Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The word desire comes from the Latin de-, "negation," and sidus, "star." To be far from the stars. This distance from the stars can be understood in many different ways. It could be the epitome of an absence, a cosmic indifference, with the Universe and its distant stars simply not caring about us. Or a lack of good omens. Or something else. Desire as in "missing stars," a longing for reconnection, an inner yearning for what disregards us but to which we nevertheless belong. A distance, a desire, that has plagued us forever.

Spock notices it first in the turbolift, rising toward the bridge. Alpha shift. A sense of duty drives him. Scientific curiosity, too—there is a planet below them that needs exploring. Undergirding both is a desire to see Kirk.

It is this feeling he prods, uncertain of its motivation. Does he have any information of which Kirk need be informed? Has he any need to verify Kirk’s presence, his safety? No immediate answer presents itself. He merely wants to. It could be a plain and simple want—except that, for Spock, want has never been simple.

The doors open. Kirk glances up. Spock is—

Spock does not know what he is.

Kirk is looking at him, and Spock feels a falling sort of pleasure in his abdomen. He wanted to see Kirk, and now he can see Kirk, and this is a very good thing, though he is at a loss to describe why it is a good thing.

“Commander,” Kirk says. “Ready to go exploring?”

“I would not have reported to the bridge if I was not sufficiently prepared for my shift, Captain,” Spock tells him, and Kirk frowns and nods and faces front.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says dryly. “Mr. Sulu, how long until we’re in orbit?”

“Thirty-seven minutes, sir.”

“Excellent. Mr. Spock, prepare a landing party at your leisure. I don’t anticipate any problems with this one.”

“Even if you do not anticipate problems, it is logical to be prepared for them,” Spock says, and then forestalls any response by adding, “I have already considered an optimal arrangement of crewmembers for the landing party. Shall I instruct them to ready themselves?”

“Give it a bit, Mr. Sulu says we have time,” Kirk says, and Spock nods. He likes this. There is no reason to like this. This is an unremarkable exchange between commander and captain. Almost routine. Exemplary in not one single way.

And yet.

Sepia IV grows larger in the viewscreen. True its name, the planet is a swirl of brown and beige. “Not wery green,” Ensign Chekov deems it. “Not like Russia.”

This makes the captain laugh. “You would have us believe that Russia is a rainforest as well as a steppe, Ensign.”

“All that and more, Captain. A big country, after all.”

Kirk smiles. Why he indulges these quirks, Spock does not know, except that they seem to amuse him. It is very much a part of Kirk’s style as a captain: he’s friendly with his subordinates. He knows them. He tells them jokes, and lets them respond in kind.

“Commander. Anything on the scanners?”

When he talks to Spock, it’s different. More formal. Less warm.

“Class L planet. Mixed oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere at levels appropriate to humanoid life. Sandy surface, mostly composed of silica and calcium sulfate. Current temperature 31ºC. No sign of any sentient organisms.”

Spock should have everything he needs. It took time to perfect this dynamic. He likes the bridge most when there is nothing extraneous, when everyone is performing at peak efficiency with little frivolity. The Enterprise crew is the best in the fleet, but even they are prone to human lapses. And none so much as Kirk.

“Shall I summon the landing party to the transporter room, Mr. Spock?”

Spock stands. “Yes, Captain. I will meet them there.”

Kirk turns in his chair. His eyebrows are raised. “Are you beaming down with them?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirk rests his chin on his hand. “Well, I hope you enjoy it. Or,” and here he falters for a moment, then schools his face. “I hope the trip is…efficient.”

“I’m certain it will be, Captain,” Spock says.

Kirk nods. Hesitates, as though he would say something further. Then turns away.

He is less ebullient with Spock now. In the early days of his tenure as captain of the Enterprise, he seemed determined to make a companion of Spock. He would laugh and smile and brush against his first officer as much as he did with any other crewmember.

He doesn’t do that anymore. Spock is—

He reports to the transporter room. He beams down to the planet. He breathes in an unfamiliar atmosphere and takes a moment to accustom to himself to the increased gravity (stronger than the artificial gravity aboard the Enterprise by 3%, if he had to estimate). There is a lavender tint to the atmosphere that he imagines Kirk would find pleasing, if he were here.

Sepia IV is a scrubby desert planet. Class L: not entirely hospitable to humanoid life, but potentially a candidate for settlement with the correct support. The beam-down point is near an oasis. Spock is gratified to see a scattering of plant life available for study. The air is hot and dry.

“Lieutenants Brent and Berkely,” he says. The members of the landing party cease their wide-eyed survey of the landscape and turn to him. “Head due west. The botany department asked for samples of any plants that bear resemblance to the Aloeae family.”

“Will you be staying here, Commander?” Brent checks.

“I will remain here to conduct scans. Return in half an hour.” They nod and move away. He turns to the other two members of the landing party. “Lieutenant Sher, Lieutenant Mira, conduct yourself over the hill and evaluate the water source. Check its composition and potability.” They nod and set off. Spock watches for a moment as the two lieutenants, red and blue, move away from him in the landscape. Sher reaches out a steadying arm to help Mira over the ridges of sand; she presses his shoulder in thanks. They disappear out of sight over the hill.

Vulcans do not touch each other unless expressly invited. Spock is used to the casual nature of human contact by now, but he finds himself considering it anew. The only person on the Enterprise who ever touched him was Kirk, and even then only sparingly, and never skin to skin if he could help it. Over time, he has stopped doing even that.

Spock sits down on a boulder. He considers his tricorder: no deviations from the expected scans of the planet’s flora and fauna. He finds himself automatically making comparison to the deserts of Vulcan, which are hotter and redder. He will perhaps make the comparison to Kirk later, and Kirk will say, I would have thought you’d be right at home in a desert, and Spock will say—

Emotions are a type of information. His mother told him that once. Certainly they are not so clear as a dataset, but Spock will certainly come to understand his current temperament if he thinks about it logically.

He dredges up each. One: the anticipation of seeing Kirk. Two: pleasure, upon seeing Kirk. Three: a stilted sense of regret at Kirk’s more formal bearing. Four: almost a sense of guilt—

Mira comes over the hill at a run with Sher hard on her heels. “Commander!” she cries out. Spock rises to his feet. “Lifeform—at the water—”

“There was nothing on the scanners,” he says, even though he knows the scanners can be wrong. Mira all but crashes into him; Sher is facing back the way they came with his phaser drawn. Spock pulls out his communicator. “Berkely, Brent: report.”

“All clear, Commander. Should we report back?”

Before Spock can answer, an organism comes over the hill. Sher hiccups in fear and aims his phaser. “Hold,” Spock tells him sharply. Mira is standing slightly behind Spock, but she has her tricorder out and is attempting to scan. One corner of Spock’s mind appreciates her mind for inquiry under duress.

The other corners of his mind attempt to make sense of the lifeform. It has the same ochre shade as the sand around them—a form of camouflage, undoubtedly. Approximately 2.5 meters in height. Many-limbed, at such angles that Spock cannot hope to count them. And numerous black, shiny eyes.

The creature halts to regard them. “Report,” Spock says in an undertone, unmoving. Either motion or sound may set this creature off, which is not his desire.

“Burst up out of the sand near the oasis,” Sher says. His hand is trembling, but he keeps his phaser at the ready. “We nearly stepped on it.”

“The scanners have a hard time detecting lifeforms through sand,” Mira says, at Spock’s shoulder. “There could be more. We won’t know until they emerge.”

Slowly, slowly, Spock raises his communicator to his mouth and hails the Enterprise.

The creature twitches.

“Prepare for emergency beam-out,” Spock says.

“Sir,” Sher says, “Brent and Berkely—”

“Will be ordered to beam out as well,” Spock says sharply. A shade too sharp: the desert-dweller makes a series of clicking admonishments and begins to skitter down the sand toward them.

Mira gasps. Spock grabs Sher by the wrist to prevent him from running. “Enterprise, beam us up!” Sher fires his phaser. It only enrages the creature, which leaps at them in the manner of the sand spiders that are native to Vulcan.

Before it can land, the party is gone, dematerializing and reappearing in the transporter room of the starship.

Kirk sweeps into the conference room with his eyebrows already raised. “What’s all this? We expected you to be down there at least an hour. That was hardly twenty minutes.”

It was sixteen point two minutes, by Spock’s count. “An unexpected lifeform, Captain,” he says. “It gave pursuit of Lieutenants Sher and Mira.”

The rest of the landing party is seated around the table with him, including Brent and Berkely, who beamed aboard directly after Spock’s trio cleared the landing pad. Fortunately, no one was injured; Sher alone still seems shaken.

“Hostile?” Kirk asks.

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenants chorus. “We saw one too,” Berkely adds. “At a distance, though. It came right up out of the sand—we thought there was some sort of sinkhole disturbance at first.”

“Looked like a big spider,” Sher says, shuddering.

“It wasn’t a spider,” Mira says. She colors slightly. “Rather—Captain—I don’t think it was arachnid in nature. It was something else. I have a scan; I haven’t yet been able to analyze.”

“And we had no idea of their presence beforehand?” Kirk asks. He looks at Spock, because Spock is the one who scans every planet before a landing party is prepared.

“They evaded our scanners due to their habit of burrowing into the sand dunes, sir,” Spock says. “A sweep or the surface would have missed them entirely. I hypothesize that they do not emerge unless they are threatened, or hunting.”

“So they’re hard to detect,” Kirk says. “And within twenty minutes—”

Sixteen point two minutes, Spock thinks.

“—you spotted two of them.” The conclusion is inevitable. Kirk puts his hands on his hips. “We’ll have to give this planet a pass, then. It wasn’t high on the list, and there’s no sense recommending it for settlement if we can’t even send a landing party without encountering hostile lifeforms.”

The science ensigns swap a look of commiseration. Sher looks happy that he won’t be asked to beam back down. “I would debrief with you in private, Captain,” Spock says.

“Very well.” Kirk dismisses the landing party; he pats Lieutenant Brent on the shoulder as the younger man passes him, and he gives a nice smile to the others. Once the room is clear, he sits and looks at Spock expectantly.

“I would like to commend Lieutenant Bethany Mira on her conduct during the mission,” Spock says, folding his hands on the table. “She performed admirably and was able to complete a scan of the desert organism even as it pursued the landing party.”

Kirk nods. He takes pleasure in the good work of his crew.

“I must, however, offer an equal amount of censure for Lieutenant Evan Sher,” Spock says. Kirk frowns. “Though his role was ostensibly to accompany this expedition as a security officer, he reacted negatively to the stress of the situation and fired his phaser at the organism, though he had been ordered not to.”

“I see,” Kirk says. He rubs his mouth, looking rueful. “Well, we can’t expect everyone to keep a cool head under fire.”

Spock bows his head. “We should expect it of a security officer more than most, sir.”

“That’s true.” Kirk sighs. “Well, no landing parties for Sher for a while. I’ll talk to Giotto about it.” He claps his hands together and rises from his chair. “Is there anything else, Mr. Spock?”

The sky was the color of lavender. He could say it. He could tell Kirk this small thing, this trifle, which would probably make him smile. “Captain,” he says, standing as well. “The landing party was on the planet’s surface for sixteen point two minutes. Not twenty.”

Kirk’s mouth tightens, almost imperceptibly. “…Sixteen point two minutes,” he repeats. He looks at Spock for a long moment. Then he says, “Understood. Thank you for that, Mr. Spock.” His tone is not warm. His eyes are not either.

Spock has perhaps erred in correcting him. He does not understand why: won’t Kirk, in his captain’s log, want to reference the precise length of the away mission? Spock has saved him from having to amend it later. “Will that be all, Captain?” he asks.

“Yes,” Kirk says. He crosses his arms. He does not pat Spock on the shoulder or smile, as he had with the lieutenants. “That’s all. You’re dismissed, Commander.”

Spock turns about face and leaves the room.

He eats lunch in the mess hall alone.

He supervises the stripping and cataloguing of the few plants Lt. Brent managed to collect from the surface.

He goes to his quarters.

He meditates.

The first time James T. Kirk touched Spock, skin to skin, was a jarring experience.

