Work Text:
The rock was unyielding beneath the captain, the chilled air hanging stagnant and smelling of dampness. He twisted gingerly, testing his body; his rising bruises throbbed and he tasted blood in his mouth.
“Spock.” He listened to his bare whisper echo against the close walls of the cave. “Spock?”
“Here.” Judging by the sound of his reply, the Vulcan was just over a meter away, between Jim and the high, narrow entrance of their unlikely hiding spot.
“You okay?” Jim shifted again, wincing as he tried to wedge himself more securely against the slippery floor. “I don’t hear them anymore.”
Waves washed against the steep cliffs outside, far below, audible as muted white noise. Jim had calculated that their pursuers would assume they plummeted to their deaths in the crashing waves and treacherous darkness. He corrected his own thought: it had been less calculation and more sheer desperate hope. If not, if the mercenaries who were pursuing them succeeded in their search, the end would come quickly: there was nowhere left to run and no mercy to be expected.
“I also do not hear them,” Spock confirmed. “However, we may be here for some time. The Enterprise is not due to return for seven hours.”
Jim let out a soft hiss. “Those bloodthirsty bastards were damn efficient.” He let his thoughts briefly drift over the faces of those lost and then turned his mind away, scowling into the darkness. “Who the hell would do that to a scientific expedition?”
“Doctor Florian’s new results on the algal blooms warranted our own visit here. If the information was leaked, then—.”
“Damn it all.” After a chain of difficult and relentless missions, the idea of dropping planetside for thirty hours had been a welcome one. And, in the company of the eager group of scientists, with the sun warming his face, watching Spock’s earnest intelligence at work, Jim had felt happy.
“Are you injured, Captain?”
“Just cuts and bruises.” He licked his lips. “Seven hours? They’ll pick up our transponders once the ship’s within transporter range.”
“Indeed. Although, our pursuers will most likely depart before then.”
“I don’t know.” Jim peered into the low light. “They won’t want to leave any witnesses.” As his eyes adjusted, he imagined he could see the Vulcan’s profile and the shadow of his body. He shifted again, finding a more comfortable seat on the rock and taking most of the strain from his legs. “Not a lot of room in here.”
Spock slowly eased down to the same ledge, sitting close enough for Jim to feel his body heat. “It would not be the first time.”
Jim let out a sniff of dry humor. “You’re right about that. And not the last?”
“If we survive, previous experience suggests that you are correct.”
Jim let the silence stretch between them as his adrenaline finally began to ebb, his body curling in exhaustion and his shoulder touching his friend’s. Memory sparked: the attack had begun abruptly, with targeted explosives and small arms fire. He recalled the weight of the Vulcan’s body knocking him to the ground and shielding him from the brunt of the blasts. He remembered peering through blurred vision as his friend grappled with one of the mercenaries, their struggle ending in the vicious snap of a neck.
They had tried to save the others, moving through stinging smoke toward the sounds of screaming. Two more mercenaries had fallen at their hands, only to find the scientists dead or dying and more foes closing in. It had been so close, at the end, the smell of ozone from nearby disruptor fire sharp in his nostrils as Jim had led them over the edge of the cliffs. The rocks had cut cruelly into their hands and there’d been nothing beneath them.
“If we survive,” Jim repeated hollowly. He looked up to the opening, to the sliver of moonlight. He could feel Spock breathing beside him, the Vulcan’s body solid and warm and, once again, between his captain and potential danger. Always there, always at his side: stalwart protector and dearest soul. Jim’s head swam with an odd sense of dizziness, recognizing yet again the depth of what lay between them. It was something they’d never spoken of, simply existing between them in a way that was both arrogant and cautious and, all at once, far too heavy. The captain felt as though he were at the edge of the cliff again and, again, there was no choice but to go over.
“You saved my life when that first explosion happened.” Jim swallowed, pausing. “You’ve saved me a hundred times.”
“It is my duty,” Spock murmured.
“It’s more than that. I know we’ve never acknowledged it out loud, but you know it’s more than that.” Jim felt the significance of the words linger in the cold air. “We need each other. We’re for each other in a way that I don’t want to ignore anymore. How many more chances will we have, Spock? How long until it’s too late?” He heard his friend exhale softly and he leaned toward him, concentrating on the feel of their shoulders together, a point of contact in the uncertain darkness. “It’s more than that.”
“Yes, Jim,” Spock said finally. “It is more.” Another exhale, and with it the sense of a profound and long-awaited yielding. “There is a Vulcan word for it.”
Jim waited, his heartbeat quickening.
Spock’s voice was gentle as he offered, “T’hy’la. Jim, you are t’hy’la.”
“What does it mean?”
“Friend. Brother-in-arms.” The Vulcan’s breath caught, uncharacteristically halting.
