— Chapter Twenty-Three —
— Esh-tor —
Spock understood psychological shock only in the academic and scientific sense.
He knew it was an emotion.
He knew it was an acute stress response.
He knew it was a series of physiological reactions triggered by the autonomic nervous system—specifically the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system—and a hormonal secretion throughout the body. The release of adrenocorticotropin to increase production of cortisol. The circulation of cortisol functions to prepare muscles throughout the body.
He knew it caused the adrenal medulla to produce catecholamines of norepinephrine and adrenaline, which induced acceleration of the heart, increased blood flow to the skeletal muscle, promoted vigilance and awareness, enhanced memory retrieval, triggered the release of glucose from energy stores, and facilitated immediate physical reactions throughout the entire body.
Spock knew the facts, knew the symptoms, knew what it looked like from an outside perspective. He could even list the exact way his body would react to such a state, from the liberation of metabolic energy sources, to the inhibition of the lacrimal gland, to the mydriasis of the eyes.
He knew this. He understood this.
But he did not understand psychological shock emotionally.
He did not understand the way it felt. The way it caused his mind to pull away from the rest of him. The way his stomach tightened and churned like it was filled with something corrosive. The way he felt both too alert and too distant. The way his thoughts raced through his mind and also moved sluggishly. The manner in which his chest ached, or his head spun, or his side throbbed, or his hands tingled, or his eyes watered, or his body shook.
Spock did not understand, had never understood, could never have understood, what it was truly like to be in shock. He'd never thought he would experience it, and as such, he hadn't thought to prepare himself for it.
An oversight.
Distantly, the biomonitor alarms shrilled. They were too loud. They were too quiet. They were too distant. They were too close. He felt freezing and frozen, even as he knew—knew—that his blood flow had increased to heat the required muscles should he need to defend himself or escape. Somehow, he did not feel as if he could move, although he was aware his body had tensed in preparation for doing exactly that. He did not see the room clearly, although he was aware he should have because his eyes had dilated to take in more light.
There was that pressure in his chest; the one that had been worsening throughout Jim's visit. It had been nearly choking then, but it hurt so badly now that even breathing felt painful. He tried to breathe steadily—inhale, deep, deep, deeper—but when he went to exhale, the sound that emerged was so horrifically close to a sob that he stilled. Mortification spread through him like a chill in his veins, and that pressure only rose higher, burning the back of his throat, behind his eyes. The thought of making that sound again sent such shame surging through him that it squeezed any lingering trace of breath from him at all.
No.
No.
Control… he had to control himself. This was illogical. This was an abhorrent loss of composure that he knew to be inexcusable. There was nothing wrong. There was nothing wrong for him to be acting in this manner.
… But there was something wrong. There was something terribly, terribly wrong. His mind spun, slippery and evading as he chased each thought frantically. They always stayed just ahead, only incoherent, broken fragments tearing off and reaching him. Small bursts of both understanding and incomprehension. His stomach roiled. He thought he might vomit.
Dimly, he understood that his body had not responded to the maelstrom his mind had become. It had not burst into action, it had not fled or begun pacing. It was not moving at all, in fact. He was simply lying in bed, staring vacantly at the ceiling. Curious, as the rest of him seemed like it was dissolving from the inside out.
Was this shock, then? He'd always understood it to be something more explosive or outwardly emotive, but perhaps he'd been mistaken. Perhaps he truly didn't understand it in any sense of the word, not physically, emotionally, scientifically, or even academically. Spock thought this likely, in fact, as his mind felt rather useless right now, as if all knowledge had abandoned him. Inadequate. There was no expression on his face, no movement to his body, no logic to his mind. He lay there, staring. And staring. And staring.
(Again and again—)
He was… so very sick of being stared at.
There was a burning ache beginning to form in his lungs. The room was tilting and drifting, like it had been caught on a string and was being pulled from his sight. Spock closed his eyes to try to stop the sensation of being tugged in the opposite direction, but that only made the nausea worsen.
If the room was determined to escape, then he would let it, he thought, although the thought seemed malformed. In fact, he would leave too.
Spock's limbs were clumsy as he struggled from beneath the covers, tangling briefly in them before he was able to free his legs. His socked feet slammed painfully into the floor when he lowered them down with too much force, and it jolted through the entirety of his body. It felt as if a quake had been set off in him; he hunched for a moment to take a breath, but breath did not come. Odd. Maybe it had been stolen from him too, as everything else had been. The Seskille had been quite thorough in that regard; they'd stripped him down to the very core. He didn't know what they'd left behind, but none of it seemed particularly useful.
He made as if to push up, to stand, but he was caught by a surge of pain in his side. Grasping it tightly, he applied pressure. The shards, Spock recalled mutedly. McCoy would be upset if he pushed them further in.
He adjusted his grip so as not to cause further injury.
Meditation. He needed to meditate. He needed to get himself under control. He needed to get out of this room. He needed to do so very many things right now…
Distantly, he knew that he was not in control. Even more distantly, he knew this was something to be ashamed of, to hide, to suppress. He wanted to take all of this and smother it below the sand where it could not affect him. Spock lifted a hand to do just that—to grasp this sense of utter helplessness and get rid of it—but there was nothing to take hold of. Of course there wasn't. His surroundings were various shades of green-grey, orange, and beige. They were not burnt umber sand and red-darkened skies. It was not his vast, endless sea of dunes and buried memory. This was not his mindscape.
That had been taken from him too.
Black spots began to dot his vision…
There was movement in the room. Had it not left, though? Sound swam back to him with a low, strained roar, so perhaps it was returning from wherever it had disappeared to. It was like trying to pull against a tide to maintain his awareness of it.
("I'll haul you kicking and screaming to shore myself if that's what it takes, but you aren't going to drown, you hear me?")
Spock desperately wished that someone—anyone—would do exactly that, because he hadn't ever felt quite so adrift as he did now. He wished that someone would tow him back to some sense of stability. He wished that Jim was here. He wished Jim would tell him what to do and exactly how to do it. A guide, an understanding, an outline, a blueprint; something he could use to navigate this new terrain of uncertainty. Orders. He wished he had orders.
("Is that an order, Captain?")
The memory hit him as an ache in his side, in the general vicinity of where his heart was located.
Spock meant to move a hand to press on it, but he remembered that it was his side that needed the steady pressure, not his heart. His ribs were broken, and he supposed it was possible they were now causing cardiac complications, but there was little he could do to resolve it. During his triage assessment, he'd determined their state as not particularly critical, and he had nothing to bandage them with anyways. All he had was snow, ice, and the tricorder pieces in his side.
He adjusted his grip absently. Applied pressure in a careful grip. McCoy, he knew, would be upset if he were to push the shards further in…
"—did you do to him?!"
Spock stared uncomprehendingly at the blur of blue and black as it moved towards him. He blinked in an attempt to clear his vision, but the object may as well have been made of fog for how nebulously he could focus on it. He did not think it was speaking to him anyways—which was just as well, as he did not think he could respond.
"The hell is a matter with you, Jim?!" The voice sounded furious. The blur of color and noise silenced the alarms from the biomonitors and then whirled to face away from him. "He just went through the wringer, and I told you not to start in! Told you! What in god's name did you even say to him?"
"Bones…" another voice said from across the room, sounding both remorseful and defensive. He knew that voice. He knew that voice. "I didn't—"
"No, you know what? I changed my mind. Don't even open your mouth, 'cause I don't wanna hear it! One instruction—just the one! I don't know why I even bother anymore, since it just goes in one ear and out the other!" A hand pressed on his shoulder. There was a face wavering in and out of clarity as it looked into his own. He looked back dully, but his attention, what little there was, became focused elsewhere.
A brighter gold smudge watched him from the doorway. Even with his vision muddled, Spock recognized him. He would know that particular human anywhere, and he stared at him with a buzzing in his veins and a dull ache in his heart.
("So don't tell me that it didn't hurt, Spock. Don't you dare say that, because it absolutely hurt me.")
He had thrown his captain, Spock recalled suddenly. He had… he had tossed him into bare rock. Hurt him. No, he had killed him. Yes, he remembered now that day on Vulcan, remembered Jim dangling heavily from his grip, body limp and lifeless (—and everything in Spock froze). He needed to fix this; to say something, to do something, to act in some manner that might repair the rift that had opened up between them, because it had never felt wider.
He wished Jim would tell him what to do, give him orders, give him something concrete he could use to be how and what would make his captain most happy. He was so tired of being a disappointment. For being a cause of damage. He was so tired…
An apology. He needed to apologize. He needed to do better, try harder.
How did one apologize for killing their t'hy'la?
"Go away, Captain, this is a closed ward. I don't care who else you snip and snarl and bark at, but it sure as hell ain't gonna be my patient, understand? I'm putting my foot down, so get out."
"Spock?" The voice was soft, uncertain, hesitant. Spock blinked, but he did not respond. His body did not appear to function correctly. Curious. "Is… he's… will he be alright?"
There was a short sigh. A rustle of movement. A blur of blur in front of him. "Yeah, he'll be alright. Go yell at people somewhere else and let me do my job. I'll keep you updated."
Do not leave, Spock wanted to say. I beg of you, Jim, do not leave.
… But begging was useless. They didn't understand begging.
Spock opened his mouth to tell Jim that it was his desire for him to stay, or perhaps to tell him how deeply, truly sorry he was—for hurting him, for injuring him, for murdering him… but it was too late, of course. It always seemed to be too late. The doors to the private sickbay room closed silently and, just like that, Jim was gone.
He stared at the door vacantly, wishing for it to open. It did not.
How remarkably easy it was for his captain to disappear as if he'd never been there at all. It felt wrong; something so remarkable should have left trace of itself behind, like a quasar powered by a black hole. Bright, radiant, blinding. Jim was a fleeting thing these days; so swiftly arrived and removed that it sent Spock reeling. He wondered, vaguely, whether this was another memory. The Seskille seemed to enjoy giving and taking his captain from him. Alive in one moment, beaten and bloody the next. Again, and again, and again, and (again and again—).
"Don't get him upset, I said," the blur of fog grumbled as it moved around him. "Don't rile him up. And what does he do? Throw you right back to square one, 'cause he's just gotta say his piece! But why should anyone listen to me anyways? I'm only a doctor! I clearly don't have a single clue in my empty little head about what I'm talking about. Un-goddamn-believable…"
Spock tilted his head woodenly, his body moving and reacting without conscious thought or control. Doctor McCoy was in front of him, he recognized, blinking in an effort to refocus. The sight of him slipped further and further away, as if the room were being wheeled down a long hallway, but there was no mistaking him for anyone else. The slippery fabric of his blue medical tunic, the equally bright blue of his eyes, the exasperated grumble.
