage was an ancient slave owner,” Kirk gave him away.
“And someone else was ‘white trash,’” Bones snapped back in the same tone. “What I meant,” McCoy continued slowly, picking up the thread he’d lost, “is that I don’t like how much freedom she has—and the opportunity to hurt you, Spock.”
“She has no such opportunity,” Spock hastened to reassure him. The human’s concern for his safety caused a satisfaction he could not explain. “None whatsoever. Mental control,” he clarified for the intrigued Jim. “It was created by T’Pau herself, so T’Pring has not the slightest ability to harm me. Or to disobey.”
“Got it,” Jim nodded. “Still, given everything we’ve learned about your deeper rituals and traditions,” the captain emphasized, “it seems strange to me that your world is ruled by a matriarchy.”
“Well,” McCoy sighed heavily, rising to his feet and unconsciously letting his hand linger on the Vulcan’s shoulder. Spock closed his eyes for a second, allowing himself to savor the brief contact. “I want to sleep. Your damned double gravity is killing me. Which room in this palace of yours is mine?”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t mind spending the night in your company, Bones!” the captain offered playfully, waggling his eyebrows obscenely. The doctor merely snorted in irritation. “We were so good together…”
“I mind!” McCoy protested with complete seriousness, fully aware of what that would entail. Leaning toward Spock’s ear, he almost whispered confidentially, “He snores, kicks, steals the blanket, pushes you out of bed, and talks loudly in Andorian…”
“Are you describing how magnificent I was?”
“Yes, I’ll never forget you,” McCoy replied with unimaginable sarcasm, laughing. He honestly tried to sound interested—but failed.
“Straight down the corridor,” Spock nodded. “The fourth door on either the left or the right. The rooms are identical, but if you wish to see T’Khut rise—choose the left.”
“I will,” McCoy agreed.
“Shall I escort you?” Spock offered politely.
“I’ll find it myself,” Bones waved him off. “Better entertain the captain.”
Jim took a satisfied sip from his glass and studied the Vulcan closely. Spock stared expressionlessly after the doctor who had left them.
“I don’t believe you,” Jim said.
“In what regard?” Spock lifted his eyes.
“Something tells me you could get rid of your ‘inconvenient property’—but you don’t.”
“You are as perceptive as ever, Jim,” Spock inclined his head, acknowledging the truth. “I could release her, but—”
“But?”
“She would be obligated to return to her clan, where she would be killed. Or leave the planet, which is tantamount to exile and death. Moreover, T’Pring herself asked me not to do so.”
“I see. And what about you and Bones?”
“I do not understand what you mean,” Spock asked warily. “Our relationship has undergone no changes: the doctor demonstratively resents my alien nature and logic; I demonstratively ignore his emotionality and impulsiveness.”
“Then I imagined it,” Jim shrugged carelessly and groaned as he rubbed his neck, feeling the muscles vibrate with tension. “Right. I’m going to sleep too, or I won’t wake up tomorrow. I’ll just stop by Bones while our beloved doctor hasn’t completely passed out and ask for that foul concoction of his that eases high-gravity symptoms. Good night, Spock.”
“And good night to you, Jim.”
He remained in the room long afterward, until T’Khut rose smoothly into the sky, flooding it with its sharp reddish light. Spock lifted his head, gazing at the blazing volcanoes and the impossibly thin, harmless at this distance threads of magma rivers on the satellite planet. The doctor was surely staring just as spellbound at the sunrise—and recoiling from the sight.
Spock picked up the glass McCoy had left on the table and absently traced a finger along its rim, touching it carefully, thinking. Tomorrow their near-leave would end, and they would have to return to the ship and resume their familiar roles. He—the Vulcan who had renounced sybaritism and luxury in pursuit of higher logic and the search for k’sha. And the doctor… the doctor had never once parted with his mask.
***
“You’re not asleep?” Spock said in mild surprise.
The flexible human figure against T’Khut, flooding a third of the horizon, looked like a sharp, drawn silhouette—black against the crimson-red glow.
“No,” McCoy turned his head toward him slightly without changing his posture, while the alien gravity asserted its rights, distorting familiar human movements, adding an unnecessary fluidity to them. Spock came to a halt beside him, also leaning against the terrace railing and looking up at the sky.
“For some reason, the drug that neutralizes the symptoms gives me insomnia, while it knocks Jim out harder than a rausch-anesthesia.” He gestured toward the satellite. “So our beloved captain took the room with the perfect sunrise view. I had to admire this magnificent horror from here. He’s in the left bedroom—keep that in mind, and don’t mix it up if you suddenly decide to sneak in on him in the middle of the night.”
“Why would I wish to do that?” Spock asked with genuine bewilderment. McCoy smiled in satisfaction and shook his head—a familiar gesture indicating yet another instance of foolish human humor.
“Is there water there?”
