Prompt No. 22: Glass Shard
Busily engaged in mentally burying the memories of the last mission so deep it'd take a transporter to retrieve them, the Chief Medical Officer of the starship Enterprise doesn't even register that he has company until he turns around straight into six feet of unyielding blue-shirted muscle mass.
Said mass makes a surprised noise as he rebounds off it with a tray of lab apparatus, and is unfortunately no more successful than he is in scrambling to avert the impending catastrophe. Half-a-dozen beakers and several test tubes hit the floor in a spectacular demonstration of functioning artificial gravity, throwing up a spray of (thankfully non-corrosive) fluids amid a sparkling geyser of shattered transparent aluminium.
He manages to get an arm up in time to avoid anything hitting his eyes, but his forearm is going to be smelling like disinfectant now for hours. Of course he's wearing the short-sleeved version of the uniform tonight.
"What about do not disturb escapes your notice, Mr. Spock?" he snarls, with probably more heat than is warranted, since there's no real harm done. He's done with his research, there was nothing dangerous on the tray, and everything was headed to Recycling anyway.
But this is the last person he wants to see right now, much less be in such close proximity to.
"You know doggone well you're supposed to ring before entering a locked laboratory!"
"I did, Doctor," Spock replies, not even bothering to conceal his still-startled expression. "Three times, in fact. I also utilized the intra-comm to request verbal permission to enter, twice. When there was no response but the computer reported you still present, I thought perhaps there might be an emergency which had been incorrectly recorded by the bio-computer."
"You overrode my privacy code because you were worried," he repeats, a little dumbfounded.
"If you must assign it such an emotive linguistic term for your own amusement, I will not waste time in objection to it."
The dismissive, almost bored tone does a lot to counteract the weirdly warm feeling the words evoke, despite recent events. This is a far more familiar exchange.
"Have I caused much damage to your work by my entrance?"
"No, no." He sighs, and skirts the epicenter of debris-strewn flooring to set the tray down on the nearest table. "It's fine, Spock. I was just lost in thought. You startled me."
"That is unusual," Spock observes in a neutral tone. "My past observations would indicate you remain steady in the midst of both intense focus and serious crisis. It is quite rare for an event to truly startle you."
"So I overreacted a little. We humans do that, you know. Or I guess you wouldn't know, would you, seeing as you're so vocal about not being one of us."
"I have also seen you overreact, Doctor." The words are almost suspiciously calm, and entirely ignoring the open invitation for a devolving argument. "And in each case, an intensely emotional event triggered the reaction. I was not aware that my entrance to a laboratory I frequent as often as you do aboard ship qualified as such."
"What are you trying to say." He only now feels a painful throbbing from the forehead near his hairline, and reaches up to confirm what he already knows is accurate. As suspected, his fingertips come away covered in blood, though not an alarming amount of it. And he already has been nursing a migraine for three days, beating it back with a judicious application of medication and pure stubbornness. "Ugh. Throw me that gauze, would you?"
The unused roll from his workstation lands neatly on the table beside him.
"Thanks." He tears open the pack and discards the wrapping on the tray, then doubles the gauze over thrice to improvise a pressure bandage until he can grab examination equipment. "What were we talking about?"
"Doctor."
"What." Eyes rolled upward in an effort to ascertain details, he swipes briskly at the trickle of blood, and is about to head it off with more pressure at the source when a thin, inhumanly strong hand closes around his wrist.
He has no idea what exactly happens in the next five-or-so seconds, but when he does finally take a breath and brings the world back into focus, he's got the sturdy durasteel table safely in-between them, and Spock is standing frozen on the other side, one hand still hovering uncertainly in mid-air and face paler than the spotless laboratory walls.
Well, that's not great.
Sighing, he drops onto the nearest stool and hangs his head.
"I don't suppose we could just pretend that didn't happen."
"I at least, cannot do so, Doctor." The words are quiet, devoid of emotion, but they are also gentle, as if talking to a frightened animal.
It's not exactly incorrect, linguistically. And while it probably wasn't the intent, there's very little chance his emotional state didn't bleed through the physical contact a moment ago.
He realizes now that he caught at least one shard in the hand too, while protecting his face. "You were just pointing this out," he says, half a question, and indicates the sluggish, tacky trickle of blood on the outer wrist.
"Yes," Spock replies, and the fact that he is not resorting to his usual 'affirmative' or something equally cold and logical is pretty telling. "But I am uncertain why this was such an…undesirable action."
"You don't sound that uncertain," he points out, with well-founded wariness.
In fact, Spock doesn't look surprised, rather something more like resigned, as if it's just lending credence to existing suspicion. Kind of like he does when the computer finally spits out the answer to a complex problem; as if he already knew the answer, but is pleased to have it confirmed, even if the answer is not itself the desired result.