The relief he felt, faint though it was, nearly overwhelmed him. The doctor was the most emotionally volatile person Spock had ever known, capable of somehow expressing the entire range of the human spectrum of feeling. If there was anyone who could understand how to get rid of this, surely he would.
("Is that an order, Captain?")
Orders. He needed orders. Or a sense of where to go next. He needed a direction, a heading, a clear aim. Yes, McCoy would know what to do, and he would have no hesitation in telling Spock what to do as well.
"And you!" The blue smudge of color rounded on him now. "I told you to stay in bed! You wanna see just how fast I can break those skinny sticks you call legs?"
"D'ct'r…" His voice did not sound like his voice. He did not understand why his chest ached. No, it did not ache, it burned. How could he feel so cold and yet also be burning? It was not his Time. Was it his ribs? He could not suppress it as he should have. As any Vulcan should have. Pain was thing of the mind, and the mind could be controlled.
He did not feel controlled right now.
McCoy glanced him over and abruptly paused. He let out a curse beneath his breath and turned to face him fully with a sudden intense scrutiny. There was that practiced, professionally neutral expression on his face again; the one they must have taught in medical school so as to avoid causing an adverse reaction in patients. Gloved hands touched Spock's shoulder, one on either side, and squeezed firmly.
Hands…
("Get your hands off of him—)
"—Spock?"
"Yes?" Spock asked—or tried to ask, because his voice had somehow gotten distorted in his throat and what spilled out was only a slur of gargled sound. He furrowed his brows, perplexed. He cleared his throat, tried again, but the words were even less intelligible. Spock did not understand…
"Hey there, Spock." McCoy's grip on him was secure, but he didn't shake or jostle him. He just applied increasing pressure on his shoulders, thumbs simultaneously moving in steady circles. His tone was casual when he spoke, as if he were discussing something as inconsequential as the color of the room. "How're we doing?"
It was difficult to hear the doctor over the deafening roar in his ears, but Spock found the informal familiarity in the doctor's voice to be incredibly soothing. It reassured him that matters were not quite as dire as he felt they were. The room was present, he was not made of fog, and his body had not drifted away. Surely the doctor would have been alarmed were such feelings reality. And while it was hard to fully understand what was being said to him, he grasped the question enough to formulate something of a reply.
His response—"Adequately," he'd been attempting to say—was a mere smudge of sound, rendered unintelligible as actual communicative speech by any definition of the word. The hold on his shoulders tightened until it was just short of being painful, with hands and fingers that had always been deceptively strong for the size of the man they belonged to.
"Sure, sure…" McCoy nodded knowingly, as if he'd understood Spock's response. "Glad to hear it. Except the thing is, you aren't breathing right now. And it might just be my opinion, Commander, but I think you should probably start doing that. So, how about you use those superior Vulcan lungs of yours and inhale real deep for me, alright?"
Spock paused, bemused by the observation.
His first instinct was to refuse the command, if only because it was McCoy who had issued one, and he often refused to submit to him on principle alone. However, it was also an enormous relief to receive an order of any kind right now, no matter who it came from or what it was. He was so tired, so uncertain, so lost. And, he reflected with his rapidly diminishing ability for thought, the instruction itself did make logical sense.
After a brief hesitation, he attempted to follow it. The doctor, he knew, would ensure his cooperation one way or another anyways. He always did. It was often simply easier to comply the first time rather than protest and still be made to comply later.
It was a straightforward enough directive, which made it all the more puzzling as to why it'd been given in the first place. Had he not been breathing? His chest hurt. It was a simple action, breathing was, so why could he not manage to do it?
"In through your nose, Mr. Spock, c'mon."
He opened his mouth to speak. I am trying, he wanted to say, but all that emerged was a ragged smear of noise. His body jerked in the doctor's grip, spasming as he fought the pressure building in him. He ached. He burned. He felt lightheaded and nauseous and distant. His chest did not rise, and he could not make it do so.
"I know, I know. Shh, just keep trying. I know feels like you can't, but I promise that you can. Your body hasn't forgotten how to breathe, you just need to slow your brain down a little bit so it can play catch up."
One of his shoulders was released and the hand pressed against his chest. Spock's vision was blooming with spots, and he shuddered. McCoy kept the contact firm there, rubbing his sternum insistently. Spock wanted to inform him that it was not his chest that needed the pressure, it was his side. The tricorder shards… but he found he could not speak. He could not do much of anything, it seemed. Rarely had he felt quite so useless and inept.
Inadequate.
"What, you're telling me you can compute complex theoretical quantum equations, but you can't choke in a little bit of air? Figure it out, First Officer, any time now. Use those oversized balloons you call lungs and take a damn breath."
Spock's pride bristled, irritated by the indignity of the comment. The insult was unnecessary, and the comparison was irrational. His lungs were only thirty-six-point-three-seven-one percent larger than the human standard average, and they were hardly any more balloon-like than McCoy's own were. But he knew what this was; the doctor was intentionally baiting him into action. It was not necessary, as Spock was attempting to follow the instruction. He simply… found that he could not. Perplexing.
"Spock." McCoy's voice had sobered and grown uncommonly serious. He leaned in with an intent expression. "I need you to breathe."
With a shudder, Spock surfaced over the heavy pressure briefly, breaking through it just enough to gasp. He forced air into his pharynx, where it caught and seemed to tangle—but he continued to inhale, choking it down his throat through his trachea, bronchi, and then finally, painfully into his lungs. It burned, and it hurt, and he coughed heavily once he finished inhaling, all the breath rushing from him with a spluttering gag.
The hand rested against his chest, nudging him gently, and Spock didn't need further instruction this time. He breathed again, and this time it was easier. The rush of sound in his ears began to ebb, the spots in his vision closing back to bud from the full bloom they'd been at. He breathed in again, and again after that. And again, and again (and again and again).
Slowly, like he was crumpling in on himself, he sagged forward. His body felt entirely sapped of the strength he'd been using to remain sitting upright, as if the very act of breathing took more energy than he had to spare. Spock thought he might have fallen—and indeed, he undoubtedly would have fallen—but for McCoy standing in front of him. The doctor took on his weight, supporting him from tumbling off the bed, and held him steady.
Spock allowed his body to go slack. It was not a matter of trust, he reminded himself absently. No matter his reasoning for his continued dishonesty, he trusted the doctor. Certainly, he trusted him enough to catch him now.
"Good, that's good," McCoy murmured evenly with a soothing croon. He released the tight hold on Spock's shoulder and instead began to press circles into his back. "Keep going, just like that. You're doing just fine. Let's take a few minutes to relax, yeah? Breathe in—no, keep breathing in, Spock. Deeper than that; I'll tell you when to stop. Don't think right now, don't argue, just listen to me and breathe."
He did so, just as that rumbling, confident voice directed. Spock inhaled until his lungs burned, until his body felt nearly beyond capacity. His chest throbbed as he fought for air, burning and shuddering and spasming visibly. It was only when the soft instruction finally arrived that he was able to release it—slowly, per the doctor's insistence—through pursed lips. His head was rapidly clearing now that he was taking in oxygen.
"Hey, how do you say breathe in Vulcan?" McCoy asked him casually, calmly, as if entirely unfazed by the entire thing. Sometimes, he suspected that the doctor was the strongest of them all. Unflappable…
"Esh-tor," Spock told him. The audible wheeze in his voice suggested that he was still struggling to do exactly that.
"Oh yeah? What about breathing in? Inhaling?"
"Vi-esh-tor." Spock could sense the next question before it was asked, and he was able to, with some difficulty, choke out an answer to it. "Exhaling is… is sa'le-esh-tor."
His forehead nearly brushed against McCoy's sternum as he hunched in on himself. He both felt and heard the steady rise and fall of McCoy's own respiratory patterns, and he forced himself to emulate it, matching it breath for breath. The doctor had noticed his efforts and began to exaggerate the act of it. Even, slow, deep breaths. Steady and measured. His chest burned. He felt so… so very far away from his body that he could scarcely manage to make it respond in the way he desired it to.
"I've gathered there's a pattern there," McCoy said. He leaned away for a moment, careful to keep a hand on him to provide support. There was the sound behind him; the body function panel's alarm being switched back on. Thankfully, it did not blare out. The hand returned to his shoulder. "Well, keep vee-ehsh-turring in, alright? In for five, then sally-ehsh-tur out for five."
Spock's brow raised slightly at the mispronunciation, and a faint glint of exasperation cut through the cloudiness in his mind. In a marginally stronger voice, he repeated both words again for McCoy to hear the exact distinctive sounds used in each one, and the way they were specifically pronounced. But he only received a snort and a dismissive wave as a response.
"That's what I said," McCoy told him with a chuckle. Bizarrely, Spock thought he sounded somewhat smug about something.
His brow creased, utterly perplexed.
"I see no… no purpose in requesting Vulcan translations if… if you refuse to—" Spock had to pause as his breath ran out, leaving him winded. The doctor applied firm pressure to his shoulder and back as he struggled to choke in another gasp of air. "—to… to accurately pronounce them."
"'Cause it annoys you, Mr. Spock." His back was pat in an oddly approving manner. "And for the life of me, I can't think of a grander purpose in all the galaxy."
"Ir-ra-rational."
"Yeah, sure is."
Spock's lips thinned, but he did not reply to what he suspected now was intentional provoking.
For a long time, he rested there. It took minutes for his respiration pattern to settle; almost three-point-six-two-nine of them, although he found his sense of time rendered skewed enough for that to only be a rough approximation. The entire duration, the hand on his back continued to rub firm, consistent circles.
Not normally one for physical contact, Spock had the odd recognition that he had been touched more in the past twenty-four hours than he had in years, perhaps even decades. How strange that was. He did not understand what had prompted his friends into doing so. Jim, McCoy, Uhura… there had been no shortage of hands on him recently. Even under the intoxicating effects of the spores, he had not encountered so much tactile engagement.
Touch, in his mind, had always been something that was barely tolerable at the best of times, and wholly unendurable at the worst of them. It was startling to realize that, over the past number of days, he'd gone from barely tolerating it to… taking pleasure in it. Or, at the very least, considering it well beyond merely bearable. He had even returned an embrace himself. Possibly, the difference was in who was doing the touching to begin with. Spock considered touch from his mother to be acceptable. He had no objections to the hug Uhura had given him. McCoy's practiced, gentle movements as he tended to him had always been of enormous comfort.
And when Jim touched him…
After a few moments had passed, McCoy spoke. Spock heard his voice vibrate throughout his chest where he rested against it. "How are we doing now? Better?"
"Yes." His words were only slightly less incoherent, still half-slurred and felt uncommonly muddled. Spock forced himself to take another breath, finding it easier to do so, and cleared his throat. "I apologize, Doctor McCoy. I am… uncertain what happened."
