McCoy thanked the nurses that assisted him in putting Spock onto a biobed. Even asleep, his blood pressure was shooting through the roof. Who knows what mess was trudging through the troubled Vulcan's mind.
"Where's Bones?"
McCoy did a 180 spin and strode up to Kirk, who looked half asleep and leaning out of his bed.
"I'm here. How're you feeling?"
The Captain's pupils peeped through his eyelids, then slammed them shut again.
"God- damn it!" he shouted at the lights, "Wait, Spock, is he-"
"He's as fine as he can be in his state." McCoy intervened, taking a seat next to his friend. "Jim, what in the hell happened back there? You were bleedin' all over his floor!" McCoy glanced back at Spock.
"He beat the shit outta me 'cos I touched his arm"
McCoy considered all the possibilities known to medical mankind.
"Did he injure his arm? Did you scratch it? Did-"
"He's a touch telepath, Bones... and I think he's sick.. very sick." Jim twisted himself onto his side, burrowing his head into the pillow.
"The memory problems, I know. I'm thinking retrograde amnesia." he paused and looked down at his PADD. "Tell me how it started?"
Jim shrugged and shrivelled under the blankets.
"Well uh- oh god-" Jim clutched his chest with forceful fingers and groaned. "Bones..!"
McCoy forced the bed down straight and scanned his body.
"Take your hand away Jim," he pried his fingers away from the skin.
"Well he uh.. he- god!" Jim squeezed his eyes shut at the pain pumping around his body.
"Stop tryin' to talk, you can tell me in a minute" McCoy squinted at the PADD.
Two fractured ribs. Nice.
"How's your breathing Jim?" he asked, although being able to see full well his respiration stats were dropping. He frowned.
"Fractured rib's screwed up your lung. Don't talk." he said for him instead.
To make things worse, there were groans coming from Spock's bed.
"Damn it, pointy eared bastard woke up," he turned to Chapel who was reorganising medical supplies.
"Nurse, run a regen' on his ribs and his left lung" he ordered, moving over to Spock, who looked like he'd just seen a ghost.
He quickly spun back around and drew the curtains to Kirk's bed in case Spock panicked again.
…
Spock gazed around the room sluggishly. It felt like his body was four times slower than his mind.
A familiar figure appeared in front of him, holding a device.
"Hey," the man greeted, taking out what he recognised as a hypospray.
"No." he felt his heart racing again already.
"Oh you remember this then?" the doctor spun the hypo around between his fingers. "That's unfortunate, thought I'd be able to get you with it." he watched McCoy like a hawk, refusing to say anything else.
"If you remember that, then you know why I need to take some blood. Roll up your sleeve"
Spock felt the urge to up-and-run, but somehow didn't feel it was...right. At the same time, looking at that hypo and the thought of being touched made him sick to his stomach.
"Nuh uh, no moving. Come on, it won't hurt," the doctor prompted him.
He couldn't let the doctor touch him. He didn't want to feel that fear again. It made him lose control.
"No," he repeated, sitting up and shuffling away from him. "I do not consent to this"
McCoy, as usual, simply ignored him.
"I said no," Spock breathed, swiping away the threatening arm. "Please, do not do this to me."
At that, McCoy sighed in both sympathy and frustration, then placed the hypo back in its tray.
"Spock, at some point you're gonna have to have a physical, why you so scared?"
Spock hesitated before admitting "When I am touched by another being, I feel overwhelmed with emotion. I lose control. I do not wish to repeat the incident with Jim."
Something suddenly clicked for McCoy, like the last puzzle piece being slot into place.
McCoy folded his arms across his chest.
"You're a touch empath, Spock. Usually you're able to control the emotional aspects of that though."
Spock looked generally surprised at this information.
"I most certainly have not been able to control my emotional reactions. However, I feel that control would benefit me greatly."
McCoy answered him with a slight mindless nod, pulling out a pair of white latex gloves from a box and turning to Spock.
"I'm gonna try something. Sit pretty for a sec"
Spock's eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"Sit pretty, doctor?"
McCoy snapped the gloves on and sighed.
"Well 'least you haven't lost your sense of logic" he paused. "If that's… even a thing. Lie still,"
Spock anxiously watched McCoy approach him.
"Doctor, I repeat that I do not consent to this" he said quickly, shuffling back.
"Yeah? And here's something for you to learn- I'm the CMO of this trashcan you call a star-ship so I can do whatever the hell I like"
Spock shook his head in alarm and backed away until his head hit the end of the bed.
