Image from my Fanfiction Desert Rose 🌹 on Ao3.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/28787319/chapters/70595097
Dirt was dirt. Even on Vulcan, light years away from his home planet. Even with his first officer on top of him, pushing him down into it, digging him in as he killed him slowly. Dirt was dirt. Kirk could feel it in his boots and hair, could even taste it in his mouth. It reminded him of childhood, all the times him and his older brother had roughhoused in the garden and all the times Kirk had ended up with his face in the fresh soil. He could never beat Sam, of course he couldn’t, but it was enough to try. It was enough to hit the ground hard and feel the dirt on your skin. It was familiar. When he was on strange planets, fighting his own memories, getting kicked into a shallow grave by an old friend, Kirk would still be able to find the ground. To dirty himself with it. And he was okay dying in it. He’d come from the dirt, it seemed fitting to return there too. Ashes to ashes he thought as Spock tightened the tether around his neck, as he sank further down into the earth. Spock’s face was dirtied too, more alien than it had ever looked before. Kirk wanted to reach up and wipe it away, but suddenly he didn’t have the strength. Dust to dust. Spock’s hips over his, the sand between them, the dirt below. Kirk wondered if it could have been different, about all the other ways he could have put out the fire in Spock. But he knew the thought was foolish, because it would always end like this. It had to. With Sand and soil and earth consuming him, dying the only way he knew how. From dirt you are, and to dirt you will return.
kokorocala