"What happened was a pretty common stress reaction," the doctor told him, patting him on the shoulder once final time. Then, gripping Spock's shoulders, McCoy helped him straighten up and held him there until he could support himself once more. Spock gave an absent nod. "The body can react in all kinds of odd ways after experiencing extreme stress. I know it feels rough in the moment, Spock, but the fact you're having anxiety is perfectly normal."
No, Spock wanted to say. No, it was not.
Perhaps it was normal for a human, but it was not at all normal for a Vulcan. And more than that, it was certainly not normal for Spock. He did not experience anxiety. He did not experience episodes where he forgot how to breathe, something that should have been so entirely ingrained in him that the very idea of forgetting the process was far-fetched to the point of absurdity. He did not experience stress reactions of any kind, common or uncommon, let alone public ones.
No, this was not normal.
His first inclination was to dismiss the entire matter; to pretend it had not happened or that it was merely the result of something else. Some… some situational issue that had temporarily compromised his physical and mental capabilities. He wanted, rather desperately, to justify this as something other than what McCoy claimed it to be, because surely, he did not experience such blatant displays of emotional ineptitude on his own. Surely, he had not lost control of himself to such an unacceptable degree.
And yet, Spock couldn't help but know that his excuses were rapidly becoming transparent even to himself, and that all the explanations he formulated to rationalize the episode were… not rational at all. Not only were they irrational, they were ill-fitting; so misaligned as to be impossible to apply. A square peg in a round hole, he believed the human phrasing went.
"I see," Spock responded simply, nodding as if he both understood and accepted the explanation. In truth, he neither understood nor accepted anything at all, and in fact had rarely felt less understanding and accepting than he did in that moment.
McCoy eyed him dubiously, as if suspecting the lie. That sharp, hawkish gaze glanced him over consideringly, picking him apart for any issue or concern. Clearly there was one to be found, for his expression grew resolute. Lips pursing in deliberation, the man clapped him once on the shoulder and stepped away to a cabinet.
Spock watched him go, but he did not fully see him. Now that he was breathing and more-or-less capable of thought, he found himself feeling increasingly empty.
The Seskille had opened up a pit inside of him, one full of only hollow, dead space where they'd stretched his mind beyond capacity. Whereas he'd felt too filled by their presence on the planet, he now found himself too empty. Each thought echoed in the cavern of his head, distorting in on itself again and again (again and again—) until it lost all sense of coherency. And when they finally did arrive, they were… sluggish. Too thick to swallow down, process, make sense of.
Shock.
He understood the theory of it, understood the physiological processes, but he had never known the emotion of it beyond a list of generic symptoms from educational texts. He was not a doctor, but he was a first officer. It was his responsibility as one in the command chain to know and identify the indication of any number of ailments in the crew.
He somehow hadn't recognized it in himself. Odd, Spock mused, as he should have been able to immediately diagnose it, having been specifically trained in managing it in a professional, external capacity. Yet he had not. He had not even realized he'd stopped breathing until the doctor informed him that he wasn't. How could one not notice such a thing? How could he not notice his body was suffocating itself?
But then, he supposed it was rather easy to forget what his body was doing when he did not feel as if he were part of it. And indeed, he did not feel as if he were very present at all. The sense of disconnection from his surroundings, the conversation, the way the sounds of the room felt both too muted and too loud… he did not feel as if the space around him were real. The pressure in his chest kept building and building; not in the same manner as oxygen deprivation—Spock breathed in deeply to be certain of it—but the kind of pressure that he'd felt during Jim's visit. The kind of pressure that choked him in ways that were not just physical.
"Here, hold this for me."
An ice pack was forced into his hand.
Spock absently obeyed the instruction, closing his fingers around it. He stared at it blankly, rather uncertain of its purpose, and his confusion only deepened when the doctor did not release it once he secured his grip. Instead, Spock's hand was guided upwards to press the icepack against the side of his neck, into the sensitive skin just below his ear.
Cold. He flinched away from contact of it, but McCoy made a disapproving sound and forced it there anyways, pinning him in place with a strong, gloved hold.
Spock… did not understand.
Was he experiencing swelling there? If so, he hadn't noticed it. Such a thing, while not beyond plausibility in his dubious state, nevertheless seemed unlikely. If he were indeed injured, why then had the doctor not repaired the damage while he still had the dermal regenerator out? It would be atypical of him to commit such an oversight; Spock knew the doctor to be highly detail-oriented when it came to the health of his patients—if also unreasonable, ill-tempered, quarrelsome, and acrimonious.
His habit towards precision was one of his better traits on an incredibly short list of them (and in fact, it was a list of exactly one trait).
Raising a perplexed eyebrow, Spock attempted to focus through both the cold and the haze of fog in his mind. It felt like swimming through a viscous liquid; the muted emptiness in him was a crushing weight and it was difficult to bypass. But he tried to focus his attention inwards, running a diagnostic evaluation of his physical condition. Heartrate, blood pressure, brain activity and patterns, respiratory rhythm…
It took considerable effort to do; far more than it should have. He should have been angry at that, but all he could feel was cold; the sharp stinging of the ice as it bit his skin and the waves of contradictorily aching numbness that spread out from the contact. The chill was a jarring sensation that he could neither block out or ignore, and he was finding it to be both highly irritating and uncomfortable. It overwhelmed the senses, which he felt had been overwhelmed enough already for one day.
Focus, he remembered. He had to focus. Oxygen saturation, metabolic functioning, hormone levels…
Yet, after completing a careful analysis of his physical condition, he'd been unable to identify any injury or issue with that specific area of his body. There was no swelling, no contusion, no abrasion, no bruising. No wound of any kind, in fact. This was nonsensical, then. Spock disliked that almost as much as he disliked the compress itself.
McCoy appeared to be ignoring him, having taken a seat—the same chair Jim had been using—and picked up his PADD. He glowered down at the screen, tilted just enough away that Spock could not see it, and wrote down occasional notes in the untidy scribble he claimed was decipherable as a written human language. There was a troubled expression on his face, brows creased, and mouth set into a firm, harsh line.
Seeing his distraction, Spock made to remove the ice pack, but a gloved hand halted his withdrawal, forcing it back into place even more firmly than before.
"Nope, keep it right there. Apply pressure."
Spock's other eyebrow shot up to join the first.
"This is unnecessary, Doctor McCoy," he informed the doctor, eyeing him skeptically. "I detect no injury or ailment."
"Yeah, well, I detect one, so stop your fussing and whining." McCoy glanced over at him, irate and unimpressed. "If I tell you to keep it there, you keep it there. If I say apply pressure, you apply pressure. If I tell you to juggle the damn thing, you better hike it up real high."
"You are acting illogically."
"S'that so? Good to hear," the doctor said as he shrugged in response. He was dismissive as he turned back to the tablet. "'Cause frankly, the further away I am from your lousy brand of logic, the better."
Spock, unable to bury down his annoyance, pulled the ice pack from his neck regardless of instructions.
Without batting an eye, McCoy's hand shot up and gripped tight to his left ear, wrenching it down with a sharp motion. Spock's head was yanked to the side, a startling movement that jarred him. The world spun briefly before righting itself, with the doctor's face leaning alarmingly close now, nose nearly touching Spock's cheekbone.
Shooting the man a rather acerbic stare, he tried to move away, uncomfortable by both the proximity and the grip.
"What," Spock began in that curt, cutting tone he reserved specifically for disorderly crewmembers and one Leonard H. McCoy, "may I ask, is your purpose for this?"
"I'm checking your damn hearing, Mr. Spock," McCoy shot back instantly, tugging Spock's ear as if to peer inside it. Audible beneath the visible grouch and rude scoffing, he sounded almost amused. There was a curious amount of warmth in his voice. "Because I distinctly remember saying to leave it alone."
"This is not how one conducts an audiometry evaluation."
"Oh-ho, look at the expert! I'll be sure to consult you on your professional medical opinion exactly never, Doctor Spock. Keep your hand where it is, I'm not gonna ask again."
McCoy released him, and Spock wasted no time in shuffling away. He eyed the doctor balefully—which was ignored, of course—as the man turned back to his PADD and scowled down at it as if it had personally offended him.
He did not attempt to remove his hand again, however.
For a long time, they sat in silence.
Spock focused his attention on the ground, at something of a loss on what to do with himself. It was difficult to think through the freezing sting on his neck, rendering most of his considerations half-formed and nebulous. Instead, he forced his attention to the room itself. The floor, the walls, the steady thrum of the body function panel, the shuffling movement of McCoy as he adjusted his position on the chair, uncrossing and recrossing his leg.
He heard the illegible scribbling on the surface of the pad and suspected that the doctor was taking notes on him. That he was doing so loudly and blatantly was clearly meant to stress some kind of point, but Spock was uncertain as to what that point could be.
Spock wished, and not for the first time, that for once, his human friends would simply say what they meant. For such an emotive and outspoken species prone to excessive talking, the contents of their speech so rarely contained anything of meaningful substance. Why use twenty words when three would do? Why could McCoy not simply tell him the true purpose of this ostensibly useless act in plain terms?
It was frustrating at the best of times, but he found it especially taxing to process now.
The captain's words hadn't been forgotten; there had been an unspoken meaning there as well. The tone with which he spoke in, the specific wording, his expressions, his posture; his captain had always been incredibly intentional in his every action, and something of this significance would not have been the exception to that.
The cold of the icepack was bothersome to the point of distraction. He found it difficult to reflect around the freezing chill of it. It stung, it was grating, and he could not block it out. The touch of ice against bare skin would have been uncomfortable to even a human, he thought, but as a Vulcan, he was used to heat. Had his shields been functional, and his controls in place, such an irritant would have been easily dismissed from his mind. Neither were operational and so he could not.
After some time had passed—approximately four-point-two-one-seven minutes, in fact—McCoy set the PADD aside with somewhat more vehemence than was usual and peered at him. His hawkish, sharp gaze was assessing; professional as he examined him from head to toe. "Yeah," he grunted, seemingly satisfied by what he had found or not found. "Yeah, that should just about do it. You can go ahead and drop your hand. Let me take that from you."
Spock was more than willing to return the ice pack to him, still puzzled as to why he'd been given it in the first place. There had been no injury; no swelling, no abrasion, no bruising. He did not understand. And it appeared he would receive no explanation either, because the doctor ignored the questioning raise of his eyebrow and continued on without addressing it.
"Now, you wanna tell me what our illustrious captain said to trigger this whole thing, or should I guess at it?"
Even while McCoy spoke gently and calmly, there was a dark warning in his voice. It put Spock on red alert to the danger there, especially as he knew it was not aimed at himself. That was concerning. Jim did not deserve the doctor's ire; he had done nothing wrong. In fact, he'd been exceedingly professional for the duration of the official matters, and once their conversation had delved into more personal ones, Jim had still been relatively restrained in his approach.
