Diplomacy Fulfilled
By Aconitum-Napellus.
Rating: R
Summary: Sarek has a unique experience when he drinks Malovian vodka.
Author is happy for story to be archived.
A.N. Sister story to Diplomacy Awry. Sa/Am with hints
of Sp/
Diplomacy Fulfilled
How many years had it been since she was last a guest on the starship
Very little had changed on the
`Sarek,' Amanda said in a hushed voice, turning towards her husband. `Isn't she
incredible? They didn't provide musicians when we were here last!'
Sarek levelled his gaze for a few moments on the woman on the stage before
taking another sip of his pale green drink.
`Yes, it appears she is an excellent musician in addition to her talents as a
nurse,' he nodded.
`As a nurse?' Amanda echoed, staring at the woman
again.
`It is Nurse Chapel,' Sarek said calmly. `She who attended me
in sickbay on our previous visit.'
`Really?' Amanda stared harder, and as the woman's
head lifted for a moment she saw the familiar face. `Oh, it is, isn't it? Well,
I never would have expected-- '
`It is not uncommon for a person of higher intelligence to be proficient at music,'
Sarek reminded her.
`No, of course not.' Amanda smiled, wondering if Sarek
was reminding her of his talents at multiple instruments, or perhaps of their
son's. She touched her fingers to his, and was rewarded with a surprising surge
of affection through the bond. `Sarek?' she said questioningly, meeting his
gaze.
`Yes, my wife?' Sarek asked innocently. So skilled was he at shielding that she
could not tell if the innocence was real or fake.
She turned back to the musician on the platform, slowly discerning familiar
traits of the nurse she had grown to like during those long hours in sickbay.
The bend of her neck, and the hands that were as
skilful on the bow as they had been while tending to Sarek. The woman had been
very fond of Spock - that had been obvious - and Amanda had very much approved
of the potential in that pairing. If only Spock could be persuaded to act on
it.
She glanced sideways, knowing by some maternal instinct that her son was
nearby. She saw Spock standing some metres away, staring at the nurse with a
transfixed expression on his face. He was drinking the same Malovian
vodka that Sarek was enjoying, from a tall, fragile glass, but barely seemed
aware that he was doing so, so focussed was he on the woman on the stage.
`Well, that's nice to see,' Amanda said quietly to Sarek, directing his
attention towards his son.
Sarek raised an enquiring eyebrow, and seeing where she was looking said, `Yes,
Spock has always had a keen appreciation for music.'
`Of course.' She
smiled. It seemed that Sarek was blind to all signs of love except for those
between himself and his wife.
Sarek's eyes turned to the level of alcohol in her glass, and asked, `More
vodka, my wife? The flavour of this beverage is surprisingly refreshing.'
She demurred briefly, and then said, `Do you know, I think I will? Thank you,
Sarek.'
******
It was later in the evening that she noticed Sarek's behaviour becoming
unusual. The music had stopped some minutes ago, and Captain Kirk was trying to
engage her husband in conversation, discussing some of the finer points of the
upcoming conference. Sarek's attention seemed to be wavering, however, and more
than once she caught his eyes burning on to her with an intensity that he
usually reserved for more private situations.
`Well, Amanda,' Kirk said finally, realising that he did not have Sarek's full
attention. `I hope you've enjoyed this evening as much as the diplomats. We
tried to make it an entertaining one.'
`Oh, it was lovely.' She smiled
graciously. `I was very impressed with the talents of your crew. Mr Sulu, I
think, told me that some of the artworks were painted by crewmembers?'
`They were,' he smiled, and reached out to touch her arm, turning her towards
one of the paintings nearby. `This one, for instance, was-- '
`Remove your hand, Captain.'
Sarek had spoken so low that for a moment the captain didn't seem to realise he
had said anything at all. Then he turned to look at the Vulcan, a startled
expression on his face.
`I beg your pardon, Ambassador?'
Amanda could feel the sudden waves of emotional intensity pushing through her
husband's shields.
`Remove your hand from she who is my wife,' Sarek said with greater clarity.
