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"Are you all right, Lieutenant?"
The question cuts directly through the meditation Hamilton has been trying to achieve for over an hour, and he stifles a groan of frustration. Groans of frustration are not appropriate modes of expression for any Vulcan—frustration is not something he should be experiencing at all—and the fact that containing the reaction requires conscious effort is alarming.
Not just alarming. Terrifying. Yet another emotion he is unaccustomed to experiencing first-hand.
"I'm fine," he lies, keeping his eyes firmly shut and hoping his captain will go away. He maintains his meditative posture. Seated on the ground, palms pressed together, index fingers steepled to guide his inner focus.
Instead of going away like Hamilton needs, Washington settles to the floor. The rustle of rugs and the low exhale tell him Washington has sat directly in front of him. Probably watching with a furrowed brow, an all-too-human look of concern in beautiful brown eyes.
That last thought is enough to startled him to a state of high alert. Yes, his captain has compelling eyes, but Hamilton is well accustomed to setting this fact aside where it cannot distract him. Just because Vulcans feel does not mean those emotions must be allowed to influence behavior. He has more practice than he would like tamping down anger and passion and unwelcome ambition. He has always been a poor specimen of Vulcan restraint, but he has gone to great lengths to make sure no one else witnesses his failings.
Here, on this ice planet out of time—approximately four millennia in the past—he is losing his hard-won control, and he does not know why.
The very last thing he wants is for Captain Washington to witness the dissolution of his better self.
"Talk to me," Washington says now, so softly the words cannot possibly be mistaken for an order.
Hamilton draws a shaky breath and clenches his jaw. His captain will want explanations, and he does not have them to give.
But at last he opens his eyes. There's no point pretending to continue his meditations when they both know full well he is too much of a wreck. He finds Washington sitting cross-legged in front of him, exactly as he anticipated. Their postures are perfect mirrors, and as Hamilton sets his hands atop his own knees he tries very hard to relax the tension from his shoulders. Washington knows him well enough to read subtle body language even under normal circumstances. If he is to have any hope at all of assuaging his captain's concerns, he will have to tread carefully.
"I'm glad you've recovered," Hamilton says. It's a blatant evasion, but it's also honest. "Without proper medical treatment, I feared you might not wake." The literal ice age outside would have done Hamilton plenty of damage if safety had not emerged so quickly in the form of a lonely exile guiding them to her home—but even the brief contact with the frozen storm was enough to damage his more fragile human captain. Two days of uncertainty would have been enough to wind Hamilton tight even without whatever it is undermining his control. Now, even though Washington is awake and apparently suffering no lasting harm, he finds he cannot calm himself.
"Alexander."
The sound of his given name sets Hamilton's entire awareness alight. Washington speaks the syllables in a low, startlingly intimate rumble. A tone Hamilton has never heard him use before, at least not in his right mind, and certainly not directed at Hamilton himself. There is a plea in the sound. It makes Hamilton shiver.
They are sitting on a cave floor, amid humid temperatures more appropriate for a tropical climate than an ice age, the thermodynamics of the hot spring beneath them crafted into an unlikely oasis. And yet despite all this, a chill is coursing through Hamilton's blood. He cannot lie to his captain. He was a fool to try.
"There is something about this place," he confesses, and even admitting this much shatters him so profoundly it's difficult to keep his voice steady. "Or perhaps about this time. My emotions are… I don't know what's wrong, but I'm not myself. And once the last of my control erodes, I don't know what will remain of me."
"Then we move faster. There must be a way back to our own time, and the Enterprise will be waiting."
"Assuming the super nova hasn't already destroyed the planet and sent them into retreat," Hamilton mutters, and then flinches because such pessimism physically hurts.
Washington is quiet for a very long time before murmuring, "I've never heard you talk like that before."
"I told you, I am losing myself," Hamilton snarls, low and helpless.
And then Washington touches him.
It's an innocuous touch. A hand settling on his shoulder, grounding and strong. And maybe it would calm him if not for the inadvertent brush of Washington's thumb against his neck. There and then gone, but an unmistakable glance of skin. It's enough to kindle the awareness Hamilton always holds of his captain, a flicker of minds that have been in contact a dozen times. It hits him like a physical blow, and he gasps aloud.
"What's wrong, my boy?" Washington asks, but he does not take the hand away.
Hamilton can't even find his voice to lie. He is moving. Instinct jerks him forward, and suddenly he's curled along Washington's chest, straddling his lap and burying his face beneath his captain's jaw. They are touching in even more places now, and the hum of Washington's mind is a soothing presence despite the tangled surprise. Hamilton can almost breathe. He wraps his arms around broad shoulders and clings as though his entire life hangs in the balance.
It doesn't. Surely it doesn't. And yet he can't convince his body to let go.
"I'm sorry," he chokes, even as he fails to withdraw. His heart is pounding painfully fast in his side, and his lungs burn with the continued effort to draw a steady breath.
He shudders when one of Washington's arms wraps around his waist. No hesitation. The show of support is unambiguous and sure, contradicted only by the continued cacophony of confusion in Washington's mind.
It should not help. Being held by someone who is always a dangerous distraction—whose mere presence lodges potent and complicated feelings in Hamilton's chest—should not calm him. But as he breathes in the man's clean, familiar scent he finds the noise in his own mind quieting. His pulse slows to something nearer normal. His skin feels less feverish by the second.
After several quiet, impossible minutes, Washington's free hand nudges him away just enough to cup the side of his face. Hamilton recognizes the summons, and he blinks his eyes grudgingly open. Allows his gaze to be directed so that Washington can peer directly through him with that worried, calculating gaze.
"The ship will be there," Washington says in a voice pitched deliberately smooth. "We're going to find the door that brought us into this time, and we're going to find a way through. I'm not losing you. This planet will not be where we spend the rest of our lives."
There is such irrefutable certainty in the words that, even in his current disoriented state, Hamilton can only believe them. Washington embodies such measured strength. Even here, stranded on a glacier in the distant past, lightyears from home, that confidence seems unshakable.
The fact that Hamilton is touching Washington's mind means he knows the confidence is sincere. Washington believes every word he has said.
Hamilton wants to kiss him. They are so close, and his captain is so good, and the urge comes over him in a flash too powerful to ignore. He leans forward without thinking, barely registering the new flavor of surprise as he finds Washington's mouth with his own.
It's a tentative kiss. But even as wiser instincts—as horror at what he's just done—draw him back, Washington's hand slips from his jaw to the nape of his neck and tugs him forward again. A second kiss. Firmer and infinitely more mutual. Hamilton parts his lips and wriggles snugly against Washington's chest. He clings even harder as the arm around his waist tightens.
When they finally part, they are both breathing hard and it takes Washington several seconds to open his eyes. Hamilton watches him the entire time. Curious. Disbelieving. Too hot in his own skin.
Finally Washington blinks and stares at him. Oh dear, Hamilton hears through all the places he still touches Washington's skin. But the silence holds, until at last Washington uses all that casual strength to lift Hamilton off his lap. Another heartbeat and Washington is on his feet.
"Come along, then." Washington's face is flushed, but otherwise he looks every bit the collected and ready captain. "Let's ask our host what gear she can spare."
Wordless with his own lingering shock, Hamilton stands and follows him through the cave.