#Spock really cares about Jim

[pinkcadillaccas]

Everyone needs to get on my spones divorce wavelength right tf now ‼️

[anghraine]

TMP is honestly this wild trip despite the glacial pacing at times, because it's like—

Vulcan woman: Spock, you've worked hard to purge yourself of all emotion, but your mind is picking up signals from some human and I guess some logic thing in space. my conclusion: you aren't racially pure enough to find your answers here

Spock: time to track down the pure logic thing and find the answers and meaning in my existence as a Vulcan that I've been searching for all my life and definitely never found in the past before all my previous character development got reset

[Meanwhile]

Kirk: so this unknown cosmic force is going to wipe out all life on Earth, and I've been placed in charge because I have a lot of experience dealing with bizarre dangerous cosmic shit as commander of this specific ship, in addition to my missing being in space because I was pushed into the admiralty at, like, age 39

Decker: *throws a series of tantrums about the prioritization of all of Earth above his ego for almost the entire mission*

Ilia: I have taken an oath of celibacy

Kirk: ... not super relevant. please just do your job

[Also, the transporter painfully melts some people we don't know into unrecognizable lumps of flesh. This is completely disconnected from the rest of the movie; it has no relevance to anything else, is immediately forgotten and never acknowledged again, and everyone acts like Bones is silly and paranoid for being nervous about going through the transporter]

Uhura: I think Admiral Kirk is obviously the person most qualified to command our incredibly dangerous and important mission, and we're damned lucky he got put in charge. if anyone cares

[everyone else]: *doesn't care*

McCoy: Jim, maybe you shouldn't make your mid-life crisis everyone else's problem

Decker: yeah! I should still be in charge! my solution is "don't take risks" when encountering the unknown and wait until systems are 100% safe before we do anything

Kirk: again let me reiterate that we need to act decisively even if it's risky or billions of people will die. we have to at least try, so waiting is not an option here

Spock: *shows up and, despite being icy and dismissive, immediately fixes all their most pressing technical problems*

McCoy: maybe we shouldn't trust him. he has his own agenda now

Kirk: wtf of course we can trust him he's Spock how dare

[Kirk quickly figures out the changes to the bridge, and from then on, his judgment and decisions are pretty much continually vindicated by the plot. Decker's advice goes from temporarily useful to unprofessional constant jabs with little sense of the real stakes and no better ideas. It becomes extremely apparent that Kirk really is far better equipped in temperament and experience to deal with the potential slaughter of Earth than Decker, especially when assisted by Spock—even this arctic version of Spock.]

Spock: *knocks out a crewman, steals a spacesuit, and tries to make contact with the cosmic acid trip/space vagina by traveling through what he unenthusiastically describes as its "orifices"*

Kirk: I ... guess maybe Bones was - no, it can't be - wait a moment, I -

Spock: *starts transmitting all the data he's gathering to Kirk*

Kirk: hah, I knew he would never betray me! Okay, everyone, you all stay here, I'm going to jump into space to catch him

[Spock melds with the cosmic space vagina and it violently ejects him through various orifices, as he might describe them, until he's thrown right into Kirk's arms, signifying nothing]

Bones and Chapel: melding with the cosmic logic vagina seems to have fried his brain :(

Spock, laughing: I should have known ...

Kirk: *seizes his shoulders* known WHAT Spock what are you talking about. please tell me your mind is intact. sweetheart it's okay what are you full of shame about this time *tries to shake the brain damage loose*

Spock: Jim ... I melded with the supreme logic being and discovered that there's no beauty or art or meaning in raw information or logic ... only a barren STEM hellscape without the humanities

[Spock slides his hand down Kirk's arm until their fingers wrap around each other, and their joined hands tightly cling together. unrelatedly, we have definitely seen Vulcans and Romulans use finger stroking as kissing and/or foreplay]

Spock: it was awful and empty and not at all what I've been searching for this whole time. and finally I understood that the real meaning in life comes from the simple feeling between you and me. The mechanized space vagina couldn't understand our love

[Kirk wraps his other hand tightly around his and Spock's clasped fingers. God knows what degree of obscenity they would be committing on Vulcan, but in any case, McCoy (as ever) politely pretends he's not seeing this happen right in front of him, since Kirk and Spock obviously have forgotten, yet again, that other people exist]

Kirk: 🥹🥰

[They stare tenderly at each other without speaking for a few seconds, but are definitely communicating on some level; after a moment's hesitation, Kirk nods slightly, then Spock nods in response, and it feels like we're missing half the conversation. Then Spock explains V'ger's existential angst in terms that obviously apply equally to his own past self, and by past I mean "for most of this movie until a few minutes ago"]

It turns out that V'ger, in addition to being a cosmic acid trip/space vagina/mass murderer, is also an annoying teenager, maturity-wise. I do appreciate Kirk and Spock having their "this is just adolescent angst and we are too middle-aged for this nonsense" reaction, and noping out to provoke V'ger into some measure of cooperation until they all figure out that it's trying to communicate with NASA.

In the course of all this, there's a point where Decker manages to be mildly helpful via the Ilia probe sort of remembering their old relationship, and he proves his value at last by welcoming the chance to orgasmically fuse with Ilia/V'ger, while Kirk is horrified and baffled at why Decker would find this remotely appealing. (ngl Kirk in this movie feels like the most purely gay-coded iteration of him; from the film itself, I could easily believe he has lost all attraction to women at this point.)

So thankfully, we're finally free of the weird and underwhelming Decker/Ilia duo via multiple cosmic acid orgasms, and the Earth is saved, etc. In aesthetics, it's all powerfully 70s, even in the awesome strange bits before V'ger looked quite so, uh, yonic. Somehow even the new bland sleepwear version of Starfleet uniforms seem very 70s; apparently Spock's kickass robes and the muscle-revealing quasi-polo top that Kirk promptly switches into consumed all available stylishness.]

Scott: everything's fine now, so I guess we can drop you off at Vulcan, Mr. Spock

Spock: my experiences today have, uh, resolved my need to stay on Vulcan, so there's no reason to detour for me. I'll just tag along to Earth for >_> no reason

Kirk: [deeply vindicated for about the twelfth time that day, but this time also managing to exude Spock is getting laid tonight without saying a word about him] Mr. Sulu, ahead, warp one.

