~ Touch ~

He doesn't rightly remember how they got here. Just standing on the transporter pad, and feeling an odd kind of *surge* that he wasn't used to, and then the familiar transporter displacement becoming unfamiliar physical displacement as he was standing on nothing and *dropped*.

The dusty, rocky tumble and the sharp blossoming pain in his ankle, and then the smaller hurts from scrapes and bruises. A sudden, sideways gratitude for his uniform as he slid down to the bottom of the slope, and then a rock that was following hit his forehead and knocked him silly--he wasn't quite unconscious but he wasn't really there, either.

Spock found them shelter.

So now here he is, in a shallow cave, lying nursing his hurts as he watches their fire burn. Alone. Cold. Waiting.

Wondering where they are. How far they are from the landing site, and how long it will take his crew to find them.

Spock is back.

He's on the other side of the fire, so Jim can hardly see him, just a nebulous dark shadow that's almost part of the night. James Kirk pulls together some semblance of his /self/ and leaves the shards of doubt where they lie.

"Well don't be shy, Mr Spock. Come in," he beckons with a smile. Spock gives him that /look/. He deserves it, but almost wishes he didn't, because the dark promise of that hooded gaze is not for him, and he aches enough without that other, tight longing as well.

"I found nothing of interest. We should rest until morning." With careful precision Spock stokes the fire and sits beside him, warm fingertips stroking across the swollen bruise over his eyes, which flutter closed at the touch despite himself. "Is it painful?" Spock asks, the motion halting.

"A little," he lies. He's too tired, he must be, because he can't stop the tremor that shakes his body just a little.

"You are cold."

"No." It's this Spock doesn't believe. He moves around, behind him, and hesitates very barely before he wraps himself, arms, legs, whole body around Jim and cradles him between body heat and fire. The warmth seeps through him slowly, touching every part of him in tiny little nerve-shocks of relief.

He closes his eyes and feels the narrow strength of Spock's body against his, warmth along back and thighs and ribs where they touch.

It isn't enough, not really, but for now it will have to do.