TITLE: Growing Pains
AUTHOR: Starluck
FEEDBACK kslover@hotmail.com
POSTED TO: SFF first
PAIRING: Spock/Charlie X; K/S (implied)
RATING: NC-17, m/m
WARNING: violence; element of non-con, but not consummated. And, yes,it has sex in it, but please be patient. :)
SUMMARY:  Spock and Charlie X find that they have more in common than they realize.
PART OF the Spock Fuh-Q FEst at http://www.kardasi.com/fuh-q-fest-2/

GROWING PAINS
By Starluck

Power without purpose. The awesome capacity to create - or destroy - yet wielded without thought of consequence or any kind of responsibility.

In all his years of exploration in deep space, it was the beings who had exhibited this kind of behavior that had always concerned him the most.

In his younger days, as a greenhorn cadet just out of the Academy, Spock of Vulcan had found it difficult to believe that many scientifically advanced alien civilizations, which had tamed the stars and conquered diseases, could make fatal decisions based on greed, anger, ambition, and other unbridled desires.

In his younger days, as an unwilling witness to the devastation unleashed by the combination of superior power and merciless lust, he found constant refuge in the Way of Surak. The truth preached by the Father of All Vulcan appeared all the more flawless. Emotion was destructive and had to be suppressed;  if its baser side ruled dispassionate intelligence, the galaxy could only plunge into chaos.

Once, Christopher Pike's Enterprise arrived too late on a frontier planet that had screamed for help, the echo of its panic reverberating throughout the entire bridge. Even the normally unflappable Number One, whom Spock had learned to admire for her reserve and emotional control, visibly flinched at the sounds of pain. The Captain ordered the ship, the best of her kind, to proceed at maximum warp.

But the enemy had long since gone, careful not to leave any clue that could disclose its identity or fuel possible pursuit. The Enterprise scanned the adjacent space in vain; not even its long-range instruments, at full power, could detect the slightest trace of any vessel in the vicinity.

The only evidence were the charred remains of what once had been a thriving frontier settlement.  Smoke rose from the razed buildings, the smell of its soot mixing with the odor of burned flesh.  Two hundred mutilated bodies were scattered everywhere, internal organs crawling out from seemingly hacked wounds.

Not even the children were spared. With a barely restrained fury, the ship's chief medical officer carried the bloodied body of a ten-year-old girl who still clung to the blackened severed arm of what once had been a parent. The doctor  found the nearest church, its bells still ringing in futility to an absent audience, and lowered the girl on the front-row pew with careful gentleness, although Spock could have pointed out that the gentleness was no longer necessary.

Dr. Philip Boyce performed the same act with every corpse he could find. Silently, without a word, reverently; the autopsies could wait the next day. Not even the Captain tried to stop him; discreetly, Pike nodded to a few members of the landing party to help Boyce carry some of the bodies inside. Spock did not believe in the intervention of angels, but his respect for the physician stopped him from pointing out that the act was illogical and useless.

The grey-haired Chief of Security noticed his discomfort and enlightened him.   "It's just his way of asking for some kind of justice from some Higher Power, Spock. Believe me, prayer helps, sometimes."

"Indeed?" one slanted eyebrow rose. "The scientific instrumentation aboard ship should provide Captain Pike with the necessary information that will allow him to dispense the kind of justice that Dr. Boyce seeks."

The craggy, tired features of the space veteran scowled a little. "Listen, KID, I don't care what they teach you on your home planet. But science doesn't solve everything, it doesn't have answers for this..." the older man waved his arm at the ruins. "I've survived a lot of missions, lieutenant. If there's anything they've taught me, it's that space dishes out more mysteries tha answers. And those mysteries can be pretty painful. Like this."

That particular mystery did yield no answers. Pike's fine crew worked around the clock to find any clue to the identity or the location of the invader. But there was none. It was as if an invisible monster had descended on the settlement and gobbled it alive. There was no reason to its madness, no purpose that could have explained the carnage. After a week of searching the area, Starfleet Command ordered the Enterprise to proceed to its next assignment. Pike fought the order and lost.

