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"Blame Tarsus IV."
It was just an expression.
Just another of the hundreds, thousands of illogical idioms humans used every day, without even noticing. Or at least that was what he had deduced when he had heard it for the first time, eight months, two days and fourteen hours ago.
Only to realise now, with sudden, almost unbearable bright clarity, that he had been wrong.
The others had not yet realised, he noticed absently; had not yet managed to connect the several small hints they had received over the course of the past three hours they had been stranded on this planet, neither communication nor transporters apparently working, waiting for a signal from the Enterprise. The human mind was like that; incidents faded exponentially with the growing amount of time that had passed since they had occurred, and a human could get used to a puzzle, actually forget it.
Vulcans weren't like that, and Spock was certainly Vulcan enough not to be like that either. He got used to an idiom when he found out what exactly it was supposed to mean, where it originated in. Nyota was a great help in that; it was how their association on a more personal level had begun. But every time Jim had told him, with a dry grin and a shrug, to blame Tarsus IV, he had wondered why Jim was the only human who used that expression. Nyota had shrugged and said that it was probably only used in the area Jim came from, and while that was an adequate explanation, it didn't quite fit. The situations Jim used that idiom in were few and usually in the context of someone—usually Dr. McCoy—complaining to Jim about his brashness, his tendency to make spontaneous, apparently illogical decisions; the general theme seemed to be Jim's sometimes rebellious behaviour.
"It's what everyone does", Jim would not-explain with an easy smile if someone asked, and it made sense enough that nobody inquired further.
Blame Tarsus IV.
The Tarsus IV Incident had shaken the Federation greatly; everyone had been horrified and since then, colonies had developed several safety measures to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. And since it had been and still was a widely-discussed topic, with only barely thirteen years since it had occurred, it was still fresh in humans' minds. That idiom made sense, just enough—and yet it didn't, just little enough so Spock didn't inquire further, ignoring the slightly nagging twitch he felt whenever he heard someone use that phrase.
But this—this revelation, this deduction Spock had come to the moment Jim had declared that he and Spock would not get a share of the little indigestible plants they had found—it just made too much sense not to be correct.
"Spock is Vulcan and as such does need a lot less sustenance than humans do, and I am used to skipping a meal from time to time," Jim had said. When McCoy had protested loudly, he had shrugged and had, accompanied by a grin so smooth it seemed slightly forced, explained that he had gone to bed without dinner fairly often in his youth. Inexplicably, that seemed to satisfy the doctor; Nyota snorted, and they and the two security officers they had brought made to share the plants.
Spock stared at their captain, who was watching them with a slightly detached expression, face devoid of any other emotion; a thing that was very unusual for Jim Kirk.
Blame Tarsus IV.
Yes.
There had been nothing in his record; not even a note that anything out of the ordinary had occurred in Jim Kirk's life, apart from his habit of getting into conflict with the law enforcement and his irregular childhood. That, of course, made sense too. Nine surviving witnesses; all of their identities—unlike any other survivors of Tarsus IV—heavily protected, security clearance several levels above that Spock had access to, with the extra clause that to get access to the detailed files, one needed to acquire a special permission. Not even an admiral in the counsel would be able to access the files without a sound explanation and without his case being thoroughly inspected. Of course there wouldn't be anything in Jim's files.
By the time the second day had passed, they had managed to set up a more satisfactory camp than the first improvised one they had hastily constructed the previous day, needing to be quick because upon beaming down, it had been only five hours until sunset. Spock would ponder the foolishness of not bringing any survival kits down to the planet, apart from Dr. McCoy's medicinal kit and his own tricorder, but he had been present when the planet had been scanned. No sapient life forms, barely any others that could even be considered sentient; only flora, nothing of economical interest to Starfleet. The captain had decided to beam down only because he wanted to 'stretch his legs' for a bit, and Nyota had come because the sighting hadn't been supposed to take longer than two hours and she needed a few beam-downs on her record, or so she declared. She had little scientific interest in basically empty planets and also no need for adventures, as Jim had; her passion was for language, communication. But she was ambitious, still. Jim had shrugged upon her request and said, "Why not?"
Why not indeed.
