PERCHANCE TO DREAM
Somehow,
they had migrated in their sleep; their heads now lay just inches
apart. Yet unaware of the shift, Leonard McCoy woke up with a start. He
glanced around the clearing and tried to take inventory of what might
have woken him up. Maybe it was only his bladder politely requesting
attention. Maybe it was pine cone digging into his back. More likely it
was the chill from the soil where his body had slid up and partially
off the side of thermal sheet. Serves me right, McCoy thought. What
sort of a damned fool sixty-year old would spend his precious few weeks
of liberty sleeping outside on the forest floor? I could be on
Wrigley's Pleasure Planet right now, he thought with a
mental sigh.
Perhaps it was an
owl or a
raccoon, but whatever it was, there seemed to be no alarm. The moon had
set and the night was still and calm. Everything was quiet around their
little bivouac. He could see Jim across the fire slumbering evenly, the
uncanny instincts of the Fleet's legendary captain clearly still at
ease. And Spock--
Pushing up on his
elbow, McCoy
turned to check on Spock. He jerked his body back upon seeing how close
they had come during the night. Hastily, McCoy pushed himself back onto
the center of his mat and wriggled a few more inches away. But Spock
slept on, thankfully, undisturbed.
McCoy, however,
could not say
the same. Something about the innocent vulnerability of sleep was
astonishing. Something about the unbeknownst proximity, never and
almost touching and touched, played cruel tricks on his mind.
He had been
pronounced cured
after the fal-tor-pan. It wasn't the after-effects of the link that
haunted him now. He didn't need a healer to tell him that. It was
something far more mystical than any ancient Vulcan mental technique.
Something he understood far less. It was something doctors
weren't supposed to have with their patients.
It was something
off limits for him.
McCoy wrapped the
bivy-blanket
tighter about himself and tried again for sleep. The cicadas chirped
and the leaves rustled a gentle lull, but what he heard foremost was
the rhythmic sounds of Spock's breathing near his ear. He was not at
the least bit surprised when sleep failed to come. He told himself that
the problem must be his full bladder after all. He was good, very good
at this. He almost made himself believe it was true.
He rolled over to
push up
again, but found himself staring at Spock's tranquil face instead. He
propped up on his elbows and just watched the Vulcan sleep.
His hair was
impeccably in
place as always. Even asleep the blasted Vulcan would not tolerate any
less than perfection. Ironically, his face looked older than it had
before he died. The lines were heavier, more deeply ingrained, as if he
had already borne so much in just these few, short months.
Spock's nostrils
flared with
each inspiration. Some how the motion was hypnotic. McCoy hung on each
breath as the muscles rose and fell in cadence. The little ridges
between nose and mouth twitched with every cycle and tweaked up the
corners of those lips. If he didn't know better, he might have thought
it a vestige of a smile.
Those lips. He
followed the
deep creases down from the nose to where they closed the mouth in
brackets. His medical textbooks said those lips were one of the most
sensitive places of Vulcan anatomy. What he wouldn't give to test the
assertion himself. With each rise and fall of Spock's chest, the lips
parted just a tad--so inviting, so tempting, so close.
Damn! If he kept
this up, it
would be a good, long time before he would be able to take that pee.
McCoy tossed off the blanket and fumbled for his boots. The nearly
empty whiskey flask tipped over and, try as he might, the alloy thermal
mat crackled underneath him as he moved.
Jim looked over
once, but with
a nod from McCoy went right back to sleep. McCoy hitched up his jeans,
which seemed to be too loose for his body now, and looked around for
the little footpath through the grove.
The California
night air was
cold even in summer. Feeling suddenly very small and alone, he shivered
and hugged himself through his shirt. Every time came out here he
forgot how different it was from his memories of his youth in the
South. But so many things change, all one can do is adapt to the
present. At least this adaptation would be simple. With a sigh, he
shrugged on his jacket and set off to find a thirsty tree.
With a zip of the
metallic
fly, he undid his jeans and made the universal sound of man at his
simple pleasures. Modern medicine may not have cured the common cold,
but at least at sixty a man could still enjoy a good whiz when he
wanted. Feeling much better already, he tucked himself back in place.
"What did you
mean by that remark, Doctor?"
"JESUS!" McCoy
jumped and whirled, his heart flying a mile a minute.
"Spock, you don't
just sneak up on a man while he's--alone. What the hell were you
thinking?"
Spock stood
placidly, barely
two feet away. He wore only faded jeans and a thin, Vulcan tunic but he
seemed completely unaffected by the chill. "I was thinking that your
answer may be something that either or both of us would prefer to keep
private. It was my specific intention to accost you alone. And I seem
to have succeeded."
