Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Spock was accustomed to headaches, he'd been afflicted with them from the age of eight years old. He'd never mentioned them to anyone; pain was a thing of the mind, the mind could be controlled.

On Deneva, however, he'd experienced headaches so severe he was convinced his skull would split in two. He'd felt the creature growing inside him, writhing along his spinal cord, spiny tendrils prodding into the tissue at the base of his brain. He'd almost gone mad from the pain, just as the creature had wanted.

The headaches had never fully diminished, they'd subsided to an almost constant dull throbbing. Most days he'd been able to control the pain signals being triggered by the insistent droning.

As the Pon Farr raged within him, whatever control he'd had over the headaches was as far-flung away as the disciplines that kept his emotions in check. His blood boiled, his heart was flame, his head felt like a warp core breach.

A week later he had his first seizure...

~~~~~~~~~~

James Kirk sat in his chair casually sipping his coffee. It was the first time in almost a month that a calmness could be smelled in the air. With the Altair mission completed and Spock on the mend, the Enterprise and her crew were due for a lazy cruise awaiting their next set of orders. Even all the ambient blips and whistles and hushed background status reports chirped more cheerfully.

Kirk glanced over at his First Officer. He smiled a small, sad smile to himself, twice in the span of barely six months they'd nearly lost him. Of all of Spock's rather lengthy, and therefore sobering, list of injuries and illnesses, the infection by the Denevan parasites had been by far the worst. Kirk knew it was bullshit that Spock had been controlling that pain, he'd been stealthy in his observations of the Vulcan's hitched breathing, slightly slumped shoulders, reluctance to twist his neck at certain angles and the overall dullness to his normally bright eyes. Even without his own admission of the fact, Kirk had known that Spock's control of the pain the creature was inflicting was quickly waning.

Then there'd been the whole Pon Farr mess. Spock's entire person had been twisted. Kirk knew his friend had a temper; he absently rubbed at the mostly-healed ligature marks on the back of his neck, and the stripping away of Spock's emotional control had revealed just how violent that temper could be if left unchecked. Jim had been convinced Spock would have actually killed him, that chilled him to the core.

He looked away briefly to sign off on a report on a PADD an ensign pushed before him. After jovially dismissing the young junior officer his gaze once again returned to Spock sitting at his station.

Spock was still too pale for his, actually, for the whole bridge crew's liking. Those unfamiliar with the man would attribute the peculiar and rigid way he held his neck to bad posture, that simply was not the case. Five times Kirk had had to double check the counter signature on the final draft of more than one report, Spock's normally impeccable handwriting shaky and without its usual calligraphic flair. He was still far from himself. On more than one occasion Kirk had caught him lightly rubbing his forehead, seemingly in an attempt to alleviate some unseen pressure originating from within his skull.

Jim Kirk got frequent headaches, he was intimately familiar with all the techniques.

Another ensign, another PADD.

"Mr Spock," he heard Uhura call from her communications board, there was a worried edge in her voice. "Spock? Are you okay? OH GOD...!"

At the sheer panic in Uhura's voice all eyes on the bridge went to her first, then tracked her horrified gaze to Spock.

He slumped first over his monitor, mumbled something mostly to himself that sounded suspiciously like "fuck", still-dull brown eyes rolled back into his head, then collapsed to the deck. His right temple collided with the control panel on the way down, his entire body going completely rigid, then erupting into a vicious tonic-clonic seizure.

~~~~~~~~~~

The bridge crew of the Enterprise boasted a response time in crises well above average of most other command crews. However, when it came to rushing to assist their nearly two meter tall and impossibly well-muscled First Officer as he convulsed on the deck under his station, time simply stopped all together.

Chekov reached Spock first by diving under the rail, Captain Kirk just a fraction of a second behind. Uhura, Sulu, two ensigns monitoring the engineering consoles and a yeoman all screamed into separate comm panels for emergency medical assistance on the bridge. Chekov had the presence of mind to fling Spock's toppled chair back towards Uhura so as to give him and Kirk more room to squeeze themselves between the thrashing Vulcan and computer console. Green blood was flowing freely from the gash on Spock's forehead into his right ear, nose and mouth. "Turn his head to the side, Pav," Kirk instructed, "we don't want him choking on his own blood." He was imminently thankful that McCoy insisted every member of the crew obtained at least a novice field medic status.

The whole nightmare lasted about a minute.

Or so they thought.

Just as it seemed that Spock was coming out of the seizure, a strangled whimper escaped through his very taut vocal chords and it renewed with ferocious vengeance. Not only was Spock's face bloodied, but Kirk's and Chekov's hands were as well, making the job of stabilizing Spock's head all that more difficult.

Dr McCoy barreled out of the turbolift, "what in blazes?” He caught the panic-stricken terror in five sets of eyes.

Beyond Uhura's station Captain Kirk and Ensign Chekov were wedged between the science station and the tall, lanky seizing body of Mr Spock. At this point the upper halves of all three men were virtually covered in bright green blood, as was the deck and metal paneling below and behind them.

"SHITSHITSHIT!" McCoy bound to them in approximately two steps. He pulled a hypo from his belt, plunged it's entirety into the skin of Spock's rib cage as it was the only place that wasn't violently flailing. Once down in sickbay McCoy knew he'd have to be prepared for how sick this hypo would be making the Vulcan-Human hybrid. All of his "voodoo potions" as Spock called them did, some with less severity than others.

After what seemed like hours, but was in actuality closer to less than five minutes, Spock's body finally went limp. He was even paler than before and drenched in sweat and blood. McCoy pressed a compression bandage to the gash beside Spock's right eye brow. He looked to Kirk, "somebody call sickbay and have a couple orderlies bring a gurney. What the fuck happened?"

Uhura answered McCoy with "sickbay already called, orderlies are in the turbolift."

Kirk's eyes never left the still face of his First Officer. He still held his head in his hands. He was gently rubbing the skin behind Spock's right ear with his thumb, more as a way to comfort himself rather than the unconscious Vulcan. "Uhura caught the start of it. He almost seemed like he knew what was coming. I thought he looked 'off' when he came on duty. Jeezus Bones..." He left Sulu in command as he and Chekov accompanied McCoy, the two burley orderlies and an unconscious Spock into the lift.

The remaining bridge crew set about to unpacking the hazmat clean-up kit stowed under the engineering console, trying to ignore the yelling that Spock was seizing again before the turbolift doors closed. Sulu had tears threatening to well over, Uhura wasn't far behind.

Something horrible was definitely very, very wrong with the Enterprise's beloved First Officer.

Chapter Text

Spock seized two more times on the way to sickbay, once in the turbolift and another in the hallway right outside. Bones had had to completely drain the ampules of sedative both times. Spock wouldn't be regaining consciousness any time soon.

"Chapel! Christine! Get over here stat!" Dr McCoy was practically screaming.

As the CMO of a starship, of the starship Enterprise no less, he was accustomed to medical emergencies of all types. Seizures, however, were a rarity. Seizures, violent tonic-clonic cluster seizures, in a Vulcan were unheard of.

"Yes, Doctor...?" Christine Chapel stopped short when she rounded the corner from where she'd been in the lab stooped over a microscope to the ward where McCoy had yelled from. Her blue-grey eyes went wide with surprise and horror at the sight of Captain Kirk and Ensign Chekov, both smeared in darkening green blood, helping orderlies Ol'at and Bruskin gingerly transfer a very unconscious and very bloody Spock onto the biobed. She rushed over to calibrate the bed's settings to Spock's normal parameters as it whirred to life with the limp body on its surface.

McCoy rounded his head nurse on their patient, "he started seizing on the bridge. He's had at least four cluster tonic-clonics within the span of ten minutes. He's had 300mg hoxopirazine, please adjust the monitors to account for that. I don't need these blasted machines bitching that Spock's vitals are wiggy." He turned to Ol'at and Bruskin, "thanks boys. Go back to lunch, take an extended break. You too Pavel, you've got the rest of the day off on my order. Good job!" He gave them his sincerest of toothy smiles in appreciation.

Ol'at and Bruskin acknowledged with simple nods, made their leave of the tension-filled room as noncommittal as they could. Chekov was more hesitant to leave, Spock wasn't only his superior officer, he was his mentor and friend. He knew, however, that Dr McCoy needed space to work and that the captain couldn't be pried away from Spock's bedside by the strongest of tractor beams, he'd simply be another body just in the way. He reluctantly excused himself to his cabin for a shower and probably more than a few shots of vodka, but not before squeezing Spock's unmoving left forearm and wishing him poskoreye popravlyaysya...get well soon...in Russian.

Kirk was at Spock's other side, holding his First Officer's limp right hand up in between both of his bloodied ones. He stared at the monitor above Spock's head, the only one that made any sense to him was the K3 read-out, which was spastically irregular.

Knowing full well that there'd be no way of getting Jim out of sickbay until he'd figured out what was wrong with Spock, Bones laid a gentle hand on his captain's shoulder. "Jim, why don'tchya go get cleaned up? You can use my office. Snag an extra set of blues on your way in. Chris and I will get started."

Chapel held up a tray of scanners, PADDs, hypos and other assorted paraphernalia. "I promise all I'll do is disinfect that wound and redress it. We won't start without you here." She motioned to the still-packaged bandages and dermal regenerator on a corner of the tray.

Jim looked down at Spock's face, half of it was obscured by the beige bandage McCoy'd slapped on on the bridge and drying green blood, the other half was sallow and pale. He couldn't remember another time where the Vulcan looked more-ill than he did right now. He hoped that under the heavy sedation Spock was getting some relief from the headaches he'd been trying to hide; the K3 monitor, however, wasn't indicating any of that. "I'll be right back," Jim said to everyone but only one in the room.

When he emerged from Bones' office a few minutes later, face, arms and hands washed and dressed in a fresh standard-issue blue patient's scrub top he was happy to see that Nurse Chapel had gotten Spock cleaned up and changed as well. She and Dr McCoy flanked one side of Spock's head, Jim the other.

McCoy waved the hand piece of his tricorder over Spock's prone form. The wand, in conjunction with the biobed's sensors, fed data to the PADD Chapel held for him to read. "Residual scarring along the spinal chord, that's to be expected, that piece of shit parasite meant business," he rattled on to himself. "Intracranial pressure. Interesting. What's causing that? What the hell is THAT?" McCoy's left pinky pointed to a seemingly jumbled set of images. "The hell is THAT?” That same pinky tapped the screen of the PADD, zooming in on an area just below Spock's cerebellum. Realization kicked in just then, he looked Chapel dead in the eyes. "Get him prepped for surgery, now!"

Kirk was left to stand in confusion as Dr McCoy and Nurse Chapel whisked Spock into the adjoining surgical suite, leaving him to wonder if he'd ever see Spock again.

Chapter Text

When Spock regained consciousness nine hours later he was instantly aware he was in sickbay and of feeling like his skull had been shattered and the queasiness in his abdomen as his stomach summersaulted. The acrobatics of his gut won out over his head and he started to shoot up and reach for the emesis basin he knew was always placed at his bedside when he was in sickbay. Before he made it all the way on his side the pain in his head exploded, exponentially increasing the nausea and need to throw up. His hand brushed against the cool curved metal of the bowl, shakily he brought it up to his face and proceeded to vomit. As he retched nothing from his empty stomach Spock became aware of the hand over his holding the basin and another lightly tracing small circles of comfort along his back. A small groan escaped his throat before he had a chance to squelch it.

"Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. It's okay, Spock," a gentle voice soothed. Not the Captain's voice as Spock expected, but Dr McCoy's instead. "That's good. Take it easy." The doctor helped ease Spock back down onto the bed. "You've been through the wringer."

Spock couldn't categorize all the ways in which he hurt. The headache he'd been battling for days had now moved beyond the confines of his skull. The muscles in his neck screamed from strain. The tips of his fingers tingling and numb, yet hyper-sensitive to any sort of touch; the same for his legs. Had he not been currently laying on his back he would have failed to know which way was up or down. His vision was blurry and there was a general fuzziness to his cognition. Spock felt like he'd been run over by the Enterprise.

Then there was the tugging of the skin on the back of his neck, just under his hair line to right above the nape. He reached a shaky hand behind his head, gingerly fingering a padded dressing where the tugging was. Compression bandage. Not his first, undoubtedly not his last. Although Spock had no recollection of injuring himself in such an area. The muscles in his neck protested any movement, so for the moment Spock laid still. The spinning of the room from under him remained so he clutched onto the sides of the biobed. Spock couldn't ever recall waking up in such a horrid state from Dr McCoy's ministrations before.

The brain fog dissipated just enough then for Spock to have a vague recollection of the aura he'd come to associate with the prodromal stage of the seizures. He'd been on the bridge. He'd heard Lt Uhura call to him. He didn't recall anything else thereafter. Shit, he thought to himself.

"Spock! You're awake!" Kirk, who had been napping in McCoy's office, rushed over to the Vulcan's bedside. He clamped both hands around Spock's slender shoulders, he stopped himself short before going too far by pulling the man into a tight hug. He opted instead for gently cupping Spock's face in his hands. "You're awake. Thank the gods you're awake," the last few words came out a whisper.

"Obviously, Captain, as I am here now speaking with you," Spock deadpanned. He was feeling stronger now. He moved to slowly push himself up onto his elbows, two sets of hands went to gently cradle the back of his head and shoulders in assistance. Dr McCoy adjusted the head of the bed so that he could sit in a more upright position. "Although I admit I'm at a loss as to how I wound up in sickbay." That was a lie and Spock knew it, he suspected the captain and the doctor also both knew it was a lie.

For the moment McCoy decided to play along. From the eye witness accounts of the crew that had been on duty at the time, it had seemed like Spock knew what was going to happen to him. "You had a seizure, Spock. Four of them actually. Two back-to-back on the bridge, two more on your way here. Full tonic-clonic seizures." He motioned to the mottled bruising on Spock's right temple left over from the dermal regenerator. "That hard head of yours hit the instrument panel when you collapsed, cracked the facade right in half. Head wounds like to bleed, and yours bled like a mother. I had to give you so much hoxopirazine that were you Human rather than over-grown elf, you'da been twerking through the corridors. That's why you feel so fuzzy."

Spock agreed with the doctor's assessment, he was indeed "fuzzy." He was also post-ictal; that stage, he'd learned, tended to leave him disoriented and extraordinarily fatigued for several hours. Spock didn't believe in luck, but he told himself that he'd been lucky until this point, he'd been alone in his quarters when he'd had the previous seizures.

"Now about these seizures, Spock..."

Busted?

"...the scans indicate this wasn't the first time. How long's this been going on?"

Busted.

Spock looked down, suddenly very interested in the sheet covering his bottom half. He fidgeted the seam between his thumbs and forefingers. "Fourteen point two days," he sighed, "the first one occurred five point three days after leaving Vulcan. I've had six of varying severity, one every two point five days apart. I'm not aware of any previous having been of the cluster variety, however."

"TWO WEEKS?!” four Human eyebrows shot up in a close imitation of the same gesture of surprise that often came from their Vulcan counterparts.

McCoy's voice also rose in surprise and anger. "TWO WEEKS, Spock? You mean to tell me you've been having tonic-clonic seizures every two days for two fucking weeks? And you didn't think to come to me? Of all the asinine, jackass..."

"Bones, Bones, calm down," Kirk pressed his hands downward in the gesture that motioned for calm. "Spock, the headaches? And don't bullshit me, I know you have them, I've caught you rubbing your forehead. I've had migraines since I was a kid, I know all the tricks to hiding them."

Spock continued to avoid making eye contact. "They are not migraines, Captain. They are much worse." He finally looked up into the hazel and blue eyes that were boring into his katra. Resigned, Spock averted his gaze downward once again, continued working the fabric of the sheet through his fingers. "Deneva" was the quiet answer to Kirk's first question.

Kirk paused before responding. Spock had been successful in concealing his condition for far longer than he'd suspected something wasn't quite right with his reserved and aloof friend. "Deneva? Spock, it's been six months since we were at Deneva. You mean to tell me that you've been hiding being sick for six months?" He tried, and was mostly successful, keeping an accusatory tone out of his voice. Spock was a private person in the extreme and fiercely independent when it came to his own needs. If this health crisis were to go as sideways as Kirk sensed it would be, he needed to let Spock know he'd be there to help in any way he could.

"Shit, Spock, you're an idiot! Supposed genius my ass! You really do have a death wish, don't you?" McCoy wasn't nearly as tactful.

"Not at all, Doctor. I was merely able to control the pain until recently, therefore it would have been a fruitless endeavor to seek your services. I suspect the chemical imbalances caused by the Pon Farr triggered inadequate neurotransmitter production, resulting in my having seizures. I would venture to guess the further removed from its effects the seizures will wane on their own." Spock hoped that was the case, but the still unexplained bandage afixed to the back of his neck potentially indicated otherwise.

Dr McCoy's earlier hostile tone softened, "you're partially correct Spock. Your body chemistry having a conniption was probably exacerbating the headaches, but not the seizures. Those are being caused by this." He held up a liquid filled specimen jar containing a piece of fleshy-looking tissue inside. Both Spock and Kirk leaned in for closer inspection.

"Bones, what is that? Is this why you rushed Spock into surgery? Fuck you for leaving me hanging there with that, by the way."

Spock plucked the jar from McCoy's hand. "Fascinating." He rotated the jar around with his still somewhat numb fingers. He tilted his head slightly in the expression of curiosity that Jim found the most endearing.

McCoy ran his tired hands back through his hair. "Nearest I can figure is is that parasitic bastard injected something into your spinal cord before keeling over Spock. That thing," he jutted his chin towards the jar in Spock's hand, "has been growing in and around your cervical spine. I took what I could, but it's infiltrated too close to the pons and cerebellum for complete excision. Lab analysis came back about two hours before you woke up. I'm sorry Spock, it's malignant."

Lost in his examination of the specimen, it took several seconds for Spock to process what McCoy had just told him. "I beg your pardon. What?"

It was McCoy's turn to not make direct eye contact, he toed an invisible speck of dirt on the spotless floor. "Spock, you have a malignant tumor growing at the base of your brain. I'm so sorry."

Chapter Text

Whatever reaction Kirk and McCoy were expecting from Spock, his flat "indeed" and continued examination of the specimen jar was not it.

In truth, he didn't know himself what type of reaction to have, it'd been five point five four seconds since Dr McCoy had given him the grim news of the tumor attached to his brain. Even a Vulcan needed considerable more time than that to process that kind of information.

McCoy angrily grabbed the jar from Spock's hand. "Goddamnit Spock! Did you hear what I just said? I just told you that you have brain cancer and all you can say is 'indeed'?!” He slammed the jar down on the bedside table for emphasis, then wrapped his arms around his midsection and nearly melted into himself.

The after-effects of both the hoxopirazine and the post-ictus were nearly totally abated now and Spock was more cogent than he'd been since late last night. He pushed himself up into a fully seated position, swung his legs over the side of the bed. His mind may have been more clear, but his body still protested every move he made. And the headache was nowhere near any less in intensity. In fact, it felt as if his brain was trying to squeeze itself out of his ears, or his eyes, or his nose, or all three. His head felt heavy and his neck pitifully inadequate in strength to hold that heavy head. "Indeed I did Doctor McCoy. As you are so fond of pointing out, I do not engage in emotional outbursts. Once again your witch-doctor concoction clouded my cognitive abilities to the extent that I'm unable to fully process that information in a timely manner. I presume, however, that you have devised a plan of treatment?"

Kirk, too, was having a hard time wrapping his head around the news. He reached over to the table and lifted the jar to examine for himself. Spock? Cancer? Wait? What? Hadn't that thing been killed? Spock had a malignant, and apparently inoperable, tumor growing in his brain? "Bones...?" was all that he was able to eek out. That simple one syllable had so many unanswered questions asked with it.

McCoy pulled a chair over to sit in front of Spock. He leaned closer to the Vulcan still sitting with his long legs hanging from the side of the biobed. Spock looked almost childlike swinging his legs back and forth like he was, but McCoy suspected the Vulcan was attempting to bring back sensation to the extremities. Spock had been, after all, sedated for nine plus hours and neurologically inappropriate for who knew how long before that.

Bones rested his elbows on his bent knees, folded his hands together before him. He sighed before answering Spock. "Honestly, Spock, Jim, I haven't. I've never seen anything like this before and I highly doubt there's a physician in Starfleet that has. There hasn't been a case of cancer diagnosed on Earth in over two hundred years." He ran a hand back through his hair again. "Now I've contacted Medical, see if the head honchos can track down any other doctors in the Federation that have experience with anything like this. I've put in a call with a contact of M'Benga's on Vulcan. I'm waiting to hear back, but I doubt she'll be of much help. Vulcans never had to deal with any cancer bullshittery, lucky bastards."

"I see," said Spock, there was some sort of inflection in his deep voice that neither Jim nor Bones could identify.

"Bones, have you contacted any of the medical personnel on Deneva? Has anyone there come down with anything like this? Surely Spock can't be the only one," the shock and desperation was evident in Jim's voice. He did reach over to give Spock's right thigh a slight squeeze, again as more of a reassurance to himself than to his First Officer.

