Fic: Parting Of The Sensory (2/2)
Title: Parting Of The Sensory
Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Word Count: 5,785
Summary: He knows these feelings don’t belong to him, but that doesn’t make them any less real. For the st_xi_kink Fic Request Meme, Prompt: Nero is mindlessly focused in on Spock - on *hurting* Spock, even more so than just killing him. And he recognized Kirk "from earth's history". So he MUST know alllll about Spock & Kirk being the ultimate dream team, BFF's, fucking like bunnies, what have you. And now he's got Spock's captain here, beneath his hands. What better way to get revenge?. Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009), Star Trek: Countdown. Vague references to Star Trek: The Original Series.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to Modest Mouse.
Author’s Notes: A take on how Spock might react to the borrowed feelings of Spock Prime if he’d encountered them head on as Kirk apparently did (emotional transference and all that). Do me a favor and play along with the at times out-of-character emotionality and other plot devices of the like - specifically those involving conveniently-present prime-universe Vulcans and justifications for lingering psychic echoes in previously-owned spacecraft.
Parting Of The Sensory
Part II
Leonard McCoy is used to patching Jim Kirk up by now. What he’s not used to is the rush of urgency, of gravity that hits him when his friend is lying prone in medbay instead of standing before him with a lazy smirk, covered in blood that’s not the product of a jealous boyfriend or a drunken free for all; the way his stomach drops when Jim comes in unconscious, unrecognizable, the way his pulse speeds when Jim’s is thready and weak. He knows exhaustion - he lived it every day of his residency, knew it by necessity with a roommate who didn’t comprehend the meaning of phrases like “lights out” or “I’ve got an exam tomorrow, you prick, so don’t bring your moaning one night stand back to our dorm” - but he doesn’t expect the way it shuts everything in him down as he slumps a little against Jim’s bed in the ICU, still too uncertain of his captain's condition to want to risk moving him, leaving him.
With a sigh, he lowers himself into the empty chair to Jim’s right, eyes flickering to the steady but still unsettlingly grim readings on the biofunction monitor before settling on the bruised and battered face of his closest friend, the countenance laid only barely resembling the charismatic asshole he knows like the back of his hand. McCoy reaches down to brush a bit of blood that’s leaked from the wound on his cheek, a gash just a bit too deep for the autosuture to fully repair, and he knows that he’ll be abusing his dermal regenerator as soon as his patient is stabilized, as soon as he’s healed enough, because Jim’ll be damned if that cocky charm of his is fucked over by battle scars like these.
Fighting the bile that rises despairingly in his throat, McCoy tries to ignore the voice of reason that whispers unavoidably at the back of his mind: if he heals enough.
“His injuries, Doctor.” The words - clipped and even, seemingly unbothered but slightly less unfeeling than McCoy has grown to expect from a Vulcan - reminds him that he isn’t alone with his friend, that the presence which had settled at Jim’s bedside as soon as he’d left surgery is still keeping quiet vigil, hands at his sides and spine painfully straight. “May I inquire as to their... extent?”
McCoy studies Spock carefully for a moment, letting his attention wane from Jim and fix upon the untapped depths of the eyes that flicker his way for the briefest of moments in askance - the flash of emotion in them, begging his silence to be simple hesitance and not the delay of harrowing news, is something he doesn’t expect.
“Let me put it this way,” he leans back in his chair with a sigh, crossing his arms over his broad chest and watching Spock watch Jim with the kind of attention McCoy isn’t sure he’s ever given anything, except maybe his work. “I’ve seen Jim Kirk through the sort o’ scrapes I’d never dreamed a man could live through. This here, though,” his breath draws back in with a hiss as his eyes wander over the still body on the bed between them; “s’one of the worst.”
Spock doesn’t react to this reply, doesn’t do anything, but McCoy could swear he’s leaning just a hair closer to Jim now, the incline of his posture just slightly more drastic, the angle more acute. “I do not wish to sound, insensitive, or otherwise uncouth,” he begins, and McCoy, if the atmosphere of the room had been just slightly less serious, would have rolled his eyes at the preface - because goddamn, was there anything this bastard did that wasn’t insensitive? - and he almost rolls his eyes in spite of it all, because he figures that’s what Jim would probably do, if he were able. “However, I wish to know,” Spock pauses, and McCoy’s eyes narrow, his brow furrows because the pause between words seems almost nervous, almost wary and uncertain - neither of which are emotions that he’s yet been able to reconcile with this particular half-breed hobgoblin, or any of the full-breeds, for that matter. “I must ask you whether he, if...”
“Spit it out, man!” McCoy growls, and the sound is harsh, cutting, more so then he’d intended, and it’s that way for a number of reasons - because he’s tired, bone tired; because he’s almost lost his best friend in the fucking world more times than he can count in less than a day; because as a result, he’s been unable to avoid that taunting slap across the face with the angry palm of mortality that tells him mincing words isn’t worth it, isn’t something any of them have time for; because he really doesn’t like Spock all that much, and the only thing that’s keeping him for kicking the pointy-eared bastard out of his med bay is the ironic fact that he’s there in the first place, and that he hasn’t left - because that has to mean something. Has to.
“Ain’t got time for your pussy-footing,” he sighs, resigned, and he doesn’t miss the slight curiosity that shoots his way from the corner of the Vulcan’s gaze at the change in his tone as he leans forward, elbows on his knees and fingers steepled precariously beneath his chin.
“Did he suffer any... violation?” Spock manages to articulate, as if on cue, and McCoy isn’t stupid; he knows by the tone, the hesitation exactly what Spock means; would have know even if he hadn’t run the tricorder himself, hadn’t recognized the trace of incompatible bodily fluids mingling with the blood for exactly what it was on the backs of Jim’s thighs, the heavy, hand-shaped bruises just below the hips, looking to tear him in two.
“I’m assuming you’re not referrin’ to scrapes ‘n bruises.”
Spock blinks, his eyes never leaving the lines of Jim’s face. “Indeed I am not, Doctor McCoy.”
“No,” McCoy answers, his eyes glued to Jim’s face, realizing in the grim shadow of the half-lighting of ship’s night, against the mechanically-rhythmic rise and fall of the captain’s chest, just how young his friend really is, seeing in stark revelation what he’d been trying to tell the damned daredevil since the moment they’d met, it seemed: that his life was just as fragile as anyone else’s, even if his grip on it was a hell of a lot more stubborn.
He’s grateful for that, at least.
He’s pulled from his reflection by the burning gaze across the bed that’s boring into him, though what’s fueling that fire, McCoy doesn’t know.
“No, as in, no, he didn’t...” he gruffly clarifies, and wants to leave it at that; wants with every fiber of his being to let the matter rest there, and to forget the indications of sexual misconduct on top of everything else, but he can tell that Spock knows there’s more, knows somehow what McCoy saw with his own two eyes and is keeping from him.
“But,” the doctor finally sighs, hoping somehow that the disclosure will alleviate just a bit of the tension in the room that's making it difficult to breathe; “given some of the signs of struggle, I wouldn’t say it was for lack of trying.”
