Chapter Text
DAY 1: 08:00
They lose Ensign Patel first.
She had stayed up late, poring over every report on the quadrant, eager for the mission. Jim smiles at her enthusiasm but warns her—her health matters more than sensor readings. Stubborn as ever, she remains at her post. Two hours later, she nods off at her station.
"Ensign," Kirk says, ignoring the quiet snickers across the bridge as he shakes her shoulder. "Patel. Wake up."
But she doesn’t. Not from shaking. Not from slapping. Not from stimulants. Silence falls over the bridge as Bones appears with a stretcher. He and Kirk exchange a wary look.
"Chekov, yellow alert. No one sleeps until we figure this out. Uhura, broadcast that order shipwide."
When Kirk calls for reports, speculation, and advice, he’s given the same answers: the warping effect of the dead zone distorts their sensors—the very reason for their investigation—but after adjusting for the anomaly, their data shows no difference from scans taken outside. No one knows what to advise.
Kirk clamps down on his frustration. He pushes his crew to examine what they don’t know, what shouldn’t be possible, and to start making the impossible happen.
Spock lays a hand on his shoulder, and Jim takes a deep breath with him.
12:00
Four hours later, no one reports for Beta shift. Bones checks on them and swears under his breath through the comms—it’s the same thing, every single time. Asleep in their quarters. Their alarms had gone off, or were still sounding, but they wouldn’t wake up. The same is true for half of the Gamma shift and a quarter of Delta. When this is confirmed, Kirk makes another shipwide announcement.
“This is your captain. At this time, 44% of the Enterprise crew is asleep and cannot be roused. I repeat: do not fall asleep. Report to sickbay for stimulants and nutritional supplements if needed. We’re going to get out of here. Kirk out.”
Kirk asks for all she’s got, and Scotty reports ruefully that the warp engines are experiencing an energy drain that’s starting to eclipse their ability to generate power. At first, it was infinitesimal, then negligible. Now, it was proving to be exponential, and they have maybe four hours of warp left before they’re dead in the water.
“I cannae explain it, Captain, but the effect is essentially an electromagnetic pulse—only it’s targeting the engines. Could be what’s causin’ the sensor distortion.”
Bones comms up from sickbay. He’s monitoring 188 patients via remote EEG feeds, but he’ll be damned if he can find a single discrepancy among them. As soon as they enter REM sleep, they stay there. No brain damage. No infection. No toxins or injuries. Just sleep. And the human body can’t go without REM forever.
Bones estimates another eight hours before the rest of Gamma shift succumbs. Another twelve, and Delta will dwindle.
Jim takes a deep breath and addresses his exhausted crew with more confidence than he feels.
“You all heard them, put all focus on the connection between the anomaly and what might be happening to the ship and our people. Uhura, I want you scanning all frequencies, autoprint readouts. Sulu, see what you can do about a slingshot maneuver to get speed on our side. Chekov, route us the fastest possible course out of here.”
A chorus of "Aye, sir" fills the bridge. As the crew turns away, Kirk slumps into his chair, rubbing his eyes. Spock stands close beside him, as ever. When his hand finds Kirk’s shoulder, Jim can't tell which of them is trembling.
16:00
The warp engines are dead.
When Scotty doesn’t answer his comms, Kirk finds him slumped over a console, snoring—probably dreaming of good Scotch. Half the engineering staff is asleep. They had stayed up late the night before, ensuring everything was in top shape for the mission.
Kirk would laugh at the irony of it, but his blood sings with caffeine, and his stomach is ice. He just shakes, and shakes, and shakes.
20:00
62% of the crew is affected—267 people unconscious and unresponsive. It’s too many for sickbay, so they’ve started leaving people where they are. Dealing with the cases of psychosis is a priority, as reports of delusions and hallucinations pour in from across the ship.
At their current rate, impulse power isn’t enough to get them out of here before they all succumb. Spock tells him as much as Jim stares into his coffee.
Sulu reports that their slingshot maneuver bought them a few days, but they need weeks. A subspace message to Starfleet would take months to hear back from.
Bones reports no change in his sleeping patients—still lost in REM. He isn’t sure if that’s good or bad. There’s no study on how unregulated REM affects the body and brain for this long; it simply isn’t physically possible. But since the crew isn’t cycling through normal sleep stages, the memory storage and neurological repair that should be occurring… isn’t. They’re sleeping, but they aren’t resting. After 96 hours, brain damage or death is imminent.
