Archive of Our Own

“Mister Scott, status report.” 

It had been 10.4 hours since contact with the landing party had been lost. Given the planet’s often less than hospitable terrain for the majority of the Terran crew, it had been the logical choice that Spock be sent down for retrieval. The deserts that consisted of the largest part of the planet were not wholly dissimilar to conditions on Vulcan, though the unnamed M Class planet heated sharply toward its equator. It was enough to strip the bones of even the hardiest among them, but sensors had indicated steady life signs just within the habitable zone. They were faint, but nonetheless present against the glow of the displays. It had been enough for Kirk to determine that his presence for the retrieval was similarly vital, much to the chagrin of Doctor McCoy; he had, after all, delivered the necessitated precautionary compounds with a healthy spool of colorful and anachronistic axioms and idioms. Even Spock had found it mildly impressive, but he recalled it had been approximately two months, fourteen days, and twenty hours since the last sojourn down to a planet not entirely unlike the one they now trudged through the plains of. That particular away mission had ended with severe dehydration and heat sickness for most of the Human crew, Kirk among them. He had taken his time receiving the mandated health inspection, skirting about McCoy’s attempts to herd him as though a Terran feline through the Medbay doors. When McCoy had finally overcome Kirk’s tactics with the singular audacity of any doctor worth their licensing, he had been half-asleep in his quarters. Spock had known his reluctance to be born of an innate need to provide service to his crew first, but McCoy had suffered no excuses. For all of Kirk’s complaints, he had been placed upon leave the following day, pending the abatement of his symptoms.

Spock had served in Kirk’s stead, for a time. The bridge crew did not ask questions, but Spock was made aware that there had been several. Spock had theorized one or more had reported his appearance on the bridge, as McCoy arrived to dismiss him 1.22 hours later without explanation. He had joined Kirk in his quarters per McCoy’s request, only to find Kirk sprawled across his mattress. Kirk had been fully clothed, with the exception of his boots, which sat askew at the foot of his bed. If one were to attribute a Human emotion as Humans often did to objects inanimate, Spock would have described them as wearing the same appearance of exhaustion as the one who’d worn them.

That Spock was not permitted to return until the next rotation and that Kirk, too, had later arrived with freshly polished boots? It was not relevant to the matter at current.

Spock took it upon himself to look toward the shimmering horizon as Kirk attempted to contact Mister Scott again. If he focused, he could discern the bruised twilight of the more accommodating acreage beyond the tree line, but despite its undoubtedly more habitable stretch, the distress signal had not arisen from its gentled, rolling hills. Instead, the Human crewmen had found themselves circling toward the eye of the planet. Given Human physiology and their inability to sustain themselves in such environs for extended periods, Spock reasoned with 65.03% certainty that they would succumb to the constant press of wet heat or the cyclical storms within the next hour, if they had not already done so. Kirk, however, remained optimistic. As their life signs had not yet vanished from their scanners, it was indeed possible that they had found some manner of outcropping to slip into. To “ride it out,” as many exploratory teams had placed it before. Yet, prior study of the planet’s surface did not contradict Kirk’s assessment, and so no concessions were warranted. And thus, with Kirk’s baseline assuredness and determination in tow, it was here they found themselves with Ensigns Lockwood and Gavelston.

The communicator finally connected with a garbled chirp, and all three Humans muttered an oath of different cadence and inflection. Spock suspected Gavelston’s was a cheer. 

“Scotty here. Can you repeat that, sir?” 

Kirk held the communicator up to his lips, the matte black of its interface glistened with transferred perspiration. 

“Any update on the positions of Ensign Mbanefo, Cardoso, and Benoit?” 

“Nay, sir. Haven’t moved a hair. Do you need the coordinates again?”

Kirk rocked forward and back on his heels, the movement impeded by the sodden loam beneath them. The residual coating of minerals that sat stuck to its surface glittered and parted beneath the tread of his boots. Lockwood, who had been idling at Spock’s right, shifted their eyes downward to examine the stilled dust. They had long ago placed on the protective equipment necessary to interact with the surface of the planet, their hands covered with the close fit of gloves. 

Spock nodded, keeping his voice long enough so as to not disturb the rapid clip of conversation between the captain and Mister Scott. “Remain within visual range. Our current environs suggest a narrowing window of retrieval.” 

Lockwood flashed him a toothy grin, the messy lay of their fringe made all the more unsettled by the rising winds.

“Sir,” they said, signaling their understanding of the instruction. They immediately set forth to begin sample collection, their tricorder already whirring as they stayed within the designated eyeline. 

Spock knew Lockwood had been briefed before they had beamed down that exploratory measures were not the primary focus of the mission. However, the possibility of collecting useful samples or determining the possibility of deposits of dilithium were too attractive for them to ignore. They had requested to move to Alpha shift following a thorough examination of the planet’s pattern of dust storms, which had been granted due to their impressive string of publications.  They were an avid geologist, and their theses on formation of mountain ranges on Altair IX were particularly insightful. It was the expediency of their output, their cooperative nature, and their attention to detail that had gotten their application to the Enterprise shortlisted, and eventually transferred once they graduated from the Academy.

Satisfied that Lockwood would continue their adherence, Spock turned his attention back to the captain, who was beginning to rub at the bridge of his nose with the hand not occupied by the communicator. It became quickly evident that Mister Scott was reporting a number of other issues, some of which Spock was able to catch despite the winds. Mister Scott had already started to indicate that the point of transportation back to the ship was smaller than originally anticipated, which would narrow their window for retrieval of Ensigns Mbanefo, Cardoso, and Benoit by a further 1.2 minutes, should they have maintained an optimal capacity to assist. 

It was something that Gavelston too seemed to understand, as she peered upward at the roiling purple clouds overhead. They had not yet threatened a break within the planet’s barometric pressure, but she crinkled her nose all the same. It had long come to Spock’s attention that the more environmentally sensitive aspects of a Human’s physiology could pick up these shifts in the form of burgeoning intracranial aches. Gavelston seemed to suggest that her discomfort was taking up residence in her maxillary sinuses. She had always been a reliable gauge, made all the more so as the efficacy of skeletal injuries responding to shifts in weather changes had decreased with medical advances. It was not to say that Spock’s right shoulder did not similarly ache, but he did not care to note it.

“Gavelston.” 

Gavelston immediately snapped to attention, her body drawing into a sharp parade rest. 

“Sir!” 

Spock lifted one brow. He nodded toward her hands, clutched as they were at the small of her back. 

“Please use the necessary protective equipment,” he said, knowing he had seen her bare wrists and palms just a moment before. Lockwood had already been certain to use theirs, given their ingrained academic and practical cautions; samples contaminated by the skin’s natural oils were still considered contaminated regardless. “You are prone to allergic dermatitis.”  

Red immediately blossomed across the full of her cheeks as though she suddenly recalled her last stint upon a recent planet. Her skin had blistered and bubbled upon contact with the pollens stirred up from the alien fauna, and had continued to do so for days. With her brown eyes widened with what Humans would have called abject dismay, she swung her pack down from her shoulder, squeaking out a sharp “sir.” The alacrity with which she rifled through the contents of the standard issue survival gear was short of impressive, but noted nonetheless. Her reflexes would qualify her readily for Security, though the efficiency of her movements would need to be tightened. At the moment, they appeared more distressed than purposeful. 

With both ensigns accounted for, Spock turned to watch as the captain paced. It was a behavior that many Humans engaged in while speaking into communicators, much to Spock’s initial confusion. It was later explained to him during his first assignment upon a Human vessel that it was a natural mechanism, a means with which to occupy the body without direct purpose. For some, it offset the lack of subtle bodily cues while conversing. For others, it signaled their underlying restlessness, which may have been innate as much as it may have been in response to the conversation’s contents. The captain was subject to the latter, confirmed by a pronounced exhalation. 

“Thank you, Mister Scott. I’ll expect another update if the conditions change,” Kirk said, lowering the communicator. “Kirk out.”  

Snapping the communicator shut, he tucked it into its designated holster. Both Lockwood and Gavelston ceased their independent activities as though trained to respond to the sound, eyes turning to the captain without comment. Lockwood arranged their carefully collected samples in their bag as they picked their way over the rolling loam. Their footsteps squelched as they did so, which caused a small ripple of distaste to overtake Gavelston’s expression. 

“Coordinates haven’t changed,” Kirk started, hands settling on his hips. “They never made it past the tree line.” 

Kirk’s gaze flicked over to Spock, a furrow settled already between his brows. Spock examined him, knowing without further conversation the increasing severity of the situation. Spock straightened his back.

“Updated window, Mister Spock?” 

“Shortened. The storm is approximately twenty-seven point oh two minutes out,” Spock said, having already calculated the rapidly shifting atmospheric conditions. Spock could hear the lower register of thunder as though the grumble of a sleeping animal, just beyond Human detection. It soon would not be. “Gavelston has begun to show signs of intracranial discomfort.”

Kirk’s lips pressed into a thinning line. 

“Best to get a move on, then,” Kirk said, turning without hesitation toward the last known coordinates of their missing crewmen. Spock found as he most often did that he had already fallen into step beside Kirk, Gavelston and Lockwood hurrying to settle into line behind them. “We’re already down three men. I’m not risking any more of you.” 

Yet, despite the pace that they set, the environs about them had added an additional 2.33 minutes. The loam of the planet’s habitable zone had cut into indigo grasses, high enough to brush at Spock’s hip. Accompanied by the strengthening winds and Lockwood catching their foot upon an otherwise undetected root that sprang up from the soil as though a gnarled appendage, all were taken upon by a sense of focus by the time they reached the last known location of the missing ensigns.

Wordlessly, they fanned out. They had discussed at length their next move, using cardinal directions to sweep the terrain more effectively in the time that remained. Spock could hear Kirk, Lockwood, and Gavelston periodically calling out to them, picking about more likely pockets that they may have tucked themselves into. Spock took another approach, scanning the tree line and the muddied tracks of unknown fauna. It was plausible that they may have found themselves following a similar mindset, tracing the path of the previous inhabitants to find more appropriate shelter. Based upon the cut of their footfalls, these particular animals appeared closer to—

“Sirs, over here!” 

Spock lifted his head. Against the low roar of the steadying wind, Gavelston was waving her arms frantically in a crosswise motion. She bounced on the balls of her feet, her usually tightly bound hair whipping about her round face. Her nose was red. Spock made a note to himself to remind her of the importance of applying all protective gear as necessitated, beginning to make his way over to her just as Kirk and Lockwood drew up beside her. They had already begun conversing rapidly by the time Spock entered their loose half-circle, bodies turned toward one generously sized boulder. The elements had worn a divot into the stone, just large enough to fit three, dirt-caked ensigns. 

They had almost made it to the tree line, but had fallen a rough 8.2 meters short. 

“Captain!” The smallest one burst out. He had wedged himself against the other two, body covered in what looked to be scratches and fresh mud. The blue of his eyes were ringed red, his lashes clumped together. Benoit had been crying, Spock deduced. Benoit had always been named as one particularly sensitive, prone to bouts of emotionalism that Spock had seen many times before; he cried when he was happy, he cried when he was sad. He once cried over a dropped beaker, as Spock recollected. Even so, that was not the focus. The focus now was upon extracting them all before their individual bodies puttered to a standstill. It was far easier to guide them out than to carry them, but Spock had been under no illusions that at least one would not have to be brought about by support or by back. 

“We thought we’d never get out,” Mbanefo said, clearly glad to be done with the ordeal. He crawled out of their hiding place, mud and loam sticking to his regulation slacks. If Mbanefo noticed it, he evidently did not care. He was quick to leave once Benoit moved from his spot. However, as soon as Mbanefo managed to clear the overhang, he had to reach up to Benoit to brace him. It was proof enough that the ensigns would need further support after all, but—

“Where is Ensign Cardoso?” Kirk asked, seemingly picking up on Spock’s own line of questioning. As the ensigns struggled to set themselves to rights, Spock noticed that they both appeared far more fatigued in the thinning light. Mbanefo, alarmingly, was ashen as he settled his weight upon his left leg. His right leg, however, was tucked behind him as though a Terran waterbird. His foot and ankle were flexed at an uncomfortable angle, but there were no immediate signs of damage. Instead, as Spock looked it over, there seemed to be a total absence.

“About that, sirs—“ 

From the ensigns' hiding place, Spock’s ears caught a cough. It wasn’t wet in the way that suggested a common virus, but rather raspy. A wheeze, perhaps. Less a bark. Spock looked to his captain then, but Kirk had already caught his movement. Kirk nodded, shrugging off the emergency pack he’d taken to hauling, and handed it off to Spock without comment. He was still fielding inquiries and answers from the muddle of ensigns, and so Spock was the easiest route to visually assess what had occurred with Cardoso. 

“Summarize,” Spock briskly cut-in. Benoit looked pained as Spock managed to open the pack with one hand. Spock could not say why, but the Human was always readily impressed with feats that Spock thought unremarkable. Knowing where the protective gloves were without looking was a minor advantage of eidetic memory; knowing where they lay in the captain’s emergency pack? Even less impressive. Still, he felt Benoit watch him as he again closed the pack and passed it back to Kirk, Kirk’s hand already waiting and extended as he talked to the other ensigns. “Benoit.” 

The prompt seemed to have broken whatever trance Benoit had entered, because he stuttered something shaped like a question. Spock took it to mean that Benoit hadn’t heard him.

“Ensign Cardoso is toward the back,” Mbanefo said, elbowing Benoit with a look that Spock had little interest in currently dissecting; the sky was darkening further yet, and now Lockwood was turning their head toward the planet’s horizon. Cumulonimbus clouds stretched tall and ominous, the sky staining green like the edge of healing, Human bruises. “The storm came in faster than expected. We tried to follow the creatures we saw toward the tree line, thinking they might have been able to give us a better idea of where to hide, but—” 

“We got caught out,” Benoit interrupted. His olive skin was flushed, his gaze firmly fixed upon the ground beneath them. “I managed to find shelter first. I tried calling Cardoso and Mbanefo in, but…”

“We were buffeted by the storm, sirs,” Mbanefo said, hopping upon his good foot as Benoit resolved to settle closer in. The atmosphere was solemn, punctured only by the steady gusts that buffeted at their edge. Spock pulled on the protective gloves without further comment, nudging his way past the pair with more suggestion than contact. They obediently shifted to the side, letting Spock through. It was not a deep crevice that the Ensigns had tucked themselves into, but the meager overhang was low. Spock had to duck beneath the brittle ceiling that provided them a narrow, questionable respite. “Cardoso took the worst of it. When we overnighted here, she… Well, it started off as this little mark…” 

As he spotted Cardoso against the back wall, Spock understood what Mbanefo was referencing. Above the black collar of her dirtied thermal shirt, amid the dark curls of her hair, there was a mottled patch of pale, grey scaling. Spock could not identify it, and bore no sheen within the dim light as he moved his way further in. Carefully, so as to not disturb its patterning, he reached out a gloved hand to her. She was breathing, but her chest rose and fell in shallow, shuddering gasps. 

As Cardoso reached back, her black eyes upturning with a sort of haziness that Spock knew only appeared when Humans were feverish, she smiled in a way that made the heart in Spock’s side clench in what he could only briefly describe as sympathy.

“Hi,” Cardoso said, wobbling as Spock pulled her gingerly to her feet. Her ambulation appeared unimpaired, but it was immediately evident that she would not be able to make it far without intensive assistance. It was likely that the most she might manage was the short distance to the mouth of their makeshift shelter, her opposite arm still at her side as she followed Spock’s guidance without resistance. 

As Spock and Cardoso exited, the ambient temperature had dropped. Spock turned his gaze skyward, in mirror of Kirk who had long since tipped his head up to view the storm gathering further toward the perpetual, banking twilight. While none could see the division, expansive as the iris of the planet was, it was no error that they had advised the crew to break the wall of trees to the other side. Sensors had indicated that rain often fell, it did not always. Instead—

“We’ll have to walk and talk, Ensigns,” Kirk said, leveling his gaze and turning his attention back to the gathered Ensigns about him. Spock could scent the burn of ozone, could feel the crackling electricity that gathered as a noose about them; the simmering heat of the day was being undercut by a cooling plateau, the imminent threat of a downburst more actual than speculative. Before Spock might have called his captain’s name, he was turning with the dip of his shoulder. “Mister Spock?” 

Spock shifted his hand to cup Cardoso’s elbow as she tilted into him. 

“Recovered,” Spock said. He heard Gavelston gasp as she made her way over, the sucking sound of earth beneath her boots muddling her rapidity. She’d reached them just as Kirk too had drawn up beside him, allowing Gavelston to slip her steady arm beneath Cardoso’s. As Cardoso was wheeled about to join the messy circle of Ensigns, Spock dipped closer to Kirk’s ear. “Medical personnel will be needed.” 

Kirk glanced sideways at him, hand at the small of his own back. Kirk tugged free his communicator, the white gleam of his canine cutting into the chapped skin of his lower lip. 

“I’ll order it in,” Kirk said, matching Spock’s volume and pitch with an exactness that no longer surprised him. As he strode back to the center of the group, his expression evened. There was no sign of the earlier concern that flitted about the corners of his eyes, pulled tight at the muscles of his jaw. His voice was firm and unwavering, syllables certain and crisp. “Are we ready?” 

“Sirs!” Came the chorus. All eyes settled upon Kirk, upon Spock who stood just to the right of him. Spock spun about his tricorder, tucked it neatly into his palms. His fingers set to working quickly, dialing into the correct programming to lead them to an area they were sure to be beamed up without failure and interference. It took approximately 8.3 seconds, but Spock did not doubt that it felt longer to his Human counterparts.

“Coordinates are locked in, Captain,” Spock said, casting his voice up and over the low roar of the wind. It clawed now at their uniforms, sending the looser hems into a whipping frenzy where they refused to pull taut and flat. Lockwood’s tricorder pinged in response. It was standard practice to have two that carried the information. In the event one or the other were lost, at very least they could discern the radius of their beam up point without much fanfare. 

“Follow closely,” Kirk said, trudging forward against the unforgiving wall of air. He did not pause as he said it, and Spock and the ensigns followed him without hesitation. Both let the ensigns eclipse them, knowing that Cardoso and Mbanefo would have to set the pace. The pair would have to be beamed up first, injured and afflicted as they were. It was the only way to guarantee a possible stabilization, a favorable outcome where there might not have been any. “We’ll have to be quick about it.”  

Quick, as it turned out, was more a hurried walk. While Gavelston was able to cart Cardoso up into her muscled arms, Mbanefo was too heavy for Benoit to carry in a way that was comfortable. Kirk had offered to offload some of his weight, but all knew it would not be entirely practical; Kirk had to keep an eye upon his crew, as much as Spock and Lockwood had to keep track of their coordinates. They’d made forward toward their mark a sound 99.23 meters with another 8.21 before them, before all caught the sudden break of tension. Spock could hear the disturbance of minute mineral deposits, skirting up through the crosswinds. Considering the pressure and its trajectory, Spock shot a look toward Kirk. 

“Captain, the storm—“ 

The shifting of emergency packs was immediate. Gavelston quickened her pace as Lockwood sprinted to keep up. Masks and protective eye wear were tossed, some fumbling in desperation as they seized it with their palms. Lockwood went to Gavelston’s side with the extras, who slowed only enough to allow Lockwood to pull on her and Cardoso’s designated sets.

Dust gathered fast and thick at the horizon. Spock knew from the storms upon Vulcan that the odds of them all reaching Mister Scott’s designated point of exit would be 563 to 1. 

“Gear up!” Kirk shouted, pulling on his own equipment. Spock was left without a pair, a decision both he and Kirk understood. Spock needn’t have them. As for the Human group about him—

“What about Commander—“ Benoit started, voice barely audible above the rumbling charge of the storm. A “haboob,” as a Human would call it. They were destructive as they were cutting, as Spock knew with an immediacy why the ensigns opted to hide from the worst of it. Though they knew such disturbances easily covered the planet, it was not known how intense they could get.

They knew now. 

“As he says, Benoit!” Spock snapped, and Benoit quickly obeyed without further comment. 

Lockwood yelped as a powerful gust blew in, pulling merciless through their short hair. They were closing in on the beam up point, and Spock shuttered his secondary eyelids. It dampened his visual field, but he could make out Kirk and the ensigns about him. As they quickened their pace, Mbanefo hobbling as fast he might have managed, Mister Scott locked in. Doubtlessly, he could see the storm. And doubtlessly—

“Sirs!” Lockwood whipped about as their foot crossed the threshold, the atomization of their body already beginning. The remaining ensigns were already in, and Spock knew that the storm was too close. It was too close, and Kirk only just made it to Lockwood. He shoved them into the radius, sending Lockwood stumbling as they went. “Sirs—!” 

The dust storm hit.

