Ghosts in Attics II, Chapter 4
TITLE: Ghosts in Attics II, Chapter 4
FANDOM: Star Trek TOS
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Mirror! Scott, Mirror!Kirk/McCoy, Mirror!Spock/McCoy (this part)
TABLE: # 8 - Miscellaneous B
PROMPT: 03. Answers
RATING: NC-17
WORD COUNT: 6442
WARNINGS: Mental and physical rape, torture, violence. Dark, with a capital D.
SUMMARY: Facing ponn far without a chance to get to Vulcan, Mirror!Spock resorts to desperate measures to survive. McCoy has to suffer for it.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I'm writing for fun, not for profit.
NOTE: Unbetaed. If you find mistakes (which I’m sure you will), feel free to point them out to me.
Captain Kirk awaited Spock when he returned to his quarters. Spock was not surprised. He had known, through his bond with McCoy, that Kirk had discovered the doctor, and knew there would either be a confrontation in private, or he would be arrested the moment he returned to the ship. Since no arresting happened upon his return, the captain’s presence had to be expected.
As was the phaser pointing at his middle.
“You have a lot to explain, Mr. Spock.”
Kirk was lying on Spock’s bed. McCoy was still on the floor, still unconscious, but he wouldn’t remain so very much longer. Spock stepped inside and let the doors close behind him.
“It appears I do.”
Silence followed.
“Well? Are you going to start now, or do I have to shoot off your leg first?”
“Such an act of violence would be unjustified, as you have not yet asked any questions, Sir.” Considering the situation and the very real threat presented by the weapon, Spock considered it wise to be polite.
“Don’t act stupid, Spock!” Kirk sat up to gesture over at the motionless man in the corner. “Even to you, it should be obvious what I want to know.”
“Very well.” Spock stood straight, his hands joined behind his back. “Doctor McCoy is mentally compatible with me. I therefore required his service to survive my most recent ponn far. I apologize for keeping this from you, but since it is without consequence to ship and crew, I consider my action to be excusable.”
“That isn’t McCoy,” Kirk said sharply.
Spock waged his possible responses and decided on honesty. “It is. It is merely not the McCoy you have known. I am certain you recall the incident in which you and your away team have been, duo to a transporter accident, transported to another universe…”
“You mean this is the McCoy from that universe?” Kirk stared at the doctor with new interest, but part of his attention always remained on Spock and the phaser in his hand did not waver. “You went over to another dimension to get a copy of McCoy? Are you out of your mind? How did you even do that? I thought the gate was closed.”
Spock could have told him that the word ‘dimension’ wasn’t quite appropriate here, but judged it would not be considered helpful. “Commander Scott was of assistance. I do believe he used the opportunity to escape to the other universe. He took his knowledge of how to get there with him.” This time, Spock decided that the full truth was not called for.
Kirk didn’t appear to have heard him. His eyes were fixed on McCoy. Eventually, he said, “You know there will be consequences.”
Spock had expected that. “I am prepared to face them.” This might cost him his rank, or even his position in Starfleet. Spock had known it was a risk to keep the doctor. He should have gotten rid of him the moment he didn’t need him anymore. “Do consider, though, that my men will not take lightly on my demise.” There was no telling how far Kirk was willing to go.
Spock had not expected the captain to laugh at his words.
-
During his wait for Spock, Kirk had had time to think about his options, and consider the consequences of each. He had every right to have Spock arrested for treason, for his actions had cost them their chief engineer, and he had crossed universes without asking his captain for permission, let alone tell him of the prisoner he had take over there. A stable passage to another dimension would have granted them great military advances, yet everything Spock had done had happened to his own gain, without regard to the consequences his actions had for the ship. If Kirk was looking for a way to get rid of his first officer without having to kill him and provoke the wrath of those loyal to Spock, this was it.
But this course of action would require him to involve the empire. Someone would come to take Spock away and send him to the next prison planet or have him executed - the latter of which Kirk would prefer. Spock was resourceful. A living Spock was a Spock that might one day come back, and he certainly wouldn’t be amused. But then, accidents could be arranged, even in prison. If he got rid of Spock now, it would probably be forever.
But those who came to take Spock would also take McCoy. They’d be very interested to learn all they could get out of him about the universe he came from. And he, too, would disappear from Kirk’s sight forever.
Which was an entirely undesirable outcome.
Kirk was well aware that this wasn’t McCoy. Or at least it wasn’t the man who had been his friend so long ago, when things had still been very different. It wasn’t the man whose respect and loyalty Kirk had lost and who had died before he could win it back, leaving him defeated. But it was the closest he would ever get.
Kirk wouldn’t let him go. He wouldn’t even take him from Spock, because in here he was safe from discovery, and someone was taking care of him, if making sure he didn’t die from the abuse at the hand of his caretaker counted as such.
And this allowed him to keep a very capable first officer and control him completely so eh was no threat.
“The consequences you are facing won’t have any negative effects on your vitality,” he said, and with a second’s pause added, “Yet.” The ‘yet’ was very important. Spock, without doubt, knew what it meant. “I’m not going to hand you over, and I’m certainly not going to kill you. I do, however, demand visiting rights.”
“Visiting rights?” Spock was puzzled, which was easy to tell by the movement of his eyebrows. He also looked a little alarmed, and that Kirk liked very much. Spock would be very wary of him from now on, because he knew how easily Kirk could destroy him.
“Yes. You keep him, and make sure you keep him alive. And I can come and visit him whenever I feel like it. I also can do with him whatever I like.” The captain watched Spock’s face for any kind of reaction, hoping to get a glimpse behind the famous Vulcan self-control. “I think this is an arrangement that should satisfy both of us. You got any problem with it?”
“Of course not.” Spock’s face gave away nothing, but Kirk was well aware that he was not at all happy to have to share. In fact, Kirk suspected that he was positively furious that his captain would be able to do whatever he wanted with his toy, while Spock could take no action to stop him. This alone made this all worth it.
“May I ask what your reasons are for not informing High Command about the situation?” the Vulcan further inquired.
“You may not. Just be satisfied that I won’t, and you get to keep him. Even if you no longer can keep him all for yourself.” A movement caught Kirk’s attention. McCoy was waking up, stirring weakly while his eyes fluttered open. Perfect timing. “As for the sharing part, this is as good a time as any to start.” He smiled. “I’m sure you won’t mind.”
-
Spock strongly suspected that the captain’s current course of action had to do mainly with him, rather than McCoy, although his interest in the doctor was obvious and fascinating, if not particularly surprising. It was unexpected, though, that he would allow Spock to go unpunished and even let McCoy remain in his care.
Upon closer observation, though, Spock was able to see the purpose hidden under the thin cover of seemingly generous behaviour. Kirk was now able to destroy his career, even his life, at a single word. Should Spock go against his wishes, he would instantly regret it. And Kirk wanted him to understand that, wanted to prove his power over the Vulcan by demonstrating that he could, indeed, do whatever he wanted with Spock’s property, while Spock could do nothing but watch.
Kirk had picked a good subject for his demonstration, too. Generally seen, the shift in their relationship was subtle and without grave consequences, as Spock didn’t have a record of going against his captain’s wishes. Regardless of their differing opinions and preferences when it came to the handling of the various problems presented to them, and regardless of the captain’s distrust of him, Spock had never been anything but loyal to him, and he would remain so as long as Kirk remained his captain. And contrary to Kirk’s apparent belief, Spock had no desire to take his place, as Kirk had done when he had assassinated Captain Pike, to whom Spock had until that moment also been loyal.
