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By the time Kirk stumbled home, Spock was elbows-deep in shorted-out transducers and wire shavings, and the sky was pitch dark.
Kirk was always there for dinner. It was their ritual, their small scheduled sense of normalcy in the flat that felt like a secluded moment of a waking dream. He would stop at the market on his way back from whatever odd job Edith found him that week, and pick up ingredients; an assortment of vegetables, cheese, bread, and if he could afford it, cheap beef trimmings. Spock would be waiting for him, brandishing spices and dented pan. Spock, who had grown used to Kirk's awkward shuffle through the door, hands full of brown grocery paper as he fumbled for his keys, nose kissed pink from the cold.
That day, that entryway had remained stubbornly still and quiet. Spock had acknowledged the faint sense of emptiness that echoed in his chest at the sight of it, and let it float past, sinking into his gut. A fleeting fancy- he would analyze it later over meditation.
The lack of viable long-distance communication had been a great nuisance to adjust to, in the beginning. It made it all too easy for them to lose one another in the cold and dark of the ancient city, when the nature of their mission was already so delicate. Spock's fingers itched at all times for the comfort of a device on his hip- he disliked letting Jim go for so many hours each day, if only because of how completely helpless he was, confined to the company of a cheaply made apartment and a computer that should have been impossible to build. The time delay was cruelly archaic.
He had just started to wonder if it was worth the risk to go out searching (perhaps the wait was over, and Kirk had found Dr. McCoy), when the thump of feet on the stairs interrupted him, sending a powerful wave of relief down his spine. At last, after a short fumbling of metal keys, the door cracked open with a puff of cool air.
"Captain."
"Spock." sighed Kirk, muffled from behind his bags, which he set down with a heavy thump. "Sorry I'm late."
Spock turned back to the delicate filament in his hands, having looked his short fill of rosy cheeks and tousled hair. He waited for an explanation, a rush of words to tumble excitedly out from Jim's mouth, the inevitable question about his progress. Yet nothing broke the silence- just some gentle rustling, and quiet, shallow breathing. His brow furrowed, and Spock cast his gaze over his shoulder once again.
Kirk had fallen into one of their chairs, leaning heavily on the small wooden table, and his head was buried in his white-knuckled hands. He looked small, sunken into his thick flannel shirt, and the dejected curve of his back was decidedly wrong. Spock set down the machinery in his hands, not regretful to abandon it after so many fruitless hours of detailed circuitry work.
"Jim." he said softly, pushing himself up from the floor.
Still, for a moment, Kirk said nothing. Cars rattled slowly by outside, interspersed with the shouting of hawking pedestrians. Then, his shuddering shoulders drew themselves together, and he dragged his fingers free from his face, combing them haphazardly through his hair. His eyes were red-rimmed, evasive, and the crooked smile he attempted to draw on as a mask came far too late.
"I'm alright. I'm- excuse me, Mr. Spock, I just need some sleep."
Somehow, it fell flat amidst the quiet of the flat. Kirk looked all too fragile, dressed in civilian clothing and half-frozen, half-hungry, for the command to hold any weight. Spock frowned, reluctant to return to his work. His frayed focus required rest and recuperation, for which he had begun to realize Jim was an alarmingly vital component. He took a slow step forward.
"I... had hoped that given our current situation, you would feel welcome to speak more candidly with me. I am aware that this... emotional intimacy is a requirement for human wellbeing." he said quietly, and saw the guilt that flashed momentarily across Kirk's face. "However, I see now that I have not communicated this willingness with you. I am attempting to remedy that."
The twist of pain melted away from the corners of Jim's eyes. The corners of his mouth twitched.
"And what willingness is that?" he asked softly, in the tone of voice that indicated just because he understood Spock's point didn't mean he wanted him to keep dancing around it.
Spock, like always, obliged him.
"I would like you to let me help you."
The words came sticky and slow. Like- it was fundamentally un-Vulcan to even say it. To admit that one was pursuing a result solely for their own personal gain was as close to a vile sin as an atheistic society like theirs had, one that Spock with his strict upbringing should never have thought to commit, but he was no longer a young misfit on Vulcan; he was a Starfleet officer, and this was the freedom he had worked so hard to achieve. Freedom to choose the human form of comfort for a human relationship, to live as a contradiction and be granted the same respect as if he weren't. It did not erase the shame he was certain thickened and stiffened his words, but it was necessary to coexist with some passing forms of imperfection.
