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major-comet · 1 month

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bones and spock both strike me as people who are likely to skip breakfast in the morning. they both know better, of course, but some habits are hard to kick. maybe it’s morning nausea, maybe they’re trying to squeeze just a bit more work into their day - who knows

they both notice, however, that jim seems to be a bit twitchier on the days where spock skips breakfast to go to the labs for a bit before reporting to the bridge. or mornings where bones shows up just to have some coffee and nothing else. it’s not super noticeable, they probably only notice because they pay a Lot of attention to him, but he’s just a bit jumpier, a bit more distracted

maybe they discuss it with each other, maybe they both notice it independently. maybe it’s something they noticed about him even before the 5 year mission, but just really fell into place after they semi-established their breakfast routine. he’s usually fine after lunch anyways, and he doesn’t generally get like that if they just skip lunch or dinner. spock tested this, of course. logically.

so it’s probably not worth worrying about; just a weird little quirk of their captain’s. but they start trying to be a bit better about making themselves eat at least an apple or something with jim before work every morning. it seems to get better, and the new habit is mostly sticking, so they kinda stop thinking about it

that doesn’t last, of course. ‘conscience of the king’ happens. they learn about jim and kodos and tarsus, and now all of a sudden the prospect of jim being in a weird mood whenever the two of them skip breakfast seems to be a much higher priority.

because if they skip breakfast, jim has no way of knowing for certain if they’ve eaten anything until at least lunch - if not dinner, if they’re too busy to have a proper lunch break together. jim, who probably regularly went without food to make absolutely sure that kevin riley and the others had something to eat, because making sure everyone else is okay is far more important to him.

i don’t think they really talk about it, after. at least not for another few years. but they stop skipping breakfast.

#comet posting #tarsus iv #i’m a true believer of the idea that they get breakfast together before their shifts start #star trek #star trek tos #dr mccoy #spock #james t kirk #bones mccoy #leonard mccoy #jim kirk #mckirk #spirk #mcspirk #the triumvirate

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wizard-amulang · 10 months

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highschool au Jim Kirk 💛

Here I decided to draw different highschool!Jims. In fact, they are all perfect, nerds, traumatized by tarsus. It's just different for everyone

Let me know if you want something similar with Spock

#star trek #james t kirk #fanart #aos kirk #aos spirk #spirk #jim kirk #james tiberius kirk #captain kirk #high school au #jim kirk with glasses #tarsus iv #star trek reboot #star trek fanart

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the-starshit-enterprise · 10 months

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Star Trek after dropping the most important part of Kirk’s backstory in one episode and never bringing it up again 😹

#rewatching this is way sadder after reading his autobiography #the conscience of the king #tarsus iv #james t kirk #st tos #star trek tos #star trek #kirk #jim kirk #james kirk #captain kirk

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firstofficerkittycat · 3 months

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in stressful situations jim will say shit under his breath like we're never getting off this fucking planet and spock will touch his arm and whisper in his ear what year it is and he'll be like oh

#tarsus iv #ptsd kirk #k/s #spirk

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per1w1nkl3 · 4 months

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theres something so special to me about kirk being incredibly private, unhealthily so, he alone going his way doing what he feels is right. it's exhausting but it's what he's always done, it's what he must do.

but spock and mccoy, they notice there's something wrong, they meet up, try to to find out what it is and how to help.

spock might not know much about human emotions but he knows loneliness and he knows guilt and he would never want jim, his brilliant captain to feel that.

so spock, the cold, emotionless vulcan goes to his quarters and talks to him stern but kindly. he erases his memory, he's always ready to be by his side no matter what.

the both of them would see stars born and die before they'd willingly let anything happen to jim

#star trek #star trek tos #spock #james t kirk #james kirk #spirk #tos spirk #leonard mccoy #bones mccoy #conscience of the king #tarsus iv #the empath #requiem for methuselah

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emptyjunior · 4 months

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Undergoing the 6 month cycle where I can't stop thinking about Tarsus IV and baby Jim

Oh James, his father's fancy ship and fancy medals couldn't save him

#star trek #tarsus iv #jim kirk #fanart #spock #k/s #james kirk #art

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favvn · 7 days

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Idk. Just. Jim Kirk, death, and life after Tarsus IV.

