For hafital, who won this story some time ago.

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"...no experience has been too unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand and laid alongside another thread..." --Ranier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

It was a small thing that finally brought us together. Something that had happened a million times before. Yet another planet, yet another hostile alien, yet another injury. Yet another pair of confiscated communicators, yet another sheltering cave.

If the universe were cruel, Spock would have gone into pon farr, and I would have felt like I'd fallen into a bad holodrama. The universe, however, is not without her finer points.

I'm sorry.

I'm wallowing in irony right now.

The whole *thing* was ironic. I'd always thought it would take something *huge* to make Spock admit what he was feeling. Instead it was something small: a raw burn across my back where I hadn't ducked the energy whip fast enough. He was hurt worse--a spiral burn up his right arm where the whip had wrapped around him--but he was also Vulcan, and I suspected he was diverting his body's resources to heal it.

Neat trick, that. One I could have used--the burn *hurt*. The charred edges of my shirt had rubbed it, made it bleed, and I pulled the ruined thing over my head and glared at it.

"At least it is not torn," Spock said, his tone mild. I glared at him--one sleeve missing all the way to the shoulder, leaning against the wall of the cave. He looked almost nonchalant, almost amused. The burn crawled up his arm like a snake, a vivid contrast to his pale skin. He bent down and picked up my discarded shirt, then began to rip it into strips.

"See, this is why we can't have nice things," I said, and he favored me with that carefully bemused expression that Vulcans won't admit is laughter.

"Lie down, Jim."

"What?"

"You are bleeding. Lie down, on your stomach."

I did, and he stepped over me and out of the cave, to kneel by the stream that ran past it. He wet the strips of my shirt and came back in.

He knelt beside me, then swung one leg over my back. He's heavy, but not too heavy, and for a moment I let myself enjoy the simple pleasure of touch.

The soaked strips of cloth felt good, and that was a far more complex pleasure--water and coolness making the pain fade, the absence of drying blood, the pressure of Spock's fingers, infinitely gentle.

And then he leaned forward over my back, pressing his forehead between my shoulderblades, just above the burn. "Forgive me," he said.

"For what?"

"Allowing you to be hurt."

"Spock--"

"T'hy'la."

He'd never used that word to me before, and I was startled. I knew what it *meant*. There were entire volumes of flaky cultural analysis on the possibilities of ancient Vulcan incest based on this one word: friend, brother, lover.

His burned arm, naked, slid down my own, and his fingers tangled in mine. "I should not allow you to be hurt. It is my duty, Jim, and my desire."

"Yes," I said, answering the question he hadn't even asked.

He eased off of my back, and I got to my knees and reached for him, pulling him against me, feeling his hands in my hair and his mouth opening, hot, hot--hotter than human, hotter than anyone I'd ever kissed before, as hot as the kiss of an energy whip. He shifted, twisted in my arms, moved his hands, stripped us both without breaking the kiss. I heard his shirt tear, and then we were skin on skin.

Vulcans have such a reputation for reserve and non-emotion--and it has absolutely no basis in fact. None. Nor are they inexperienced lovers--or perhaps that's just Spock.

He spread my legs and reached down to prepare me--"No lube, Spock, we don't have any--"

"You should have paid more attention in xenobiology, Jim."

I blinked and looked down. Well.

*That* was convenient. Weird--I'd never fucked anything with a self-lubricating cock before--but convenient.

He sat back on his heels, waiting for my reaction. I'm an opportunist, and this, my friend, was an opportunity if I'd ever seen one. I moved forward, straddling his thighs, and--very carefully, it had been a while--took him inside. He shuddered, his head falling against my shoulder, his burned arm bracing himself, his good arm around me, pressing me down.

He was hot and hard and wet inside me, and I held still, wanting to enjoy it. But he had other ideas. His mouth was on mine, and I felt his muscles tense as he thrust up into me. He fucks the way he does everything--with total focus, total concentration. I shivered as he focused on me, on my pleasure, shifting slightly so that he could wrap on long-fingered hand around my cock.

Point, counterpoint--kiss, fuck, stroke--keeping me on the edge until I was shaking with need. Then he pulled back, his eyes black with passion. "Let me in," he said, and then he was inside me, his mind and his body within me, filling me, driving out anything but the fierce green heat of Spock.

For one moment--for the first moment in years--the Enterprise meant nothing; the only thing that mattered was Spock, here, now, in me, fucking me hard, his hand and his mouth branding me as his.

I let go, let myself feel it, and came all over him.

His fingers dug into me as he followed me over the edge, his head thrown back, my come slick on his chest and stomach. When we caught our breath, we pulled apart reluctantly and went outside to wash in the stream. As I put my boots back on, I saw a flash of 'Fleet red between the trees, and called out to my crewmembers.

It was just a small thing. A burn, no communications, a few hours of hiding in a cave waiting for the sensor sweep to find us when we didn't check in.

It had happened before. It would happen again.

With his good hand, Spock helped me to my feet, and his eyes met mine without fear or shame. I reached out to touch his shoulder, and together we turned to meet the Security team.

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The End