“Lover,” Jim whispered, as the word coalesced in his mind. The light-headed feeling had returned, and with it a sense of exhilaration.
“Yes.” Barely a whisper, a brush of sound against the rock. Jim wondered if he’d even heard it out loud; spurred by the obvious vulnerability of it, he moved closer, letting their legs touch, unerringly finding one of Spock’s hands with his own in the darkness.
The silence stretched again, but some invisible tension had dissipated, and Jim felt Spock leaning into him in turn. Waves washed against the rock far below them, and there was still no sign of their pursuers. For a moment, Jim dared to consider the future, imagining standing together in the low light of his quarters, learning the feel of each other’s skin, the intimate taste of each other, the warmth between them. Here, in the chill and the damp, the captain shivered. He realized that his friend’s hand was trembling in his.
“Well, we’ve been colder,” he said, trying for lightness. “Remember that ice sheet on Dartelu Five?”
“I do remember,” Spock said. “That view, however, was superior.”
“I’ll give you that,” Jim said, smiling. He shifted against the wall. Something in his lower back was beginning to cramp and he tried to turn his mind away from the ache. “Tell me more about t’hy’la.”
Spock’s fingers moved, his hand turning over in Jim’s gentle grasp to let their palms rest against each other. “It is an ancient concept. Rare, and speaking to a profound compatibility between two minds, between two katra. It is not something declared lightly.”
“Obviously,” Jim said dryly. He sensed the other man’s hesitation and curled his fingers encouragingly around Spock’s.
Spock’s head tilted back, and a very human-sounding sigh escaped his lips. “Given our present circumstances I find that such a revelation is, in fact, quite logical.”
“And my good looks had nothing to do with it?”
Another sigh, and Jim smiled again into the dark. “Would you have said something if I hadn’t?”
The Vulcan made a low hum. “We hold a resonance between us that I know you have felt, Jim. In a way, I have said quite a lot.”
“Sometimes humans require a more direct approach,” Jim said. “But, yes, I think I know what you’re talking about.” He closed his eyes, leaning into the sense of his friend next to him. He’d done this before, involuntarily, never really questioning the fact of their connection. The physical contact between them seemed to make it easier, a whisper of flashing thought and familiar mental warmth hovering just out of tangible reach. He recognized that sense of threshold from their melds, when he held himself still, poised, curled in anticipation before that powerful mental tide carried him away.
He opened his eyes, grunting as that sharp pain in his back came again, and drew his hand away to rub at the muscles on either side of his spine. “Damn,” he muttered, standing partially to try to stretch. “I think I pulled something.” The ache subsided as he found the rock ledge again. Spock hadn’t moved, and Jim knew the Vulcan was watching him.
“Let’s say we make it out of here,” Jim said, rolling his shoulders. The chill had seemed to recede as he had moved. “What comes next?”
“I do not know.” The Vulcan’s voice held a strangely tender note.
“If it was just us. Without,” he waved a hand, “all the complications. What would come next?”
“I would join your mind, Jim, and the resonance between us would become a bond, filling the empty places within us. Our minds, one to the other, always.”
The language was beautiful, gently and earnestly stated. So incongruous with Spock’s normal demeanor and yet completely appropriate here, in the darkness, fitting the urgency and significance of the moment, in the dawn of this new chapter between them.
Suddenly breathless, Jim leaned forward, his hands lifting to cradle his friend’s jaw, bringing their lips together, urging Spock’s mouth to open to him as his own head inexplicably swam again, excitement causing his heart to pound. Spock let out a small, pained gasp, and Jim tasted coppery blood on the other man’s lips, breaking their kiss as phantom pain bloomed again in his own back and a chill returned to race down his spine.
“What’s wrong?” Jim said, catching his breath. He could almost see his friend, the sense of him was so clear. “You’re hurt.”
“Jim.”
Jim gritted his teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me? Dammit, where?”
“Pulse-rifle ricochet,” Spock replied quietly. “The damage is mostly internal. I have been attempting to regulate my systems.”
“You should have said something, Commander. Operational protocol—.”
“Jim.” The Vulcan’s earnestness broke through the human’s urgency. “There is nothing you can do. We have no medkit; no contact with the ship. All that can be done is being done.”
“You need to lie down. You could have told me to shut the hell up and let you concentrate. That’s why you’re so cold, isn’t it? Blood loss? You’re going into shock.”
“I predict I will eventually succumb to the healing trance, voluntarily or not.”
“How much time until the ship returns?”
“Five hours, thirty-seven minutes.”
Jim forced himself to breathe deeply, calming his racing heartbeat. “Alright. Alright, if the bastards were going to find us, then they would have already.” He frowned. “There’s room on this ledge for you to lie down on your other side. Here.” He reached out and shifted back, guiding his friend’s body down next to him, the Vulcan’s head in his lap. “Now, don’t talk anymore. Just concentrate.” He licked his lips, dry in the stale air, and helplessly glared at the opening high on the wall.
