universal touch

summary line is something i misread from here :3

It hurt. He could not deny that it hurt.

To see that on every contacted planet, Kirk was willing and pliant to engage in the most friendly of relations with all who allowed it, to wholly disguise all notion of trepidation.

To do all those things he did not do with Spock, regardless of every winking affirmation, effervescent beacons in the passage of time.

But he did not ask. He did not press. He could see the logic in it; with immediacy, he could.

It was only when Kirk noticed, and began to take his own sort of offense, that Spock deigned to put word to thought.

He had not assumed Kirk a telepath. Neither had he allowed himself acknowledgement of any personal desire for comprehension.

But Kirk had asked why Spock had been avoiding him. Spock had mutely given the evidence.

To them, ease, permission, fluidity. To me, separation. Stringent orbit.

"Spock, I love you so much it hurts."

Spock stiffened, but allowed the affront visibility. Unlike in other cases where his modified behavior was a side-effected result of interior compunction, however clear or unclear its origin, in this moment he found it intimately necessary for Kirk to perceive his reaction to that statement.

It was alarming - no more or no less. Something he did, existing, caused someone else pain, and in particular caused Jim pain. He did not like causing Jim pain. It was a simple fact. It was inalienable.

But Kirk continued, searchingly: "Hurts like...a cat on your chest, heavy and insistent. Hurts like spicy food, sharp and alive. Hurts like..."

Even for Kirk, this was a tremendous volubility, because it came in such a measured, attemptedly precise fashion. He was saying things that were observable, describable. That were descriptions, moreover, that did not center on politics and morality; that were for him entirely too colorful. They were only so because he was being so careful. He could not, by any stretch, be correct if he was careful.

He searched, and searched, and searched, working the tips of his fingers together as if they hid the answers in their nigh-microscopic friction ridges, hills and valleys of human nuance. And of course they did. Of course they did, and yet they were only his own hands, so they held nothing but instrument.

These metaphors were plainly insufficient, not because they were particularly unimaginative or pedestrian, nor because they were not actually tuned towards Spock's own characteristic sensibilities and peculiarities, but merely, directly, because the feeling had no translational explanation, no descriptive analogue.

He shrugged, and looked altogether lost and helpless for the want of a star. There, the crux: sometimes giving up, and giving in, is quite important indeed. But only if you have tried first. Only if you have seen the awesome responsibility of restraint first.

"It hurts like it hurts right now, holding my hands back and not giving my love to you, what little warmth I have, what little..."

Kirk stared directly into Spock's eyes. His own were wide with wonder and personal feelings of inadequacy.

"It's selfish. It's so selfish - I'M so selfish. But I hate not being able to give you everything I want - everything I have, rather, because it feels so wrong. I know it's not about me, I know it's just not your peculiar way, but I-"

"Jim."

And the world stopped.

"Many is the time you have told me that you do not wish me to change myself for anything or anyone. In the same way, why would you assume that I would ever wish for you to change yourself?"

Jim's lips worked, of a moment, and he blinked without ever once breaking that crucial, precious eye contact. In the end, of course, his only return from the void was tenderly, wonderingly whispered: "Spock..."

Spock had never felt so encouraged, nor ever so secretly visible. "Ashayam, if you desire it, you need only tell me so."

"Spock...oh, Spock..."

He seemed wholly transfixed on the act of repeating his beloved's name, and Spock did not stop him. Far be it from him to ever stop James T. Kirk from having anything he wanted.

Anything at all.

Right now, what it seemed that Jim wanted, moreover, was to hug Spock, as his hands made desperate, aborted grasping motions below the top curves of the Vulcan's shoulders. Spock, in response, inclined himself forwards, and then Jim latched on with certitude, and then his cheek was passing by Spock's own, looking over his shoulder and past him but arching and nuzzling into the familiar yet so foreign shapes beside him.

"Do you feel it?" Jim's tone was breathless, but immeasurable solid space surged underneath. "Spock, do you feel it?"

Spock did not make pause to inquire what "it" was. Once again, it most likely defied description, and the only answer was that yes, he did, for Jim was a conduit through which flowed all manner of good feeling, and all spectrum of that bad which served to constitute human learning and reinforcement, advancement and grounding.

Jim was touching him, wrapping him by every atom into his arms, and Spock did not only stand to receive. His hands found the curve of Jim's shoulder, the back of his neck. A little more motion produced the location of his pulse, and Spock basked in the feeling.

It was almost too much. If he were being smug, he might posit that for anyone else it would be too much. But because Jim's love, Jim's all-encompassing affection, was for Spock and Spock alone, it was in perfect, equal measure.

Like a constant. Like an identity. Like all else had been neatly cancelled out, in a beautiful rush, to leave only their most perfect union.

Indeed, could one man be worth the universe? Could one man - a man only, from the most normal of original places - be so bold and so right as to touch the universe?

Spock only had to ask to know it so.