ST:AOS Fic: Antigen
May. 25th, 2025 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Title: Antigen
Author:kat_lair
Fandom: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Pairing: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Tags: Anti-sex pollen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Touch Aversion, Touch-Starved
Rating: T
Word count: 2,111
Summary: Jim was familiar with all the evolutionary, physiological, psychological, cultural reasons why humans needed touch. Group and individual variation obviously existed, but as a species the requirement for connection went DNA-deep and the impacts of being deprived of it were well-documented and happening right in front of his eyes, right in his own body too.
Author notes: Picked some spring themed prompts to get me out of a writing slump. This was for the prompt 'pollen'. Unbetaed so if you spot a typo or mistake you should tell me.
Antigen on AO3
Jim had been waiting for an empty turbolift for almost twenty minutes now, but every time the doors opened they revealed another miserable face, maximum two, the occupants standing stiffly on the opposite sides of the cabin. They had all, without an exception, offered to step out so that the captain could get where he needed. Jim had politely refused. Things were bad enough that he didn’t want to add pulling rank and inconveniencing his crewmembers’ days to the list.
He could have, of course, shared the ride like some people had chosen to do but after an eight-hour shift on the bridge, maintaining constant hypervigilance over everyone’s locations and movements so as not to even accidentally veer into anyone’s personal space, the idea of doing that in the confines of a turbolift… What if it broke down? Improbable as that was, the mere idea made cold sweat break out at the small of Jim’s back.
Finally, an empty lift appeared. Jim sighed in relief and got in. And if he did use his captain’s override to ensure it didn’t make any other stops between decks until reaching his chosen destination, then it was a selfless act at this stage. Enterprise could not afford its captain to lose all grip on reality and yeet himself into space just to get away from everyone.
The doors made a familiar wooshing sound and Jim stepped into an eerily silent med bay. Only one of the beds was occupied, but the person in it was either sleeping or unconscious, a blessing for all concerned. He could see Chapel in her office and waved a hand at her when she looked up, indicating that he wasn’t here for any medical attention.
The door to Bones’ office was firmly shut. Everything in Jim wanted to leave it like that, to walk away and hide in his own rooms without anyone there, to seize control of the transporter room and beam himself down to the next uninhabited planet and never mind whether he could actually breathe down there or not, but to just be alone…
Fuck. It was getting worse. It was getting dangerously worse.
He made himself press the console, alerting Bones to his presence. For a long minute, there was no answer and Jim almost panicked because everything he’d thought he might do, Leonard could too, and if they lost their Chief of Medicine now, they were all as good as dead, Starfleet would find Enterprise empty, all its crew floating in the space around it and…
The door opened.
Jim eased inside but made no move to step toward Bones’ desk. Even so, he could see the way the man’s shoulders tensed, drawing up, his habitual scowl deepening.
Jim used to fight the urge to step close, to smooth out the furrow between Bones’ brows with his fingers, to kiss the worries away. Now he was fighting the unnatural recoil at being trapped in a small space with another person. Everything in his body was screaming ‘danger!’ and ‘predator!’ and ‘flee!’, endocrine system working overtime, neurons firing chemical alerts faster than Jim’s brain could cope. He wanted to run, he wanted to knock himself unconscious, he wanted to…
“Tell me you have something,” he gritted out. His hands were trembling but there was no point in hiding them from Bones.
“Maybe,” Bones sighed, weary. “I may have something, but I need to run some more…” His eyes narrowed. It was a testament to the man’s professional ethics that he got up from behind his desk and actually leaned over it to see Jim better. “You don’t look so good.”
Jim had been the first one exposed. It made sense that his symptoms were more advanced.
He wheezed out a laugh. “You’re going to have to lock me in a brig before the hour is out,” he admitted. “I’m not… I can’t do it anymore.”
It had been an accident. One in a million (one in a one-million-four-hundred-and-fifty-seven-thousand-two-hundred-and-ninety, according to Spock. Approximately.) chance. A malfunctioning valve in a specimen case used to carry samples of flora, all collected and set to be studied under strictest of safety protocols.