#star trek tos #tarsus iv #jim kirk #the conscience of the king #a taste of armageddon #this side of paradise #errand of mercy #who mourns for adonais?#holding back on the “it's all about tarsus iv? always has been” meme bc that's how i keep watching episodes #drawing parallels and recontextualizing as always #tos parallels

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anewstartrekfan · 6 months

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People need to stop trying to logic Conscience of the King

“Of course it’s Kodos why is Jim such an idiot?”

Because he doesn’t want to confront his trauma. Edit: and Jim is worried vengeance is clouding his judgement.

“Why didn’t they just do a DNA test?”

Because all the authorities had was a body so badly burned it wasn’t even confirmed Kodos. So comparing any DNA to what they had STILL would’ve failed. Also this was written in the 60s before DNA testing was widely used.

“Why was a 13 year old Jim even on tarsus iv?”

That’s for Jim to know and Jim to tell. And Jim made it very clear he does not like talking about this. Big picture is he was there, survived, and witnessed a genocide.

#star trek #star trek tos #james t kirk #tarsus iv #conscience of the king

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scetcher6 · 1 year

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Our minds are one

#Spock #Kirk #James Kirk #jim kirk #tos spirk #Spirk #Star Trek #Star Trek TOS #Mind Meld #Star Trek fanart #My god I love them #The brainrot is real #tarsus iv #i chaya #Vulcan #Earth #Space Husbands #Gay

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qwertyisqueen · 4 months

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I love Star Trek because we know a lot about Spock (I love Spock, don’t take this the wrong way) but we know Jack shit about Kirk’s childhood.

like, we’ve got 2 backstories that they flip flop between. in tos and snw we see mentions of Tarsus IV, and we get little hints as to how it impacted him but nothing concrete

in all Star Trek media, we get that Kirk is from Riverside, Iowa. but we see no mentions of Tarsus IV or Kirk’s childhood besides a couple deleted scenes in AOS with Sam Kirk.

like, it’s just hilarious that there’s this famous media character who’s impacted pop culture for generations but we know little to nothing about his childhood or Tarsus IV.

#Star trek #star trek tos #star trek aos #james t kirk #tarsus iv

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spirk-trek · 4 months

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i love reading about tarsus iv, maybe some tarsus iv angst?

read on ao3 here!

so here it is... i've always thought that the episode 'taste of armageddon' would bring up some dark memories for jim. this is the aftermath.

~*~*~*~

“What did you just say?”

A hush fell over the conference room. Jim pulled his eyes away from an indiscernible point on the wall and watched Spock’s brows descend, his mouth close. An unwarranted surge of impatience unfurled within him.

“What did you say, Mr. Spock?” he asked again.

“I said, Captain, therefore we have no alternative…”

Jim shut his eyes as the world lurched, drowning out the second half of Spock’s sentence just as it had the first time.

“Excuse me, gentleman,” he was saying as he rose to his feet, heading immediately for the doors. He paused before his exit, hand curling into a fist against the wall. He spoke with his back turned. “Continue the briefing without me. I’ll… fill myself in later.”

And with that he found himself back in the brightly lit corridor, barely resisting the urge to raise an arm and shield his eyes.

* * * * *

“Ah- Damn.”

“Captain.”

The burning sensation had already begun to fade as spilt coffee rapidly cooled against Jim’s skin. He hardly felt the prickle of discomfort, the forming blisters left behind, staring detachedly down his body at the stain stretching from chest to thigh. He hadn’t even taken a sip yet. Damn.

The dangling corner of a towel edged into his vision. A hand around it. Blue sleeve. Two gold stripes. Spock.