Kirk considers it, but they decide that Spock melding with the crew to wake them would be too dangerous. No guarantee Spock would make it out. They can’t risk him.
For the first time all day, Kirk sees Spock sit down at his station, blinking slowly. He doesn’t respond when Kirk speaks to him at first. A sickening lurch rises in Jim’s stomach at the brief flicker of confusion in his first officer’s eyes.
DAY 2: 06:00
It’s been twenty-four hours since Kirk last slept. He’s starting to feel the effects, and under any other circumstances, he’d relinquish command. They’re no closer to finding a way to wake everyone, and the impulse engines are pushed to their limit, manned by a skeleton crew.
Jim’s so out of it that he doesn’t notice until he calls on her for a communications report and is met with silence—Uhura hasn’t moved for half an hour. She’s fallen asleep sitting up.
16:00
Spock is meditating. He doesn’t need as much sleep as humans do, and Jim is starting to think they might need him more than they realize. He watches his first officer’s still form, cold anxiety pooling in his gut. It’s illogical—he knows Spock doesn’t intend to fall asleep—but the unease will only fade when those deep brown eyes flutter open once more.
The crew is dropping like flies, and Alpha Shift is the last one standing.
Jim almost envies the crew on Gamma Shift, who lasted over forty-eight hours before they succumbed. He wonders if he’d be able to keep going that long too, if it came down to it.
If he dropped, could Bones and Spock fix this?
Hendorff sleeps soundly at his post, an EEG monitor stuck to his temple. Jim thinks briefly about joining him.
23:00
Chekov had held out valiantly, but an hour ago, he took a nosedive into his coffee and has been snoozing at his station ever since. When Kirk calls on Sulu for the third time, he realizes he’s followed suit, his chin sagging to his chest.
Forty-one hours without sleep, and Jim is starting to feel like he’s floating outside of his body. He’s taken to pacing the length of the bridge until his legs threaten to give out, then hypoing himself with a stimulant so he can stay awake in the chair. The urge to lie down is excruciating, the waves of exhaustion pulling him into their insistent tide.
He’s dropped at least three coffee mugs but can’t bring himself to clean them up anymore. His hands shake so badly that the reports on his PADD blur. Time keeps skipping—chunks of it disappearing—and the only constant is Spock at his side, giving his shoulder a squeeze every time the world drifts out of focus.
He’s grateful for it, really, and he does his best to shake off the illogical anger that flares up in response. Surely ten—no, five—minutes of rest wouldn’t hurt. McCoy had said REM sleep was the trigger, so maybe if he was woken before that, he could catch just a few minutes and clear his damn head.
But he doesn’t know for sure. He could fall straight into a dream and leave Bones and Spock alone. So he has to stay awake, he reminds himself. Spock is doing his job. They’re all doing their jobs.
It’s stupid, but even Bones’s reports are making him irrationally angry. Short and clipped, he’s stopped bothering with details:
"Still asleep. 85% of the ship and climbing, Jim."
It’s more or less what he’s been hearing for the past six hours. Kirk’s blood burns with stimulants, solar flares of rage making the muscles in his jaw jump, and he has to breathe.
God, why is he so angry? It isn’t fair that he is, but he is. He snaps, “If you don’t have anything else to say, stop wasting my damn time, Bones. I’m sick of it.”
His voice is cutting, it’s a tone he never uses with his friends. Jim burns as he says it, as uncontrollable as a forest fire, consuming everything. But once it’s out, his blood runs cold.
The dying embers of whatever anger is left snuffs out in a vacuum of fear when Bones continues, his voice lacking any of its usual abrasiveness—“I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get pretty damn tired.”
Jim looks around the bridge. It’s nearly empty now. The hum of the ship feels louder than ever. He stares at Spock, who’s staring somewhere past him, and for the first time, he lets himself wonder if they’ve already tipped past a point of no return.
"Yeah," Jim says, and his voice is a million miles away, "Me too."
DAY 3: 10:00
He had Spock calculate it for him. Fifty-two hours. That’s how long it’s been since he’s last slept. When he hears it, he starts laughing. It’s not funny, but he can’t stop. He can’t control it. Spock’s watching him with open concern, and calls Bones to the bridge. Bones takes one look at Jim and sets up right there—everybody else in medical is asleep anyway.
