Title: When I Fall
Characters: Kirk, Spock, bit of McCoy
Rating: K+
Word Count: 4544
Warnings: Characterization liberties like whoa, given that it's a meme fill. Something doesn't ring quite right with my TOS muse, so I suppose it's a cross between Reboot and OS. Very little editing because again, trying to finish up WIPs here. And it's a meme fill, so it's just for the fun of it anyhow. ^_^
Summary: For dante_s_hell's LiveJournal Kirk H/C Meme, the prompt being Kirk becomes claustrophobic after the last mission, but just thinks it's like leftover anxiety that'll go away on its own so doesn't think anything of it, until he gets a panic attack doing something really mundane, like going through a jeffries tube or something.
Of all the times and places for his psyche to twist itself into knots, the middle of a yellow alert doesn't even rank in the top one hundred.
And if there's one thing he hates more than a danger to his ship, it's a danger that pops up without warning. Like the unexpected glitch in the turbolift programming this morning, causing enough lift jams that Engineer Scott had to take all the lifts off-line to reroute wiring. Like the fact that Spock's and his chess game had been interrupted by one of the selectors in Rec Room Two deciding to regurgitate its entire stock of replicatable matter onto the nearest four tables. Like the fact that he'd hardly changed his shirt when the deflector shields snapped on and a yellow alert sounded – some unknown radiation from asteroid field that their sensors had just picked up.
Like the fact that he's supposed to be on the Bridge in a crisis, and instead he's now clinging tightly to a ladder in the main turboshaft, sweating buckets and unable to force his body to obey his screaming will.
He is James T. Kirk, the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. He's had all the training the 'Fleet can throw at him, and enough horrific experience to match. He has the best crew in the galaxy, the fastest ship in the Federation, and the most level-headed First Officer in the 'Fleet to counterbalance his impulsiveness. There's not an advanced race in the galaxy that hasn't heard of him, and very few who don't fear the name Enterprise and at least respect her captain.
And yet, he's clutching the rungs of the turboshaft ladder, red emergency lights glowing ghostly over his white knuckles, and he's just praying he won't hyperventilate and embarrass himself to any crewman who thinks to wonder where his captain is and goes to search for him.
He knows it's utterly ridiculous to think – even believe, in scattered fragments of time – that the walls of the darkened shaft are closing in on either side of him, inexorably and consistently shrinking the amount of space left around him, eating up the oxygen left, imprisoning him with no way of escape; and yet he can't stop himself from cringing against the ladder, clinging to the only solid thing in his universe right now, and hoping against hope that it'll be Bones and not Spock that realizes he's taking too long to get to the Bridge.
Fear and phobias are illogical and he knows it darn well, but he really, really doesn't want to hear that right now.
The walls thrum around him with the pulsating rhythm of his ship's warp engines; they haven't even slowed pace. The yellow alert isn't sounding anymore, so the threat must be over as quickly as it had appeared, and he's grateful more than he can say that nothing happened to his Lady while he's cowering like a frightened child in a deserted turboshaft.
He vaguely hears Spock's voice over the ship-wide comm, asking him to report to the Bridge, and he's not sure whether to be petrified that someone's going to find him or to hope someone will, soon. Either way, he's going to have to move sometime.
But he can't.
If he even moves a finger, much less a hand, the walls will close faster than they already are, and he'll fall; there's no doubt in his mind that he will. The emergency forcefields might catch him and stop him from hitting the bottom of the shaft, but he'd rather hit bottom than be trapped in this darkness for undetermined hours, deprived of all knowledge and sense and control.
His worst nightmares are of being utterly alone, and they've only gotten worse since the encounter with Tristan Adams on the Tantalus penal colony. Those hours – or minutes, were they? He doesn't know, and doesn't want to know – spent in that chair, that place, with his mind carefully blanked and so unbearably alone, still haunt him even a year after the fact.
Their most recent mission didn't help, obviously, and all this is compounded with the complete darkness of the shaft, other than a softly-pulsating emergency light far, far overhead. He's quite aware that he's approaching at a breakneck speed a mild panic attack that could, if Starfleet ever found out, cost him his command.
He's never liked darkness, but he knows he's too old to be frightened of it. He is not scared of the dark, or of loneliness, or of small and enclosed spaces, even if they do resurrect the undead memories of those six days spent in that underground cell with its slick, dark stone walls, without light or sound or dignity or anything else that keeps a man sane, until Spock and Chekov had managed to pinpoint his captor's energy patterns and rescue him just before he went mad from sheer sensory deprivation –
He's not afraid of the dark, or of enclosed spaces. He is not.