[enterprisetrampstamp]

spones argument turned kiss in the middle of the medical laboratory. bones can't tell you which of them moved first (it was spock), he just suddenly has a vulcan's tongue down his throat, but TRUST him, he's not mad about it. they break apart but before they can say a goddamn word to each other, chapel walks in.

except all she sees is spock with both hands fisted in the front of bones's shirt.

she thinks this is a very different kind of physical altercation. (she reports it to kirk.)

cue the world's most awkward senior officer's meeting, wherein spock is fully angsting and prepared to take his lumps as a superior officer who lost control and had a consensual workplace relationship kissed his subordinate, bones is doing his damndest to explain that this really was fully consensual, he could not care less on any given day that spock is technically his superior officer, and jim knows them both well enough to know that bones almost certainly was the verbal instigator, but he's deeply concerned that spock lost his cool enough to actually lay a hand on bones.

this is the moment where spock continues to be a martyr, but bones has a realization and speaks over his self-flagellatory reference to starfleet's fraternization guidelines to say, loudly, I'm sorry, do you think spock tried to physically intimidate me?

spock is so appalled he actually takes a step backwards.

jim is confused.

bones tells jim that what chapel couldn't see was that he had also been holding onto spock.

right, jim says slowly. by the wrist. to pull his hand off of your shirt.

bones has his hand over his eyes, and says, no, jim. by the hip. to pull him closer. because we were kissing.

utter silence for a long moment, and then jim says, well.

that's a very different conversation to be having.

[sleepymccoy]

@muirmarie's tags on this post

You got me writing the start of a fic for you here lol. Features #vague references to broader, undecided upon plot #arguing #arguing like a married couple #cuddling #unacknowledged sexual desire 1.6k

McCoy hit the table in anger and stood up. Vitriolic and far too personal insults rose up in him, but he swallowed them down and left, take the two small steps to the kitchen sink.

Crockery clinked behind him as he glared down at the pool of water in the corner of the uneven basin, saying nothing. The silence broke as Spock took a loud bite of toast, chewing evenly. He was doing that on purpose. McCoy knew it was getting to him too, he’d raised his voice. Not as much as McCoy, but still.

They were barely more than a month in. This was going to be a disaster if they kept arguing over breakfast like this. And then arguing over lunch and dinner, too.

McCoy groaned and pressed his hip against the bench top, crossing his arms. He wasn’t one to apologise over nothing, but he had also spent some time in marriage counseling and, despite how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise, this marriage was starting to feel like one, and a bad one. His counseling sessions hadn’t worked. Obviously. Divorced. Remarried, twice now if you wanted to get specific about it. But he still had a few bit of advice that stuck with him.

To not think about what he wanted out of this disagreement - which, really, he didn’t care about. Most of the time he spent arguing with Spock was fun, not serious. This should be fun too, it just wasn’t - but instead to think about what he wanted tomorrow to look like. And how to get to that together.

He’s apologise for a peaceful lunch.

Spock drank from his cup of tea behind him, pointedly unbothered. It was an unconvincing performance.

“Sorry, Spock,” McCoy muttered.

The room was quiet, then the tea cup clattered onto its saucer loudly. McCoy smirked. That action didn’t have the intentional, bitchy message of untouched calm behind it.

“Doctor?” Spock breathed.

“I’m jumping down your throat, I know it.”

McCoy turned. Dawn was breaking outside, all pink and gold. Beautiful, but less captivating than it had been a month ago. Spock was looking up at him, somber and serious.

“It is forgotten,” Spock said softly.

McCoy scowled at him doubtfully, but retook his seat and got back to spreading butter on his bread.

“There are trying factors to this assignment,” Spock said over the top of his cup of tea. The steam billowed in his breath. “More than I had anticipated. I usually enjoy our disagreements, but I’ll admit I haven’t lately.”

Yeah, both of them. McCoy dunked his finger in his coffee and pulled back quick. Still too hot to drink. “That’s why they send couples,” he muttered.

“I don’t follow.”

McCoy pointed at the marmalade in front of Spock. Spock passed his knife in one hand, and the jar in his other. They were keeping McCoy’s expensive, real milk based butter out of Spock’s food. McCoy didn’t mind Spock drawing the vegetarian line in a more vegan way, Scotty’s fancy butter was one of the best things about his day in this lighthouse. He didn’t want to share anyway.

“Humans are a social species,” McCoy explained as he spread the marmalade on his toast. “Contact and comfort matter to us. I like your company, Spock, even when you’re getting up my nose, but- ” He sighed and glanced at Spock. Keep the peace. “I hope you take it as a compliment that you ain’t human. And I’m feelin’ the lack.”

Spock was watching him closely. He was still in uniform. Unbelievably. McCoy had taken his blues off a full fortnight ago. McCoy stuck his pinky into his coffee again.

“And you fulfill this craving on the Enterprise?” Spock asked.

McCoy had a sip of coffee. Perfect. “Yeah,” he said. And who knew what Spock thought of that, his raised eyebrow certainly indicated a certain amount of assumption. But McCoy spent an evening or two a week sharing a couch with Scotty or getting pushed around by Jim during a workout, and that was generally enough skin for him. He hadn’t really known it, but five weeks without a hug was catching up. He was antsy and irritable, and it was more than just Spock’s hit and miss personality.

Spock stood. “I need to attend to- ” He hesitated, and didn’t finish the bullshit explanation he had been about to give. He picked up his tea and toast and said a hurried, “excuse me,” then left.

Well, McCoy hadn’t been trying to be rude. Figured Spock would appreciate that McCoy was calling him emotionally distant, for once. But no. At least it hadn’t been an argument proper.

McCoy had a bite of marmalade toast and relaxed back into the seat. “Right,” he mumbled to himself, unconvinced.

-

The words on the page began to blur. He was barely a few pages from the end of the chapter, but really. It didn’t matter. They were here another four and a half months or so, and tomorrow was just another day. He could finish in the morning.

He forced himself to read to the end of the paragraph anyway, barely taking it in, then folded the corner, whacked the old analogue light switch, and curled up facing the wall. The experiment was going as they’d hoped. No results yet, but they weren’t expecting anything until the two month mark. And then they had to run it twice more for posterity.

At least he and Spock had been getting along today.

The ocean waves battered the rocks outside, which they did every night. McCoy had begun to find it soothing.

Far too soon light broke past his eyelids, pulling him from a dream. He opened his eyes groggily, and looked at the crack in the curtain. Still dark out, but the light was on. He turned.

“Spock?” McCoy asked the familiar, blurry figure that was partway through closing the bedroom door behind him. Why the fuck would Spock be in here? McCoy sat up awkwardly on one elbow, blinking at the room. “Shit, man, what’s wrong?”

“A minor issue, I have fixed it,” Spock said. He came up to McCoy’s bed and peered down at him.

McCoy rubbed his eyes. “Without waking me?”

“I assure you it was minor.”

“So you’re waking me now.” Was Spock here trying to piss him off? McCoy was perfectly fucking willing to take the bait, but his brain wasn’t working much just yet. He’d been well asleep.

Spock sat on the edge of McCoy’s bed. McCoy scrabbled away from him, pressing back against the cold wall.

“I have been thinking,” Spock said before McCoy had a chance to yell at him.

“Oh, okay?” McCoy said loudly. A vague insult filtered through his mind, that if it were worth discussing that he was thinking, did that mean he often didn’t? But it didn’t feel like the moment to needle Spock over semantics. McCoy was far more interested in why the fuck Spock was sitting on his bed in the middle of the night.

