McCoy's ears are ringing.
Far off above him, a too bright light. He blinks but the world doesn't focus. When he tries to wipe at his eyes, his hand doesn't move.
Near him, someone says, "Shit."
I'm awake, he tries for, but all he hears is a grunt and then there's hands on him, on his shoulder, his arm. Scared and half blind, he tries to shrug them off. He pulls in a breath, but it just leaves him coughing against smoky air.
Then, he's propped half upright and something's pressed to his mouth. A glass. "Drink," he's told and the first sip splashes down onto his chest.
"M'fine," he chokes out after the second but that arm doesn't leave his shoulders.
"Jesus, Bones," he hears and it must be Jim that he's pulled against. "You're really not."
This time, he gets his hand up and works his wrist into his eyes. He's still half held up, that arm not letting go of him. The smell around him is the acrid stink of burnt out fires and the tang of blood and sweat.
"What happened?" he manages. His chest is bare. And wet with water, now. Clumsily, he rubs at it.
"Kattel's in the brig," Jim says. He shoves a pillow behind McCoy's back, and then another one. He's fussing, McCoy thinks dimly. And he needs to shave.
"What time is it?"
"I don't know," Jim says. His voice rises a little at the end. "She shot you."
"Oh." McCoy touches his chest again, his stomach. A sheet is pulled to his waist. Gracelessly, he lifts it. "Oh my God."
"That nurse - Lavigne - the anesthesia, she said you couldn't feel it. Can't feel it." Jim's eyes are red. "Do you want more? She can- I'll get her, she can fix it"
McCoy prods at the gash on his left thigh. His finger comes away red. "Get me a regenerator."
"She used two," Jim says. "And I don't know how, but Kattel, she had this reverse modularity polarizer she used on our phasers and the frequency distortion-"
McCoy stares at him. Watches his mouth move. "In Standard," he says.
"They do something wacky to your skin. She used two," Jim says again. "I told her you would rather rest and let it heal than have stitches." He smiles the smallest smile McCoy has ever seen. "Though I could do my initials, no extra charge."
"She couldn't have used three?" McCoy asks. "Good God."
"We needed them," Jim says.
"Needed them," McCoy echoes. Then, he sits up straighter. "Who else?"
"Navares. He's not awake yet. And- And Kierzkowski. In security. She didn't-" Jim scrunches his face up and shakes his head. "-Make it. Through surgery."
"There's no surgeon here." Not if McCoy was passed out. Navares is a damn fine nurse. And McCoy's running a bit short on those these days.
"I know," Jim says.
"Lavigne operated?" McCoy asks.
"I think she might be taking a walk," Jim says. "I can get her."
McCoy coughs again. It makes his back and chest ache, the force of it inside of him. He doesn't want to know what the hell he breathed in, the air around him smelling like it does.
"It's fine." McCoy pushes himself further upright, palms braced on the table. More blood seeps from his leg. The skin holding it together is too thin, the knit of it too raw. Across the room Chapel lays apparently unchanged, for better or worse, and behind her on another bed is Navares, his blue shirt stained with red. Beyond him is a sheet covered body. McCoy looks away.
"I guess I should have ducked," he says. Kierzkowski would have made it. He can repair phaser wounds in his sleep. And now that death is settled over Lavigne. McCoy props himself on one hand to rub at his face. "Where is everyone?"
"They're ok." Jim half sits on McCoy's bed, his arms tucked over his stomach. "We're waiting for Kattel to come around. Or our doctor to wake up and tell us how to rouse her."
"I hope you gave her a taste of her own medicine," McCoy says. Again, he pokes at his leg. "Did you stun her? And don't we have a bandage, at least? Have you ever heard of gauze?"
"We, um, used it." Jim squints at the floor. "And-" He taps at his neck. "Kattel got served up a nerve whammy. Spock wasn't messing around, I guess. I didn't even get a shot off."
McCoy stops jabbing at his thigh. "Oh."
"Took care of half of them, too." Jim tries for a smile. "I'm glad he's on our side."
McCoy pulls the sheet back up over his waist. Enough of poking at his own skin. "He's ok?"
"He's in his quarters. Your quarters. Meditating, I guess. Just… being Spock."
