Intoxicated, A Star Trek 2009 Fan Fiction

Rating: PG-13/T

Warnings: Mild language, mild violence, non-explicit slash (male-male relationship).

Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own Star Trek 2009, its premise or any of its characters. No money is being made from these writings. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: James Tiberius Kirk was drunk. Really drunk. And in the very worst way. [Kirk/Spock, Spock/Kirk. One-shot. Rated T/PG-13 for mild language and sexuality].

A/N: This little one shot has been bumping around my head for awhile. Please let me know what you think. All feedback welcome, including constructive criticism. P.S. To everyone who has me on alert, I'm terribly sorry for the double post. This originally went up as "Inebriated," but I changed some things around last second, and then decided to re-upload entirely. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

* * *

James Tiberius Kirk was drunk.

Really drunk.

And in the very worst way.

It was the kind of drunk that sneaks up on you, grabs you from behind, and then thrusts your face into the fist of another angry drunk. The last time he’d experienced this kind of intoxication was half a decade ago, in a bar in rural Iowa. In a time that now seemed like another life.

But this time was worse.

Much worse.

This time, it was that knotted up lump in his belly that had made him throw back shots of whiskey like they were Grandpa Montgomery’s Wonder Tonic for Assorted Ailments.

He sure hoped it would cure stomachaches.

And headaches.

And concussions, he thought, bitterly as his head was slammed up against the bar’s concrete wall by a particularly burly Cardassian.

He couldn’t remember what had started the fight, and in his drunkenness, wasn’t proving particularly successful at winning it. Any punches he managed to get in were through a hazy fog of blurred vision and neon light, and few of them actually made contact with their target.

And so here he was, the captain of Starfleet’s prized flagship vessel, his face shoved up against the rough, mottled concrete of a seedy bar on a remote class K planet inhabited primarily by rough and tumble terraforming workers.

The planet was being prepared for colonization, and the Enterprise had stationed itself nearby to allow all off-duty personnel some merited shore leave. Kirk had intended to stay aboard the ship, but McCoy and Scotty had convinced him to take some hard-earned time off, and leave his First Officer in command for the night while he went off-ship to relax and unwind.

Kirk felt the room turn dizzyingly around him as he was thrown onto the bar’s filthy, beer-coated floor. So much for relaxation.

That’s it, he thought, finally deciding that he wasn’t going to win this one unless he was willing to break some rules and fight dirty. He kicked his leg out in front of him, aiming for the Cardassian’s crotch, but his movements were sluggish and slow, missing their mark, serving only to further incite his lumbering aggressor.

God damn.

“Bones. Bones!” he bellowed. That damn doctor had come into the bar with him, griping the whole time about unsanitary conditions and the transmissions of deadly alien viruses through tainted ice cubes.

But Kirk had wanted a damn drink, and a damn solution to that damn dull, aching lump in the pit of his belly.

And somewhere in between his first and last shot of whiskey, he’d lost track of McCoy.

“Bones!” he grunted out again, as he was pulled up off the floor by the collar of his shirt.

“That’s right, yah maggoty piece of vole shit. That’s all you’ll be when I’m done with you” grunted the Cardassian.

Kirk’s head flipped to the side as the man’s fist again made contact with his jaw, and he caught a glimpse of his chief medical officer standing hesitantly on the edge of the rapidly forming crowd, his eyes wide with disbelief and shock.

“Fuck,” Kirk groaned, as he doubled over the Cardassian’s fist, all the wind in his lungs escaping his lips in a broken whistle. “Bo—ones” he breathed out raggedly, “Do—oo. So—ome. Thi—ing.”

This seemed to snap McCoy out his temporary stupor, but the he still looked reluctant to get involved.

“Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a personal bodyguard,” he hissed exasperatedly, before jumping into the fray, hitting the Cardassian square in the eyes and rattling his senses long enough to hastily drag Kirk through the crowd, out of the bar, and far enough down the street to be out of the view of any of the bar’s motley crew of patrons.