Spock ran his finger along a crease in the bed sheet, smoothing it. “There are duties a husband performs. Marital norms.” He glanced over his shoulder and met McCoy’s eyes with unnerving confidence. “They are contractually expected on this mission.”

Was Spock here to fuck him? McCoy shook his head. “Jesus, Spock, what’re you- ?”

“I will stay the night,” Spock interrupted. He swallowed. “Unless you ask me to leave.”

“Spock…”

“Rank has its privileges, and its obligations. You are human and require physical contact, I am quite able to appreciate the inconvenience of biological imperative. And I am your husband.”

McCoy pulled himself up to sitting, leaning against the bedhead. Absurd and dreadful though it was, a curl of disarming excitement building in his gut. “You offering to consummate, or…?”

“Doctor,” Spock breathed, turning away. His ears went dark green. He pulled his hand from the sheet, laying them in his lap. “I am offering to hold you through the night. Nothing more.”

“Ah,” McCoy said widely. He was feeling warm, and more than a little glad that it was cold enough for him to wear full flannel pajamas here. “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

Spock shifted up the bed, then swung his legs up and lay down in a way that was more reminiscent of Dracula than it was inviting a cuddle. But Spock was being kind, so McCoy swallowed the unflattering comparison.

And McCoy wanted the touch on offer.

McCoy sighed and tugged the sheet out from under Spock’s feet, then laid down next to him and smacked the light switch again. The room plunged into darkness as McCoy flung the sheet and blanket over himself and Spock.

“You know it’s not a contractual obligation, Spock,” McCoy told the darkness. “There are married couples who don’t sleep together.”

“We need not be one,” Spock said softly.

McCoy smiled and reached out, fingers bumping into Spock’s hand quickly on the small bed. Spock shifted to press his fingers to McCoy’s, then rolled to the side and wrapped his arm around McCoy’s waist. McCoy let himself get moved and shoved an arm under their shared pillow as he came face to face with Spock.

It wasn’t pitch black, but dark. He could tell Spock’s eyes were open, though. Glittering in the bare light. His breath was warm on McCoy’s face.

Spock pulled McCoy close and they slotted together. Legs tangled, chests pressed tight as they breathed in tandem. McCoy buried his face into the pillow and let Spock press their cheeks together. Spock leant into him and McCoy let himself relish the weight on him.

[lichqueenlibrarian]

@unstablequeerbitch

From the garden scene in Killing Time! I love the whole sequence in the garden. Also since I own it, is this the part you were thinking of?

Yes be one with him, Bones

[thomas-jefferson-miku-binder]

Something about how Jim became so accustomed to Starfleet parlance that it’s the only parlance he can speak at all. Something about how his relationship with his ship and his work as Captain extends to language as well, to the way he handles and expresses his emotions.

Amok Time – Kirk is confronted with the fact Spock keeps a dangerous secret that, if not shared, might end up with his first officer killed

The Apple – With the landing party marooned on a strange planet and the USS Enterprise being pulled ever closer to the ground, Kirk asks Scotty something beyond excellence.

The Doomsday Machine – Commodore Matt Decker stands in the maw of a monster with a dead crew and stripped of any will to live. Kirk tries to bring his old friend to reason, but nothing else can be done for Decker as he looks death in the eye.

I understand how, especially in the third instance with Matt Decker, he might've seemed cold (your buddy is about to off himself, and you remind him the higher-ups spent too much money on his formation), but I see it more as Kirk trying to ground both himself and his friend (who is also a Commodore, might I remind you) than simply reducing Decker to his position.

It also accidentally reveals a lot about Jim (although reveal is not the best word, as that same thought has been explored in numerous episodes before), how much his sense of worth is tied to his job—to how well he can perform and excel at it.

But that's not all he's saying. In both instances (Amok Time and Doomsday Machine), Kirk puts himself in the Federation's place because he sees its recognition as more valuable, more "worth living for" than his own.

It's his way, the way of a man who knows no life other than that of servitude, of saying I care about you, and I don't want to lose you.

It's really tragic that it is not enough to save Decker. If both Matt and Jim share the belief (which appears more often than not in Starfleet overachievers) that your inner worth is tied to how well you can perform it, Matt is left face to face with the rather morbid fact that he failed severely and his whole crew is dead because of it.

To sin is human, yes, but if the Doomsday Machine is the Devil, as the Commodore himself put it, it truly is a shame Decker did not view himself as deserving of forgiveness

[dduane]

I just read the part where Kirk experiences the Enterprise's point of view in The Wounded Sky to someone else, where she sees the crew as children she is training up to the Great Desire of exploration for exploration's sake, especially Jim. His reaction, essentially: "That was really pretty. ....And then he blows her up."

I hadn't thought about that before! I checked the copyright date, and it looks like The Wounded Sky came out a year before The Search for Spock, so you were writing without knowing that sacrifice would eventually happen.

How did you feel about that? Do you wish that writing decision had been made differently? (If, as a Trek writer, you're allowed to comment on other Trek writers' choices!)

You know, I tend not to think a whole lot about such issues. First of all, because (in the long run) it gets you nowhere in particular that's useful. And secondly, because it's not a thing that, as a Trek writer in any medium except film, you have the slightest power to change.

Now, at this end of time I think we can safely say that no one's going to hire me on to write a Trek film. And also that no one at that end of the creative spectrum is going to pay the slightest attention to anything I say, either. Both of those situations are just What's So, and neither of them bothers me. (Since I have universes of my own to manage at the moment, and that's where my attention properly lies.) So as regards my opinions about other writers' work, I'm pretty much off the hook.

If I had been on screenwriting duty for that film, would there be things I'd have wanted to do differently? Hell yeah. From the premise up. But the important thing here is: would those things necessarily have worked better on the screen / with the audience? Impossible to tell. And speaking as someone repeatedly given permission to work in someone's universe, the main thing to be aware of is the expectation that your chief responsibility is to do what best serves the characters and the IP of which they're part. (There's a post over at Out of Ambit with a lot more of my thoughts on the subject:)

The other thing to remember is that, though I've worn the Canonical Hat in my time, novel work is by definition non-canonical. Doing it, you are at all times working with the understanding that the licensor rarely views your work as anything better than a corporate side hustle—a way for the IP to make some cash on the side—and will ignore you and the stuff you've created unless given pressing reasons to do otherwise. (Such as when they might make some unexpected money off it... at which point you remind yourself as forcibly as necessary that what you did is Work For Hire; they own it, lock, stock and barrel, and you should not realistically expect to be given any credit.)

And, if you understand the rules and enjoy the work enough, all of this is okay. The reward is not in making a lot of money doing it, or even in having aspects of your work openly assumed into canon. The reward lies in being allowed to contribute to a given universe in public (and, yeah, getting paid for it by the licensor). It's not payback: it's payforward. And you're left an astonishing amount of freedom to bring your vision to that universe. (Sometimes... as one colleague has McCoy say... you have to be "very, very careful" to get away with it. But it can be done.)

