A/N: Well here it is…the lost fic that inspired Drift Softly into the Night. I started writing this about a year ago when I was a senior in high school. I mainly watched Star Trek and Metalocalypse, and the demand for hardcore brutality that the latter show has combined with my love for Star Trek and birthed this story. I hope you enjoy. Oh and forgive the epic use of Southern vernacular.

Disclaimer: I don't own

Rationality

Time stopped. Only he could tell, of course, but he knew it had. He could feel it down in the marrow in his bones, and he was very pleased. On one hand he could count the number of times Time had obliged him by stopping long enough for him to savor a particularly triumphant moment. There was the day he graduated from Ole Miss; the day his beautiful daughter was born; those darling hours he spent watching his traitorous wife die the agonizing death his lovely poisons afforded her (oh he especially enjoyed that memory!); the time he broke Kirk's jaw after the bastard tried to cop a feel…

And now Time was stopping again. The scene was one he saw almost every day. Sterile, gleaming medical instruments lay in wait on bloody trays. There were patients (a term even he used loosely) in various stages of near death and rigor mortis; the air sickly sweet with the finished products of the Captain's wrath. Walls once a shining white were now a mottled gray, stained by God only knew what. But none of those humdrum particulars caught his attention as completely as the man just beginning to stir on the biobed before him.

He hoped the Captain would hurry and get to Sickbay before the man was fully conscious. No way would Time keep still if it had to kowtow to some mortal's whims.

The door opened with a low hiss, and he let a grin stretch across his mean mouth. Below him the man's eyelids began to flicker and squirm.

"Looks like I'm just in time. How much longer until he wakes up fully?" He smirked at the man who had come to stand beside him and was now sneering down at the waking patient. Time had slowed to the consistency of cold molasses.

"I'd say he'll come fully out of it within the next minute, Jim. He'll be able to feel everything perfectly." He watched a gleeful smile reveal the white pearls of Jim Kirk's teeth as the man clapped him on the shoulder and murmured, "That's damn good work, Bones. We'll get to play with my errant First Officer soon enough then." With those words, Time came to a full stop. Bones allowed a shiver of delight to work its way through him when, as the last second paused, Spock's eyes, glassy with the powerful sedative Bones had given him, slid open to assess his situation.

"I never thought I'd see the day your logic would fail you, Mr. Spock," Kirk casually commented once he realized the Vulcan was wakeful. "However I can't say it's an altogether unpleasant mistake." Spock remained silent, a move that surprised neither of the two men, though perhaps Bones less so than Kirk – he had, after all, spent quite some time studying the Vulcan.

"You might be wondering just what you're doing strapped to this custom made biobed instead of locked in the Agony Booth with the power on full," Kirk paused as though to let Spock confirm this, but the look in his eyes said it was more for play than out of twisted fairness. "Your thanks should go to the ever curious Doctor McCoy here. I personally wanted to launch you out of an airlock after the stunt you and that bitch Marlena pulled, but I remembered that Bones has always had a disgusting fascination for your kind, so instead of leaving you to die quickly in space or leave you screaming like the animal you are in the Agony Booth, I'll let Bones…learn from you. Have fun." The last two words were thrown over Kirk's shoulder as he strode out of Sickbay.

Bones let a silence stretch out – he had no worries about time. All the time he needed was within his grasp.

"Okay, Mr. Spock, let's get started!" His entire body was beginning to shake with delight and anticipation. A fear that had not been there previously began to creep at the edges of Spock's eyes. Though he knew there was no possible way McCoy could know, when the Vulcan felt the southern doctor's eyes boring into him, Spock was certain McCoy knew what his compassionate counterpart had suffered at his hands. Unfortunately there was no telling what McCoy would do to him should his nightmare become reality and the good doctor discover how he mind-raped that other McCoy.

"Alright, Mr. Spock, enough woolgathering. Believe me when I say you'll have more than enough time for that. You gon be here a while." It was not so much the doctor's words as his tone and accent that sent a thrill of apprehension through Spock. Everyone knew what happened once McCoy let his accent out: nothing remotely good.

Bones watched his Vulcan subject's mind throw off the remnants of the drugs and begin frantically thinking. He smiled quietly to himself and began to hum while he rummaged through his cabinets and drawers collecting the tools he wanted to use for the day. Twice as much concentration had to be used or else he would drop or break something important.

