Star Trek/Ho Yay

They're fighting. Really.

• Jim Kirk and Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series.
  • People have edited together various sound clips from the show for this trope. Type "lovetrek" into a search engine if you wish.
  • There is also an extremely well known German comedy, which has all of the Enterprise crew being gay and got made into a movie eventually (the series was far better), though here it is not only Kork and Spuck that come really close at times, also Schrotti is in the mix...
  • The Kirk/Spock pairing is also one of the most famous examples of Slash Fic. This would make sense, because they started the whole thing.
    • But please, not in front of the Klingons.
    • According to That Other Wiki, Kirk/Spock was the first pairing to actually use the slash.
  • And of course there was that backrub scene. And the episode "Amok Time" (see image). Pon farr anyone?
  • People might consider the whole thing nothing but wishful thinking by some Yaoi Fangirls. In response to this, a fan created The Ship's Closet, a series that carefully analyzes the relationship between Kirk and Spock based purely on evidence found within the show. If you had any doubt, watching this will completely remove it. Or to say it in her words "they don't write romance like that anymore." ^[1]
    • She's also going through the episodes here and pointing out the Ho Yay.
  • There's this.
  • Also, apparently, there are rumours about this circulating even in universe.
    • And when Kirk is asked about it, he just ponders it and doesn't answer. When Spock is asked about it, he usually just raises his eyebrow or glares and doesn't answer.
  • Also, Also, McCoy tells Spock he feels sorry for him because Spock will never know love. He's talking about the romantic love, like Kirk had for Rayna. Immediately after that, Spock mind melds (a very intimate act for a Vulcan) with Kirk. To examine the mind of the Vulcan, let's take this to its logical conclusion...
  • And then there's the novelisation of The Motion Picture (written by Gene Roddenberry himself), where Spock refers to Kirk as his "t'hy'la" - a Vulcan word that can mean "friend", or "brother", or "lover"...
    • Roddenberry attempted to mitigate the effect of this and gently dissuade K/S fans by adding an in-character footnote from Kirk which reads like a mix of evasion and Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?. A line-by-line dissection can be found here.
    • The point has also been made that if "lover" wasn't an important and relevant part of the definition, Roddenberry wouldn't have put it in the definition. Vulcan is, after all, a constructed language.
  • Spock and Kirk have a tendency to make eye contact and hold it for a beat or two longer than seems appropriate in the situation. Like in Miri, or Corbomite Manuever
  • And there is the time that Spock and Kirk held hands for twentysomething seconds. Because it's not slash if one of the guys is in a girl's body. Not. At. All.
    • It should be noted that Vulcans' hands are erogenous zones.
  • The movies take all this Up to Eleven. The "Sickbay Scene" from The Motion Picture is actually pictured on The Other Wiki's Slash fiction page. (As well as the main Ho Yay page here.)
  • In The Search for Spock, Kirk willingly sacrifices the Enterprise - the one thing he cares about more than anything else in the universe - to save Spock. Bear in mind that it's mentioned numerous times during the series that the Enterprise is more important to Kirk than any woman and that, in the episode Elaan of Troyius, it was stated canonically that Kirk's love for the Enterprise was so great that he was able to overcome a love spell cast on him (one that was supposed to be irreversible!) because he still loved the Enterprise far more than the girl. Hm.
    • Also in The Search for Spock, there's Kirk saying that if Spock has an immortal soul, it's his responsibility. When the guy he's talking to looks at him weirdly and questions it, Kirk just replies firmly, "as surely as if were my very own." Oh, and he refers to Spock as 'the nobler part of myself.' ('My better half', anyone?)
  • This is an attempt to clip every single relevant Kirk/Spock moment into one video. it is over 2 hours long.
  • There's just so much subtext between these two that the sheer amount of meta produced towards it (arguing either pro-Spirk or anti) is truly phenomenal. This is just a taste.
• I know Kirk/Spock are the OTP slash pairing, but did anybody else think Kirk and Khan had a little Foe Yay going on?
  • And Kirk/Ben Finney. When Kirk describes his relationship to Finney, he pauses as if he's got a secret. Ben Finney holds an eternal grudge against Kirk, yet still names his daughter after Kirk. In fact, Finney's daughter only realizes that he's gone insane by reading his letters detailing his obsession with Kirk. Exactly what the letters contained was left ambiguous.
    • Same for the episode Shore Leave, with Kirk and Finnegan.
  • Kirk also ends the episode "Obsession" by hitting on a male ensign.
• Also, Kirk and Captain Christopher in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday." And Kirk/Gary Mitchell in the pilot.
  • The ho yay between Kirk and Captain Christopher is hilariously skewered here.
• Spock and McCoy, too.
  • • The one in "Mirror, Mirror" is a bit creepy. BDSM, anyone?
    • A Hallmark Star Trek Christmas ornament uses this scene, complete with creepy dialogue. Its very giggle inducing.
  • Any combination of the TOS Power Trio is ripe and ready to be slashed (though, at the end of the day, the Kirk/Spock pairing is the most popular). Sometimes they slash all three at once.
• What about Sulu/Chekov? It may not involve the big three, but that's part of what makes it adorable.
  • Deleted scenes from Star Trek V established that they went camping together. Just sayin'.
  • Not to mention that George Takei really IS gay.
  • The Janus Gate trilogy of novels basically establishes them as unshakeable life partners, so much so that even when youthful Lieutenant Sulu meets a decades-older Shell-Shocked Veteran version of Chekov from an alternate timeline, they instantly get along. Additionally, toward the end of the series, the older Chekov is forced to kill his timeline's Sulu, whom he's spent most of his life faithfully serving. Established as someone left cynical and emotionally deadened by years of wartime, it's notable that the older Chekov's ONLY display of emotion is at this point, when we see him cradling Sulu's body and weeping with guilt and anguish.
  • There's also the canon face-cuddling! ^{[dead link]}
• Bashir and O'Brien in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ("I like you just a little bit more") have this
  • Is it just me, or is there a lot of focus put on any time Spock and McCoy mind meld?, as well as Bashir and Garak (deliberately played up by the actors).
  • O'Brien told Bashir he wishes Keiko was "more like a man". If that pairing isn't canon, nothing is.

