Work Text:
The first time Spock thinks of Jim as t’hy’la, it is in a dream. They have just gotten back from the city on the edge of forever, and he has spent a great deal of time either meditating or working (or, as anyone who can see through Spock’s bullshit would they say, not sleeping) but none of his time sleeping.
Most vulcans, they don’t dream often. It is not in their nature; meditation works for the functions humans (and other species) typically associate with dreaming, it is where they resolve issues troubling them, and where much of their rest and healing occurs. Spock, however, has always been different in this way too. He has always dreamed more than average, and he lacks that precious control in his dreams he learned shortly, bitterly, that the other vulcan children developed quickly.
It has been a week now since Edith Keeler, a week now since Spock has slept, and if it were possible for him to fear, he would fear that it is becoming noticeable.
Indeed, Jim had asked Spock if he was feeling well, when Spock had not simply been standing, staring at Nyota as she did her briefing about their new mission. The mission is over and Spock, even with his superior physical strength, is exhausted. The doctor had frowned at his tricorder and told Spock he might want to sleep or perhaps do some of that “vulcan voodoo meditation.” Spock snapped at him, both for his wording and lack of expertise on vulcan biology.
But he does know enough to be right about Spock’s need for sleep, and he looks at Spock rather oddly when he leaves without first checking in on Jim like he normally would, and Spock ignores (dubs it unimportant--not ignores; he would not ignore something important) this and he ignores (okay, he’s ignoring) that his superior vulcan hearing hears Jim calling for him faintly once he’s in the corridor, and he boards the turbo lift to his quarters.
The meditation is unsatisfying. He tries to order his mind, to put things in their respective places, but it’s like playing whack-a-mole, and for some reason every mole has the face of James T. Kirk.
Spock retires to bed. Sleep is unnecessary, and to do it more than necessary is wasteful. He learned this early in life and has since endeavored to sleep as little as he can ,while functioning as optimally as possible. He once fainted from suppressing his need for too long, and M’benga had not been pleased with that. It shocks Spock, every time someone seems to care more than is necessary about him. M’benga needed only to prescribe him a medication (that would turn his stomach and little more) and order him to sleep, and yet he had torn into him about his health. Spock had made to leave, but there Leonard McCoy had been, glaring his death glare and ordering him, on grounds of being CMO, to stay.
This is what Spock finds displeasing about sleeping. He is still not as efficient as he should be at turning off his mind to sleep, and thoughts of M’benga and McCoy enter his head as they please. It should not be so, and yet it is.
He attempts to turn his mind elsewhere, but the only other places it will go easily are not where he desires to be either. Jim, smiling up at him; Jim, offering a hand to pull him up and Spock--Spock is grabbing onto his arm, has just enough self control to not take his hand, for Jim does not know… he doesn’t know so it would be wrong, wouldn’t it.
He feels suddenly an irrational sense of anger at himself for the decisions that brought him here. He has found a great deal more than he ever expected, on this ship, from his life as a child of two worlds, but he is still somehow suddenly angry at himself for all of the decisions that brought him to laying awake in this bed, unable to think of anything other than James Tiberius Kirk. He has felt so much, reluctant though he is to admit it, so many moments he has turned away from Jim, to hide that he is smiling at the captain. He suspects, somehow, that Jim knows it. For after every time he makes him smile, it is as if Jim catalouges it, and brings those comments or mannerisms up more. Or perhaps Spock simply notices them more.
This is useless. He sits up and begins his meditation again. This time, he allows the many Jims their time. They want to be here, so he lets them be here.
Many memories play out quickly before one gives him a pause.
Jim, teasing him about having an emotional reaction to losing at chess. It is a moment that has happened many times, and at first Spock is unsure why he is stuck on it, then he feels it, inside him, this pull towards Jim. That is not unusual. The captain and the first officer need to have a strong bond. Spock had been shocked when it became clear that not only would Jim no longer accept the idea of Spock leaving, but that Spock would not either. But the heat in Spock, the heat that he had crushed in the actual moment of this memory, it flares in him, demands his attention.
Spock cannot deny the want to reach out, take Jim close, he wants…
He wants to mark him. An vulcan desire buried deep within them since the time of Sarek--that marking, owning feeling.