Spock looked away from the doctor’s face and briefly studied the satellite.
“I believe so. But there is very little of it, and it is mostly under high pressure. No natural life exists there.”
“Yes,” McCoy agreed distantly, then continued in a more confidential tone. “I’ve never been on double planets before… well, I mean, I have,” he corrected himself, recalling the ill-fated wedding. “But we didn’t see the satellite then. And honestly, we had other things to worry about.”
“I remember,” Spock nodded, absently revisiting those events. “And how do you find the sight?”
McCoy fell silent, choosing his words.
“It’s oppressive,” he exhaled tensely. “Your ‘not-moon’ fills half the sky, and it feels like it’s about to crash down onto Vulcan, burying everything alive beneath it. Oppressive,” he repeated, then smiled. “But still rather beautiful. Your estate surprised me, though. Luxury and asceticism? You managed to combine the incompatible.”
“I am pleased that you appreciate my taste,” Spock replied lightly—or so McCoy thought, with an indefinable hint of amusement in his tone.
“Did I understand correctly that you don’t sleep with T’Pring?”
“Correct,” Spock shrugged indifferently. “And if she has interested you,” he emphasized the word’s double meaning, “you may have from her anything you desire. It would be no insult to me. On the contrary—you would once again appreciate my taste in beautiful things.”
“That all sounds a bit too wild and wrong for a civilized world,” McCoy smiled nervously, deciding to end the slippery conversation. “And if you don’t mind, I’d rather spend some time in your company, drinking that wonderful beverage. Assuming, of course, you don’t object to my presence.”
“With pleasure,” Spock agreed. “I would enjoy spending time in your company, Doctor.”
They were once again seated on the wide, low couches, drinking and talking, and McCoy took quiet pleasure in the glow of the lit candles. Vulcan aesthetes indulged their logical gaze with multicolored flame—the fire varied depending on its composition.
“Vulcan would be unimaginably beautiful if not for your passion for xenophobia,” he stopped Spock with a gesture as the Vulcan prepared to object. “All right. Not xenophobia—but an overwhelming sense of unspoken superiority of the Vulcan race over the rest of miserable existence.”
“We do not aspire to be—or become?—a tourist planet,” Spock replied. “Though I suspect we would enjoy a certain degree of success.”
“No doubt,” the doctor agreed, looking back at the flames.
Just as silently, T’Pring entered again. The candle flames flared brighter, disturbed by a faint movement of air. Spock was not surprised—at least, he showed no reaction at all, as though he had known.
Or had summoned her himself.
"Damned telepathy," McCoy thought irritably, watching as the woman lowered herself onto the floor between them. He caught himself realizing that from his vantage point, he had an excellent view of her breasts; averting his eyes, he decided it would be safer to look at Spock. It was less provocative. Moreover, Spock was drawing attention with his uncharacteristic appearance and equally strange behavior. The situation must have looked absurd—T’Pring was watching Spock with the same expectant gaze, and McCoy had dealt with enough Vulcans to recognize a conversation taking place via a telepathic bond.
T’Pring nodded in non-verbal agreement and, shifting an unnaturally intense gaze toward McCoy, began slowly to undress. Given the layers of clothing Vulcan women typically wore, she was far from fully exposed, but the realization of where this was heading jolted the doctor out of his idle contemplation.
"Right, Spock," McCoy exhaled, feeling the situation slip from his control. "I’m leaving. I’ll get acquainted with the traditions some other time... up close and personal."
"You have understood correctly, Doctor," Spock said, confirming his fears.
"No, I haven't," McCoy retorted, studiously ignoring T’Pring—which was becoming increasingly difficult. "I’m actually remarkably slow on the uptake."
T’Pring smirked at the remark. Having fully bared her breasts, she slid closer to him with a fluid motion, her palms tracing a path from his knees up toward his thighs, her head tilted expectantly to the side. Her heavy ritual hairstyle was gone, and her hair spilled intriguingly over her shoulders, emphasizing her nakedness even further.
McCoy caught sight of a tattooed pattern—a bird with wings voluptuously outspread across her chest. He seized T’Pring’s wrists and gripped them firmly, preventing her from touching him. The woman winced but yielded. She bowed her head in a strange gesture, painfully similar to how Spock expressed confusion or interest, her ink-black strands of hair splashing across her skin.
"Spock," McCoy said with threatening calmness, meeting the Vulcan’s dark, almost primal stare. "If this is some kind of joke or a wager with the Captain, it’s incredibly low..."
"There are no jokes," Spock replied.
McCoy released T’Pring’s hands and, turning to her, commanded: "Back off!" She obediently recoiled. "And you..."
Spock looked at the irritated human. "It is low and beneath me. In any event—no. I would not act in such a manner."
Without bothering with a farewell, McCoy turned and left, leaving Spock alone with the woman reclining comfortably on the floor, sinking into the furs of a local wild beast.