He draws a deep breath, but it’s not enough to drown out the sharp gasp of air that hisses through clenched Vulcan teeth, echoing through the gap between Spock’s lips - and while his expression doesn’t change, doesn’t tighten or waver, he may as well be screaming, sobbing, cursing the universe at large as far as McCoy is concerned, because aside from flat out strangling someone, this is the most emotion he’s ever witnessed from the science officer first hand.
The tension, in that moment, doesn’t budge; if anything, it only intensifies. “What made ya ask?” McCoy asks, shattering the silence and sending the thick quiet to ripple out from its center, his eyes checking automatically on the readouts of Jim’s vitals as the oppressive still ebbs around his interruption, gives around him as a physical presence.
“I would rather not discuss it.”
The clipped syllables send incongruent flashes of irritation and sympathy through the normally unflappable Leonard McCoy, and it’s with that uncharacteristic contradiction vying for prominence that he shoots back, half accusing, half compassionate: “For Jim’s sake, you might want to rethink that particular preference. The more information I have, the better his chances.”
Spock stiffens at that, the subtle reminder of the specter of death - as if either of them needs it. “The damage is congruent with the means by which it was inflicted,” he answers softly, his eyes bright and somehow pained, so human. “The results have proven straightforward. It is only that...” he exhales with measured practice, breathing in again with the same studied control - even and steady, calming himself. The effort is futile, though, as the air in his lungs quavers in the space between breaths, and he has to begin the process again. “It was very difficult...”
The way his eyes slide closed, the way they squint just that little bit, like a man plagued by waking nightmares, is something that McCoy can’t mistake for anything other than what it is, and the simple realization sends a fearful sort of empathy through him as it sinks in; “He made you watch.”
Spock is silent, though his eyes open again, harder now, reminiscent of the violent encounter on the bridge. McCoy feels a protective flare crop up in his gut as he watches Spock eye Jim with that gaze, but it’s gone before it can take hold - the fury behind those placid eyes is not directed towards the captain this time, not one bit. “Damn,” he says, because there’s nothing else he can think of saying, and silence without a stiff drink is something he’s never been fond of; “I...”
And then, without warning or preface, a thought - a revelation - sparks in the back of his mind, the disparate elements of the hell that had consumed them over the past vital hours slowly magnetizing, snapping together to form a greater, more disturbing whole than the good doctor had believed Spock was capable of weaving on his own. Jim’s crazy plan to save them all, Spock’s suicide mission in that damn spinny ship of his, his insistence on going back for Kirk, even against all odds and a growing black hole...
“When you rammed the ship,” McCoy spoke with deliberate articulation, as if he were still trying to understand it for himself. “You set a collision course...”
The same fucker that had killed his mother, exterminated his people, destroyed his planet... to watch him torture someone, torture anyone, let alone someone he shared a personal connection with - tenuous and strained as it might be - had to have been the last straw. He had to have seen Jim, seen Nero, and snapped, driven by hatred alone, and the need to exact revenge.
“You really are out of your fucking Vulcan mind, aren’t you?” McCoy whispers, disgust and pity vying with a grudging, twisted sort of respect as he considers just how desperate Spock has to be underneath that misleading veil of calm, making a mental note to call him in for a psych eval as soon as things settle down.
“On the contrary,” Spock contests, but it’s a half-hearted attempt, even for him. “Nero was about to take advantage of the Captain. It was the most base of cruelties he was prepared to inflict, and one that could not be...” Spock pauses, swallowing against the reverberations of everything he thinks he can never understand, all of the untethered emotions swirling within him, unbound and unfamiliar and wrong but somehow beautiful, somehow exquisite in their tragedy: “Could not be tolerated.”
“Were you thinking at all?” McCoy asks, incredulity wrapped tight around his words where his mind isn’t able to wrap around the truths they’re conveying. “Scotty locked on you and beamed you back at the very last second,” he said slowly, piecing together the impossible, the illogical truth - the only one that made any sense. “But you didn’t ask for it, did you? You’d have died on impact with the ship, you can’t have thought...”
He trails off, and when Spock says nothing, but diverts his gaze lower, no longer staring at Jim but at the base of the biobed unit, eyes too focused to actually see anything, McCoy feels the last of his doubt melt away. “But you didn’t, did you?” he concludes, the blackest sort of amazement creeping into his voice as his eyes widen and he understands - fuck, he understands. “You knew. You weren’t plannin’ on coming back at all.”
He watches Spock’s throat quiver just barely before he gets his answer; all the confirmation he could need: “I was... distracted.” The damned fool doesn’t even blink as he says it, never looks away from the unnaturally pale hand peeking out from the standard-issue, sterile-white bedding, the largest span of unharmed skin on Jim Kirk’s body now, save for the bruises on his knuckles.
“You were willing to give your life for revenge.”
Spock shakes his head, seeming to studying Jim’s face more intensely, losing himself in something intangible and withdrawing from the conversation at hand. “To sacrifice oneself for something that has already come to pass serves neither party, and only perpetuates needless suffering. It is illogical.”
“Then what was it?” And McCoy doesn’t figure he’ll get any sort of answer, really, so it’s a shock and a half when he notices the nuance - barely present, but unmistakable - in the way that Spock is staring at Jim’s unconscious form. There’s something underneath it - something achingly familiar but so far away, something he’s nearly forgotten; he’d had it once, he’d known it, and that’s how he recognizes it now. It makes no sense, it doesn’t fit, but there’s nothing else it can be, nothing else it can mean when eyes that dark don’t blink, don’t move, and almost bleed with the passion pent up behind them.
It makes all the sense in the world.
“Fine,” McCoy stands, smoothing his uniform absently. “You don’t have to tell me. But Jim here’s fighting for his life,” he chokes on that reminder just a bit as he gestures to the reason they’re both awake at such an hour, both interacting on any level; the common element in both their equations that brought them to the here and now. “Maybe if there’s something you need to tell him, you should get on with it. Just in case.”
Spock doesn’t say anything, but McCoy doesn’t expect him to - the silence, though, is deafening suddenly, the deserted hum of mid-gamma shift awakening the ghosts that break his resolve, his composure - and he retreats to his office nearby without another word, leaving the Vulcan to his thoughts.
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Spock manages to compose himself in order to suffer alpha shift respectably, because his presence is required, is necessary; and if he’s unfocused, if he’s distracted - if he checks in with medical a little too often - he reassures himself that it’s only his duty as an officer to maintain current and detailed knowledge of the status of his captain.
At the very first opportunity he absconds to sick bay, feeling like a fugitive, a traitor to his very nature, but drawn there beyond his power to protest or ignore. Where he expects the comings and goings of nurses, and the overbearing scowl of Dr. McCoy weaving in and out of biobeds like a specter, he does not anticipate the captain’s bed, secluded as best as they can manage given the circumstances, to be attended to when he arrives. His eyes narrow on the back of the head posed over his convalescing frame, silver hair and distinctly tipped ears leading him to only one, albeit unlikely and logically unsound conclusion as he approaches: “Father?”