Being Spock. Whatever in the world that means. Once, McCoy might have thought he knew, though these days he's more than sure he's gotten it ass-backwards for entirely too long now.
He scrubs his fingers into his eyes. What a goddamn week this is.
"Bones," Jim says softly. "I'm sorry."
"Jim…"
"You were right. This entire thing was a mistake - Kattel and - and being back here again and..."
When Jim trails off, McCoy drops his hand. "I know."
"Yeah."
"It'll work out," McCoy says.
"Isn't that supposed to be my line?"
"Gotta be someone's," McCoy sighs.
The door whistles and then opens, and Uhura is there. She has a cut above her eye.
"That's going to get infected," McCoy says. Jim is still draped over himself and only half glances up at her.
"You're awake," she says. "I washed my face."
"Can't you replicate a bandaid, Jim?" McCoy asks. "I'm not sure what type of 'ok' you're talking about, but I think I'd rather like to see the rest of the crew, if this is what counts for you."
"We have the one replicator," Jim says and tips his head towards the wall, where scorch marks mar what was once control panels, the bright winking of options McCoy could order up. Now, what was the left replicator sparks and the other two are blackened with soot. "Scotty thinks he can manage some hypos."
"God damn," McCoy whispers.
"We've got these," Jim says and tips a handful a handful of hypos onto the bed next to McCoy's hip.
"And what we brought with us," McCoy says. Yesterday, was it. Or more than that. McCoy touches his cheek. He needs to shave too.
"I'll get those," Jim says and with a push, he's off McCoy's bed and through the doors. It shifts the sheet over McCoy's lap, and mindful of Uhura there, he pulls it higher.
"You need anything?" Uhura asks.
"M'okay," McCoy says. He can't reach his water, not where Jim set it. But Uhura always was a smart one and crosses over to hand it to him.
"That was quite a fall," she says.
"You're sure you're not hurt?"
"Been worse."
McCoy cups both hands around his glass. "Think Jim's ok?"
"No."
"Yeah."
When McCoy drains the glass, Uhura refills it for him. And that's just the icing on the cake that this mission is, isn't it, stuck here while she runs the tap. McCoy knows too well the drugs running through his leg, the cost of not feeling the wound he's dug around at for the fact he won't be able to hold himself upright until they start to wear off. He looks over at the door. Hopefully, Kattel and her group are well secured. Or hell, if he's going to dream, it'll be of the engines rumbling to life and the inertial dampeners compensating for the pull of gravity as they fly off this rock.
He tips his head back against the pillow and doesn't open his eyes again until he hears Uhura walk back towards him and set his glass next to the bed.
"Is Spock alright?"
She crosses her arms. She doesn't curl in on herself when she does it, not like Jim did. Instead, her shoulders are back. Straight. "I think you know he's not."
McCoy's heart stills and then starts pounding. Her lips are pursed. She looks… if not angry, exactly, then something a hell of a lot like it.
Which makes him unsure as hell of what to say to her. Though he tries anyway, licking his lips and offering, "Listen-"
She holds up both hands. "I don't want to get involved."
"Uhura," he starts.
"I really don't." She shakes her head. His stomach drops. "For Spock's sake, not yours."
"Uhura…"
"I don't want to hear it," she says and he doesn't want to know what it is, any blanks she might have filled in. Or that Spock filled in for her. Jesus.
"I didn't mean to-"
"-Stop," she snaps. She tips her face up towards the ceiling. He's never seen her mad at him, not in any serious way. Not like this. She lets a breath out and her tone gentles. "Please stop. Let's not do this now."
He doesn't especially want to do this ever. He tugs the blankets higher. "Ok, then."
He drinks his water in silence. Spock and Uhura have always been close. Friends, the two of them are. He can feel Uhura watching him still. She worked it out, Jim had told him.
He's uncomfortably grateful when Jim reappears with an armful of supplies and the space he takes up in any room. He doesn't need to look to know that Uhura hasn't uncrossed her arms, standing there above him.
He fingers the hypos Jim gives him from the pack he's brought, McCoy's own that he just organized before that hike up the mountain that led him right back here. What luck he has, doesn't he now.
"Who else is hurt?" he asks.
"Honestly that's it," Jim says.
"Jim."
