Hopefully Spock won't notice Jim's visible relief at the denial-- or if he does, hopefully he'll assume it's because of how disturbing it'd be in general. Listening to Spock causes a kind of creeping guilt up Jim's spine and in his stomach, and he forces himself to take another drink. Evenness, or something. Not that he could find himself wobbly from this glass.
"You're in Starfleet because you chose to enroll there instead of the Vulcan Science Academy," Jim says after a quiet, his voice low and subdued. "After that... your life could have been different, yes. But anyone could have encouraged you to stay."
That's the good news. The bad news is everything else, really. Even if Ambassador Spock was only trying to give his counterpart a chance to go on the track he'd have stayed on were it not for the incursions into the timeline already... what's done is done. They can only go forward. It's the time-space continuum version of a sunk-cost fallacy to change more in the interests of trying to compensate.
"Our timeline is never going to congeal with theirs and disintegrate. We're not them, Spock. We never were, not even before Nero and the.. Kelvin. Even if we're a magnet for time-travelers, what we have is special."
"I do not know if I am..." Which was the worst part about it all. He wishes there were more cocoa, but the amount he sucked down so quickly is doing an effective job of blurring the edges of his vision. Making him relax, despite himself as he talks to Jim. They should have had this conversation ages ago. But it was never appropriate. There was never time.
He never knew his mind enough to know exactly what he wanted to say.
"When we first met... you are correct. I had already diverged from the man that I otherwise could have been. I do not know why as the incident with the Kelvin had no direct impact on my rearing. However..." He spoke with his counterpart. He knows the differences from the surprised looks on the other man's face. From the way they both talk about their childhood.
"I had...resentments where he did not. I felt the need to prove myself where he had long abandoned such ideas. When you beat the Kobayashi Maru test... It was an insult to myself. To my abilities. A way for me to be questioned and ridiculed anew in the place I had found relief."
And this is definitely the drink talking, now. So he closes his mouth and gets to the point before he rambles on and on for days. He could. He's been thinking about it long enough, by now. He has the ammunition and Jim's given him the opportunity to let it fly.
"I...do not prefer who I was to who I became from his interference. But it is still due to him that I have changed. Perhaps...we were destined to never become friends, here." He looks up at Jim, questions written all over his face. "Is that preferable? I cannot...decide whether it should have been or whether I should be grateful it was altered so irreparably..."
"I prefer that we're friends," Jim says carefully, realizing that Spock is probably drunk and feeling a little bit like he's taking advantage. "I don't have many friends."
It's an admission he knows most people don't believe - Captain James Kirk, sociable and charming, can't possibly be lacking in friendship, but rank is isolating, and even before that, he met more people than he ever knew. Trust, the kind that comes with real friendship, is impossibly rare for him. And he trusts Spock.
"You're important to me, and.. it's probably selfish, but even if what we have began as manufactured, I'm happy that we have it. I know what it's like to not have a family. I want you to have this one."
His grip on the glass tightens, and Jim drains the rest of the cognac smoothly, not coughing after thanks to a history of drinking entirely too much. The quickness sends a bit of a buzz to his head, but it begins to fade almost immediately. He considers getting another to catch up, and he rises to do just that. At the replicator: "What I did to beat the Kobayashi Maru test was wrong. It wasn't about you, though. It wasn't about anyone but me."
Spock stands (it takes two attempts, but he does it) and he moves behind Jim, fully intending to get another mug, himself. He's never gotten drunk before, but he knows the mechanics of it. The biology. The psychological effects. He also knows that it's not going to solve any of the problems he has nor soothe any of the uncertainty that's been plaguing his mind.
But it's a start.
"You didn't know me," Spock says in a way that's not slurring, but sounds just a bit off, all the same. Perhaps its the contraction. "It's illogical to believe that it was against me. And...it was clever." Spock leans against the wall and stares at the ceiling.
Beyond it was stars.
Beyond every ceiling is stars. Beyond ever floor, too. If you just go far enough.
"You should have been commemorated for your solution. Instead, I brought you up on charges. Because I believed I had to prove that you were wrong. And that I was right." The logic wasn't clear. The meditation only made things worse. He'd spun these wheels for weeks and had come up with nothing but exhaustion.
"I was different, in this universe. Somehow, I was different because of Nero. And, because of Nero, we hated one another. Then were pushed to befriend each other by the other Spock." He looks at Jim, eyes bleary around the edges but sharp in the center. "Where does one influence end and corruption begin? Without Nero, we would have been destined to be friends. With Nero and, by association, my counterpart, we are friends once again. How do you extrapolate what was meant to be from the interference of others? Or is it all meant to be?