"And what did you hope to achieve by this?" T’Pring asked, her eyes tracing the walls. "What does it matter?" Spock finally replied after a long silence, choosing to engage. "Oh," she drawled meaningfully, her fingers idly sinking into the fur. "Quite a lot, you know!"
T’Pring remained on the floor; her stunning dark hair resembled the wings of the bird that spread just as freely in a sharp pattern across her chest. Spock mechanically followed the black inked feathers with his gaze, only to realize that T’Pring was watching him with a cold, calculating intensity.
"Shall I tell you why you started all this?" she almost sang, her voice tender and submissive. "I would find it uninteresting to listen to you. But, by all means," he made a polite gesture, spreading his hands in a display of feigned interest. "Do try."
Her smirk shifted from hostile to outright vicious, nearly a snarl. Yet even such a predatory grin did not rob her of her beauty.
"You know, I actually would have liked to sleep with him," T’Pring stated with blunt honesty, arching provocatively on the rug. "Because I would know that while we were fucking, you’d be seething with envy. And rage. And the jealousy of knowing your human is sleeping with me. That he belongs to me in a way he never will to you. And let's be honest... he doesn’t even suspect what he is to you! Am I right? And I know, I know you would watch us—through cameras, through the bond... it matters not. I don’t care, but I am certain you would watch. And hating yourself, feeling vile and loathsome, horrified by how low you’ve fallen, you would still take pleasure in it. Wouldn't you? Imagining yourself in my place..."
"Dress yourself," he snapped irritably, standing up. "And never speak to me again."
She laughed, a silent and bitter sound. "It matters not how much you love him," T’Pring said, her voice calm and reasoned once the laughter had passed. Then, catching Spock’s startled gaze, she continued: "Or how much I love Stonn. We will not be permitted to be with them, and you know why. They require our child. I did everything in my power to sabotage that unwanted wedding. You might have said 'thank you'."
"Thank you," Spock replied, with an elusive trace of sarcasm.
"Spock," T’Pring called softly. He froze in the doorway, waiting for whatever else she had to say. "Shall we kill them?"
***
Jim watched with pleasure as Spock spoke with the Advisor’s secretary. He hadn’t remembered the lovely girl’s name, but she had already caught his eye simply by being a blonde in this relatively monotonous kingdom.
"Eyeing yet another beauty, Captain? Twenty bucks says you haven't got a prayer."
"Yeah," Kirk replied cheerfully, turning with a smile to the approaching doctor. "I’m just wondering—she couldn't have changed her hair color on purpose, could she? That would be 'illogical,' wouldn't it?" "Of course not. It’s merely a natural variation within the population."
"By the way," Jim shifted his gaze to McCoy, who was watching the pair of Vulcans with an odd, inscrutable tension. It was difficult to tell what kind of conclusions he was circling. "Where did you run off to last night?"
"What?" McCoy snapped, startled.
"I’m saying you left in the middle of the night!" Jim clarified. "You were gone! Left me all alone in the den of a debauched Vulcan," Kirk tried to joke, but the attempt fell flat.
McCoy remained silent.
"How did you two manage to fall out in the measly six hours I was asleep?" Jim asked seriously. "Can you really not be left alone together?" "So, you’re that certain we 'fell out'?" "Yep," Jim answered blithely. "Now, are you going to tell me where you went last night, or not?" "Nowhere!" Bones snapped, worn down by his friend's persistence. "What does it matter to you? I left, and that's that. I was extremely irritated and angry, and I didn't want to be under the same roof as him. Literally!" "You should have seen how distraught he looked this morning," Jim said softly. "And you should have seen how distraught I was that night!" McCoy shot back ironically.
"You two have communication problems the size of Arcturus. You know that, right?"
"No, merely the size of Antares," McCoy countered with a dismissive wave. "We have room to grow. Jim, face it," he said wearily, searching Kirk’s eyes. "Not all your friends are destined to be friends with one another. Because it’s impossible. Not everything in this world becomes what you wish it to be."
"I don't understand," Jim shook his head in defeat, completely ignoring the advice. "You two are ready to die for each other. And don't argue," he gestured to silence Bones, who was about to object. "I’ve seen it, and you can't fake that. But you can't peacefully coexist, either. So, are you going to tell me what happened?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" Jim repeated in a tragic whisper. "It was because of 'nothing' that you went wandering across an unfamiliar planet in the middle of the night?"
"Did it ever occur to you that I simply didn't want to ruin your vacation? In all likelihood, I misunderstood or misinterpreted certain things, so I wanted to be alone. Besides, the hotels and bars here are exactly the same as anywhere else in the Federation," McCoy dismissed him. "What could have happened to me? Aside from ethanol poisoning?"
The silence that followed was long.