In the four point seven years Spock served as Pike’s first officer, he touched his captain’s bare skin exactly twice, both times due to forced proximity in combat. Both times he felt a rush of adrenaline and the cold steel of a competent mind.

Kirk touched him less than a month after assuming command of the Enterprise. They were not in combat. They were not in danger. They were not even on a mission.

Kirk clapped him on the shoulder while saying goodnight. The pad of one finger brushed the skin of Spock’s neck above his black collar.

Spock reacted as though he had been given a static shock; he pulled away from Kirk. To his surprise, the captain yanked his hand back at the same moment as though he, too, felt the jolt of it. “My apologies, Commander,” Kirk said immediately, unusually serious. The joviality which prompted him to touch Spock’s shoulder had disappeared. “I know better than to—I’ll be more mindful.”

Spock could have told him that there was no harm done, which was indeed true. Instead he said, “See that you are, Captain. Goodnight.”

Hazel eyes watched him closely for a moment. “Goodnight, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, and then he attempted another smile—so much smiling from this captain! —and continued down the hall.

Spock remained still for a moment at the entrance to his room, considering. While he did not make a habit of touching his crewmates, he was nonetheless accustomed to the sudden flashes of emotion he gleaned from them when quarters were close and brushes become inevitable. He was accustomed to a surface impression of their pleasure or preoccupation, a vague sense of their intentions and wants.

He was not accustomed to the sensation of warmth directed so specifically at his own person.

And yet it had been so. Captain Kirk, at the moment of contact with Spock’s neck, had been thinking—fully, uninhibited by any other concerns—of his high regard for Spock.

Spock had not known what to make of it.

He was still forming an opinion of his new captain.

He was uncertain what had led Kirk to think so well of him, so quickly. They had experienced no strenuous missions, no opportunities for Spock to perform anything other than his usual duties in their usual way.

The incident perplexed Spock for some time—until he decided that, since he was not meant to receive the information in the first place, it was simply none of his business.

The feelings continue to surface. The anticipation of seeing Kirk. The pleasure of doing so. Spock notes these impressions dispassionately, uncertain of their origin or aim. Why these sentiments? Why now? He has been serving as Jim Kirk’s first officer for one point three years; in that time, Spock has felt nothing for his captain beyond the usual sense of duty, and admiration for Kirk’s capabilities.

Indeed, in the first months of Kirk’s captaincy, Spock found himself distracted and perturbed by the overtures of friendship. He did his best to rebuff them politely. It took time for Kirk to understand and withdraw. He is tenacious, even stubborn. Only of late has he capitulated and taken to treating Spock with a firm, distant civility.

He does not attempt to touch Spock, even casually. He does not joke. And—though it sometimes seems to take conscious effort on his part—he does not smile. Not at Spock.

This is newly distressing to the Vulcan.

He does not know why.

The best course of action, he decides, is certainly to gather more data before he makes any conjectures.

Two days after the incident on Sepia IV, he takes his lyre to the officers’ recreation room after dinner. He does not mind playing music in company: he enjoys having more than one source of stimulus for his mind, and watching the movements of the other crewmembers while he practices scales is usually sufficient. Spock could never be accused of eavesdropping, as the humans call it, but the things he absorbs while innocently playing his instrument have occasionally proven useful.

On this particular evening, he isn’t prepared for what he overhears.

He has nearly completed his exercises and is lightly retuning one of the strings when the doors to the recreation room slide open and a new voice joins the fray.

“—chalk that up to the fact that he’s Vulcan.”

Spock stills. That is the captain’s voice. From the corner of his eye, he can see Kirk settling himself at a table near the door with Doctor McCoy. They seem unaware that the object of their conversation is in the room with them—a table of lieutenants somewhat blocks the sightlines—and they are definitely unaware of the acuity of Spock’s hearing.

“Half-Vulcan,” the doctor is grumbling.

“Only in a very narrow manner of speaking,” Kirk says. Spock tips his head to the side to listen more closely. He feels a curious sense of anticipation, perhaps even dread. “By his genetics, yes. Do we judge men by their genes alone? We do not. In fact, we’ve fought wars to prevent it. If you call him half-Vulcan, you deny him some agency, some fullness of character.” Kirk is holding a deck of playing cards. Through a gap between two ensigns, Spock can see him start to shuffle.

“What damn difference does it make?”

Kirk gives the doctor a quelling look. “Let’s consider the whole: his education was Vulcan. His philosophies are Vulcan. His temperament is, decidedly, Vulcan. His desires, if he can be said to have them, must certainly also be Vulcan. You do the math, Bones. If he’s fifty percent Vulcan by blood and one hundred percent Vulcan by personality, by values, by choice—what would you call that?”

“A pain in my ass, no matter how the percentages work out,” McCoy grumbles, but with the tone of a man defeated. The doctor heaves a sigh. “You’re a good man, Jimmy.”

“Ah, well,” Kirk says, not quite accepting the compliment. He starts to deal out the cards. “I didn’t become a starship captain so I could force the galaxy to fit the mold of human expectation. I want to take it as it is.”

“And that means taking Spock as he is.”

“I happen to like Mr. Spock, even if you don’t.”

“I never said I dislike him,” McCoy protests. He picks up his cards and swears at his hand. Then: “He irritates me, that’s all.”

“And I’m sure you irritate him. I’m sure I do, too. He bears it well, but our Mr. Spock must be exasperated nearly all hours of the day.”

“I hope he is. Why do you suppose he joined Starfleet?”

“Oh, I couldn’t begin to guess. But I’m glad I have him.” Kirk sighs heavily. “I don’t think he likes me—and that’s his prerogative, Bones, don’t give me that look—but I do think he respects me, and that’s enough to go on.”

The table of lieutenants grows louder, drowning out whatever reply the doctor makes. Spock stares down at his lyre, somewhat stricken. He should excuse himself, but there is no way to leave the room without passing the captain’s table, and he does not want to do that. He strums his lyre once instead.

It is not quite an announcement of his presence, but it does establish him in the room. Heads turn, eager for music. The lieutenants quiet down. Kirk gives an embarrassed sort of exhale that is audible to Spock, though he does not attempt to look. He should not have listened in. Such subterfuge is beneath him. He begins playing a Vulcan lullaby, something sweet that requires little of his attention, leaving his mind free to ponder.

He does not think a human, apart from his mother, has ever come to his defense in this way before. He is surprised as well by the logic and simplicity of the argument. Kirk does not treat Spock as an odd, unknowable paradox the way that others do. He simply takes Spock at his word.

Spock considers that. He plays his lullaby, and then an older, more dramatic piece. Traditionally he would have a poet declaim alongside the stirring strains of music; alone, the song provides a low and resonant undercarriage to the conversations continuing around him in the rec room.

He does not focus on any one conversation. He has transgressed enough for the evening. Once this song is complete, he can make his retreat to his own quarters.

He should not feel so discomfited. He cannot deny that he does. It takes conscious effort to not speed through his song. The low notes twine and carry. He closes his eyes. He thinks of nothing but the subtle arrangement of his fingers. Once he is finished, he bows his head in small acknowledgement of the smattering of applause he receives from his fellow officers. Kirk and the doctor, he notices, do not join in. Spock packs his lyre into its case and prepares to leave.

As he passes the Kirk’s table, something makes him pause. “I hope you enjoyed the music, Captain,” he says.

Kirk looks up at him. He does not smile. Spock knows this is out of deference to him. Kirk says, “It added much to the ambience, Commander.” This is a logical compliment. It is something a Vulcan would say.

Spock takes his leave.

He goes to his rooms. He settles his lyre in its place upon the wall. Then he settles himself at his desk and puts his hands over his face.

Jim thinks that Spock does not like him.

This simple fact has a strange and painful gravity. It is wrong that Jim should think so, terribly wrong. Spock cannot determine why it is so terrible, but he knows that it is. Jim has consistently offered friendship and understanding. In return, Spock has offered himself as a commander and scientist, but nothing further.

He has made a grievous error. He has rebuffed and rebuked Jim’s friendship—worse, his very nature—at every turn since Jim’s ascendancy to captain of the Enterprise. And now that Jim has withdrawn, now that Jim has given up, Spock has finally realized the value of what was being offered.

There is nothing in Starfleet regulations that demands friendship between its officers. There is respect, and there is duty, and Spock has always adhered rigidly to both. He rejected Jim’s offer of more because he did not find it necessary.

Perhaps it is not necessary. And yet—Spock finds that he wants it.

He has hurt Jim with his distance and admonishments.

He must remedy this.

He begins the next day. They are continuing their quest for habitable planets: the next candidate is three point two days away at warp 6, and so there is little to distract him from his mission. As soon as he reaches the bridge for alpha shift, he comes to stand beside Kirk’s chair.

“Mr. Spock.” Kirk glances at him for a moment, though most of his attention is focused on the PADD in his lap. “Something to report?”

“Captain,” he says. “The atmosphere of Sepia IV, from the surface, appeared to be a shade of light purple that I believe you would call lavender.”

Kirk lifts his head to stare at him. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Did I say otherwise at some point?”

He thinks that Spock is attempting to correct him. “No, sir,” Spock says. “I merely thought I should inform you.”

Kirk does not appear pleased, and Spock thought this would please him. “All right, Mr. Spock,” he says, with a confused little furrow in between his brows. “I’ll…keep that in mind.”

Spock nods and installs himself at his science console.

He is not certain that was a success.

He does not know why. Humans react with positivity to familiarity in space, but they also enjoy the novel and unusual—especially Kirk. Spock can remember, without straining his memory, three separate instances where Jim commented on the hue of the atmosphere during away missions.

Perhaps the fault lies in the fact that they did not observe the color together.

Spock resolves to make note of it the next time he and the captain are both part of a landing party.

After lunch, he tries a different tactic.

Humans like affirmation. Spock, on his bi-annual personnel reports, is often described by his subordinates as cold. With a few well-placed inquiries, he has determined that this means he does not compliment his ensigns and lieutenants in the way to which they are accustomed when they have correctly performed a task.

He does not much care about this. But it may prove a useful avenue for showing his approval for his captain. Therefore, he waits for something to happen that he can compliment.

It should not be hollow. Spock would not like to lie. He also suspects that Jim will find it odd if Spock, seemingly with no provocation, commends the captain for any of his general admirable qualities. No sudden random comments on his canny decision-making or the precise gold of his hair will do.

It is a quiet shift on the bridge without much activity. Spock tends his station, watches the captain, and waits. At one point, Kirk stands from his chair, stretches, and announces that he will be going to sickbay to “bother the good doctor.” Spock takes command of the central chair for the one point one hours that Kirk is absent, slightly disgruntled at the idea that the captain may be engaging in activities that are worth complimenting where Spock cannot see them.

Fortunately, when Kirk returns, he brings an opportunity in the form of a blue-shirted ensign who has a query for Spock. Spock cedes the central chair and convenes with the ensign at his science console. “An unusual reading off the geological samples from Parsion III,” she says, offering the data chip to Spock. “We can’t make sense of them.”

“Elaborate.”

“We were only trying to test their chemical makeup,” she says, as Spock considers the computer readouts, “but the sample was unstable within the machines, and we realized—it has a fluctuating mass. It’s almost as though parts of it are flickering in and out of existence.”

Spock considers the numbers. Then he sits up straighter and considers them more closely. “Fascinating,” he murmurs.

“Mr. Spock?”

He turns. The captain is looking at him. “Status report?”

“A curiosity from the science labs, sir,” Spock tells him. “These geological samples are behaving quite erratically at the quantum level.”

“So nothing dangerous,” Jim says, relaxing slightly. “Merely—unusual.”

“Indeed. The mass of the sample fluctuates in a way that cannot be accounted for.”

“The mass has to be going somewhere,” Jim says, furrowing his brow. “It can’t truly be appearing and disappearing.”

“Could be a clever bit of disguise,” Scotty volunteers, having been listening in. “Some remnant of a cloaking technology.”

“Mr. Spock?”

“Unlikely, Captain,” Spock says. “There is nothing mechanical about the composition of the matter. It is an organic crystalline structure.”

“A form of radioactive decay?” Chekov asks; with nothing else to occupy them, the rest of the bridge crew appears to be joining the conversation.