The night the Enterprise left orbit, Pike and Boyce holed themselves up in the doctor's quarters to drink. Spock of Vulcan also retreated in his own, enforcing tight mental disciplines that detected and quickly suppressed the slightest sign of emotion.   Emotions that could destroy and plunder and murder for almost no reason.

That was more than 15 Earth years ago.

More than enough time for Spock of Vulcan to reconsider his paradigms.

*  *  *

Total annihilation.

Nobody spoke it on the bridge, but everybody acknowledged that it could happen anytime, any second now. The Intruder, who had called itself Vger, had launched devices around Earth, programmed to explode and lay waste the entire planet in a matter of hours. Earth's defense systems were rendered useless by a more powerful opponent, possibly one of the most powerful that Spock had ever faced.

But this time, this Intruder had an objective, a goal: it was looking for its Creator.

The acting Captain of this Enterprise hated mysteries with a greater aversion than his predecessor. His chief medical officer had commented one time that unsolved mysteries were the only thing that could give the otherwise consistently healthy Jim Kirk ulcer pains.

But unlike Pike, Admiral Kirk broke the rules if it meant getting to the bottom of the whole thing. And saving his ship, his crew, and his planet. Mysteries wilted before his persistence and strength of will.

>From his science station, Spock watched the tense yet clear face of the acting captain.  The hazel eyes peered steadily at the viewscreen showing the staggering size of the cloud creature invading Earth. Once in a while, those eyes would dart to the Vger's android messenger---and they would burn brighter. Kirk had just met the young Deltan lieutenant whose body had been kidnapped and appropriated by the Vger, but he still seethed with outrage at what had been done to her. Taken against her own choice, her memories siphoned by some faceless, powerful master, and then recreated in a metallic body. In Kirk's book, all that still spelled murder.

Then, as if feeling Spock's eyes on him, Kirk turned to look back at the Vulcan.

And Spock felt it. Immediately. That nameless but electrifying connection that linked them to function almost as one being.  It formed an unspoken means of communication that made each one an open book to the other. Spock had thought that connection all but dead three years ago, when he surrendered his humanity on the unforgiving altar of Gol. But the Vulcan High Masters had never really succeeded.

And Vger demolished the rest of the chains of logic they had implanted on his mind.

Spock could still feel the emanations resulting from that one mind-meld.  As he had told Kirk in sickbay, he could sense the vast intelligence that was the Intruder's domain.   But, along with the enormous waves of information that poured into him, data that he was only beginning to sift and catalog in his mind, were waves of emotion.

That contradiction was probably the paradox that almost short-circuited his mind.   Vger, a brilliant living intelligence that was actually computer in nature, could feel.

At first, the emotions paralyzed him in a catatonic state. Spock only felt a tremendous chill that froze the vestiges of his spirit. At Gol, he had experienced desolation when his humanity was steadily stripped from him---but this was nothing compared to the bleak, blank sterility that Vger endured.  An emotion that spoke of Nothing because there was Nothing Inside. The cold vastness of space at least had had the stars to brighten it; Vger's soul was an immense black hole that was sucking everything inside it, but it could never really be filled or satisfied. Vger was a chasm that devoured everything within sight.

But there was more to Vger than just the chasm. The mindmeld had ripped Spock's mental shields open, and the tendrils of other emotions---V-ger's emotions---were now surfacing from the torn ends of that mindmeld.

Spock momentarily closed his eyes to focus.

And felt the sensation of Kirk's gentle, hesitant enquiry. Hesitant, because the two of them had been far apart too long, and the Enterprise commander was uncertain. Gentle, because that had always been Kirk's way with him.

<Spock, anything wrong?>

Spock shook his head, knowing that Kirk would see the gesture.  In a few minutes, Kirk would be beside him, asking the other questions that had to be asked. He knew that Kirk was watching him, as he had watched him a thousand times before, as he processed information and data to come up with SOMETHING that Kirk would use as a solution or as a weapon. It was a habit they had grown used to in each other for the years: Spock analyzing, Kirk waiting, then later translating it into action.

But this time, Spock was analyzing more than just the immense bits of data in Vger's computer storehouse...he was taking apart, breaking into recognizable bits of sensation, the repressed emotions that Vger had cried out to him.