Amanda looked at her husband in astonishment as Kirk's hand dropped from her
arm.
`I apologise, Ambassador Sarek,' the captain said quickly, obviously wondering
which Vulcan custom he had trodden over now. He suddenly seemed to think his
dress uniform collar was very tight, and pushed a finger beneath the braided
circle.
Sarek blinked, for a moment appearing confused, and then he said slowly, `No,
Captain. It is I who must apologise. I cannot fathom-- '
Amanda took his half-empty glass from his hand, smiling a smile that would put
most diplomats to shame.
`Perhaps it's time to retire, my husband,' she said lightly. `It's been a long
evening.'
`Yes, of course,' Sarek said, still in that distracted voice. `If you will excuse us, Captain?'
`Of course,' Kirk murmured, puzzlement still showing on his face.
Sarek's hand was tight on his wife's arm as he steered her out of the room. The
fact that he was not touching her fingers in the ritual way was surprise
enough, but Sarek almost never let his physical strength out of his very
precise control.
`Sarek, are you all right?' she asked him in a low voice as they passed into
the corridor.
`I am fine, my wife,' he replied, but she could hear the slight steel undertone
of impatience in his voice. `Amanda, our cabin is very far away,' he added, his
impatience breaking through even further.
`Are you sure you're feeling all right?' she repeated, her concern increasing.
Their cabin was only a short ride away by turbolift, and then a few hundred
yards down the corridor. `Your heart-- '
`My heart is surprisingly vigorous tonight,' he assured her, looking her with a
gaze that was meaningful but undecipherable. `I have had no problems since
McCoy's excellent surgery - you are aware of that, Amanda.'
`Yes, I know, but-- ' she began.
`Must you question me on every utterance?'
His voice was loaded with impatience and she looked at him in astonishment. If
she hadn't known better she would have said he was acting as if. Her mind
faltered. No, really, it had only been six years since the last Time, and the
periods between grew longer as Sarek grew older. It was completely impossible.
`Amanda, is that the pool room?' Sarek asked abruptly,
looking towards a door on his left.
`Sarek, I'm sure the
Really, he seemed to be losing his mind. She was becoming seriously worried.
There's was Bendii Syndrome in Sarek's family, she was
certain of it. Surely he couldn't be unlucky enough for that degenerative
disease to follow the heart condition?
`My wife, did you read none of the literature left in our cabin when we took residence?'
Sarek asked, the exasperation clear in his voice now.
`The Malovian people require full immersion at least
once every twenty-nine standard hours. A pool room has been set up to that end,
and all guests are welcome to use it.'
`Really?' Amanda asked, her eyes glinting. Swimming
was a rare pleasure for her on Vulcan, where water was scarce and treasured.
`In here,' Sarek said, his grip on her arm tightening further as he took her
through the doorway.
The air inside the room literally took Amanda's breath away. Hot and humid, it
filled her lungs like something solid, leaving her speechless for a moment.
Someone had filled the edges of the room with luscious trailing plants, their
flowers in full bloom and wafting alien perfumes out into the air. And in the
centre was a turquoise jewel - a pool that was, perhaps, a storage container
redressed, but redressed so skilfully that there could be no complaints about
functionality intruding on this luxurious space.
`Sarek, I don't have a costume,' she began in regret.
Sarek engaged the privacy lock and turned an intense gaze on her. His eyes
seemed to burn right through her clothes.
`No matter, Amanda,' he said. `Neither do
`Oh, I'm not sure-- ' she began.
Sarek was already beginning to unfasten the thick and formal jacket he was
wearing. She took in a sharp breath as he peeled his undershirt from his body.
Even at over 100, he never failed to allure her, and now, caught in the
intensity of whatever it was that had taken hold of him, the sight of him sent
shivers through her spine.
`Sarek, what on earth has come over you?' she asked.
He was down to his underwear now, and stripping that off with fervour. She
could feel through the latent mental bond that he was deeply aroused - and now
she could see it too. He reached out his fingers to her and she touched them,
feeling the underlying tension humming through his skin.
`My wife, attend me,' he said in a low voice.
