Damned Straight

Title: Damned Straight

Author: Tempest

Series: TOS

Paring: S/Mc themes

Rating: PG, mild language

Summary: McCoy laments the way he was born.

Disclaimer: Star Trek and all of its relations are property of Paramount and Viacom. I only own this story. Problems with male homosexuality? Please stay away. Flames and feedback are welcome. For archiving, please ask author permission first.

Author’s Notes: This takes place post TWOK. But for once in my life, it has nothing to do with katras.

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Damned Straight

By Tempest

January 18, 2005

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      I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to do this. Starfleet’s demanding that I make this recording. Wait, that’s not really fair. Starfleet is highly encouraging the senior staff to make them. Jim’s the one who insisted I do it. We made a promise after all. He could do it if I could. We’ll get through this together.

 

      But I really don’t know how I should start this off. There’s no blue print for it. There’s no order. It’s simply whatever I want to do. The problem is I don’t really know what I want.

 

      That’s not true. But I’ll get to that later.

 

      Maybe I should start from the beginning. It’s logical, after all. And it’s Spock. So, I guess it’s fitting. I might as well play to his logic, since Jim was so damned insistent on calling Spock human. So little he knew, truly.

 

      Spock’s dead, and it’s all my fault. Scotty’s been spending the better part of the last couple of days trying to tell me it’s not true. But even Jim, for a while, at least, seemed to blame me. Saavik, despite her logic, blamed me, and she has more reason than Jim. They both got over it. I still blame me.

 

      It might have been his damned fool idea to go into that chamber and repair it, but I had the opportunity to stop him. And I tried. But in the end, I was stupid, gullible. He might have joked about my intelligence, but lately, I’ve been convinced he was right. After all, how could I fall for something so stupid? Such an obvious distraction? I should have tried harder to stop him. Hell, I should have pulled a Gem on him and sedated him. Or at least hit him. You see, he couldn’t hit me back. He could nerve pinch me, but he sure as Hell could never hit me.

 

      I guess it’s only fitting he died this way, though. He’s always been so logical, so dignified, at least, to others. It wouldn’t have done for him to die any other way. If he’d been murdered, or killed in action, it’d have been disrespectful, it would have done him harm. If he’d died of illness or irreparable injury, or remained crippled, it would have been undignified, pitiable. And Spock was never worthy of pity. If he’d have been mentally injured, the inhumanity would have been so horrible that I’d have had to put him out of his misery. Despite how we ended, I would have broken my Oath for him. For him. For my Father. And no others.

 

      No, this was the only way he could have died, unselfishly for his old crew and his trainees alike. Doing something that only a Vulcan could manage, not a human.

 

      It hurts like Hell though. To talk about it. Even to just think about it. Jeeze, my throat’s cracking. Excuse me for a minute...

 

      ...All right, I’m calm now. I’m sorry for losing it. It’s just, he was special. He never knew, of course, not really.

 

      I wonder what Jim’s recording right now. Probably stuff about Spock’s record. How it was an honor to serve with him. How it feels like his leg’s been lopped off and his heart’s in a vice from losing his best friend. His loyal officer for the past two decades. He’s probably even calling Spock human again.

 

      The thing is, and it’s taken me a long time to realize this, Spock wasn’t human. Despite his genetic make up, despite the influence of his mother, he was Vulcan through and through. And I think that’s what made it so painful for him.

 

      Maybe I should clear a few things up right now. Spock never took a wife. He couldn’t. His heart belonged to another. Unfortunately, that another couldn’t return his love. More unfortunate was that another was me.

 

      We didn’t hate each other. We never had. We just had an unusual effect on one another. We saw things in one another that we knew within ourselves, which made us vulnerable, and we reacted to it the only way we could. We argued.

 

      One night on shore leave, during that first Five Year Mission, Jim called us an old married couple. He was joking, of course, and nowhere near sober. I wasn’t far behind him myself, and I just smiled. But I managed to see Spock’s response. His drink, Altair Water what else?, caught in his throat. He nearly choked. I’d never seen him choke before, and not since. But the look in his eyes was plain. Pain. Pain for something he wouldn’t reveal.

 

      I didn’t know, of course. Not then. Not until after he came back from V’Ger. He left for Gol without saying goodbye. Jim didn’t think he could run the ship without Spock as his second in command, and he gave into the pressure to take the desk job. With both of my best friends out of commission, I quit Starfleet, which I’d been meaning to do for years, and found myself a research job I actually liked, without the brass of Starfleet.