They had only just made it behind a craggy rock formation in the end. 

It had been a terrible sprint, the dust and wind beating at their backs. Thunder had crackled under the force of it, the fierce gale biting into the flesh of Spock’s neck and ears. Kirk had gotten the least of it, but it nonetheless left him wheezing when it ended. It was impossible to seal any mask against such violent storms, and it was logical that Spock passed him some of the water left in the singular pack they bore once the weather again cleared with a haze about them. It would be some time before the disturbed minerals would settle again. As much as the licking rains persistently drizzled down in the aftermath, it could only do so much. 

As they picked through the planet’s natural shelter line, Spock took note of the peculiar flora that surrounded them. While it would not be prudent to stop at this juncture, it did not stop Kirk from considering the bright blooms that resembled a Terran orchid. They grew about the bark and branches of the thick trees, stretching languid toward the canopy. Contrasting with the natural blue of the leaves, their white and curling petals were stained almost violet beneath the perpetual twilight that comprised the narrow iris of the planet. If Spock were to hypothesize, each part and parcel of the land’s trees and flowers took upon an adaptation to soak in as much as the dim lighting that it could. As for their method of delivering nutrients—well, that would require closer inspection.

For now, Spock’s attention turned to Kirk, who was beset by a fit of coughing following the scrubbing of residual dust from his burnished hair. 

“Should you need it, more water is available to you,” Spock said, stepping over a high and gnarled root system. He turned to offer a hand to Kirk, who clasped his own about Spock’s clothed wrist.  

“That’s all right, Spock,” Jim said, hopping down upon the opposite side as Spock dutifully followed. The heel of their boots left imprints in the loam beneath them, bringing up a swell of water and mud. “You should keep some for yourself; I wasn’t the only one who got the worst of the storm, after all.” 

That much was true. In the scramble for shelter, Kirk had remarked that their situation must have resembled the ensigns before. After being whipped by the dust and debris that the storm dragged in, Spock had managed to discern a temporary place of respite. It required a tighter fit, tighter than most places that they might have found themselves pressed into, but no less foreign to either of them. As they listened to the wind howl, Spock insisted that Kirk take the space further back against the stone. Spock was more accustomed to the conditions and the debate was brief, after all. Kirk had not seemed entirely happy about the arrangement, but Spock knew that Kirk would have done the same for himself if he had not insisted. 

In either event, Spock worked his water into Kirk’s palm after another 22.48 minutes. Kirk grumbled about it, yes, but the dotting of sweat across brow gave way to the conclusion that the planet’s interior landscape was far more humid than anticipated. For Spock, it was not ideal. For Kirk? It was not wholly unsurprising to see his sleeves rolled up as far as they might have gone. It wasn’t enough to cool him, Spock knew as much, but it was enough to alleviate some of the symptoms; Humans needed to sweat to cool themselves naturally. As it stood, Kirk would not be able to effectively regulate his temperature for much longer. And thus, Spock’s inclination when they came to break the tree line was to scout for any suitable, shaded spot. 

What greeted them was not unlike the dales that spread across the open spaces of Earth’s England. While lacking the breezes and passages that melded to open oceans, the slope they stopped upon yawned into fields that grew wild and blue. While Spock had no doubt that the perpetual twilight deepened the azure hue, the grasses stretched high and unbroken about the banks of oblong ponds. The water within them was dark, almost too dark for a Human to surely register, but Kirk seemed to catch the ripples that broke across their surfaces each time the air shifted. He almost looked relieved when Spock glanced to his left, though his eyes flit to the tricorder that sat upon Spock’s hip. It would be wisest to test the plants that ran through, but wiser still to survey their water sources. As both listened, Spock could hear the steady churr of unnamed and unknown insects. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” 

Spock blinked. Kirk had already turned his gaze outward again, resting squared palms and fingers against his own hips. It nipped into the flesh there, little valleys that resembled the unending divots that lay before and surely after them.

“It is fascinating,” Spock gave over to Kirk, who let one corner of his lips quirk up in response. Kirk lifted one hand to dab at his forehead, minute beads of sweat staining the gold of his uniform. Spock did not comment, knowing that their clothes already resembled an inglorious spatter of dirt and dust and sand. 

As Spock slipped his tricorder off his shoulder, crouching down to observe the first rooting of the plants that held firm the soils and loams that came up to reach the embankment, Kirk let his eyes wander upward to the stars that hung heavy just over their heads. It was yet another space with which they were unfamiliar, but it seemed that both never tired of studying it. Once, Kirk had taken to naming and drawing haphazard constellations, to which new ensigns too participated. Spock had come to learn it was something of a Human “icebreaker,” a way to determine who was creative and who would independently play along. It gave Kirk an idea of who was willing to participate in a group, who would work better alone, and who was more practical in their application of knowledge. Spock found that while it was logical, perhaps, it was not a method he would have employed. In either respect, Spock was able to scan through the current samplings that gathered just in front of them. While the blades and roots were unusual in their structures, it appeared no more harmful to his reading than standard, Terran grass. 

“Analysis?” Kirk asked, his head still tilted upward. He must have heard Spock straighten, or perhaps anticipated the movement. The tricorder still whirred and clicked, which Spock promptly silenced with more practice than vision. He slung it back over his shoulder again, dusting off his regulation slacks. It was a useless endeavor. 

“No known traces of poisons or other irritants,” Spock said. Kirk lowered his eyes again, hands still upon his hips. He had focused his gaze outward, examining the dip into the belly of the dale. It would not be a difficult descent, but one could not spare injury in a place as remote and inaccessible. As the ensigns had been lost for four days previous under an equally powerful dust storm, it was better to err on the side of caution. “Considering our current state, it is likely best to also examine available water sources.” 

“I think you’re right,” Kirk said, turning his attention back to Spock without much fanfare. Kirk studied him as he often did, though its emotional contents were obfuscated when he signaled Spock over closer to him. Spock went without question or comment. “There’s a clear path down this way.” Kirk used his free hand to indicate, his first two fingers held parallel to the other. He’d long informed Spock that it was rude to gesticulate with one’s solitary index in many Human cultures, thus Kirk had applied his own adaptation to prevent misunderstanding. Spock, too, had later adopted it. “You should be able to pick out a decent place for water testing. The loam looks pretty wet.” 

Spock followed Kirk’s direction, determining with an increased certainty that his captain was not mistaken. The loam, pale though no less blue, appeared to be holding a generous amount of water. The humidity seemed to have gathered there, if Spock were to hypothesize. Or, at very least, rain was not uncommon within the iris of the planet. If one were to hold in place the idea of the dust storm and its resemblance to a Terran “haboob,” it was all the more plausible. 

As Kirk began to pick his way down the hillside, Spock too found himself trailing afterward. 

The grasses were higher than they appeared at the top, but no less navigable than either would have assumed. As they moved, Kirk compared their density and sound to Iowan cornfields. While they grew, it was easier to nudge one’s way through. It was only toward the fall that they dried, became less forgiving; until then, Kirk had said, they were pliant and freer to bend. He recounted to Spock, when he was testing the water, that he spent many days in the summer picking through the corn blades before they grew sharp; while his brother would run on ahead through the soil and dust, Kirk would take his time with the bodies of the husks, peeling them into thin, narrow strips. He would weave them together, he said. Complicated knots, looming them through his fingertips—he’d learned the hard way why it couldn’t be done without cutting your hand when they grew dry in the autumn. He’d wandered home with the red of his blood down his wrist, the throbbing of what he’d called a thousand knife points. Spock thought of the shrubbery that dotted his own planet, wondered what it was about Humans that insisted they try to plant anything once. 

Stubbornness, he surmised. A kind of tenacity that other species lacked. Stupidity, as others might have said. But, Spock had always thought the idea unkind; how could a species, no matter their frightening inclination toward taking risks, ever be considered anything, but innovative? 

It wasn’t to say it was something he’d ever admit outside of Kirk’s own quarters, but it was something he’d held firm nonetheless.

“Hungry?” 

35.47 hours on, Spock returned to their designated resting alcove following the agreed upon method of light-based communication. They’d found the sheltering stone some hours ago, a glittering crevice that ran deep enough to ensconce. It was low, yes, but no less effective against shielding them in part from the humidity and other such elements (rain, they’d discovered, was common enough). Yet, it was fortunate that their illuminating devices retained their charge, given that their remaining communicator and beacons were to be reserved for emergency use. To expend either was to jam possible contact with the Enterprise, a risky maneuver they could not afford. As it were, Spock had worked diligently the first night upon the planet to clear from the devices the residual dust and grit with a precise cutting of the internal lining of their singular emergency pack. To work about the internal components had not been difficult, but the delicate systems were prone to breakage and disruption; by the time that Spock had finished the cleaning of all four, Kirk had made his way onto their makeshift sleeping surface and surrendered to rest.

It had been more challenging to settle in beside Kirk without disturbing him. Spock knew well enough that it was remarkably easy to draw forth the instinctual reaction to turn toward the familiar, to pull closer toward its source. With Kirk, it was largely inevitable.  

Regardless, recollection surrounding the previous evening was not necessary. Kirk had asked him a question. 

Spock shook his head, mindful of the low ceiling. 

“Not at present,” Spock said. In response, Kirk’s eyebrow crawled upward toward his hairline. Despite the steam and smoke that parted and wove about the curves and angles of his face, Spock could read the unspoken insistence to share adequate nutritional sources. For Humans, the process of eating was more a necessity than it had ever been for him, but Kirk often skipped over Spock’s oft repeated facts around the subject. Kirk did so now, as he waited for Spock to take his seat across from him. 

Spock moved to sit.

Satisfied, Kirk tugged one sleeve of his uniform forward to cover the width and the length of his fingers and hand. He lifted the collapsible pot’s lid, releasing a plume of expected evaporation. Whatever it was that was cradled within was hot, but not hot enough that one might have burned themselves should they have chosen to lean in close. If Spock’s dampened olfactory system was to be trusted, it smelt green and fibrous. It was pungent, but not wholly unpleasant; much like dampened earth upon Kirk’s home planet, Spock determined it to be some form of edible vegetation. Perhaps fungi beneath, briny and blackened in reflection of their preferred, moist environs. 

“I am able to eat, yes,” Spock corrected slowly, pulling the tricorder up and over his body until he could lay it beside him upon the protective surface of their pack. 

“Good,” Kirk said, tucking the pot’s lid somewhere behind him. As Kirk did so, Spock was able to visually confirm his hypotheses as the steam finally dissipated. “Vegetables and mushrooms are just about rehydrated.” Kirk’s gaze flicked up and Spock met it without conscious effort. “If you want to dig out the bowls and utensils, that’d be appreciated.” 

Once settled, it was a simple matter of evenly distributing the meal and pulling the pot off the low burning contents of their humble fire pit. The foreign shrubbery they had taken to maintain it fed it, ensuring its continued existence in the most humid portions of the estimated “day.” As Spock took the first few bites of the food that Kirk had prepared, he discerned that he was indeed able to eat after all. The suppressed function of ghrelin sputtered into measured life, triggering his hypothalamus; that the food served was pleasant offered some assistance, the moderately seasoned fungi and vegetables inoffensive to his tongue. As Spock glanced up during the length of their comfortable and companionable silence, he noted that Kirk had opted to load his own bowl more with savory roots and mushrooms. Spock could make out the structure of some items that he did not prefer, absent from his own bowl as much as Kirk’s preferred options were absent from his. 

As they finished, Spock took Kirk’s setting and stacked it within his own. He would wash it later, when the planet’s weather was more agreeable to them both. 

“You’re quite skilled with the processes of food storage,” Spock said. He watched as Kirk stretched his arms, limiting his range to avoid clipping the circumference of Spock’s physical space. While touch between them was not unusual, it stood to reason that neither wished to elbow the other with the accidental jerk of their respective limbs. 

“Seems a shame to waste good produce every time we hit a star base or get sent down to rub elbows,” Kirk hummed, one hand flattening against its adjacent shoulder once he lowered his arms. He rubbed along the lay of his clavicle, grimacing as he reached just under the suprasternal notch. Kirk moved on, repeating the same motion in reverse. “I was angling to use these for a while, and I suspected you might enjoy these more than the standard issue protein bars.”  

Spock considered the warmth that gathered behind his ribs. It was sun-hot. It was as though the sands upon Vulcan, its unbroken surface just tolerable enough for a Human to touch at the cracked border between day and dawn. The corner of Spock’s mouth twitched.

“That is very considerate, Captain.” 

Kirk lifted two digits from the arc of his shoulder. It was a kind dismissal, paired as it was with the teasing lift of his brows. 

“Well, I got something out of it too,” Kirk said, his tone rounded and easy. His hand massaged downward again, pressing first at the juncture of shoulder and arm, and then back to the dip that held the long line of bone. “Any luck determining the source of that condition?” 

“Negative.” Spock had made it to the dale’s periphery, the azure grasses bending stubborn and stiff against the sloping sides of its abrupt indentation. Kirk had likened it to someone pressing their thumb into the soft rise of dough or the skin of some stone fruit. Spock had conceded as he previously watched the residual dust scraping still at the planet’s zenith, that such a comparison made some sense. 

Spock tilted his head. The angle was shallow, but Kirk was sure to catch it. “I have yet to test deposits beyond the natural shelter line. Perhaps when the dust settles, to borrow a Human phrase.” 

Kirk snorted, the low cut of the coal light painting the underside of his jaw a deeper shade of gold and red. Spock thought of his mother, the stories she would give to him in her gardens. As though one handing over a crafted bouquet, she once relayed that there was an old Terran game. She had learned it in her native Seattle, the children there often picking the blooms of the invasive and wild Ranunculus repens as June brought in the true wake of summer. They would hold the flower’s rounded heads beneath the underside of their chins, declare their love of butter if it reflected up its yellows. 

“A very logical course of action, Mister Spock,” Kirk said, schooling his expression into a simulacrum of neutrality. The green-gold of his eyes twinkled, and light contained within diffused as rays against the delicate skin of their corners. 

Spock wondered if Kirk had caught the gradual slip of his own affect. However, it was not something to be mulled over for a significant duration. Spock, having previously observed Kirk cycle through the same movement of his hand, decided it prudent to make mention of it upon the sixth pass.  

“You are persistently massaging the area about your sternum,” Spock said, reaching out to still the beginning of the seventh pass with the loose press of his palm against Kirk’s clothed wrist. His brow did not furrow, but his fingers did tighten only just as the tendons and bones within Kirk’s wrist jumped up to meet him. “Does it bother you?”  

The fire crackled. Spock felt its low burn against the underside of his arm, persistent and alive. It did not hurt, just as he suspected it would not, but it was not a sensation that could not be detected through the durable exterior of Vulcan skin. 

Kirk shook his head, his parted mouth closing as he adjusted to Spock’s grip. 

“Just a little sore is all,” Kirk said, and Spock let go of Kirk’s wrist. Kirk allowed it to linger within its loose grip for another 3.27 seconds, before Spock, too, pulled back and away. Kirk pursed his lips, his gaze casting downward to examine the spot he had been circling. It was an awkward angle. Spock suspected it was not comfortable. “It’s the strangest thing.”

Spock spooled back to the previous evening and the escape before it. He could not pinpoint an area that would have suggested a strain or a sustained pressure leading to Kirk’s present ache. It seemed too that Kirk could not come upon a suitable explanation, as he returned to a more natural position. He studied Spock’s face as though attempting to understand or experience his current processes. It was only at the end of his musings that Spock focused again. 

“Would you be amenable to removing your shirt?”

Kirk blinked.

“For the purposes of examination, sir,” Spock appended promptly. He suppressed the reflexive effects of vasodilation that threatened to climb the steps of his vertebrae and make play at the tops of his ears. He cleared his throat.  

“I was about to say that was quite forward of you,” Kirk chuckled, affecting a teasing leer. Spock lifted one brow in response, and Kirk’s shoulders shook even more for it as he made to obey the inquiry. His squared fingers tucked under the hem of his uniform, tugging the garment off with an alacrity that bordered on a deeper practice. Spock did not allow himself to speculate as Kirk tossed the shirt to the side, away from the glowing basin for their fire. The skin above Kirk’s regulation slacks was becoming damp with the incoming humidity, made all the more apparent for the way that the shadows ran slick into the curves and divots that comprised him. Spock took note of the way his hair curled about the shells of his rounded ears as he, seeing and not, let his eyes drift up. “Anything?”

The prompt was enough to bring Spock back to his original intentions, which he resumed with the more pointed scan of Kirk’s skin. Spock recalled that the ensigns had acted in a manner that suggested that the affliction pained them, and the continual contraction of muscle aside, the inflamed ring of flesh that puckered about a fresh patch of scaling was enough to confirm it. Spock needn’t have searched as long as a Human might for subtle changes; the reason became obvious as he let his attention drift toward the approximate middle of Kirk’s bared chest.   

 “Yes,” Spock said. His voice was softer than he might have otherwise permitted, but circumstance cared little for tone. Spock laced his hands together, his first two fingers steepling against the top of his right thigh as he laid them there. 

Kirk sobered.  

“What is it?” 

It was not a question in full, nor was it much of a question at all. Kirk’s hand lifted to his mouth, the pad of his thumb rubbing into the full of his lower lip. His lashes cast deep, sharp lines over his cheekbones as he lowered them. 

“Difficult to confirm,” Spock said, tipping his head to examine the spot again. It was the color of smeared ash, almost as if Kirk had marked himself with the cooled edge of fire. And yet, he found himself reluctant to either deny or make clear his speculation. “However, it resembles…” 

“A gray spot,” Kirk finished. His hand came to rest over the stranger affliction, feeling its roughened edges. As he skimmed his nails under the uneven radius, he sucked in a breath between his teeth. Spock resisted the urge to place his hand upon his wrist again, to cease the insistent exploration of the mark that tainted the otherwise golden skin between Kirk’s pectorals. 

“Yes,” Spock said instead. 

Kirk took up his shirt again. Despite the fluidity of Kirk’s motions as he pulled the fabric back on, Spock could see the line of tension that marred the even pull of his shoulders. If Spock were to study his back, he would surely see the way the muscles and bones tightened between his scapula and down the ladder of his spine. Spock was accustomed to it, having worked through the knotting in the nights that Kirk could neither sleep nor rest.  

 “Thoughts?” Kirk’s question rose after a stretch of silence, running his fingers through the mussed way of his hair. It did not lay neatly, but it held a more respectable styling than before.  

“Given that it appeared only after exposure to the storm to our limited knowledge, it is possible the two are related,” Spock said, watching the way Kirk’s jaw worked as he studied his expression. It was not a comfort for Kirk to know, but Spock too was aware it was something he would have rather known than not. Spock glanced down at his knotted hands. The knuckles were paling. It was an unacceptable allowance, which he amended with an immediacy that both hid and enabled the centering of himself. “I will collect samples of the deposits—“ 

Kirk swiftly cut him off. “Tomorrow, Commander. If you risk going out there right now, you’re risking yourself too.” He paused, his voice coming softer than before. He picked at the thread of his own sleeves, before folding them back and away from his wrists. He was overheating, Spock realized with a sort of absence. “You were as exposed as I was.” 

“Not entirely, sir.” 

That was not wholly true. While Vulcans held a natural advantage, he had tucked Kirk in behind him. For himself, it was most probable he would not be impacted as swiftly as Kirk himself was. Despite their reinvention of such materials and means, there was no stopping a poor seal about one’s mouth and eyes. If Kirk’s fit of coughing in the aftermath was any indication, his mask had been incorrectly applied. It was natural, given the urgency. It provided Spock no comfort.

“Almost as much,” Kirk said, rising to his feet. He bowed just enough to prevent the top of his from scraping the low ceiling with the belly of the alcove. “I’m going to take a dip in the lake.” 

To any other, it would seem a disconnected statement. To Spock, it made a perfect sort of sense. It would alleviate the itching and irritation of the skin, but moreover it would provide the lessening of the production of cortisol. As Kirk reached the mouth of the shelter’s opening, he straightened and turned. 

“Do you want to join me?”  

There was a strange undercurrent to Kirk’s present tone. It was not wholly unfamiliar, no, but Spock was aware that it was occasionally advisable to “leave well enough alone.” He opted not to look further into it.  

Spock shook his head. It was a slight movement, but enough for Kirk to discern his answer. “No, thank you,” Spock said, leaving it as he himself suggested. “Our wrist lights require further attention.” 

That was not a lie, but it was an obfuscation. The humidity of the planet made it necessary to work through the precise systems, to dry the pieces within. Spock had seen them cease working for less, heat and barely present debris gumming up the works. Kirk seemed to accept it for what it was, eyeing Spock with a kind of recognition. 

“I’ll tell you how it is when I get back,” Kirk said instead, sharply nodding in response. He, too, seemed to take a similar form of advice. “Good luck.” 