McCoy nodded. "That was my first call. They've seen about a thousand cases of seizure disorders within the last month. Patients there have been diagnosed with everything from mild focal-type seizures to the full-blown doozies you've been having Spock, but no tumors. They're gonna keep me updated on their numbers. I checked up on your nephew, Jim, and he's fine so far.

”Until I find out something from somebody, Spock, I'm prescribing you these," he held up a vial filled with white oblong-shaped pills. "This is an anti-seizure medication. It's called Keppra, it's a very, very old drug, but one with ingredients that aren't contraindicated in Vulcans. You'll have to take one every eight hours, I'm sorry, that's gonna be a pain in the ass. Chris'll be able to synthesize an extended-release formula once we get the recipe from the main database. And I'm not gonna lie, it's going to make you loopy as shit. I'm also gonna have you keep some preloaded hypos of it with you at all times. That way you, or someone near you, will be able to stop a seizure before it gets as severe as yours have been. I'm expecting there to be break-throughs. I can give you some pain killers too, for the headaches. Jeezus Spock, you're going to be walking outta here with half my pharmacy."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Computer, lock door, lights down seventy percent." Spock was finally back in his own quarters. It'd taken another hour for Dr McCoy to gather everything he was ordering Spock to take with him, which, even of the doctor's own admission, was a lot.

Spock's head was spinning. And it wasn't just from the analgesic hypo McCoy had injected him with before finally discharging him from sickbay. The severity of his health condition had begun to sink in on his way back to his cabin, thanks in no small part to the captain's insistence that he help him make the trip.

Jim had been adamant about providing a supportive shoulder to lean on, a shoulder Spock wasn't entirely sure he didn't need if he was to be honest with himself. Jim's hand around his waist clutched harder than what he found necessary; the skin-to-skin contact of their hands touching from his arm slung over Jim's shoulders left Spock flooded with the grief and shock and horror that his captain, his friend, was feeling. By now the whole crew had heard about what happened on the bridge and the sight of Captain Kirk assisting an unsteady Commander Spock through the corridors only served to reinforce his plight.

He tossed the pill vials and hypos onto his desk, all but two slid across the surface to scatter across the floor.

He didn't care.

He slid down against the locked door, his legs shaking and no longer able to support his weight. The pounding in his head ceased to dull despite the hypo and his eyes themselves hurt. He folded his long frame in on itself, placed his elbows on his knees. He reached behind to pull the bandage ungently off the back of his neck and stared at the blood-tinged outline of where it had rested against his skin. He balled that up and threw it across the room as well. He thrust both fists backwards to punch the door, rattling it in its frame. He brought his head down to rest in his hands and tangle trembling fingers through his hair.

”Spock, you are an idiot," he mirrored Dr McCoy's words from earlier to himself. "Fucking Nirak."

Chapter Text

There was an old Earth proverb that when a person wanted to be in their feelings, drink wine; if a person wanted to rid themselves of feelings, drink brandy.

Last night Jim Kirk did both. He'd drained an entire bottle of Terlyssian ice wine before he'd even remembered opening it, the sweetness of the drink flowing as freely down past his throat as the tears down his face. The first sips of the Saurian brandy dulled his tastebuds, numbed him to everything but his thoughts. The empty bottles were still sitting side-by-side on his desk, he hadn't even bothered with a glass. A few doors down he knew that Bones had spent the evening in similar fashion.

Jim reminded himself that he'd have to apologize to Ensign Chekov for reprimanding the young officer for being still half-drunk and half-hungover when he'd reported for duty yesterday morning. After what they'd witnessed happening to Spock, he was surprised that the rest of the bridge crew was sober, that was not the sort of thing that was easily dismissed.

He'd had brandy-influenced nightmares about it in the few hours sleep he'd been able to get.

Spock violently convulsing against him, green blood splattering all around him.

Spock lying limp on the bed in sickbay.

Spock being whisked away into emergency surgery when Bones'd discovered that thing.

Spock having an inoperable and malignant mass in his head.

Spock, Spock, Spock.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair at all.

When he sat up from where he'd passed out on his bed--still fully clothed in his borrowed medical blues--his head swam and pounded in his ears. He was sure he'd probably had a worse hangover at the Academy but couldn't remember. He was also sure that the way he felt now was just a small slice of the hell his First Officer was experiencing.

That thought sobered him up quite a bit and Jim forced himself out of bed the rest of the way. He quickly checked his terminal for messages; he'd sent Spock a quick text in his personal inbox checking up on him before passing out piss-ass drunk, he'd sent it very late, later than when he knew Spock would normally check it. There was no response back, it was very early in the morning and Jim supposed Spock would be in an exhausted sleep for some time still. He stripped and headed into the bathroom for a long, hot shower.

After an hour he emerged feeling more in command than he had in the last 48 hours. A pot of coffee and four egg-n-cheese-n-bacon omelette later he felt even better, fuck Bones' diet, he wickedly thought.

Spock wasn't the only one that knew how to hack into the computer and change preset parameters.

There was still no message from Spock, although he could now hear the sound of music softly drifting under the door of the bathroom that conjoined their quarters indicating the Vulcan was awake. Spock often had music playing in the background, especially during times of duress.

Kirk smiled to himself, if Spock had one vice in all the galaxy, it was that he was a music junkie.

Spock possessed one of the most extensive collections of musical compositions within the Federation; he had hundreds of record tapes filed neatly on a shelf in his cabin, each containing thousands and thousands of works from all over the known Milky Way. Everything from Vulcan concertos to Klingon and Romulan operas to Andorian trance and most of the Terran genres, especially the ones from the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Spock found an appreciation for all of it. There were even several pieces that Jim suspected had been procured less than legally with the help of a certain resourceful communications officer when cultural exchange agreements had gone sour. His smile broadened, Spock's What? Me? pouty puppy dog look could melt Andor.

He finished his morning routine then knocked on the door to Spock's quarters. The door opened to a darkened room and a Vulcan-Human hybrid crumpled on the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~

"SPOCK! SPOCK! Oh, nonono! Not again! SPOCK!”

Spock was slumped on elbows and knees against the partition to his sleeping area. His head was down between his arms, his hands tremoring as they clutched the back of his neck. He was rocking back and forth slightly and mumbling to himself. His legs were trembling with ever-increasing intensity, threatening to give out beneath his doubled over tall frame.

Jim lowered himself to the floor beside his quaking First Officer, he wasn't sure Spock was totally aware of his presence. The continued murmuring didn't make it seem so. He reached out a tentative hand to gently touch Spock's right shoulder, letting him know he was in the room. "Spock, it's Jim. What's wrong?"

Jim's touch unintentionally sent Spock over the edge, he cried out with a sound so indescribably raw and tortured that Kirk's heart nearly stopped. "J-Jim...the kusut...make it kroi!" Spock's speech was so slurred that it took Jim a second to realize he was responding to him in both Standard and Vulcan. Spock's fingers clawed at this newest scar running down the back of his neck, if he could just release the pressure...

Every muscle from his cheekbones backwards to his mid back were continuously contracting simultaneously. Brilliant green and purple and yellow spots of light flashed before his eyes that were barely able to focus, closing them made no difference. His lungs screamed every time he took in a breath. He sank lower to the floor. "Please, kroikroikroimakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop. Kusut, stop it! Jim! PLEASE! Make the kusut go away! PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE! KroikroikroiKROYKAH!” Spock pleaded with his captain to make this pain go away. His fingernails were nearly successful in ripping open the scar and providing the relief he so desperately needed.

Kirk watched in slow motion horror as Spock's shaking fingers clawed at his neck, the tips coming away with a thin layer of serum and blood. "Shit! Fuck! Spock! Goddamnit!" He slammed a hand down on the comm button afixed to the terminal on the desk. "BONES! E-MER-GEN-CY!!!!!! SPOCK'S QUARTERS! NOW! BONES!" He didn't wait for a reply. He dropped back down to Spock's side, he was relieved and terrified at how easy it was for him to subdue the Vulcan from continuing to mutilate himself.

"On my way! If he's conscious, keep him talking!" came the tinny reply through the speaker.

Conscious Spock was, coherent was another thing.

Jim pulled Spock to him to rest his back against his chest. He took note of how searingly hot the Vulcan was and how impossibly taut every muscle in his body felt. Spock was still mumbling in this new self-made marriage of the Standard and Vulcan languages. "Spock, hey there," he brought the back of his left hand up to ever-so-slightly tap the Vulcan's cheek, "yo Spock! You with me down there?" A way to illicit a coherent response from the man came to him just then, there was still music coming from the sleeping area. "Spock? Who sings this song? It's kinda pretty." That wasn't an untruth, the simple acoustic guitar and raspy voice were hauntingly beautiful.

"Jussinfurssenfell," was Spock's slurred and mumbled response. He went completely slack in Kirk's arms, shuddered once, twice, then erupted into a seizure so strong it thrust him and Kirk into the partition.

Jim had felt the slight tension in Spock's body right before being slammed into the wall by it. As he held on tightly to his First Officer's upper half as convulsions more ferocious than any he'd witnessed the last couple days threatened even more injury, Jim couldn't help but listen to the lyrics coming from the next room and the way they gave eerie commentary on what was happening now.

/...So now we've come upon the hardest thing I've ever done. It's telling you that I'm a mess. What sort of mess I mean is self-destructive gasoline... The kind that strips you of your best. While I play instead... The way that most would end up dead.../

Chapter Text

Dr Leonard McCoy had seen more of a Vulcan cervical spinal column in the last two days than he was certain he'd ever see again in the entirety of his life.

At least he hoped so.

When he'd rushed into Spock's quarters he found the Vulcan convulsing uncontrollably against Jim and the floor. Jim was doing all he could to keep Spock's upper body from crashing into the sharp corner of the wall jutting out behind them. It took all four of the preloaded hypos he'd discharged Spock with to stop the tremoring long enough for Jim to scoop him up in his arms and practically sprint to sickbay.

He'd called Christine in early and together they stood over the Vulcan's prone form on the bed. Both watched as K3 maxed out on its ability to measure pain response. Even after the initial infection by the parasite, they'd never seen anything like this. The amount of pain Spock was in was beyond excruciating.

At least this time McCoy didn't have to break the back of Spock's skull or fiddle around with his spinal cord. This time it was just a simple wound closure. Every nerve in Spock's head, neck and back had gone beserker haywire, sending signals to all the muscles in those areas to constrict all at once and not ease up on contracting. No amount of mental training, which McCoy thought was a bunch of hooey bullshit to begin with, could have suppressed any of that agony. He couldn't, and wouldn't, blame Spock for trying to relieve the pressure building up in his head, as extreme as it was. That minion of hell was succeeding in driving Spock insane, just not in the way it intended. He ran the dermal regenerator over Spock's neck again; he was going to have a gnarly scar, it'd match the one further down his back, there was only so much the regen instrument could repair.

"Blast it Spock! Why?" Bones slapped both hands down against the side of the bed. "Six months! Six goddamn months! And not one fucking word! Vulcan stoicism my ass!"

McCoy was well aware that the crew of the Enterprise had an exponentially higher injury rate than most other ships in the fleet. They were the crew of the flagship, they were thrust into the dangerous unknown more often than other crews, higher incidents of injuries were to be expected.

But Spock, Spock was different.

Spock's medical records almost doubled in size when compared to the next lengthy, which, incidentally, belonged to James Kirk.

Together Jim and Spock made the best command duo in the fleet, despite wildly different temperaments, personalities and philosophies, each complimented the other perfectly. One would die for the other. Therein lies part of the problem, McCoy thought dourly to himself. Not that Spock's unwavering loyalty to the captain was a bad thing, it was a comfort knowing someone did have Jim's back. It was just that Spock would more often than not put himself in harm's way rather than see Jim hurt. He'd sacrifice himself for any member of the crew, and they all knew that and unconditionally loved him for it, but he'd especially sacrifice his life for Jim.

Bones often worried about the members of the crew. He constantly worried about Spock the most.

He prided himself on his ability to size up a person almost instantly, but there was an undercurrent to Spock that McCoy couldn't quite figure out. The man was far more insecure than what he let on, he didn't even need to be a trained psychologist to see that. He didn't think Spock was self-destructive per se, more like he thought of himself as the 'less than' that the years of mockery, bigotry and torment had convinced him to be; therefore he was expendable.

Spock had some wicked demons.

Bones heard the chime of an in-coming transmission coming from his office. He hoped to hell that it was one of the specialists at Medical HQ with some sort of advice on what the hell he was dealing with. He helped Nurse Chapel gently roll Spock onto his back before rushing to answer the call.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was no secret that Christine Chapel was madly in love with Spock, she'd even admitted it to him in her Psi2000 virus-induced inebriation. She wasn't the only member of the crew that was, at least a quarter of crewmen of every gender and non-gender alike absolutely swooned over their very handsome Vulcan commanding officer. It was widely accepted within the Federation that Vulcans were one of the most-attractive races amongst the membership, and Spock was even more so than most.

Whenever he was a patient of hers she was able to tamp down her feelings for him and provide him with the exemplary medical care she prided herself on. Today though, looking down at Spock's unconscious and too pale face, she wanted nothing more than to gather him in her arms and hold onto him until Len discovered some sort of treatment.

Despite the heavy amounts of analgesics and anticonvulsants they'd pumped into him when the captain had carried him in, Spock continued to moan and whimper in pain. The K3 indicator never once moved from the highest value it could measure.

She pressed another dose of the painkiller, as well as a muscle relaxant into his bicep as McCoy had instructed. While she waited for them to take effect, she took his left hand in her right one and softly massaged the backs of his fingers. The fingers of her left hand ran through his soft, silky hair, pushing it backwards off his forehead. Spock was still burning up. The spasms of his muscles had caused a dangerously high fever, which in turn triggered another seizure, which drove the fever even higher.

Her fingers traced across his forehead to lightly caress his cheek and down his neck. This seemed to calm Spock somewhat so she continued. She stopped briefly to rub the pad of her thumb over his cheekbone, softly she whispered, "we're all worried about you, Spock. You're very sick. Come back to us, okay Sweetness?"

Finally the cocktail of medications swimming through Spock's veins took effect, his gut-wrenching moaning stopped and he relaxed back against the pillows in a stupor. Christine almost convinced herself that Spock nuzzled his cheek into her hand before he succumbed, almost. She gave his other hand a light squeeze before noting which combination of drugs seemed to be getting results. Although still unsatisfactorily high, K3 dipped down two ticks and remained there.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Barry, I could kiss you!" McCoy beamed at the man on the other side of the viewer on his desk. "There'll be a bottle of vintage Tennessee whiskey headed your way next time we're in the Sol system!"

"Len, bro, don't bother with that high tea crap. Get me a bottle of Romulan ale and we're even. Let's see what we got here."

Barry LaPorton had been a classmate of McCoy's at Ole Miss, they'd kept in fair amount of touch until he'd been assigned to the Enterprise.

The man was a medical savant, he'd been pursued by Starfleet since graduation but declined every offer they'd ever made. He'd stayed, instead, in the civilian sector as the Chief of Staff at Mayo, although he often collaborated and consulted with fleet physicians.

McCoy watched as Barry held up a PADD and read aloud its contents, "Male Vulcan-Human hybrid...that's a combination that's a bitch to treat, I bet...35 years of age...damn, for a Vulcan he's still practically a kid...infected by a CNS parasite six months ago, chronic headaches and migraines same timeframe, acute onset of severe tonic-clonic cluster seizures approximately two and a half weeks ago...your friend's a mess, the hell kinda trouble you boys getting into out there?

“Imaging showed abnormal density in and around cerebellum, pons and cervical spinal cord…histopath came back as similar in appearance to grade 4 glioblastoma...now I know why Dr Limeare at 'Fleet Medical forwarded this to me.

”I'm assuming you've consulted with physicians at the VSA? Probably not helpful, Vulcans never had to deal with disease processes like these.

“What they do have to deal with is a resistance to almost every drug known to modern-day medicine, there's a couple cardiac drugs they can tolerate but we're gonna hafta get nasty otherwise, hang on, lemme look something up. Be right back." LaPorton's ruddy face blinked off the screen.

McCoy paced the length of his office for fifteen minutes before the viewer activated again. He checked in with Jim on the bridge, whom he'd ordered out of sickbay almost immediately; the crew needed their captain, not the blubbering mess he was at Spock's bedside. Word of Spock's illness had spread like wildfire, a sense of morose despair hung in the air and the absence of the captain from his duties was only adding to the feelings of helplessness.

"You there Len? Think I got something for ya," Barry's voice called out again from the terminal on the desk.

"Yeah, I'm still here. Whaddaya got?"

Barry held up a record tape. "A buddy of mine at Cleveland Clinic just sent me this a couple minutes ago, he fished around their archive and dug out the protocols used to treat this two centuries ago.

”I took a quick peeky-poo and a good deal of the therapies you're not gonna be able to do...as fancy-shmancy as your sickbay is, there's just physically not enough space for that kinda equipment on board a starship. But you're inventive...you have to be to have a half Vulcan-half Human patient...you'll figure out some adaptations. I'm sending you the files now, be there in a few minutes. Tov's granted you permission to access the Clinic's archive...this is stuff that just hasn't made it to Memory Alpha yet...if you need it, I'm forwarding you the info on how to access it too."

The intercom beneath the monitor whistled, followed by Lt Uhura's voice, "subspace transmission coming in from Earth for you Doctor. I'm rerouting to sickbay."

"Thanks Uhura," he answered in return. He quickly perused through the pages upon pages that were scrolling by on the right side of the screen. He turned his attention back to his friend on the other half, "shit Barry, there's a lot here. Most of these techniques have been obsolete for at least a hundred years. Inventive is an understatement!

”By the way, any thoughts on anti-seizure meds? I have Spock on Keppra, which is about the only thing I could find not contraindicated for Vulcans. It'll gork the hell outta him, which means he's not gonna take it. I know him, Spock is the most non-compliant patient I've ever had. If I can't get these seizures under control I'm worried about permanent brain damage and I can't keep knocking him on his skinny Vulcan ass with hoxopirazine every two days."

Barry looked regretful as he responded, "sorry, Len, you're on your own there. Hopefully a Vulcan doctor can be more helpful. Good luck and pass my best wishes for recovery to Spock."

McCoy waved at the screen, "bye Barry and thanks! I owe you!"

"Romulan Ale!" was the last thing Barry said as the screen blinked off.

McCoy left his office to check on Spock before holing himself in his office to pour over all that data. He found Spock curled up into himself facing away from the office sleeping, albeit fitfully. He was still feverish and the monitors still manic, but McCoy deemed Spock stable for the time being. He nodded at Chapel sitting behind the desk at the other end of the room. "I'll be in my office Chris. Get your thinking cap on, we're gonna need to get creative."

Chapter Text

Leonard McCoy and Christine Chapel felt like nine kinds of hypocrite as they surveyed the carnage of empty coffee mugs, half-eaten meals, shot glasses and various discarded items of clothing strewn around McCoy's office. Healthy living and healthy eating were the two tenets they preached most, over the last twenty four hours of scouring through obsolete medical journals neither had done either one. Four bare feet propped up on the side table they'd moved to stand in front of the couch, they clinked tumblers of bourbon together in celebration.

"Congrats Chris, we did it! We look a hot mess, but we did it!"

Christine flashed him a tired but toothy smile. They certainly did look messy and unkempt, they'd each only left the office long enough to check in with another nurse about Spock's status over the last day.

He'd had a minor focal seizure that was over by the time Chris was able to press the hypo against his arm. They'd had to pump so many drugs into his system over the last couple days that she estimated he wouldn't regain consciousness until sometime tomorrow morning at least.

She downed the fingers of bourbon in one swallow. "I dunno about you, Len, but I feel like a fresh spring rain."

McCoy had been running his hands back through his hair, which now stuck out at crazy angles and the ever-present bags under his eyes were more pronounced than usual. His blue uniform shirt, socks and boots were in a heap on the floor behind his desk. Very early this morning she'd shed her stuffy uniform in favor of a set of coveralls, her blonde hair was down and cascading over the shoulders.

McCoy snorted and drained the remainder of his glass as well. "I'll let Jim know. He's gonna be ecstatic. I need a shower. You need a shower. The lab should have everything synthesized by morning. Should I ask Scotty to help you with reprogramming the cortical stimulator? No, of course you don't need help, you're brilliant, you'll figure it out on your own. Shit, I'm tired, I'm rambling. I'll get this disaster in the morning," he waved his empty glass at the litter scattered everywhere. He raised his glass in a toast again, "good job and thanks for all your help, I know Spock's gonna appreciate it too. I'll see you in the morning."

