Chapter Text
Part Three
The chair. The chair definitely felt familiar.
Even though it couldn’t possibly feel familiar, because he was pretty sure he’d never seen it before.
It was an ungainly piece of furniture that seemed perversely out of place compared to the precise angles and proper order that existed throughout the rest of the meticulous office. A chair that possessed a palpable level of incongruity that he’d never forget seeing. Unless he’d never seen it. Which he didn’t think he had.
The chair itself consisted of a rough, well worn dark grey fabric base with a metallic back and armrests, complete with thick fabric straps and restraints. He had definitely sat in it before. Even though he almost certainly hadn’t.
“Tell me,” Doctor Sevik said to him as he sat in the confines of the chair, “Do you believe we will require full restraints during today’s treatment?”
He felt his body, which may not actually have been his body now he started to think about it, tense up involuntarily. His head, or at least the head attached to the body might not be his, shook quickly from side to side. Whether that was an appropriate response or not didn’t even cross his mind. He just knew that he didn’t want the restraints.
Doctor Sevik considered his silent response for a moment from the other side of the room, then raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Intriguing,” he admitted, seemingly to himself, “A particularly rapid response. But perhaps not an accurate one. Given the pattern of your treatments so far, I recommend that we follow our usual practice for the time being—”
“No,” he cried out, even though it wasn’t really him talking, unless it was, “Please.”
His throat, or whoever’s throat it was, felt as arid as Mount Seleya in the dry season.
“An emotional reply,” Sevik replied simply, as he began to prepare the restraints.
Doctor Sevik was an ageing Vulcan, his severe trademark haircut flecked with grey and his features ravaged with signs of age. His face was impassive, bereft of emotion. He stepped forwards and began to fasten his patient’s wrists down with the thick fabric ties attached to the chair.
He may or may not have been here before, but something inside told him that resistance, at this point in the treatment, was futile. Instead, he found himself focusing his attention on the vast mirror that dominated the far wall of the room. The two-way mirror behind which he knew his father (who wasn’t actually his father) would be standing and watching on. Just as he had for all of his past treatments.
He knew that staring through the mirror wouldn’t accomplish anything, whether his father or not his father was there or not there. If his intention was to try and somehow provoke a sense of guilt for what was about to happen, he knew such a reaction was impossible in one so stoic. Still, he had no other possible recourse against what was happening. Nowhere else to turn, no other escape route available.
So he stared, in silent protest. Against the man who was forcing him to once again go through the procedure he was pretty sure he’d never gone through.
Or at least, that was what it felt like was happening, or possibly wasn’t happening. Or did it?
Doctor Sevik completed his work on the restraints, rendering him completely immobile.
“The process will be the same as before,” he explained with measured calm, “I believe we are making good progress, and I intend to continue. If you are willing to assist me, it will make the operation significantly smoother.”
He requested the assistance of his bound and captive subject without a hint of irony. Because as far as Doctor Sevik was concerned, everything he was doing was completely logical. As far as the doctor was concerned, the patient was suffering from an affliction. An overdose even. The fact that this was an overdose of emotions, rather than some form of toxin or invasive microbe or other substance, didn’t have any rational impact on the best course of action.
Which was to purge the overdose from the body.
In the chair, he felt the room that he might not have been in tilt around him as Doctor Sevik tapped a set of controls to tilt the chair back. Once it was in an optimal position, he felt the doctor’s hands touch each side of his head. Or whoever’s head this was. He squirmed and writhed instinctively, scratching on the worn fabric of the seat, somehow keenly aware of what he was about to experience. Even if he had never experienced it before.
As far as Doctor Sevik was concerned, this reaction was simply a symptom of the wider affliction, an emotional response born from an overspill of feelings. Therefore, the doctor dismissed it as an irrelevant observation, and calmly sought out the correct pressure points.
And then he felt the pain. There was no doubt about that.
Raw agony that pulsed through his flesh, but also a deeper, more transcendental torment. A biting, scalding pain that seemed to violently stab its way into his very subconscious. A pain that he knew was going to continue to grow ever stronger, festering and smouldering and blazing inside of him, until Doctor Sevik reached the point where he decided that the treatment was over for today.
On the other side of the meld, Doctor Sevik calmly and rationally continued his purge, just as he had done countless times before.
On the other side of the two-way mirror, his father watched on dispassionately.
* * * * *
Sunek was still screaming.
So intense were the emotions he was feeling that it took him a while to realise that Sokar had broken the meld. That he was back in reality, onboard the Tolaris.
He had no idea how long he had been back for, but he was pretty sure it hadn’t been long. His brow glistened with sweat, and he felt his breathing had quickened. The music had stopped, and the room was momentarily silent. Sokar had stepped back and was standing in front of him, while T’Len sat next to him, her arm now wrapped around him supportively.
His head was a confused flurry of conflicting thoughts, all moving at warp speed as he tried to process them.
“Now you can begin to understand,” Sokar said simply, breaking the silence.
Sunek scratched around for some sort of response. He couldn’t be sure, but he felt like he might be crying. He felt T’Len’s arm squeezing him tighter.
“The first time is always the most difficult,” she whispered to him, “But you will recover. Sokar has shown us all the same thing. We all know how much he suffered.”
Sunek took a gulp of air. His mouth felt dry. Just as it had in the meld.
“And now,” Sokar said darkly, as Sunek opened his eyes again, “You will help.”
Not a question. Because Sokar apparently already knew the answer. It didn’t need to be said. And, for reasons that Sunek couldn’t quite fathom at this point in time, he found himself going along with him entirely, almost on auto-pilot. He opened his mouth, and managed to croak out a reply.
“Wh—What…are we going to do?”
Sokar stepped over to him and looked deep into his eyes with dark determination.
“As we speak,” he explained, “The Tolaris is cloaked, and at warp. Six hours ago, we crossed into Federation space. In eight more hours, we’ll have reached Vulcan. Still completely undetected. And then...well, I suspect that the authorities won’t be expecting a fully armed Romulan Warbird to decloak in orbit.”
He leaned in closer, staring Sunek down and hissing his final words.
“And then, we will have our revenge against those Vulcans who have wronged us.”
Sunek listened. But his mind was still a minefield of emotional turmoil and conflicting information. He still couldn’t entirely focus. But he was pretty sure that no Vulcans had wronged him, specifically, as far as he could remember. Or had they?
He tried to remember who he was. He was Sunek. Sunek the joker. Sunek the clown.
He also knew right from wrong. Or at least he was pretty sure he did. And everything Sokar was saying definitely seemed wrong to him. But then, so did everything that he had just been shown. The torment and agony of Doctor Sevik’s meld. The pain that he still felt pulsing inside his mind.
“So, my friend,” Sokar continued, “The one that was so passionate and determined in his youth, you are now ready to join us.”
Again, not a question.
Sunek’s mind swirled. He felt lost, adrift, confused. The pain he had experienced, the torture was still fresh in his mind. It had definitely been wrong. In the distance, he heard the sound of the raging winds and the crashing waves of the Voroth Sea.
And as he stared back at Sokar, he felt something new, something powerful. A single, clear emotion emerging from his inner tumult.
He felt angry.