Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

full project on campfire

Jim being the kind of kid who liked to take things apart and put them back together means he’s gotten really good at knowing where the screws are supposed to be. The points where housings get popped together and glued. Where tabs fit together and latches seat. And once you know where to look, they’re everywhere. Seams you can pry open are universal. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, there’s almost always an ON button.

So, when given a challenge that looks like a closed box, Jim knows that’s not true. It might take him a bit to find it, but there’s always a way to crack something open - even if it seems like there’s not. The Kobayashi Maru was no different than any other array of relays and transformers and solenoids Jim has torn into and hot-wired back together.

He’s only softlocked himself out of something twice: once when he tried to get into the Iowa State University Research and Development databanks, and then when he managed to hack the firewalls on Starfleet’s experimental warp drive test data. He was a kid the first time, barely even ten. Even then, it wasn’t for long, because Jim circled around and found another way in. Same room, different door.

The second time didn’t even divert him for more than a minute.

Jim is a bonafide button pusher, has been his entire life, and Spock has a lot of buttons waiting for him to try out.

Jim just wants to see what they do.

Chapter Text

To his credit, Spock does not startle when he finds Cadet Kirk edging into his classroom's doors after he has finished his lecture. Although he should have expected his presence eventually, Spock is surprised he would wish to confront him so soon after the hearing. Very well. If he wishes to bring up any dissatisfactions he has, better to do it now, where Spock has the benefit of being in public.

Spock inclines his head to the side, eyeing him curiously. When he nods, slight and near imperceptible, Kirk takes that as the permission it is to step inside. He gets all the way to the desk where Spock is tidying his things after session before speaking.

When he does, Spock is taken aback.

"Tutor me in Vulcan."

"…Pardon?"

Kirk’s mouth twists into a little wry smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes the way it had after trouncing the Maru.

"You’re the only instructor at the Academy who’s a native speaker," he shrugs, appearing nonchalant. Spock does not believe it for a second.

"What about my status as a native of Vulcan has led you to believe I would acquiesce to such a demand?” Spock retorts.

"It wasn’t a demand," Kirk frowns, a slight pout on his bottom lip. "I was just asking."

"I fail to see how a statement without a query constitutes a question," Spock states, and he tries very, very hard to keep any semblance of distaste from his face when Kirk laughs, loud and unhindered. It’s enough to draw the attention of the few seniors left in the lecture hall.

"Shit, you’re funny, Pike was right," and the smile Kirk flashed at him was blinding.

This was uncomfortable. Spock wished to finish the encounter. He bowed his head. "My answer is no, although I thank you for your interest. I do not teach cadets on an individual basis."

Kirk’s smile did not waver in the slightest. "I figured," he said, again shrugging a shoulder dismissively. "Worth a shot."

Spock did not dignify the turn of phrase with a response, and closed the flap of his satchel with the intent to leave. When he looked, Kirk was nearly to the door, thankfully having realized this endeavor was fruitless after all.

When he turned to give Spock a goodbye, he paused, before saying, "Dif-tor heh smusma (Live long and prosper,) Commander," winking, and turning the corner into the hallway.

Spock blinked. The accent was nearly flawless. 

He sat there, wondering what he was to do with this information. He blinked again. 

When he emerged from his stupor, a state highly unbecoming, he commed Captain Pike. Spock marked the message as urgent. 

When Spock gets to the office, it is unlocked, and he has barely begun to raise his knuckles to tap at the door when he hears the call of, “Come in, Commander,” from inside. 

He does so, lowering his head in greeting as he lets the door slide closed behind him. Pike doesn’t look up, eyes remaining focused on the flimsies he’s paging through. For as long as they have known each other, he has always preferred physical media. It baffles Spock to this day.

"I didn’t understand your comm," Pike says.

Spock tilts his head. "Was there an error in my wording? Perhaps, my grammatical structure-" Pike cuts him off with a wave of his hand. He puts down the paperwork he’s holding, gesturing to the seating in front of his desk. Spock does not move. 

"No, you communicated just fine," Pike sighs, "I didn't understand the content."

"I will confess - that is more confounding than my previous assumption."

Pike leans back in his chair, taking a moment to appraise Spock. His eye is curious, but not harsh, and Spock only tolerates the inquisition because he knows that Christopher Pike has always been more keen on understanding than ridiculing him.

"Why do you want to know about Jim Kirk?"

"We had a brief encounter as I concluded my Linguistics In Collectively-Conscious Species lecture. He confronted me as I was preparing to leave."

Spock does not think this is the intriguing portion. Yet Pike looks panicked and elated, as if this was a momentous occasion, and Spock is forced to deal with a feeling of apprehension. 

"The hearing was only a few days ago, I didn’t think he’d try to corner you so soon.” Pike laughs softly. “He really doesn’t know what’s good for him. What did he say to you? Try to blackmail you or something?”

Spock allows the appropriate amount of displeasure to show on his face. "I can assure you, if he had done so, this meeting would have started quite differently."

Pike barks out a much louder laugh, and shakes his head. 

"Okay, so, what?" he asks, still smiling.

"Cadet Kirk wishes for me to instruct him in the Vulcan language."

The smile falls from Pike’s face, replaced with a look of concern.

"He wants you to teach him a language you don’t teach?"

"Precisely," Spock answers.

Leaning forward again, Pike rests his forearms against the desk, folding his hands together. His tone has turned oddly serious quite quickly, considering Spock has not yet alerted him to any behavior that he thinks would warrant such a response.

"You've already looked up his info on the way here," Pike tells Spock.

"Yes. His entrance exam to Starfleet Academy, received the day prior to enrollment, was completed in record time, and yet scored in the top ninety-nine point seventh percentile. It is noted that the scoring was repeated by proctors several times so as to ensure it was genuine."

Pike is still looking at him, still serious.

"He has no prior education documentation before sixteen years of age." Which is what actually intrigues Spock. "Despite this, his current and historical grades are consistently at the exact median score for each of his curricula, when calculated from the top eighty percent of students enrolled." Pike makes a light affirmative noise, but does not say anything further.

"In other words," he rephrases, because it does not appear that the Captain is grasping his point, "James Kirk is purposefully keeping his scores within a predetermined range based on the performance of those around him. I theorize this is done to neither draw attention to his studies, nor find himself under scrutiny for low marks when compared to his colleagues. He is smart enough to have successfully implemented this across all of his courses, for at least the past two years of study. This cadet, although clearly in possession of highly trained faculties, does not seem to apply them as he should."

Spock pauses before asking, "Does he intend to waste his talents during his time at the Academy?"

There is a beat of stillness in the room, before Pike unfolds his hands in order to bring one to his face, cradling his brow, and pinching his eyes. The smile on his lips is unmistakable. 

