In which Kirk and Spock have had sex half a dozen times, but this time it counts.

Jim's pretty sure he's got mutiny right now. He's got a lapful of mutiny.

Bones pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, let me get it straight. A good chunk of the crew saw you and the hobgoblin trying to suck each other's faces off, but you're insisting that you've never kissed and that you're just friends. Oh, and let's not forget the little detail that both of you have girlfriends."

Kirk and Spock temporarily have charge of a kid.

He knew the calm before a storm when he saw it. And one had been brewing for weeks now.

Traumatized by his experience on Tarsus IV, Jim Kirk runs away to Vulcan to undergo kolinahr.

This is not exactly what Jim thought the 'exploring strange new worlds and exotic civilizations' was about. Also, Vulcans are kind of crazy. Jim and Spock go through a alien ritual, which, yes, changes everything -- he's hoping for the better. Spock just wants to get through this with his sanity, if not his dignity, mostly intact.

Non-Starfleet AU. Jim owns a small bar in Chicago, keeps on picking up strays and taking care of everyone no matter how hard it makes his own life. Spock is a journalist writing feature articles for the Chicago Tribune; he depicts the world with uncanny skill, but hides more than one personal drama and is possibly under surveillance from the Vulcan royal family. They meet by accident just before their lives start to spin out of control.

Jim Kirk, a man of long drives and large personality, stumbles into a career in the PGA Tour. Fame, fortune and notoriety await him as Jim collects national media attention, groupies, a new best friend, the ire of the first lady of pro golf, and also, maybe, the love of his life.

Jim Kirk got to grow up hearing about how his dad was the very ideal of a crusader for justice, a man who'd made the ultimate sacrifice for the lives and sovereignty of other beings.

So of course, Jim said fuck the hippies and went to law school.

"What are you doing?" said Kirk when Spock started taking off his shirt.

If a Vulcan has an emotional reaction, and there’s no one around to see it, does it still have any significant impact?

Kirk was born in space, he sleeps best there. Lately, though, he has felt a new kind of restlessness in his bones. His sleep is interrupted by dreams, by reliving moments of a life that isn’t his.

For a genius, you’re a goddamn idiot.

Because this is a normal relationship that progresses along normal lines at a normal speed. Because either of them even knows what a normal relationship might look like.

I am aware that you may not rely on these testimonials in order to appoint me, but the Admiralty will require sufficient documentation to verify my commission.

Jim's been taking fencing lessons from Sulu for over a month when Arthur Pendragon comes on board.

The first time it happens, it just, sort of, well, it happens. He's sitting on the bridge, and they're kind of talking, but mostly just barking orders at everyone who'll listen because it's a bit of an emergency, and Kirk's got something about crew morale in the back of his mind because he's a damn good captain. And he's thinking about making them laugh, but he's also thinking about making sure they don't all die in the next ten minutes.

Starfleet first officers did not regress to childhood without at least submitting prior warning to their commanding officers. They'd theme:established that after the whole Pon Farr mess last year. There were rules about Vulcan biology and scaring the hell out of Jim now. This had to be in violation of at least three of them.

As much as Kirk tried not to let himself be influenced by old Spock's memories of the future, even he had to admit that he was having difficulty. It wasn't any specific event that bothered him, but the whole tone of the bridge was different. Spock was different. In old Spock's memories, Kirk had felt the two of them like two halves of a single whole, two sides of the same coin. They worked together like a well-oiled machine. He barely had to give an order before Spock had already carried it out, often anticipating him even before Kirk himself knew he was going to make the request. But that was old Spock and his Kirk. This was different, and after experiencing that sort of connection, the difference was frustrating.

James Kirk, growing up in two very different universes.

He is somewhat reluctant to admit it, but he and Spock still aren’t actually friends. Jim doesn’t fight with him any more – they work together well enough on the bridge, and there’s been no punches thrown since that first time. When he turns to Spock after Scotty (or, God help him, Chekov) has explained something that would be incomprehensible even without the accent, Spock translates. He’s even lost about fifty-percent of the mild condescension. Jim can deal with the other fifty-percent; he’s had enough women berate him for his arrogance to understand a healthy pride in your own abilities. It’s the other times that bother him.

Kirk nearly turns a simple trade mission into a diplomatic incident. Luckily, Spock will do a lot to cover his captain's ass.