“Jesus, Jim,” McCoy muttered, as the glow of the streetlamps provided him with a better look at his Captain’s face. Deep purple bruises were forming around both eyes, his lower lip was split, and two long, angry lines of red dripped out from both nostrils. His eyes were half-closed and clouded with drink. “You can’t keep your sorry ass out of trouble long enough for me to take a piss.”

Kirk looked at him dumbly, his brain slowly sorting out the words that had just bombarded him. Why does he have to talk so fast? Kirk wondered, feeling as if the rest of the world was moving so slowly that he might have been able to reach out and pluck a molecule of oxygen out of the breezy night air had his reflexes been faster. He slumped down, legs spread out across the sidewalk and head slumped against the bricks of the building behind him.

McCoy pressed a hand over his eyes, giving his temples a squeeze, before running it over the rest of his face in a gesture of sheer exasperation and frustration. “You know, Jim,” he stated pointedly, “I bloody hate beaming. And yet you’re always putting me in situations where I have to do so.”

Kirk grinned lopsidedly, not even entirely sure what he was grinning at, but deciding that something grin-worthy had indeed been said. He tried to slur out something like ‘sorry,’ but it came out more like a string of drooling gibberish.

“Scotty, Scotty are you there? Do you read?” McCoy barked the questions angrily into his communicator, obviously not happy about having become Kirk’s impromptu babysitter.

“Aye, Bones, what can I do for yah?” Scotty replied, his voice crackling through the static on the communicator’s frequency.

“Just beam us the hell outta here. Me and Kirk.”

“L’il too much ta drink, mates?”

“Now, Scotty.”

Kirk felt a familiar pulling sensation somewhere deep within his chest, and suddenly the wall behind him was gone, and the dim, humming glow of the street lamps was replaced by the crisp, white light of the transporter room.

“Holy mum o’ God, Bones,” Scotty said, gaping at Kirk, “Wha’ happened ta him?”

“Bar fight,” mumbled McCoy tersely, as he half-carried, half-dragged the bruised, bleeding and thoroughly drunken Kirk towards sick bay.

He forced Kirk, who protested lamely, up onto an examination table and pulled out his tricorder, scanning him over. He figured that most of his injuries were visible, but the procedure, by now, had become habit. And apparently, a useful one at that.

The tricorder chirped as he passed it over Kirk’s torso. Kirk made something that sounded, rather embarrassingly, like a woozy giggle at the noise.

McCoy rolled his eyes, and prompted Kirk to lift up his arms. Kirk obliged, and McCoy lifted up the other man’s shirt, pressing gently in the area around his ribcage.

Kirk had to struggle to keep his eyes from snapping wide open in reaction to the sensation, and not only because of the pain. McCoy’s hands were rough, but warm, and in his drunkenness, if he squinted, Kirk could almost imagine that the ears were pointed, the eyebrows were upturned, and the slight flush on the cheeks was green. Kirk swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly painfully dry.

And there it was again, that knotted up lump in his stomach. Apparently, his choice of wonder tonic had done nothing but give him black eye, a cut lip, and a screaming headache.

The feeling had been coming and going for days. Ever since Commander Spock and Lieutenant Uhura had quietly ended their relationship. It was as if the newfound and awkward (but decidedly normal and expected) tension that crackled between the former lovers as they eased into being mere friends and coworkers again was some sort of stomach flu that kept repeatedly infecting the Captain. His own carefully suppressed feelings suddenly seemed more real, less escapable now because of it. While Spock had been with Uhura, he had been safe. There was no reason to think about those feelings because there would be no point to acting on them.

Kirk was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of McCoy’s chiding voice. “As I thought, a cracked rib. You’ve really done a number on yourself this time, Captain.” He tugged Kirk’s shirt back down and guided his arms back down by his sides. “I’ll give you some painkillers for that in the morning, once the alcohol is out of your system. For now, just drink down this glass of water.”

