Abmarkan'es – I

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Title: Abmarkan'es – I
Co-author: diane_kepler
Fandom: ST TOS
Characters: Starek, Selov, Tunor, Spock
Rating: M
Warnings: Starek flirts, unstoppably, and in poor taste.
Notes: Starek is tired, and still drunk. Yes, seven or eight days later, STILL DRUNK. He has been summoned for unknown reasons, by T'Nis's fathers, who wish to offer their apologies and assistance… and so, we enter the story…

Morning has never been Starek's favourite time of day, and this morning is even lower on his list than others he can remember. He'd been furious when the hail came in two days ago, then fascinated at the implications, and the two sort of settled into a vague irritability. Either way, he's come. And he's come alone, despite insistence from Stavret and the doctor that he take one of them along, for his health.

It's good to be cautious, and he knows this well, but it's also bad form to impose. He's got a bag of tools, slung over his shoulder, and they should keep him safe enough — and if they don't, he's still got a beacon. He can be out in ten seconds, at any time.

Starek is voluntarily walking into a house full of Vulcans on a neutral world. He wonders if he's taken leave of his senses.

As he approaches the entrance, a faint itching starts on the back of his hand, and by the time he taps the comm panel beside the door, it has spread up his arm, to his shoulder, and begun on the other side. Out in ten seconds, he reminds himself, but he doesn't suspect treachery, even as he pushes up the sleeve of his mid-century justaucorps to scratch at his wrist.

Starek waits, relatively stoic, even as the hives begin to spread to his face. He has never been to this world, before. How was he to know he'd be allergic to the grass?

Selov answers the door and gets about as far as "welcome" before he sees the reaction and hustles Starek inside.

"Oh dear, oh dear. This will not do, not at all. Come with me, quickly — and quietly."

He sneaks, actually sneaks, down the hall, bends his head to peer cautiously around a doorway, and then dashes by, motioning for Starek to do the same.

Upstairs, in the bathroom, Selov's head and upper body have been engulfed by a cabinet. His robed posterior wiggles in a most un-Vulcan manner as he rummages.

"Where is it? We had another few here . . . this happens often enough that we keep a supply. The second High Council member was most displeased until we could medicate him properly. Even then, he was sure we'd done it on purpose. As if we'd engineered the flora specifically to — ah."

He backs out with a hypospray in one hand and a jar of salve in the other. "These should bring relief. We can never tell who will be affected. I am quite sorry."

Starek bows shallowly, visibly relieved, as he accepts the medication. Miraculously, he's managed to avoid commenting on the older Vulcan's shapely posterior, but twice damned if he hadn't noticed that display.

"Nash-veh itar-bosh," he says quietly, pressing the hypospray to his own neck. Within moments, the itching begins to fade, and he dabs salve onto the spot or two that remain inflamed.

"Who were we attempting to avoid? I had thought my visit engineered to avoid all of the less-desirable elements that had invaded your home." His eyebrow arcs up and he licks the inner edge of his lip in relatively unsubtle amusement. There is no need to pretend to be Vulcan, here — especially, it seems, in front of this one of T'Nis's fathers.

But Selov pointedly ignores the questions. "Stariben vuhlkansu ha?" he raised a well-shaped eyebrow. "Nam-tor ek'mesukh?"

"Tsuri'le lafoshik na'vulkhansu. Vesht dungi nam-tor duhsu ri'stariben ish-veh." Starek smirks. "Malatik'le – inam-nah-tor du nam-tor nash-veh duhsu – heh zahal-tor hafayat. But don't worry about it. I get that all the time. The fool part, I mean." Starek shrugs and actually smiles. "Nam-tor orensu t'gen-lis-tal heh kitausu. Nam-tor lakh ritsuri-wuh-set'ko t'nash-veh."

"Rom-Ekon, thurai ra?" Selov mutters this, shaking his head. "Kup'nah-tor i po Spock-kam vesht tevan-tor ni'lerash."

He twists his lips conspiratorially. "We did not wish for you to burn out your engines on the journey here, but . . . dungau sashavau be'hai'la wuh'ashiv e'tum t'etek ha?"

Starek eyes Selov amusedly and predatorily. "Svi'ashaya nash-veh – fai-tor du – ri'lok-fam. Nam-tor nash-veh yav-tor-yehat." He raises a suggestive eyebrow. "Another of your beautiful guests, you say? Ma-kobat'es na'vaksurik-vel."

This Vulcan is just too much, Starek thinks, pleasantly entertained to have something that isn't an Orion to flirt with.

Selov finds that he actually remembers how to roll his eyes and does so, quite expressively. "Goh zaha'uh, klon-lanet."

He pauses at the foot of the stairs and indicates the archway they snuck past earlier with a wave of his hand. "They are through there. Your appearance should interrupt their Kal-toh match quite spectacularly, I think."

"Riots in the drawing room? You sound as Romulan as I am." He twitches his nose in amusement, as if squaring up, before he steps into the room. "Heh ugau du – ri'nam-tor lanet t'nash-veh if nah-tor," Starek mutters this, teasingly, with a wide grin at the obscene implication.

His next utterance is directed to those inside the room. "Don't do that. You'll lose the rook, next turn."

Tunor freezes with the chess piece still in his hand.

Spock jerks towards the sound of the voice. The half-conscious motion starts in his chest and travels, a microsecond later, to his head and other extremities. He rises. Stops. Looks at his hosts, with wide eyes, and then rushes forward to embrace Starek deeply.

"Yeht-veh," he whispers.

