Title: Bend Your Mind
Author: klmeri
Artist: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Disclaimer: The goodies enclosed are for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: They meet, they love, they fight. A fanmix which evolved into a fic.

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Song List:

1. Gavin Rossdale – “Adrenaline”

“Too much is not enough
Nobody gave it up
I’m not the kind
To lay down and die”

He doesn’t give up, not when Frank backhands him or Tarsus IV strips away pieces of his humanity. Not while Jim lives a drifter’s life, sleeping under stars or lolling busted and drooling over bar tables. There is no thought of an end to the madness, only the high—a thrilling spark—I refuse to die—shooting through his veins—I break but I am never ruined—and Jim dares the universe to keep grinding him down, even lying in a pool of his own blood, with his shit-eating grin and derisive laughter.

Pike dares him back.

Jim accepts.

He’s still flying high, drugged by his own irrefutable will to never motherfucking die.

2. Travis – “Eyes Wide Open”

“And I can’t stop crying
And I can’t stop driving
‘Cause the day is dying…dying…dying
And my eyes wide open”

How far is far enough?

Leonard bends his knees, braces his arms on his thighs, and drops his head forward. Increase oxygen supply to brain. The black spots in his vision retreat. Breathe deeply. Once, twice. Good, again. But the nausea persists.

Once the man is fairly certain he won’t pass out, McCoy uncaps his flask and takes a long swallow of whiskey. It washes the bile in his throat back into his stomach.

He is searching for peace. It has fled Earth. Maybe it’s on the other end of the galaxy?

The door to the shuttle’s bathroom slides open and an irate woman sighs.

“I told you, sir, you have to take a seat like the others.”

The sky is falling. He’s trying to outrun the sky.

Having nothing to go back to (not his old life, never again) does not render Leonard defeated. As the woman tugs him out of the tight space between the sink and toilet, he begins to argue his case, that the bathroom is the best place for a man with a fear of flying and—

But the sky catches up to him in a pair of burning blue eyes. Jim Kirk’s eyes. Leonard forgets what happens when the sky falls.

3. Calexico – Quattro (World Drifts In)

“In a light, ashamed and humiliated
In a time, sacrificed for the sake of trade
The soul is bent, feels the weight of truth
Falling through
Left behind, no choice but to run to the mountains
Where no poppies grow, you have to hit the ground running”

Among the stars, no one marks a child caught between two worlds. The suns don’t burn with mockery. The ion storms are harsh but indiscriminate. Spock has a place and a purpose that suits him. He is respected.

His fingers hesitate, lightly skimming over the surface of a PADD.

“Spock.“

He turns, noting the displeased expression on Doctor McCoy’s face.

“You have to stop wandering off like that,” the doctor warns him.

Spock explains calmly, “I do not make a habit of ‘wandering’, Doctor.” He returns to the task of data entry, signaling that he has no desire for company. “I must finish this report.”

He does not expect McCoy to invade his personal space or to touch the back of his hand.

Strong impressions—anger, surprise, faint worry—burst like flavors in his mind. There is a lag before Spock reinforces his mental shield.

McCoy says, “You think I’m here to pester you on my own? Jim sent me.”

“What is the Captain’s concern?” Spock asks softly, not looking up. The hand touching him moves away.

He hears the careful consideration in McCoy’s voice. “You… isolate yourself.”

Spock wants to instinctively deny it but he does not. He says nothing.

Doctor Leonard McCoy enjoys the luxury of speaking without restraint: “You realize this kind of behavior is not good for you—or for this crew.” After a long pause, the human remarks, “Jim and I plan to meet for dinner. Will you be busy?”

He answers “Negative”—and is slightly surprised that he decides not to decline the invitation.

McCoy is still talking. “Let it never be said that humans are poor hosts. Jim has a chessboard and I hate to play. I bet you love chess, though.”

Now Spock gives Leonard his full attention. “Chess will be satisfactory, Doctor McCoy.”

The man’s face is unusually passive. “It’s Leonard,” McCoy says, “when you don’t mind being informal.”

“Leonard,” repeats the Vulcan. “Very well, Leonard, please inform Jim of my attendance.”

McCoy’s shoulders relax, and Spock discovers that the human can be infinitely more personable when in good spirits.

4. Conjure One ft. Poe – “Endless Dream”

“So don’t be afraid
Your heart is in me
And it’s racing so fast now
Cause everything we ever were or ever will be
Is shapeless as a changing cloud”

“If you ever do that again, Jim…”

Normally Bones has no difficulty detailing his ire or threatening the Captain with sharp objects, especially after an away mission that ends with Jim in dire need of medical attention. Thus Jim feels sufficient alarm when, instead of yelling, Bones falls silent and turns away.

Jim struggles upright, hampered by the biobed blankets. “Bones?”