They had beamed down and scouted the area, and though the planet's flora in itself was interesting—as was the fact that there seemed to be no animals at all vacating the planet, nor any insects—there was little to report to Starfleet. They had collected samples and then readied themselves for beam-up.
Except the communicators weren't working, the Enterprise didn't respond and consequently, nobody beamed them up.
Thanks to the tricorder, they had managed to collect a small number of plants that weren't poisonous to their systems, though of little nutritional value. But it was better than nothing, Jim had said, relatively good-natured despite their situation. He had handled the situation with the competence a captain should, but unlikely would display, especially one so young and when in such a situation for the first time.
Now that Spock knew what to look for, he found more and more evidence to back his revelation; the way Jim was able to 'make do' with what little they had, how he managed to keep the humans on track and busy, thus successfully distracting them from the situation, keeping them from becoming distraught and overly emotional. With calm matter-of-factness he had explained that the Enterprise would either beam them up soon or, if they were unable to detect their position due to their apparently damaged or blocked communicators, would send a group of officers to collect them. If the transporter was blocked as well (unlikely, since they had been able to beam down without a problem; it had to be something else that prevented them) they'd send a shuttle as soon as possible. Thus, what they needed to do was stay as close to the area they had beamed down to as possible, which was slightly inconvenient because the nearest water supply was several miles away, but the walk to the river kept them busy. To quench the thirst, he had them keep small stones on their tongues; a simple, but effective method. He was very effective in the conduction of their camp. It was obvious Jim had more experience than a mere training camp could bring.
It was after sunset, just when they were about to share their second meal of the day, the third on the planet, consisting again of the few plants they had managed to collect, that the humans began to suspect something was wrong.
Jim had skived off the first meal by declaring he'd rather keep his stomach empty to drink as much water as possible; such an excuse wouldn't work for a second time.
"Jim, you haven't eaten at all since beam-down," McCoy said, voice less rough and more suspicious.
Jim shrugged and muttered "not hungry".
Nobody believed him. "Jim," Nyota—and it was interesting that only now, in this situation, she started calling him by his first name—said, narrowing her eyes. "McCoy is right, you need to eat."
Sighing, apparently realising that he'd need to give a more reasonable explanation than the previous evening but not yet willing to give up, Jim leant back onto his hands and stared into the fire they had built to warm them and because humans felt better in the dark with a source of light nearby. "Not really."
"What the hell are you thinking?", McCoy exclaimed loudly in his usual aggressive manner. "Really, the three leafs you are going to eat won't make any of us starve; don't think we'll let you play martyr just because you-"
"Bones," Jim interrupted, and there was a steely note to his voice that made the doctor shut up immediately. His eyes intense, he swept his gaze over his five companions, coming to a halt at Spock, who was looking at him with dark, expressionless eyes, having kept quiet through the whole conversation, yes; the whole day, he now realised, except to attribute information or logical deductions as to where and how to set the camp. "Got anything to say, Spock?", Jim said, voice slightly challenging, but mostly flat.
Spock didn't raise an eyebrow. "No, Jim." He deliberately used his first name, not his title; he rarely did, even though in the past nine months since Jim had officially gotten command, they had developed a companionship that had, if he was honest with himself, developed into a friendship without either of them noticing until they spent most of their free evenings with each other, playing chess, conversing or simply sitting at the same table, each buried in his reading material.
"So you don't think I should eat my three leafs like Bones says?" Now Jim's voice was sarcastic, almost mocking, and Spock recognised the deflection tactic. Jim felt trapped, obviously unwilling to give an explanation, and humans naturally became aggressive when feeling caged in.
"That is your decision to make," he replied carefully. "It is logical for you to be unable to prevent yourself from making compromised decisions, in this situation. But I do believe that you have taken your own health into consideration and would, if you were in any danger of fainting or delirium, take measures to prevent that from occurring."
"What the fuck, Spock-" McCoy started ranting, but both Jim and Spock ignored him; Jim leant forwards, into Spock's personal space, eyes intense and face still empty. -can't you see he's starving himself-
"Figured it out, didn't you." Jim didn't voice the words, only mouthed them, and though he tried to keep up his façade, Spock could see that behind the sarcasm on his face lurked a kind of haunted determination. Yes, Jim was compromised. Not enough to be dangerous, yet, but not as calm and detached as a captain should be.