A sigh, deep and rustling, before his answer: “I am not our father.” And that much is more than obvious as Spock comes to stand beside the stranger just as he turns to meet his gaze, the locking of their eyes like fire, blazing through him with the unforgiving sting of revelation, so that if his curious use of pronoun had not betrayed the truth, it would be nonetheless understood. And it was, it was - things that Spock had been warring with from the very moment he’d lost command of the ship began to settle into a vague skeleton of sense, unsteady but generally comprehensive, aided by the sharp edge of intent and recollection gnawing at his consciousness, the psychic skill of his counterpart nudging him, seeking to help him arrive at the truth. Yet in that truth he found no peace, did not know rest from the reeling sweep of feeling that spun at the very core of him, a cyclone threatening to wrest him asunder.
Blinking once, twice - his personal equivalent of shaking his head in hopes of clearing it - he schools his expression to stoicism, carefully guarding his mind and cloaking his inner turmoil as he sits opposite himself at Jim’s side. “How did you come to be aboard this ship?”
“I had hoped to beam aboard the Enterprise before its return to Earth, and assimilate myself appropriately amidst the surviving council members aboard.” And it’s logical, Spock thinks, very logical - as logical as things can be when Spock barely recognizes himself, barely even sees a Vulcan when he considers what he’s become over the course of mere hours, when the indefatigable James T. Kirk is lying immobile, his fate still uncertain. “Yet when I learned of the captain’s condition,” his alternate self continues, “anonymity seemed rather meaningless in comparison.”
And Spock cannot help but be entranced by the depth with which his other self watches the Captain, the utter longing in his gaze, the compassion and the heartache and the sheer physical pain that he seems to be wrestling with, as if every laceration cutting across Jim’s body had pierced the Vulcan tenfold. He has no doubts now, no hesitation in reconciling this devotion, this obvious and unwavering love, with the sentiments that are still settled, gathered like a dusting of snow atop his every thought. He no longer wonders as to how he came to act as he did, for the sheer power of feeling in those eyes as they consider the ailing man between them seems nigh insurmountable, and somehow capable of the impossible.
“He is so young,” the voice that is his own - only deeper, rougher, more resigned - speaks low and melancholy as weathered fingertips brush the long trail of puckered scar down Jim’s left cheek; “so very young.”
“Yet he is strong.” The words are committed to before Spock can even process them, can identify from whence they originate, or the motivation behind them. The lack of control, of concentration and restraint makes his breath hitch and his stomach twist.
“He always was.” With a nod between them, silence falls; an unnerving silence interrupted only by the standard sounds of medical equipment and hushed conversation some distance from them, somehow compounding the unbearable sense of invasion, of being laid bare by the only person Spock would never be able to hide from forever.
“You are troubled,” the elder of them observes suddenly, as if it is a surprise, and Spock tenses at the way this future version of himself seems to know him, so intimately despite their differences. “You are disconcerted by this turn of events. By what you feel, what you felt.”
Spock is silent, reluctant for a time, but the insistent humming in the back of his mind, reminding him that resistance to himself above all things is something he should understand more than ever to be futile, eventually overcomes his resolve. “The emotions,” he confesses haltingly, “they do not belong to me. I cannot connect with them intellectually, they have no verifiable foundation in my memory. And yet... they are overwhelming. So powerful; so undeniable.” He feels himself a child again, a wondering youth with a split lip and more questions, more wayward emotions than any true Vulcan, any worthy Vulcan could fathom, let alone surrender to as he has; as he is. “As if they were always a part of me, something I had forgotten and suddenly regained, though the context, the basis for their existence is still missing.”
“I did not feel this way for him,” Spock protests finally, his voice strained with the shame, the failure he suffers and the desperate agony of simple feeling - he cannot yet acknowledge the weight of the realization that the feelings imposed upon him are resonating with something so deep, so far buried that he cannot properly identify their nature, their intent. “And yet, I know that I have before, that a part of me exists that still does.”
His gaze focuses in on the dark eyes watching him intensely, open and unrepentant, acknowledging his accusation, his conclusion before it’s ever spoken: “You. You always did, and still do.”
His elder self sighs, the ridges in the flesh of his face, the hard lines of age sinking deeper as the air seeps from his lungs, the haunting emptiness in his eyes more pronounced for only an instant. “I did not intend for this,” he says softly, a momentary tremble in his voice. “I offer my apologies.”
Spock, though, is beyond the point of mere remorse, of forgiving and seeking forgiveness in turn - his humanity is arrested by something much more feral, much more anguished to entertain the concept. “How was it possible?”
“I do not presume to comprehend the nuances of emotion, even now.” There is a smile on that face, sardonic and self-deprecating, and before Spock can stop himself, before he can remember that it’s a betrayal to everything he’s ever thought to know, he finds himself envious for that expression, for such a capacity to embrace the overflowing sense of feeling that is threatening to swallow him whole. “And yet, I have a theory.”
He stands, and Spock eyes him warily before he pauses, still from across Jim’s motionless body, raising his hand in a disturbingly clear formation, asking permission to enter his mind as an afterthought, not a given - Spock cringes to think that his captain may have suffered such transference of emotion against his will. “May I?”
Spock swallows, willing the indignation down, setting himself to the task of reigning in the unquenchable aversion to sharing anything further with this perversion of himself; “I would prefer that you didn’t.”
“Very well.” The hands fall as he settles himself anew, palms folding unassumingly in his lap, and Spock cannot help but feel the regret across the inevitable psychic connection between them, heavily guarded as it is. “I cannot be certain,” the older Spock speaks slowly, almost tired, and the younger of them is reminded again of his father, the thick empathic ooze of disappointment somehow suffocating. “But I presume that some combination of the intuitive pilot interface, the psychic echoes of my interaction with the ship’s programming, and the emotional upheaval for both of our selves of late, combined with the space-time distortion of the singularity created by the red matter, has enhanced the natural interconnection we share as Vulcans,” he stares pointedly at Spock, driving the point home with a sorrow that makes the ache of sentiment darting inside of him reach fever pitch, immediately unbearable; he cannot fight a wince as it crushes him, the assault resonating in his bones: “A connection that has been intensified by the recent loss of our home-world and the vast majority of our race.”
Spock sets his jaw against the explanation, needing to steel himself against something, anything, to reassert his control, to prove he’s still capable of it. “It is illogical.”
“Perhaps,” the Ambassador concedes mildly. “But that does not make it any less plausible.”
Spock cringes inwardly at the way those words ring true, only adding momentum to the avalanche of emotion decimating all that he’d even been taught to value; the very logic he had staked his entire being on perfecting, on maintaining - on living out, without qualification or relent.
“I would ask you,” the elder Spock proposes over folded palms, “whether the solution to a problem is less of a solution if it is reached with assistance, rather than alone.” Those wise, imposing eyes narrow on him, scrutinizing and penetrating even further into their younger self’s soul. “The answer to a question less an answer if it comes from the experience of another, rather than your own.”
“I do not understand your meaning.”
“Don’t you?” Why he bothers to lie, Spock believes is obvious - self-preservation, running deeper and truer than logic itself - though why he thinks anything would come of the lie is less clear; his other self, however, is generous enough to indulge him, nonetheless.