Spock took up one wrist light, working the threading loose over the laser’s top. “Luck does not factor into the maintenance of electronics,” Spock said, barely allowing himself to look up. He could see Kirk’s silhouette, stark against the sky behind him.  

Kirk made a sound, half-way to a laugh. It lit up the grim corners of his expression, made softer the pull of his lips. “Well, may you have an expedient maintenance session,” Kirk said, fixing Spock with a loose salute. It was unnecessary and without a proper adherence to protocol and rank. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.” 

Spock lifted three fingers from the face of the wrist light, balancing the thin glass between his thumb and ring finger.

“Sir.”

As it would turn out, Kirk took nearly two hours to return. 

While it would cause alarm among others in their crew, it was not uncommon for Kirk to spend time mulling in the privacy of his own quarters. Spock had observed it on several occasions. After difficult missions, during troubles that arose upon the Enterprise that disrupted her function, upon holidays that would overlap—Spock had seen and assisted with many “sticky situations.” Often, Spock found himself solving the riddle of crew rotations, making clearer the days of shore leave so as to not cause short staffing. On occasion, he would arrive at Kirk’s quarters and stash away preferred meals and beverages. While Doctor McCoy would undoubtedly disapprove should he have known, there were other times that he made himself distracted elsewhere. Despite their initial and continued differences, he and Doctor McCoy had settled into a form of understanding, loath as they were to mutually admit it.

And yet, Kirk had returned to their alcove without much fanfare. He’d ducked into the lowlight, shadows casting stark and deep against body. That, too, was something that Spock was not unfamiliar with; there had been many such occasions on many such missions, the slick of Kirk’s hair from the shower or pool as known to him as the hands that raked through it were. However, as Spock would come to decide in the humid duration, there were any number of things within the universe with which he was not yet acquainted. 

It had been 1.27 hours when Spock had heard it. Broken through the high, whistling sound of any number of insects, there had been the rustling of the tall, blue grasses. At first, Spock had thought it to be his captain; he had promised an hour, yes, but it would not have surprised him to see him at the mouth of their makeshift quarters then. Instead, as Spock had turned his head, there had been no figure to greet him. There had been no real vocalizations, no real answer as Spock had called out for him. No, it had only been the temporary cessation of movement. Stark still against the planet’s approximate dusk, there had only instead been muted, suppressed snuffling. Like a child left with a common cold, it continued on like that for many long moments. Spock, though he might have counted with exactness the seconds that flickered by, found himself overtaken by a profound sense of curiosity. It was not something that would harm him, no. Had it intended to, Spock had thought, it would have taken the opportunity. He was alone, seemingly without means of defense, and watched its likely location as it too watched him.

When it finally made its position clear, it was cautious and quiet. It was far enough out of its cover for Spock to make out its shape, the familiar wetness of a prey animal’s eyes. It was short and four-legged with sharp, cloven hooves. To his own perception, it resembled a deer. A deer, perhaps, with the curl of goat’s horns. Were he Human, he would no doubt have missed it. As it kneed its way further out of the grasses, its fur seemed to refract and bend the colors about it. And yet, there were mottling patches. They gaped and gasped about the absence, a painless and painful wound. Piebald, his mind had supplied as it fled back into the sea of blue stalks and stems as Spock thought to move—only thought. He observed as the grasses washed around it as waves, swallowing it entirely before he might have deduced its rough size and full form. All he could determine, of course, was that it was far smaller than that of the Terran animal that so frequently tread through open plains. Through wider fields, scattered with millions of winter-white flowers. Queen Anne’s Lace, Spock thought. Daucus carota.

Upon giving Kirk the information, however, he’d taken a seat across from Spock and idly rubbed at the bottom of his lip. He’d set to drying his uniform shirt beside the dwindling fire, watched as Spock added kindling to it. It was something they’d managed to save from the oppressive moisture that stuck to the air most of the planet’s “day.” 

“I might have to go and investigate for myself later,” Kirk said. The spot upon his chest had expanded. It was no further outward than one or two millimeters, but it had grown faster than Spock had originally estimated. He wondered to himself when it would be his turn to show signs of the affliction, but he suspected it may be soon enough. His heritage had often spared him the worst of what infected the largely Human crew, but the impact was often far more severe when it caught. If Kirk himself was wondering the same, he had not yet made his thoughts known. “I don’t believe I ever told you I was something of a hunter back in Iowa.” 

Spock felt a furrow form between his brows. He could not quite imagine the man who sat across from him felling any innocent animal, which Kirk seemed to pick up. He waved a hand, dispelling the confusion.

“I didn’t have an interest in shooting, mind.” Kirk’s lips quirked up. It was not self-deprecating. Self-humored, Spock would call it. It made the angles of Kirk’s face even softer, more boyish. “I just wanted to see if I could track them the old-fashioned way.” 

Spock paused, watching the way Kirk’s eyes crinkled about the corners. Crow’s feet , his mother once called them. He thought of a Kirk that would not yet be.

“That is unsurprising,” Spock told him instead. 

“I’m not that predictable.” 

Spock did not argue. The grumbling was enough, and it made his face gentle. A smile without one, Kirk had called it once. He tucked it in the cast of the shadow, in the absent turn of his head. He made himself busy with shifting about their singular pack, organizing where it did not need organizing. 

“The fauna appear to be crepuscular, despite the absence of a traditional day-night cycle,” Spock said. It was a “veer,” as he had heard the Human crew call it. It was not so severe as to be unkind, Spock thought, but rather the regathering of a loose end.  

 “Oh?” 

“Yes,” Spock said, looking back. Kirk appeared contemplative, eyes fixed upon the glow of the coals in the fire. “Based upon earlier, probable sightings and the one observed before you arrived, it would stand to reason.” 

Kirk hummed. It was the only animal that they had seen of that size, and it made Spock wonder why. He supposed it would be answered soon enough, if Kirk were to follow through on his suggestion. 

Of that, Spock had no doubts. 

Eventually, the planet’s morning found them. 

Though it had remained the same as it always did, they’d set to fanning out. With Kirk left to track the creatures through the high grasses and Spock to investigate the settling dust at the shelter line, they’d made an agreement to find the other before the estimable dusk.

At current, Spock’s internal chronometer ticked toward 15:00 and still he could not find an adequate deposit of the residual minerals cast up by the storm. While piles were abundant, many more were permeated by outside materials. While it was possible that such matter could be divided, it was not as reliable without further equipment. Given the haze that still hung in the atmosphere, it would be some time yet before their retrieval. Spock had speculated that the disruption to the transporter had been due to the mix of specific matter. It was why they could not retrieve the ensigns earlier, and it was why they too could not be picked up at all. 

Even so, given the current rate of the affliction upon Kirk and the (for now) absence upon his own person, it had become increasingly crucial to find a stopgap, if not the identification of a possible cure. If Spock’s hypothesis held, the deposits would reveal some kind of direction. It was the most that he—were he a Human and subscribed to such superstition—could hope for. 

And still, it had been nearer to 16:24 that he would come across a suitable sampling. The evening rains had emulsified many potential points of collection, but one copse had been spared. As he’d picked his way up the sloping hillside that held the blue grasses as though it were a bowl, he’d been able to deduce a natural line where the water did not seem to flow. It would therefore be indicative of a natural awning or the higher cut of stone, the former more ideal than the latter. And so, he’d dug his heels into the softer loam. He’d (rather ungracefully) pulled himself up and along the sloping divots in the earth, hands clasping at the exposed roots of trees neither named nor explored. For all that they could scan, the data would have to be later examined. For now, it was enough to know that was not an immediate cause for harm.

As for harm? 

The initial scans he took of the covered material were not so promising. He had run it twice to be sure, had skimmed through the read-outs in their entirety. As his tricorder clicked and protested and whirred, Spock took to examining the flora about him. It was still, for all that any plant matter could be still, and ripe with a life that did not suggest the endless, rolling dunes that drifted toward the planet’s center. He found himself wondering what the planet might have been like before it became tidally locked to its star, if such a place could have once been as it was in the dale. Or, perhaps—the tricorder ceased its third pass of mumblings. It was as before: stable and unyielding. Replicable in all ways and fashions, shed from the external variables that may have impacted it. There was no mistaking it. To have run it thrice at all? Excessive. 

And yet—Humans had any number of colorful phrases at their employ. Idioms and axioms, they had no shortage of ways with which to describe their states of mind or being. Would they, at this moment, say that their stomach “dropped”? Would they call it a stone that landed within their gastrointestinal system? Would they describe it in the way that one’s throat instinctively constricts at the swell of dread? It was not something Spock cared to acknowledge, but his body protested. It protested, as much as his mind protested. And it protested further yet, as Spock found himself itching about his own wrist. Reading through again would not change the results. It would not stop the affliction, would not remove it from Kirk or, as he now suspected, himself. 

Straightening, he knew the agreed upon time was nearing. Soon, he would be expected to compile the information. To sort it, as he would most typically sort it, in ways both meaningful and short. It was not a task he found himself looking toward. Nor would he find himself more inclined the further he moved back and toward their sleeping alcove, the rippling part of grass at his hips. 

“Spock!” 

It was a voice at a greater distance. His head snapped up. It was not an urgent call, but it was the wave of a hand and arm. A greeting. 

A parting, as something small and too fleeting that had followed along his wake without noticing also darted off. 

That evening, Kirk stirred the embers with a hefty stick he’d found speared into the fertile earth, solid for all the moisture that clung to the air as though a protective tarpaulin. From his crouched position, Kirk’s eyes turned upward as Spock ducked in. The rich orange of the fire caught Kirk deep and golden, the greener edge to his irises vanishing beneath the flickering light.

“Any luck, Mister Spock?” 

Spock regarded the slight upturn of Kirk’s mouth. It would not be information that pleased Kirk, he knew. Fresher recordings gave little, but what was new—Spock considered how best to present his speculations, the words painting rough against the fragile mucosa of his mouth, the softer wall of his cheek. He watched as Kirk gathered the pause and its meaning, but his surety had not moved. It was often something that steeled within himself a particular marvel. Were it any other, Spock had thought, they would not have responded as favorably to his report. And yet, that too was not an oddity. What once had been? 

Well, it was not something Spock needed to ruminate on. What had come to be had come to be. Kirk pieced apart the information, translated the way of Spock’s body. Spock had no such conclusions on where Kirk might have drawn from him the words left unsaid, but Kirk did so with precision. As one left to savor the remnants of tender flesh about the harder shells of stone fruits, he worked it over. And, after some silence, Kirk lifted the tip of the makeshift poker from the coiling flames and placed it down beside him. 

Kirk set his hands upon the crowns of his knees. The meat of his right thumb rasped at the side of its neighboring index. “Well, let’s have it.”

Spock straightened his shirts. It was not possible to bring himself to the full of his height within the belly of their “quarters,” but his hands found themselves tucked against the small of his back regardless. 

“Tricorder readings suggest unusually dense deposits of both sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate and sodium carbonate decahydrate,” Spock paused, watching as Kirk as nodded once to himself. He observed the way Kirk’s tongue worked over a blunted, Human canine. Spock felt his focus narrow upon it, a mistake he caught in the intervening 2.3 seconds. And yet, it appeared not long enough for Kirk to take much notice of it. Kirk merely blinked up at him, the shifting color of his eyes at once as studious as they were… Curious. “I surmise that we may have encountered the remnants of ancient extremophiles, if nothing else.” 

Kirk didn’t sigh, but the movement of his tongue desisted. He settled back against the standard sleeping sack he’d dug from the exploratory pack earlier in the evening, its surface spread open as though the wings of some bird. There had only been one available to them, the other lost to the storms that kicked along the horizon. They both knew it would have to be later located, but it was not possible as the gloaming swept in. Soon, the humidity would turn tail into fog, the dale providing a comfortable heat in the day and taking such heat back with it as the suns dipped lower against the planet’s edge. While they never quite set, the winds would shift. It would bring upon a shimmering haze, like water along a shoreline. Like silt, Kirk had said, toed up from the dark of deep, vernal ponds. 

“Well, that doesn’t sound too dissimilar to Earth’s Lake Natron,” Kirk mused, leaning over to unzip his regulation boots. He’d shucked his shirt some time ago, when the humidity was at its highest. Spock knew it to be because Humans could not control their internal temperature, much less when more tropical environs choked their natural ability to sweat. Spock too had not found it entirely optimal, but it was manageable with enough energy allocated to it. He watched as Kirk tossed his boots to the side, the soles knocking into one another. The dark earth, now dried, escaped from their treads in a lazy arc. “I’m sure you’re aware of it.”

“I am passingly familiar, yes,” Spock said, eyeing Kirk’s footwear. 

At his periphery, Kirk smiled in a way that suggested he was being “cheeky.” He knew well enough that Spock would circle the fire to set them to rights, as much as he would toe his own off to set neatly alongside. The look that Kirk gave him, glittering with amusement that flashed as though light off a lake, suggested that he did not disappoint as he set to do just so. It served as reasonable cover, dusting dirt from their leathers. Spock could readily ignore the way the muscles in Kirk’s back worked as he stretched. He could ignore the cracking of Kirk’s neck as he worked through his shoulders, made the fire gild along the twinned scapula as he worked his one functional arm over the other. It took more effort than Spock could bring himself to admit to pull his attention from the easy artistry of it. 

As Kirk leaned back on his elbows, shuffling his way to his “side” of the makeshift mattress, Spock knew it was unlikely it would be the last time they would make do with a singular sleeping surface. Kirk had insisted the “logical solution” was that they would share, despite Spock’s insistence that he could keep watch while Kirk rested. Kirk had argued that they could take shifts. And, though such negotiations had been wrestled over before, Spock knew well enough it would be himself who took the greater share of it. It was not difficult to endure, as much as it was not difficult to endure Kirk’s habit of edging Spock out of any bed. Kirk would often take approximately 65.2% of it, restless sleeper as he was. Though Kirk would often start upon his back, he would curl to the left then his right. His limbs would widely splay. Were it hot enough, he would naturally seek Spock’s cool skin. Struggling to dampen the furnace of his own body in rest, it wouldn’t matter how much of the linens Spock would untangle from the immovable span of him. No, no matter how Spock would attempt to relieve Kirk, Kirk would always fall into subconscious desire. He would mutter and murmur and Spock, ever conscious of his own touch, would curl into himself as a “kitten.” It was what Kirk had taken to calling it, whenever it was he awoke before Spock. It was rare, yes, but the one occasion was sufficient.

“I thought you might be,” Kirk said, gesturing for Spock to take a seat beside him. Spock silently did. Kirk’s ambient temperature was pleasing, though Spock held no such illusions he would not be soon reaching for the emergency blanket. “I’ve heard Vulcan has several like it.” 

“Not as such,” Spock said. He watched as Kirk stretched out his legs, flexing his calves as he did so. “You would find most equivalent lakes contain higher levels of potential of hydrogen.” Kirk’s gaze upon him was focused, a weighted and measured thing. He could feel it against him as though a touch, a palm against the sharp angles of his face. “Of the selected fauna that would find themselves drawn past their surface, their bodies are variably met with more expedient effects, the large sum of which remain dependent on outside environmental conditions.”

“And so you’ve drawn the conclusion that we stumbled upon one that’s long since dried up.” 

As Kirk laid back, so too did Spock orient himself into a mirrored position. He folded his hands over his stomach, feeling the measured way of his own respiration. They watched together as the flames skirted along the outcropping’s curved belly.    

“It is one hypothesis,” Spock said eventually. 

Kirk suppressed a laugh. Spock could imagine the way Kirk’s eyes crinkled at their edges, the way that his shoulders would so often dip.

“A real Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Pardon?” 

Kirk rolled onto his side. Spock could not help, but note that Kirk was close enough to touch without effort and within the realm of error. He willed his body to remain in larger parts still, to keep his limbs locked.  

“An old story,” Kirk said, seemingly unaware of Spock’s observations. Spock carefully tipped his head toward him. The distance was no more and no less than it had been within their once shared “flop,” but Spock felt something within his chest shudder and vise. He could name it, should he have wanted to, but he tucked it alongside the bone and marrow. It was not his to own or disown. It simply was, he knew. It would pass. “In the end, the wife of a man called Lot would disobey God’s orders not to look back. And, because she couldn’t resist the temptation to witness the destruction of the city behind her, she would turn into a pillar of salt.” 

Spock considered, for a moment, the truncated Human parable. He lifted a brow. “Were it not for the graduated processes inherent in standard mummification and the pursuant molding to any underlying musculoskeletal structures, I suppose the tale bears some comparison.” 

Kirk smiled. It was not unlike the way he most often did across the bridge, over each game of chess. The way that he did when there were no such disruptions, when it was just Spock and the man he called Captain. When, Kirk would coax him, to call him just “Jim.” 

“And the absence of any real dehydration to accompany it.” 

It was an idle addition, no more or less a standard point of musing, but Spock inclined his chin.  

“I refer also to the Human urge to engage in sufficiently contradictory behavior when given instruction.” 

Kirk’s smile widened, the hand not pinned by his body and immobilized by the unusual scaling fluttering in the space between them, before remembering that Spock’s shoulder was raw with the bloom of the affliction. Compromising, Kirk waved it once in the mime of a playful swat to the arm.

“Are you suggesting that we’re all disobedient children, Mister Spock?” Kirk asked, mock offense slipping off the syllables before he might have even affected it. His eyes were too alight with the spirit of mischief, mood sifting through the weariness of the day and settling, as it most often did, toward the sprawl of some hope. Spock, for all that he doused the practice of resting up against the emotion, was balanced by Kirk’s tempered expression of it. It was a comfortable baseline, something that Spock found himself marking Kirk’s daily disposition by. That its fluctuations were stabilizing was certain to ensure that Kirk gained some much required respite, a dissolution of excess stress—fuel, for the glow of his brilliant impetus.  

“I believe I suggested nothing of the sort.” 

Kirk guffawed, his dark lashes trembling against the delicate line of his cheekbones. For a moment, Spock could picture him lounging in their shared bed in the time of Edith Keeler, the bruise of the night cutting long and crooked shadows behind the bodies of ramshackle apartments. When the electricity flickered and died in their windows one by one by one, Kirk remained illuminated as though a candle from within. Spock had found himself guilty in the pleasure of warming himself by the glow of his captain, the way that he had once (and with humor) tucked the woolen blankets about Spock’s body as his mother once did. Spock could not recall the last time anyone, but Kirk had treated him with such tenderness. When Spock had told him he could regulate his temperature without the addition of an outside aid and implied that the linens were not so much linens at all as they were a facsimile, Kirk had to hold firm the bubble of laughter that climbed up his throat. Spock remembered the way it bobbed with the effort, but Kirk had always been considerate. The walls were, as his captain said, paper thin. There were children and mothers beneath the lay of their heads, tired lovers that could do no more than clamber into bed beside the other and trade conversation as though their lives were not filled with hardship. 

Spock knew that the difficulties would only continue. But, the optimism and determination that ensconced the Humans that picked their way through the society that made no room for their existence was something to be admired. Something, in some ways, was to be emulated.

The way Kirk looked at Spock now, the corners of his eyes crinkling with such sincerity and surety, was reason to continue to pretend alongside him.  

“Of course, my mistake,” Kirk said, catching his breath. His laughter rolled and hiccupped, started once and stopped again with the wobbling of his expression into a poor show of sobriety. “Carry on.” 

Lowering his hand once again, Kirk steadied himself with the flat of his palm between the valley of their bodies. It was becoming rapidly evident the position could not be comfortably maintained for long, but neither were willing to make note of it. Instead, Spock took up the suggestion. He knew Kirk would use the spaces afforded to him in conversation to make any adjustment appear natural, as he knew Kirk too would do for him. However, in absence of the crewmen and outside the contact with the Enterprise, it remained more habit than otherwise. Once such roles were shrugged into for the day, Kirk had once told him after a particularly harrowing excursion, they were difficult to take off. Spock had momentarily wondered over the veracity of such a statement, before coming to the conclusion it was parceled to him because Kirk trusted Spock to hear what remained in the unsaid.

It was such demonstrations that Spock held to mind utmost. 

“Your people’s Orpheus and Psyche,” Spock began, pointedly affixing his gaze on the ceiling above them. “Both, too, were punished for their failure to adhere to the terms instated.”

It was not an uncommon thread, Spock thought. Humans learned through their tales as much as any other species did. And yet, Humans had an unusual number of stories that circled the concept of what one would do for their curiosities, what they would sacrifice to sate it. Faith, love, stability—those individuals sought for a truth forbidden. If one were to dig through Vulcan archives, Spock held theories that their tales together would amass a considerable amount.   

“Only for a while,” Kirk said, the rebuttal coming after protracted consideration. Spock could feel the gradual shift of Kirk settling onto his back beside him, the barely caught huff of discomfort. “And only in classic depictions. We Humans were never any good at straying from a happy ending, even if it’s a fight to get it.”