And Spock knew what he had to do.
"Blame Tarsus IV," he said, and Jim stilled.
For a moment Dr. McCoy was silent as well, before he hissed that that wasn't funny, Spock, and tactless to top it off-
"Yes," Jim said quietly. Blame Tarsus IV. "Should have known you'd get it."
"Jim, what-" Now the doctor sounded worried, but broke off abruptly when Jim closed his eyes and seemed to crumble, sank forwards until his face was pressed into Spock's chest. Spock watched him, wondering not for the first time what was going on inside his head but, not for the first time, unable to figure it out, logically or otherwise. Jim was not crying, nor had he fainted; he wasn't hyperventilating. In fact, he wasn't doing anything; the position he was in couldn't be comfortable, but he seemed disinclined to move.
The other humans were silent; unused, Spock knew, to the sight of their captain displaying weakness. Jim was a very open captain, but he made a point of never losing composure, apart from a few curses, in front of the crew in dire situations. It was a principle Spock understood and supported; no matter how scared a human was in a situation, as long as their leader stood calm and determined, they tended to follow his example.
But this situation was different; they weren't exactly in mortal peril—not yet—and there was no need for Jim to react to the situation as if they were. The odds stood in their favour; the possibility that one of them died of starvation before the Enterprise managed to get to them were very low. Yet, it was logical that Jim, having gone through Tarsus IV, wasn't quite able to see that.
"Jim?", Nyota spoke softly, tentatively, reaching for their captain, but a glance from Spock halted her hand mid-movement. It was illogical, but instinct—or intuition, his mother said he had inherited that from her, intuition—told him that Jim would right now rather not be touched by anyone. It didn't add up because Spock was touching him—or rather, Jim was touching Spock; he had learned that while the result seemed to be the same, to humans it more often than not wasn't—but he trusted his intuition. This had something to do with consent and free will; something Spock understood perfectly.
"Jimmy?", McCoy spoke, voice as soft as Spock had never heard from him. He made no move towards their captain, but Spock felt Jim draw a breath nonetheless—felt it intimately, fleetingly wondered if he was inhaling Spock's smell and quickly quenched the thought at it was irrelevant and certainly not the fitting moment to ponder—and then one of Jim's hands crawled into Spock's lap to fist in the hem of his uniform shirt, his own body shielding the movement from the view of the rest of them.
"Yes," he said again, slightly muffled, and Spock felt his lips' movement through the cloth. "I can deal with it. Eat the damn plants, you are feeling faint already. You'll start to tremble soon if you don't, and hallucinate."
"And you won't." It was more stating a fact than asking a question, but McCoy, as was his habit, made his discontentment clear.
"No."
"Jim, let's make a deal," Nyota suddenly spoke up, a steely note to her voice that Spock knew meant she wouldn't leave Jim much choice, despite her choice of words. "You eat your fifth of these goddamn plants, and I let you have Spock for the night. McCoy is right, it won't kill us and it'll certainly help you, even if you can deal with hunger better than we can. Besides, the longer we are here, the higher the possibility that we'll get picked up soon. We're not in actual danger."
Spock raised an eyebrow at her offer; she met his gaze freely, but the corners of her mouth were twitching. To protect themselves from the cold, they had split up to sleep in pairs the previous evening; Nyota and Spock had slept together, McCoy and Kirk and the two security officers, Harris and Kysha. Apparently Nyota had decided to mix them up a little for this night. Spock minded a lot less than he maybe should have, apart from the fact that as first officer, his captain's welfare was his first concern.
It was of little surprise that Nyota had anticipated that, though it was slightly puzzling that she apparently was of the opinion that Jim would appreciate the offer—it opened certain possibilities that Jim, who made a point of not starting any relationships of sexual nature with members of his crew, would most likely not appreciate.
Though it appeared that Spock was wrong, for Jim, hidden from the other's view, let his other hand creep into Spock's lap and tentatively brushed his fingertips over Spock's left hand, placed on his thigh. Hesitating only for a moment, mind racing with the possibilities this new action brought, Spock turned his hand and, with a shuddering sigh that Spock only felt, not heard, Jim placed his own in it, sliding his palm over Spock's for a moment before abruptly sitting up. His face was blank and at the same time oddly closed, but his eyes were bright. Spock only saw for a short moment, though, for Jim immediately turned away and met Nyota's eyes.
