FIC : Degrees of Separation, part 2 of 3, rated PG-13
part two as promised. i'll be working on finishing up part 3 this weekend and sending it off to beta, as well as a couple other possible prompt answers, so stay tuned for more. ;)
Title : Degrees of Separation, Part 2 of 3 (leave the lights on if you're the last one alive)
Fandom : Star Trek XI / Reboot
Characters/Pairing : Kirk/Spock, McCoy makes a cameo
Rating : PG and F for Fatally schmoopy
Summary : Follows Part 1, for a prompt at the kink meme. Spock wakes up in sickbay alone and goes looking for the captain.
A/N's : title and cut text snagged from Badly Drawn Boy. Thanks once more to raphaela667 for betaing (and for continuing to encourage my cracky brain!). as always, feedback is adored.
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[[ part one]]
Spock's consciousness returned abruptly and his eyes snapped open. Without moving, he assessed his surroundings. The lights were dim, the air cool, the room large and mostly silent. Sickbay, then, judging by the lack of smell and the narrowness of the bed in which he lay.
His first mistake was trying to turn his head. Pain flared along the entire side of his face, and he realized there were bandages, pulling slightly with his movements. He raised his right hand; his broken thumb was compressed in a splint, the abrasions crosshatching the skin painted with a clear bandaging liquid. He was lucky few parts of his job depended on hand-written reports, for he could tell by the dull throbbing deep in the broken joint that he would not be holding a stylus any time soon.
It took him eight minutes to sit upright, and another four to maneuver the pole holding his intravenous drip to a point at which he could use it to lever himself to a standing position. There was a mirror on the wall behind him, he knew; he kept his back to it. Objectively he knew the sight of his own injuries was one that would likely shock him, and he preferred to concentrate on how his body actually felt than waste time on the superficial.
Brushing past the curtain around his bed, he scanned sickbay for activity. The room was lowlit and there were no signs of movement, though the light from Dr. McCoy's half-open office door illuminated the far corner. Spock began walking, slow but silent thanks to the socks someone had put on him, toward one of the other beds also surrounded by a curtain. He did not wish to intrude, but...
But there is no logical end to that sentence, he thought to himself. You do not wish to intrude, but you will, because you need to see that he is alive and will be well.
The first bed was occupied by an unconscious Sulu. Sleeping, he thought, not sedated, but it was likely McCoy planned to keep all three of them there for a few days, and the poison the Silurians had given Sulu may not have worn off yet. Dropping the curtain, Spock moved on to the other curtained bed, the closest of the three to McCoy's office. At the point of parting the curtain he stopped, stricken by a sudden twist of anxiety low in his stomach.
Your fear is unfounded, he told himself sharply. It is illogical to think he would have deteriorated since returning to the ship, Doctor McCoy is highly competent and this infirmary is well equipped to facilitate his recovery.
And yet, he was nervous. Afraid. You are afraid.
"Wouldja stop hoverin' and go in already?" Spock's head snapped up and he regarded the Doctor with an even gaze that belied none of his inner turmoil. McCoy stood in the door to his office, arms folded over his chest. Backlit, his expression was obscured, but Spock thought he was familiar enough with the Enterprise's chief medical officer to guess at the exasperated look he was likely wearing.
"I do not wish to wake the Captain if he is resting; I merely wanted to--"
"He's out like a light," McCoy cut him off. Perhaps he did not want to listen to Spock dissemble; perhaps he did not want to talk at all. Spock knew how he cared for Kirk; this could not have been easy on him either. "Not sedated, asleep," the doctor clarified, "like I expected you to be for another eight hours." He stepped out of the office, tricorder in hand, and came closer with a gruff "Hold still." He gave Spock a scan from the top of his head down to his heart, then gave him a hard look, most likely attempting to ascertain the level of pain the Vulcan was hiding from him.
"I am not in pain," Spock said. "I assure you I would not hide it from you if I was. Pain is not an emotion, Doctor McCoy, and it would be highly illogical to conceal the level or speed of my recovery from my attending physician."
McCoy nodded, still not looking entirely convinced, and waved toward the curtain. "Go do your hovering, but if he wakes up and he's in pain, call me." He vanished back into his office, but left the door open.
Alone once more, Spock had no choice but to step through the opening in the curtain, the pole rolling quietly behind him.
It seemed brighter within than without; only a slight glow penetrated the curtain itself, but there was enough coming through the gap beneath it to illuminate the small space. Spock sat in the chair beside the bed and drew it close, his hands clenched by his sides as he surveyed the scope of Kirk's injuries.