"If what you say is true, this whole thing is considered a pretty common stress reaction and therefore needn't have been prompted by anything at all," Spock said matter-of-factly, quoting McCoy in such a way as to express that he still considered the statement to be of dubious accuracy. "The captain was not the cause of it."
McCoy only chuckled. "Oh no, now I don't buy that for a second. Jim bursts into my office wearing the guiltiest hangdog expression I've ever seen in my life, and you're sitting in here looking all heartbroken like someone just shot your dog."
"I do not own a canine, Doctor. Nor a pet of any kind, for that matter."
"Yeah, ain't that debatable..." The doctor looked amused, and Spock merely looked at him in return, utterly expressionless. "Well, whatever it was, he should have known better. I'm about to prescribe him a good, solid slap upside the head to knock some sense into him; I told him not to go an' get you upset, and sure as anything…"
"I would prefer that you do not strike anyone, Doctor McCoy, least of all the captain. He did not upset me and, indeed, I am not upset now."
There was a low sigh. The doctor ran a hand over his face with a groan. "For the love of god, you don't always need to defend him, Spock. I swear, you'd defend his actions with your dying breath even if he was the cause of it. Hell, especially if he were the cause of it! He did something stupid, end of. Got you all worked up after I made him swear—swear, mind you—not to do it. Sometimes, you just gotta call a spade a spade, you know?"
Spock raised an eyebrow, uncomprehending. "I assure you that I do not."
"Jim's an idiot," McCoy clarified unhelpfully. Spock's other eyebrow shot up to join the first. "No, not even just an idiot. That man moonlights as captain of the USS Idiocy, and every single moment he's conscious is a moment he's recruiting for his crew…"
He… felt rather at a loss for words at that and so said nothing at all. There was very little one could say to such a statement, and he knew it was best that he did not feed into McCoy's statements. He did not wish to encourage him.
Thankfully, McCoy didn't seem to be waiting for a response.
"So, I take it to mean I'm guessing then. I'll have you know that I've gotten pretty good at this game, never mind that I hate playing it. So, what did he say…" The doctor trailed off as if he were thinking, although Spock understood it was meant for effect. He had no doubt that McCoy knew exactly what Jim had spoken to him about. "I've got two pretty good ideas, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he told you about the Command Directed Evaluation."
Spock felt unease pool in him. The conversation had veered beyond McCoy's suspect verbal humor and had now entered into undesirable territory. This had been the intention, of course; he knew the doctor well enough to know that the man had strategically maneuvered him here. McCoy was often open about his emotions and motivations to a fault, but he could be just as calculated and duplicitous as Jim, and it was far less harder to spot when he was.
His lips remained firmly pressed together. He did not wish to discuss this topic, not with anyone. It was humiliating enough that it existed at all, let alone to know that his two closest friends were also aware of it. And not only were they aware, he realized, but they had in fact been the ones to initiate it in the first place. Help. Jim told him that they were doing this to help him. For his benefit.
This… did not feel beneficial. This felt violating.
"Mmhm, I thought as much. You decided not to appeal it?" At Spock's slight incline of confirmation, the doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "Glad to hear it, 'cause that would have raised all kinds of new issues. He talk about the restrictions?"
It took a moment for Spock to find his voice, but when he did, it came out in a soft croak. "I was informed of their existence but was not provided with any specifics. The captain said you would apprise me of the necessary details."
The doctor nodded. He was clearly satisfied by Jim's decision to defer to him, and Spock knew this was due to his particularly outspoken preference that all medical communication was to be delivered by those specifically trained to deliver it. In McCoy's own words, everyone else had a habit of bastardizing it.
"And do you feel up to hearing them right now?" McCoy asked him gently, and Spock found the question absurd to the point of being offensive.
This was often the case, he knew. Spock sometimes thought it remarkable that McCoy purposely mocked and insulted him without ever managing to strike a blow, but his occasional idle comment somehow managed to cut into the core of him unintentionally.
"One should know the conditions of their parole, I should think," he responded in a particularly cold tone, to which the doctor snorted.
"Don't be dramatic. You're not being sentenced or jailed or any nonsense of the kind. Hey." McCoy had abruptly become serious and now spoke to him genuinely, as honest and open as Spock had ever heard him. "This isn't a punishment, Spock. I wanna make sure you're real clear on that before we move forward. This isn't a punishment, and we aren't doing this with the intention of causing you stress. God knows you've been through enough lately without us piling anymore onto your plate."
McCoy was wrong. He was so utterly, inordinately wrong that it was almost ludicrous to hear the words spilling from his mouth. For all that the doctor insisted this was not a punishment, Spock could think of few things that would have been more punishing to him.
It was… almost amusing, in an unpleasant way. Only just that morning—had it really been only a few hours ago? It felt as if a lifetime had passed—he had been waiting for the captain to give him formal condemnation. He'd been dreading the thought of receiving such a thing, for all that he understood the necessity of it. The thought of having forced Jim's hand into issuing reprimands to him, especially after the events of Talos IV…
And yet, his actions afterwards had forced Jim into an even more difficult position. How he wished it were only an official write-up. He would have accepted them a hundred times over. He would have taken a court martial and felt relieved to be given one, even. Anything, everything, but this.
"I'm not gonna lie to you, though. Intentional or not, it is going to be stressful on you, and I'm sorry about that." The doctor let out a humorless chuckle, lips pursing in bitter wryness. "Sounds counterproductive, I know, but these kinds of issues can't always be tackled with logic. Jim and I, we're doing this to help you, Spock, I can promise you that much. It's just that sometimes help doesn't feel all that helpful at first."
Something cold was sinking into his stomach, freezing him deep inside as if he'd swallowed McCoy's icepack. Spock made certain his expression was impassive and stoic, but those sharp blue eyes looked at him as if he were transparent all the way through. At the moment, he felt about as solid as fog.
"You understand?"
Spock did not understand.
He nodded anyways.
Doctor McCoy straightened and fixed him with a level, professional look. The sight had always been like a klaxon on the doctor, and Spock knew it to be just as portending of danger as one.
"To start, you're going to meet with me twice a day for a mandatory health check, scheduled at oh-nine-hundred hours and eighteen-hundred hours on the dot. And I mean on the dot, Spock. You so much as even think of skipping one, and I'm going to break down that door of yours and haul you out by your pointy ear, got it? I don't expect they'll take long, and they won't be too invasive; I'm not likely to run a full panel on you. It'll just be a quick pop in, maybe a handful of minutes at the most, just to make sure you're doing alright. Now—"
Spock lightly cleared his throat in interruption, receiving only a patient, expectant look in return. It felt oddly patronizing. "May I inquire as to the determination behind such excessive checks? My condition is unlikely to change significantly enough within a span of nine hours to necessitate such frequent medical intervention."
McCoy leaned back into his chair and was silent for a moment. He watched him with a considering kind of scrutiny that suggested he was internally deliberating what answer was best to give. Spock looked back just as intently, but it wasn't considering; he observed McCoy with the same level of alarmed awareness as a rabbit might upon hearing the close sound of baying wolves.
While the captain had always been very intentional about his every word and action, the doctor wasn't nearly so controlled. He often said exactly what he was thinking regardless of how it would be received—and in fact, seemed to take particular pleasure if that reception was negative. That he was visibly thinking over his word choices was atypical.
And more than that, it was ominous.
Finally, the doctor spoke, and Spock immediately wished he hadn't asked at all.
"It's standard procedure in cases of self-harm," Doctor McCoy told him evenly.
Spock stilled, lungs catching as he froze. Esh-tor, he thought absently. Breathe. But there was a rush of sound in his ear as the blood drained from his face. That pressure tightened and constricted and began to sink him like a stone.
The doctor's voice was as practiced and routine as anything and didn't so much as hint at a personal opinion about the matter either way. Surely, he must have had one, though, because Spock certainly did. A very strong one, at that. No. His mind rebelled and started to spiral. He felt nauseous. No, he felt positively sickened.
"Now, so far everything suggests that it's a pretty involuntary response on your end, and that's a good thing," McCoy continued, "So, for now, we're just checking in to keep an eye on things. Should anything change, we'll re-evaluate and move forward from there, sound good?"
No. No, it did not sound good.
There was actually a pause, as if giving him a chance to speak. Spock sincerely hoped that he was not waiting for a response, because there was not one forthcoming. In fact, rarely had he felt less inclined to say anything at all, even if he could have. The capacity for speech appeared to have fled him entirely.
"As for the rest, they're pretty minimal as far as restrictions go. You've got a typical meal routine, sleep routine, and recreational workload limit," McCoy said, evidently unfazed by the silence. "What that means for you is that both breakfast and dinner are to be eaten outside of your quarters, you're to try to get at least six hours of sleep a night, and any of your personal hobbies are to be kept within certain parameters. Specifically, they shouldn't be time-sensitive, critical, strenuous, or too overstimulating. I don't want you getting all worked up over the questionable helio-whatsits."
"Quantified Helioionization Buffer," Spock corrected quietly, voice nearly inaudible.
"Yeah, that. I'm fine if you work on it—hell, I encourage you to get out of your quarters and work on it, 'cause I know that's your thing with Scotty and the socialization would do you a world of good right now—but it better stay a relaxing, casual thing. The moment I start hearing about explosions or glass shards or, I don't know, temporal mix-ups, or whatever kinda other dangerous nonsense it is that sends your lab kiddos to see me on the daily, I'm shutting the whole thing down, understand?"
Spock nodded his head, a movement that felt as if it were done through syrup. There was an audible buzzing sound. The room was drifting. No, control.
Control.
"I've sent the schedule to your quarters already. We're going to see each other a lot in the next few days, so if you've got any questions, or if something really isn't working, we can talk about it as it comes up."
None of this would be working, Spock wanted to say. None of these degrading, debasing, condescending measures would be working for him at all, and he wanted to talk about that now. He wanted to discuss that now. These restrictions, these limitations, these… these…
"The comprehensive eval's on Thursday, which isn't ideal for anyone, but it is what it is. Nothing you've done fits the official emergency criteria, so it's the soonest we were legally allowed to schedule you in. Now, something else happen, or if your self-harming gets worse, we'll—
"I am not harming myself."
The denial burst out in the room, not quite so loud as to be a shout but not quite soft enough for merely a comment. It trembled in the air, acidic to the point of hostility. The voice did not sound logical, emotionless, stoic. It sounded afraid.
For a moment, Spock did not know who spoke. It was only when McCoy's expression shifted that he realized it was himself. His voice had not sounded like his voice.