Yet, Spock drew a line between his private life and his duty as first officer. Anything that did not interfere with his work was, as the humans put it, none of the captain’s business. He had kept McCoy secret from Kirk because at that point it had been necessary for his own survival and without consequence to the ship. There was no easy, logical explanation for his keeping the human beyond the time of his necessity. Kirk obviously was aware of this, and was now judging the man from the other universe a possible weakness of Spock’s.
What angered Spock more than anything else was that, apparently, Kirk was right: Spock found himself… unsettled by the thought of Kirk using the human Spock considered his property in any way.
Although the Vulcan was convinced most of his dissatisfaction was caused by the knowledge that Kirk did this to point out that Spock was powerless and the fact that indeed he was.
He did not appreciate this.
And despite Spock’s perfect control over his emotions, which enabled him to keep them from showing even in the slightest, he was quite certain that Kirk knew how much this displeased him and took pleasure from it.
Still, even Captain Kirk had no way of knowing how much it irritated Spock that after all the torture McCoy had suffered at his hands, it was Kirk who horrified him more. The human had crawled away as far as his chains allowed him and was now watching Kirk through wide, scared eyes. Spock felt his fear, and for once it was not directed at him.
Quite irritating indeed.
Naturally, Spock knew that the cause for that fear lay not so much in the man himself but rather in the fact that McCoy had clung to the memory of the Kirk he knew when the memory he had of the man he called ‘his’ Spock became more and more tainted by the Spock he now unwillingly served. A part if McCoy, it seemed, illogically still held on to the image of how he remembered Kirk to be and projected it to this one. A part of him still, despite everything, believed that James Kirk was a good man who would not hurt him, while at the same time he knew that image was going to be shattered, leaving him with nothing at all.
The fact remained that at this moment, Kirk had more power over McCoy than Spock, and this, the Vulcan found, troubled him more than the power the captain had over him.
“Come here,” Kirk ordered calmly. As Spock expected, McCoy did not. Kirk appeared to not have expected it either, since he didn’t get angry, nor did he repeat the order. Instead he looked at Spock and tilted his head to the side in wordless demand. Keeping his face carefully blank, Spock walked over to the doctor and grabbed him by the arms to pull him to his feet. The chains were not quite long enough for them to reach the bed, so Spock removed them from the manacles around McCoy’s wrists, now bleeding from his desperate attempt to get away. The lock was coded for Spock’s DNA, requiring no key, yet unbreakable. Perfect, unless, of course, someone forced him to open it.
“No!” McCoy screamed, actually screamed in a volume Spock had not thought he had the strength for. “No, no, please, not him…” He was hysterical with panic in a way he had stopped to be for Spock long ago. Weak as he was, he struggled against the Vulcan’s hold, and Spock sensed how much he wanted to die, right now, before the last friend he had left was taken from him. Spock felt him struggle against the mental control like never before and did not bother to exercise that control. He could have kept the human quiet by willing him to, but got more satisfaction out of dragging him forcibly over to where Kirk was waiting for them. It would not do for the captain to know how well he could control his pet if he wanted to, nor did he see any point in keeping from Kirk how much McCoy disapproved of his presence.
He expected McCoy to keep up his struggle, but the moment Spock threw him at Kirk and Kirk grabbed him by one arm and the back of his neck, the doctor seemed to freeze. He was staring at the other human with an expression of pure terror on his face. Spock sensed all his emotions down to the ridiculously fast beating of his heart, and had to shut them out of an extent, else they would threaten his control over himself.
On Kirk’s lips was the soft, innocent smile so many females had made the mistake of falling for, but his eyes were cold. While McCoy’s heart was racing far too fast, he had stopped breathing almost completely.
“No need to be so scared. I’m not going to hurt you.” It was one of Kirk’s favourite lines to say upon meeting someone whose cooperation he desired, and it was nearly always a lie. But his voice was as soft as his smile, and something about this made people want to believe him.
Spock noticed, now, that the index finger of the hand on McCoy’s neck was gently stroking over the hair at the back of his head, but the grip of the hand around the thin arm, just below the manacle, was so tight the knuckles were showing white under Kirk’s skin. McCoy did not register the pain. He did not fall for the smile.
Kirk’s eyes were on the doctor, but his next words were directed at Spock. “You need to feed him better.”
An unexpected remark. “He is currently unable to keep down any kind of solid food. The nutrition I provide is sufficient to keep him on a functioning level.”
“A functioning level.” Kirk’s lips curled in a good natured grimace. He removed his hand from McCoy’s neck to caress his cheek. “Ever the romantic, our Mr. Spock.”
His words pulled McCoy from his petrifaction. He jerked back his head and tried to free his hand, but Kirk held on to him without effort, and one second later had him thrown to the bed, pinning down both his wrists as he leaned over him.
“Is he always this uncooperative?” For some reason, Kirk was insistent on keeping up his conversation with Spock, thus pulling him back into the scene instead of letting him fade into the background from where he could watch and work on suppressing his anger in silence.
“He is not usually exited about this kind of activities, nor showing any willingness to participate in them,” the Vulcan said, his voice completely neutral. Kirk snorted in reply. He seemed amused and Spock was unable to figure out why. He could not understand the working of his captain’s mind in any situation that was not military. And Kirk, mindful of his touch-telepathy, had made sure all the years they served together never to let Spock touch his skin and catch even the smallest hint of his thoughts or emotions.
He preferred the vest over the standard uniform, displaying his bare arms to Spock nearly every day as if to mock him.
The captain’s next words were directed at McCoy again. “Perhaps Spock just doesn’t know how to handle you correctly.” His voice was seductive; a strange contrast to his words, which were chosen as if he were talking to an inanimate tool.
Which, in itself, would be an illogical thing to do.
McCoy was fighting against Kirk’s hold, but he didn’t make a sound until the other human forced his thighs apart with his knees.
“No, please.” What had been intended as a shout came out choked and hoarse. “Jim…”
Kirk hesitated for one point six seconds at the hearing of this abbreviation of his given name, then he let go of one arm and stroke McCoy across the face in a casual looking gesture. McCoy’s upper lip split upon the impact. The sight stirred something nameless in Spock that challenged his self-control.
“Be quiet, or I’ll find a better use for that mouth,” Kirk said friendly. “I’m sure Spock would love to help.” He leaned down to lick the blood off McCoy’s face, and Spock for the first time since Kirk had entered his quarters used his control over the doctor to make sure he did not utter another word. He would not let he captain drag him into this any deeper.
McCoy, he found, had until now very nearly forgotten Spock even existed. All his senses and thoughts were focused on the man pressing him down, and there was nothing his master could do about this without betraying his Vulcan nature, his empire and his captain. His captain who was openly challenging him, so smug in his superiority. Spock found himself quite angered, but resolved not to let Kirk provoke him into losing his calm, as clearly was his intention.
The captain of the Enterprise had let go of McCoy’s arms completely, having found it sufficient to lean on his chest with one hand while the other was free to explore the near-skeletal body. McCoy could claw and tear at his arm all he liked, against Kirk’s strength he did not stand a chance.