Dehydration had done more damage than two days without food, but they had all gone through that, and the intravenous drip twin to the one in Spock's arm seemed to be doing its job. Bruises flowered across every inch of exposed skin, and from the sternum up even that was half obscured by bandages. The wounds in the shoulder were heavily wrapped, but even still Spock could see blood seeping through, and a tinge of lurid purple-- poisoned, then, the blades had been poisoned. The pads of gauze covering the more creative cuts on his face seemed cleaner. The small punctures left by the iron glove seemed to have healed with nothing more than some of the same liquid bandage covering the abrasions on Spock's hand; he wondered then, glancing at the fast-fading cuts, how long they had been unconscious.
It was only when he stopped looking at the wounds and allowed himself to look at the man who bore them that he found it difficult to breathe. He knew it was illogical to indulge his foolish emotions, to submit willingly to the fear and panicked fury that had consumed him down on the planet. They had all made it back to the ship, alive and mending. Recalling their captivity and reliving the emotions it had incited would not be productive; focusing on the positive would be.
But he could not deny he had been terrified, and that, as strong as that feeling had been, his relief now was twice as forceful. He settled back in the chair and let his eyes close, focusing on his breathing until it calmed, and sat thus for several long moments until the silence was broken.
"Didn't they give you a bed?" The voice was weak, but the tone unmistakeable. Spock's eyes snapped open and met Jim's, half-open but alert, fixed on his face. "I told 'em to give you the best one."
"And I told them to do the same for you," he returned evenly, ignoring the sudden increase in his heart rate, wishing fervently he could regulate it by mere force of will. "Not only did you dispatch more of our opponents, but you did so while carrying an injured man on your back."
"Yeah, but you were the one who got us out of there," Jim said, and Spock knew by now when not to argue with him.
"Are you in much pain?" he asked instead. "Doctor McCoy said--"
"I'm fine," Kirk interrupted. "Spock."
"Yes, Captain." It was in situations like these he was most grateful for his deep-seated control over his own emotions. Were he fully human, he thought with a moment of self-deprecating scorn, right now he had no doubt he would be giving the captain an embarrassing display of feeling.
"I think it's okay if you call me Jim, you know," he mumbled. "C'mere." His hand twitched, patting the side of the bed. Spock moved his chair closer; he could have laid his arm on the bed had he chosen to do so. But he did not, and so Jim moved his own arm, dragging it as if it were heavy, until his fingers brushed Spock's elbow where it pressed against the bed. "You're okay?" he asked, his voice thick, almost slurred, but the concern in it still evident.
Spock stirred in his chair, restlessly uncomfortable with the question. "My injuries were minimal compared to yours."
"Come on Spock, they almost cut your damn ear off," Jim protested, his hand twitching again, motioning to the bandage. "You practically ripped your thumb off getting us loose."
"Both superficial injuries," Spock insisted, "and neither inflicted by a poisoned blade." He sighed impatiently, a rare indulgence, finally relenting and moving his arm to rest on the bed, his hand near enough to Jim's to feel the heat radiating off the captain's skin. "You are lucky even to be alive, Jim, let alone conscious and well enough to argue."
"I'm always well enough to argue," Jim said, the words devolving into a hacking cough. It took Spock a moment to realize he was laughing. "The day I'm too weak to argue with you is the day you should start being worried."
Against his inclination, Spock found himself smiling. "I will grant that is as accurate a guide as any I could imagine."
"Did you just say I was right about something?" He hacked a few more times. "Are you sure I'm not dying?"
Spock's heart rate jumped again and his hand moved unconsciously to grip Jim's, tight almost to the point of pain. "I am certain," he said, only a slight hoarseness betraying the emotion behind his quiet words. The touch of their hands-- the second time he had initiated this, both times without consciously deciding to do so-- was both soothing and electrifying, eroding his ability to modulate his voice and erasing his inclination to care. He knew Kirk would have no idea the intimacy that was conveyed for a Vulcan in the touching of hands, and so did not feel nearly as awkward in letting the contact continue as he might have otherwise done.
Kirk's hand turned in his so they were palm to palm, his fingers resting against the pulse point on Spock's wrist. Once more Spock was grateful it was his instinct to keep his reactions to himself; the shiver that passed through him at the touch would not have gone unnoticed. "You saved my life," Jim said, his voice a soft rasp like paper. "I didn't know you'd-- the meld, I mean, I didn't know it could work like that."
