Chapter Text
Making Trouble
Chapter 1
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All right, so he hadn’t listened when Spock said the weather was going to turn quickly. The Science Officer was no meteorologist, and he hadn’t been on this planet any longer than any of the other scientists.
Spock had spent their whole hike from town and their entire time in the village being stiff and pedantic and entirely too Vulcan for McCoy’s taste, anyway, so the doctor hadn’t been in a mood to grant benefit-of-the-doubt when Spock started watching the sky and claiming the forecast they'd been given by Perrell, the capital's, weather service had been wrong.
The trip to Ethed had been his idea, after all. Spock had horned in, which didn't mean he had a right to get bossy.
A combination of radiation-emitting mineral deposits in the bedrock and extreme superstitions about technology of all kinds held by the rural populace meant the only way to productively interact with the inhabitants outside the capital was to hike in with the simplest instruments, and to accept being out of contact most of the trip. Perrell was a large town on the verge of becoming a city, and they talked about their rural neighbors as almost an inferior species, so McCoy had decided to meet the country people while the captain held talks with the dignitaries.
Captain Kirk hadn’t been against McCoy's proposed side mission to the little village of Ethed, beyond his usual admonishment to stay out of trouble. It was in a peaceful area of the planet, about four brisk hours on foot from Perrell, with no local warfare in generations and no dangerous animals their instruments or the previous surveys had detected. So McCoy put together his people, eight in all: medics and some anthropology staff, with a few primitive-appearing instruments that had been fitted with modern scanners.
They were to spend a few hours with the planet’s inhabitants who lived outside the planet-wide network of towns the Federation was so keen on the captain establishing friendly relations with.
As they prepared, though, they noticed the townspeople in Perrell seemed not to quite like the idea of them meeting the village folk in Ethed. There were looks and slow compliance to requests and even a little missing equipment, and Kirk had said he'd detected a coldness about the mission in comments dropped at his level, which he'd pretended to naively miss. It hadn't seemed a dangerous reluctance, just a hesitance, but worth noting.
So, Spock had volunteered to go, too, and take a small team of his own (to do some kind of geological study). Kirk told McCoy again, then them both, very pointedly, to stay out of trouble, then left it in the First Officer's hands. The Regional authorities had finally shown up and the talks were expanding.
The weather was below freezing the dawn they set out, but certainly nothing that would bother properly equipped, healthy humans (or Vulcans) exerting themselves in the sunshine, even all day. They had been promised sunshine, but warned to be back before dark. Bad weather was coming, and best to be back in town well ahead of it.
Oh, not a serious storm, but a freeze after dark was a different creature than in sunlight, and the same trails in the dark, in the sleet and rain, would be an order of magnitude more dangerous, and so on.
By then it had been hard to tell if the Town Leader was genuinely concerned for their safety or just trying to get them to spend less time in the village. Which had added to McCoy’s desire to stay as long as possible in Ethed, especially since his crew hadn’t found anything specifically amiss by the time Spock had wanted them to leave.
So, yes, all right, he hadn’t wanted to hear an order to pack up early, and while the whole crew went in terror of Spock, McCoy’s medical staff answered to him. Spock had called a general halt. McCoy was insubordinate; he never even acknowledged the order. Spock had repeated it, closer and more quietly, and McCoy again hadn't even turned his head.
After a minute, Spock had simply tightened his arms about himself, given a sniff of disapproval, and walked away. He didn't try to get hard-nosed about it at all, which was a disappointment in some ways. McCoy'd been needing a good fight with Spock for over a week, the self-righteous, condescending ass.
So McCoy's team had kept working.
Then the sky had actually started to seem cloudier, and McCoy, deciding to recognize when stubborn turned to stupid, had signaled his surrender. The medical crew had packed up and joined the rest of the team at the trail head.
Spock had only nodded as McCoy caught up, the Vulcan’s face barely visible between fully-zippered regulation coat and hood. Vulcans might be better survivors than humans even at lower temperatures, but that didn’t mean they liked them, or vice versa. McCoy’d grimaced and told Spock he only wanted to be hiking back early to get his chilly green blood flowing again.
Then he'd waited, prepared to be upbraided for delaying them, as the wind whipped up and the clouds gathered.
Surprisingly, Spock had ignored the provocation entirely. He'd silently led the two teams off, McCoy a step behind him. The only words he directly addressed to the doctor were questions about the medical team’s findings, in a rather lower voice than normal - almost conciliatory - rather than the righteously-sparing-you-a-lecture tone McCoy had a right to expect.
