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If Spock were an honest man, he would tell you that it began precisely 4.3 weeks after Jim died.
He would tell you that something within him, that of which he could not name, dragged it’s mangled legs forward in a determined but languid gait of succession with a desperate hope that it would survive. Step, drag. Step, drag. Go, go. He would tell you that for 4.3 weeks it persevered and pushed and begged before losing its balance, tripping and stumbling and falling like an injured animal to the cold ground of hazy sand and ash. He would tell you that It curled up and died right there, freezing in its pitiful pose as rigor mortis claimed its muscles like a Catholic indulgence, the story of its last moments forever imprinted on his mind. That is what he would say.
If Spock were a good Vulcan, he would obediently practice the logic that he once preached.
He would tell you that his resolve broke and down overcame his logic, that somewhere in his desperate efforts to relieve himself of pain he miscalculated. He would tell you that in conjuring this character in his mind, he crafted the opioid that floods into his veins every single night, his thoughtless compliance being the needle that breaks his skin to grant him his high. But that simple feeling- that rush. Oh, the squeeze of his chest and the flutter of his heartbeat behind his ribs when he sees its face and holds its empty curves and lusts for its faux warmth is better than any hit one could find from an Orion drug dealer on the edge of federation space.
If Spock were an honest man, and a good Vulcan, he would tell you that he is an addict.
However, he is neither.
So no, he doesn't remember when it began.
That is what he tells himself time and time again when the moon finally illuminates the city of San Francisco in its soft white hue, signifying that his favorite time of the day has finally come.
He brushes his teeth in darkness, watching his faint silhouette move about the bathroom as he begins his nightly routine. He rinses his toothbrush under the lukewarm water and drops it into the small cup beside the faucet, it clinks against its long unused companion.
Carefully traveling through the darkness he finally enters his room. He opens his drawer and draws out a fresh pair of boxers and quickly changes, discarding his day clothes into the laundry basket.
He eagerly crawls into his half-warmed bed, curling into sheets of cotton and silk and closing his eyes- not to sleep, but to visit that dark corner of his mind. It remains locked behind a forge of carefully crafted walls and barriers which he will tear down every single night, only to rebuild them in the morning, reconstructing them brick by brick until the impenetrable force stands again as nothing but a looming reminder of what was, and what he became as a result.
He wakes with a start at a precise 7:15 AM, the offensive light of daybreak pierces through a small gap in the veil of dark curtains that spill onto the cold hardwood floor as if it were a thick offensive ink, staining the surface it lay upon.
Jim had never liked black-out curtains.
A lifetime ago he had told Spock that to experience the rise of the sun was a gift that he could never bear to take for granted. Whether his unusual sentiment originated from his time on Tarsus IV where dark clouds monopolized the skyline, or from their extended years in space, Spock did not know; but the sheer curtains that once adorned the windows and allowed the room to glow with yellow sun were a simple pleasure that Spock could not bare to deny him.
He remembers waking up like that. To the dawn.
He remembers admiring Jim’s sleeping form as his toned bare skin glowed like honey under the golden light, how it would warm his cheeks and highlight his freckles and bring life into the air as they were called to begin another day together, just as they had so many times for so many years before.
He swiftly hauls himself out of bed and makes a break for the window, nearly tripping on the sheets that have twisted around his ankles like invasive vines in his restless slumber. He screws his eyes shut as he yanks the curtains closed, sealing out all light. He rests a trembling hand against his ribcage, willing the erratic pounding of his heart to slow as he pants from the initial exertion of his dream and unwelcome presence of the natural light, hoping to calm himself before he has a fit so early in the morning. That was far too close, far too careless.
And quite un-Vulcan.
-
Jim’s sheer curtains are now in a box in the closet, neatly folded and stored away out of view. Their velvety red color has surely faded and the fabric has likely become a victim to dry rot, the once luscious hand sewn drapes reduced to a fragile useless nothing.
Spock has not seen the Terran sun rise in 40 years.
-
After finally regaining his composure, Spock begins his morning routine.
A fast and cold shower is all he needs, simple and effective.
He no longer uses imported soaps from Vulcan as that would mean interacting with his father. As a result, the generic human shampoo makes his hair brittle, and the body wash makes his skin dry and itchy.