 

      Everybody knows the story of how Spock, and I, and Jim, and the rest of them all came back to the Enterprise. And I’ll spare the details. But afterward, Spock came to my quarters to talk. He was still dressed in that black robe from the mission, and he asked if I planned to stay on with the crew. I said that I had. This is why he decided to stay. I’m not being arrogant; it’s just a fact. But I’m getting ahead of myself now.

 

      He said he had something important to tell me. I told him to come in. He did, but even now I can remember the nervousness in his eyes, something so out of place with how he was dressed, and what I’d thought he learned at Gol.

 

      I tried to ease his nerves by smiling and goading him, and thank Heavens it actually worked. He folded his hands in that peculiar way of his, took a calm breath, and said matter-of-factly that he loved me. Actually, his exact words were “Doctor, Ashaya nash-veh du,” which to Vulcans implies need and desire and respect and a bunch of other things. But it was essentially love. Then he went on to explain that it was that very emotion that led him to run away to Gol. But it was also what caused him to come back.

 

      He shocked the Hell out of me, really. It was the last thing I’d expected from him. I’d always assumed Vulcans were all straight. Then again, it’d explain why he constantly turned down women who crossed his path: Leila Kalomi, Christine, Saavik, in a way and later down the line, Zarabeth to some extent, T’Pring to a different one, even Rand and Uhura. He could have had any of them, but he always refused. It was logical. But even with that making sense, I couldn’t have ever imagined him wanting me.

 

      That isn’t a statement of self-pity. It’s not me thinking “I’m insubstantial and pathetic compared to him.” It’s just something that hadn’t crossed my mind. I told him as much. He said he understood. He apologized for disturbing me, and then he left my quarters. I figured he’d go back, but he didn’t. Then I figured he’d get over it. That didn’t happen either.

 

      We weren’t lovers though. Not in the sense that people would think, because I couldn’t love him back. It didn’t stop him from loving, though. And I became the storybook beloved, with Spock as the pining lover.

 

      Nobody ever guessed at it though, because it never interfered with his duty, or at least, not in any way that a bystander could notice.

 

      There was this one mission, though, where our cover had been blown, and we’d been separated from the rest of the away team. I’d been injured and had lost a fair amount of blood. The thing was, so had Spock. He just didn’t let me know about it. We found shelter, or rather, he did, and he’d been carrying me.

 

      Damned sentimental fool. He wouldn’t admit to it, but it’s true, and all his caring was plain in what happened next. He took off his uniform shirt, tore it, and made bandaging for my wounds, then he held me close to keep me warm. I don’t remember much of it. I’d been tired and dizzy from blood loss. I distinctly remember his fingers in my hair, though.

 

      When Jim and the security guards found us, we were both unconscious. He got us back to the ship as fast as he could, and since mine had already been treated, I was out of sickbay in no time. Spock took a bit longer. I knew what he wanted, and I couldn’t give it to him, but I gave him the next best thing.

 

      When he awoke from the drug-induced healing trance, I was sitting beside his bed. He was relieved I was well. A nurse was hovering by, so I yelled at him. As soon as she was gone, I leaned over him and thanked him. I reached out, squeezed his hand gently, and without looking him in the eyes, not wanting to see the hope there, I said simply, “And I’m still sorry Spock.”

 

      He knew what it meant. He never blamed me. He simply took it as a logical equation. It was a given truth that I couldn’t love him. He’d still love me anyway. He did love me anyway. It was painfully obvious to me, and sometimes, just painful, watching what he’d do for me.

 

      When the Enterprise was docked from exploration, and he was given her captaincy, his first act as Captain, even before a confirmation of orders, was to request my presence as Chief Medical Officer.

 

      I couldn’t turn him down. How could I? It was something so simple; he just wanted me close by. I accepted, obviously. And it seemed to make him happy. Or as happy as his Vulcan training would allow him to be. This way he got to see me on a regular basis, and we could dine together. He especially liked it when we dined together. Due to his desert upbringing, meals were special. I never asked beyond that.

 

      Jim was his best friend, his confidant. And yet, I was something else entirely. He told me things he never told anybody else. Because he loved me, because I’d refused without mocking him. Because I never looked down on him for his feelings, and I kept them secret.