*  *  *

When Spock opened his eyes, he was back in the rec room of the Enterprise, eight Earth years ago.  1200 hours, Stardate 1533.6.

The Vulcan knew he was journeying inside his own memories, the catalog of experiences that would help him understand Vger's emotions. The territory was something new to him; he had to look back on past events and incidents that he could use as a reference or as a landmark.  The growing understanding of Vger's emotional state led him to the re-enactment of this particular moment in his life.

Ordinarily, such a requirement would require a trance caused by a very deep meld. But the energy that Vger had poured into him empowered him to do this, while his body comfortably sat on the bridge. The hours or even days that he would need for reliving this reality would only take a few minutes in the actual Enterprise.  Spock would have preferred the privacy, but Earth and
its millions of inhabitants did not have the luxury of time.

This Enterprise was cramped, its rec room smaller, endowed with lesser luxuries. But as Spock looked down at himself, again wearing his old blue science uniform, he could not quite ignore the bittersweet twinge inside of him. The twinge of homecoming.

Then he felt them, again. Vger's emotions. Sterility, desolation, bleakness. The loneliness of absolute zero.

In a few moments, the person who closely resembled V'ger's emotional make-up would walk right into the rec room. As he or she did eight years ago.

Spock knew who it was. He could already recognize the similarities between that person and Vger. But, still, he was quite unprepared for the small shock that he felt when the blond, curly-haired seventeen-year-old Human boy sauntered into the room.

Spock knew what was going to happen in the next few minutes. He had no desire to relive it. In fact, he had buried the incident in his mind years before. Nobody knew, not Kirk, not McCoy. But he had no choice. If the Earth and the Enterprise of the future were to survive.

Repressing a shudder, he turned back to the computer to program himself and Captain Kirk a new game of chess.

Charlie Evans, his new companion, was noisy.  He programmed a chicken sandwich and a couple of bottles of soda from the comissary. Then he plopped down on the table opposite Spock, tapping his foot on the floor, rapping his knuckles on the chair. Spock could swear that he could hear Evans' teeth chewing on the sandwich.

Then, Spock remembered feeling nothing except irritation. The boy, who had become a perpetual nuisance to Yeoman Janice Rand, was clearly past the bedtime his new surrogate father-figure - Kirk - had  proscribed for him.  He was interrupting the peace and quiet that Spock had planned for himself.

Spock darted his eyes to glimpse the boy for a second. Charlie was now playing with the bits of sandwich on his plate, even as he hummed a tune that he must have picked up from the crew men.

V'ger's emotions were now emanating powerfully from this memory of Charlie.

<He is...lonely>, Spock realized. <That ruckus was only a means to call attention to himself. He needed the attention. He had wanted to talk to someone.>

<And I was the only one in the room>, Spock sighed.

Charlie noticed young Spock looking at him. He flashed a cocky grin. "How's it going, Mr. Ears?"

"Mr. Evans, the captain has given instructions that you should be resting in your quarters by this time," Spock heard himself saying, in his most formal tone.

But Charlie just glared at him. "You're always full of rules, Mr. Ears.  You're no fun. I wonder why."

"The statement is irrelevant," Spock said, with just a bare hint of annoyance in his voice. "What is at issue is your presence here."

Charlie leaned back on his chair. "What are you gonna do? Send me to bed?  Spank me?"

It was clearly a challenge.  Then, Spock had no desire to indulge the boy's more aggressive fantasies. He snapped a console, "Security---"

Spock never finished. The console disappeared. At a wave of Charlie's hand.

The implications of Charlie's mysterious abilities immediately drew his concern. The boy obviously had paranormal powers, similar to the ones that had doomed a couple of the Enterprise's more senior officers almost a year ago. But unlike Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner, this boy apparently survived the adjustment and learned how to manipulate his power.

<Power without responsibility. Power without wisdom.> The old, alarming mantra awakened in Spock's mind.

But, at that time, he only cocked an eyebrow and said, "Fascinating. Telekenesis, I presume?"