She glanced briefly at the door, and then back at her husband. His eyes were
blazing with fire, but she had no fear despite his strength and determination.
There was still a kindness and the softness of love behind the flames.
Her mind made up, she took her fingers briefly from his to strip off her
clothing and join him in his nudity. His arms wrapped around her, the gentle
strength in his muscles always arousing, and she felt the heat of him against
her. And then he drew her off-balance and she found herself suddenly immersed
in warm water, her hair billowing out behind her in the currents and Sarek's
arms still holding her firmly against him.
`Oh,' she spluttered as they rose from beneath the water. She could feel the
insistent hardness against her body. `Sarek-- '
He silenced her by pressing his lips to hers, the heat of him burning against
her. He was hungry - overcome by a raging hunger to encompass her body. She
fell against him, the water cradling her and his arms holding her tight as his
lips moved down her neck, his teeth nipping at her skin, his fingers searching
across her body like a blind man.
******
`Well, I've certainly never done that before,' Amanda said with a broad smile
as she towelled water from her hair.
Sarek sat at the side of the pool in silence, his chest rising and falling
slowly as he regained control of his breathing. As Amanda watched him she was
struck by the dignity that still reigned in his countenance. He looked more
like he had got out of the pool after a carefully measured amount of laps than
after impulsive intercourse in the warm water.
`My wife, it is hardly an uncommon-- ' he began.
`In a pool, on our son's ship, with nothing more than an inch of door between
us and the corridor outside?' she asked him, smoothing her hair down and
looking about for her clothes.
She was perfectly warm, but she felt self-conscious sitting naked in this
supposedly public space, afraid that someone would come in despite the lock.
She began to struggle with her underwear. The humid air had left her clothing
damp and difficult to pull on.
Sarek's eyebrow raised, and he watched her appraisingly as she struggled to
untangle her clothes while the fabric rolled on her damp skin. He seemed to
have no concerns with his own clothes. He was not even moving to put them on.
Instead he was just sitting, watching her with intense eyes.
`Sarek, are you going to dress?' she asked him.
`It wasn't the first thing on my mind,' he admitted, obviously gaining pleasure
from watching her awkward gymnastics with the damp clothing.
The look in his eyes was one of fire again, and she caught her breath as his
gaze pulled her in. That mixture of impatient, amorous lust was intoxicating.
`Sarek, you're insatiable!' she exclaimed, half laughing, before asking in a
more concerned tone, `Are you sure you're all right? I mean, we enjoy a healthy
sex life, but this is unlike you.'
`Is it unlike a male to desire his woman?' he asked.
`Well, no-- ' she began. She was getting nowhere with rational arguments
tonight.
`My wife,' he said as she stretched her arms up, trying again to unravel her
tangled clothing enough to get it over her body.
And he was suddenly against her again, his fingertips soft but firm on her
face, his mind reaching into hers. She felt it again - that deep,
uncontrollable fire that she knew only from pon farr. He was still crawling
with need, with the urge to lie with her and taste her and explore her body as
if it were a new thing to him. There was a dark haze in his mind, veiling his
rational thought and turning everything into wordless sensations and impulses.
`Sarek,' she murmured against him, feeling her own body reacting again to his
urgency. `Sarek, really, we should go to our quarters… Sarek.'
And then as he touched her physically as well as mentally she breathed, `Oh
lord.'
She was slipping back onto the floor, feeling it hard and unyielding against
her shoulders and back, and Sarek was atop of her, his breathing coming hard
again, the haze growing in his eyes as he sank his mouth over hers and kissed
her with something approaching violence. What clothing she had managed to don
he was pushing aside, his hands all over her body and his mind threaded into
hers. His pulsings of desire had become hers, his
fire had become hers. They were breathing in synchronicity, his skin hot
against her skin, and as he entered her she lost herself again in the force of
his passion.
******
It proved to be a long night. Amanda rose with her head muddled with lack of
sleep, her body sore and aching in a way she had not experienced since Sarek's
last Time. She was used to the heat of Vulcan, and used to Sarek adjusting his
room settings on alien ships to Vulcan normal - but this morning the air felt
stifling and unbearable.