“We would have detected radiation if there was any,” says the science ensign, as Spock bows over the numbers again.

More conjectures are offered. When the computer offers Spock the chemical components—zirconium, silicon, sulfur—Jim spins around in his chair again as though an idea has occurred to him. “Mr. Spock,” he says. “I’m remembering something about quasiparticles. Fermionic quasiparticles.”

Spock straightens. Now that Jim has said it, the answer seems obvious. “Semi-Dirac fermions,” he says. “Particles that only appear to have mass when moving in one direction. When they change direction, they are massless.”

“How on Earth didja remember that, Jim?” Scotty asks. “I remember learning about ‘em, now that you’ve said it, but I never would have called it to mind.”

“Stuck in my head, is all,” Jim says. “I always liked the quantum stuff. Places where the laws of nature get rewritten.” He props his chin on his hand. “Mr. Spock, you’re welcome to head to the science labs if you’d like to take a stab at studying them.”

“I will, Captain,” Spock says. Then: “Your identification was very astute, sir.”

Jim turns back to him. “I’m sorry?”

Had he not heard? “I said your identification of the quasiparticles was very astute.”

Jim stares at him. Spock feels uncomfortable. He is fairly certain that this is not standard protocol for humans accepting compliments. “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Spock?” Jim asks abruptly.

“I am, sir. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, I suppose,” Jim says. Spock accepts this and collects the data chip from the computer. When he stands up a moment later, he sees that Jim is making the strangest face in the direction of Lieutenant Uhura. When Spock follows his gaze, he sees that the lieutenant is offering the captain an exaggerated shrug. When they see that Spock is looking, they both hastily return to their own tasks.

Slowly, Spock follows the blue-shirted ensign into the turbolift. Away from the prying eyes of the bridge crew, he permits himself a sigh.

The rest of the week passes in much the same fashion. Spock attempts to relay anything interesting or unusual to the captain as they scan and evaluate two further planets; Kirk reacts to this information with a sort of puzzled bewilderment, like he has no idea why Spock would want to tell him about the sweet, piercing birdsong on Yanava II, or the persistent lemony scent of the atmosphere on Skult. About the former, Kirk asks, “Are you telling me this because you think the noise will be irritating to any potential inhabitants?” About the latter: “Some poison, do you think?”

Finally, however, Kirk decides that it’s high time for the captain to join a landing party himself. Spock decides this will provide ample opportunities for him to delight Kirk with the particulars of whatever they discover.

Then he finds out that Kirk does not intend to include Spock as a member of the landing party.

“Sir,” he says, as Kirk prepares to leave the bridge. “I request permission to accompany you.”

“For any particular reason?” Kirk asks. He is already at the turbolift doors. He is looking back over his shoulder at Spock. He has assembled a team of scientists and security guards, and he is taking Chekov. “I thought you might appreciate a break.”

“Vulcans do not need breaks, Captain.”

Kirk frowns. “Of course not,” he says neutrally. “How silly of me.”

“If I was not selected for the landing party for that reason alone, then—”

“Isn’t it logical to leave one member of the command team in charge of the bridge?”

This has been Spock’s argument in the past when Kirk has voiced an interest in joining any landing parties that Spock is heading. “Yes, but the chain of command does allow for—”

Kirk crosses his arms, looking impatient. “What is your reason, Mr. Spock, for wanting to join?”

To witness with you whatever new thing there may be. Spock cannot say this. “As I mentioned, preliminary scans did show large reptilian lifeforms on the surface of Schedar I.”

“I’m aware.”

“As I am a Vulcan, with three times the strength of a man, it would be logical—”

“Do you think we can’t manage without you?”

“I did not say—”

“Then give me one good reason you’re questioning my order.”

Spock falters. Insubordination was not his intent. He is aware that Lieutenant Uhura is watching the exchange with wide eyes. Kirk is annoyed, though he hides it. He merely stares at Spock with a hard expression. “I rescind my request, Captain,” Spock says finally. He has erred here. He can only endeavor not to make it worse.

Kirk turns away from him. “You have the conn until I return,” he says shortly. “Chekov, with me.” They exit the bridge. Spock is left to ponder what exactly he did wrong. He glances down at Lieutenant Uhura, who is watching him somewhat hesitantly.

“Why did you want to go, Spock?” she asks him.

“I find lizards fascinating,” he says blandly.

It makes her laugh. He goes to the central chair and settles into it. The transporter room reports a successful beam-down of the landing party, and Spock busies himself with looking over the scans of Schedar I’s atmosphere, which is richer in oxygen than both Terra and Vulcan.

The first inkling of trouble appears after the landing party has been on the surface for thirty-one minutes. “Kirk to bridge.”

“Spock here.”

“We’ve lost contact with Chekov and Johnson. Can you locate them?”

Spock looks over at Scotty, who is already bent over the engineering console. “Trying now, sir.” He looks over his shoulder. “Lieutenant Uhura, can you make contact?”

“They aren’t responding,” she says, touching her earpiece with a frustrated look.

“Keep trying.”

“We’ve got a lock on their communicators, at least,” Scotty jumps in. Spock hits the button to hail the captain and lets Scotty relay the facts: “They’re north of you, sir, bearing seventeen. Not far from you at all, I’d say.”

“We’ll investigate. Kirk out.”

“Still nothing,” Uhura says, at a look from Spock. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t be answering, unless they dropped their communicators.”

“Or unless they are otherwise occupied,” Spock says.

“Kirk to bridge.”

“Spock here.”

“Some sort of cave. We’re going in.”

“I must advise against that course of action, Captain. The Schedaran reptiles—”

“Are in there. We know. We just watched one of them drag Johnson inside.”

The bridge crew comes to full, tense attention. Uhura covers her mouth with her hand. Spock says, “I will prepare an additional security team to—”

“No time,” Kirk says. “You have the satisfaction of being right, Mr. Spock, let’s leave it at that.”

“It is a poor consolation, sir,” Spock says. He had not truly expected trouble from the reptiles; there was every indication that they should be nocturnal. Whether or not Kirk hears him he does not know. Presumably the captain has gone into the cave. Spock and the bridge crew can only sit and wait.

Spock sends a security team to the transporter room but tells them not to beam down. He wants them ready if Kirk needs additional backup, but he suspects the captain will not like it if Spock sends more officers against his wishes. He also sets the sciences team to gathering more data on the reptiles based on their scans, though the information is scant: there is only so much that can be detected from orbit.

At long last, Jim’s voice crackles over the system once more. “Kirk to bridge. Immediate beam-out for entire landing party. Have a medical team standing by in the transporter room.”

“Affirmative, sir.” Spock dispatches the necessary orders. Jim’s voice had been tense but not pained, so he is likely unharmed. The state of the rest of the landing party remains to be seen. “Transporter room, are you standing by?”

“Ready, sir.”

“Beam them up.”

A moment of silence. Then: “Got them, sir. All landing party members accounted for.” A ripple of relief passes through the bridge. Spock finds that some level of tension in his chest is able to ease and dissipate. Had there been any life-threatening injuries, the technician would have said so.

Nonetheless, Jim returns to the bridge eleven point two minutes later to find a general air of concern. “At ease,” he says, waving away the worried looks of his officers. “Nothing drastic. Chekov and Johnson are in sickbay with some bites, but Bones said they’ll be back on duty as soon as tomorrow.”

Spock stands from the chair. Jim’s face is shining with sweat. He is unharmed, but not unruffled; clearly there was some form of altercation on the surface. “Was it the lizards, sir?” Sulu asks.

“Great big things,” Jim says. “Neon blue tails. Like a skink the size of a pig.” The bridge crew reacts with the requisite amount of distaste and alarm. Spock notes the fact that the captain has highlighted the color of the reptiles. “Fond of biting, though, unlike skinks. And the scales made them somewhat resistant to phaser fire.”

“May I ask how you were able to free Johnson and Chekov from their grasp?” Spock inquires.

Jim leans back against the red rail and crosses his arms. “I played a hunch,” he says.

“You played a hunch,” Spock repeats.

“I punched it in the nose,” Jim says.

“The nose,” Spock repeats. He wonders if either he or Jim has taken leave of their senses.

Jim shrugs. “Works with sharks and alligators.”

Sulu is chuckling. “I’m glad you got the lads out of it, sir,” Scotty says with a grin. Even Lieutenant Uhura is smiling as she swivels in her chair. They like listening to their captain explain his feats and leaps of logic. They find him rather daring. With his face shining with sweat and his green tunic streaked with dirt, he certainly looks the part. He smiles at them. When he looks at Spock, he tamps down that smile.

“It is fortunate that no one was grievously injured,” Spock says.

“No great harm done,” Jim says, pushing off the guard rail. “We’re crossing this one off the list, though.”

“I’ll say,” Sulu mutters. “Prepared to break orbit on your order, Captain.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sulu. Take us out of here.” Jim settles into the center chair and heaves a deep sigh. Spock remains at his shoulder for a moment, watching the viewscreen as Schedar I slides away. He can tell that Jim is regrouping. He draws strength from his chair, from its symbolic weight. It calms him to be reinstalled in it. Spock likes to see him there, fingering the buttons on the arms and establishing himself on the Enterprise once more. Around them, the bridge buzzes and settles as they leave the Schedar system behind.

Jim raises a hand to stall Janice Rand as she bustles past his chair. “Yeoman,” he says in an undertone. “I wonder if you might—”

“Yessir,” Rand says right away, seeming to already understand. “I’ll get you something to eat, give me just a moment.”

Spock frowns. “That errand is somewhat beneath her,” he says to Jim.

Before Jim can say anything, Rand back turns around with a hard look on her face. “It’s not, sir,” she says firmly—but she’s not talking to Spock. She’s talking to Jim. “It’s not.”

Jim’s expression is tense. He looks at Spock. He looks at Rand. “Belay the order,” he says stiffly.

Rand shakes her head. “No, sir,” she says. “At the risk of disobedience, I will not. Sir. I’ll be right back.”

She leaves the bridge. Jim slumps in his chair and sighs. Spock does not understand.

“I do not understand,” he says out loud.

“Ship functions are under your purview as first officer,” Jim says. He fixes Spock with a look that, for the very first time, is very nearly unkind. “My eating habits are not. Is that clear?”

Spock is being reprimanded. He does not know why. “Yes, sir,” he says stiffly.

“Dismissed,” Jim says. He does not want to talk to Spock anymore. Spock removes himself to his science console. He and Jim do not speak again for the remainder of alpha shift.

After dinner, Spock makes a query of the computer and then takes himself to recreation room three, where Yeoman Janice Rand is painting her nails. When she sees Spock heading toward her, she caps her nail polish and stands, looking unsurprised. “Commander.”

“I wish for you to explain the incident on the bridge,” he says.

Yeoman Rand colors a bit but stands her ground. “Humans find it impolite to comment on each other’s relationship to food,” she says simply.

Spock considers this and rejects it. “This cannot be so. I have observed Doctor McCoy make all manner of—”

“He’s a doctor,” she says, cutting him off. “That’s part of his job. Proper nutrition. And part of my job, sir, if you’ll excuse me, is aiding the captain, whether with an official task or no.” She’s close to being insubordinate in her manner of speaking, but Spock finds he cannot fault her: she believes herself to be defending the captain.

“Then I offended him,” he says.

“You embarrassed him,” she corrects. “And he wouldn’t have eaten because of it. Even though he was stressed and tired after fighting and whatever else on the surface of that awful planet.” There is an undercurrent here that Spock does not entirely understand, but he does know that Janice Rand showed more loyalty to the captain by ignoring his second order than she would have by following it.

“That would have been a regrettable outcome,” Spock says.

“Yes, sir, it would have been.”

Spock nods. Whatever this is, it is not entirely for him to know. “I commend you for your care, Yeoman,” he says simply. “I will take no more of your time.” He turns to leave.

She calls him back. “Commander.” He turns. “You’ll never hear the captain make a single request on his own behalf when there’s danger—surely you’ve noticed that.” Spock nods. “When he makes a request of me, I know it’s something he truly needs. And whatever that task is could never be beneath me.”

