Fic: The Plebe, Chapter 13

[elliewood]

 

The Plebe, Chapter 13
Sick Day

    "We must go for walks out of doors, so that the mind can be strengthened and invigorated by a clear sky and plenty of fresh air."

The leaden sky outside was not what Jim would have called clear, but the passage bolstered his uneasy urge to leave the confines of his dorm room despite Mitchell’s advice to stay put. “You look like shit, man,” Mitchell had said as he handed Jim his fourth pill of the day. “Seriously. Stay in bed.” But sleep, the luxury of which had eluded Jim all night long, was a much different thing from staying in bed, where there was no comfort to be found; if he sat up, his stomach lurched sickeningly, and if he reclined, his head pounded with pain, so that all of the morning was spent alternating between the two positions, neither of which afforded him any rest. The pills didn’t seem to help, but he swallowed them anyway to belay Mitchell’s frequent references to the likelihood that Chapel would, if she detected any noncompliance with her directives, skin their balls.

At least he had his books. He had tried to read in bed, propping the volume Mitchell had abandoned the previous evening on a pillow to accommodate his aching eyes’ unwillingness to focus, until the constant shifting from lying to sitting frustrated him into rising at mid-afternoon to shower. He caught a glimpse of himself in the closet mirror as he undressed, his hair mussed in every possible direction, the petechiae that peppered his eyes and face easily discernible against the unhealthy wanness of his skin.

    "Occasionally we should even come to the point of intoxication, sinking into drink but not being totally flooded by it; for it does wash away cares, and stirs the mind to its depths, and heals sorrow just as it heals certain diseases."

He turned from the mirror with a bitter snort; Seneca might have some good advice about taking a walk, but he didn’t know shit about hangovers.

He set out half an hour later into the blustery coolness of the afternoon, the book tucked under one arm. Mindful that he was theoretically quarantined with the flu, he kept his other hand raised to shield his face with the collar of his jacket. He was especially careful to avert his gaze from the library annex as he passed it on his way to the main library building.

Thou sufficeth

The lift to the top floor of the library was, he noted thankfully, empty, the fireplace reading room it opened into nearly so. He kept his head down as he stepped across the old-fashioned carpeting, passing the few cadets and instructors nodding sleepily over their PADDs to reach a vacant wing chair by the glass wall at the opposite end of the room. It turned easily to face away both from the warmth of the gently lit room and from any curious eyes, and Jim stifled a sigh of relief as he curled up in it, drawing his legs into his chest. Below him, a few straggling students dodged the blowing fall leaves, their color muted in the sunless afternoon, as they hurried across the green toward the lecture halls. The quick twist of guilt at missing his own classes that day only added to the cramping misery in his gut.

He hunched forward to rest his aching forehead on his knees, finally releasing the hold in his mind that had kept the most wretched of his thoughts at bay until now. For while his physical symptoms were made bearable by the promise of their temporary nature, there was no such assurance for the thoughts that had taken hold earlier that morning, their circling persistence driving him from the comfort of Mitch’s light snoring against the back of his neck to squirm out of bed and find his PADD, his eyes exploding at the fresh torture of its too-bright screen, his cheeks burning with humiliation as he read the definition of single malt. He had already inspected the overturned stack of clothes, knocked to the floor when Mitch made up his bunk, and lifted the underwear and jeans and iridescent green shirt to his nose in turn, the brief tremor of relief at their clean scent quickly supplanted by the realization that Mitch must have undressed him, pulled him out of clothing dirtied either with vomit or piss or, God help him, shit, the evidence tactfully washed away before it could confront him, his mind filling in the blanks anyway as a brain creates the phantom pain of a lost limb. He had shied from confirming the worst of his suspicions and had only asked Mitchell how he had gotten back to the dorm, cringing inside at the revelation that Spock had carried him home, unconscious, perhaps already soaked in whatever bodily fluid his system had helplessly evacuated when he’d passed out into Spock’s arms. He had been too horrified at the mental picture to ask Mitchell if that had been the case; from his overly cheerful demeanor, Jim surmised that Mitch probably would have lied to him anyway.

The chime of the old clock tower across campus drove his mind in a new but no less awful direction, the very real possibility of his being dismissed from the Academy. He had, as Mitchell slept, also looked up the penalties for underaged drinking, estimated how many patrons would have witnessed his descent over the course of the evening, and calculated how many of them were either already aware of the transgression or shortly to be made so — first Spock, now Mitchell and Chapel, possibly Finn next, then his friends, the circle widening like a stain until it reached someone with enough authority to dig deeper, to unearth the records be had begged Pike to conceal, among them the exemption Pike had signed to allow him to enter the Academy as a minor child. Pike, to whom he had sworn he would comport himself adequately, honorably even, whose doubts about his capability he had, with the absolute certainty only the foolish possess, assured him were misplaced before proving himself so completely wrong.

    "No condition is so bitter that a stable mind cannot find some consolation in it."

There was no consolation in the thoughts that wheeled like vultures over a heart that ached with shame; he watched them for a moment with his mind’s eye before unleashing the worst of them, predators that tore that tender flesh to pieces for the circling scavengers to feast upon, so loathsome that he physically recoiled to press his back against the arm of the chair with a groan. For he had surely destroyed if not a friendship with Spock at least a cordial working relationship, the angry words he had spoken returning again and again to his own ear, each time sounding more childish and petulant, crushing in an instant what he had worked so hard to gain — the respect of his instructor, an acknowledgment that, despite his youth and rawness, he had within him the foundation of an officer and a gentleman. And he had shown himself, in the span of a few short seconds, to be neither.

And worse, even had he controlled his temper, there still remained the indisputable confirmation of his own depravity, the hardened flesh that Spock could not help but notice as it pressed against his own. The astonishment in those dark eyes was an accusation against which he had no defense; the only question that remained was who the object of that lust was, either Spock himself or Finn, and of the two possibilities, Jim was unsure which Spock would find less offensive.

Which led him, at last, to Finn. He was painfully aware that the same unworthy conduct he had openly denounced Spock for was what he himself would willingly have been guilty of had he not been intercepted: a thoughtless, loveless yielding to the physical desires of another. Jim couldn’t tell if Barnett’s attachment to Spock went much further than that simple urge, but he knew, and admitted to himself that he had known all along, that it was more than that for Finn.

The guy's crazy about you and everyone knows it but you

His own disingenuous denials echoed in his head, bringing with them a fresh, hot flood of guilt. Mitch had been more generous than he deserved, but Spock had not been fooled. The bitter knowledge that he would have given himself to Finn merely out of obligation and a vague curiosity, fully cognizant that he was making a mockery of his friend’s affection, was the hardest of all these things to bear.

Figure out if you like him back and either make it official or cut him loose

He rested his cheek on one knee and shifted his contemplation to the grey afternoon sky outside, watching as it gradually deepened into the color of Finn’s eyes.

Grieve not, beloved

Thou sufficeth in every regard

kirkjt: can i come see you

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