The look Jim gives Spock is restrained, but still a little bit like that concerned Kermit the Frog one on plurk. You know the one. "Let me," Jim says, of the replicator, ever the polite host, and proceeds to order his refill first. He uses the distraction of talking over it and holding his gaze to hide the fact that he makes this chocolate drink less potent.
"Nero didn't have anything to do with why we disliked each other at first," Jim insists, looking at him frankly. "That was all us. And-- probably some Ambassador Spock." Jim puts the cup of hot chocolate back into Spock's hand and herds him back to the sofa, snagging his own liquor on the way.
"He was the one who instructed me to go after you when I got back to the Enterprise after Delta Vega," he explains, and he knows this is in the reports and that it's more or less known, even if he hasn't said so in so many plain words. It's a concession to their friendship that he does not say 'after you marooned me on Delta Vega'. Jim means it, about preferring things with them as confidants. "He didn't do it to screw with us, he did it to save Earth. And what does 'meant to be' mean, anyway? What if all of this 'interference' is what's meant to be? Maybe if Ambassador Spock stayed in his universe, his presence would trigger the end of all realities, or something. We have no idea."
"I don't want to think that our friendship is false," he says plainly, swallowing a mouthful more, but then resting the mug against his knee in what might be an attempt to slow down just a little bit. "That is was built by someone else. After the death of Vulcan I...was compromised. I did things I regret, to this day. Delta Vega being among them." His eyes closed, a headache starting right along his temples.
"But if I had not, you would not have met Mister Scott. You would not have met the other Spock. There is so much that has happened by pure chance. Miraculous coincidences which should not have ever occurred. And now...the interference is gone." He looks at the box, accusatory. "Nero is dead. My counterpart is dead. All that is left is the world they had a hand in creating. The people they moved like chess pieces before abandoning the game to new players."
His hand tightens around the mug but doesn't lift it.
"He used you. My counterpart. Do you not feel...anger toward that? Resentment?"
"We built it, Spock," he reminds him quietly in the midst of that. Because they did. Jim and Spock could have rejected each other after the Narada's destruction. They could have gone back to Earth and never spoken again-- even if Spock hadn't decided to stay with Starfleet, he didn't have to come to the Enterprise. Has some of their goodwill been Jim subtly enabling it due to faith in the abyss of time that it'd work out? Yeah, sure, but Jim Kirk is a rulebreaker. He doesn't have a problem using the cheat sheet on an exam if someone was careless enough to let him see it. That's not being led. It's a choice. It's tactical.
And like he mentioned: he's selfish. He wanted it to work.
"He used me to save the Federation. A scrap of my autonomy is a small price to pay for that. I'd have gladly paid far more."
--Is perhaps the most coldly Vulcan thing Jim has ever said, and he doesn't seem to notice.
Spock turns and looks at Jim with a raised eyebrow. A question forming slowly in his chemical-soaked mind. Something he is sure isn't right but can't seem to figure out how to put into words, just yet. So he starts simpler.
"Your willingness is pointless if you were not given the opportunity to choose."
He takes another sip of his drink which doesn't help his mental fuzz, but it's helping him talk. A lot. So maybe that's alright.
"He manipulated you. How do you know your belief that the greater good was served is not something he planted to assure you would not protest to his actions?" Spock, at times, doesn't know how he and the other version of him can have the same DNA. Have known the same people.
Sometimes he wonders what happened to make him do the things that he's done, here. A lost bondmate, perhaps. That...could be a particularly strong motivator.
Why does Spock want Jim to be resentful about it? A slight frown forms on his face, though he tries to avoid any negative feelings-- Spock's half in the bag at least, and he and his trachea know very well what kind of very much human emotions lurk under the cool exterior. Getting into an argument isn't going to help anything. It occurs to him that his friend probably needs to get it off his chest, anyway. This is a whole lot to have been holding in for so long.
"I was willing to get into a fight with the entire security force and you when you ejected me from the Enterprise," he says wryly, after taking a moment to consider how to answer. "I believed wholeheartedly, to the point where I was unable to stop myself from desperately trying to change your mind, that your plan would result in Earth's destruction. I would have done anything, Spock. And it's not like--"
It's not like I haven't proven my willingness to die for the greater good.