"Jim is an interesting guy," Pike says, face obscured. His voice sounds as though he is holding back emotion. "You might like him when you get to know him."

Spock thinks of their brief encounters so far, and raises an eyebrow in place of saying, I do not think so.

When Pike finally moves his hand from his face, he catches the meaning, and the smile he wears shifts into one Spock saw often when they served together. It usually meant he’d had an idea that Spock would not find entirely pleasant.

"Tell you what," he starts. "Maybe you should ask him yourself why he doesn’t apply himself more." Pike crosses his arms. "I don’t know what answer you’re gonna get out of him, but it’ll either be total bullshit, or naked truth. No in-between for that kid. He’s an all or nothing."

When they meet in a private study cubicle inside the Academy’s library for the tutoring session, Kirk is already there, fifteen minutes early. He has no bag with him, just a small physical copy of a book, his left hand splayed over the spine to hold it open, feet up on the chair next to him. Spock wonders if he always disrespects the spaces around him like this. Kirk’s eyes move lazily page to page, reading at a pace that tells Spock he has read it before. His right hand drums some beat out on his thigh, and he crosses one leg over the other.

The table has soft paneled walls on three sides to keep most acoustics from leaking over to other students. It appears to Spock like this may have dulled Kirk’s ability to hear him coming - he does not look up when he approaches. But when Spock is fully in front of him, standing a mere two feet away, Kirk still doesn’t look up or acknowledge his presence. He does not clear his throat, or wait, because both would imply that he requires Jim Kirk’s attention above all else.

Instead he cuts right to it.

"Du nam-tor ri wuh ves t' nuhk'es? (Are pleasantries not in your nature?)"

Kirk doesn’t even so much as take his eyes off the page. "Vuhlkansu gen-lis tun-tor nuh' mau pa' hasu nuhk. Etek fai-tor etek, tor etek ri? (The Vulcan language places too much onus on politeness. We already know each other, don’t we?)"

Spock sours. "Sos'eh weh-rom kuv etek ri tor. (Perhaps it would be better if we did not.)"

A beat of silence - then the cadet bursts out laughing. A student near them gives Kirk a dirty look. His eyes are electric when he snaps the book closed and swings his feet off the chair. He spreads his legs, leans forward to press his elbows onto his knees. The book dangles from his hand. The grin that consumes him is toothy. Something about his posture belies his age - his official record states that he is twenty-five - here Kirk looks older, predatory in a way that Spock recognizes from the Le-matyas prowling The Forge. The comparison, he will admit, is a bit more artistic than is typical for him.

"Cadet Kirk," Spock starts, before Kirk cuts in.

"We’re off duty, call me Jim," and the smile is less toothy, but still just as taunting.

Spock hesitates.

"Jim," he says at last, and Kirk sits up straight, face bright, like he had won something. Spock immediately wants to take it back. "It is clear to me you are already proficient in the Vulcan language."

"Mostly, but I know my pronunciation is a little off. My High Golic is terrible."

"You know High Vulcan as well?" Spock’s eyebrow shoots up, disbelieving.

Kirk shrugs and puts his book down on the table. "Some."

"I will admit I am dubious of this claim," Spock says, and Jim grabs a stylus and a PADD from his pocket.

When he begins to scribble down something, lines flowing but not graceful, Spock realizes that not only does he know how to speak Golic, he can write it. Spock knows several Humans who have mastered his language, but few had ever fully studied the writing system to be able to freehand it. Fascinating.

"Who taught you Vulcan?" Spock asks.

"Nash-veh saven-tor nash-veh sa'awek (I am self taught,)" Kirk replies. He finishes whatever he is writing down, and hands Spock the PADD. "My handwriting is shitty, sorry."

Spock stares at the display. One of Surak’s teachings stares back at him. Jim is correct in his analysis, but overly self-critical. His handwriting is not impeccable by any means, Spock thinks it matches that of a Vulcan adolescent around thirteen years of age, but Spock can read it. Which says something.

"Du saven-tor du sa'awek Vuhlkansu bikuv-kitaun? (You taught yourself our written language?)"

"Ha, Vuhlkansu lahv isha. (Yes, the spoken as well.)"

"With no teacher?"

Kirk smiles. "Sa'asaya torai nam-tor riolozhikaik, Spock. (Repeating yourself is inefficient, Spock.)"

He looks up from the PADD, staring at the cadet. "You were correct, earlier, when you stated your pronunciation was 'a little off.' I would estimate your mastery of spoken Golic to be near the level expected of a Vulcan as they near end of adolescence. Your written Vulcan is closer to that of a child."

Spock did not intend for his assessment to be harsh, quite the opposite in fact, considering Jim Kirk is fully Human, and based on his record did not go through extensive education prior to entering the Academy. Regardless, his face falls into something that closely resembles rejection. For a moment, his eyes meet Spock head-on, and there is a flicker of fear. It is gone in an instant, replaced by the childish, over exaggerated frown that Kirk accompanies with a full-body sigh.

He scoots his chair over, pats his hand on the chair to his left. It makes some of the dust left from his boots airborne, and Spock looks down pointedly. Kirk is watching him, and clearly makes a show of rolling his eyes. He swipes the surface a few times, leaving it mostly clean, and then twirls his hand over the chair, as if presenting it to Spock.

"Your majesty," he says with a specific tone. Spock sits.

He opens his satchel and removes a PADD of his own - he took the liberty of retrieving some materials from the Vulcan Embassy’s digital archives in preparation for today. He pulls up a chart mapping the dialects distinct to regions of Vulcan, and the peoples they arose from. If he is to understand how to guide Kirk’s pronunciation, he first needs to know exactly where it is rooted.

"Where did you start learning?" Spock asks, not looking at him.

"Iowa.” Spock cannot resist darting his eyes to see if he is lying. His book is open in his hand again, and his head is propped up on the other, body slumped in the chair in a way only Humans seem to find comfortable.

Spock surmises that Kirk is, in fact, not lying. "I was unaware there was access to study materials for the Vulcan language in that area. If I am remembering correctly, there are no notable institutions dedicated to xenolinguistics in Iowa."

"Hah," he deadpans, "You’re right about that one." When Spock does not ask for any further information, he can see that Kirk feels obligated to provide. "I was always good at computers. Starfleet had way better study materials than anything the state university did."

"You… had access credentials to Starfleet’s databanks before you enrolled?”

"Oh, no," Kirk explains with a small shake of his head, and he puts down the book to look at Spock. "No, I remoted in. Their firewalls weren’t as good as they thought they were. They gave it a good go after they realized someone had got past them, but by that point they had kinda dropped the ball, y'know?" When Spock turns to look at him properly, his eyes look wistful, which deeply concerns Spock, because Jim Kirk has just admitted to committing at least two distinct crimes against a government organization.