"Aw, I'm so excited! A real chance to getta look at yer innards, Mistuh Spock. Otha doctahs wuld die fer tha pri'ledge," Bones was practically bouncing in his standard issue boots, all attempt to control his accent completely destroyed in the face of his excitement. Spock, quite against his nature, began to quiver, straining against the immensely strong restraints containing his wrists and ankles. Bones stared down at him in mock benevolence, a tray stained brown by dried blood gripped tightly in his hands.

"Since yew ain't ever been here before, Mistuh Spock, Imma give yew tha rundown on how thangs work down here wit me," the Georgia doctor smiled faintly at the Vulcan before slipping into a semi-professional tone still heavily laced with Georgia redneck.

"Yew're in my domain now, an' tha rules that guvern tha Bridge ain't got no powa in here. Whut I say goes, aight, Mistuh Spock? This kin go so much betta fer ya if yew don' struggle an' listen ta whut I tell ya to do." The doctor watched his victim give him a tense nod, and Bones gave him a crooked grin before picking up one of the hyposprays situated on the tray.

Bones caressed the cool column of the hypospray lovingly as he absentmindedly said, "Now Jim-boy is pretty mightily pissed at ya, Mistuh Spock, an' unfortunately fer yew that means he done gave me permission ta do what I want to ya," Bones placed the tip of the spray against Spock's pale skin, a green vein throbbing furiously as the needle approached, The needle retreated in a thoughtful manner as Bones' smiling face suddenly dropped into a frown and the doctor asked, "Now why did ya do it, Mistuh Spock? Tha's tha thang I don' understand. Whut'd ya do it fer?"

Spock searched the doctor's face and was strangely comforted by the gentle curiosity he saw in the azure depths. Of all the people on the Enterprise Doctor McCoy was the only other person he'd ever met who was driven by simple curiosity. That lack of malice gave Spock the strength to croak, "I was persuaded to do what I could to overthrow the Empire."

Bones nodded and murmured, "Yew'd need a ship of yer own ta do that, nat'rally. But who done tha persuadin'?"

Spock swallowed and said, in a voice like a rasp, "The other Kirk."

Bones found himself nodding. Of course Kirk in any universe would be able to get Spock to so as he said provided he were adamant enough. And poor Spock, never able to resist following his captain's commands. He reminded Bones of some ill-used dog that, having been abused his whole life, took what scraps of absentminded affection his new master decided to toss his way. It was really quite pathetic. He sometimes wondered how the cursed half-breed would react if someone actually cared for him.

"Prolly do wonders fer his disposition," the doctor muttered. Spock's brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to question the sadistic doctor's question. When he felt a prick in his forearm and heard the hiss of a depressed hypospray. Bones' smile was back as he watched the drug take effect on his victim.

"Now don' fight it, Mistuh Spock," McCoy instructed sternly as the drug took effect and Spock nerves seemed to spontaneously combust and his blood temperature boiled at his extremities and turned to ice around his organs and guts. 'yer only makin' it worse, Commander! Breathe! Thatta boy – work threw that pain – good boy."

Spock's mind was reeling. In a logical sense, he could understand why McCoy was hurting him – he had been told to, after all. But why the encouragement? Why the kindness hidden in malice? His thought process was halted by another attack on his senses.

"Ya know, Mistuh Spock, I kin undastand why ya done it," Bones laughed as he watched Spock writhe on the biobed. "This Empire of ours is doomed to fail, Commander; that's more than obvious to the rational mind." The rational mind? Through the haze of pain, Spock disagreed. There was no doubt in Spock's mind that McCoy was intelligent, but rational? Even at the best of times, the Georgian was irrational (often risking death with his blatant insubordination regarding their Captain's orders).

And then Bones' words sunk in, and Spock stared uncomprehendingly at the doctor. Bones grinned nastily and laughed again, vaguely flicking the tips of Spock's ears hard enough to break skin and draw emerald blood. "Did you think that other Jim was the only one who could see that? Cruelty this encompassing is an unnatural state of being, Mr. Spock – it just can't last," Bones paused slyly, making sure he had Spock's full attention before leaning down to whisper in one twitching ear, "but that doesn't mean I won't have fun till it's over."

McCoy's chilling laugh filled Spock's ears as he was allowed to lose consciousness.

-End-