Too bad someone forgot to tell his retrogressive memory that.
Has the shaft gotten even smaller since he first fell under the onslaught of claustrophobic sensation? He isn't sure, and he sure isn't going to look around to find out. A clanging noise far above him causes him to jump, and one of his hands loosens from the ladder just enough to throw him into a startled panic. He grips the sides of the ladder with both hands, mashing his forehead against the cool tritanium, careless that the rung will leave a bruise if he does not stop, and tries to remember what Spock taught him about breathing exercises.
It doesn't work.
The reddish haze from the emergency lights brightens as the shields snap off, returning all systems to normal power, and he can see the outlines of the walls now – but it doesn't help. They are still closing in, mocking his inability to move, to conquer the unreasonable feeling that he's going to let go and fall, again –
The nausea that churns in his stomach suddenly makes the leap into his throat when he hears a brisk tap-tapping of Starfleet-issue boots coming from below him on the ladder.
Someone's on his way up to the Bridge, and whoever the unlucky crewman is is going to stumble across his captain, petrified and about to lose his reconstituted breakfast all over the wall of the turboshaft.
He closes his eyes, lowers his head again against the cool metal of the ladder, and concentrates on keeping his gag reflex under control and/or stopping his teeth from chattering. Even being thoroughly mortified by being discovered at least means he'll get help of some kind.
Whatever he was expecting when the brisk tapping draws closer, whatever he was bracing himself to hear, it definitely wasn't the calm baritone of his First Officer, nor was he expecting the sensation of a firm hand closing cautiously around the ankle of his left uniform boot.
"Captain?"
His mind recognizes and almost hysterically welcomes the aid for what it is, even if he still can't quite control his shivering, but getting his voice to work is something else.
"Captain, are you all right?"
No! his mind screams – or whimpers, he's not sure what's the difference anymore – but his mouth will barely form a word. "Spock," he finally manages, and he could weep with gratitude that it's not an octave shrill with terror nor is it stuttering with panic, as he had half-expected it to be.
Nevertheless, his Vulcan friend is far too observant and has Vulcan hearing, and he barely has time to register swift movement before he's gently pushed and slid an inch or two to his right and a slim boot wriggles into place beside his. A presence swings up beside him with fluid grace that he would kill to possess right now. He doesn't dare open his eyes from where they're pressed tightly against his hands.
He doesn't realize how cold he really is, or how badly he's trembling, until a tentative and inhumanly warm hand settles on his shoulder, after hovering a moment like a butterfly debating where to land.
The sudden tightening of the grip is matched by an intake of breath, and he knows any hope of hiding his shame and unreasonable fear has just been shot to pieces.
"Jim," and the simple word washes over him like a sweet, warm wave of Calm, despite the fact that the knots in his stomach tighten as he cracks an eye open to see the all-too-close walls of the lift shaft. "Permit me to call Dr. McCoy?"
"No," he manages through clenched teeth, and his grip on the rung tightens enough that his already aching hands feel a numbing stab of pain. "Won't…change anything."
Silence, a very loud one, and he shivers again, trying desperately to keep his clammy breathing regulated and his emotions dampened so as to not broadcast his irrationality at his telepathic friend.
The hand leaves his shoulder, but he can still feel Spock pressed against him in the darkness, clinging as he is to the narrow ladder. He's half-anticipating a scientific inquiry as to the origins of his recently-resurrected phobia, but the other half of him relaxes just a minute fraction when he realizes Spock isn't going to do anything of the kind. His First is more human than he lets on sometimes, and as he presses his forehead against the cold ladder-rung he's glad this is one of them.
"Captain, the ship is in no danger," Spock informs him quietly, and he wonders how a professedly unemotional being can make such mundane information as ship's business sound so soothing. "Merely a fluctuation in M-16 wave readings that temporarily caused an error in our sensor calibrations. We are still on course for Starbase Thirty-seven."
He doesn't say anything, because he's afraid if he does then it'll come out as an inarticulate cry for help, because no matter how glad he is to see Spock he's still trapped in a dark shaft, with only his own hands protecting him from falling down, as he had those three times he attempted to escape that underground prison, scaling the sheer rock face in utter darkness only to have his precarious handholds break and crumble, sending him plummeting back to the stone floor…
He expects the Vulcan to inquire as to how he can aid his captain, or to coax him gently up to the next level of the shaft (Deck Four; Spock must have known where he was and had worked his way out through Deck Three's Jefferies Tubes and come up underneath him).