"Doctor please-" an alarm startled Spock, whipping his head around to the source of noise then back to McCoy.
"Spock, I don't think this is gonna hurt you, calm down," McCoy stepped away for a moment, fearing his advancing was what made the Vulcan's blood pressure shoot up.
"I do not wish to be here," he breathed, scrambling to get out of bed and then ungracefully fell over himself, he found himself to be trembling.
"Doctor?" Chapel's head appeared through the curtains, apparently hearing the commotion.
"Nurse, give him a sedative, but only one shot, I want him awake" McCoy ordered, spinning round to look at the wildly-out-of-control vitals.
Spock unwillingly let out a upset whimper and ran away from the stranger.
"Hey! Get back in here you pointy eared bastard!" McCoy pushed past a dazed Chapel and after Spock.
Spock's knees turned to jelly. He collapsed against the wall and hit his head with a bang.
"Bones? What the hell are you doing?"
Kirk was running over to Spock, putting a hand on his back; Spock flinched but relaxed when nothing happened.
"Jim! Get back into bed!" McCoy shoved him aside, Spock jumped up and followed Jim.
"Well, great job Bones, Spock's scared of you"
Bones shook his head, muttering what were likely curses, marching towards them.
Spock hurriedly hid himself behind Jim's back. Kirk felt rush of adrenaline to protect the Vulcan.
"Don't come any closer, Doctor McCoy." Kirk's voice fell low and dark. McCoy raised his eyebrows.
"Jim, I've gotta do these tests on him, he's very sick."
Kirk simply continued to glare at him. McCoy slid off his gloves.
"Listen, Jim, if I don't do this then-"
"Then nothing will happen!" Kirk interrupted him furiously. "He's terrified, Bones! He's a Vulcan and all his defences are down!"
McCoy stood in thought, and let out a sigh of resignation.
"Alright, I'll leave the physical to another day, but at least let me take some blood man!"
Kirk narrowed his eyes took a big stride so that their noses were almost touching.
"If you touch him again, I'll relieve you of duty and confine you to your quarters until further notice, and that's a command you can't override."
McCoy wasn't sure if the anger he felt was because of his ego being ripped apart or because he wanted to heal Spock as soon as possible. Perhaps a bit of both.
"Don't test me Jim. If you refuse to let your first officer get the medical attention he needs, then you know that I can do something about that too. Do something to the both of you."
Kirk was about to bite back with another enraged phrase, but thought the better of it after thinking through what the doctor said.
Doing absolutely nothing for Spock wasn't going to magically cure him.
Spock listened to the exchange between the two men.
From what he could gather, the one named Kirk was trying to protect him, while the other named McCoy wanted to treat him. Being protected from treatment didn't make sense.
The expression "It is not logical" passed through his memory.
Therefore why was he so afraid?
Then, he was pulled out of his thoughts when Kirk turned back around to face him.
"Spock.." he sighed. "McCoy is right. We can't do anything for you if we don't have anything to work with. Just let him take some blood and that's it."
McCoy appeared in front of Jim.
"Does the word 'logical' ring any bells for you, Spock?"
He craned his head at the word.
"It does." Spock glanced up at McCoy. "Doctor, why are you so sure that what you will do, will not harm me, compared to the other times that I were touched?"
McCoy's head rolled back to the ceiling, clearly holding in a sigh of exasperation.
"As I told you before, you're a touch telepath. Skin-to-skin contact triggers that. And I'm guessing whatever's happened to you has sent all your defences down, which is why you feel so.." he gestured his hands around animatedly, "..afraid. But I can't know for sure because guess who isn't letting me help him?" McCoy explained, gently pulling Spock forward as if to say "just get back on the damn bed already."
This time, Spock decided to comply, giving a subtle nod to the Captain and getting back onto the biobed. The doctor readied the hypo again, eying Spock to make sure he didn't make another run for it.
At the corner of his eye, he could see Kirk watching.
"Jim, get back to bed. I don't want you walking around with a lung and concussion like yours" he snapped, turning back around to approach Spock.
Jim groaned, but continued hanging around Spock.
"Jim! For god sakes don't make me have to patch you up again because I won't!" angrily, the doctor tightened his grip around the hypo and clutched Spock's arm to keep him steady, only to have a tight grip on his own arm in return, followed by being effortlessly thrown into the tray of instruments next to him, which then shattered all over the floor next to him.
"Jesus Christ!" he shouted, staring up stunned at the Vulcan, then sliding his eyes up to look at the monitors. "Nurse!"
To Be Continued..