Charlie was still grinning, obviously enjoying the attention.  "I can do better tricks than that." He snapped a finger, and Spock found himself staring at a floating shelf of diskettes, each with the label, "The Greatest Chess Games of the Twenty-Third Century."  The shelf floated on air for several seconds, before dropping on Spock's table.

"I can be nice to you, Mr. Ears. I can help you if you'll help me. Can we
call it a truce?"

"I was not aware, Mr. Evans, that we were adversaries."

"Uh, no, we're not...except that you're always getting in my way."

"I am?"

"Yeah, you are," Charlie shook his head in assent vigorously. "You ordered
those red shirts to follow me when Janice is around. You put computers and
scanners to find out where I'm going. And you're always there beside the
Captain, just when I want to talk to him!"

>From the way Charlie sounded, Spock seemed to be the lone reason for all his
troubles.

"Mr. Evans, I merely have duties to perform---"

"I don't care about that!" the boy shouted. Spock found himself raising his
mental shields. The boy's fidgety nature was turning into anger.

And around it all, around this relived reality, Spock could feel Vger's
emanations. Surrounding Charlie and radiating from him. Charlie and Vger
were one. And the emotions were clearer now.

<Lonely. Alone. Have no one. No one to talk to. No one cares. No one to
listen. I need. I need. I need.>

Spock---the Spock of eight years ago---took a few steps towards Charlie.
"Mr. Evans, your emotions are clouding your thinking. Perhaps a visit to Dr.
McCoy would assist you in gaining the proper perspectives---"

"I don't want to do that!" Charlie shouted again, his pink race turning into
crimson red. The room shook, and the tables and chairs were hurled to the
wall by an unseen force.  "I don't understand any of this. Janice doesn't
want to be near me. I like her, but she doesn't like me. Captain Kirk
teaches me, but I can't seem to do anything right. Now, he just wants to
punish me. Nobody in this ship wants me. Nobody!"

Spock reached out to apply the Vulcan nerve pinch. But with an agility that
the Vulcan did not expect of him, Charlie blocked his arm---then sent him
flying to the bulkhead. The Vulcan found he couldn't move; he was like a fly
stuck to the wall.

Charlie was walking directly towards him.  All his anger and frustration
were coming out. He was hurt at Janice's rejection. He was pissed off by the
indifference of the crew. He couldn't get the Captain's approval. He needed
something from them---he just couldn't tell what it was---and there was only
Spock to pay.

The first blow hit Spock squarely on the jaw. The Vulcan reeled, disciplines
automatically shutting into place. His stamina would allow him to endure the
boy's assault for a long period of time. Charlie may have special powers,
but his physical strength was that of a typical seventeen-year-old. For the
next few minutes, furious fists pummeled the Vulcan's face, chest, abdomen,
and shoulders.

<I need. I need. I need. You're not giving it to me. Why? Why? Why?>

It was Vger. And Charlie. Both at the same time. Shaking with a fury they
could not control. Torn by a desire they could not understand. Wresting with
an emptiness they could not fill. Especially when nobody in sight could seem
to fill it.

Spock felt the anger, and he endured the punishment. But the only sound he
could hear were cries of loud weeping.  Similar to that of a bawling infant
in a colony nursery he had once visited. As he himself had wept in outrage
as a boy when his purer Vulcan schoolmates had taunted him.  As Charlie
Evans, finished in his task, was now crying in front of him, tears streaming
down in front of him, his shoulders shaking.

Stricken, moved by an emotion he could not identify, Spock had wanted to
move an arm to reach out to him. But he was plastered to the wall, immobile.
But somehow, Charlie had sensed his intention.  The red eyes looked at the
Vulcan face, searching for something.  All he saw were deep black eyes that
mirrored the emptiness in his heart.

"You understand," Charlie whispered.

Even then, Spock did. He nodded.

And found himself embraced by warm, trembling adolescent hands.

**************
"Spock?"

The Vulcan broke out of his trance. Kirk, as expected, was standing beside
him, worry etched on his face.  McCoy was there too, watching him, still
concerned with any damage that the mind-meld with Vger might have caused.