"Yeah, Spock, you are." Doctor McCoy was looking at him calmly, with noticeable sympathy in his eyes. "In a few ways. Your hands, for one. You've been shredding them so damn much that I'm surprised your vegetarian standards aren't balking at the sight of 'em. Every time I've seen you this past week, you've either been bleeding or near-bleeding. And for the life of me, I'm not sure why, 'cause you're the first one to start snipping about your Vulcan sensitivity, but the fact remains that you're hurting yourself. Thankfully, now that we're aware of it, we can keep an eye on things and make sure—"
Spock interrupted again, feeling as if a hole had opened up in the floor beneath him, causing him to freefall with a plummet. He wished it would. There was no oxygen in the void of space, which was just as well as he could not breathe anymore.
"We?"
"Me and Jim," McCoy helpfully clarified for him, speaking as if his statement hadn't delivered a sensation not unlike being kicked in the chest. "Like I said, it ain't an emergency, but it is a concern. It's not the only one though. It's not even the worst one. See, it's not so much your hands that's the problem, Spock. It's the other kinds of self-harm you're doing. They're what's really worrying me."
"I do not understand," he said softly.
To some degree, although he sincerely disagreed with it being labeled self-harm, he acknowledged that the doctor was correct about his hands—insomuch as they had indeed been physically perforated on more than one occasion and this could potentially be of some concern. Spock himself had noticed that he was damaging them with some frequency, often without realizing it. While he did not consider it overly harmful in the psychological sense, he conceded that it was unhealthy in regard to the physical one.
"Your actions, Spock. What you've been doing to yourself."
At Spock's resulting blank stare, the doctor sighed, glancing at the ceiling as if searching for patience.
"The decisions you've been making, the things you've been doing, the behavior you've been having. Ringing any bells? How about the way you just threw yourself to the wolves like it wasn't any big deal? Or how you tried to argue with us to go and let you do it? No? Still nothing? How about the way you—a walking rulebook—broke orders?"
"I was not given—"
"Oh, I heard all about your technicality excuse," McCoy told him, "and I call bull on it. I know you, Spock; you'd have only pulled that kinda card if you wanted to do it."
"I did not want to do it."
"No, you didn't want repercussions for doing it." The doctor's voice was serious, but it was controlled and steady. There was no anger in his voice, nor even his normal biting annoyance. Just even, measured fact. "But to do it in and of itself? Oh, you bet you did. You wanted to go down to that planet, you wanted to prove to us you could it, you wanted to prove to yourself that you could do it, and you wanted it so goddamn badly that you went and found a loophole to make it happen. Well, it did. You got exactly what you wanted, and now we're here. So yeah, Spock, self-harm. It covers a whole lot more than just some cut-up hands and a bloody turbolift."
He could not do this now, Spock thought distantly. He could not sit here and hear this; hear that his closest friends spoke of him hurting himself, as if he were… no, he could not do this. He could not listen to the doctor tell him that he and Jim would be keeping an eye on it, managing him as if he were incapable of doing so himself, as if he were inadequate…
That feeling in him was building again, smothering his ability to focus beneath waves of stinging, burning, clawing pressure. It felt like wanting to scream and scream and scream, but not in a way that would produce an actual sound. He did not know what would make the pressure fade, but he suspected that any sound his vocal cords were capable of producing would not satisfy the creeping, slithering sensation rising up in him.
"Hey. Whatever you're thinking about, knock it off." McCoy reached out and tapped him firmly on the arm, taking his wrist up. "And uncurl your hands. C'mon, that's it..."
Spock looked down at his clenched fists. It took more force than it should have to relax them and pry his fingers from digging into his palms. A gloved hand turned each of his over for inspection, but there was only unblemished skin there. No blood, no cuts, no harm.
He stared at them vacantly, feeling himself slowly detach at the realization that he… he had not even noticed he was doing it. Only a handful of days prior, he would have been aware of each and every movement of his body, from his hands, to his expression, to the exact tilt of his posture. Now, it seemed he was incapable of even noticing when he had stopped breathing.
Fascinating.
And it truly was. It was fascinating in the same way that a meteor collision was fascinating, or a violent accident. Something horrific that one could not help but gawk in horrified awe at.
"Listen, this ain't gonna be nearly so bad as you've probably convinced yourself it will be," McCoy told him gently. "I can see you starting to catastrophize the whole thing, and I'm telling you now, you don't need to. It's not the end of the world to get a little extra help when you need it. We'll just take it one step at a time, figure out a few areas we can improve on for you, and it'll all be behind us. You're gonna get through this just fine, I promise."
"You cannot promise me that."
The doctor's eyes narrowed instantly, sharpening as they peered at him. "As a matter of fact, I can. No, no, hear me out." He held up a hand as if to fend off an objection that Spock hadn't raised. "I can promise you that, and I do know you're gonna get through this. Know why, Mr. Spock? 'Cause I'll be taking the helm for a little while. Sorry to break it to you, but you're taking backseat on this ride, kid."
Spock struggled to formulate a response. Backseat? He could not process the analogy at the moment; even concentration alone was difficult. But he did not need to, for McCoy was not finished.
"Now, I might not know the first thing about steering a starship through any of your ridiculous space fiascos—although I daresay I'd probably do a better job of it than you two idiots—but I do know how to navigate through a whole different kinda crisis."
The doctor's jaw had set into something steely and determined. Determination, Spock knew, was just as dangerous an emotion in the doctor as it was in the captain, and the sight of it signaled danger. He had always admired McCoy's unwavering resolve… when it was directed and focused elsewhere. Caught under the fierce intensity of the stare boring into him, he felt less inclined towards admiration and considerably more towards apprehension.
"Whether you want to admit it or not, Commander, you are in crisis," McCoy told him, voice intense and cutting. "And frankly, the sooner you start admitting to that, the better. Whatever bone-headed reasoning you've got knocking around up in there, you gotta stop it, Spock. I mean that. You've gotta stop pretending that you're fine, or that this is unimportant. You aren't fine, and it is important."
It frequently astonished him that, after over three years working together, of seeing each other multiple times a day, every day, his friends still did not truly understand him. Spock was certain they understood the barest aspect of him—his interests, his hobbies, his outward motivations, his friendships, his background—but they did not understand him.
They did not understand that asking him to act in the way they wished him to act, to be open about his emotions, about his feelings, about his crisis… they did not understand that this level of vulnerability was tantamount to depravity. They did not understand that speaking of it was taboo, or that admitting to it was perverse. They did not understand that he could not simply open his mouth and bare his soul, because the very thought of it was painful. Nor, he knew, could they ever understand it. They were not Vulcan.
And for all that they teased him about his physical features, his green blood, his logic, his culture, and even his dual heritage, neither Jim nor McCoy had ever really, truly understood that neither was he.
There wasn't yet a name for what he was. How could there be, when he was the only one?
("What else would you expect from a simpering, devil eared freak—")
"You are mistaken, Doctor." Spock did his best to keep his voice steady. "I am not pretending, as you say. Indeed, although I refute the notion of it being so severe as to be considered a crisis, I am well aware of there being a concern."
"A concern." McCoy gave him a distinctly unimpressed look. "No, see, a concern would be a little bit of worry. It'd be some fretting and stress, but not all that big of a deal. This isn't a concern. We're so far past concern, Spock, that it's not even in the rearview mirror! And we're still flying away from it at warp factor eight!"
He had to smother his temper down. Control, he told himself. Control.
"You are mixing your analogies," Spock said stiffly, taking a slow breath. "Do you mean to compare this to traveling in an automobile, Doctor, or a warp-capable spacecraft? Other than both being a means of transportation, the two differ considerably from one another."
"It doesn't make a single lick of difference to you which one, 'cause you ain't gonna be steering the damn thing!" McCoy barked out angrily. "I am! Jim is! And you can moan and whine and deny, deny, deny the whole goddamn way for all I care, but you're still gonna have to sit back, buckle up, and let us help you!"
The doctor pointed a finger at him, face reddening. His accent was thick now, the southern drawl more pronounced than it usually was, as it was wont to do when the man was truly upset. Upon hearing it, Spock often knew to end their confrontation as he rarely wished to truly aggravate him. Irritate, provoke, annoy, and exasperate, yes, but not cause true discord between them. At the present, however…
His eyes narrowed. "I have no intention of—"
"No," McCoy said sternly, a note of finality ringing through the word. "No, I don't think you fully get it, Spock, so let me be crystal clear about this: you aren't in charge anymore. We've allowed you to be and look where that's gotten you. As of about an hour ago, you aren't making your own decisions."
Spock went still.
Something that felt alarmingly like panic began to wash over him. Desperation filled all those previously hollowed spaces, sour and acrid and tasting of bile. He felt his breath catch. Esh-tor, he reminded himself. Breathe. Focus, he needed to focus. Breathe through it. Control. Control. Control…
But he did not have control. Not over his breathing. Not over his body. Not over his work, or his health, or his independence. He did not have control at all, it seemed, and any lingering scraps that might have remained were being rapidly snatched away by the second.
Control… but he was no longer allowed to be.
Fear. It trickled through his veins as adrenaline and a desire to escape. His muscles tensed, as if prepared to take flight from the bed and leave the sickbay behind him completely. Spock wanted to be in his quarters, alone and isolated so that he could manage these emotional demonstrations without the probing, assessing blue eyes watching his every move. They made his skin crawl. He was so very tired of being studied, picked apart, exposed.
Please stop, Spock wanted to beg, if begging would have done anything. Please stop. Did they not understand? How? How could the doctor tell him this and not understand what he was saying? What it meant? Control. Control. Control was everything to him, and he'd had it ripped from him too many times already. And now it was taken from him again, and again, and (again and again—).
"What, nothing to say to that?" Doctor McCoy asked him, utilizing a very specific tone of voice.
He knew that tone. Recognized it for the antagonism it was. The doctor was intentionally baiting him, attempting to provoke an emotional reaction so as to prove his point. Spock was not inclined to give him one, although he had a suspicion his efforts to appear impassive were blatantly transparent.
"What response do you wish me to give?" Spock asked tightly, smothering down the fury and surge of pure, breathless terror. That anger he'd felt towards the doctor in the briefing room had sparked to a flame once more, and it frightened him to feel it. He did not feel anger. He did not feel the urge to cause violence. Except that apparently, he did, on both accounts.
McCoy looked at him derisively. It was a deliberate expression; one that was just as practiced as the calm medical neutrality he'd worn moments prior. Spock knew this one as well, and so he knew it was not intended for him, but for the doctor's own benefit. The doctor was worried. More than worried, he was pained.
("So don't tell me that it didn't hurt, Spock. Don't you dare say that, because it absolutely hurt me.")
"The response I wish you to give, Mr. Spock, is that you're going to work with us. I wanna hear that you're going to be the best goddamn patient in the history of medicine, and that you're going to loosen that stiff Vulcan tongue of yours and start being real honest about what's going on with you. That's the response I wish to get. As for the response I expect to get, well…" McCoy sniffed dismissively. "What response are you planning to give me? See? I can evade a question with another question too."