Selov saunters in, perches on the armrest of Tunor's chair, and sighs. "Nam-tor ni'petakov teretuhr. Mok nu-ri ha'kiv t'etek ha?"

His mate blinks. "I'mok."

"K'diwa!" Starek knows he's holding Spock too tightly — the buttons on his coat are stabbing back into his own chest — but he can't let go. He shudders like a fool, burying his face in Spock's neck, as the preceding week comes rushing back like a warbird at warp nine.

"T'nash-veh. Nam-tor du t'nash-veh – heh dungi-trasha du na'tevanu-yokulsu ri'va'ashiv. Worla." His voice is sharp, and he burns with self-loathing and protective rage, so strong a human could read it from fifteen feet away. It's probably a good thing the room contains Vulcans, instead of Betazoids.

"Worla vesht rok-tor na'gla-tor du va'ashiv." Spock's eyes are closed, his hand curling protectively around the base of Starek's skull. His pulse is once again far too fast and he breathes deeply to try to calm himself down. But this just has the effect of filling his nose with his Starek's alluring scent. It is all Spock can do to avoid kissing him, open-mouthed, there and then.

He pulls back to look at Starek's face. "Nam-tor muhl ha? Saudau u'zungik vesht u'olau nash-veh za-gad."

"Ha. Ik heb niet goed slapen." Starek stops, rubs his eye, and tries again. "Vesht yuk-tor ri'yeht. I think of you, and it keeps me up all night. … Ri'sanoi'le."

Starek rubs his eye, again, and the façade of indestructibility crumbles away, leaving him looking a good deal more haggard and distracted than like the daring and reckless starship pirate he'd been moments earlier. "I've missed you."

Spock simply holds him again and broadcasts the mutual feeling into the nape of Starek's neck, rubbing gently. He pulls back at last and turns to Tunor and Selov, who are watching them while deep in a finger embrace. "Ki'nam-tor kasular t'etek maut-ves na`vitorau ish-latva."

Tunor answers in his solemn but kind manner. "As we said previously, it is the very least we can do. Whatever you would care to accomplish here, or however long you wish to stay, nam-tor kelek t'etek t'du."

Selov's face is positively glowing as he regards them. "May we offer you anything?"

Starek flashes a predatory grin at Selov, over Spock's shoulder, twitches his nose mischievously, and lets the subject drop. It's reflexive, really.

"A room?" He's tired enough that he can't quite check all his impulses — just the worst of the patently offensive ones. With a dismayed sound between a groan and a laugh, he lays his forehead against Spock's shoulder. "Sorry. Mijn mond is sneller dan mijn hersens, soms wel."

A pause… "Mouth moves faster than my brain, sometimes." The sentence is slow and measured.

Selov betrays his amusement with a little twitch in the two fingers holding those of his mate. "Of course. You must be quite fatigued. Spock please escort him."

With a nod to their hosts Spock, guides his tal-kam towards the hallway, an arm about his shoulders.

"Ri'of'kat'uh fan-vel," Selov singsongs, teasingly after them.

Spock's room is spare but comfortable. A tapestry and an ancient-looking lirpa decorate the wall above the bed.

"At this rate, the only thing I'm going to break is my own heart," Starek mutters, following Spock into the room.

He slides around behind his Vulcan, moving with a fluidity born of exhaustion, turning into the attempt to face him, and nips at the skin over Spock's mastoid process. As his arms wrap around Spock, one hand clutching a hip, the other a shoulder, he whispers, "Var'uh nash-veh nam-tor nash-veh ri'duhik. Var'uh nash-veh vesht din-tor du nash-veh."

"Gluvau du vesht ri'nam-tor hiyet ha?" He rubs at the same spot on Starek's neck to remind him.
"Hi dungi ashiv-tor kuv istau du. Ki'din-tor du. U'nirak."

He guides Starek down to the bed. "Rest a while. I will stay until you fall asleep, if you wish."

"Ti'uh k'nash-veh. Kal'uh nash-veh na'yuk-tor svi'kar t'du." Starek clings to Spock's hands, dragging the man down with him. "Ik wil het gevoel dat je warmte, geliefde. Lie on me. Hold me. I think my hands are cold, but I can't tell. Nam-tor ozh t'nash-veh rikashan. They're all tingly."

He hadn't actually slept in longer than he cared to admit, and what sleep he'd gotten had been in one and two hour units, in scattered places on the ship. He'd fallen asleep in his chair, on the bridge, shortly before arriving. This was no way to meet anyone, he knew, but he couldn't forget, and the politics were becoming expansive and ridiculous. He is, in fact, on the verge of becoming openly neurotic, but here he is, with another chance to apologize. Perhaps this will end better. Perhaps it won't end…

"I'll be down an hour or two, I think. If I stay tired, I'll be able to sleep again, when you do. Istau nash-veh she-tor k'du svi'asal."

His hands are indeed very cold. Perhaps fatigue combined with a lack of proper nutrients. Spock warms them with his breath and with the friction of his own hands. Starek's feet, with boots removed, are in a similar state, and so they get the same attention. When the temperature in Starek's extremities has stabilized, Spock folds the blanket over him and secures it with his arms.

"I'yuk'uh – tal-kam." he murmurs.

He waits until the Romulan's breathing is slow and easy. But then he lingers, too thrilled by the sight of his partner to want to move far. Has it only been a week? It seems as though months have gone by.

It is with no small amount of reluctance that he eventually gets up to leave. The rational part of his mind is certain that Starek will still be here in an hour or two, but it takes some time to convince the rest of him.

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