Something catches in his chest. A tiny, traitorous thought that if the older Vulcan hadn't influenced him, he might have never gone into the warp core. For a split-second it's panic inducing and then he crushes it, because if he hadn't gone into the warp core then all of them would be dead and fuck only knows what would have happened in a ripple effect from there. It doesn't matter if it was a decision influenced by someone else or not. If he had been too afraid to do it, Jim wouldn't be able to live with himself. He knows that much. He knows because his father was the kind of man who chose to die the same way. It's in his DNA.
Jim swallows a mouthful of cognac.
"I choose not to be resentful. I choose to move forward and take advantage of whatever I can from that world, because it's already taken so much from me."
"You chose all of that after the encounter with my counterpart," Spock points out. Because, drunk or not, he knows how the chronology worked out. "Who knows what he said to you in order to get you to agree with his plan?" Jim knew. But they haven't discussed it, really.
They haven't talked about it at all, come to think of it. Not even a little.
Spock takes another sip and extrapolates. "When he saw you...he saw the memory of his lover, alive once more. Perhaps even a bondmate, if they had progressed in their relationship far enough. Given how long the other Spock existed without his Jim, it would serve to reason his already significant emotionally compromised state was exacerbated all the more, seeing you. I imagine his judgement was clouded. What seemed to be for the greater good was moreso for his own. He-"
A thought occurs to him. A memory of Jim's relief when Spock had said he hadn't melded with himself. And something cold drops into his stomach, spreading out like a virus from the spot.
Jim feels certain that he would have chosen to sacrifice himself for the Enterprise even without the interference-- he does what he has to. Period. And he's not suicidal despite Ambassador Spock's self-loathing and guilt about his actions - that Jim certainly felt - because he didn't want to die, because he didn't go down with his ship on Altamid, because of a hundred other things. It's a disturbing feeling to consider it, and he has empathy for Spock's unease about it now, but he's sure of himself. He has to be.
And then that question.
Jim looks at him, expression suddenly shuttered because he can tell how much the idea worries his first officer. So what if he did is his first thought, defensive, because really, so what. Even though he knows (logically, hah) that it was abrupt and too intense, because what in life goes on without a hitch? Jim had to understand. The older Spock made him understand. He made him understand more than he set out to, and left memories in him that sometimes flit to the surface in dreams or even in waking, but so what.
He doesn't answer, just stares at him. Which is answer enough on its own.
Spock feels physically ill. And it has nothing to do with the chocolate he's drank.
"Jim," he hisses between his teeth, setting the mug on the table before getting up to his feet and walking over to the window. His hands ball into fists and press against the frame , white-knuckled and shaking with the strain. "Jim. Why did you not tell me?"
He can't look at his friend. Not when he feels a bit like he was the one who had just violated him. Illogical, certainly, but that doesn't stop him from feeling it. Everything from the last few years is in question, now. Jim's mental state alone is in question. Spock's head bows forward, taking his shoulders with it. The plastic beneath his knuckles bends, just ever so slightly.
"Don't..." Jim's voice sounds weak even to his own ears and he grits his teeth, taking a breath before he stands up, giving Spock his space but making sure to face him while speaking, leaning against the back of the sofa and looking at the back of his head.
"Don't be like this about it. Please. It was on Delta Vega," which is probably the wrong thing to point out considering how wildly compromised Spock was at the time, "and it was necessary, I'd never have gotten back to the ship without him and after that-- after that it was my call."
Implying that a) it happened more than once and b) the first (!!) time wasn't Jim's call.
Well.
"You can't think so little of Vulcan practices, I don't believe that."
He's drunk, but Spock is not stupid. He turns, face open and incredulous in his inebriation as he tries to comprehend all that Jim is telling him. "How many times have you melded with him?" he asks. And the rage behind those eight words is enough to melt through steel. It is a hearkening back to that day when he had demanded Jim thrown off the ship. Proof in exhibit A for his emotional state.
"Considering the first act was not consensual and the subsequent ones were likely done after the insinuation of this being normal had already been planted, you...do not understand what has been done. What I..." He stops. His stomach has roiled in rebellion from what he has heard. What he apparently is capable of.
"I am sorry, Jim. I am...unsure of what else to say. How to make amends for such a violation." He wishes now that he hadn't drank. It's hard to differentiate where his illness and disgust are originating from. "I am...truly sorry."