Spock stood from his chair and approached Kirk. Keeping his voice low, he
reported his discovery, "Admiral, Vger is a child. I suggest that we treat
it as such."

"A child..." Kirk echoed. His eyes rested on Spock for a long moment. In
spite of himself, the Vulcan felt his face turn a shade of green.  He had
heard the unprecedented softness in his voice, which had invited Kirk's
sudden, piercing scrutiny.

"A child?" McCoy, behind him, snapped, and the moment was lost. "Spock, this
child of yours is about to destroy every living thing on earth. What do you
suggest we do: spank it?"

Spock ignored him. "Admiral, Vger as a child is seeking, needing. But like
all of us, it does not know what it yearns for."

McCoy cast one baleful glance at Spock as if the Vulcan had lost his mind.
But Kirk took it in, as Spock knew he would. Then, with his face set, the
acting captain once again faced the android probe.

************
In the end, Vger only wanted to join with its Human Creator. And it did,
consummating its desires with a Deltan-like probe and a Human starfleet
officer.

Hours after Vger's new form disappeared into space, Spock could still feel
the reverberations of joy that soared through out the new entity. He carried
that joy through the debriefing and into drydock.

But he declined to join the celebration that was waiting for them on Earth.
Now that he was free of the sterility of Gol and he could choose his own
path, he would spend a few minutes grieving for another being that was not
able to escape its prison. He could do that much for Charlie Evans.

But as Spock entered one area of the observation deck that he thought was
empty, a figure was already waiting for him.

"Hello, Spock," Jim Kirk greeted him.  With that unmistakable warmth,
familiar camaraderie, and the same hesitation.

"Admiral," he inclined his head. He had wanted to delay his meeting with
Kirk for a few more days, until he had sorted out his own thoughts. But
perhaps it was better to deal with it in the present. He knew his departure
to Gol had pained the Captain, and if there was any way to make amends...

Spock stepped in the deck, and pretended not to notice when Kirk pressed the
privacy lock.

"You were brilliant, as always. Who would have thought that Vger was a
child?" Kirk was trying out the "small talk" tactic, as usual.

"Vger was not a unique case, Admiral. In the first five-year mission, we had
encountered beings with immense intellect and almost unlimited power, but
were in truth emotional infants."

"Emotional infants, or just infants?" Kirk grinned that happy, casual smile
that never ceased to warm Spock's heart. "Trelane was a brat, for God's
sake."

This time, though, Spock had no wish to rejoice. The point he had to make
was not a casual one. "As I recall your report, Trelane had parents to guide
him. Vger has the humanity of Captain Decker and the wisdom of Ilia. Others
did not have the same kind of support. To quote one of your Terran sayings,
`Too much, too soon.'"

Kirk sobered as he remembered his own lost comrades. "Gary...and Dr.
Dehner..."

"Charles Evans."

Some finality in Spock's voice made Kirk look at him sharply. "Why did you
remember him all of a sudden, Spock?"

Kirk's intuition was still unerring. It was also unwelcome, at this point.
"The emotional...concerns of Vger and Charles Evans were most similar."

"Yes, now that you mention it," Kirk acknowledged, but he still wouldn't let
go. "But why him, Spock? Why did HE remind you of Vger?  You never really
interacted with him..."

The meld with Vger must have burst open other previously sealed, but very
vulnerable channels inside him. That must have been the only reason why
Kirk's persistence provoked such an unforeseen reaction.  Once again, Spock
felt himself plastered against the wall, Charlie's shaking hands clutching
at his shoulders, human tears flowing down without shame down his neck...

Whether it was the last traces of Vger's or lingering memories of Charlie's,
the emanations touched his mind again. <You understand. You understand. I
need. I need. You understand. I need. You understand.>

Charlie's arms were tight around him, holding him close. The boy's body was
pressed tightly against his own, closing all distance. He was sobbing on
Spock's shoulder, crying, asking for the one touch that would erase his
loneliness...

The memory of it was so strong, so REAL, that Spock, without the rigorous
Vulcan mental shields to hold him up, sagged to the floor.

Human arms were around him again, fretting, worrying, as they squeezed and
petted his shoulders.