McCoy
double-checked his fly as his heart rate settled down to normal. "What
answer?" he grumbled distractedly.
Spock replied
patiently, "Your
answer to my question: What, precisely, did you mean when you said, 'I
liked him better before he died'?"
"Oh, that." McCoy
feigned
indifference. "Nothing. I just had too much to drink. Forget it." McCoy
pulled his jacket tighter around himself and made as if to slide past
Spock, but the Vulcan effectively blocked the trail back to the
clearing.
"Unlikely," Spock
contradicted. "Even not knowing the quantity of whiskey added to the
bipodal seeds, by allowing for the approximate amount poured by Jim and
the amount remaining in the bottle, you could have consumed no more
than one hundred forty milliliters at that time. With your body mass of
sixty-three point two kilos--"
"Sixty-seven,"
corrected McCoy irritably.
"I think not,"
said Spock.
"You have not been paying sufficient attention to your own health of
late. Your nutritional state has been the worse for carrying my katra
and I regret that considerably.
"In any event, by
my
computations, the maximum blood ethanol level that you could have
attained would have been 0.06 milligrams per milliliter, certainly not
enough to raise your level of irrationality above its already
considerable baseline."
McCoy bristled
precisely on
cue. "My level of irrationality? All right, Spock, you want to know
what I meant? I mean, I liked you better when you were a fag. And I
think it's ridiculous to call something a 'refusion' when it changes
something as basic as sexual orientation."
Spock wrinkled
his brow. "I do not understand your reference, Doctor."
McCoy exploded.
"A fag! A
rump-rider. A poofter. A fudge-packer. A fairy. Jesus, don't tell me
you don't even remember that. You've had more men than a Starfleet
academy barber's chair. Why, just a week or two before you died, I had
to clear up your case of the Deltan drips from your little tryst with
that --"
Spock cut him off
sharply. "I
have a partial memory of the incident and I have reviewed log entries
on it. There is no need to rehash it now. And I do understand your
vernacular. It is also my understanding that your alleged cure gave me
indigestion for days.
"What I do not
understand is
your sudden interest in my sexual preferences or your evident concern
over the fact that they have changed."
McCoy searched
his face but
found no guidance there. He sighed. It didn't look like he would be
going back to sleep anytime soon. But maybe this was for the best.
Looking around, he spotted a fallen tree. He wove his way back to it
and plopped down. He patted the spot beside him in invitation.
Spock looked it
over, then primly sat.
McCoy explained,
"It was kind
of nice having you in my head. Allergic reaction aside, sometimes I
kind of miss it. Lots of times really. I could have gotten pretty
attached to it." McCoy kept his voice low and he stared at his hands as
he spoke. But the words were smooth and even, as if he had thought
about this before.
"I see," said
Spock.
McCoy shook his
head firmly.
"No, you don't. Doctors aren't supposed to fall for their patients. I
never had a problem before. Not even on Vulcan, after the ritual. It
just wasn't an option. I never thought about it--thought about
you--like that. But after you transfer from active Fleet service to the
Diplomatic corps, I won't be your doctor anymore. And ever since you
made that announcement last week--" His voice trailed off.
"I see."
This time McCoy
did not correct him.
Instead McCoy
said, "Ironic
isn't it? Carrying your katra for the fal-tor-pan made me want so much
more from you. Restoring your mind to you made that impossible. How
crazy is that?
"Reprogramming,
that's what it
is! They had a chance to twist your future for the benefit of the
future gene pool of the planet and they took it. They get the house
lineage they want. You don't even know
the difference."
"If I am unaware
of a difference and therefore unaffected, then why should it distress
you, Doctor?" asked Spock.
McCoy rubbed his
temples. "I
got the idea you liked being a part of me too. I sort of hoped you
might like it again. But we'll never know; they took that chance away
from both of us."
"You believe my
sexual orientation was intentionally altered, Doctor?"
McCoy gestured
helplessly in
the air. "I don't know, maybe 'intentionally' is too strong a word.
Maybe I am just a little too close and seeing conspiracies everywhere.
But Amanda did say that the retraining of your mind must be in the
Vulcan manner. That has to have made the difference. How else do you
explain such a huge change? It's no secret that homosexuality is almost
non-existent on Vulcan, having been declared without useful purpose by
the High Council. It could just be that. But either way, I don't think
they even tried to restore that part of you, and that isn't right.
Whether or not a Council approves, you are who you are."
Spock considered.