Kirk had met Sulu off the transporter, had taken possession of the case when the Lieutenant’s twisted ankle had demanded immediate medical treatment. He was familiar with the protocols, but Sulu had recited them anyway from his gurney, much to everyone’s amusement. And Jim had followed everything to the letter. Except when he’d deposited the specimen carrier, and turned to leave, he’d heard a double pop. The first one, he discovered upon turning back around, was one of the plants in the case violent expelling its pollen, iridescent blue substance covering the glass from the inside.
The second pop, he’d realised almost immediately after, was one of the valves giving up, because a cloud of the blue pollen was steadily seeping out of the container and into the room.
He’d initiated containment protocols immediately. But apparently, and for reasons Spock and Sulu were going to write a strongly worded missive about to the Starfleet, they had done little except slow the spread. Jim had inhaled the pollen directly, but despite isolating the room and him, it was clear that the whole crew were affected within days. There had been little point in keeping the captain away from the bridge in those circumstances.
As for the symptoms….
“Captain? Jim? Jim!”
With difficulty, Jim straightened from the protective hunch he’d curled into and forced his focus back to Bones.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m going to space myself or kill us all if you don’t lock me up.”
Bones had actually come out from behind his desk, but it was obvious being this close was costing him. And it wasn’t making Jim feel any better either. Normally, Bones would’ve already been holding him, easing him down, calling for the nurse. Normally, Jim would’ve appreciated the touch, the reassurance of another person there, Bones in particular. Now, thanks to an alien flower and a misfunctioning valve, none of them could stand the presence of each other, never mind an actual touch.
‘Sex pollen’ had been a running joke in the Starfleet practically as long as Starfleet had existed, kept alive by a few, poorly documented and dubiously evidenced cases of some people somewhere maybe losing their inhibitions a bit because of unexpected chemical reactions but… Well, as far as Jim knew, no one had ever heard of anti-sex pollen, one that caused an extreme aversion to touch and slowly, it seemed, even presence of others. Sulu had postulated that it was some kind of evolutionary reproduction strategy, ensuring that any pollen covered animals scattered far and wide, thus maximising the plant’s spread. At first, they’d all hoped that the effects would wear out over time but a week later they were only intensifying. It didn’t make sense, evolutionarily speaking, since killing the carriers to extinction would’ve also harmed the plant, which suggested that the problem was the way the pollen’s chemical composition interacted with that of the previously unencountered species, namely humans’ though the other species on Enterprise weren’t unaffected either. In fact, Spock and the other couple of Vulcans had slipped into a deep meditative state two days ago, becoming unresponsive. Bones reassured Jim that they would survive like that for several weeks, but it did little to allay his concern. Or the selfish wish to have his second-in-command with him.
Running a spaceship whilst most of your brain was screeching at you to get as far as possible from every other living being turned out to be challenging to say the least, and Jim was fast reaching the end of his tolerance. It wasn’t just about the practicalities though.
Kirk was a people person. It was one of his core strengths, the ability to both understand others and to find common ground on which to build professional and personal relationships, to create trust and loyalty, to work together toward a common goal. It was what made him a great Starfleet captain, but more than that, it was also one of the deepest joys of his life. Jim loved people, loved to learn their little quirks and habits, to figure out what made them tick and then feed that to help them turn into the very best versions of themselves. To have all of that stripped away by a flower…
To have to watch the effects of the pollen on his crew was worse. Jim was familiar with all the evolutionary, physiological, psychological, cultural reasons why humans needed touch. Group and individual variation obviously existed, but as a species the requirement for connection went DNA-deep and the impacts of being deprived of it were well-documented and happening right in front of his eyes, right in his own body too.
“Fuck,” Bones cursed softly.
Jim’s head jerked up to find Bones crouched low in front of his desk. It took a second to figure out it was because he’d deliberately put himself on the same level as Jim who was now pressed against the corner nearest to the door, curled on the floor in a tight, defensive ball. Great. Wonderful. His brain had apparently overridden the lethal-when-in-outer-space flight instinct but only by instigating the freeze instinct instead. And now the two of them were facing each other like two stray cats who’d suddenly found themselves in the same garden, equally terrified and equally unwilling to show it.
With an effort, Jim unglued his tongue from the top of his mouth. “Agreed,” he croaked out. Every muscle in his body was locked and he was unable to look away from Bones for more than a second, the constant need to keep the danger in his sight exhausting to the extreme.