O'Brien: See, you understand! Now why can't she see that? Why can't she be more like y- uh...
Bashir: More like...?
O'Brien: Err, um, a man, more like a man.

• • • "People either love you or hate you...I mean, I hated you when we first met, and now I ... don't. And that's from the heart! I really...do not hate you anymore."
    • In Extreme Measures we have a line where Bashir tries to convince O'Brien that he likes him more than his wife, states that he likes him better than his girlfriend Ezri, and starts pouting when O'Brien won't admit that he loves him. It should also be noted that in the final episode there are a bunch of montages showing some character's fondest memories on the station. Every. Single. One of O'Brien's memories feature Julian. Not one contains his wife. Also the episode where O'Brien nearly committed suicide, it was Julian talking him out of it and his wife...being useless.
  • Special mention must go to the episode in which Garak leaves for an incredibly dangerous mission to find his former mentor, and Bashir gives him a box of exotic space chocolates to bid him farewell. In response, Garak tells him of a very special Cardassian data rod that Bashir should eat if Garak doesn't return . Freud Was Right...
  • Oh here, an entire playlist dedicated to every moment these two have ever made eyes at each other.

"My |dear Doctor..."

• • Or when Garak broke into Bashir's quarters in the middle of the night and stared at him until Bashir finally woke up .
  • Special mention must go to Bashir and Garak's first scene together. Between Bashir fiddling with the flower like a nervous schoolboy, and Garak going in for the shoulder rub at the end - it's no wonder the actors reacted with Dull Surprise when this became such a popular slash pairing.
    • Regarding the shoulder rub, a Cardassian's neck ridges extend down right next to the shoulders and are erogenous zones. It's the first time they meet and Garak's doing the Cardassian equivalent of grabbing Bashir's ass.
    • Another episode ("Destiny") establishes that Cardassians regard constant bickering as a signal of sexual interest. What have Garak and Bashir been doing every week for three years? Meeting for lunch to bicker about literature. Slashers drew the only logical conclusion.
    • "The Wire," in which Bashir helps Garak through a near-suicidal drug addiction, is pretty much a forty-five minute Ho Yay fest. It culminates with Bashir going alone into Cardassian space to meet the former head of the Cardassian secret police in order to save Garak's life.
    • Regardless of the Subtext, Robinson and Siddig's chemistry led to Garak becoming an Ascended Extra, instead of getting killed off early in the series, as was the original plan.
  • There's also a lot of Foe Yay between Odo and Quark. Particularly in The Ascent and in the final episode.

QUARK: So, now that I'm here, is there something you want to say to me?
ODO: Such as?
QUARK: Such as, 'Goodbye, you certainly were a worthy adversary.' Or maybe something with the words mutual respect in it.
ODO: No.
QUARK: No? What do you mean no?
ODO: I mean no. I have nothing I want to say to you.
QUARK: You're telling me that after all these years, after all we've been through, you're not even going to say goodbye to me?
ODO: That's right. Nerys, I'll be on the runabout. Huh.
(Odo leaves)
KIRA: Don't take it hard, Quark.
QUARK: Hard? What are you talking about? That man loves me. Couldn't you see? It was written all over his back.