"G'night Doctor. I'll be here bright and early." She too, left her belongings abandoned in need for a long shower, rest and contemplation.

~~~~~~~~~

Jim was in a better mood than he'd been in in days. Bones had been apologetic when he'd pinged the door to his quarters a little bit ago. He hadn't been sleeping, unassisted sleep was hard to come by lately. With the news that the doctor believed he found a treatment to help Spock, sleep wouldn't be coming tonight.

Instead of his usual insomniac haunts Jim let himself into Spock's quarters.

They resembled the aftermath of a bomb having gone off.

No one had been inside since he and McCoy had rushed Spock to sickbay three days ago. He set about tidying up Spock's normally immaculate living space. He changed the bed to a fresh set of sheets, placing the plush Vulcan tapestry back at the foot with extra care.

Bones had relayed to him this morning that he wouldn't be declaring Spock fit for duty anytime soon, so Jim went to the shelving unit behind the desk, picked out a handful of record tapes containing a wide range of musical selections and stacked them neatly on the bedside table. Beside those he placed the PADD full of books he'd downloaded onto it yesterday; Spock was as voracious a reader as he was, they often swapped volumes and discussed their latest reads over games of chess.

While Jim preferred the feel and smell of a book in his hands, Spock's more minimalist style preferred the sleekness of a PADD. He'd included some of his own personal favorites, he wasn't sure if Spock had ever read the Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter or any of Tolkien's works, but knowing his friend’s curiosity towards Terran fantasy sagas, he left them there for Spock’s enjoyment.

He snagged a change of clothes from the chest of drawers before heading back over into his own cabin to await Bones' call that Spock was finally awake.

~~~~~~~~~~

Waking up in sickbay cold, painful and cognitively dissonant was growing tiresome. At least this time Spock wasn't nauseous when he opened his eyes, which was a welcome rarity. The ever-present headache still raged on and every centimeter of his body ached in some way or another. He groaned involuntarily as the overhead lighting pierced through his optic nerves. His right arm felt incredibly heavy as he threw it over his eyes in an attempt to drown out the harshness of the lighting.

"Computer, lights down fifty percent. Better?" Dr McCoy appeared beside him, looking down, he'd cocked his head to the side in question.

Spock lowered his arm back to his side, blinked once, twice, then nodded in affirmation, "yes Doctor, thank you." He tested his ability to sit upright, when his body only put up mild protest he made to sit cross-legged on the biobed.

McCoy ran the scanner quickly over him, "that fucker of a headache's been raging for six months now. You probably can't recall waking up without it now, huh?"

Twenty seven years actually my good doctor, Spock thought, but dared not correct McCoy's assumption.

McCoy didn't expect an answer. He crossed the room instead to page the captain to join the two of them. "You scared the living shit outta him, Spock. Me too to be honest. I don't even want to think about how much pain you were in when Jim found you, or what kinda damage you'da done to yourself had he not found you when he did. I don't think either of us can go through hearing screaming like that ever again."

Spock had no recollection of the events after his verbal assault on himself. "Vulcans do not scream, Doctor."

"Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that. You were screaming. Mornin' Jim."

Kirk didn't bother acknowledging Bones with more than a glance in his direction, he practically ran instead to the bedside of his First Officer.

"Spock! Oh thank the gods!" He intentionally accidentally forgot all boundaries and pulled his Vulcan friend into a tight hug.

Spock squirmed out of the embrace but was unable to break free from Jim's hands when they moved to rest on either side of his neck. He winced both from the overwhelming telepathic contact and the slight massaging Jim's hands had started.

"Ooooooh, sorry." Jim quickly pulled his hands away, looking embarrassed and apologetic. He remembered then the bundle that he'd brought with him that he'd left on the desk, "here, I figured you'd want to get out of those blues."

"Most thoughtful of you, Captain. Doctor, if I may?"

McCoy was busy checking the equipment Nurse Chapel had entered the room with, he waved him in the direction of his office, "pardon the mess."

Spock carefully slid from the biobed, he swayed slightly but recovered quickly. He ignored the protest from everywhere. He slowly and stiffly crossed the ward.

"Jeezus Bones, he looks like shit. You sure he's stable enough to start these treatments? He looks like he could keel over at any moment."

McCoy made one last adjustment on the cortical stimulator in his hand. "No, he's not, Jim," he admitted, "but we're stuck. It's a matter of time before that tumor starts growing again, the seizures are not under control and I can't even guess at a prognosis. I'm still waiting to hear back from Vulcan, although it did probably take a couple days to get there."

"Two point nine seven two days to be exact, Doctor. Provided the Enterprise is in the vicinity of the last coordinates I was aware of. You'll find T'Nala to be quite unpleasant, she is unfortunately an associate of my father's,” there was an undertone to Spock's voice that could almost be categorized as disgust as he emerged from the doctor's office. "Am I to assume that you've devised a treatment plan?"

It was a rare sight to see Spock out of uniform. In the black sweater, pants and chucks that he, and the vast majority of the crew, including the three other officers in the room, favored while off duty, Spock cut such a stunning figure that Chapel excused herself before she got caught ogling.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Spock. Sit back down. You too, Jim. Lemme explain how this'll go."

He went through a brief history of how brain cancer had been treated over two hundred years ago, and that he and Chapel had adapted those treatments to be compatible with twenty third century technology.

They'd synthesized chemotherapy agents and reprogrammed a cortical stimulator to emit radioactive protons directly into the tumor.

”Now, don't get me wrong, Spock, I've neutralized some of the lesser unpleasant side effects...oral ulcers, hair loss, skin irritation...but you're still gonna get sick, especially on treatment days.

”You're gonna feel extremely fatigued, probably nauseous and dizzy. I'm sorry. 

“Now, bridge duty is out of the question but I'm not gonna stop you from doing consultative work, you're going to need to keep your mind active. I want you to keep working out too, just keep the bench pressing under five hundred kilos, m'kay? And that warrior thing you and Uhura are training for is probably out."

'That warrior thing' was the annual Starfleet Field Marathon, a master-level obstacle course that had started out as part of the training regimen for cadets but now was an annual competition between ships. Spock wasn't competitive in that respect, but he was naturally an exceptional athlete and had been coerced into representing the Enterprise.

Coerced meaning he'd lost the chess match and the bet with the captain.

Lt Uhura was his teammate, which he had absolutely no complaints about. The last five months found them running through the corridors hours before shift, wearing baseball caps backwards, which was a superstition of Uhura's, pounding music trailing behind them.

Kirk shrugged, "I'll ask Chekov to replace you, he's a wiry little shit."

Spock's right brow rose in amusement, "indeed." He turned his attention to McCoy on his other side. "When would you like to start?"

McCoy raised the stimulator and pill vial into the air. "Right now if you don't mind. The chemo's sublingual, one a day. The radiation every other day to start, we may need to adjust that. I'm going to need to have you scanned every two weeks. And for fuck's sake, take the damn Keppra please."

~~~~~~~~~~

Forty five minutes later Spock found McCoy's description of the side effects wildly underestimated. He pressed his head against the cool bulkhead of the turbolift as a wave of dizziness greater than anything he'd ever experienced washed over him.

Chapter Text

Montgomery Scott wanted to rip his hair out. He was exhausted and frustrated and in a very bad mood. He'd, of course, heard about Spock, first through the normal scuttlebutt that was inevitable aboard ship, then from eye witnesses Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. He hadn't yet had time to extend any assistance to the Commander other than through a quick private message; the past week he'd found himself pulling double duty as Chief Engineer and acting-First Officer in Spock's absence. Today he was shirking the latter role in lieu of chasing down a glitch in the communications system that was causing intermittent and random ship wide broadcast of conversations; luckily for the sake of the crew they'd been limited thus far to snippets from common areas and not private quarters. Bless her eerie Vulcan-esque ears that Uhura had been able to detect an otherwise-imperceptible click right before the system was about to go buggy again. That was normally the sort of thing Spock would have picked up on.

He was impatiently awaiting the arrival of the turbolift on his way up to the bridge to consult with Uhura on how they were going to tackle this problem. Scotty's irritation at the slowness of the lift vanished as the doors opened to reveal Mr Spock inside pressing his forehead against the bulkhead, arms wrapped around his midsection, eyes closed and panting. He looked ready to pass out.

Scotty rushed inside. He placed a hand lightly on the taller man's quivering back, he didn't think Spock registered his presence beside him. "You okay, Mr Spock? Ye're lookin' mighty peaked."

Without taking his forehead away from the coolness of the paneling, Spock shook his head slightly in the negative. He let out a shuddering breath between pursed lips, swallowed hard and turned slightly to lean his left shoulder against the bulkhead as well. He was certain his legs were close to giving out under him. "It would seem that Dr McCoy's proclivity for exaggeration was not, in this instance, hyperbole. I believe I am going to be sick to my stomach." Spock clutched his abdomen tighter, he would be able to control the rising nausea just long enough to make it back to his quarters.

He wasn't sure if it was the headache or the drugs that were causing the vertigo, all he was sure of was that he wanted nothing more than getting back to his cabin where he could feel like death warmed over in peace. He made a face, swallowed down the rising bile and leaned harder into the bulkhead. "Mr Scott, it would be most advantageous for both of us to resume the lift's journey to deck five."

Scotty reached for the handle closest to Spock should the man really collapse for all the ways he looked like he would. "Aye, laddie. Let's get you home. Deck five on the double!" he commanded the computer.

He hadn't seen Spock since he had been first admitted to sickbay after his seizure episode on the bridge, and even that had been a quick stop to wish the Vulcan a speedy recovery while he'd still been sedated. Looking at him now, Scotty was appalled at Spock's appearance.

He was devoid of almost all color save for dark circles under his eyes, his skin sallow and normally impeccable hair shaggy and out of place. In the sparse free time he'd had the last few days he'd researched Spock's condition and while he wasn't religious, Scotty prayed to whatever deity that chose to listen to take pity on Spock's soul.

Scotty was one of the few members of the crew that made a conscious effort to not make skin to skin contact whenever he touched Spock. He usually pulled his sleeve down over his hand enough to prevent any unintentional telepathy between them. Such was the case now as Scotty rested his right arm lightly across Spock's slender shoulders as he guided him to his cabin; Spock had started to sway in the lift and Scotty was doubtful he'd be able to make the short walk without assistance.

Once inside Spock made a wobbly beeline for the bathroom, he stopped just long enough to pluck a record tape from the bedside table and flick it in Scott's direction. "File number 1013 please Mr Scott," he croaked out from behind the half-closed door as his control finally failed and he got sicker to his stomach than he'd ever gotten before.

Scotty winced at the sounds of retching coming from the lavatory. His heart went instantly out to Spock.

He'd been serving with the man since Christopher Pike was captain of the Enterprise and he could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen his Vulcan commanding officer outwardly show signs of distress; Taurus II when those gigantic ape-beasties threw that boulder that had shattered the bottom half of his femur and kneecap, a mishap on Eledikaar Beta where the captain had slipped on ice and grabbed Spock on his way down a crevasse that resulted in a dislocated elbow, shoulder, broken collarbone and several broken ribs, then just two months ago when a well-meaning but too-helpful ensign nearly electrocuted both First Officer and Chief Engineer as they were repairing damaged wiring.

Scotty grinned devilishly to himself, the string of expletives coming from the Jeffries tube as both men were being zapped senseless had quickly become legendary. Vulcans, as a matter of emotional-control, seldom cursed, but Spock, having lived and worked with Humans longer than he had Vulcans invariably picked up the habit and could swear with the best of them. Which, Scotty supposed, was inevitable serving with he himself and Dr McCoy.

He popped the tape into the dock at the head of the bed, called up the file Spock had requested and keyed in a command on the food dispenser as the soothing sound of a violin wafted throughout the cabin. Spock and his music, Scotty mused. He shrugged to himself, music soothes the savage beast. He quietly paged Uhura on the bridge relaying that he'd be late to their meeting.

The faucet turned off in the next room and as Spock emerged Scotty didn't think it'd have been possible for him to look any worse, but he surely did. He leaned heavily against the jamb as he toed off his shoes and kicked them into the corner versus in the closet where they belonged. The extreme fatigue Dr McCoy stated as a side effect of the radioactive proton therapy and chemo was overwhelming, he barely had enough energy to make it to the bed, and the roiling of his GI system suggested he was going to be nauseous again shortly.

Scotty helped him down onto the bed. He offered him the tumbler of bubbly amber-colored liquid from the dispenser. "Here laddie, drink this. It'll help calm yer stomach."

Spock took a tentative sip, then another and finally a third to empty the rest of the glass. His right brow raised in curiosity at the Engineer.

Scotty shrugged. "Ginger ale. Me mum would give it t' us as kids whenever we had a sour stomach. The carbonation'll help yer throat too, 'tis gotta be mighty raw after getting sick like that. I'll get ye another glass before I leave. Who're we listenin' to, by the way? This is really pretty." He twirled his finger around in the air as a somber violin continued to fill the rooms.

"Ryan Delahoussaye," Spock said as he clutched again at his midsection. He groaned and bolted as fast as his shaky legs could take him for the bathroom.

Scott's heart broke a little more at the strained "fffffuuuuuccccckkkkk..." moaned from the next room. He guided Spock back down on the bed when he stumbled out. Needing to distract himself from the despair washing over him, he craned his head around to survey the workspace in the next room. "Y'know Mr Spock, I bet me boys can get a sofa in there," he nodded his head in the direction of that room. "Rig up one o' those spare view screens, make it a wee bit more comfy since ye'll be workin' mostly from here."

"Indeed," Spock mumbled. He was folded over on the bed, elbows on bent knees, hands trembling in his hair and the rest of his body shaking with exhaustion.

Scotty placed his hand lightly on Spock's shoulder. "Ach, laddie, let's get ye t' bed. I'll talk to me guys in the mornin'." He gently pulled the sweater over Spock's head and arms and cradled his head as he sank into the pillows. He set the record tape on a loop cycle and placed another glass of ginger ale on the table as promised. Spock had rolled onto his side before passing out completely spent, exposing the angry scar on his neck that reminded Scotty of how painfully the Vulcan was suffering.

In the turbolift he kicked the bulkhead and wept on his way up to the bridge.

Chapter Text

The chime of the door was shrill.

It was also insistent.

Spock forced his painful eyes to focus on the chronometer beside the bed, bolts of searing white heat were shooting straight to his optic nerves. He concluded that his double vision read 0500 on the chronometer's face, only one person would stop by his quarters so early.

"Come Uhura," his voice was hoarse and his head pounded with every syllable.

He felt like he was spinning uncontrollably out of his bed. He couldn't rise up to greet his guest even if he tried. Nor could he stop the whimper that escaped when he twisted his neck up away from the pillows.

He felt the mattress dip slightly, delicate fingers raking through his hair. He shuddered.

"I just stopped by before my run to check on you. Scotty told me how sick you were last night. How're you feeling this morning?"

Whereas Scott always took careful precaution with tactile contact with Spock, Uhura did not, she was always generous in her touching of him. She'd never been intrusive nor inappropriate about it, she respected the boundaries he’d silently put in place. She was delighted with the knowledge that she was one of four people allowed such privilege, the captain, Dr McCoy and Christine rounded out the other three.

Had he been healthy, Spock would be practically purring. But he was not healthy, in fact he felt worse than he had in days, which he'd thought would have been impossible. He curled tighter into himself. "I feel like shit Nyota," there was no reason to be deceptive. "However Mr Scott portrayed my condition last night, I can assure you it was far worse. Moreover, I'm experiencing the aura that precludes a seizure. I believe I will have another one at some point today. I'm due."

The casual way in which Spock relayed that information bothered Uhura. Spock was a firm believer in the Vulcan kaiidth, but his matter-of-fact callousness was incredibly irksome. "Do you have your meds nearby?"

He tilted his head backwards just enough to indicate their location behind him. "They are on the table."

"Good. Now, are you going to take them?"

He didn't answer.

Uhura sighed. Spock was easily the most stubborn person she'd ever met. In fact, she knew that he secretly prided himself on it. She decided teasing him would get him to follow orders. "Now Spock, you have to take them. Or else, with that cute butt of your's hanging out right now I'll make them a suppository." She grinned wickedly even though Spock's face was buried in a pillow. She playfully swatted at said derrière before throwing the sheets back over Spock's lower half.

Spock's eye brow quirked upwards and he smirked slightly into the pillow. "You wouldn't dare," he challenged. Reconsidering how well he knew Nyota, he added, "no, you would dare. You are one twisted individual."

She put a hand to her heart, feigning shock. "Me? I'm the twisted one? Spock, you have got the most dry, sarcastic, fucked-up sense of humor I've ever known. Who else on board would hire a mariachi band to follow the captain around a star base and scream Klingon operas at him?" She chuckled. "He's gonna get you back for that, by the way."

Spock snorted in the closest equivalent to a laugh that he would ever express.

Uhura coaxed one of Spock's hands out from under the pillow, dropped one of the Keppras into it and held out the glass--she took a small sip--of ginger ale for him to take.

Spock reluctantly acquiesced. Dr McCoy was already doubting the efficacy of the drug, he'd admitted as such, so he saw no point in adding to his misery. But he found he could never turn down a request from Uhura. He popped the tablet in his mouth and took a swig of Mr Scott's at-home remedy, by now warm, flat and unpleasant. He burrowed back into the bed.

Uhura smoothed her fingers through his hair one last time. She took his face in her hands and planted a small kiss to his forehead, right in between his perfectly arched brows.

Spock was out cold before she even exited.

Chapter Text

It wasn't until he'd started living on Earth that Spock discovered he was a pluviophile. He'd found the soft, steady tapping of rain against his dorm room window at Starfleet Academy soothing and relaxing, especially when he'd been able to leave the window cracked open. It seldom rained on Vulcan, and when it did the purple-hued torrents often triggered flash floods and mud slides in their wakes. Thunder and lightning were more like flash-bang explosions versus the rolling booming and crackles of the Terran equivalents. Meditating had been easiest during night time storms blowing in from the bay.

Sitting under a tree during a rain storm in the Enterprise's gardens was where Spock found himself now. A canopy had been setup some time ago, along with soft, plushy meditation poufs atop a picnic blanket and lanterns for night time use. Sitting under the tree was popular with the crew. Spock often came when it rained.

The gardens were a controlled independent environment aboard the ship, a sort of life-sized terrarium. Benevolent fauna from countless worlds had been cultivated to grow peacefully amongst each other. The result was plots upon plots of dazzling colors of any shape imaginable. Oxygenation and photosynthesis were encouraged to progress, the overhead lighting programmed to simulate as close to natural light as possible. Rain was allowed to fall as a result, intervention came only when the process became overwhelming for the reclamation system. Simulated thunderstorm effects were programmed to accompany the heavier downpours. The petrichor and oddly quixotic smell of ozone were absent, of course, but the quasi-natural biome was bucolic nonetheless.

Spock had woken several hours after Uhura had visited. At late morning, it was already well into alpha shift, much later than he'd normally sleep. There'd been two texts crawling across the terminal screen awaiting his attention, one from Jim, one from Dr McCoy, both inquiring how he was feeling. Mr Scott had undoubtedly relayed to McCoy how seriously ill the radiation and chemo had made him yesterday. He assumed Jim had popped in through the adjoining door, found him passed out in bed and decided to let a sleeping Vulcan lie. He'd answered each message with a brief untruth of 'I am fine,' McCoy's had included the additional caveat of requesting his presence in sickbay for a "hot minute" at some point during the day.

When he'd awoken he'd felt marginally better and had the intention of visiting the rec room for a ten or so kilometer run on the treadmill. Dr McCoy did recommend physical activity after all, and a ten to twenty kilometer jog was technically much less than the two to three hour long runs he'd been taking with Uhura.

All pretense of physical activity was quickly squashed by another wave of vertigo that sent him teetering back down on the bed. He'd had to lay down an additional fifteen minutes, hands shaking as they held onto the edges of the bed as his cabin spun out from under him. He supposed he'd start utilizing the Tonal apparatus hanging on the far wall and clearing space enough for practicing his Suus Mahna foundations in his quarters. Reprogramming the mechanism for his lifting capacity would provide welcome mental exercise.

When the cosmos stopped careening out from under him long enough for him to stand somewhat upright, Spock stripped and programmed the shower for the hottest setting it could provide. Near-scalding water pounding against muscles that had been in a constant flux of spasm provided such relief that he illogically melted against the tile and let the water run cold.

Spock's reflection in the mirror had changed even to himself.

He was perpetually pale, dark circles under hooded brown eyes that no longer had the bright intensity yet gentle expression they once did. Being unshaven for over a week effectively hid how thin his face had become as a result of the amount of weight he'd already lost. He had no appetite whatsoever and hadn't eaten in almost the same length of time, save whatever nutrients had been given parentarelly during his hospitalizations.

He'd eyed the straight razor on the counter. 

A quick laceration of the carotid and the pain would be gone, the seizures would stop.

But his hands had been too shaky for a clean cut and he didn't wish for Jim to have to clean up the mess.

Spock closed his eyes and let the sound of the rain wash over him. He'd come here with the hope that the steady pattering against the canopy would aid in lulling him into a meditative state, he hadn't been able to achieve even the first stage of meditation since the seizures started almost a month ago. He sat as straight up as his aching back would allow, put his palms flat against the blanket to ease the sense of spinning and forced his mental disciplines to cooperate. None but his hands obeyed.

And the aura from early this morning was getting brighter.

Frustrated, Spock aborted this newest attempt at meditation. He focused, instead, on rearranging the poufs so as to not crack his head open when the impending seizure sent him thrashing to the ground.

He'd had his skull broken enough in recent days, crashing his head against the tree wouldn't be likely to re-break it with the neat medical precision Dr McCoy had.

He pulled his sweatshirt over his head and folded it neatly to form another makeshift pillow. He reclined back, resting his head and neck against the cushiony poufs, long legs bent at the knees and arms crossed over his chest. He closed his eyes again and just listened as the storm's intensity grew.

Spock's mind wandered. Part of it mulled over the glitch in the communication's system Scott had informed him of in the turbolift last night. Despite being ill as he was, he'd absorbed every detail the engineer gave him. He would pull up the reports in his cabin later. The other part of his mind drifted back to memory of the first time he'd sat and listened to the rain.

