Chapter Text
“You say this he-thing belongs to you?” asked the priest, pointing his red-hot branding iron in Jim’s direction.
Jim wanted to edge further away, but the manacles didn’t have any more give in them. Already his shoulders were awkwardly twisted and beginning to kind of hurt.
“Indeed,” said Spock.
“He’s not marked,” the priest pointed out suspiciously.
“Our people stamp marks directly on the mind,” Spock replied coolly. “We need not disfigure what is ours – every person capable of telepathy can perceive it clearly.”
All technically true, Jim thought, and stomped down the urge to smile. They could debate the philosophy of ownership at another time.
The priest set down the iron and rubbed his chin with two fingers. “None of us can access the mind of another. There is none who can verify your claim.”
“I caught it!” insisted the rat-faced man who was the brain of the hunting party. “It’s mine!”
“It would not be the first time you hunted tame things, Rhaksi!” the priest snapped. Some of the watchers snickered.
“This he-thing-” Spock pronounced the words with almost palpable distaste, “-is mine. He shall be returned to me, unless you doubt my word. If you do – then it is a matter of honor.” Spock looked around the room, meeting eyes of the men and women standing there one by one. None seemed willing to fight him, much less for a single slave.
“A sworn oath will satisfy Rhaksi’s curiosity, I am sure,” said a woman in the shadow of a statue of an Amazonian. She was not quite cleaning her nails with the big, sharp knife in her hand, but she wasn’t far from it.
The priest nodded and gestured to Spock.
“I do… swear that h- it,” Spock corrected himself, “is mine.”
“You must swear by the idols of your people!” the priest insisted.
That sounded like a bit of a problem, and Jim hoped that Spock would feel it prudent to dispense with his inbred compulsive honesty for a moment because, Jim felt, looking at all the candles and statues of warrior gods and goddesses around, these people didn’t much look like the kind that would understand the worshipping of logic, rationality and peace. Also, there was the matter of slavery. Must not forget about the slavery.
Jim didn’t really doubt his friend. Spock was so smart it was scary just seeing it written on a computer screen – meeting it in action was often awe-inspiring.
Spock folded his hands behind his back, drew himself as tall as possible, thrust out his chest and took a deep breath. “I swear,” he proclaimed solemnly, “by Grabthar’s Hammer and by the sons of Warwan.”
In the following silence Jim bit so hard on the inside of his cheeks that he tasted blood. Some of the sheer terror must have shown on his face – the locals misunderstood it and happily remanded Jim into Spock’s care.
x
Jim managed to amble out of the village under his own power, but he was very happy when they were finally out of sight of the natives and Spock sat him down, employed touch-telepathy to skim Jim’s body for injuries – or so he would have claimed; Jim preferred to put his own spin on the examination – and proceeded to confirm his findings with a tricorder.
Jim couldn’t hold still long enough for the readings; he had to finally give in to the laughter, or he would have ruptured something.
By Grabthar’s Hammer. By the sons of Warwan. Of all the things Spock could have said.
He quelled the giggles enough to say: “I love you so much right now. Please, marry me.”
“Open channel, gentlemen,” Uhura’s voice chided in a faux-professional tone, but was mostly drowned out by Bones pained exclamation of “Jim!”
Spock’s eyebrow barely twitched. “That would be illogical, Captain, seeing as the Federation Charter guarantees legal reciprocity, and by Vulcan and Terran law we are, in fact, already married.”
Jim smiled, but kept his mouth closed, because he didn’t want Spock to see the blood on his teeth.
You worried me, Spock’s touch conveyed, but there was also the elation of a danger defeated – an addiction they shared. However much they occasionally wanted to take it ill of one another, they couldn’t.
They chose a life that would keep giving them lemons – Jim maintained it was because they actually liked lemonade, even if Spock would never admit to it and Bones would hide behind his bottle of Saurian Brandy and look sour. Which just went to show how right Jim was: no one argued.
“You’re the king of trolls, Spock,” Jim said happily, while Spock fiddled with the tricorder, ascertaining that it was safe to beam them up. “Seriously. I will pledge my loyalty-”
The corner of Spock’s mouth twitched. “I understood that was what you mean by proposing marriage to me.”
Jim smiled wide enough to hurt his cheeks, grabbed the nearest hand and squeezed it. “I absolutely did.”
Out of the comm came Uhura’s faux thoughtful: “…I’m not sure they know what ‘open channel’ means…”