Fic: Star Trek
That Thin Line (3/?)
By Alone Dreaming
Rating: PG-13 for owies, etc.
Characters: McCoy, Spock, Kirk
Warnings: Owies (poor Jim), McCoy's dark thoughts, a generally unexplained mission
Author's Note: Part three of however many. :) Huzzah
The two of them stand at the corner of the room, pulling at the edges of the wall with little to no visible results. He wants to give up, stomp his foot, tell Spock he’s losing it, but their new found contract binds him to doing whatever might help Jim. And he will be the first to admit, to himself anyway, that sitting on the floor and waiting doesn’t do any good. So he digs his nails into the cracks and tugs, hoping for something other than broken nails. Across from him, Spock maneuvers delicately, his hands pulling, prodding, like an artist with clay more than a prisoner doomed.
“Spock,” he can’t help himself. There has to be a better option. “This isn’t working.”
Spock doesn’t pause in his kneading. “But it is, Doctor. Focus on escape. Your distraction prevents this from happening.”
He bites his tongue, seethes and thinks of Jim. Then, taking in a deep breath, he thinks of how he needs to get beyond this wall, how on the other side, somewhere, lies their way back to the Enterprise and the sickbay. And with this thought, come a strange softness about the wall, as though he can burrow his fingers into it. Surprised, he nearly pulls away, but catches himself mid-action; this may be exactly what Spock spoke of, and, if so, then he’s successfully achieved something for the first time since this fiasco began.
He scratches, claws and rips, finds strips of the wall slowly dripping backwards so that the stale air from the outside world pours in, real light matching with artificial. Spock, in turn, has widened the hole minutely on his side so soon either of them could fit their head’s out of their prison if not their bodies. He doesn’t dare pause to contemplate it too thoroughly as the wall sluggishly attempts to go back every time he loses his focus. It creeps about his hands like wet sand, slipping, dripping, splattering; but his force of will overpowers it and, with the only crewmate he really cannot stand, Leonard “Bones” McCoy works to save his best friend and Captain.
“How,” he grunts, straining, “are we going to get Jim over and out?”
Spock has the wall curled about his hands like a tailor with cloth. “Once the opening has widened enough, you shall escape and I will pass him to you.”
“Will it hold that long?” He gives his hardest tug and the wall groans in protest. “And how did you know to try this?”
Spock continues to spin the material about his arms. “If we open it two meters, the opening should remain large enough for the three of us to successfully escape.” He dropped his load onto a solid portion of the barrier before starting to tug again, his side growing into an ever larger snowball of ooze. “And I chose to test a hypothesis about this place.”
“Enlighten me,” he says, again, wondering if all aliens need to speak half-truths or if it’s just Vulcans.
“The creatures of this planet act as a unit, Doctor McCoy, with the ability to create at their disposal. This room, they built of themselves, just as the weapons. Whatever the beings, or I will say being, is, it communicates with the pieces through telepathy. I attempted to use my own abilities on the objects in the bathroom and discovered minimal results. I hypothesized that the proper amount of focus on the weakest part of this reality would force the room to respond and it appears that my theory is, in fact, correct.”
“So, my thinking a door should appear will make the door appear,” he simplifies.
“A rudimentary understanding but essentially correct,” Spock says and he twitches as the words rub at him.
He grunts as the wall fights him. “Then why won’t medical supplies appear when I want them?”
“You do not have the ability to make this material obey you, Doctor, as you have little to no telepathic skill. I would also theorize that only the being, or beings, which have created this world can wholly manipulate it while creatures such as ourselves can only interact with already made objects.”
As much as it frustrates him, he admits that Spock’s theory sounds accurate as he strains to open the hole just another few inches. It’s more than large enough for him to fling himself through and he thinks of doing that right now, just shoving his body out into the open so he can get help and come back. But a stronger impulse, the impulse to stay with Jim, prevents him easily and he grapples until all he has to do is hold the wall steady. Spock does not appear even remotely exhausted as he grips his section of the wall; frustrating, he decides, like everything else about the Vulcan. Then he shoves those emotions down.