Jim’s bottles of fancy smelling soaps and conditioners stand exactly where he left them, their contents now a crude rancid brown sludge. He carefully maneuvers to grab his own personal bottles, washing himself speedily to escape the frigid water.
He scratches at the patch of contact dermatitis on his wrist, it is an ugly shade of green. The reactants in the soap are truly awful for his unique physiology, but he does not care. After all, who is there to look where his formal robes cover? Who does he have to impress?
After a breakfast of Plomeek soup and 2 slices of toast, the clock hits 9:01. He briskly walks to the living room and opens the curtains to allow the light into the room, the sun right where it should be, high among the horizon.
He leaves his empty home prepared to start the day at approximately 9:02 AM.
____
Returning home, he thinks, is his favorite part of the day.
He would deem that to be a result of its undeniable simplicity; for it is away from the bustle of students at the academy- and more thankfully, away from the grating voices of diplomats and politicians.
Dinner, shower, bed, Jim. The same routine, the same order, the same process, the same antsy thump of his leg as the clock nears the time for him to make his leave, the same rushing home as the sun sets, the same bowl of Plomeek soup as the unoccupied chair across the table mocks him, the same basic hygiene, and then finally, finally, he can lay in his bed and retreat into his mind.
Every. Single. Day.
Perhaps there is something within him that is aware of the inherent self destructiveness of his routine. Something that knows living off of bread and Plomeek soup and the occasional fruit is making him sick. Perhaps even something that knows his cloud of depression is slowly dragging him deeper into an endless sea of agony, forcing him to inhale lungfuls of wretched water and poison as he slowly drowns.
Perhaps he already has.
But why care? Why ponder the loneliness, the suffering, the deep ache in his bones and in his mind? Why care when it is so much easier to simply hide?
In his mind they are youthful, they are full of life and love and joy. It is simple there. It is happy there.
So falling into bed is easy, knocking the walls down is easy, lying to himself is easy. It is easier than truth, it is easier than living, and it is certainly easier than existing.
___
The illusion begins just as every other, reality fizzles out at the edges of his vision into a dreadful darkness before exploding into a blinding white light, the sensation of falling overcomes his body and he can't breathe and- and there he is.
Their bridge, their home.
Jim sits at the captain's chair as he always has, one leg crossed over his thigh as he stares ahead.
His love, his Jim. His.
But something is wrong.
A peculiar heaviness fills the air, the colors that once littered each corner of the ship are dull and marred, the low chatter that once occupied the room is gone, as well as the never ending mechanical whirs and beeps. The ship is eerily silent and all the more empty, they are alone.
“Spock.” Jim calls, as he swiftly stands from his chair to meet him halfway. Their fingers meet in an ozh’esta, but there is no spark of their bond. There never is. The thought never fails to clench at his heart like a serpent; knowing that this was nothing more than a cruel and fictitious fantasy, not his true beloved.
Their hands intertwine and Spock holds them tight.
Something more is different, something else is strange, but what is it?
Had Jim’s hands always felt this way?
He stares into Jim’s eyes. This looks like Jim, this is Jim. The round of his cheeks as he gently smiles, the curls in his hair- but his hands…
He gently pulls away, the pads of his fingers tingle as if he has just touched something repulsive.
The lights flicker. Spock looks up curiously before meeting Jim’s eyes again.
Jim speaks, cocking his head as uncharacteristic petulance laces his words.
“Aren't you tired, Spock?”
Spock’s brow furrows in confusion. “To what would you be referring, Jim?”
Jim begins forward, his full and intimidating stride startling Spock into stepping backwards, his eyes never leaving the Vulcan's face. “Why don't you go to sleep, Spock? And I mean really sleep.”
“This?” Jim laughs. “We both know this isn't sleeping.”
Disbelief floods Spock’s mind, his illusion of Jim has never been self aware. He has never spoken to him of the real world, nor has he ever broken his script. This was not true flesh and blood, no, this was his program that he set to do as he pleased. Jim was not supposed to break character, this is simply impossible.
The shock simmers long enough for his back to forcefully collide with the wall. He whispers, to himself and partially to the illusion, his voice pathetic and small.
“What is happening?”