"Spock, are you all right? What's wrong?"

It was Jim Kirk holding him this time. And the arms were stronger, the grip
more certain. And their touch was like a balm on his parched soul. Powerful
currents of living water streaming through the arid desert of Vulcan sterile
logic.

<I need. I understand. I understand what Charlie needed, what Vger needed.
Because I need.>

The truth that he could no longer deny. It was his voice and his need crying
out now, not Vger's, not Charlie's. But there was nothing to fill that
vacuum, no possible means to fill the empty chasm that was in HIS soul. He
would not ask it of the one being that could give it to him.  Spock pushed
the damning arms away, but Kirk's grip was solid. The Human would not allow
himself to be pushed back.

"Spock, talk to me. Please. What's happening to you? Is this still a part of
Vger? What has Charlie got to do with this?" Kirk did not even try to hide
the fear in his voice.

"Vger was sterile," Spock murmured. "Charlie was sterile. I was sterile.
Because I was afraid. I saw how emotions could cause others to destroy, that
was why I abhorred them. But Vger...and Charlie...they only caused harm
because they had no wisdom. They were children who had immense...emotional
needs. And they were furious when no one seemed willing to accommodate those
needs."

The Vulcan's head was bowed, and Kirk had to strain his ears to hear his
words. Kneeling beside the seated Vulcan, the Human willed every ounce of
his strength to reach his friend, unmistakably trembling before him. He
wanted to hold Spock against him, to let the Vulcan rest on him and take
some of his power. But there was something in Spock's demeanor that clearly
said: Not Yet. Not Yet. Not Yet.

Kirk counted seconds, 5...then 10...then 20...before Spock broke the
silence. When the Vulcan finally lifted his head, tears were glistening from
his eyes.

"We failed Charlie, Jim," the brokenness in the once firm voice tore into
Kirk's heart.  "Like Vger, he was reaching out, seeking to be understood.
But our fears ruled our choices. The Thasians saw that in our minds - that
we were incapable of forming some kind of understanding with him. That was
why they took Charlie away."

Kirk shook his head. In as much as he grieved for Charlie Evans, there was
very little that he could do now.  From a command perspective, he had done
everything that he can to keep the boy with them.  He felt sorrow at what
happened, but no self-recrimination and guilt. But Spock did.  And Vger must
have unlocked that guilt somehow.

"How, Spock? How did he reach out to you?"

A shade of embarrassment - or was it shame - darkened the Vulcan's features
for a moment.  Then Spock leaned back into the bulkhead and began to speak.
Kirk listened, even while he kept his arms on his friend's shoulder. The
Vulcan's composure was still too fragile, and this new trust that he was
showing could still vanish like a wisp of smoke.  Kirk had never seen Spock
like this; the once stiff back reclining on the bulkhead, the hands knuckled
on the floor, knees drawn to his chest.

Spock narrated the incident with Charlie Evans as he had relived it in his
mind, every detail intact. He stopped at the part where the boy was crying
on his shoulder as he was plastered to the wall.

Kirk could believe it, all too well. He could imagine the angry powerful boy
flinging tables and chairs all over the room as if they were paper. He could
remember Charlie's admiring looks at him, the way his own nephew Peter would
follow him around while he was on earth. But he had no idea of the boy's
tearing loneliness and his need to belong to someone, anyone. Charlie's
crush on Janice was just the tip of the iceberg. What were the boy's last
words as the Thasians beamed him out? "I can't even touch them...."

For the first time since he heard Charlie's name in years, Kirk felt a heavy
stone sink in his heart.

Spock was clearly experiencing the same thing, exorcising his own demons.
Kirk would do it with him, as they did everything together.

"And then what, Spock?" Kirk gently nudged.

But Spock only shook his head, his eyes locked at some distant point in
space and time.

"Spock, you have to tell me, you can't bottle this in..." No answer. "Spock,
Vger set you free. You're free. You can feel, for Christ's sake. You wept on
the bridge. Don't lock yourself in now. Please."

Silence. A sigh. "Charlie wept on my shoulder because he knew I understood
him, Jim. We had the same needs. At that point, eight years ago, he decided
to fulfill both."