Jim figured that Spock had gone through his file. He knows Pike sealed everything that happened before he got trapped in Riverside for the last time. It was the only way Jim was gonna agree to enlist. Spock’s a stickler for rules if his code behind the Kobayashi Maru taught Jim anything; the hearing sure confirmed it. He doesn’t think Spock would ever force his way into files he’s been disallowed access to by a direct superior. However, he’s also smart, and Jim doesn’t doubt that he’d be able to put the pieces together if he really tried (and Jim has an unexplainable hunch that Spock is definitely going to try).

Is that going to stop him from bragging? Nah. When Spock’s lip twitches, Jim thinks he’s probably either affronted, appalled, disappointed, or laughing. Maybe all of them. Reading Vulcan poetry as a teen gave him the impression that Vulcans were more emotional than they let on, under the surface.

"If you were able to gain unauthorized access to secure Starfleet servers, I would assume you were also able to understand that you had committed a class two felony," Spock says, arching an eyebrow high again, voice flat.

The barely-there look on Spock’s face is the most snarky he’s seen it. He feels kinda like a kleptomaniac in a candy store. Tantalized, he could really tell Spock anything he wants - and he couldn’t disprove it. Completely rewrite his life from fifteen backwards for shits and giggles. He licks his lips.

Somehow, it makes him want to tell the truth.

"I was a kid then. I didn’t really have a good idea what consequences looked like.” He still didn’t.

"There were no adults to guide your choices."

Damn, when someone puts it like that, it sounds sadder than the reality Jim always subscribed to - that he was unsuitable for care because he was constantly three steps ahead.

"Well, there were adults around, by definition. Not that any of ‘em acted like it," Jim scrunches his nose up, scratches it with the base of his palm. "I spent a lot of time by myself if I could help it."

Spock’s eyebrows descend slightly, coming together. “You have a brother and mother, as well as an uncle who lived with you at the same address, do you not?”

Jim nods. He knows where Spock’s going.

"Did they not interact with you in the ways Human families traditionally raise their young?" And fuck, Spock looks actually concerned. Which is crazy, because he also sort of doesn’t look like anything. His face is placid, the only indicator is his still-pinched brows. Jim swallows, keeps the faint panic lower in his chest.

"No, they did. But you should know that Humans move around a lot. Sam had shit to do, so did Mom," Jim says. It’s a non-answer.

"I am aware that many Terran families move around, especially when children reach certain school ages. However, most Humans benefit from environmental stability in their youth," Spock tells him, as if Jim doesn’t know.

"Not everyone gets that luxury, Spock."

He looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how, and Jim isn’t sure he could stomach whatever kind of pragmatic Vulcan consolation is coming his way. It’s either that, or Spock is wondering how they ever let Jim into the Academy. 

"Not that I mind you being interested in me," and Jim feels obligated to try and look at least a touch flirtatious, "But are you gonna play therapist all day?" He knows that sounds bitchy, but to be fair, he’s feeling a little bit bitchy. Home is a weird subject, and he’s here to see if Spock is as weird as he thought he was, not offload his childhood trauma. 

Spock turns back to the table, PADD still in his hands, and pauses.

"The script of modern common Golic and High Golic is quite distinct. You mentioned you knew both. To do so is certainly a feat."

Spock doesn’t say it any different, but Jim knows that’s a challenge. His grin turns cocky. He loves proving people wrong.

Chapter Text

The first time they met for a tutoring session in Vulcan, no Vulcan was tutored. The second time, Kirk came prepared with some workbooks, preloaded onto his PADD. Still none was spoken, but his new pupil had no qualms about improving his script. It was a place to start.

They meet regularly, twice a week, in the library as it is quiet and free of most distractions, and the public setting appears to be keeping Kirk from the antics Spock has overheard tale of. He is not one to believe things second or third hand, but considering Kirk has been more interesting than what he seems to have led others to think, Spock has no choice but to cede some amount of truth to the cadet rumor mill.

The third time they meet, Spock begins to get the impression Kirk was never going to speak Golic in full sentences to him ever again. Perhaps his assessment of Jim's fluency was interpreted as much ruder than he originally thought. It has impeded his ability to answer the question of where Kirk's accent originates from - Spock is close to a conclusion, but he doesn't have enough data to be completely certain. He spends much of the tutoring session trying to corner him into answering questions in common Golic, but each time he asks, Kirk finds a way to respond in Standard. Spock discovers that Jim's aural fluency is more extensive than previously hypothesized.

This experience has only perplexed Spock. He does not find withholding information helpful when it is for no valid reason. Unable to properly satisfy his innate curiosity alone, he asks Nyota to evaluate Kirk’s library of known languages.

"Oh, I have no idea," she tells him. "Every time I think I get away with saying something he doesn't understand, he just replies in something weirder. I can't tell if he's messing with me or actually knows."

This perplexes Spock more, because Kirk is clearly aware he is being catalogued, and is avoiding revealing any pertinent information about his status as an apparently secret polyglot. If Spock was of lesser training, he would be infuriated.

The following Wednesday, he spots a small collection of students gathered near an auxiliary lecture hall. Spock has found that he notices Kirk's presence at the Academy more than he used to. It is logical, as they have now interacted on several occasions. Kirk appears to be popular, and is hard to mistake. The cadet's laugh is distinct and Spock often sees him talking with a group - friends, he assumes - loud and boisterous.

"-And so I'm-" he hears Kirk begin, speaking to two men. One is older, of similar stature - Human. Another, leaner but shorter, is looking at his comm. "Like, finally, because this is ridiculous, really-"

Spock's hearing has a much wider range than a typical Human’s, and so he is expecting Kirk to continue his sentence since he has not yet approached close enough for his pace to be heard, and he does not think he has been seen. (He doesn't make a habit of thinking these things are a boon in communication, as it is a breach of privacy at best, a betrayal of trust at worst, but he cannot deny it has precedent as an upside of his physiology.)

But the cadet does not continue speaking - or, he does, but not in Standard.

"Im zheer ar diitib oornaabib zhing aat oorpuuth'vee kep - aat ar aadhokh bed im noor ul rekh eep voolphokh heek am iiz thed ov oorvaaphev. (The test was much easier than I expected, I am surprised the professor declared it was such a large part of the grade.)"

The Human previously engrossed in whatever communiques he was reading snaps to attention.

"Jim what the fuck," he says.

"Ku'uh? Eb iit An'dorian do viz'theloom? Uut khuumeng zhaagaa aam im Riim ar aadluuh. (What? You cannot understand Andorian? They are a founding member of the Federation.)"

"We can't understand you," the older one says. "Did you have a stroke? Jesus, do I need to start you on tenecteplase? Blink if you understand me."

