mirroredcommand | Another Meeting

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Another Meeting

With the most careful of attempts, not wanting to warn the system that he was trying anything at all, Pike was testing the limits of the restrictions on the padd he had been given. He had been reading extensively on the history and known facts of the Christopher Richard Pike of this universe.

In many ways, they were surprisingly similar, and in others, not so surprisingly different. This was a man of peace, with multiple accomplishments in the areas of peace keeping and bravery, a very well respected captain as well as the designer of this universe's Enterprise.

And a slightly younger man as well, it seemed. The year was 2258. When he had left his universe, it had been 2263. Briefly, Pike had wondered if he had remained fifty years old or he had lost five years in the process.

His head came up from the faint light of the padd when he heard the guards shifting. It was too early for the shift change - that meant something was happening.

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Spock's attention is on the glove now. He takes a step closer to Pike, and his extended index finger makes the lightest contact with the tip of Pike's curled fingers. In a different situation, it might be seen as a shy, hesitant kiss of sorts.

"Yet, given your success in this application, there is no reason to believe you could not duplicate the gloves."

No shock, no attack, his hand remains steady and still. "From what we know, the technology is almost biological instead of mechanical. They link to a single person. These, fortunately, weren't connected to any one person when I managed to get thrown back into the jar of them. My hands, my gloves in particular, were covered in it. It took us nearly a year to apply another technology to it."

This was not his primary purpose here. Yet Spock was intrigued and curious and such opportunity for examination would almost assuredly not come again whether or not Pike surrendered his gloves.

He took Pike's hand in his own, examining the exterior of the surface.

"Organic in nature? Or an organic medium for the technology to propogate?"

"The latter." Pike said easily, "It's quite interesting to watch, if done carefully." He tilted his head, eyes almost predatory, then brought up his other hand. He tugged off the other glove with his teeth, then held it up so Spock could see the faint glow within its depths.

The flash of teeth set him briefly on edge, but Spock controlled the reaction, shifted his attention to the interior of the glove.

"What powers them? How is the link accomplished? Do you know the original application of this technology?"

He had a hundred more questions but restricted himself. He did not wish to be rude.

"Myself, initial body-electrical contact we believe, and no." Pike answered each question in turn, then removed his hand from Spock's to tug the glove back on.

"Fascinating."

Spock's voice had a breathy tone with which only a very few people were acquainted - he was utterly intrigued, the majority of his intellect bent toward one pursuit but a pleasurable mystery instead of a crisis.

"Would you permit further study should the opportunity present itself?"

The solitude and enforced lack of activity must be working with more debilitating effect on Pike than the actual confinement. A man not accustomed to boredom. Perhaps James could be convinced to involve him in a bit of research....

Pike knew that particular non-expression of Spock's well. "The opportunity would present itself more easily if I was allowed free of this cell." He held up a single finger. "Obviously I'm not asking for absolute freedom. A quarters of my own, sealed and guarded however it is desired, but at least I could work on my own, a more private area, and a much less angered first officer if he arrives."

Spock watched the finger, attention still quite caught.

"I will speak with him to convey your request. However, the decision is his."

He forced his eyes back to Pike's own grey gaze.

"Is this a condition that must be met or will you grant removal of the gloves for the purpose of a meld? I wish to ascertain, as the humans say, where we stand in this moment."

"For the meld alone, but I will not let them out of my sight." Pike said in calm tones, watching Spock.

"That is acceptable to me."

The gloves were carefully removed and laid to his side, the skin of his hands far paler then beyond his wrists. One of these bare hands he actually offered, knowing full well what it meant.

Spock caught the proferred hand in his own. He examined the flesh of it, pale and quite human - fragile - without its protective leather weapon.

Unlike most humans, there was no thought or emotional transfer. It was like touching another Vulcan, perhaps. He studied their touching hands, then almost in a tender way, brushed the sides of his fingers to Spock's. There were no scars on Pike's hands, the possible effect of many years of wearing the leather, but just visible under the edge of his cuff of his shirt was something brighter white.