Kirk felt a rising panic inside of him. But he couldn't turn away now.
"How?"

Spock turned away. "It does not matter, Jim. His...intentions...were not
consummated."

Consummated. It was the right choice of words. Crazy as it sounded, only one
possibility occurred to Kirk. Charlie, provoked, certainly had the power
then.

<And I wouldn't have been able to prevent him, I couldn't have protected
Spock.>

Past regrets could not be rectified. Even Spock would recognize this. But
the present needed its own healing. The two of them had been far apart for
so long, and Kirk needed the certainty of the Vulcan beside him, never to
leave him again.

Gently, ever so gently, he laid both his arms on the Vulcan's shoulders and
pulled him back, leaning the turned head against his chest.

Spock's hand gripped his in response.

And images flooded the Admiral's brain.

<The rec room. Spock in his blue Science Officer immobilized on the wall. 
Charlie Evans pressed against him.

<"Help me, Spock, please help me," Charlie begged, crying.

<"Dr. McCoy would be in a position to assist you. Please. Release me,"
Vulcan stoicism valiantly held.

<But Charlie did not hear, could not hear. "They won't have me. Janice won't
have me. The Captain won't have me. But you...you understand..."

<Muffled groan from Spock as Charlie kissed him. It was an awkward kiss,
fumbling, inexperienced, but it was desperate. Human lips bit into Vulcan
ones, and then Charlie was licking Spock's mouth, opening it, to plunder his
tongue.>

"The bastard! I should have killed him!"  Whatever sorrow Kirk felt for the
boy disappeared, replaced by an anger, outrage, and a protectiveness that he
had always felt for Spock.

Without warning, Spock threw off the arms and walked to the other end of the
bulkhead, not looking at Kirk.

Kirk felt like kicking himself. He couldn't lose the link that he had with
the Vulcan. Not now. And he didn't want to scare Spock away.

"I'm sorry, Spock," he made sure his tone was subdued, "I never knew. I
wouldn't have allowed that to happen---"

"Jim, Jim," Spock said, shaking his head. "It was not...pleasant. But
Charlie was only a child, taking what he needed. And I refused him, I
practically rejected him."

"Spock, it was---" Kirk couldn't quite finish his sentence.

"It WAS an assault, Jim. It could have been rape. But...it need not have
been. I can see that now."

"Spock?" Kirk was shocked. "Are you saying that you should have let him---?"

"Perhaps." Spock finally turned to look at his friend. There were fresh
cracks of fatigue on the Vulcan face. Spock looked tired, but there was a
vulnerability that Kirk had not seen before. "It was not simply a
gratification of physical desire. When we touched, Charlie and I...joined
minds. In that instant, our needs were similar. I believe the proper term is
'empathy.'

"Had I been more honest of my needs, I would have accommodated him. It need
not have been unpleasant. And that companionship, no matter how brief, could
have...saved Charlie. It would have given him hope. He only wanted to be
touched, Jim, as Vger needed to be touched."

Kirk looked at the Vulcan, incredulously stunned. But whether it was because
of Spock's honesty or a vague sense of jealousy that he was beginning to
feel, he did not know.

"Jim," the Vulcan went on, "I rejected him not because I found his attention
distasteful. Nor because I was afraid of the sexual intercourse. I could not
admit what I needed, Jim. Charlie showed me that I had my own needs---and I
could not accept them."

"You were lucky he didn't force himself on you," it was the only thing Kirk
could say. And he sounded just a little too bitter.

"No."

Spock closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself one last remembrance
before he shut the matter forever.

<Charlie's erection on his own soft groin. Hands roaming around his body,
inside his shirt, carressing the hair on his chest. Charlie's lips on his
neck. Not lust or love or passion. Just need. The need to be filled. To
touch. To have. To hold.

"You understand, Spock," Charlie murmured.

<Yes, I understand, but I cannot...>

<"Please, Spock,"  awkward hands tearing at his belt, pulling out his limp
cock.

<"Charlie, please."

<The same hands now tearing at his shirt. Stripping him to the waist. Human
lips <biting on his chest, leaving marks on the flesh. But they were the
bites of a Human child, needing blindly, needing some kind of response,
needing something to affirm it...