Kirk downed the glass in a few gulps, and looked dazedly up at McCoy, before clumsily touching his fingers to the left side of his torso. “It feelsh fine, Bonesh,” he slurred out.

“That’s because the alcohol is numbing the pain, dimwit.”

“Oh.”

“C’mon,” McCoy said walking towards the door leading out of sick bay. Let’s get you to your quarters before the rest of the crew sees you like this. There’s just something about slurred speech, bloody noses, and drooling that doesn’t say ‘authority.’”

Kirk followed him, downing a few more glasses of water once he was alone in his room, and then laid down on the soft surface of his bed, trying to sleep, but thinking instead of a certain quiet, reserved, First Officer with pointy ears, upturned eyebrows, and a soft green flush on his cheeks.

Kirk pressed a hand over his eyes, which were now tender and swollen, and groaned.

“Pointy-eared bastard,” he muttered, wishing he had a few more shots of whisky to tame that persistent lump in his belly.

* * *

About an hour had passed since McCoy had guided Kirk back to his quarters, and the bruised young man was still lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling tiles above his bed. Time was ticking by with record slowness, and Kirk was getting tired of lying around waiting to either fall asleep or sober up, whichever came first.

He had never been so unnerved by being alone with his thoughts as he was tonight. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe it was just something in the air, but he couldn’t seem to control the wanderings of his mind. He thought back to that fight on the bridge, nearly a year ago now, the long, white fingers of Spock’s warm Vulcan hand curled around his neck with crushing force, his head pressed uncomfortably against the metal edge of the data screen.

Absently, he touched his own neck, as if the ghost of those fingers was still there. Gentler, softer this time – matched by a voice thick with a much different emotion.

He sighed and rolled out of bed, wincing at the growing pain on the left side of his torso. He was torturing himself. He was Captain of a starship, not a twelve year old girl. He stumbled across the room to the replicator to get a cup of coffee. Not that that would do anything to help his insomnia, but he hoped (fruitlessly) that it would at least sober him up a little.

He took quick, short sips of the liquid, letting it rest on his tongue just long enough to burn a little before swallowing it. He reached a hand back to steady himself as he leaned against the countertop of his small kitchen, but was startled by a knock at the door, and slipped, spilling some of the hot liquid down his front.

“Damn,” he cursed out between gritted teeth, the coffee stinging his skin and mixing with the smatters of blood on his badly crumpled t-shirt. He grabbed a dish-towel to try to dry himself off a little, and grunted a sharp, “Come in.”

Kirk looked up through blurry eyes that snapped open wide once they came into focus.

“Spock?”

“Captain,” the Vulcan replied.

“What are you doing here?” Kirk blurted, bewildered and taken off-guard.

“Doctor McCoy informed me that you were involved in an altercation while off-ship this evening,” Spock replied calmly, “I felt it my duty as your First Officer, and as your friend, to inquire as to your well-being.”

“But it’s like…two in the morning, or something,” Kirk said, glancing around for the nearest clock.

“I asked the computer if you were still in a state of wakefulness before I decided to disturb you.”

Kirk smirked.

“Well, I can assure, you Spock, aside from a few bruises and what will probably be a raging hangover tomorrow morning, I’m fine.”

“Doctor McCoy informed me that you fractured a rib.”

“Ah, yeah, that too,” Kirk muttered, grinning sheepishly.

“He also said that you seemed like you were in some sort of emotional distress, earlier in the evening.”

Kirk shut his eyes, desperately wanting to avoid that question, and embarrassed that other people had picked up on his growing agitation. Fortunately, Spock saved him from trying to formulate a response.

“Permission to speak freely, Captain.”

“Of course, Spock,” Kirk said, slurring his ‘s’ only slightly. “Permission granted.”