Illogical. He hears the word like a taunt, in his own voice but somehow louder, over and over as he stares at the now frozen memory of Jim’s teasing face, his soft smile; he seems almost to glow and it’s no wonder almost everyone who meets him is half in love with him, Spock’s been…
Spock’s been half in love with him the entire time, too, it would seem. And there is Edith Keeler, in his mind, whispering to him, “You? At his side, as if you’ve always been there and always will.” Spock is a fool.
He stops his meditation. Though whether he can really call this session that, he is not certain. Spock lays back, and stares at the ceiling, and he feels entirely too human. Eventually, the exhaustion from the day's mission and his refusal to sleep enough make his eyelids so heavy even he can succumb.
Apparently, dreams do not care if you have no care for them. Spock almost always recognizes when he is dreaming and when he is not, so he feels a flash of irritation (“one of your Earth emotions?” his own words mock him) that he is dreaming. Spock has not had many pleasant dreams in his life. That, and his need to prove something to his father, are what turned him off from sleeping as a child.
In this space-- this dream--he is by the ocean. There were no oceans on Vulcan, and Spock does not recognize this beach that his mind has taken him to.
It is beautiful. Nighttime, with many, many stars, and the lapsing of the waves calms Spock. There is an island in the distance trees sprouting from it, and, it would seem, a fire and beings gathered around it. It is too far for Spock to hear them, and he decides that they are unimportant. He wishes to explore this dream, this dream that is more beautiful than any he can remember having before.
He turns in the opposite direction that the island is in, and begins to wander down the beach. The sand is warm beneath his toes, even though it is night, and Spock realizes that he is not wearing any shoes, which pleases him.
He should not have trusted this dream. When he looks up from wiggling his feet in the sand, someone is calling his name. Jim. Jim is calling his name. He looks behind himself, and then to the land to his right, but neither direction gives any indication of where the scream is coming from. It is as if the scream is from all around him. He tries to wake himself from this nightmare. He has had quite enough of nightmares and he feels an anger so deep that it frightens him, loathe he is to admit it.
He turns to the sea, begging for it to not be the direction from which the calling is coming, but of course it is. This is a dream. It is only a dream. Jim is out on the waves but he is not really because this is a dream. Dream Jim is crying for help. He is drowning.
Spock cannot stand on the beach and watch him. It is only a dream, but he cannot stand there and watch it unfold.
He dives in, though he doesn’t appear to be as good a swimmer in this dream world as he is in life, he still makes it past the cold waves, ice cold, why is it that the sand was warm but the ocean ice cold? He hates this dream world, but he makes his way to Jim.
But Jim is no longer there. He hears laughter, though it is not his own, and then the sound of screaming seems to be coming from underneath him.
He dives. He cannot see, but he dives into the water, begging himself to find the golden boy. It seems to drag on forever, and logically he should not be able to keep swimming downward, but he does, frantic in a way that makes no sense for a dream, but not in a way that he can seem to stop. Where is his control, he has lost his control.
But he has found Jim. It is completely dark, and he rams into him, but he knows, knows without seeing, that it is him. He can feel his essence.
But he cannot feel his heart beating. His mind screams in agony, and one word pierces through him with such force that he finally awakens from the nightmare..
T’hy’la.
Spock is gasping for air, and when he touches his face it is wet with tears. He jolts up and makes it all the way to the door of his bathroom before he comes to his senses. Jim is not hurt. He is likely sleeping. Jim is not hurt.
“Computer, locate the captain,” Spock says, voice gravelly, unable to deny his emotions the need to be sure.
“Captain Kirk is in his quarters.”
Spock sinks to the floor, and his body is trembling slightly. He takes several moments to calm his mind. He knows he will have to accept that word, sooner or later, and he decides on later. For now, he is so tired that he slips back into sleep against his will, but he has no dreams this time. In the morning, he will act as he always has. Someday, he will try to forget his t’hy’la, and it will not work, and then he will find him again. Someday, they will be together for the rest of their lives, but Spock does not know this yet, Spock is sleeping, glad for the simple knowledge that Captain Kirk is in his quarters, safe.
Spock will not know until after Genesis--not until Jim finally concedes his requests to meld, that on that night, Jim Kirk lay on the other side of their adjoining bathroom doors, unable to sleep from a nightmare that matched his exactly.
They will eventually be ever at each others side, but sunk down on the floor, feeling drained and hopeless, neither of them know it yet.