To Catch a Swallow

K/S Fanfiction
Title:	To Catch a Swallow
Author(s):	Mary Suskind Lansing
Date(s):	1987
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
External Links:	at AO3
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To Catch a Swallow is a K/S story by Mary Suskind Lansing.

first page of story

It was published in the print zine Daring Attempt #8.

Reactions and Reviews

This story has really stayed with me when other, more erotic or adventuresome stories, have long since been forgotten. It is a gentle study of a long, durable love in its twilight years. When Kirk says to Spock that it is the quality of life that matters (referring to a pet) rather than the quantity, I could not help but feel he was telling his mate he was more than content with his own life and did not fear its end. I also very much liked the depiction of Kirk as very old and frail and yet still enjoying a full and satisfying life, rather than fighting the inevitable and steeped in bitterness.

Beautiful. Warm. Human. “Living closer to humans, as he had chosen to do, meant watching the aging and deaths of companions he called friends. And with each death, and with each loss, it was as though the emotions were only a rehearsal for a play where opening night would mean the closing down of the most precious part of himself.”

I also really like a Mary [Suskind Lansing] story called “To Catch a Swallow” in Daring Attempt 8. The setting is similar with Kirk getting quite frail and Spock teaching at a university. They keep Irish Wolfhounds, though, and the author uses the dogs’ short lifespans as an excellent metaphor for the inevitable death that Kirk faces and Spock fears above all other things. I really like the little ordinary touches the author provides in this story, with Spock sitting back in a recliner, the way they give the dog ice cream. Little things I remember and make them come alive for me.