Rising from the sheets she saw a flashing at the bedside computer, indicating a
communiqué waiting to be read. She turned on the screen, and as she read a look
of dawning comprehension grew on her face.
She glanced across at her husband, lying in the tangle of sheets in a deep and
natural sleep. It was little wonder he was exhausted. After they had returned
to their quarters Sarek had proved himself to be by no means satiated. Between
them they had grasped very few hours sleep.
Sarek's eyelids half opened, and he looked at her, a
moment of realisation passing through his eyes, coupled with a fleeting
expression of pain.
`Amanda, I am-- ' he began.
‘Don't tell me you're sorry,' she said firmly, a smile brightening the
tiredness on her face. `I haven't had a night like that in - well, in far too
long. My love, you were wonderful.'
A hint of a smile touched her husband's mouth. `But still, I do not know what
it was that made me so-- '
`Horny?' she asked him. `I know.'
She turned the computer screen towards him, and he blinked, beginning to sit up
and focus his eyes on the tightly-written text.
`A message from Dr McCoy?' he asked, and she nodded. `Could you relay the
substance?' he asked. `I seem to be suffering a rather severe headache.'
`A hangover, Sarek,' she told him bluntly. `It's called a hangover. I don't
think you've ever had one of those, have you?'
He made to shake his head, and then thought better of it.
Amanda sat down beside him, silently offering him a glass of water.
`Welcome to the human world,' she smiled. `According to Dr McCoy, you maybe be
suffering some unexpected results from the consumption of Malovian
vodka. Symptoms include - apart from a severe hangover - a noted elevation of
certain hormones in the Vulcan system, and a probable occurrence of the
symptoms of pon farr.'
Sarek's eyes widened.
`No, Dr McCoy did not use those precise words,' she smiled. `He's far too
gracious a gentleman to step on that particular Vulcan taboo. But that's
undeniably what he means.'
`Does the good doctor prescribe a treatment?' he asked weakly.
`I think, Sarek, we indulged in the treatment last night,' Amanda said pointedly.
`Other than that, my dear husband, I prescribe copious amounts of water for
you, and that you try to sleep it off. I'm going out for coffee.'
To her surprise Sarek did not even protest. He finished the glass of water he
held, and settled back into the pillows. If he had been human, he would have
moaned.
******
Amanda could have stayed in her assigned quarters for her morning coffee, but
in her state of tiredness the near-Vulcan heat was unbearable, and the cool in
the recreation room was like a balm. Even so, she barely felt awake as she took
a steaming cup of strong coffee from the replicator. She took her first sip,
and the invigorating effect of the caffeine began to enter her bloodstream.
She turned to face the recreation room, looking about herself for a table,
hoping she did not look as exhausted as she felt. She saw Spock almost
instantly, sitting on the other side of the room and looking, to her
experienced eyes, considerably worse for wear. Catching his eyes, he nodded at
her, and then dropped his gaze with a look that she recognised as a peculiarly
Vulcan kind of embarrassment. She realised then that he was sitting at a table
with Nurse Chapel, and as Christine looked up Amanda echoed the nurse's
spontaneous smile.
The thoughts seemed to crowd in her mind in a millisecond. Malovian vodka. Spock drinking it last night. Sarek's
reaction. The reaction, according to McCoy, of all
Vulcans to that spirit.
Her eyes widened momentarily, and she saw the same look of realisation light
simultaneously in Christine's eyes. There could be very few reasons that the
nurse would have that reaction, and she knew the most likely one...
Aware that her mouth had dropped open, she snapped it shut, and left the room
before the blood she could feel rushing to her cheeks manifested itself in a
blush.
In the corridor, she stood leaning against the wall, taking deep, refreshing
gulps of the coffee and letting her thoughts settle in her mind. Spock and Nurse Chapel. Her son, and that delightful woman,
sitting together after a night of - well - her mind baulked at imagining that
night too fully, but perhaps Malovian vodka could
only be counted as a good thing in Vulcan's international relationships.
o0o