The truth is that even in the 1980s, I was sharing this level of playing-in-a-universe with a goodish cohort of editors and writers: a big roomful at least. Now I'm sharing it (retroactively speaking) with hundreds of them. With the best will in the world, even in the 80's the licensors (as regarded film) couldn't have realistically polled/listened to all of us regarding our creative opinions about the screenplay end of things. As for what that'd look like nowadays... I'll leave you to your own deductions. 😏

Anyway, thanks for the question. It's always nice to know that there are people who want to know what you think. 😊

[purplespacekitty]

rewatching TOS now as an adult after having seen only a few episodes when i was much younger, i have a deeper appreciation for the Triumvirate and co. i always liked Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, Chapel and Chekov more than the main three, but i find myself overjoyed at any scene involving any of them. i also really loved Sulu and Rand’s friendship in season 1, it gave us a glimpse into their lives as crew members and just as human beings. i love that they are each essential to the running of the ship and truly choose to stick by each other and these three silly little guys for so long. i love knowing that Uhura sings because Nichelle Nichols was a theatrical singer. i love that Sulu wished for an old fashioned gun and is an unabashed plant nerd. i love that Scotty loves the Enterprise more than he cares about someone insulting Kirk. i love that Chekov actually expresses frustration at being treated like a kid. i love Rand's hair, impracticality be damned. i love that they have their own lives but are all drawn back to the Enterprise. the supporting cast add a texture to the show that i firmly believe it could not do without.

that said, i also find i have a deeper appreciation for the relationships between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. of course, the tension between Kirk and Spock is certainly intriguing, but it’s hard not to see them as an incomplete duo without Bones. i think there’s this sort of expectation that in groups of three, one person will always get left out. Bones doesn’t even have the choice of being left out, he gets dragged along with the two of them in every stupid decision they make. and they rub off on him: he may gripe more often than he sings praises, but he’ll readily give his life for Jim or Spock any day. because despite whatever he might say (and he really does say some awful things), he finds joy in their company. and most of the time, he only gripes because he cares. he's frequently frowning and prickly over Jim and Spock's nonsense, yet he has such a tender heart. that’s so interesting to me.

i wasn't expecting Bones to become my favorite of the three, but here we are.

everyone talks about Amok Time as the birth of Spirk, K/S, the Premise. but Spock asked them both to be there. as logical as it may be to bring a doctor with you to your wedding/sex ritual/divorce/fight to the death, especially when you're afflicted by an intense blood fever that's slowly killing you, Spock knew the possible outcomes. either there would be no need for a doctor in the end or someone would die and what good would a doctor be in that occasion? he calls them both his friends when he justifies Jim and Bones' presence to T'Pau. he knew he needed them both down there. and frankly, someone would have died if Bones hadn't been there.

it wouldn’t be fair to say Bones keeps the other two in check, because really, what he is, is a point of balance. whether you read the relationship between Jim, Spock and/or Bones as romantic, sexual, platonic, professional or even familial, the balance they hold together as a trio is fundamental to how they are written as characters.

i just think it's beautiful.

[gglinaa]

i’ve finished the motion picture movie and tbh i’m so high on joy i can’t shut up. i coudn’t really care about the main plot because it was quite classic for tos (and tos has taught me you shouldn’t overestimate it’s plot decisions in general tbh). therefore i couldn’t be bothered by any plot flaws either

but the subplots and little stories told through characters lined up together so perfectly. the whole spock’s story felt so clean. so smooth. it was so full of opportunities to pick up on his thoughts and motivation(s). i also love how expressive jim is. you always can hear what he leaves unsaid when he narrows his eyes or raises his eyebrows. it’s such a convenient tool for telling his story as well (and everything around k/s in gen is also so full of things speaking for both of them. it’s almost like a disney movie)

idk. it felt like justice

[betty-fran]

Returning to the second season, S2EP25 "Bread And Circuses" is a pretty interesting episode. Not so much impressively philosophical, but really entertaining in a good way and raising actual social issues. It's good for a lot of useless reasons: everyone wears T-shirts, Jim is a bisexual space princess again, and we have a lot of scenes between Spock and McCoy.

This episode also contains this tense dialogue between the two of them, which I've seen before and was therefore surprised by its suddenness in the episode. McCoy generally surprises me with how he, in the most irrational way possible, without any emotional lead-up to this point, begins to lecture Spock about his inability to feel feelings. It's usually in those moments when Spock really feels feelings. It's interesting to watch because you realize that McCoy actually really cares about Spock, just like he cares about Jim, and every time he tries to reach out to Spock's emotions, it's not a random choice, it's a clear understanding when Spock's feelings get so much that he starts trying to suppress them. Usually, it's all obviously revolving around Jim, and at least from this scene, there's a clear understanding that McCoy knows this. He understands perfectly well how Spock feels about Jim (as well as how Jim feels about Spock, which is also shown to us more than once). That's why he says all this to Spock, because these two are dear to him, damn dear:

MCCOY: Do you know why you're not afraid to die, Spock? You're more afraid of living. Each day you stay alive is just one more day you might slip and let your human half peek out. That's it, isn't it? Insecurity. Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling. SPOCK: Really, Doctor? MCCOY: I know. I'm worried about Jim, too.

But perhaps the funniest thing about this episode is that while these two are having a "finally admit your feelings for him" psychotherapy session, and both of them can't seem to find a place to rest from their worries about Jim, Jim at this time:

...'s obviously handling the situation quite well.

[csint3rlude]

★ WHEN YOU’RE SICK — STAR TREK.

-> characters: jim kirk, spock, leonard mccoy, nyota uhura, montgomery scott, pavel chekov, hikaru sulu, christine chapel, janice rand

-> authors note: this isn’t specifically tos/aos btw you can read it as either (i wrote it with tos in mind but it can definitely be perceived as either). also not directly romantic or platonic but implied reader is super close with the characters

word count: 1.4k || masterlist

⋆｡° ✮ jim kirk

for the most part, he’ll kind of just let you be. he knows that you’re sick and for the most part just want to lay down and try to feel better, and he’s a captain who really can’t get sick in the first place so he doesn’t get to see you much anyway. he leaves the bridge a few times he shouldn’t to check on you or just see how you’re doing. if you ask him to bring you something he’ll kind of roll his eyes and smile a bit in a joking manner, like he can’t believe that you’re asking him but he doesn’t actually really care and brings it anyway. after his shift, he comes and checks on you immediately and stays for awhile at your bedside. he gives in immediately if you ask him to stay and ends up also getting sick over the next few days which drives spock and bones absolutely insane, but he still believes it was worth it.

⋆｡° ✮ spock

spock would be a little avoidant, but for the reason he thinks it’s not worth it for both of you to get sick. he’ll still check up on you however or ask every other hour or so how you’re doing, and occasionally checks up on you on his own a couple of times so he doesn’t feel something akin to worry as well. i think he’d bring you things without you having to ask. maybe he had a feeling or something you were hungry or thirsty, and the next time he sees you, he’s got water and/or food. he does this because while he’s very busy and can’t be around you all day and bringing you things all day, he still doesn’t think it’s smart for you to be walking around on your own so he just brings what he thinks you’ll need. he also does it to subtly show he was thinking about you (he was worried).