~~~~~~~~~~

On a rare weekend with no first year classes at the Academy, Spock found himself on a shuttle to the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. He'd visited once as a child with his mother and had been captivated by all the different sounds and styles of Terran music. The variety was unique to Humans, no other race in the Federation boasted so many different genres and young Spock found himself fascinated even at the young age of twelve.

This weekend's visit was more academic than recreational. When he'd discovered there were still a handful of open seats on a lecture about how race relations and socioeconomics influenced music, he'd signed up and jumped on the first shuttle scheduled to launch after his last class. He had a very personal interest in the former of the two topics.

He pulled his jacket closer about him. He was still acclimating to the lower ambient temperature on Earth, coming to Cleveland during a seasonal transition period was not helping...either rain or snow or fire-breathing dragons were threatening to fall from the sky as a local on the shuttle had told him. The entire Great Lakes region of the United States still had a meteorological mind of its own despite the weather grid. The shuttle deposited its passengers at the Burke Station, once a small airport on the Lake Erie shore, from there it was a short walk across a small park to the Rock Hall.

Spock was, of course, early, so he meandered through the exhibits until the conference room opened up. He'd apparently caught the attention of two young women the next exhibit over from where he stood, they were flashing him smiles and giving the "eyes" he'd come to learn were flirtatious in nature. Such a concept was foreign to him, even after a male classmate at the Academy had told him to expect more of the behavior from Humans because he was "a hottie." He quirked his right brow up at the women but gave no other indication of interest, he turned his attention back to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust costume.

"Vulcans!" he'd overheard one of the women exclaim in exasperation.

With the conference room opened, Spock took a seat in the front row. It was less of an eagerness to be front and center, he'd been engaged in lectures, debates and group projects all week; it was more that he'd recently reached his full height of 1.98 meters and his long frame appreciated the extra leg room. He could only endeavor to be stationed aboard a heavy cruiser upon graduation, perhaps one of the constitution-class starships, possibly even the Enterprise, lest any other type of vessel would find him cramped. The room was, as every other room thus far, freezing to him, so he pulled the hood of the sweater he'd changed into before leaving San Fransisco up over his head. He'd noticed more amorous glances from a handful of other women, a few men and a couple of other beings with no discernible gender, the hood allowed for his discomfort at being an object of attention to be hidden. Interesting change, he thought to himself.

The speaker climbed the stage, introduced herself and started on a brief summary of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s through the Black Lives Matter rallies of the 2020s.

Spock could not comprehend the bigotry of Humans based on skin pigmentation, Vulcan had had no such prejudice anywhere in its history. Warfare upon each other before Surak had been based on tribal and clan feuds, but a Vulcan had always been a Vulcan, no matter the amount of mu-tur-tukh contained in the skin. When he'd discovered the Tupac Shakur song Brenda's got a baby, his mind reeled at the story of neglect, abuse, oppression and desperation the lyrics told, and how one Human could treat another so poorly.

Despite being written almost three hundred years prior, Spock understood the message behind the music loud and clear. For all their reverence of the philosophy of IDIC, Vulcans had very little tolerance for him.

A Vulcan was a Vulcan, unless a Vulcan dared thrive without the purity of Vulcan blood.

He'd almost, almost, become numb to the number of times he'd been called Tviokh, the most degrading slur in the Vulcan language.

Halfway through the lecture the weather that had been threatening finally broke and the lights went out with a loud clap of thunder outside. Docents ushered the attendees out onto the promenade on the lower level, it was simply too dark in the room to conduct anything safely. The speaker apologized for the inconvenience and promised a video recording of the lecture to anyone that requested it, Spock was the first on the list.

An administrator of the museum came over the overhead speaker system to explain that while the inclement weather had been forecasted, it was much more severe than expected and anticipated to last until morning. All shuttles in the city were currently grounded and transporters taken offline due to the extreme electrical interference from the lightening.

Spock watched in fascination as the driving rain pelted against the wall of transparent-aluminum windows that made up the entire Lake Erie-facing side of the structure. Huge waves crashed over the side of a concrete barrier. Lightning flashes brightly illuminated wispy waterspouts dancing gracefully out over the lake. He was transfixed. He fastened the ear piece from his jacket pocket in place, popped a record tape into the portable playback device he'd acquired on a previous trip to Earth, seated himself before the windows to watch the rain and listen to the music about overcoming bigotry and hatred that reached deeper within his mind than any level of meditation or meld ever could.

Chapter Text

The intercom beeped, bringing Spock out of his reverie.

Or rather, the light sleep he'd nodded into. He'd have to force his diminished disciplines to be more careful than that. It was one thing to doze off in his cabin, it was quite another to allow it to happen in such a public area as the gardens. He'd already displayed more vulnerability and required more assistance than what was acceptable. He pulled his hooded sweatshirt back on, he'd acclimated to the lower temperature of what Humans considered optimal long ago, but recently he found that he was constantly cold.

The intercom beeped again.

“McCoy to Spock. Hey, Spock! You in there?”

Even through the tinniness of the speaker Spock heard the irritation in the elder man's voice.

He stiffly made his way to the intercom, depressed the button, "Spock here. How may I be of assistance Doctor?" At least his voice sounded more or less normal.

“Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough this morning? I want to see you in sickbay.”

Spock rolled his eyes. "Your message did not stipulate a specific time. Perhaps you should be more succinct in your directives."

“Don't sass me smart-ass. Get your ass to sickbay on the double!”

"On my way." Spock released the button. On the double was not a possibility, his field of vision was starting to tunnel in and his gait stilted. It was still an odd enough time during alpha shift that he didn't pass any crewmen in the corridors, he'd needed to brace himself against the bulkheads for support far more than anticipated.

He was trembling by the time he entered sickbay.

"Spock! Shit, you look like hell!" McCoy rushed around from behind the desk he'd been sitting at scribbling on a PADD. He grabbed the slightly swaying Vulcan by his shoulders, steered him towards his office. "C'mon, we'll talk in my office. You look like you're going to keel over."

Spock was able to lower himself down onto the soft, well-worn couch, although he slumped against the back more than he would have preferred to.

McCoy narrowed his piercing blue eyes as he slid his desk chair into place just opposite to where Spock sat. He leaned his elbows on his bent knees and leaned forward, silently examining the man who's right arm was propped up on the arm of the couch and had started rubbing his forehead. "You're prodromal, aren't you?"

Spock simply nodded.

”I'll make this as quick as possible," McCoy continued. "First, Chris got the XR version synthesized for you. I think it'd be a good idea to take it at night with your chemo, better to get gorky when you can have time to sleep it off. Second, you're not fine. Don't leave me a message like that again. Third, I finally heard back from that Vulcan doctor. You were right, she's a peach."

Spock opened his left eye enough to regard the doctor with a look of irritation. "I can think of other more appropriate descriptions, Doctor."

Dr McCoy flashed him a mischievous grin, far be it from him that he'd ever have thought he'd get out-cursed by a Vulcan. "Anyways Spock, she was no help whatsoever. In fact, if she wasn't Vulcan, I'd almost say she'd been smug about your illness. Bitch."

Spock stopped massaging his temples long enough to look McCoy squarely in the eye, "T'Nala has been in opposition of my continued existence since my conception. I fail to see how my father has maintained an acquaintance with her. I'm also surprised that Dr M'Benga would choose to keep such a vile woman as a contact."

McCoy blinked at him. It was so bothersome the cool, calm way in which Spock shared what other Vulcans thought of him. Knowing the man as well as he did, McCoy had picked up on the oh-so-subtle intonations and inflections to his voice that did have somewhat of an emotional component to them. This flat, deadpan monotone was more than a little disturbing. "Geoff's contact is actually one of her subordinates. I don't remember his name, it was one of the weirder ones I've heard. He was pleasant enough, wishes you luck."

"Vulcans don't believe in luck."

McCoy shrugged. "Whatever. That's basically all I got for ya. We'll keep up with the treatment plan, I can't apologize enough for how shitty the side effects are. Either Chris or I, probably Chris, will stop by tomorrow evening and administer the radiation. I figure it'll be easier on you to do it in your cabin, can't have Scotty finding you almost passed out in the turbolift again." It was his turn to level his eyes at Spock. "Before you go, how are you feeling?"

Spock answered him with the most challenging expression he could muster. "I beg your pardon?" He knew full well what question the doctor was silently asking.

"Feeling, Spock, feeling. Physically you've gotten the living snot kicked outta you, but I wanna know how you've processed this whole mess. I don't want to know how your body's reacting, I want to know how you're coping. Saying ‘indeed' after I gave you the news is not exactly giving me confidence that you've processed things correctly. Not that you've been cogent enough to really meditate on it properly, but you know what I mean."

Spock didn't relay that he hadn't meditated, was unable to meditate. "I am coping adequately enough. Kaiidth, what is, is, I can't change what's happened. I have my music. Mr Scott is augmenting the terminal in my quarters so that it'll be of more practical use. Undoubtedly the captain will end up being a pest." That last part did contain a touch of his normal feigned exasperation for his friend Jim Kirk.

McCoy smiled at that last inference, Spock's assessment of Jim's hovering was correct. "Now Spock, I'm all for music therapy...but back off on that emo shit you listen to all the time. Listening to stuff THAT dark is not good for mental health. Try some Grateful Dead or The Chicks, two of my personal favorites. Some of that noise you play at night might be better too."

Spock smirked, some of his collection was just that, noise. Tellarian "music" had no rhyme or reason to its banging dissonance. "That 'noise', Doctor, is sometimes the only distraction I can get from the captain's more...exuberant...late night rendezvous."

McCoy chuckled. He did occasionally sympathize with Spock.

"Perhaps a dog would be beneficial?"

McCoy was confused. That was random. "Excuse me? What?"

Spock felt the seizure coming on, the inability to sift through the thoughts racing through his mind before they came out was indicative of one of the milder focals. He was still able to organize an outlandish answer for the doctor. "A dog. Humans trained dogs to detect seizures. Perhaps I could train one to be of assistance to me. My research suggests a Dobermann would be the perfect candidate..." With that the seizure hit and he simply stared unblinking at nothing.

McCoy didn't intervene, shooting Spock up with more drugs would increase the potential for resistance, he was close to maxing out as it was. Focal seizures weren't as dangerous, more extremely disconcerting since Spock had stopped speaking mid-sentence and was completely spaced-out. Two minutes later the Vulcan snapped out of it but was disoriented and barely able to keep his eyes open. McCoy ran his scanner over Spock quickly, there'd been too many cluster tonic-clonics that he wanted to be sure. Satisfied by the decrease in abnormal brain activity that showed up on his scanner, McCoy ordered the computer to dim the lights and left his office to let Spock sleep off the effects in peace.

Back at the desk in the ward, Dr McCoy grinned at the image of the prim and proper Vulcan First Officer of the Enterprise gracefully gliding through the corridors, hands behind his back with a gyrating Dobermann happily dancing in tow.

Chapter Text

The whirling dervish that was Jim Kirk barreled into sickbay like he was on fire. "Bones! Spock! Where is he? I couldn't find him in any of his usual hangouts. The computer told me he was here! Why didn't you tell me?" His hazel eyes were wide with panic, he craned his neck around the man who'd bolted up from the desk to stop him from going any further.

Bones put his hands on his captain's shoulders, shook him slightly to force some composure into the man. "Goddamnit Jim! Slow your roll for fuck's sake. Jeezus. Spock's in my office, he's alright. He had a short focal, at least I think it was short for him, I haven't witnessed one of these when he's awake. I didn't realize how much even these little ones take out of him. I didn't have the heart to make him move when he started falling asleep." He jerked his head backwards towards the halfway propped open door. "Go see for yourself. Snug as a bug in a rug."

Kirk quietly stalked around the door into the darkened room. Spock was, indeed, napping on the far end of the sofa. With the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his eyes, his head lolled to the side and his hands hidden inside the pocket, Spock looked more like a bored teenager that had fallen asleep in the back of the shuttle during a family trip than an adult Vulcan. He quirked a small, sad smile. Chronologically Spock was three years older than himself, but in terms of the Vulcan aging process, was exceptionally young.

Too young to be gravely ill.

Satisfied that this was just a normal part of Spock's post-ictal phase, Kirk quietly backed out of the room. "Sorry Bones."

McCoy patted Kirk's shoulder. "It's okay Jim. We're all wound tighter than a Tavalen screw worm." He ran his hand back through his hair. "Freaky fuckin' thing to watch though. That brilliant mind of his scrambled and not making any sense."

Jim gave McCoy a look of concern. "Scrambled? How so?"

McCoy shook his head, held his hands up in mock surrender. "Right before he focaled. The gears were turning but his brain and his mouth were definitely not connecting. He asked about getting a dog and then just...poof...zoned the fuck out." He puffed out a laugh. "Can you imagine it? Our dignified, unemotional Spock with a dog?"

Jim's face lit up with the most genuine smile it had in days. He glanced back in the direction of the office. "Impracticality of having a dog aboard a starship aside...I still dunno how Archer did it...it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. Remember Cigna?"

Cigna was Cigna Midiera Aeranii, a small moon outpost orbiting the third planet in a system right smack in the middle of most warp flight corridors from the more remote sectors to the heavier populated areas. Starfleet had originally established it as resupply depot, no one knew when or how it also became a sanctuary for domesticated animals found abandoned on some other planet or another.

It happened more than anyone in 'Fleet would have imagined. Cigna was perfectly located to get any wayward adoptable animal relocated and rehomed.

The Enterprise had been scheduled to rendezvous with the USS Ginsburg at Cigna to transfer personnel and, for once, hadn't had any harrowing emergencies or close-quarters shootouts and arrived three days early. The crew had unanimously voted to beam down planetside and volunteer their time at the sanctuary.

Even Spock had willingly left the ship for the impromptu shore leave.

Jim remembered hours had gone by and no one had seen nor heard from the First Officer. He, Bones and a sanctuary staffer had found Spock mid-afternoon in the section allocated for Terran canines. He was sitting cross-legged in the grass with a gargantuan mastiff-type dog, if he recalled correctly the breed was a Cane Corso, practically oozing into his lap. "Bohjan," as the staff had named the beast, had been found amongst the wreckage of a crashed transport, was injured, fearfully aggressive and overrode all of the sedatives they'd tried giving him. Spock was the first person who's touch the canine had allowed and was loving every minute of the gentle fingers stroking through its short brindle coat. Bohjan had happily lumbered along at Spock's side as he lead the creature to the veterinary division. With Spock calmly restraining him while a nurse injected the hypo of sedation, the dog had finally gotten the weeks old injuries tended to.

Try as he might to deny it, Jim knew Spock was a sucker for animals.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember. Damnedest thing I ever saw." McCoy absently rubbed his backside. "I remember getting bit by a goose. I swear, the only wall the United States shoulda built was the one that kept them fucking geese in Canada!"

Jim cackled louder than he'd intended to.

"Perhaps if you had not hissed back at the bird, it would not have chased you down and bit you on your gluteus maximus," Spock said with a light, good-natured mocking tone. He was leaning against the door jamb and slightly disheveled but looked no worse for wear.

Jim's cackling morphed into a full-on belly laugh.

McCoy huffed, "Fuck off Spock."

Chapter Text

Spock found laying on his stomach uncomfortable, it forced him to twist his over-taxed neck muscles in such a way that they screamed under the strain. But it was a necessary evil, he would become too exhausted halfway through the evening's treatment to sit straight enough for Nurse Chapel to place her instruments in their proper locations at the base of his neck. He was stretched out on the bed, his arms tucked under the pillow and head turned towards his right shoulder. From that vantage point he could still see the viewscreen on the wall in the other room.

Mr Scott had made good on his promise; when Spock had returned to his cabin last night the first thing that he noticed was the black leather sofa pushed against the wall where the desk had been and the viewscreen, that was quite frankly, aesthetically too large for the space, mounted on the opposite wall. Scott's note written in the precise block lettering of an engineer explained that he'd programmed the PADD on the sofa as a control panel for the whole set up. The couch was pleasantly comfortable and he'd spent the remainder of the night utilizing the screen's size to pull up the blue prints of the inner workings of the communication system.

He'd felt well enough after waking up in sickbay…again…to accompany Jim and the doctor to the mess hall even though he'd had no appetite. He knew he would have to force something down before Dr McCoy did, so he'd ordered two kappa maki rolls and a hot tea. Two slices in and he'd abruptly excused himself; conversations had grown quiet at other tables, nervous side glances cast in his direction, his sensitive Vulcan hearing had picked up the hushed whispers about his medical calamities. A few bold, but well-meaning, crewmen had come up to their table, clasped their hands on his shoulder and offered their condolences.

The repeated macabre emotions that flowed from each touch through his weakened shields became too overbearing.

And Spock refused to be pitied.

"Good night, gentlemen. If you'll excuse me," he'd unceremoniously told the captain and Dr McCoy. He'd averted his eyes to everyone as he'd forced his aching body to move with the effortless grace of his natural gait. By the time he'd reached the sanctum of his quarters the effort of feigning his normal countenance allowed for the headache to pound with renewed aggression. He'd pressed the palms of his hands against his closed eyes and simply growled in anger, frustration and uncertainty. He'd deposited the new medication in the top drawer of the chest with the four pre-loaded hypos to be intentionally accidentally forgotten about. The chemo he would take, the chemo would stop the tumor from growing and take away his pain.

If not, he would end his pain his own way.

He'd turned down the lights, prompted the replicator to synthesize Mr Scott's anti-nausea ginger ale remedy...he wasn't convinced of its efficacy, at least not with chemo and radiation in tandem, but he'd found the taste satisfactory enough...and settled onto the couch. He'd been cross-referencing all the locations of the glitches in the reports with the over-sized schematics and completely lost track of time.

That at least, hadn't changed; on more than one occasion he would get himself so immersed in research that all other duties and obligations were forgotten. When he'd checked the chronometer he realized Nurse Chapel would be coming by in fifty-eight point three six minutes to administer the second dose of proton therapy. He'd been up all night, and most of the day, scouring through the diagnostic summaries and maintenance logs. He showered quickly then went about tidying up his quarters. The illogic of that action was not lost on him, he was always fastidiously neat and organized.

Spock's thoughts darkened again as he'd listened to the lyrics from the player as he laid on the bed awaiting Nurse Chapel's chime.

/…I fall to the floor
And crawl to my room
The thought of ending it soon…/

Very few artists had such an impact on him as the vocalist pouring his heart out through the speaker. Even though Spock did find an appreciation for almost any melodic composition, each work penned by this songwriter reached into the darkest suppressions of his katra. Each and every one of his insecurities, his discontent with the duality of his being, his discomfort in his own skin burst to the surface.

For the second time in as many days, he gave consideration to the razor blade stored unsecured in its place on his side of the bathroom counter.

How quick and painless it would be; he envisioned his hand curling around the black pearlescent handle, feeling the perfectly balanced weight of the hilt in his palm, the micrometer of smooth sharpness gliding across his neck.

/…Hear me cry! Cry! Cry!
I hear a knock at the front door
Don't come in!…/

The raw, unfettered, unfiltered, unapologetic emotion that roared from the singer’s raspy, grating throat never failed to elicit a feeling that punched him in the gut no matter how many times he listened to this song.

It was, quite possibly, one of his favorites.

He blinked back the stinging in his eyes as the door chimed. He pressed a button on the PADD as he gave Chapel permission to enter. Blue October did not exactly fill Dr McCoy's prescription for light and uplifting.

"Rigellian industrial, Spock? Really? What's next? German death metal?" Chapel teased him gently as she unpacked her equipment.

Without even looking Spock reached up the headboard to press a button on the PADD again.

/Du. Du hast. Du hast mich. Du hast mich/, grated through the speaker. He cocked his brow up in challenge.

Chapel lightly shoved his shoulder and grinned, "hahaha, smarty-pants. You ready?"

Spock nodded.

Five minutes into the procedure Christine asked, "can we go for something a little more relaxing?"

Spock found the PADD without so much as lifting his head. The strumming of a simple acoustic guitar wafted in the air. They listened in companionable silence for another few minutes.

"This is beautiful, Spock, really beautiful. Who is this?" She listened on as the unknown guitarist began using it as both a stringed and percussion instrument. Realization dawned on her, she knew of only one person that made such music. "This is YOU playing, isn't it? Spock, it's amazing!"

"It is. Lt Uhura has been suggesting I record some of my rehearsal sessions. I am quite satisfied with the result. You are the first person that has heard this," he mumbled into the pillow.