“It was too close this time” is Bones’ explanation. Bones still refuses to face Kirk.

“Hey, I’m alive. You saved me,” Kirk tells him, wondering why the steady medical readings of the biobed’s monitors don’t reassure McCoy.

“Spock saved you. Another ten minutes pinned under that rockfall and—” The doctor breaks off. Either that something strange in Bones’ voice chokes the words, or Spock’s well-timed arrival reminds McCoy that the med bay is too public for an emotional confrontation.

Jim observes Bones’ momentary stiffness, like prey scenting a predator, before the man gruffly tosses at the Vulcan, “He’s all yours, Mr. Spock.”

Nor does Kirk miss Spock’s quietly spoken “Since the Captain has regained consciousness, you must rest as you promised, Leonard.”

When Bones is gone, Spock sits by Jim’s bedside and answers nearly all of Jim’s questions, except one: “What’s wrong with Bones? I’m fine.”

Spock stares at Jim for a long moment. The First Officer’s reply is exceedingly gentle. “He is frightened for himself.”

Jim can count the number of revelations he has experienced in his lifetime on one hand. This is one of those times.

5. Darren Hayes – “Dublin Sky”

“How many days am I going to regret you?
How many nights till I forget you?
Have I been wasting all those years?
Held down by these tears?
How many dreams have I left deserted?
How many hopes have been diverted?
Have I been buried in the dirt?
Held down by this hurt?”

“Let me be, Jim.”

“I can’t do that.”

“And I can’t do this! Not with—”

“Me, Bones? Spock? Or both of us?”

“Anyone. Anyone.”

“You’re afraid.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not when I know what I want.”

6. Iio – “Runaway”

“In our destinies
This is what was missing
Echo in my mind
Even through a distance”

McCoy’s eyes flick over to the Vulcan then quickly trail away to imitate an inconspicuous action. When he finally returns his gaze to Captain Kirk lounging nonchalantly in his command chair, Kirk’s blue eyes say You don’t fool me, Bones. Jim is grinning so broadly that Leonard gives the chair’s arm an unnecessary inspection.

Chekov’s voice almost causes him to jump. “Keptin, time of arrival is approximately three and one-half hours.”

“Perfect,” says the Captain. “We definitely need this shore leave.” Jim teases Leonard, “Don’t you agree, Doctor McCoy?”

Considering who he will be spending his shore leave with, Leonard valiantly fights down a blush. He loses.

Spock approaches only to say, “I suspect our leave will be beneficial for many individuals, Captain” and the other Bridge crew heartily agree. They do not see the gleam in Spock’s eyes; if they did, they would not how to interpret it.

Leonard does.

Jim, too. And Kirk looks suspiciously like a cat who has trapped two juicy mice.

It is ironic that particular thought prompts Leonard to make a sound akin to a squeak.

7. Sissel – “Weightless”

“And I’m weightless, falling in love
I am weightless
And I don’t know why but I know
It’s all right”

A moment alone finds three officers thus: McCoy is watching Spock; Spock watches Kirk; and Captain Kirk’s face changes like he removes a mask. He is simply Jim when he touches them both. Kisses first one, then the other.

The turbolift comes to a halt and the ship’s computer announces their destination. Jim is back in his captain’s skin. He steps onto the Bridge, followed by his trustworthy First Officer and Senior Medical Officer.

Such moments between three new lovers are few and no less precious than treasured gold.

8. 22-20’s – “Shoot Your Gun”

“Oh baby won’t you cry?
Show me there are some tears behind your eyes
Oh baby won’t you cry?
Show me there’s a hurt behind your eyes”

Loving is not always easy, particularly for those who love deeply. It must be said, then, to beware those who love in reserve.

“You—you bastard!” Doors aren’t hinged on a starship and Leonard is unable to emphasize how purely angry he is by slamming the door on his way out of Spock’s quarters.

Wouldn’t matter if he could. Spock never flinches. And tonight the Vulcan is made of ice, his logic cold and breath-stealing: “I am not human, Leonard. You cannot expect a human reaction from me.”

If Spock is ice, Leonard is fire.

He nurses his emotional wounds in the solitude of his office, turning an unopened bottle of bourbon around and around in his hands until he can stand it no more and twists the top off. The next shift finds Leonard with a splitting headache (which he soothes with medicine) and a sore heart (which has no immediate cure).

McCoy wonders how it is possible to love and hate someone with such passion at the same time. He counts the hours until Jim returns to the Enterprise. Jim can fix this.

9. Within Temptation (ft. Keith Caputo) – “What Have You Done?”

“I, have been waiting for someone like you
But now you are slipping away
What have you done now?
Why? why does fate make us suffer?
There’s a curse between us
Between me and you”

Jim has no clue how to fix it.