It was a claim that was made before to him, the persistent need for Humans to pen stories that often ended in a sort of positive resolution; his mother had once expressed to him that she preferred those with satisfactory conclusions, ones that did not make her chest ache with the enormity of sympathetic or empathetic responses. It called to mind the memory of his mother in her garden, the sweet night blooms unfurling against the reddened dusk. She habitually sat out at these hours, finding the high heat of the day in the driest seasons almost unbearable without additional precautions. Spock could admit to himself now that he found such occasions peaceful, that he would join her with the intention to read alongside her. He had never quite understood why she preferred the solidity of a bound book, but his mother had smiled when he’d first asked her. She had told him that she enjoyed the feel of the paper, the scent it exuded when it was particularly old. Spock remembered it as a kind of musk, the more yellowed the pages the more intense it was. As he grew, he learned that Humans often tied olfactory input to long-term recall. Unlike Humans, the dampening of Vulcan senses did not categorically contribute to depressive symptomatology; it was something his mother had worried for, once. 

And still, despite the deluge of his questions after the impromptu sessions terminated, she would always welcome him. She would adjust the speed of her reading, assist him in untangling the lettering when he required it still. She would pass the tip of her index finger along the neatly stamped lines, sound along the syllables when shameful frustration creased his then smooth brow. But, there was such a time that he’d found his mother upon the bench she favored, where she would commonly rest. Under the fading sunlight, she’d wiped at her cheeks with the back of her sleeves. She dabbed at the edge of her dark, wet eyes. The book laid at her side, dog-eared along the final, few pages. Her mouth turned up a little at their edges when Spock lingered at the doorway, her hand waving him into the garden despite her display of open emotion. 

It had been a sad book, she’d said. It was one she found she had no interest in reading again. When Spock later found it tucked along her other novels, he’d flipped through it with the intention of discovering what about it made it so. As he skimmed through, he found it was not a story that he was compelled to invest his time in, but recognized the ending as something that would have drawn his mother to weeping. It was in all ways loss, something sharp and bittersweet—a bitten tongue of language, the absence of what could have been and what would never be. 

“I was not aware there existed any favorable outcomes for Orpheus,” Spock said. The question wove through the lattice of his ribs. Spock was aware of Human tendency, yes, but was he truly? 

There was a pause between them, so long that Spock would have mistook it for Kirk’s drifting into the realm of the unconscious if not for the regular rate of his respiration. It was heavy, but not discomforting. It simply was. It would have been something he would have accepted if Kirk had wished it to remain, but Spock found himself stealing a glance at the man who rested beside him. It was not for Spock to see, but still he found himself watching. He found himself waiting, for something he could neither dissect nor justify.

“Mister Spock,” Kirk said softly and finally. His eyes were turned upward to something beyond them, beyond the ceiling of the alcove that glittered, faint like distant stars. “When given that kind of a show, there’s never an end to what-ifs.” 

It was Kirk’s soft breath against the side of his neck that roused him. 

It was not uncommon to awaken with Kirk’s shoulder to his, his hand flung across the linens whenever it was that they shared a space of rest, but it was uncommon to find Kirk burrowed against him. It was exceedingly peculiar to find that Kirk had tucked his arm over the crest of his hip, the silvery fabric of the emergency blanket crinkling as Kirk grumbled and muttered something about warp cores and engines—the environmental controls gone afoul on the ship. 

“Captain,” Spock said, soft so as to not startle him. It did nothing at all to sway Kirk from the tight grasp of slumber, and so Spock modified his speech. He tried again. “James.” 

There was no real response. That was, until Kirk burrowed further into him. Now pressed to the line of Spock’s back, he could feel how cool Jim was. With the fire burning low in the pit, Spock could speculate that the early dawn within the twilight did nothing to aid him. However, tangled up with Kirk as he was, it was currently impossible to do so without snapping Kirk into unceremonious awareness. Spock let out a breath as Kirk breathed in. As Kirk did so, his hand moved to settle against Spock’s abdomen. Pulled further back against Kirk’s body than before, Spock could feel the usual swelling of a Human penis; it was a quirk of biology that often beset their species, he reminded himself. It was perfectly natural for those with the organ to experience it, that it meant nothing in particular. It was simply what it was, and it was simply present. 

“Jim,” Spock prompted, a touch louder this time. Kirk made an incoherent noise, pressing his face further into the curve of Spock’s shoulder instead. Spock, in tandem, raised his mental shields further than most mornings would allow. It ached like sore muscles, a pull without the requisite stretch. It kept Spock free from the bulk of Kirk’s unfiltered and half-conscious emotions and thoughts. Yet, they still draped themselves against the boundary Spock had placed between them. Like the haze that rolled as waves past the mouth of their alcove, made the blue of the grasses that spilled into the dale look as though a sea, Spock could feel each shapeless awakening as a shoal of silvery fish. They flickered and fled, left shadows where Spock refused to see them.   

“Too early,” Kirk said eventually, voice thick with disuse. If Spock concentrated, he could feel the temperature variation between the tip of Kirk’s nose and its bridge. He attempted not to, given their current position, but disruption would rise soon enough. Whether it be fire or food or some impossible flood, it was not quite a squirming he committed to beneath Kirk’s insistent touch, but it was certainly a careful shifting. It was certainly a suggestion that it would be best for Kirk to cease.

“Jim,” Spock said again, a touch louder than before. Kirk pulled in a sharp breath. Spock heard his teeth clack, the confused muddle of his awakening. It was a sound and a texture that Spock had encountered before, made to share more often than not a place of respite for the evening. Spock held himself patient. 

“Huh?” Kirk mumbled, lifting his head from Spock’s shoulder in an instinctual response. His breath came as a body-warmed gust. It was small, for all it was applied undue significance. “What’sit?” 

“You are presently holding me captive, to borrow a turn of phrase.” 

“Oh,” Jim said, uncomprehending. He made to lay his face back against Spock’s shoulder. It was only then, his body coming into further awareness, that Kirk seemed to realize what it was he had been doing. Or, more accurately, what it was he should have done. “ Oh .” 

It was an awkward bit of maneuvering that followed, Kirk’s body locked in newer directions. It bore no better for Spock. The affliction was moving, seizing. While it had left much of their bodies alone, it did little to provide them comfort. If the rate of its growth continued at such a rapid clip, it would not be favorable to either of them. It was that unspoken knowledge that remained beside them, a specter in the waking hours. It would inevitably send them out into the wilderness again, seeking out further answers. With the readouts in hand, there were a few items that might at least serve to assist them. It would be imperfect, it might not have worked at all, but it was better than to leave the scaling as it was without protest or argument. When presented with new challenges, there had always been a part of Spock that would seek their conclusion. Were he to be labeled persistent, he thought, Kirk was twofold.  

“Sorry about that, Spock,” Kirk said, finally sitting up. Spock provided him the Human need for privacy and adjustment, letting Kirk shuffle about this way and that. The warmth that Kirk’s body had impressed upon him still lingered against his own skin. He thought of taking it into himself, releasing it. The hardening mass of a star.  

“You have caused me no offense,” Spock said, turning and sitting up only once Kirk settled behind him. He had once attempted to explain that such bodily functions were natural to another, much to their increasing distress. It was through that experience, that Spock no longer attempted to move through the process to dispel any residual, Human discomfort. It seemed rather strange to him, but Humans always held such curious taboos around basic bodily activity. 

He pointedly did not think of Vulcan’s. 

Kirk chuckled, a little sheepish. It made his mouth tug in a way that Spock had rarely seen. Kirk was never shy, but there was something about it that seemed distinctly protective of some bruising, emotional core. “Must’ve gotten cold. I don’t think I’ve tried to grab the covers before.” Kirk rubbed at the spot on his chest. It was an awkward movement, caught as his arm was in part at the hinge of his elbow. Spock cataloged the spread upon himself, upon Kirk who made it all the more obvious as he worked through his standard, morning stretches. “Probably the calcification.” 

“Scaling,” Spock corrected, and he knew Kirk was laughing by the wrinkles that formed at the corners of his eyes. If Kirk took notice of his noticing, neither admitted anything outright. “With your body’s inability to thermoregulate reliably, it is not impossible.” 

Spock set to folding the blanket. The silvery sheen of it cut stark against the exposed skin of their bodies, catching matte at the afflicted patches of skin. It reminded Spock of limescale, the pass of a feline’s rougher tongue. Kirk had compared it to the first time he’d set upon the ocean, scraped his knees along the rocks. Barnacles, mussels—Kirk had described the waters about him frothing pink and red. 

“Are you telling me I’m something of a radiator, Mister Spock?” Kirk asked, the unmarred skin of his cheeks still reflecting Human vitality as Spock spared a glance up. 

“I fail to see how antiquated heating devices relate to the subject,” Spock said, dusting off the top of the folded bundle he’d created. He tucked it into their rucksack, in much the same way he disguised the upward twitch of his lips against the accommodating dip of his shoulder.

Kirk snorted that time, retrieving the poker he’d taken to using last night. He nudged Spock with the dry, snubbed end. It left an imprint of black ash just above the sleeve of his dark undershirt. Spock did not wrinkle his nose, but he did lift a brow in question at the childish impulse. 

Kirk’s eyes glittered. 

“Well, we’ll see if this radiator can’t make us some breakfast before we go scout,” Kirk said, immediately setting about to stir the embers and ashes back into action again. Spock watched as the flames stretched like a yawning tongue as Kirk pulled from their pile of tinder to feed it. Little, strange fingers of grasses—an ocean consumed by the sun. “We’ll need it.” 

It would turn out that they would. 

As the planet’s dawn cycled into its dusk, they had been no closer to a solution than they had been at the start. Together and apart, they had only come upon a sufficient and temporary balm for the itching. In the reeds toward the still ponds upon the planet, it had only been at Kirk’s insistence that Spock take a moment to pull off his regulation boots and wade into the black waters beside him. In the ink of that maw, Spock had privately admitted that the seizing skin nearest his joints felt the better for it, for that seeming weightlessness afforded by buoyancy. To Spock, it had been a novelty to see any significant body of water upon leaving Vulcan. As the years spanned on, the stimuli ponds and lakes and oceans provided appeared to him at times inordinately raw; it was a natural response, he had justified. When his species adapted in such ways to seek out the necessary hydration, when evolution set upon them an unusual acuity to dowse for any trace of it, was it odd? Spock hadn’t convinced himself it was.

“Instinct can be a powerful tool,” Kirk said. Insect song picked up about them as Kirk inevitably tread further in. A Human’s body was far lighter than a Vulcan’s ever was, and he knew quite well his captain’s odd fondness of floating in any respectable pool of water. It was like being cradled, Humans had tried several times to convey to Spock. But, Spock had already experienced it once. Upon a deader sea, far from those upon Vulcan—he’d found himself drifting once under Kirk’s observation. It was briny, the salt a heavy tang against the back of Spock’s tongue. Kirk had asked him if his curiosity was sated, the red of it biting into his uniform once he’d determined its passive antimicrobial properties. A “good place for a rinse,” the new colonists had called it. They’d both been coated in dirt then too, and dust. 

Spock found himself admitting then that he’d have to take a portion back with him to answer all possible questions he had about the water’s usage, but he had always suspected that Kirk knew were the sample was. 

Spock watched Kirk as he managed to steer himself onto his back. His mobility was not yet reduced enough so as to prevent the action, but it was enough to make a mess of the process. The still water parted and poured over Kirk’s kicking foot and the flexing muscle of his thighs. As Kirk turned his eyes toward the sky, Spock did not put forward conversation. He knew sound to be muffled to Kirk in these instances, that sometimes the intricate clockwork that was Kirk’s mind needed moments of silence to process. Perhaps that was why, under the perpetual bruise of the twilight, that their increasingly emboldened visitor again made an appearance. 

It was a small smudge at the horizon line, the weight of its black eyes just heavy enough for Spock to register. He’d known Kirk had been less than satisfied by their progress in the past hours, knew even more that Kirk would attempt to recoup the lost opportunity by remaining awake longer than he might have otherwise would. But, the scaling had made them both tired. The further it spread, the more energy their bodies expended to combat it. It was a natural consequence. And, as Spock was the one most equipped by biology to endure, he would endure it. To remain awake would not tax him as much, he knew. And yet, Spock was under no such illusion that Kirk would accept it. 

When had he? When would either?

Their mutual tenacity, for the moment, bore few dividends. But, that had never mattered over much. They had seen worse, known worse. They had muddled their way through and about, among the bands of time that spared little for them. It would do neither good to wallow. That wasn’t what either were inclined toward. 

Kirk moved himself about to settle beside him. Upon his feet, the water up to his elbows, Kirk had left his hand hovering over the bend of Spock’s arm. Had he called him over? It was something Spock wondered, recalling the fits of unsteady consciousness that plagued the more afflicted ensigns. But, no—in not looking at Kirk, in examining the spaces that laid beyond him, it had given him information enough.

How long had it been since Spock had not studied him? He could not recall. Would it have mattered? 

Terran evolution indicated that fauna with greater swathes of exposed sclera or increased variance in coloration between visual structures developed it to enforce communication through eyeline. It was what he had told himself in the beginning, when he would catch Kirk so often following his own observations. It was a natural form of bond strengthening behavior. It was a way to comprehend how the other was thinking, what they were thinking about. Behaviorists of the pre-modern world made games at guessing what way another’s eyes would turn when thinking or remembering, spinning fabrication or laying truth. They had taken to debating the merits of such teachings one evening. It was a longer one, by Kirk’s metric. Their shift rotations had been laid to unenviable ruin by holidays and illness. Kirk still retained he had not been among those who were sick, but Spock had never believed him—not that Kirk believed that Spock did. Kirk had been irritable, though Spock preferred to ascribe the shift to an increased level of cortisol. But, the argument about what was what and who was who was not important. What was, was that Kirk had shared with him a knowledge of deeper communication. That, in that moment hung in the blackness of space as though the brightest mote, Kirk understood him in ways he had not grown to anticipate anyone would have before or now or since.  

McCoy had once said they often spoke without speaking. That, in the buffering silences between the present and past, they could pull from the other what the other had not yet vocalized or fill what the other lacked. Now, Kirk made up for the absence of Spock’s alert. He touched upon the bend of Spock’s arm, the wet of his uniform muting the contact between the bare of his skin and the bare of Kirk’s palm. 

“Good eyes, Mister Spock.” 

Spock tasted water on the back of his tongue as Kirk’s fingers squeezed nearer the joint of his elbow. It was a light pressure, enough that it conveyed a muffled sense of sincerity. As though a praise spoken from another room, under the din of other conversation, Spock felt shame make its home in his foundations. And in the next breath, he felt it piece itself apart. 

Perhaps his eyes might have given them more information, after all. Perhaps it might have given them further intel to work upon. Perhaps, in the warm way of Kirk’s body in the nebulous waters beside him, they would have further information to stew upon when they got back. Back to the cave, the Enterprise—somewhere beyond. 

The smear of white on blue was the pattern they’d followed as it turned tide and back within the labyrinth of grasses. Like seas parting and then falling, Kirk made a mark of its location and Spock repeated it back with numerical precision. It stood to reason that if one such larger creature could survive without falling to the scaling, that perhaps there was something that prevented its inevitable progress. Or, at very least, there was something else upon the planet they had not yet been seeing. If there was more yet to test, there was more yet to discard. 

And if there were more yet to discard? 

That evening, as the rains convalesced about their alcove, they planned their trek for tomorrow. Unfolding the blanket and bedding, making use of the flames that still billowed low in its long-burning basin, Kirk traced out an ashen map against the ground beneath them. They ran through the data Spock had collected again, their hair half-dried from their earlier dip. Conversation flowed, then flooded. 

“It might stand to reason that they’re eating something in the environment that’s allowing them a natural immunity,” Kirk said, yawning. The scaling had begun to encroach over his clavicle, gold on powdered silver. Like scales over a butterfly’s wings, matte and muted. It seemed to Spock that if one were to rub their thumb along the progressive spread, it would reveal to him a blessed and accursed transparency; an attic window, motes of degraded skin and particulate swirling about the recesses no longer accessed. 

Spock shifted, Kirk’s presence at his left both solid and Human-warm. Kirk had opted to settle side-by-side, knowing it easiest to convey a drawn trajectory without the bother of spatial translation. As he’d gone along, he’d painted his fingertips an earthen black. Black, like the color of fields turned over—like the mud of humid coves, millions of years of minerals and organic materials ground to make an ichor. 

“It’s not impossible,” Spock said, watching as Kirk used his unburned thumb to cast the shape of an idle arc in charcoal. He tipped his head as Kirk continued, a rhythm without immediate or discernible purpose. “However, considering the number of flora available upon the planet’s surface, it may not be practical or advisable to determine the exact specimen.”

“Not enough time, you mean.” 

Spock remained silent. Kirk lifted his thumb to draw another, smaller arc beneath the first. He did not sigh, but he breathed once and heavy through his nose. It was a dampened sort of sound, made damper still by the restricted way of Kirk’s chest. 

“There is also the possibility that the creatures may have developed a unique adaptation that is otherwise unavailable to us without direct observation or contact,” Spock said, with some eventuality. He glanced at Kirk, who was not so much looking back as he was fixated upon the pattern he was making on the shelter’s floor. It was quickly becoming more of a means to clear from his fingertip the residue left behind the charcoal, though Spock did not think it important to comment that there were more efficient means to do so. “They are quite skittish.” 

“Reminds me of someone else,” Kirk said. 

Spock lifted a brow. 

“There is no need to insinuate that I am some startled animal.” 

Kirk rubbed his hand over his slacks. His mouth tipped upward at the corners. There was the hint of blunt, Human teeth. 

“That’s not what I’m insinuating,” Kirk said. His shoulder pressed into Spock’s as he twisted about to lean in conspiratorially. “I’m insinuating that we have someone aboard that skulks about the labs at oh three hundred on a Terran Wednesday and makes themselves scarce the moment the lights come on.” 

“There are experiments that require observation at intervals.” 

Kirk snorted. Spock knew Kirk’s lashes to be thicker than many Humans he frequently encountered, but the contrast was most apparent within a set proximity. He had been closer to Kirk before, but had rarely had the opportunity to study them. He had seen Kirk put them to use with chance paramours; an action Spock had once thought an exaggerated means of conveying flirtation in old holovids. When he had asked Kirk, he had choked upon his coffee and never confirmed. 

“Yes, yes,” Kirk said, waving a hand. The movement was truncated. “And when there isn’t?” 

The fire crackled. Spock evened his expression, felt through the gives. He stretched one leg out before him, mindful of the coals that sputtered about the rim of the pit. For a moment, Kirk’s smile seemed to soften. The terminology for such an expression played about the periphery of Spock’s lexicon. Were he audacious enough to assume its definition, he might have labeled it. He might have recognized it.

Spock turned his head instead.  

“Then there are graver issues than observational intervals.” 

The weight of Kirk’s shoulder burned a line against his. 

It was not Vulcan to dream as Humans do. 

It was something Spock had been told, something he had attempted to embody. And yet, the mind’s natural processes were not beholden to insistence. For as much as Spock had tried, the slivers of the day would sometimes prickle their way through. They would thread through the twill and twine of his subconscious, shape themselves in forms amok. They would burn through the territory of matter that Spock held sacred and secreted, shields lowered to the blistering bodies of what he could not untangle in his meditations. And, for all that they were seldom since he’d taken up his service, they still came. They still emerged. They still made him stagger, some nights, into the darkness. No matter how many times he had told himself that they would not occur again, there were always more. And yet, once plucked—

That Spock found himself enmeshed in the memory of indigo grasses was not surprising; his body was suffering the effects of a heretofore unknown affliction, his immune system struggling to make sense of the intrusion. It was seeking patterns through the day, attempting to discern anything that might have been of use to him, his captain. It was filtering over detail, the minutiae that most would not concern themselves with. In the boundary of sleep, Spock heard the trill of foreign insects, the calls of other lifeforms that did not show themselves. They had all been objectively small in their stature, Spock had noted. It was of the first observations he had made, his eyes having tracked the odd cervids 2.41 days previous. They had shone and flickered like silver fish, the translucent quality of their pelts reflecting back their surrounds. 

That had been, Spock recalled, except for one.

And yet, dreams cared little for the intentions of the dreamer. Whether they be lucid or not, there was only so much within their command. It did not matter that Spock “pocketed” such information for later, because he was led along a narrow path through the dale. It was one that he and Kirk had carved, their weight bending stalks—making game trails. Kirk had made a comment upon this, once. Crop circles, Kirk had called them. A famous hoax, stirred up by the Human minds entranced by the stars far and cool above their heads. Spock had not understood the reason for fooling their fellows, but Kirk had mentioned the mischief inherent in Humans. They had been prone to jest since time immemorial, incomprehensible exchanges of information made only for the purposes of laughter. He had looked at Spock then, eyes soft and smile sweet: But, I think that’s a trait shared by more than just Humans, don’t you?