The brush of Pike's fingers was electric, almost like sharing the gesture with Spock's bondmates. He looked up at Pike from his examination of their hands before deliberately returning the gesture.

"May I see?"

He had obviously seen the flash of brighter skin, scarring of some sort.

There was the smallest breath inward at the returned gesture, but his face revealed nothing. "You may." He rumbled, very quietly.

To pull up the double-sleeves would reveal terrible scarring. Thick, curled, and ugly. It seemed to wrap around his forearm like a serpent, pitted visibly at its deepest, all of it the same uniform white of very old scars.

Spock would remember it well from their previous meld, the actions that had left the scarring behind and the pain that had branded it into his flesh.

...Spock. Tell me you're not touching him. Because seriously, I think I will stun you if you are and I will not regret it for an instant.

The energy whip. It had done terrible damage.

With his freehand, Spock touched the scar tissue.

"Why did you suffer this for him?"

It had been a thought the last time they spoke, but the opportunity to ask had not been presented. And then Spock had thought he knew the answer - that Pike saw much in Spock and wished to own and command him. To master him. Now, though, he was unsure. Mastery, a desire to control, but the bond spoke of the... Spock hesitated to call it love, twisted as it was by their circumstances of existence... spoke of the feeling between them.

There was the tiniest twitch of muscle under Spock's fingers, a sign of how sensitive the scars still were. "He had been in my service only just over a year when I took the hit for him." His tone was firm, "I took a particular interest in him. No one damages what is mine."

He looked up to Spock's eyes, his own serious, determined. A different sort of man then the James Kirk Spock had met all those years ago who had been nothing but a madman.

Pike's reaction, as his earlier indrawn breath at the brush of their fingers had been, was noted and cataloged for examination later.

Spock's encounter with the Kirk of that universe, and Jim's account of his experiences there, had led Spock to an understanding of how dangerous the alternate reality was, a civilization founded on brutality and manipulation. This man was no less a student of it than that Kirk. But it manifested itself in different ways. Was this man more intelligent? More driven? Simply more masterful? Spock did not yet know.

Spock moved Pike's hand to the meld points on Spock's face, confident that Pike knew the proper positions but maintaining the contact anyway - Spock was not unaffected by Pike. He was briefly thankful for his own bondmates - had he faced this man with the emptiness of his previous solitude and yearning still filling him, Spock would have much to fear from this commanding hand.

As Spock had guessed, Pike knew those points well. His fingers slid over the psi-points, remembering them intimately from contact with his own bond mate when they had been re-developing his mental shielding. He could not initiate a meld, he was not gifted enough for that, but waited for Spock's guiding hand, as it were.

If he could teach his t'hy'lara this skill....

"My mind to your mind."

And Pike found himself in the outer corridors of Spock's mind, the hallway of careful doors, secured against entrance except for a lone door at the end of the hall, invitingly ajar.

Very similar. Pike remarked, walking as calmly as he sounded towards that door. His eyes searched for traps despite the most likely concept that there were none. He reached out for the door - his gloves remaining even in his mental image of himself - and opened it.

He had carefully secreted away access to his bondmates, to his friends with whom he shared the lesser bonds. He did not anticipate Pike would harm them but foolish risk was not Spock's to take, not with people for whom he cared so much.

But the sky remained, an arched dome of lights, sparkling and twinkling as lives were lived out, far distant yet always present.

And a thread. The thread Spock had isolated as his connection to that other Spock. His own counterpart in Pike's universe. The echo of the bond was finer in diameter than the other threads he carried. Yet it was there.

This place was far different then the one he had shared with his Spock. He studied the sky above with its near endless number of stars. I have never seen such a thing. He remarked before studying the thread that was being pointed out to him.

Immediately, he could sense what it was. Can you sense anything from it?

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