The Terrors (Spock, in Sick Bay)

[sehlatbear]

*Spock curls around the bond with his Jim, guarding it and the bond with his Leonard. There was a respite from the terrors, or maybe this was the hallucination? Spock didn't care. He stroked at the bond, a bright glow in the bleak emptiness of his mind

Comments

[kirktastic]

Kirk came down to sickbay, knowing (or at least thinking he knew) what he would find there.

Finding Jim with his eyes closed, the eldest of the Spock's eyes closed and his hand in the mind-meld position. "...Shit." He knew what he would have to do to talk to ALL of them, and hated it.

Kirk walked across the room, hesitated only a moment before he put his hand on Spock's cheek, the one lying down, and spoke with the mental effort of trying to scream.

I HOPE YOU CAN HEAR ME! WE ARE GOING TO TRY TO GET BONES BACK IN JUST UNDER TWO HOURS.

And hoped he didn't get drawn into whatever they were doing.

[spock_is_spock]

A line of tension appeared between Spock's brows. Sweat began to bead on his face, the hand held aloft, lighting a small clearing around them, trembled.

"That's good, James. Keep talking. Tell him who you are. Tell him..."

Spock sinks to one knee, breathing ragged.

"Tell him that you love him."

[kirktastic]

Every part of Kirk jerked to a ragged stop at Prime's words. Tell him that you love him. Could he do that? He didn't love, not like that... not like... Spock would know the difference, wouldn't he?

Spock? I wish I had some sign you could hear me. I came to you that night because I was worried about you. I'm worried about you now, and here I am again. I need you stop it. I need you to stop attacking us. I'm here... Gonna do everything I can to protect you, right? Just like I did. You were in my head, Spock, you still are. You know what's there. You know why I came!

[sehlatbear]

*The horn grows louder but the door swings wide. The golden rope the other Kirk had been holding leads inside.*

[spock_is_spock]

Surak save me from youth who cannot say 'I love you'...

"Quickly, inside! And draw the door closed behind us!"

[kirktastic]

His eyes snapped open and he stared around for a moment. Oh shit. He grabbed the other him and jerked them both inside, forcing the door shut as quickly as he could behind the three of them.

Then proceeded to lean back against that door, staring at the other two. "...I have no idea what's going on, but whatever ride you're in for... I guess I am too."

[original_fine]

*Spock's mind is a deeply fucked-up place.

The doors, the silence, the imagery on the walls of the antechamber sadden him. Spock is his anchor, his insurance against flying off the handle, and yet inside roil these images. These memories. How can a man live like this? With such doubts, such self-hatred? A man like Spock, who in Jim's experience is the one man he would have made this vow to. The one man he finds worthy of asking everything and nothing of.

Before he can, perhaps ill-advisedly, tell Spock he's an idiot, Jim appears. Kirk feels a flare of anger at that, at the kid usurping him, intruding when it's his job to fix this, his Spock to fix, though rationally he knows Jim is only trying to help. But the images now, the horns and Nazis and everything else scream that this was the wrong thing to do

[sehlatbear]

*There is a tentative dawn in this room - Jim is reminded that Spock often spends his off-duty time reading ancient Vulcan poetry. And that Spock is more fond of flowers than the man would ever admit.

The outer hallway, endless series of doorways, is Spock's logic. It is the surface of his identity - of every Vulcan who follows the way of Surak. It is the tool Spock uses to manage ferocious heart of himself.

Spock hides himself away more thoroughly than other Vulcans, however, twists and turns, blind passages and locked doors before there is any hope of access to that heart.

And once they are there, on the other side of his last, desperate defenses, Spock's heart is quiet but expansive, as surprising as the man himself often is - he has shown Jim and Leonard his heart many times and they have not suspected a thing.

The rope, glimmering more in the pale sunrise that seems to be paused around them, leads them forward.*

[original_fine]

*The dawn reminds Jim of something else, too, of Spock playing the Vulcan lyre, his expression lost in the music. Spock encountering plants or animals, the quiet, meditative study of them that goes beyond science. Spock has a patience for these things that Jim lacks. Sometimes Jim calls Spock's attention to it, an in effort to goad him into admitting something, but he wishes, now, he hadn't. He wishes he would have just watched. Learned some of that patience himself.