What he doesn't expect, and what nearly breaks the thin shield he's hiding his panic behind, is for Spock to hesitate a fractional second, and then without a word swing up and around behind him on the ladder (what the heck?). The Vulcan plants his boots firmly on either side of him as he huddles against the rungs, and threads thin arms through his rigidly clenching ones until he too grips the ladder before them, hands barely brushing his own. He can feel the warmth hovering against the sides of his head, just brushing his hair as he tries futilely to take a deep breath without shuddering, forehead resting in exhaustion against his aching hands.
Now he's sandwiched securely between his Vulcan First Officer and a turbolift ladder (and all he can think at the moment is this is so beyond awkward), and he's not sure if he's really laughing or he's just shaking so hard it seems like it or he's actually crying instead of laughing or maybe parts of all three.
"You will not fall, Jim," the voice is gentle, low, and entirely too close to his ear. Very awkward.
…And how did he know about the falling, anyway? The report he'd filed had only been bare skeleton in describing those hellish days, and even McCoy's medical report had only documented the bones he'd broken in his three separate tumbles. Nobody knew how terrified he'd become of falling into darkness, not even McCoy during his psych evals. The nosy Vulcan's deductions from the injury reports are too accurate, too close for comfort this time.
No pun intended.
Strangely enough, though, the awkward position does help a bit; he knows Spock's more than capable of holding his weight so even if he does let go he won't fall. If only he could make himself believe what he already knows!
Maybe it's the unnatural warmth at his back, or maybe just because he's utterly terrified and he knows how idiotic it is to be so and he's angry about it; but whatever the cause, a shudder runs through him and he rubs his forehead and nose restlessly against his clammy hands, breathing out slowly.
"You cannot remain here, Captain," is the next thing to break the silence, and despite the voice being just a low murmur in his ear he starts, jerks his head up and narrowly avoids cracking his First in the forehead.
He wants to joke about it, tease Spock about stating the obvious and ask him what logic recommends to fix the problem, but the only sound he appears to be capable of making is an embarrassingly small whimper, which (thank heaven) is almost too quiet for even him to hear.
But Spock hears it, and more importantly hears the helpless plea buried inside it; and the next thing he's aware of is the grip around him tightening and one hand moving from the ladder-rung toward his face. The intent is obvious, as is the clear pause for his barely-breathed permission, and the instant he gulps an affirmative he feels the press of warm fingers in position on his face, and he steels himself for the sensation of falling into another's mind.
But he feels nothing of the kind; more of a soft, fuzzy glow that slowly coalesces into a brightly-lit, starlit evening. He can see the constellations of the Gamma Quadrant overhead peeping through a purpling sunset-sky, and after wondering briefly what the heck Spock thinks he's doing, he takes a look around.
He's standing on a ledge, halfway up a familiar burnt-orange-and-crimson rock formation; Gamma Boralis III, a shore leave planet from over three years ago, where he'd wheedled a very reluctant Chief Science Officer from his science laboratory on a spelunking expedition. Spock had, in his own Vulcan way, pitched a hissy fit about being dragged from his scanners and microscopes and spectrodictalygraphs; but he'd always known he could get anything out of his soft-hearted (no, really, the whole I-am-Vulcan, hear-my-logic thing was a façade to end all facades) exec he wanted, with the proper coaxing, and he'd taken advantage of that power without a trace of shame.
They had spent a magnificent forty-eight hours exploring the upper slopes of the Boralis Magnus Range, cautiously feeling each other's interests out and growing to slowly understand each other better. James Kirk had only been captain for a year at the time, and in that twelve-month had charmed his way into nearly everyone's heart except his aloof First.
That changed, on Gamma Boralis III, and they both knew it.
Now he smiles into the dusk, although some part of his mind that's outside the world created by his First just now is screaming at him that he should be terrified, not nostalgic. He turns to see the Vulcan in question waiting patiently for him at the other edge of the ledge on which they stand.
Spock gives him one of those eyebrow-smiles, and glances pointedly upward at the handholds in the ochre-hued rock face.
"Climb, Captain."
He pops a lazy smirk, able to do so in this world much more easily than he could in life due to respect for Spock's emotional distance, and responds playfully as he had those years ago. "Giving your captain orders, Commander?"
A familiar eyebrow arches, but instead of audible words he receives a vague sensation of slightly-embarrassed pride. What was that?