Jim laughs, but it hurts. It hurts, but he can’t stop. His body shakes as he hugs himself, trying to hold it together. At some point, the laughter stutters, giving way to hitching sobs. He’s not sure when it started, but Spock’s hand is rubbing comforting circles into his back, and Bones—Bones speaks in that soft, gentle voice he saves for Joanna. Jim’s sitting on the floor, pressed between them, hidden and held, safe.
“I’m sorry,” Jim says, his voice trembling, “I’m just so damn tired.”
“Shh, it’s gonna be okay, darlin’,” Bones whispers. “Just breathe.”
“Jim. It is logical that you are experiencing distress,” Spock adds, his voice steady despite the situation. “Humans require sleep to regulate their emotions. It is impressive you have abstained this long, and with admirable control.”
“I…” Jim chokes on his words, voice breaking. “I think I’m—losing it. But there’s nobody else. I—”
He sobs into Bones’s shoulder until everything goes numb again. When he peels away, there’s a big wet stain where his face used to be. Spock’s hand is at the back of his neck, and the pressure feels like a balm on the raw edges of his mind. He leans into it, sighing in relief.
They hold him like that for a while, and then they get back to work.
18:00
Jim is neck-deep in radiation readings, combing through the sensor logs when Uhura’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts.
“Captain, I believe we’re being hit with electromagnetic radiation that matches the frequency of our warp engines. It’s been undetectable so far, because it blends into the background radiation, sir. But scans show it wasn’t present outside the system. It’s been increasing steadily since we entered this anomalous area.”
“You’re—” Jim blinks at the readouts, and everything clicks into place. “You’re right! I could kiss you, Lieutenant.”
He stares at the numbers. The radiation increase mirrors the drain on the engines and, in turn, the rate at which crewmembers are succumbing to sleep. The same exponential curve.
“Jim?” Bones’s voice sounds from behind him, cautious. “Who are you talking to?”
“Uhura.” Jim grins, “She cracked it. There’s this increasing radiation matching the ship’s emissions. We weren’t detecting it because our calibrations were built to filter it out, but now I’m looking at the raw data, and it tracks with everything…”
He trails off, confused by the strange look on Bones’s face.
Bones’s eyes are soft, his expression gentle, but when Jim blinks, they blur. His friend seems to shimmer like a reflection in water.
“Uhura is asleep, Jim,” Bones says quietly.
“But… I was just talking to—” Jim looks over. Uhura is lying beside her station, a folded tunic wedged between her head and the floor.
Jim gets up, but his legs buckle. He sways, and Bones and Spock are at his sides instantly, gripping him by the arms. A hypospray hisses into his neck, delivering a cold, numbing burst of stimulants. His body stops shaking, but his blood feels like sludge, and his heart pounds heavy in his chest. He swallows and his throat feels thick, bile rising in his mouth.
“I don’t feel so good, Bones.” His voice is hollow, buzzing in his skull.
“No, I don’t imagine you do. Sixty hours is a long time to be awake.”
Spock repeats a Vulcan mantra under his breath, his body tense. The words are fumbled by the translator, but the worry in his voice is unmistakable.
23:00
The bridge is as silent as a tomb.
Jim’s given up on eating, it feels like pushing clods of muck through pinched tubes of flesh, and going to the commissary alone makes him irrationally scared. The last time he did, he saw a shadowy figure melt into a lunch table, and he booked it out of there.
If they weren’t so tired, Spock and Bones would probably be mother-henning him about it. Bones would be telling him off, at least. As it is, he’s not sure if they’re eating either.
They’re working on an antidote of sorts, an electromagnetic field that will jam the frequency keeping the warp engines and the crew asleep. He can barely read anymore, the text dissolving into scribbles as he tries to hammer out the code for the transmitter. Jim bites back a yawn, and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, seeing stars. He’s hearing whispering, but he knows that it’s not McCoy or Spock—they’ve barely spoken, absorbed in their work. They haven’t gotten a response from anyone in the last two hours. As far as he knows, they’re the last three left awake on the whole ship.
Spock is working on constructing and tuning their device, and Bones is kept busy monitoring everyone else on the ship’s lifesigns carefully for any changes. They’ve stopped bothering EEG tagging everyone. They don’t have the energy for it anymore, and the readings have all stayed consistent.
