Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters in this work of fiction, and no profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this.

A/N: Post movie-verse. I've added a couple of lines toward the end, to ensure privacy during Jim's impromptu kiss. Thanks GraysonSteele

Jim cradles his arm to his chest. It isn't broken. At least he doesn't think it is.

He catches Spock's gaze out of the corner of his eye. The half-human's raised eyebrow, impossibly sharp and slightly twitching, shows Jim that his friend is concerned, or, maybe he's just pissed at Jim for fucking things up on yet another planet, again.

But, this time, it wasn't Jim's fault. Not entirely. He'd only been trying to help. Surely Spock, and the Federation, couldn't fault him for that.

Upon closer inspection, Jim can see that Spock's jaw is locked tight, the muscles bulging ever so slightly. Apparently his friend can and does fault him for what had happened.

"I was only trying to help," Jim says, in a quiet hiss pitched for only Spock to hear. His lips barely move.

He isn't certain what the local law enforcement on this planet will do to him, and Spock, at this point, and he doesn't want to push it. Not when they've got their fancy weapons pointed at the both of them.

"Sometimes your help, Captain, is quite unnecessary," Spock's voice is clipped, and equally quiet.

His lips don't even move, and Jim wonders if the Vulcan can throw his voice, or if maybe he's using some kind of Vulcan mind trick on him. Jim made a mental note to ask Spock about it, when his friend wasn't quite so angry with him, and when they no longer have technologically advanced alien weaponry pointed at their heads.

The fact that Spock called him Captain, and in that particular tone of voice, is not good. It means that Spock is more than just a little mad at him, which means that they will probably spend the entirety of their captivity - however short or long that is - not talking. It'll be boring.

"Wicked ventriloquism," Jim whispers, his lips twitching upward in a smile. He leans his head a little closer to Spock.

Spock shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, and he shifts away from Jim. He sighs, a barely audible breath, and Jim can feel his friend's irritation toward him multiplying incrementally. Not a good sign at all.

The two peace officers who have their weapons carefully trained on them have said nothing since they broke up the fight, pulling the alien who seemed intent on pounding Jim into a pulp, off of him, and sending him on his way.

The peace officers had held Jim, and Spock, as his associate, responsible for the altercation. They were guilty simply because they weren't from the planet. It was bigoted and unfair, and Jim felt his blood boil at the injustice of it.

The officers appear to be listening intently to something through their earpieces, and, as one, they nod, and then frown, in sync, at Jim and Spock. It's almost as though they share the same mind, and Jim's curiosity is piqued, in spite of their somewhat dire circumstances.

"Come," the officer nearest Jim says, and he reaches for Jim's injured arm, pulling on it.

Jim bites his bottom lip, hard, trying to keep from crying out, and draws in a noisy breath of air when his arm twinges in pain. Spock's frown deepens in response. The other officer has his hand on the Vulcan, some kind of restraint in his other hand as he readies to secure his prisoner.

Little white and gold sparks dance across Jim's vision, and he reassesses his injury. His arm is most certainly broken, and the officer pulling on it isn't helping matters any.

Jim can feel the broken bone shifting in his arm. The two broken halves of his ulna grate painfully against each other, and Jim focuses solely on breathing through the pain when the officer jerks his arm toward himself.

"Jim?" Spock's voice is quiet, tight, and Jim isn't sure how to read the Vulcan right now.

"I'm okay," Jim says, gritting his teeth against the pain.

It isn't okay, and he kind of feels like he might pass out at any moment, but he's been in worse pain before, in more dire circumstances. A simple bar fight on another planet is not going to be his undoing.

The peace officer who has him tightens his hold on Jim, and increases the pain that Jim's in. Jim sways on his feet, and almost wishes that he hadn't decided to come to the rescue of the 'damsels in distress'.

Perhaps they hadn't been in any danger from the multi-tentacled alien, after all. Maybe Jim had inadvertently interrupted a complex mating ritual. Their shouts of dismay and screams for help might have been misinterpreted. Maybe that was the norm on this planet.

"Let him go," the words are spoken softly.