"You're both idiots, god," Kirk curses. "Why do I even hang out with you?"

"Because you are nuts and someone needs to make sure you don't do stupid shit," the older one says.

"Because we love you," the shorter one says at the same time. He looks back at his comm, and Kirk continues his original story in Standard, speaking directly to the man who had threatened him with medical intervention.

When Spock finally passes them on the footpath, he looks once at Jim Kirk, a quick glance, and he finds Kirk immediately matching it. It is unsettling. Kirk winks at him.

It is then that Spock knows for certain he caught wind of his inquiry to Nyota, and decides that, yes, Kirk is most certainly messing with them.

Jim learns that he loves fucking with Spock.

It took him a few days to get it, but after hearing Gaila say Uhura said Spock was asking about his 'linguistic proficiencies' or whatever-the-fuck, it became really obvious Spock was just trying to hear him speak Vulcan again. He didn't know why, which was why he decided he wouldn't.

Spock is smart, so if Jim can find a way to intellectually hot-and-bother him? Hell yeah, he's going to do it. The opportunity to tease Spock (again: his new favorite pastime) is too great to ignore.

On no less than three separate occasions has Spock walked by him on campus, and he has, in his opinion, masterfully found ways to drop interesting languages into conversations with impeccable timing. Each time Spock's head whips around and spots him, he fixes Jim with a look that screams, What is WRONG with you? - by Vulcan standards, at least. His eyebrows move slightly, but it's more than they usually do when confronted with Jim doing something uncalled for.

(He's tried explaining this to Bones by the way, that Spock has expressions, because one time they were sitting together in one of the command labs while Jim futzed with a program he was working out, and Spock passed by the window. Jim saw him coming before Spock realized they were there, but when he did, he slowed down his walk, looked straight at Jim, and Jim swore he could tell that Spock was judging him hard. Jim raised both eyebrows, querying, until Spock faced forward again and took a left down a hallway across from them. Jim turns to look at Bones and finds he's watching where Spock disappeared.

"Huh,” Bones says.

"That was weird,” Jim agrees.

"He's always weird.”

Jim gives him a pointed look. “Weirder than usual,” Jim qualifies. Bones looks back at him, disbelieving.

"Dude, he was definitely looking at me funny.”

"What are you talking about, he looked the same.”

"No, no," Jim waves his hands, "He was like- He doesn't believe me when I say I actually study. He was definitely laughing at me just now-" Bones claps him on the shoulder and shakes him.

"Jim, he looked the same, what are you talking about? His face didn't move."

"He was one-hundred-percent laughing his ass off. When he looks like nothing he actually looks like nothing, okay? Trust me."

"You are insane," Bones says, pressing his eyes closed. Jim smiles.

"What else is new?")

All to say, Jim does his best to play it off in the most agonizing way possible: he'll start a sentence in something, keep going until he knows Spock is probably listening, and then say something like, "Oh sorry, silly me! Forgot Standard again! It's so hard being good at languages y'know? Wow, so I was saying-" and every goddamn time he can tell Spock is staring at him in deep, unadulterated dismay. It's hilarious.

One time he switched into Romulan, because it's similar to Vulcan, and he wasn't really paying attention to anything else other than his thought of, Oh shit, Spock, oh god, uh, quick Jim, think! Pull a phrase you haven't used before! Something deep!

Then when he speaks, he glances over to where Spock is walking by him and Sulu, just to make sure that Spock was actually listening, and Spock isn't walking any more. He's just, standing there, staring at them, and Jim thinks …Is he good? Before he realizes, Oh, FUCK. I'm speaking ROMULAN and most people aren't supposed to know that one? MY BAD. (Not to mention, they have major beef with Vulcans. It's maybe the worst choice he could have subconsciously made.)

Jim kind of chokes on a word, and then he starts coughing to cover it up, and then he actually starts coughing because he tried too hard. Sulu slaps his back with a hard thwack and he recovers with zero grace, eyes red and lungs heaving, in all the normal ways Humans are often nearly destroyed by their own respiratory systems.

When he looks back up, Spock is still looking at them, kind of disappointed - but there's a hint of amusement at the corner of his mouth. Jim starts laughing, before choking again.

Spock notices repeatedly that, when one of the advanced astrophysics courses lets out, Jim Kirk does not leave with the rest of the students. Spock has his next lecture in the hall across, and he sees Kirk through the window each week holding impromptu material reviews. He often sits on a desk, or paces the aisles, but the crowd of six or seven cadets that sit and listen don't seem to mind. They're asking questions of Kirk, who volleys right back.

Once, Spock witnessed a moment in which Kirk, having been inspired by some comment, had dangerously vaulted his way out of a desk seat and landed a few rows down, jumping row by row until he had rushed the dais. He frantically scrambled to the board, face and body animated, as he drew several diagrams. They were incomprehensible to Spock, this far away, but he couldn't mistake the way Kirk beamed after turning around, pointing to his classmates and then back at the drawings, gesticulating enthusiastically.

Later that week, Spock asked the professor who taught the class about Jim Kirk's performance as a student. She frowned at the question before saying, "He doesn’t talk very much. Seems bored, if I'm honest. He usually completes other classes' work during the lectures, which I've marked him down for," and her scowl takes on a curious kind of amusement. "Every time I do he turns in the next assignment completed to an absurd degree. One time, he dropped off that week's work with a full proof of Anderson localization in third-dimensional light." She stares at Spock. "Do you understand how insane that is? We didn't think that was possible, and now this kid, a century later, turns it into me for no extra credit?"

Chapter Text

When Spock is summoned to Pike's office, he is initially unsure as to why. When he arrives, the three potential reasons he had considered narrow to one. The Captain is sitting at his desk, once again leafing through flimsies, which appear to be covering all available surfaces. The mess makes him twitch. He has never understood how other species managed to pass disorganization off as a strength.

When the door slides closed, Pike speaks up.

"The Admiralty is so full of it. Have I ever told you that? So incredibly full of shit. I know where they're coming from, and I understand their apprehension, I really do, but this is so silly," he complains, voice level but exasperated.

"This is not the first time you have expressed this sentiment about the policies of higher ranking Starfleet officials to me, Captain," Spock answers.

Pike frowns and marks something on his terminal, and moves a selection of flimsies to the opposite side of his desk. "The Admiralty wants to levy Jim with charges, or kick him out. I've already told him, but you're the one who accused him of the misconduct, so you have a right to know."

Spock is confused - he had thought the board dismissed the issue of Kirk's cheating on the Maru. "I rescinded my statement. The board approved my motion to dismiss the allegation."

"You think I didn't say that to them? I made it very clear that your original complaint was withdrawn," Pike replies. Spock sees his jaw clench and relax. "They approved your motion. That doesn't mean they have to stop their investigation. Based on the findings, the Admiralty has the ability to require his compliance in whatever disciplinary actions they agree on."