When the first death happens, and Bones gets real quiet and stiff, the room goes as cold as the vacuum of space. Tears stream down the doctor’s face, and he just stares at his fisted hands where they shake in his lap. Jim and Spock wrap themselves around him, and now it’s Jim’s turn to comfort.
Bones’s voice is so flat, so empty, wrung out and beyond feeling that it barely sounds like him. “She’d only been asleep for thirty hours, I thought—” his breath shudders against Jim’s neck, “I was wrong. I’m so sorry, dammit Jim…”
“Shhh Bones. It’s okay. We’re doing everything we can. We’re close. We won’t lose anyone else if we can help it.”
Bones just breathes. He clings to Jim like he’s the only beam of support keeping the tower of his body from crashing down.
“Besides,” Jim tries for something lighter, but it's more honest than he wants. “It’s on me. I’m the captain.”
Spock says nothing, but rubs circles into McCoy’s back, and hugs them both tight, huffing like he can’t catch his breath. He’s hardly said anything for the last four hours, and Jim is getting worried.
“Leonard?” Spock finally says. His voice is fragile enough to shatter, yet it rings out against the silence, threaded with barely concealed terror.
Kirk finally notices that Bones’s breath has evened, his head lolling against Jim’s shoulder, an increasingly heavy, sagging weight between them. They carefully lower him to the floor, and Jim’s entire body goes cold.
They just lost their only doctor.
“We must act quickly.” Spock says, his voice is shaking. They lock eyes, and the raw panic there makes Jim’s heart stop for a second.
“Captain, it is only a matter of time before—” Spock’s eyes close, and he lets out a shuddering breath, visibly struggling for control.
Before one of them is next. Probably Jim, if he’s being honest with himself. He’s barely hanging on, and he’s already banking on Spock being the last one left.
Jim presses his forehead to Spocks, and breathes.
“We’re gonna be ok. We’re gonna watch over each other, and we’re gonna get through this. It’s just you and me to the end, Mr. Spock.”
And it feels like it too—the universe is empty but for the two of them. Either Jim is delirious, or Spock is the only reality that truly exists. He’s beautiful, even when he cries. Galaxies blur into the soft outline of his hair, his eyes glow with the light of distant moons, stars sparkling in his tears.
Spock’s breath hitches as he sits back, his face cradled in Jim’s hands, and Jim wipes the tears away as they come out.
“Jim… I am afraid.” Spock says, as the frame of his body shakes violently against him. Jim holds him tight, feels the side of his neck starting to get wet.
I love you, he wants to say.
“I know. He’s counting on us.” He says instead.
DAY 4: 12:00
Five more deaths. Each one feels like a needle in his heart, piercing deeper than the last. Ensigns, midshipmen, helmsmen—all with bright futures ahead of them. All so young.
“They died in their sleep, Jim,” Bones says quietly. “Painless, at least. There's that.”
Jim nods, though the words don’t seem to reach him. He asks about the dreams they could’ve been having, but despite Jim feeling the weight of his gaze, Bones doesn’t answer.
Spock replies more out of routine than anything else: “I am unsure.”
It could be paranoia, but Jim can’t help thinking neither of them are eager to find out. That somehow, it’s worse than this torture. He can’t imagine his own subconscious dredging up anything good, at least.
“Do Vulcans dream?”
He hears Bones snort. “What next, are you gonna ask him if he likes long walks on the beach?”
But his eyes are focused on Spock’s face above him, back leaned against the bulkhead. At some point, Jim must’ve collapsed, and he’s been laying on the floor of the bridge with his head in Spock’s lap ever since. Jim can see the translucent drag of his nictitating membrane when he blinks. Beyond that, Jim can see the gears turning in Spock’s brain as he answers, “Normally, they do not.”
Normally, Jim thinks, but normal is floating somewhere else, a point in space that’s very far away, and accelerating quickly.
“What do you think, Bones?”
But Bones doesn’t answer. Jim glances over—and realizes he isn’t actually awake.
They’ve got the program uploading now. In a few hours when it completes, it’ll automatically broadcast an electromagnetic field around the ship, clashing with the anomalous wavelengths in destructive interference, and hopefully people will start coming out of it and waking up.
They’re almost to the finish line, but they’ve gotta stay awake, gotta make sure it works.
The ceiling breathes when Jim does. Jim’s melting into the floor of the bridge, trying not to feel the pulse and throb of every fragile organ inside his body, the squeeze of his heart under his ribs. If he lets himself focus on it too much, it makes him sick. He feels like he’s dying, maybe. Like his body is made of expiring meat.