On the surface, Spock's voice is calm, but, Jim can sense the underlying threat in his friend's words, and in the way that Spock's eyebrow goes up a fraction of a millimeter, and his nostrils flare slightly.

For the half-Vulcan, that's a fairly significant sign that he's getting angry, and on Jim's behalf, rather than at Jim. Jim smirks. He knows that their would-be jailors are walking a fine line, and that it'll take just one more itty bitty thing to push Spock over that edge.

Jim is in so much pain right now that he almost wants that to happen. He wants Spock to strike out at the alien officer who is causing him to be in so much pain because of his lack of sensitivity to Jim's needs.

It's a big comfort, knowing that – even though his friend is mad at him for interfering in a situation before gathering all of the facts – Spock still has his back.

"I will let him go when he's been properly restrained so that he won't cause any more damage to this fine establishment."

The officer twists Jim's arm up behind his back, and though he wants to fight back, Jim can't, because his arm's on fire, and he can't breathe, and he can't see through the black veil that has fallen across his vision.

The sound of roaring reaches Jim's ears and consumes him. He feels like he's drowning. He can't drag enough air into his lungs, and it's getting harder and harder for Jim to remain conscious.

Jim's knees buckle, and he can hear the alien officer who's holding him upright, solely by his injured arm, talking in rapid-fire speech, yelling at him to stop resisting containment. The roaring sound increases, and then there's a loud, sickening sounding 'pop' that explodes throughout Jim's body. A bright, white light crosses his vision, and then, there's nothing.

Jim feels like he's floating. Completely disoriented, he doesn't know if he's still standing, or sitting, or lying flat on his back. It's hard for him to tell, because it feels like the planet is spinning, or maybe it's just him that's spinning.

Jim struggles to open his eyes, hoping that they aren't already open, that the popping noise hadn't been from something that had left him blind, and at the mercy of the merciless officer. He thinks that maybe he's succeeded opening his eyes when he sees what appears to be Spock's face hovering over his.

Spock's raised eyebrow is so sharp that it looks like it could cut through rock, and his lips are moving, but Jim can't hear anything. Maybe whatever had rocked through his body had deafened him.

Jim concentrates on Spock's lips. He's not a lip-reader, but he thinks that he can make out what his friend is saying. Captain, are you okay?

Jim wonders what tone of voice Spock is using to address him as captain with, if the Vulcan is still angry with him. He wants to tell Spock that, yes, he's okay – a bald-face lie – but his lips seem disinclined to move, and he's still finding it rather difficult to draw in air. Jim lies there, smiling dumbly up at Spock, hoping that he's giving Spock a look that indicates that he's just fine, even though he clearly isn't. The pain radiating throughout his body is excruciating.

Just before he passes out, which, as captain on a mission of peace, he really shouldn't be doing, Jim sees something that he isn't sure is reality, because, in the reality that he knows and loves, his second in command does not lose the tight control he has over his emotions, unless pushed over the top.

Jim's only seen that happen once, and he'd been the one to push Spock over that rather narrow precipice, using the death of the one person that the half-Vulcan, half-human cared about more than anything else in any universe – his mother, to do it. It had been a low and dirty trick, but it had been necessary, and though it had pained him to do it, if he had it to do over again, Jim would do it again to affect the outcome that had ultimately saved all of them.

If his waning vision is to be trusted, Jim's viewing an emotionally-motivated Spock, socking the peace officers, one right after the other, in the nose, botching up their mission of peace even more than Jim had by assaulting the peace officers who'd been tasked with carting them off to a holding facility to await trial for disorderly conduct.

All-in-all, it seems to take little less than thirty seconds for Spock to contain the situation, and then his face, filled with more concern than Jim has ever seen etched in the fine planes of Spock's face, is once more hovering over his. It's as disconcerting as it is comforting.

"Jim," the one word, in the midst of all of the other words that Spock is saying, makes it through the thundering of Jim's heartbeat.