By the time Kirk is home again, the breach between Spock and McCoy is a chasm. Unfortunately for Jim, he tries to hold to each side until his grip starts slipping. Until, one day, Kirk tells his lovers in resignation: “I can’t live like this. If you won’t have each other, you won’t have me.” And he lets go, free-falling into the chasm where there is nothing—no one—but silence and strained pretense.

Jim is slowly drowning.

When he looks into Bones’ eyes (at times when he has no other choice), he thinks he sees McCoy drowning too, without him—without them. Spock is severely economical with his words, nigh untouchable behind a self-imposed wall of professionalism and formality. There is no joy anymore, for none of the three.

Rock-bottom is literal: it happens on a volcanic planet when an seismically strong earthquake dumps the entire landing party into a pit.

Finally, Jim thinks. He has reached the end of the chasm after a long fall through nothing and, as expected, it has broken him into pieces. Then he blacks out.

When he awakens again, pain-riddled, he remembers he isn’t alone. Somewhere down here is Spock and McCoy.

Jim gasps as the combined sensations of shock and this is death barrels through him. His ghost is going to linger in regret and mourn for never-whispered affections.

No more Southern drawl and silk-cool logic.

He doesn’t look forward to a miserable afterlife.

Why did we give up?

10. Delerium ft. Nerina Pallot – “Truly”

“So truly, if there’s light then I want to see it
Now that I know what I am looking for
Truly, if there’s joy then I want to feel it
Here in this world is where I want to be”

“N-Never give up,” Kirk forces out the words now, though it is little more than an exhale of thought. His head falls to the side. Prone on a bed of dirt and pebbles, Jim blinks against darkness. His eyes adjust at last and he sees Bones, crumpled within an arm’s reach. Beyond McCoy, the light of a distant moon has washed Spock clean of color—the stains on the front of the First Officer’s shirt are almost black rather than dark green. Jim takes one of Leonard’s hands, feeling blood has crusted under the doctor’s nails as he rubs his fingers in circles across the cold skin.

“Bones?”

A minute passes. Another.

“Bones?“

Jim isn’t going to die, and he certainly isn’t going to let Spock and Bones die. Chance, destiny, fate—whatever it is, the unknown force has brought them together even now (as death waits) like gravity coaxing three stars into the same orbit.

How can it end before it has barely begun?

He tugs on Bones’ lax hand. When that elicits no response, Jim levers himself up on an elbow, barely muffling a sharp cry as the movement moves misaligned bones of his leg.

Bones is breathing. Kirk shakes so hard with relief that he has to rest his head on McCoy’s chest. The beat of the heart beneath Jim’s ear quells a rising panic.

Spock is motionless but also alive, in a Vulcan healing trance. Jim can’t resist running a fingertip over the curve of Spock’s ear then along the jut of a cheekbone. He thinks fiercely, Hold on for me, Spock.

Linking his other hand with Bones again, he amends, Hold on for us.

11. Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer – “Tanglewood Tree”

“…love is a light in the sky
and an unspoken lie
and a half-whispered prayer”

When the crew mutinies and locks its three senior officers—the Captain, First Officer, and CMO—into the same isolation ward in Sickbay, Leonard cannot help but ponder how long the men and women of the Enterprise have been hatching a plan to reunite them—or at least get them on speaking terms.

The stupid, quaking planet qualifies as a Godsend in that respect.

Leonard gingerly shifts his healing arm and tries to override the lock on the ward doors again. The security unit beeps gleefully, no doubt programmed by Mr. Scott to make those aggravating, know-it-all noises.

He shuffles back to his small curtained area, fully intending to hen-pick a lengthy reproving communication to Nurse Chapel with one finger. Except Jim has already propped himself up with Leonard’s pillows on Leonard’s biobed.

Leonard stares. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Jim is harder to read than usual, the bruising and pallor of Kirk’s face notwithstanding. Then, without a word, the Captain tries to lift his bandaged leg the remainder of the way onto Leonard’s bed, grunting at the movement, and McCoy has to snap, “Stop that, Jim!”

He glares until Jim relents and stills. Then McCoy starts forward to help, only remembering his injured arm because Jim says sharply, “No heavy lifting for you, Bones.”

“Like you pay attention to the rules yourself,” retorts McCoy. “You could have used a wheelchair instead of dragging your mangled ass in here.”

Jim shrugs like it doesn’t matter.

“I will assist you, Captain,” interrupts a carefully measured voice.

After a short span of seconds, Leonard acknowledges that his sudden dizzy spell has nothing to do with the painkillers in his system.

He looks Spock over, saying, “You had internal injuries. You try to move his leg, you could rip something. I’m not in decent enough shape to patch you up if you do, Spock.”

“The Captain is in an uncomfortable position.”

“Oh, Jim doesn’t know uncomfortable yet. And he did it to himself.”