Behind his annoyance concerning Kirk’s behaviour, Spock was more than a little puzzled by it. He knew for a fact that the captain and the CMO had never had any sexual relations with each other, and he also believed that Kirk had never been particularly interested in the doctor. In the light of that knowledge, what was going on before his eyes was inexplicable, even if Spock assumed that Kirk acted mainly with the goal of punishing Spock. There would have been other ways of accomplishing that, even if Kirk considered the involvement of McCoy to be crucial.
Spock had never been very interested in the shared history of Kirk and McCoy. He was aware that they had known each other long before they served together on the Enterprise, and that Kirk had assassinated Doctor Piper, who had been CMO when Kirk took over as captain, specifically with the intention of replacing him with his old acquaintance, yet on board the ship their relationship had never obviously transcended the professional level and so was of no interest to Spock. McCoy had been loyal to Kirk and Kirk had made clear that the doctor was not to be harmed, but apart from that they had not seemed close enough for McCoy to be a potential goal for anyone looking for a weakness of Kirk’s to take advantage of.
The memories he had taken from the doctor when he died had been fragmentary and scrambled, of little help or matter to the Vulcan. Only when he had observed Kirk’s ongoing negative reaction to McCoy’s demise had be begun to wonder if McCoy had been more to him than a skilled, if weak, surgeon. By then the question had been purely academic, however, since McCoy was dead and any relationship of whatever kind he might have shared with Kirk no longer mattered. Spock wasted no time marvelling on it.
Interestingly, the fragmented memories had begun to make sense after he had transferred them to this McCoy. His action had been motivated by the simple desire to make the human suffer as his old memories of trust and friendship were overwritten by new ones of fear and death. Getting a better picture of the dead man had been an accidental side effect, and Spock wasn’t entirely certain how it had happened. After all, he was a telepath, trained in these matters, and McCoy was about as far from that as a sentient being could be. Perhaps it was the fact that the mind he took the memories from and the one he gave it to were, if not identical, at least similar, and there were enough parallels for the subconscious to fill the gabs. In that case the picture created was full of inaccuracies. But since the original memories of this McCoy were profoundly different from the new ones Spock found in his mind, he deemed them accurate enough.
Not that it mattered. It was simply… interesting. It also answered a number of questions.
James Kirk, Spock had learned, had not always been the cold and sadistic man he knew. At least in the memory of McCoy he had once been a gentler person who laughed a lot, loved without reservations and evoked feelings of true loyalty in the then young doctor, instead of just wary obedience. It was his ambition that had changed him: To succeed in this world, a certain ruthlessness was absolutely necessary, and Kirk quickly found out that he had the potential to make it very far, if only he was more ruthless than anyone else. He forgot how to be anything else, justifying the means by the ends and never stopping to think of the corpses he left in this wake.
McCoy had been shocked by the development of his best friend. He had distanced himself from the young officer when it became clear that Kirk would not listen to him. Yet, he had always been there when Kirk needed him, even after Kirk had gone to space and McCoy remained on Earth.
He was the only one Kirk trusted, the only one whose loyalty was without doubt. McCoy had no ambitions, having accepted that he simply was not capable of the cruelty required for promotion, and therefore Kirk never had to worry about McCoy betraying him for his own gain. He had even honoured the doctor’s honest opinion, at first, knowing he would never just tell him what he thought the captain wanted to hear.
But that, too, had changed.
For some reason closed to Spock’s understanding, Kirk had valued McCoy’s friendship enough to be unwilling to lose it. Knowing the doctor was unable to protect himself in an empire based on blackmail and murder, he had made sure to get McCoy on his ship as soon as possible, where he could protect him. But by then his power had corrupted him too much to tolerate his CMO’s unpleasant opinions any longer. He was more than willing to exercise his power over McCoy in a way that made sure he would go along with any order no matter what he thought of it and be too scared to tell Kirk anything he didn’t want to hear. It had, in the long run, destroyed the doctor, turned him into a drunk wreck incapable of standing himself or anyone else. It had also destroyed any remaining traces of the friendship he and Kirk had once shared.
Why still he had been so important to the captain was not something Spock was able to figure out.
Nor could he understand why despite the lack of any kind of obvious sexual attraction, right now Kirk was effortlessly pressing down a different version of the man whose loss had left him angry and defeated, pulling down his own pants with his free hand. Admittedly, Spock wasn’t sexually attracted to McCoy either, or to anyone for that matter, but he got an intoxicating satisfaction out of the human’s humiliation and pain as experienced through the bond. Kirk would not, so that was no possible explanation for his behaviour.
Under different circumstances. Spock would enjoy the fear and despair he received from McCoy. Kirk might not do this if he knew of the pleasure Spock could get from it. But then, Spock didn’t get any pleasure now, only anger and frustration.
Apparently, his enjoyment of McCoy’s suffering was directly connected to being the cause of it. Interesting. He had to make this the object of further reflection.
At the moment, he could not find the calm required for such meditations on himself. Unable to do anything else, he stood back, his hands clasped behind his back, and watched as Kirk prepared to penetrate the struggling McCoy.
“You’ve been pretty rough, I see,” Kirk said when he inspected the doctor’s nether regions. “It’s no surprise he doesn’t like you.”
Spock saw no factor in the words that forced him to reply, so he didn’t.
“Well, you’re going to love me. I’m much nicer than Spock.”
“So destroying the Halkons was your idea of doing them a favour?” The words were hissed, half choked, between clenched teeth, but they were said when Spock didn’t want McCoy to speak. The human had not been able to resist him like this in a long time. Spock’s displeasure with the situation grew.
“Killing him was an act of kindness?” There was no need to wonder who McCoy was talking about.
Kirk’s face darkened and for the first time showed real anger. His right hand grabbed the doctor’s throat and pressed him down into the mattress, choking him. “I ordered you not to speak,” the captain snapped. Fortunately, he appeared to have forgotten what he had threatened to happen in case McCoy ignored his order.
The doctor’s struggle took on a new, even more desperate quality. It was not death he feared. Given the choice between strangulation and the fate Kirk had in mind for him, he would have chosen death without a second thought.
If Spock had assumed that Kirk was indeed going to kill McCoy once more, he was uncertain as to how he would have reacted. The instincts forced on him by the bond urged him to protect his mate from any predator, but his honour as an officer of the empire forbade him to take any action that would bring harm to his captain. It didn’t matter if the captain deserved that loyalty, or if Spock was the only one in the empire holding on to that kind of honour. It was the person he had chosen to be.
And that meant he would not let ancient instincts control his actions. If Kirk wanted to kill someone, anyone, Spock would not stop him.
At least not at any cost.
But Kirk’s intention was not to kill McCoy. He went back to his initial course of action soon enough, letting go of the doctor’s throat to part his tights, and McCoy recovered his breath just in time to scream in pain and desperation as Kirk thrust into him.
It looked obsolete, perverted. Spock had never had a favour of watching other people have sex, and the sight of Kirk roughly fucking McCoy disgusted him. His face, however, remained carefully blank, even as a strangled sob escaped McCoy’s abused throat. Even as he finally gave up on his futile resistance and broke.
Spock sensed the exact moment when all fight left the human, even if Kirk might not. The captain certainly noticed that McCoy stopped fighting against him, but the further implications were closed to him. His formerly treacherously gentle smile turned into an ugly grimace as he kept thrusting into the doctor, hard but not as brutally as Spock used to. Kirk also took hold of McCoy’s penis, stroking it in an expert way either tested on himself or proof that he was not at all a stranger to sex with a partner of the same sex. But McCoy hardly even felt it. He was falling deeper into despair with every second; beyond hope for relief, beyond fear. He felt nothing but the pain and accepted it without caring.