Spock had his little ways to tell him off even when the situation or subordinates kept Spock from really telling him off. McCoy was prepared for any and all of it after this cockup. Sometimes Spock could be quite subtle about it, granted, but to give him... nothing?
Glaring at Spock’s back, he’d realized the Vulcan was presenting him with a facade that was nothing more than distracted and maybe a little absent, distant and cold, with shoulders shrugged up just a fraction. His voice was calm and civil, as if they were in a briefing room on the ship and not in the bloody foothills of a completely unknown world with storm clouds coming up behind them.
And in those circumstances, Spock had decided to try playing the bigger man, had he? Well, McCoy had known how to deal with that. He’d replied stiffly to Spock’s questions and quickly dropped back to walk behind him and watch his own feet on the broken trail. It was up to Spock to remove the stick from his--.
It wasn't unusual for him to be annoyed at Spock for being polite and professional; the Vulcan wielded decorum as a weapon on a regular basis. McCoy didn’t need a specific reason to mentally berate him in a situation like this, and Spock was handing him one, this time.
Between unacknowledged guilt, annoyance, concern for the party, and just - Spock - McCoy was hiking along with a full head of steam within minutes.
It helped him stay warm, if nothing else. None of the junior crew thought anything of it, either -- the two senior officers were famously constantly at odds.
With the first drops of rain the entire party had gathered together to vote to push through, since they were more than halfway back. It was rough ground, but there were experienced outbackers in the group, and while it wasn’t a democracy, Spock could generally be counted on to listen to experts in a given field outside his own.
Spock had closely crossed his arms again, but he clearly decided not to be the only holdout if it meant overriding his experts and incidentally group opinion.
If it had just been rain they would have made it easily. The second time someone took a fall on the sleet-slick rock, though, Spock had called a halt. They had found one of the numerous caves along the cliffside that had clearly been used as shelter before, and started some warmth going immediately in the old firepit.
McCoy sighed. They were all wet and cold in a cave for the night instead of safe and warm aboard ship, because he’d been hard-headed. He’d ignored Spock when he had no reason to but pissiness, and when Spock had knowledge he should have listened to. He could, he supposed, be man enough to admit that.
Spock had stood near the heating unit for long enough to unwind his scarf and dry his coat, but he’d promptly reassumed the coat, accepted a cup of hot something Lt. Ahram was pouring up, and went back around a curve in the tunnel toward the cave entrance before McCoy could say anything.
He was probably beating himself up about his failure to get them back as specified. McCoy only felt a little guilty for being the cause of that - Spock should’ve learned a long time ago that things didn’t go according to plan sometimes and it wasn’t a major emergency. Anyway, there was no harm done here, not really, beyond maybe a grey hair for Jim.
The crew was in good enough spirits as a group, talking idle trash and good-natured nonsense at one another as they settled down for the night with their sparse gear around the heaters. He’d brought a pack of children, and so had Spock, new enough to the Enterprise their Ph.D.’s still squeaked.
However Spock had justified his personnel choices, McCoy had just thought it would be a good, safe opportunity for the newer kids to take their maiden runs, out in the sunshine. It wasn't exactly easy, but green or not, if they hadn’t been able to handle this kind of work they would never have made it aboard a starship.
They were all fit and eager for experience and none of them cared much about, or would be hurt by, sleeping the night in a warmish cave. Spock needed to get over himself about his little mission taking a turn for the unexpected. Jim would get over it as soon as he heard everyone was all right.
McCoy decided to give Spock about twenty minutes to sulk (and for himself to feel fully dried out and warm). Spock didn’t come back even as the others finished eating and shivering and the chaos quieted down, though. He didn’t come back when they settled down into their bedrolls, or as McCoy made the best he could out of his bedroll and emergency kit, either.
So, with a sigh and a hungry glance at his warm nest, McCoy zipped his coat back up and went out toward the cave mouth to drag the idiot back.
It was almost a sensory blackout after the first curve in the tunnel - no light followed him, and the hiss of the sleet and rain from up ahead dropped a surprisingly effective curtain of white noise over him. It wasn't far like that, maybe a half dozen steps, but it was enough to bring the hairs up on the back of McCoy's neck.
Spock’d better appreciate the trouble he was going to. Coming all the way out here to the vaulted entrance of the low tunnel, open and windy and damp. It did provide sightlines covering the entire valley without having to go all the way out into the weather, though. There was a good view to be had there, if not much else.
The Vulcan had probably decided he was going to stand watch all night, or some other fool thing. McCoy would have something to say about that to the stubborn elf.