Early on in their first year of their mission Spock and Uhura had started performing together for the crew, he with his lyre and she with her vocals. It'd been a monthly event at first, but quickly became so popular that they'd perform weekly. The rec room was usually standing room only and the show piped through the shipwide overhead system for any crewmen that couldn't attend to enjoy.

Somewhere along the way the game of stump-Spock-with-so-and-so-stringed-instrument started. He'd been able to play fifteen different instruments just by ear and directly on the spot. He was the most-proficient at his lyre and acoustic guitar and would routinely swap out one for another during each piece. He'd only failed at one instrument, a Cygnusian monstrosity that no one could even pronounce the name of correctly nor figure out which laws of physics had to be broken to get the thing onboard in the first place.

The sounds that he could make sing from the guitar was mind-boggling. Watching Spock play was hypnotizing. More than one member of the crew mused afterwards about what else he could do with those fingers, herself included.

"I know it's Dr Dre, but I can't remember the name of the song. Mockingbird?"

"Still DRE. Mockingbird is Eminem," he matter-of-factually corrected her. "Most of these recordings are original compositions. I have included some covers, however."

Chapel beamed as she glanced over at the guitar on its stand in the corner. "My gift is going to good use then."

"Indeed."

They spent the rest of the session discussing each piece, he reminded her more than once that none of them had any emotional significance. He knew she didn't believe him, every one was deeply expressive.

They only made it through half of the tape when the queasiness started to rise in his gut. He went silent then, squeezed his eyes shut, buried his head into the pillow and gritted his teeth against the flipping of his stomach. He maintained control just long enough for Chapel to finish packing up her equipment. He bolted for the bathroom as his cabin door closed behind her.

Ten minutes later he was completely spent. He slowly readied himself for bed, he wasn't even trying to meditate anymore. He hadn't had any dreams in quite some time either but tonight he finally did. He dreamt of her fingers tracing down his neck, gifts of guitars and sensations he'd felt during a night spent with Christine Chapel on Livonia Station that he didn't even know where to begin analyzing.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Livonia Station was one of the least-desirable ports a starship could call upon. It was in a region of space that was devoid of anything except gas giants with moons that had long since been stripped of their precious minerals by greedy miners. It was a stop along several trade routes, very little else. It wasn't even under Starfleet jurisdiction, although there was a small compliment of engineers stationed there. And while the administrators were Federation citizens, their policies and personal constitutions were dubious at best.

The Enterprise had been forced to detour to the space station when a fire fight with a Klingon bird-of-prey damaged the port nacelle. It wasn't major damage, merely more cosmetic and a zero-g spacewalk in open space was never advised.

The station did have one redeeming quality, tucked away in a corner of its commerce section was an obscure antique shop of oddities and other various baubles. Spock frequented the shop whenever there was the unfortunate occasion to dock at Livonia. The shopkeeper, an eccentric middle-aged Human woman, that centuries ago would have been labeled as a "hippie," twisted her own instrument strings. They were of such a quality and produced so rich a tone that Spock purchased several sets for his lyre whether it needed restrung or not. She also fawned over him whenever he was a patron. She claimed she always took care of her "regulars" and upon learning he was a fellow vegetarian, would bestow upon him each visit a couple miniature loaves of her hand-made spiced polenta bread, which he found to be surprisingly delicious.

On this particular visit he'd noticed the very old Terran acoustic guitar displayed on the far wall. It looked to be in good condition, not that he was opposed to restoring antique instruments, finding the time was challenging. Luckily for him the proprietor's price exceeded the amount of credits he carried.

When it came to anything related to music history, Spock was almost as bad as Jim was in an antique bookstore.

It was 2200 hours, most of the commerce area was closed for the night. The businesses that remained open were the nightly entertainment establishments. Bars had no appeal to Spock, he rarely consumed alcohol and he found the writhing and grinding together of intoxicated bodies distasteful in the extreme. Additionally Livonia had the reputation of drawing in a rougher crowd than most starbases and he was not in a bar-brawling mood.

He'd overheard several conversations amongst the crew about hopping between the various establishments. If they were going to be stuck in dock for a few days, they at least wanted to enjoy it. Lt Uhura, Yeoman Rand and Nurse Chapel were one such group. "Ladies night out," Uhura had called it on the bridge.

It was Nurse Chapel that had caught his attention from across the square. She was standing just inside the entrance to reputedly the roughest pub in the station arguing with someone, from his vantage point he couldn't see who. Concerned, Spock changed course for the bar. He'd at least check in before going back to the ship.

The person Chapel was arguing with Spock did not know, from her body language he surmised she didn't know him either. He was Human, as tall as she and dressed like a trader. He kept making to grab Chapel's hands, her face, any part of her he could. Inside other patrons and the supposed security simply looked on, shrugged and turned back to their drinks.

Fucking hell, Spock thought. He crossed the distance in four long strides. He swung the fleet-issue messenger bag he carried around to his back; he'd also purchased a couple of books he knew Jim was searching for. As First Officer, it was his duty to keep tabs on the crew, even whilst off-duty and ashore. Even as First Officer, he was no stranger to physical altercations, he'd often gotten into fights in his youth.

Nurse Chapel noticed his approach before the man did and she made a beeline straight toward him. "Imzadiiiiiii!" she practically screeched as she flung herself into his arms.

"Oof!" he blurted out just as she wrapped her arms around his neck and bent his head down to begin kissing him. He backed away slightly at first, more than shocked, but found he was unable...unwilling...to pull his lips away when she deepened the long, languid kiss. He couldn't recall when his hands had moved to tangle in her hair and rest at the small of her back. He tried to refuse the discovery that the back of her deep violet halter top scooped exceedingly low and she wore no supportive undergarment. He gave a small, involuntary whimper when she broke the embrace.

She put her mouth up to his ear, whispered, "Mr Spock, this creep won't leave me alone. Won't take no for an answer. He's got hands coming out of his ears."

Still somewhat breathless and very, very confused, Spock looked around Chapel at the man. He narrowed his eyes and fixed the man with an icy stare that could freeze Vulcan. Pekh-razh, as Spock was mentally calling him, didn't back down.

Correctly deducing her plan he whispered back into her ear, "Spock. Just Spock. There are no formalities if I am to be play-acting as your consort for the evening, Christine." He cupped her face in his hands and initiated another kiss, this one painstakingly slow, gentle and highly erotic.

Pekh-razh finally got the message, flipped the pair off with a middle finger and stalked back into the bar.

Nyota Uhura and Janice Rand, having been delayed by a traffic jam in the transporter room, strode up to Christine Chapel making out with their commanding officer. Both stopped short as if they'd run head first into a force field, mouths agape and in all honesty, quite envious of their friend.

When they came up for air, Christine flashed him the brightest smile he'd ever seen from the woman. Sweetly she ran her thumb across his bottom lip, she bit hers. "C'mon. I'll make it worth your trouble." She nodded in the direction of the bar. Reluctant, Spock followed when she pulled him along by the sleeve of his black Vulcan silk tunic.

She let go of Spock's arm to grab Uhura's and Rand's as they still stared dumbfounded. "Girls' talk in the loo. Be right back, Imzadi." She pushed her friends into the bathroom, saying the Betazoid endearment loud enough for Pekh-razh and his toadies to hear. She was swearing them to secrecy about what they'd witnessed. Spock was going out on a very uncomfortable limb for her.

Spock followed behind just long enough to make his presence known to the men. He flashed them a look filled with venom. He was a vehement feminist and had complete confidence that the three women could quickly dispel any would-be assailant, but there was something about this man that gave even him the hibijibis, as Dr McCoy would likely say. Without looking away, Spock downed the shot of Terran Absinthe he'd ordered in one gulp. ”Christine Chapel-kam t’nash-veh!” he growled as he slammed the glass down onto the bar right next to the man. Pekh-razh visibly squirmed that time.

Spock nursed a bottle of a Tarkazzian stout as he watched the women on the dance floor. Uhura and Rand had tried coaxing him to join them, he had his limits. He was content to sit at the table they'd commandeered, sip his drink, snack on the communal basket of french fries they'd ordered...he rarely ate anything unhealthy, especially unhealthy Terran bar food, but he did occasionally imbibe when the situation called for it...and shoot glares towards the men like the jealous consort he was play-acting to be. Christine, having consumed slightly more alcohol than her companions, intermittently came back to the table, engaged him in a kiss and traced her fingers along his jawline and down his neck before going back to her friends. Spock swallowed hard each and every time.

It was nearly closing time when a Terran song titled "Pony" started playing from the jukebox. Christine, whom Spock did not previously know had trained as a dancer in her youth, was by this point highly inebriated and very attentive to him. Rand had consumed just as much. Uhura, also alarmingly intoxicated, had ushered her into the restroom when she'd started showing signs of getting sick. Christine was clearly no longer play-acting with the ferocity she was kissing him and how she was all but grinding suggestively against him in time with the song.

Although he was completely sober, Spock could not be certain he was entirely only play-acting either.

Two days later once the Enterprise was back in open space, he entered his cabin after his shift to find the guitar from the antique shop placed carefully across his desk with a note tucked between the strings that read 'Thank you for the other night, you didn't have to go that far. Friends? CC.'

Friends indeed.

Possibly something more.

Chapter Text

Spock surprised himself by adapting to this new routine, or lack thereof, within a week's time. He would sleep later than he'd ever had, regrettably missing his morning tea with the captain. Jim had taken to stealing into his cabin before his own duty shift to leave a warming carafe of Vulcan spice tea and a rotating variety of breakfast dishes, usually something fruity, atop the canvas ottoman/side table in the main room that had mysteriously appeared after one of Uhura's early morning visits. Spock always finished every last drop of the tea, the thought of consuming anything else usually caused an involuntary queasiness.

Unbeknownst to Dr McCoy, he'd started injecting himself with nutrient supplements and falsifying his meal cards.

Being a computer genius had its advantages.

Uhura would stop by the mornings after his radiation treatments to make sure he was feeling better. One morning she'd caught him in the middle of a mild tonic-clonic seizure. Not knowing where he'd stashed the hypos that he was supposed to keep within reach, she resorted to the only option she'd had, she climbed into the bed with him, pulled his upper half into her lap and held on. When Spock came out of the seizure his head was nestled in the valley between her breasts. He was not loopy enough to not blush at least four shades darker than his normal complexion, mumbling slurred apologies and drifting back into a restless sleep almost instantaneously.

Mr Scott was a frequent visitor as well. He and Uhura were no closer to solving the buggy communications, she'd started rifling through each of the software systems and he was overseeing the enormous task of inspecting every piece of hardware. Scott asked Spock to read through the lines of code, if he was feeling up to it. Spock had very little else to do and the monotony of scanning through the endless symbols was a distraction away from the constant throbbing in his head, neck and back. Scott made an off-hand mention of an old Terran vid series in the entertainment archive called Firefly and how delightful he'd found it. That same night the headache had surged so hard that Spock couldn't concentrate on much of anything, so he'd laid on the sofa, recalled the vid and just watched with more interest than he'd ever admit to having. He'd found the characters of Jane and Wash mildly amusing and sympathy for River.

Both were science experiments gone horribly wrong.

He'd even had a short duty shift on the bridge yesterday. The Enterprise was orbiting the planet Shaalal, an unaligned planet in a star system close enough in proximity to the Romulan neutral zone that the ship maintained a yellow alert status the entire time. Shaalal had once been an untamed, subarctic wilderness, the perfect place for a ship full of warlike pre-Reform Vulcans to tame nearly twenty-three hundred years prior. The Ghree, as they'd eventually come to be called, retained their Vulcan ferocity, barbarism, ruthlessness and feudalist origins. They'd adapted to their new tundra home quickly and within a millennia were a race of albino Vulcanoids with an attitude problem.

Spock found everything about them to be distasteful. Not only were the Ghree a reminder of Vulcan's violent past, they were belligerent, highly emotional, xenophobic, masochistic and misogynistic. Women Ghree were seldom allowed out in public and held no status within the society other than as brood mares. They had limited space flight capability, never an urge to travel outside the confines of their own system and inhabited a planet with an over abundance of naturally-occurring quagili, a chemical substance crucial in manufacturing the pharmaceuticals necessary to treat the plague ravishing Doval Lambda.

The Enterprise had been sent to negotiate for a few metric tons of the compound, the Ghree did have enough of a moral code to trade for their precious commodity, usually after a fair amount of posturing and arguing. They spoke a dialect close enough to ancient High Vulcan that both Spock and Uhura could converse with them, they'd banned the use of the universal translator, so no one else could. Knowing that the Ghree representative wouldn't even acknowledge Uhura's existence, the captain had gotten clearance from Dr McCoy to call Spock to the bridge.

It had been refreshing slipping back into his uniform, Spock refused to dwell on how ill-fitting it had become due to his continued weight loss. He'd donned one of his ceremonial black robes over top anyways, both as thermal support and a show of his prominent clan affiliation on Vulcan.

The Ghree needn't know Spock had forfeited his allegiance to his clan after the Pon Farr, T'Pau wouldn't release him with a meld and forced him to endure the torture knowing full well T'Pring's contempt for him.

Unlike modern-day Vulcans, the Ghree viewed beards as a symbol of power and strength, so it was quite fortuitous that Spock's hands shook too much anymore for him to be clean-shaven and he was fully bearded; he'd contemplated several times from where in his lineage the subtle coppery highlights originated.

He'd been slow and deliberate in his pace as he'd circled around the upper section of the bridge, his left hand reaching down to run along the length of the rail, his right trembling uncontrollably in the folds of his sleeve behind his back. Although more hoarse than usual, his voice retained its authoritative tone. Having moved to one of the tertiary stations to the left of the viewscreen, out of sight of the Ghree, Uhura occasionally cackled quietly when Spock would respond with some sort of snarky, smart-ass insult in High Vulcan.

Four metric tons of raw quagili later, Spock was spent and had retired to his cabin for the rest of the evening. He'd barely had time to change when his door chimed. He pulled his favorite sweatshirt over his head hastily; he found it illogical to have a favorite article of clothing, but the black hooded garment was over-sized, well-worn, warm and comfortable. Expecting Jim or Dr McCoy to be on the other side of the door, he was surprised that it opened to reveal Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. Each carried a small messenger bag, Uhura had two.

"You're in here by yourself most of the time. Tonight we're gonna keep you company, if you feel up to it," Uhura had cheerfully beamed. The trio grinned ear to ear as Spock dipped his head down and extended his arm out in a welcoming gesture. "It's movie night, Spock! Get ready for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, with props!" She tossed her extra bag at him.

Spock was familiar with the concept of "movie night," it'd been a popular recreational activity at the academy and continued to be so aboard a number of starships. He'd never had interest in participating in the event, reading and losing himself in music had always been how he relaxed. But he was touched by his shipmates'...his friends'...desire to keep him company, and while he wasn't the most social creature, he was beginning to feel somewhat isolated. By the movie's conclusion there was discussion of future gatherings in his cabin, Spock did not disagree. He did, however, put forth stipulations on viewings that did not require the use of props.

He was likely to still be finding toast crumbs and bubble residue everywhere for the next several days.

Today Sulu and Chekov showed up at his door after their duty shifts, an antique vid gaming system in tow. "Wintage game night, Meester Spock!" Chekov proclaimed, triumphantly holding up the twenty-first century relic he'd restored and reprogrammed to functionality. The young ensign began attaching the system to the viewscreen.

Spock had had a significant set of three clusters very early this morning and had been fairly hazy all day, getting any amount of work done by now was moot. Radiation was scheduled with Christine at 2000, after which his head would be spinning in a wholly different way.

Spock was at a complete loss as to how projectile tortoise shells, gold coins and banana peels related in any way to the ridiculous characters operating even more ridiculous automotive vehicles. He'd never admit it, but he was enjoying himself and the camaraderie. Judging by the joking "you're an asshole, Spock"s and "you're a tvat Meester Spock, Sair"s, he surmised he'd caught on to the point of the game quickly and was winning handily. When Sulu and Chekov formed an alliance to gang up on him the real battle began. The evening grew so rowdy that Jim popped through from his quarters to make sure everything was okay.