His lack of reaction frustrated Kirk and his thrusts became harsher, more pronounced. Yet, he did not appear overly surprised. Without doubt, he had raped enough people in his life to know that an orgasm could not be forced out of everyone, especially when the victim was in such emotional distress and the body too weak to react. His ego would not suffer.
Altogether, it only took fifteen point seven minutes from the moment Kirk threw McCoy onto the bed. The captain came with a groan that seemed to Spock artificially loud, pulled out and left a mess on Spock’s bed sheets as blood and semen tricked out of McCoy’s anus. This was one of the reasons why Spock, when he did this at all, did it on the floor.
McCoy remained on the bed, making no move to get away even though he was no longer being held down. He was staring at the ceiling, crying soundlessly without even knowing he was doing it. All Spock received from him was empty despair.
Kirk pulled his own pants back into position before he bent down to press a light kiss to McCoy’s slightly parted lips, mockingly. The look he had for Spock when he got up and straightened his clothes was impossible to read. Kirk was looking him up and down, as if trying to measure his worth.
“Take good care of him,” he eventually said. “I might want to do that again.” He left.
The moment the door closed after him, Spock moved. Grabbing McCoy by the upper arms, he pulled him to his feet, and McCoy let him without any form of resistance. He didn’t care what Spock was going to do to him now. He didn’t care.
For twenty seven seconds, Spock stared into the pale face while in return, McCoy’s blue eyes looked right though him. Something inside the man had died. Kirk had killed it.
After weeks of tormenting this human in ways his captain was not capable of even thinking of, it was Kirk who had broken him. Compared to the way Spock liked to take him, Kirk’s violation had not even been particularly brutal. Spock had made McCoy suffer so much more, and yet these ridiculously few minutes had been enough to completely shatter what Spock had been unable to destroy.
It filled the Vulcan with a cold anger not unlike the anger he had felt when T’Pring had chosen Stonn over him, but not the same either. He had been cheated out of his triumph.
And there was no one he could make pay for it.
“Go clean yourself,” he said, releasing his hold on McCoy’s arms. The human swayed on his feet but managed to remain upright. Spock watched him as he made his way over to the bathroom. Before today he would not have let him go alone, even with the mental control he had over him. The risk of McCoy breaking it long enough to kill himself had been too high.
Now, the doctor didn’t even think of it. He followed his order, knowing Spock would be there to prevent any attempt of his to escape. Still, the Vulcan monitored his movements as he stumbled into the small shower.
The metal bars piercing his wrists and the pain resulting from his latest struggle made McCoy’s hands nearly useless. Still, he got the water running. It was too hot for him, almost scalding, but he stood still under the hard spray until his legs gave out and he fell to his knees. Spock could hear him retch in the next room. His suffering still resonated pleasantly in the Vulcan’s mind, but the original satisfaction was gone. Kirk had taken it from him.
Perhaps now it was time to finally kill the doctor. It would anger Kirk, and there was a certain satisfaction in that thought. But Spock did not doubt that Kirk would then reveal to High Command what he had done and officially accuse him of treason. No. The captain owned him now, due to Spock’s inability to let go of this worthless creature in time, and there was nothing he could do but obey him.
Eventually, Spock walked over to the bathroom himself. He turned off the shower, careful not to soak the sleeve of his uniform as he reached for the regulator. By then, the water had washed away the vomit and the blood, but the water running from McCoy’s wrists and over his hands was still tinted pink. The human lay curled up on the wet floor. He made no move to protect himself as Spock kicked him in the stomach, the chest, until his rips broke, spending his rage the only way open to him. The pain felt good, and it felt good to know that he was the one who caused it, but in the end the pleasure remained hollow, because McCoy simply did not care.
He didn’t even fear him anymore.
***
By layout and construction, the USS Enterprise was completely identical with the ISS Enterprise. Some rooms had different uses, but in general it was pretty much the same. It made finding the way on one ship very easy even if one only was familiar with the other.
To Montgomery Scott, who knew the ship better than anyone, this was a great advantage. The knowledge most useful to him in his first days and weeks in the alternate universe was that of the Jeffries tubes and repair shafts and all the hidden places even most engineers didn’t know about. They allowed him to move about the ship unseen and at the same time observe anything he wanted to observe.
Hiding away where no one could find him through the searches for the murderer presumed to be among the crew, Scott waited until the most dangerous time was over before he dared to go out and be seen. Fortunately, there were no immediately obvious marks distinguishing him and his counterpart. He doubted the other Scott had quite his collection of scars, but those were hidden beneath his clothes and only a lover or a doctor would notice them.
As far as he had been able to find out, his counterpart had no long lasting sexual partner. And with the former chief surgeon gone, perhaps no one would notice at all. With the medical equipment on board of this Enterprise, Scott might even be able to remove the scars, at least to a certain extent, if only he could get his hands on what he needed. And until then he had a bit of time left. He was not in a hurry.
Except he was growing tired of living a shadow’s life in the tubes. He had taken his time spying on Scott - learning his schedule, which shifts he worked, where he went in his free time. He found out who his friends were and how he behaved around co-workers or his commanding officers, what he liked and what not. Eventually, he would be able to copy him perfectly.
He’d already tested it. True, those tests were not for the sake of testing but for the sake of getting out of his hiding places, rise to his full, if not particularly impressive height, and get things he needed and wanted. The food he had brought along had been eaten within the first few days, and he had to get out when he knew the other Scott was either sleeping or busy elsewhere and go to the canteen to get new reserves. It wouldn’t do for him to take over and have to find an explanation why he suddenly had lost half his weight.
The first time he had been very nervous, thinking everyone would see through him. He’d chosen a time when hardly anyone was around, and went back into hiding within a matter of minutes. But as time passed and his knowledge of his mirror self grew, he became bolder, more sure of himself. Eventually, not even the engineer’s closest friends would be able to tell the difference anymore.
Eventually, he would be able to make this universe’s Scott disappear and take his place without anyone ever noticing.
The differences between them weren’t even that big. It was obvious from the way they acted and the things they liked that indeed they were, in a sense, the same person. The differences that existed had their cause in history. This Scott was weaker, yet more full of life, because he had been able to enjoy it without the constant struggle. The chief engineer of the ISS Enterprise was certain he would be able to get used to that.
They even shared some of the same friends. Scott would never be able to turn his back on Sulu if he lived here a thousand years, but he had learned quickly that the other Scott had liked this world’s McCoy and mourned his loss. Other than his self from the other side of the mirror, he was even able to show it without consequences. This was a good world.
Every once in a while he spared a second’s thought for the man he had sacrificed in order to get here. Back in his world, Leonard had been his only close friend, the only one he actually trusted, and he was sorry when he thought of the things this other McCoy had to suffer in the world Scott came from. He had looked miserable the one time Scott had seen him, hanging motionlessly in Spock’s arms, and was probably dead by now. But in the end, it hadn’t been his friend. His friend had died many weeks before.
Scott felt regret for McCoy’s fate, but not for his own actions. He came from a world were every man cared for himself, and for himself only. If he had to, he would do it again.
It was a mindset he would have to let go of, or at least learn to hide if he wanted to successfully impersonate his counterpart. But the letting go would have to wait until after he had murdered ‘Scotty’ and gotten rid of his corpse.
