captivity

[full_of_wrath]

Kirk gets called in. Mostly because Khan has made two duty officers guarding his cell ask to be relieved, one of them in tears.

He creates a lot of wear and tear, in general.

Comments

[full_of_wrath]

"Then your crew need to stop fucking one another."

He says, posh absent and lips twisting obscenely around the profanity.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

That obscenity is rarely used anymore, and Kirk tilts his head.

"I don't get why you're pointing out how much it bothers you, when you clearly don't want me to do anything to change it."

[full_of_wrath]

"I'll stop pointing it out."

He compromises, settling back down. Because the truth is, he doesn't know what he wanted either.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

"How widespread was this boot fetish?"

History books, naturally, say nothing about it.

[full_of_wrath]

"It's more complicated than that."

Is all he'll say.

"It was part of a subculture that I'd imagine is long gone."

[kobayashiwhatnow]

"Or changed. People still have sex."

Kirk says, a little indignant.

[full_of_wrath]

"Well, I'm hardly going to search 'bootblacking' on your ships computer. I presume my access will be monitored, so you'll have to do your browsing on your own."

Encouraging him, with a shrug.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

"Anything else I should look up while I'm at it?"

If something as simple as this could get under Khan's skin, Kirk has to wonder what else might.

[full_of_wrath]

"Service."

Would be a good place to start.

"Look up old service."

[kobayashiwhatnow]

"I knew 'service' was an old euphemism, I just didn't realize it meant real service."

But Khan will still have to do it, he realizes. He doesn't want the humiliation aspect, so he's really hoping that swabbing decks and other little tasks weren't remotely sexual.

[full_of_wrath]

"It doesn't mean service, exactly. It was part of what was considered consensual power exchange."

He murmurs, focusing for a moment on lace-holes.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

"What, like between Captain and crew?"

Or what he'd observed in street gangs, maybe, though that had been more tumultuous than this.

[full_of_wrath]

"No. Not like that."

He murmurs, and then takes a gamble. He slips over to kneel in front of Kirk.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

He looks down at him, brow furrowed a little in confusion. Whatever Khan is doing, though, Kirk lets himself go along with.

[full_of_wrath]

He takes him by the ankle, and begins, solemnly, to work on his boots.

He works with the sort of ceremonial attention and devotion that the act deserves.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

Although this is the way boots are meant to be done, Kirk has never seen anyone do it this way. Not without a CO standing over their shoulder, and in those cases the attention hadn't been genuine.

He tilts his head, trying to see Khan's expression.

[full_of_wrath]

He looks blank, but in a way that seems rather serene rather than tormented, like some source of tension in him has just shut off entirely and he's miles away. It's such a relief.

It takes him twice as long to do one boot as it did to do a pair of the empty ones. Then, he takes the other foot, and pulls it up to rest the heel on his thigh while he starts on it.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

It's like seeing a figure through mist and a bad lens. He can kind of get the gist of what this must mean to Khan, but he can't fit it into a perspective he knows.

He does know that this feels really good, though--and not just the hands on him through his boots.

"I'm guessing this was always a one-on-one thing." Because bootblacking with this level of devotion would mean the work would never get done.

[full_of_wrath]

"Sometimes it would be done in crowds- but the crowds understood the devotion inherent in the act."

Explaining, quietly.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

"How else did people show their devotion?"

He should be watching his boots, but he's not, he can't look away from Khan.

[full_of_wrath]

He dips gracefully forwards, and touchings his tongue to the leather, just the tip, head turned so Kirk can see.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

Oh, hell. Kirk is abruptly shifting in his seat, but he doesn't move that foot.

[full_of_wrath]

He nuzzles, just softly, and straightens back up with the smallest smear of black on the bridge of his nose, reverent and dazed.

[kobayashiwhatnow]

Kirk is speechless, breathless, every bit as dazed as Khan looks. He reaches out and gently rubs the smudge off of Khan's skin. He has no idea what this is, or how it happened, but he rubs the side of his boot slowly along Khan's thigh, meaning it to be silent praise.

[full_of_wrath]

He leans in and rests his cheek on Kirk's knee, accepting that quietly.

"I've got to get back to work, if you understand a little better now."