Jim’s selflessness is a quality that Spock has noticed. He considers for the first time that such a quality could be detrimental, if it leads to self-neglect. He gives Janice Rand a considering look. “I am grateful for your insight,” he tells her.

She gives him a small smile and sits back down at her table. Spock leaves the recreation room and makes his way to his quarters, which are—of course—directly next to Jim’s quarters.

As he approaches, the door to Kirk’s rooms slides open, and Doctor McCoy steps out.

When he sees Spock, he scowls.

“Doctor,” Spock says.

For a moment, he thinks McCoy will yell at him. The look on his face certainly suggests it. Instead, the doctor merely shakes his head and turns away, stalking down the corridor without a word.

Spock stands very still for ten point seven seconds. Then he enters his own quarters, lights a stick of incense, and sinks to his knees on his meditation mat.

He turns his thoughts inward.

Under.

Back in time.

“Thinking about it dispassionately,” Amanda said, with a smile at the corner of her mouth, “I would say that emotions are a type of information.”

Spock was sitting at her feet with his chin resting on her knee. He was eleven years old.

“One tool among many,” she continued. “We humans run into trouble when we let emotion alone decide our actions, but—tempered by other things such as morals, as logic, they are an aid to navigating the world. The galaxy.”

Spock did not answer, merely nodded. His mother touched his black hair very gently, smoothing it and then cupping the back of his head in one hand.

“Your father would have you believe that it is inappropriate to use emotion in the process of making decisions. But, Spock.” And then Amanda took a breath, a happy sort of thing. “Most of my better choices were made with emotion playing a strong part.”

Spock could not dispute this.

“It often seems,” he said to his mother, “that—among the resources available to an individual for making decisions—emotion is the one that often runs counter to the others. It can impede and confuse the process.”

“You understand the logic of debate, don’t you, Spock?” Amanda queried.

“In attempting to reconcile opposing forces, we may better understand both forces,” Spock said. Then he saw his mother’s point. “Ah. I understand.” He was pleased at her cleverness, at the way he felt his brain expand in response to the considerations she brought him.

“If nothing else, it’s often a good idea to slow down and carefully consider a choice.”

“Sometimes choices need to be made with great speed,” Spock pointed out.

“That’s true.” She ruffled his hair a little and then smoothed it again. She was the only person Spock would permit to do that. She was also the only person who would ever attempt to do it. “All the thinking you do slowly and with time prepares you for the thinking you have to do quickly, under duress. That’s what I believe.”

“What if an individual fails to make the correct decision, when pressed to do so under duress?”

Amanda peered down at him. “Many questions today! Do you anticipate making many high-pressure decisions, Spock?”

He did not tell her of the little wish he had begun to cultivate. It was a desire lacking in logic, but a career in Starfleet had suddenly taken over his thinking. “No, mother,” he said.

“I would say that failure, too, is a type of information,” Amanda said.

Failure.

Spock rises.

Reassembles.

Returns to the present. To himself.

He breathes deeply. Evenly.

Yes, he has failed. He has failed to make Jim understand the truth of Spock’s regard. Worse, he has failed to perform as a friend and confidant to his captain, his captain who surely needs these things, who turns to his doctor and his yeoman for them.

It is right that he should turn to them. Spock would not like to remove the captain’s supports; he would merely like to add himself to their number.

Thus far, he has failed. He has made simple overtures to Jim with no genuine feeling behind them, because he is Vulcan, and he did not consider feeling to be sufficient motivation.

This cannot continue.

He opens his eyes.

The next morning, Spock arrives on the bridge bearing an apple in his hand.

He offers it to Jim.

Jim stares at it for a long moment. He raises his hazel eyes to Spock. “Trying to put my yeoman out of a job?” he asks lightly.

“Certainly not, sir,” Spock says. He keeps his posture steady as he stands beside the captain’s chair, balancing the apple on his outstretched hand. It is not unlike, he thinks to himself, attempting to feed a wild bird.

With one more glance at his first officer, Jim takes the proffered fruit. He is careful to not brush against Spock’s skin as he does so. “Thank you, Mr. Spock,” he says.

Spock nods once and goes to his science console. Behind him, he hears the sharp sound of Jim taking a bite.

Chapter Text

After the overture of the apple, Spock does not attempt to engage Jim with empty observations. Instead, he pays closer attention to the ways that Jim’s friends among the crew interact with and support him. Spock is not able to make jokes like Lieutenant Sulu, and it is not in his nature to fuss like Doctor McCoy. However, he can be available for what Jim needs. In his own quiet way, he can be what Jim needs.

Some of this work is subtle. When Spock corrects or clarifies, he does not mean it as an admonishment; he tries to make this more apparent in the way he phrases his statements. He does not offer Jim food again so blatantly, but he does discreetly point Yeoman Rand in the captain’s direction after a particularly trying day spent navigating an asteroid belt.

He does continue to include the curiosities that genuinely interest him in his reports, because he does think that they interest Jim as well; he has a curious mind, like Spock. The next time Spock has cause to point out an unusual phenomenon, he couches it in the other scanner data from a new planet: Tadmor is in possession of an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, soil that is rich in calcium and magnesium, and a magnificent set of rusty reddish rings.

“You don’t say.” Jim sits up, interested. “Mr. Sulu, magnify. I want that on the viewscreen.” Spock comes to stand at Jim’s shoulder as Tadmor appears before them, encircled with slim rings of gas and dust, as promised. The members of the bridge crew make sounds of delight. “They’re so red,” Jim says, quiet. He carries a small measure of awe on his face.

“A high concentration of iron, sir,” Spock tells him. “Presumably cast off from an asteroid impact intense enough to penetrate beneath the upper crust of the planet.” To him, the appeal of Tadmor’s rings lie in what they reveal about the planet’s past. However, he also appreciates the red color for its similarity to the horizon of Vulcan. He decides to say, “The color is rather striking.”

Jim glances at him, a measuring look in his eye. “Isn’t it just,” he says. Then he fixes his eyes back on the view. Spock has the illogical sense that he has brought Jim a gift and is gratified to see it well-received. This is folly: Spock did not invent this planet nor its rings. Nonetheless, the feeling persists, and he does not attempt to diminish it.

The same element that brings the brightness to Jim’s human blood governs the color of Tadmor’s rings. Spock keeps this thought to himself.

“Prepare a landing party,” Jim says. “I want to see those things from the surface.”

“Yes, sir,” Spock says, and goes to perform the task.

When Jim and the landing party return near the end of alpha shift, full of triumphant reports of a planet that is certainly a good candidate for settlement, Jim takes a moment to show Spock a holo of the rings as seen from the surface. They cut through the pearl-gray atmosphere like thin red lines, slightly macabre and undeniably attractive. Though the captain’s pleasure at the visual is apparent, he still does not smile at Spock.

Spock wishes he would smile.

Nonetheless, he spends the rest of the day feeling as though Jim has brought him a gift in return, and the amount of pleasure this inspires in him is impossible to ignore.

Three point two days after this, Doctor McCoy calls up to the bridge in the middle of alpha shift and asks for Jim and Spock to meet him in one of the conference rooms.

“I’ll cut to the chase,” he says, as soon as Jim and Spock arrive. “I’ve got three lieutenants in my sickbay with fevers that are burning them up from the inside, and between them they’ve had a dozen close contacts within the last few days. As far as I can tell this thing ain’t airborne, but I’ve got to put half the science department in quarantine if you want to stop the spread.”

Jim takes this calmly, but the tense energy of command settles over him as he considers the information. Spock says, “We have been in deep space with no contacts. Where—”

“From the look of it,” McCoy says, anticipating the question, “non-humans can be asymptomatic carriers of Pallas fever for up to a few months. I’ve got a timeline that’s half-gossip and half relationship disclosure forms, and as best I can tell someone brought it back aboard from our last Starbase stop and only recently introduced it to another human crewmember. Then it spread.”

“Give me the list of contacts to quarantine,” Jim says. “You said it’s not airborne?”

“Saliva.”

“Well.” Jim scrubs at his eyes. “We’ll put out a general order for a decontam sonic and keep any contacts confined to quarters until further notice. Have you got a cure?”

“Working one out,” McCoy says, “but we might need to swing back to either Alkalai or Starbase 47, because I don’t have everything I need.” He takes a breath. “It’s a nasty fever, Jim.”

Jim nods. He hails the bridge and orders them to change course to Starbase 47 in clipped, stern tones. Spock regards the list of names that McCoy gives him and begins contacting shift heads within the science department to prepare for reduced crew.

“Do everything you can for them, Bones,” Jim says, placing a hand on the doctor’s shoulder.

McCoy looks into his captain’s face. He nods once, tightly. Then he goes back to sickbay.

They make it to Starbase 47 a day and a half later. Four more lieutenants and one ensign have come down with the fever. No one from the Enterprise is going ashore, in case there are more carriers. Instead, Jim takes Spock with him to a conference room to call Commodore Kepler and ask for supplies.

Fortunately, the commodore is willing to accommodate them; while he seems slightly perturbed at the idea of depleting his medical department’s supplies for the sake of a starship, he nonetheless agrees that the station can easily send up the substances they need to make vaccines.

“I won’t lie and say it’s not an inconvenience,” he says. “We rarely get restocked out here.”

“We understand, Commodore, and we appreciate your cooperation,” Jim says evenly. Spock can tell that he’s frustrated by Kepler’s reluctance. “We’d be happy to take on a resupply ourself in the near future, orders willing.”

“Yes, yes, fine,” Kepler says, waving a hand. “We’ve dealt with this fever before ourselves, so we should have everything you need.

“That’s fortunate.” Jim is tapping his fingers on the table, out of Kepler’s sight but well within Spock’s. They are the only outward expression of his mood.

“To make enough doses for your entire crew, my tech says you’ll want seven grams of tromethamine and thirteen grams of the gelatin,” Kepler is saying. Spock stiffens in his chair. “So I’ll have them package that up for transport right away.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jim says. “We’ll have a team standing by to receive it.”

Kepler nods, already looking at something offscreen. “If that’s all—”

Spock cannot stay silent any longer. “Commodore, that will not be sufficient,” he says swiftly.

Kepler turns back to the viewscreen with his eyebrows raised. “I beg your pardon, Commander?”

“Thirteen grams will not be sufficient,” Spock repeats. “At the level we are attempting to manufacture this vaccine, we require thirteen point zero seven grams of hydrolyzed gelatin to properly stabilize the mixture; we will fall short of the proper dose unless you send us an additional 70 milligrams.”

Kepler blinks. “My tech said—”

“Your technician is incorrect.”

Commodore Kepler turns his baffled gaze back to Jim. Jim looks at Spock appraisingly for a moment and then turns back to the viewscreen. “You heard him,” he says, with a smile and a shrug. “Better make it fourteen grams. To be on the safe side.”

“If you say so, Kirk,” the commodore says, sounding dubious. “I’ll have the transport team send it over right away.”

“Thank you, sir. Kirk out.” He flips off the viewscreen and gives Spock a sideways sort of look.

Spock looks steadily back.

“I always thought Vulcan precision was somewhat pedantic,” Jim says conversationally.

“No doubt it can be,” Spock admits. “However, a rigorous standard everywhere allows for lapses nowhere.”

“Hm.” Jim nods and looks away. “Well, then you’d better report to the transporter room. If we’re short that crucial gram, you’ll be the one to catch it.”

“Yes, sir.” Spock stands and heads for the door. Jim does not join him; he stays seated at the table, still absently tapping his fingers on its surface.

Late that evening, Spock stands outside Jim’s door and wonders what to do.

The proper amount of hydrolyzed gelatin was beamed over and the vaccines were mixed—but not in time for two of the lieutenants, who both succumbed to the fever before their shots could be administered. It was a blow both to Doctor McCoy and to the captain. The former sequestered himself in his office after ensuring that his other patients were stable; the latter maintained his composure for the rest of alpha shift and then disappeared into his quarters.

Spock is not certain he will be welcome if he attempts to enter. He may even draw the captain’s ire. This is weighed against his concern that Jim is not well. Jim has almost certainly not eaten dinner, which is physiologically unwise; Jim is more than certainly upset, which is not to be disregarded.