November 7, 2009
Chapter 5
FANDOM: Star Trek TOS
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Mirror! Scott, Mirror!Kirk/McCoy, Mirror!Spock/McCoy (this part)
TABLE: # 8 - Miscellaneous B
PROMPT: 03. Answers
RATING: NC-17
WORD COUNT: 6442
WARNINGS: Mental and physical rape, torture, violence. Dark, with a capital D.
SUMMARY: Facing ponn far without a chance to get to Vulcan, Mirror!Spock resorts to desperate measures to survive. McCoy has to suffer for it.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I'm writing for fun, not for profit.
NOTE: Unbetaed. If you find mistakes (which I’m sure you will), feel free to point them out to me.
Captain Kirk awaited Spock when he returned to his quarters. Spock was not surprised. He had known, through his bond with McCoy, that Kirk had discovered the doctor, and knew there would either be a confrontation in private, or he would be arrested the moment he returned to the ship. Since no arresting happened upon his return, the captain’s presence had to be expected.
As was the phaser pointing at his middle.
“You have a lot to explain, Mr. Spock.”
Kirk was lying on Spock’s bed. McCoy was still on the floor, still unconscious, but he wouldn’t remain so very much longer. Spock stepped inside and let the doors close behind him.
“It appears I do.”
Silence followed.
“Well? Are you going to start now, or do I have to shoot off your leg first?”
“Such an act of violence would be unjustified, as you have not yet asked any questions, Sir.” Considering the situation and the very real threat presented by the weapon, Spock considered it wise to be polite.
“Don’t act stupid, Spock!” Kirk sat up to gesture over at the motionless man in the corner. “Even to you, it should be obvious what I want to know.”
“Very well.” Spock stood straight, his hands joined behind his back. “Doctor McCoy is mentally compatible with me. I therefore required his service to survive my most recent ponn far. I apologize for keeping this from you, but since it is without consequence to ship and crew, I consider my action to be excusable.”
“That isn’t McCoy,” Kirk said sharply.
Spock waged his possible responses and decided on honesty. “It is. It is merely not the McCoy you have known. I am certain you recall the incident in which you and your away team have been, duo to a transporter accident, transported to another universe…”
“You mean this is the McCoy from that universe?” Kirk stared at the doctor with new interest, but part of his attention always remained on Spock and the phaser in his hand did not waver. “You went over to another dimension to get a copy of McCoy? Are you out of your mind? How did you even do that? I thought the gate was closed.”
Spock could have told him that the word ‘dimension’ wasn’t quite appropriate here, but judged it would not be considered helpful. “Commander Scott was of assistance. I do believe he used the opportunity to escape to the other universe. He took his knowledge of how to get there with him.” This time, Spock decided that the full truth was not called for.
Kirk didn’t appear to have heard him. His eyes were fixed on McCoy. Eventually, he said, “You know there will be consequences.”
Spock had expected that. “I am prepared to face them.” This might cost him his rank, or even his position in Starfleet. Spock had known it was a risk to keep the doctor. He should have gotten rid of him the moment he didn’t need him anymore. “Do consider, though, that my men will not take lightly on my demise.” There was no telling how far Kirk was willing to go.
Spock had not expected the captain to laugh at his words.
-
During his wait for Spock, Kirk had had time to think about his options, and consider the consequences of each. He had every right to have Spock arrested for treason, for his actions had cost them their chief engineer, and he had crossed universes without asking his captain for permission, let alone tell him of the prisoner he had take over there. A stable passage to another dimension would have granted them great military advances, yet everything Spock had done had happened to his own gain, without regard to the consequences his actions had for the ship. If Kirk was looking for a way to get rid of his first officer without having to kill him and provoke the wrath of those loyal to Spock, this was it.
But this course of action would require him to involve the empire. Someone would come to take Spock away and send him to the next prison planet or have him executed - the latter of which Kirk would prefer. Spock was resourceful. A living Spock was a Spock that might one day come back, and he certainly wouldn’t be amused. But then, accidents could be arranged, even in prison. If he got rid of Spock now, it would probably be forever.
But those who came to take Spock would also take McCoy. They’d be very interested to learn all they could get out of him about the universe he came from. And he, too, would disappear from Kirk’s sight forever.
Which was an entirely undesirable outcome.
Kirk was well aware that this wasn’t McCoy. Or at least it wasn’t the man who had been his friend so long ago, when things had still been very different. It wasn’t the man whose respect and loyalty Kirk had lost and who had died before he could win it back, leaving him defeated. But it was the closest he would ever get.
Kirk wouldn’t let him go. He wouldn’t even take him from Spock, because in here he was safe from discovery, and someone was taking care of him, if making sure he didn’t die from the abuse at the hand of his caretaker counted as such.
And this allowed him to keep a very capable first officer and control him completely so eh was no threat.
“The consequences you are facing won’t have any negative effects on your vitality,” he said, and with a second’s pause added, “Yet.” The ‘yet’ was very important. Spock, without doubt, knew what it meant. “I’m not going to hand you over, and I’m certainly not going to kill you. I do, however, demand visiting rights.”
“Visiting rights?” Spock was puzzled, which was easy to tell by the movement of his eyebrows. He also looked a little alarmed, and that Kirk liked very much. Spock would be very wary of him from now on, because he knew how easily Kirk could destroy him.
“Yes. You keep him, and make sure you keep him alive. And I can come and visit him whenever I feel like it. I also can do with him whatever I like.” The captain watched Spock’s face for any kind of reaction, hoping to get a glimpse behind the famous Vulcan self-control. “I think this is an arrangement that should satisfy both of us. You got any problem with it?”
“Of course not.” Spock’s face gave away nothing, but Kirk was well aware that he was not at all happy to have to share. In fact, Kirk suspected that he was positively furious that his captain would be able to do whatever he wanted with his toy, while Spock could take no action to stop him. This alone made this all worth it.
“May I ask what your reasons are for not informing High Command about the situation?” the Vulcan further inquired.
“You may not. Just be satisfied that I won’t, and you get to keep him. Even if you no longer can keep him all for yourself.” A movement caught Kirk’s attention. McCoy was waking up, stirring weakly while his eyes fluttered open. Perfect timing. “As for the sharing part, this is as good a time as any to start.” He smiled. “I’m sure you won’t mind.”
-
Spock strongly suspected that the captain’s current course of action had to do mainly with him, rather than McCoy, although his interest in the doctor was obvious and fascinating, if not particularly surprising. It was unexpected, though, that he would allow Spock to go unpunished and even let McCoy remain in his care.
Upon closer observation, though, Spock was able to see the purpose hidden under the thin cover of seemingly generous behaviour. Kirk was now able to destroy his career, even his life, at a single word. Should Spock go against his wishes, he would instantly regret it. And Kirk wanted him to understand that, wanted to prove his power over the Vulcan by demonstrating that he could, indeed, do whatever he wanted with Spock’s property, while Spock could do nothing but watch.
Kirk had picked a good subject for his demonstration, too. Generally seen, the shift in their relationship was subtle and without grave consequences, as Spock didn’t have a record of going against his captain’s wishes. Regardless of their differing opinions and preferences when it came to the handling of the various problems presented to them, and regardless of the captain’s distrust of him, Spock had never been anything but loyal to him, and he would remain so as long as Kirk remained his captain. And contrary to Kirk’s apparent belief, Spock had no desire to take his place, as Kirk had done when he had assassinated Captain Pike, to whom Spock had until that moment also been loyal.