“These feelings,” he continues, gesturing widely at the intangible force of everything Spock cannot - will not understand, because understanding it would proceed to unravel the very fabric from which he’d always believed he’d been cut. “Just because you did not first know them from yourself, does not render them any less meaningful. Any less real.”
Spock knows, knows in the way his heart trills too quickly, too unsteadily, shaking like a leaf below his lungs, that he’s been called out; that things have been discovered in himself that he would never have known existed because of these emotions - and while the stimulus may have been external, he cannot deny to himself that the reactions elicited, the subsequent feelings fostered, were solely his own.
He wants to contradict this terrible ghost of his future, wants to tell him he is wrong - wants to seek comfort in the life he’d always known, in the careful control he’s learned to hold dear - the only piece of his people he had left. He wants nothing more than to speak to the contrary, to argue that any emotion that is not one’s own cannot logically be allowed to sway one’s opinions, one’s desires. That to do so would be to compromise the integrity of one’s own psyche, their capacity for the freedom of choice and will. He wants to speak these truths with calm conviction, and yet they are nowhere, they cannot save him where they lie beyond his reach - buried under the tidal waves of chaos, of disorganized and unidentifiable feeling; they are lost with his voice, and he can do nothing but stare, willing his eyes not to betray how lost he is, hoping that no one will see; and knowing that in hoping at all, he has passed the point of no return.
“I would urge you to see this as an opportunity, Spock. A revelation of possibility.” The elder of them rises, walking slowly, proof of his age as he makes his way closer to his young counterpart, placing a gentle, unassuming hand that seeks nothing beyond very simple, very human comfort as it settles on his shoulder. “And know that, in my experience, the very strongest of emotions cannot be produced by artificial means.”
His eyes glaze, and while the touch does not seek anything of Spock, it loses itself in memory, and Spock cannot help but see, cannot help but notice how the impressions of companionship, of devotion and love that are driving him mad now take form in color and shape, two very solid, very real men painted in every way imaginable, existing for one another.
“The echoes of my feelings for the Jim Kirk I knew,” the deep, gravely emotion that chokes the impromptu voiceover for the recollections slips deep into his subconscious, speaking to something primal, something that dwells below logic and shame, superseding them both; “they drove you to act in ways you cannot justify. But those actions saved a life you may one day come to hold dearer than your own. You’ve been afforded the chance to explore that potential, should you desire it. And if you should not, you will have allowed for a capable and compassionate man to live to fulfill his potential.”
The hand on his arm slips away, and Spock unabashedly turns to the source, missing the contact, the warmth of the memories of something he has never allowed himself to want but that he does want, he realizes; wants with everything he is and ever will be. Kind, understanding eyes meet his own as they swim in the ocean of uncertainty, of the painful dissolution of self that he feels taking hold of him, and in the melee those eyes envelop him, embracing him in the unmistakable wisdom of experience. A soft voice reaches out to him in his mind, and he knows that this alternate self of his, that he’s known this torment, and he stands before Spock as a testament, a promise that he, too, shall weather the storm. If only Spock could believe it.
“Echoes of feeling cannot decide for you, cannot spark the story that unfolds as a result.” Spock feels the words more than he hears them, though he knows that they are spoken aloud. “They are not strong enough. Only your own emotions, the ones which reside somewhere much deeper than any psychic remnant can penetrate, can bring you the realization of joy, the experience of devotion.” A sad smile crosses that aged face as he wanders once again in memory; “The wonder of love.”
And that - regardless of how much he desires it otherwise - Spock can believe.
“I take my leave, now.” The presence of a fuller, richer version of himself retreats, physically and mentally, and Spock mourns the loss of it, the comfort it afforded that he can only acknowledge now, in its absence. “I would leave you one piece of advice,” he turns back, and Spock straightens, almost fearful, almost eager. “In this matter, put aside logic. Pursue the course that feels right.”
Spock feels the fight drain from him, the will to untangle the noose that winds around his chest ebbing as he watches wizened knuckles arch and trembling fingers mold to the soft outline of fingers underneath wrinkled sheets, the delicate touch striking something deep inside of him as he watches the pain cross the elder Vulcan’s features, whispering coarsely: “Be well, my friend.” The distress, the anger, the conflict, it all settles - neither forgotten, nor resolved, but secondary, subverted by simply looking at Jim’s battered figure, and feeling with acute clarity each and every emotion associated with him by either of his selves - and suddenly where the feelings originated, who knew them first, none of it matters in the instant between inhaling and exhaling, the briefest of seconds where all that matters is James Tiberius Kirk, and for that single moment, all of the emotions in the cosmos seem sublimely insufficient.
The suspension is over as soon as it comes, and Spock barely notices the Ambassador’s departure, focused instead on the biofunction display. He notes with curiosity how the numerical values for the most vital readings had strengthened just slightly at the touch of his alternate self’s hand against Jim’s; how the contact had somehow spurred that small, almost delicate human heart to beat a bit faster, a bit stronger.
And in spite of every other logical reason for this improvement, all of which have absolutely nothing to do with physical interaction of any sort - despite the shame that wars with something like hope in his gut at the gesture - Spock reaches out and reluctantly, wonderingly, slips his hand around Jim’s fingers and squeezes, just slightly, to let him know he’s there.
_____________________________
They are mere hours from Earth, immersed fully in the deepest of the night, and it’s somehow unbearable; this darkness that’s identical to every other, that’s fought off valiantly by the lighting inside the ship. Spock feels the black curl around him, settle as an old friend deep within him like a poison, a pledge - the shadow of everything he’d ever thought to hate in himself revealed as the core of his very being until he no longer recognizes who he is, what he is - where his place is in the universe. He shows no outward sign of his distress, but he feels it weigh upon his soul, rendering every breath a struggle, every beat of his heart a strain.
He belongs nowhere, he fears, and so he stays put at this bedside, this single place in all of existence, because it is the only place that feels right.
He squeezes at the hand held loose within his own, and his eyes smile as he feels the fingers gathered in his grasp twitch just barely; the first sign of consciousness he’s been granted, and it feels like the fire of a supernova burning within him, a relief that borders on outright joy searing through him in the blink of an eye. He doesn't know what’s coming for them, what lies ahead; does not know if this reality, this unique chain of events is for good or for ill. But he knows that, come what may, tomorrow will dawn for them, and in the presence of this man - this singular man in all of time and space - with him, Spock knows that they will endure, that while the current state of things may not be wholly positive, the crew themselves may not be fine just yet; because of James T. Kirk, they will be, in spite of everything.
And beyond all reason, beyond all logic, that’s all that really matters.
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Author’s Notes, Part II: This part sort of ended itself before I had Spock and Jim encounter each other in the aftermath, because after working with the outside reactions (particularly of Spock Prime) as requested in the prompt, I ended up rather liking the way this part tied together - the abruptness seemed fitting, to me at least.