The look Jim gives him is unavoidably hurt. Violation? He can't think of it like that. It was intense, frightening and disturbing at the time-- and for a while he had nightmares of what it felt like to lose Vulcan and he never, ever told anyone-- but it left him with a glimmer of insight and the feeling of something he's never had from anyone: absolute unconditional love and acceptance. Of course Jim Kirk and Spock were lovers in that other world. How could Ambassador Spock give him an echo of a feeling like that if it were any other way?
And Jim, selfish, fatherless, fuck up Jim, decided that was fine. He liked that feeling. He didn't care someone else earned it, because that universe took his father and ruined his mother's life and killed so, so many people, and so it owed him. Ambassador Spock owed him. If all he ever got back out of it was that feeling-- fucking fine. Because he's never going to feel that way for real.
"That remains to be seen, Jim," Spock argues. And if Jim's face is broadcasting hurt then Spock's is as well, but on a different, quieter frequency. "He...accessed your mind. Someone who shares my very DNA has...abused the privilege granted to us through our race to...reclaim something that was not his, here." He can see it now. Can understand it, on some level. If he came across another version of his mother, he can understand the appeal of wanting to supply her with everything she would need to know in order to be the person he had lost.
But it wasn't right. And it wasn't fair. And the feeling inside of him that is telling him that Jim's regard for him is false is only growing by the second.
"You cannot assess the damage that has been done to you. What...has been changed. Added to your mind without your consent." He moves away from the wall, toward the direction of he bathroom. His face is pale in a way that might suggest a physical response to his emotions, but he's managing it alright for the time being.
Jim watches him with wide, impossibly blue eyes, seeming so much more watery than usual suddenly. Spock is his friend. Jim wouldn't pretend, he wouldn't let someone's ghost dictate things between them-- his friendship with Ambassador Spock had been wildly different, after all, and if Jim was conflating them or allowing it to guide him, wouldn't he try and replicate something? No. He's certain. But at the same time he knows Spock wouldn't react this way for no reason, and would never speak so passionately about something if it wasn't truly important-- and logical.
He doesn't follow Spock to the bathroom. Instead he finds himself drifting to the sofa again, and the box set upon it. He sits down with the little thing in his hands, just resting his fingertips on the surface for a moment before he opens it. The starbase doesn't shift. Reality doesn't collapse. It's just a box with a handful of possessions that belonged to a now-dead Vulcan. All he had.
"If you go with me," he says at length, "I'll see a healer."
It's hard to say what turns his stomach more. True, he hasn't drank in a long time and shooting a full glass of strong cocoa wasn't the smartest way to get back into the swing of it, but he was reasonably sure that he would have kept it down if he wasn't also reeling from the fact that his best friend may have been a fabrication. May have been nothing more than a lonely version of himself recreating a lover he had long lost.
He wonders what it must have been like to be that desperate. Or was the other Spock desperate at all? Was this normal for him? To just push into an unknowing, unwilling mind?
What was he like, there? What was he capable of becoming?
Spock is surprised by Jim's agreeing, but it is muted behind everything else roiling around in his body. "I will," he promises. "The healer will be able to see the damage. They may even be able to fix it."
But, at that point, what would that do to Jim? What would that do to the man who had become his friend?
There may not even be damage. Jim knows that the first meld was done in a way like taking a sledgehammer to his head, but Ambassador Spock had worked with him since then, knowing he'd made a risky call. But Jim had forgiven him before the explanation was even out of his mouth. He sighs quietly, possibly inaudible to Spock. He'll take the necklace, he decides; he doesn't like it and doesn't want to hear the message on it and may never play it, but it's obviously a point of serious upset for Spock. Everything else, well... who knows. If Spock wants to leave it with him, Jim'll keep it, but with the decimation of the Enterprise he feels even stranger about keepsakes. He could send it back to Christopher's house in Mojave, he supposes.
"Are you alright in there?" he asks after a long moment.
The answer that question is complicated, depending on what sort of 'alright' Jim is asking about. However, as his stomach quails once more, he supposes no matter which way he meant it, the answer is 'No'. He doesn't have the opportunity to say it, however. Almost a second after the feeling grips him, he's bending forward, throwing up the liquid he shouldn't have consumed in the first place.
He should have known better, after all. And it was better out than in, at this point.
He threw up the brown liquid, gripping Jim's toilet with white knuckles, actively helping the purging along to rid himself of the poison he willfully contaminated himself with. It didn't take much, really. His mind was spiraling over everything his counterpart had done and that made it all...quite simple.