⋆｡° ✮ bones mccoy

the second bones has even the slightest inkling you’re not up to perfect health, he’s all over you about it. he’ll quite literally either just find you in the hallway or specifically call you to his office so he can give you shit for working while sick. after that, he specifically puts you under his care almost immediately. for the most part, he’s still kind of bitchy but he does loosen up and gets slowly nicer throughout the day as you continue to be sick. he doesn’t bring you anything himself on his own time but if you asked him and there’s nobody else around, he’ll sigh and go get your water or extra blanket or whatever you wanted. for the most part, he’ll just tell a nurse to do that. he’s by your side most of the day, except he’ll tell you it’s because he doesn’t want you to leave the sickbay and pass out or do something dumb, but it’s really because you’re his top priority to get out of the sickbay. he does notttt wanna see you sick

⋆｡° ✮ nyota uhura

worried, but somehow in the most calmest way possible. i think she’d catch you working while sick rather talk to you immediately when you wake up and realize you’re sick. you’re probably walking around in the hallway with sweaty skin, major fever, on the verge of passing out and she takes you into a room where you guys can sit down and she just says so calmly “you really shouldn’t have come to work today” and then walks you back, tells whoever you work with that you’re sick, and then takes you to your quarters. she doesn’t stay since she has her own job, but after her shift she comes back and sits at your bedside and just like checks up on you and sees if you need anything or for her to give you medicine or water or food or something. absolutely she teases you when you’re not sick anymore

⋆｡° ✮ montgomery scott

lowkey he doesn’t notice at first. he just assumes that you’ve worked too hard for too long and tells you to take a break for a bit. when you come back, still shaken and still sickly, he’s befuddled because he was under the impression you just were overworked. he keeps an eye out for the rest of the day after that, and also makes sure to give you some of the easier jobs until he figures out what’s wrong and the appropriate means of fixing it. once he does (finally) come to the conclusion that you’re not feeling well, he’s really calm about it. he ends up just taking you somewhere you guys can sit down and he’ll get you something to eat and drink and then just like talk to you for a few minutes, he drops you off at your quarters afterwards and lets dr. mccoy now that you’re sick

⋆｡° ✮ pavel chekov

will not leave you alone at all. he genuinely takes the whole day off to look after you and everything. it’s kind of like a package deal, you’re sick so he gets to stay with you. for the most part he’d be really sweet and would fold and do basically anything you asked of him soooo quickly <3 but he can also be really clingy and kinda touchy by accident, but for the most part he really wants to take care of you while you’re sick. he’s perfect for running and getting you things. the second you ask him he stands up and runs away and comes back two seconds later with whatever you asked him for. he’s bad with medicine and regularly checking your condition however, so he gets really annoyed when there’s the occasional nurse/bones himself coming into your room to check on you but also kind of yell at him for not keeping them updated. he’d also 100% get sick after and act like it’s your fault just to become whiny and pathetic within an hour.

⋆｡° ✮ hikaru sulu

he might be the best person to take care of you in this lineup. he leaves you alone when you’re sleeping and does his own thing, brings you soups he made himself with herbs to heal you, and actually regularly checks in and makes sure your not getting worse. he doesn’t fully leave you alone though, he will occasionally come in for a little bit and you guys can hang out while you like lay there and listen to him talk or vice versa until he has to leave to do something else. i feel like he doesn’t necessarily find out your sick from you and more-so hears about it and thinks “oh. i’ll go take care of them cause why not” so you’re under his care for the whole time. typa guy to also lowkey sit with you in bed every night and kinda like gossip and fill you in on anything you missed. but only for a little bit because after like 30 mins he tells you to rest so you feel better

⋆｡° ✮ christine chapel

when you’re dragged into her office looking half dead on a random afternoon she kinda just sighs and lays you down on one of the beds. she’s very sweet while she takes care of you, but you can still see part of her wishes she had something more eventful to do. she’s another person who’s absolutely fantastic to be taken care of (the ranking is: bones, sulu, chapel btw). makes you take the most awful thickest worst tasting medicine ever but it’s after effects are absolutely delightful. while she gives it to you she says “it won’t taste good, but it’ll feel good when it kicks in.” and kinda smiles. you wouldn’t have to be embarrassed to throw up in front of her because she encourages it, tells you that if you don’t wanna be sick you have to throw up. she’d hold your hair back for you and bring you something to drink afterwards before sitting on the edge of your bed just to talk about whatever for a few minutes.

⋆｡° ✮ janice rand

she wouldn’t say something to you directly, but she’d tell whatever senior officer you’re around the most that she doesn’t think you’re feeling well. she visits you later, however. janice is smart, and she knows you’re gonna ask her for something, so instead she tries to think of important things you might ask her for like entertainment or food or water and just brings it all. she’d try to do it in a way where it just looks like she’s taking care of you, but she does kind of make it like a sleepover (where she doesn’t actually sleep over, she stays until you fall asleep peacefully) because she knows it’ll be more enjoyable for you. i think after you fall asleep she’d like tuck you in a little bit and make sure you’re warm and comfy before leaving <3 she never speaks a word of it again and acts so casual about the night afterwards if it’s mentioned

[twinkboimler]

October 2024 fic recs

I'm back with another TOS/AOS/SNW fic rec post! Here's some recent fics I really enjoyed!

SPIRK

I Shall Do Neither by onwhatcaptain. TOS. Mature. 166,262 words. Heavy angst, grief, pon farr aftermath. The writer chose not to use archive warnings, and I recommend reading through all the tags on this as well. This fic explores what might have happened if Kirk had died during the kal-if-fee, stretching across the months that follow. This is an emotional fic. There were chapters where I was crying the entire time I read through it. I won’t spoil what plays out, but I was completely satisfied with how this fic ended. It’s a heavy fic, and it’s not for everyone, but god is it good. Plus I love a spirk fic that really highlights the importance of McCoy in their lives; this one really shows how valuable McCoy is to them. I think this fic should be enshrined as a Must-Read when you enter the fandom.

I need a drink of cool, cool rain by Moreta1848. TOS. Explicit. 12,298 words. This fic was beautifully written. It introduces new ideas about Vulcan culture and rain and explores these ideas in a way that I really loved.

milk and honey by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin). SNW. Explicit. 28,651 words. Aliens made them do it, temporary amnesia, smut. Spock and Kirk wake up in a prison cell with no memory of who they are. They’re asked to perform an alien ritual… I’m sure you can guess what that entails. Really liked how this was written and it really nails characterizations for SNW spirk.

SPONES

Overthink, Overdrive by fangirlandiknowit. TOS. Explicit. 12,677 words. End of 5-year mission, getting together, love confessions. Aliens force a love confession, and McCoy and Spock handle it just about as well as you’d expect them to. I love when these two are just awful at talking to each other.