Well, McCoy hadn't planned on having it out quite like this, but it's not really a shock that the smartest person on the ship had him pegged after only forty-eight hours back aboard, with or without the little disaster just now. Spock's always been quick to notice detail, and in some areas quicker than any human would like him to be. It's one of the most annoying things about him, and one of his foremost characteristics as a scientist.
"You have questions."
"I believe interrogation would be best postponed until you are not a semi-mobile biohazard, Doctor."
He snorts, amused despite himself. "Well, I'm a little alarmed to say we agree, Commander. Grab me a med-scanner from that cabinet, would you? And the dermal regenerator, should be bottom shelf, second from the left. Watch the glass, I'm pretty sure a test tube went that direction."
"The warning is unnecessary, as are your instructions," is the response, a disgruntled mutter into the echoing depths of the cabinet. "I am well aware of the items' composition and appearance."
"Well, excuse me." He rolls his eyes, and then re-applies the gauze to his head, triaging the worst of it first.
A moment later, there is a very loud thud of boot-toe against a worktable behind him, and because Spock's graceful as a cat when he wants to be, it's got to be a deliberate warning. A second tray is placed on the table a moment later, and McCoy tries not to laugh at the veritable pile of medical supplies it holds.
"It's a couple shards of glass, not a mortal wound. And I'm not wasting painkillers on a scratch that's due to my own clumsiness."
But at the awkward silence which follows, and the fact that Spock is still keeping at least two meters' distance between them, the levity fades just as quickly as it had flared up.
He sighs, and pats the stool next to him. "Sit down."
"I would prefer to stand."
"Ask me if I care. I need someone who can actually see the wound here." He gestures vaguely at his hairline. "Unless you want to have this conversation with me bleeding in the corridors all the way back to Sickbay."
A thin eyebrow inclines slightly. "Not particularly."
"Then sit down." Spock does, with a kind of slow, telegraphed movement that immediately raises McCoy's hackles. "And stop being patronizing!"
"I am not –"
"You are. I'm not a child, I'm not a victim, and this has nothing to do with you." The words are curt, but hopefully more charitable than he feels right now. "Now make yourself useful, before I change my mind and call a nurse."
Weirdly, the brusque command and his no-nonsense demeanor seem to actually help, possibly because it's a retreat to familiar territory; Spock just looks at him for a moment before briskly getting to work on his hand with the scanner, followed by disinfectant, sealant, and then the dermal regenerator. McCoy keeps his free hand on the head wound and eyes firmly on the far wall, and while the silence isn't exactly comfortable, it's also not terrifying.
That's probably all either of them can ask for right now.
Spock finally sets the dermal regenerator down, and his glance travels upward, uncertain.
McCoy lowers his hand, nodding as he inspects the gauze. "I think it's mostly stopped now."
Spock picks up the scanner once more, and pauses to look at it as there's a rude beep of warning. "There is debris in the wound."
"It's not a wound, for pity's sake," he grumbles, slouching a little and folding his arms to keep his hands subtly hidden, as they've started to shake just a little with the receding adrenaline drain. "Just get a move on, will you."
Spock's eyebrow inclines with silent sass; but he picks up the tiny medical-grade forceps without further preamble. He does stop, an inch short of physical contact, and tilts his head waiting for final confirmation, for which McCoy is ridiculously grateful.
It's reminder enough, that this universe is nothing at all like the other.
For all his cold, proud Vulcan nature, it's never been a secret that Spock can be incredibly gentle, even showing an undue amount of human compassion when he wants to. In this case, it's familiar and comforting, and when coupled with unhuman efficiency, means the tiny sparkling fragments are well discarded and disinfectant applied before McCoy even realizes they're nearly done. He closes his eyes as the adrenaline continues to fade, and lets his head tip forward slightly.
"I will need to initiate physical contact to apply sealant."
"Mmhm."
"Doctor."
"What?"
"I require a verbal acknowledgment to proceed."
He opens his eyes, and this time the smile comes more naturally. "Thank you," he says, quietly. "Go ahead, Spock."
A quick nod in response, and the doctor closes his eyes again as the brief burn and tingling subside, keeps them closed as they wait for the sealant to dry.
"Might as well ask your questions, too," he finally adds, as the silence drags on just a bit too long. "I'm guessin' you've got a hypothesis to prove."
"Not at the expense of causing you distress."
He opens his eyes, and raises an eyebrow slightly. "That's a pretty emotional evaluation, Commander."
Unrepentant Eyeroll, Vulcan edition, is by now a familiar gesture, and he hides a smile as Spock ignores him and gets back to work, this time with the dermal regenerator. Those long, thin fingers are way, way too close to the face, but that's unavoidable here, and at least it's quick and completely professional.