"It isn't until things quiet down-- really quiet down-- that Kirk is able to let his brain come out of action mode and start processing everything that's happened to him."

"You showed a remarkable ability to function commendably even after enduring great physical stress."

Jim was never prone to insomnia. Not during his incredibly rigorous course-load at the Academy. Not the night before he broke into the lab to reprogram the computer to let him beat Spock’s little no-win scenario. Not ever, when it came down to it. So the idea that Jim was having sleepless nights because the Enterprise was on its first mission, which was a simple ferry ride to bring the Andorian Ambassador back to Andoria, was ludicrous in the extreme. Especially in light of the fact that it was only a few weeks since Jim and the Enterprise had saved Earth and pretty much the rest of the Federation along with it and that hadn’t kept him from sleeping. Then again… he was only acting Captain then and this mission was official…

"If the Captain requires someone to monitor his diet and activities until he is more stable, I will volunteer for such a duty," Spock says, and that's where it starts.

"I am, as you know, aware of your relationship with your Captain. Were our people not so endangered I would not ask this of you. But with the future of the Vulcan race in dire jeopardy, I must request that you return to New Vulcan to take part in the koon-ut-kal-if-fee with a new mate of our choosing."

Jim is-- it hurts. It fucking hurts and he's going to die, this time-- he knows because Bones is shouting and Uhura's eyes look too shiny and Spock is leaning over him, saying "Captain, you--" and nothing else and his father always said command was a heavy burden but this is-- more."

It was clever, Kirk thinks, shackling them within reach of each other. Your garden-variety evil aliens would've known to chain them up so they could see each other-- that's a piece of cake to an experienced torturer-- but this, tying them up with enough give on the chains so they can reach out to each other-- is really cruel.

Who knows James T. Kirk better than James T. Kirk?

"We’re getting your seat back."

They had taught him all about the physical size of it in the Academy, of course; he knew that the Galaxy was about twenty-five kiloparsecs across, which was the length of the old Route 66 about 2 x 1014 times over. He'd worked that out once, doodled in the margin of his notebook in class, but he still hadn't really comprehended it. Because every time it was impressed on him just how monumentally vast space was, all he heard was the potential for new planets to explore, new life and civilizations to find. And while that was true, he had never really grasped that in between lay vast expanses of emptiness.

"I'm afraid I am not familiar with that expression, Mr. Scott. What do you mean by 'they have got no balls?'"

"How’s it going?" the instructor asks, her voice a harmony, hovering nearby.

"Futilely," Spock volunteers at the same time Jim says, "Shitty."

It is the third mission of his command, and Captain James T. Kirk suspects he is going insane.

"I have already made it clear that my desire is not to engage in this activity with Nyota, nor has it ever been. I was unaware that this was something she would require of me."

When the Enterprise is asked to transport Vulcan colonists to their new home, Spock Prime comes with them. His presence changes everything – and leads to life-altering revelations for Jim and Spock.

So you've fucked Spock. Now what? In which word travels at warp speed on the Enterprise, Spock ponders the intricacies of human humor, and Jim Kirk still doesn't know where his towel is.

"You are in love. Wait, should I put this in something you’ll understand?" Bones clears his throat, stands up taller, and folds his hands behind his back, raising a single eyebrow. "Fascinating, Cadet. It seems you have taken an infatuation to another person of superior status to you in the Academy."

At times, the images anger him. The man who put them there angers him. What gave him the right to leave him shaking and weak and compromised? What right did he have to force his own, alternate reality onto him? Where did he get off making him see things he could never…

Jim quickly figures out he has to break the rules if he’s going to survive on the Enterprise.

"Spock. Just say 'I don't trust Starfleet not to mess up the only captain in the fleet who I can train up to my expectations and enjoys running into danger wearing a blindfold as much as I do'."

There was something devastatingly cute about the mix of wide brown eyes, pale skin, pointed ears, and neat hair cut when packaged in a body barely over three feet tall and swimming in a blue science uniform top and dark undershirt that was entirely too big for his body.

If there were ever a definition of too much of a good thing, Spock showing up in his office with a second Jim Kirk while the first one was licking his swollen lips and grinning like a demon.

Two years later, the pon farr finally catches up with them.

Some people would like to call Winona Kirk a martyr, but martyrs don't get to see their sacrifices pay off.

"It was also brought to my attention that after marooning you on an ice planet and attempting to strangle you to death, failing to speak out for your defense would make me, in the popular vernacular, a douche."