The Doctor and the Mailman by bongbingbong. TOS. Teen and Up Audiences. 9,606 words. Western. McCoy is a small-town doctor, Spock is the mailman. Everyone tells McCoy that he should stay away from Spock, but he refuses to listen. First in a 3-part series, I really enjoyed all three parts!

Ashaya (Tehs-tor) by Adenil. TOS. Teen and Up Audiences. 57,762 words. Fake dating/marriage, mutual pining. Spock goes to McCoy when he’s expected to take a spouse. I read this fic during one of my most-recent flights and it was exactly what I needed to sink into while killing time on my flights and at the airport. 

Handle Me With Care by Affixjoy. TOS. Explicit. 5,234 words. Hurt/comfort, friends with benefits to lovers. While on an away mission on a cold planet, McCoy realizes he has appendicitis and has to perform the surgery on himself with Spock’s help. This fic is inspired by Leonid Rogozov removing his own appendix in Antarctica! The spones moments in this fic really tugged at my heartstrings!

MCKIRK

That's why I won't get vulnerable by strangenewwords. AOS. Explicit. 18,074 words. Academy era, 5+1 things, porn with plot, genital piercings. I love some porn with plot and feelings, and this one just hit. If you like McKirk struggling to use their words and instead using their hands and mouths instead, this fic is for you.

the way things unearth by kurgaya. AOS. Explicit. 11,299 words. Academy era, Jocelyn comes to visit. I absolutely love how this fic wrote Jocelyn and McCoy’s past relationship. Their backstory was so different from any other fic I’ve read. Jocelyn really felt like her own person in this, not just his ex-wife. 

MCSPIRK

Moving across, then coming through by lesbobaggins. TOS. Explicit. 2,754 words. Starts as mckirk but turns into mcspirk. Smut, glory holes, a hot and funny fic where Jim finds out what some of the bathrooms on the ship are used for.

do you love your neighbor (is it in your nature) by Muir_Wolf. TOS. Teen and Up Audiences. 20,071 words. Hurt/comfort, corporal punishment, denied food as punishment. While stationed aboard a small vessel after volunteering to help when the medical staff comes down with a flu, McCoy is unfairly punished by the admiral in charge (of course, it’s far more complex than it may initially seem). I love how much time this fic takes to explore the aftermath of McCoy’s experiences—the comfort in this is so good.

GEN

Give Thy Thoughts No Tongue by WerewolvesAreReal. TOS. Teen and Up Audiences. 38,757 words. Mind control, misunderstandings. Spock is captured while on an away mission, and when he returns, he won’t talk about what happened—but not for the reason you might think. Loved this fic!

[branwenjade]

Jim's always been careful. He's made sure that he never bleeds in front of most people. The only people who know the truth other than Starfleet Medical are his roommate aka the only doctor he really trusts, and Gaila who could tell by his scent.

But now Jim is screwed.

He knew his messed up DNA would get him into trouble eventually.

He only wished that Vulcans were more open about their biology, so he could have had some idea what was happening to him.

It burns, coursing through his veins, consuming him, and as much as it hurts it feels wonderful, as much pleasure it causes is dampened by the fear he feels at the loss of control.

He curses himself, his paranoia about people finding out that the Kelvin baby isn't what they think he is caused this, if only he'd told someone just what he is.

He stares in a broken mirror, naked and bleeding, hands dripping with his lifeblood from when he punched the mirror, body flushed with a fever that won't go away. He feels the shameful rush of desire once more, burning him up.

His throat is raw, lips bruised and bleeding from biting them to try and silence the noises he can't help making. He can barely stand, having to hold onto the counter as his knees buckle, another fresh wave of need washing over him, making him feel dirty and sick at his own actions.

He's alone, he'd kicked Bones out, punched his best friend when he refused to leave Jim's side, cursed the man until he left Jim alone.

Jim doesn't remember moving back to his bed, doesn't remember the cool wet towel being gently ran over his feverish body, doesn't remember the angry whispers at his bedside. He vaguely recalls Bones angrily storming out and slamming the door.

The fever burns through him, and yet he feels a sense of relief. Cool hands gently touch and stroke his feverish body, soft words whispered against his ear. Jim says yes, to what he doesn't know, but he knows that whatever he's agreed to will bring him relief.

He doesn't know the other man, doesn't know who his savior is, but he knows that he'll never be able to repay this.

Finally the burning stops, and for the first time in days he wakes up to a clear mind. Sleepily he cuddles deeper into the arms wrapped around him, which fully wakes him.

He looks up at the face of the man whose chest he'd been using as a pillow, into the most beautiful eyes he's ever seen.

Words don't come, but they don't need to, he knows... he can feel the other man in his very soul.

Flashes of memory assault him, three days locked away by himself, slowly dying as he burned, slowly losing his sanity, Bones returning with help, someone who shared in having hybrid DNA, someone whose parents were around to give him some warning of what was to come, someone who felt the same isolation that Jim felt.

He remembers them leading him to his bed, and Spock... that was his name... practically throwing Bones out so he could take care of Jim in privacy, he remembers Spock's hands on his body, bringing him to levels of pleasure he'd never experienced before, remembers them coming together bodies and minds intertwined, remembers feeling the bond spring to life tying them together for all time.

[anghraine]

Something that attracted me to TOS pretty early on is that it's repeatedly interested in how hundreds or thousands of people (and sometimes still more) can get caught in mass tragedies caused by nothing they did, which no choice or quality of their own could have affected, often divorced from anything significant about the individual victims at all, and serving no great purpose. There's a way in which these events, and their legacies when those are explored, work to strip away both the distinctive personhood of the victims and the interconnections between them.

And TOS is repeatedly interested in how good-natured "gut" empathy on an ordinary interpersonal level—which the show does value—falters before this kind of horror at this kind of scale. It's harder to really grasp when you're not looking at malice directed at something significant about a particular individual or small group right in front of you, but instead it's just this brutally callous indifference towards people, often hundreds of people if not more, most of whom you can't see and will never see. Even when you do know and care about one of the victims, it can be difficult to process these kinds of unfathomably awful tragedies through ordinary human emotions.

McCoy, the advocate for gut feelings, including this kind of instinctive, highly personal compassion, gets repeatedly used to illustrate that tension. TOS values his kind of compassion to a certain degree, and highlights his instinctive decency and sympathy when faced with immediate suffering of most other people. By contrast, Kirk and Spock can be prone to over-intellectualizing where McCoy will rightly call bullshit, or at least to having their compassion complicated by obstinate guile (Kirk) or abrasive distance (Spock). But TOS is also interested in how the kind of instinctive empathy that defines McCoy can prove inadequate when it comes to contending with impersonal atrocities and supporting those affected by them.

