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The impulse to reach out and slowly drag his fingers down the curve of his captain’s pinkened shoulder catches Spock off guard. It is an unsettling phenomenon. Kirk has his back to him, arguing with Dr. McCoy over the benefits and detriments of sunblock.
"You ever hear of skin cancer, Jim? It’s something that exists. It’s something you’ll get if you don’t stop trying to boil yourself as if you were a damn lobster."
"But, Bones, it smells so weird."
"How weird are you gonna smell when someone decides to crack you open and serve you with butter?"
"I feel this metaphor is getting away from you."
It continues from there. The captain is standing in the middle of sickbay without a shirt, his entire torso a bright and alarming pink, giving way quite suddenly to a strip of pale skin just before his trousers. Spock has seen this condition before, certainly. His time on Earth (and a particularly fair weathered location at that) has exposed him to such a sight. Humans of lighter skin tended to blister under the ultraviolet light of the Earth’s sun if not shielded. He has never, however, been so close to one suffering from such a condition.
“Damnit, Jim, don’t think I won’t veto your shore leave if you keep this up.”
“Bones, you’re a doctor, not my mother.”
Spock is close to Kirk. Perhaps closer than strictly necessary, but from this distance he can feel heat radiating from his captain’s skin. There is something sharp rather than stifling about it, as if it is being directed specifically to his hand and his alone, which is entirely illogical. So much so that Spock decides empirical evidence must be gathered for a more adequate conclusion to be reached. He raises a hand, reaches out, and folds it over one UV-warmed shoulder.
“Owow ow!”
The shoulder is jerked from his grasp and Kirk is turning around to face him.
“Spock, what the hell?”
Spock, however, finds himself preoccupied by the lighter impressions of his fingers fading back to pink. Fascinating.
“I apologize, Captain. Is contact painful in your condition?”
“Condition? It’s just a sunburn, Spock. And yes. Contact is painful.”
Unsatisfactory data, yes, but further psychical evidences would have to wait it would seem. Instead, he clasps his hands behind his back and observes the reddening of Kirk’s face. Separating this “sunburn” from a normal flush is its extensiveness. It not only stretches over Kirk’s cheeks, but his forehead and chin as well. And his nose. Against the pinkened skin is a more apparent set of freckles that are scattered across the bridge of his nose and spread outward to his cheeks. Another illogical impulse overcomes him. It is a strong desire to run his finger along those heated specks, to discover new constellations within them and give them names.
“Spock, buddy, you alright? You’re looking a little green. Are you coming down with something?”
Spock hears McCoy snort into one of his charts at Kirk’s question and spares the doctor a sharp glance.
“I am well, Captain. Perhaps you should take the advice of the good doctor and refrain from unnecessarily harming yourself.”
He turns to leave then, needing to put distance between his fragile control and his captain’s skin, but he does still hear Kirk’s exasperated assertion,
“It’s just a sunburn!”