He would need to meditate. For awhile, after this was all over. Perhaps forever, trying to understand why this had happened. And how bad it must have been for Jim to readily accept and welcome such...invasions.
Maybe that said more things about Jim than it did about the other Spock. However, now, it was impossible to tell where one started and the other ended.
Jim sets the box down and makes his way quickly to the bathroom, wondering slightly hysterically if this is a Starfleet first. He's dead certain there are no medic primer notes about what to do with potentially alcohol-poisoned Vulcans. In a moment he's kneeling beside Spock, one hand on his first officer's back, the other holding a damp washcloth - though he doesn't offer it just yet, wanting to wait until they're certain he's got it all up.
"Don't try and stifle anything," he advises, "just let it work itself out. I really shouldn't have let you have all that..." Jim sighs and rubs his hand soothingly between the Vulcan's shoulder blades, watching closely for any signs he might keel over. Spock doesn't seem to be in organ failure territory or anything, but Jim's definitely puked hard enough to black out before during a fairly routine night out. One never knows.
Spock isn't stifling a damned thing. One retching leads right into the next as he clears his system of the whole mess. 40% cacao might have been too strong, he recognizes belatedly. But there is no way to take it back now. Just to keep getting it out of his body.
After a few minutes, he pauses, panting into the bowl before pressing the button to have it all taken away. He's not sure if he's done, but he is definitely sure that he doesn't want to look at it anymore.
"I...apologize," he says between inhales. "I have...made myself ill. Once I am recovered...I will leave." He's not sure how while the world is still spinning, but he'll figure it out. His head dips forward, resting on the edge of the bowl, his mind behind that forehead still circling over all he's now learned.
"I do not wish to experience a world where we are not friends." Which might have been intended to stay in his head, but now it's out there. "But is that desire more important than mental autonomy?"
"It's not your fault, Spock. It happens to everyone." Jim shifts around to sit properly on the tiled floor, and hands the Vulcan the little towel he'd run under cool water. "Let's just sit for a minute or two."
Chocolate vomit is a weird smell. Jim opts not to remark on it.
Instead of answering that potentially rhetorical question - directly, anyway - Jim considers for a little while. Then:
"Did I ever tell you how I met Chris? Or, did you ever hear about it, I guess."
This seems to be coming out of nowhere and Spock isn't sure if its because he's too inebriated to follow basic logic or if Jim is just not exhibiting any. Considering that the latter is normal for the man, Spock defaults to the more likely of the two and abandons trying to figure out what this is referring to.
"You did not. Your record states you were..." His mind is a bit fuzzy, so it takes a second or so to recall it. "Located in Iowa by then-Captain Pike who assisted in your enlisting. That is all. And I do not engage in petty gossip, so I did not learn more."
While Spock processes his odd-seeming inquiry, Jim leans up on his knees so that he can snag the hard plastic cup off the bathroom counter - a little delta has been stamped onto it - and fills it up with water from the tap. He sits back down and hands it to Spock. "Slowly," he instructs.
And then he sighs and gives his first officer a smile that's genuine, but a little sad. He misses Christopher Pike. A lot. He had a few mementos, little things he'd taken with him on their five-year mission, that are gone now. It's a stinging lesson about being foolish enough to get sentimental over material things.
"I was prowling the shipyard bar. Really, really drunk. I hit on then-cadet Uhura, and several of her companions objected to this, and I got my ass beat pretty badly. Pike called them off me, probably saved me from ending up in the hospital. Anyway-- point is, he was looking for me to begin with, that's why he had that recruitment tour stop in Riverside. Because he served with my parents. Specifically, my dead, hero father. He wanted to know what happened to the Kelvin baby. And there I was. Bleeding everywhere, hammered, getting stomped into the ground by uniformed Starfleet cadets."
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"You're in Starfleet because you chose to enroll there instead of the Vulcan Science Academy," Jim says after a quiet, his voice low and subdued. "After that... your life could have been different, yes. But anyone could have encouraged you to stay."
That's the good news. The bad news is everything else, really. Even if Ambassador Spock was only trying to give his counterpart a chance to go on the track he'd have stayed on were it not for the incursions into the timeline already... what's done is done. They can only go forward. It's the time-space continuum version of a sunk-cost fallacy to change more in the interests of trying to compensate.
"Our timeline is never going to congeal with theirs and disintegrate. We're not them, Spock. We never were, not even before Nero and the.. Kelvin. Even if we're a magnet for time-travelers, what we have is special."
Still,
"I'm sorry."