That difficulty is very prominent in "The Conscience of the King," of course, in which McCoy actively closes his eyes to signs that something strange is going on with Kirk. His earliest and final appearances in the episode both involve him stubbornly sentimentalizing Kirk's ruthless use of Lenore. As the history and legacy of the genocide at Tarsus IV unfold, McCoy seems to resist grasping the true horror of what Kirk has experienced and how much that's motivating him, except as useless vengeance.

MCCOY: Illogical? Did you get a look at that Juliet? That's a pretty exciting creature. Of course your personal chemistry would prevent you from seeing that. Did it ever occur to you that he simply might like the girl? SPOCK: It occurred. I dismissed it. MCCOY: You would. SPOCK: Did you know that he suddenly transferred Lieutenant Riley to engineering? MCCOY: Lots of things go on around here that I don't know, Mr. Spock. Now, he's the captain. He can transfer whoever he pleases. You can look that up in a hundred volumes of space regulations somewhere. All right?

-

SPOCK: Children watching their parents die. Whole families destroyed. Over four thousand people. They died quickly, without pain, but they died. Relief arrived, but too late to prevent the executions. And Kodos? There never was a positive identification of his body. MCCOY: What has Karidian to do with it? SPOCK: His history begins almost to the day where Kodos disappeared. MCCOY: You think Jim suspects he's Kodos? SPOCK: He'd better. There were nine eyewitnesses who survived the massacre, who'd actually seen Kodos with their own eyes. Jim Kirk was one of them. With the exception of Riley and Captain Kirk, every other eyewitness is dead. And my library computer shows that wherever they were, on Earth, on a colony, or aboard ship, the Karidian Company of Players was somewhere near when they died. MCCOY: It's unbelievable.

-

SPOCK: Almost certainly an attempt will be made to kill you. Why do you invite death? KIRK: I'm not. I'm interested in justice. MCCOY: Are you? Are you sure it's not vengeance? KIRK: No, I'm not sure. I wish I was. I've done things I've never done before. I've placed my command in jeopardy. From here on I've got to determine whether or not Karidian is Kodos. SPOCK: He is. KIRK: You sound certain. I wish I could be. Before I accuse a man of that, I've got to be. I saw him once, twenty years ago. Men change. Memory changes. Look at him now, he's an actor. He can change his appearance. No. Logic is not enough. I've got to feel my way, make absolutely sure. MCCOY: What if you decide he is Kodos? What then? Do you play God, carry his head through the corridors in triumph?

Even in the episode's final scene, we find McCoy returning to his earlier preoccupation with romanticizing Kirk's motives with regard to Lenore (by then known to be a murderer and apologist for the genocide Kirk survived), downplaying how much Kirk's actions and struggles have been driven by surviving and witnessing a eugenicist mass slaughter.

Or there's "The Immunity Syndrome," where it's not that McCoy has no feeling or compassion for Spock as a general rule, but again, he seems unable to express or perhaps even feel that same compassion for Spock's grief as he vicariously experiences the sudden deaths of over four hundred Vulcans. The distance and scale of the loss trips up McCoy's kneejerk empathy, and he's reluctant to even try to respond with compassion about the loss of the crew of the Intrepid or what Spock is going through. Spock explicitly and sharply calls out this limitation of emotive, instinctive, hyper-individualized sympathy:

SPOCK: Doctor, even I, a half-Vulcan, could hear the death scream of four hundred Vulcan minds crying out over the distance between us. MCCOY: Not even a Vulcan could feel a starship die. SPOCK: Call it a deep understanding of the way things happen to Vulcans, but I know not a person, not even the computers on board the Intrepid, knew what was killing them or would have understood it had they known. MCCOY [doubtfully]: But four hundred Vulcans? SPOCK: I've noticed that about your people, doctor. You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours.

As he did with Kirk in "The Conscience of the King," McCoy resists understanding or respecting Spock's true motives in the wake of mass deaths of Spock's people. Instead, McCoy is oversensitive about potential insults to humans/himself and professionally territorial in response to events that are vastly worse for Spock, and at a time when Spock has specifically asked for some consideration.

SPOCK: I am familiar with the equipment, doctor. We're wasting time. The shuttle craft is ready. MCCOY: You're determined not to let me share in this, aren't you? SPOCK: This is not a competition, doctor. Whether you understand it or not, grant me my own kind of dignity. MCCOY: Vulcan dignity? How can I grant you what I don't understand?

Something I find interesting and pretty consistent about these scenarios in TOS is that there's some variance in which major character is most directly affected—most often Kirk, sometimes Spock. But the character beats tend to be similar regardless of who it is, with Kirk's and Spock's cooler-headed, more controlled mindsets sometimes making them out-of-touch or less compassionate than McCoy when it comes to more ordinary or personal suffering, but also, leaving Kirk and Spock more able to grasp atrocities and profound violations with or without being the victim. Kirk even suggests in "The Conscience of the King" that his personal history is not what qualifies him to judge Kodos; it's enough that he's a human being and an authority.

And when Spock coolly remarks in S3, "Humans do have an amazing capacity for believing what they choose and excluding that which is painful," it may not be absolutely true in all cases, but is certainly a strong tendency. And it's definitely repeatedly mediated through McCoy, the most purely human of the three.

Speaking of that S3 episode ("And the Children Shall Lead"), McCoy's ways of engaging with suffering actually make him much better equipped to deal with and comprehend the repressed grief behind the children's forgetfulness in the episode. Spock, as is often the case with random strangers' emotions, has other priorities (including getting Kirk through an artificially amplified panicked meltdown over his deepest insecurities) that take precedence above the children's welfare. Kirk, meanwhile, is baffled by the idea of forgetting trauma, in a way that makes a lot of sense for him; all the Tarsus IV survivors are haunted by the persistence of memory, Kirk returns over and over to concern with starvation/food, Kirk was targeted for bullying because of his grimness just a few years after the genocide and even at age 33, his deepest fantasy remains honorably kicking the shit out of the guy who bullied him as a teenager, and he has never really gotten over the slaughter of hundreds on the Farragut, etc.

By contrast to McCoy, Spock shines in dealing with the more purely dehumanizing violations they're faced with. In those cases, his unflinching, steady resolve and faithfulness become invaluable. His judgment and instincts are right about everything at every turn in "The Conscience of the King," yes, but this persists all the way to "Turnabout Intruder," which is an individual attack on Kirk, but also such a profound violation of basic autonomy that McCoy, again, can't really process it.

Despite Janice's fixation on Kirk in particular, his individual personhood doesn't seem to really matter to her. Rather, he's the one who got away (specifically, got away from a pretty obviously abusive relationship) and he climbed into the life she wants and is barred from (for bullshit misogyny reasons quite apart from her personal qualifications or lack thereof). But that's not about much unique to him as an individual, it's about him escaping and also getting the basic privileges of being a man.

The episode itself is misogynistic in conception and structure, to be clear. But there absolutely are female abusers/stalkers IRL who obscure their awful behavior towards male partners or ex-partners through a heavy filter of eternally persecuted (usually white) feminine fragility while doing high-octane abusive, dehumanizing shit in ways that look a lot like the essentials of Janice's behavior.