"In those early years, Captain," Spock begins to answer aloud his unspoken question, nudging him to place a hand upon the rock face, "you persistently referred to me and considered me, both before crewmen and before strangers, to be a full Commander, when in reality I was merely a Lieutenant-Commander."
He remembers well the battle he waged with Starfleet for over a year, over making Spock a full Commander due to his position on the Enterprise. The Admiralty had not viewed the Vulcan as more than a brilliant scientist; and Captain Pike's refusal to place Spock in command after one initially disastrous away mission had given him no command experience.
It had taken over three months for Spock to admit to Kirk that he did wish to know how to lead humans; he simply did not desire to do so in a captaincy; and soon after, the new captain of the Enterprise had begun giving his First command duties and, for lack of a better word, coaching him in his ability to command both humans, and respect from said humans.
And due to that, Kirk had worn down the Admiralty's decisions one by one, overruling their objections and overturning opinions until, nearly two years into the mission, Spock had finally been recognized as a full Commander by Starfleet Command. It had been a hard battle, and an unpleasant one at times, for both of them, but he would always look back on that day with pride.
Apparently, from the embarrassment he senses now from his First, so would Spock – and judging from the hasty way in which the remembrance is dissipating on the Vulcan's end, the memory also means a great deal to his friend and as such falls under the category of 'unacceptable human emotion.'
He hides a smile against the unyielding coolness of the rock face, even though he knows Spock can sense his amusement in a meld, and then suddenly he realizes that he's already twelve feet off the ground, having climbed the craggy formation without realizing it while lost in memory.
Then he remembers that this isn't real, and that he's actually caught in a partially-darkened turbolift on the Enterprise; and the scene around him begins to tremble as if an earthquake is shaking the planet, the sky rips and tears, letting in tiny pockets of inky, crimson-streaked blackness, and a boulder goes rolling down the side of the cliff face next to his head, and –
A hand closes around his ankle from below, and the wavering sky shimmers and reforms, solid and opaque above him, alien-beautiful and complete. The ground ceases to quake, one rippling tremor ending the threat of danger.
"Focus, Captain." Spock's voice floats up from below, and he knows only in a mental joining could so much open anxiety seep through the simple words. It's a rare gift, these instances when he can see the humanity buried beneath the necessity of Vulcan training, and he treasures the memories as if they were members of an endangered species. "Be at peace, Jim. No harm can occur here unless I permit it, and I assure you I have no intention of doing so."
"Right," he breathes slowly, and though part of him still knows that this isn't real he can deal with it now.
He climbs.
For a few minutes, he becomes one with the rock face; this is something he loves, has always loved, and though his mind vaguely registers there's a reason he shouldn't love it so much anymore he isn't given enough time to really think about it. He hauls himself up foot by foot, boots scrabbling slightly for the nearly-invisible holds that challenge his strength and equilibrium, and he's just starting to relax a bit when apparently from nowhere he espys the yawning mouth of a cave in the side of the rock face.
Shivering, he turns his attention back toward the rock before him, admiring the melon-hued quartz-like crystals that line a streak in the craggy surface, and pretends the cave isn't there.
Unfortunately, Spock has obviously seen the entrance too, and gives him a mental nudge back that direction.
"I've never been a fan of caves, Spock," he tosses down to the thin figure climbing lithely below him, hoping his easy bravado will mask the genuine stomach-churning fear of enclosed spaces that flits elusively at the edges of his consciousness. "Let's pass on that one."
Spock either doesn't hear his reluctance, or just ignores it, and looks calmly up at him, expression inscrutable as ever. "It is necessary, Captain."
"Like heck it is," he mutters, and aims his next handholds to skirt well away from the yawning entrance.
A minute later he shoots a scowl back at the placid Vulcan, for the cave has now switched positions and is directly above him, no matter how much he moves away. "Spock, I don't find that funny," he snaps irritably, clinging to the small ledge his hands have gripped. He needs to catch his breath, partly because he knows if he has to go in there he's probably not going to remain perfectly calm.
"Nor do I, Captain," is the serious reply, and Spock is wriggling up the rock face next to him. "But it is necessary, to escape this place. Would you prefer I go first?"
He wants to argue, but Spock's thoughts can't be hidden in a meld like this and so he recognizes that what the Vulcan says is true; somehow going through the cave will get him out of this whole mess, and he's not about to let his friend enter a dangerous place before him.