But, regardless of my opinions, I’m leaving this one up to anyone who cares - epilogue, or no epilogue? I’ll try my best to write one if there is interest in favor of it :)
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>>>>>>>>>> SEQUEL/EPILOGUE HERE
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Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Word Count: 5,785
Summary: He knows these feelings don’t belong to him, but that doesn’t make them any less real. For the st_xi_kink Fic Request Meme, Prompt: Nero is mindlessly focused in on Spock - on *hurting* Spock, even more so than just killing him. And he recognized Kirk "from earth's history". So he MUST know alllll about Spock & Kirk being the ultimate dream team, BFF's, fucking like bunnies, what have you. And now he's got Spock's captain here, beneath his hands. What better way to get revenge?. Spoilers for Star Trek XI (2009), Star Trek: Countdown. Vague references to Star Trek: The Original Series.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to Modest Mouse.
Author’s Notes: A take on how Spock might react to the borrowed feelings of Spock Prime if he’d encountered them head on as Kirk apparently did (emotional transference and all that). Do me a favor and play along with the at times out-of-character emotionality and other plot devices of the like - specifically those involving conveniently-present prime-universe Vulcans and justifications for lingering psychic echoes in previously-owned spacecraft.
Parting Of The Sensory
Part II
Leonard McCoy is used to patching Jim Kirk up by now. What he’s not used to is the rush of urgency, of gravity that hits him when his friend is lying prone in medbay instead of standing before him with a lazy smirk, covered in blood that’s not the product of a jealous boyfriend or a drunken free for all; the way his stomach drops when Jim comes in unconscious, unrecognizable, the way his pulse speeds when Jim’s is thready and weak. He knows exhaustion - he lived it every day of his residency, knew it by necessity with a roommate who didn’t comprehend the meaning of phrases like “lights out” or “I’ve got an exam tomorrow, you prick, so don’t bring your moaning one night stand back to our dorm” - but he doesn’t expect the way it shuts everything in him down as he slumps a little against Jim’s bed in the ICU, still too uncertain of his captain's condition to want to risk moving him, leaving him.
With a sigh, he lowers himself into the empty chair to Jim’s right, eyes flickering to the steady but still unsettlingly grim readings on the biofunction monitor before settling on the bruised and battered face of his closest friend, the countenance laid only barely resembling the charismatic asshole he knows like the back of his hand. McCoy reaches down to brush a bit of blood that’s leaked from the wound on his cheek, a gash just a bit too deep for the autosuture to fully repair, and he knows that he’ll be abusing his dermal regenerator as soon as his patient is stabilized, as soon as he’s healed enough, because Jim’ll be damned if that cocky charm of his is fucked over by battle scars like these.
Fighting the bile that rises despairingly in his throat, McCoy tries to ignore the voice of reason that whispers unavoidably at the back of his mind: if he heals enough.
“His injuries, Doctor.” The words - clipped and even, seemingly unbothered but slightly less unfeeling than McCoy has grown to expect from a Vulcan - reminds him that he isn’t alone with his friend, that the presence which had settled at Jim’s bedside as soon as he’d left surgery is still keeping quiet vigil, hands at his sides and spine painfully straight. “May I inquire as to their... extent?”
McCoy studies Spock carefully for a moment, letting his attention wane from Jim and fix upon the untapped depths of the eyes that flicker his way for the briefest of moments in askance - the flash of emotion in them, begging his silence to be simple hesitance and not the delay of harrowing news, is something he doesn’t expect.
“Let me put it this way,” he leans back in his chair with a sigh, crossing his arms over his broad chest and watching Spock watch Jim with the kind of attention McCoy isn’t sure he’s ever given anything, except maybe his work. “I’ve seen Jim Kirk through the sort o’ scrapes I’d never dreamed a man could live through. This here, though,” his breath draws back in with a hiss as his eyes wander over the still body on the bed between them; “s’one of the worst.”
Spock doesn’t react to this reply, doesn’t do anything, but McCoy could swear he’s leaning just a hair closer to Jim now, the incline of his posture just slightly more drastic, the angle more acute. “I do not wish to sound, insensitive, or otherwise uncouth,” he begins, and McCoy, if the atmosphere of the room had been just slightly less serious, would have rolled his eyes at the preface - because goddamn, was there anything this bastard did that wasn’t insensitive? - and he almost rolls his eyes in spite of it all, because he figures that’s what Jim would probably do, if he were able. “However, I wish to know,” Spock pauses, and McCoy’s eyes narrow, his brow furrows because the pause between words seems almost nervous, almost wary and uncertain - neither of which are emotions that he’s yet been able to reconcile with this particular half-breed hobgoblin, or any of the full-breeds, for that matter. “I must ask you whether he, if...”
“Spit it out, man!” McCoy growls, and the sound is harsh, cutting, more so then he’d intended, and it’s that way for a number of reasons - because he’s tired, bone tired; because he’s almost lost his best friend in the fucking world more times than he can count in less than a day; because as a result, he’s been unable to avoid that taunting slap across the face with the angry palm of mortality that tells him mincing words isn’t worth it, isn’t something any of them have time for; because he really doesn’t like Spock all that much, and the only thing that’s keeping him for kicking the pointy-eared bastard out of his med bay is the ironic fact that he’s there in the first place, and that he hasn’t left - because that has to mean something. Has to.
“Ain’t got time for your pussy-footing,” he sighs, resigned, and he doesn’t miss the slight curiosity that shoots his way from the corner of the Vulcan’s gaze at the change in his tone as he leans forward, elbows on his knees and fingers steepled precariously beneath his chin.
“Did he suffer any... violation?” Spock manages to articulate, as if on cue, and McCoy isn’t stupid; he knows by the tone, the hesitation exactly what Spock means; would have know even if he hadn’t run the tricorder himself, hadn’t recognized the trace of incompatible bodily fluids mingling with the blood for exactly what it was on the backs of Jim’s thighs, the heavy, hand-shaped bruises just below the hips, looking to tear him in two.
“I’m assuming you’re not referrin’ to scrapes ‘n bruises.”
Spock blinks, his eyes never leaving the lines of Jim’s face. “Indeed I am not, Doctor McCoy.”
“No,” McCoy answers, his eyes glued to Jim’s face, realizing in the grim shadow of the half-lighting of ship’s night, against the mechanically-rhythmic rise and fall of the captain’s chest, just how young his friend really is, seeing in stark revelation what he’d been trying to tell the damned daredevil since the moment they’d met, it seemed: that his life was just as fragile as anyone else’s, even if his grip on it was a hell of a lot more stubborn.
He’s grateful for that, at least.
He’s pulled from his reflection by the burning gaze across the bed that’s boring into him, though what’s fueling that fire, McCoy doesn’t know.
“No, as in, no, he didn’t...” he gruffly clarifies, and wants to leave it at that; wants with every fiber of his being to let the matter rest there, and to forget the indications of sexual misconduct on top of everything else, but he can tell that Spock knows there’s more, knows somehow what McCoy saw with his own two eyes and is keeping from him.
“But,” the doctor finally sighs, hoping somehow that the disclosure will alleviate just a bit of the tension in the room that's making it difficult to breathe; “given some of the signs of struggle, I wouldn’t say it was for lack of trying.”