“Captain, are you-”

“Yes. Fine,” he muttered, sliding the towel from Spock’s grip and beginning to press it to his torso with a wince. He sighed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the coffee cup finally coming to rest against the leg of a table. His ministrations faltered, arm falling back to his side as he watched the dark, black puddle expand over the floor. It reflected nothing, eating away at the space beneath them. A vacuum. Death.

“Jim.”

He jumped, gaze spinning before it found Spock in the room with him again. He forced his shoulders to un-hunch, tried to swallow past dry humiliation climbing his throat, resuming his- He blinked down at the empty hand pressed against his wet uniform. The towel had dropped to the floor at his feet.

Spock seemed to decide against the step he started taking toward him, settling his weight back over his heels.

“Doctor McCoy-”

Jim shook his head. One singular, jerky motion. “No need,” he said curtly, still looking down at the curl of white overlapping the toe of his boot. Droplets of coffee spotted the leather. One, two, three, four…

He shifted into motion, not sure where he was going until he remembered the door. “I’ll stop by my quarters to change. Head straight to the bridge.” He met Spock’s eye for only an instant, and for the first time found himself longing for the unfamiliarity of when they’d first met. When a notch in his brow, the downturned corner of his lips, would have meant nothing to him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed at all.

He cleared his throat and retreated again. “It’s you until I arrive, Mr. Spock. Won’t be long.”

He left his first officer there in the observation lounge, unsure of what had brought them both there in the first place. What he needed was sleep. Tonight. Tonight, he would sleep.

* * * * *

Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV.

Jim tried to call out, but the world was dark. It was nothing but that voice, nothing but the feeling in his chest. The gnawing hunger in his stomach. There was nothing below his feet but the blackness that splashed up over him. Starless. Humid. Burning.

Then, there was horizon.

It began as a deep purple, edging into orange; the orange of an oxygen starved flame, pulling thinner and thinner until it became a vision. A memory. Sunset. They lasted days here in the winter, and Jim remembered his mother telling him how it often felt like living inside an old earth painting.

I can’t wait for you to see it, Jimmy.

The dark world from before continued to recede, bringing dusk colored shapes forward from shadow. Soon, he stood at the center of rubble as far as the eye could see. Fragmented structures loomed, skeletal and silent, like ribcages fossilized in sand. A broken road. Ruins of a once hopeful colony.

Surely you can see that ours is a better way.

Jim abruptly spun toward the sound of a soft cry. A wail, hollow and desperate, carried to him on a wind stinking of fire and decay. It reverberated through the maze of empty alleys, but he didn’t have to search long. He already knew where he would find the small, pale hand extending toward him. He had done this before.

He also knew that when he reached into his pocket, he would find the messily torn piece of bread there. It was about the size of an apple, stale, marked by dirt and red fibers from the inside of his jacket. He did not pick them off before placing it into the boy’s outstretched palm. He watched as the fingers remained still. Stiff. Without touching them, he knew they would be cold, too.

He continued to stare until, with his own shaking fingers, he reached. His stomach shivered with want, but he closed his eyes tight and instead curled his hand around the other’s, closing his grip, pushing it away.

“Go on, take it. Eat. Hurry.”

He was too late, though. He always was.

You will be responsible for an escalation that will destroy everything. Millions of people, horribly killed.

Jim shook his head and pried his eyes open, angry tears distorting his view. He glared down at the bread, at the hand still cradling it, until they no longer swam through bitter salt. Only then did he lean forward and snatch it back, pull it to his chest in one swift motion. His stomach pitched again dangerously at the knowledge of what he held, but he shoved it back into his pocket and stood.

Turning back to the sprawling ruins, he let putrid air push uncut hair back from his face, drying the tracks his tears had left. The ghosts had been awakened, now. They stood in the shadows which grew rapidly thinner even as Jim watched, shrunken by a sun that did not appear in the sky but he knew was there by the way it cooked him in this graveyard. The way heat crawled inside him through his nostrils, forced itself down his throat.