"It is true
that my brief period of death emphasized the urgency of birthing heirs
to the House of Sarek. While I wouldn't discount such a
theory, I
do not believe such a plan would be carried out without my knowledge or
consent. And I did not consent to such an arrangement, although in the
interest of the good of the many, I would have considered it carefully."
"I can't tell you
how tired I am of that phrase," McCoy muttered to the treetops.
"An illogical
attitude for one sworn to the service of Starfleet."
McCoy grinned
marginally and relented. "Yeah, I guess you are the last of the line,
huh?"
"Sarek and Amanda
have no other offspring," said Spock.
"And it looks
like they have Saavik all set up for you."
"Saavik?"
"You two seemed
so--intimate during those months on Vulcan. Different than before."
"You are correct
in many of your deductions. We are intimate."
McCoy shrugged
his forehead.
"But not in the
sense that you
imply. She has been accepted into my family by Sarek. She's now my kin
by choice. It is a status that, for reasons of Vulcan biology, cannot
be afforded to offworlders or you and Jim would have known of it long
ago."
"Like--your
T'Pring?" McCoy ventured.
"There is no
translation. The closest I could come would be 'younger sister'," Spock
clarified.
"So you aren't--"
"No."
McCoy snorted
happily. "Well, I'll be!"
But Spock
continued, "While
our ways may seem inexplicable to you, Vulcan is not a dictatorship.
Children have mates selected for them in preparation for the onset of
pon farr, whenever that may be. Unbonded adults are free to do as they
please and choose the mates they wish. But in our post-reformation
society, adults are guided by logic. Naturally, most agree with the
consensus of the Elders. This often presents the appearance of
coercion, but free will is always preserved.
"After I transfer
to the diplomatic corps, I shall select a wife of my own choosing."
McCoy laced his
fingers and pressed squeezed his hands firmly together. "So, you are a
confirmed heterosexual?"
"So it would
seem."
"And it doesn't
bother you that this choice was taken from you?"
Spock appeared
puzzled. "As the choice was never mine in the first place, it is
irrelevant."
"But don't you
miss any of your old--contacts?" McCoy pressed.
"Not that I am
aware of, but as those are reconstructed memories as well, I cannot
answer the question as you mean it."
McCoy shook his
head. "I still
don't like it Spock, and I don't mean just for selfish reasons. It
seems damned unnatural to me. Telling a man what he used to think."
"It is, for your
species, but
it was done in mine for hundreds of years. And as for any alterations,
I consider it an equitable arrangement. I am, after all, alive."
McCoy chuckled
softly under his breath. Goddamit, but that copper-toned, pointy-eared
egocentric bastard had gone and won again.
"Yes, you are,
Spock. And I'm
mighty glad of that on any terms. And you're right; it is more than a
fair trade. Thanks for the reminder. I shouldn't quibble over the terms
of a miracle. Sometimes I need a little swat on the ass to straighten
my head out. "
"Anytime,
Doctor." Spock rose formally from the tree trunk. "Goodnight."
McCoy watched him
walk away.
The pale fabric of his Vulcan tunic fluttered behind him, making him
look almost ghostly as he moved farther and farther away. McCoy watched
longingly as Spock pulled himself under his blanket and straightened
his body. Then, once again, everything was still.
McCoy sat by
himself for
several minutes. He cursed himself for twenty-seven kinds of a fool for
even thinking of such a thing. He and Spock together. He had to be
dreaming. Maybe it was for the best this way. Just not in the cards.
Certainly this was far better than the flat out rejection for personal
reasons that he could have encountered under different circumstances.
And far, far better than always holding out a distant hope.
Resigned, McCoy
heaved himself
off the log. He wandered back to the camp and fell back on to the mat,
suddenly too tired to even think. For a passing moment he thought of
removing his boots, but he decided it would be too much trouble and so
he just pulled up the blanket.
His hand did find
the whiskey bottle, however, and he drained it dry in one swig. He was
asleep within the minute.
When the dreams
came, this
time he welcomed them. Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the
freedom of sleeping under the all-knowing stars. In any event, tonight
he made no attempt to shake them off.
It always started
with a
mundane scene. He was in sickbay. His patient laid obediently, eyes
closed, naked from the waist down under the surgical hood. The biobed
beeped steadily and the mediscanner registered Spock's unique
readings, near Vulcan norm. McCoy sealed the wound and raised the hood.
'All done, just
let me check my work. Spread your legs.'
Spock pulled up
his knees and
spread his hips. He grabbed his organs and held them to his belly
revealing a tempting, quivering asshole.