He presses the chime. After a long moment, the doors slide open.

“Commander.” Jim rises from his bed. He is clad in his black undershirt and his feet are bare. “I didn’t think it was you.”

“I will depart if my company is unwelcome,” Spock says.

“No—no, you may as well.” Jim waves a hand toward one of the chairs. Spock sits and steeples his fingers together as he regards his captain, who leans against the desk and crosses his arms. “What do you need?”

“I need nothing, sir,” Spock says. “I came to inquire after your well-being.”

Jim makes a short, bitter noise and turns his face away. “I don’t think you’d like to hear about it.”

“If you would like to speak, I will listen.”

Jim’s jaw works as he considers that. He seems tired. His hair is mussed, presumably from laying down. “This is an odd juncture for you to be assuming the role of ship’s therapist.”

He is deflecting. Spock allows it. “I confess I would likely be ill-suited to the post.”

That gets a laugh out of Jim that he disguises as a cough. “Yet here you are.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jim rubs at his eye with the palm of his hand. Then he looks squarely at Spock. Pain and recrimination are written all across his face. Guilt and anger. Spock has never seen him like this.

Spock has never been permitted to see him like this.

He gazes steadily back at his captain. He does not turn away.

Jim is the first to falter. He drops his eyes and says, “You must think it illogical.”

“The loss of any crew member is exceedingly regrettable,” Spock says. “Especially when a cure was so nearly at hand.”

“You should be checking on Bones, not me.”

“The doctor can comfort himself with the knowledge that he exhausted every possible avenue.”

“And I can’t do the same?” Jim shoves away from the desk and paces across the room, restless and upset. “Is that what you’ve come to tell me? I shouldn’t feel bad, because I’m not a doctor, and I couldn’t help?”

“That is not my meaning at all,” Spock says calmly. “Doctor McCoy was active in this scenario, as he is the chief medical officer aboard this ship. You, however, were in the position of being responsible for the lives of your crew without being able to take action on their behalf.”

Jim halts his pacing with his back to Spock. His breathing is deep and unsteady.

“This is your unique burden, as captain of this vessel,” Spock says. “Frequently, the ability to save the crew rests in your hands alone. However, even when it does not, you remain responsible.”

“Yes,” Jim says. His voice rasps.

“And so I am here,” Spock concludes, quietly. “Because your position is singular, and your grief is too. That is all, Captain.”

Jim covers his face with both hands. Then he turns and looks at Spock. His eyes are bright and blazing. Spock has the inappropriate thought that his captain is rather beautiful like this; he tucks it away. “You need me operating at peak efficiency, is all,” Jim says.

Spock shakes his head slowly. “That is not why.”

They regard each other. Spock feels as though some potential is coming shyly into being in the space between them. Some tacit understanding. The lines of Jim’s body relax slightly. “I ought to sleep,” he says quietly.

“Yes, sir,” Spock says, and he stands. He considers his captain, who is barefoot and tousle-haired and has the strongest sense of will that Spock has yet to encounter anywhere in the galaxy. “If you have need of me, merely let me know. I will be awake for some time yet.”

Jim nods. “Thank you, Commander,” he says. Spock does not tell him that thanks are illogical. He simply inclines his head. Before he can take his leave, Jim says, “When I write to Lieutenant Mira’s family—will you help me?”

Spock pauses and takes a breath. His own grief is a cold stitch in his chest. “I will, sir.”

Jim nods. “Goodnight, then.” He goes to touch Spock on the shoulder. Then he stops. That open hand closes itself into a fist which falls back against his side.

Spock looks into Jim’s face. “Goodnight, sir,” he says softly.

The captain does not call on Spock at any point in the night. Nonetheless, Spock is gratified to see that Jim appears well-rested, alert, and calm the next morning when he takes the central chair on the bridge and orders the Enterprise further into the black.

They survey three more planets, sending the name of one along to the admiralty as a candidate for settlement. They detour into a nebula to take protostar readings. Jim calls Spock by name, rather than Mr. Spock or Commander, for the first time in five point eight months. Spock considers this a good sign.

Accordingly, the next day, Spock seeks out the captain and finds him in the officers’ recreation room, ostensibly engaged in approving duty rosters, actually engaged in easy chatter with the other officers in the room. Spock pauses in the door for one point two seconds. Then he crosses to his captain and waits to be addressed.

Jim doesn’t make him wait. He looks up at Spock and raises his eyebrows.

“I wish to inquire,” Spock says, “if a game of chess would be of interest to you.”

“Chess is always of interest to me,” Jim says easily. “With whom?”

They have never played chess together. Jim has asked (a total of eleven times, over the one point three years of his captaincy) if Spock would like to play. Spock has always said no, citing experiments in the lab or a need to meditate.

“With me,” Spock says.

Jim sits up straighter in his chair.

Spock is uncertain what to make of this reaction. He waits.

“You’re asking to play chess with me,” Jim clarifies.

“Yes, sir.”

“Right now.”

“If you are not otherwise engaged.”

“Here?”

“Unless you prefer to move elsewhere.”

Jim thumbs the corner of his mouth and looks at Spock for a moment. Hazel eyes dart, dart, dart all over Spock’s face and form. “Here suits me just fine,” he says at last. “Sit. I’ll fetch a board.”

Spock sits. Jim brings over the 3D chess set that is kept in this room. With a glance at Spock, he begins to set the pieces. “Would you prefer to play white?” Spock offers.

“No, that’s fine,” Jim says. “Go ahead.”

“Very well.” Spock makes his opening move. Jim looks at it, then looks at Spock, then narrows his focus and responds in kind.

They trade pieces and maneuvers in quiet for nine point seven minutes. Jim keeps glancing at Spock as though trying to puzzle him out as much as the game; it is exceedingly distracting, though not unpleasantly so.

Finally, after a particularly lingering look, Spock can bear the silence no longer. “Sir,” he finally says, “if I have done something—”

“No, Mr. Spock, I’m sorry.” Jim shakes his head. Then he glances at Spock again. “May I ask you a question?”

It is unlike him to be tentative. “You may.”

“You sometimes wear a bit of color.” Jim moves one of his rooks and then touches his own eyelid, gently. “Just here.”

Spock has had this conversation before. “It is typical for Vulcan males.”

Jim surprises him: he does not immediately bring up human female cosmetics. “Does it serve a cultural purpose? Or merely an aesthetic one?”

“Both, to an extent,” Spock says. He moves his queen. “It is an old practice. The eyelids are dusted before meditation to symbolize looking inward. It is still my habit, when I am seeking resolution internally. I was in deep meditation before alpha shift.”

“Ah, so that’s why we don’t see it every day.” Jim absorbs this explanation. There is an obvious follow-up question: for what purpose was Spock in such deep meditation? But Jim does not ask. He merely advances a pawn in a rather foolhardy way, which Spock is quick to capture with his bishop.

He then watches, disgruntled, as Jim maneuvers his own queen onto the platform recently vacated by the bishop. “Check,” he says.

Spock has perhaps underestimated his captain’s proficiency at chess.

Though he manages to evade the queen at that moment, Jim chases him around the board until Spock is forced to admit defeat. After eleven point six minutes, he tips his king over with one long finger and concedes.

Jim’s victory doesn’t make him smile. He keeps his face rather blank as he begins to gather up the pieces.

“Sir,” Spock says. “I request a rematch.”

Jim looks at him. He still doesn’t smile, but his eyes have some of their warmth. “I can’t at the moment, unfortunately,” he says. “Prior engagement. Rain check?”

“It is not raining,” Spock says.

“No, it’s—” And finally Jim smiles, a brief flash, before he breathes in and composes his face once more. “Forgive me. A colloquialism. It means, may we move the plan to a later date?”

“Certainly, sir,” Spock says. He still does not know what this has to do with rain. “I have a board of my own, somewhat finer in quality than this one. We could utilize it next time.”

Jim nods. He studies Spock. “I would be amenable to that, Commander,” he says, somewhat quiet, and then he takes his leave.

Later in the day, Spock goes to sickbay to inquire after the health of the final recovering ensign and is gratified to hear that she has already been cleared for light duty. He thanks Nurse Chapel for this information and has turned to leave when a shout from within McCoy’s office stalls him. The language is decidedly colorful. Chapel presses a hand over her mouth to hide a smile.

Spock goes to the door of McCoy’s office and looks inside. “Are you well, Doctor?”

“Peachy,” McCoy grunts, “now that you’re here.” He is employing sarcasm. Spock does not let this perturb him. From his vantage, he can see that the doctor has spilled a case of data tapes onto the floor.

“May I assist you?”

McCoy waves him off. “While I do appreciate it, no. I have a system and this’ll go faster if I do it myself.”

“Very well.”

“Though, since I have you here…” McCoy sits back on his heels and looks up at Spock with a rather combative expression on his face. “Quit jerking Jim around,” he says sternly. “It isn’t nice.”

“I rarely concern myself with being nice,” Spock says, and the doctor snorts.

“Believe me, I know that. But I’m warning you: leave him be. I don’t need him down here bellyaching in my sickbay any more than he already does.” Is Jim ill? Spock opens his mouth to inquire, but McCoy cuts him off. “I don’t mean literally.”

“I’m having difficulty discerning any part of your meaning,” Spock says. “Is something about my conduct less than satisfactory?”

“Your conduct! Above reproach, as always.”

“Then I fail to see—”

“I’m talking about your attitude.”

“Excuse me?”

McCoy stands up abruptly, looking angrily into Spock’s face. “Bringing him food. Offering him support. Inviting him to play chess.” He says this last as thought Spock has done something filthy.

“You say that as though I have done something untoward,” Spock informs him. “Is it not natural for a captain and commander to spend time together in a friendly manner?”

“Damn it, man, you made it clear that you don’t want his friendship,” McCoy snaps. “Whatever fool game you’re playing now is only going to hurt his feelings even more.”

“I am not engaged in any sort of game,” Spock says. “Clarify what you mean by the accusation that I will hurt his feelings even more.”

“I bloody well will not,” McCoy says, “because it’s none of my business, and quite frankly it’s none of yours either.”

“Then I do not see why you brought it up.”

“Because I care about Jim,” McCoy says. His voice is very serious. “Can you say the same?”

Spock considers this question. Does he care about Jim? For Jim? Certainly he does: Jim is his captain. Jim is the axis around which the Enterprise pivots. Jim is the nuclear reaction at the core of a star, bringing heat and light and the possibility of life to a system. “Yes,” he says.

McCoy deflates. He stares hard at Spock. “Damn you,” he says, but quietly, more to himself. “I tried my best. Damn you. All I can do is be here, as I have been.”

Spock tips his head slightly. “Is there anywhere else you ought to be?”

“No,” McCoy says. “Where he goes, I follow, because he’s a good captain and a better man. More than that, he’s my friend.” He says this rather defensively.

“Has it occurred to you, Doctor,” Spock says, “that I might also like to consider the captain a friend?”

“No,” McCoy says coldly. “Because you told him yourself that Vulcans don’t have friends.”

Spock stiffens. He did indeed tell the captain that, seven point two months ago, when the captain made an offhand comment about Spock having friends on the ship. But McCoy was not present for that conversation. No one was. Spock and Jim had been alone in the turbolift at the time. For McCoy to know of it, Jim must have told him.

That he told McCoy specifically is not itself a surprise; Spock knows that the doctor is the captain’s closest confidante.

What surprises him is that the comment was noteworthy enough to be repeated at all.

It must have made an impression on Jim. A negative one, obviously. Spock closes his eyes briefly, feeling the now-familiar sting of regret and irritation.

Kaiidth, he thinks. “I spoke in error,” he says. “And perhaps in unkindness.”

“Perhaps.”

“Might a man not attempt to rectify a mistake?”

“A man might, yes.” Unspoken: not you. Spock has once again come up against the absolute loyalty that Jim inspires in his crew. McCoy believes that Spock may do some harm to Jim. He is attempting to prevent, or at least mitigate, that harm. He believes this because Spock has hurt Jim in the past.

Spock sees no reason to spend time convincing the doctor of his motivations. If he is to be a companion to Jim, he will do so truly and allow his actions to speak for themselves. “I will leave you to your data tapes, Doctor,” he says in a low tone. “Thank you for your counsel.”

