Chapter Text
Spock is starting to think that the patterns of bulbs and circuits spread out on the mattress in front of him will be permanently burned into his retinas before long. The room is dark. He can’t remember the last time he saw diffuse, natural light other than the single beam of dusty yellow that sweeps across the floor each afternoon. It’s now late evening, and in the dusk all he can see is the stubborn, glowing afterimage hanging in front of his eyes. It’s most distracting, as are the tremors that shake his hands and the pressure building in his skull.
“You ought to get some light in here, you’ll ruin your eyes.”
Spock jumps. He didn’t hear Jim enter.
There are a few more moments of shuffling, and then the room fills with light. Spock slams his hands over his face.
“See?” Jim’s voice says.
Spock presses until colors bloom under his eyelids, and then reluctantly drops his hands and blinks as his eyes adjust. His head pulses.
Jim crosses toward him. “You know, I don’t believe I’ve seen you leave that spot in days except to sleep.”
Spock scowls. It’s bad enough that he allows himself to sleep. He doesn’t need it, and his work becomes more urgent by the day.
(In truth, sleep is not the reason he lets Jim pull him back to their bed each night.)
(In truth Spock doesn’t rest much with Jim’s sleeping form pressed against him, with Jim’s heartbeat echoing in his ears.)
“Your observation is unfounded.” Accurate, but unfounded. “You have not been here to observe me for the majority of the past several days.”
“And you’ve been resting while I’ve been out?”
Spock says nothing.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Captain,” says Spock, turning to face Jim and squinting as the room swims slightly. “This work is time sensitive, in the most literal sense of the phrase. I do not require rest.”
A frown spreads over Jim’s face. “Yes, you do, Spock. More than just sleep. You need to put your mind on something else for a little while.”
Spock’s next words come out more bitter than he means them to. “And perhaps you should return your mind to the task at hand for a while.”
At this Jim’s frown deepens, and regret springs up in Spock’s chest immediately. It was not his intention to start throwing accusations.
“Mr. Spock,” Jim starts, voice slightly incredulous. “If you think finding McCoy and getting us out of here isn’t foremost on my mind-“
“I know that it is,” Spock murmurs.
Jim stares at him for another several seconds. Then he blows out a wavering breath through his nose.
“Did you at least eat the food I brought you?” he asks as he crosses the room, and then huffs. “No, of course not, it’s still right here in the icebox.” Spock glances over to see him examine a wilted cabbage leaf. “They’ve gone rotten. I’ll pick you up something else while I’m gone.”
At this Spock turns. Jim is shrugging on his jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” says Jim. “With Edith.”
Spock does not quite manage to stifle a sigh as he turns back to the mattress.
He hears Jim’s footsteps approach. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Please, please take a break while I’m gone. Lay down, read a book, take a nap, something . I’m begging you, Spock.”
Spock meets Jim’s gaze, bites down on the shaky tension behind his eyes and wills his hands to steady. “I will... endeavor to rest, Captain.”
Jim smiles, and his face lights up the room brighter than the incandescent lamp, brighter even than the afternoon sun. “Thank you.”
He squeezes Spock’s shoulder. The contact lasts just for a moment but the warmth lingers as he crosses to the front door.
“Enjoy your date, Jim,” Spock says, and his voice comes out low and rough.
“Thanks, Spock. Enjoy your break.”
And then Jim is gone, and the apartment is empty once again. His touch still lingers. Spock sighs and puts his head in his hands.
Since he promised Jim (since Jim all but ordered him), he does make an effort to rest. He drags himself up from his seat, shuffles to the bed and collapses.
He’s pulled instantly into nonsensical half-dreams. He sees Jim’s face, strange and warped, and then Edith’s. Dr. McCoy’s, his skin mottled, his eyes wild with the cordrazine in his system. Then Jim again, his smile as bright as the sun. Jim’s hands, holding Edith’s. Jim’s hands holding-
He forces his eyes open despite the pounding in his head. He sits up and scrubs his hands over his face. The image of Jim’s smile hangs in his mind.
If there’s one thing that should make this long exile more bearable, it’s that Jim, somehow, seems happy. Jim is so very bright and warm and expressive in his happiness, and his warmth has always been enough to carry Spock through freezing cold times like these. Spock doesn’t understand why this time each smile from Jim is accompanied by a wave of something strong and alien surging in Spock’s chest. Why now when he hears Jim laugh his mind urges him to collapse, to shrink down into himself until he can’t even be seen anymore. Why it hurts. There is no logical reason for the pain. For concern, yes: the captain seems particularly distracted. Spock must increase his vigilance to compensate, and do what he can to keep Jim’s mind on the task at hand. It is a laborious endeavor; he might even allow himself annoyance. But pain? Anger? Something stronger than either, something he can’t even name?
Spock doesn’t know how his control deteriorated so quickly, but at this rate he wonders if he’ll even be sane by the time the doctor arrives. He doesn’t quite feel sane now.
Letting his thoughts spiral like this isn’t helping. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and bolts to his feet, and his vision warps for a moment. He needs activity. Focus. He lurches back across the room to the mess of bulbs and circuitry and drops back to his seat. He doesn’t care that Jim will come home to find him exactly where he left him, that he won’t believe it when Spock tells him he tried to rest and failed.