"Sulu has a cut on his arm," Jim says and McCoy sets two hypos aside.
"Give me that," McCoy says and grabs the pack from Jim. He sticks his hand in and fishes around until his fingers close over a small tube. Next to it is a ball of socks. He wonders who, exactly, stripped his clothes off of him. Chapel would have at least found a hospital gown. And more likely would have left him a shirt. And a coffee.
She's so still, laying there. McCoy's sure she'd hate the affront of dirty hair for so long.
"Come here," he says to Uhura, twisting the cap off the tube. But he can't reach her, not half laying as he is. "Hell. You do it."
He tosses it to Jim and keeps hunting. There, at the bottom are the dermal regenerators he packed, but there's not much more in there otherwise. Just the shape of a protein bar, half of it mashed in its wrapper. He leaves it.
"Can I get some clothes?" he asks. He holds the regenerators out to Jim. "Put these somewhere safe, would you?"
"Don't you need those?" Jim's fiddling with the tube. "What?"
"Pants," McCoy says. His head hurts. And his ears are still ringing. "Please. And I'm fine, they're not going to make a difference anyway." Not if they didn't all ready. He closes his eyes. "Tell Scotty to grab one of those and dial up the duotronic phase charge. We'll give that a try and see if it works."
Jim's just squinting at him. "What'd you need pants for?"
McCoy shoves his hands into the bed and levers himself upright again. "Pretty sure it's against regs to walk through the ship naked, no matter how many insane things have happened today."
Yesterday. All this week. He wants a plate of hot food, his bed, and to be able to feel his leg.
Feel his leg and have it feel normal. McCoy's not exactly looking forward to the drugs wearing off.
"Where are you going?" Jim asks. "We can bring Kattel's vitals here, we just need an idea of how to-"
"-You can bring them to my quarters," McCoy says. "After I shower."
And eats breakfast. And sleeps, not the knocked out unconsciousness of blood loss and a steep pitch to the ground, but an honest to God nap. He'll take the too hard slats of his bunk. Wants it, in a way he never thought he might. He always hates that, how easy it is to adapt in the end, the uncomfortable itch of newness worn down by the need for anything familiar, no matter how tenuous that is.
"'Scuse me," he says to Uhura, bunching the sheet up over his lap and swinging his legs off the bed. "Give me a hand, Jim."
"I can't."
"I'm not spending the night here." Day. Whatever.
"No, I know, I'll get Spock, hold on."
As if this could get worse. McCoy tests his good leg on the floor, flexes his foot against it.
"I've managed you drunk, Jim," he says and if it were anyone but Uhura, McCoy would bite his tongue, but she was there for half of those nights. More. How incredibly long ago that was, slipping into their dorm well past curfew. She and Jim would drag themselves out of bed at dawn to run off the hangover, loops around the Academy's campus. McCoy would drag the pillow over his face. "I think you owe me one or two."
Jim's not looking at him. "I, ah, might have…"
"Jim."
"I hurt my shoulder." Jim holds his palms out. "We need you around, Bones, what can I say? I'll get Spock."
"Jim get back here!" McCoy snaps but Jim's already halfway to the door and then through it, and McCoy couldn't follow him if he tried.
He wipes his palm over his face. It comes away dirtier than he thinks it should. Just looking at the grime makes him want to cough again, but he swallows it down, hunching his shoulders up against it. Or maybe it's against the stare Uhura's giving him, still two paces away and her mouth set.
He should say something. Though what she knows or what she guesses or what she's figured out with that goddamn brain of hers isn't a puzzle McCoy particularly wants to sort through. Don't mess around at work has been his rule since God knows when, and isn't this the hell of it, the chance it would end up here, too many people in the middle of his business. Don't mess around at all is a close second, which has been serving him just fine for long enough now he probably shouldn't be surprised that the first hands on him were something he leapt at and bowled onwards towards with barely a thought. He's too good at making a mess of things, and his general plan to clean it up again has always been to get the hell out of dodge.
Ironic then, that he's on a grounded ship with a leg that doesn't work.
"This has been one hell of a mission," he says.
"Hasn't it," she says. "We'll let you know about Kattel when we compile the data on her vitals."
Always the professional, she is, though he's sure he doesn't want to know what she really has to say to him.