Jim ignores him and raises his arm to cup Spock’s cheek, massaging it gently with his thumb, so close that Spock can feel his breath against his face. The unfamiliar sensation of his foreign fingers makes him shiver where he stands.
“Spock.” It watches him, cold and calculating.
“Yes Jim?”
“I personally think,” It draws condescendingly. “- that you know very well what is happening. Isn’t that right?”
Spock inhales sharply. His nostrils flare and anxiety rolls in his stomach, the stone cold mask of Vulcan discipline fights to slide into place, to conquer any visual evidence of his distress-
But it will not work, not here.
He is exposed here.
Here, he is faced with the one thing that he has always known he would never escape, what would chase him and hold him down in his weakest of moments, what would always be there to haunt him and tear him apart no matter what logic or rules he would follow-
The one thing that would always best him.
His own mind.
Himself.
“I… I do not know what you are talking about-”
“I am not real, Spock.” Jim interjects sharply. The illusion stares at Spock expectantly, eerily unmoving and holding his chin in place to force him to meet his soulless eyes.
“Why is this happening?”
“I am only your memories of him, a figment of your imagination based on your experiences, your wants, your desires. I am not real.”
“I know.” he replies miserably.
“But do you?” Jim inquires, allowing his hand to fall gracelessly from Spock’s chin.
“You are forgetting him, Spock.”
Spock scoffs, offended by the implication that he could be so careless regarding his T’hy’la.
“No! I would never-”
“He is dead, Spock.” Jim interjects. “ We know that you could never stop loving him. We know that there will never be another, that until the day you die you will long for his mind, for his touch. But you also know that you can not keep living like this.”
Somehow, Spock thinks he knows what is coming. He dips his head down and screws his eyes shut, attempting to block out the illusions putrid words.
“Please… Please don't make me do this.”
“Spock. I am you. I am doing this now because something within you is aware of the truth. You can not continue this way, and you know it because I know it. This will soon kill you.”
Spock growls. “Maybe I want to die.”
“No, you do not. You simply do not want to live without him. But Spock, forty years have passed since he has been gone. 14610 days, 21 hours, 46 minutes and 41 seconds you have survived without him and you are still here. You have proved that you can survive. But tell me, when was the last time that you can truly say you have lived? When was the last time the sun of the earth warmed your sickly flesh, when was the last time peace flowed freely through your veins, when was the last time that you even saw your reflection for longer than a fleeting glimpse in a shop window?”
Spock finds that he does not know what to say.
“Spock, it is time to let go.”
“I can not. Please- please don't make me leave… I need him. I miss him. My James, my T’hy’la.”
“You must.”
“No, no. I will not betray him so-”
“Spock, I am not REAL.”
The room shakes violently and the lights explode into a rain of hot glass leaving them with only the red hue of the emergency lights.
“I am you!” He shouts. “I am your subconscious. You made this world, you made my image. I am you, and I am telling you that you must stop!”
Time appears to rush back into the room, the air stills. The illusions voice drops to a whisper.
“Jim has been dead for forty years. It has been so long, Spock. So, so, long that you can no longer remember how his hands felt around yours, you can not remember his scent, nor how his arms felt around your shoulders. Can you recall the sound of his footsteps? The crack of his joints in the morning? His cries of pain and his sighs of lust? No, you can not. It is escaping you. There are so many details that are fading from your mind as time goes on and you don't even realize it. But Spock, this is normal; you know that this is normal. You must’nt torture yourself any longer. You can live again, Spock. You can honor his memory and grieve and miss him while living.”
The voice drops even quieter, so quiet that Spock has to strain to hear the tumble of words from his mouth.
“Coming here will not bring him back. He is dead.
-Jim. Is. Dead.”
So quiet, yet so, so cruel.
“Enough!”
He swings a fist of Vulcan rage at the illusion, but just as he strikes it vaporizes in its place.
He is alone.
His voice cracks as he shouts, seething in a rage of emotion that has dwelled within the deepest parts of soul since that day. “Enough, enough, enough! I want him back! Bring him back! I will destroy you and create a new world from scratch if I must! I will build until my fingers bleed! Bring him back to me now, God damn you!”
Nothing.