There are a thousand emotions reflected in that single word, and yet only one of them counts, and Jim struggles to hold onto it. Spock's lips move again, speaking words that Jim can't hear or follow. There's an indiscernible look on Spock's face, and a tenderness in the way that he touches Jim - hands fanning Jim's face, holding the wildly tilting world still for a few precious seconds.

Jim can see the stars - there's a whole universe held within the depths of Spock's dark eyes - and it slowly takes the edge off the pain, makes it seem as though it is nothing more than a dull, throbbing ache deep within his bones. He isn't prepared for the anguished, twisting of lips, or the sudden gust of breath that hits him in the face as Spock leans over him.

The soft smile that suddenly graces Spock's face shortly after the pain ebbs, makes Jim's heart skip a beat. There's something in that smile, something in the way that Spock's looking at him, that somehow makes things better.

"Spock," Jim's voice is little more than a breathless whisper, and then he and Spock are embraced by what appear to be a million bright dots of white light.

The touch of Spock's lips, light, and yet firm, on Jim's drowns out all of the pain, until there's nothing left for Jim to feel, but the soft press of Spock's lips on his own, the murmur of apologies and chastisements for Jim's pigheaded, chauvinism, being spoken against his lips.

"...don't ever do that again, Captain, ... I'll kill you myself..."

There's a rush of flurried movement around them as the bright dots disappear, leaving Jim with an obstructed view of the transportation platform. The absence of Spock's lips on his is accompanied by a fresh renewal of pain, and Jim is quickly ushered to the sickbay so that his injured arm can be tended to.

Jim's never been good with gauging time when he's recovering from an injury. It feels to him like a lifetime has passed since Spock's lips have been on his, taking away the pain, making him feel warm, and safe, and loved.

Then Spock's there, in front of him, helping him off of the uncomfortable bed, and to his feet. There's an inscrutable look on the Vulcan's face, and Jim's heart aches, longing for the other look he'd seen reflected in Spock's eyes when he'd been felled with pain. The only thing that tells Jim that he hadn't imagined the care, the kiss, everything, is the slightly raised eyebrow, and the ghost of a smile on Spock's face.

Jim follows after Spock, plans of how to woo and win his friend as a lover, whirling around in his mind. It'll be a challenge, he knows, but, as far as challenges go, this is one that Jim would be a fool not to undertake.

"Where we headed?" Jim asks as they escape the busy corridor and step onto an empty lift.

Spock turns and gives him an incredulous look. "To the bridge. Unless, of course, more than your arm was damaged during the altercation. I did ask the doctor to make sure that you hadn't suffered from any brain damage, and that it wasn't a tumor that was responsible for your earlier lack of reasoning. He assured me that your brain is, in fact, operating normally, and that, as per usual your lack of good judgment is..."

Jim surges forward and cuts Spock's diatribe off with a kiss. It's soft, yet insistent. The way that Spock responds is anything but soft, and Jim knows that he hadn't imagined any of what had happened between the two of them on the planet.

When their lips part, Jim's shaking and panting, trying to catch his breath, and left desperately wanting more. Spock's eyes, filled with an entire universe, are sparkling with an underlying current which promises that, if Jim is patient, there will be much more to come.

"Later," Spock says in a way that sends a thrill through Jim. The half-Vulcan's voice is still very carefully controlled, in spite of their lack of audience, but there's a hint of something there that makes Jim's heart race. "Right now you have a ship to command, Captain, and I've got an image to maintain." He straightens his back, and his shirt, and turns to face the doors of the lift as they open.

Jim smiles at Spock's retreating back, admiring, for the first time, just how firm Spock's ass is, and wondering how he hadn't noticed that before now. Coming to himself just in time to step out of the lift before the doors close, he hurries to catch up with his second in command. It's going to be a long day, but then again, when aren't the days long? At the end of this day, though, he has an uninterrupted evening with Spock to look forward to.

Though there's a small remnant of his earlier pain, deep in his bones – a pain which Bones had, almost delightedly, assured him would always reflect the weather, oncoming storms in particular – there's a spring to his step, and the trace of a tingling sensation on his lips, the memory, and promise of Spock.

Please review, let me know if this was worth the time it took to write, and then transcribe. Mahalo.