 

      He told me when his parents were trying to make him court. We’d been sitting alone in his ready room, each looking over work as we talked. I tried to encourage him to accept one of the brides. He said he just couldn’t do it. So I told him to pick a male consort instead, if that’s what he preferred. And I’ll remember this for the rest of my life. He turned his head from his report, looked me square in the eye and said quietly, “I prefer you.” He could break my heart in moments like that.

 

      He’d even had me, once. His pon farr came, you see. And he’d had nobody waiting for him on Vulcan, all because of me. It was only his third time. His first, well, Starfleet certainly knows about that disaster. And his second was at Gol, and he’d gotten through it with the help of the Masters, by repressing it into oblivion. This time, he needed somebody.

 

      This is off tangent, but did you know he was a virgin? Yeah. I hadn’t expected that either, although it kind of makes sense. He’d been raped a couple of times, by Leila, by the Platonians, even by that Romulan Commander whatever her name was, and that time with Zarabeth didn’t count, because he’d been out of his mind and didn’t remember a thing. Beyond that, he’d never wanted anybody else, and in his youth had saved himself for T’Pring. After that, he wasn’t willing to settle, so he stayed with nothing.

 

      So, when his time was upon him, he told me, and only me. He'd had to know what I’d do. But he feared rejection regardless. But I agreed to do everything in my power to help him. It was unspoken he wouldn’t bond us. He couldn’t, anyway. Despite what people might think, his mental powers weren’t that strong anyway.

 

      It lasted a few days, and it was painful. And he came and I didn’t. I just couldn’t. I think that reality was what hurt him most of all, because despite it all, I just couldn’t.

 

      He came back to his senses and was ashamed. He started apologizing immediately. That is until I shut him up. I needed to reassure him, so I did the only thing I could think of. I kissed him; the first and only time I’d kissed another man. And I let him hold me for the remainder of the night.

 

      We never talked about it after I left the next day, but I think it drew the line pretty soundly for us. It just couldn’t happen.

 

      Life went on, though. We worked and explored and trained, and we and Jim remained the closest of friends. It was as it should be. Except Spock was miserable and I was causing it, and neither of us was at fault. Except it was mine.

 

      I just couldn’t respond to his presence, to his touch. It’s not that I didn’t love him. I did. He was one of my two closest friends and a damned special person. My beloved nemesis, he’d been called by others more than once, and I’m inclined to agree. But as much as I loved him, I just couldn’t fall in love with him.

 

      I was just too heterosexual. It’s nothing against him. If any man alive I’d been able to love that way, it’d have been him. But I was hard-wired this way, and there was nothing either I or he could do about it.

 

      He would have given me the moon and the stars. Well, the stars anyway, since Vulcan has no moon. He’d have done anything for me; I just needed to say it. I could have walked into his quarters in the middle of a mission, told him I wanted to move to Coridan, and he would have turned the ship around and had his bags packed in an hour. He would have taken on my name, and gone by Captain McCoy, with pride, if only I’d bond with him.

 

      But I couldn’t. Because I was cursed. Damned straight. Damned to walk through this world as the perfect example of heterosexuality, and despite my sincerest wishes, I just couldn’t change things.

 

      And that’s why I know it was my fault that Spock died. Because if I had just managed to say “I love you too,” while he was trying to pass me, he would have stopped. He would have taken me in his arms and held me, rather than nerve pinched me. Because even a few minutes of a shared life together would have been worth the price of death. It would have been better than dying without knowing that love.

 

      And I failed him because of my nature. And there was nothing either of us could do about it. And so I had to let him go, and the rest is history.

 

      I still wish I could love him the way he wants. For some reason, I think that it would allow his spirit to rest more easily.

 

      Who would’ve thought that it was the logical, unapproachable Vulcan who would fall victim to unrequited love? Love that would force him to death? And it wouldn’t be the overly emotional doctor?

 

      Who would’ve thought that it would be love that would destroy him?

 

      I still love him, but even now I can’t desire him. And it’ll be this way forever. Not that it matters anymore, because he made his choice. Easier to die for his love.

 

      End Personal Account for Memorial, Captain Spock, 2285.

 

      Sigh. Starfleet’s never going to accept this. Besides, it’d make Spock look terribly undignified, stripped of the last bit of privacy, and that’s the last thing I’m going to let happen. Jim already did him enough dishonor, calling him human. I’m not going to add to that.

 

      Computer, save entry to personal log, Commander Leonard McCoy, erase entry from Starfleet channel. Re-record on Starfleet Channel starting now.

 

      Commander Spock was the finest officer I knew. He was the best first officer in the Fleet...

 

                              Finit

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