His hands shake as they hover over the work. Jim interrupted him in the midst of his struggle with the fickle stray wires, and they still lay loose and unkempt across his workspace. Looking at the chaos fills his mind with static.
It takes him longer than it should to locate the broken connection he’d been repairing before the interruption, while his thoughts whirl past him in dizzying loops. His vision is still burned out and crackling. The adhesive holding the wires in place has come loose and he needs to affix them back to the board to create any semblance of order in the chaos. He grabs the jar of glue from beside his workspace and scrabbles with clumsy fingers at the lid.
It doesn’t move. It’s encrusted with thick, tacky adhesive that flakes as Spock’s numb fingers fumble over it. He knows, logically, that at his normal strength he should be able to open it with ease but his limbs feel like jelly and his hands keep slipping. How did he get so weak, so useless? At this rate he’ll never complete the memory circuit and access the tricorder data and then he will have failed and history will be forever changed, he will have failed the universe and failed Jim, and the two of them will be trapped here in this barbaric gray alien world of the past forever, and Jim will spend the rest of his life with that blazing-sun smile fixed on Edith Keeler and Spock will spend the rest of his life wishing to shrink down until he doesn’t exist anymore and-
“Spock!”
The sound of his name pulls him out of his thoughts and sends him crashing back down into the room, and he realizes that his whole body is shaking. That his eyes sting and his face burns and his chest is hitching and squeezing erratically. That Jim stands beside him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Spock, hey, what’s going on? What happened?” Jim’s voice has gone high and frantic. He pulls the jar from Spock’s hands and sets it down on the table.
“I was tr- I was try- I was trying-” Spock stammers, but the pressure in his chest and the tightness in his throat are too great to force out the words. And he’s distracted by his now-empty hands, which seem to reach for Jim of their own volition. They tremble even more violently than before.
Jim catches them in his own, and a wave of sobs breaks free from Spock’s chest, and then Jim pulls him forward and wraps his arms around him.
He clutches at the thick fabric of Jim’s shirt and tries to bury himself in it. Whatever semblance of mental control he thought he still had is gone, and the tears spill forth unfettered. Jim whispers something. As Spock presses forward he feels the words vibrate in Jim’s chest more than hears them. He’s closer to Jim now than he’s ever been, even when they’ve shared the narrow mattress each night, and that realization sets off a deluge of fresh tears.
“Oh, Spock. I told you to rest.” There’s so much pain in Jim’s voice. “Shh. Breathe.”
His diaphragm pulls in rapid, shallow gasps of air that leave him dizzy. He feels Jim’s chest rise and fall steadily in front of him, and fights to sync his own breathing to that rhythm.
They’re like that for a long time, with Spock struggling to breathe while Jim holds him against his chest. Then Jim pulls back a little and sinks to his knees, bringing himself to eye level with Spock. He stares into Spock’s face with wide, searching eyes.
“Spock, talk to me. What is this about? Did something happen?”
“I- I don’t,” Spock starts. He doesn’t know what to say. He knows it can’t be the truth, but he doesn’t know how well he can control the words coming out of his mouth anymore. He’s so tired. “I don’t- I don’t want you to go- I- please. I want- I want-“
He doesn’t know what he wants; he just wants, so much and so badly. He wants so badly that it hurts, and he’s so tired.
Jim’s face is dark and solemn. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says softly. He wraps his arms around Spock once again and then in one steady movement lifts him to his feet. Spock reels. Jim holds him there for a moment. “Let’s get you to bed, okay? Time for sleep.”
Spock is still weeping as Jim walks him to the bed and guides him down. He feels as though he should be empty by now, as though he shouldn’t have the energy to move, let alone cry. But it doesn’t stop.
“I know,” Jim murmurs over and over, even though he doesn’t. He can’t. “I know, I’m sorry. Lie down, Spock.”
His hands settle Spock back against the pillow, and Spock continues to shake. Now that these floodgates have opened in his chest he cannot close them.
Finally, Jim lays down beside him and slides his arms around him, shifting close. The contact instantly eases the tremors. Spock burrows forward and lets himself sink into Jim’s embrace, and the realization strikes him.
“This is what I want,” he croaks before he can stop it, the words forcing their way through the vice grip in his throat. “This- this is what I want. I want- I want- Jim, please-“ His hands clutch at Jim.
Jim’s whisper comes after a moment of silence filled only by Spock’s shaky breathing. “Alright. Spock, I’m here.” His arms tighten around Spock. “I’m here. You have me. You have this.”
“No. No, I don’t- I can’t-”
“Shh. I’m right here, Spock. You have me. I’m not going anywhere. Go to sleep, okay? I’m right here, and I’ll be here when you wake up.”
He doesn’t want to sleep. It’s so rare that he sleeps with Jim’s form pressed against him and Jim’s heartbeat in his ears, but now it sounds like a lullaby. Now his whole body is weighted with lead and his skull is full of fizzy liquid. His eyes burn. In the warmth of the tiny bed and Jim’s arms, his chest finally feels a little less shattered, so he gives in to exhaustion and slips into a dreamless void.