“Are you prepared, Doctor?” Spock asks and he wants to say ‘no, not at all’ but nods instead. “Then on my signal.”
To his surprise, he knows the sign the moment it happens and dives out onto the uneven ground just as Spock strides towards Jim. He quickly stands, brushing himself off, and prepares to catch the Captain as he’s passed through the rapidly shrinking portal. The non-descript landscape, so parallel to destroyed planets and civilizations they’ve found in the past, makes him nervous. Fidgeting, he’s almost unprepared to grab Jim’s shoulders as Spock passes him out. Only as he staggers back, does he see the flaw in this plan, the fact that Spock will not fit through now, that his arms are close to getting caught.
“Spock!” he shouts, tripping on a rock and landing hard. Jim falls limply upon him, pinning him down as the wall closes entirely. “Damn it!”
The last thing he wants to do is leave Jim lying on the ground, but he finds himself gently arranging his friend before going back to the wall and trying to pry it apart again. It’s not as easy as before, but he’s determined and he does as Spock coached him, thinks of it manipulating under his hands, thinks of it as a door to another place. He tears it, coaxes it, tells it, teaches it and suddenly touches another set of hands. The opening returns, showing him Spock’s face and he senses and barely sees a look of surprise upon the Vulcan’s features. That pleases him enough to keep pawing at it until Spock manages to slip through and land heavily on the ground.
He lets go, gasping, wondering at himself as Spock straightens up next to him.
“Your actions were completely irrational,” Spock informs him. “You should have taken the Captain and returned to the shuttle. I would have found another method of escape.”
Normally, he’d growl out some snide remark but he finds himself shaking his head. “You’re welcome, Spock.” And he staggers to Jim who hasn’t even flinched this whole time.
They don’t pause, even though McCoy desperately wants to make certain Jim didn’t take any damage from the fall. There’s a moment of silent communication between he and Spock, one traded glance, and Spock has Jim up in his arms again and he’s back on his feet. He follows the Vulcan at a swift pace out into the landscape, knowing-how, he’s not sure-that Spock recalls the general direction of the shuttle. His head hurts from the sunlight, from dehydration, he bets, maybe even from the strange paralysis caused by the weapon has a hand in it. And there’s something else, lingering, leading, directing his feet to follow Spock even when he’s not watching the Vulcan.
The y pause so he can catch his breath; he doubles up, unconcerned with appearances or his surroundings as whatever Spock thinks is unimportant and whatever thinks it can get them doesn’t know Spock. Strangely, he feels he knows Spock as his mind wanders in haphazard, exhausted circles. Maybe it’s guilt from his outburst, but now, when he catches glimpses of the Vulcan, he can see feelings pasted subtly on his features, feel the concern in thick, sticky layers on his skin. He can almost smell it as he tries breathing through his nose to ease his panting, strange, oily and smoggy.
“What the hell?” he mutters, pawing at his face to make it stop.
“Something bothers you?” Spock asks.
He wants to say, yes, in fact, it does but shakes his head as an answer. Kirk distracts him from annoyance with a pale complexion now marred by red shadow over his cheeks. He straightens, shuffles closer to Spock and brushes his fingers against Kirk’s forehead. The heat doesn’t hearten him and when he looks at the injury, he’s shocked.
“Spock, put him down,” he commands, trying to rationalize it but finding no explanation.
“Doctor, we must continue. Our captors will have discovered our absence by now,” Spock argues.
“Now,” he says, fear compounding confusion and while his voice remains steady, his hands do not. Spock blinks at him, then stares, hard, before he obediently arranges Jim on the earth. He rests the Captain’s head against his leg, steadying it with his fingers, lips set in a firm line while McCoy pulls the shreds of the shirt away from the injury and ogles.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he whispers weakly, taking in scabs and yellow-green pigmentation. “How…” Towards the top, the skin around the burn is pink and swollen while the rest has slowly started to scar and heal. He didn’t think a healing trance could do so much over such a short period of time but had no other options to blame it on. No, Spock didn’t do this, he tries to convince himself.
