nothing but my words belong to me, everything else is gene roddenberry's, bless him.

A/N: _unbeta'd

_all vulcan and related vulcan stuff is from memoryalpha or VLD


"Because that's what it is, a lizard thing." M'Bones answers, head thumping against his left arm. "Wait- wait- wait, stop dammit."

Spock's brow rises at the unwarranted incrimination. The use of a cultural Terran term, adds more credence to the hypothesis that M'Bones is not full blooded Vulcan, however Spock is unsure why a le'matya would be damned. No less does it not inhabit Terra, but the planet it does, does not adhere to the countless Terran cultures or philosophies. He begins to object.

"No, not you, dammit— sorry." M'Bones says, pushes against Spock's grasp in agitation. "That's not important; your sense of time is what is— can't keep gettin' side tracked." he mutters, reprimands himself.

To caution one's self is to invite the inherent attribute of negativity. Spock had not realized the conversation to be 'sidetracked', "My sense of time."

"Off by about an hour," M'Bones says. Eyes look away with furrowed brows for a moment. The blue irises are a slits around the pupil, likely from the absence of light and the night darkens them near black in shadow. "-cks, i don't even know your name. You need to sit down, Vulcan."

Spock drops his hand and sits back. He looks over to his left, sees the torn fabric, "… a simple exercise to wrap your wounds, however I have no means to acquire adequate support for my re-located shoulder."

M'Bones mouth is slightly ajar, "That's why you left?"

His tone is incredulous and Spock sees no reason why, "Affirmative. As it is not wise to move you—"

"It's not wise to move yourself, either." M'Bones reaches out with his uninjured arm and attempts to swipe at the pile of strips, "you've never been standstoned before, you need to wait it out. Better I can see, than getting lost and dying, because you tripped and fell and didn't even know it.'

M'Bones arm is trembling and he stops, lets it fall across his body with a sigh.

"Duration?" Spock asks, reaching for his bag and putting it front of him, "Your bleeding has not decreased in the time since the dust-storm, you may very well bleed out by the time my body is no longer negatively influenced."

M'Bones' eyes are closed again, "It depends."

He fails to further explain and Spock looks to his bag. He taps it with his fingers before unhooking the lock and lets the flap slip backwards. The main inner compartment is indiscernible in the dark and Spock's hand moves to rest on his knee, "On what identifiable and manageable characteristics."

M'Bones reply is very quiet, "Meditation."

Meditation to focus his mental prowess into dealing adequately with the imbalanced hormones. Spock nods shifts his legs so that he is sitting cross legged in front of M'Bones. He takes a breath and his eyes close. Vague stimuli begin to fray away from his conscious and the physical world becomes an idea he can only know exists as he draws into his silent mindscape of windswept Vulcan arches and still desert. On the precipices of his physical hearing ending he hears.

"… it won't take that long…"

He is fully in the depths of his mindscape, he takes a step and everything shutters. His projected body is gone, his serene back drop is vanished and his mindscape is pitch. Misguided panic struggles in him when he fails to end his imposed meditation. He looks down, or believes he does, and there is no fraction of light, no minute scraping of shadow in the black. He does not see the reasoning behind his deluded decision to place his mental health in the hands of an utter stranger. He stands at parade rest, sensory input notwithstanding, and knows he should have tested the Vulcan when first he laid sight of him. Has he trusted the Vulcan, because of his inherent humanity, inherent Terran features, similar to his own? That it had brought a kind solace to him that there was a being alone on the surface of Vulcan, akin to his mother? Like his mother, alone and still able to bring forth thoughts to smile so unabashedly.

Of course, his father was correct; his Terran blood had choked his Vulcan blood in the moment that he had needed to be most Vulcan. His father had been correct in gently admonishing his speculations in regard to the lower classes of Vulcan. Lower only because they were genetically predisposed to be, and have behavior, more human than Vulcan.

He has been spared this tendency to behave as such because he is half Vulcan, and received a Vulcan upbringing. However much his Human mother had wanted different, his father had laid down the many failures of raising a Vulcan child in alien ways, when there was no justifiable cause.

From his interactions with the Vulcan, it is clear that he has not received the benefit of Vulcan learning parameters. He is quick to make decisions based solely on emotion. He behaves untoward, more so than other aliens Spock has met through his father's profession. M'Bones' actions and bearing indicate the lower class of Vulcan, who are more alien than Vulcan. This will be the first time he has physically encountered a Vulcan more alien than he.


A/N: again im a full time college student, so apologies for the more infrequent updates.