"He's two hundred years old and tired, Jim," Bones answered sarcastically. "I'm surprised he hasn't broken down before this."

The Kobayashi Maru: how and why Jim Kirk hacked it.

"Now, Doctor,' Spock went on. "The advantage to a quick ceremony is that there's no opportunity to develop 'cold feet.' I suggest not being the voice of anything."

Kirk needs to get married for political reasons. Spock offers himself as the logical choice.

Spock needs Jim's help with a little experiment.

He wakes up with Spock's hand on his hip. Naked hip. Huh. Well, this is interesting.

However, it would, in fact, be illogical for you to beam down as the acting submissive. As you are captain of the vessel, they will expect you to be the "alpha male," so to speak.

You get two alpha types together, and there are going to be fireworks. There always have been, even back when they hated each other. Jim likes fireworks, and these are better than most.

This was why he was captain, and also awesome.

Jim couldn’t control the shit-eating grin on his face. He probably looked like a whack job, but so the fuck what? He was on shore leave and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy every minute of it. There was something incredibly simple and fun about grocery shopping.

Jim has a pet. His pet is not a Vulcan. It is not even a half-Vulcan. Jim's pet is a Tribble.

Contrary to popular belief, James Tiberius Kirk has not slept with the entire crew of the USS Enterprise. No, really.

In which Kirk gets beaten like a rented mule behind a bar, sulks about it for a significant period of time, is forced to endure Spock in eyeliner, and points that no one is ever going to buy what Spock's selling -- unless they train him up a bit.

Wherein Spock and Kirk, now married, meet up with Spock Prime once more, and Kirk considers the nature of his relationship with his first officer.

"Damnit, Spock, we're your friends, not some human laboratory specimens!"

It’s not every day you catch a Vulcan jerking himself off.

"If I enable your uncalled for territorial masculine paranoia, do you promise not to bother me at work for a month?"

"I mean, obviously I can get one in your size, and the computer’s designed to handle lots of different species, so your torso shape won’t be an issue, either. There’s a couple of slight style variations, depending on the physical attributes of the crewman—you want to look through and take your pick?"

One day, Bones brings a dongly machine thing into Jim's room and sets it up on Jim's table and then looks Jim in the eye and says, "Jim, quid pro quo."

"Do people actually buy that line from you?"

Kirk is thinking a lot of things right now. The first thing to pop into his head is that he should kiss Bones. But really, he shouldn't, because that would get messy and Bones would probably jam a hypospray in him for going bonkers, and Spock might be tempted to strangle him, and he can't have his CMO dying of asphyxiation because it looks bad on the Captain's log and reflects poorly on his annual Starfleet review. So he shouldn't kiss Bones, but he'd like to.

While it is highly improbable, due to fundamental gravitational interactions, for a stable planetary body to take the shape of a finite convex disc rather than the more common oblate spheroid, it is not physically impossible for the accretionary process to create--

This story was inspired by the barrage of debate at st_xi_kink -- surprisingly chatty for a supposed kink meme -- as to who tops, Kirk or Spock, and modelled (with permission) on the incomparable astolat's response to the equally burning question re Sam and Dean in Supernatural.

"Incredible gay sex, keptain."

The answer is √π233/hy7. Has been for all three months of the first semester. Jim's not sure why the galaxy's best and brightest haven't realize that, but it's not his school, not his problem.

"It would seem that a side-effect of this repression is that all of my sexual urges have been repressed as well. This is not uncommon, as most Vulcans only mate when biologically driven to."

Since Jim was sixteen, he'd refused to go home for the night if Mom brought someone home. At first it'd been so Mom didn't have guys staying over as much, but now he was twenty-two, it'd become a courtesy. Silently, she paid him the same. They had a system all worked out, unspoken but up til now infallible.

“Oh, no, this test isn’t for you. The wager is for you. The test is for your young counterparts...do you believe in fate?"

Jim’s first thought upon waking is that everything has gone completely, mysteriously, and catastrophically pink.

In a timeline where the Vulcans never allowed Earth freedom from their oversight, Jim Kirk doesn't fit in. All he needs to get away is a fast ship and a crew as crazy as he is; luckily, some things are universal constants.

“Hit me. Just do it. One free shot.”

Seven months into their five year stint aboard the Enterprise, Jim's meld with Ambassador Spock comes back to bite him in the ass.