He growls, feral with anger as he paces the bridge. What went wrong, what broke the illusion, how was it possible for him to lose control of his subconscious? Where is the sense? Where is the logic? He runs a frustrated hand through his hair and grips the locks tight, small gray strands rip out of his scalp and imbed between his fingers.
Gray…
He opens his palm and the hairs fall, slowly dancing through the air before they meet the ground.
Gray?
He turns and catches his reflection on a blank computer screen and stares, utterly shocked by the man who stares back.
His skin is faintly wrinkled, his hair is a dark shade of silver. Gone is his youth, gone is the jet black hair and smooth perfect flesh that he once knew. Gone is the past that treated him so kindly. His cheek bones are sunken in, granting him a ghoulish face.
He looks old, he looks sick.
No, he is old, he is sick.
He touches a hand to his cheek. When was the last time he visited a doctor? When was the last time he had a proper meal? When was the last time he chose to sleep instead of using his time here?
Spock finds that he can no longer recognize himself.
…
Has he truly let himself go this far?
Breaking his gaze from his frail reflection, he trudges to the captain's chair, resting a hand where Jim’s powerful shoulders would once have rested.
Jim…
Jim.
Tears drip heavily down his cheeks.
He steps around the chair and collapses to his knees, planting his arms where Jim once sat.
His heart flutters behind his ribs and his throat burns as a sob erupts from deep within him, from somewhere that he has never willingly touched.
“Oh, I am not ready.”
His head falls into the seat as he weeps, his own sobs sound harrowing even to his own ears but he finds that he can not stop.
A weight suddenly splays across his side, one arm slinks around his back, and one around his front.
The illusion of Jim holds him tight as he near wails in agony, grief that was locked away for so many years spilling out as he knows he is going to lose his T’hy’la for a second time.
“I can't, I can not- I am not ready, I-”
The illusion speaks, cutting him off. “Yes you are, and that scares you.”
“You are ready to continue living after all of this time and you are afraid, but the time has come. You know that you must take the final step, that it is time to be free.”
He sniff, attempting to stifle his sobs so that he can speak,
“But…But I miss him.”
The illusion nods, and runs a comforting hand through his silver hair.
“Indeed. But you will see him again some day, when your own time comes.”
“I do not wish to forget him- I need him, it hurts… It hurts so horribly…”
“You will not forget him, you can not forget him. But it is time to enjoy his memories rather than live in them. It is time to let him rest. It is time for you to rest too, you are so tired, Spock.”
The illusions' eyes finally sparkle, just as Jim’s once did.
“It is time to go.”
“... I know.”
“Lay him to rest, Spock.”
And he does.
–
Spock’s eyes flicker open at a precise 7:15 AM.
There is no pounding of his heart as he wakes, nor is there the ever present migraine that once bloomed across his skull as he lays those walls around his mind, brick by brick. One by one, for one last time.
How peculiar it is to no longer be haunted by the weight that has dragged him into a never ending obelisk of agony for the last 4 decades, the sensation replaced by something that Spock finds he can not name.
Perhaps something… warm. Something new.
He lifts his blankets and swings his legs around the bed, planting his feet onto the floor as he steadily walks to the window, deaf to the chill of the ground on his bare feet that sends a shiver up his spine.
The curtains hang just where he left them, blocking out every inch of light that attempts to leech into his dwelling and illuminate every inch in gold.
It is all the same, yet now the ink-black fabric leaves a sour taste in his mouth.
How could he have done this to his James?
He chose to cover the window in this- this oppressor to avoid Jim’s memory while simultaneously playing pretend with a crude copy- a fake of who he once was?
Spock slowly runs his hands down the thick fabric before drawing each side open.
The deep yellow glow of the sunrise warms his sickly skin as it fills the room and wraps around his body like an embrace.
“Oh, there you are.”
Tears drip down his cheeks as he stares at the clouds of pink that adorn the dimly lit sky, the sun slowly rising as if it were speaking to him, as if it were trying to tell him it is time to wake up.
It is.
Cracks in one's mind can be welded, damage to one's soul can be mended, grief can become strength, loss can become gain.
He can heal.
Some way or another, he will live to see the sun rise again.
For the first time in 40 years, Spock is warm.
__
End