“Indeed, this is not my doing,” Spock agrees aloud and McCoy’s heart speeds up. His mind, not slow, but certainly nowhere near Jim or Spock as far as comprehension, tries to piece together a puzzle with only half the facts and then trips as an entirely new mystery appears.
“I didn’t say that,” he told Spock.
Spock frowns. “I know this.”
“Then,” how? And what? And who? His stomach rolls with nausea and his head spins a little. Somewhere on the edges of his consciousness, another presence brushes against him, soothing, calm, steady, but not enough to keep him from the roiling that’s consuming him. Distraction; he needs distraction desperately, as always, but there’s nothing except the mystery that is Jim.
“We cannot linger,” Spock warns him. “I thought you knew what had occurred already or I would’ve explained it to you.”
It clicks. “You melded with me,” he accuses.
“Yes, through Jim,” he answers. “I assure you we will discuss it but they approach. We must go if Jim can be moved.”
The shaking travels from his fingers to his elbows then spreads onto his shoulders. It cascades down his chest, touching his heart, his lungs, his kidneys, down to his legs, up to his neck. His teeth clench against clacking, his eyes blink rapidly so that they do not twitch and his ear drums echo as they bounce against the inside of his head. Betrayal combines with fear combines with violation and he can’t focus on anything other than that bond which isn’t a figment or understanding, but invasion of his personal territory.
“Leonard McCoy,” Spock says it awkwardly, “your Captain and friend needs you. Tell me if we can move him.”
It snaps him to Jim, to the fever, to the strange wound and bounces him back to the room. His thought process feels mutated, as though it’s combined with someone else’s. He sees the bed, Jim’s doped up face, hears the words of the man-not-a-man and it clicks into place with an almost audible click. With Spock’s help, he figures out something that would’ve taken him far more observation and time and hand-written lists in seconds. His heart speeds up, slows down, twists, and he lurches to his feet, noodle-like and unstable. Just beyond their hiding place approaches a swarm of identical people in identical uniforms, preparing to take them away.
Winding, twisting; his head throbs offbeat from his heart causing a constant, distracting thrum which shoves against the intruder on the edge of his thoughts. He lets it cause that pressure, tries to increase it, and then recalls his promise to set things aside; but then his mind leaps up, demanding to know whether he made that promise on his own accord or because Spock lured him into it. Would he normally be running from alien, infinitely more intelligent captors or would he be waiting patiently for a rescue? What would push him far enough to start a battle that he knew he would not win? Was Jim enough? Was it all a trick?
Spock’s beside him, spreading Jim’s arm over his shoulders and guiding his hand about Jim’s waist. “Take him and head east, Doctor,” he says. “I will follow.”
And he suddenly has a vision where he’s dragging James T. Kirk’s half-conscious ass behind a rock while Commander Spock shows off an impressive set of fighting skills. It’s circular, he realizes, an unending cycle of irritation, fighting and failure. Like history, like life, like the universe; it’s all destined to happen again and again and again. Unless, of course, someone steps forward and changes the game; but, in this situation, changing the game could be devastating; changing the game could mean death.
He catches Spock before he can get out of reach and presses Jim back into his arms. “No, you go. I can’t get him there fast enough but I can distract these guys for a while.”
“Doctor, you hardly possess the fighting abilities to contain-”
“I don’t need to contain them or stop them or whatever,” he snaps, furiously, his stomach rolling with uncertainty and fear. “Just go.”
“Doctor-”
“Go!”
Instead of a phaser, a rock sits in his shaking hands like ancient man facing the wolf. He has no fire, no spear, but he has something else. There’s a thin line in him between emotions and the defense mechanisms he’s built to survive and he’s standing on the edge of oblivion, about to fall one way or another; defend his friend or run for his life. Ten yards away, the jaws of the beast await to close around him, to end him, and he cannot come up with a reason for why he’s doing this.
So, he raises his hand and throws the rock. There’s plenty more at his disposal.