Spock understood fear. He understood desperation. He understood the sense of pure terror and dread and panic that was rushing through him like a flood, washing away all thought and logic and reason. He understood that his hands had clenched up once more. He understood the way his mind felt itself detach from the rest of his body.
But never, not once in his life, had he been forced to feel it without being able to suppress it beneath the shifting sands of his mindscape.
Not once.
"Yeah," the doctor said at last, once it became clear that Spock would not say anything at all. He looked resigned. "Yeah, that's pretty much the response I expected."
He could not do this now. His mind was reeling, and he could barely form thought at all. He could not do this. And yet, he had to, because he no longer had a choice. That had been taken from him. It had been taken from him first by the Seskille, and now it was being taken from him by his friends. He'd had his control stripped from him mentally, telepathically, professionally, physically…
What was left? What was possibly left for him to grasp at?
Part of him wanted to allow his mind to drift away, just as it had been earlier. There was comfort in the numb, hazy sense of disconnect. If he were not in his body, and if he were not in his mind, and if he did not have thought, or feeling, or emotion, or anything, then none of it could be taken from him. One could not have stolen what one did not first have.
And yet… and yet that sense of being unmoored and sent adrift… what would happen, he wondered, if he were to drift too far away from stable ground? If he were to find himself too far to be towed back to land?
("You're worth more to me than you'll ever know, and I'll be damned if I stand by to watch you sink. I'll haul you kicking and screaming to shore myself if that's what it takes, but you aren't going to drown, you hear me?")
Spock found himself speaking before he could stop himself.
"I do not know what to do." His voice was little more than a croak of sound, barely audible in the room.
McCoy considered him thoughtfully, and all trace of anger was gone. His expression had never seemed quite so kind before as in that moment; he looked sympathetic and compassionate, but not patronizing. It wasn't his usual mocking, smug victory, or his irritated grumbling. It was patient, reassuring, and, perhaps more than anything else, it was understanding.
"I think… that's probably a good thing," the doctor said eventually, with not so much a hint of sarcasm present, "'cause I think you've realized by now that your decisions haven't been turning out so hot lately. And I think you've also realized that what you've been doing isn't making you feel any better. It's not the answer you'll want to hear, but it's the one you need to hear, Spock. You don't need to know what to do, because you don't get to decide whether or not to do it anymore. That's up to me, and it's up to Jim. You'll just have to trust us to do right by you until you can get back on your feet."
Spock tried to respond. Failed. He tried again.
"I am…" Spock had to pause, force himself to breathe again. He inhaled in a wheeze of air that he did not feel, with lungs that felt constricted and tight. That pressure was building and building, and he felt as if it were crushing him. Carefully, he took another breath and made himself speak. "I would like to…" He felt frustration at himself and had to begin again. "What is going to happen next, Doctor?"
McCoy nodded at the question, as if he approved of Spock asking it. Perhaps he did. It was gratifying, even if only in the barest sense, that something he had done was correct. "What's next is that you're gonna listen to us, you're gonna work with us, and you're gonna let us take care of you. That's what's next, Spock. Think you can do that?"
("Is that an order, Captain?")
Orders. Orders were exactly what he'd wanted. For someone to tell him what to do, because everything he did seemed to be wrong, or problematic, or harmful. And he was tired. He was so very, very tired of trying to fight for every fragment of dignity, every piece of discipline, every shard of restraint. He was so tired of being so inept.
Yes, Spock wanted to say. Wanted to. Tried to. But even more than he was tired of being ignorant, he was even more tired of lying. He was so completely, wholly exhausted of it, to the point where it felt as if the fatigue would never fade from him. As if it had sunk in so deep that it pervaded him to the marrow.
"I am uncertain," he said finally, softly. "I apologize, Doctor. I do not… I do not have enough—I am unable to provide you with a more accurate answer."
"That answer's fine," the doctor responded gently. "It's truthful, at least, and that's more than I hoped for. I don't expect you to have a better answer right now, I just want you to be open to the possibility that things might actually turn out alright. Jim and me? We're aware this is a big deal. It's no small thing to let someone else take charge for a while, even for a human. But for a Vulcan? I get it, Spock; I know how much control means to you, and how terrifying it must be to have it taken away."
"I assure you, Doctor McCoy, that you do not know." Spock looked up. He was not entirely certain what his expression must have been for McCoy's eyes to soften as immediately as they did. "Nor, I think, could you ever."
"Maybe not. But you wanna know what I do know? I know that you'd have rather been kicked out of Starfleet entirely than be put on self-harm watch." Perplexingly, McCoy chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound, and he did not look as if he found anything humorous. "I know that you're more devastated about receiving some mandatory health checks than you ever were about receiving the death penalty during that whole Pike fiasco."
That was a ridiculous comment to make, Spock thought absently. The two were not comparable in the slightest. One was invasive, barbaric, inhumane, and unjustifiable. The other was only death.
"But I also know," McCoy continued seriously, "that it's taken you less than two weeks to decline so much that I've got serious—real serious—concerns over letting you walk out that door for fear of just how much worse it'll be by tomorrow. So, whether I'll ever actually get your control thing or not, it doesn't really make a difference. I don't have to get it to know you're too compromised to have it. You've left me no choice but to take your choice away."
Spock went silent, thoughts both racing and standing perfectly still. The pressure in him felt like it would burst from him. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He thought it likely he would have had his throat not felt so tight and restricted. He forced in a breath that never seemed to enter his lungs, for all that his chest expanded from it. Shock. Was this emotional shock?
"I understand," he said after a moment. "I will… endeavor to allow you to work unhindered."
"That's all I want," the doctor told him firmly. "All that Jim wants too."
He swallowed thickly. "The captain is angry with me."
A faint, amused smile spread over McCoy's face, making his eyes gleam.
"Jesus," he snorted out softly. "Of course that's the damn issue. That's always the main damn issue with you two. You know, that was gonna be my second guess after the Command Directive. Should've guessed it first, but I was hoping to give you some credit. Forget what I said about attempting to recruit; that man's got you signed up, in uniform, and commanding the bridge of his idiot ship. You both deserve each other, as far as I'm concerned. God help us."
He raised a brow, at a loss as to how to respond to such a statement.
"Just so we're clear," that warm voice continued, "I'm angry at you too. I might not be biting your head off like Jim was, but don't think for a second that I don't want to. There're few things I'd like more than to shake some sense into that thick, skillfully healed skull of yours." The doctor waved his hand in the air dismissively, as if Spock were about to say something. He was not. "I'll get over it. Jim'll get over it too; he's more worried than anything else. You should have seen him while you were down there; nearly wore a hole in the carpet. He's like a goddamn caged tiger, that one. I had to make him promise not to ambush you once you beamed back."
Spock rather thought he would not have minded the captain ambushing him. Not at all. It would have been preferable to the stony silence and avoidant eyes. He should not have hoped for anything else. He had hurt his captain with his actions, he knew, and the frigidity was the least of what he deserved.
And yet, he recalled the hug from that morning. Had it only been that morning? It felt as if years had passed. He recalled his captain's arms tight around him, holding him in such a way that Spock had never, not once in his life, felt safer. For a moment, it was as if everything was right again. As if his mind had not been frayed, as if his control had not lapsed, as if his friendships had not been irreparably damaged, as if he'd never beamed down to Seskilles VII, as if he'd never entered pon farr, as if he'd never killed his captain. His beautiful, radiant captain.
(Jim died in front of him again.)
"I'm sure he'll be hovering anyways. He'd probably be haunting the doorway right now if he didn't have to go be a captain." At Spock's curious look, McCoy elaborated. "He went to scream at that absolute clown, I think. Took a security team with him, in any case."
Spock startled at that. "He suspects the ambassador of becoming violent towards him?" he asked, immediately concerned at the possibility. Before the ambassador had ever stepped foot on board the ship, he had poured over his file multiple times over. He had dismissed Hammett for a reasonably low threat towards the captain, but it was entirely possible he had been mistaken. Jim was not prone to excessive force; he would not have gotten security involved had he not truly believed there to be a danger.
But McCoy only barked out a laugh. "God no, can you imagine? No, the other way 'round, actually. The security's for Jim, to prevent Jim from getting violent. He hoped they might help reign him in, but I ain't so sure. That inadequate moron's made nothing but enemies since he got here, and I don't doubt for a second that they wouldn't look the other way if Jim wanted to haul off and beat the snot outta him. Hell, they might even join in. I would."
The lack of professionalism, Spock reminded himself distantly, was to be expected when working with humans. He wondered why it was still a surprise after so many years surrounded by them, but occasionally, McCoy managed to stun him with displays of hitherto unseen displays of irrationality.
"I wish to leave," he said, finding himself increasingly weary of attempting to follow the doctor's logic. "Are you going to lock me in a cell, Doctor, or may I serve the remainder of my convalescence in my quarters?"
McCoy eyed him skeptically. "I guess that depends, Mr. Spock. How are we feeling?"
The answer was already on the tip of his tongue. Vulcans do not feel. It was an instinctual response by now, and one he'd been saying all his life. And yet, McCoy looked at him with such open honesty and genuine concern that Spock felt the words catch. He hesitated just long enough to prevent them from spilling out.
"… Tired," he confessed, and the act of doing so was both liberating and excruciating. He forced himself to continue regardless. "I feel tired, Doctor McCoy."
"Alright." Understanding blue eyes watched him closely. "And this tiredness, is it just physical?"
He was being given an out, Spock recognized, but only in the sense that there was room for him to lie. And he could tell that McCoy was expecting him to do so; could see the way the doctor had hardened himself for the answer. But Spock… Spock found he was tired of lying as well. Every aspect of him felt as if it were dragging, slack and listless as it shambled after some sort of hope for control.
But he was not in control. He was not allowed to be in control.
And he was so incredibly tired…
His voice was nearly inaudible.
"No."
The doctor sat back in the chair, clearly relieved. For a moment, he looked about as exhausted as Spock felt; there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He was too pale, too drawn, and there was a dullness to his normally emotive, forceful expression. He was used to seeing McCoy as a beacon of strength. An unwavering force of protective, invariant certainty. It was startling to see him tired like this. To see him look so purely human. Somehow, despite the doctor being the very image of frenzied, passioned humanity, Spock had always considered him to be larger than human.
"Okay," McCoy said soothingly. "Well, that's alright too."
Sometimes, although Spock never would admit to it, he truly envied the doctor for the very illogical humanity he always criticized him for having. How reassuring it must be to be human. To know that your personal experience and understanding of identity was shared by tens of billions of others, all of whom were just as capable of experiencing it and understanding it too.