“I’m… I’m close,” Bones said. Blindly, he scrabbled behind him with one hand, patting around the desk until he found a pad. “Just need to run some numbers so…” Slowly, the pad clutched to his chest, he started backing away. Jim could see the way his eyes kept flicking to the door but Jim’s own proximity to it probably acted as enough of a deterrent to stop Bones from just making a run for it.
“Computer,” Bones said, from his new position against the opposite wall, as far from Kirk as the confines of the office allowed whilst still being in each other’s eyesight. “Lock the door and do not let anyone either leave or enter this room for the next four hours, unless our life signs drop below seventy percent from the baseline. Medical override McCoy-five-five-one-J-A-zero-six.”
“Medical override McCoy-five-five-one-J-A-zero-six acknowledged,” the computer repeated. “Engaged.” The door chimed, red light flashing briefly on the control.
They were trapped now, for four hours, unless one of them started actively dying. And without any means to fling themselves off the ship right now, the chances of that had diminished. Rationally, Jim should’ve felt relieved by that, and he was, somewhere underneath the panicky rabbiting of his heart, but biochemical blanket from the flower was making it hard to concentrate on anything except the being trapped part. Being trapped with another person, to be precise.
“Should’ve put me in the brig,” he gritted out. “Can’t be easy for you to focus with another person in your space like this.”
Bones glanced at him over the pad. “You would’ve made a run for it,” he said, almost matter-of-factly. “We wouldn’t have made it.” His expression was grim. “And I don’t focus well if my best friend is floating in a vacuum. So.”
Oh.
Well, when you put it that way.
Jim did the only thing he could in the current situation which was to shut up and try to make himself small. Normally, he might be of some help with the medical research, if only as a relatively informed sounding board but not right now. Right now, he could only wait and hope and trust his life and the lives of everyone on board in Bones’ hands.
The first two had never been his strong points but even with the pollen clouding his mind the last one was easy. It was, after all, what he did every day. Bones had not let him down yet and Jim refused to believe he ever would. This too would turn out fine. Bones would find a solution to counteract the thrice-cursed anti-sex pollen and as soon as Jim could bear to touch another person again, he was going to wrap himself around Bones in a hug and not let go for some considerable time. It was going to amazing and embarrassing in equal measure and he couldn’t wait.
***
Title: Antigen
Author:
kat_lair Fandom: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Pairing: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Tags: Anti-sex pollen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Touch Aversion, Touch-Starved
Rating: T
Word count: 2,111
Summary: Jim was familiar with all the evolutionary, physiological, psychological, cultural reasons why humans needed touch. Group and individual variation obviously existed, but as a species the requirement for connection went DNA-deep and the impacts of being deprived of it were well-documented and happening right in front of his eyes, right in his own body too.
Author notes: Picked some spring themed prompts to get me out of a writing slump. This was for the prompt 'pollen'. Unbetaed so if you spot a typo or mistake you should tell me.
Antigen on AO3
Jim had been waiting for an empty turbolift for almost twenty minutes now, but every time the doors opened they revealed another miserable face, maximum two, the occupants standing stiffly on the opposite sides of the cabin. They had all, without an exception, offered to step out so that the captain could get where he needed. Jim had politely refused. Things were bad enough that he didn’t want to add pulling rank and inconveniencing his crewmembers’ days to the list.
He could have, of course, shared the ride like some people had chosen to do but after an eight-hour shift on the bridge, maintaining constant hypervigilance over everyone’s locations and movements so as not to even accidentally veer into anyone’s personal space, the idea of doing that in the confines of a turbolift… What if it broke down? Improbable as that was, the mere idea made cold sweat break out at the small of Jim’s back.
Finally, an empty lift appeared. Jim sighed in relief and got in. And if he did use his captain’s override to ensure it didn’t make any other stops between decks until reaching his chosen destination, then it was a selfless act at this stage. Enterprise could not afford its captain to lose all grip on reality and yeet himself into space just to get away from everyone.
The doors made a familiar wooshing sound and Jim stepped into an eerily silent med bay. Only one of the beds was occupied, but the person in it was either sleeping or unconscious, a blessing for all concerned. He could see Chapel in her office and waved a hand at her when she looked up, indicating that he wasn’t here for any medical attention.