Jim laughed so hard he started crying at the sight of Chekov sticking his tongue out at his commanding officer as the Vulcan's finger depressed a button without even looking at the controller to launch a barrage of shells that sent the young Russian's avatar spinning over the edge of a cliff. He clamped Spock's shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze as he turned to retire back to his own cabin. He chuckled as he'd heard Sulu say "goddamnit, fuck off Spock!" as he'd closed the adjoining door. Spock is going to be okay, he happily thought.

~~~~~~~~~~

At precisely 2000 the door chimed.

Nurse Chapel.

Spock paused their game and selected the save option from a menu...this war was not over. "Gentlemen, thank you for your company," he said as he rose stiffly from the couch, "enter!"

Chapel grinned as Chekov squeezed past her in the door grumbling about getting Spock back next time. "You boys stay outta trouble!" she called into the corridor. She turned to Spock, raising her eye brows in questioning amusement, "you have fun?"

Spock shrugged. "It was satisfactory. I am not opposed to a continuation."

Christine tried not gawking at how adorable Spock looked in civilian attire. He always cut a stunning figure in his uniform, but the too large black sweatshirt and black linen sleep pants gave him an air of casualness that she found irresistible. Add to it the beard and she didn't think it'd have been possible for Spock to get any sexier. He pulled her out of her reverence of him by awkwardly clearing his throat.

"I regret that I allowed myself to get too immersed in Mr Sulu's and Mr Chekov's game. I haven't cleansed yet today. My apologies." Today's post-ictal period had been particularly draining and he'd laid in bed until shortly before Sulu and Chekov beckoned at his door.

She shrugged. "I don't care. But if you want to grab a quick shower while I set everything up, I won't stop you. I know you'll feel too shitty afterwards. What lyrical masterpiece will we listen to tonight?"

Spock snagged a change of clothing from the dresser. "Torturer's choice. There is an index on the shelf. I will be ready in ten minutes." He was only half joking about the torturer. He emerged exactly ten minutes later to Queen wafting through the air.

An acceptable selection.

Over the previous several sessions he'd had conversations with Nurse Chapel on various topics, from ship's business to discussing literature. He'd discovered that she shared his fondness for the writings of Dr Seuss. The Lorax had been a favorite of his as a child and was one of the few physical books he retained in his collection.

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" she asked as she secured the cortical stimulator to a spot just below his right ear. She couldn't help but lightly trace her index finger down the length of that horrific scar on his neck.

Spock shuddered under the touch, he craved more of it.

He squared his shoulders against the pillow, instead focusing on answering her question. "I was not aware that there was preparation involved." Tomorrow morning was his first of the every two week recheck scans Dr McCoy wanted to perform. "Perhaps afterwards we can obtain a dog." A focal seizure, there'd been no aura of warning. Spock could do nothing but listen to himself babble about the nonsense then lose all awareness of his surroundings.

Christine was taken aback at first, the focal's onset was more rapid than she'd thought possible. Len had described to her this bizarre manifestation of the mild seizure; he'd been eye witness to two previous, the captain one. She was instructed to not render any medical aid, while disconcerting, these weren't as worrisome and could be left to fizzle out on their own. Spock would always ramble about dogs, specifically Doberman Pinschers, then go completely blank for anywhere from two to seven minutes. She wasn't sure if there had been vertical nystagmus observed before, she didn't think so, she'd shoot McCoy a text before bed.

Spock wilted as he came to.

Chapel made the decision to cut tonight's session short. Spock was already losing the battle to remain awake. She managed to coax him under the covers before he totally lost consciousness. She quietly packed up, turned down the lights and stealthily made her way out of his quarters.

Spock awoke three hours later with the abdominal gymnastics that always followed radiation. It was, of course, his misfortune that even though it was cut short, the session caused the same volatile side effects. He dragged himself out of bed, dry heaved into the sink until he almost passed out. It wasn't until he'd made it all the way back to his bed that he noticed the life-sized stuffed figure of a Dobermann positioned to sit as sentinel on the other side. The absurdity overtook him and he rumbled out a laugh that carried him into a relaxed slumber.

Chapter Text

Jim disliked leaving the bridge in the middle of alpha shift.

He disliked leaving the bridge at all.

But this instance was a necessary occasion, acting-First Officer Scott was running the command crew through drills designed to test their ability to function without their established command structure. The Enterprise's crew was, of course, proficient and efficient no matter who was...or wasn't...in command; they were accustomed to Spock's exceptionally high standards in his evaluations of these drills. He had no doubt that his crew would perform equally as well under Scotty's watchful eye.

This time of day he expected the observation deck to be deserted, even the overnight gamma shift crew that milled around the ship to unwind for a few hours afterwards had probably all returned to their respective cabins. Jim stopped short when he rounded the corner and a lone figure was sitting on the deck before the massive floor to ceiling window. The long, lean silhouette could only belong to one man.

Spock.

Clearly his Vulcan friend hadn't heard his approach for he didn't acknowledge his presence. Jim was close to being worried about Spock's failure to hear him when he saw the blue blink of a light come from the vicinity of his left ear; he realized Spock was wearing his own personal ear pieces and had tapped a button on the portable playback device that was probably in his lap. They weren't the bulky, unsightly pieces of equipment used on the bridge, these were for use in the private sector, so therefore sleek and graceful and minuscule by comparison. They were of the highest quality available, Jim had no doubt that they'd set Spock back at least two months' worth of credit allotment.

Jim observed Spock closely from just inside the corridor. Even with his back towards him, Jim could see how strained Spock had become. He was sitting cross-legged atop a meditation mat, his elbows propped on his knees and chin resting on his balled up fists. He held his neck rigid, his shoulders were pressed unnaturally higher up towards his ears and rolled so that his back was slouched forward. He could see how painfully taut Spock's neck muscles were even from here.

Then there was the scar.

That gnarly, hideous purplish-brownish, thick 20cm line that ran from the base of Spock's skull all the way down his neck to disappear under the hood of his sweatshirt. He looked exhausted and drawn. His normally expressive deep brown eyes were dull and glassy, even his sleek black hair had lost its luster. Jim didn't think he'd ever see the color return again to Spock's sickeningly pale skin. Despite the full beard, Jim could see how thin Spock's face had become, how sunken and sallow his cheeks were.

Jim crept up to Spock carefully, the Vulcan was distracted and he didn't want to wind up neck pinched on the floor. He saw Spock glance sideways as he'd caught his reflection approaching in the window. He scooted over to share the mat as Jim lowered himself to the deck beside his First Officer. "Penny for your thoughts?" he asked as he nudged Spock's shoulder lightly with his own.

Spock reached up to remove the piece from his left ear. "My apologies Captain. I had the volume turned up higher than should have been sufficient. You inquired something of me?" Tinnitus had started this morning, everything sounded muffled and distant.

Kirk smiled, "never mind, Spock." He rubbed his hands together then folded them into his lap made by his crisscrossed legs, almost completely mirroring Spock's position. "I woulda thought you'da been in the gardens, it's been pouring almost all day."

Spock straightened his back from its previous slumped posture. Jim cringed at the soft crackle each of the Vulcan's vertebrae made as they popped back into alignment. He saw Spock visibly wince then let out a small grunt when he'd craned his neck backwards.

"Crewman Bruskin proposed to Crewman Ol'at in the gardens this morning. Proper decorum called for allowing them privacy." Spock sounded as exhausted as he looked. He slouched forward again to begin massaging his forehead and temples.

"Ol'at and Bruskin? Bones' orderlies? I knew they've been dating, I didn't think they'd gotten that serious yet. Damn!" Jim was less surprised by the news, he rarely interfered with the private lives of his crew. He was more shocked that Spock was more privy to the ship's scuttlebutt than he was.

Then again, he shouldn't be surprised.

A disproportionate amount of gossip revolved around the exotic First Officer; gossip that always found its way back to the disapproving exotic First Officer.

Especially since the onset of Spock's illness had been very public.

Jim had had to put on his stern captain's hat when he'd begun hearing rumors about Spock's health failing and having only weeks left to live. McCoy couldn't give either he nor Spock a definitive prognosis and Kirk had been harsher than what was probably necessary chewing out the ensign that had started that rumor.

Remembering the significance of the day, Jim leaned forward and turned slightly towards Spock. "Hey, you had your first follow up scan this morning, didn't you? How'd that go?" He wasn't sure if the agitation in his voice was from excitement or apprehension, probably both.

Spock continued rubbing at his temples, eyes screwed tightly shut. "I believe the term you Humans would use is 'meh', if I understand the correct meaning of the slang."

The corners of Jim's lips turned up into a slight smile. Spock was more adept at understanding Standard slang than he let on. He would usually feign vague contextual understanding it's correct meaning in lieu of actually using it. "And that means? What exactly?"

"The tumor has remained unchanged. It has neither grown nor decreased in size," was the curt reply.

Kirk turned back to face forward, setting his eyes to stare at nothing on the deck before him. "Oh, I'm sorry Spock. I..."

"Apologies are unnecessary Jim. There is nothing you can do to change what is happening. Kaiidth. Either the good doctor's treatment plan will be successful, or it won't. In which case I will ta...ugh...", take matters into my own hands, was what he'd intended to finish when the sensation of white, hot pokers being lanced through his eyes interrupted. Better to keep that to yourself, Spock. You don't need a fucking psych evaluation on top of it. You'd undoubtedly fail spectacularly, he thought to himself dourly. Instead he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and groaned out a soft "damnit, my head hurts."

Jim became instantly concerned. He placed his hand on Spock's slightly quivering shoulder. "Spock, does McCoy know the headaches are still this severe? Didn't he give you some pills to help with the pain?"

Spock nodded. "Affirmative. We discussed their persistence this morning," he mumbled into his hands as they scrubbed down his face. "Dr McCoy is concerned his original prescription may have deleterious interactions with my chemo. He is searching through the files from Cleveland Clinic for other medications that can be safely used in conjunction with chemotherapy agents. He will then have to cross reference any potential alternatives for compatibility with Vulcan physiology." This jolt of pain left him breathing heavier than he'd prefer to in front of his captain.

"Shit, Spock. I'm sorry. I wish there was more I could do to help," Kirk sighed sadly. "Wait! Spock! Peppermint! Have you tried peppermint?" he was excited at remembering an at-home remedy his mother would use for his own headaches as a kid.

"Excuse me?" Spock peered at him bleary-eyed and confused.

"Peppermint! Well, peppermint oil, at least. It'll do jack-shit for the headaches themselves, but a couple dabs on your temples will help open the capillaries enough to relieve some of the pressure."

Spock shot him a disapproving rise of an eyebrow, "I suggest you leave the snakes and rattles remedies to Dr McCoy."

Jim snorted out a quick laugh. "No, seriously, Spock. It does work, a little bit at least. Plus you'll smell like a Peppermint Patty."

"A what?"

Kirk grinned. "A Peppermint Patty. It's candy. My favorite candy, by the way. I have a secret stash in my quarters that Bones will never find, don't tell him. And don't give me that face, you're as bad as he is about my diet." Kirk leveled his gaze to gently tease Spock. "Besides, I've seen you polish off a pack of Twizzlers like it was your job."

Spock saw no logic in denying that.

~~~~~~~~~~

For precisely eighteen point four three minutes they sat in silence, simply watching as the star field slipped by beyond the observation deck's window. Judging by the speed in which the stars glided passed and the vibration of the deck plates, Spock calculated that the ship was traveling at Warp 1.2. He missed making those calculations.

Seeming to read his thoughts, Jim broke the silence by saying, "we miss you on the bridge, you know. Scotty's doing a helluva job as acting-First Officer and Chekov's practically a sponge. The kid learns freakishly quick. But, they're not you. I miss you on the bridge. I miss your annoyingly accurate calculations, your dry one-liners."

"I am endeavoring to return to duty as soon as I can, Captain." That wasn't entirely true, he was completely ignoring treating his seizures. He'd taken to disposing his daily dose down the drain to make it appear that the expected number remained should the doctor ever check. He had no other logical explanation for his actions other than the couple doses of Keppra he had taken had only served to exacerbate all the other ways he already felt miserable.

"I know you are, Spock, I know you are." Kirk patted his knee. "I'm worried about you. We all are."

Spock felt guilty that he didn't feel guilty about his deception.

Changing the subject completely, Kirk waved at the playback device balanced across Spock's crossed ankles. "Who're we listening to today?" Spock offered him the other half of the pair. Kirk plucked the delicate device from Spock's equally delicate, long fingers and twisted the piece into his own ear. Tupac Shakur. Interesting. Jim regarded Spock with a sideways glance, trying to ascertain his state of mind.

To say that he'd been gobsmacked the first time he'd heard Terran music coming from Spock's quarters, especially that centuries old and notoriously violent genre, would have been an understatement. He remembered Spock's calm and even explanation that music was an effective tool for studying the depths of Human depravity towards other Humans; being the student of history that he was, Jim hadn't been able to find himself in disagreement. But as he'd sat across the desk from his First Officer, the Vulcan tapping mind-bogglingly complex equations onto his PADD with tales of illegal substance distribution and racial injustice pounding from the terminal beside him, it had somehow made an odd sort of sense.

Jim had a sneaking suspicion that Spock was also examining himself through music.

All to aware of his thoughts, Spock sighed, "Jim, I do frequently listen to music simply to just listen to it.” That was the truth, his plans to spend the remainder of the morning in the gardens being waylaid by the couple's need for privacy, he'd detoured back to his cabin for his meditation mat and the first cassette on the top of the stack. "I can select a different artist if you request."

Jim shook his head, "no, no, no, Spock. It's okay. I'm open minded. But next time I'm requesting The Cranberries, or Prince.”

"Duly noted, Captain."

They sat again in silence. Kirk estimated he had approximately forty minutes for Scott to finish running the senior crew through their paces, he was more than content to just sit here in the company of his Vulcan best friend. He cast another sideways glance in Spock's direction, he was deeply concerned that his head was back in his hands and he continued to rub circles across his temples. He needed to distract Spock away from the beating inside his head. "So, Ol'at and Bruskin, huh?" he cheerfully huffed. "Guess I need to brush up on Deltan wedding ceremonies, don't I?"

"Mm'indeed, Captain," Spock mumbled. He shifted slightly to rest his head in his right hand as it massaged his temple and under his right eye, his left arm was loosely laying across his bent knees. The stabbing behind his eyes was more persistent than usual. It was pulsating in perfect time with the shrill tinnitus ringing in his ears.

Kirk tapped Spock's left knee playfully, "what about you, Spock? Any steamy, clandestine trysts you wanna tell me about? Hmmm? You have a lot of visitors lately." He grinned devilishly. "Uhura. Scotty. The Bash Brothers. Nurse Chapel...," he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at that last name.

There'd been juicy rumors about a salacious, drunken night the two of them had spent together on Livonia and the way they'd both vehemently denied it suggested something had happened between them. Spock could no more hide his emotional attachment to Christine Chapel than she could not hide her's to him.

THAT got Spock's attention. He leveled an icy glare in Kirk's direction. "I am collaborating with Mr Scott and Lt Uhura on the communications errors. The viewscreen Scott installed in my quarters has been beneficial for examining schematics on a larger scale. If I am correct in assuming the Bash Brothers are Lt Sulu and Ensign Chekov, their ridiculous games are aiding in maintaining the dexterity in my hands." The corners of his mouth did quirk up into his slight half-smile, "however ill-conceived their perceptions are that they will ever defeat me is another matter. Lt Uhura goes out of her way to check on me the mornings following treatments. The proton radiation causes me to become quite ill, debilitatingly so." Spock's expression, his voice became stone cold, "Christi--Nurse Chapel--administers those treatments."

End of discussion.

"Uh-huh. Okay, Spock, whatever you say." Jim decided changing the subject was the best coarse of action at the moment; if Spock wanted to keep denying he was attracted to Dr McCoy's head nurse, he'd let him play that game. Antagonizing him about it could only push him further from admitting that truth. Instead he reached over to smooth down Spock's hair from where his hand had been rubbing his temple and forehead. "You need a shave," he exclaimed, "although half the crew might launch a revolt."

Spock dropped his other hand into his lap and simply rolled his eyes.

Chapter Text

https://imgur.com/gallery/H0Et0qh

Chapter Text

"Spock! You are a fucking jackass! You know that? Hmmmmnnn?" McCoy frequently feigned anger with Spock, he rarely felt any real anger towards the man. Especially this level of anger. "You're a real mother-fucking piece of work!"

"Language Doctor."

"Don't fucking 'language Doctor' me, Spock! You've got a mouth on you that'd make a Klingon's ears bleed, twice on Sundays!" He glared at the tall Vulcan trying unsuccessfully to hide that he was using the biobed for support as he stood before him. McCoy was so livid with the man at the moment that he didn't care how unsteady Spock looked. "You have got some fucking nerve!" He didn't need to add in an expletive that time, he did it just to emphasize his point.

"I fail to see how my use of vulgarities would cause a Klingon's ears to hemorrhage? I...," whatever else Spock was about to say was cut short by Jim rounding the corner into the ward.

"Am I interrupting something gentlemen?" He'd heard the two arguing as soon as he'd entered through the main entrance to sickbay, it was just random happenstance that he'd stopped by when he did to ask Bones if he wanted to break for lunch. While it wasn't unusual for his two best friends to verbally spar...in fact, he missed watching the exchanges...this incident had all the earmarks of getting out of control, rapidly. It wasn't like Bones to metaphorically kick a man when he was down, he couldn't fathom what Spock had said or done to draw this much of the CMO's ire.

McCoy waved a hand disgustedly in Spock's direction. "Dr Oz over here has been self-medicating!"

Jim and Spock shared a confused glance, neither understood the reference but gathered it wasn't meant as a positive comparison.

Jim's eyebrows rose up on his forehead in a close imitation of his First Officer. "Self-medicating? What? How? Spock?"

Spock opened his mouth to reply but McCoy beat him to it.

"He's been injecting himself with nutrient supplements. AND he's been altering his meal card. He's barely eaten anything in weeks!"

Jim turned his attention to Spock. The Vulcan was attempting to stand there in his trademark stance of defiance, hands clasped behind his back and eyes focused above the heads of the two men before him. "Spock?" The tone in his voice carried the rest of the question.

Spock refused to make eye contact with either of them. "The doctor's tendency towards over-exaggeration has, as the saying goes, 'blown things out of proportion'. As I have been unable to maintain proper dietary requirements, I have been injecting myself with suitable nutritional substitutes. I...".

McCoy turned on Spock. "Bull-fucking-shit, Spock! Now, I can sympathize with your not having much of an appetite, I expected as much. I should have suspected something was up that the computer was recording the expected amount of intake, especially given that your ADHD ass hasn't seen much action in over two weeks."

"I do not suffer from ADHD, Doctor McCoy. I simply prefer to..."

McCoy cut him off again. "Whatever, Spock. Save it for some other poor sap. You've fucked up...".

Kirk was the one to interrupt this time. Accusations and slinging insults weren't going to help Spock, and he really just wanted to know why McCoy was making such accusations in the first place. "Alright, alright Bones. Chill the fuck out. Spock, at ease, please, before you fall over. Jeezus." Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw Spock shift to cross his arms over his chest, a slightly less defensive posture. "Now, would you boys kindly enlighten me as to what's going on?"

Spock glared at McCoy, challenging him.

McCoy fixed Spock with a defiant glare of his own. "Spock here has taken matters into his own hands and usurping my treatment protocol. Now, granted its been unintentional, I'll give you that much, Spock. I don't think you're that monumentally stupid..."

"BONES!"

He at least had enough tact to actually look apologetic, "sorry, Spock, that was a low blow." He ran his hands back through his hair. "For shits and giggles I went back through the labs we drew yesterday with a fine-toothed comb, something wasn’t adding up. I compared it to the values from two weeks ago, there's several discrepancies in the biochemical balance. The reason, Spock, your headaches are so severe is one, that fucking tumor, of course, and two, this substitute you're taking along with being malnourished has caused a neurotransmitter imbalance in your brain. Specifically a glutamate imbalance, you're going in and out of glutamate storms as your body is trying to compensate for either an excess or a deficiency."

Spock had enough respect for the doctor and his medical expertise to look mildly sheepish. He had, indeed, fucked up. "I would be remiss, Doctor, if I refuse to acknowledge my error. Would I be correct in assuming that you've devised a plan to correct the imbalance?"

McCoy knew Spock well enough to conclude that that was the closest to an apology he'd get. He brought his hand up to work the tight kinks out of his own neck. "Actually, Spock," he sighed, "I haven't. Now, I'd normally recommend a pescatarian diet as a natural source of the glutamate." He watched as the Vulcan's eyes widened in a mixture of disgust and disbelief. "But given that damned self-righteous Vulcan morality against eating animal flesh, I won't even suggest it Spock, don't worry. I can't find any information on the deficiency in Vulcans in any of my medical literature. I've made another call to the VSA for any recommendations a healer there might have. I'm really hoping that that cunt T'Nala isn't the one that gets the message. In the meantime," McCoy held up a hypo that had been lying on the desk. "I will be administering a new supplement, this one's catered to your specific needs. If you notice any positive changes in a couple days, I can have Chris pop it in your arm on radiation days. Deal?" At Spock's nod of understanding he depressed the hypo into his upper arm.