“I am capable of multitasking,” Spock said stubbornly.
“I’m aware,” Jim replied. His hand found his friend’s hair and gently stroked the soft strands. “The resonance, you called it, the beginning of a bond? I’ve felt it before, but never as clearly as now. I feel…cold. I feel an echo of your pain. You’re dizzy, aren’t you? I feel that, too.”
“Affirmative. My mental shields are effectively down.”
“And you can feel me.” Jim didn’t wait for a reply; their connection was growing palpably stronger as their contact increased. He closed his eyes, focusing on that sense of mirrored touching within his mind. “We’re going to get out of this, Spock. We’re both going to make it back to the ship.”
“The odds of that, Captain, are presently four-thousand, two-hundred twelve point two to one.”
“That good, huh?” Jim said with a low chuckle, continuing to card his fingers through the Vulcan’s hair. He tilted his head, relaxing into the psychic flow between them, feeling something of a low pulse of warmth, of some kind of energy. It went both ways, swelling as he acknowledged it. “Spock,” he murmured, “can you pull from me? Take energy from me? Through the bond?”
“It is not yet a bond, but merely—.”
“Never mind that. Whatever this is; whatever we have right now. Can you?”
“Yes, Jim, but—.”
“Do it.”
Spock’s head shifted against his hand. “Such a transfer would be largely uncontrolled. You would be left vulnerable. And if I fell into a trance,” he added, “you would risk death.”
“How would it change the odds?”
A pause. “It would improve them slightly. Not,” he emphasized, “significantly.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Jim.”
“Listen. You threw yourself in front of an explosive for me, and that’s only the latest thing. If this gives you more of a chance, then I want to do this for you.” He took a deep breath, steadying his voice. “I have to do this for you, Spock. And you know why.” He exhaled, prompting, “You know why?”
The resonance warmed even more, the intensity shifting into something that recalled the depths of a true meld.
“You love me,” Spock murmured.
“I love you,” Jim said. “T’hy’la.”
A soft noise escaped the Vulcan’s lips.
“Do it,” Jim whispered again, and fell into him.
This place between them held the weight of impossible things. The echo of a thousand brushes with death fading into the audacity and anticipation of a thousand more. The utter joy of the touch of a kindred soul bursting upon a lifetime of expected and enforced isolation. There were miracles here, where love was finally allowed free rein. Full was the space between, alight with color and warmth, and the energy of one was shared by both, the thoughts of one shared by both: the pain, the passion, the need, blurring with the inexorable speed and power of its own momentum into a single, focused path forward… .
“Jim.”
Too far and too cold; his body’s weakness was overwhelming.
“Jim, you must wake up.”
The air around him was chilled, and the rock beneath his body sharp and uncomfortable. He was so tired. And yet, he needed to wake, if only because that voice requested it.
“I’m...I’m… .” Jim struggled, his lips numb. He felt a warm hand caress his hair, his face, and couldn’t help turning into the touch. He could feel Spock’s presence bolder and brighter than ever before: whole and assured, anchored to his own. Numb or not, he knew he was smiling.
“It worked,” Jim whispered. “I knew it.”
“The odds, Captain, were—.”
“Hang the odds,” Jim muttered, still smiling. He registered that his head was cradled on his friend’s lap, a reversal of their previous positions. “Are you alright?”
“I am improved,” Spock replied. “However, your condition is—.”
“I’ll be fine,” Jim interrupted.
“Your physical condition is not the only consequence,” Spock said, with uncharacteristic hesitation.
“We went over the cliff again,” Jim said, “and we flew.”
“You speak poetically.” Spock’s fingers traced over the meld points on the captain’s face.
“Given our present circumstances I find that such a manner of expression is, in fact, quite logical,” Jim said, managing a playful lilt to his voice as he mimicked the Vulcan’s words from before. He shifted his gaze to the opening high on the wall. Interestingly, even though he was completely defenseless, he felt buoyantly defiant of whatever might lie beyond. He drew in a breath.
“Twenty-one minutes until the arrival of the Enterprise .” Spock answered his captain’s unspoken question. “There has been no sign of our pursuers.”
“It looks like you were right about their departure,” Jim said.
“And you were correct about us,” Spock said. “Had you not offered your strength, I would not have survived.”
Jim gazed at him, at this man, at his friend, at his soon-to-be lover, at his bondmate: all the dimensions of t’hy’la. “My duty,” he said quietly, trusting in their deepened connection to relay all the meanings of the words, remembering when Spock had said it to him. All the times Spock had said it to him. Jim again dared to imagine the future, conjuring heat and hope, emptiness banished by this new intimacy. “My love.”