Spock had no true comment. He deflected, dry in the curl of his tongue. He allowed himself a moment. He allowed himself a breath, meeting Kirk’s assessment. Giving, he’d thought, an ounce of himself back to the man who too parceled over to him more than Spock might have once bore. And why? Why, he had wondered, had he been so selected? It had been natural to lend an ear as needed. It was dictated that he challenge calls and make suggestions as the First Officer of the crew, but Spock could not remember when it had only been held in such capacity. He could not dredge from the banks of his memory, not in here, how long he had regarded Kirk as something more weighted. 

Spock curled his right hand. It grasped at nothing, but something urged it. Something urged it, as much as something within his subconscious urged him to follow the dark crown of another’s head. Weaving and running through the densely planted fields, the moons of the planet brought forth the comparison to a blackbird, the sheen of their hair drawing up blues. If Spock paused, and pause he did, he could hear them speaking. He could make out scripture and tenets. 

He could scent copper on the wind.

Spock knew that following the specter would bring no insights, but his mind led anyway. It led anyway, senseless and stumbling. The further and deeper he went into the mass of grasses, the more it seemed to consume him. Eventually, and through no power of his own, he drew the conclusion that the grasses seemed to swaddle him; arced as ink-stained fingers far above the top of his head, he could do more than listen to the movements about him. He could do no more than idle in the root and stem of his own thoughts, his senses dulled to the steady thrum of his heart. And yet, no instinctual adrenaline arose from the predicament. His body was still, silent. Instead, it was waiting. It was waiting, as though for the stars to wink into the spaces before him, but Spock saw only the parting of dirt and loam in the moments that followed. He could not read the prints that were left behind, but he could see a hand in negative. He could see himself, his younger self. He could see his own bruised knuckles, wrapping about and pulling at his current bonds. 

“You are not meant to be here,” Spock told it.

“That is illogical,” it said. Its eyes lifted, sad and dark. “It is here that I’ve always been.” 

Spock’s brow creased. “You are a fabrication.”  

It paused, its small fingers releasing the stubborn flora that held Spock as he now was. 

“That is so,” it said. “But, I was made.” It tipped its head. There was no malice in the action. It was something Spock knew to be his own movement, his own consideration. “I am your response.” 

Clarify , Spock made to demand, but the illusion dissipated. It dissolved, as the sense of space about him dissolved. It dissolved, as his words so often did.

Usually, Spock need not have grasped the further context of expedient dissolutions, not if they began as such. There was nothing to grasp at, not truly. Not in full. It was more a sifting of further information, the brain picking through what should be prominently stowed. For Spock, it was a process that was more pleasing a thing to mull about. It meant his mind was attempting to further make order. It meant there was nothing he would be required to do, not that evening. But, on nights such as these—there was no rest when he awoke. There was only shifting himself back into the practice of meditation, attempting to unravel the tightened threads of considerations and conflicts he did not know that he had. That, perhaps, he had neglected in favor of a more seamless existence. 

One, if he were drawn to deeper honesty, that was less inclined toward the prospect of loss.

As he drifted for minutes or hours or days, Spock was only stirred when he felt the touch of something warm. It poured through the slides of his carefully compartmentalized mind, the scent of rain following its wake. He could not draw upon what it was meant to be, only that it tended to his systems; it was a respectful visitor, if one could consider an entity formed by one’s own mind respectful. It was only until it lingered about the periphery of selected memory, that Spock realized that he was reliving. The bite of a Terran apple, the sting of hot sands beneath the naked soles of his feet. His mother, waving at him on his way to the Vulcan Learning Centers. (She had never known he was aware of it.) A thousand, disparate pieces of the Enterprise. Uhura’s singing, Sulu and Chekov bantering at the helm. McCoy grumbling something about annuals over the intercom, Scotty’s voice plotting over complex engine details. Kirk. 

A hundred thousand cataloged expressions. Every touch. Every sentiment. Every confession passed to him within Kirk’s quarters, his broad shoulders slumped in defeat. His laughter. Each, shared victory. The way Kirk’s mind was gilded. The way that Kirk was gilded. The way that Kirk slept, cloaked against any sunrise and sunset. The upturn of Kirk’s gold-green eyes, the way they illuminated when Spock humored and made at play. The way that Kirk knew, saw, and returned. The way that Spock would never admit such knowledge to any, but Kirk would readily fold himself into the ruse. 

Kirk’s hand, seized by the gray wash of scaling.

A window shut, a door closed. A molding of sound, shaped in ways that Spock might understand. The clatter of footsteps down staircases and down paved roads. A break in the weather, unexpected rains in San Francisco. Spock uncurled his right fist. 

As the cool water hit his opened palm, Spock awoke gasping. 

Something else gasped back. 

In the end, it was Kirk who had roused himself through coughing. Under Spock’s careful inspection, it had become quickly evident that the scaling had moved up Kirk’s torso, tucking itself into the valleys of his ribs. As he drew breath, Spock could see that the ability to expand his chest wall was impeded, leaving his inhalations and exhalations reedy and thin. It was fortunate that the non-rebreather could be located within the emergency pack, but both were cognizant of the fact that, unless otherwise able to naturally overcome the affliction, it would provide little comfort once it progressed. As much as they could ensure a higher quality of oxygenation, Spock could not offset the inevitable paralysis. Neither could. 

It was something that Spock was forced to calculate as he pressed his lips into a thin line, traced the round of Kirk’s shoulder with a carefully gloved hand. From behind, Kirk’s chest rose and fell—shallowly, but sure. The scaling flaked at the edges as Spock moved one fingertip under the fresh line of an extension, bringing a low sound of relief up to Kirk’s lips. Spock knew acutely how irritated the skin beneath became, feeling his own infection crawling in measured stripes down the length of his bicep. While it was slowed in response to his own physiology, it would not be long until he too required supplemental oxygen. For all that his lungs were equipped to accommodate thinner atmospheric conditions, they too were not immune to the impact of sustained, restricted movement.

“You were saying that you were visited?” Kirk asked, voice muffled beneath the mask once Spock allowed him to turn about. Kirk’s face was wan in the early hours of the planet, made all the more apparent in the low cast of the firelight. Spock had not yet re-stoked it, more focused upon settling Kirk as he floundered into consciousness some minutes earlier. Conversationally, once they had located the non-rebreather, Spock had referenced the possibility of an interloper. And, before Kirk could rally into his firm and deliberate attention, Spock had moved swiftly to confirm that all was secured and well. 

“Not as such,” Spock said, working his body to the left to retrieve the container of water they had taken to storing in their makeshift quarters. It had long since boiled off and was pleasantly cool, which Spock suspected would be welcomed news. While Kirk would likely be unable to manage consumption of water without further inciting another round of coughing, it would temporarily soothe the residual itch that bloomed along the border of newer scaling. He poured Kirk a cup, passing it to him with measured movement and restricted care. Kirk fixed Spock’s own cup with a pointed stare until he filled it too, knowing there would be no further conversation without concession. Spock did so, which seemed to relax the tense line of Kirk’s shoulders within their current range of mobility, though Spock held no designs of drinking the liquid that now sat idle in his cup. “I theorize the creature we’ve been encountering has an innate psionic ability. When it came upon our campsite, likely in search of food, my sleeping mind provided an ample opportunity to assess our intent.” 

Kirk poured off some water from his allotted ounces, letting it pool in the opposite palm. It flashed orange and golden against the cast of the coals as he spilled it in a lazy stream down the skin of his back, stretching against the impeded range of motion with an almost contained wince. Spock thought, briefly and shamefully, that he should offer Kirk assistance. And yet, to offer it would undoubtedly bring each other pain. 

He did not examine if it was realized in the literal or figurative. 

“You’re dismissing the possibility of curiosity?” Kirk teased, mouth pulling at one corner despite the condensation that gathered against the underside of the non-rebreather. Despite Kirk’s declining condition, the bruising that sat prominent beneath the delicate skin of his eyes, it did nothing to diminish the glitter of amusement that arose from inside. Spock felt something burred and knotted within his stiffened torso ease, and he came to recognize the feeling that arose was one of sharp relief. Like a knife wielded to pry free what was small and reckless between cracks and seams, Kirk’s good humor was a welcomed part of him. To see Kirk indulge in the playfulness that so often beset him? Spock might have confessed it was a reassurance; it was a loose measure that Kirk’s discomfort had not yet bled into the unbearable.

“I am neither confirming nor dismissing it,” Spock said. He placed his own cup near his hip, peeling off the protective glove. It would join the other in the haphazard pile for later sanitation. Now that they had long come to discern that the affliction could not be so readily passed and that touch neither seemed to discourage nor encourage the spread, they too had come to learn that wearing gloves when examining the surrounding tissue that the ringed fresh eruptions was merely a standard practice. To them both, it appeared the layer afforded some protections from further agitation to the site and the tenderness that lived beneath its edges. “I am only stating that hunger is a basic antecedent.”  

Kirk sighed. Or, he attempted to. Within the parameters of the affliction and beneath the mask, it was translated as more a half-hearted gust of breath. 

“Well,” Kirk said, pouring more water into his palm to let sluice down his back. “Assuming it was both or either, it still left when you woke up.”  

“Affirmative,” Spock said, finally lofting his cup again before Kirk had time to eye it. Spock held it awkwardly against his right palm, working about the ring finger that had stiffened there. While the rest remained pliant, it made holding any standard drinking vessel a challenge without a calculated manipulation of the digits. At least, that was, for now. 

“Probably scared it,” Kirk mused, chewing the inside of his cheek. Where Kirk might have once rubbed the pad of his thumb against his lower lip, it was not an option now afforded to him. “Have you managed to take a look out there yet? If nothing else, it’s sure to have left tracks. And if it’s left tracks, we can trace our way back to its initial haunt.” 

Spock inclined his chin. 

“That was also my thinking.” 

Kirk paused, and Spock reached out with his cup to fill Kirk’s again. Before Kirk could protest, Spock was already carefully working his way up. Collecting his tricorder and placing all unneeded equipment aside, the newer points of stiffness were swiftly surmised. He worked within the seizure of skin, amended his footfalls to provide less weight and pressure where his body might have once sustained it. Despite the inflexibility nearing his right hip and thigh, he could still ambulate with diminished risk of disrupting further muscular systems. 

It seemed only logical for Spock to investigate first. 

By Spock’s calculations, it was early morning. Were the planet not as it were, the sun would be cresting along the vanishing point of the horizon. He blinked against the gloaming, his eyes adjusting sluggishly. It was not unexpected, knowing that his energy was being conserved. He could feel the natural allocation of reserves sat alongside his insistent focus. 

It would not be long before they lapsed.  

“What’s out there?” Kirk asked, craning his neck as much he might have to get a look past the mouth of the alcove.

 Spock did not immediately answer. The outlying dirt and loam appeared sodden, its surface disturbed by both rainfall and wind. However, upon closer inspection and the knowledge passed from Kirk’s lips to his Spock’s dutiful ear, he could make out the faintest, uneven depressions. He followed them for a step or two, careful not to obfuscate their determined path. Whatever it was—and Spock might have only known through the process of obvious elimination—, it had chosen its way deliberately. While most prey animals would have instead avoided being out in the open, Spock supposed there was no purpose in making themselves scarce here. They had agreed upon the likelihood that the deer-like creatures were the only presumed mammals of decent stature; they had seen no others in their considerable time here, after all.  

Before Kirk could call out to him again, Spock looked over his shoulder. Over, perhaps, was generous. While his range of motion was relatively less impeded, he did not push against the telltale itch of possible emergence of scaling. 

“Fresh prints, as you surmised,” Spock said. He glanced forward again, scanning the break of earth into the veritable wall of grasses. He paused upon the second pass, treading forward to delicately crouch near the border. If he tipped his head just so, he could make out a textural disruption. It was subtle, just subtle enough that a Human’s eyes might have missed it. “And… What you would call a ‘sizable clump of fur.’” 

Spock could hear Kirk shifting in the alcove, but he made no attempt to stand up based upon the lack of noise that signaled weight distribution. He assumed it was Kirk’s way of getting an even better view. 

“Any notable readings?” 

Having anticipated the question, Spock had already been in the process of working the tricorder down from his shoulder. It was clumsy work, considering the scaling that had overtaken about 25.3% of his wrist and the aforementioned finger, but he could manage the controls with some patience. As he held it over the sample, he read over the output as it came along. Immediate impressions did not suggest that it was dangerous by their metric.

“It is not poisonous,” Spock offered. In other situations, he may have given Kirk room to interpret his tone. He did not give such an opportunity here. 

Kirk seemed to understand.

“Anything else, Mister Spock?” Kirk asked.  

“It is clear of any known pathogens.” 

Kirk made a small sound, as if thinking. It was just loud enough to be heard over the mask, but not loud enough to constitute anything more. Spock brought the tricorder back up. 

Dreams were often interpreted in ancient culture, with Humans most known for their compliance with the tradition. While assigned a sociologically feminine role, it was not unheard of that some individuals bent around the binary when paired with another of the same identification. Spock considered the way in which he was visited and found it foolish to ruminate upon at all; he could not gauge the actual height of its intelligence through a minor interaction. However, he could surmise through its cadence and appearance that it shared no common characteristics with animals that would make an attempt at seeking quarry. 

Spock reached out, scooping the sample up into his palm. 

Despite its dampness, the fur suggested it held the sleekness of a le-matya pelt or the smoothness of Terran feline’s. It did not knot under the conditions he’d found it, but instead unfolded neatly as he passed his unimpacted fingers through it. As he did, the coloration flashed from the color of his palm to white to its start again the further he combed about. 

Piebald.  

His frozen finger twitched.

Slowly, Spock attempted to replicate the motion. As he urged it outward, he felt the skin and sinew twinge in protest.  

“Fascinating,” Spock murmured. His finger uncurled, though its boundaries were still constrained. He used his opposing palm to press the fur up into the crook of the remaining, locked joint. While the previously restored portion did not visually alter much, Spock could just see the gray of the scaling pale. While he could not determine if it was the natural oils of the fur or whatever substance the creature rubbed against in passing, it seemed an obvious next step.   

“What is it, Spock?” 

Spock worked himself up from his crouch. He did not linger over the way his heart lurched, the thrum of its steady contractures in his throat. Awareness of an artery near his esophagus did not denote emotion, but it did denote recognition. 

He would not call it “hope.” 

“Upon touching the sample,” Spock said, working his way back to the alcove with increased alacrity despite the enforced change to his gait, “I became able to flex a previously compromised digit.” 

Ducking in, Spock caught the way Kirk snapped his head up. The green-gold of Kirk’s eyes were almost fever-bright as Spock settled before him, and he reached out a hand instinctively to lay against Spock’s forearm. Despite the stiffness that had overtaken much of Kirk’s body, the strength and solidity of Kirk’s squared palm was familiar. Welcome. It steadied something that vised tight and visceral beneath Spock’s diaphragm, shaped as the understandable concern over Kirk’s present condition. As much as Kirk had earlier jested that their current physical issues resembled calcification, there too was some measure of comparison; while it behaved unlike the diagnoses that would build bone in the place of injury, it sunk deep into the layers of flesh and into the underlying structures of the body. It was something Spock had taken upon himself to determine, having a higher threshold for discomfort. 

He had spent much of the prior evening scrubbing the grit of tissue and the welling of blood from beneath his fingernails once he’d sanitized and covered the selected spot.  

“What?” Kirk asked, his attention shifting to the sample held within Spock’s grip. Spock revealed it to his inspection, lofting it enough for Kirk to study it without discomfort. Once he did so to his satisfaction, Kirk’s gaze shifted back again. He studied the contours of Spock’s face for a moment, as if looking again for something that Spock could only speculate upon. From beneath the mask, Kirk’s voice rose. The corners of his syllables were smoothed with a sort of wonderment. “Are you sure?” 

“Within an acceptable margin of error,” Spock said, meeting Kirk’s eyes. Neither glanced away, but the fur was growing dry within Spock’s palm. Spock cleared his throat, and both Kirk and he lowered their focus to the sample. “Shall I—?” 

“Go ahead,” Kirk said, his hand not yet lifting from Spock’s forearm. Kirk squeezed it gently, anticipating the hesitation that welled up to Spock’s tongue. The lines of Kirk’s form loosened, just enough for Spock to take notice that it was not loose enough. The day before, just the day before— “If you think it’ll help, I trust you.” 

Spock could feel the weight of Kirk’s eyes. They skipped up the line of his throat, traced the firm cut of his jaw. It was a question, an ask. Spock could feel its borders through the heat of Kirk’s palm. 

When Kirk looked up, Spock too was looking back. 

“The results have not yet been replicated,” Spock said. There was no protest in his undertone. Spock had stripped away its core. 

“Just do it,” Kirk urged. Kirk heard it, of course. Kirk had always heard when he wanted to. He had always heard the said in the unsaid, what lay beneath it too. As much as Spock would like to admit that he had never known it up until the present moment, it was too a lie. And, as Humans often found themselves so imprecisely saying, they no longer possessed the time left to burn. “I have the utmost confidence in your judgment.” 

Perhaps he had been incorrect to look for doubt. Presumptuous. As much as he was certain of his own observations, it was one matter to test the sample upon himself. It was another matter entirely to test it upon his captain, who looked upon him with such clear certainty and confidence. Spock weighed the risks, the benefits. If he were to not test even a small portion of the fur against a Human subject, he would not know if its efficacy held across them. If he did—particularly upon an individual who held a multitude of allergies—, the possibility of triggering an additional series of symptoms was present. 

Compromising, Spock pulled a small portion of fur from the generous mass. He found his fingers allowed the fine motor function without much complaint, which in equal parts troubled and assured him. Given the nature of the animal in question from which it derived, it was possible that they would be unsuccessful in finding a specimen to approach. Perhaps it was more viable to find their place of rest, Spock thought. If there was something that all creatures shared it was preference for their sleeping spots. 

Spock shook clear the thought as Kirk’s hand released his forearm. 

Inspection of Kirk’s form made obvious that the scaling had crawled up the column of his throat, further across his collarbone. Spock knew it most advisable to focus there first, which Kirk seemed to agree upon as he tilted his head as much as affliction would allow.

Kirk’s pulse fluttered beneath the golden skin of his chin, washed waxen in the shadows and the steady ebb of sufficient oxygen. Spock pressed the sample there, mindful to avoid direct contact with Kirk’s skin. Even through the meagre barrier, he could still hear Kirk. His discomfort was the wicked curve of a lirpa . It pressed beneath Spock’s sternum, an inferno both staggered and persistent. It was in that transference he knew the limitations of Kirk’s breathing, the shortened way of Human lungs. He pressed the sensation down into something minute and yet ever clear. It was not his to remove or refuse. It was not his, just as the pleasure that strung itself languid the further Spock traced the fur down and over Kirk’s throat was not his. 

Kirk’s eyes shut. Even beneath the mask, Spock could feel as much as he could see the way Kirk eased. It tasted sweet between Spock’s teeth. A ripened noise rose within the sun-warmed flood of air that spilt into Kirk’s chest, less a rumble than an involuntary purr. 

“That’s so much better,” Kirk sighed. His renewed breath fogged the back of his re-breather. His hands, long since folded within his lap, twitched and knotted with restored stimulus. Spock knew that each restricted inhalation, exhalation, made one feel removed from their environs. The same was true for Vulcans. It was natural, Spock told himself, that one leaned their weight into an alleviating palm under their removed duress.  

Kirk’s blood thrummed beneath Spock’s fingers as he swept the fur along the exposed portions of Kirk’s collarbone, chest rising with a deeper breath to press against Spock’s palm. The humidity and the scaling had made Kirk’s skin tacky, had made a muddle of his peripheral thoughts. It burnt both promising and painful. It was as though coal in the hand, embers at the exposed stretch of skin. It was Kirk, opening his eyes then. Proximity made obvious the blotting of his pupils against his thinning irises. 

“I might estimate,” Spock said, the words coming up from somewhere beyond him.  He drew his hand back in a haste unbecoming of him, and something complicated and fleeting flickered about Kirk’s expression before he pulled back too. 

“Yes, right,” Kirk said, clearing his throat. He did so twice, as though to test the bounds of its pliability. It allowed him the motion, as much as he allowed Spock to study the warm fur that he presently rolled instead between his fingertips. “The obvious answer is to track it, but—“ 

“If we are able to discern the herd’s typical places of rest, further contact with the animals would be wholly unnecessary,” Spock said, anticipating Kirk’s response. He felt Kirk’s eyes upon him, searching. “The shed should prove sufficient.” 

