Title: Rhapsody in Rain Part 3/4 ~ The golden body sank down onto the red sand, and the world's dim green colour, which had driven his mind insane for days, disappeared. He came back to his senses, through a release he had yearned after, to realise that it would be better if he should die right there. ~ Why ? Had been the only question he was able to ask. Why? Screamed his soul. One moment before the man was a breathing being, now he changed into a lifeless body, lying there in the red sand and all that he might once have been vanished in a glint of a second. ~ He couldn't bear himself, he couldn't stand there sharing the same space with those who he had once called his own people. He had became a murderer in the name of logic and the old Vulcan traditions. But he had to restrain himself, to not show what had been done to him. No, not in front of them, not in front of her. ~ Only the thoughts in his brain drowned into a chaos, calling, screaming, howling only this word: why? ~ Why? ~ Why, why? ~ Why T'Pring, why, why, why, why...? ~ "Spock!" He sat up, panting hard, shaking, bathed in sweat. "Spock! You were dreaming." The world around him took the contours of a hotel room again. Outside the rain fell, gently knocking on the wet stones of the streets of a strange town. A pair of cool arms embraced him. "Jim..." Spock buried his face in Kirk's shoulder. "It was only a nightmare..." "Jim, you are alive..." "Yes...," Kirk kissed that raven-wing hair, "yes..." Slowly he became aware of their bodies, all sticky from drying sweat and semen. Kirk let go of the Vulcan a bit. "Come," he smiled and stole a feather-light kiss, "come with me." 'Even to the other edge of the universe,' Spock thought. But the place he was gently dragged into, was an immaculate polished bathroom. The hot shower did him good. He stood there, his forehead leaned against the wall, feeling the water pouring down his back. He sighed, when a pair of soaped palms touched him between his shoulder blades, traced along his spine, and then embraced him around his waist. A cool body pressed itself against his own. He turned and met two shiny eyes, framed by spiky lashes. Jim. He couldn't resist the man, being so close to him. He claimed his mouth in a long, slow kiss, never minding the soap running from Jim's hands down his face. This was something that he had never expected would ever happen. This rainy night in a strange town on Earth brushed aside every disturbing thought. It had been days since all his beliefs were shattered in the arena, on red sand. He remembered his walk thereafter - the endless journey from the transporter room to the sickbay through the Enterprise' corridors. Expecting to find a dead body. Jim...! To find him alive had been like a mercy coming from heaven. *You are alive...* He reached for the jar and poured some soap into his palms. Jim melted under his touch, as he gently massaged his shoulders, his arms, moved across the rib-cage, watching the small, rose nipples getting hard. *...alive* He parted his legs slightly, to touch his groin, while he kissed him and his blood sang, when the man hummed into his mouth. He was alive. Jim was alive. This was the only sentence he could repeat, over and over in his mind, while being in awe that he could hold him in his arms, bringing pleasure to this oh-so-sensitive body with every slightest touch. Alive... He reached behind them both to turn the water down. Jim was as if he was in a trance. Limp, melted, he let the Vulcan bring him onto the mat, to dry him with a towel. He simply stood there, looking calm, relaxed, peaceful. This was new to Spock. This beautiful, sensuous man standing here had nothing to do with the powerful captain, who radiated authority in every situation. But to himself, he seemed, too, to be totally bereft of his usual posture of a disciplined and logical First Officer. Nothing in this night was the same. Nor even in his life, since he had been dishonoured by his own people, since he had believed that he had killed the only friend he ever had and since he had embraced him there in the sickbay in front of the others, never minding his uncontrollable emotional outburst. Because Jim was alive. Only this mattered. Only this mattered now in this rainy night, far away from Vulcan and from everything that might disgrace this moment. He lifted his human up, supporting him with his Vulcan strength, waiting for Jim to put his legs around Spock's waist, to entwine his neck with his arms. Then he left the bathroom, carrying out his most treasured weight; he headed toward the window. Carefully he placed the man on the window sill. "You aren't afraid of me any more." "No." "You are alive." "Yes, I am. Do you still doubt it?" "Every time I touch you, I am convinced anew." "My beautiful logical Vulcan." "You are beautiful, so shiny..., so bright... you are..." "Spock..." "Jim, Bright One..." The light of the street lamp shone on Jim's hair, bathed his shoulders in golden light, revealing the scar on his chest. Red, sickle-shaped, made by one single wave of the lirpa. A mark, a sign, that the nightmares he has had frequently, every night since his Koon-ut-kalifee, have been the echo of events which still hadn't gone into the past. He bent down and kissed this red line, caressed it gently with his tongue, then he stopped, simply burying his face in the smooth skin. A cool hand slipped into his hair and gently forced him to look up. The light around Jim changed: the neon sign on the opposite house went on, throwing its blue-green rays. 