This is the Spock Jim feels responding to him, and he follows the golden rope, leading the others forward. He had no fear. Spock's heart, as much a part of him as the cold logic of the hallways without, surrounds him. And Jim is both surprised by it and not, because it is unexpected and familiar all at once.

He hopes Spock will let him study it. Will teach him the patience required. Jim does not know if he has such a place inside of him. Such quiet. His own strength is in movement.*

Thank you, Spock. *He wants to keep that communication open. To reassure him.*

[kirktastic]

It was... fascinating. Kirk actually smirked for a moment to himself as borrowed the quote. He followed the other him, studying everything as they went. So, this was Spock's mind? Or at least, this particular Spock's mind. Where they all the same, or did each one have something different? This was... a lot different then the meld with the eldest of the Spocks simply because he wasn't being shown memories.

It didn't take a genius to realize he was actually walking in Spock's mind, in some Spock-created representation of it. He can feel the Vulcan all around him, a presence as sure as the hum of the Enterprise. He wondered if Spock could actually sense them, or if all of this was unconscious.

I'm getting a headache trying to figure all this out.He glanced to his counterpart, but the other seemed completely unworried, following the weird golden rope in his hand with the sureness of walking the familiar path from quarters to the bridge. Maybe in all that time they were together, he got used to this or something. They were bonded

[original_fine]

*Kirk grins over at his counterpart, feeling warm and benevolent and not sure if it's for any particular reason or because he needs to. Jim is confused, and disturbed, and so is he, but at always it's hidden under his love of the unknown. His certainty that he will find a way out of this. That he will make things better

[kirktastic]

That certainty was something that only could come from experience, one Jim was sorely lacking. "I left orders for it." Jim said immediately. "Straight here, no stops, whether he's conscious or not." He looked between the other two men, and said very quietly, "There's only one thing I'm worried about."

What do we do if he dies while we're in Spock's mind? Will I lose you both? All of you? Me too?

He wasn't sure he could say those words aloud.

[original_fine]

*Kirk isn't sure whether he's hearing Jim's thoughts, or his own. There are so many things it's possible to worry about. So many questions he can neither ask nor answer.

He places his free hand on Jim's shoulder.*

"No one's going to die," *he says, and adopts his characteristic, cocky smirk.* "I won't allow it. And here, at least, I'm captain."

[kirktastic]

Jim looked up to his counterpart, then after a moment, the smirk was returned, "Aye aye, Captain. You seem to know the way, so lead on."

Here, he would just have to trust Kirk's judgment over his own. Or... was it trusting himself, with more experience?

[sehlatbear]

*The landscape is certainly responding to the elder Kirk as though he were the master here, the light rising to reveal a desert of surprising... cultivation. There are gardens on Vulcan, too.

The light does not dim the twinkling lights they had assumed to be stars. But not stars: the collective cultural bonds of Vulcan. Still glowing - the Vulcan of Spock's time still spinning through space with its population of proud and reserved stoics, each with a hidden place of beauty inside them, each living inside of a softly murmuring sky.

Spock's own sky seems to sigh, words on the faintest of exhales, as though his mind were breathing.

This rock, warmed through by the morning sun,
Cannot remain unchanged forever.
The wind will soon carry it away.

Vulcan poetry was... spare. But it would appear they had reached their destination. Spock sat waiting for them, a Terran cat on his lap.*

[original_fine]

*At first, Kirk is not certain whether he's hearing the words with his ears or in his mind, forgetting for a moment that, here, it is all one. His body here is only a kind of projection.

The place is beautiful, reminding Jim of Vulcan but not the place of the koon-ut-kal-if-fee he is familiar with. This is a place of a different spareness, more beautiful. Or perhaps it is the light of dawn washing over the rich landscape.

Or perhaps it is the sight of Spock.

Jim starts forward, pauses as if suddenly thinking better of it, and thinking better yet again moves towards Spock. He cannot help the broad smile of welcome and relief, the bond thick and glimmering and forgotten in his hand. He has never doubted, but this place is not really his to master and the thought of success warms him. He can only assume command over those who accept it.*

"'Soon' is relative, my friend," *he says quietly.*