He draws a deep breath, but it’s not enough to drown out the sharp gasp of air that hisses through clenched Vulcan teeth, echoing through the gap between Spock’s lips - and while his expression doesn’t change, doesn’t tighten or waver, he may as well be screaming, sobbing, cursing the universe at large as far as McCoy is concerned, because aside from flat out strangling someone, this is the most emotion he’s ever witnessed from the science officer first hand.
The tension, in that moment, doesn’t budge; if anything, it only intensifies. “What made ya ask?” McCoy asks, shattering the silence and sending the thick quiet to ripple out from its center, his eyes checking automatically on the readouts of Jim’s vitals as the oppressive still ebbs around his interruption, gives around him as a physical presence.
“I would rather not discuss it.”
The clipped syllables send incongruent flashes of irritation and sympathy through the normally unflappable Leonard McCoy, and it’s with that uncharacteristic contradiction vying for prominence that he shoots back, half accusing, half compassionate: “For Jim’s sake, you might want to rethink that particular preference. The more information I have, the better his chances.”
Spock stiffens at that, the subtle reminder of the specter of death - as if either of them needs it. “The damage is congruent with the means by which it was inflicted,” he answers softly, his eyes bright and somehow pained, so human. “The results have proven straightforward. It is only that...” he exhales with measured practice, breathing in again with the same studied control - even and steady, calming himself. The effort is futile, though, as the air in his lungs quavers in the space between breaths, and he has to begin the process again. “It was very difficult...”
The way his eyes slide closed, the way they squint just that little bit, like a man plagued by waking nightmares, is something that McCoy can’t mistake for anything other than what it is, and the simple realization sends a fearful sort of empathy through him as it sinks in; “He made you watch.”
Spock is silent, though his eyes open again, harder now, reminiscent of the violent encounter on the bridge. McCoy feels a protective flare crop up in his gut as he watches Spock eye Jim with that gaze, but it’s gone before it can take hold - the fury behind those placid eyes is not directed towards the captain this time, not one bit. “Damn,” he says, because there’s nothing else he can think of saying, and silence without a stiff drink is something he’s never been fond of; “I...”
And then, without warning or preface, a thought - a revelation - sparks in the back of his mind, the disparate elements of the hell that had consumed them over the past vital hours slowly magnetizing, snapping together to form a greater, more disturbing whole than the good doctor had believed Spock was capable of weaving on his own. Jim’s crazy plan to save them all, Spock’s suicide mission in that damn spinny ship of his, his insistence on going back for Kirk, even against all odds and a growing black hole...
“When you rammed the ship,” McCoy spoke with deliberate articulation, as if he were still trying to understand it for himself. “You set a collision course...”
The same fucker that had killed his mother, exterminated his people, destroyed his planet... to watch him torture someone, torture anyone, let alone someone he shared a personal connection with - tenuous and strained as it might be - had to have been the last straw. He had to have seen Jim, seen Nero, and snapped, driven by hatred alone, and the need to exact revenge.
“You really are out of your fucking Vulcan mind, aren’t you?” McCoy whispers, disgust and pity vying with a grudging, twisted sort of respect as he considers just how desperate Spock has to be underneath that misleading veil of calm, making a mental note to call him in for a psych eval as soon as things settle down.
“On the contrary,” Spock contests, but it’s a half-hearted attempt, even for him. “Nero was about to take advantage of the Captain. It was the most base of cruelties he was prepared to inflict, and one that could not be...” Spock pauses, swallowing against the reverberations of everything he thinks he can never understand, all of the untethered emotions swirling within him, unbound and unfamiliar and wrong but somehow beautiful, somehow exquisite in their tragedy: “Could not be tolerated.”
“Were you thinking at all?” McCoy asks, incredulity wrapped tight around his words where his mind isn’t able to wrap around the truths they’re conveying. “Scotty locked on you and beamed you back at the very last second,” he said slowly, piecing together the impossible, the illogical truth - the only one that made any sense. “But you didn’t ask for it, did you? You’d have died on impact with the ship, you can’t have thought...”
He trails off, and when Spock says nothing, but diverts his gaze lower, no longer staring at Jim but at the base of the biobed unit, eyes too focused to actually see anything, McCoy feels the last of his doubt melt away. “But you didn’t, did you?” he concludes, the blackest sort of amazement creeping into his voice as his eyes widen and he understands - fuck, he understands. “You knew. You weren’t plannin’ on coming back at all.”
He watches Spock’s throat quiver just barely before he gets his answer; all the confirmation he could need: “I was... distracted.” The damned fool doesn’t even blink as he says it, never looks away from the unnaturally pale hand peeking out from the standard-issue, sterile-white bedding, the largest span of unharmed skin on Jim Kirk’s body now, save for the bruises on his knuckles.
“You were willing to give your life for revenge.”
Spock shakes his head, seeming to studying Jim’s face more intensely, losing himself in something intangible and withdrawing from the conversation at hand. “To sacrifice oneself for something that has already come to pass serves neither party, and only perpetuates needless suffering. It is illogical.”
“Then what was it?” And McCoy doesn’t figure he’ll get any sort of answer, really, so it’s a shock and a half when he notices the nuance - barely present, but unmistakable - in the way that Spock is staring at Jim’s unconscious form. There’s something underneath it - something achingly familiar but so far away, something he’s nearly forgotten; he’d had it once, he’d known it, and that’s how he recognizes it now. It makes no sense, it doesn’t fit, but there’s nothing else it can be, nothing else it can mean when eyes that dark don’t blink, don’t move, and almost bleed with the passion pent up behind them.
It makes all the sense in the world.
“Fine,” McCoy stands, smoothing his uniform absently. “You don’t have to tell me. But Jim here’s fighting for his life,” he chokes on that reminder just a bit as he gestures to the reason they’re both awake at such an hour, both interacting on any level; the common element in both their equations that brought them to the here and now. “Maybe if there’s something you need to tell him, you should get on with it. Just in case.”
Spock doesn’t say anything, but McCoy doesn’t expect him to - the silence, though, is deafening suddenly, the deserted hum of mid-gamma shift awakening the ghosts that break his resolve, his composure - and he retreats to his office nearby without another word, leaving the Vulcan to his thoughts.
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Spock manages to compose himself in order to suffer alpha shift respectably, because his presence is required, is necessary; and if he’s unfocused, if he’s distracted - if he checks in with medical a little too often - he reassures himself that it’s only his duty as an officer to maintain current and detailed knowledge of the status of his captain.
At the very first opportunity he absconds to sick bay, feeling like a fugitive, a traitor to his very nature, but drawn there beyond his power to protest or ignore. Where he expects the comings and goings of nurses, and the overbearing scowl of Dr. McCoy weaving in and out of biobeds like a specter, he does not anticipate the captain’s bed, secluded as best as they can manage given the circumstances, to be attended to when he arrives. His eyes narrow on the back of the head posed over his convalescing frame, silver hair and distinctly tipped ears leading him to only one, albeit unlikely and logically unsound conclusion as he approaches: “Father?”