Spock's glance was fixed on Jim's shoulder. He was trying to focus on something other than Jim's hand in his; it was an effort. "I had never attempted it for that purpose before," he admitted. "There were risks--" not the least of which was Jim suddenly having a window onto his private thoughts and feelings, a window Spock had never intended him to have-- "but given the situation, I felt they were outweighed by the potential gain."
Jim's fingers stirred against his wrist, and Spock swallowed, his eyes darting to Jim's face. "Jim," he began, but Kirk heard the tone, knew what was coming, and shook his head. "No, c'mon, not now." His expression was naked and earnest, and as Spock let himself meet that blue stare with a long look of his own, he felt his stomach twist and something nameless and huge unfold within him. "We just-- it's okay, I mean you get that, right? You don't have anything to be worried about." His hand shifted, fingers folding through Spock's, squeezing lightly.
And Spock sat slient for a moment, wanting to ask but too anxious and tired to participate in the conversation that would be the answer, digesting the panorama of emotions flooding him and processing the fact that Jim's hand was still in his, closer than ever. They were alive and safe and the ship wasn't blowing up without them and they were holding hands. His next thought ran through his mind and out of his mouth without stopping, and the rightness of it took him a little by surprise.
"It would seem you know me better than I had thought." He glanced at Jim with an infinitesmal smile.
"Yeah," he replied, shifting in the bed, offering his own brash attempt at a grin. "I know." He winced, then, and his breath hissed out through his nose, a clear sign he was feeling the pain of his injuries. Spock got to his feet faster than he'd thought he was yet able, looking toward McCoy's office. "You are in pain," he said, moving toward the curtain.
"Spock." Jim's face was calm, but he still clutched Spock's hand with warm fingers, and the intensity in his eyes burned. "Thanks."
The human compulsion to express gratitude often stemmed, Spock knew, from a desire to absolve oneself of feelings of guilt or unworthiness, or at times a sense of obligation to acknowledge one's own inability to handle a situation on one's own. He did not often offer such admissions himself for this reason, and did his best not to indulge the effusive thanks of others. He neither needed nor wanted them.
This was different. This time, instead of sidestepping or dismissing, he tipped his head forward in a nod of acknowledgment. When he lifted it, he was smiling, though his chest felt tight. "You are most welcome." He shifted his grip on the captain's hand and pressed their palms together briefly once more before letting go, and going to fetch Dr. McCoy.
---
[[ part three]]
Title : Degrees of Separation, Part 2 of 3 (leave the lights on if you're the last one alive)
Fandom : Star Trek XI / Reboot
Characters/Pairing : Kirk/Spock, McCoy makes a cameo
Rating : PG and F for Fatally schmoopy
Summary : Follows Part 1, for a prompt at the kink meme. Spock wakes up in sickbay alone and goes looking for the captain.
A/N's : title and cut text snagged from Badly Drawn Boy. Thanks once more to raphaela667 for betaing (and for continuing to encourage my cracky brain!). as always, feedback is adored.
-----------------------------------------------------------
[[ part one]]
Spock's consciousness returned abruptly and his eyes snapped open. Without moving, he assessed his surroundings. The lights were dim, the air cool, the room large and mostly silent. Sickbay, then, judging by the lack of smell and the narrowness of the bed in which he lay.
His first mistake was trying to turn his head. Pain flared along the entire side of his face, and he realized there were bandages, pulling slightly with his movements. He raised his right hand; his broken thumb was compressed in a splint, the abrasions crosshatching the skin painted with a clear bandaging liquid. He was lucky few parts of his job depended on hand-written reports, for he could tell by the dull throbbing deep in the broken joint that he would not be holding a stylus any time soon.
It took him eight minutes to sit upright, and another four to maneuver the pole holding his intravenous drip to a point at which he could use it to lever himself to a standing position. There was a mirror on the wall behind him, he knew; he kept his back to it. Objectively he knew the sight of his own injuries was one that would likely shock him, and he preferred to concentrate on how his body actually felt than waste time on the superficial.
Brushing past the curtain around his bed, he scanned sickbay for activity. The room was lowlit and there were no signs of movement, though the light from Dr. McCoy's half-open office door illuminated the far corner. Spock began walking, slow but silent thanks to the socks someone had put on him, toward one of the other beds also surrounded by a curtain. He did not wish to intrude, but...
But there is no logical end to that sentence, he thought to himself. You do not wish to intrude, but you will, because you need to see that he is alive and will be well.