Bones turned to Kirk, he jerked his head back in Spock's direction behind him, "Jim, make sure he's eating. Chris loves to cook, so does Scotty...although he's a tad busy right now. Rumor has it that Pavel knows his way around a kitchen too, supposedly he makes a mean caprisi and pesto. I know they'd enjoy the chance to make a mess of the galley for Spock. Sit on him to get him to eat if you have to."

~~~~~~~~~~

"PONFO MIRANN!!!!!!"

Kirk and McCoy crossed the threshold into Spock's cabin just as he'd shouted the Vulcan curse at the screen on the wall. Kirk caught a fleeting glance at the two vaguely Vulcan-robed figures before the screen blanked off. He had the distinct impression that when he and Bones, admittedly rudely, barged in they'd witnessed an exchange they were never meant to see.

It was clear that Spock had been having one of his better days, the thicker mat he used when practicing his Suus Mahna techniques was spread out on the floor, the scent of a pleasantly earthy incense burning, and what Jim thought sounded like Mary J Blige softly playing in the background. Clad in a simple black tank and the traditional black pants of the Gi typically worn by practitioners of the ancient Vulcan martial art, Spock looked brighter than he had in days.

Spock didn't acknowledge their presence for several moments. He stood half-turned away from Jim and McCoy, his head hanging down, eyes tightly closed, fists clenched tightly at his sides and chest heaving. Whatever they'd walked into had certainly been unpleasant and probably going on for several minutes. Jim took a couple hesitant steps towards Spock, he reached out a tentative hand in support but didn't dare make any contact while Spock was obviously in an agitated state. "Spock? You okay? What happened?"

Spock inhaled and exhaled deeply. Without opening his eyes or even turning to address the two men just inside the door directly, he asked in a voice barely containing the emotional maelstrom that was threatening to swirl to the surface, "why did you contact Vulcan, Doctor?"

McCoy shot a confused and worried glance at Kirk. He'd heard that tone in Spock's voice only once before, on the day the Vulcan had threatened to break his neck. "I beg your pardon?" He was equally as puzzled as he was terrified that Spock didn't seem like he remembered their conversation just two days ago.

"Vulcan! Why did you have to contact Vulcan?" Spock's fists unclenched then balled-up again with each mention of his home planet.

Another perplexed look at Jim. "I," he cleared his throat, "I told you. We went over this. I put in a request to consult with a Vulcan physician about these chemical imbalances. Don't you remember, Spock?" He had a bad feeling about where this was going. "Did that bitch contact you? What did she say to you?"

Spock was slowly getting his heaving breaths back under control.

Realization came to Kirk before Spock had time to answer McCoy. "Spock? Those two people that were on the screen when we came in? Were they your parents?" Jim rarely heard Spock talk about his parents, he would make an in-passing comment here and there, but he rarely spoke of his childhood period. And when he did, Jim guessed by Spock's clipped one word answers that his youth had been less than pleasant.

"Yes. That...woman...took it upon herself to open communications with them," the contempt in Spock's voice could be felt by the two other men in the room.

McCoy stepped a little more into the room. "Wait, Spock? She told them? You haven't told them about your illness?"

With that something within Spock snapped. He whirled around, stalking his two friends as he backed them against the wall. There was as much fury in his dark eyes as there'd been during the deepest of the plak tow. "I suggest that you not open wounds you are ill-equipped to close, Doctor!" The venom in his voice made it come out in a raspy half-whisper.

Backed as far against the wall as they could go without actually climbing up it, Kirk and McCoy tried not cowering when the tall Vulcan moved to tower over them. The dichotomy of Spock was startling; usually gentle, cool and calm under the most-extreme of circumstances, this loss of control was terrifying, this was borne of weeks of frustration, uncertainty and fear. McCoy was the first to regain his composure, "look, Spock, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

The doctor's attempt at platitude further stoked Spock's sudden rage. He found he could not stop the anger-fueled words from tumbling from his lips. "'I'm sorry Spock. I don't know Spock. You're an idiot Spock.' That's all I hear from you anymore! Are you or are you not a fucking physician?”

"SPOCK!" Jim held up his left hand to hold him at bay, although he wasn't totally confident that Spock wouldn't reach out and snap every bone in his fingers if he so desired. "That's not fair! Bones is doing the best he can to help you!"

Jim's statement did nothing to slow Spock down. He turned on his captain, his friend, just as easily as he had McCoy. "No! It's not fair! My fucking head hurts every waking moment! I am unable to meditate! I have a fucking malignant tumor in my brain and my spine! It's not fucking fair! I did not ask to be ill!"

Once again McCoy's mouth got the best of him and he retorted with "er, ya kinda did Spock. You're the one that jumped into the light chamber before the final data was in," before he even knew it came out. Horrified, he clamped both hands over his mouth. I did not just say that? Yes, yes I did. Dick move. You really are an asshole Leonard H McCoy!

Spock bent to look both men dead in the eyes, his face was completely devoid of any expression. His arms were spread out and hands pressed against the wall on either side to effectively trap them in front of him. He leveled his face to be nose-to-nose with McCoy, "get out." His voice was equally devoid of any inflection, intonation.

"Spock..." Jim tried again.

He rose to his full height, intent on intimidating Jim and McCoy below him. "GET. OUT. NOW!”

The altercation happened close enough to the door that it was heard outside in the corridor. Several crewmen watched in morbid fascination as their captain and CMO scurried out of their second in command's quarters.

Inside Spock wailed onto the wall with a powerful right cross, leaving a sizable dent in the bulkhead. He then went to the top drawer of the bureau, released the four glass ampules from their hypos and ground them against the wall.

He did nothing to cease the blood trailing from the heels of his palms and wrists nor the wetness tracing down his cheeks.

Chapter Text

"Spock! Spock? You in there?" Uhura chastised herself, of course he was in his quarters. Even if the computer hadn't told her so, there'd be very few other places he could be, they'd already checked. But she'd been chiming for entry for the last several minutes, she'd resorted to knocking on the metal door. Even in his most-reclusive phases it wasn't like Spock to ignore a soliciter.

"Jus' a minute, lassie. Lemme punch this in." Scotty was at her side, control panel for the door's locking mechanism open and keying in his engineering override code. Besides the Captain, Dr McCoy and, of course, Spock himself, no one else aboard had unfettered access to anywhere on the ship with override commands, except Scotty; as Chief Engineer he had carte blanche access over them all. With the last digit pressed in the sequence, he slid the face of the control panel back in place and waited the nanosecond it took for the door to slide open.

Uhura and Scotty were met by dim illumination from the other side of the threshold. Uhura peeked her head around the door jamb, "Spock?" she called again. With still no answer, the duo cautiously padded their way further into the room. It was dark, only about forty percent of normal, and quiet. Oh so quiet. That was alarming, Spock almost always had something playing in the background.

Then there were the remnants of broken glass, the dent in the bulkhead and the handprints of dried blood trailing into the adjoining sleeping area. The four mangled and discarded hypos on the floor answered those questions.

They'd, of course, heard about the fight that had occurred between Spock, Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy yesterday. As it had taken place during the heavily-trafficked time between shifts, there'd been half a dozen other members of the crew milling about in the corridor. The altercation was the number one topic of conversation within an hour. Both the captain and doctor were still visibly shaken on the bridge this morning, Spock seemed to just disappear.

No one wanted to press the parties involved about the incident. The mood on the bridge had been tense all day. Uhura had wanted to knock McCoy's teeth down his throat herself after what he'd said to Spock, she knew the boys harbored the same sentiment. The heavy vibe lifted slightly when Kirk and McCoy beamed down to Doval Lambda to evaluate how relief efforts were going in vaccinating the population with the quagili they'd delivered last week. The relative ease of this part of the mission was going to allow for the complete wiping of the current comm system's software and uploading the new programming Spock had written, Uhura and Scotty had set up a meeting with him today to collect all the needed materials.

They just needed to find him. They'd been paging him for the last hour.

"Mr Spock!" Scotty called this time. He was getting just as worried as Uhura. The only sound that could be heard was of his and Uhura's hurried breaths and the occasional soft popping of the flame in the belly of the asenoi nestled in the folds of the tapestry on the far wall. It wasn't so dark in the room that he didn't notice the rumpled duvet half off the bed. Scott went around to the far side and gasped, he found Spock. "Nyota!"

Spock was sprawled out on the floor, his left arm over his eyes, his right bent at the elbow above his head and propped against the front of the night table. Both hands and wrists caked in green from numerous lacerations. His legs were tangled in the other half of the bed's red coverlet. He moaned when Scotty reached for his wrist, checking for a pulse. He opened his agonizingly painful eyes halfway to see four humanoid shapes bounding up and down before him. Their questions to him sounded tinny, far away and jumbled.

"Spock!" Uhura squeezed herself between his twisted frame and the opposite wall. She pulled his arm down to rest across his abdomen, took his head in her hands to face her. "Spock? It's Nyota and Scotty. You hear me Sukari?" She wasn't expecting Spock to answer her. She pushed his hair back off his face, he felt like an inferno. She looked over at Scott, who'd untangled the bedclothes from around Spock's lower half and threw them back up onto the mattress. "Scotty, he has a fever, a high one. He's burning up."

Scotty pressed the back of his hand against Spock's exposed forehead as well, he let out a shrill whistle of surprise. "I'll get M'Benga."

Scott's shrieking whistle lanced through the ringing in Spock's ears like one of the doctor's laser scalpels. He grimaced and groaned in pain as he tried to cover them with sluggish and heavy arms. Everything around him felt weighted, as if he was inside the decompression chamber with someone laying across his chest and legs. His hands and arms were a tingling-numb, inflamed and stinging from the multitude of cuts. Closing his eyes left them feeling like they were pulsating in their orbits and the room whirling uncontrollably around him; leaving them open, everything was still spinning, blurred, doubled and jumping vertically to and fro. His head felt as if it were being cleaved in two with a dull and dirty lirpa. He was shivering despite perspiring profusely.

Nyota continued to run her cooling hand across his forehead. She reached above and over to pull a pillow down from the bed, gingerly slipped it under Spock's head. From the condition of his sleeping space, she'd pieced together that Spock had likely had another of his bad seizures, fallen to the floor whilst convulsing and remained only semi-conscious until she and Scotty found him a few minutes ago. She'd been with him during a couple of others, as had Scotty, she never noticed Spock having a raging fever before.

Nor could she ever recall witnessing the way his eyes bounced up and down. "Spock, can you look at me?"

Scotty slid quietly back into the room. "Dr M'Benga's on his way," he reported. He perked to attention when he noticed the way Uhura studied the Vulcan's face. "'Tis is lass?" He caught sight of the movement of Spock's eyes rolling upward, darting downward then rolling back upward again. "Uh, shit. That's nae a good sign. Help me get him up on th’ bed, lassie." Together they lifted Spock's mostly limp and barely cognizant body onto his bed.

M'Benga let himself in as Uhura finished tucking the pillow back under Spock's neck. He quickly began waving his scanner over Spock's prone form. "How long has he been like this?" the alarm in his voice immediately set off her's and Scott's internal red alarm klaxons; second only to Spock, Geoffrey M'Benga was as level-headed and calm as they came.

Scotty shrugged as he answered, "dunno Doc. Poor divil's been like this since we found him. We've been tryna page him for 'bout an hour. You see his eyes?"

M'Benga lifted one of Spock's half-cast lids. "Vertical nystagmus. Fever. You have just earned yourself a date with another brain scan, Commander." He began packing up his scanning equipment when he noticed a slight tremor followed by the tensing up of Spock's body, indicating he was about to erupt into a severe seizure. "Oh, no, you don't. Lt, have sickbay send a gurney down here," he ordered as he emptied a vial each of Keppra and hoxopirazine into Spock's arm.

"No need, Doc," Scotty rebuffed as he scooped Spock into his arms. "Ny, clear the corridors, I dinnae want th’ crew seein' Mr Spock like this." He tried not thinking about how close to death Spock looked, or how frighteningly light the 16cm-taller man was cradled in the crooks of his elbows on his way down to sickbay.

Chapter Text

To say that Spock's emotions were running rampant was an understatement. He'd been barely keeping the swirling maelstrom in check since the first creeping onset of Pon Farr, his confrontation with Jim and McCoy two days ago effectively obliterated the last vestiges of control he'd had. That night was the night it all finally came crashing down on him; he was eternally grateful for Dr M'Benga's training in Vulcan medicine and that he had agreed to discharge him from sickbay after regaining full consciousness yesterday.

He was in no state to manage his own emotions, never mind navigate the macabre ones of those surrounding him.

The chemo and radiation were taking their toll on his mind and body, he was exhausted in ways beyond what havoc the tumor was causing infiltrating into his brain and spinal cord. It was unfortunate that both physicians were currently planet side, assisting medical staff there to expedite the vaccination process. He hadn't yet received the results of his scans yesterday. But Spock already knew they wouldn’t be satisfactory. His heightened awareness of his body felt the tumor's sudden, explosive growth.

Tonight he didn’t have the energy to put up his veneer of emotional control. Tonight he wanted, he needed, someone to simply hold onto, to ground him against the torrential downpour of helplessness and hopelessness he was feeling. He needed someone to hold him when later tonight the pain would become too severe for his tenuous mental control to pathetically attempt to tamp down, when he would quake from the overwhelming nausea from his treatments and when he would have nothing else to think about other than he was dying.

That someone was Christine Chapel.

Chapel was finishing packing up the radiation kit. As much as she was relishing the way he was opening up to her, she hated giving Spock his radiation, he was always wiped out and already nauseous before the end of the sessions. She hated being the one making him sick. She hated knowing he wasn’t getting better. She’d peeked at the scan he’d had yesterday, she was devastatingly sad to see that the tumor had grown almost twenty five percent larger in a matter of days. She'd overheard Geoff comming with Len immediately after the scan; Spock's brain had lit up like a Christmas tree, indicating he'd probably been seizing for hours before Ny and Scotty found him. Neither physician was sure if the fever or the nystagmus was a result of clusters running amok or from the tumor itself. Only one thing was for certain, Spock was getting sicker. So caught up was she in her melancholy that she didn’t hear Spock tiredly shuffle up behind her.

“Christine?" Spock’s voice was raw, thick and gravely from exhaustion. He tried again, “Christine?"

“Yes Spock?" her voice was the gentlest of gentle. She turned around in time to see Spock sway slightly. He steadied himself against the partition, raised his other hand to wave her off when she reached out to stabilize him.

“Christine--Chris, would you, um, would you sleep with me tonight?” Spock despised that he sounded so weak.

“I, uh, I’m sorry. What?” Christine was baffled by Spock’s question. Surely she didn’t hear him correctly.

“Sleep with me tonight? Please?”

If it had been any other occasion that Spock asked her to join him in his bed, she would have jumped at the chance with no hesitation. But the man was wasting away before her eyes and she couldn’t allow herself the pleasure of enacting any of the fantasies she had of him when his defenses were clearly down, no matter that Spock had been the one making the request. “I’m, um, I’m sorry Spock. I don’t think that’s appropriate. And you’re in no condition to…”

If Spock had rolled his eyes any further it would have been heard on the bridge. He let out a small laugh that contained no humor, “it is not carnal relations that I’m seeking. Should I even have the desire, in my current state I doubt I would even have the energy.” He took in a shuddering breath, closed his eyes in an attempt to quell the dizziness threatening to topple him over. “I am simply requesting that you lie next to me tonight. I do not wish to be alone."

The desperate undertone in his voice, the pleading, the longing in his dark brown eyes made her heart sink. She knew this was his way of saying he was scared, that he needed her. Her heart nearly fluttered out of her chest with the knowledge that Spock needed her. Gently she responded, “of course. Lemme run to my quarters and change,” her lips curled up into a sardonic smile, “these uniforms are not exactly comfy to sleep in, trust me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Thirty minutes later...a startling record for her...Chris found herself back at Spock's door. Long gone was her trepidation at having other officer's observe her chiming entrance, it was routine by this point. If anyone she passed had any misgivings about her being in her pajamas, they'd kept their eyes appropriately averted.

With the frequency Spock was being admitted and discharged from sickbay, anyone that took notice was probably under the impression that she'd be performing a quick recheck before retiring. The foresight to stash her toiletries in her field medical bag certainly gave off that impression.

The lighting had been dimmed in her absence. Only a small reading lamp atop the headboard's shelf and the light slicing across the floor from beneath the lavatory door illuminated Spock's private chambers. She deposited her bag on the sofa in the other room and perched herself on the edge of the bed. Tonight was Spock's show, she was poised to provide him with whatever help he needed. She cringed at the sounds of his gagging coughs from retching coming from the closed door. She heard a strained something groaned in Vulcan as the faucet turned on.

Spock emerged a few minutes later looking impossibly more drawn and exhausted. He was flushed, the fever was less in intensity, but nevertheless persistent, and gaunt. His hooded eyes were half closed and clouded over as he stumbled the short distance to the bed.

Christine resisted the urge to giggle at the realization the sight the two of them made; each in their sleepwear, which for Spock consisted of a black tank and black silk lounge pants, and for her also a black tank and brown and orange flannel lounge pants, each was also barefoot. She, instead, rose to pull back the covers. She did let out a small snort of delight as she did so.

Spock either did not share her amusement, or more likely chose to ignore it, as he slowly lowered himself onto the opposite side of the bed. He was unsure how to proceed, outside of survival situations on away missions gone awry, he'd never shared a bed with anyone except I-Chaya as a child. Fuck it. He swung his tired legs under the covers. "Your personnel file indicates you are from New Orleans," his eyes wearily flicked down to the script embossed down one leg of Christine's pajama pants.

She grinned as she too pulled herself up and over onto the mattress, it was a small and innocent query, but to her it meant that Spock was paying attention to her. She glanced down at herself, she'd absently grabbed the first pair of clean sleep pants she'd found, her LXXII Super Bowl Champion Cleveland Browns pajamas. "I was actually born in Cleveland, Spock. My family relocated to Louisiana shortly thereafter." She hadn't laid down yet. She turned to see Spock laying stretched out beside her, head resting on his folded hands behind it and regarding her with an open curiosity she'd never seen from him before. She shrugged. "Little known fact...my great-great-great grandfather was an NFL tight end the last ten years of its existence. He bounced around a couple teams before he was on the Browns. He helped them win the last two Super Bowls. So, you see," she plucked at the fabric, "these are somewhat family history."

"Indeed," he mostly successfully swallowed back a yawn. "Perhaps you could guide me through a game some evening? I am not overly familiar with that particular Terran sport, save for the fact that it existed." He felt the telltale flipping in his abdomen roiling up.

Smiling broadly, Chris lowered herself the rest of the way. She rested her head tentatively on Spock's shoulder and when he didn't recoil away, she pressed the rest of her upper half against his. "Spock, I'd love nothing more than to sit up and watch football with you all night." Her impromptu Vulcan pectoral muscle pillow was abruptly snatched out from under her head. She watched Spock stagger once again to the bathroom.

It was obvious Spock had exceeded his limit as he fell back into the bed. "My apologies. I will most-likely be hasty throughout the night with nausea. I will endeavor not to wake you." He turned slightly before fully reclining back. "Do you require any sleep aids?"

"Sleep aids? Huh?"

Spock shrugged. "Am I incorrect in assuming Humans need auditory assistance in order to reach REM sleep? I am given to understand that the resonance of the warp engines is the perfect pitch of white noise to trigger a sleep response. However, the captain has admitted that he often needs additional ambient sound. Was I wrong in my assumption that all Humans are in need of auditory guidance into sleep?”

Chris was more than touched by the adorable and thoughtful way he was trying to make her more comfortable. "No, Spock, you weren’t wrong. I don’t need anything, I can fall asleep anywhere. But not everyone can, that’s true. Do you have trouble falling asleep?” She shoved aside the observation that Spock did little else except sleep lately.

He thought for a split second. "Sometimes. But not tonight. Computer, lights." With that, the sleeping area was plunged into darkness, the only light the flame flickering from the fire pot. Spock positioned himself to lay spooned with his front to Christine's back. He took her hand in his, brought them both to his lips and placed a small kiss in the palm of her's before wrapping his arm around her midsection, nuzzling his face in her hair. "Thank you for taking care of me," he mumbled as he curled himself around her lithe body as close as he possibly could.

Chapter Text

Christine found her earlier admission of being able to fall asleep in any scenario to be a falsehood. Tonight she couldn’t sleep for all the stars in the galaxy.  Despite her knowledge that it was much too warm, the heat radiating from Spock’s body wrapped around hers lulled her into a sleepy state. She couldn’t, however, stay in that land of slumber.

Len’s stories are true, she thought to herself with amusement as she pulled a corner of the duvet back over to her side of the bed for what was at least the fifth time in the last few hours. She found it entertaining that Spock had the very Human habit of being a “bed-hog,” she’d had to elbow him several times from his curled-up position diagonally across the bed. Each time he’d slurred a sleepy apology and fell instantly back into unconsciousness.

She chastised herself when this last time she’d poked at him, she rolled over to spoon him and her hand brushed over the ridges of his too-prominent rib cage. Spock always teetered on the edge of being too thin, even by Vulcan standards. She knew from her own experience and overhearing his arguments with Dr McCoy about it that he wasn’t the best at keeping a consistent meal schedule even at his healthiest.

But now, she took advantage of the ability to tuck herself even closer to the lanky Vulcan’s body. His lack of proper nutrition, in conjunction with the tumor ravaging away within his brain, Spock was bordering on being emaciated.

She cursed herself six different ways to Tasmeen that she hadn’t noticed the rapidity of Spock’s deterioration until now.

Not that he’d let her get a closer look at his physical state. He’s always wearing that fucking sweatshirt, she mused to herself. She’d been meaning to ask Spock about the logic of essentially living in the thing, but then she supposed the answer on her own; everything else about Spock’s existence had been disrupted at warp ten that even he probably needed the familiarity of something tangible to take solace in.

~~~~~~~~~~

This time it was several hours gone before she woke up again. This time it wasn’t from lack of bedsheets or balancing on the edge of the mattress; her snuggling up to Spock from behind and drawing his body to her’s had seemed to calm his restless tossing around. They’d both finally fallen into a deep slumber.

This time Chris was awoken by the rhythmic tapping of Spock’s thumb against the back of her own hand. It took several fuzzy moments to break free from her groggy haze to recognize the repetition to be the result of one of his minor focal seizures.

Before she was fully aware of her surroundings, she felt Spock rush from her embrace into the lavatory. Mostly awake now, her heart sank at the strangled dry-heaving coming from the man behind the door.

Christine unfolded her own long, willowy frame from beneath the covers and gave a slight stretch to her back before quietly padding her way around the bed. Regulation furnishings weren’t the most uncomfortable of things Starfleet offered it’s officers, but the game of cosmic contortionism she’d been playing against Spock all night certainly made the bed feel that way.

“Spock?” she called from just around the door jamb. The sound of the faucet being turned on was the only response she expected, and the only one she received.

Christine’s stomach dropped to the bottom-most of the ship’s twenty-three decks when she rounded the doorframe into the bathroom.

Spock was bent over the sink, trembling arms on either side of the basin, head hanging down between his straining shoulders and panting heavily. Through his tightly-closed eyes Christine was positive she caught the descent of a droplet of moisture as it captured a glint of the overhead light on its way down into the swirling sink.

The mere thought of Spock being driven to the point of tears was enough to propel her the remainder of the way into the room. “Spock?” she questioned again, reaching her right hand to brush up his rounded back and her left to grasp lightly onto his shoulder.

“Trasha, Christine. Trasha, sanu,” Spock rasped out.

His voice sounded the weakest she’d ever heard it, his rich baritone a shadowy whisper catching in his raw throat.

Chris was the first to admit that she wasn’t as fluent in Vulcan as she should be, especially given that she had a Vulcan as a regular patient, but she knew enough that she knew Spock was asking her to leave him alone.

Not a snowball’s chance in hell, she thought to herself.

Defying Spock’s request; normally it would have been an order, but so far gone now was the authoritativeness from his voice that anything beyond a flat monotone sounded pleading and defeated, she pulled in closer to the quaking Vulcan, resting her chin in the crook between his head and shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong, Spock.” She took notice of the way he held his neck rigidly in place, the pinched wrinkling of the skin at the corners of his eyes. “You’re having an occipital headache, aren’t you?” she concluded.

Spock finally answered with a failed gulping back of another round of empty retching. “Christine, please,” this time hoarse in Standard between gagging coughs. The white hot streaks of pain scorching along his spinal cord winning the battle against his tremoring arms and legs. He was grateful that Christine had had a hold of him when his knees buckled, nearly sending him crashing to the tiled floor.

Her supposition about his headache was a rudimentary description of the agony rampaging within his skull. Never before had one of them been this exquisite. Had even his emotional control and mental disciplines been fully available to him, Spock doubted they would be strong enough to combat the torture hammering away. Too weary to fight, he choked back a sob before collapsing into Christine’s arms, the tears that had been threatening to fall spilling over at last.

Chapter Text

For the last three days Jim Kirk had felt like a tyrant. By the way he'd been arguing with Bones down on Doval, he knew he'd been acting like one too. He had absolutely no authority over how the vaccination protocol was being run, he'd simply gone down to escape the accusatory glares he'd been getting from the rest of his senior staff.

It wasn't as if he'd been the one telling Spock that he was responsible for his illness, McCoy's unerring inability to control his mouth had crushed Spock in a way neither of them had ever seen. He'd been bickering with Bones since beaming down to the main hospital, each was taking their guilt out the other.

Jim was exhausted. He'd paced the length of his quarters the night of the fight and still hadn't been able to sleep in the accommodations provided them planetside. Then the emergency call from M'Benga to McCoy about Spock's latest admittance to sickbay ripped away any chance of sleep coming to him. He'd rushed to sickbay late last night after beaming back up only to be told by the nightshift nurse that M'Benga agreed to discharge Spock to his cabin and left strict orders that  no one  except Nurse Chapel and her proton radiation kit pay call to the Vulcan for the night.