McCoy bent his
face in closer
and closer, homing in on his target. A circle of fine, black hairs
fanned out coquettishly around it. McCoy blew a fine stream of air
through his lips. The little hairs waved a reply and the asshole
winked, invitingly, in response.
Moving slowly and
deliberately, McCoy stuck out his tongue.
There was no
smell. There was
no taste. Perhaps, in dreams, there never is. He ran his tongue around
the rim and flicked it, repeatedly, over the little hole. His only
focus was the delicious friction of his tongue over the skin and the
hair and the trembling contractions of the muscles beneath.
With his hands,
he pushed
Spock's thighs apart to the limit. He pressed his whole face into the
valley of Spock's body and sucked and probed and licked. He felt the
heavy scrotum bobbing against his forehead and realized Spock would be
masturbating himself. The thought excited him to no end and he jabbed
his tongue hard against the sphincter.
McCoy ran his
hands up the
thighs and over the ripples of Spock's body. Now they were both naked,
on the bed in his cabin. Spock jerked himself with one hand and
massaged one of his own nipples with the other hand. McCoy found the
other nipple with his hand and squeezed it hard enough to hurt a human.
Spock moaned out
his name. "Leonard, what do you want?"
McCoy thrust his
tongue in.
And then the
scene changed
again. McCoy was on kneeling on his stomach with Spock behind him,
between his legs. McCoy felt a hot hand spread his cheeks and a
glorious burn as he was no longer alone; Spock was inside him
somehow. McCoy hooked his legs around Spock's thighs and pulled him in
tighter and tighter still.
Spock leaned
forward and
pressed his palms into the fine blades of McCoy's upper back. He forced
McCoy down into the bedding, pinning him there with his strength. Then
slowly, magnificently, like some ineffable unseen force, he began to
move from behind.
And McCoy rocked
his ass, as
he had had women do for him. And they moved together and it felt so
good and the tension built and his balls throbbed and he rubbed his
dick to the rhythm of the one in his ass and all lines between them
blurred and he no longer knew who was in whom until--
"Get that damn
light out of my face!" McCoy shouted. Disoriented, he struggled to his
feet.
Uhura stepped out
through the underbrush and relayed the news. Reality came crashing in.
Jim spoke next.
"Well,
gentlemen, it appears shore leave has been canceled. Pack out your
trash." With a gleam in his eye for his next great adventure, Jim began
to break down the campfire, his mind already back on the ship.
With a groan,
McCoy reached
for his boots, feeling an urgent pressure in his pelvis. His bladder
was about to burst. Hadn't he just gone? And, wait a minute--his boots?
He looked around. The campsite looked otherwise just the same.
"Coming, Doctor?"
Spock
extended a hand down to him. In the darkness, without the glow of the
fire, Spock's dark sweater almost allowed him to blend into the night.
Dark sweater? Hadn't it been beige? As Spock pulled him to his feet, he
knocked over the whiskey bottle. It was at least a quarter full.
Spock released
his grip but
McCoy did not. Dream blended with reality and he no longer knew what
was real and what was merely a diversion of the mind.
They stood there
locking eyes,
neither one sure what came next. It occurred to McCoy that Vulcans were
touch telepaths, but still he did not drop his hand.
Finally, he just
blurted out the words. "Spock, are you gay?'
Jim looked up
from his rucksack in dismay. "Bones! What's gotten into you?"
McCoy ignored
him. "Spock? Are you a butt-banger or aren't you? It's a
simple question. Yes or no?"
Spock looked
improbably
unruffled. "Ah. Unfortunately I cannot give such a simple answer. I
have not yet had a chance to be oriented in this incarnation. I would
assume that my basic psyche remains as before my death, but the origin
of sexual orientation has not been well established. It is possible
that subtle cues in my life, memories that were not preserved, will
affect the outcome."
"So, you think
you're gay--but you don't know?"
"That is what I
said, Doctor.
But my unique situation would make an interesting case for the study of
factors affecting sexual orientation, don't you think?"
"Running a study
wasn't exactly why I was asking," McCoy sniped, tucking the bottle into
his jacket.
Jim tossed
McCoy's backpack to
him. "Spock, Bones. Our ride's waiting. Let's go. Your little games can
wait." Jim jogged off toward the landing site.
Spock picked up
the bedding
rolls. "That is a pity, Doctor, for I was hoping that you would be
willing to assist me with said experiment." He tossed the rolls over a
shoulder and casually strode off after his captain.
McCoy stood
open-mouthed for several heartbeats then took off after him at
breakneck speed.