Yet, Spock drew a line between his private life and his duty as first officer. Anything that did not interfere with his work was, as the humans put it, none of the captain’s business. He had kept McCoy secret from Kirk because at that point it had been necessary for his own survival and without consequence to the ship. There was no easy, logical explanation for his keeping the human beyond the time of his necessity. Kirk obviously was aware of this, and was now judging the man from the other universe a possible weakness of Spock’s.
What angered Spock more than anything else was that, apparently, Kirk was right: Spock found himself… unsettled by the thought of Kirk using the human Spock considered his property in any way.
Although the Vulcan was convinced most of his dissatisfaction was caused by the knowledge that Kirk did this to point out that Spock was powerless and the fact that indeed he was.
He did not appreciate this.
And despite Spock’s perfect control over his emotions, which enabled him to keep them from showing even in the slightest, he was quite certain that Kirk knew how much this displeased him and took pleasure from it.
Still, even Captain Kirk had no way of knowing how much it irritated Spock that after all the torture McCoy had suffered at his hands, it was Kirk who horrified him more. The human had crawled away as far as his chains allowed him and was now watching Kirk through wide, scared eyes. Spock felt his fear, and for once it was not directed at him.
Quite irritating indeed.
Naturally, Spock knew that the cause for that fear lay not so much in the man himself but rather in the fact that McCoy had clung to the memory of the Kirk he knew when the memory he had of the man he called ‘his’ Spock became more and more tainted by the Spock he now unwillingly served. A part if McCoy, it seemed, illogically still held on to the image of how he remembered Kirk to be and projected it to this one. A part of him still, despite everything, believed that James Kirk was a good man who would not hurt him, while at the same time he knew that image was going to be shattered, leaving him with nothing at all.
The fact remained that at this moment, Kirk had more power over McCoy than Spock, and this, the Vulcan found, troubled him more than the power the captain had over him.
“Come here,” Kirk ordered calmly. As Spock expected, McCoy did not. Kirk appeared to not have expected it either, since he didn’t get angry, nor did he repeat the order. Instead he looked at Spock and tilted his head to the side in wordless demand. Keeping his face carefully blank, Spock walked over to the doctor and grabbed him by the arms to pull him to his feet. The chains were not quite long enough for them to reach the bed, so Spock removed them from the manacles around McCoy’s wrists, now bleeding from his desperate attempt to get away. The lock was coded for Spock’s DNA, requiring no key, yet unbreakable. Perfect, unless, of course, someone forced him to open it.
“No!” McCoy screamed, actually screamed in a volume Spock had not thought he had the strength for. “No, no, please, not him…” He was hysterical with panic in a way he had stopped to be for Spock long ago. Weak as he was, he struggled against the Vulcan’s hold, and Spock sensed how much he wanted to die, right now, before the last friend he had left was taken from him. Spock felt him struggle against the mental control like never before and did not bother to exercise that control. He could have kept the human quiet by willing him to, but got more satisfaction out of dragging him forcibly over to where Kirk was waiting for them. It would not do for the captain to know how well he could control his pet if he wanted to, nor did he see any point in keeping from Kirk how much McCoy disapproved of his presence.
He expected McCoy to keep up his struggle, but the moment Spock threw him at Kirk and Kirk grabbed him by one arm and the back of his neck, the doctor seemed to freeze. He was staring at the other human with an expression of pure terror on his face. Spock sensed all his emotions down to the ridiculously fast beating of his heart, and had to shut them out of an extent, else they would threaten his control over himself.
On Kirk’s lips was the soft, innocent smile so many females had made the mistake of falling for, but his eyes were cold. While McCoy’s heart was racing far too fast, he had stopped breathing almost completely.
“No need to be so scared. I’m not going to hurt you.” It was one of Kirk’s favourite lines to say upon meeting someone whose cooperation he desired, and it was nearly always a lie. But his voice was as soft as his smile, and something about this made people want to believe him.
Spock noticed, now, that the index finger of the hand on McCoy’s neck was gently stroking over the hair at the back of his head, but the grip of the hand around the thin arm, just below the manacle, was so tight the knuckles were showing white under Kirk’s skin. McCoy did not register the pain. He did not fall for the smile.
Kirk’s eyes were on the doctor, but his next words were directed at Spock. “You need to feed him better.”
An unexpected remark. “He is currently unable to keep down any kind of solid food. The nutrition I provide is sufficient to keep him on a functioning level.”
“A functioning level.” Kirk’s lips curled in a good natured grimace. He removed his hand from McCoy’s neck to caress his cheek. “Ever the romantic, our Mr. Spock.”
His words pulled McCoy from his petrifaction. He jerked back his head and tried to free his hand, but Kirk held on to him without effort, and one second later had him thrown to the bed, pinning down both his wrists as he leaned over him.
“Is he always this uncooperative?” For some reason, Kirk was insistent on keeping up his conversation with Spock, thus pulling him back into the scene instead of letting him fade into the background from where he could watch and work on suppressing his anger in silence.
“He is not usually exited about this kind of activities, nor showing any willingness to participate in them,” the Vulcan said, his voice completely neutral. Kirk snorted in reply. He seemed amused and Spock was unable to figure out why. He could not understand the working of his captain’s mind in any situation that was not military. And Kirk, mindful of his touch-telepathy, had made sure all the years they served together never to let Spock touch his skin and catch even the smallest hint of his thoughts or emotions.
He preferred the vest over the standard uniform, displaying his bare arms to Spock nearly every day as if to mock him.
The captain’s next words were directed at McCoy again. “Perhaps Spock just doesn’t know how to handle you correctly.” His voice was seductive; a strange contrast to his words, which were chosen as if he were talking to an inanimate tool.
Which, in itself, would be an illogical thing to do.
McCoy was fighting against Kirk’s hold, but he didn’t make a sound until the other human forced his thighs apart with his knees.
“No, please.” What had been intended as a shout came out choked and hoarse. “Jim…”
Kirk hesitated for one point six seconds at the hearing of this abbreviation of his given name, then he let go of one arm and stroke McCoy across the face in a casual looking gesture. McCoy’s upper lip split upon the impact. The sight stirred something nameless in Spock that challenged his self-control.
“Be quiet, or I’ll find a better use for that mouth,” Kirk said friendly. “I’m sure Spock would love to help.” He leaned down to lick the blood off McCoy’s face, and Spock for the first time since Kirk had entered his quarters used his control over the doctor to make sure he did not utter another word. He would not let he captain drag him into this any deeper.
McCoy, he found, had until now very nearly forgotten Spock even existed. All his senses and thoughts were focused on the man pressing him down, and there was nothing his master could do about this without betraying his Vulcan nature, his empire and his captain. His captain who was openly challenging him, so smug in his superiority. Spock found himself quite angered, but resolved not to let Kirk provoke him into losing his calm, as clearly was his intention.
The captain of the Enterprise had let go of McCoy’s arms completely, having found it sufficient to lean on his chest with one hand while the other was free to explore the near-skeletal body. McCoy could claw and tear at his arm all he liked, against Kirk’s strength he did not stand a chance.