"Thanks," he says. Means it too.
"Anything else?"
"Get the environmental controls in here cleaned up," he says. In this, at least, he knows what to do. Spock is another issue entirely. "Don't leave a bunch of sick people hacking up a lung. They need some halfway decent air."
"Of course." Gently, Uhura touches his shoulder. "I'm glad you're ok."
"Keep an eye on Jim, would you?" he asks and the hand on his shoulder turns into a squeeze before she slips out the door.
Which leaves him there waiting, half balanced on the biobed and clutching the sheet over him. He rubs his finger and thumb into his temples.
He jumps when a nurse walks in. He squints at him. Michaels, maybe. Or some equally bland name. Though McCoy should probably know, since he's down to a handful of staff these days.
He watches Michaels- Mitchell, it could be- walk over to him. He could be here to help, it occurs to him. Spock could not be coming.
"It's time to take your vitals?" the nurse asks.
"Right," McCoy says. "I'm discharged. Go check on Navares and Chapel."
"Your chart states-"
"-Go."
"Yes, sir."
He doesn't let himself startle when the door opens again. Instead, he steels himself, unsure he wants to look up when he hears measured footsteps.
Though he's being ridiculous. He clears his throat and straightens.
"Sorry to bother you," he says. Spock looks like he could use a nap, dark green under his eyes. There's a rough patch of green on his jaw, a layer of skin scraped off. Not enough to bleed, maybe, but there's a crust of scab over it. "I asked Jim to-"
"-He is injured."
"Yeah." McCoy clears his throat again. With the hand not fisted in the sheet, he touches his own chin, the stubble there. "Are you ok?"
"Fine."
"Good." He drops his hand. "Do you have pants?"
A sardonic remark doesn't come. Instead, Spock places a stack of folded clothes on the foot of the bed. Far enough that McCoy has to reach for them. He hitches the sheet higher and tries not to be bothered that Spock's so quiet.
"Thanks," he makes himself offer.
McCoy brought this on himself, didn't he. Should have guessed that he'd have to face a music of his own making. Bite the proverbial bullet, lay in the bed he made, whatever. God, that sounds nice. He's so tired.
He has to shove the sheet aside to fit his boxers over his good leg. At least Spock has seen it all before. Some terrible comfort, that is. Michaels - Mitchell - thankfully sees himself to the door. Of course, then it's just McCoy and Spock and the blood seeping from his wound, one bright red bead at a time. Regenerated skin doesn't bleed like it should and he's always found that fact somewhat off, no matter how many cuts he's sealed shut. He presses his thumb to it, glad at least that the shocks of pain don't reach him. Still, what a special type of hell this is, blood darkening the clean sheet.
He manages his other leg too, and to squirm his boxers up to mid thigh and - with an awkward wiggle - his waist. Then, he stops, hands curled around the edge of his bed. His breath is coming short. Heightened respiration, light headed. Significant blood loss, in all likelihood. Dehydration, exhaustion. He'd prescribe rest.
In his own bed. He shakes out his pants.
"Do you require-"
"-I got it," he says and winces through shimmying his pants to his knees. What a show this must be. His muscles are tightening, and he can feel the pull in his abs and down his calf, that stiffening of inactivity, of his body drawing itself up and in. He'd shake his leg out, if it wasn't going to spray blood all over the room. He's a bit short on med staff to call for a biohazard cleanup.
As it is, the sheet he wads up and shoves away has red splotches over it. It looks like something from a crime scene.
He's panting. When Spock puts a hand under his arm, McCoy doesn't have the energy to pull away, just lets himself be lifted so that he can hike his pants the rest of the way up. His elbow bumps into Spock's side as he fastens his pants. His hands are shaking. He hates this.
Spock holds out his shirt and McCoy sticks his arms into it, pulls it over his head and is thankful for the split second respite, the chance to settle it over his chest and stomach and busy himself with smoothing it, not think about how he's half propped against the bed, balanced between it and Spock.
Of all the goddamn times for Jim to mess with his shoulder.
Spock is so strong. Which McCoy knows. But it's another thing to have a warm hand on his wrist pull his arm over Spock's shoulders and to be steered like he weighs nothing.