And Jim knew this. Somehow, he always knew it all. His face shifted, wrinkling with lines of unguarded softness, gratefulness shining through his tired eyes, and he did not bawk, did not laugh, did not ask. In fact, all of the sudden, he looked very nearly shy.
They shared this brief moment of eye contact. The choice was in Kirk's hands, now, and he was wavering behind his façade of normalcy, losing the battle to straighten his spine and shove the pain under his ribs. He bit his lip.
"I..."
The beginnings of the excuse came feebly, and died about before they could fully form, withering under Spock's steady gaze. Kirk blinked, and looked away.
"Okay." he murmured. "Okay, Spock."
Something loosened in Spock's chest, and he bowed his head in brief acknowledgment.
"Thank you."
The brown of the groceries caught his eye, and he was reminded it was possible Kirk had not eaten since early that morning, leaving the mission.
"You must eat first." he said. "I will prepare a bath in the meantime, if it is amenable to you."
With single-minded determination, Spock retrieved his leftover bowl of soup, grown slightly cold and thick, from their (frankly rudimentary) fridge, and sliced a thick piece of bread from the sourdough loaf Kirk always brought home on Thursdays. Sheepishly, Kirk watched, burrowed in his flannel yet still too obviously drained to offer his assistance like he normally would. But he took the food without complaint.
Without complaint, or hardly a word at all. Dinner was never so quiet an affair as it was that day. With his head bowed, Kirk ate mechanically, his eyes faintly glazed as if he were seeing something superimposed over the bowl of stew. He did not needle Spock about his progress, nor worry aloud over Doctor McCoy or his ship; and on the other end, neither he did not marvel about the wonder of living through history, or drag his companion into a discussion on ancient poetry and wartime art.
Spock could hardly keep away the persistent furrow in his brow. His worry was palpable, yet justified, so allowed to remain, but he refused to allow it to bleed into words. Silence was what Jim needed, when he got like this. Silence, and space.
He rose to draw the bath.
The tub itself was unremarkable, small but with blessedly high sides, yet it still felt strange; unavoidably inefficient, to fill it with the heated kettle, little by little. Steam began to billow through the small bathroom, soothing on Spock's naturally dry skin in a way that liquid water alone could not be. For a moment, he stood there and basked in the warm silence.
A crash from past the door startled him from his ministrations. Startled, darting from the bathroom he saw one of their small milk bottles shattered on the floor, and with some alarm, that Kirk had abandoned both his meal and the mess and had taken to hiding his face again in hands that now were shaking, shuddering in time with his shoulders. A being with worse hearing would not have picked up on the tiny hitches in his throat. Spock might have been envious of them.
"I'm- I'm sorry, Spock, my... my hand slipped." Kirk said, wet and rough and very, very quiet. "I'm sorry."
Spock had forgotten about the bottle in that short instance- he brushed past it, to kneel beside his friend. Hesitantly, he raised a hand over Kirk's bent back, the tips of his fingers brushing thick red fabric.
The second he let his palm rest flat and press a gentle pressure downwards, Jim broke. A strangled sob finally fought its way out from his chest, and his head fell limply into the curve of Spock's shoulder, his breath coming in quick and uneven shudders. A precious, fragile moment of vulnerability.
"I watched him die." he whimpered. "Just a kid. Down at the docks, it was dark- they kicked him, again and again, until he wasn't-"
Fingers twisted desperately into the fabric of Spock's shirt, and Kirk clung to him like a lifeline, his tears soaking through to skin. Like a physical wound, his words raked over Spock's heart, making something in his gut ache sharply. His captain had suffered enough loss- it was not right that he should blame himself for this one, too, a thing already so long past.
"You could not have interfered." murmured Spock, bringing his other hand up to cradle Jim's head. "Random tragedy is, and always will be, a facet of human existence. It is illogical to blame yourself."
For a long moment, silence gathered in the air, broken only by muffled gasps, and the rustle of fabric. Kirk sniffed, and shuddered.