“But, we have to find them first.” 

Finally glancing up, Spock inclined his head. 

“Which means…” Kirk did not finish the sentence. 

The fire, low and smoldering, remained a constant companion beside them. Were Spock Human, he supposed he would have been least forthright. But, that was something Kirk mentioned he found comfort in; Spock had never “pulled punches,” had never couched his words in the dressings of sincerity. He placed within Kirk’s hands the logic that he sought. 

Spock turned to take up his carefully stowed tricorder. 

“At the current rate of infection,” Spock started, opening the compartment that rested inside the instrument, “we have approximately thirteen point two one hours before we succumb to the complete cessation of motor functions.” 

The math involved was not complicated. Kirk surely had calculated it earlier, palm against his sternum and his eyes upon Spock’s.

“And a little less than half that for me,” Kirk said, a confirmation of what Spock had known from the start. 

Spock said nothing. There was nothing to say. Instead, he placed within the tricorder’s body the sample left behind. His lashes fluttered downward, fingers lingering about the body of the instrument. With the meat of his thumb, he depressed the top and let it close. 

There was a beat, two. And then, Kirk was shifting about the circumference of the firepit. He settled at Spock’s immediate right, close enough that Spock could feel the diminished heat of him without making a contiguous line of their bodies. 

“If it were anyone else, Mister Spock, I would be worried,” Kirk said, one hand settling upon the curve of his back. “But, I have you.” 

Spock let himself look. Kirk, no matter the precarious position he remained in, looked to him no less the captain he had been before. He looked no less like the man that he called “Jim” within the privacy of their quarters, their individual tasks completed and traded. A chess piece moved, a roster gone over—a new transfer to the “store.” No, Spock knew he was sincere in his commentary. 

But, what had he done so far to warrant it? 

“Such commentary should be provided after success, not before,” Spock told him, something brittle taking the place of where the joke would commonly lie. Kirk let his hand rest just above the small of his back, centering.  

“Well, let’s make sure you get it,” Kirk told him, smiling despite the gravity of the situation. It was the one he most often wore when nothing had gone right, when he had injured himself in some manner. When, Spock had long come to realize, Kirk had come to fear the mortality of more than just him. 

Kirk patted him. One, crooked knuckle dug into the stairs of his spine. “A hand up, if you please? My knees aren’t quite what they used to be.” 

Nothing would be gained from delays. Kirk understood. 

“If it’s so that we find the creatures,” Spock said, rising to his feet as Kirk so bid, “I am reasonably certain your joints will receive the requisite oiling promptly.”

He held out his hand, waiting. Whether it was jest or not, Spock would never tell him. But, Kirk’s smile widened all the same behind the mask. His hazel eyes lit from within, sparks off antiquated fireworks. 

“A Wizard of Oz reference, Spock?” 

Spock tugged him gently to his feet as he took his hand, mindful of the ways Kirk’s tread was limited. He had no wish to harm Kirk, to force him to keep up with him. And so, Spock adjusted. He worked through the pace they should set. He worked through the fatigue that Kirk carried, no matter how he raised his shields and just as quickly let free the touch again. 

“I am unfamiliar with this so-called practitioner of the arcane arts,” Spock said. There was no question that Kirk would see the answer for what it was, and there was something like mirth that cut over Kirk’s lips. It was muffled, but no less a reassurance that Kirk could survive yet such a curious and terrible thing.   

“Right, of course,” Kirk said, one wry brow rising. He limped forward, ducking as Spock ducked out of their place of respite and into the unrisen sun. “Lead on.” 

“Spock,” Kirk had said, so soft that no Human had hope to have heard it where he laid. His eyes had been huge and wet and dark. Dark, as the bruising twilight that hung heavy and oppressive overhead. “Set me down.”  

And what was Spock to do, but to refuse him? 

5.42 hours had elapsed since their departure. 4.21 had elapsed before Spock found him collapsed. The grasses held him as a nest, cradled in the blue that stained his fingertips as they bent. It had been acrid pine and lemongrass, the kicking up of pollen and the way it clogged his throat. Spock had coughed and swayed, the daze that the condition had placed them both in becoming sharper and deeper—much more apparent. He had to fight the strain that set upon his knee, the pain that blistered up and about the joint in fiery response. Spock found he had to dig into the blackened soils—fertile and turned—to hoist Kirk onto his back. His heart had been reedy then, reedier now that he trudged along the sloping hillside. Struggled, step over step over step.

Kirk did not then protest, not immediately—how could he? Spock had more than once been thrown over Kirk’s shoulder. When Spock told him to leave him, when Spock told him not to look back—Kirk always had, hadn’t he? Spock could not recount each time that golden skin wore the bronze of Spock’s oxidized blood. He could not tell any how many times Kirk had been dirtied in ways both fathomless and holy. He could not name each and every instance, the insistent hands upon his back. Kirk had always been there, just as Spock would be. If there was no other, then Spock would take the hummingbird beat of his heart. He would gather the breath from his lungs, make a certainty of discovery. It would not matter what Spock would have to do. It would not matter, as his fingers seized further beneath the bend of Kirk’s legs. 

It didn’t matter. Not to him.    

The substrate beneath his boots slid and skittered, sent pebble and stone in a drowsy landslide. The topsoil had dried, leaving mud beneath the heavy lay of his heel. It sucked upon the leathers, made the journey harder than it should have been. Harder yet, when the affliction had begun to gather at the joint of his hip. It ached in ways that Spock could not find the energy name or recognize. It would not have mattered if he could. It would not have helped him in his precarious shove forward, his working leg alight with the burn of exertion. No matter how much stamina he had funneled to his limbs, Kirk’s breath was shallow and desperate and thin. It paired alongside Spock’s. It paired with the dampness that gathered at the nape of his neck, the small of his back. Each and every part that reminded him that he too was partially Human knotted up in protest. Nausea gathered, thick and heavy in his stomach. He could feel the first thorns of a fever, the prickling edge that settled between the slats of his ribs. 

“Such a stubborn man.” 

It was felt more in the skin than it was caught in the ear, but still Spock captured it. He held it like a flickering light in the cup of his hands, the fleeting pulse of a foreign star. It was Kirk. It was still Kirk. He was there, no matter how the condensation clouded and dripped from the back of the mask. It was enough for Spock to push himself further forward, to beat against the wild urge to curl into the slumber of something stark and primal and deep. 

“Please refrain from speaking,” Spock choked out instead. His throat was vising, not in ways he could control. It was too late to take back, to rearrange the paltry reserves that Spock had left. He could feel Kirk further sag, the side of his head against the curve of his neck. He could feel the dampness that gathered in Kirk’s hair, the clammy palms of his hands. His arms draped useless and limp over Spock’s shoulders. He was no mantle to wear, Spock had thought at the bottom of the slope. Kirk had always been a proud man, had always stood upon his own feet. And yet—

“Spock.” 

Spock could feel his knee giving, the beginning roll of an ankle. He stumbled forward even still, one shin scraping up against dirt and stone as he over-corrected. Kirk barely jostled.

“I have you,” Spock said. He could hardly recognize his voice as his own. The words wrenched as little, disparate pieces over the cut of his teeth and the plane of his lips. “I cannot—No.” 

How might Kirk have suggested it to begin? Spock could feel the gaping boundary of the thought within the perimeter of his name. He could wrap his fingers about it, just as he could wrap his seized fingers under the backs of Kirk’s thighs. He could shape it out, just as he could shape out the final curve of the hill. 

Staggering, Spock could not make sense of the even terrain. He felt his limbs going numb—the static of a warp core. 

“Captain,” Spock said, seconds or minutes or hours after his hurried break to the tree line. It was not fast, not enough. Roots became impassable hurdles. But, it was the way the creature had gone. It was the way it had run from the stirring of their bodies, the shambling way of Spock’s inexcusable dreams. “James.” 

James drew a breath. It hiccupped down into his lungs. Spock could not feel the chest pressed against his back rise. Not quite. But, it had been there. There had been a suggestion. Something cloudy kicked up beneath Spock’s diaphragm. Silt and water, it boiled up to the heart that thud mercilessly against his side. 

“Jim,” he pleaded. The familiar kash-tepul that had bled off Jim in the hours since was a simmering buzz. It was the downswing of insect song, the frenetic pacing catching itself short. There was no answer in the twitch or shift of his body, but Jim’s mind was steady. It was there, a dozing animal in the recesses. 

Spock could just dig his nails in. 

There would be no going back to the Enterprise . He would not go alone. He would not abandon Jim to the unnamed wilds. He would not be as some obedient and docile creature, the scent of death luring him back. If they were to find him—them—, it would be together. If Spock were to fail, were to tear through all the Human concept of luck, it would be for him. Jim. Jim, who bet with each part of himself. Who offered each part of himself for survival. 

It was not Spock’s own survival that he limped into a copse for.

The blue of the flora about him wavered. Spock thought of the sea. 

Spock thought of something, his own mind reaching out. Clawing. 

Please.

Possibility, he thought. A rustle in the underbrush. 

He followed, blind and willing. His throat was raw. He could feel his mouth drying, as Jim twitched. An involuntary movement. Small, but still there. He was still there. Spock could not make out the scenery that unfolded before him, could not gather how he had gotten there. Another copse. Another copse. Another. 

Please.

He could not say that he was dead.

He recalled the emptiness that shred about his body, the end over end over end that reminded him of the book his mother had once read to him. In the garden, where the blooming way of her flowers pressed as perfume into his skin, he recalled her warmth. He recalled Jim’s, who had tumbled down after him. A radiator, he once said. But, there was no glow left in Jim. There was no antiquated heater. There were no vents in the floors, the creaking walls of their flat as the building settled. There was no Jim, who tucked into Spock’s side as though they two were bookends. The spine of that story had worn down to the pages. Spock tugged into the memory of flannel, the dulled color of an orange rind. It was the scent of sleep, the mornings spent beneath the musk of woolen blankets.  

"[A]las! for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.” [1]

He could not say he was alive.

But, rain still fell in San Francisco. Buttercups still grew alongside the hillside. 

Spock held one such flower in his hands. It tasted familiar to him. He rolled it over his tongue, held it behind his teeth as though it was an oath. A prayer.  

It was not his to have, he knew. But, what else might he have done with it?

Something moved within the underbrush. It nosed into the spaces left, the quiet heart within his side. It heard him. It heard him, as much as it did too the yellowed, petaled mass within his palms. He knew its name. He made his fingers a roof about it, an open steeple. 

He allowed it to breathe, where his own lungs held nothing at all. 

Hypoxia, Spock would have thought, should have produced within him more pointed hallucinations; it should have given him summary and summation, should have made its peace with an easy denouement. But, the concept of what was simple did not exist. There was only ever more. There was only ever something more decisive, more unrefined. What the brain did without the presence of oxygenation was not his to decide. It never was.    

Please, Spock heard himself think. It was a whittled, little thing. 

The grasses swayed above him. Jim’s voice rose from somewhere, a synapse. Spock’s name made itself a query on his tongue. 

And, as Spock opened himself to it, there was no response.  

It was not an awakening. 

It was the churring of insects, crickets and katydids. It was the azure grasses that swept up and over his head. It was the stars that burned between the bend of them, hole-punched and beautiful things. Spock thought of the gaps between fingers, the delicate webbing that held them connected olive and ocher. He thought of Jim, whose eyes glimmered like the sun whenever it was he looked upon him. Spock thought of him, the curve of his back. He thought of Jim, enough that when he sat up within the rolling field, he saw a figure against the stained horizon. He saw them, and knew. 

They needn’t have turned for Spock to recognize the cut of their form, the sweep of their hair. He could mark Jim’s presence anywhere, in the spaces where he did and did not rest. He could feel Jim in silences. Spock knew each line of him, each and every scar and bruise. Spock knew the flecking of freckles that dotted his shoulders, the round of his cheeks, the nape of his neck. Even now, Spock could recall his freckles’ constellated smattering as Jim whipped about, eyes widened and mouth parted, to face him. 

“Spock!” 

It was not a graceful movement. It seldom was, when Jim found himself fumbling his way toward him. He could see how Jim staggered, how his heels dug into the damp earth that had bit into Spock’s back. Before he might have ever answered Jim, he had already knelt in the soil beside him. Jim seemed not to care for the smear of mud on his uniform, for he gripped at Spock’s biceps as though he was something both flickering and fleeting. That, if Jim were to let go, Spock might vanish amid flora that grew tall and free about them. He held Spock still as though he might yet lose him, his squared palms and blunt fingers pressing hot indentations into the muscle beneath with such strength that even Spock might have believed Jim could mark him. That, in the happiness and relief that rolled and roiled in waves off of him, Vulcan durability could not stand the force of it. And it didn’t. It wouldn’t. And Spock found he cared little, for Jim’s eyes were creased at their corners with a kind of tenderness that Spock seldom saw up close. 

Even now, Spock dared not to name why it was that his heart hammered at the cage of his ribs. He dared not name the way that Jim openly regarded him. He couldn’t. To want what one could not possess was one such thing. To have, to close his palms about its contours? 

Jim breathed in as Spock breathed out. And, in a fit of foolishness, Spock lifted a hand. He had meant only to touch about the round of Jim’s shoulder, but he found that Jim pressed into it. It was such a subtle motion that to another they might have misunderstood it, but he trusted that Spock would not. And how might he?

“You’re—“ Spock started, stopped. He cleared his throat, started again. “I do not understand.” 

Jim loosened one hand, let it slide down the length of Spock’s arm. He halted before he touched the bare skin, letting his fingers skim at the modest cuff of his uniform. He laid it down gently upon one strong thigh, his expression still open with a joy that Spock found himself shamelessly studying. Jim’s lips upturned, and it was a private and tender bowing. It was one that Jim often reserved for him. 

“You’ll never let me forget how stubborn you are, will you?” Jim murmured. The question was held more in the mouth than it was to the ear, but Spock still listened. He could still hear Jim, as clearly as he might have always. 

“No,” Spock said. It was a word that rose before Spock could censor it. His thumb rubbed into the tight cord that ran from Jim’s shoulder to the curve of his neck. “I will not.” 

Jim’s answering laugh was more of a bark, stirring insects into startled, thrumming flight. Their churring ceased, but it was only momentary. Soon enough, they began their chorus again. And, soon enough, Spock’s hand found its way to Jim’s cheek. That Jim allowed it to cradle his face was not a surprise, not truly. But, Spock’s mouth dried anyway. He felt the desperate burst of Jim’s kash-tepul wrap about his fingers, hungry and eager and warm. It fed into the cycle of Spock’s own, mirrored and paired and answering. It was enough that he might have lifted his palm from Jim’s face, if not for the way Jim’s once settled hand lifted to cover his own. 

“I’m glad you came back to me,” Jim said, nosing his way into the cradle of Spock’s hand. His breath was a prayer without words, and it was as though Jim had peeled back the skin of his denial, pared Spock as though he was bitter fruit. Like pressing his fingers into Spock’s flesh with a firm and steadied determination, Jim’s attentions were no less thoughtful for all they pushed up and over and through the pit that had hid the way it had grown. 

“I, too, am gratified to have returned.”

Jim’s smiling mouth was as though a bruise against his naked skin; it burned through the sensitive nerves, heated both blood and bone. From the outside in, the pull of Jim’s lips against the lines of the heart and head was as though the slant of the Terran sun. 

“Thank you,” Jim said, his eyes fluttering shut. Beneath the wheeling arc of the stars, Spock could not muster the urge to look up or elsewhere. There was nothing he would have rather pinned his attention on. In his most secreted imaginings, Spock would have never allowed himself to get as far. As it were, Spock might have allowed the guilt of an evening playing chess. He might have only allowed himself the pleasure of Jim’s company, conversation carrying into the small hours between each shift. It was never here that Spock would pool his thoughts into. To desire, Spock had learned, was to admit. And to admit, he’d thought, would be to open himself to something he could no longer shut and clasp. Like Pandora poring over her pithos, fingers prying off the forbidding lid, Spock had understood the Terran figure now, as much as he’d understood her then. 

“You needn’t express gratitude,” Spock said, sweeping his thumb over the line of Jim’s cheekbone. The sensation it bore was as selfish as it was sure. It burbled up through the whole of him, gathered painful and pious between the slats of his ribs. As though Spock had been brought to kneel before a foreign altar upon the grit and stone, he touched Jim with more pleasure than reason. And, as Jim’s eyes opened, they sought as Spock too sought. Jim pushed his way further into Spock’s palm, read through the many musings Spock did not dare to broadcast. But, Jim had always understood them. He observed in the way Jim’s shoulders made themselves loose, the way his spine curved further into him. “You have done the same for me many times over.” 

That was true. How many times had Jim saved him? How many times had Spock placed his life in hands without thought or hesitation? How many times had Jim risked himself for the narrow probabilities that he might draw Spock back to the ship, back to the helm? How many times had he drawn Spock back home? 

How many times, Spock thought with a sudden and stuttering clarity, had Jim brought him back to the comfort of his own quarters—had waited at his bed? 

Jim’s emotions whirled and wondered. They built themselves into incomprehensible nets. But, Jim’s feelings had always been ones that Spock could untie should he have wished to; more often than not, Spock fell to the grip of their complexity. For all such perceived failings should be shameful, Spock knew himself balanced by them. Against the clear order of Spock’s mind, Jim’s own ensconced him with a wicked and wondrous dynamism. 

“Calling it even?” 

The joke was less a joke than it was a guard, a shield to be worn against the possibility of misinterpretation. Spock recognized it for what it was: a vulnerability. It was something Spock too kept to hand, a shadow he might wear were he to angle it right. And yet, it was all Spock might have done to open his palm to it. 

He waited, and watched. 

“That is not what I said.” Spock stilled his thumb, eyes turning elsewhere as Jim silently questioned the absence of movement. It came as a shape beneath the lay of Spock’s palm, a rounded figure that displaced the words that shuddered and suffused the line of Jim’s thoughts. In response, Spock only offered the shuffle and slide of his rationalizations, the density of his processes. He fed Jim what was palatable and piecemealed as he paused about the body of the inevitable gulf. “It was not something I had ever intended to enumerate.”

The insects quieted. The grasses stilled. And yet, at the melting edge of the horizon, something lifted its head. 

“Spock.”

It was with great eventuality that Jim spoke, and Spock could not bring himself to meet Jim’s eyes again. It was not cowardice, Spock thought. It was merely the preparation for what he presumed would come. There was no purpose in allowing himself to entertain a possibility. Jim was wholly onto himself, more than Spock might have afforded. It was not pity, nor was it kindness, that he greeted the rooted parts that refused to perish within the rot of his foundations; what was would be. What would be? It mattered not.    

“I’m—I apologize,” Spock began, casting up syllables like dust on the tongue. “For bringing you within myself.” 

Conscious or not, what right did he have? None. His justifications were meaningless. He had kept his mind locked about Jim’s. Spock had held it, even when he could not remember what it was. But, he had known Jim’s name. Spock had known its color, its taste. A Human mind, particularly one upon the cusp of firing finality, was malleable. And yet, to have failed to hold on was to abandon him. And, to have abandoned him—

“Don’t,” Jim said, clamping down upon Spock’s wrist as he made to remove his palm. He held faster, as Spock hesitated to turn his head. The air shifted about them, a warm breeze choked about the grass. Spock could smell its weeping bend, the injury that bled crisp and acrid. “You did what you had to.”  

“Jim.” 

“It’s comfortable,” Jim cut in, and Spock allowed him. Jim’s words carved into his skin, little needles of light as Spock felt them form. “Orderly, as expected, but comfortable.” 

“Jim,” Spock attempted again. 

Jim continued, as if Spock had said nothing at all. 

“You never told me,” Jim said, the realization barely caught. To Spock’s own ears, he classified it as something more touch than sound; it was as present as the earth beneath them both, the dampness that had long seeped into Spock’s regulation slacks.

Spock took a breath, watching the wind again fail to do more than ruffle the field that fanned about them. 

“I did not wish for you to feel—“ 

“Obligated?” Jim pressed, and Spock did not read into his tone. “Angry?” 

“It would be within your rights to ask I transfer,” Spock murmured, trying again to withdraw his palm. “What I have admitted, inadvertently as it were, is no less in—“   

“No, it isn’t.” 

Spock did not resist as Jim held firm, his hand hot against Jim’s pinkened skin. Spock felt flush, over-warmed. His mind interpreted the blue blades of the grasses as the roll of night-stained dunes, and he the singular body within it. 

“Spock,” Jim implored, “look at me.” 

It wasn’t a command. And yet, it might well have been. Jim had always pulled him in, as much as Spock had in return. 