McCoy thinks of hot, beating sunlight, and green blood through a blue shirt. How the tables turn, don't they. Though then, he'd been more concerned with how unnecessarily heavy Spock was, and the particular terror that they might be all alone on the planet's surface, the rest of the crew… gone.
There's no such distraction now, just a corridor ahead of them, a turn, and then another one. McCoy feels too short like this, barefoot when Spock's in his boots. The deck's none too clean, either. Gently, Spock eases him through their door.
When it shuts, their room is quiet. McCoy's trembling. His stomach hurts like it's twisted in on itself.
"Thank you," he gets out. Low blood sugar, he registers.
"Do you need anything?"
"No." He fumbles for a grip on the ladder. He's getting sick of balancing on one leg. "I'm good."
He looks up at his bed. Then, towards the bathroom and its shower. And his toothbrush. He leans his head against the rung his hand is wrapped around and closes his eyes. It makes the room spin. He presses two fingers into his sternum and lets out a breath.
"Is there a protein bar in here?" he asks without opening his eyes. Shouldn't have left that pack behind in sickbay, now should he.
"No."
"Ok."
"I can-"
"-Don't worry about it."
McCoy could sleep standing right here, he's sure, his eyes still shut against the brightness of the room. It's quiet so long that Spock might have left. Or sat on his own bed. Or hell, started meditating again, cause God knows McCoy certainly jerked him away from that. And McCoy wouldn't know if he had, his ears still feeling like they're stuffed full of cotton. He has half a mind to dig a finger into one and would, but he's gotten a good look at the dirt under his nails. What a loud fight that must have been, raging on above him.
"I would have assumed you would spend the night in sickbay," Spock finally says.
"Yeah, well." He doesn't particularly want to tell Spock that he wanted his own bed, though the bunk up above him shouldn't really qualify. But he'll take what he can get, which is apparently being shot in the leg after dragging himself up and back down a mountain.
He rubs the back of his hand under his nose. It smells good in here. Not his hand, certainly, but the room. Something a lot like lavender. Incense, he realizes belatedly. Of course.
Spock should be resting. The others should be to, rather than wherever Jim ran off to and Uhura after him in all likelihood. And they were, until McCoy woke up. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He should have left the lot of them alone. He drops his hand to look at Spock, standing there as far across the room as they can get from each other.
He's tired. And thirsty, too. Uhura brought him that water. He'd have to ask Spock for a drink now, if he wanted one.
Suddenly, horribly, he's worried he's going to cry. He tips his head back against the ladder and swallows. His throat aches.
"Doctor…"
"I'm fine."
"You are not."
He's too tired for the lingering awkwardness. He can feel himself swaying. "I know," he says.
When he looks again, Spock is watching him, but McCoy can't tease apart his expression.
His throat is too thick. "I'm going to shower," he says.
The bathroom is close enough that McCoy could probably manage his way over there. The indignity of hopping can't be any worse than the rest of it. But Spock gets him under his arm and isn't that something solid to press into, Spock's body a firm line against McCoy's side when he stumbles.
He has to hold his hand over his thigh where the wound is so that the sonics don't tear the skin open. His palm cupped there, McCoy can't help but feel like it's a middle school locker room again, his shoulders hunched against prying eyes. Though Spock is examining a chipped tile and McCoy can angle his shoulder to him. Still, he doesn't move his hand, not when he lets the sonics work over him. It'd be ragged ribbons of skin and an arc of spurting blood on the tile wall if he did. Spock wouldn't like that, he's sure. He's probably cleaned the shower twice already since they've been on board. McCoy hasn't shared a bathroom since the Academy. Perks of being senior staff, nobody to complain if he took his time in the morning or left a soggy bath mat behind.
What he wouldn't give for a water shower now, even though Spock would probably make him squeegee the stall. Hot water through his hair and real shampoo, not the hard waves of sonics. A bath, even. An entire tub that he could sink into.
He wonders if Spock has ever taken a bath. No, he thinks. He could ask.
His whole world is spinning, the shower stall making a slow circle around him.
He sways forward. Spock grabs him, a hand on his side and the other on his elbow. They're standing too close together. Spock's palm is warm on his skin. Dimly, it registers all over again that he's naked. With a finger, McCoy touches that scrape on Spock's chin.
