Control Issues
Title: Control Issues
Rating: T
Disclaimer: disclaimed.
Summary: Written for prompt here. Self-harm!Spock.
There's a bit of het, and you can read into the slash if you want.
He knows it is illogical, to crave this pain. And yet… it is a comfort, allows him to keep the face of stone required by his father’s people. His mother is concerned that his lip is not healing, more than a week and it still bleeds as though it is fresh. There is no sign of infection, so Sarek tells her not to worry. Neither of them likes to see her worried.
Spock quits chewing his lip, lets it scab over and disappear. There is a scar left that lets him remember the pain of it. Were he more than half-human, perhaps he would be more gleeful, but he follows the path of Surak. He does not feel emotion.
The bullies are a repeat experience, but he doesn’t mind that his fists are as green in their blood as their hands are in his. This does not please his father, so the next time they provoke him, he lets them take him down without striking back. This does not please his mother. He has failed both his races, both his parents, and he doesn’t know what to do, who to be.
At first, his mother thinks it’s endearing, her baby boy coming to her with scratches and bruises, but then she remembers that he’s not human, that Vulcans aren’t supposed to do this. Even though she knows Spock is half of each, he seems to be more Vulcan than human. She doesn’t let it sadden her, even when he ends up hospitalized after falling off the side of a cliff.
When he sees her crying, he doesn’t seem to get hurt anymore. She doesn’t think anything of it, and Sarek tells her it’s just Spock adapting to his surroundings.
Spock isn’t stupid. He knows how to hide things, knows how to search about what’s wrong with him. There are books, movies, articles all about it. He learns where it hurts the most, the easiest places to hide it, how to move past it.
He doesn’t want to get over it, though, likes the feeling of control he gets with the flow of blood over his skin, finds it’s easier to control himself if he bleeds.
For once, he’s grateful that everyone on Vulcan wears long sleeves.
-
It slows a little when he enters Starfleet, discovers it’s not quite as necessary as it once was, but keeps to it because it’s become routine.
If he allows himself to admit it, he would find it is not just routine, but addiction that feeds the fire in his veins, begging for release. He gives it willingly.
Then, as if springing forth from one of his mothers books, his life is turned around. He becomes a teacher, and finds himself falling for one of the students; the feelings are mutual. She is his best student.
They spend weekends together, alone in her room when her roommate isn’t there, sometimes when she is. Spock doesn’t mind much, usually.
Gaila pounces on him from behind, Nyota sees him wince, thinks it’s just the telepathy even though no one’s touching him skin-to-skin. His shirt is blue, but they watch in morbid fascination as green blooms beneath the fabric and bleeds through.
Gaila’s the only one who knows what to do, gets out a communicator and calls someone, tells them to get something ready, it’s an emergency.
Spock has no choice but to follow, one hand in Nyota’s grasp, the other in Gaila’s as they pull him to the medical building. There is a doctor waiting with a scowl on his face, orders him to sit on the biobed before pressing a hypo into Spock’s neck.
There’s another broken body on the bed next to his. The last thing he sees before slipping into unconsciousness is blurry blue eyes.
-
Jim Kirk is a nuisance, and seems to enjoy pain as much as Spock, he realizes, as he presses hot Vulcan fingers into Jim’s neck, pushes him against the navigation consol. The amusement and pleasure transmutes through the sensitive nerves of his fingers and, strangely, Spock wishes Jim had hit him harder, put up more of a fight.
His father’s voice breaks through his mind, reaches into the part of him that still retains his childhood memories.
Sometime later, the doctor doesn’t seem pleased to see him, but already has the bandages and antiseptic at the ready, almost surprised that Spock was ready to die to kill the rogue Romulan who had killed his mother and most all of his people.
Band-aids and medicine won’t fix Spock, McCoy knows, doesn’t know what will, but tries his best to put the half-Vulcan back together.
Nyota tries to prove her love to him, tries to tell him that she’s there for him, will always be there for him, but it doesn’t reach his ears, doesn’t reach his heart. She tries, but knows he doesn’t love her, can’t love her.
He tries, but she worries that he’ll tear himself apart.
-
Too often, Jim Kirk ends up in sickbay. Had Bones not known Spock before the Enterprise, he would have thought it strange that he’s there almost as often. He knows them both, though, so is not surprised to be called in at three in the morning to find the two of them there, glaring at each other across the room.
They’re busted up, broken open and bleeding, but they seem to be all the calmer for it. McCoy wonders if it’s sexual tension that sometimes leads them to each other, fight it out with fists rather than kiss and think about it. He’s heard talk, knows the rumors on the ship - there’s rumors about everybody, everything, it’s all people can do to keep sane.