“Do you understand?” Jim scanned Spock’s faltering expression. Minute fissures as they were, his eyes settled upon each line and valley. They traced the small knit between his brows, caught with precision the tic of his jaw. Spock remained silent. If he were to flinch now, there would be no elaboration. Within himself, he felt as though the tip of his boot had scraped something impossible and raw. He remembered, in the search of something to keep grip upon, the story his mother had read him when he was young.

Alice, down the rabbit hole. Time bent around itself, infinite ends. And yet, she’d survived it. No matter the threat of the outcome, she’d worked her way back to the other side. 

Spock swallowed. His mouth was dry.  

“I—" 

“I won’t force you,” Jim said, the green-gold of his eyes eclipsed by the twilight. The weight of his fixed attention rested solely upon him. The tenderness and patience that whipped beneath Spock’s palm ached in ways he could not fully know the border of, and he saw it too reflected at his core. It was a pain that smeared into the improbable, the impossibility of it stinging all the more. It was an arrow to the ankle, a snake swallowing a sacred plant. It was all the mythos of a planet known for its creation, contrasted with the suppression of his own. The self that was not Spock’s exterior dug through the sands of his own landscape, pulling up poems and songs. “But, I can’t do this first. Spock, you have to know—“   

At the conclusion, Spock was uncertain as to how it began. It did not matter, as Jim’s body opened to his own, his mouth against Spock’s gasping and familiar and pliant. It hardly mattered, when Spock’s hands found themselves framing Jim’s face, the soft angles and planes pliant as Jim reeled him back and in. It was not a neat affair, not chaste in the way that either expected. It was a fumbling fall, tripping into something that Spock realized could not be taken back. A bell rung, flora uprooted—the shock of its roots and stems before it was replanted. Sagging as it too bloomed, faster and anguished and whole. Jim kissed as though the stars about a viewscreen died, a million hole-punched spots of luminescence shuddering out before reforming. A spin of material, a chemical reaction that Spock could decode should he have tried. Spock gathered it about himself, allowed it to burn and invent and again stutter out. A loop without true cessation, end over end over—

Spock woke up. 

Discomfort did not greet him at the other side of sleep’s door. Instead, it was insect song and the snap of fresh grasses; it was the distant rustling of foreign foliage, the lazy tug of breezes through the dark lay of his hair. The sky that stretched above was bell clear, smattered with the many millions of new and dying stars. 

He took a breath.

His lungs and chest expanded. There was no longer a band of limitation to depth or draw, and Spock noted with an immediacy that grasses about him were littered with cut trails into the dark. Given its stature and size, it was not difficult to surmise that the creature that had first appeared had been in part responsible. If not for the shape that it left bowed behind its sturdy body, the fur that it left within its wake was enough to make a clear determination of the state it’d left him in. He could scent its warm body—theirs?—the crisp fall of hooves. He could only just count them, as they cut up and over rocky protrusions and ancient bark. He could, if he listened beneath the muddled twilight, hear their low calls. A rumble skipped over the clearing, caught against the air, and as he turned his head—

Beside him, something shifted. 

“There you are,” Jim said as Spock rolled upon his side to face him. Jim appeared to have anticipated his reaction, already settled in a mirrored position. He stretched out an arm to lay his hand upon Spock’s face, and it was a reverent damnation. Spock found he did not care. Jim was there beside him, free of the affliction and as beautiful as he might have remembered him. His eyes were bright, and the tenderness that he wore within the confines of his brilliant expression was deeper than Spock might have once allowed himself to believe. “There’s my Vulcan.”  

“Jim.” 

It was all he managed, before he found himself rolled upon his back. Against the damp earth, Jim’s body half-rested upon his own was an anchoring force and Spock found himself helpless to deny him. He would not have, even though he might have, as Jim kissed him with a singular determination. Spock made a sound that was as terrible as it was torn from the depths of himself, left to bleed open against Jim’s gentled eagerness. Spock found himself allowing the part of his legs, the settling pressure of Jim’s body up against his. He found Jim’s arms, his shoulders. He found himself stroking down the strong line of his back, tucking his hands above the curve of Jim’s hips. He found himself opening his mouth, letting Jim lick into it. His tongue was hot, smooth where Spock’s was rough. He felt the low vibration of surprise and delight that moved through Jim at the discovery, the way the slick muscle traced over the ledge of his teeth and the soft of his cheek. Jim tasted of something distinct, soil and earth and iron. He could just catch it as Jim’s tongue dragged over his own, as it retreated. And, left as he was with the absence of that closeness, Jim remained. He stayed, kissing the cut of his jaw and the slope of his nose—the bruise of sleepless shadows that rested stark beneath his eyes. He kissed the spaces beneath the sweep of his brows, made the heave of Spock’s breath slow until Jim discovered the sensitivity about the shell of his ear. It was there, that Spock could identify the mischief that pulled his lips into a smile. It was there, that Jim nipped about the point, teethed upon the lobe. And it was there, that he made another home in as Spock fought to maintain the control that made him move little beneath Jim.

“Still such a stubborn man,” Jim breathed out, voice low and warm and close. He nosed into the grayer shadows that rested beneath his ear and Spock made a small, choked noise. Barely caught within his throat, he had no illusions it was not something Jim could not hear. Could not feel, as he shifted the heft of his body against Spock’s. And, as Jim lifted his head, all Spock might have noted was how focused and centered Jim’s gaze was. Dilation , Spock’s mind unhelpfully supplied. A reaction caused by a state of arousal . He wondered how his own might have looked. Jim studied him openly, unashamed and unabashed. Jim pressed his own weight up upon one palm. 

He wasn’t sure who found the other again, but Spock was sure of the way that Jim was gasping into his mouth. He was sure of the way that Jim was already half-hard against his hip. He was sure of his own answering cant, the way it did not seem to matter for the moment that they still rested within a thinning copse upon a foreign planet. Spock knew he was already wet, natural lubricant smearing up against the front of his regulation slacks. He could feel the way it registered to Jim, who pulled back just enough to look again upon him. Who, in some deep wonderment, seemed to consider something that Spock could only begin to grasp at. He might have spooled together the threads of some impossible affection, but—Jim’s eyes skimmed up beyond him.

“Oh,” Jim said, as winded as Spock felt. Spock followed the broken line of Jim’s attention, tipping his head back to see the world about them upside-down. About them, the grasses were nestled down with the shape of minute bodies. If Spock were to estimate, he might say they were in the rough circumference of the creatures that had followed them from afar. Were he not otherwise occupied, he supposed, he would have gathered more that they’d pressed around their tangled forms and warmed them through the planet’s approximation of evening. Fur stuck to the azure shoots, more abundant than what would be left by any sleeping animal. 

“They appear to have left us samples.”

Jim laughed. It was more with the movement of his shoulders than it was with sound, but Spock stretched within the sensation of it. He warmed himself by it, as he again lowered his chin. 

It was not surprising to see that Jim had already looked back. 

“Kind of them,” Jim said, his eyes tracing the shape of Spock’s face. Spock let slip one hand, snaked his arm up to press it against Jim’s face. It was warm with Human blood, and it was only just light enough to see the flush that spilled both handsome and boyish against the apple of his cheek. 

“Perhaps it would be prudent to collect them?” 

Jim’s mouth tucked into a secreted smile.

“Very prudent.” 

Neither moved. 

And then, Jim dipped to kiss him again. He kissed Spock as though to do more was to break some wild oath, to disturb consecrated earth. He kissed Spock as Spock kissed him with a force that was neither delicate nor unbearable, but somewhere pulled between. It was teeth and it was tongue. It was many unspeakable and muttered things, pressed into the bruise of mouths. Spock held firm to Jim’s hip with one hand, pushed the other up into the wave of Jim’s hair. The mutual roll of their bodies restricted, it was slow and stilted, tortuous. And yet, it was enough to share space. It was enough, to be able to fold into the other. Closer than they might once have been, it was more than Spock might have once been able to permit himself. To have now, to hold now, it was something Spock could not find himself grasping. He would, yes, but for now? 

“Samples,” Spock gasped the next time Jim lifted his head. Jim seemed to not understand, not at first, until he blinked once. Twice.

“Right, samples.” Jim paused. And Spock, in some fit of delirium, pushed himself up just enough to kiss the corner of Jim’s mouth. Jim clicked his tongue against his teeth, all the heat of it drawn out by the twinkle in his eyes as Spock drew back again. “Don’t start that again, mister.” 

“My apologies, Captain,” Spock said. He did not attempt to insert any hint of remorse. 

Jim snorted. 

“I’m sure.” 

The grasses ruffled about them. The breeze was warm as it came in, carrying with it the mild perfume of the blooms that rested within the natural shelter line. Spock tipped his chin, watching as Jim followed the movement. Jim’s hair was a mess of curls. Bits of azure grasses wove their way through, and Spock reached up to comb them from his hair. Jim drew in a quiet breath, leaning into the touch as though he’d not previously been kissing Spock with a fervor bordering upon the obscene. Spock let him. Jim’s eyelashes fluttered low over his flushed cheeks, sweat beginning to dapple the skin beneath his hairline. It was both salty and earthy, breathed in as much as it was breathed out. Saliva gathered in Spock’s mouth, and he swallowed as Jim said, soft and sweet: 

“I think it would be best to take this elsewhere, Commander.” 

Spock took stock of their state. The scaling had cleared. Jim’s eyes, warm as they always were when they rested upon him, were clear and bright.  

“Indeed.” 

Once again Jim leaned in, and Spock could not unearth the urge to stop him. 

The distance to the alcove was further than Spock would have appreciated, but shorter than he might have remembered. Perhaps, in hindsight, it would be a combination of the two between Jim’s hands pulling him back toward him, the press of his fingers into his biceps, the way his palms nipped into the valleys between his hips and ribs. Perhaps, Spock might have idly wondered in the long and sleepy aftermath, it was the way that Jim took every available moment to tug Spock down to him between their gathering of errant samples. Or, perhaps, Spock too was to blame given the way that he’d often press his fingers into the Human-hot spaces he could find. He’d favored Jim’s neck and shoulder, the slick skin at his lower back. He favored, too, the way that Jim would sigh as he pressed lazy ozh’estas into the side of his hand, into his palms as Jim shaped them as though a bowl for supplication. A way to answer Spock when there was nothing else either might have said, the crackle and conclusion of kash-tepul writhing both anticipatory and terrible. 

It was no surprise why, that as soon as they’d stumbled their way into the carved quarters of the forgiving gray-wash of rock and stone, Spock found himself pressed up against the coolness of the curving wall just beyond the hollow’s maw. Kissed, in a way that he’d once thought impossible to be kissed. Hands again just below his shoulders, Jim’s warm tongue within his willing mouth, Spock’s grip fluttered and faltered against Jim’s Human-hot sides, uncertain where he himself was certain. He willed them not to tremble and trip, willed them into obedience. He willed them to decide, his mind churning with the over-wash of Jim’s amber-tack hunger, the much-tended roots of something decidedly deeper, darker—harder.  

Spock opened himself to it. 

He opened himself to Jim, the thigh between his. He opened himself to the muscled workings, the shallow grind Jim worked him in. He opened, as he worked his hands up and under the golden edge of Jim’s regulation shirt. It was only Spock’s touch, that singular point of his naked focus, that seemed to rouse him. Jim. Jim, who reeled himself back just enough to look at him. To really look at Spock, eyes nearly black with the weight of his want. Spock felt himself swallowing. Felt himself gasping. 

Awkwardly, and with entirely more tenderness than he deserved, Jim worked his hands up to cradle the sharp angles of his face. He thumbed over Spock’s cheekbones, his elbows bent in such a way to accommodate Spock’s reach. 

“Look at you,” Jim said, his breath more Spock’s than his. Spock watched the bruise of his lips, the downward flutter of his lashes. Jim pulled him down to him, and Spock obeyed without query or question; he let his hands drop to the small of Jim’s back, damp with the humidity that still ensconced them. “You have no idea, do you?” 

“Elaboration should assist,” Spock murmured, dry as the environs themselves were not, as Jim kissed the corner of his mouth. It drew up a delighted, little laugh from Jim that bloomed the yellow-bright of buttercups wherever the vibration caught along Spock’s jaw. 

“I’d be honored,” Jim said, immediately doing nothing of the sort. 

Instead, it was a mess of limbs. It was a hasty strip of boots and slacks and shirts. It was Spock, getting trapped within his thermal as Jim tried to work it off him. It was Jim, petting through the hair upon Spock’s chest. And it was Spock, who nearly clipped the top of his head as they worked their way back to their “quarters.” It was just as they had left it. A mess. 

“Well,” Jim said, coaxing Spock down beside him upon the unfolded sleeping sack. His burnished hair was a wild nest of curls. Spock felt staggered by the beauty of him, the little hiccup of a knife a step above his heart. “Looks like you’ll have to forgive me, Mister Spock.” 

Jim touched the heel of his palm against Spock’s sternum, only to find with some exposed lurch of lust that Spock had already begun to take the liberty of settling back upon his elbows. It burnt like ash, the low billow of the abiding fire that lay tucked far enough behind them. Jim kneed his way up and over, legs settling on either side of Spock’s hips. Even without visual confirmation, Spock could feel the heaviness of Jim’s cock against his stomach as he stretched himself up. 

Spock’s mouth watered.

“It’s not exactly a hotel on Risa,” Jim continued, the rough pads of his fingers tapping gently beneath Spock’s jaw. Spock took the hint. He tipped his head back and was greeted with the reward of Jim mouthing along the column of his throat. Spock could feel the punch of some deep, primal whine attempt to crawl up from the most abandoned parts of him. He smothered it, pushed his fingers through Jim’s burnished hair instead. But, Jim had noticed. He had noticed, and he honed in. He set the blunt of his Human canines to his Adam’s apple, scraping soft at the protrusion. Spock shuddered out a breath, resisting (for a moment) the way Jim’s weight settled deeper against him. “But, I’ll try.”

Spock’s hands were subsequently nudged from Jim’s hair as he worked his way down Spock’s chest, one hand planting itself nearest to Spock’s shoulder. The other—     

“The area is acceptable,” Spock said, voice still despite the way his sheath clenched as Jim settled a hand over the rapid pulsing of his heart. Jim hummed, a soft and sweet thing that made itself a mess against the way he massaged the heel of his hand over the spot. Whatever the flow of language Spock intended broke over his teeth, made itself mangled. It was not something he recognized as himself until Jim sank back entirely, shaky in the temporary dismount of Spock’s body. Spock found himself grasping for any part of him. 

“Jesus,” Jim swore, watching the way Spock’s chest heaved. He swung his attention back to Spock’s face as Spock scrambled for the placidity that often made a home of his features. He managed, but only so, clawing about for some means of control. But, Jim’s mouth had found the bruise of his and Spock drank down what whimper Jim gave him in response. He drank down the parceled prayers and oaths, drank down the way Jim fumbled to push under his briefs. Nearly fumbled again, as Spock snaked a hand down the back of Jim’s neck, combing through the curls that grew even there. “Off, if you would.”  

Spock lifted his hips, ignoring the way the thin barrier of the sleeping sack was almost insufficient against the grit beneath it. He ignored the cool of the air that was making quick work of his body, suppressed the reflexive prickling of the hairs upon his arms. He ignored how wet he had become, until Jim pulled the garment off his body. It was then, in the shimmering relief as Jim settled between the vee of his legs and the accommodating bracket of his lifted knees, that Spock realized. 

“Spock,” Jim wheezed, one hand setting upon the crown of Spock’s knee. Jim’s eyes burnt a searing line up the nakedness of his body, unbalanced as they were in their current state of undress. A low sound wrenched its way up from Spock’s chest as Jim dragged the squared heat of one palm over the inside of Spock’s thigh. Lubricant webbed between the crease of his leg and the cut of his sheath. Jim’s fingers smeared themselves through the thick of it and Spock shivered, one hand grasping at Jim’s shoulder. Anchoring, Spock thought. “Want to put my mouth on you, no idea—”   

“I believe I have some,” Spock cut-in, more breath than words. It was steadier than he felt, steadier than he continued to feel as he locked his fingers over the curve of Jim’s shoulder as Jim worked a lone fingertip between the slit of his sheath. Spock restrained the instinct to squirm, the cornsilk of Jim’s touch like a long spring tripping into Terran Junes. 

Jim smiled. It was a small and secreted thing, caught in the flush that dappled the tops of his cheeks. He knew it as the ones Jim most often greeted with him. That edge of blistering affection, enough to cleave through the length of Spock’s lungs.  

“I have a bet you do,” Jim murmured, eyes flicking down to watch his own finger disappear into the folds of his sheath. Curiosity and awe blossomed through Spock’s skin, wondrous and warm. Spock chewed upon the inside of his cheek, watching. Watching, as Jim too watched him. One finger soon became two, stroking shallow just beyond the exterior. Jim leveraged his weight up upon a palm, wedging the exploratory hand and arm between them. He leaned in, close enough that Spock might have kissed him, if not for the way Jim breathed: “Everything about you is a marvel, Mister Spock.”  

And Spock would have stood to neutral disagreement, knowing that marvel was not a word that could be ascribed to him, but Jim was kissing him again. He was kissing Spock again, languid and open and easy. He kissed him as Spock’s hands did, lifting only to count down the lay of Jim’s ribs. The thrum of his Human heart, slow as it was against Spock’s, was faster than it had been. It was feverish and thin, the sound he’d heard often when Spock laid down beside him. How long had he ignored the prospect? The possibility? 

How long had Jim? 

At the lazy arc of Jim’s thumb about the outside of his sheath, Spock sucked a breath between his teeth. The muscle of his jaw skipped. And Jim, immersed in his observation of him, blinked as Spock opened his eyes. Blinked again, as Spock shifted his hips. But, there was no confusion he might have read upon Jim or within. 

Spock let a brow lift. Jim’s fingers at his sheath stilled. 

“If you are attempting to stimulate me,” Spock said, wresting some means of stability back into himself, “I do not recommend keeping your fingers largely motionless.”

Jim smiled, pressing the tip of his thumb into the generous wetness that he’d worked from him. 

“Impatience, Mister Spock?” Jim asked, the tease doing nothing for Spock’s immediate dismissal. He fought the twitch of his fingers at Jim’s sides, the way his legs wished for nothing more than to sway inward. He fought the vising of arousal as Jim’s disparate imaginings and emotions brushed up against him. A steady presence just outside the confines of his own mind, lingering where Jim touched.  

“Fact,” Spock sniffed. Jim shifted upon the palm near his shoulder, nodding along as he most often did when Spock was set to explaining something he’d already set aside. Idly, Jim’s thumb once again began its easy, upward movement. “Born of experience.”

“Experience,” Jim echoed, rolling the word over his tongue. His eyes were dark, fixed upon Spock in a way that neither covered nor denied the surge of curiosity that fanned up from the syllables, the hundreds of idle speculations. He pressed the meat of his thumb against the apex of his sheath and Spock inhaled, a wounded tumble of a breath that Spock did not permit himself to acknowledge, though Jim’s expression changed. 

His earlier grin returned. 

“You are stalling,” Spock said, catching the instinctive cant of his hips as Jim repeated the movement. Still, the angle was perceptible. Narrow as it was, the lowlight of the remaining fire in its pit caught the glitter in Jim’s eyes, the mischief that so became him as he dipped down to lip at the sweeping point of his ear.   

“I’d prefer to call it savoring,” Jim said, words washing hot against the skin and cartilage. Bent still as his legs were, Spock felt the muscles of his thighs tremble. He felt the way that Jim seemed to know, instinctively, as he set upon the ear with his teeth.  

“We are not, as you say, upon Risa,” Spock gasped out, the flat of Jim’s hot tongue a contrast to the solidity of teeth. Jim’s wrist flexed, his fingers turning to follow its slow rotation.    

“We aren’t?”  

Before Spock could respond, Jim’s fingers had already broached him. 

Spock made a garbled noise as Jim set a measured rhythm, his vision clearing to Jim’s reddened mouth tucking pleased and boyish into the roundness of his cheek. His chest heaved, but all that Spock had noticed was the density of Jim’s body. All that Spock had noticed was the errant curl of hair about the shell of a Human ear. All he might have noted was that his arousal, like all things, burned too like the sun. If Spock were to open his mouth now, he thought, would the sweat and sweetness of him cool his opened mouth? Spock had no point of reference. He knew only the profanities and oaths that dribbled off Jim’s tongue, soon became his own. Jim leaned down to him, as though he were something to be worshiped or something to carry in his heart as though a prayer, and spoke them up against him. He spoke them even then, licking his way into Spock’s parted lips. Spock traced the underside of the smooth muscle with the coarseness of his own, listened as Jim listened to the sighs and sounds pulled forward—coaxed. 