Spock tells him it's been seventy-eight hours since he’s last slept, and Jim admits (intending to in his head, but accidentally out loud) that the only thing keeping him tethered to reality is the touch of his First Officer. Spock is real, Spock is warm, Spock is alive. He’s not sure about much else.
Spock occupies himself by carding a hand through Jim’s curls, and jabbing his cheek when he starts nodding off. The other hand rests on Jim’s chest, over his heart, like Spock needs to know it’s still beating. Under other circumstances, this behavior would be inappropriate for the bridge, but it hardly matters now. If this doesn’t work, it’s over.
A spike of fear goes through his chest at the thought, and Spock’s fingers curl protectively into his hair and stay there.
The vacant hum of the ship is deafening as he tries to get his thoughts together. Time is slipping again.
“Spock, if we don’t wake up, I just wanted to say…” his voice is thumping through his blood, out of his eye sockets, but he has to get this out, “I wanted to say that… you mean so much to me, there’s so much I should’ve told you and I… I love you.”
The following silence, Jim half-expects. It was quite the emotional confession, and they’re both reeling from severe sleep deprivation.
What he doesn’t expect is Spock’s next words: “There is something I have not told you directly.”
The tone is so distant and distressed that Jim’s eyes snap open immediately. Spock’s head is tipped back, and Jim can’t see his face.
“Prior to our mission, I forewent sleep for 5 days in order to monitor a time sensitive experiment. The details were in my report. Do you recall?”
Jim laughs and it hurts. “That’s what you had to tell me?“ He closes his eyes again. “No ‘I love yous’?” It hurts, but he can’t stop.
“Jim. I fear it is my turn.”
He stops laughing long enough to notice. Spock is completely still, his breathing even. It has been for some time. He’s not sure how long he’s been talking to himself.
Jim swallows against a dry throat. His own pulse roars in his ears, loud and erratic, the only thing left in the void.
He crawls up Spock’s body to confirm it. Spock’s eyes are closed, the creases under them have softened, and his face is relaxed in sleep.
For the first time in this whole mess, real horror sinks in. He had thought that out of everyone, Spock would be the last man standing, that if anything, Jim would be leaving him. But Spock is asleep now, and Jim is alone.
That might be the last time he’d ever hear Spock’s voice. Spock might never wake up again. The density of it pulls Jim downwards, and he pulls Spock with him. They crash into a pile of limbs on the floor.
“Spock?” His voice breaks.
He tries again, panic creeping in, “Hey, Spock?” and then as loud as he’s able, interspersed with a pitifully weak series of slaps, “SPOCK! WAKE! UP!”
But nothing happens. He’s alone. Jim’s always known he’d die alone. The fear is overtaking him, and his heart can’t keep up. His heart hurts, pounding at his chest like it wants to get out. No more stimulants, Jim decides, or it might actually succeed.
This is the end. There’s nothing else to do now.
The urge to lay with him is unbearable. Jim curls his body around Spock’s, slots their legs together, pillows a pointed ear with his arm. Spock’s breath is quiet, his face peaceful for the first time in days. An aura around his head of shining white light gives him the dignified glow of a prince—his pale, green-tinted skin showing off his sharp features in delicate relief.
Jim thinks, and the idea is absurd, that if he kisses him, maybe Spock will wake up. Like a fairytale. True love’s first kiss.
He’s actually delirious.
He tries it anyway.
Spock, predictably, doesn’t wake up, much less kisses back. After a few seconds, it goes from feeling thrilling to wildly uncomfortable, and Jim gives it up with a sigh. He grabs Spock’s limp hand, and brings it to his mouth, holding it gently. He runs his lips over Spock’s knuckles and hums against them.
“Sometimes having is not so great a thing as wanting, Jim.”
It’s Spock’s voice, but he’s staring into Spock’s face, and he knows he’s asleep. The hum of the engines is a horde of angry insects, buzzing over their entangled bodies in hushed tones of judgement.
He’s gone crazy. Just four days without rest and his brain can’t be trusted. Time keeps bleeding from the gashes of silence, he’s not sure how much he can lose before it’s fatal. How much he’s already lost. The whole universe is in his hands, underneath his lips, pressed warm against him, and Jim thinks it should probably be heavier.