That was last night. This was this morning. Jim  NEEDED  to see Spock, to touch even just his shoulder, to apologize more than he'd ever apologized to anyone, even if he was only guilty by association.

Rather than stand awkwardly in the corridor waiting for admittance he decided on cutting through from the bathroom. He buzzed for the locking mechanism to disengage. With the telltale  click  signaling the door was now open, Jim plastered his warmest, most charming smile across his face.

Flabbergasted couldn't even begin to describe the feeling when he saw that it was Christine Chapel and not Spock that bid him entrance inside. He collected himself quickly, the toothy smile returned full force. "Nurse Chapel. Good morning."

Lucky for her, Christine was already dressed in her uniform. She'd gotten up early, showered, dressed and was in the process of restyling the messy bun of hair piled high atop her head. She regarded Kirk coolly with her ice blue eyes. "Captain."

He was just outside the threshold into Spock's sleeping area. It was still mostly dark inside, the only light was from the recessed bulb above the chest of drawers. Even still, craning his neck up and over the taller woman, Kirk spotted the faint outline of a body in the bed.

Spock.

Nurse Chapel.

Spock and Christine Chapel.

Kirk beamed at McCoy's head nurse.

Chapel's corresponding eye roll was eerily reminiscent of the one Spock would have given him. "Geoff didn't want to skip Spock's proton therapy last night,” she supplied. Even though it's obviously not working, she thought morosely to herself. She choked back the sob that threatened to escape her throat. "Spock asked me to stay with him.” She shrugged. "He didn't want to be alone. He'll never admit it, but he's scared, Captain.  Really  scared. It was a rough night,  for both of us.”

Kirk sighed, leaned heavily against the door jamb and ran his hand back through his hair, he left it there to scrub it back upwards, then smooth the light brown locks back down, then back up and down again. "How so?" He didn't think he wanted the answer, however.

A light-hearted, mischievous spark twinkled in her grey-blue eyes before being replaced by something more menacing that Kirk couldn’t place. “Have you ever shared a bed with Spock, Captain?" knowing full well that he had. She recalled the still hilariously whining way Len had retold the story of how he, Captain Kirk, Spock and three junior officers had gotten separated from the rest of the landing party on the frozen hellscape of Eledikaar Beta and spent the night huddled together under the sleeping bags they'd managed to scrounge up inside their survival cabin. He'd called Spock a walking, talking, black hole of blanket thievery. She wasn’t certain that her position as Head Nurse provided her the ability to pull rank over First Officer, but she was determined to spend another night sleeping beside Spock and made a mental note to include the throw she kept at the foot of her bed in with her belongings.

A faint smile ghosted across Jim's face. He could certainly sympathize with Chapel.

There was a rustling of the sheets as Spock stiffly rolled himself over onto his side facing Kirk. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. "Hurts," he whimpered in such a small and strained voice that Jim physically felt his heart break. He swallowed down the growing lump in his throat as he watched his unflappable and otherworldly resilient First Officer curl tighter into himself.

Christine crossed before him in approximately four strides to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed. She pressed the back of her hand against Spock's forehead, taking note that the fever had ramped up several degrees since she'd last checked. Shitshitshit! She smoothed his sweat-dampened bangs back down. "Shhhhh, it's okay, Sweetie. I know," she caressed the backs of her fingers down Spock's exposed cheek until he calmed enough to fall back into an unrestful sleep. She stared hard at the almost two meter tall Vulcan folded in on himself, huddled under a mound of blankets and trembling from pain. "Captain," she jerked her head back towards the other room, indicating he join her.

Jim reached down to give Spock's upper arm a reassuring squeeze as he tip-toed quietly by.

Chapel's eyes continually flicked between him and Spock's prone form. "Captain, when I said last night was bad, I mean it was  really bad . He was okay until shortly after 2400. He had a mini focal, he was coming out of it before I was awake enough to realize what was happening. Instead of being exhausted like he usually is, he was violently ill. He kept telling me to leave him alone. He didn’t answer me, but I could tell he had a headache. A  very bad one.” The welling at the corners of her eyes grew deeper at the only-hours-old memory of Spock crumpling into her arms, tears streaking down his face and wracking sobs escaping from his raw throat.

“Now, I can't even  begin  imagining the amount of agony it takes to make a Vulcan cry..." she swiped at the tear falling down her own cheek. "After I give Len a piece of my mind, I'll come back with  something  to help Spock's pain. Dr McCoy'll get another fucking ear full when I get back to sickbay." She tipped her head in the direction of the bed, "I don't think it's a good idea to leave Spock alone. Would you be able to stay with him til I get back? If Len gives him what I think he'll give him, Spock will be seeing pink dancing le'matya in his sleep for the rest of the day."

Jim snorted. "Of course! On the double Lt!" 

Anything for you, Spock, Jim thought.

~~~~~~~~~~

Starfleet Command definitely did not have scenarios like this in mind when they furnished officer's quarters. But then, this scenario wasn't anything  anyone  could have ever imagined. Kirk's left butt cheek was almost numb from where it rested against the edge of the bed. At first he'd perched himself at its foot, sipping his coffee and reading the reports he'd called up on the PADD he'd quickly retrieved from his cabin. Spock had sent him tumbling to the floor when he'd suddenly bolted and darted to the bathroom, a round of queasiness cropping up seemingly from nowhere. He'd had to beat back the urge to rush to Spock's side as he'd watched him use the fabric-draped wall for support.

Spock had been doubled over and panting by the time he'd made it the short distance to the bed. "Jim," was the only slurred acknowledgement he got from Spock.

Before collapsing in a heap, Spock popped the seal on a chemical heat pack he had tucked under his arm, stuffed it inside the sham covering the top-most pillow then tumbled into the bed. Jim helped him reposition the heated pillow to cradle the back of his head and neck. He pulled the rest of the bedclothes to just under Spock's chin, despite the raging fever radiating from his body, he was visibly shivering. Jim had no idea how high a temperature was too high for a Vulcan, but he was willing to bet a solar year's credit allotment that Spock was teetering on the threshold of it. Where the fuck is Chapel with that damn hypo? It'd been nearly two hours since she'd gone to sickbay.

Then again, Spock wasn't the only patient needing treatment aboard. He was, by far, the most critical, but not enough to monopolize the whole department.

Jim squeezed himself onto the remaining sliver of the bed, plopped the third pillow that had fallen to the floor behind his lower back, crossed his outstretched legs and propped himself against the headboard to finish up his reports. He startled slightly when he felt Spock shift closer to rest his forehead against the side of his right thigh. Kirk reached down to absently comb his fingers through Spock's fever-damp locks. "Hey, you," he whispered, "it's too quiet in here. Does your head hurt too much for some music?" He felt rather than heard Spock answer no into the fabric of his pants. He reached behind him to pluck the master PADD for Spock's cabin off the shelf. "What is the file number for Sigur Rós?" he asked himself, scrolling through the endless search menu.

"7143," Spock answered.

Kirk cocked his own brow up, grinned in response. As the ethereal melodies of the unidentified language floated about the cabin, his right hand continued raking through Spock's hair. He stopped only when he needed both hands to sign his reports. A thought came to him a short time later, "Spock, hey," he gently shook the Vulcan's slender shoulder. "I have an idea. Why don't we all stop over later after shift? Have a movie night?"

Spock groaned. Whatever the captain had been doing had felt pleasant in such a way that he'd been able to concentrate on that versus how miserable he felt otherwise. He peered up at Jim with half-cast, bleary eyes. "Movie night?"

Jim shrugged. "Yeah! You have that ginormous screen in there," he tipped his head in the direction of the living area. "Get the gang together. Watch all your favorites. Get your mind...get all our minds...off this whole bullshit experience for a night. Whaddaya say?"

"As you wish." Spock burrowed closer against Kirk's leg.

Jim ran through his mind what he knew of Spock's cinematic preferences. Spock wasn't the movie buff he and Sulu were, but he'd seen some and his taste was as eccentrically varied as his musical interests. He knew for an absolute fact that  Fargo was probably at the top of the list. More than once he’d overheard Spock conversing with Sulu about his appreciation for the dark humor and dry wit.

Jim grinned to himself, Bones liked to tease Spock about not having a sense of humor. Anyone close to the Vulcan quickly learned that Spock was anything but humorless, he possessed a dry, cerebral and sarcastic wit that could put any comedian to shame.

The two perfect choices came to mind as the door chime cut through the ambient music. "Come on in, Miss Chapel," Kirk called. She was the only person it could be.

"Sorry. There's this new bullshit game called Parrises squares going around...have you seen this fucking thing? Somebody's gonna get killed! Two ensigns fell off and each broke a leg. I didn't even have time to verbally assault Len." She triumphantly held up a hypo. "Anyways. A tailor-made pharmaceutical lullaby for a certain Vulcan Commander. How is he?"

Kirk dipped his head down towards the crown of jet black just barely uncovered by blankets. "He got sick about an hour ago. He was a little more lucid for a couple minutes." He pressed the back of his hand against Spock's temple, "fever's gone up again."

Chapel inhaled harshly, exhaled in a near growl. "Dr McCoy is looking up more aggressive treatments as we speak. He'll probably have to go back in, remove what of that fucking thing that he can. Spock might need to be admitted to a Starbase hospital..." she trailed off before finishing. "In the meantime. This'll dull some of his pain for a couple hours."

Kirk eyed the colored liquid in the hypo's loading tray, "what is that?"

Chapel turned the instrument over, shrugged as she emptied the ampule into Spock's bare bicep, "it's green."

Chapter Text

Spock greeted Jim at his door following the conclusion of alpha shift, he had a standard-issue terrycloth hand towel pressed under his nose, dark green blood staining the white material.

"Ugh, you too?" Kirk offered in the way of greeting. Nosebleeds were frequent occurrences aboard most Starfleet vessels, the air-recirculating technology they utilized was notorious for causing dry and arid air. Most of the deep space vessels harbored gardens similar to the Enterprise's and in almost every living quarters potted plants were placed to help combat the stagnant air. There wasn't a crewman aboard that hadn't had a nosebleed. Kirk paid no more attention to the one Spock was having now.

Spock, for his part, didn't either. He simply kept his head tilted back and pinched the bridge of his nose as he lowered his weary body carefully onto the couch. He balanced the still-hot pillow from his bed atop the rear cushions, leaned back and slumped into it. Whatever shamanic witches brew McCoy had conjured up for Christine to inject him with this morning was doing nothing for the slamming within his head, the vice contorting his spine or the fever threatening to cook him from the inside out. He felt so terribly cold despite his ravenously elevated temperature. He bunched the hood of his sweatshirt up under his screaming neck to provide another rest to prop against and wrapped the plush tapestry from the foot of his bed around his shoulders to just under his chin.

Jim watched his friend from the main doorway. Spock's complexion had gone from sallow and wan, to plain ashen in the few hours he'd left him for ship's business that required the Captain's presence on the bridge. His far-away, glazed brown eyes were bloodshot with minute green capillaries and olive-rimmed heavy lids. He knew the Vulcan wasn't doing himself any favors in lowering his fever by burrowing into layer upon layer of over-sized sweatshirt and fleecey throws, but one look at Spock's weakened, shivering body and Jim didn't have the heart to push those things away. He looked down at the data tapes he'd been sliding against each other between his thumb and forefinger then back up to Spock. "Y'know Spock, if you feel as gawd-awful as you look, we can take a rain check," he sighed.

The rest of the command staff had eagerly agreed to participate in this evening's impromptu movie night in Spock's honor. After freshening up and taking leave of the formality of uniforms, they'd be arriving shortly.

Spock waved off Jim's offer with the bloodied cloth before folding it neatly and stuffing it into the pocket of his sweatshirt, his right hand went to immediately massaging his forehead again. "No, Jim. The crew needs a boost in morale. I will be able to function adequately. The nosebleed caught me unaware, it has been quite some time since I've had one.” He slid further into the couch cushions, hummed in quiet satisfaction as he found a position that maximized the heat pack against his neck and shoulders.

Jim lightly squeezed Spock's left knee as he slipped by to place the tapes into the dock below the viewscreen. He looked around quickly, there wouldn't be enough seating for everyone. He ducked back through the lavatory doors to retrieve the two chairs from his own cabin's desk. He re-entered just as the door to Spock's cabin buzzed for admittance again. "'S'open!" he called before Spock had a chance to excavate himself from his burrow.

Two-by-two Uhura, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov filed in carrying arm loads of field bed rolls and sleeping bags to spread across the floor. Sulu went about arranging their packs into optimal viewing positions as Scotty recruited Chekov to accompany him to retrieve the trays full of refreshments he had set aside in the galley. Uhura took up the unoccupied section of the sofa, gracefully reclining back, but resisting the urge to cross her slender legs in Spock's lap. It was woefully obvious that he was in an excruciating amount of pain; she wanted nothing more than to gather her ailing Vulcan friend into her arms, hold on tight and not let go until the Spock they all knew and loved peeked through, even if by just sheer willpower alone.

Scotty and Chekov returned with trays crammed with overflowing platters of still-warm Uttaberry crepes. Spock wasn’t the type to give into the temptation of vices, but he’d given once such a convincing argument in the logic of occasional allowances for culinary indulgence, that it was almost forgotten that the Vulcan had all but admitted he had a bit of a sweet tooth. Scotty had ducked away from his duty shift a few hours early to steal time to make the Betazoid pastry from scratch himself. Unsure if the liberally-infused boozy whipped cream topping he’d made would react negatively with Spock’s medications, he’d set aside a virgin sample just for him.

Chapel trailed in right behind them with an obscenely satisfyingly contrite and sheepish Dr McCoy concluding the exodus into Spock's quarters.

Five sets of eyes shot daggers in the direction of the ship's CMO.

McCoy averted his eyes downward as he crossed the small room to kneel before Spock in his cocoon. He hesitantly placed his right hand on Spock's bent left knee, his right on the arm of the couch. He cleared his throat once, twice, swallowed before meekly addressing the Vulcan, "Spock. I, uh, I can't apologize enough for what I said to you. There's no excuse for it. You have every right to hate me."

Spock lifted his head from where it rested against the pillows to regard McCoy with an even and expressionless gaze. "I do not  hate you, Dr McCoy. Hate is a Human emotion. It confounds me, however, that you possess a doctorate in xenopsychology; to the degree that I'm concerned that you may have blackmailed your instructors at the academy." Spock heard several snickers come from around the room.

"Regardless, your apology is accepted. But rest assured, Doctor, that while Vulcans are bound to forgive, we never forget." He let his head fall back once again into the pillows and cushions as Uhura scooted over fully to the other end of the couch to snuggle up against Scott. Christine slid into that newly vacant spot beside him, crossing her legs to have her right knee ever-so-slightly rest against his left. Spock worked his left arm out from inside the blanket to stretch it out along the sofa's back behind her, not touching, but extended out in such a way that it suggested possessiveness.

The hand that McCoy had propped on the sofa's arm moved to run back through his hair. He let out a small snort of amusement. "I suppose I deserve that much, Spock. Next time feel free to knock me on my ass."

A right eyebrow arched upwards in mirth.

His composure restored, McCoy snapped back into full doctor mode. It didn't take much in the way of observational skills to see that Spock was running a fever, and a very high one at that; there was a thin sheen of perspiration covering his skin and he was visibly shivering. He'd hoped that throwing every narcotic he had that could safely be combined together this morning that Spock's headache would be less intense by now; the way he pressed his head into the pillows and squinted against the overhead lighting told him that wasn't the case. He reached into his ever-present medikit and pulled out his portable scanner.

The high-pitched whirring caught Spock's attention immediately. With a quickness he didn't think he still possessed he pushed the device away. "Please Doctor, not tonight," he sighed.

Looking around the room at the faces watching him, McCoy acquiesced. He dipped his head in agreement. He plopped the scanner back in his pouch, pulled out two hypos instead. "Alright, but I do want to run a thorough scan before I leave tonight. For now," he held up the hypos, "I don't need to be a doctor to know you're burning hotter than the surface of Sol, with a fucker of a migraine to match. At least lemme shoot you up with a fever-reducer and another pain-killer."

Spock responded by snaking his other arm from his sleeve.

~~~~~~~~~~

To the best of the assembled command staff's knowledge, there were no regulations limiting occupancy in officer's quarters. If there was such a number, it was likely currently being far exceeded in Spock's. Never would have any of them guessed that the reserved and intensely private First Officer's personal sanctum would be the gathering place for what amounted to a small party.

With Spock's acceptance of McCoy's apology, the mood in the small room quickly became light and playful.

Jim, having brainstormed the idea for the evening in the first place, willingly took on the role of host and emcee. Initialization of Spock's overhauled communications system software was taking longer than expected, bogging down recall times in some of the less-critical databases, so he was downloading the two vids he'd selected directly onto the terminal connected to the viewer on the wall. Months ago during a casual conversation while losing chess by an embarrassing margin, Jim learned that of the limited number of Terran vids Spock had seen that  Across the Universe and  Bohemian Rhapsody were amongst the ones he'd found enjoyable. Given Spock's fondness for Terran music, it was only natural that he would gravitate towards "rockumentaries" as they'd been known as in the past.

There was playful off-key singing to the Beatles reverberating off the bulkheads and joking banter over who's ears would begin to bleed first, Spock's or Uhura's. Mercifully the...singing...ceased with the beginning of the second movie.

Both of the doctor's hypos wore off quickly and Spock found himself gingerly twisting his neck attempting to find a position in which his muscles didn't feel like they were being ripped away from their tendons. The room began spiraling and the pounding of his head increased exponentially with each  stompstompclapstompstompclap that wafted from the screen's speakers. He extracted his arm out from under Christine's head that had absently fallen backwards to rest against his forearm; at this juncture it was known to the senior staff that she'd spent the night with him and he didn't possess the spare energy to pretend he was off-put by the physical contact.

Because he wasn't off-put in the slightest. He'd reconciled with himself earlier that he was quite looking forward to having her slender body spoon behind his later tonight.

His companions' attention quickly turned in his direction as he shakily unfolded his lanky body from the corner of the couch.

"Spock...?" Jim's brows knitted together in concern from the chair beside him, he tapped a button on the PADD, pausing the vid mid-reunion of Freddie Mercury with Jim Hutton.

Spock reached over Jim's head, closed his eyes and gripped onto the lattice partition to steady his swaying. "My apologies, I have begun experiencing a sense of vertigo. I need to lie down. Please," he tipped his head slightly downward toward the viewer, "continue. I will listen from the bed." He grasped first Jim's shoulder, then McCoy's beside him for support as he staggered his way around the partition, collapsing hard onto the bed.

Seven pairs of eyes sadly watched their friend crumple gracelessly, turn away from them and curl his long frame in on himself. Without so much as a word they began the process of returning Spock's quarters back into the example of cleanliness and order it had been before movie night started.

Chapel broke away without ceremony to retrieve her medic's bag she'd left by the door to stow her belongings in the bathroom for the night. Exiting the room, she noticed the irregular rhythm of Spock's breathing, shallow inhales followed by prolonged inactivity then shuddering exhalations. She knelt down beside him on the carpeted deck. Spock had pulled his sweatshirt's hood over his eyes, presumably to shield them against the light knifing in to exacerbate his headache. When he didn't respond to her tickling the upward-facing palm that wasn't pillowing under his head, she pushed the hood off of his head, there was a steady line of thin blood trailing from his nose onto the mattress below him. "DR MCCOY!” Christine held up two fingertips smeared in copious amounts of dark green.

McCoy swung himself around the lattice, Jim Kirk not far behind. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck! he internally screamed. He quickly rolled Spock's lower lip outward, pushed his sleeves away from the undersides of both wrists; minuscule purplish-green dots mottled both areas. A small trickle of blood was beginning to fall from his pointed left ear. Part of McCoy's racing mind wanted to make a joke about his singing not having been that bad. Unluckily for Spock, the medical part of his mind was in control and McCoy thought instead, DIC…death is coming.

To no one in particular, but everyone in attendance McCoy yelled, "get M'Benga in here with the crash cart! NOW!"

Chapter Text

McCoy cursed himself every filthy, degrading term he could think of, and a few that he made up on the spot.

He should have been prepared for this.

He’d read in all those antique journals that this was a possibility. A small possibility, mind you, but with the odds already stacked up against Spock’s favor, he should have planned for the possibility to become probability.

He cursed even more the Vulcan equivalent of Charles Darwin and their evolution of such a backwards anatomical structure that manual CPR was challenging in the extreme.

He was certain he’d heard a rib fracture when he’d pummeled his fists against Spock’s right flank.

“Blast it, Spock! Fucking BREATHE goddamnit!”

McCoy wasn’t sure if it was Jim or Scotty that pushed him out of the way to take over compressions, Jim was currently taking his turn beating the hell out of the motionless body on the bed.

Through the chaos, a blue-sleeved arm waved a portable scanner. “I’ve got a heartbeat!” the voice attached to the arm announced.

Eight bodies hovered with fierce protection over the still-unmoving one on the gurney streaking through the corridors…