That garners a frustrated noise from McCoy, but he doesn’t say anything further, so Spock departs.

He mulls over the fact that McCoy seemed extremely well-informed as to Spock’s dealings with the captain of late—including the chess game, which took place only two point four hours before Spock went to sickbay.

Ship gossip only goes so fast, and Spock does not think that a chess game is a noteworthy enough topic.

Jim must have mentioned it to McCoy himself.

This is a piece of information. Spock ponders it as he moves down the corridor with his hands clasped behind his back. He knows that he has been a topic of conversation between the captain and the doctor before, and more than once. He knows that the captain has spoken of Spock’s cold nature and the fact that he felt rebuffed by it.

Fortunately, it now seems he has noticed the alteration in Spock’s behavior. Spock does not know in what manner the captain spoke of these things, only that he has. Unlike his initial overtures of friendship, which Jim seemed to not recognize or understand, it seems that Spock has achieved some measure of success in properly expressing his high regard for Jim. He is, as his mother would say, on the right path.

There is certainly more to be done. However, as Spock directs his steps to the science labs, he allows himself to feel some small measure of satisfaction.

As it turns out, his overtures have indeed become obvious enough to provoke Jim’s curiosity.

When Spock returns to his quarters that evening, he finds that Jim must have been waiting for him, because he pokes his head out of his own quarters as Spock approaches. “Commander,” Jim says. “A word?”

Spock follows his captain inside. This late, the lights are somewhat dim, and Jim has already dressed down to a simple black shirt. A chess set has been placed on one of the tables, and Spock wonders if this was done in anticipation of further games with himself. “I did not anticipate a rematch so soon,” he says, probing.

“What? Oh—we can play if you like,” Jim says. He runs a hand through his hair. Then he seems to make up his mind about something and fixes Spock with a very direct look. “You’ve been different lately,” he says. “I’d like to know why.”

Spock considers this. Despite the many avenues he has considered for improving his relationship with the captain, telling Jim directly has never occurred to him. He is uncertain of the rate of success, but he has been asked a question by his commanding officer, and so he must respond.

“Five point eight weeks ago,” he says, without preamble, “I became aware that I felt a sense of anticipation while in the turbolift, on my way to the bridge for our shared alpha shift.”

“If Vulcans can be said to have one emotion, it’s surely an eagerness for work,” Jim says wryly, settling himself into a chair.

Vulcans have plenty of emotions. Spock feels no need to correct his captain on this score. “It was not for my work,” he says. “I anticipated seeing you.”

Jim grows still. Spock does not look at him.

“It was not the first time I experienced the feeling, though it was the first time I named it. There were other attendant emotions. Contentment upon seeing you. And sorrow at your manner.”

“My manner,” Jim repeats woodenly.

“Yes.” Spock drops his eyes. “You no longer smile at me.”

“It seemed to offend your sensibilities.”

“I have never required that my crewmates refrain from smiling as I do.”

“Okay.” Jim scrubs a hand over his face. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. I wasn’t expecting—well. Thank you for telling me.”

“Jim,” Spock says softly. “I am not finished.”

Jim looks at him. “That may be the first time I’ve ever heard you say my name,” he says, with a self-deprecating sort of twist to his mouth. “Lord knows I pestered you enough about it. I should have left you alone, Spock, you don’t have to—”

“Jim,” Spock says again. “Allow me to continue.”

Jim leans back in his chair, signaling his acquiescence with a small gesture of his hand.

“I am not adept at human nicety,” Spock says. “Partially because I have never understood its necessity. I believe that my reactions to you have led you to an erroneous, though understandable, conclusion.”

“And what conclusion is that?”

“That I do not like you.”

Jim turns his head away. “You make it sound juvenile,” he says after a moment. “I’m a grown man. I can handle it when people don’t enjoy my company.”

“I am aware of this,” Spock says. “However, your belief that I rebuffed your friendship out of dislike for your person is nonetheless incorrect. I have no objection to you—”

“No objection. That’s glowing praise.”

“I am attempting to establish my lack of ill will.”

“Understood. Carry on.”

“I admire your capabilities as my commanding officer,” Spock says firmly. “I think well of you. I prefer to work alongside you. I did not respond to your overtures of friendship because I did not know how to do so, nor what was being asked of me. I assumed that, in order to meet your friendliness, I would have to match it in ways that run counter to my nature.”

“Spock, no.” Jim looks distressed. “I never wanted you to change a thing. I don’t need you to smile—or make jokes—”

“I understand that now,” Spock says. “You do not desire for me to change.” He pauses. “Neither do I desire change from you.”

Jim blinks. He tips his head to the side. “Explain that to me.”

“You enjoy smiling,” Spock says. “You enjoy needling and teasing. You enjoy wishing for me to experience illogical and interesting things on away missions. You need not alter these behaviors for me. I was unfair to you: I made you believe these elements of your personality are unwelcome. They are not.”

“So you really,” Jim says. Stops. Rubs the bridge of his nose. “You’ve been acting differently because you want me to smile at you.”

“I desire that you cease altering your behavior for me,” Spock corrects, but it is no use. Jim has decided that the scenario is an absurd one, and he is laughing into his hands. Spock would almost feel offended, but there is nothing malicious in the sound of it, and besides: this is what he wanted.

It is very pleasant to hear Jim laugh.

“It is very pleasant to hear you laugh,” he says aloud.

This has an even odder effect on the captain. He stands and moves away from Spock, shaking his head, though still he smiles. “Don’t start complimenting me now, I’ll get all my wires crossed.”

“It was not a compliment. It was a statement of fact.”

“Oh, I’m doomed, aren’t I?” This question appears to be rhetorical. Jim faces Spock again and puts his hands on his hips. “All right. I hear you. I am relieved, I’ll admit. I’ve been bracing for your transfer orders to land on my desk every day for the past six months.”

Spock is startled by this. “You thought my dislike of you was strong enough to drive me from the ship.”

Jim shrugs. “Stranger things have happened.” His eyes gleam. “My Vulcan first officer said he misses me smiling at him.”

“That is not what I said. I said you did not—”

“Same thing, isn’t it?” Jim is grinning, but there’s something contrite about his expression. This is what I am, he seems to say. Are you certain you want this?

Spock is being teased. Carefully, experimentally. He processes the feeling. “If I can rely upon a human for one thing,” he says finally, “it is gross oversimplification.”

Jim understands. His grin grows wider. “I’ve always taken you entirely at face value,” he says. “I should have known that Vulcan humor is an unstudied depth.”

“If you accuse a Vulcan of humor, they may not be pleased with you.”

“Then I’ll be sure to avoid it.” Jim is smiling still, and he comes closer to Spock and goes to clasp his shoulder. Then he pauses, thinking. “This?”

“I am a touch telepath, sir,” Spock reminds him.

“So I shouldn’t touch you.”

“I did not say that.”

Jim’s hand lands on his shoulder. “You don’t mind it.”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Do you like it?”

“Vulcans will rarely admit to ‘liking’ anything.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the only answer I have.”

“I see.” Jim’s brow is furrowed in thought. Then he says, “Will you tell me, Spock, if I ever do cross a line? If I understand you, and I think I do, you don’t mind me and my human ways, and I simply shouldn’t expect human responses from you. But if there ever is a problem, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

Spock considers this for a moment. It is difficult to imagine Jim doing anything that Spock would not allow him to do. That is a new thought, one which Spock files away for later consideration. “Certainly, sir,” he says. “I feel I should remind you that if you do touch my skin, I will receive a certain impression of your thoughts.”

“Ah. Then that’s the line.”

Spock lifts one brow. “I mention it for your sake.”

“Ah. Well then.” Jim releases Spock’s shoulder and holds out that hand as a man does. “Shake hands with me, Spock, will you?”

Spock looks at that proffered hand. Spock looks at his captain. He lifts his own hand, and they shake.

Jim beams at him. His skin is warm. His mind is a gauzy layer of delight-curiosity-relief. “Can you tell what I’m thinking?”

“Only that you are pleased by this conversation, sir.”

Jim’s grip on his hand tightens. Spock experiences a spike of warmth, low in his abdomen. He withdraws his hand. Jim lets him go easily; he doesn’t seem to notice Spock’s slight disquiet. “It will be better now,” Jim says decisively. “All of it. We have the best ship and the best crew in the fleet, Mr. Spock, have you noticed?”

“Empirically—”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“Statistically—”

Jim is laughing. “Just agree with me, Spock, you know it’s true!” Spock merely raises his eyebrows, and Jim seems to take that as agreement. “Well, did you want that game of chess? I suppose it is perhaps a bit late—”

Spock considers it. To spend more time in Jim’s company would undoubtedly be pleasant. However, Jim is correct in his assessment of the lateness of the hour. “Another time, sir. I do wish to meditate before I sleep.”

Jim nods. He does look faintly disappointed, and Spock remembers that this has been the excuse he has given often in the past when refusing a game. “However,” he adds, “I am available after alpha shift tomorrow if you would like to play then.”

Jim warms again. “I’d be delighted,” he says, and he waves Spock away with a smile on his face.

It takes three more engagements before Spock finally bests his captain at a game of chess.

Jim’s excitement at being beaten is so complete that he actually jostles Spock on purpose, the way he would with a friend, as they leave the recreation room together.

Three point one days after that fourth game, an incident occurs which rapidly recontextualizes Spock’s motivations behind attempting to be a companion to the captain.

It is deep in the ship’s night, in the depths of gamma shift, when Spock is summoned from his quarters to attend to an issue in the science labs. He is bleary and frustrated, having been pulled up from a deep state of meditation, and as a result his orders are more terse than usual as he puts out a literal fire and then attempts to, similarly, tamp down the emotional fires of his subordinates. Lt. Lindstrom insists that the fault lies with Lt. Masters, but the latter staunchly refuses to take the blame, telling Spock that the circuits of the damaged centrifuge were simply overworked and in need of replacement. When Spock reviews the equipment logs, he deems Masters to be the correct party, which provokes a bout of yelling from Lindstrom that reveals he is as much in need of rest and recuperation as the circuits had been.

He orders Lindstrom to sickbay with a security guard as chaperone and decides, since he will not be achieving a satisfying meditative state again tonight, to go to the gymnasium and exert himself back into a peaceful state.

To his surprise, when he enters the gymnasium, Jim is already there.

Spock hesitates in the entrance. Jim has not noticed him. He is running on one of the machines; by the look of it, he has been thus engaged for some time. His arms and chest and back are bare and gleaming with sweat. His hair is in disarray. The look on his face is one of utter fixed concentration.

Arousal surges up through Spock’s body, presenting like a flame in his abdomen and heating his face and hands.

His breath catches in his throat.

An irrefutable fact makes itself known.

He desires the captain.

As he stands, allowing the feeling to wash over him, he acknowledges that he has desired the captain for some time. He cannot untangle it from his aspiration to be useful to Jim, to be the object of his smile and affection. That sense of anticipation he felt in the turbolift that day has a definite cause after all: Spock wants his captain. He is aroused by him physically. He enjoys his company. He craves his mind. Spock has been ignoring the simplest possible explanation for his own behavior.

He breathes. He integrates this information. He watches the way Jim runs with a dogged determination, and he admits to himself that the sight is entrancing.

“Spock!”

Spock steps forward, caught. Jim slows his stride and then leaps off the machine, grabbing a towel as he approaches his first officer. “Is everything all right?” he asks. He dabs at the sweat on his forehead.

Spock watches all of this with a definite sense of voyeuristic enjoyment. “I am surprised to see you awake at this hour, Captain,” he says.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Jim shrugs and hooks the towel around the back of his neck. Now that he is near, Spock can smell the sharp salt tang of sweat. “Figured I’d tire myself out a bit. Why are you awake?”

“An incident in the science labs required my presence,” Spock says. “I found myself similarly disinclined to attempt either sleep or meditation afterwards.”

“Nothing too serious?”

“Nothing that need be discussed now.”

Jim nods. He pushes his hair back from his forehead, making it stand up in absurd little licks and curls. Humans have so little shame. Spock wants to lay prostrate on the floor and weep. He gives no outward sign of this. “We could spar,” Jim says.