"What happened?" McCoy asks. Not clearly. He's mumbling.
Spock pulls back a little. McCoy's slow to move his finger.
"There was an altercation." Spock's eyes track over his face. "Clearly."
He probably shouldn't poke at it. He does anyway, runs his thumb along the edge of that raised scab. "Does it hurt?"
A hand circles his wrist. "When you touch it, yes."
"Sorry," McCoy says. He doesn't think he means it. Spock's skin is so warm. It always is. And his hands are clean. His palm feels good around McCoy's wrist.
He squeezes his eyes closed. He's pretty sure he wasn't supposed to think that.
Their door chimes. Spock steps back, his grip falling.
He leaves McCoy there propped against the shower wall, his back to the sonics as they beat into him, rubbing over his skin and the tired muscles beneath. McCoy leans into the tile and doesn't think about fingers tracing that same path over his shoulder blade, the murmur of voices he can hear in the next room.
"Mr. Scott brought this," Spock says. He lays a dermal regenerator next to the sink and doesn't step towards the shower this time. "He recalibrated it for your use."
"Thanks," McCoy says and blinks like that will clear his head of the fuzz that's settled between him and the world around him. Spock seems far away as he edges from the bathroom again. Sounds it, too.
McCoy limps out of the shower. The tap doesn't run cold water, but he cups his palms beneath it all the same and slouches his hip at the edge of the sink to hold himself up. Water dribbles down his chin as he slurps at it, over and over again until he's gotten a decent amount down. Dimly, he hopes Spock isn't watching.
When he stands, the room stays still and God, what a difference that is. Water's not food, but it certainly helps and he'll take what he can get. He tucks his toothbrush into his cheek and blinks past the swim of his thoughts to examine the job Scotty did on the regenerator. Too quick to be a real adjustment and the indicator light is on the fritz, blinking on and off intermittently. He tests it against his palm. The buzz of it is weak and for a moment, it splutters. Well, that makes two of them who aren't exactly one hundred percent today. Then, it hums to life again. He eyes his thigh, hidden now by the thin cotton of his towel. Spock left the door open and it's stranger to unknot his towel and let it drop than it had been to kick his pants aside.
Spock is reading. Or at least holding his padd in front of him, perched on the edge of his bed. McCoy lowers the regenerator to his leg and watches the skin knit closed, uneven and patchy.
He finishes and spits into the sink. His thigh stings, though he can't really feel it, not like he should be able to. As it is, his skin is a splotchy, angry red and when he runs his thumb over it, he can barely make out the touch. He can, though, reach down for his boxers and get them on by himself and that's at least something.
Spock is still just sitting there with his padd. Maybe he'll give McCoy a boost up into his bed. Hell, Spock could probably lift him up like he's a little kid. McCoy's annoyed by the fact that doesn't sound unappealing, being deposited in his bunk. He wouldn't be able to get down either, without help. What a reason to get some decent shut eye finally, marooned in his own bed by his roommate.
Except Spock stands and puts his padd up on McCoy's mattress.
"Are you on shift?" McCoy asks. He wedges his shoulder into the wall.
"No."
"Ok."
Spock waves towards his bed. The gesture is off. Awkward, almost. Stilted. "Please."
"You don't have to," McCoy says. Spock just stands there. Finally, McCoy nods, once. "Thank you."
"Of course."
Now he waves around the room too. It does feel awkward, his hand out in the air like that.
"For everything, I mean," he says.
Again, there's no quip. McCoy lowers himself onto Spock's bed. After a moment, he puts his face in his hands. He's half asleep, drunk with the pull of exhaustion.
"Listen," he says. "I'm sorry."
He can feel Spock still standing there. Probably close enough to touch, if McCoy blindly reached out and batted a hand around. He puts his elbows on his thighs and braces his feet on the floor.
"For?" Spock finally asks.
"Can we clear the air?" McCoy looks up, his palms on his cheeks. He's still dizzy as all hell. And likely should keep his mouth shut until he can think straight, but he never was very good at choosing what's best for him, now was he. He rubs his fingertips below his eyes. "I'm- the other night, on the ship I mean, I…"
He blows a breath into his hands. He wishes he had put on pants. And a shirt too. Spock still has his entire uniform on, because he's Spock so of course he does. McCoy blinks up at him, standing there and staring with that bland, neutral expression he wears so well. It drives McCoy nuts, it does, when there's clearly so much ticking away behind the careful smoothness of his eyes and mouth.