Behind his annoyance concerning Kirk’s behaviour, Spock was more than a little puzzled by it. He knew for a fact that the captain and the CMO had never had any sexual relations with each other, and he also believed that Kirk had never been particularly interested in the doctor. In the light of that knowledge, what was going on before his eyes was inexplicable, even if Spock assumed that Kirk acted mainly with the goal of punishing Spock. There would have been other ways of accomplishing that, even if Kirk considered the involvement of McCoy to be crucial.
Spock had never been very interested in the shared history of Kirk and McCoy. He was aware that they had known each other long before they served together on the Enterprise, and that Kirk had assassinated Doctor Piper, who had been CMO when Kirk took over as captain, specifically with the intention of replacing him with his old acquaintance, yet on board the ship their relationship had never obviously transcended the professional level and so was of no interest to Spock. McCoy had been loyal to Kirk and Kirk had made clear that the doctor was not to be harmed, but apart from that they had not seemed close enough for McCoy to be a potential goal for anyone looking for a weakness of Kirk’s to take advantage of.
The memories he had taken from the doctor when he died had been fragmentary and scrambled, of little help or matter to the Vulcan. Only when he had observed Kirk’s ongoing negative reaction to McCoy’s demise had be begun to wonder if McCoy had been more to him than a skilled, if weak, surgeon. By then the question had been purely academic, however, since McCoy was dead and any relationship of whatever kind he might have shared with Kirk no longer mattered. Spock wasted no time marvelling on it.
Interestingly, the fragmented memories had begun to make sense after he had transferred them to this McCoy. His action had been motivated by the simple desire to make the human suffer as his old memories of trust and friendship were overwritten by new ones of fear and death. Getting a better picture of the dead man had been an accidental side effect, and Spock wasn’t entirely certain how it had happened. After all, he was a telepath, trained in these matters, and McCoy was about as far from that as a sentient being could be. Perhaps it was the fact that the mind he took the memories from and the one he gave it to were, if not identical, at least similar, and there were enough parallels for the subconscious to fill the gabs. In that case the picture created was full of inaccuracies. But since the original memories of this McCoy were profoundly different from the new ones Spock found in his mind, he deemed them accurate enough.
Not that it mattered. It was simply… interesting. It also answered a number of questions.
James Kirk, Spock had learned, had not always been the cold and sadistic man he knew. At least in the memory of McCoy he had once been a gentler person who laughed a lot, loved without reservations and evoked feelings of true loyalty in the then young doctor, instead of just wary obedience. It was his ambition that had changed him: To succeed in this world, a certain ruthlessness was absolutely necessary, and Kirk quickly found out that he had the potential to make it very far, if only he was more ruthless than anyone else. He forgot how to be anything else, justifying the means by the ends and never stopping to think of the corpses he left in this wake.
McCoy had been shocked by the development of his best friend. He had distanced himself from the young officer when it became clear that Kirk would not listen to him. Yet, he had always been there when Kirk needed him, even after Kirk had gone to space and McCoy remained on Earth.
He was the only one Kirk trusted, the only one whose loyalty was without doubt. McCoy had no ambitions, having accepted that he simply was not capable of the cruelty required for promotion, and therefore Kirk never had to worry about McCoy betraying him for his own gain. He had even honoured the doctor’s honest opinion, at first, knowing he would never just tell him what he thought the captain wanted to hear.
But that, too, had changed.
For some reason closed to Spock’s understanding, Kirk had valued McCoy’s friendship enough to be unwilling to lose it. Knowing the doctor was unable to protect himself in an empire based on blackmail and murder, he had made sure to get McCoy on his ship as soon as possible, where he could protect him. But by then his power had corrupted him too much to tolerate his CMO’s unpleasant opinions any longer. He was more than willing to exercise his power over McCoy in a way that made sure he would go along with any order no matter what he thought of it and be too scared to tell Kirk anything he didn’t want to hear. It had, in the long run, destroyed the doctor, turned him into a drunk wreck incapable of standing himself or anyone else. It had also destroyed any remaining traces of the friendship he and Kirk had once shared.
Why still he had been so important to the captain was not something Spock was able to figure out.
Nor could he understand why despite the lack of any kind of obvious sexual attraction, right now Kirk was effortlessly pressing down a different version of the man whose loss had left him angry and defeated, pulling down his own pants with his free hand. Admittedly, Spock wasn’t sexually attracted to McCoy either, or to anyone for that matter, but he got an intoxicating satisfaction out of the human’s humiliation and pain as experienced through the bond. Kirk would not, so that was no possible explanation for his behaviour.
Under different circumstances. Spock would enjoy the fear and despair he received from McCoy. Kirk might not do this if he knew of the pleasure Spock could get from it. But then, Spock didn’t get any pleasure now, only anger and frustration.
Apparently, his enjoyment of McCoy’s suffering was directly connected to being the cause of it. Interesting. He had to make this the object of further reflection.
At the moment, he could not find the calm required for such meditations on himself. Unable to do anything else, he stood back, his hands clasped behind his back, and watched as Kirk prepared to penetrate the struggling McCoy.
“You’ve been pretty rough, I see,” Kirk said when he inspected the doctor’s nether regions. “It’s no surprise he doesn’t like you.”
Spock saw no factor in the words that forced him to reply, so he didn’t.
“Well, you’re going to love me. I’m much nicer than Spock.”
“So destroying the Halkons was your idea of doing them a favour?” The words were hissed, half choked, between clenched teeth, but they were said when Spock didn’t want McCoy to speak. The human had not been able to resist him like this in a long time. Spock’s displeasure with the situation grew.
“Killing him was an act of kindness?” There was no need to wonder who McCoy was talking about.
Kirk’s face darkened and for the first time showed real anger. His right hand grabbed the doctor’s throat and pressed him down into the mattress, choking him. “I ordered you not to speak,” the captain snapped. Fortunately, he appeared to have forgotten what he had threatened to happen in case McCoy ignored his order.
The doctor’s struggle took on a new, even more desperate quality. It was not death he feared. Given the choice between strangulation and the fate Kirk had in mind for him, he would have chosen death without a second thought.
If Spock had assumed that Kirk was indeed going to kill McCoy once more, he was uncertain as to how he would have reacted. The instincts forced on him by the bond urged him to protect his mate from any predator, but his honour as an officer of the empire forbade him to take any action that would bring harm to his captain. It didn’t matter if the captain deserved that loyalty, or if Spock was the only one in the empire holding on to that kind of honour. It was the person he had chosen to be.
And that meant he would not let ancient instincts control his actions. If Kirk wanted to kill someone, anyone, Spock would not stop him.
At least not at any cost.
But Kirk’s intention was not to kill McCoy. He went back to his initial course of action soon enough, letting go of the doctor’s throat to part his tights, and McCoy recovered his breath just in time to scream in pain and desperation as Kirk thrust into him.
It looked obsolete, perverted. Spock had never had a favour of watching other people have sex, and the sight of Kirk roughly fucking McCoy disgusted him. His face, however, remained carefully blank, even as a strangled sob escaped McCoy’s abused throat. Even as he finally gave up on his futile resistance and broke.
Spock sensed the exact moment when all fight left the human, even if Kirk might not. The captain certainly noticed that McCoy stopped fighting against him, but the further implications were closed to him. His formerly treacherously gentle smile turned into an ugly grimace as he kept thrusting into the doctor, hard but not as brutally as Spock used to. Kirk also took hold of McCoy’s penis, stroking it in an expert way either tested on himself or proof that he was not at all a stranger to sex with a partner of the same sex. But McCoy hardly even felt it. He was falling deeper into despair with every second; beyond hope for relief, beyond fear. He felt nothing but the pain and accepted it without caring.