The first bed was occupied by an unconscious Sulu. Sleeping, he thought, not sedated, but it was likely McCoy planned to keep all three of them there for a few days, and the poison the Silurians had given Sulu may not have worn off yet. Dropping the curtain, Spock moved on to the other curtained bed, the closest of the three to McCoy's office. At the point of parting the curtain he stopped, stricken by a sudden twist of anxiety low in his stomach.
Your fear is unfounded, he told himself sharply. It is illogical to think he would have deteriorated since returning to the ship, Doctor McCoy is highly competent and this infirmary is well equipped to facilitate his recovery.
And yet, he was nervous. Afraid. You are afraid.
"Wouldja stop hoverin' and go in already?" Spock's head snapped up and he regarded the Doctor with an even gaze that belied none of his inner turmoil. McCoy stood in the door to his office, arms folded over his chest. Backlit, his expression was obscured, but Spock thought he was familiar enough with the Enterprise's chief medical officer to guess at the exasperated look he was likely wearing.
"I do not wish to wake the Captain if he is resting; I merely wanted to--"
"He's out like a light," McCoy cut him off. Perhaps he did not want to listen to Spock dissemble; perhaps he did not want to talk at all. Spock knew how he cared for Kirk; this could not have been easy on him either. "Not sedated, asleep," the doctor clarified, "like I expected you to be for another eight hours." He stepped out of the office, tricorder in hand, and came closer with a gruff "Hold still." He gave Spock a scan from the top of his head down to his heart, then gave him a hard look, most likely attempting to ascertain the level of pain the Vulcan was hiding from him.
"I am not in pain," Spock said. "I assure you I would not hide it from you if I was. Pain is not an emotion, Doctor McCoy, and it would be highly illogical to conceal the level or speed of my recovery from my attending physician."
McCoy nodded, still not looking entirely convinced, and waved toward the curtain. "Go do your hovering, but if he wakes up and he's in pain, call me." He vanished back into his office, but left the door open.
Alone once more, Spock had no choice but to step through the opening in the curtain, the pole rolling quietly behind him.
It seemed brighter within than without; only a slight glow penetrated the curtain itself, but there was enough coming through the gap beneath it to illuminate the small space. Spock sat in the chair beside the bed and drew it close, his hands clenched by his sides as he surveyed the scope of Kirk's injuries.
Dehydration had done more damage than two days without food, but they had all gone through that, and the intravenous drip twin to the one in Spock's arm seemed to be doing its job. Bruises flowered across every inch of exposed skin, and from the sternum up even that was half obscured by bandages. The wounds in the shoulder were heavily wrapped, but even still Spock could see blood seeping through, and a tinge of lurid purple-- poisoned, then, the blades had been poisoned. The pads of gauze covering the more creative cuts on his face seemed cleaner. The small punctures left by the iron glove seemed to have healed with nothing more than some of the same liquid bandage covering the abrasions on Spock's hand; he wondered then, glancing at the fast-fading cuts, how long they had been unconscious.
It was only when he stopped looking at the wounds and allowed himself to look at the man who bore them that he found it difficult to breathe. He knew it was illogical to indulge his foolish emotions, to submit willingly to the fear and panicked fury that had consumed him down on the planet. They had all made it back to the ship, alive and mending. Recalling their captivity and reliving the emotions it had incited would not be productive; focusing on the positive would be.
But he could not deny he had been terrified, and that, as strong as that feeling had been, his relief now was twice as forceful. He settled back in the chair and let his eyes close, focusing on his breathing until it calmed, and sat thus for several long moments until the silence was broken.
"Didn't they give you a bed?" The voice was weak, but the tone unmistakeable. Spock's eyes snapped open and met Jim's, half-open but alert, fixed on his face. "I told 'em to give you the best one."
"And I told them to do the same for you," he returned evenly, ignoring the sudden increase in his heart rate, wishing fervently he could regulate it by mere force of will. "Not only did you dispatch more of our opponents, but you did so while carrying an injured man on your back."
"Yeah, but you were the one who got us out of there," Jim said, and Spock knew by now when not to argue with him.
"Are you in much pain?" he asked instead. "Doctor McCoy said--"
"I'm fine," Kirk interrupted. "Spock."
"Yes, Captain." It was in situations like these he was most grateful for his deep-seated control over his own emotions. Were he fully human, he thought with a moment of self-deprecating scorn, right now he had no doubt he would be giving the captain an embarrassing display of feeling.