"What have they proposed?"

"Either the cheating goes on his record and he gets held back a year, or they revoke his scholarship to attend, which would also go on his record," Pike tells him, looking up. "Why do you never sit down in my office?"

Spock decides to ignore the question in favor of the more interesting information - he was not aware that Kirk was receiving financial assistance. It was not noted in his file. "Why are they giving Kirk an ultimatum?" he asks.

"To save face. Archer doesn't want the school to seem like they're letting him get away scot-free. They have a duty to investigate any potential cheating on exams," Pike looks at Spock pointedly, "Even if later the professor decides it's not actually cheating."

He cringes internally. Logically, he knows Pike cannot see this, but it feels like a moment of weakness all the same. He does not dignify the question in Pike's eyes with an answer. Why he took back his original claim - Spock himself does not know. He has meditated upon it but has yet to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

Regardless, it does not change the circumstances. "I will procure a meeting with Admiral Archer. As the original grievance is no longer valid, their reasoning for sanctions is illogical, and I cannot in good conscience allow it to pass without voicing my opposition."

Pike pauses. Then leans back from his desk, contemplative.

"You know, Commander, when I asked to see you I wasn't expecting you to go to bat for Jim. You understand that, yes? You're not obligated to." His brow furrows. "And, it's not like you to involve yourself on someone else's behalf. Let alone a cadet, who, arguably? Deserves some kind of penalty. He's a little reckless."

Pike's face turns hard. "I know I asked before all this if he blackmailed you, and that was mostly a joke, but now I need you to answer seriously. Spock, did he do something I don't know about?"

He does not count himself to have been coerced - at least, not by his definition. Kirk had certainly caught him off guard at first, but he had never been entirely intimidating. On occasion, he was quite the opposite. Spock has found his demeanor to be affable, and at times gratifying to interact with.

He considers how to construct this thought aloud, trying to put into words something he has not yet totally justified to himself. He considers the known parameters.

"Earlier, I expressed that Cadet Kirk was wasting his time at the Academy." This is simple truth, he thinks. "I am no longer as confident in that statement as I once was." This too, he thinks, a statement of fact.

"His progression as a student has rapidly developed in the past several weeks, and it has allowed me to-" He pauses, searching for the accurate terminology. "Understand his logic."

"Very funny," Pike says.

"I was not joking," Spock says back.

"Kirk and logic aren't two things that should go together in the same sentence."

Spock wonders if Pike is talking about Jim, his father, or his mother.

"I will readily admit he makes cognitive leaps that are deeply disquieting at times, Captain, but the overall trajectory of his reasoning does follow a pattern."

Pike huffs a laugh. "A pattern. Wonder how labyrinthian that looks."

He wants to tell him it doesn't 'look' like anything, because he is describing a metaphysical process that does not manifest visually - but Pike rises from his chair, pushing back from the desk, and circles around to the window, peeking down at the campus grounds.

"The day after I convinced Jim to enlist, I spent the whole night wondering if I had done the right thing." Pike turns. "He's a really smart kid."

Spock nods.

"I felt like if I made a wrong move somewhere, scared him off, I probably wouldn't ever get the chance again. Up until that bar fight, the last time I had seen him was when he was a tiny little thing. Barely even two." Pike looks to Spock before glancing down, eyes seeming to chase the patterns in the floor, his mouth severe. "It's irrational, but sometimes it's hard to not still see that little kid clinging to his mom."

Spock wants to say something about the effect of infantilization on adult Humans but decides against it, and remains silent.

"I imagine coming here wasn't easy for him - with so many people who knew his father. Hell, if I was him, I woulda turned tail and ran the moment I set foot in San Francisco." He pauses, looking at Spock again, and Spock takes the opportunity to ask a question.

"Why do you think he did not?"

The Captain hums, thoughtful. "He's too stubborn for his own damn good, and if he's scared, he never admits it. It makes him a great command cadet, and I'm sure it'll make him an even better officer, but - it also makes me wonder if I've inadvertently doomed him to an early grave," he answers, a displaced smile at the corner of his mouth, voice low.

Later, after Spock has left the office, he spends the walk back to his accommodations deep in thought, still confused by the knowledge that Kirk is at the Academy only because the school funds his tuition. He wonders what else is missing from his public file, and what else Spock does not know about him.

Up until Jim meets Commander Spock, Pike is pretty confident that he's the only one who really sees him. That he's the only one who gets that Jim is his own person, isn't just the shadow of his father, and he only gets that because he knows what kind of man George was and he knows that son of a bitch wouldn't have wanted Jim to be anything else other than Jim.

The fact that the Admiralty can't see it is infuriating.

He knows that, instead, the Academy sees Jim as a golden-boy poster-child. Potential advertising if they play their cards right. He knows that they really wanted Sam, but they couldn't get him. It pisses Pike off; they don't necessarily like Jim, but they know how they want to use him.

Jim isn't good at playing nice with authority figures. After he realized how well he'd scored on the entrance exam compared to the rest of the student body, he had clearly decided to make some kind of ideological stand in the form of complete degeneracy. Pike found out pretty quick that his first semester's grades were utter dogshit. The student welfare committee made damn sure he knew about it too - that the student he had personally asked to apply was flunking.

Pike sat him down after, not in his office, but at the bar a few blocks from campus that was ninety-five percent Academy kids most nights, and the other five percent Academy administration. He flags down a server for a beer, and Jim doesn't order anything. Jim looks relaxed, but his knee is bouncing up and down incessantly under the table. Pike realizes immediately that Jim is scared.

Pike then realizes that Jim probably thinks this is him getting sent home. And then Pike realizes Jim is fucking terrified of going back to Iowa, to his family. Jim probably thought he was hiding it but Chris knew the Kirk family tells better than most anyone at this point.

They don't talk until the waiter comes by again - so he thinks about it between the time he orders and his drink arrives at the table. When the glass gets set down in front of him, it's become obvious to Christopher that Jim is feeling guilty. Has for a long time, most likely. Had probably grown up in it, too, considering the circumstances of his birth. So much of it, that he knows Jim most likely feels like a failure if he's anything less than absolutely perfect, spotless, after everything everyone had done to get his ass here. He feels like a burden. Chris knows exactly what that's like.

Jim had to know all that perfectionism would do is make him a target. Just another kid genius to parade around, and the way Jim would rather ruin himself instead of being put in that position- Well, Chris knew somewhere along the way between George's funeral and Jim's bar fight that something had gone really wrong. Winona had told him about the joyride, and Tarsus, but he didn't know a lot more than that. And frankly? He doesn't need to - three near-death experiences by age fourteen are usually enough to wreck a kid.