"You don't know." he said, hardly more than a rough whisper, "You don't know that. I could have tried. This world..."
He trailed off, pressing his eyes shut, and Spock rubbed a thumb soothingly over the line of his spine.
"This world is so cruel, Spock. There is so much suffering they hardly see it- they hardly have the time to live at all. Fighting for food, for medicine, money..."
"I know." soothed Spock.
He did know, just the same. That helpless feeling of watching from the window at those starving on the street, healthy men taking too ill at too young, and bigotry and hatred clouding all their pain-filled visions when the gods they prayed to had nothing in answer. Yet this was history. This was mankind, and their own sort of pre-Surak world. People like Edith Keeler still lived, and found a great amount of love within one another- in the mission, Spock could sense it in the air, in the warmth of their bodies. Jim did not have this privilege.
"Without this suffering, your species would never have progressed to the kinder future we know." he said. "Kaiidth."
The words seemed to wash over Kirk without truly registering; he just shook, and shook. Spock just held him, securely to his chest, and let his fingers stroke the rippling soft brown curls at his chin. Something in him quieted, however heartbreaking the moment seemed, at the warm weight of his friend in his arms, the steady comfort of his quick human pulse thrumming against Spock's neck. It seemed right.
Eventually (the exact time could have been produced, given a moment of thought, but Spock found himself disinterested in searching) Jim exhaled, long and steady, and slowly, the tremble in his hands lessened. He drew his face away an inch from Spock's shoulders, wincing at the wet cling of the fabric.
"Kaiidth?" he said, in a tiny voice.
Spock bowed his head.
"What is, is."
Jim sighed. He swept a hand across his red face, and pulled away from Spock to look him in the eyes, his own deeply shadowed and puffy. Searching, it seemed, for something in the gaze of his companion, his mouth softened into something kinder, and he squeezed Spock's arm affectionately.
"Wise old Vulcan." he murmured.
They spent another moment there, on the ground, Jim still unsteadily gathering himself in long, slow breaths. But the brief flash of his humor had been reassurance enough for Spock to exhale. While Jim had never made him feel inadequate in their friendship aboard the Enterprise, in their new unique situation Spock had thought it painfully obvious that he was not equipped to properly handle human emotional needs alone. But with his hand resting softly on Jim's shoulder, watching him breathe, he felt confident that he had at last done something right.
Eventually, Spock sensed his friend had wrestled back some control, and he rose on the balls of his feet, pulling them upwards together. Bowing his head, he nudged them towards the bathroom.
"Come."
Jim blinked at him owlishly.
"You're..."
Whatever he was going to say, flecked bright with brief confusion, was lost to the lump in his throat, which he cleared.
"Spock." he croaked, and placed a gentle hand on Spock's bicep, drawing their chests apart. "You- I could never ask you to-"
Spock quieted him with a swipe of his thumb across the broad plane of Jim's back, holding his gaze steady. His steady voice rumbled from deep in his chest.
"You are not asking."
There was a long pause. For a moment, it looked as if Jim were testing him for something, before he swallowed, thick and heavy.
"No." he croaked, finally. "No."
And all at once, those hands fell, and Spock felt the stubborn refusal drain from his tense muscles, an admission of trust. Trust, as bright and valuable as the gold and gems these people still coveted. Trust, which felt like a great, deep exhale.
Spock nestled him close, head resting gently in the crook of his arm, and felt the shudder of Jim's chest.
Slowly, he began to usher them towards the bathroom, letting the curl of the steam draw them in.
Kirk remained gentle, docile with his movements, his eyes sunken shut. Spock bent ever so slightly at his knees, guiding his companion's head to his shoulder. At this angle, he could work at the buttons of the soft red flannel while shielding Kirk from the sight of it. With each soft slip of fabric, the shirt exposed another inch of pale chest, dusted lightly with fine brown hair that Spock knew he would normally laser off. He did his best to preserve a small modicum of his friend's privacy, and neither facilitated any emotional transference, nor stared, when the final button came loose, and he coaxed the shirt from slumped shoulders.