"There is no need for an apology," Spock says into the silence. He shifts his attention to focus on his padd, still lying there on McCoy's bunk. "I was… forward."
McCoy bends forward to scrub his fingers into his hair. He stares down at his feet, bare on the decking. His toes are cold. Beneath the grip of his fingers, he shakes his head.
"You weren't," he says, even though Spock was. Cause McCoy would never have… If it were up to him, they would have finished a hell of a lot more of that bottle on the Enterprise and Manas would have found him tipsy, not fastening his pants. And McCoy would still be working his knuckle into the knot in his own shoulder, like he has been for weeks now.
"How did we get here?" he asks his knees. He lets out a laugh. It sounds hoarse. "And don't give me a warp vector, Spock."
For a moment, he's sure that he's going to get a wall of prevarication and logic. Instead, there's a beat of silence, and then the mattress next to him dips. That's better, isn't it, the weight of Spock beside him, even if he's sure Spock's back is straight and he's hardly slumped over like McCoy is, unable to peel himself upwards.
But Spock only sits there and the floor isn't exactly offering up any answers, let alone platitudes, so McCoy just scratches at his own head. He's sure it's making his hair stick up, but it's just Spock, isn't it, and McCoy's pretty certain he shouldn't care at this point.
"There's nothing for you to apologize about either," McCoy says. His palms on his thighs, he pushes himself to sit up. It's not comfortable like this, actually looking at Spock, but he's going to see this through, now isn't he. "I could have been a hell of a lot more clear, before we - well."
Briefly, Spock's mouth tightens. Then he says, "That would have been preferable."
There's a spineless part of himself that would really like to blame it on the whiskey. But that's hardly fair to Spock and whatever this has been, McCoy wants it smoothed over and done with, feathers unruffled and the milk unspilt. The strained woodenness is far worse than plowing through this, and he hates this unnatural carefulness between them. What McCoy wouldn't give right now for that smirk of Spock's that somehow manages to look a hell of a lot like he's rolling his eyes.
"Trust me," McCoy says. "You wouldn't want to be with me anyway. If that's what you- well, if that's what you were gunning for."
He's ready for Spock to nod. It could be the first thing they've ever agreed on. But instead, Spock just rests his hands in his lap. They look limp there, his fingers loosely curled on his thighs.
"You said you might leave," he says.
McCoy squints at him. "Is that what this was?"
"I care about you." Spock's mouth works once, and then he adds, "Quite deeply."
Jesus, McCoy thinks. It's followed by, No. Emphatic, even in his own head, the degree to which he doesn't want Spock to bother with anything of the sort.
"Why the hell would you do that?" McCoy asks.
"I find you attractive and I enjoy your company. The conclusion of what to do was…"
Spock trails off like continuing is just too much. And it certainly is for McCoy. He can feel his own pulse. It's a hell of a lot to spring on a man who still needs breakfast. Dinner. Whichever.
Of course I care, Spock had said. McCoy stares at him. That had been after Spock had pressed his mouth to his in that cave. The next morning. Had he still been thinking of how Spock had kissed him then? He can't remember now, though it had stayed with him for days. Longer than that, really.
"Logical?" McCoy finally supplies. He's sure he's going for joking. "How hard did you hit your head?" McCoy asks and gestures towards Spock's chin.
"I assure you I did not intend this," Spock says and there's that lift of his eyebrow. McCoy didn't quite know how much he was waiting for it. "The conclusion was obvious. Though perhaps lacking in sufficiently thorough consideration. I apologize for the presumptions I took."
"Sufficient consideration," McCoy echoes in a mutter. "Jesus."
"If you are planning to offer an inane comment on felines and bags, there is no need," Spock says. He looks like he's about to stand. McCoy doesn't blame him, he'd get the hell out of here too, and only one of them can really manage to walk. "And it is clear that your opinion on the matter does not match my own."
"I hadn't ever really thought about it," McCoy says and that's honest, at least, since that's what they seem to be doing here. Trust a Vulcan to just lay all his cards on the table.