One ghost, the same one as always, stepped toward him. Jim had known him once, had shown him his chess pieces from Estrade Beta, drawn star maps with him in the dirt, but had since spent what felt like a lifetime attempting to forget the protrusion of the boy’s cheekbones. The deep, brown eyes which reminded him of his brother’s. His father’s. Jim took a staggering step toward him through swirls of dust, over piles of rock, but stopped dead in his tracks when the boy’s mouth opened. When those familiar eyes from a lifetime ago contorted in anger and met his.

Are those five hundred people of yours more important than hundreds of millions of innocents?

Jim, wild eyed, took a step backward. This hadn’t happened before. Even when he had begged the ghosts to speak, to hear his apologies, they never did. They never looked at him.

He shook his head. “No. No, you don’t understand-”

Without warning, Jim collided with something at his back and gasped violently, choking on the dead air that filled his lungs. He whipped around, finding nothing but bones collapsing into a meaningless pile, rolling away.

What kind of monster are you?

I'm a barbarian. You said it yourself.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, falling to his knees, fingers shaking above a femur. A rib bone. A skull with two bottomless black eyes. A coffee cup against the leg of a table.

Disaster! Disease! Starvation!

“I’m sorry,” he shook his head as the bones began to tremble, vibrating over the ground. He fell backward over himself, scrambling to get away, but there was no end. This nightmare was a universe, stretching on infinitely for him to live inside. His hands shredded against sharp shards of brick, snapped sandstone walls, shattered existences. His neck cracked as he looked over his shoulder to find the ghosts circling him. Corpses. Shadows of people, gaunt and nameless, condemned to die while he was allowed to live.

Horrible, lingering death!

“I’m sorry! I can’t help you, I don’t know how, I-”

Pain and anguish!

He pulled the bread from his pocket again, curling onto his side and holding it out over himself. An offering. All he had.

That seems to frighten you.

It would frighten any sane man.

Blood soaked into the bread like a sponge, pulling crimson from his bleeding palm. Blooming. Overtaking.

“Please, take it. I don’t want it. Please.”

Tears seared new paths down his cheeks as he waited for hands to find him.

Your life means slow death to the more valued members of the colony.

He waited for the fire, for the funeral. He said goodbye to his parents, to his brother. He waited to be torn apart. Finally, to become a part of that mass grave of a world which stole his youth from him, which still found ways to crawl inside and remind him that the cruelest parts of the universe were often the ones where humans could be found.

There can be no peace. Don't you see? We're a killer species. It's instinctive. It's the same with you.

“No,” Jim choked, shivering. Shaking. Feeling the shame that always came for him in the end.

Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society.

Your execution is so ordered, signed, James Tiberius Kirk.

Then, it was Spock’s voice. Spock. He knew a different man, a different life. He shouldn't be here. He couldn’t be here.

I have no alternative but to sentence you to death, Captain.

But when he opened his eyes, Spock wasn't there. Instead he was clinging to the shoulders of Thomas Leighton with the high pitched drone of an antimatter chamber charging for release at his back, and panic spiraled through his core.

“Don’t look, Tommy,” he begged, and he spun them, bright light flashing behind closed lids. Silence falling like a whip over their heads.

“Don’t look. Don’t look, don’t-”

“Jim!”

Jim’s whole body jerked within itself, a gasp of air filling him as if he’d been underwater, as if he’d never breathed before. He heaved, shook, groaned as nausea threatened to take him in the darkness. The darkness.

“Don’t look, don’t- don’t…”

He watched as his own hands pulled blood down a swath of blue, palms stinging. His eyes widened.

“I didn’t,” he breathed, a dizziness coming over him. He shook his head. “Spock, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to, I-”

Cool hands latched firmly around his wrists, and despite himself, Jim felt the world around him go still in a way that didn’t make him want to destroy it the way he usually did when purgatory released him. He stared, rivulets of blood seeping between thin fingers. Holding him still. Tethering him to reality.

“You have hurt no one. I am here.”