The door to Bones’ office was firmly shut. Everything in Jim wanted to leave it like that, to walk away and hide in his own rooms without anyone there, to seize control of the transporter room and beam himself down to the next uninhabited planet and never mind whether he could actually breathe down there or not, but to just be alone…
Fuck. It was getting worse. It was getting dangerously worse.
He made himself press the console, alerting Bones to his presence. For a long minute, there was no answer and Jim almost panicked because everything he’d thought he might do, Leonard could too, and if they lost their Chief of Medicine now, they were all as good as dead, Starfleet would find Enterprise empty, all its crew floating in the space around it and…
The door opened.
Jim eased inside but made no move to step toward Bones’ desk. Even so, he could see the way the man’s shoulders tensed, drawing up, his habitual scowl deepening.
Jim used to fight the urge to step close, to smooth out the furrow between Bones’ brows with his fingers, to kiss the worries away. Now he was fighting the unnatural recoil at being trapped in a small space with another person. Everything in his body was screaming ‘danger!’ and ‘predator!’ and ‘flee!’, endocrine system working overtime, neurons firing chemical alerts faster than Jim’s brain could cope. He wanted to run, he wanted to knock himself unconscious, he wanted to…
“Tell me you have something,” he gritted out. His hands were trembling but there was no point in hiding them from Bones.
“Maybe,” Bones sighed, weary. “I may have something, but I need to run some more…” His eyes narrowed. It was a testament to the man’s professional ethics that he got up from behind his desk and actually leaned over it to see Jim better. “You don’t look so good.”
Jim had been the first one exposed. It made sense that his symptoms were more advanced.
He wheezed out a laugh. “You’re going to have to lock me in a brig before the hour is out,” he admitted. “I’m not… I can’t do it anymore.”
It had been an accident. One in a million (one in a one-million-four-hundred-and-fifty-seven-thousand-two-hundred-and-ninety, according to Spock. Approximately.) chance. A malfunctioning valve in a specimen case used to carry samples of flora, all collected and set to be studied under strictest of safety protocols.
Kirk had met Sulu off the transporter, had taken possession of the case when the Lieutenant’s twisted ankle had demanded immediate medical treatment. He was familiar with the protocols, but Sulu had recited them anyway from his gurney, much to everyone’s amusement. And Jim had followed everything to the letter. Except when he’d deposited the specimen carrier, and turned to leave, he’d heard a double pop. The first one, he discovered upon turning back around, was one of the plants in the case violent expelling its pollen, iridescent blue substance covering the glass from the inside.
The second pop, he’d realised almost immediately after, was one of the valves giving up, because a cloud of the blue pollen was steadily seeping out of the container and into the room.
He’d initiated containment protocols immediately. But apparently, and for reasons Spock and Sulu were going to write a strongly worded missive about to the Starfleet, they had done little except slow the spread. Jim had inhaled the pollen directly, but despite isolating the room and him, it was clear that the whole crew were affected within days. There had been little point in keeping the captain away from the bridge in those circumstances.
As for the symptoms….
“Captain? Jim? Jim!”
With difficulty, Jim straightened from the protective hunch he’d curled into and forced his focus back to Bones.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m going to space myself or kill us all if you don’t lock me up.”
Bones had actually come out from behind his desk, but it was obvious being this close was costing him. And it wasn’t making Jim feel any better either. Normally, Bones would’ve already been holding him, easing him down, calling for the nurse. Normally, Jim would’ve appreciated the touch, the reassurance of another person there, Bones in particular. Now, thanks to an alien flower and a misfunctioning valve, none of them could stand the presence of each other, never mind an actual touch.
‘Sex pollen’ had been a running joke in the Starfleet practically as long as Starfleet had existed, kept alive by a few, poorly documented and dubiously evidenced cases of some people somewhere maybe losing their inhibitions a bit because of unexpected chemical reactions but… Well, as far as Jim knew, no one had ever heard of anti-sex pollen, one that caused an extreme aversion to touch and slowly, it seemed, even presence of others. Sulu had postulated that it was some kind of evolutionary reproduction strategy, ensuring that any pollen covered animals scattered far and wide, thus maximising the plant’s spread. At first, they’d all hoped that the effects would wear out over time but a week later they were only intensifying. It didn’t make sense, evolutionarily speaking, since killing the carriers to extinction would’ve also harmed the plant, which suggested that the problem was the way the pollen’s chemical composition interacted with that of the previously unencountered species, namely humans’ though the other species on Enterprise weren’t unaffected either. In fact, Spock and the other couple of Vulcans had slipped into a deep meditative state two days ago, becoming unresponsive. Bones reassured Jim that they would survive like that for several weeks, but it did little to allay his concern. Or the selfish wish to have his second-in-command with him.
