Work Text:
Sickbay was in shambles. People were coming in from all over the ship in various states of injury, and they were running out of both beds and personnel. McCoy, himself, was stretched quite thin—out of one surgery and into the next.
“Bridge to Sickbay, medical emergency.” It was Uhura’s voice. The bridge has been mostly unaffected so far, but of course it couldn’t remain that way. McCoy didn’t even have to tell the nurses to head out with a stretcher, they just did it.
McCoy came out of intensive care just as they were bringing him in; his face full of green blood, his black hair matted and stuck to his forehead with it, his uniform in tatters. The nurses seemed unhurried, and McCoy’s chest contracted painfully. No.
“Move,” he grumbled at them, grabbing Spock’s wrist and placing two fingers against his pulse points. He shifted a little, trying to find a steady beat, and couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, Doctor. We checked already, no pulse.”
“Damn Vulcan physiology,” McCoy cursed, then let go of Spock’s wrist. “Didn't you learn anything in med school? Vulcan blood pressure is too low to feel their pulse in their wrists unless it’s incredibly steady!”
He tilted Spock's head, pushing down whatever was trying to rise in his throat, and pressed both hands, two fingers of each, against the hollows underneath Spock’s jaw, his carotid arteries. And there, very faint and fluttering, he could feel it. Spock was still alive.
“Don’t you dare go out on me,” McCoy muttered, then turned to the nurses. “Get him to surgery, top priority.”
All the beds in the main room were taken, and all the tricorders were being used. He would have no way of knowing what the exact problem was until he got Spock under some sensors. If he were human, then sure, McCoy was good enough with his hands to tell, but he had avoided touching Spock as much as possible and information on Vulcan biology and medical issues was sparse enough to make him far too uncertain to risk a misdiagnosis.
He’d just have to wait and hope that the bastard didn’t die on him.
He hasn’t prayed to any god since his dad died. That day, he did.
Five hours later, the crisis was over and Spock was out of surgery, deep in a healing trance on one of the biobeds that had since cleared out. McCoy had collapsed in the chair in his office and finally let himself breathe. They had only lost two crewmen; the rest were out of the danger zone and on their way to recovery. Despite that, he couldn’t help but linger on those who didn’t make it; he never could.
He wasn’t the Captain, he wasn’t Jim, and he wasn’t particularly fond of getting to know people when he didn’t have to, so he knew nothing about Lt. Carmine and Ensign Poe. He had to be told their names, too, so that he could announce their deaths. Technically, Ensign Poe was under M’Benga’s care, and McCoy had only seen him once or twice before that. He treated Lt. Carmine for Denebian flea bites only three weeks prior.
He pulled out their files now, even though he knew it was a bad idea. He needed to know how much he lost.
Carmine had a daughter, only two years old, back on Earth. Chicago. A wife, a mother, and a grandmother and grandfather. Two sisters and a brother. The Captain would have a lot of letters to send, but McCoy would never get to say anything to any of them, to apologize or make excuses for his failure. They would never know who failed to save their family member.
Poe only had a brother listed on his file, all other family members deceased. Still, it was possible he had a partner he never told Starfleet about—it wasn’t too unusual, and it fell on the listed family members to hopefully tell them.
What got him was the last one left behind. He couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be that person. Even if he wasn’t in touch with his ex wife and his daughter, even if his dad was dead and he only talked to his mother once a month and only met his extended family whenever he was close enough to Earth and also on shore leave—which hasn’t happened since they left space dock, mind you—he still had that family. At least he knew they were there.
Poe’s brother didn’t have any children listed, either.
Spock woke up three days later, and McCoy had been the one to slap him back awake.
He wasn’t the last one left in sickbay; some patients were in much worse condition than he was.
Still, Spock was the one McCoy was most eager to get out of his sickbay. Seeing him lie prone like that, his chest barely rising, only the beeping of the biobed confirming that he was even still alive, even though it counted his pulse at 1 bpm, was incredibly distressing. McCoy found himself counting the seconds between heartbeats himself, even going so far as to press his fingers to the hollow of Spock’s neck to feel the flutter there.
He slapped him with all the frustration of the past few days, and Spock almost had to throw him across the room to get him to stop.
McCoy left him on the biobed without discharging him and locked himself in his office, where he spent the next hour crying.
He was a total mess. He had lost many patients, more than he could count, sometimes even all at the same time, but he had never reacted this way. He had never hit anyone out of anger or frustration; it wasn’t only against his nature, it was against his oath.
And he never spent so long crying over someone he didn’t fail to save.
By the time he got himself together and left his office, Spock was gone. Chapel took one look at him and ordered him to his quarters to rest. For once, he did as he was told and didn’t argue.