Spock cannot imagine anything worse. “There are only four point one hours before the start of alpha shift,” he says instead. “It would likely be more prudent for you to attempt to sleep.”

Jim crosses his arms. “But not you?”

“I require less—”

“Sleep than a human, yes, I remember that.” He looks Spock over with an assessing eye. Spock keeps his face blank. He would not like for the captain to be able to discern anything about his mental state at this time. “You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if there was something you needed?” Jim asks suddenly.

This is perhaps the worst possible moment for Jim to concern himself with the needs of his Vulcan first officer. Spock gives the question the appearance of due consideration and then says, “Certainly, sir.”

Jim doesn’t seem to believe him. He licks his lower lip. Spock tightens his hands behind his back. “All right,” is all Jim says. He gives Spock an easy smile. “Try not to wear yourself out, Commander.”

Spock inclines his head. Jim steps past him—the scent of sweat intensifies for one moment—and then he is gone.

Spock stands still for one point four moments, thinking, before he pivots on his heel and returns to his own quarters. He locks his door with the highest level of security. He strips himself out of his hastily-donned uniform. He lays facedown on his bed, presses a hand into his undergarments, and brings himself to orgasm with a speed and alacrity that any self-respecting Vulcan would find obscene.

Afterwards, he slips under the covers and thinks.

He can certainly remember the first time he acknowledged to himself that Jim is attractive—that occurred at their initial meeting, and had indeed been one of the first things Spock noticed about him. After Captain Pike’s injury and retirement, Jim was summoned quickly from a different posting, arriving on the Enterprise with less than the usual fanfare for a transfer of power. He strode onto the bridge and introduced himself to everyone on duty, calling them by their names, proving that he had done his research. Spock noted his kind manner, his clear competence, and the undeniable appeal of his affect and form. Kirk is ebullient in tone and manner, he noted to Uhura at the time, to which she responded, And easy on the eyes. That was back when the captain was still Kirk in his mind.

Spock sits up. He has not considered this data point. When did he begin, in the privacy of his thoughts, to refer to Jim as Jim? And how did he remain ignorant of the shift whenever it happened?

Jim himself pointed out Spock’s use of his name in their conversation two point one weeks ago. He tried, without success in those initial months of his captaincy, to get Spock to call him by his first name when they were not on duty. At what point did Spock—internally—succumb?

He has no records. He keeps no personal logs. His official logs always refer to the captain as the captain. Spock’s memory is eidetic, but that does not mean he has perfect recollection of his own thoughts over the past one point three years.

He cannot state for certain when a general awareness of Jim’s attractiveness morphed into the reality of Spock, specifically, being attracted to him, and he likewise is not certain when he made this shift in nomenclature.

Spock dislikes not knowing his own mind. He reclines against his pillows and thinks that he has transgressed in two ways: first, by making Jim the unwitting subject of erotic fixation; second, by allowing a greater intimacy with Jim in his thoughts than he does in his speech.

The proper thing to do would be to strangle both impulses. Spock finds himself reluctant to do so. It is not a crime to admire a beautiful thing, and certainly he has the requisite control to not allow his attraction to color his interactions with the captain.

Likewise, to revert to calling him Kirk will not do. He is Jim. Utterly, entirely, wonderful Jim.

Spock presses his hand to his face.

This is becoming ridiculous.

“Mr. Spock, what do you make of that cloud?”

Spock looks up.

They are on Caph XI; Spock considers it a good sign that Jim selected him as a member of the landing party. They beamed down together with a trio of lieutenants and have spent the past twenty-seven minutes exploring a warm, prairie-like environment. He has watched Jim in this new setting, windswept and interested in the landscape, and he has felt contentment. “It has rapidly increased in size since I last noted it,” Spock says. “We may experience some rainfall.”

“Hm.” Jim’s eyes are faraway. “Looks rather green, doesn’t it?”

Spock gives it another look. He is not certain why the captain’s interest has been so piqued. “Perhaps a little, sir.”

“Yes.” Jim shifts his stance. He’s alert. More tense than he was. “Call the landing party back, Mr. Spock.”

“Sir?”

“Do it.”

Spock pulls out his communicator and does just that. He keeps his gaze on Jim, who continues to watch the horizon. He could understand it if the captain didn’t want to be caught in any possible rain, but Spock cannot ascertain the reason behind the urgency in the captain’s voice.

The wind is picking up. Jim’s eyes are alight. Spock is torn between observing the increasing intensity of the storm and the fervor with which Jim gazes at it. “Sir,” he says.

“I’m a Midwestern boy, Mr. Spock,” Jim says. He lifts a finger to point. “That’s a tornado forming. Look—you can see the funnel.”

This is a weather phenomenon with which Spock is only theoretically familiar. He has never seen one in person. He steps to Jim’s side and narrows his eyes. The wind is even stronger now, buffeting them on one side and then the other, and the field of long grass before them moves in vast sweeps.

There is indeed a funnel-shaped arrangement at the base of the dense wall of cloud. Spock would estimate its distance at six point two kilometers away from himself and the captain. They stand and observe it together. The wind grows stronger and stronger still.

“Sir!” The rest of the landing party has arrived. “Hadley was almost clipped by a tree branch that flew by—”

“The debris from this storm will only get more dangerous,” Spock says. He finds himself raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “We should return to the ship.”

“Yes,” Jim says. But he does not move. His attention is still fixed fully on the burgeoning tornado—which, to Spock’s consternation, appears now to be up to a kilometer closer than he first estimated. The funnel is darker and more definite now.

“It seems to move uncommonly fast,” Spock says.

“They can get up to one hundred kilometers per hour,” Jim says admiringly. To Spock, this is nothing but a cause for alarm. He is about to reiterate the need to return to the ship when Jim turns to him, face full of some regret, and says, “I suppose we’d better—”

“Landing party to beam up immediately,” Spock says into his communicator. Jim turns back to the storm, taking a last look. The wind blows his hair into disarray. The expression on his face is almost one of longing. Spock stares and stares until he and the captain and the rest of the landing party dissolve into corkscrews of light.

“Category four,” Spock reports to the captain some twenty minutes later, after they’ve reinstalled themselves on the bridge and Spock has had a chance to check the computer databases for the proper categorizations for tornados. “Devastating impact.”

Jim swivels thoughtfully in his chair. “It formed awfully fast,” he says. “The sky was only partly cloudy when we beamed down. How long were we on the surface, Spock?”

“Thirty-nine minutes, Captain, from arrival to departure.”

“Hm.” Jim rubs at his mouth. The gesture distracts Spock to no end, but he keeps his face placid. “We’ll stay in orbit. Such intense weather could be systemic across the planet, or it could be confined to certain regions. We should get more atmospheric data before we officially cross it off the list.”

“Very well, sir.”

Jim glances up to where Spock is still standing at his shoulder. “Something else on your mind, Spock?”

Spock considers how best to answer him. “I will admit to some small measure of disquiet that I did not notice the warning signs of the tornado,” he finally says. “I have never experienced one before. It formed much more quickly than I would have anticipated. It is a fierce and awesome phenomenon.”

“Isn’t it just?” Jim says happily. “Anyway, don’t feel too bad that I caught it first. I’d wager you’re much more adept than me at spotting an incoming sandstorm. I had the home turf advantage on this one.”

Spock parses the idiom and decides against pointing out that Caph XI is decidedly not Jim’s ‘home turf.’ From the look on Jim’s face, he’s aware of what Spock is thinking, and it amuses him. He gives Spock an easy smile.

Spock inclines his head. Jim smiles wider, then turns his attention to the viewscreen. “Adjust our orbit, Mr. Sulu,” he says. “I want to see what’s going on at the poles.”

“Aye, sir.”

When Spock returns to his quarters at the end of his workday and attempts to meditate, he cannot seem to shake the memory of Jim’s expression as he regarded the storm. A bright, terrible desire. A hungry sort of awe. The focused intensity in his hazel eyes. The image is arresting.

Spock ceases his attempts to meditate and touches his forehead directly to the floor of his cabin. He stays there, replaying the memory and languishing in the attendant arousal it brings him, until he forces himself to rise and prepare for sleep.

Spock is a professional. His control over his body is comprehensive and complete. If his emotions are beyond his control, that is not his fault; he can, at least, manage the resulting physiological responses. He does not blush in front of his captain. He does not allow his breathing to increase in speed or depth when he observes Jim dressed down or gleaming with sweat. He does not permit himself to become aroused when he is on duty.

However—he cannot deny that it takes conscious effort. He wants Jim. He wants to serve Jim as friend and confidant and he wants to touch him in erotic and sensual contexts. He wants Jim to trust him, and he wants Jim to desire him.

The former, it seems, he has managed. The latter is so utterly beyond the realm of his expertise that it is laughable. Vulcans do not pursue and seduce as humans do; the sex that Spock has had in the past has been straightforward and perfunctory. Any direct appeal to the captain would almost certainly be a) inappropriate and b) unappealing to a human with a different set of mores surrounding such relationships.

Spock does not know the breadth of Jim’s desire. He does not know if he, Spock, could fall within the captain’s parameters. He suspects that, even if he did, he likely ruined his chances long ago with his lukewarm reception to Jim’s presence on the ship. Jim has only just begun smiling at Spock again—it seems ludicrous that he could advance, so quickly, to kissing or caressing.

And yet.

The captain touches Spock on the shoulder. He grabs his wrist when something on a planet surprises him. He offers Spock a bite of his dinner one night, straight off his own fork, and flushes easily when Uhura informs him, grinning, that such an offer is nigh-obscene to a Vulcan. Spock, for his part, is half grateful that the lieutenant took it upon herself to explain and half disappointed for reasons that he refuses to examine.

“Are there any other taboos I should know of?” Jim asks as they continue to eat. A highly attractive pink flush is still visible on his cheekbones. “I promise I paid attention in xenocultural relations, but they didn’t mention that!”

Dining with Jim is a new pleasure, one that has only happened a scant handful of times. Often Jim is accompanied by one or two others, and Spock finds that his closer association with the captain is, in turn, resulting in closer relationships with the rest of the bridge crew. He considers this a good thing.

“Sharing utensils, or eating with the hands,” Spock tells him, “is not done on Vulcan. The human trait of sharing drinks also shocked me when I first joined the Academy. Fortunately, that only seems to occur between close friends, so I did not find myself subjected to it.”

Uhura gives him a soft look. Spock is uncertain what could have prompted it. Jim has also adopted a thoughtful gaze as he looks at Spock. “I suppose it’s logical,” is all he says. “Less spread of germs.” He is thinking of the fever. Spock inclines his head in acknowledgement.

“In general, Vulcans are selective about touch,” Uhura says. Spock stiffens and then forces himself to relax. Jim raises his eyebrows. “You’ll notice that Vulcans don’t shake hands.”

“Oh?” Jim says. He gives Spock an interested sideways glance. “Never?”

“It’s an intimacy,” Uhura says. “Their hands are highly sensitive to contact with other sentient beings.” Spock continues eating. He refuses to be embarrassed by this. He allows Jim liberties with his person; surely it furthers his project to allow Jim to know it.

Nonetheless, he finds it necessary to divert some energy toward preventing a blush to overtake his face and the tips of his ears.

“I see,” Jim says.

“You definitely should have learned that in xenocultural relations,” Uhura adds.

“Oh, I did,” Jim says. “Ask Mr. Spock here. I’ve always been careful about skin contact.” His gaze is very direct.

Spock thinks about the first time Jim touched him. That accidental brush of a finger against his neck. The way Jim pulled away and apologized. Yes, Jim has always been conscientious. Spock is the one who has poked holes in the boundary. “If a Vulcan permits you to touch their hands,” Uhura says, “it means they must like you quite a bit.” She gives Spock a fond look. “Though of course he would never admit it.”

“Is this a survey of Vulcans in general, Lieutenant, or am I your particular case study?” Spock asks placidly.

“Why, Mr. Spock,” she says, twinkling at him. “As you are an exemplary representative of your species, I rather think the broad rule also applies to the individual case.”