Janice physically assaults Kirk multiple times while openly mocking the idea that a woman could ever overpower a big strong man. She relies on medical abuse in particular to keep Kirk under control and plans to have him institutionalized indefinitely (then an even more common tool of abusers than now) or killed. She tries to keep him isolated from everyone who cares about him, and when that fails, threatens anyone who tries to help him escape (it's Spock who is punished for Kirk's escape attempt, not """Janice"""). She lies to his friends and co-workers about why he left her.

Kirk actually agrees with her about the injustice of the Starfleet glass ceiling, he just thinks it doesn't justify her behavior in the year they were together (in which she displaced her general, justified frustrations with her marginalization onto him and "punished" him within their romantic relationship). It certainly doesn't justify her many deeper violations of his autonomy later in the episode, or her exhausting degree of internalized misogyny (which was the actual reason he was willing to walk away in the first place, apparently, as unhealthy as the relationship was for both of them; this is the only one of his real relationships where we're told that he unilaterally made the decision to leave). And then Janice obsessively follows everything Kirk does, memorizes every detail about his life that she can, figures out how to get him into the right place where she can violate his body and autonomy, and ... yeah, the level of fucked-up here is only very slightly metaphorical.

Spock is, again, perceptive, reliable, and reasonable in engaging with the absolutely batshit level of horror inflicted on Kirk (again). But McCoy struggles, despite recognizing that something is evidently not right with the person who seems to be Kirk. Even when presented with Spock's account of the mind meld with bodysnatched Kirk—a kind of evidence that McCoy has readily considered before—he resists accepting what the truth would entail. Scotty and Chekov end up far more willing to see the truth and, with Sulu, to act on it than McCoy is. McCoy is closer to Kirk, but he's also hesitant and uncomfortable about engaging with what's happening, and instead falls back on standard policies and regulations in the face of an obviously extraordinary and dreadful situation.

And I feel like the point of McCoy's reluctance to grasp these kinds of unfathomably horrific experiences, whether the victims include Kirk (usually) or Spock (sometimes), is not so much that it's an idiosyncratic weakness of McCoy's. He represents this natural human instinct towards decency and compassion that is warm and often spontaneous rather than considered for effect. The more rationalistic characters sometimes lack the clarity of that instinct when dealing with immediate suffering—but TOS is also conscious of the limits of this reliance on instinct and comfort when it comes to deeper, more dehumanizing tragedies than natural instinct is equipped for. So it explores the limits of instinctive sympathy and consideration, as well.

I think that narratively, TOS favors the more philosophical and deliberative perspectives over the instinctive, though it sees value in them all. As a result, the show is more often critical of McCoy than of Spock, and gives McCoy less time and space in which to forward his perspective, with about half as much screen time as Spock. But I do think that TOS's basic interest in horrific, near-meaningless tragedy and its consequences for people is reflected in how these three characters engage—or resist engaging—with suffering of different kinds.

(I was mostly thinking about this because TNG's fundamental perspective seems almost the opposite: large-scale or very profound tragedies matter mainly because they affect particular individuals that "matter" like the little girl in "Pen Pals"—it doesn't matter if her people get wiped out in itself, but she is Data's friend and adorable, and thus she specifically Matters and suddenly, it's okay to act. However, in TOS, a large-scale tragedy or violation may be primarily understood through an individual we care about among the victims, but its significance is not restricted to them. I think the show's interest lies more in the broad dehumanization attending these kinds of events and in the question of how to engage ethically with them when you or someone you care about is directly affected.)

[dustykneed]

ohhhh you want to send me mcspirk/spones/mckirk asks so bad.... Do it ...... Hand them over..... hand em over NEOW

(translation: being steamrolled by work & too tired to draw my own silly little comic ideas. Feel free to suggest aus or ask me about my own aus/fic ideas etc im just. eepy. tored af & need a bit of motivation lol

i should sleep but i have so many things to say about this scribble so like. the context in my head is this is spirk to mcspirk slowburn in spirit. And this is bones' first time asking to kiss spock of his own accord? like when they first get together bones is really skittish and nervous because he's so scared he'll fuck it up somehow and he's too anxious to ask for affection even though he's been wanting it for so long. And spirk has to make a point of asking to give him that affection because they just want him to know they care for him so much. so this is a big moment for them! and jim being sandwiched between his favourite people in the whole universe smiling up at them because they're his whole wide world...... (OH god i feel some kind of fic coming on. i cant do this i have so many wips already (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠)

[sleepymccoy]

“I can go last, Jim,” McCoy offered. 

“Ah, hush, you're up.”

“Really, I'm sending you as a final test case in case the transport's still playing up. Gives them a chance to fix it for me.”

Jim clapped his shoulder and nodded his head to the side. 

So McCoy squeezed Jim's hand and left. He decided not to think about the cold, instead just hunkering his head down and walking into the clearing. It was probably only twenty seconds until he felt the tingle that meant the transporter was trying. It threatened for longer than usual - disconcerting - before taking hold and the view of the snowy forest was replaced with the transporter room. 

Oh, it was warm here. McCoy let out a shuddering breath and wiggled his fingers and toes to check they were still on right. 

“Take his weapon,” Jim said. McCoy looked up fast, scanning the room. Green and Singh were still here. A transporter tech McCoy had met but whose name he didn't recall. Jim and Spock. Jim?

Singh stepped up on the plate and swiftly took the phaser from McCoy's side. McCoy couldn't care less about that.

He looked at Spock seriously as Singh's hands went to his arms and led him off the transporter. “Spock, that's not Jim,” McCoy entreated. “You were talking to Jim on the planet just now, you know that's not- !”

“Leo?” Jim asked.

McCoy was gobsmacked. “What the fuck did you just call me?” 

Spock spoke. “You know this man, Captain?” His voice was slightly gravelly, pitched just a hint lower than McCoy was used to. It reminded McCoy of when they were rudely awoken by an emergency and Spock's voice was raw from sleep. 

Jim turned away, addressing the transporter tech. “Where's Mr Scott? Is he alright?”

“I'm not registering anyone left on the planet, Sir.”

“Okay,” McCoy interrupted. “This isn't a prank, ‘cause no way in sweet ‘n savoury hell would you get Spock onside. What's going on?” His arms were pinned to his side but he could reach to wrap his hands together for some extra warmth.

“You're Leonard McCoy,” Jim said, “I think we had a few classes together at the academy. You're on the Enterprise. Jim Kirk, I'm Captain here. Where have we picked you up from? Tell us your side of things.”

“I know I'm on the damned Enterprise, Jim, what I don't know is why you all don't know me!”

-

Two Thirds of a Whole

Otherwise known as McCoy's no good, very confusing day in a parallel universe where he never joined the Enterprise, told with a spones bent

The story is basically my exploration of what the enterprise would be like without McCoy. With some making out with Spock added in for good measure.