'Like Vulcan blood', Spock thought for one moment, but then there was only a compact body pressing tightly to his own, rubbing its arousal against his belly. Spock loosened this greedy embrace as gently as he could, then lifted up Jim's hands and spread them between the walls of the window. The human put his legs down, moved onto the edge of the sill, exposing himself completely. Spock took Jim's hips into his hands, to prevent him from falling down. "Don't move", he whispered and then he bent to take the nipples in his mouth, feeling them getting hard, while he gently bit those puckered tops. Jim sobbed and the muscles in his arms and back tightened even more. The hot tongue criss-crossed his chest and belly with wet traces, licking, tickling, tasting the salt of the skin, sliding into the navel, gently squeezing the sensitive spots on the hipbones. Jim's breath got faster, his back arched a little, his hips thrust forward slightly, the erected cock pressing itself against the hollow of Spock's throat. Spock inhaled the scent of musk and soap, while kissing the fine trace of hair which led down from the navel and spread into coppery curls on the flanks, over the groin. He leaned back a little, to look up. Black eyes met green ones. As if in a trance, Jim watched Spock taking him into his mouth. A flash bringing oblivion for a split of a second... ...and a shocked thought thereafter: 'My god, it's him...', while he watched the Vulcan close his eyes for a moment. Savouring the taste. Nothing in his life had prepared Spock for this. Dimly he remembered that he had read something about it. Here and there. But his interests were different in those days, aeons, years ago, as he had prided himself on being rational and logical, only wondering about the irrational nature of sexuality. He himself had been different, the time and the universe were different... Until the fever came, and changed all. He squeezed those smooth, cool hips in his hands and moved his tongue across the tip of the cock, tracing the small cleft. The human sighed in response, a sigh of pleasure. Eager to hear more, Spock let his tongue move down the hard shaft, until he felt the faint hair tickling his nose. He licked the place at the base, feeling the hips shifting. He tightened the grasp around them, his yearning for more growing inside of him, while the smell of Jim intoxicated his senses. He could spend centuries doing nothing else except for kneeling in front of him, nuzzling and kissing the human's warm flanks. Jim sobbed again - a sound most sweet in the Vulcan's ears. Spock moved his mouth down to the groin, being aware of the silky cock brushing his cheek. Again this sob, as he licked a line across the heavy sack. Bringing pleasure to the being above him. The moan increased in intensity, the hips under his hands writhed more strongly this time. This was unbearable. He lifted his head and took the cock into his mouth again, deeper this time. He didn't care about the gagging he had to suppress, while he sucked harder and harder, noticing only the incredible taste on his tongue, the cries of pleasure, the hips, which he had to prevent from thrusting deeper into him. But suddenly he had to back off, to catch some breath. He released the cock for a moment... and right then, Jim came. Too late to pull aside... the hot seed shot into his face, onto his throat and shoulder. "Chestnuts", he thought, when he licked his lips. He looked up, to see Jim lying in the corner of the window, limp and spent, his back leaning against the cool glass. Spock released the hips, moved his palms down the pale golden thighs, burying his face in their skin, listening to the soft sound of the rain. The soft whisper of falling drops, the surreal light of the neon sign, the hot breath against his thigh, this all increased the silence of the room. Kirk moved, trying to wake his limbs up enough to get off the sill. The Vulcan loosened his embrace around his legs and let him slide down. Both men remained silent. Somehow words were unnecessary right now. The human lifted his hand and wiped the drying semen off Spock's face, but somehow he managed to smear it farther into the black hair. The Vulcan sighed. A desperate sound, that they were apart for so long: some endless second. He swayed forward, putting his head on Kirk's shoulder. The rain sang in its softest voice to them. *i should be ashamed. but i'm not. i have broken every rule, which i have followed my whole life without any doubt. i should regret what happened, but i don't. * 'My friend, what happened to you, to us? I can't recognise you. I have never thought to see you so naked, so revealed, so vulnerable. Where did it come from? Why you? And why me?' *illogical, how the corridor seemed to be empty, as i went to the sickbay. i remember every step, every bowed corner, every opened door.