"Renting out your boyfriend?", he said dryly, raising one eyebrow, and with that simple sentence unravelled the tension that had spun between all of them.
Nyota laughed and slapped him on the arm, a friendly gesture, Spock had learned, despite its implications. "You know very well he hasn't been my boyfriend since months ago!"
"Rea-ly." Jim pursed his lips, playfully doubtful, and Nyota rolled her eyes before accepting her share of the plants that McCoy gave her. She waited until Jim had accepted his share before saying, "He's like a living hot-water-bottle, really. Guaranteed you won't go cold tonight." Then she leant conspirationally close, voice low enough none of the humans would understand her next words—though Spock of course, with his better hearing, would; and she was well aware of that—and whispered, "And he's like an octopus, all arms and legs wrapped around you as soon as he falls asleep. You'll enjoy it thoroughly."
Spock found it decidedly unfair that she still enjoyed teasing him with something that was clearly out of his control.
When the humans had finished their meal, they spent a while telling tales at the fire; it seemed to be a human tradition to do so and, illogical as it was, it passed the time and kept them busy. Spock himself was not in any danger of becoming emotional, but all of them had shown signs of emotional distress. McCoy had been a lot more grouchy than usual, Kyasha, a very young ensign for whom it had been the first beam-down onto an unknown planet, had had an emotional breakdown already, and Nyota made a point of acting normal, but was unable to hide the occasional tremble in her fingers. Harris had shown unusual displays of temper, almost close to insubordination, though of course in a situation such as this, the parameters were different. Jim was the only one who had, apart from the small break earlier, acted completely normal—and also apart from Spock, of course, who was perfectly aware of the odds of their survival and thus found no need to worry. But all things considered, the humans had behaved rather well. Spock was satisfied to be working with professionals.
"I'm going to go for a little walk," Jim declared just as the others got ready to sleep, which in essence just meant supplying the fire with some more burnable material and then curling up around each other. "I'll take first watch. You guys just sleep."
Before one of the others could say anything, he stood and stepped away; Spock quickly followed him, aware that this was his opportunity to speak to Jim in private. From the way Jim adjusted his walking rhythm, Spock deduced that he had expected him to follow or at least was not surprised; it was difficult to tell with humans sometimes. So much weight was put on neigh to invisible nuances; Spock had yet to learn to correctly interpret all of them, and the odds that he ever would perfectly were rather low. As far as he knew, not even humans were able to some times; it made him ponder the illogic of insisting on continuing to communicate in a silent language when one never knew if the other person understood them.
"How did you know?", Jim asked silently, distracting Spock from his musings; he filed them away for later peruse to fully concentrate on the conversation.
"Blame Tarsus IV", he repeated. "It is not an idiom used by anybody else—though a few crewmembers have started to use it as well, but it is obvious they are copying the behaviour of one of their superiors—and the context in which you use it indicated that it was more than just a mere human saying. That in itself was puzzling, but only on this planet was I able to gather enough data to come to a satisfying conclusion."
"In which context do I use it?" Now Jim sounded slightly amused; Spock took it as a positive sign.
"In the case of someone, usually Doctor McCoy, referring negatively to your behaviour."
"Ah." They walked in silence for a while, not getting too far away from the camp and instead walking in circles around it. There was technically no real need for a watch since the planet was empty of life excepting plants and microorganisms, but it would have been careless not to stay alert. Other ships could land here just as they had, after all, and in the possible event that the Enterprise had been attacked, they needed to be especially careful.
"Do you know what happened? On Tarsus IV, I mean," Jim asked suddenly.
"I am familiar with the official reports."
"Ah." Again they walked in silence until Jim broke it again. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Should not I be the one to ask you that question? I got the impression it is-" He didn't get to explain the human custom of 'sharing' painful events in order to make oneself feel better, because Jim suddenly turned to him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.