• • There was always a sexual subtext when Odo would link with another shape-shifter, so when a male shape-shifter showed up in "Chimera," some Ho Yay was unavoidable. And then you've got Quark saying, "This is no time for a 'Changeling Pride' demonstration on the promenade..."
  • Deep Space Nine hinted at Les Yay in the Mirror Universe episodes. Also in the episode "Rejoined", although that wasn't supposed to be about gender.
  • There's also a hint of Les Yay between Uhura and a couple of the alien girls. In Spock's Brain, for instance, when the Eymorg lands on the ship, and the whole crew (including Uhura) gape at how beautiful she is. In Amok Time, when Uhura sees T'Pring's communication to Spock, she says in an almost lovestruck voice "Oh, she's beautiful! Who is she?"
• Picard and Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Recurring guest star Q develops a fascination with humanity--Picard in particular--and continuously pops up to test him. Unless he's popping up to save Picard's life, or guide him to save the universe. He has no regard for Picard's personal space, and pops into bed with him twice; the second time, Picard has a quite civil chat while lying half-nude in bed next to Q. Not to mention at least one writer and John de Lancie (Q) himself stating Q was in love with Picard. At one point, Q muses that he might have done better to appear to Picard as a female.
  • An example that demonstrates their relationship, from an Expanded Universe novel. Q has whisked Picard off to see beautiful and impossible things, and they have the following exchange shortly before Picard resorts to reciting Shakespeare to comprehend what he is seeing.

Picard: Explain all this, or do you simply enjoy seeing me confused and uncertain?

—Q: There is nothing simple about that joy at all, Jean-Luc.

• • Best friends Geordi and Data are another example. The closeness of their friendship has been touted since the beginning, as well as their being "bound together" by the nature of the way in which they were forced to see the world: without artifice of coloration.
  • The Next Generation episode "Suddenly Human" saw the Enterprise rescue a group of aliens, one of whom turns out to be a human teenager who had been raised in the aliens' culture. He wants to go back to the aliens, but Picard wants him to return to his human family and tries to bond with him to convince him to do so. They play racquetball together (in unitards that show off Picard's excellent-for-his-age body), which makes the boy break down crying as he remembers the attack that killed his human parents. Picard holds him and strokes his hair. The boy feels conflicted and goes over to Picard's bedside (he was staying in Picard's room at that point) and stabs him. This makes Picard realize he belongs with the aliens, and the boy goes, but not before doing the touching-foreheads thing that indicates affection in his culture with Picard. There was so much Ho Yay it was just dizzying.
    • It doesn't help that the kid is Chad Allen.
  • "The Naked Now" is most famous for Tasha and Data getting it on, but what about Tasha and Troi? Tasha's acting all weird, so Troi takes her hand and says, "Tasha, I feel you're very uncertain, that you're... fighting something." And at the end of the episode, they both get off the turbolift at the same time, after not having been seen for quite a while. Hey, Tasha had to be doing someone something after Data left...
    • Yar dies trying to rescue Troi from a hostile alien...
  • Data's Foe Yay with Kivas Fajo in "The Most Toys". At one point, Fajo throws acid on Data so that he'll change into the clothes he's laid out for him, and then goes on to say that he wouldn't mind if Data just went around naked.
  • Some of Lore's interactions with Data came off as rather... suggestive to me. In the "Descent" two-parter especially, where Lore gets Data addicted to his emotions and uses that to manipulate him to his side, taking a rather perverse pleasure in it all the while. Lore actually seems to have a bit of a preoccupation with getting Data to work with him, despite the fact that he could have been rid of the other android a long time ago with as many times as he's incapacitated him.
  • In "The Host" Dr. Crusher starts dating a Trill, not knowing the species are actually symbiotes that move through different host bodies. Eventually her lover has to be transferred to another body which is female, and Crusher breaks up with him/her...though it's specifically because she can't handle being with someone who could move to a different body at any time, not that he is now a she.
• Seven and Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager. There was a deleted Season 5 scene where Janeway loses her combadge, which is followed by Seven reaching behind Janeway and sticking the combadge back on her. Whilst Janeway is saying: "Have you ever considered trying it yourself? Romance I mean."
  • Also, there's the Borg Queen's Foe Yay with Seven. "You were always my favorite, Seven" (while caressing her cheek).
  • Some fans also saw Ho Yay in the friendship of Harry Kim and Tom Paris:

  Harry (facing down a mob that wants to beat up Tom}: This man is my friend. Nobody touches him!

• • • So much so that it's a running gag in Sci Fi Debris's reviews to poke fun at all the accidental Tom/Harry Ho Yay.
  • In the season 7 episode Q2, Q junior and Icheb seem to have this. Admittedly, Q expresses an explicit sexual interest in a number of female characters (including to Icheb), but then, when he runs away from his old life, he brings Icheb along, and later demonstrates that he's willing to die for him. Given that they've only known each other for a few days, I'd say this definitely qualifies.
  • Then there's the episode where Tuvok loses his memory and latches on to Neelix like a barnacle. And becomes a pastry chef.

 Tuvok: Then how will you know how much I enjoy being with you?

Neelix: You've just told me.

• • Okay, I'm not usually one to see homosexual innuendo in everything, but in "Revulsion", some of the clean-up hologram's dialogue makes it sound like he's outright in love with the Doctor. He even suggests they run away together!
• Pick a male character from Star Trek: Enterprise. Newsflash: he has been slashed with Malcolm Reed. Tucker/Reed is the most popular, with Archer/Reed a distant second and Reed/Hayes in third. Something about our dear British armoury officer makes him eminently slashable. Maybe it's all the time he spends playing with phase cannons.

1. ↑ The show is currently on hiatus, but Word of God slates it for return in "two months, tops."