By Alone Dreaming
Rating: PG-13 for owies, etc.
Characters: McCoy, Spock, Kirk
Warnings: Owies (poor Jim), McCoy's dark thoughts, a generally unexplained mission
Author's Note: Part three of however many. :) Huzzah
The two of them stand at the corner of the room, pulling at the edges of the wall with little to no visible results. He wants to give up, stomp his foot, tell Spock he’s losing it, but their new found contract binds him to doing whatever might help Jim. And he will be the first to admit, to himself anyway, that sitting on the floor and waiting doesn’t do any good. So he digs his nails into the cracks and tugs, hoping for something other than broken nails. Across from him, Spock maneuvers delicately, his hands pulling, prodding, like an artist with clay more than a prisoner doomed.
“Spock,” he can’t help himself. There has to be a better option. “This isn’t working.”
Spock doesn’t pause in his kneading. “But it is, Doctor. Focus on escape. Your distraction prevents this from happening.”
He bites his tongue, seethes and thinks of Jim. Then, taking in a deep breath, he thinks of how he needs to get beyond this wall, how on the other side, somewhere, lies their way back to the Enterprise and the sickbay. And with this thought, come a strange softness about the wall, as though he can burrow his fingers into it. Surprised, he nearly pulls away, but catches himself mid-action; this may be exactly what Spock spoke of, and, if so, then he’s successfully achieved something for the first time since this fiasco began.
He scratches, claws and rips, finds strips of the wall slowly dripping backwards so that the stale air from the outside world pours in, real light matching with artificial. Spock, in turn, has widened the hole minutely on his side so soon either of them could fit their head’s out of their prison if not their bodies. He doesn’t dare pause to contemplate it too thoroughly as the wall sluggishly attempts to go back every time he loses his focus. It creeps about his hands like wet sand, slipping, dripping, splattering; but his force of will overpowers it and, with the only crewmate he really cannot stand, Leonard “Bones” McCoy works to save his best friend and Captain.
“How,” he grunts, straining, “are we going to get Jim over and out?”
Spock has the wall curled about his hands like a tailor with cloth. “Once the opening has widened enough, you shall escape and I will pass him to you.”
“Will it hold that long?” He gives his hardest tug and the wall groans in protest. “And how did you know to try this?”
Spock continues to spin the material about his arms. “If we open it two meters, the opening should remain large enough for the three of us to successfully escape.” He dropped his load onto a solid portion of the barrier before starting to tug again, his side growing into an ever larger snowball of ooze. “And I chose to test a hypothesis about this place.”
“Enlighten me,” he says, again, wondering if all aliens need to speak half-truths or if it’s just Vulcans.
“The creatures of this planet act as a unit, Doctor McCoy, with the ability to create at their disposal. This room, they built of themselves, just as the weapons. Whatever the beings, or I will say being, is, it communicates with the pieces through telepathy. I attempted to use my own abilities on the objects in the bathroom and discovered minimal results. I hypothesized that the proper amount of focus on the weakest part of this reality would force the room to respond and it appears that my theory is, in fact, correct.”
“So, my thinking a door should appear will make the door appear,” he simplifies.
“A rudimentary understanding but essentially correct,” Spock says and he twitches as the words rub at him.
He grunts as the wall fights him. “Then why won’t medical supplies appear when I want them?”
“You do not have the ability to make this material obey you, Doctor, as you have little to no telepathic skill. I would also theorize that only the being, or beings, which have created this world can wholly manipulate it while creatures such as ourselves can only interact with already made objects.”
As much as it frustrates him, he admits that Spock’s theory sounds accurate as he strains to open the hole just another few inches. It’s more than large enough for him to fling himself through and he thinks of doing that right now, just shoving his body out into the open so he can get help and come back. But a stronger impulse, the impulse to stay with Jim, prevents him easily and he grapples until all he has to do is hold the wall steady. Spock does not appear even remotely exhausted as he grips his section of the wall; frustrating, he decides, like everything else about the Vulcan. Then he shoves those emotions down.