The pants and boots were shucked with a similar slow care. Sat on the edge of the tub, his eyes still somewhat vacant, Kirk allowed it all without joke or complaint, almost absentmindedly leaning into each touch of Spock's broad palm like a clingy young sehlat.
When he finally made it to the waistband of Jim's boxers, he sought silent permission from his captain in a questioning glance. Kirk met it, and gave a small nod. A weak half-smile flickered on his face.
"You're a true gentleman, Mr. Spock." he said roughly, receiving a single raised eyebrow in return.
"I am certain you are the only one who would think so, Captain." Spock replied, steeling himself to hook two fingers into the garment in as professional a manner as he was capable of.
His gaze skipped over the low curve of Jim's genitals, which he told himself were utterly unremarkable; it wasn't as though he'd never seen a penis before, and whatever thoughts he might have about his current proximity to one had were kept securely in their place. As he let the fabric pool at Jim's knees, Spock noted his thighs were more muscular than they had been onboard the Enterprise, toned from weeks of manual labor and miles of walking. The soft skin of them trembled the tiniest amount at the drag of fingertips. His hair here was fine, too, but there was more of it, drawing wavy trails down his calves, cutting off at feet dirty and slightly swollen from hours of cold effort.
When the last of the clothes had gone, Spock recalled a brief memory of visiting a museum of intergalactic art as a young academy student, staring up at figures carved from glittering marble, triumph twisting noble, upturned faces, each flexed muscle so smooth and it seemed likely their white skin would begin to ripple with life. He allowed himself, for a moment, to drink in the sight, commit it to treasured memory, before continuing with the task at hand. He could not allow his own uncontrolled emotions to shatter the moment, not when Jim was trusting him so completely, offering himself up at his most utterly vulnerable; the chance could not be wasted. Spock would be the steady, confident, and safe presence that was needed- he categorically refused any other possibility.
Spock's own clothes were divested in a far more careless manner, quickly and methodically stripped bare. (A faint blush rose in Kirk's cheeks at this, although he was courteous enough to keep his eyes downcast.) It seemed domestic, almost, as if this were something the two of them did every day, and not a shattering of the great invisible boundaries that had held them up until this apartment at this moment in the past.
Stepping through the steam and over the rim of the tub, Spock sank into the warm water. He had come to adjust to the sensation, deprived of sonic showers, and while it would never become a habit of his, he could admit there was something soothing about the lap of ripples against his skin. He let his hand rest on Jim's arm, and dipped his chin.
"Please, join me." he said to his friend's back.
Shyly, Jim nodded, and turned to face the bath. He squeezed Spock's hand with a small, grateful smile, before stepping in between his outstretched legs, unable to suppress a small sigh at the touch of the water. Slowly he began to relax, sinking down the rest with his back against Spock's chest, bracketed by sharp hips, with water lapping up to the midline of his pectorals. A warmth began to grow between the heat of their bodies, and at last, Kirk relaxed enough to let his head fall half onto Spock's shoulder. His eyes fluttered shut, and the relief he felt was so palpable it nearly radiated off his skin.
"You're too kind to me." he murmured.
Spock hummed in response- he disagreed, but had learned that this was moreso an exclamation of gratitude among humans than an invitation to speak. His refutation would not be well-received.
"We both must be vigilant in caring for ourselves here. I only wish to be certain you have done so properly."
Predictably, this drew a weak chuckle from Kirk, but his humor dissolved quickly like salt into the warm water.
"Logical, as always." he replied, softly. "I wish I could be more like you, Spock."
Spock reached towards the side table and retrieved a washcloth and a quickly diminishing bar of plain white soap. He dipped the cloth in the water, and brought it up to rest on Jim's shoulder, as he began to draw the soap across reddening skin. The motion was soothing, as was the contact, yet the words hanging in the air nagged at him.
"I do not." he said, honestly, drawing the washcloth down in gentle circles.
Kirk let his response be a low groan of relief, before his silence returned and choked him up. He opened his mouth once, as if to protest, but it fell shut again without managing a sound. Spock let an arm circle around his torso, and held him secure and flush to his own chest, sensing his flagging energy.