He slept for 14 hours.
McCoy was avoiding Spock. He was sure Spock could tell; it wasn't the first time he was mortally wounded in the line of duty, and McCoy had always forced him into recovery evaluations for the following month or two. Not this time.
He was perfectly happy to continue avoiding Spock and the odd, semi-painful clench of his gut that appeared whenever he saw him, but Spock clearly had other plans.
“You have not called me in for an evaluation,” Spock said soon after entering McCoy’s office, standing in front of his desk at parade rest.
“Have you had any problems since you were released from sickbay?” McCoy asked, leaning back in his chair casually despite the dreadful sensation returning.
“Negative—”
“Then there’s no need for you to worry.” McCoy got up and turned around, pretending to look at the wall of old medical devices behind his desk. “You don’t have to bother me.”
“It is standard procedure—”
“You never had a problem avoiding sickbay before!”
Spock fell silent, but McCoy didn’t hear him leave. He stood with his back to the room, waiting for the sound of footsteps that never came.
“You have been avoiding me, Doctor.”
McCoy couldn’t dispute that. Spock was too clever to be fooled. “So what if I have?”
“If I have done something to offend you, I would prefer you tell me so I can avoid making the same mistake in the future.”
McCoy turned around. Spock’s face was impassive, the way it was only when he was attempting to hide particularly strong or volatile emotions. There was something in the slope of his shoulders that spoke of nervousness.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” McCoy said. “You nearly died. It unnerved me, is all. I’ll get over it.”
“Why?” Spock asked, and McCoy raised an eyebrow. “I am still alive. Why are you bothered by my almost dying?”
“I don’t know. Because you’re my friend. Because I care about you.”
Spock considered his answer for a moment. “I see. Perhaps an evaluation would help you reaffirm that I am alive and alleviate your worries?”
McCoy sighed. “You know, at this point I’m starting to think you just want my hands on you.”
He gestured towards the biobed, and if Spock’s cheeks darkened at his comment, he told himself he was just imagining it.
Spock laid down on the biobed and McCoy looked over the readings. He had made a full recovery. The machine beeped steadily, only slightly faster than Spock’s baseline. McCoy’s tricorder read only mild internal scarring from the ordeal, no lasting damage. So why did McCoy still feel like it was the middle of an emergency?
In fact, this was worse. Never in all his years as a doctor did his hands shake like they did at that moment. He usually prided himself on his steady hands.
“Well, you’ve got a clean bill of health,” McCoy said, turning to put the equipment away, pretending his voice wasn’t shaking as much as his hands.
“You are still unnerved,” Spock said, and when McCoy turned back around he found him sitting up, watching him. He put his hands behind his back, tightening his grip until the shaking stopped.
“I’m fine.”
“Evidently, you are not. Perhaps a more ‘hands-on’ approach would be beneficial?”
Now McCoy couldn’t pretend the blush on Spock’s face was simply his imagination. He really did want McCoy’s hands on him.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “This isn’t just for me. You don’t like it when people touch you.”
“It is true that I prefer to avoid physical contact with most people, especially humans, however I have never had an issue with being touched by you.”
“I would have thought, with how emotional you always say I am, you’d hate touching me the most.”
“You are always quite respectful in your contact.”
McCoy looked at him. It felt like they were going around in circles.
“Why are you doing this, Spock? Really?”
Spock met his eyes straight on. “I desire your touch.”
McCoy was startled. Spock was never so straightforward with his desires. He took a deep breath, attempting to ground himself. Then he took a step closer and with sure, steady fingers, he pressed against the pulse point in Spock’s neck, feeling the blood thrum under the surface.
“I am alive, Doctor,” Spock murmured. “I will not keel over and die.”
There were tears welling in McCoy’s eyes, though he wasn’t sure why. “You’ll be the death of me.”
Spock smiled, that smile that was more eyes than lips but glowed as warm as the sun on a summer day in Georgia. He gently grabbed McCoy’s wrist and pulled his hand away from his neck, still folded into the same position with the middle and forefinger outstretched. He folded his own hand into the same position, and pressed the tips of his fingers to Mccoy’s.
McCoy’s breath caught in his chest. “Isn’t this how Vulcans kiss, Spock?”
“It is a close equivalent, yes,” Spock confirmed, running his fingers along McCoy’s, softly stroking, until he lined up the lines of their top knuckles and pushed, still holding McCoy’s hand in place by the wrist, and McCoy gasped.
The pressure amplified his own pulse, heart racing, but it also revealed Spock’s, buzzing against his own.
“I am alive,” Spock said again, and this time McCoy finally felt he could believe him.