AEGRI SOMNIA--Part 1

Author: T'Prillah
Series: TOS
Codes: S/Mc, h/c
Rating: NC-17
WARNING: contains graphic hurt/comfort scenes, graphic medical scenes, horror, references to death and dying.
Summary: Spock and McCoy beam down to a planet on a routine mission, and find themselves in a fight for their lives. A typical hurt/comfort style story.
Archive: ASCEML, its companion sites, Spock/McCoy haven, and an older version of this exists on fanfiction.net.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek. Star Trek is the property of Paramount, Viacom, CBS. I only own this story, written solely by me. All errors are mine.


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AEGRI SOMNIA--Part 1 LINK TO PART 2


He was trapped.

'It' bent over him, with calculated, icy determination. 'It' was a humanoid, or at least it appeared to be. 'It' worked slowly but purposefully...on him. 'It' merely smiled a grim little smile when cursed at or even asked a question. Dead black eyes met pleading ones with no mercy. Metallic body armor surrounded the body where clothes should have been. Black lines surfaced on the mottled, grey hands and face where blood vessels might have been. Might...have been, had it been human. But 'it' wasn’t.

Blood running cold at the sight of the grim humanoid; he struggled desperately to free himself from restraints that held him to an examination table. He watched with fascination, yet jaw dropping terror as implants lowered themselves from above, lay onto his forehead and thrust tentacles though his skin, into his brain. Hypodermic needles pierced his arm and injected him with a substance that burned into his tissues. He could feel everything. He screamed, soundlessly. He struggled still...eventually, he just gave up fighting. Sweat poured down his face stinging his eyes.

He was in hell.

He felt the injected substance working its way through his system. It went immediately to his arteries, then to his pounding, terrified heart. Then on to his brain, dulling his senses and sucking dry all that was left of his strength.

He felt his eyes cloud into black.

"You’re killing me..." he gasped. "And I don’t even know who or even what the hell you are..."

'It' chose to regard him, as one would a pet. 'It' decided there was no harm in communication. "Welcome to us. You will help us take your ship, then your home planet and all the beings on that planet." As 'it' spoke, a rotting odor seeped from its mouth.

In a last ditch effort he struggled to gasp. "Spock!... Help me!"

He groaned in agony...

...then immediately snapped awake breathing heavily: "Ahhh Jesus, not again, dammit."

Doctor Leonard McCoy, Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise, immediately came to his senses, gasping and sweating profusely.

Sighing with relief, he found that he was merely in his own bunk in his own quarters. Safe. There was no grey humanoid keeping him captive; he was alone. Just an old country doctor who was supposed to be on his rest period. 'An old country doctor who’s been running without proper sleep for weeks. What good is that?', McCoy thought, glumly.

He had been unable get any decent sleep because of this recurring nightmare. Night terror, more like. About this stupid...whatever. Night after goddamn night. Obviously the Morpazine he’d prescribed himself was not working effectively if he could still dream. It was supposed to knock you out for hours.

"Lights to 75 percent," he barked to the computer and realized his voice was hoarse. He could feel a sore throat coming on. Great. As the lights came on in his quarters, he squinted and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

He surveyed the discarded sickbay tunic on the floor from his double shift the previous day and shook his head. He couldn’t even remember going to bed last night.

"I wonder if Spock can hear me scream his name," he said aloud. "I wonder if he can hear me talking to myself," he snorted, then wondered why nobody in the adjacent quarters even bothered to check up on him, surely they’d heard him screaming. ‘Damn,' he thought. 'I could be dying in here, and nobody would care.'

He stripped off his black T-Shirt and underwear that he’d slept in, pitched them into the laundry chute and of course missed it entirely, making them land on the floor. He padded into the small bathroom that he thankfully had to share with no-one and threw his towel on the back of the toilet. He turned on the taps of the small washbasin and rubbed his face with the soothing warm water.

Stepping into the shower cubicle, he popped the button to 'on' and spent a long time just standing there in the stream of water, letting his head fall back. Wasting copious amounts of water. He'd catch hell for it from Jim, later, but right now he didn't care.

He’d been in a terrible mood this week. Downright foul. Against all better judgment he’d been avoiding and snapping at everyone. Like, Spock. Especially Spock. He just wasn’t in the mood for anything: chats or discussions or arguments or baiting or teasing or just plain pettiness. Whatever one could and would call it. He had been short tempered even with Scotty which was unlike him. He could feel an apology was forthcoming with a bottle of Saurian Brandy due the chief engineer. Next week.

And, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was well aware of, and had indeed been sternly warned by Jim Kirk, that he was taking his personal sleeping problems out on Spock. McCoy had countered to Jim that the Vulcan was probably oblivious to his foul moods anyway. Jim had joked about it with him, but honestly Jim really did not know how bad the situation was.

'Perhaps I just should sit Jim down with a drink and confess to him how shit scared I am,’ he thought. 'Nahhhhh, it’ll just worry him. M'Benga? No way, he'll tell me to stop drinkin' so much... and Spock would be no help whatsoever: "Night terrors are not logical"...I can just hear his voice now.'

