“You think I don’t know that?” McCoy snapped, picking up Jim’s half-full glass of brandy and helping himself to the last of it. “But seems like Jim wants that kind of sex. I wonder why.”
Spock looked up, recognizing McCoy's words as sarcasm. “You are implying that Jim seeks an ill-advised sexual encounter because he remains affected by my rejection?”
“You’re damn right I am.”
"He would truly do such a thing?"
"He already did." McCoy glared at him over the glass. "Last night, same girl."
Jealousy flared again, mixed with the uncomfortable nausea of guilt. Spock pressed his palms together harder and brought them to his mouth. He tried very hard not to think about Jim with an Orion girl. He tried even harder not to think of Jim with an Orion girl in an attempt to deal with a hurt caused by Spock. “Perhaps you could stop him?”
“Oh, go soak your head.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Stop pretending you care about what happens to Jim! Hell if I know what your problem is, maybe the Enterprise crew is your harem and you don’t like some other alien touching one of your humans. But you’ll go right back to ignoring him when we’re back on the ship, so let him be while he’s on the planet.”
“I –”
“Leave him alone.” McCoy’s voice was threatening, so incongruous with his southern drawl. “I’ll take care of him. You leave him the hell alone or I’ll see you off the ship.”
“How?”
“Medical reasons. Because your presence emotionally distresses the captain. Don’t act like you don’t know it’s true.”
Spock considered this. He had no doubt that McCoy would do what he threatened – McCoy took Jim’s health quite seriously. Spock tried to feel grateful, as a First Officer, that the captain had a protective best friend like McCoy.
He failed. Miserably. He didn't know how to deal with any of the emotions currently flooding him - unhappiness that Jim liked McCoy better, anger that other aliens desired Jim, distress that Jim was having sex with an Orion. And beyond the unfamiliar emotions in his blood, he had no clue how to deal with the knowledge that he was, apparently, the jealous type.
*****
“Bones. Bonesy-Bonesy-Bonesy. I love you.”
Spock cracked open an eye as the door to their hotel room opened. Three of Riidux III’s four moons were waxing nearly full that night, and their combined luminescence gave Spock plenty of light to see by.
McCoy half-dragged, half-carried Jim through the doorway and into the room. Jim was completely disheveled, his shirt on backwards, his shoes untied, his hair sticking straight up. Spock could make out a plethora of darkened bruises dotting his neck. Jim clung to McCoy's shoulders like a lifeline and obviously couldn't have walked without McCoy's support.
He was a mess. Drugged with a mix of alcohol and potent Orion pheromones – a dangerous, self-destructive combination. It took every ounce of control Spock had to fight the urge that wanted him to take Jim out of McCoy’s arms and into his own. He should have been the one to comfort Jim -
But it was because of him that Jim was in this state. So instead, he lay still and feigned sleep.
“Yeah, back at you, kid. Now keep it down or you’ll wake that green-blooded asshole in the other bed.”
Please. As if Spock had slept even one minute, thinking about Jim and the Orion.
“Whosher green blood?” Jim’s voice was thick and inarticulate, like his tongue was swollen.
“I meant Spock.”
“Spock,” Jim repeated, with longing. “Spock.”
“Jim darlin’, not so loud.” McCoy got them both over to the bottom bunk and sat, pulling Jim down with him. “Look at you,” he scolded gently. “You ever pull a stunt this stupid again, I’ll spank you. Drunk as hell, hopped up on Orion phermones –”
“I love ‘Rions. Make you for-forget.”
“I bet that sounded good to you tonight.”
“Yeah.” Jim leaned on McCoy’s shoulder heavily, his face in McCoy’s neck. “Mmm. You smell good.”
“I should. It’s your cologne.”
Jim sniffed. “Girls love it.” He made another snuffling noise. “Girls love me. Why not Spock?”
“Aww, Jimmy, I don’t know.”
"I’m so lonely, Bones.”
The naked vulnerability in Jim’s voice caused physical pain in Spock. Judging from the way McCoy clutched Jim more closely, it hurt McCoy, too. Spock watched through half-lidded eyes as the doctor cradled the back of Jim’s head in one hand.
“You must be drunk to admit something like that,” he said gently, lying back and tugging Jim down to the mattress with him. "Come on, come here." McCoy shifted Jim’s head to his chest. “Tell me about it, darlin’.”
Jim took a shuddery breath. “It’s like – it’s like somethin’s dying in me,” he whispered, his voice muffled by McCoy’s shirt but clear to Spock’s sharp Vulcan ears. “It’s in my heart. And in my head. I don’t know what it is, but it needs Spock or it’s gonna die.”
“Your feelings aren’t alive, sugar.” McCoy’s sleepy southern drawl was the strongest Spock had ever heard it. “Even if it feels like it sometimes.” Spock watched as McCoy pressed a kiss to Jim’s hair. His hands tightened into fists reflexively. He had to force himself to unclench them.
“Mine are. Except – they’re dying. It’s dying, cause Spock abandoned it. It’s too lonely to live anymore. I try so hard to keep it alive, but Spock doesn’t want me and he’s killing this thing inside me.” Jim made a choked noise. “I love him, Bones, I love him so much –”
Spock's eyes widened in surprise at Jim's words - and then narrowed as McCoy immediately gathered Jim close. “Hey, hey now, shhh.” McCoy stroked Jim's hair. “Shh, darlin’, it’s okay…”
Spock listened and watched as McCoy soothed Jim's drunken distress with the gentle touches and quiet words of reassurance that should have been his. He could hardly bear to watch them, but he couldn’t look away, because if he looked away, he wouldn’t be able to keep seeing that what they were doing were still the innocent gestures of friends.
He lay awake for hours after Jim and McCoy had fallen asleep, Jim’s words and his own unfamiliar emotions haunting him.
6. Parented
When Spock rose, after a scant hour of sleep, the sun had only just broken the horizon, its pale light illuminating the room. McCoy and Jim were still together on the bottom bunk, Jim cradled to McCoy’s chest. In sleep, Jim looked young, innocent, and impossibly sweet – but he was curled up in the arms of another man and Spock had to look away before he physically pulled them apart.
He left the hotel for the city streets, joined only by a few other early-rising tourists and undisturbed in his aimless roaming. By late morning, however, the crowds had picked up, and Spock sought shelter from their noise in an aquarium.
Vulcan had not had aquariums. The displays of fish and aquatic life were endlessly fascinating to one raised on a desert planet, and they provided a much-needed distraction from his own inner turmoil. Spock spent several hours in that building before finally returning to the hotel.
As he entered the lobby, a hotel employee approached him. “Excuse me, but are you Commander Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise, son of Ambassador Sarek?”
“I am.”
“Your father has been trying to contact you today. Would you please accompany me to our office, sir?”
Spock followed the Riiduxan to the business offices of the hotel. The Riiduxan then bowed briefly and left Spock in private. The viewscreen flickered to life and Sarek appeared before Spock.