"Fuck—" Jim mumbled, his fingers flexing in then out. Spock refused to admit that he squirmed, but there was no other term for it. All about the bend of Jim's knuckles, his fra'als awoke, held sudden and fast to him. They tasted the rough wake of his callouses, the shimmer and shudder about the pads of Kirk’s fingertips. Jim tasted like the slant of a warm day, the rind of ripe oranges. He was citrus and honey, golden where he poured over the sea of his body. Each edge and contour was reaching and wanting, but Jim never fucked into him the way that he needed. “Is that you? I can taste you through my fingers. You’re so—" 

“Yes,” Spock ground out. He breathed as Jim breathed, his heart thudding furious against his own side, within Jim’s own chest. He saw himself at once sturdier and warmer. He saw himself as Jim’s self, himself as Jim. “They are meant to facilitate a deeper understanding of a chosen mate’s perspective.”

Jim had no answer, but to bend in low. He bit in measured ways along Spock’s collarbone, moaning as Spock did not as Jim pressed his fingers even deeper in. Spock tasted the heat of him as though Jim were stars, the collapse and the curl of ash within fire. Spock rolled his hips down, wetness coiling about the thickness of digits, and he half-choked against the press of Jim’s tongue—the drag of a canine. As Jim’s fingertips pressed hot and purposeful against the underside of his lok , Spock felt himself kick. He could feel Jim’s laughter bloom as though it were a dawn, and it engulfed the shame that burbled up, a viscous and terrible thing. Against the lift of his thigh and the arc of his knee, Jim’s thumb settled and soothed. It pet along the dark hair of his leg, the cool of his skin. It took to hiding in the recesses, in the shadow of bone and the stretch of sore ligaments.

I’ve wanted any part of you.

It was not Spock’s own voice that chased itself about his skull. It felt—Spock tasted rain. He turned his tongue over what was earthy and subtle. His lips parted. Parted as he did about the insistence of Jim’s fingers, the eventual and abrupt upward cast of focused eyes.  

“Just like that,” Jim said. The rumble of his voice caught against the heart in his side. Spock felt the drag of Jim’s cock against the crease of his thigh and the jut of his hip. It was wet and swollen, hot with Human blood. And Spock realized, dizzy with a sudden punch of arousal, he’d do most anything to feel it too. Spock thought of it within him, bucking alongside the pulse of his withheld—

“Not in here.” Jim’s eyelashes trembled against the curve of his shoulder. The loop of what could only be defined as want scurried at the edges of his consciousness. It shaped itself as Jim’s dry palm about the heft of his lok, the wetness of a mouth against the cut of his sheath. Spock felt himself whine, and where it would have once been shame was filled with wonder. It was soaked through with adoration. It ached open, a yawning and hungry and gluttonous mass of unrealized potential. It surged and frothed about the emptiness of itself as Spock’s hands grasped at the burnished hair. He pulled in a way Jim conveyed that he liked more in the shudder of his body than the flickering mind that welcomed the intrusion of Spock’s reciprocal thoughts. 

He knew it more than Jim did that it would be inadvisable, yes, but he felt the wave and crest of Jim’s desire. It wrapped sinuous and smooth and slick about the boundary of his body, the absences of Jim’s. “Soon as we get back to the ship.” 

And yet, Spock felt Jim strain against the need to rut and have and seed. The wet of himself met the rough tug of Jim’s skin, and Spock hissed. He ground down against the heel of Jim’s palm, flexed about his fingers as Jim pushed himself in. Even at the roots of his digits, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. And it wouldn’t be, until Spock could bruise himself against the force of his squared hands and blunted fingers. It wouldn’t be, until Spock could taste each crevice and inch. Could pull from Jim every and all and any that he would afford.

And it was that intensity, that Spock had to wrench himself back from. It was that intensity, that Jim nipped at relentlessly.  Dogged and determined, Jim spread his fingers—twisted and turned and crooked. Jim drew them out slowly, fucked them in again quick. And, in some fierce betrayal, his fra’als fumbled and grabbed and took. They shoved their way between the valleys of Jim’s fingers, tasted the fragile webbing that lay between all and each. It was a paltry facsimile of what Spock could provide with his mouth, with his hand, with his lok. It was everything he could not bring himself to say, bundled in the nerves that greedily sought after the roiling kash-tepul that sputtered off Jim’s body in ways both harrowing and holy. Like candles snuffed out in the dark, the wax of it seizing about the smooth of its rim, Spock felt as Jim’s mind molded the filthy unburdening as though it were more platinum than rot. 

Spock could feel it as the riot of fresh incense and the first and hungry touch. He could feel his tongue as the flat of Jim’s tongue against the soft of his palate as he’d once watched Spock bent over his station. Jim wanted so much then and now and current, that Spock knew he’d taken himself in hand in the privacy of his quarters the moment Jim could find a reasonable excuse. Spock could see it, could feel the emotional ricochet of seeing Spock arrive later at his quarters. Spock could crawl in alongside it, the blood of Jim’s self-scolding and the sour sting of his shame. It was not a true repentance, not in that time and that space, that Jim had come hard enough to leave the imprint of his teeth about the bend of his knuckles. It was not enough, but Jim had forced it aside as he let Spock in the door. He could look, Jim had told Spock once. He could look and look and look, but he could not partake or promise. He could never let himself. He would never let himself. He shouldn’t ever risk it. Shouldn’t ever risk it, but with Spock, it was a war never won. No matter how many times Jim approached it, there were only ever stalemates. There was only ever Spock beneath the banner of his wanderings, and it felt as though swallowing fire.

“I’ll have you meet me,” he said, words dripping as sun off the slant of wet windows. His eyes were darker yet, mouth parted and pinkened. Spock snapped his hips up, riding the rhythm of Jim’s fingers as he pressed in and out. Spock would know them against each part of him, would know the sizzle and vibrancy that each digit carried, and Spock could feel his eyes roll up as Jim splayed them wide with the warmed walls of his sheath. “Anywhere—everywhere you want.”   

Something must have broken the string of what he could have once called language, because Jim pulled his fingers out. It was sudden, so sudden that Spock keened with the loss of them, but then Jim was pressing at the head of his everting lok . The whorl of his thumb smeared under the ridge of it, the rest of it slipping free as Spock found himself pinned against the sensation of Jim’s shifting body and the unholy absence of him.

“It’s okay,” Jim murmured, his newly free hand turning to coax Spock’s leg over his shoulder. Spock followed, half-blind with some desperation that made himself drop his hands from the damp curls of Jim’s hair. His fingers tucked back against his palms, but Jim’s mouth was against the side of his knee. He kissed the skin there, so soft that Spock thought he might have imagined it. “It’s okay.”

“Jim—“ 

And then, Jim snaked his hand back down again. Jim shoved down his own briefs, taking hold of his own cock as he did so. Gasping at the contact, Spock knew the color of it where it was Jim touched, the head and shaft of his cock so red that it shifted near purple. He felt it, dark and heavy and unbearably slick as it slid against the body of his own. Jim curled a hand about them both, tight enough that it neared the border of pain. Jim had only just begun to ease off when Spock rolled up into the tight of Jim’s fist. Jim stuttered out a breath. 

“I’m sorry,” Spock felt himself say, words snagging in his throat. They sounded strange to his own ear, his body slick with Jim’s sweat and damp with his own. The scent was heady as Spock breathed in through his nose, out again. “I will not be able to—” 

“No,” Jim heaved, firm and sharp. He stripped along their cocks, fingers fumbling as he attempted to keep the hold firm and yet soft. Spock must have made some noise, because Jim was pressing his mouth to the cut of his jaw, the curve of his neck. His words smeared as charcoal, left little imprints long after they’d sunk into the flesh. 

“No,” Jim panted, tone gentling. The drag of his fingers set to cascading the desperate build of Spock’s inevitable orgasm. “Been close for a—fuck!” 

Spock felt himself arch, secondary eyelids snapping shut as the others soon too followed. A wet whine tore from his throat, the density of Jim’s pleasure and his own pressing vicious and unforgiving up from the tops of his legs to the crown of his head. He rolled along with it, a compressing neutron star of sensation. It flickered blue then red, shifting back and toward him.  

“Please,” Spock begged, gasping and hot and senseless. His eyes opened, the foggy opacity of his eyelids slower to clear than the previous. “Please, against me.” 

Jim worked himself against the softening way of his lok , its sensitivity a pain that Spock held onto with the claw of his nails as one hand climbed Jim’s steadying forearm. Jim shivered and shuddered above him, mouth parting about a noiseless moan. Spock dug his nails in harder as the sudden heat of Jim’s ejaculate smattered over his hip, his stomach. He whimpered, as the pulse of Jim’s cock alongside his retracting lok was now too much. Jim’s eyes fluttered shut, his hand releasing them both as he obediently moved off, shaking as he settled at his side. He did not give Spock respite, his clean hand turning Spock’s head. 

His chest heaved, wild and uneven against Spock’s shoulder as he kissed him soft and smeared and open. He breathed into Spock’s mouth, as much as Spock himself breathed into his. He rolled over, meeting Jim and the searching way of Jim’s palm as it slid from the contours of his face to the rapid fluttering of his pulse in throat, down his side. It curved about Spock’s hip, thumb pressed into the dip of his waist above it. 

“Beautiful,” Jim said, panting still. This close, Spock could see the matting of his eyelashes. “How are you so perfect?” 

Spock made a low sound, shivering as Jim gathered him in. 

They laid there for longer than Spock could recall. He did not time it. Instead, the seconds and minutes and hours narrowed to a man. It narrowed to the heat burnt about his cheeks, down the nape of his neck as Jim carded through the ink of his hair. As Spock, too, dragged his lips over the parts of Jim he could reach from his heavier position. 

Eventually, Jim patted his hip. It roused Spock and he lifted his chin, managing the shape of a question. 

“Gonna clean us both up,” Jim said, voice low. “Feed the fire.”

Spock must have made a sound of protest, because Jim chuckled. It was welcome, tender. It stuck between Spock’s teeth, and he admitted to himself that perhaps it was quite cold now. 

Jim released him, and Spock curled into himself to conserve the absence of his warmth as Jim pulled himself, deer-legged, to his feet. Spock could hear him shifting about as he drifted, could feel the slow pass of a tepid cloth of some kind along his chest and down his legs. His lok stirred, interested for all his fatigue.

“There we are,” Jim said, settling again alongside him. Spock could hear as much as see the distinct, silvery wrinkle of the thin blanket over him. It reminded him again of their once “flop,” when Spock was too exhausted to bother with the material after he’d washed it and left it to hang dry. Jim had pulled it over him then as well, tucked him in. Spock’s chest clenched, eyes opening. He’d forgotten when he’d closed them. 

“Are you not uncomfortable?” Spock mumbled. Jim shook his head, pressing in closer to kiss beneath one, upswept brow. Spock closed his eyes again. 

“This radiator is just fine, mister.” 

Spock sighed as Jim’s shoulders shook. Jim’s laughter unvoiced, it still seeped into Spock’s skin.

All fell quiet around him.

“Awake again?” 

Jim’s voice was close and whispered. Spock recognized it as some time in the middle of the planet’s night, grogginess still heavy in his limbs. 

Jim, half-laid upon him, leaned up to gently suck Spock’s lower lip, pushing his blunt fingers through the lay of Spock’s dark hair. There was no urgency in the movement. Instead, Jim cradled Spock’s head in his hands, sighed sweetly as he coaxed them both onto their respective sides.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jim murmured. His voice dragged with affection, simmering and sparkling where it could touch. Spock felt the impression of his fingers, furrows in the sand. Jim was citrus and orange rind against the contours of his mind, more sugar than a bite. He weighed the flesh of his thoughts against Spock’s canines, opened himself as one might as juices upon the lips. Jim turned liquid across the lay of his palm, curled as tongues do against the bird bones of wrists. “Come here.” 

Spock burrowed into the circle of his arms, nosed against the curve of Jim’s neck. He had not been held since he was a boy. He had not been held since his mother greeted him in the kitchen, the split of his lip like the split of himself. Never Vulcan enough for the children in the Learning Centers, never Human enough for those who would brave the inhospitable heat. Caught between the fold of her arms and the fall of her hair, Spock felt no better. He should not require it, but the Human in him yearned for it. It ached, as he now ached. Jim’s body smelled of sex and Spock, as much as he smelt of Human musk. Something in Spock broke free, burning painful and heavy in the pit of his stomach. It was as though an old wound, rain on the roof of his apartment in San Francisco. It ached in the way one might worry a tooth, might pull their fingers through a knot in one’s hair. In himself, it felt as though the drop of barometric pressure. His temples throbbed with the enormity, of the golden sun of Jim’s warmed body. He stretched within it, burned within it. And he wanted. He wanted, more than he might have once afforded himself. 

“That’s it,” Jim mumbled, wholly nonsensical. He felt Jim press a kiss to the crown of his head, a barely detectable movement, but Spock had known it all the same. This too had been a novelty. He had never allowed another so close. He had never felt adoration swell within himself as much as it swelled within another. Paired as it was, Spock felt the tension leave his shoulders. He felt his body moving closer. He felt Jim, stroking the curve of his hip. “I have you.” 

Spock shut his eyes again. He had always known Jim did.

"Mornin'."

It was rare that Jim woke before him, rarer still that he laid in repose upon his own bed. Spock squinted into the brightness, found himself still curled into Jim’s Human warmth. It took many long moments for Spock to recognize his own soreness, the lazier brush of thick fingers through hair. Spock went to push himself up on his elbows, but Jim turned his head. Wreathed in the pale hours, his skin was cooler, but nonetheless golden. Bare, he appeared all the more so. 

"Really put you to bed, didn't I?" Jim asked, the corner of his mouth tucking into the round of his cheek. As Spock went to speak, Jim reached over to pat near the meat of his thigh. The silvery blanket he’d tucked himself under in the cool of the night crinkled in protesting response, and Spock found himself inclined to shed the thin cast of its material. Jim seemed to anticipate Spock’s movement, because he soon found that Jim’s hand had snaked underneath it. He gentled his rough palm over the cusp of Spock’s hip, ran it upward to rest over Spock’s thrumming heart. In Spock’s side, it battered hard and quick, and Jim seemed to let himself idle within the sensation. “Don’t trouble yourself over it. I need you sharp.” 

"Captain," Spock started. His voice was rougher, deeper than it ought to have been. Jim turned his wrist, the backs of his knuckles playing light over the cage of Spock's ribs. Jim's eyes flicked up to his, the brown in them more apparent against the dawn light that stretched over them. "Jim." 

The corners of Jim's eyes crinkled. He was pleased, Spock realized. Even without the confirmation of touch, he’d made it self-evident in the way he let his knuckles brush over the round of Spock’s shoulder, turned his hand once again to sweep down the length of Spock’s arm. Spock sucked in a breath then, Jim’s warm fingers shimmering and soft and coherent, stirring embers along the boundary everywhere they touched. The callouses that adorned them and Jim’s singular attention felt again like the sun, and its corona was languid and lovely in the cup of his palm beneath the looser curve of Spock’s. 

“Too much?” 

The glittering edge of Jim’s thoughts bloomed about the lift of his knuckles, and something must have conveyed Spock’s subconscious answer, because Jim had already dipped his chin. He had already begun to press absent kisses to the backs of Spock’s fingers, had already begun to watch the stutter-step of Spock’s autonomic responses and the greener stain of blood. And, beneath the thick lay of his lashes, Spock knew he’d already caught the way that Spock had found it pointless not to raise his thumb—not to trace the underside of Jim’s jaw. For there, in the soft cut of it, Spock knew he would again taste the same, dark rains. Iowa in summer, Spock had since piecemealed, the green of tall corn stalks bent to the wind’s will. Spock found himself wondering—in some strange fit of sentimentality that did not wholly belong to him—, if Jim missed the bleach of the sun in his hair, the way the corn silks would tangle about the dampness of his fingers. Sticky with sweat and caked with thin dust, the memory and sound settled over what was beneath it. 

Spock knew what it was.

“No,” Spock said, with some eventuality. His throat bobbed about something he could not wholly discern, but knew surely not to place a name to. But, it seemed… Adequate, that Jim appeared to weave along the understanding and make more certain the shape. He reinforced its edges, held it as he would hold a flower. Never one to worry about the state of its unfurling, Jim would often be found waiting along the greenery. Upon planets, within the belly of the ship, it did not matter to Jim. What did, Spock had eventually come to realize, was the beauty in the anticipation. What could grow would grow and what wouldn’t? It seemed no less fulfilling to Jim. There was always much in life that one could not anticipate, like the sapping of nutrients in uneven soils, but when such conditions were right, there was always satisfaction that would cling to him.

It clung to Jim now, as Spock appended: “You may continue, if you wish.”   

Jim did just that. 

Mouthing still at the ridge of Spock’s knuckles, Jim started to speak. 

“Do you know how long I wanted to do this?” 

Beneath his lashes, Jim watched Spock’s expression. Something softened about the corners of it, entirely against Spock’s will. 

“I can give only an estimation,” Spock murmured. The taste of Jim against his fingers did not change. It only grew headier, but no more urgent than it had before. It was not an embarrassment, Spock knew. It was a longing, ripe as the skins of fruits. Spock cast his memory back, thinking of each cataloged look that Jim had given him. He pored over the smiles, the complicated faces that Jim once wore. If Spock had noticed the shift, it had been gradual; Jim’s eyes held his longer, burned into the bend of his spine. He circled about his space as though a body fixed within his gravity, as though he could not see that Spock had done the same.

“Approximately fourteen months, ten days, and six hours.” 

Jim laughed, more a puff of air over Spock’s skin than not. 

“Pretty close,” Jim said. He coaxed over Spock’s hand, pressed his mouth against his palm. Spock’s fingers curled reflexively, curving under Jim’s chin as he made a contented sound. “But, you’ve wanted it longer.” 

Spock did not speak. He needn’t have. 

Silence stayed, for a moment. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Jim’s eyes searched his. Spock felt something skittish and vulnerable choke about his lungs and ribs. And still, he dredged through his vocabulary. He dredged through what he could say. Jim’s gaze remained patient. He waited. 

“I did not think it would be…” Spock said, eventually. He trailed off. 

“Reciprocated,” Jim said, completing the sentence for him. Spock did not flinch, but his attention dropped. He watched instead something behind Jim. A rock, perhaps. A glittering stone. 

Jim pressed another kiss into his palm. Something ached through Spock’s arm. He was not its origin, and before he might have spoken again, Jim tugged him in. He kissed Spock, chaste and cautious. He sighed against Spock’s lips, and Spock named the emotion. It was the same, storied passages of an individual who wishes no more than to settle into the body beside them. To dig their way into the bone and marrow. As though they could not get close enough, make the other understand enough. 

Something stirred within him. It answered, its language foreign. Ancient. 

Jim’s lips parted—

Within the rucksack, their remaining communicator chirped.

Jim groaned, almost. He pulled back from Spock, and Spock allowed it. It was a mix of relief and disappointment that pooled in Spock’s still held hand. Spock squeezed, thoughtless. 

“Kirk here,” Jim answered once he’d dug the communicator out with his free hand and snapped it open with the clever flick of his wrist. “Found us?” 

“Aye, sir!” Came the voice of Mister Scott. His cadence was filled with a barely hemmed excitement. “We were about to send another team down to locate you. Had a big, old group of ensigns after you. Worried as all Hell, least to say of the rest.” 

Jim squeezed Spock’s hand back. 

“Mister Spock just fine?” Mister Scott asked, the connection crackling. 

“A picture of health,” Jim said, sliding a glance back over to Spock. Spock hid the shiver it drew up, but Jim’s eyebrows rose in a tease. 

“—Sirs!” Cut-in one voice suddenly. Spock immediately recognized it as Ensign Lockwood.  

“Ensign,” Spock said before Jim could respond, “this is a private channel.” 

“I know, sir, but we were so worried—” 

Jim laughed. It was a light, delighted sound.

“At ease,” Jim said, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Strange interference, isn’t it? If you’ll excuse my call.”

“Oh! Yes, sorry sirs,” Ensign Lockwood said, abruptly hanging back up.  

Mister Scott’s voice rose again from the other line. 

“Lost you again for a moment. Strangest thing,” Mister Scott paused for a beat, before continuing. “Ready to beam up?” 

Jim looked back at Spock.

In the firelight, Jim was as handsome as he was beautiful.

“Give us fifteen. Kirk out.” 

Snapping the device shut, he shifted back around to lift their joined hands to his mouth. Spock sucked in a breath. 

“Well, Mister Spock,” he said, placing aside his communicator. He raked his eyes over Spock’s nakedness as he sat up, the bare line of his chest down to his stomach. “We have a job to do.” 

Jim released his hand, and Spock began to fish about for their uniforms, nose wrinkling minutely as he did so. Jim laughed again, assisting. He looked up as Spock did when they came across Spock’s thermal, choosing to shove it into the rucksack for later cleaning without saying more.  

“Let’s go mind the store,” Jim concluded.