<A need that mirrored his own, long buried under rocks of logic, long
unacknowledged and damned as undesirables. And with each bite, each touch,
Charlie reminded him of what he should not be able to feel, of what he
should not be able to want, of his damned Human heritage.

<"Charlie, stop THIS NOW!!!

<"Spock...why?  You want this, too!  I know you want this, too!"

<"I cannot. I must not.

<"But why? Why not?

<"Because it's wrong."

<"It's wrong. THEY said it's wrong to touch. You're telling me it's wrong to
touch?"

<"I am a Vulcan, I cannot allow..."

<"YOU'RE JUST LIKE THEM! LIKE THE REST OF THEM! YOU'RE TELLING ME IT'S
WRONG! I CAN'T BE WITH JANICE? I CAN'T TOUCH HER? I CAN'T HAVE HER? DAMN
YOU, SPOCK!"

<Angry eyes of a child staring at him. Hard sounds of foosteps walking away.
Spock slumping to the floor, gathering the shreds of his clothing.>

Years later, now, he could hear the raging echoes of the Human child: "I
can't be with Janice? I can't touch her. I can't have her?"

What kind of hell are you consigning me to, Spock?

What kind of hell did Vger create for himself?

What kind of hell was Gol, Spock?

Need, but no touch. It's wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I need. But it's wrong. I
can't. I can't. I can't. I cannot allow myself to feel, to love, to touch...

It was too much.  Memories and experiences, past and present, overloaded his
new heart. Spock of Vulcan was still an emotional virgin. He couldn't handle
them. This time, when he collapsed on the floor, he was unconscious.

Kirk caught him again, lowered him to the floor, cradled his head on his
lap.

**************************

<Touch. Warm. Need. I need. I need. It is not wrong. You are here. Finally.>

Five-point-six minutes. Only 5.6 minutes. He could have slept longer, but
the warmth on the legs under his head wakened him, filtering a sense of
pleasant-ness to his brain.

He woke to consciousness and  Kirk's eyes staring down at him.

"You knew I did not require medical attention." It was not a question.

"I just KNEW, Spock. I knew what you needed." There was a slight emphasis on
the word, as if Kirk was daring him to deny it.

Spock did not take it. "You have always been a man of acute perception,
Jim."

"Spock, we have to talk. I mean, really talk." The command voice was
insistent, unyielding. "It is long overdue, you know."

Spock reluctantly rose from where he was lying. As he sat to face Kirk, he
became most aware of the Admiral's face only a few inches away from him.
Instinctively, he leaned back. But Kirk's hand gently but firmly landed on
his nape and drew him closer.

"You say you made an error 8 years ago, don't do it again. Let me in,
Spock."

"Jim, I am...new to this. How? How would I let you in, when I am truly
beginning to understand who and what I am?  Emotionally, I am a child. In a
sense, I am no different from Vger."

"I'll be here to help you, Spock. Just let me help you. Let me help you. And
don't leave me again."

The words, sharply said with just a mixture of dry bitterness and longing,
reached Spock. He was perhaps responsible for driving one being into
oblivion. He was partly instrumental for the emptiness that caused this
beloved friend's depression for years. He would not turn him away again.

Holding Kirk's steady gaze with his own, Spock took the Admiral's hand and
kissed it. In gratitude, in trust, in surrender.

Kirk smiled a little, just a little, then he pulled Spock to stand up beside
him. "My cabin," he said softly.

Spock nodded. He had given his trust to this Human. Wherever he saw fit to
lead him, Spock would follow.

But Kirk did not want to rush him into anything. He let his hand linger on
Spock's face, carressing it, stroking the sharp angles with a tenderness the
Vulcan had never thought possible. Spock trembled at the touch. "Jim..."

"We don't have to do anything tonight, Spock. Nothing that you don't want
to. Just stay with me. Tonight."

"Jim, wherever you may want me to be" - In your bed. Playing chess in your
quarters. Standing beside you on the bridge - "I shall be there. You are
what I need. And I shall no longer deny that."

THE END