self-made purgatories

I see layers of repression and guilt, two men struggling to re-package their relationship into some vaguely socially acceptable box that it can never be contained in. They're always saying too much, feeling too much, doing too much, and yet the full depth of their relationship is stifled and anguished and unspeakable.

Their mutual closest friend outside of their own little binary orbit, McCoy, is continually used to distinguish Spock's or Kirk's reactions/feelings from those of a close platonic friend. McCoy is generally supportive of het romances for them, where Kirk and Spock both seethe with jealousy no matter how unreasonable it may be. McCoy prioritizes pragmatic decency where Kirk can barely explain his readiness to torpedo his career for Spock, and Spock flatly refuses to explain his motives or feelings in jeopardizing any number of people for an off-chance of saving Kirk on multiple occasions. McCoy, loyal friend to them both, can be a pushy asshole about Spock's emotional expression, but he's often used to voice a frustration with Spock's denial of his feelings in relation to Kirk, a frustration that Kirk himself—who spends almost the entire series aware that Spock is ashamed of loving him—can't begin to register or articulate.

And at least half the time, Kirk and Spock seem too delighted and enthralled with each other to even realize how obvious they're being in front of other people (they seem to forget other people are even there at times). But they're also anxious about their true feelings being perceived by third parties, and keep covering up for themselves or each other (in particular, Kirk—who can "pass" in a way Spock really doesn't—tends to cover for Spock). Both admit at different points in TOS that they've never truly found peace or happiness. One of the most chilling S3 villains jokes about Kirk's desperate attempts to contact Spock and speculates with blatantly prurient interest about getting to see them demonstrate their feelings for each other. The series finale hinges on Spock recognizing that something is horribly wrong with "Kirk", and on the real (bodysnatched) Kirk insisting to Spock that "you are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe," which ultimately saves him.

I keep thinking of that infamous Roddenberry quote, too:

we never suggested in the series—physical love between the two. But it's the—we certainly had the feeling the affection was sufficient for that, if that were the particular style of the 23rd century.