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He never knew his mind enough to know exactly what he wanted to say.
"When we first met... you are correct. I had already diverged from the man that I otherwise could have been. I do not know why as the incident with the Kelvin had no direct impact on my rearing. However..." He spoke with his counterpart. He knows the differences from the surprised looks on the other man's face. From the way they both talk about their childhood.
"I had...resentments where he did not. I felt the need to prove myself where he had long abandoned such ideas. When you beat the Kobayashi Maru test... It was an insult to myself. To my abilities. A way for me to be questioned and ridiculed anew in the place I had found relief."
And this is definitely the drink talking, now. So he closes his mouth and gets to the point before he rambles on and on for days. He could. He's been thinking about it long enough, by now. He has the ammunition and Jim's given him the opportunity to let it fly.
"I...do not prefer who I was to who I became from his interference. But it is still due to him that I have changed. Perhaps...we were destined to never become friends, here." He looks up at Jim, questions written all over his face. "Is that preferable? I cannot...decide whether it should have been or whether I should be grateful it was altered so irreparably..."
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It's an admission he knows most people don't believe - Captain James Kirk, sociable and charming, can't possibly be lacking in friendship, but rank is isolating, and even before that, he met more people than he ever knew. Trust, the kind that comes with real friendship, is impossibly rare for him. And he trusts Spock.
"You're important to me, and.. it's probably selfish, but even if what we have began as manufactured, I'm happy that we have it. I know what it's like to not have a family. I want you to have this one."
His grip on the glass tightens, and Jim drains the rest of the cognac smoothly, not coughing after thanks to a history of drinking entirely too much. The quickness sends a bit of a buzz to his head, but it begins to fade almost immediately. He considers getting another to catch up, and he rises to do just that. At the replicator: "What I did to beat the Kobayashi Maru test was wrong. It wasn't about you, though. It wasn't about anyone but me."
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But it's a start.
"You didn't know me," Spock says in a way that's not slurring, but sounds just a bit off, all the same. Perhaps its the contraction. "It's illogical to believe that it was against me. And...it was clever." Spock leans against the wall and stares at the ceiling.
Beyond it was stars.
Beyond every ceiling is stars. Beyond ever floor, too. If you just go far enough.
"You should have been commemorated for your solution. Instead, I brought you up on charges. Because I believed I had to prove that you were wrong. And that I was right." The logic wasn't clear. The meditation only made things worse. He'd spun these wheels for weeks and had come up with nothing but exhaustion.
"I was different, in this universe. Somehow, I was different because of Nero. And, because of Nero, we hated one another. Then were pushed to befriend each other by the other Spock." He looks at Jim, eyes bleary around the edges but sharp in the center. "Where does one influence end and corruption begin? Without Nero, we would have been destined to be friends. With Nero and, by association, my counterpart, we are friends once again. How do you extrapolate what was meant to be from the interference of others? Or is it all meant to be?
"Or is nothing?"
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"Nero didn't have anything to do with why we disliked each other at first," Jim insists, looking at him frankly. "That was all us. And-- probably some Ambassador Spock." Jim puts the cup of hot chocolate back into Spock's hand and herds him back to the sofa, snagging his own liquor on the way.
"He was the one who instructed me to go after you when I got back to the Enterprise after Delta Vega," he explains, and he knows this is in the reports and that it's more or less known, even if he hasn't said so in so many plain words. It's a concession to their friendship that he does not say 'after you marooned me on Delta Vega'. Jim means it, about preferring things with them as confidants. "He didn't do it to screw with us, he did it to save Earth. And what does 'meant to be' mean, anyway? What if all of this 'interference' is what's meant to be? Maybe if Ambassador Spock stayed in his universe, his presence would trigger the end of all realities, or something. We have no idea."
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"But if I had not, you would not have met Mister Scott. You would not have met the other Spock. There is so much that has happened by pure chance. Miraculous coincidences which should not have ever occurred. And now...the interference is gone." He looks at the box, accusatory. "Nero is dead. My counterpart is dead. All that is left is the world they had a hand in creating. The people they moved like chess pieces before abandoning the game to new players."
His hand tightens around the mug but doesn't lift it.
"He used you. My counterpart. Do you not feel...anger toward that? Resentment?"
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And like he mentioned: he's selfish. He wanted it to work.
"He used me to save the Federation. A scrap of my autonomy is a small price to pay for that. I'd have gladly paid far more."
--Is perhaps the most coldly Vulcan thing Jim has ever said, and he doesn't seem to notice.
