'Yes, I'm sure no one will see us,' Jim said for the fifth time as he led his Vulcan by the hand toward the wheat field.

The crop was thick and luxuriant, almost ready for harvest, each head of corn full and bulging and standing motionless under the burning sun. The ground was dry and crumbling underfoot and the sky felt wider than all the heavens that surrounded the Enterprise in deep space. No matter where he went, nothing could make an Iowa sky seem small to Jim Kirk.

'I am certain there are still laws prohibiting – ' Spock began again, a tiny furrow marring the smoothness between his eyebrows.

'Yes, there are laws prohibiting,' Jim agreed, 'but we are – literally – miles from the nearest house – excluding the farm, of course,' he corrected as Spock opened his mouth. 'Mom is visiting Pete on the Mars colony, there are no workers here today. We, my dear Vulcan, are the sole sentient beings for miles around.'

'Sentience is a highly debatable – ' Spock began.

Jim silenced him with a kiss on the lips.

The wheat was waist high, each ear dry and fat, and it rustled as Jim pressed through into the crop. Most of the work was done with hover-tractors, so there were no wide wheel treads parting the growing plants, but occasionally there was a path, left purely so the farmer – in this case Jim's ageing mother – could actually walk amongst the plants, touch them with her hands, smell the green and gold scent in the air. She lost a fraction of a percentage of profit that way, and bigger farmers shook their heads at the sentiment, but it had been that way when his dad was alive and it was that way still. Jim thanked her for it, but he would never tell her why he was thankful on this particular occasion.

'Anyway, you're warm enough,' he said to Spock, and Spock gave a small noise of agreement.

'Quite,' he said. 'It is hardly Vulcan, but your Earth does manage to be warm enough at times.'

'Especially in Iowa in August, huh?' Jim asked him with a grin, looking back at his smooth skinned, perfectly unruffled Vulcan. Jim himself was sweating, but he had hardly ever seen Spock perspire in his day-to-day life. On this unwonted leave at the old home on Earth Jim had plumped for wearing old jeans and a loose shirt. Spock almost looked as if he were in uniform in his black trousers and slick long-sleeved black tunic that fastened up the front. His hair was perfect, and despite its coal darkness it suddenly reminded Jim of the wheat, laid straight in rows, waiting to be tangled with.

'Your hair makes me think of the wheat,' Spock said musingly, and Jim felt a sudden jolt of love and affection. He loved these little moments when Spock unconsciously revealed his latent awareness of his lover's thoughts. Or perhaps it was he who had caught Spock's thoughts. More logical, perhaps, that his more wayward golden hair should remind someone of wheat. But to remind Spock of wheat, Spock for whom a metaphor was often an annoying intrusion, was unexpected. Perhaps it was a thought in tandem, born in both of them simultaneously, nurtured simultaneously.

'I love you,' Jim said.

The corners of Spock's mouth moved very slightly. To most the change of expression would be unnoticeable, or at the very least difficult to pin down, but to Jim his Vulcan was beaming all over his face. Spock reached forward to touch his hand to Jim's, and electricity jolted through their fingertips.

'Ah, here,' Jim said. The single-file path had widened into a perfectly round flatness, another illogicality of his mother's, an island in the sea of wheat. The space was smooth, low with parched grass, crossed by animal tracks, and the wheat stood sentry all around. He took Spock's hand and with the minimum of resistance the Vulcan followed him down to recline on the soft ground.

Immediately the sight of sporadic trees edging the field disappeared, the distant sight of the farmhouse's shingle roof was lost. Jim lay in a perfect circle edged by golden corn and lidded by the cloudless blue disc of the sky. High above he saw the silver of a shuttle glinting in the sun, passing like a shooting star and disappearing from the edge of his vision. Lower down a bird of prey circled on the thermals given off by the vast field. Aside from that bird, they were alone.

Spock was lying with his arms folded behind his head and his eyes closed. Jim turned onto his side and watched him for a moment, seeing the thin skin of his eyelids and the dark lashes that folded down toward his cheeks. He reached out a finger and traced the edge of Spock's tapering ear, and the Vulcan shivered almost imperceptibly. Once you were involved with a Vulcan you learnt to read the smallest signs. Sometimes it was like tracing your finger over a worn Braille page, but still you discerned something, and you learnt to know what it was you felt.

'Are you happy, Spock?' he asked. He didn't expect a real answer, but he felt it in Spock's demeanour. Despite his earlier protestations, he was relaxed as a cat in sunshine. This perfect circle in the wheat worked its own kind of magic. They were in another place.

Slowly he began to work on the Vulcan's clothing. He slipped a finger under the fastening of Spock's tunic and slid from pelvis to adam's apple, folding back the soft dark fabric to reveal Spock's bare chest, the light furring of dark hair, the hollow of his stomach, the subtle lines of his ribs, the small nubs of his nipples and their pink-green flushed areolae. He touched his lips to the place where ribs met stomach, and felt Spock arch very slightly as he kissed.

He removed Spock's boots and socks and tossed them aside. Then he turned his attention to the trousers, undoing the fastening, brushing his hand lightly over the bulge inside the dark underpants and feeling Spock arch again. The soft mass beneath the fabric moved slightly as blood began to pulse. Jim wasted no more time, pulling down the trousers and pants together and putting them aside as Spock worked his arms out of his sleeves.

'Oh, my god...' Jim breathed as he knelt there, gazing at the sight of Spock prostrate and naked in the sun, his dark eyes open now and burning into Jim's own.

'You have me at a disadvantage,' Spock said.