Five years together with the same people - it would drive anybody crazy, almost like having five hundred roommates, or being in a school where you don’t get to go home. Fights are bound to happen, too, some more than others.
Kirk and Spock in his sickbay? Completely expected, though not at this time of night. He rubs his eyes when he sees them, hides a yawn behind his hand and pulls them to sit together. Or, at the very least, a bit closer.
He examines both of them with a critical eye, noting injuries and bruise patterns before he can really register them. His doctor training, he supposes.
Bones opens his mouth to ask something, probably not really sure what it is exactly, but Kirk jumps the gun, and beats him to the punch.
“He’s doing it again.”
Jim is almost like a child in his finality, humph-ing and crossing his arms, captain’s nose in the air. Bones is really too tired for this, so he simply pulls Jim’s ear and grumbles something possibly unintelligible that might translate roughly into hypo-you-dead, so Jim grabs Spock’s arm, pulls the sleeve up, all the way up, rips the seems until Spock is growling.
There’s crusty green blood all over Spock’s forearm, deep lacerations decorating it, and all Bones can do is stare. Vaguely, he acknowledges that Jim is petting the torn sleeve, whispering to it in some language that could be Orion Prime, but McCoy isn’t sure, and Spock isn’t paying attention.
A sharp rotgut odor surrounds Jim, and Spock’s breath smells faintly of chocolate. As he reaches for the dermal regenerator, McCoy wonders who started with the drunkenness first, and if there’s anything else in their systems he should be worried about.
Jim’s just a kid, and McCoy knows his story and that he likes the attention, and also knows that despite being stupid, Kirk is also smart. His heart is in the right place. There’s been experimentation, Bones knows that, but it stops at occasional shore leave usage.
Spock, on the other hand, is a complete mystery. They’re two years into the five year mission, and McCoy’s known the half-Vulcan for three without ever really knowing him. He doesn’t ask question’s either - he’s read the guy’s file, knows all that’s needed for medical reasons, just stitches him and lets him go.
Evidently, that way doesn’t work.
-
There are old scars under the new that run deep, and the green only lets him see them in a clearer light. Letters and symbols and meaningless things - he’s covered in them but no one can see.
Nyota saw once, with Gaila, but they didn’t understand, saw what they wanted, that he needed help.
He didn’t want help, still doesn’t want help, but he accepts it when McCoy gives him that haunted look, or Kirk goads him into another fight. He’s beginning to doubt himself, and when he’s the first officer partly in charge of so many lives, partly in charge of the captain himself, he knows it’s unacceptable.
The doctor uses no anesthetics on his arm, politely ignores the regenerator, and uses a simple needle to tie together Spock’s skin.
Spock likes the pattern the weave makes, watches the needle press and pull without actually feeling it, like a ghost is passing through him. Jim watches with him with an ice pack pressed over one eye.
McCoy makes exceptions for them. When they would usually get the greatest treatment Starfleet has to offer, they find the quality of the good doctor’s work much more soothing than any machine, so he uses ancient practices to patch them together. And it works for a little while.
Not long enough, though. Never long enough.
When he is finally pressed on his reasoning, he is cold and emotionless, eyes too harsh to feel. McCoy and Kirk do not look away, and the gesture is almost comforting.
“Emotional control is an issue among Vulcans,” he tells them, voice level and hands folded neatly in his lap. “I am half-human, raised on Vulcan. They viewed me as disadvantaged. Some even bullied me. It is illogical, I know, but the pain gave me control.”
They do not look disgusted, or even pitiful, but understanding and open.
“Spock,” Jim says softly, pushing his shoulder playfully against the Vulcan’s. “We’re family - you don’t need to control yourself all the time. Cut loose a little.”
Bones clears his throat. “Maybe it’d be better if he only cut loose in the privacy of his own room, or with one of us. Take that as doctor’s orders.” Sitting on the other side of Spock, he lets his hand fall against the Vulcan’s knee. “Chess, or talking, maybe, might be better than beating the hell out of each other. I’m running out of sutures.”
Spock nods obediently, tries not to be ashamed of wanting to press his fingers into the newly closed wounds. “It will take time,” he says slowly. “It has become an addiction of sorts, so there is no doubt I will fail several times before I succeed in stopping completely.”
They’re looking at him again. “I just thought I should forewarn you,” he tells them honestly.
They stay up the rest of the night, drinking tea and bickering like long time friends. It’s enough that by the time high shift starts, Spock lets McCoy use the dermal regenerator to heal his arm. And when the three of them walk onto the bridge together, yawning and less tense than they have been in weeks, if slightly looking worse for wear, everybody pretends not to notice.
No doubt, there will be new rumors come lunch time.