But he can't quite hide the sigh of relief when it's finished, nor that the tension leaves his shoulders as Spock sits back. Of course, there is no verbal observation of these two things, but he knows they didn't escape Vulcan notice, and so he might as well face the music.
"I'm sorry I've been avoiding you," he says to start. Spock responds by staring at him like he's grown pointed ears. "What."
"Doctor, if what I conjecture to have occurred, indeed has, then there is no reason for you to be offering an apology, to me or anyone else."
"I think there is, because I wasn't lying earlier," he replies, truthfully enough. "It has nothing to do with you."
While there's a fundamental physical and mental baseline all versions of themselves across the universes probably share, a sense of morality and universal ethics must be learned, and out here in the void there's no way of telling how hardship and trauma will cause deviations from the baseline when there's no one to teach those ethics. The Prime Directive itself says to not interfere with a society's natural development, even if that development is destructive or self-destructive, and he does understand the logic in that, as an officer.
"That may not be falsehood, but it is certainly not the entire truth."
"If you want to put it that way, I guess." He briefly rubs his forehead. "I just needed a few days to deal with everything. But I didn't explain myself to you, and that was unkind. Unfair."
"Your statement is predicated on the assumption that I am capable of taking offense at your withdrawal, Doctor. As I am not, there is no reason to categorize your actions with such emotional specificity."
"Ugh. You could just say it's okay, like a normal human being."
"Why would I, when I am neither."
"Fair point," he chuckles, and absently swivels the stool back and forth with a slow, rhythmic squeak.
Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, he has no real issue with their proximity now. It was just the unexpected physical contact, probably, that set off a trigger he wasn't aware of. It's just one more thing to add to the file, but now that he knows what to watch for, it shouldn't be catastrophically damaging.
"Do you…wish to speak of the matter?" Spock finally inquires, with unusual hesitancy.
"Not particularly." The stool squeaks loud enough to produce an eyebrow-twitch of annoyance, so he stops, letting his legs move back to the floor with a thud. "I've already talked to a 'Fleet-mandated psychiatrist and passed the last psych scan…four hours ago, now. I'm pretty done with answering questions about it. But I know you probably have them."
"Satisfying my curiosity is not sufficient reason to ask them."
"I don't mind."
"I do." He looks up, and Spock's eyes are dark, almost dangerously so. "Just because one does not actively protest an action does not mean the action is consensual."
"Do we really have to do this right now?" he asks wearily. "You're not telling me anything I don't already know. I'm the doctor, remember."
"On the contrary. In this case, you are the patient."
"You know what I meant."
"And you know what I meant," Spock counters, deadly serious. "There is no excuse for my counterpart's actions, unless I am unaware of a significant mitigating factor."
"They were at war, Spock." At the incredulous look, the doctor shrugs. "I can't judge someone for what they deem a necessary choice in those conditions."
"I can," Spock says flatly. "There is no excuse, short of immediately life-threatening circumstances, in which such a violation should even be considered, much less implemented. This situation did not qualify. You were clearly not a threat, personally or politically."
"You don't know that it wasn't the norm there, between those versions of us," he counters.
Spock's eyebrow bounces up to his hairline. "You expect me to believe any version of you would be willing to communicate telepathically with enough regularity that the need for consent could be waived?"
"Well, when you put it like that." He rubs the back of his neck. "But I'm guessing it was just…the logical way of learning the truth in a short period of time. I don't think there was any real intent to do harm. I'm serious," he adds, when Spock's incredulity is evident. "He was cold, but not needlessly cruel, Spock, at least not that I know of. I'm not sure any version of you really could be."
"You are even more gullible than the captain, if you truly believe that."
He shrugs. "Call it whatever you want. I just like to believe the best in people until proven wrong, and I'm not gonna stop that because one extreme version of you has a different moral code. Judging by the contents of that Sickbay, that version of me wasn't much better, so that'd be a little hypocritical, wouldn't it?"
"I remain equally astounded both at your compassion, and your complete lack of self-preservational instincts, Doctor." Spock sits back, shaking his head. "Also, at the captain's unusual void of common sense in leaving an unarmed crewman alone with a dangerous enemy officer. I will be addressing the matter with him when we are finished here."
Poor Jim. "To be fair, we had no reason to think you'd be up and moving so quickly after a head injury like that. I just wanted to get you stabilized, I wasn't planning on sticking around to chat."
"That is insufficient excuse."
"Well, he's always had a blind spot where you're concerned. I don't blame him for that."
"Again, you might not, but I most certainly can."
"I'd rather you didn't."
"His lack of foresight endangered other crewmen. It is my duty as First Officer to address such things."
"Well, that's between the two of you and the 'Fleet. But don't make trouble just on my account."
Spock regards him silently for a second, but finally nods. "If that is truly your wish, then I will abide by it."
"I know you will, Spock. I know you will."