Sensate Focus

Sensate Focus is a Star Trek: The Original Series Fanfic written by Lyrastar. Notable in that it is one of the few post "Amok Time" Slash Fics to feature more plot than sex, and for its perfect characterization.

After the events of Amok Time, the Enterprise heads to Altair VI too late for its new president's inauguration, but in time for Kirk and Spock to attend the victory banquet celebrating the reunification of Altair VI and Altair V. The residents of Altair V are mute telepaths. Kirk and Spock are joined by another Starfleet ship, captained by one of Kirk's old instructors, Tanner McElhannon.

The newly-inaugurated Altair VI president Wyddick warns Kirk and Spock that a radical faction of Altair V residents has been stirring up trouble. Captain McElhannon disagrees, and tells Kirk that of that faction, the three he's met have claimed that the "Sixers" from Altair VI have been keeping the "Fivers" from Altair V as slaves.

At the banquet, the faction of Fivers attacks, killing a Red Shirt, and demands that Wyddick be surrendered and executed. Fortunately, the weapons the Fiver faction is using need to be near a heat source to function, and by turning off the kitchen ovens, Kirk and Spock incapacitate the weapons. The Fivers who attacked are taken prisoner, and Kirk and Spock demand that they're kept on board the Enterprise, and that The Federation be allowed to prosecute them. The Sixers protest, but allow them to take the prisoners.

Kirk notices that Spock has been able to communicate with Kirk telepathically without a mind meld, which Spock has ever been able to do before. After Kirk's asking him, Spock admits that after the bond he had with T'Pring was severed on Vulcan, his mind and Kirk's formed a bond.

Kirk attends the funeral of the Red Shirt, and afterwards, Kirk is taken to Sickbay to treat the burns he received fighting the Fiver faction. Under the influence of a drug, Kirk has an Erotic Dream about Spock. Back in his quarters, Spock has the same dream about Kirk.

Spock mind melds with the prisoners, and they also say that the Sixers are keeping the Fivers as slaves. Kirk informs Admiral Komack, who refuses to believe it because Spock was just recently on the sick roster. Kirk and Spock use their link to initiate a three-way mind meld with the Fivers, so that they can give their story to Kirk: that the Sixers have been putting a drug in the grain that the Fivers eat in order to Mind Control them.

Kirk goes back to the planet in a shuttlecraft to confirm what the Fiver prisoner has told him, and Klingons attack, and force Kirk to fly them back to the Enterprise so they can capture it. Kirk uses his link with Spock to call for help. They arrange it so the Klingons will be sucked out of the shuttlecraft into space when they open the hatch.

Afterward, Kirk and Spock discuss the new link between them, and Kirk proposes marriage to Spock. Spock warns that Vulcans are Asexual outside of Pon Farr, which doesn't change Kirk's decision. They speculate that Spock still may have sexual desires, which are repressed along with Spock's other emotions. Kirk and Spock decide they have no choice but to ask McCoy for help on overcoming Spock's frigidity. McCoy recommends the sensate focus technique, which allows two people to ease into touching each other, without having sex at first. After McCoy leaves, Kirk and Spock try the technique, which works perfectly.

Tropes used in Sensate Focus include:

Kirk:I admit, this isn’t exactly how I presumed my life would go, but Spock, if there were one person in this universe I could have as a friend, a brother, a confidant, a colleague, a partner—they would all be you. Every one. Everything that’s important to me in this universe, you’re a part of. I’ve had a taste of what more we could have, joined, and I want that. I want that. I want to stay in that togetherness. And if the only thing that’s keeping us from it is the fact that I didn’t ask for it in advance—well now I’m asking. We’re already bonded, so I can’t ask you that. So I am asking you the one thing I can—for everything and anything that it entails.

    • Also:

Spock: When I think of you, I feel something I cannot name. A desire for more. To be nearer. To be a part of more of you, to be everything that you need—but nothing similar to the physical imperatives of the Pon Farr. It is possible that that capacity is within me—along with the other baser passions we have come to master—suppressed long before puberty, before it could be acknowledged. If that is the case, I have no interest in freeing it; the violent abandon of the Pon Farr is not something I wish to explore. Of course you are free to copulate with other persons.
Kirk: I don’t want other persons.
The knee-jerk response flew out of his mouth unplanned, but it was the vehemence behind it that shocked him utterly. He heard an anger in his own voice that he had no right to feel. Anger, or was it only the protective harshness that so often covers one’s fears?

Kirk:Oh, and Spock, one more thing.
Spock turned. Jim focused his thoughts. Spock gave a tiny smile and inclined his head in a nod. Spock stepped back to touch their fingers one last time.
Spock: And I you, Jim.
And I you.

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