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.

It took twenty minutes to track Mystique down once he decided he needed her, the Brotherhood's Genosha base a sprawling complex that spanned half of the island. He found her in the planning and ops room, bent, half sprawled, across the briefing table.

"Professor Xavier is giving the keynote address at the Symposium this year," he said without preamble.

Charles tried to calm her, to reason with her, but she was shouting, calling Raven a beast, a devil, and then she was charging at Raven with a knife in her hand. Charging at both of them, really, for Charles was standing in front of his sister protectively, attempting to shield her with his hands and his mind. All it did was make her scream at him, too.

He didn’t think of changing his mother’s memories, of making her forget she’d ever seen the blue skin that made her turn a knife on his sister, he only thought of running, Raven’s hand clasped tightly in his, as far as they could go.

Crowley tipped the plastic bag full of water into the bowl and watched with some satisfaction as the goldfish slid out. It made a tiny plunck as it hit the water, righted itself, and came face to face with another fish, known as The Great White Bastard, Jaws of Steaming Hot Death, Tour Guide of the River Styx, Gilled Terror, and Your Ass Between My Teeth.

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.

He's not himself. Then, though his face doesn't move in the here and now, he feels himself give a low, soft chuckle. He hears it, and doesn't recognize the sound. Then the older Kirk claps his shoulder and squeezes it and says through the laughter, "Spock, you didn't really think I--"

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…

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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

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.

This isn't quite where Winona Kirk expected to be at this point in her life even as recently as a week ago. Change itself isn't frightening to her, but she's taking--has taken, here--a step that's likely to create tensions with her sons.

Amanda has been keeping something from him; Sarek finds out why.

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…

"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'."

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

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

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

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

Had he been human, he would have been well into what qualified as ‘infirm’ - seventy or eighty years old, where some humans simply can’t look after themselves. Instead, Spock is a vulcan of eighty years, still with dark, impenetrable eyes and a sharp mind and the strength to take down a battalion of klingons.

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.

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.

Detective Spock, born on Vulcan and resident of San Francisco, is assigned to the Midwest police bureau. I think everyone can guess what happens next.

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

"Well, I don't want to intrude or anything but -- I've been kidnapped. Nothing major yet, just some light torture, the usual."

He is four years old. His father is dead, his father’s people glad to be rid of the traitor. He has only his mother and his mind, and both seem liable to break.

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.

"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."

The Enterprise is ordered to pick up a Vulcan Healer and transport him to the new colony. Once there they are scheduled to remain and assist with the early stages of setting up the colony. Kirk's liaison is his 'old friend' Ambassador Spock, now known as Elder Sepak, who takes the opportunity to help Kirk and Spock become better acquainted.

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.

When he says she got the planet in the divorce, he means it.

When he'd lost Jim, he'd thought that that would be the greatest death he would be forced to face; to endure.

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

Sarek does not always understand his son, but that does not mean he does not love him.

Spock's been played. He doesn't mind too much.

"Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock’s face that he’s never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."

AKA 'The One Where Spock Prime is a Matchmaker'; but be warned that it's as much about Spock Prime and matchmaking as TOS is about modes of technology in the 23rd century.

There's a reason New Vulcan doesn't have all-night wedding chapels, Bones, and it's not because they don't like Elvis.

"Yeah, no, we're not playing analyze the human for fun and profit tonight, thanks. Either get me out of here or get the hell out and I'll figure this out for myself."

Spock accompanies his parents to an Earth resort where Jim Kirk is a dancer. 'Dirty Dancing' redux.

He's been a good Captain. It isn't his own ego talking, although it does tend to echo across the galaxy on a good day. He's seen the peer reviews his crew sent in, seen the overwhelming praise that's been sent to Starfleet on his behalf. And yet here he is on his mostly deserted ship filling out paperwork to send them scattered across the universe because not one of them wishes to remain with him.

Jim awoke to the realization that he couldn't hear his own breath.

Spock is heir to the Federation throne, Jim is Prince of America because his fucking brother abdicated, and the Klingons are on the verge of blowing shit up--a love story.

Charles wakes up to find he's been in a coma for two years, and the world he thought he lived in is a lie. He's still a professor of genetics, but there are no such thing as mutants, there is no such person as Erik Lehnsherr. But why can Charles still read minds?

After the destruction of Vulcan, Spock shielded his mind to protect it from his broken bond with T'Pring. Little did he know another bond had already formed in its place.

"You can't make me love you," Erik thinks, except Charles probably could.

Erik found himself cataloging Charles's foibles because there were so few, and the times when Charles was bothered or ruffled because it happened so infrequently.

Transitioning from "hating each other's guts" to "friends" to something more takes a lot of work, on both their parts, but it isn't until after they start spending the bulk of their free time together that Jim actually bridges the gap between the theoretical knowledge that Spock is a humanoid alien and truly understanding it.

"James T Kirk," Jim says, and sticks his hands in his pockets because Vulcans don't shake hands, and he's pretty sure his fingers don't bend that way.

Granted, he doesn't have much experience with weddings, but Jim Kirk is still fairly sure that you're not supposed to wake up, five hours before you're due at the altar, in bed with your best man.

And having it confirmed, that Spock was actually begging for credits, almost shocked him speechless again. But not quite. "What are you doing here?"