A blanket of quiet calm fell over them, punctuated by the disturbance of water and two heartbeats, out of sync but strong. Spock washed from Jim's shoulders down to the junction of his wrists, and then his lower back and stomach, half-meditative in the sweeping rhythm of soap and cloth. He felt the way muscles flexed and bent with the tiniest movement, watched the rosy skin stretch around them.
He wondered, for a moment, if Kirk knew just how much he meant to Spock. Knew that the human quirks he seemed to agonize over were exactly what balanced out their relationship so well, what made them function as a command team like two long-lost pieces of the same puzzle. Knew that any dullness or alteration in his personality would be a great and painful loss to not just Spock, but the universe. It was likely he did not.
Spock wished, irrationally, to change that.
"I am going to wash your hair now." he murmured, retrieving a small cup from the floor.
The only response he got was a mute nod. Kirk's eyes were shut, at this point, his head bowed low to his chest. He was almost completely boneless in Spock's embrace.
Something about the steady flow of water, saturating his hair while slipping down his shoulders and over his face, broke down his remaining sense of propriety. Spock said nothing when his back began to shake with the evidence of quiet tears once more, but carefully traced lines with his thumb down Kirk's side.
The soft brown hair in his hands was growing long at the edges, wild and ever so slightly unkempt in a way that another might have called rakish. As it was, Spock merely let it flow through his fingers, like warm silk. With every blunt scrape of his fingernails against Jim's scalp, flashes of emotion buffered against him in waves. There was sorrow, yes, bone-deep and aching, but also affection, and a blooming sense of grateful calm sloughing off of him.
Happy tears. Amanda had said to him, once, when he was toddling and young, as she wiped her face clean with a smile. He had pointed out the illogic- she had laughed. This was their dance.
Well, maybe not all that happy. She had admitted, and drawn him into her lap despite his squirming. But we humans have got to get it out somehow.
He had not understood, at the time, what that mysterious "it" was. Children rarely do. Yet now, he could feel it, seeping through his skin, and felt grateful, so grateful, at the chance.
Deep in his chest, something warm and familiar was building like a protostar, an inevitable consequence of gravity. He let it flow through his fingertips, the ones that danced over warm skin. Too many times, he had wrapped it carefully up in layers of mental control, over glances on the bridge, stolen moments of humor in the midst of a crisis, or watching the starlight dance over his captain's peaceful face. Yet now, it seemed absurd to hold it back when Kirk was in such clear need of comfort.
The kiss, however, was perhaps a step too far. But what else could he do, with his lips inches away from the crown of Jim's head, with the energy between them humming so happily? It was so brief and light, just a brush of skin on hair, Spock wouldn't have thought he felt it at all- except for the sharp inhale, and sudden tension to Jim's shoulders.
Spock pulled away. He had miscalculated. A familiar burn of shame returned, and he opened his mouth to apologize- but was cut off by the firm curl of Jim's fingers around his own.
"It's alright." he whispered.
The body in his lap shifted. Water sloshed at the sides of the tub, and then there were arms around him, encircling his neck. Warm, hazel eyes, still red and tinged with sorrow, smiled up at him from where Jim had nestled his head into Spock's chest. He squeezed Spock's hand.
"It's alright." he said again.
And despite it all, Spock found he believed it.
So they held one another until the water went cold, in some space between time, and felt that for the first time since they'd arrived in the past, the universe was at last on its right path.
Spock toweled Jim dry with the same meticulous care he had bathed him with. Throughout it all, the draining of the tub to the donning of soft cotton pajamas, the delicate comfort of their mental contact did not cease- in fact, they hardly let go of one another, a dance of brushing fingertips to parallel shoulders, the reassurance of a foot against calf. The world had grown soft around the edges, perhaps due to their twin exhaustion or simply the precious strangeness of the moment. Soft enough that Jim let Spock guide him to the bed bare of circuitry and metal, and lie him down with achingly gentle hands.
Soft enough, that Jim reached back up for his dear friend, a question in his eyes.
If it weren't for the mental contact, Jim wouldn't have had the courage to say it. But as it was, his subconscious whispered stay, and Spock's cried have me, and there was very little point in arguing about it then. Not when Jim's breath was still soft on the hollow of his throat, and he fit like a puzzle piece into Spock's arms, warm and solid, and most soothingly, safe.
It was easy, really. That was the thing.