* 'I waited for you. I was sitting on the biobed, ignoring Bones' 'morale-building' quotes, while my attention was focused on the door. The waiting was endless, unbearable. At last, I almost thought that you would never come.' *nothing matters, this was the only thought in my mind. everything i had thought was important, faded away from my mind. it couldn't be compared with the horrible reality, that awaited me at the end of this endless journey.* 'Still the door remained closed...' *hold on, was the only urge, that prevented me from breaking down in front of the crew members. this i allowed myself only in the loneliness of the turbolift, as the pain struck me down, forcing me mercilessly to go to my knees. in the last moment i managed to hit the button, to stop the lift between the decks...* 'I thought that you had stayed back on Vulcan, unable to come to me, to face me. I grew almost angry at this thought.' *...and then i bit the knuckles of my fingers, to not to scream aloud. how long did i remain there? i don't know. minutes, hours, years...? i have always prided myself on my ability to know the exact time. i lost it in that moment, of kneeling on the bottom of the turbolift. but i had to continue in this walk, to reach the sickbay, to see you for the last time. somehow i felt, that at least this was the only thing i still owed to you, if nothing else then this...* 'Finally you were here. I felt relief, that I could tell you that the nightmare was over. And then you smiled, and embraced me, and I realised that you had changed. No, I hadn't imagined that this would leave you untouched, but I never realised how much it would affect you. It was as if it had been my friend, who had gone for good. The man in front of me was almost a stranger.' *a part of me had died in the arena on the red sand...* 'I started to avoid you, because of the nightmares, which returned every night, because of the strange man you have become and I haven't any idea how to deal with this, how should I deal with you.' *growing up causes pain. growing up means to lose the innocence -- a part of everyone, which never comes back. the fever is the sign of the change from a child to an adult man. * 'Something in us went for good...' *since then i have dreamed every night about you. you have repeatedly died on the red sand, or i have finally reached the sickbay, and you are lying there motionless, lifeless. every time then i awake bathed in sweat. but this isn't all. sometimes i have dreamed about an awareness, which was here, but simultaneously unreachable. i felt sadness and pain in the empty place in my mind, where once a whisper of her thoughts was. i awoke and the pain didn't vanish. i felt the emptiness in me, my bed was a mess, the wetness drying on my thighs...* 'What happened to you? To us? To be here with you is so strange, to hold you seems to be so unreal, I don't understand myself. I don't understand the pain in me, so great, so sweet, which makes me almost cry.' *before that i was a child. my beliefs were those of a child. the fever killed the boy who once thought that there was nothing else but his rules of logic, and nothing could ever shatter them. a naive thought. those beliefs are dust in this moment, when the old things are non-existent and the new ones still aren't formed, when the universe has been thrown out of its route, only you remained there, and me, and the rain, in a place bereft of time.* 'This night seems to have a certain spell. Neither you nor I are able to escape the magic of this moment. The rain behind this window is telling us stories about couples of fools, who have brushed all away, sold their minds for some moments of fierce embraces, never thinking about the consequences in the morning. Because those hours are still far away. Only the power of now rules, and the sensation of your skin on my own.' *the flames were gone, only a spark of them is in me now. a memento, that the time of dim green fever will return, every seven years. and the knowledge of longing, desire and need, in me. only your presence is what matters, and my need. * 'I have hungered after so many beings in my life. I have hungered after them, took them and then sated myself. Sometimes I have looked back, sometimes I have felt the loss, but never regrets. I feel my hunger for you. But this time I'm afraid too, that if I take you, I will lose myself in you and never find the way back to myself. But I can't resist you...' *i need you... * 'I'm afraid of us...' *i need you...* 'Spock, what will this bring?' *jim...* 'I can't...' *you are alive...* 'Oh my god...' *i need you...* '...' *...alive...*