So, when the higher ups tell him that, "Just because he's Captain Kirk's son, doesn't mean he can just crash any test he wants because he thinks it's 'unfair,'" he doesn't believe for one second that they're motivated by anything other than hubris. The admins wouldn't know fairness if it bit them in the balls. Christ, they still think they're doing Jim a favor by letting him on school grounds. Doesn't matter that he's probably one of the smartest kids there. When Spock retracts his accusation of academic misconduct, Archer asks him if he thinks it is warranted. Pike backs up Spock hard, emphatically telling Archer, "Yes, absolutely." Not just because he's served with him, but because he doesn't understand why he's doing it - so Pike trusts that he must have a damn good reason. Number One said that he was nodding so viciously he had looked like an early twenty-first century Terran dashboard bobble head (now artifacts displayed in collections across North America, because plastics are forever).

Pike takes a sip of his drink, and tells Jim that he's fucking stupid, that this isn't the way to tell the adults in charge to shove it. That if he wants to mess with them, he shouldn't give them any reason to point him out - good or bad. Maybe just float in the middle.

In hindsight, Jim definitely took that as a direct challenge, because he figures out the median grade and sticks to it like he's allergic to any number below or above eighty-two. He does it with an academic rigor Pike wishes he would apply to being an actually exceptional student instead, but damn. He'll take what he can get.

Jim doesn't consciously talk to himself. He knows this, because if he did then he'd do it louder. Bones complains that he mutters like a possessed person when he's completing work in their room and has kicked him out for it at least twice. He always felt like that was misplaced anger - it's not his fault Bones likes to go to bed at 9pm.

So when he's sitting alone in the campus library, working out the mechanics problem he'll have to turn in later that day while waiting for his hour of personal Spock entertainment to start, he figures he's probably mumbling to himself about god knows what.

"Your dedication to completing engineering coursework as close to the deadline as possible never ceases to astound me," says the low voice behind him.

He nearly jumps out of his chair, and turns around, aggrieved. "Jesus fu- Christ, Spock. Anyone ever tell you to go into Thirty-One? You walk too quiet."

Spock looks unperturbed. He steps to the side, and sits in the adjacent seat. "I was not walking any differently than I typically do."

"Yeah," Jim says derisively, "That's the problem-"

Spock didn't come here to get lectured on the audibility of his footfall. "You are aware of the Admiralty's investigation."

"Oh, I'm aware," Jim groans.

"Pike alerted me-"

Jim cuts him off, "I'm sure he did."

Spock considers this. "Why would he not?" Jim looks disgruntled.

"Dude, you're the one who told the Academy to fuck me. Like personally."

"I do not believe I did so. Reporting academic misconduct does not equate-" Jim groans, cutting him off again. "Regardless, the Admiralty is acting illogically. I rescinded my original statement and accepted your reasoning-"

Jim's eyes open wide, and he leans forward. "You took it back?" he interrupts.

"You did not know?"

"No," Jim says, face souring. "Obviously Pike failed to mention that." He looks at Spock, as if wanting to say something more, but it never materializes. Spock waits anyway. The moment stretches. Jim is still staring at him.

The sound of a stylus hitting the floor breaks the silence, and Jim startles. His right pointer finger starts to tap something out on the table, and he turns back to the desk, his uncompleted work waiting. Jim saves it and swipes something onto his PADD, asking, "What's on the menu today? Let me guess, more Vulcan handwriting?"

Spock doesn't understand why this is a question, they will not be eating their coursework. He suspects he's being manipulated in some fashion. He pulls the requisite materials from his satchel anyway.

They are approximately forty-five minutes into the hour when Spock not-so-subtly asks him to translate a chunk of text about the differences between spoken and written Golic based on which form was learned first. It takes him a moment to understand why, but he puts his stylus down when he gets it.

"Okay, this is approximately the fourth time you've asked me how I learned Vulcan after I already told you. Obsessed much?"

Spock looks at him but remains otherwise stone faced. Jim decides to flip the question.

"How'd you learn Standard? I wouldn't have guessed it to be your second language. You sound like a native speaker."

Much to his surprise, Spock answers immediately. "The Vulcan schooling system teaches Federation Standard alongside traditional Golic. Every child of Vulcan is expected to have full comprehension of the Standard language by age ten. I had mastered the basics of the language at four years of age."

"Overachiever," he snarks. Spock looks like maybe he wants to object but that it would be beneath him to do so. Asshole. Or maybe Jim's just projecting. "You're familiar with Terran syntax, where's that from?"

"Our history courses required reading of some early Terran documents. Although I will admit that, having a Human mother, I was privy to the unique experience of learning more Terran linguistic customs than most."

Jim grins. "That get you a good grade in school? Bet you were a hotshot 'cause you knew all the curse words."

Spock is silent for a pause. "The answer to that is complex," he says finally. Well, shit. If Spock says something is complex, Jim is assuming it's fucking mind bending.

"I was a very attentive student. My teachers were quite satisfied with my progress in all areas of study, although I occasionally experienced intellectual conflict with my peers. I was often socially avoided."

"Why?"

"Some were prejudiced against my heritage."

Never mind, easy, Jim thinks. That's just racism. He nods at Spock to continue.

"When I was young, my father and mother spared no expense in treating me just as any other full-blooded child of Vulcan would have been. Biologically, although there were some minute differences-" Spock thinks of the times in his youth when looked at his peers, noticed the ways their noses and ears developed, and then spent hours in his room, staring at his own. How useless, to think of himself in such a way. "My heritage was ultimately visually indistinguishable."

Jim twists his mouth, considering. "But people were assholes to you about it anyway, I'm guessing."

"Children can be cruel."

"No shit. Doesn't give them an excuse to be racist," Jim says, levelling Spock with a stare that appears fed up. Spock assumes it is not with himself but rather- "Did their parents hate you too? Or was that just a kid thing."

The pause Spock gives himself before responding gets interpreted as hesitancy and Jim is taking a deep breath, shutting his eyes closed, and apologizing before he can think of what he actually wants to say. "God, that's probably not a great thing to ask. Um-"

Spock interrupts. "Although you can be," and he's fairly confident this is the best way to put it, "Abrasive, at times, you are not entirely incorrect in your analysis."

Jim squints one eye open, as if to make sure some imaginary danger has passed, and then opens the other. "So, not just a kid thing."

Spock nods. "Very much so. I presume that my parents spent a great deal of effort in order to shield me from much of the bias I encountered, but the reality was that to completely insulate me, they would have had to remove me from Vulcan society in such a way that prohibited my social development."

"I didn't realize it was that bad," Jim says.

"I was, by many metrics, quite unusual," he replies, and he can see a small, curious grin curl over Jim's lips. "I believe my mother once said I was a 'teenage rebel.'"