He curled upwards like a cat, reaching out to lovingly divest Jim of his clothing much as Jim had done with him. Together they tumbled back onto the grass and the sun baked silently over their naked skin. Jim felt it push down deep through his muscles, into his bones, through the hair of his scalp into his skull. He turned and felt the heat shift to penetrate buttocks, thighs, back. This was perfect.

'Jim, are you sure – ' Spock began again.

Jim could feel his uncertainty. The Vulcan was endearingly hesitant, a very Vulcan lust warring with a sense of decorum, the knowledge that they were on Earth, on Jim's mother's farm, out in the open under a naked sky.

'I am completely, utterly certain,' he assured his lover, laying kisses down on his neck, his chest, his low belly which shivered a little with each beat of his heart. He moved his lips down to the dusky length of the Vulcan's stiffening penis, and felt Spock's last resistance melt away. Spock moaned almost silently, and arched towards Jim's lips. Jim slipped his mouth down over the feverishly warm rod of flesh, taking it deep into his mouth while touching the cooler, ridged skin of Spock's scrotum with his fingertips. He felt Spock's pleasure thrill through him, the electric surges of arousal travelling from Spock's mind into Jim's with no resistance. Against Spock's leg he felt his own member start to harden and an urgent need began to tighten in his pelvis.

'Oh god, Spock, I want you,' he murmured.

Spock had no reply, but he touched his hands to Jim's head, tracing fingertips through his hair, and suddenly the Vulcan's pleasure blended so perfectly with Jim's that he could no longer tell where his arousal stopped and Spock's began. Just touching Spock wasn't enough. He wanted to be in him, to possess him. He took his mouth from the Vulcan and felt Spock's overwhelming desire to reach after him, to pull his head back down.

'All right, all right,' he murmured, smiling at the Vulcan's need and impatience. He put his own desire on hold and leant back to Spock's rearing erection, taking it into his mouth again until the tip butted against his throat. Spock groaned and thrust against Jim's lips, pushing his length smoothly and hard into the warmth of Jim's welcoming mouth. Jim could feel his arousal growing, and closed his fist around the root of the thick rod of flesh, pumping it as he sucked until he felt Spock lose himself. The Vulcan cried out aloud as he jetted his seed into the depths of his lover's throat, his fingers tangled through Jim's hair, his hips stilled against Jim's mouth.

After a long, timeless moment Spock relaxed back onto the ground, his member softening and slipping from Jim's mouth. Jim let his head rest on the Vulcan's pelvis as he swallowed the rich seed. He could hear the slow movements of Spock's gut beneath his ear, and the steady swoosh of his heart.

But he needed Spock. He needed to be in him. Spock had achieved climax but Jim was still hard, still yearning to be encompassed by the Vulcan's body. He reached for the small bottle he had brought with him. It was warmed by the August heat, and the golden liquid inside looked like molten sunshine. When he poured it into his palm and let it trickle down onto Spock's skin the Vulcan sighed and let his legs fall wider apart. Jim worked the oil gently into the pucker between his legs, slipping one finger through the tight ring of muscle, then two, then three. Then impatience got the better of him and he positioned himself over Spock's body, pressing against the tight muscle until the head of his erection slipped through, and the length followed.

'Oh, dear god, Spock,' he murmured as he pressed home and the heat of the Vulcan's body pressured around him. He pulled himself back, rocked forward again, thrusting rhythmically into that tight, hot space. He could feel Spock's mind reaching out to his, touching, joining. He could feel Spock's arousal at the smooth glide of entry and the momentary bereavement of withdrawal. Each time Jim slipped home the sensation in Spock's mind was one of dizzying joy. The Vulcan's passion was like a fire in him and Jim lost himself, thrusting harder and faster until all his awareness of grass, earth, sun, sky, vanished in a haze of pure ecstasy.

He came back to himself lying over the Vulcan's body, his head resting against the crook of Spock's neck and shoulder. For once, Spock's skin was slick with sweat just as the human's was.

'Jim,' Spock said, reaching up to tousle his fingers through the human's hair.

Jim stirred himself enough to press his mouth in a kiss against the Vulcan's neck, feeling his pulse fluttering beneath his lips.

'You complete me, Spock,' he said in a drowsy murmur.

Spock did not reply aloud, but his fingers touched Jim's scalp and Jim felt their complete concord in the mental touch.

For a long time they lay curled together, skin against skin under the sun. Birds called and an occasional breeze moved the wheat around them. Jim was warm as toast with the sun shining on him and the heat of the Vulcan pressed against the length of his body. Spock lay still, only one hand moving as he methodically stroked the nape of Jim's neck. Gradually they slipped into something close to sleep.

After a long while Jim stirred. The sun had moved many degrees towards the west and the shadows of the wheat were longer over the ground. Jim noticed that the hair on Spock's arms and legs was starting to stand up a little, and the breeze was strengthening with the change in temperature.

'Cold?' he asked.

'Acceptable,' Spock said.

Jim sat up and gathered up the Vulcan's clothes, tossing them over to him. Together they dressed, and stood up as if they were cautiously entering a new world.

'Still not a soul for miles, Spock,' Jim assured him with a smile.

Spock's lips moved upwards in something very close to a smile. He was like a cat again, so relaxed in his sleek black clothing that there appeared to be no premeditation as he slipped past his captain and began to forge the path back through the wheat. Jim watched him walk, entranced by the sleek black hair that had fallen perfectly back into place, by the movement of his hips, by the slim buttocks and the solid, relaxed shoulders beneath the cover of his clothes. He thought about what he might fix his Vulcan for dinner, and what they might do afterwards, as day turned to night and they retreated to the wide brass-framed bed in his room upstairs. For these shining hours he was no starship captain, no ruler of men, no commander of a hull of metal and electronics. He was a breathing, heart-driven human being, and he intended to let nature rule him.