Actually something, if necessary. Vulcans might be hardy under temperature variations beyond humans but you shouldn’t get them wet. Spock was Vulcan enough for his immune system to be compromised by getting sleet-soaked and Human enough to sometimes pick up germs from his many human crewmates. Sometimes that last fact had to be brought forcefully to his attention.
Spock was invisible until McCoy was almost on him, the tunnel making a sharpish swerve then, immediately, another back to the actual cave mouth. The doctor found Spock looking out and up at the rain crossing the planet’s small, swift satellite.
He had one hand gently resting on a rocky protuberance from the wall just at head height and the other resting quietly at his side, and only his hat back on his head, and he looked like a bundled-up little gnome, at one with the stone for all the movement he made.
Which was odd, actually…
“Spock, if you’re-“ going to set yourself as the watch you have to actually watch was what he’d intended to say, but Spock turned on him with the speed of actual startlement -- the speed of Vulcan reflexes -- and McCoy's mouth snapped shut.
After a moment, after Spock had moved and frozen and started moving again more normally, the doctor managed, “You okay there, Mr. Spock? It isn't usually that easy to make you jump.”
“Doctor,” he greeted quietly, with a nod of his head, and turned back to watching the storm.
McCoy held onto his frayed temper despite the dismissal. Spock had to be well into his own head to not notice him coming up, even with the noise of the weather.
"What are you doing out here? Communing with the lightning?" There was a lot of it, some distance away by the thunder, or at least unimpressive if close by.
No response.
It was too chilly for this, damp even inside the lower part of the tunnel, with the wind bursting the raindrops into a fine, clingy mist. McCoy stamped his boots and said, "Come get warmed up and some food in you, Spock. Get some sleep."
Spock gave him an unimpressed sideways look. "I do not require assistance, doctor, yours or anyone's, in regulating the physiological needs of my--"
"After that crap you pulled last week, you can say that with a straight face?" McCoy snorted impatiently.
The Vulcan hadn’t slept and barely ate for nine days during one of his recent science fascinations, which, technically, was still well within Vulcan tolerance, but McCoy was sure it was harmful to Spock. Jim called episodes like that Spock's "contemplative phases" and always made McCoy leave Spock alone unless the doctor had actual medical evidence for interference.
The captain's orders could make McCoy back off his close observation, but they couldn't make him like it. McCoy'd spent a week covertly watching the Vulcan for signs of imminent collapse, and then the days since pointedly ignoring him.
"If I understand your reference, Doctor, the only 'crap' was your clumsy interference in my affairs that threatened to upset the necesary precision for delicate research."
Spock's voice made McCoy frown to himself a little, barely consciously as his mouth ran on, almost absently going for continued aggravation, "There's no need to get so upset about it, Spock. Don't be so defensive."
McCoy hesitated for a moment, something nagging at him, then pushed that aside and said in a different voice, "Look, I know - Jim sets you up to run these things for a reason. I ... get caught up sometimes, kinda forget that."
Spock peered at him, almost the first time all day McCoy had glimpsed him without his scarf, and the doctor saw a flush across his cheeks. The tip of his nose was green, too. "Indeed you do," Spock said, in that low, excessively solemn voice he'd adopted all day.
McCoy bit back his reflexive retort at the ungracious response to his gracious admission, as the lightbulb, very belatedly, went off. Ah, hell.
Whatever else he might be, he was supposed to be a damn doctor. McCoy shook his head and tried to entirely change gears. Forget wrangling. Jim wasn't here to break them up if he and Spock really got into it, and now McCoy needed to have an actual conversation with the man.
The more-frequent throat clearings hadn’t been commentary, or the low-timbre voice placation. Spock’d actually been having more trouble with the cold than usual. Even his lack of heart for their usual conlict.
Some diagnostician he was. Damnit.
"Well," McCoy finally said, and rocked on the balls of his feet. "I'm sorry, Spock. I should have packed it in when you told me to."
"Yes." Spock said evenly. "You should have." There was perceptible irritation in his voice for someone who knew him, not the actual Vulcan indifference that would let him get away with a line like that, but McCoy didn't have the heart to call him on it.
Instead he said quietly, "Thank you for not making it a direct order in front of these new kids. No telling what they'd've thought of that."
"Doctor, if you hav- h-have no actual reason for disturbing me, I request you permit me the privacy necessary for meditation," Spock spoke over him.
McCoy just ignored him, and continued, "You haven't even been good for an arguement, today, you know. How am I supposed to keep my blood pumping--?"