They watched with indifference as the final preparations took place, technicians checking the shuttles with swift efficiency, each lost in his own thoughts. In the distance, Spock continued his thorough conversation with the blonde Vulcan.
"Why must we go to Ra’al?" McCoy asked dejectedly, having already resigned himself to the fact that he could change nothing. It wasn't that he disliked one of Vulcan’s largest cities or that it was too far away—he simply didn't want to make the trip by shuttle. Moreover, like the Captain, he was unsettled by the absence of familiar gear, such as phasers or communicators. Though the lack of mandatory Starfleet uniforms was a relief; McCoy felt more at home in civilian clothes.
"The Council vote and the signing of the treaty will take place there," Kirk shrugged. "Though I don't quite get why we can't just use the transporter either. The ship is at their disposal. Is this some performative display of independence from the Federation? Do you think it’s all due to local conflicts?" he asked. "Vulcans don't seem like the type to engage in intrigue or contract killings."
"Jim, surely you aren't basing your opinion of an entire race solely on a single representative?"
Spock, sensing with a sixth sense that their conversation was veering toward the strained relations between the Federation and the Council, decided to intervene. He approached, greeting McCoy and politely introducing the Advisor’s secretary.
"Lady T’Rylna," Kirk said, bowing his head affably. He made no move to touch the woman, pointedly demonstrating that he remembered it was best not to handle Vulcans. Only their Spock was liberal enough not to snap at the touch of such tactile junkies as humans.
Fifteen minutes into the exchange of greetings and meaningless pleasantries, McCoy grew bored and began pondering a great mystery: why on earth had Jim dragged him on this mission in the first place? He was a doctor, not a diplomat. Did Jim simply want McCoy to suffer along with him? A strange concept of friendship.
Finally, after wishing everyone long life and prosperity, the secretary departed, casting what McCoy interpreted as a look of keen interest toward the Captain. Jim watched her go with a wistful sigh.
"Doctor, I am glad to see you," Spock said, cautiously touching McCoy's shoulder, his voice taking on a more personal inflection. "May I inquire as to where you spent the night?"
McCoy rolled his eyes in agony, while Jim, making no effort to hide it, burst out laughing.
"No, you may not!" Bones snapped. "And you may not inquire as to whom I spent it with, either!"
A look appeared on Spock's face that a human could hardly replicate, but on Vulcan, it would have passed for the most vivid display of irony one could ever witness.
"I trust you are familiar with all the STDs compatible with extraterrestrial contact, even accounting for the interspecies barrier?"
"Has someone decided that he is the doctor now? May I kill him?" McCoy asked Kirk in a saccharine-sweet voice; Jim, thoroughly amused, shook his head in refusal.
Distracted, Bones took his first close look at Spock since he had stormed out in a rage. The man had surely lost his mind. Spock could not have offered what he offered, and none of this could possibly be happening! Could T’Khut induce visions in psychically unprepared Terrans?
Soon, they were joined by the Advisor himself.
Or rather, the female Advisor—but on Vulcan, they probably still killed you for gender bias, the doctor mused distractedly. The tall, beautiful Vulcan woman, with her invariably complex hairstyle, once again reminded him unpleasantly of T’Pring.
"I have a feeling you’re going to seduce the Advisor yourself and resolve every issue between Vulcan and Earth," Bones whispered intriguingly to Jim before she drew any closer.
"The issue isn't between Vulcan and Earth, but you're right—my creative potential remains untapped!" Kirk sighed with performative sorrow and a playful wink.
"Well, naturally. If it weren't for that pesky education and your oh-so-irritating position as Captain, you’d have already carved out a spectacular career as an Orion prostitute!" McCoy suggested the worst, as was his custom.
"Ugh, Bones!" Jim grimaced and laughed. "Shame on you for being so... you! Don't be jealous!" The Captain gave him a demonstrative shove, refocusing all his attention and charm on the Vulcan woman.
And when the conversation smoothly devolved into Kirk’s desire—no, his craving—to be in the company of such a magnificent and distinguished woman... how, despite their differing political views, there was a chance the Lady might sway him during the journey... no, she would certainly sway him! It would be delightful, simply marvelous. That was the exact moment it dawned on McCoy: the meticulous Kirk had despicably plotted to shove him into a shuttle with Spock. All in a naive attempt to force his friends to "be friends."
"Doctor?"
"Coming."
Jim waved to them boisterously, tossing out a parting remark along the lines of, "You’re taking the Advisor's shuttle!" McCoy winced, remembering that yes—she was the one who had intended to fly with Spock.
"Do you object?" Spock asked, once again pulling him from his thoughts. He seemed strangely tense.
"To flying with you?" Leonard clarified rhetorically, literally collapsing into the co-pilot’s seat and buckling in. "As if our Captain would let anyone’s 'objections' stop him, especially once he’s already made up his mind."
***