FIC: Hands
Even before he realizes where he is from the cool dryness of the air, the muted murmurs and electronic beeps and whistles in the background, Jim knows who is holding his hand. Mute with pain, he sends out a question and receives a burst of invigorating warmth. He is expected, anticipated, wanted. The hand tightens. Jim tries to squeeze back but all he manages is to wriggle his fingers and grab weakly at Spock’s fingers. Wet bandages are wrapped around his shins and his entire lower body is encased in bio-regenerative gel that keeps him immobile, unable to even turn on his side. He peers at the blurry sight of Spock and wishes it wasn’t so painful to laugh, because Spock’s hair is messy and there’s a smudge of soot against his cheek.
In any other circumstances, Spock would find such appearances undignified. Today however, he hardly notices the scent of acid and charcoal clinging to his dirty blue uniform shirt; his attention is absorbed by the still form lying on the biobed. It is unacceptable to have Jim wake up alone in Sickbay - no, that is inaccurate; he cannot bear the thought of Jim waking up alone. He knows that Nurse Chapel is tempted to come over and check on her Captain with her own two eyes, but instead she hovers and pretends distraction, fiddling with PADDs, hyposprays and other equipment. Doctor McCoy has ordered everyone to leave Jim in peace, everyone except him.
‘Hey,’ Jim whispered his voice dry like paper. ‘What did I miss?’
‘Not much.’ Spock said quietly, deliberately quoting Jim’s much-muttered phrase and hoping that Jim understands him, what he means to say, what he can’t say. ‘You have been unconscious for approximately six hours.’
‘Six hours? The miners… are they…?’
‘They were all accounted for with no casualties. The final transport departed two hours and thirty-seven minutes ago.’
‘Good…’ Jim’s eyes flutter close with a wince, but the furrow in his brow disappears and his breathing becomes rhythmic.
That Jim takes his duties seriously and carries them out to the very end should be admirable, but today he would have preferred Jim be more cautious and less prone to heroics. Spock squeezes the available hand and wonders if Jim will fall back into a semi-lucid state, drunk on the chemicals being pumped into his body. He stares intently as Jim’s eyes flutters once more, revealing his bright-blue bloodshot eyes. Besides Jim’s hands, only his neck and face are visible, displaying raw pink patches of pale unprotected flesh. Spock flinches and averts his gaze. It is too soon for him to look at Jim without being reminded of how he had looked when the failing environmental suit was sawed and peeled from his body. The injuries are extensive: lung damage, severe dehydration and second degree burns over half the body. Spock tightens his grip on Jim’s fingers and feels uncertainty grip him like cold draft.
Jim smiles weakly. He ignores the sting as his lower lip cracks and wells with blood. ‘Easy there with the hand, Spock.’
The hand doesn’t ease. Jim knows that he’s scared Spock, he knows that there are few things Spock wouldn’t forgive him but this is one of them. Jim didn’t hear Spock’s shout over the thudding of his heart, but he had felt the through the bond, sour and razor-edged as if it was his own agony, and then utter panic when the bond had faltered for a moment. Shit, if it scared him, he can only imagine what it was like for Spock.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he whispers.
But Spock doesn’t hear him. The picture perfect memory of six hours ago replays in Spock’s mind for the thirtieth or perhaps two-hundredth time, having lost count two hours ago when the mission was officially completed when he calmly handed over the con and left the bridge. He remains as tense as when he first arrived in Sickbay to await Doctor McCoy’s verdict. The prognosis is positive, but it is cold comfort.
Jim swallows painfully, mouth and throat dry, and forces himself to open his burning eyes. ‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry...’
There is a caress over his knuckles. ‘There is nothing that you need to apologize for.’
Except Spock doesn’t really feel that way, and they both know it. Jim had made a decision down in the caustic atmosphere of the planet to leave the safety of the ground transport and not wait for backup. It had been the right decision because the volcano was about to blow, they needed to get the miners and their families to safety. That had been their mission and his number one priority. But then something went wrong. Jim closes his eyes, shaken, and wets his bloody lips as dry fingers caress his stiff ones.
“The thermal cooling system is off nominal, seal failure in five minutes… Captain, we should return to the transport.”
“Not just yet but you go on, Spock”
“Jim, seismic activity is increasing exponentially, it is no longer safe to-”
The ground had shaken violently, and then Jim was slipping, tumbling down the side of the cliff. Jim needs to look after himself better, take more precautions because Spock refuses to go through this again, to be this off balance. He has lost too much to lose his mate as well, and though he knows that he is causing Jim discomfort, he cannot let go. He doesn’t want to even try. He bestows Vulcan kisses, engaging the only part of Jim’s body he has available to show his affection. If the touches are heavier, more ardent, lingering, then it is because he wants Jim to know the depth of his attachment.
A small hopeful part of Spock expects Jim to respond, shake off sleep and call his name, to induce him into getting on the bed though they both know it’s a terrible idea, to gaze at him with luminous blue eyes he always lost himself in when they folded into each other’s forms. Jim’s eyes remain closed. The machines around them continue to beep, and the air filter continues to hiss.
It is unacceptable.
Jim feels the air shift and a shadow fall over him and then Spock is there, warm mouth moving softly against his broken lips, filled with so much restrained desire. Jim wants to surge up and wrap his arms around Spock’s head, pull him down on him but he settles for opening his mouth and accepting the desperate adoration being poured onto him. But this isn’t what Spock needs and he’s not satisfied either. Tilting his chin up, he urges Spock to kiss him for real because hesitation doesn’t suit the Vulcan, neither does anxiety. Jim ignores the ache of his lips with each rough wet caress and slide of lips. He has kissed plenty of people in his time, but he has never tasted a kiss quite like Spock’s. When they pull apart, he wants to cup Spock’s face and pull him back down.