He lifted his eyes, and there Spock was, just as he said. They were on the Enterprise. His ship. Home. On the floor, surrounded by broken glass, chess pieces fallen around them like-

The hands around his wrists flexed, and he was soaring away from the graveyard, soaring away from the half formed retch lodged in his throat. He leaned in, forward, until his forehead made contact with Spock’s shoulder, mind reeling back to that desire of hours ago. How he’d wished for Spock to unlearn all he knew, for him to do the same, for them to be strangers to one another whose pasts did not matter and futures were free not to intertwine.

“I am here with you, Jim," Spock repeated, and Jim collapsed against him, thankful for the simple fact that here would never be there again, and Spock would never be on that list of people he failed all those years ago.

#tarsus iv #james t kirk #fanfiction #request #fanfic #spirk #angst #dark #nightmare #trauma #ptsd #blood #star trek #star trek tos

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trek-tracks · 5 months

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Think I should suggest that this company buy ad time on new episodes of Strange New Worlds?

...or TOS reruns?

HT to Exx for the original picture

#star trek #star trek tos #jim kirk #captain kirk #tarsus iv #tarsus #tarsus and fun are two words i cannot think of together #there's no coffee break on tarsus because there's no coffee #or any other food product for that matter #instagram #instagram ads #tarsusrx #the one thing Bones will never prescribe

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onwhatcaptain · 5 months

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A slice of this week's chapter from my K/S novel!

Spock opens his eyes in the meldspace. For all but a moment, Spock sees himself through the mind of another and with his own eyes. He sits in the captain’s chair, his legs crossed, his chin thoughtfully turned in the direction of Kirk, who is bent over the science console, with all the rigidity and formality in his posture that Spock carries. He turns, and smiles at Kirk, who raises an eyebrow back—together, it dawns on them that it is difficult to distinguish between their distinct sensations, thoughts, and experiences. Spock looks down at his hands. They are his own, his fingers slender and long. It is his body, no doubt. Yet he is, without a doubt, Jim Kirk. Spock does not sit this way, and he does not smile this way, so that his lips are curved up like so. No, his own smile is a playful ghost, one that asks if it is a figment of the imagination. This is Kirk’s smile. It allows itself to be exposed and yet it is private. Only for him. So much confidence, so much certainty that has never belonged to Spock is running through his veins. He is borrowing Kirk’s sureness, his authoritative calm, his gentle amusement. How different he is from his friend.

If you liked that bit of writing, you should check out my fic "I Shall Do Neither" here at AO3! Details below:)

I Shall Do Neither (17867 words) by onwhatcaptain Chapters: 4/22 Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock, James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock Characters: James T. Kirk, Spock (Star Trek), Leonard "Bones" McCoy Additional Tags: Romance, Angst, Heavy Angst, Loss of Control, Psychological Trauma, Mutual Pining, Five Year Mission (Star Trek), Episode: s02e05 Amok Time, Post-Episode: s02e05 Amok Time, Pon Farr, Pon Farr Aftermath (Star Trek), Unresolved Sexual Tension, Friendship, Grief, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Sexual Tension, Sexual Content, Unreliable Narrator, Vulcan Biology, Tarsus IV (Star Trek), Vulcan Mind Melds, Non-Linear Narrative, Storytelling Through Vignettes, Missing Scenes Between Episodes, Plot, Cover Art, Canon Divergence, Digital Art, Illustrations

Summary:

In the wake of the kal-if-fee on Vulcan, Kirk is dead. When T’Pau tells Spock to live long and prosper, he knows he shall do neither. This is a story about men who love each other, and the lengths they will go to for one another.

- Foolish, he thinks. I have been a fool.

How he had wanted so desperately to prove his Vulcan side. How all his life it had felt like a performance, and yet, to be finally subject to the most Vulcan thing of all destroyed him. The stripping of logic. All sense torn from him. His carefully constructed barriers had collapsed like a flimsy house of cards. To be granted his wish this way was a type of mockery. How he had wanted to be fully Vulcan. To prove that the blood which runs through his veins was not so human.

How wanting had been better than having. -

This story is told in two parts across 21 chapters, and will be updated on Fridays.

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