Spock frowned slightly, mulling over his thoughts, before speaking. “While I understand that such,” Spock paused, hesitating momentarily, “undisciplined behavior was typical of you before your entry into Starfleet and for some time thereafter, I was under the impression that since you assumed the position of Captain aboard this vessel you had…matured.”

Spock’s face was expressionless, save for a slight hint of uneasiness twitching around the corner of his lips.

“Are you reprimanding me, Commander?” Kirk retorted, his tone of voice ambiguous, though his battered face was set in an expression that was decidedly displeased.

“No, Jim,” Spock said quickly. “I am simply concerned for your—for your—well-being.” Spock found the sentence difficult to finish, as if he was expressing too much, revealing some forbidden sentiment.

Kirk’s face softened both from Spock’s expression of worry and his use of his first name, and a large drunken grin threatened to spread its way across his face. He suppressed it, allowing himself only a brief upturn of the right side of his mouth, and a thinly disguised hiccup. He started to chuckle softly, but a sharp, fiery pain that pulsed out from somewhere in his left torso stopped the sound before it could even start. He doubled over slightly and groaned.

Spock was instantly by his side, guiding him towards his bed.

“We can discuss this later, Jim, if you wish. The best thing now would be for you to get some sleep,” he said sternly, “You’ll be needed on the bridge early tomorrow morning.”

“I can’t sleep, Spock.”

“Why?” the first officer asked blankly, as if he’d never had trouble sleeping in his entire life.

Kirk paused, attempting to straighten himself to his full height, and looked Spock in the eyes, his mind racing. He opened his mouth, unsure of what to say, and stuttered out a few unintelligible words before thinking better of it. This was beyond words.

And besides, the whiskey running through his veins had given him an even more brash and impulsive courage than usual.

So, instead, he reached up, groaning slightly at the effort, and curled his fingers around the nape of Spock’s neck, much like the way Spock had once curled his around the front of Kirk’s. But gentler, softer.

And he kissed him. A little more roughly than he’d intended, but that was because he was being quick, hasty, believing that somehow, that would make this easier.

As he had expected, Spock backed quickly away, a barely controlled look of confusion and shock fighting its way onto his face.

“Captain, this unacceptable and illogical. You’ve merely ingested too much…”

“It wasn’t unacceptable when it was between you and Uhura,” Kirk retorted, “What makes this any different?”

Spock fell silent, and glanced around the room as if he momentarily believed that he could make the situation disappear by simply ignoring it. For him, lying was difficult, and he worried that saying anymore might reveal feelings that he had, until now, managed to keep under impeccable control.

Finally, he spoke, this time convinced he had some sort of logical answer to Kirk’s question. “You are intoxicated, Captain, and therefore unable to make use of your regular capacities and powers of reasoning, or fully understand the consequences of your actions.”

“I’m sober enough now to know what I’m doing,” Kirk mumbled pressing his lips against Spock’s again, this time a little more assuredly.

Kirk had expected another leveled retort, but instead, Spock slowly, tentatively – almost reluctantly – returned the kiss, allowing his lips to part just far enough that he could savor the bittersweet tang of whiskey and the salty, coppery taste of half-dried blood on Kirk’s lips.

Kirk responded by easing his first officer up against the wall and snaking his hands up underneath the rough blue wool of his sweater, resting them against the warm flesh of Spock’s lower back. He attempted to deepen the kiss, but Spock pulled away, a smile tugging mercilessly at his usually calmly restrained features.

“But your still drunk, James Kirk,” Spock said, one eyebrow slightly raised, “And if you regret this in the morning, I’ll take no responsibility in the matter.”

“I won’t regret this,” Kirk said gruffly, pulling the Vulcan in for another kiss, “You can count on that. Just be careful with my ribs.”

Spock smiled ever so slightly, something like laughter whispering past his lips, and leaned in to place a tentative, feathery kiss of the corner of Kirk’s swollen lips.

Yes, James Tiberius Kirk was drunk.

Really drunk.

And in the very best way.