His lack of reaction frustrated Kirk and his thrusts became harsher, more pronounced. Yet, he did not appear overly surprised. Without doubt, he had raped enough people in his life to know that an orgasm could not be forced out of everyone, especially when the victim was in such emotional distress and the body too weak to react. His ego would not suffer.
Altogether, it only took fifteen point seven minutes from the moment Kirk threw McCoy onto the bed. The captain came with a groan that seemed to Spock artificially loud, pulled out and left a mess on Spock’s bed sheets as blood and semen tricked out of McCoy’s anus. This was one of the reasons why Spock, when he did this at all, did it on the floor.
McCoy remained on the bed, making no move to get away even though he was no longer being held down. He was staring at the ceiling, crying soundlessly without even knowing he was doing it. All Spock received from him was empty despair.
Kirk pulled his own pants back into position before he bent down to press a light kiss to McCoy’s slightly parted lips, mockingly. The look he had for Spock when he got up and straightened his clothes was impossible to read. Kirk was looking him up and down, as if trying to measure his worth.
“Take good care of him,” he eventually said. “I might want to do that again.” He left.
The moment the door closed after him, Spock moved. Grabbing McCoy by the upper arms, he pulled him to his feet, and McCoy let him without any form of resistance. He didn’t care what Spock was going to do to him now. He didn’t care.
For twenty seven seconds, Spock stared into the pale face while in return, McCoy’s blue eyes looked right though him. Something inside the man had died. Kirk had killed it.
After weeks of tormenting this human in ways his captain was not capable of even thinking of, it was Kirk who had broken him. Compared to the way Spock liked to take him, Kirk’s violation had not even been particularly brutal. Spock had made McCoy suffer so much more, and yet these ridiculously few minutes had been enough to completely shatter what Spock had been unable to destroy.
It filled the Vulcan with a cold anger not unlike the anger he had felt when T’Pring had chosen Stonn over him, but not the same either. He had been cheated out of his triumph.
And there was no one he could make pay for it.
“Go clean yourself,” he said, releasing his hold on McCoy’s arms. The human swayed on his feet but managed to remain upright. Spock watched him as he made his way over to the bathroom. Before today he would not have let him go alone, even with the mental control he had over him. The risk of McCoy breaking it long enough to kill himself had been too high.
Now, the doctor didn’t even think of it. He followed his order, knowing Spock would be there to prevent any attempt of his to escape. Still, the Vulcan monitored his movements as he stumbled into the small shower.
The metal bars piercing his wrists and the pain resulting from his latest struggle made McCoy’s hands nearly useless. Still, he got the water running. It was too hot for him, almost scalding, but he stood still under the hard spray until his legs gave out and he fell to his knees. Spock could hear him retch in the next room. His suffering still resonated pleasantly in the Vulcan’s mind, but the original satisfaction was gone. Kirk had taken it from him.
Perhaps now it was time to finally kill the doctor. It would anger Kirk, and there was a certain satisfaction in that thought. But Spock did not doubt that Kirk would then reveal to High Command what he had done and officially accuse him of treason. No. The captain owned him now, due to Spock’s inability to let go of this worthless creature in time, and there was nothing he could do but obey him.
Eventually, Spock walked over to the bathroom himself. He turned off the shower, careful not to soak the sleeve of his uniform as he reached for the regulator. By then, the water had washed away the vomit and the blood, but the water running from McCoy’s wrists and over his hands was still tinted pink. The human lay curled up on the wet floor. He made no move to protect himself as Spock kicked him in the stomach, the chest, until his rips broke, spending his rage the only way open to him. The pain felt good, and it felt good to know that he was the one who caused it, but in the end the pleasure remained hollow, because McCoy simply did not care.
He didn’t even fear him anymore.
***
By layout and construction, the USS Enterprise was completely identical with the ISS Enterprise. Some rooms had different uses, but in general it was pretty much the same. It made finding the way on one ship very easy even if one only was familiar with the other.
To Montgomery Scott, who knew the ship better than anyone, this was a great advantage. The knowledge most useful to him in his first days and weeks in the alternate universe was that of the Jeffries tubes and repair shafts and all the hidden places even most engineers didn’t know about. They allowed him to move about the ship unseen and at the same time observe anything he wanted to observe.
Hiding away where no one could find him through the searches for the murderer presumed to be among the crew, Scott waited until the most dangerous time was over before he dared to go out and be seen. Fortunately, there were no immediately obvious marks distinguishing him and his counterpart. He doubted the other Scott had quite his collection of scars, but those were hidden beneath his clothes and only a lover or a doctor would notice them.
As far as he had been able to find out, his counterpart had no long lasting sexual partner. And with the former chief surgeon gone, perhaps no one would notice at all. With the medical equipment on board of this Enterprise, Scott might even be able to remove the scars, at least to a certain extent, if only he could get his hands on what he needed. And until then he had a bit of time left. He was not in a hurry.
Except he was growing tired of living a shadow’s life in the tubes. He had taken his time spying on Scott - learning his schedule, which shifts he worked, where he went in his free time. He found out who his friends were and how he behaved around co-workers or his commanding officers, what he liked and what not. Eventually, he would be able to copy him perfectly.
He’d already tested it. True, those tests were not for the sake of testing but for the sake of getting out of his hiding places, rise to his full, if not particularly impressive height, and get things he needed and wanted. The food he had brought along had been eaten within the first few days, and he had to get out when he knew the other Scott was either sleeping or busy elsewhere and go to the canteen to get new reserves. It wouldn’t do for him to take over and have to find an explanation why he suddenly had lost half his weight.
The first time he had been very nervous, thinking everyone would see through him. He’d chosen a time when hardly anyone was around, and went back into hiding within a matter of minutes. But as time passed and his knowledge of his mirror self grew, he became bolder, more sure of himself. Eventually, not even the engineer’s closest friends would be able to tell the difference anymore.
Eventually, he would be able to make this universe’s Scott disappear and take his place without anyone ever noticing.
The differences between them weren’t even that big. It was obvious from the way they acted and the things they liked that indeed they were, in a sense, the same person. The differences that existed had their cause in history. This Scott was weaker, yet more full of life, because he had been able to enjoy it without the constant struggle. The chief engineer of the ISS Enterprise was certain he would be able to get used to that.
They even shared some of the same friends. Scott would never be able to turn his back on Sulu if he lived here a thousand years, but he had learned quickly that the other Scott had liked this world’s McCoy and mourned his loss. Other than his self from the other side of the mirror, he was even able to show it without consequences. This was a good world.
Every once in a while he spared a second’s thought for the man he had sacrificed in order to get here. Back in his world, Leonard had been his only close friend, the only one he actually trusted, and he was sorry when he thought of the things this other McCoy had to suffer in the world Scott came from. He had looked miserable the one time Scott had seen him, hanging motionlessly in Spock’s arms, and was probably dead by now. But in the end, it hadn’t been his friend. His friend had died many weeks before.
Scott felt regret for McCoy’s fate, but not for his own actions. He came from a world were every man cared for himself, and for himself only. If he had to, he would do it again.
It was a mindset he would have to let go of, or at least learn to hide if he wanted to successfully impersonate his counterpart. But the letting go would have to wait until after he had murdered ‘Scotty’ and gotten rid of his corpse.
November 7, 2009
Chapter 5