"No," he grunts, and hauls himself up onto the ledge outside the yawning entrance, inky as a black hole and looking just as eager to swallow him up.
He can feel Spock's pride and – dare he think it, in a shared thought zone like this? – even affection, as the Vulcan scrambles up behind him.
He hesitates, staring into the mouth of the cave, for he cannot even see the walls of it beyond the shadow-line where the sunset light fades into reddish-black darkness, and feels his bravado vanish as the light is from view.
"It is not a large cave, Jim," Spock's cool voice washes over him as he takes one hesitant crawl into the entrance. "A few meters of passage, and then we shall be out the other side."
He nods, knowing better than to trust his voice, and feels Spock's approval sweep over and around him as he rubs a hand over his damp forehead and then begins to move, ignoring the nausea crawling up from his stomach. He knows he has to get over this, and he knows there's really no reason to fear anything that exists in Spock's mind, so why then can't he just relax? He's never been claustrophobic before, not really, and why should one mission trigger such an unnatural fear in him?
"It is not unnatural, Captain," Spock's voice bounces off a wall close by him as he crawls, thinking, and suddenly he doesn't feel as much in the dark. "In fact, your actions while in that captivity were quite remarkable, I might say incredible. Any resulting trauma from them is only to be expected."
He realizes, probably too late, that if he can see some of Spock's thoughts then no doubt Spock can see his; he probably knows everything that went on during those days spent in that prison; his unsuccessful attempts to escape, his despair at never being found, the one night where he almost broke down in tears but refused to because he clung to the hope of being found and didn't want to be found bawling his eyes out like a child just because his broken arm hurt…
Wonderful.
His disgruntled thoughts are broken lightly by a ripple of amusement from his spelunking companion. "Why should you be embarrassed over your actions, Captain?" Spock asks, and he feels genuine bepuzzlement coming from the Vulcan.
"Possibly because I gave up hope of being rescued there at the end, Spock, and I couldn't do anything to get myself out of that hell-hole," he mutters, and crawls faster, as if he can escape the shameful memory by increasing his speed.
"Captain," and the voice has an edge of stern, I-should-smack-you-you-illogical-human tone in it, "the first time you fell, attempting to scale the sheer rock face of your lightless prison, you broke two ribs. The second time, you broke your left humerus. I fail to see how making a third attempt in that condition is something to be ashamed of."
Well, when you put it like that…
"Yeah, but now I can't even go through a Jefferies tube without freaking out," he mutters into the cool stone below his crawling hands.
He jumps, banging his head on the low wall of the tunnel (he dimly registers that it's nice how Spock eliminates the pain from a rocky headslam), when a small, delicate sound flutters over his thoughts, wrapping around them and warming the air.
Spock is laughing.
He isn't sure whether to be thoroughly freaked out, scared out of his skin, or absolutely in love with the sound (maybe all three), but he stops for a second.
"Explanation?" he finally manages, and hopes that if Spock is going insane that he won't stay trapped in a schizophrenic Vulcan's mind forever.
A ripple of amusement dissipates that half-coherent thought. "Keep moving, Captain. Only a few more meters yet to travel."
"What were you laughing at?" he asks again. The thought of getting out of here soon is relaxing, and he can feel himself growing calmer, more confident, as he nears the end of the tunnel – he can't see any light, but somehow he knows he's almost there.
Spock's answer is lost in the loud bang as his head runs into something hard and unyielding. There is no pain, but his yelp is an instinctive reaction, as well as his sudden knowledge to push against the blockage.
When he tumbles gracelessly out into a well-lit corridor and is caught and steadied by a worried Bones and two security guards, he realizes why Spock was laughing at him.
He was crawling through a Jefferies tube, and not freaking out.
"Glad you found him, Spock," McCoy tosses over his shoulder, while checking him over unobtrusively with his eyes. "You all right, Jim? We were worried when you didn't respond to the alert."
"I'm fine," he replies simply, and means it. He dismisses the two Security men, and turns to grin at the dark head that emerges from the small opening, expression as calm and self-satisfied as ever.
Spock somehow manages to materialize from the Jefferies tube with catlike grace, and gives him a small nod; somehow he knows that's all the words that are necessary between them.
And as he falls into step safely between his friends, he shoots one last look back at the closed tube hatch, grateful beyond belief for what he's overcome today. Spock glances at him out of the corner of his eye, and though the Vulcan's face remains expressionless he would swear he can feel the mental equivalent of a smile tickling the back of his mind.