How… empowering it must be to never feel torn, to never feel like so many missing pieces of a broken whole, and to never feel alone. The doctor, no matter the logic of his opinions or the vehemence of his demonstrative emotional outbursts, knew exactly who and what he was.
And more than that, the doctor had never, not once, apologized for being Leonard McCoy. He'd never needed to.
Spock wished he could relate. Sometimes, it felt as if all he'd ever done was apologize for being Spock. Over and over again.
(Again and again—)
"It is perhaps not rational," Spock observed quietly, "but I sometimes find I envy you, Doctor."
"Is that a fact?" McCoy leveled him a bemused look. "Huh. Well, I guess I envy you too, every now and again. Only on a few things, mind, and only a little bit."
"Indeed?" That was surprising.
"Sure," the doctor agreed easily. "I envy that you've got all this crazy amount of support on your side, so much that you don't even know what to do with it. I envy just who you've got supporting you. Hell, not only did you manage to get the kindest, most patient goddamn man in the whole expanse of space in your corner, you somehow even endeared him enough to make him wanna fight like mad to stay there." There was a brief pause and a warm smile twitching upwards. "… And you've got Jim."
The doctor clapped him firmly on the shoulder as he stood, and he reached out to take Spock's arm to help him stand as well. Spock swayed only slightly before locking his legs firmly. The rush of blood to his head made him dizzy, and he had to briefly close his eyes to assist in pushing it aside. McCoy's hand on him remained a firm support, until he was stable enough to remain upright on his own.
"You want me to walk you down?"
He shook his head, thinking that there were few things he wanted less than to be escorted through the halls a second time with the doctor. Spock was certain the ship's rather exaggerative rumor mill had already become saturated with mistruths about the captain half-carrying him down to sickbay. Any further incidents would merely incite speculation about his personal matters. "I am certain I will be able to successfully navigate on my own."
"Vulcan stubbornness. I swear, that patience of mine is vast and all, but it sure ain't endless, and damn if you don't do your level best to sap the whole thing dry."
Spock gave him a dull look in response. "I shall return in approximately four-point-three-eight-one hours for our first scheduled check-in. Until then, Doctor."
Each step out the door was difficult, and the pain didn't stop even once he was out into the hallway and became used to walking again. Each movement of his body hurt. Each muscle ached and throbbed beneath his skin.
This, he knew, was not pain of the body. The doctor had healed all the physical damage, with the exception of perhaps his headache, which did still throb mutedly behind his eyes. That did not reflect negatively on McCoy's skill as a doctor but was instead the unfortunate result of his medication sensitivity. The headache was preferrable to vomiting.
No, this pain he felt was not physical. Pain was a thing of the mind, he'd always said, and the mind could be controlled. Unfortunately, this time the pain was in his mind, and his mind lacked the resources to effectively control it. It ached, and it throbbed, and he felt as if it were crushing him.
And that pressure in him was still there. Not worse, not better, but present all the same.
He forced any sign of it back; forced himself to straighten his posture, to tuck his hands neatly at his side, and to walk with all the dignity as befitting his rank and title. He had been removed from duty, but he was still a senior officer. His career hadn't ended, nor had his position been revoked. He still had an appearance to maintain.
The hallways were busy at this hour.
Gamma shift was beginning to prepare for their day, either by having breakfast, in the case of those who slept throughout the morning, or lunch, for those who slept immediately following the conclusion of their shift. Deck Five was often well-populated at even odd hours, but considerably more so during transitional periods. And so, there were plenty of crew to pass along the way to his quarters.
He ignored the glances he received at first. He was First Officer; it was expected that his presence would cause a disruption of some kind, even if only in the barest sense. Laughter often became muted when either he or the captain were around, and discussions grew quieter, more secretive. He was used to this, expected it. Expected it enough, rather, that he was able to more-or-less dismiss it without much conscious thought.
As such, he did not immediately notice that their glances were not the pleasant, alarmed, or suspiciously adverted ones he normally received. It was only when he was stopped that became aware of the difference.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Spock," Ensign Tali greeted him as he passed by. There was a tone in her voice, one he found particularly difficult to place. Not quite wavering, but not quite solid either. Tremulous. Tentative.
Spock offered her a greeting in return, and instead of receiving either a smile, a nod, or an otherwise casually professional response, she looked uncertain. Her lips parted, as if she wished to say something else. She did not. Finally, the nod he'd been expecting arrived and she hurried away, boots clicking.
Although he raised a brow, Spock was content enough to ignore it. His quarters were two hallways away. Two hallways, and he would be in the darkened silence of his rooms. Few things sounded more relieving to him in that moment than solitude.
He acknowledged a group of yeoman as he passed them. He took notice of the glances aimed his way and this time, he recognized there was something unusual about them. They were uncertain, uncomfortable, strained. One might even call the expressions he received as being awkward. Robe, Sinclair, and Ellis, the yeomans in question, either stared at him for too long or they avoided looking at him at all.
And at first, Spock did not understand the cause of it. He had been cleaned of the blood that had coated him. Any injuries had been mended and effectively erased. There was no cause for certain crewmembers to react to him in such a manner. He could not recall having had any negative interactions with either of the four recently; certainly not recent enough that they might hold resentment. And Ensign Tali had always been quick to smile when he visited Communications.
Spock felt his step slow as a realization sank a heavy weight into his stomach. Tali, Robe, Sinclair, and Ellis all worked in Communications.
… And then he understood.
The transcripts.
They had read the transcripts.
The Seskille had been repeating his memories for anyone to hear and read all morning, and it was their happiness to do so.
They did not understand—could never understand—that what they were saying was humiliating, degrading, shameful. They did not realize that he could not respond to them again, or that he had been pulled from duty. They would not comprehend that their attempts to get his attention would go unfulfilled. But it would not stop them from trying. They would repeat every thought, emotion, feeling, and memory they had witnessed, simply because they believed he would answer.
And why would they believe otherwise, he thought distantly, as the pressure inside him grew, and grew, and grew. Why wouldn't they think it would work? He had answered the last time. Not only had he answered them, he had returned to their planet to merge with them.
Spock wondered what it was they were saying. Surely, they were still repeating it, still calling for him, over and over again (again and again—). He had given them more to use now, more memories, more thoughts, more words, more secrets. He considered what all they might have seen, and how they might use it to form speech in their shrill, earsplitting, terrible voices.
His father, informing him at three years of age that physical affection in the form of an embrace was not acceptable for a Vulcan. ("Your increasingly frequent requests to be embraced are not appropriate behavior, my son. You are not human, and you must repress your impulse to engage in emotional displays like one.")
Jim falling in love with Edith Keeler as Spock watched and longed and ached inside.
Jim hypothermic against his chest as he tried to warm him up.
Jim dead in his arms (—body limp and lifeless, and everything in Spock froze).
Doctor McCoy speaking about his hybrid biology during one of their first medical appointments, and how he wasn't part anything but a whole person.
His mother crying as she begged him to reconsider leaving Vulcan as he packed his belongings. The way she had tried to appeal to so many visible signs of his humanity, and the way she'd pointed out each and every one of them verbally. ("I know you've never said it, Spock, and I'm not asking you to. But don't do this. Please love me enough not to leave.")
Confessing to experiencing happiness for the first time in his life after the events of the spores on Omicron Ceti III.
The parallel James Kirk attempting to seduce his way to freedom from the brig after threats and bribes had failed. And the words he had used, the tone with which he'd said them in. Even now, they threatened to make heat rise in him. ("Look at you. No medals, no beard, all baby-faced and tidy. Like an untouched, virgin canvas, with not a scar or scratch to be seen.")
The pressure had stopped him in the hallway, Spock realized mutedly. It was an absent consideration. He blinked with dull eyes at his surroundings, noticed the glances he received as he was passed and dodged around. He needed to move. He needed to return to his quarters. He needed to maintain control.
Except, he was not allowed to be in control of himself anymore. That choice had been taken from him.
His legs moved forward automatically, but Spock did not feel them. He did not look where he was going, relying on instinct only to guide him to his destination. When he at last came upon the door, it took him far longer than it should have to realize that it was not his quarters he had arrived at.
His captain's quarters.
Spock hesitated. The chime was there. He could press it. He could be invited in, as he knew Jim would do. Jim would never refuse him entry, no matter how angry he was, or how disappointed, or how betrayed. Spock had murdered him once—his bright, luminous captain—and he'd been invited to chess only days afterwards. It seemed there was very little he could do that would revoke him access to this room. He knew this.
He needed only to raise a hand and ask.
("Get your hands off of him, Spock!")
His fingers jolted from the chime as if he'd been burnt.
Breath catching, he turned and continued down the hallway. A roar of sound filled his ears. Black spots began to bloom in his vision. He took a breath. Orders. He'd been given orders to breathe, and he was supposed to comply with the instructions he'd been given. Restrictions, plans, directions… he was to comply with them and allow himself to take backseat.
Control.
But he no longer had the option for control. It had been removed—stripped from him—by his friends.
His quarters were quiet and dark. The heat washed over with what would have been relief had Spock felt it. He did not. He did not feel anything at all, in fact. Not the heat, not relief, not the soothing tranquility he'd been hoping to find there, and not even the hope itself.
Numbness was a sanctuary, Spock recalled thinking earlier. He had been worried then about drifting too far from stable ground for fear of being left to flounder and drown. He could not expect Jim to haul him to shore if he were too distant, too gone, too lost. What would happen then, he wondered with a nebulous, detached curiosity. What would Jim do if he'd already sunk too deep to rescue?
Spock stood there for a moment in the calm of his rooms, blinking at the objects that did not feel like his, at the quarters that seemed to belong to a stranger. His bed was neatened, covers tucked pin-straight with military precision. His bedside table was cleared of the medical supplies McCoy had given him the night prior. Jim had been responsible for both. A kindness. A humiliation.
Breathe.
The pressure hurt. It hurt. He was so tired…
He turned on a heel and moved to his desk. He needed to know, Spock concluded. He needed to read the transcripts for himself. He entered his Starfleet ID Code automatically, not registering the movements of his fingers as he ran the stylus over the screen of his personal PADD.
There was a smear of green on the surface of the tablet as he navigated through the Enterprise's database system. He wiped it away. It only resulted in a larger streak of green, and he realized the source of it was his hand. Spock blinked, processed this, and discarded the processing of it almost immediately. The transcript. He needed to know what it was the Seskille had said. It was important to know so that he could prepare himself. So that he could determine how to act, how to behave, what to say, what measures would be required for him to recover his professional image from it.
The communications department was aware of the contents, having been the ones responsible for organizing and processing the data from it. This would be cross-referenced with Xenoanthropology, who would use it to attempt to study the Seskille's cultural development.