Spock stilled. In his relationship with Nyota, he had experienced an abundance of kisses and this one he recognised as the comfort-seeking one; it was searching, but almost free of sexual passion, soft and yielding and trembling, and touch Spock understood; touch he could interpret even with his shields intact-
Before he could think too much about it, he carefully placed his hands on Jim's waist and returned the kiss, tentative and careful; he didn't speak the language of human kissing too well yet and didn't want to convey the wrong message. It seemed Jim understood him, though, for he relaxed marginally, released a breath he had apparently held in, almost sagged into Spock's arms as he parted their lips but not them, the intimacy of the moment, and leant his forehead against Spock's.
"Thank you," he whispered, relief obvious in his voice.
"Jim," Spock replied lowly. "Perhaps you could explain to me the manner in which I helped you, as I am not entirely certain what exactly I did." So I can do it again in the future went unspoken, but Spock was sure Jim understood.
Jim shook his head, sank even more into Spock. "Just…" he sighed and buried his face in Spock's neck. "Just never change."
For a moment, Spock was slightly thrown; he couldn't connect Jim's sentence with the context of the situation, but then he accepted that he just had not enough data to understand Jim's reaction yet. Maybe he would one day—highly likely he would—but not now. Humans spoke about traumatising events at their own pace, which was just logical; any pressure would probably push the wrong triggers, causing Jim to associate negative feelings with this situation or with Spock, and that Spock didn't want.
So he settled for tightening his arms around Jim and saying nothing.
Exactly sixteen minutes later, a security officer found them. Not Harris nor Kysha; it was Tollarok, who had been on the Enterprise for a couple of months already. He found them by following a tricorder, and he seemed very relieved; "There you are, Sirs," he said. "We'd been worried already. Apologise for the delay, computer's up and working again. Ready to beam up when you are, Sirs."
"Ready," Jim said quickly while Spock raised one eyebrow. Computer, Tollarok had said, not transporter. The whole computer of the Enterprise had crashed, when he hadn't been there? It seemed a scenario unlikely enough so that it might actually have happened.
It had, they found out when they materialised in the transporter room, where McCoy, chewing on something and a new tricorder in hand, immediately pounced on them, loudly complaining about their need to "go traipsing in the most empty, boring forest in the whole damn galaxy just when they were getting rescued". Scotty relayed to them the most important information; a highly magnetic storm had come upon them completely unexpected, too quick for them to get the shields up; subsequently, the Enterprise had been minorly damaged and the computers had completely crashed; it was also the reason why their communicators had quit working. They hadn't noticed the storm simply because the sky had been completely covered by clouds, hiding the corona they would otherwise certainly have seen from their standpoint. They had been lucky the planet had such a resilient, thick stratosphere.
During Scotty's long-winded explanation (that was, as McCoy told them, completely unnecessary since they'd see the reports pretty soon anyway and they needed rest, damnit) Jim nodded attentively, but he looked tired and faint. Spock knew him well enough not to suspect he wasn't listening, but it was, he knew, only a matter of time until he would faint, despite the number of hypos McCoy subjected him to in quick succession. When done with the captain, McCoy moved on to Spock, who due to his Vulcan heritage wasn't in a bad condition at all. Despite knowing that, McCoy gave each of them an apple, told them to eat them (and nothing more today, Jim; you need to start slow!) and then ordered them into bed, one full night of rest, at least. At least for tomorrow they would be off-duty, no discussion.
It was a clear sign of his fatigue that Jim didn't protest; both McCoy and Scotty noticed and threw supposedly secret glances at each other.
Spock moved one hand to lightly brush his fingers over Jim's elbow and, as if pushed on, Jim immediately started to move forwards and walked towards his quarters, Spock in his tracks, whose quarters were next to his and sharing the bathroom.
In front of his door, Jim stopped and turned to Spock, one eyebrow raised. "You coming?"
Spock raised his own eyebrow. "Captain?"
Jim's face twisted. "Call me Jim, like you did down there. And I seem to remember that I've been promised one night with you as my source of heat, or am I mistaken?"
"Your memory is correct, Jim." Spock lowered his head in a slow nod, not saying anything more.
Still, something in Jim seemed to relax, and he smiled. "Good," he said and entered his quarters, leaving the door open for Spock, clearly accepting it as a given that Spock would follow him.
Spock decided to indulge him.