Jim's jaw drops open. "No fucking way, you? Are you fucking with me?" Spock raises an eyebrow at him.

"No, hold on, wait wait wait wait," Jim says, smiling, waving his hands in front of him. "I can't even... I don't even know what to visualize here. Aren't 'teenage rebellion' and 'Vulcan' mutually exclusive concepts?" His eyes light up and the grin seems to overtake him. His voice drops to a hush. "Spock, did you have a mohawk?"

He stares at Jim, which only seems to make him more giddy. "Or, did you like, were you an eyeliner kid? Here on earth, usually you get a piercing or something and your mom doesn't know-"

"A piercing would be uncomfortable, I would think," he answers just so Jim stops talking, before following with, "Most of my 'rebellion' was intellectual."

Kirk huffs a breath, some kind of laugh. "You're telling me you didn't think about changing that dumb haircut once? Not even one time?" Spock thinks that, even if he had, he would not tell Kirk. He raises an eyebrow again at him.

"Point taken," Jim acquiesces, hands now up in surrender. He is still smiling. "Listen, even if you did, you're in good company. I was an asshole as a kid."

"Ah, so you have grown out of it," Spock says, and Jim gives him a meaningful look. "Your file does not note any schooling prior to the Academy."

"Yeah, well, I went to most of it," he says, as if this answers the question. Spock sits quietly and waits. He has found that Jim will answer him if he waits long enough. Kirk does not enjoy silence.

He is rewarded when Jim speaks again. "I got into a lot of fights. Teachers said I didn't pay attention."

"This does not surprise me," Spock says, and Jim flicks his arm to show his disapproval. He ignores it. "It is most intriguing that your professors did not note your intellect at a young age."

"What a flatterer," Jim smirks, slouching towards him. A moment passes before he shrugs, looking from Spock's face to his own hands. He picks at a piece of skin around his fingernail. "I told you I was bored a lot. American teachers don't necessarily want you to be smart, they want you to say the thing they're expecting. I was probably a nightmare to get picked on to answer."

"How so?"

"If you've read ahead, then you know stuff the rest of the class isn't supposed to know yet. You end up saying something more than what they want, and suddenly they have to explain this other, new thing. Schools don't like that. They want things to be linear." Jim frowns. "If you use a calculus-level formula in an algebra class, people act like the world is ending."

Spock calculates that this method of education is highly inefficient. "Even if it is the correct answer?"

"Yeah," Jim snorts. "Eventually they stopped calling on me."

He is appalled. This would never had been tolerated in a Vulcan learning facility. "And there were no repercussions to this?"

"The stuff in class?" Jim asks. "Nah. I don't think they cared enough. But I got pulled out of school for the fights." He laughs quietly, "Y'know, I think I spent more time in the principal's office than a classroom. Parent teacher conferences were a nightmare." Jim says it casually, joking - but Spock can see a spot of blood welling up at his cuticle from where he has picked too far.

He looks back at Jim. "You have mentioned a lack of adults in your life."

"Yeah, Mom wasn't there for pretty much all of it. School, I mean. Frank didn't-" Jim falters. "He didn't totally get it. By the time I would have been looking at high school they had already decided I was a lost cause." He shrugs again. "Couldn't blame 'em, really."

Spock looks again at Jim's hand, at the finger where the blood has spread around his nail. "I do not think you are a lost cause," he says, and before the phrase seems to fully register, adds, "Please obtain a covering for your wound, I would appreciate it if you did not bleed on my belongings."

Jim's face is completely blank for a moment, until he covers his mouth with his fist, and tries quite badly to cover the laugh that sputters out of him. Containing it with lips pursed, he digs around in a pocket and comes up with a piece of tissue, wrapping it unsatisfactorily around his finger. He looks up at Spock with bright, wide eyes.

Defeated, Spock says, "It will have to do."

Jim gets the impression that Spock is quickly starting to catch on to how this, who he is here, is really all Jim has left. That the Academy means a lot to him, even if he acts flippant about it. That he spends a lot of time not giving a shit because the things he does give a shit about are few and far between by necessity. There's Bones, Pike, Sulu, Uhura, and Sam and Mom (sorta, it's complicated,) but that's kind of it. Going home isn't home so the only thing he thinks comes close is San Francisco, because even if everyone compares him to his dad here, they don't do it in an inherently negative way.

He doesn't hate the city the same way he hated Riverside - it's free of a lot of the baggage he purposefully dumped in that goddamn bar, good riddance. But it's not perfect, and in the moments where he wants to run, there's enough things to keep himself occupied. He's mostly replaced the rummaging through 'Fleet servers at this point, although he hasn't necessarily found better (or less illegal) habits. Sometimes the escapism is still a bar. Sometimes a person, but not for very long. Sometimes, it's the stray cat population that hangs around the Academy. (And every time Jim sneaks out with a bag of cat food and eventually gets caught, Bones gives him a big earful about rabies and fleas and rashes and other feline-borne ailments. And then he stabs Jim with a hypo before he can even protest, because Bones knows that's exactly what Jim had opened his mouth to do.)

But recently, it's Spock. Jim isn't sure why he feels okay with dumping all his shitty trauma on him. The only thing he does know is the simple, inexplicable feeling that it's right. Somehow. That it's alright.

"I don't know why you're always the one who gets to hear this stuff," he tells him. If Jim had to guess, Spock looks like he maybe feels the same, but in a derogatory way. "Maybe it's because you're kind of a goody-two shoes." Spock somehow manages to look even more dismayed.

But he never makes Jim feel like he has to stop.

What Jim doesn't say is that he's one of the first people who doesn't pry him for more information like he's owed it. Bones is similar, but he's a little too saddened by Jim's whole deal and it gets suffocating. Spock just... Listens. If Jim ignores his facial expressions (or lack thereof) he can almost trick himself into the idea that he cares.

There's another day, when the library is otherwise occupied, where they've found some space in Spock's office. Which is smaller than he imagined, by the way - not cramped, but not meant for two people working side-by-side. Jim thinks the whole 'I don't tutor students' shtick must have been for real. He also thinks that the Academy is pretty hypocritical, making such a big fuss about the Commander's presence on campus, but then sticking him with what feels like the shitty freshman dorm treatment for professors.

Spock asks him about routines, how Jim would preferably transcribe a series of events. He, apparently, really likes throwing work at Jim. All the times Uhura has complained about his lectures have started to make more sense.

Jim hums, and writes out a long, scrawling scene of text. The swirls loop into one another, and he says that the point of language is usually efficiency, but style is appreciated when it reinforces the point. It makes Spock's eyebrows pinch together, and the following explanation from Spock of how a mutualism between style and efficiency is entirely possible when design considers the whole of the experience and not just one facet, and Jim isn't even listening anymore, he's just trying to keep a straight face and nod and say, "Uh-huh," in a way that'll keep Spock talking.