Two departments knew, which meant the entire ship would soon be informed of it. It would be shared, whispered about, discussed, pondered on, exaggerated, mocked, studied. There was no stopping it now, either. Any efforts to do so would only feed and escalate the gossip. There were few things more enticing to a human than that which was forbidden.
He wondered when the privacy of his mind had become public domain.
Jim would read it; likely had been doing so already while Spock was still planetside. And McCoy… Spock had the sudden epiphany that the doctor had been reading it in sickbay, right in front of him. The scowls, the visible discomfort, the way he'd tossed it aside with too much force. He'd been scrolling through it, no doubt taking notes for their upcoming evaluation.
That was concerning. Spock attempted to recall whether the Seskille had witnessed the aftermath of Jim dying. Yes. They had. They had seen the entirety of that day, over and over again (again and again—). However, other than alluding to it in the vaguest of terms to T'Pau, his logical decision for suicide had not been communicated to anyone. It was preferable that it stay that way, too, because McCoy and Jim had already overreacted over the state of his hands. If they realized what he'd nearly done…
He suspected—no, he knew—that if they had become aware of his intentions that day via the transcript, he would not have been allowed to leave sickbay. The doctor would have had him under suicide monitoring within minutes, if not seconds, no matter that the events of Vulcan had happened over five months prior. That, at the very least, had not been revealed. It was a small, empty comfort.
The rapid tapping of the stylus on the PADD was the only sound in the room as Spock connected to the Communications server. The transcripts were being updated live, he immediately identified, noticing they had not yet been filed away. The Seskille were still communicating to the ship. Clearly, the Enterprise was still navigating their unique form of speech to gain mining consent. He had given the Seskille the understanding of the word, but he could not make them repeat it. And, he knew, they would be asking for him still. They had shown reluctance to speak to anyone else.
He entered his personal code to access them, bracing himself for what he might read.
His code was denied.
Spock stared at the PADD for a moment, brows furrowing as he examined the screen. Through the numb sense of detachment, he began to feel the first stirrings of unease and confusion. He attempted to rationalize this as a personal error. He had gone to the wrong door only moments ago; it was possible, albeit unlikely, that he had entered his code wrong. So, blinking firmly to focus his attention on what he was doing, he entered it again.
His code was denied.
The rapid tapping of the stylus on the PADD was no longer the only sound in the room. There was another one now, something ragged. Spock had trouble identifying the source of it, but he also did not care to do so, not at the moment. The transcripts. He needed to know what it was they were saying. What it was they had revealed. There had been so many memories. Too many.
His code was denied.
He pressed his lips firmly together. He brushed aside the smear of green. This time, Spock entered his Command Authorization Code to bypass the error that was preventing him from accessing the files. As an A-Seven computer expert, his mind had already begun to consider the possible source of the issue. He would trace it back to the source and fix it later, but for now, he merely needed to override the glitch.
His code was denied.
Spock blinked. Stared. He entered his code again, and again it was denied. And (again and again—) his Command Authorization Code, second only to the captain's in system permissions, was denied access to the transcript files.
This was not an error, he realized. The thought broke through the fog in his mind like an arrow. The thought left a hole in the curtain of dense, impenetrable numb that he'd surrounded himself with. Through the gap, there lurked danger.
He swallowed thickly, fingers gripping to the stylus as he tapped in the code once more. He was met with the same results, although he was certain the reason it was denied this time truly was because of a personal error, as he could no longer see well enough to input it correctly. The screen had grown increasingly blurry in front of him, the words on the PADD swimming to the point of illegibility.
The captain had revoked his access. There was no one else with the authority or power to do so. Jim had evidently anticipated that Spock would continue to monitor the Seskille VII mission, and thus had taken steps to ensure he would be unable to do so.
Control, he told himself. Except, he was not allowed to be in control anymore, was he? That had been revoked as well, just as his command access had been, just as his job duties had been, just as his privacy had been, just as his memories, his thoughts, his emotions, his mind had been...
That aching, screaming, clawing pressure inside of him, the one he'd been suppressing down for what felt like days now, began to rise and rise and rise.
It was a tangible, physical sensation; a boiling inside as if he were a pot threatening to overflow. Not of water, but of feeling. Emotion. Pressure. And it hurt. It hurt. It crawled up his side, stabbing at his heart. It crawled up his chest, squeezing his lungs. It slithered into his throat, constricting him. It rooted behind his eyes, stinging them. And it filled his mind; oozed and spilled into every single empty, hollow, numb space the Seskille had left in him. And there, finally, it reached its peak and spilled over.
At first, it was only the one.
He gazed uncomprehendingly at the drop on the surface of the PADD. He wiped it away, but it was not green. Then there was another. And another two after that. Spock became aware of the sensation of something sliding down his face. His brows creased, and he still did not understand yet, not truly, not until he brought his hand up and his fingers came away wet.
His hands had started to tremble. All of him had. He could not recall when that had started. There was a dull burn in his chest. His lungs. McCoy had told him to breathe. Insulted him until he managed to do so and held him afterwards until he could do so consistently.
("Is that an order, Captain?")
Yes, instructions. Orders. He wished, desperately, that someone—anyone—would tell him what to do right now, because he was afraid he did not know any longer. He was afraid that he… he was afraid that…
Orders. Obediently, Spock tried to inhale as he'd been told. He could not. There was a sound in the room, even now that his stylus had stilled. It was something ragged, choked, and gasping. His entire body was vibrating, and he was spasming in deep, raking tremors. His body felt as if it were shuddering apart, and that sound was coming from him. He was sobbing faintly, mutedly, awkwardly, as if he wasn't sure quite how to do so correctly. He realized that he had been for quite some time now, possibly since he'd entered his quarters.
Spock covered his mouth to try to muffle it, because he could not do this. He did not cry. He did not sob. He was Vulcan. He was Vulcan, but the noise burst forth from him like retching and, suddenly, it was not faint anymore, but loud. Desperately loud, in great, heaving bursts that felt as if he were vomiting but produced no bile or acid.
The stylus slid from his slack, numb fingers, and the PADD followed shortly after it to clatter onto the floor. Spock bent as if to retrieve them, but his body did not straighten and his hands did not reach forward and he was moving, falling, curling up. He stared and stared and stared as the floor was too close now, and he stared when he realized he was on it.
He did not understand. He did not understand—could not understand. His mind was too fast, his body too slow, or perhaps the opposite, for he could no longer tell where he began and ended anymore. There was a lurch in his stomach, as if he had plummeted from a great height, but he was not moving, and it did not stop. It did not fade, nor ebb, nor ease. It continued, swooping inside him in a sick freefall.
His fists clenched so tight that the bones in them creaked, and Spock pressed himself into the ground just so that something around him was not falling apart. He shook as if he were coming undone. Felt as if he were coming undone. Control… only he was not in control. His choice, his decision, his ability to do so had been compromised and taken away.
Breathe. He had to breathe, just as McCoy had instructed. Vi-esh-tor, inhale. Sa'le-esh-tor, exhale. Yet he found, as he tried to do so, that he already was. He was not holding his breath but was instead wheezing in too much of it. Too much and too quickly, hyperventilating in such rapid, frantic shivers of air that it never felt as if they made it into his lungs. He choked them in and gagged them back out, so fast that none filled his chest.
Breathe, McCoy had told him. Esh-tor.
… But he was breathing. Why then, did it seem as if he were still suffocating?
This was not psychological shock as he'd come to understand it. This was not the same detachment he'd felt in sickbay, or the odd, wavering tension he'd felt during Jim's visit. This was not the floating numb that had clouded him in the transporter room, or the distracted inability to focus in the lab. This was not psychological shock. He did not know what this was. He did not know how to make it stop. He did not know, he did not understand, and he did not know how to understand.
Inadequate.
He must be dying, Spock thought. There was a relief in the idea, but it was gone with the next sob. He must be dying, because surely this was unendurable. Surely this dread, this sheer maelstrom, this blinding upheaval of everything he knew and had known... surely it was what dying felt like. There could be no other explanation, and he wished—desperately wished—that he would, simply so that it would end.
Stop, he wanted to plead, to scream, to beg. Please, please stop.
(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)
(They did not understand what begging was.)
Esh-tor, he told himself, heaving on each faint, desperate gasp. They came one after the other, over and over again (again and again—) (again and again—)(again and again—). Esh-tor. Breathe. McCoy had told him to comply. To follow instructions. To work with them. Because his control was not his own anymore. Because that had been taken from him, just as everything else had been. His mind, his body, his agency, his independence, his memories…
(Again and again—)
Control. Control. Control, but he was not allowed to be in control. His decision making had been revoked. He wished someone would simply direct him then, to tell him what was next, what he was supposed to do with himself, what he was supposed to think, and feel, and how he was supposed to react, because he did not know, he did not know, he did not know…
Breathe, McCoy had said, with hands warm on his shoulders. His blue eyes had looked worried and serious. I need you to breathe. It was an instruction he could follow, one he knew how to comply with. But he already was breathing, too fast, too rapid, too short, and so what else was to be done? He had already complied…
Spock stared at the ground as he choked in panicked breath after panicked breath, felt them retch out of him as croaks of anguished, keening noise, and he tried to tell himself—tried to pretend—that he was merely following orders.
As always, an enormous thank you for reading!
I apologize for the delay on getting this chapter out! The end of October is always swamped for me, and I was doing quite a bit of construction to get my house ready. I host a small Halloween get together every year, and my home looked like a home depot and a comic book shop threw up. But I finished my Action Figure displays (125ft total of them!) so I am very pleased! Because of that, though, it took a bit longer than I wished to get this chapter finished! It now holds the record for my longest one so far!
There are quite a few references scattered about throughout the chapter! But one in particular, when McCoy mentions thinking he could do better with flying the Enterprise, is a reference to the TOS Novel "Doctor's Orders", by Diane Duane! I seriously cannot recommend it enough; McCoy is forced to 'take the conn' and there are some marvelous moments between he and Spock.
As a side note, I've started writing my slowburn Spock/Mirror!Kirk fic for Nanowrimo, titled 'Shakaik'. It's in the early stages, but I'm hoping to start posting the first chapter in the next couple of weeks! K'oh-nar will still be my main work until it's finished, but I'm seriously excited for what I've got planned for that one!
Feel free to find me on Discord: .alexprime
Vulcan:
K'oh-nar — The fear of emotional vulnerability and emotional exposure.
Esh-tor — Breathe; to inhale and exhale air, especially when naturally and freely.
T'hy'la — Friend, Brother, Lover.
Vi-esh-tor — Inhale; to draw into the lungs by breathing; inspire; breathe in.
Sa'le-esh-tor — Exhale; to breathe out.
Pon farr — Mating time. the entirety of the Vulcan mating phenomena; occurs generally once every 7 years.