“He did not injury his leg, as you did not injury your arm.”

Leonard grits out, “You know what I meant, you hobgoblin.”

“Hey,” barks Jim from the bed, “that’s enough!”

“Wonderful,” quips McCoy with all the sarcasm he can muster. “This is exactly where I want to be.”

“Shut up, Bones. I want both of you to listen…” When Kirk attempts to stand up on his injured leg, he ends up with McCoy and Spock holding him down.

“You can say what you gotta say from right where you are,” Leonard tells him sternly.

Jim stops struggling but his eyes are like blue fire. “I didn’t survive to go back to the way things were. I won’t.“

Leonard jerks his hand back, placing it protectively over the arm strapped to his chest. That’s when he realizes how close he is to Spock—and that Spock hasn’t stepped away from either Jim or Leonard yet.

“Now isn’t the time or place,” he tries to intercede.

But Jim never backs down. Almost never, thinks Leonard because Jim refused to choose sides and subsequently became the final wedge that split the three apart.

“I saw Spock’s blood on your hands, Bones.”

Leonard’s stomach drops. He remembers his conscious moments in the pit all too well.

“You tried to staunch his wounds—even with your broken arm.”

“I’m a doctor.”

“You didn’t want him to die,” Jim says fiercely.

“Of course I didn’t!” Leonard shouts. Then he tries to collect his breath. “Don’t be—damn it, Jim, don’t be an idiot. I would never want that.”

“I know,” Jim replies almost soothingly. “If the positions were reversed, Spock wouldn’t be idle while you were dying either.”

Spock agrees, “I would not.”

“Then what’s the matter with us?” Jim asks them. “What we had was great.”

“It was not likely to succeed,” Spock states.

Jim demands, “Why?”

“Doctor McCoy and I are not… compatible.”

And that makes Leonard plain mad. He rounds on Spock. “You mean I am not compatible for you,” he accuses. “I’m too unrestrained for a Vulcan—”

“Your temperament does not displease me; it intrigues me. However you require emotion-based responses which I cannot always give you, Leonard. It is illogical and also unkind to subject you to an unsatisfying relationship.”

Leonard opens his mouth, closes his mouth, and opens it again. “You don’t get to make that choice for me, Spock. If I had been at all unhappy with who are you, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you in the first place!”

Near them, Jim makes a noise like a pleased hum.

Leonard says, “Wipe that smug look off your face, Captain.”

Jim doesn’t. “I’m not smug, Bones—I’m relieved. I also don’t see why we had to carve out each other’s hearts when not one of us loves the other any less.”

Leonard can’t cross his arms, which saddens him. “I didn’t hear you tryin’ to explain this earlier.”

“You two drive me crazy—literally, Bones. When you fight, it’s like attempting to dodge a nuclear explosion.”

“We make him crazy, Spock,” McCoy says incredulously while staring at Jim.

“Indeed,” intones the Vulcan and that’s all Spock really needs to say to express his disbelief.

Jim sighs. Leonard’s face softens when he sees how tired Kirk is. He is brushing Jim’s hair back with his good hand before he can stop himself.

Jim sighs again but with that content note that McCoy loves to hear.

“Can we agree to start over?” Jim asks them seriously.

Leonard bites his lip briefly before he looks to Spock. He is surprised when Spock reaches out, hand hovering near Leonard’s face but not quite touching him. Waiting for permission.

Strangely enough, McCoy nods.

Spock’s fingertips are a feather-light caress down his cheek. Then they withdraw.

Spock admits, “I do not wish to be apart” and that is the most sentimental, human thing Leonard has ever heard pass from Spock’s lips.

“Okay,” Leonard says. “God help me, I love you too.”

Then Jim captures McCoy’s petting hand and drops a kiss to the center of Leonard’s palm. Leonard looks back at Jim and huffs out a laugh to break the heavy moment. “Now whether or not I love you, Jim… that remains to be seen.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jim responds easily, tugging him in for a kiss on the mouth. “I know everyone loves me.”

Leonard holds back most of his worries as they rearrange themselves with care. Spock does not object to the bad idea of trying to fit three persons on one biobed—though, surprisingly it is not uncomfortable as it should be. When Leonard peers across Jim at the Vulcan uncomplainingly pressed against Jim’s right side, Spock answers McCoy’s unspoken question with “Your staff has accommodated our ward with specially sized beds.”

And yeah, he had failed to notice that. Those sneaky, genius…

Jim mumbles something about commendations for all of Bones’ pretty nurses, already half-asleep. Leonard closes his eyes, too, having found his peace again.

The End

Bonus: Elysian Fields – “Bend Your Mind”

“Bend your mind dear
Now your mine dear
Earth is grinding
Keep on beaming
Are we dreaming are we dying”

No pairing fanmix is complete without a bonus sexy song. Enjoy. :)

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