“Are you prepared, Doctor?” Spock asks and he wants to say ‘no, not at all’ but nods instead. “Then on my signal.”
To his surprise, he knows the sign the moment it happens and dives out onto the uneven ground just as Spock strides towards Jim. He quickly stands, brushing himself off, and prepares to catch the Captain as he’s passed through the rapidly shrinking portal. The non-descript landscape, so parallel to destroyed planets and civilizations they’ve found in the past, makes him nervous. Fidgeting, he’s almost unprepared to grab Jim’s shoulders as Spock passes him out. Only as he staggers back, does he see the flaw in this plan, the fact that Spock will not fit through now, that his arms are close to getting caught.
“Spock!” he shouts, tripping on a rock and landing hard. Jim falls limply upon him, pinning him down as the wall closes entirely. “Damn it!”
The last thing he wants to do is leave Jim lying on the ground, but he finds himself gently arranging his friend before going back to the wall and trying to pry it apart again. It’s not as easy as before, but he’s determined and he does as Spock coached him, thinks of it manipulating under his hands, thinks of it as a door to another place. He tears it, coaxes it, tells it, teaches it and suddenly touches another set of hands. The opening returns, showing him Spock’s face and he senses and barely sees a look of surprise upon the Vulcan’s features. That pleases him enough to keep pawing at it until Spock manages to slip through and land heavily on the ground.
He lets go, gasping, wondering at himself as Spock straightens up next to him.
“Your actions were completely irrational,” Spock informs him. “You should have taken the Captain and returned to the shuttle. I would have found another method of escape.”
Normally, he’d growl out some snide remark but he finds himself shaking his head. “You’re welcome, Spock.” And he staggers to Jim who hasn’t even flinched this whole time.
They don’t pause, even though McCoy desperately wants to make certain Jim didn’t take any damage from the fall. There’s a moment of silent communication between he and Spock, one traded glance, and Spock has Jim up in his arms again and he’s back on his feet. He follows the Vulcan at a swift pace out into the landscape, knowing-how, he’s not sure-that Spock recalls the general direction of the shuttle. His head hurts from the sunlight, from dehydration, he bets, maybe even from the strange paralysis caused by the weapon has a hand in it. And there’s something else, lingering, leading, directing his feet to follow Spock even when he’s not watching the Vulcan.
The y pause so he can catch his breath; he doubles up, unconcerned with appearances or his surroundings as whatever Spock thinks is unimportant and whatever thinks it can get them doesn’t know Spock. Strangely, he feels he knows Spock as his mind wanders in haphazard, exhausted circles. Maybe it’s guilt from his outburst, but now, when he catches glimpses of the Vulcan, he can see feelings pasted subtly on his features, feel the concern in thick, sticky layers on his skin. He can almost smell it as he tries breathing through his nose to ease his panting, strange, oily and smoggy.
“What the hell?” he mutters, pawing at his face to make it stop.
“Something bothers you?” Spock asks.
He wants to say, yes, in fact, it does but shakes his head as an answer. Kirk distracts him from annoyance with a pale complexion now marred by red shadow over his cheeks. He straightens, shuffles closer to Spock and brushes his fingers against Kirk’s forehead. The heat doesn’t hearten him and when he looks at the injury, he’s shocked.
“Spock, put him down,” he commands, trying to rationalize it but finding no explanation.
“Doctor, we must continue. Our captors will have discovered our absence by now,” Spock argues.
“Now,” he says, fear compounding confusion and while his voice remains steady, his hands do not. Spock blinks at him, then stares, hard, before he obediently arranges Jim on the earth. He rests the Captain’s head against his leg, steadying it with his fingers, lips set in a firm line while McCoy pulls the shreds of the shirt away from the injury and ogles.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he whispers weakly, taking in scabs and yellow-green pigmentation. “How…” Towards the top, the skin around the burn is pink and swollen while the rest has slowly started to scar and heal. He didn’t think a healing trance could do so much over such a short period of time but had no other options to blame it on. No, Spock didn’t do this, he tries to convince himself.