Admittedly, actively avoiding Spock was not the easiest thing to do as the pair normally worked in each other’s pockets. Also, Spock had a habit of calling on him in the Sickbay when McCoy had pulled an extremely long absence from the Bridge. Like this week. 'Unusual for me, I guess. Well, I’m not an line officer, I belong in sickbay tackling all those reports. Not hovering over Jim on the Bridge.'

Once, last Tuesday, Spock had come down to sickbay for apparently no good reason and McCoy had blown up at him terribly. The realization gave McCoy a guilty start. Spock hadn’t returned since. 'My God, do I actually miss him? I think I do!’ he thought with a chuckle. Then he sobered. "I do. I Miss him. Spock..."

He put his palm on the shower wall and closed his eyes.

Reluctantly, he broke out of his reverie, punched the controls to 'off', quickly exited the shower and pulled on a fresh uniform.

Spying the bottle of red sleeping pills on his desk he scooped them up and shook them violently in his hand. 'Maybe If I just upped the dosage next time with this Morpazine...I can get some real sleep... and risk becoming addicted to it.' He shrugged to himself. 'Like I’d be the first doctor in the cosmos addicted to drugs.' He slammed the bottle down on the table. Hard.

The bosun's whistle sounded loudly in the quiet putting an end to brooding thoughts of sleep and everything else. He punched the button on the monitor. "McCoy here."

Captain James T. Kirk’s face sprung unto the viewer. "What’s the matter, Bones? Did I wake you?"

"No."

"Good. How about coming up to the bridge?"

McCoy sighed. "Alright, Jim. I’ll be up there in a few minutes."

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The turbo lift moved up towards the bridge with the good doctor in it. It slowed to a stop to admit another passenger. "Ah, hell," he mumbled to himself. “I don’t feel like making small talk with a peppy young yeoman.”

"Good morning, Doctor!" Yeoman Rand bopped into the lift looking entirely too chirpy for the early morning hours.

"Hmmph."

"What’s the matter?" asked Rand. "You look a little tired."

"I think I just need a huge cup of coffee."

"Oh, okay. I’ll bring it up to...where you headed?"

"The bridge."

"Oh! You haven‘t been up there in awhile. I heard you haven‘t been feeling well."

"From who?" he demanded. "Who said that?"

"Oh, you know...ships scuttlebutt."

"I see," chuckled McCoy. "Just... bring me some coffee, Yeoman."

"Sure, sweetie!"

The lift paused to let Rand out at the next deck, then continued on its ascent.

The doors opened up to the bridge in full swing, sensors purring away, crew busy at their stations and staring at a huge planet on the viewscreen.

"Analysis, Mr. Spock," ordered the captain.

"Class M, Captain. Oxygen and Nitrogen atmosphere. Earth-like conditions."

"Oh big surprise there, Mister Spock," snapped McCoy as he sauntered out of the lift.

"Ah, Doctor," Spock turned from his science station as he noted McCoy’s presence. "Your usual agreeable self has returned to haunt our bridge. A delight for us all."

"Very funny, Spock. You know, with all these thousands of planets we explore, isn’t it ironic about most planets out in space are just like our Earth? I mean, I know about the theory of parallel evolution. But come on...it's boring."

"Doctor," Spock replied to him as if speaking to a child. "You have forgotten that the ratio of hostile planets to Class M is approximately 1.37 in 5."

"Well, so what. I said most of 'em are Earth-like. Not all."

"I seem to recall you lamenting the use of a pressure suit to explore a hostile planet. You found the experience 'unnatural and closterphobia inducing'".

"I never said that!" McCoy retorted. Then he added, unable to resist, "when did I say that?"

"Two point seven weeks ago. When we transported down to Helcon III, the class C planet with the 92.5 percent carbon dioxide atmosphere."

"Hmph. Whatever Spock. I was asking the captain, anyway," McCoy grumbled. "I didn’t say that, did I Jim?"

"You did," smiled Kirk, evenly.

"However, even with familiar Earth-like weather patterns," Spock continued, completely oblivious. "There is still much in the way of fauna and life forms which are completely--."

"I'd bet you'd prefer the planet to be hot, arid, and full of sand. A bit like, say, your Vulcan," shot the doctor.

Spock shook his head slightly. "What type of planet I prefer is irrelevant, Doctor. The planet is what it is."

"How anyone could prefer a desert wasteland full of walking computers is beyond me," mumbled McCoy.

Spock sent a sharp eyebrow up.

Captain Kirk cleared his throat. "Uh...Bones, do you think you could stop antagonizing Mr. Spock long enough today for the both of you to form a landing party?"

"Are you coming, Jim?"

"No, I think you and Spock can handle it...it’s just a routine survey, you’ll be down about an hour at the most."

"Oh joy", said the doctor.

"You’re a laugh a minute today, Bones."

"The hell I am. And where's Rand with my damn coffee?"

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END OF PART 1, LINK TO PART 2