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"Your willingness is pointless if you were not given the opportunity to choose."
He takes another sip of his drink which doesn't help his mental fuzz, but it's helping him talk. A lot. So maybe that's alright.
"He manipulated you. How do you know your belief that the greater good was served is not something he planted to assure you would not protest to his actions?" Spock, at times, doesn't know how he and the other version of him can have the same DNA. Have known the same people.
Sometimes he wonders what happened to make him do the things that he's done, here. A lost bondmate, perhaps. That...could be a particularly strong motivator.
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"I was willing to get into a fight with the entire security force and you when you ejected me from the Enterprise," he says wryly, after taking a moment to consider how to answer. "I believed wholeheartedly, to the point where I was unable to stop myself from desperately trying to change your mind, that your plan would result in Earth's destruction. I would have done anything, Spock. And it's not like--"
It's not like I haven't proven my willingness to die for the greater good.
Something catches in his chest. A tiny, traitorous thought that if the older Vulcan hadn't influenced him, he might have never gone into the warp core. For a split-second it's panic inducing and then he crushes it, because if he hadn't gone into the warp core then all of them would be dead and fuck only knows what would have happened in a ripple effect from there. It doesn't matter if it was a decision influenced by someone else or not. If he had been too afraid to do it, Jim wouldn't be able to live with himself. He knows that much. He knows because his father was the kind of man who chose to die the same way. It's in his DNA.
Jim swallows a mouthful of cognac.
"I choose not to be resentful. I choose to move forward and take advantage of whatever I can from that world, because it's already taken so much from me."
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They haven't talked about it at all, come to think of it. Not even a little.
Spock takes another sip and extrapolates. "When he saw you...he saw the memory of his lover, alive once more. Perhaps even a bondmate, if they had progressed in their relationship far enough. Given how long the other Spock existed without his Jim, it would serve to reason his already significant emotionally compromised state was exacerbated all the more, seeing you. I imagine his judgement was clouded. What seemed to be for the greater good was moreso for his own. He-"
A thought occurs to him. A memory of Jim's relief when Spock had said he hadn't melded with himself. And something cold drops into his stomach, spreading out like a virus from the spot.
"Did he...meld with you?"
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And then that question.
Jim looks at him, expression suddenly shuttered because he can tell how much the idea worries his first officer. So what if he did is his first thought, defensive, because really, so what. Even though he knows (logically, hah) that it was abrupt and too intense, because what in life goes on without a hitch? Jim had to understand. The older Spock made him understand. He made him understand more than he set out to, and left memories in him that sometimes flit to the surface in dreams or even in waking, but so what.
He doesn't answer, just stares at him. Which is answer enough on its own.
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"Jim," he hisses between his teeth, setting the mug on the table before getting up to his feet and walking over to the window. His hands ball into fists and press against the frame , white-knuckled and shaking with the strain. "Jim. Why did you not tell me?"
He can't look at his friend. Not when he feels a bit like he was the one who had just violated him. Illogical, certainly, but that doesn't stop him from feeling it. Everything from the last few years is in question, now. Jim's mental state alone is in question. Spock's head bows forward, taking his shoulders with it. The plastic beneath his knuckles bends, just ever so slightly.
"You should have told me."
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"Don't be like this about it. Please. It was on Delta Vega," which is probably the wrong thing to point out considering how wildly compromised Spock was at the time, "and it was necessary, I'd never have gotten back to the ship without him and after that-- after that it was my call."
Implying that a) it happened more than once and b) the first (!!) time wasn't Jim's call.
Well.
"You can't think so little of Vulcan practices, I don't believe that."
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"Considering the first act was not consensual and the subsequent ones were likely done after the insinuation of this being normal had already been planted, you...do not understand what has been done. What I..." He stops. His stomach has roiled in rebellion from what he has heard. What he apparently is capable of.
"I am sorry, Jim. I am...unsure of what else to say. How to make amends for such a violation." He wishes now that he hadn't drank. It's hard to differentiate where his illness and disgust are originating from. "I am...truly sorry."
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And Jim, selfish, fatherless, fuck up Jim, decided that was fine. He liked that feeling. He didn't care someone else earned it, because that universe took his father and ruined his mother's life and killed so, so many people, and so it owed him. Ambassador Spock owed him. If all he ever got back out of it was that feeling-- fucking fine. Because he's never going to feel that way for real.
"You haven't done anything. It's fine. I'm fine, Spock."