From how Spock eyes him, McCoy's nearly sure that he's is about to ask And if you had? McCoy's mouth is dry. Though it has been all day. This is some terrible cherry on top of a sundae he never wanted. McCoy's just about ready to wake up again in sickbay, shaking his head from a doozy of a fever dream.
But Spock only offers, "That is apparent." Then, he does stand. "If you are apathetic to the notion, that is enough to know."
McCoy swallows at that. In the space where he's sure he should have said something already, Spock steps towards the door.
"I am pleased you are once more conscious and apparently recuperating," Spock says.
The door swishes shut after him. McCoy rubs his fingers over his mouth and stares at the blank, gray metal that's closed behind Spock.
For a long time, his mind stutters like a skip on a record. He's too close to laughing. A high pitched peal that wants to escape his throat.
Apathetic. McCoy presses two fingers to his temple and is sure that nobody could be apathetic in the face of that. Amazed, more like. Shocked into a stupor. Thunderstruck, he is.
"Goddamn," he says to the empty room.
He's cold. He pushes himself to the edge of Spock's mattress and yanks a drawer open. Not intended, Spock had said. That's either a hell of a compliment or the worst thing Spock's ever said about him. He pulls a shirt on. Probably both.
Spock still has McCoy's blanket on his bed, so he has to peel both blankets back and then the top sheet, neatly tucked in as if they're facing room inspection. Figures, doesn't it, making him jerk at it, balanced on one leg. But when he sinks onto the mattress, it's nothing but warm and soft. He drapes his arm over his face and stretches out on his back.
He lets out a long sigh and chases from his mind the sight of Spock's pale hands in his lap, how he didn't even let himself fidget as he talked. He's going to think about nothing, cause he's going to go to sleep. Finally. After the longest goddamn day of his life.
The door chimes.
When he ignores it, it chimes again.
"What?" he barks.
"Sir?" he hears. He doesn't move his arm as the door slides open. "I have Kattel's vitals."
"Great." He sits up and squints. It's Lavigne, standing there with a padd. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ensign, it's ok to-"
"-I'm fine." She presses her lips together. She looks a little shocked that she snapped at him like that. He takes the padd from her and waves her off.
"Get some rest, you hear?"
He hopes she has a friend to talk to. He should check. Or send someone after her. Jim, probably. Or Sulu or Uhura, if the ship's captain is too much.
Or hell, Spock. Who apparently has quite the sensitive side. Who knew.
He lays back down and raises the padd above him, squinting at the blue lit readout. It swims a little in front of his eyes. Never did get that meal. Squirming, he sinks down deeper into the mattress. Then, he sits up as best he can and prods at the pillow before settling himself down once more.
The bed smells like Spock. The pillow, mostly. Clean soap and that trace of incense.
The chart spells out high glucose levels, though hell, that could be normal for someone like Kattel. He flicks backwards in the records. No change over the preceding two checks. Lavigne is certainly thorough, McCoy will give her that. He shoves at the pillow again. Trust Spock to have found the only one on the ship that is hard as a rock.
Slightly decreased blood pressure since the morning. He brings the padd slightly closer. Lavigne ran the same brain wave scan, or had Chekov do it. Interesting.
Fascinating, his mind supplies and McCoy blows out a breath, annoyed with himself.
"Get a grip," he says out loud and rubs his hand over his face. He yawns into his wrist and shifts to cradle the back of his head in his palm, still squinting at the padd. The readouts are different than the crews'. Which figures, since Krall didn't exactly nerve pinch any of them.
"Vulcans," he mutters. He shakes his head and frowns when his wrist digs uncomfortably into the pillow beneath his head.
There's a lump there. Underneath the pillow, he realizes, propping himself up on his elbow and searching around. His fingers close over a gold case. Or it's a box, maybe, small enough to fit in his hand. He flips it over, examining the intricate design. Hell of a thing to keep under a pillow, whatever it is.
The door flies open with no knock this time. In the backdrop of light, Lavigne is silhouetted, out of breath. She braces a hand on the frame and says, "Doctor, it's Chapel. She just moved."
The padd clatters to the deck and the case after it as he shoves the covers back, already searching around for his boots.