Spock's nose wrinkled in disdain, or so McCoy thought, until he turned sharply away. Before the doctor could speak, before he had time to react at all, Spock let out a wrenching, "HREHhhtchew!!"
He breathed for a moment, patted his nose with a sickbay tissue, returned it to his pocket, and looked straight ahead at the storm.
McCoy considered for a moment. Yes, class A physician that he was, he'd figured out Spock had a cold ten seconds before obvious symptoms presented, but that wasn't enough to figure out how to have a sensible conversation.
He needed to make sure the half-Vulcan was at least taking care of himself, as well as circumstances allowed. The Captain undoubtedly knew Spock was taking sick, and naturally assumed his CMO knew it, and was trusting McCoy to bring him back in good condition.
McCoy'd been distracted and frankly so irritated with Spock the last few days that he hadn't been paying attention to him. He'd been actively not paying attention. So, right here and now, he had to get a genuine gauge on the problem.
"I never knew Vulcans had an obligatory sternutatory response," he said in a professionally curious -- but not too much of either -- voice. Hell, maybe Spock'd go for the scientific route...
Definite misstep, though not on that account.
"They do not."
Oh, boy. Any time Spock referred to Vulcans as "they" was not going to be a good time.
McCoy went scrambling for another tack, but the sneeze hadn't come alone. Two more hit very suddenly, equally tearing, and Spock had to muffle his face in the elbow of his far arm, giving McCoy a moment to regroup.
It took Spock a longer moment to recover himself this time, and McCoy really looked at him, the way he normally did, the way he should have been, and just sighed, where Spock could hear it.
"We can argue about how we were arguing later. For now, for my part... sorry."
If Spock looked back, all he saw was McCoy looking out at the rain. In a voice that was just a little tired, and just a little impatient, and just a little bit giving in by letting McCoy hear it all, he said, "Doctor... must we?"
"No." McCoy clicked instantly into a more professional tone, though still modulated by night and dark and privacy. "Let's just go back and let me scan you, and get some sleep."
"There is n-no, no need for your yuh-yuh-your, hehhh-uh Huhh-eh! HREHTCH! HRETCH!!uu."
Spock caught his breath, then cleaned himself up, quickly and quietly, even though to McCoy's experienced gaze that last one had kind of shook him.
"There is no need for your scanner, doctor. You have clearly deduced the fact that I have some mild upper-respiratory ailment, and that is all it will sniff! tell you."
"Maybe. This has come on rather quickly, though, hasn't it? You haven't sneezed once today where I could see you." Spock still wasn't looking at him, but the tension in his shoulders had eased a little.
"You are well aware, doctor, that I am Vulcan enough for a thorough, frigid soaking to be immuno-compromising, which can bring on a sudden worsening of symptoms. Snff! This is hardly a medical mystery."
McCoy knew he hadn't been meant to hear the strain in his voice that time, and he decided abruptly to wrap this up.
"Spock, you will let me scan you to make sure, but if it is just a cold I'll leave you alone. But drop the brooding, all right? You didn't knock me on the head when you should have, I didn't monitor your health like I should have, Jim's going to be more--"
"Even as Medical Officer it is not you - sniff! your responsibility to--"
"Tell that to Jim while he's raking me over the hot coals! I was negligent and insubordinate this trip, Spock. Why are you standing here worried about how he's going to be disappointed in you?" McCoy snapped, no longer cajoling. He didn't dread it the way Spock did, but that didn't mean he was looking forward to a dressing-down he knew he deserved.
Spock turned then, a little uncertainty in his posture for the first time, and McCoy grabbed the chance to meet his eyes. "Scanner. Hot soup-stuff. Your word to report back the instant you feel dizzy or disoriented."
After a moment studying him, Spock lowered his chin slightly in acquiescence.
"Speaking entirely as your physician, you know standing out here all night is not what you should be doing. You need dry warmth and rest to kick this thing -- whatever it it is -- any thing."
That got him a slightly slow blink and a stiffening of features.
"Fine." McCoy's lips tightened and he nodded, but grouched only to himself, turning to head back the way he came, "Intractable son of a Vulcan."
If he had to guess from that flush, Spock had a bit of a fever. He was not going to feel well finishing the hike tomorrow, whatever the doctor did for him. Vulcans, even half-Vulcans, and fevers didn't mix well. If he'd been paying attention McCoy would never have let him come.
As he rounded the second corner in the tunnel the unmistakable sound of another sneeze sounded behind him, forceful and hoarse, and the doctor's eyes tightened slightly in sympathy before he shook his head.
The Captain was going to kill him.
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