A sigh, deep and rustling, before his answer: “I am not our father.” And that much is more than obvious as Spock comes to stand beside the stranger just as he turns to meet his gaze, the locking of their eyes like fire, blazing through him with the unforgiving sting of revelation, so that if his curious use of pronoun had not betrayed the truth, it would be nonetheless understood. And it was, it was - things that Spock had been warring with from the very moment he’d lost command of the ship began to settle into a vague skeleton of sense, unsteady but generally comprehensive, aided by the sharp edge of intent and recollection gnawing at his consciousness, the psychic skill of his counterpart nudging him, seeking to help him arrive at the truth. Yet in that truth he found no peace, did not know rest from the reeling sweep of feeling that spun at the very core of him, a cyclone threatening to wrest him asunder.
Blinking once, twice - his personal equivalent of shaking his head in hopes of clearing it - he schools his expression to stoicism, carefully guarding his mind and cloaking his inner turmoil as he sits opposite himself at Jim’s side. “How did you come to be aboard this ship?”
“I had hoped to beam aboard the Enterprise before its return to Earth, and assimilate myself appropriately amidst the surviving council members aboard.” And it’s logical, Spock thinks, very logical - as logical as things can be when Spock barely recognizes himself, barely even sees a Vulcan when he considers what he’s become over the course of mere hours, when the indefatigable James T. Kirk is lying immobile, his fate still uncertain. “Yet when I learned of the captain’s condition,” his alternate self continues, “anonymity seemed rather meaningless in comparison.”
And Spock cannot help but be entranced by the depth with which his other self watches the Captain, the utter longing in his gaze, the compassion and the heartache and the sheer physical pain that he seems to be wrestling with, as if every laceration cutting across Jim’s body had pierced the Vulcan tenfold. He has no doubts now, no hesitation in reconciling this devotion, this obvious and unwavering love, with the sentiments that are still settled, gathered like a dusting of snow atop his every thought. He no longer wonders as to how he came to act as he did, for the sheer power of feeling in those eyes as they consider the ailing man between them seems nigh insurmountable, and somehow capable of the impossible.
“He is so young,” the voice that is his own - only deeper, rougher, more resigned - speaks low and melancholy as weathered fingertips brush the long trail of puckered scar down Jim’s left cheek; “so very young.”
“Yet he is strong.” The words are committed to before Spock can even process them, can identify from whence they originate, or the motivation behind them. The lack of control, of concentration and restraint makes his breath hitch and his stomach twist.
“He always was.” With a nod between them, silence falls; an unnerving silence interrupted only by the standard sounds of medical equipment and hushed conversation some distance from them, somehow compounding the unbearable sense of invasion, of being laid bare by the only person Spock would never be able to hide from forever.
“You are troubled,” the elder of them observes suddenly, as if it is a surprise, and Spock tenses at the way this future version of himself seems to know him, so intimately despite their differences. “You are disconcerted by this turn of events. By what you feel, what you felt.”
Spock is silent, reluctant for a time, but the insistent humming in the back of his mind, reminding him that resistance to himself above all things is something he should understand more than ever to be futile, eventually overcomes his resolve. “The emotions,” he confesses haltingly, “they do not belong to me. I cannot connect with them intellectually, they have no verifiable foundation in my memory. And yet... they are overwhelming. So powerful; so undeniable.” He feels himself a child again, a wondering youth with a split lip and more questions, more wayward emotions than any true Vulcan, any worthy Vulcan could fathom, let alone surrender to as he has; as he is. “As if they were always a part of me, something I had forgotten and suddenly regained, though the context, the basis for their existence is still missing.”
“I did not feel this way for him,” Spock protests finally, his voice strained with the shame, the failure he suffers and the desperate agony of simple feeling - he cannot yet acknowledge the weight of the realization that the feelings imposed upon him are resonating with something so deep, so far buried that he cannot properly identify their nature, their intent. “And yet, I know that I have before, that a part of me exists that still does.”
His gaze focuses in on the dark eyes watching him intensely, open and unrepentant, acknowledging his accusation, his conclusion before it’s ever spoken: “You. You always did, and still do.”
His elder self sighs, the ridges in the flesh of his face, the hard lines of age sinking deeper as the air seeps from his lungs, the haunting emptiness in his eyes more pronounced for only an instant. “I did not intend for this,” he says softly, a momentary tremble in his voice. “I offer my apologies.”
Spock, though, is beyond the point of mere remorse, of forgiving and seeking forgiveness in turn - his humanity is arrested by something much more feral, much more anguished to entertain the concept. “How was it possible?”
“I do not presume to comprehend the nuances of emotion, even now.” There is a smile on that face, sardonic and self-deprecating, and before Spock can stop himself, before he can remember that it’s a betrayal to everything he’s ever thought to know, he finds himself envious for that expression, for such a capacity to embrace the overflowing sense of feeling that is threatening to swallow him whole. “And yet, I have a theory.”
He stands, and Spock eyes him warily before he pauses, still from across Jim’s motionless body, raising his hand in a disturbingly clear formation, asking permission to enter his mind as an afterthought, not a given - Spock cringes to think that his captain may have suffered such transference of emotion against his will. “May I?”
Spock swallows, willing the indignation down, setting himself to the task of reigning in the unquenchable aversion to sharing anything further with this perversion of himself; “I would prefer that you didn’t.”
“Very well.” The hands fall as he settles himself anew, palms folding unassumingly in his lap, and Spock cannot help but feel the regret across the inevitable psychic connection between them, heavily guarded as it is. “I cannot be certain,” the older Spock speaks slowly, almost tired, and the younger of them is reminded again of his father, the thick empathic ooze of disappointment somehow suffocating. “But I presume that some combination of the intuitive pilot interface, the psychic echoes of my interaction with the ship’s programming, and the emotional upheaval for both of our selves of late, combined with the space-time distortion of the singularity created by the red matter, has enhanced the natural interconnection we share as Vulcans,” he stares pointedly at Spock, driving the point home with a sorrow that makes the ache of sentiment darting inside of him reach fever pitch, immediately unbearable; he cannot fight a wince as it crushes him, the assault resonating in his bones: “A connection that has been intensified by the recent loss of our home-world and the vast majority of our race.”
Spock sets his jaw against the explanation, needing to steel himself against something, anything, to reassert his control, to prove he’s still capable of it. “It is illogical.”
“Perhaps,” the Ambassador concedes mildly. “But that does not make it any less plausible.”
Spock cringes inwardly at the way those words ring true, only adding momentum to the avalanche of emotion decimating all that he’d even been taught to value; the very logic he had staked his entire being on perfecting, on maintaining - on living out, without qualification or relent.
“I would ask you,” the elder Spock proposes over folded palms, “whether the solution to a problem is less of a solution if it is reached with assistance, rather than alone.” Those wise, imposing eyes narrow on him, scrutinizing and penetrating even further into their younger self’s soul. “The answer to a question less an answer if it comes from the experience of another, rather than your own.”
“I do not understand your meaning.”
“Don’t you?” Why he bothers to lie, Spock believes is obvious - self-preservation, running deeper and truer than logic itself - though why he thinks anything would come of the lie is less clear; his other self, however, is generous enough to indulge him, nonetheless.