‘Again…’
‘It would not be wise,’ Spock says with regret.
His limp hand is pulled tightly to Spock’s collar and pressed there against hot Vulcan skin. Jim shifts his fingers, allowing them to graze against the edge of Spock’s jaw, his ear and cheek. He breathes just a little quicker, the bond humming with so much everything that it makes him slightly crazy. Jim doesn’t have to guess how Spock feels about him; it is laid bare for him, the painstaking attention given to his every move, his comings and goings, when he sleeps and when he wakes, the long-suffering, the patience, the yearning for him and for his fulfillment. It fills Jim like the sizzling heady pleasure of them together melting into the sheets or the hazy sweet peace of fingers touching in wistful affection.
Jim reluctantly closes his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer. Spock nuzzles against his weak trembling fingers and covers them with his own. Jim reads that gestures clearly - don’t let me go. Fingers brush against his Psi points, simultaneously seeking and demanding entrance. And then suddenly the chirps and beeps of Sickbay recede until there is silence. Jim feels the bloom of something else between them as Spock responds, guiding him into the Vulcan’s mind to examine his undisclosed desires, things Spock had locked away for so long to be yearned and idealized with the clear cold resignation that it was all never to be. Something inside of Jim aches when he is drawn into the heat and vulnerability of Spock’s desire for him, the careful hesitant joy in their bond. Even now Spock cannot believe himself to be so fortunate. The display of such unguarded adoration touches upon a raw nerve and leaves Jim trembling, breathless; if he could move he would have dragged Spock to bed because suddenly it’s too much, the full force of Spock in his head and God, he wants to touch something, he wants to squeeze and bite and implode into a million pieces.
Spock would not normally engage Jim in such an intense mindmeld, the mental equivalent of intimacy reached during coitus but he cannot wait for Jim to become better before reaffirming their bond. Short of physical intimacy due to Jim’s numerous injuries, Spock has this though he does not prefer it. There is lust, fullness, affection, fulfillment and pleasure, beyond what a human mind and body is capable of handling and completion through a mental joining comes too quickly when he would have preferred to savor and draw out the moment. There is also no laughter, unexpected moments of sweetness or tenderness; Spock misses playful touches, smiles, chuckles, gasps, moans, whimpers, mischievous grins, even sweat breaking out over Jim’s skin.
There are gasps and choked breaths as he draws Jim headlong into himself, with the standard physiological responses that denotes sexual intimacy: capillary dilation, the widening of the pupils, the quickening of respiration, the rush of blood to the sensory cortex of the brain, et cetera. When Jim begins to breathe in jagged little puffs and make small throaty noises, sensory memory ghosts across Spock’s skin. He hardens even though he does not want to, and falls into headlong pleasure of remembered caresses.
‘Spock, Spock….’ Jim chants in gasps, uncertain if he is speaking aloud or in the privacy of their joined minds, as sensations of the biobed sheets under him merged with what feels like Spock sliding against him, through him. He has heard the explanation - sense receptors in the brain being stimulated and manipulated - but that doesn’t change the intensity. It doesn’t even matter that his body is so broken and weak that he can’t even get hard. The pleasure is just as glorious, just as addictive, a hot-white glow coursing under the surface of his skin.
‘What in the name of?? What the hell are you doing to my patient?!’
Spock feels Jim’s skin leap under his fingers, and bites his lower lip as he forcibly extracts himself from Jim’s mindscape. When he opens his eyes, he is standing bent over the bed with Jim’s hand fisted at his collar, and Doctor McCoy is gripping his shoulder with an expression between outrage and awkwardness. The blue iris of Jim’s eyes are still muddy with blood but the warmth and hazy pleasure in them as Jim blinks lazily is a pleasing sight.
Spock unfurls Jim’s hand and straightens but he does not look away, ‘Doctor.’
Vaguely he is aware of Doctor McCoy’s noisy displeasure as the man rounds the bed to one of the medical monitors, fretting in his own way. ‘Don’t you Doctor me, Spock! His heart monitor went berserk! What the hell did you do to him, you crazy Vulcan!’
‘I’m fine, Bones,’ Jim murmurs, voice stronger than before.
The doctor does not look to Jim, his entire focus on the medical readout. ‘You are not fine, Jim,’ the doctor snaps, ‘dammit Jim we almost lost you.’
‘Never,’ Jim scoffs weakly. Spock feels the hand in his grasp curl around his fingers with the weak strength of a child, and feels a deep joyful satisfaction at the change. Over the bed, the doctor’s eyes widen as he chokes on some imaginary offense.
‘YOU bastard.’
He grins with cracked lips when Bones literally grabs Spock by the back of his scruffy uniform and tries to pull him away. But Jim knows Spock and until he wants to move, he won’t move an inch - the stubborn bastard. It hurts to laugh but he does it anyway, just a little chuckle as Bones lays down the law to Spock for daring to have sex with a patient. Finally Spock’s hand tightens before letting go.
‘Fine, fine. But the privacy curtains stay open, you hear?’ Bones rants in the background.
‘I will be back.’ Spock tells him quietly.
Jim chuckles and holds out his index and middle fingers, curls them to stroke from Spock’s palm to the tips of his fingers.
'You’re so bad.' He murmurs fondly, eyes already starting to tire, 'So bad.'
Even before he closes his eyes to rest, he knows that the first thing he will feel is a hand, tight around his.
*END*