Spock accepts this. He is not prone to smiling, but he rather thinks that Uhura can read the gentle sentiment in his face anyway. Jim, meanwhile, is studying Spock with a smile of his own tucked in the corner of his mouth.

They are unable to speak of it further that evening. Spock has a meeting with his science team to discuss proper care of the repaired centrifuge; Jim has plans with McCoy. Nonetheless, as they part ways after dinner, Spock has the sense that Jim is bearing a sort of curiosity that will need to be satiated before long.

It hums in him through his nightly meditation and lingers at the edge of his consciousness during sleep. When he arrives to the bridge the next morning, he has a moment to wonder if the moment has slipped away in the night; however, before he has even made it to his science console, Jim greets him and says, “Might I request the pleasure of your company this evening?” And then, perhaps aware of the curious eyes and ears of the surrounding bridge crew, he adds, “For chess, of course.”

“Certainly, sir,” Spock says.

Jim smiles at him. Spock inclines his head. They turn to their respective tasks. Spock has cause to notice, throughout the day, that the process of time dilation does appear to be possible even when a body is not traveling at the speed of light.

After dinner that evening, at 2100 hours sharp, Spock goes to the captain’s quarters. Jim lets him in immediately. Though the chess set is on the table, he seems uninterested in maintaining the ruse that Spock is there for a game; he crosses his arms, fixes Spock with a look, and says, “You told me that you would mention it, if I crossed a line.”

“Indeed, sir,” Spock says. “As you have not done so, I have not found it necessary to inform you.”

“Uhura said your hands are sensitive.”

“They are.”

“But you shook my hand.”

“I did.”

Jim steps closer, studying Spock’s face as though eager to read him through the most minute changes in expression. “Explain that to me.”

Spock considers how to do so. Understatement has served him well so far. “There was no discomfort,” he says.

“An absence of discomfort is good,” Jim says. He turns away from Spock, then back. He trails his eyes up and down Spock’s frame. “Was there the presence of anything else?”

“Sir?”

Jim takes a half step closer. “Did you like it?”

“Vulcans—”

“Rarely admit to liking anything, yes. Humor me. I’m attempting to understand something about you.”

Spock bows his head slightly. “I would be happy to assist, sir. What is it that you would like to understand?”

“Do you want me to touch you?”

Spock freezes, caught out. He stares at Jim. Jim stares back.

“I’ll take it back,” Jim says carefully, “if that’s an inappropriate question. But I’d like to know, if you’d like to tell me.”

“Yes,” Spock says.

“Yes, you’ll tell me the answer?”

“Yes is the answer.”

Jim steps into Spock’s personal space. Spock looks over his captain’s shoulder, unable to meet his eyes.

One of Jim’s hands comes up. He hesitates, then smooths his thumb along the line of Spock’s brow. “This color,” he says, for Spock has once again dusted his lids with his customary shade of blue. “I find it quite beautiful.”

“It serves a cultural purpose,” Spock says.

“Do Vulcans have a concept of beauty?”

Spock finally looks fully into his face. His hazel eyes. The gentle curve of his mouth. The bright sweep of his hair. “Yes, Jim,” he says quietly. He can feel the warm rush of Jim’s pleasure at the use of his name. Spock closes his eyes and leans his face into the palm of Jim’s hand.

“You do want me to touch you,” Jim says admiringly. His voice is very low. “You didn’t at first. That’s okay,” he adds quickly, when Spock’s eyes snap open. “You didn’t know me. I came on strong. I just…” And here he trails off, chuckling at himself. “Well, I liked you from the first, Mr. Spock. Call it a silly human foible, but I did.”

“I did not understand you,” Spock says.

“And now?”

“I find you a worthy object of study.”

Jim laughs at this, delighted. He brushes his thumb across Spock’s cheekbone. Spock steps minutely closer, allowing it. He would allow Jim anything. Jim seems to sense this, because the next thing he asks, in a murmur, is, “How far would you let me push you?”

“You would exhaust yourself long before I was exhausted,” Spock says.

Jim leans in closer. “And your boundaries? How far do they stretch?”

“They are ironclad. You cannot do anything to me that I do not allow.”

Jim’s eyes are burning. “And how much will you allow?”

To this, Spock has no verbal answer. He lifts his chin, just slightly. Baring his throat. Jim understands. He rests his warm human hand there, holding Spock by the neck. The lightest sense of pressure. Spock exhales and closes his eyes.

He can feel Jim’s mind. His excitement. His pure, golden pleasure.

“Vulcan subtlety has more nuance to it than I realized,” Jim murmurs. “Here comes Spock, telling me he is not opposed to me. And what he means is this.”

“Understatement is an art,” Spock replies quietly.

“You do it extremely well.”

“I am gratified you think so.”

“How brash we must seem, we humans,” Jim muses. His thumb brushes the hinge of Spock’s jaw. “Does it embarrass you to be told outright that I like you? That I admire you?” Spock attempts to catch his breath. It is not the grip on his throat that arrests it. “I’m glad Uhura spoke as she did. To make plain this thing you’ve been trying to show me. That apple. The lavender sky. I see it now, Spock.”

Jim shifts his grip on Spock’s throat, tipping Spock’s chin back further. He walks him backward, gently, until Spock’s back hits the bulkhead, and holds him there. Spock presses his hands directly to the wall behind him; he dares not move them. Jim kisses Spock directly over his pulse. A spike of arousal lights up his mind. “Jim.”

“Yes,” Jim murmurs, kissing the underside of Spock’s jaw. “I like to hear you say my name.” He presses Spock into the bulkhead with his entire body, a warm pressure that Spock enjoys very much. Spock makes a noise in the back of his throat, not entirely intentional.

Jim’s hand finds Spock’s hipbone. Jim’s knee nudges in between Spock’s knees. That strong, sturdy thigh presses against Spock where he is beginning to ache. Spock shudders and lifts his hands away from the wall at last to clutch at Jim’s shoulders.

“That’s it,” Jim says, and his voice is so fond that Spock feels dazed by it. Jim presses their hips together, making Spock inhale sharply. “Oh, you’re lovely. Have you done this before?”

“Clarify.”

Jim bites Spock’s earlobe. Spock digs his fingers into Jim’s shoulders. “Have you ever been kissed, Spock?” Jim asks him. His voice is low and warm. “Have you ever been touched like this?” His voice gets lower. “Have you ever been taken to bed?”

Spock does not need to ask after the meaning of the colloquialism. “I have engaged in coitus,” he says. He swallows. “It did not—feel like this.”

“Hmm.” Jim moves the hand at Spock’s throat to hold the nape of his neck instead. Spock blinks his eyes open. Jim is smiling at him. He grinds their hips together again and seems immensely pleased by whatever he sees in Spock’s face. “You’re very responsive.”

“I receive the sensation of your body as well as the impression of your mind,” Spock manages. “The effect of the two together is—formidable.”

He can feel that Jim likes that. Jim likes that immensely. He cards his fingers through Spock’s hair. “So you’ve had sex,” he says. “You didn’t tell me if you’ve been kissed.”

“Vulcans do not kiss with their mouths.”

Jim raises his eyebrows. “Does that mean I shouldn’t?”

“I did not say that.”

Jim grins. He leans in.

Spock’s lips part, just a little.

Jim pauses there, merely a breath away. Spock is drawn to him like a magnet to the north. He breaches the final centimeter himself and presses their mouths together.

Delight and arousal wash over him. Jim’s mouth is soft and hot. His hand makes a fist in Spock’s short hair. Spock gasps, and Jim kisses him open-mouthed, teaching Spock this new thing, these new sensations, the warm sweep of his tongue.

Spock hooks his arm around his captain’s neck and draws him in deeper. He did not know. He did not know this feeling existed in the universe. He did not know he could be permitted to feel it. He wants to know the heavy weight of Jim’s body on top of him, holding him open, filling him.

Jim brushes his fingertips beneath the hem of Spock’s black shirt. Spock kisses him harder. Jim pushes his entire hand up beneath Spock’s shirt, curving it around to the small of Spock’s back and resting there. “Tell me what you’ve done before,” Jim says, pulling back slightly to nip at Spock’s lower lip. “If not this.”

A small dart of uncertainty hits Spock. “Are not humans often jealous in these discussions?”

“I’m not jealous by nature,” Jim says, shrugging. “I have you now, don’t I?” Spock nods. Jim kisses him again. “Besides,” he breathes, “I like it. I like to think of you, learning pleasure. Experiencing it.”

“My experience is limited,” Spock says quietly. “Certainly compared to you.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Quite the opposite.”

Jim lights up. “You like it.” Spock does not feel the need to reaffirm it; he turns his head. Jim crowds him against the bulkhead again, kissing the side of Spock’s jaw. “You like me knowing how to touch you. How to make it good for you.”

“It is more than that,” Spock says. “You are my captain. You are to be respected and admired. You are to be desired. It is right that this is so.” He touches his fingers to Jim’s golden hair. “I should simply like to be permitted within the sphere of those who can act on that desire.”

Jim draws back to meet Spock’s eyes. “Would you like to be alone in that sphere?”

Spock bows his head, uncertain for the first time. “I would not presume to limit your actions,” he says after a moment. “Though I will admit that Vulcans are habitually rather possessive.”

“I don’t see it as a limit,” Jim says, and a small measure of relief fills Spock’s chest. “When I’m with someone, I like to be with them. Only them.” He takes Spock’s face in his warm hands. “But you’ve been dodging my question. What have you done, Spock? What do you like?”

Spock feels pinned, examined. It is not unpleasant. “I rather think that, with you, I will find very little to dislike.”

“That famous Vulcan misdirection. Shall I start listing options?”

“You are at liberty to do so.”

“Do you want me to suck you?” Spock breathes in; Jim licks his bottom lip, a gesture both subtle and obscene. “Have you done that?”

“I have not,” Spock manages.

“I’d like that,” Jim says. “I’d like to take you in my mouth. And I’d like to touch your hands—test that bit of knowledge.”

Spock presses his palms to the bulkhead again. “Which bit of knowledge would that be?”

“That your hands are sensitive.” Jim reaches down and takes one of Spock’s hands in his own. He lifts it to his mouth. He kisses Spock’s knuckles.

“They are sensitive,” Spock says. Understatement. For the first time in his life, his knees feel unsteady.

“So you enjoy it when I touch them. When I do this.” He puts the tips of Spock’s fingers in his mouth.

Spock opens his mouth. He is unable, for a moment, to say anything at all. His own arousal is a flare in the pit of his stomach; Jim’s arousal is a lightning storm in the back of his skull. “Please,” he says. He has never said that word before in his life.

Jim nips his fingertips and then kisses his palm. “I want to fuck you,” he says. He’s watching Spock closely.

Spock swallows. “I desire that as well.”

Jim presses closer. “Your face is flushed the sweetest bit of green.”

“Your pupils are dilated eight millimeters,” Spock responds.

“I’d like to take you to bed. Are you amenable?”

“Exceedingly. Lead on, sir.”

Spock is in the turbolift, rising toward the bridge. Alpha shift. A sense of duty drives him. Scientific curiosity, too—there is a planet below them that needs exploring. Undergirding both is a desire to see Jim.

It has not been long since he saw Jim. They awoke tangled together, which has become their habit in the three point three weeks since Jim first took Spock to bed. Since then, the Enterprise has visited two more habitable planets, Jim has lost four more games of chess, and Spock has been introduced to the awesome, fearsome, glittering depths of his captain’s mind. He has found it good. He has, in turn, shared his mind with Jim, and the pleasure of that melding still hums like a plucked golden string in the back of his skull.

The doors slide open. Spock enters the bridge and is greeted by both Uhura and Scott. Chekov accosts him immediately to beg access to an experiment. Spock handles these small interactions and then steps, as is his right, to the side of the central chair.

“Commander,” Jim says, the way he does, as though the title is somehow an intimacy.

“Captain,” Spock says. He has a PADD for Jim to consider; when he hands it over, their fingers brush for the briefest moment.

Jim smiles up at him. He is all golden delight and eagerness. “Ready to go exploring, Spock?”

“Yes, Jim,” Spock says, and together they turn toward the viewscreen and the vast tumble of stars.