Running a spaceship whilst most of your brain was screeching at you to get as far as possible from every other living being turned out to be challenging to say the least, and Jim was fast reaching the end of his tolerance. It wasn’t just about the practicalities though.
Kirk was a people person. It was one of his core strengths, the ability to both understand others and to find common ground on which to build professional and personal relationships, to create trust and loyalty, to work together toward a common goal. It was what made him a great Starfleet captain, but more than that, it was also one of the deepest joys of his life. Jim loved people, loved to learn their little quirks and habits, to figure out what made them tick and then feed that to help them turn into the very best versions of themselves. To have all of that stripped away by a flower…
To have to watch the effects of the pollen on his crew was worse. Jim was familiar with all the evolutionary, physiological, psychological, cultural reasons why humans needed touch. Group and individual variation obviously existed, but as a species the requirement for connection went DNA-deep and the impacts of being deprived of it were well-documented and happening right in front of his eyes, right in his own body too.
“Fuck,” Bones cursed softly.
Jim’s head jerked up to find Bones crouched low in front of his desk. It took a second to figure out it was because he’d deliberately put himself on the same level as Jim who was now pressed against the corner nearest to the door, curled on the floor in a tight, defensive ball. Great. Wonderful. His brain had apparently overridden the lethal-when-in-outer-space flight instinct but only by instigating the freeze instinct instead. And now the two of them were facing each other like two stray cats who’d suddenly found themselves in the same garden, equally terrified and equally unwilling to show it.
With an effort, Jim unglued his tongue from the top of his mouth. “Agreed,” he croaked out. Every muscle in his body was locked and he was unable to look away from Bones for more than a second, the constant need to keep the danger in his sight exhausting to the extreme.
“I’m… I’m close,” Bones said. Blindly, he scrabbled behind him with one hand, patting around the desk until he found a pad. “Just need to run some numbers so…” Slowly, the pad clutched to his chest, he started backing away. Jim could see the way his eyes kept flicking to the door but Jim’s own proximity to it probably acted as enough of a deterrent to stop Bones from just making a run for it.
“Computer,” Bones said, from his new position against the opposite wall, as far from Kirk as the confines of the office allowed whilst still being in each other’s eyesight. “Lock the door and do not let anyone either leave or enter this room for the next four hours, unless our life signs drop below seventy percent from the baseline. Medical override McCoy-five-five-one-J-A-zero-six.”
“Medical override McCoy-five-five-one-J-A-zero-six acknowledged,” the computer repeated. “Engaged.” The door chimed, red light flashing briefly on the control.
They were trapped now, for four hours, unless one of them started actively dying. And without any means to fling themselves off the ship right now, the chances of that had diminished. Rationally, Jim should’ve felt relieved by that, and he was, somewhere underneath the panicky rabbiting of his heart, but biochemical blanket from the flower was making it hard to concentrate on anything except the being trapped part. Being trapped with another person, to be precise.
“Should’ve put me in the brig,” he gritted out. “Can’t be easy for you to focus with another person in your space like this.”
Bones glanced at him over the pad. “You would’ve made a run for it,” he said, almost matter-of-factly. “We wouldn’t have made it.” His expression was grim. “And I don’t focus well if my best friend is floating in a vacuum. So.”
Oh.
Well, when you put it that way.
Jim did the only thing he could in the current situation which was to shut up and try to make himself small. Normally, he might be of some help with the medical research, if only as a relatively informed sounding board but not right now. Right now, he could only wait and hope and trust his life and the lives of everyone on board in Bones’ hands.
The first two had never been his strong points but even with the pollen clouding his mind the last one was easy. It was, after all, what he did every day. Bones had not let him down yet and Jim refused to believe he ever would. This too would turn out fine. Bones would find a solution to counteract the thrice-cursed anti-sex pollen and as soon as Jim could bear to touch another person again, he was going to wrap himself around Bones in a hug and not let go for some considerable time. It was going to amazing and embarrassing in equal measure and he couldn’t wait.
***