As if in response, gravity seems to increase by the second, pressure builds in his skull, and Jim feels his body slacken and press into the deck. He can feel the idea sinking into his bones, pulling down through the floor, that this is inevitable. He blinks his eyes and Spock blurs, then disappears. He’s still kissing Spock’s hand, he thinks, when he passes out.
He tries hard not to imagine that this is what dying is like.
And then he’s falling—
Falling—
Falling off a sailboat, into a dark blue ocean. He hits the water with a slap, thrashing and bursting to the surface as he gasps. The waves wash high off the hull, and they pummel him relentlessly. He can hardly keep his head above the surface, and water makes its way into his mouth. As soon as he’s coughing it out, he’s under again.
“Captain overboard!” Scotty calls from the helm of the ship, and Uhura throws a buoy his way. But it’s too far, he can’t reach it and keep afloat at the same time. Sulu and Chekov are getting a lifeboat ready, but the line is stuck, and it won’t drop from the side. He goes under again, and when he comes up, he sees Bones kicking his shoes off, getting ready to jump in the water.
“No!” He screams, seawater burning in his throat, “Bones, don’t!”
But it’s too late, McCoy is already diving in. When he hits the surface, another wave pushes Jim under. He sputters and coughs as his head breaches, and he whips around, calling for them, but the doctor and the ship are gone.
The water stretches forever.
He sees a big wave coming, and doesn’t know if he’s going to come up again. He thinks he spots the crown of his First Officer’s wet head disappear beneath the dip of it.
“Spock!” is all he can gasp out, before he’s thrown under and he sinks like a stone.
The water darkens with depth, the pressure crushing, and Jim holds his breath. It’s like he can’t swim anymore, the water turning viscous, his body going numb. Bubbles leave his lips as panic claws at his chest. His lungs burn for oxygen.
He looks up at the surface, hopelessly far away, and when he looks back down, Spock’s dark eyes are staring into his own, his hair suspended like a cloud of ink in the water. Spock’s hand cups his cheek, as he beholds Jim with a quiet, alien reverence.
Jim’s breath leaves him in a cascade of bubbles as he rakes his eyes over Spock’s bare chest, over the thatch of black, silky hair brushing down his stomach, locking onto his tail: eel-like and covered in glimmering blue-green scales. It curls around Jim, pulls him closer. Spock’s voice has the hypnotic timbre of a siren’s song.
“Captain,” he says, “can you hear me?”
Jim can’t answer. Not with the water pressing into his mouth, his nose. He’s choking. Spock is beautiful, floating before him like a vision, and he can’t breathe.
“Jim. Please.”
He has to do something. If he doesn’t then he’ll drown. He knows this, but everything is going fuzzy.
“You must wake up. Come back to me.” Spock’s voice cracks, and some essential part of reality breaks. He presses his lips to Jim’s, and then they’re both falling.
DAY 5: 14:00
Jim’s eyes flutter open to the sight of Spock, inches from his face, looking more relieved than Jim would’ve ever thought possible. Spock’s fingers slide down his cheek from where they usually rest over his psi-points, and Jim leans into the touch, feeling more grounded in reality than he has in days.
“I thought we didn’t clear melds to wake people.” Is the first thing that comes out of his mouth, quiet and thick with sleep.
“We did not.” Spock affirms, a small smile at the edges of his lips. He takes Jim’s hand between his own, and adoration wells up in Jim's throat.
“However, as most of the crew has awoken, and it was only yourself, Captain, who couldn’t be roused, I elected to change my stance.”
“Our stance.” McCoy grumbles, “Way to act like a guy isn’t even in the damn room.”
Spock sits back in his chair, and the form of the doctor comes into view. Jim’s in sickbay, and their conversation was hardly private.
Jim blushes—stammers even—like a schoolgirl. “Oh, uh, there you are, Bones.” Dammit.
McCoy pinches a line in his forehead, and grouses, “I should be saying that to you. You’ve been asleep for twenty-four hours, Jim. I think because you stayed up the longest, you had it the worst. I just got Spock here to wake up a couple of hours ago.”
Jim blinks. “What do you mean, had it the worst?”
“REM rebound. Your body needed the sleep badly, in the appropriate cycles of course. Since everyone else had already gotten plenty of REM, they just had to finish up their cycles. But you—” He jabs a finger at Jim’s chest, and Jim’s eyes go wide with innocence.