“Indeed, this is not my doing,” Spock agrees aloud and McCoy’s heart speeds up. His mind, not slow, but certainly nowhere near Jim or Spock as far as comprehension, tries to piece together a puzzle with only half the facts and then trips as an entirely new mystery appears.
“I didn’t say that,” he told Spock.
Spock frowns. “I know this.”
“Then,” how? And what? And who? His stomach rolls with nausea and his head spins a little. Somewhere on the edges of his consciousness, another presence brushes against him, soothing, calm, steady, but not enough to keep him from the roiling that’s consuming him. Distraction; he needs distraction desperately, as always, but there’s nothing except the mystery that is Jim.
“We cannot linger,” Spock warns him. “I thought you knew what had occurred already or I would’ve explained it to you.”
It clicks. “You melded with me,” he accuses.
“Yes, through Jim,” he answers. “I assure you we will discuss it but they approach. We must go if Jim can be moved.”
The shaking travels from his fingers to his elbows then spreads onto his shoulders. It cascades down his chest, touching his heart, his lungs, his kidneys, down to his legs, up to his neck. His teeth clench against clacking, his eyes blink rapidly so that they do not twitch and his ear drums echo as they bounce against the inside of his head. Betrayal combines with fear combines with violation and he can’t focus on anything other than that bond which isn’t a figment or understanding, but invasion of his personal territory.
“Leonard McCoy,” Spock says it awkwardly, “your Captain and friend needs you. Tell me if we can move him.”
It snaps him to Jim, to the fever, to the strange wound and bounces him back to the room. His thought process feels mutated, as though it’s combined with someone else’s. He sees the bed, Jim’s doped up face, hears the words of the man-not-a-man and it clicks into place with an almost audible click. With Spock’s help, he figures out something that would’ve taken him far more observation and time and hand-written lists in seconds. His heart speeds up, slows down, twists, and he lurches to his feet, noodle-like and unstable. Just beyond their hiding place approaches a swarm of identical people in identical uniforms, preparing to take them away.
Winding, twisting; his head throbs offbeat from his heart causing a constant, distracting thrum which shoves against the intruder on the edge of his thoughts. He lets it cause that pressure, tries to increase it, and then recalls his promise to set things aside; but then his mind leaps up, demanding to know whether he made that promise on his own accord or because Spock lured him into it. Would he normally be running from alien, infinitely more intelligent captors or would he be waiting patiently for a rescue? What would push him far enough to start a battle that he knew he would not win? Was Jim enough? Was it all a trick?
Spock’s beside him, spreading Jim’s arm over his shoulders and guiding his hand about Jim’s waist. “Take him and head east, Doctor,” he says. “I will follow.”
And he suddenly has a vision where he’s dragging James T. Kirk’s half-conscious ass behind a rock while Commander Spock shows off an impressive set of fighting skills. It’s circular, he realizes, an unending cycle of irritation, fighting and failure. Like history, like life, like the universe; it’s all destined to happen again and again and again. Unless, of course, someone steps forward and changes the game; but, in this situation, changing the game could be devastating; changing the game could mean death.
He catches Spock before he can get out of reach and presses Jim back into his arms. “No, you go. I can’t get him there fast enough but I can distract these guys for a while.”
“Doctor, you hardly possess the fighting abilities to contain-”
“I don’t need to contain them or stop them or whatever,” he snaps, furiously, his stomach rolling with uncertainty and fear. “Just go.”
“Doctor-”
“Go!”
Instead of a phaser, a rock sits in his shaking hands like ancient man facing the wolf. He has no fire, no spear, but he has something else. There’s a thin line in him between emotions and the defense mechanisms he’s built to survive and he’s standing on the edge of oblivion, about to fall one way or another; defend his friend or run for his life. Ten yards away, the jaws of the beast await to close around him, to end him, and he cannot come up with a reason for why he’s doing this.
So, he raises his hand and throws the rock. There’s plenty more at his disposal.