"I think it's okay if you call me Jim, you know," he mumbled. "C'mere." His hand twitched, patting the side of the bed. Spock moved his chair closer; he could have laid his arm on the bed had he chosen to do so. But he did not, and so Jim moved his own arm, dragging it as if it were heavy, until his fingers brushed Spock's elbow where it pressed against the bed. "You're okay?" he asked, his voice thick, almost slurred, but the concern in it still evident.
Spock stirred in his chair, restlessly uncomfortable with the question. "My injuries were minimal compared to yours."
"Come on Spock, they almost cut your damn ear off," Jim protested, his hand twitching again, motioning to the bandage. "You practically ripped your thumb off getting us loose."
"Both superficial injuries," Spock insisted, "and neither inflicted by a poisoned blade." He sighed impatiently, a rare indulgence, finally relenting and moving his arm to rest on the bed, his hand near enough to Jim's to feel the heat radiating off the captain's skin. "You are lucky even to be alive, Jim, let alone conscious and well enough to argue."
"I'm always well enough to argue," Jim said, the words devolving into a hacking cough. It took Spock a moment to realize he was laughing. "The day I'm too weak to argue with you is the day you should start being worried."
Against his inclination, Spock found himself smiling. "I will grant that is as accurate a guide as any I could imagine."
"Did you just say I was right about something?" He hacked a few more times. "Are you sure I'm not dying?"
Spock's heart rate jumped again and his hand moved unconsciously to grip Jim's, tight almost to the point of pain. "I am certain," he said, only a slight hoarseness betraying the emotion behind his quiet words. The touch of their hands-- the second time he had initiated this, both times without consciously deciding to do so-- was both soothing and electrifying, eroding his ability to modulate his voice and erasing his inclination to care. He knew Kirk would have no idea the intimacy that was conveyed for a Vulcan in the touching of hands, and so did not feel nearly as awkward in letting the contact continue as he might have otherwise done.
Kirk's hand turned in his so they were palm to palm, his fingers resting against the pulse point on Spock's wrist. Once more Spock was grateful it was his instinct to keep his reactions to himself; the shiver that passed through him at the touch would not have gone unnoticed. "You saved my life," Jim said, his voice a soft rasp like paper. "I didn't know you'd-- the meld, I mean, I didn't know it could work like that."
Spock's glance was fixed on Jim's shoulder. He was trying to focus on something other than Jim's hand in his; it was an effort. "I had never attempted it for that purpose before," he admitted. "There were risks--" not the least of which was Jim suddenly having a window onto his private thoughts and feelings, a window Spock had never intended him to have-- "but given the situation, I felt they were outweighed by the potential gain."
Jim's fingers stirred against his wrist, and Spock swallowed, his eyes darting to Jim's face. "Jim," he began, but Kirk heard the tone, knew what was coming, and shook his head. "No, c'mon, not now." His expression was naked and earnest, and as Spock let himself meet that blue stare with a long look of his own, he felt his stomach twist and something nameless and huge unfold within him. "We just-- it's okay, I mean you get that, right? You don't have anything to be worried about." His hand shifted, fingers folding through Spock's, squeezing lightly.
And Spock sat slient for a moment, wanting to ask but too anxious and tired to participate in the conversation that would be the answer, digesting the panorama of emotions flooding him and processing the fact that Jim's hand was still in his, closer than ever. They were alive and safe and the ship wasn't blowing up without them and they were holding hands. His next thought ran through his mind and out of his mouth without stopping, and the rightness of it took him a little by surprise.
"It would seem you know me better than I had thought." He glanced at Jim with an infinitesmal smile.
"Yeah," he replied, shifting in the bed, offering his own brash attempt at a grin. "I know." He winced, then, and his breath hissed out through his nose, a clear sign he was feeling the pain of his injuries. Spock got to his feet faster than he'd thought he was yet able, looking toward McCoy's office. "You are in pain," he said, moving toward the curtain.
"Spock." Jim's face was calm, but he still clutched Spock's hand with warm fingers, and the intensity in his eyes burned. "Thanks."
The human compulsion to express gratitude often stemmed, Spock knew, from a desire to absolve oneself of feelings of guilt or unworthiness, or at times a sense of obligation to acknowledge one's own inability to handle a situation on one's own. He did not often offer such admissions himself for this reason, and did his best not to indulge the effusive thanks of others. He neither needed nor wanted them.
This was different. This time, instead of sidestepping or dismissing, he tipped his head forward in a nod of acknowledgment. When he lifted it, he was smiling, though his chest felt tight. "You are most welcome." He shifted his grip on the captain's hand and pressed their palms together briefly once more before letting go, and going to fetch Dr. McCoy.
---
[[ part three]]