“These feelings,” he continues, gesturing widely at the intangible force of everything Spock cannot - will not understand, because understanding it would proceed to unravel the very fabric from which he’d always believed he’d been cut. “Just because you did not first know them from yourself, does not render them any less meaningful. Any less real.”
Spock knows, knows in the way his heart trills too quickly, too unsteadily, shaking like a leaf below his lungs, that he’s been called out; that things have been discovered in himself that he would never have known existed because of these emotions - and while the stimulus may have been external, he cannot deny to himself that the reactions elicited, the subsequent feelings fostered, were solely his own.
He wants to contradict this terrible ghost of his future, wants to tell him he is wrong - wants to seek comfort in the life he’d always known, in the careful control he’s learned to hold dear - the only piece of his people he had left. He wants nothing more than to speak to the contrary, to argue that any emotion that is not one’s own cannot logically be allowed to sway one’s opinions, one’s desires. That to do so would be to compromise the integrity of one’s own psyche, their capacity for the freedom of choice and will. He wants to speak these truths with calm conviction, and yet they are nowhere, they cannot save him where they lie beyond his reach - buried under the tidal waves of chaos, of disorganized and unidentifiable feeling; they are lost with his voice, and he can do nothing but stare, willing his eyes not to betray how lost he is, hoping that no one will see; and knowing that in hoping at all, he has passed the point of no return.
“I would urge you to see this as an opportunity, Spock. A revelation of possibility.” The elder of them rises, walking slowly, proof of his age as he makes his way closer to his young counterpart, placing a gentle, unassuming hand that seeks nothing beyond very simple, very human comfort as it settles on his shoulder. “And know that, in my experience, the very strongest of emotions cannot be produced by artificial means.”
His eyes glaze, and while the touch does not seek anything of Spock, it loses itself in memory, and Spock cannot help but see, cannot help but notice how the impressions of companionship, of devotion and love that are driving him mad now take form in color and shape, two very solid, very real men painted in every way imaginable, existing for one another.
“The echoes of my feelings for the Jim Kirk I knew,” the deep, gravely emotion that chokes the impromptu voiceover for the recollections slips deep into his subconscious, speaking to something primal, something that dwells below logic and shame, superseding them both; “they drove you to act in ways you cannot justify. But those actions saved a life you may one day come to hold dearer than your own. You’ve been afforded the chance to explore that potential, should you desire it. And if you should not, you will have allowed for a capable and compassionate man to live to fulfill his potential.”
The hand on his arm slips away, and Spock unabashedly turns to the source, missing the contact, the warmth of the memories of something he has never allowed himself to want but that he does want, he realizes; wants with everything he is and ever will be. Kind, understanding eyes meet his own as they swim in the ocean of uncertainty, of the painful dissolution of self that he feels taking hold of him, and in the melee those eyes envelop him, embracing him in the unmistakable wisdom of experience. A soft voice reaches out to him in his mind, and he knows that this alternate self of his, that he’s known this torment, and he stands before Spock as a testament, a promise that he, too, shall weather the storm. If only Spock could believe it.
“Echoes of feeling cannot decide for you, cannot spark the story that unfolds as a result.” Spock feels the words more than he hears them, though he knows that they are spoken aloud. “They are not strong enough. Only your own emotions, the ones which reside somewhere much deeper than any psychic remnant can penetrate, can bring you the realization of joy, the experience of devotion.” A sad smile crosses that aged face as he wanders once again in memory; “The wonder of love.”
And that - regardless of how much he desires it otherwise - Spock can believe.
“I take my leave, now.” The presence of a fuller, richer version of himself retreats, physically and mentally, and Spock mourns the loss of it, the comfort it afforded that he can only acknowledge now, in its absence. “I would leave you one piece of advice,” he turns back, and Spock straightens, almost fearful, almost eager. “In this matter, put aside logic. Pursue the course that feels right.”
Spock feels the fight drain from him, the will to untangle the noose that winds around his chest ebbing as he watches wizened knuckles arch and trembling fingers mold to the soft outline of fingers underneath wrinkled sheets, the delicate touch striking something deep inside of him as he watches the pain cross the elder Vulcan’s features, whispering coarsely: “Be well, my friend.” The distress, the anger, the conflict, it all settles - neither forgotten, nor resolved, but secondary, subverted by simply looking at Jim’s battered figure, and feeling with acute clarity each and every emotion associated with him by either of his selves - and suddenly where the feelings originated, who knew them first, none of it matters in the instant between inhaling and exhaling, the briefest of seconds where all that matters is James Tiberius Kirk, and for that single moment, all of the emotions in the cosmos seem sublimely insufficient.
The suspension is over as soon as it comes, and Spock barely notices the Ambassador’s departure, focused instead on the biofunction display. He notes with curiosity how the numerical values for the most vital readings had strengthened just slightly at the touch of his alternate self’s hand against Jim’s; how the contact had somehow spurred that small, almost delicate human heart to beat a bit faster, a bit stronger.
And in spite of every other logical reason for this improvement, all of which have absolutely nothing to do with physical interaction of any sort - despite the shame that wars with something like hope in his gut at the gesture - Spock reaches out and reluctantly, wonderingly, slips his hand around Jim’s fingers and squeezes, just slightly, to let him know he’s there.
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They are mere hours from Earth, immersed fully in the deepest of the night, and it’s somehow unbearable; this darkness that’s identical to every other, that’s fought off valiantly by the lighting inside the ship. Spock feels the black curl around him, settle as an old friend deep within him like a poison, a pledge - the shadow of everything he’d ever thought to hate in himself revealed as the core of his very being until he no longer recognizes who he is, what he is - where his place is in the universe. He shows no outward sign of his distress, but he feels it weigh upon his soul, rendering every breath a struggle, every beat of his heart a strain.
He belongs nowhere, he fears, and so he stays put at this bedside, this single place in all of existence, because it is the only place that feels right.
He squeezes at the hand held loose within his own, and his eyes smile as he feels the fingers gathered in his grasp twitch just barely; the first sign of consciousness he’s been granted, and it feels like the fire of a supernova burning within him, a relief that borders on outright joy searing through him in the blink of an eye. He doesn't know what’s coming for them, what lies ahead; does not know if this reality, this unique chain of events is for good or for ill. But he knows that, come what may, tomorrow will dawn for them, and in the presence of this man - this singular man in all of time and space - with him, Spock knows that they will endure, that while the current state of things may not be wholly positive, the crew themselves may not be fine just yet; because of James T. Kirk, they will be, in spite of everything.
And beyond all reason, beyond all logic, that’s all that really matters.
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Author’s Notes, Part II: This part sort of ended itself before I had Spock and Jim encounter each other in the aftermath, because after working with the outside reactions (particularly of Spock Prime) as requested in the prompt, I ended up rather liking the way this part tied together - the abruptness seemed fitting, to me at least.
But, regardless of my opinions, I’m leaving this one up to anyone who cares - epilogue, or no epilogue? I’ll try my best to write one if there is interest in favor of it :)
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>>>>>>>>>> SEQUEL/EPILOGUE HERE
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