“You needed to reset completely. You wouldn’t wake up for anything. Scared the bejeezus out of us all until we figured out it was probably natural this time. Didn’t stop your pointy-eared boyfriend here from throwing a fit in my sickbay as soon as he was up.”
Spock’s ears flush green, and Jim can’t help but grin. “You were worried about me. A human emotion, Spock?”
Spock looks properly flustered at that, and says archly, “You had been awake for approximately eighty hours at the time you lost consciousness. I was rightly concerned for your health.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, too.”
Spock has that little smile again, and Jim’s heart is melting. In the metaphorical way. He’s getting used to not feeling all of his organs anymore. Bones is making gagging noises, but Jim rolls his eyes and ignores him.
“I’m guessing we’re in the clear now?”
Spock nods. “Affirmative. Warp power has been restored, the Enterprise is enroute to Starbase 26. We have placed a warning buoy, alerting all incoming ships to the present danger. The area is to be quarantined.”
Jim thinks of the buoy in his dream that was too far away to reach, and swallows. “Good, that’s good.”
He can’t think of anything else to say.
He pushes himself up to sit, and the world sways. Spock’s hands find his shoulders, and Bones steadies his head until it settles. When his vision clears, Jim squeezes them both against him and breathes them in like oxygen, his heart tumbling in the vacuum of space. Being bent over the bed at this awkward angle must be uncomfortable for the two of them, but for once, neither man complains.
“Shit.” Jim says, “I was getting delusional there. When it was just me left, well I… I thought I was going to die…” he trails off, his voice thick with emotion too dense to choke out.
“Not possible.” Spock rumbles. His hold tightens around Jim’s middle protectively, as if he’s afraid his captain might float away.
“Stop talking nonsense,” Bones mutters into his shoulder. A gentle hand carding through the hair at the nape of Jim’s neck belies his otherwise gruff tone. Jim feels his shoulder start to get damp.
Something stuck shut inside him releases, and his eyes prickle. Jim smiles through his tears and blinks them onto the blanket, letting out something between a laugh and a sob. In response, Spock tentatively bumps his forehead against Jim’s, like they did on the bridge. The cool, soothing presence of him washes through the contact, something unexplainable but oh so unequivocally Spock. It’s like a balm to his soul.
God… what he wouldn’t do for these men. After these last five miserable days, he feels exhilarated and free in a way he hasn’t in a long time. The warmth is pouring out of his chest, cradled and safe in the arms of his best friends, and he doesn’t feel like trying to suppress it anymore. Saying it is harder now without the fog of sleep deprivation, but he knows he wants to, and thinks he should—“ I love you, you know that? Both of you.”
“And I, you, k’diwa.” Spock’s response is shocked, a little touched, and affectionately soft. His ears flush an adorable green.
“Don’t you two get gooey on me. And don’t you go thinking you’ve got any right to die.” Bones is as irascible as ever. With one hand, the doctor prods him accusingly in the chest. With the other, his thumb runs up and down the nape of Jim’s neck in calming strokes. Jim sighs, and melts into his senior officers’ touch.
They’re both smiling, in their own ways, and Jim smiles back, tired but genuine. He hugs them tighter, until Bones grouches that he’s gonna break something important if he keeps squeezing like that. He lets go with a chuckle, and his curmudgeon of a friend wanders off grumbling about having other patients too, a small curve to his lips betraying his otherwise annoyed front. The familiar sound of the doctor’s affectionate complaining warms Jim’s heart.
And Spock…
Spock, it seems, has no words. He stares. There’s a deep, unspoken need in his eyes and Jim just nods. Whatever it is, Spock can have it. Anything.
Pure relief floods his face before the Vulcan mask slips over. Spock climbs into bed behind him, and pulls Jim to his chest. They don’t talk about it, it just happens. After being unconscious for twenty-four hours, the concept of sleeping should seem impossible, but as Spock wraps warm, steady arms around him and presses his face into Jim’s hair, it seems almost inevitable. It’s exactly what he needs.
This time, as he dozes off, cradled in Spock’s arms, Jim is blissfully comfortable and carefree. The ship is safe, Bones is safe, Spock is safe, and he doesn’t have to worry about waking up for Alpha shift, since Bones has him on medical leave.
He lets his eyes drift shut, relishing the moment. Spock’s hand rests warm over his heart, fingers light against his pulse. Jim exhales, content.
This time, when he relaxes into the warmth and he goes under, he knows he’ll make it back up.