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But it wasn't right. And it wasn't fair. And the feeling inside of him that is telling him that Jim's regard for him is false is only growing by the second.
"You cannot assess the damage that has been done to you. What...has been changed. Added to your mind without your consent." He moves away from the wall, toward the direction of he bathroom. His face is pale in a way that might suggest a physical response to his emotions, but he's managing it alright for the time being.
"You should see a healer."
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He doesn't follow Spock to the bathroom. Instead he finds himself drifting to the sofa again, and the box set upon it. He sits down with the little thing in his hands, just resting his fingertips on the surface for a moment before he opens it. The starbase doesn't shift. Reality doesn't collapse. It's just a box with a handful of possessions that belonged to a now-dead Vulcan. All he had.
"If you go with me," he says at length, "I'll see a healer."
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He wonders what it must have been like to be that desperate. Or was the other Spock desperate at all? Was this normal for him? To just push into an unknowing, unwilling mind?
What was he like, there? What was he capable of becoming?
Spock is surprised by Jim's agreeing, but it is muted behind everything else roiling around in his body. "I will," he promises. "The healer will be able to see the damage. They may even be able to fix it."
But, at that point, what would that do to Jim? What would that do to the man who had become his friend?
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"Are you alright in there?" he asks after a long moment.
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He should have known better, after all. And it was better out than in, at this point.
He threw up the brown liquid, gripping Jim's toilet with white knuckles, actively helping the purging along to rid himself of the poison he willfully contaminated himself with. It didn't take much, really. His mind was spiraling over everything his counterpart had done and that made it all...quite simple.
He would need to meditate. For awhile, after this was all over. Perhaps forever, trying to understand why this had happened. And how bad it must have been for Jim to readily accept and welcome such...invasions.
Maybe that said more things about Jim than it did about the other Spock. However, now, it was impossible to tell where one started and the other ended.
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Jim sets the box down and makes his way quickly to the bathroom, wondering slightly hysterically if this is a Starfleet first. He's dead certain there are no medic primer notes about what to do with potentially alcohol-poisoned Vulcans. In a moment he's kneeling beside Spock, one hand on his first officer's back, the other holding a damp washcloth - though he doesn't offer it just yet, wanting to wait until they're certain he's got it all up.
"Don't try and stifle anything," he advises, "just let it work itself out. I really shouldn't have let you have all that..." Jim sighs and rubs his hand soothingly between the Vulcan's shoulder blades, watching closely for any signs he might keel over. Spock doesn't seem to be in organ failure territory or anything, but Jim's definitely puked hard enough to black out before during a fairly routine night out. One never knows.
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After a few minutes, he pauses, panting into the bowl before pressing the button to have it all taken away. He's not sure if he's done, but he is definitely sure that he doesn't want to look at it anymore.
"I...apologize," he says between inhales. "I have...made myself ill. Once I am recovered...I will leave." He's not sure how while the world is still spinning, but he'll figure it out. His head dips forward, resting on the edge of the bowl, his mind behind that forehead still circling over all he's now learned.
"I do not wish to experience a world where we are not friends." Which might have been intended to stay in his head, but now it's out there. "But is that desire more important than mental autonomy?"
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Chocolate vomit is a weird smell. Jim opts not to remark on it.
Instead of answering that potentially rhetorical question - directly, anyway - Jim considers for a little while. Then:
"Did I ever tell you how I met Chris? Or, did you ever hear about it, I guess."
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"You did not. Your record states you were..." His mind is a bit fuzzy, so it takes a second or so to recall it. "Located in Iowa by then-Captain Pike who assisted in your enlisting. That is all. And I do not engage in petty gossip, so I did not learn more."
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And then he sighs and gives his first officer a smile that's genuine, but a little sad. He misses Christopher Pike. A lot. He had a few mementos, little things he'd taken with him on their five-year mission, that are gone now. It's a stinging lesson about being foolish enough to get sentimental over material things.
"I was prowling the shipyard bar. Really, really drunk. I hit on then-cadet Uhura, and several of her companions objected to this, and I got my ass beat pretty badly. Pike called them off me, probably saved me from ending up in the hospital. Anyway-- point is, he was looking for me to begin with, that's why he had that recruitment tour stop in Riverside. Because he served with my parents. Specifically, my dead, hero father. He wanted to know what happened to the Kelvin baby. And there I was. Bleeding everywhere, hammered, getting stomped into the ground by uniformed Starfleet cadets."
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