That's how most of these go. They talk, mostly about language. Jim mentions things he thinks are relevant, and Spock looks at him like he's insane for thinking so. But - again - he never actually stops him, so it's kind of a win.

Jim notes that part of a translation he's combing through is surprisingly admonishing, that the wording feels overtly mean for common Golic. He angles the PADD and Spock looks over to read it.

"I believe the phrasing may be indicative of a power dynamic between writer and reader," he says.

"How so?" Jim asks.

"Emphasis on logic above all is typically unwritten, as it goes without reminder. By reinforcing this point, it can be inferred that the writer is in a position of authority to speak upon the matter. I wonder if they may be speaking to a younger relative, or a pupil."

"Ah! Okay, got it," Jim taps his stylus on his chin, "It's someone telling their kid to shut it."

Spock turns to him, clearly unsure how Jim got there. "Explain."

"I'm joking. But that's part of growing up, isn't it? Getting told you're doing dumb shit, and that you should, y'know, stop doing it." He shrugs. "I thought this was universal."

Spock does not look satisfied with this answer, but turns back to his mess of PADDs and recordings and does not say anything further. So, Jim does what he does best and fills the silence. He works through the next few chunks of text from the letter and elaborates - he always assumed this kind of stuff was normal, 'cause maybe he got it worse than other kids but it's not like he got it really, really bad. People out there dealt with way worse shit than he had.

A memory rattles through his head and, fuck it, it's just them and he's feeling talkative. It's about how Sam ran away once, when Jim was eight and he was fifteen, and somehow it was Jim's fault; "You're such a bad influence on your brother, no wonder Winona couldn't handle you two." So Frank momentarily disowned him proper, didn't really feed him for three days, tolerated him sleeping in the garage only because if the neighbors saw they'd think less of Frank, and Jim only got let back into the house when Sam returned from wherever he had fucked off to. Jim laughs, because he got really good at shoplifting granola from the store, and even better at getting away with it.

But then Spock puts everything he's holding down and stares at him for what feels like a full minute without speaking. Jim starts to get more and more nervous every second. He thought that was going to be a funny, sort of pitiable, relatable anecdote. Weren't Vulcans hella strict parents? The way Spock isn't moving a single muscle has him wondering otherwise.

Oh god, did he say something wrong? Was that offensive to say or something? Christ Jim, and you want this guy to like you? He's gonna have to research Vulcan cultural faux pas. Or, fuck, did he bring up a bad memory? He knew that Spock got bullied for being half-Human, maybe a snot-nosed kid-asshole said something to him once and Jim just triggered some horrific traumatic childhood moment.

"Spock, hey. You okay? I know you went through some shit, um, we can table this specific document for later if you want to," Jim offers.

Spock is still stuck in disbelief, because Jim just asked him if he was okay, a question highly illogical because he was not the one who was neglected.

Jim hard pivots, finds some other complex first-person diatribe to pick through, and all but shoves it in Spock's face. They both turn back to the desk, but the room doesn't feel any less suffocating, and fuck, even if they're not talking about it, the conversation needs to end. Jim scrapes his brain for something to kill it with, and finds a spot of dry humor somewhere in the dredges. He's an expert at making light of his own situations, because what else is he supposed to do? Be morose about it? That's what Bones is for.

"I hate granola," he says. "If you were wondering."

Silence. And then - aw shit, not again, Spock's turning his head to look at him, yet another fuckin' faux pas, here we go-

Except Spock says, "I was not, but I will keep this in mind should I ever need to find you sustenance in a situation of critical importance."

It takes Jim a second to parse it.

"Are you telling me you would let me starve if all we had was granola?"

"Humans can be very particular about their tastes," Spock says, and then Jim takes a look at the severe line of his brow, and loses it.

He's laughing hard enough he can barely breathe, and the fact that Spock looks only marginally displeased with this outcome makes him laugh harder.

Somewhere in there, between heaving breaths, Jim admits out loud that the stuff Spock says is funny, but he's not always sure it's intentional, but that was definitely a joke. Right? C'mon, Spock, do it again. Please? One more time, for me? Please? Pretty please?

Spock doesn't do it, but he also doesn't kick Jim out of his office, and so the rest of the hour passes in a silence that doesn't feel as lethal as it did five minutes ago.

That night, before Spock settles down to meditate, he finds out through public records that, in 2244, one Frank Davis was rung up on charges for abuse and neglect of a minor in Washington County, Iowa - it never got to trial because no witnesses appeared.

(Funny how that works when there's only one kid in his house, huh? Is what Jim always thinks.)

Another half hour of research and Spock has narrowed down the timeline: the allegations were filed after George Samuel Kirk began attending university. Jim would have been alone in the home with his uncle, assuming Winona Kirk was still on her deep-space assignment aboard the USS Carolina.

Spock remembers when Jim laughed during a lesson and said, - and this is a direct quote - "It wasn't fun growing up in buttfuck Iowa," and suddenly realizes he was talking about the abuse, which was almost certainly worse than what the charges laid out. Spock knew the Terran judicial systems were faulty, especially in rural areas.

Another half hour after that, and Spock confirms that it is not that Jim's personnel files are incomplete, they're sealed. With access restricted to Fleet Captain and above clearance. He assumes that it was under Captain Pike's order, or at his request.

He considers the possibility of requisitioning access, but is unsure what grounds he would even have to do so. Moreover, he does not know what he would do with the information besides memorizing it - the same way he has done with the rest of Jim's file.

Jim has spent the last three hours trying to research Vulcan cultural customs, and feels like he has gotten absolutely nowhere.

For as scientifically minded as Vulcans are, Jim feels that their documentary records of their own people are lacking in some very specific areas. Attraction, for one. Insult, for another.

He's trying to understand what he should, and should not, say to Spock in order to not offend him. But there's this overwhelming literary insistence that Vulcans do not feel offense, and thus cannot take any, in any regard. Which he knows has to be false, because Spock has definitely been offended by stuff he's done, even if he's never said so out loud.

Or maybe Spock's just special.

Anyway, the Embassy's databanks seem to just… skip over any of the interpersonal stuff. Pretend it doesn't exist. They mention some rituals by name but don't go any further than that. Jim's sure there's gotta be first-degree sources, most likely untranslated, but he hasn't found them yet and he's also not sure how helpful they'd be. Imagine a Vulcan explanation of flirting. It would read like a mechanical schematic, he thinks. He'd probably be pretty okay at reading it.

The closest he can get seems to be the insistent, logical, purely academic pursuit of knowledge. Which - if he's being totally honest - does not sound purely academic in the slightest. There's a level of obsession Jim is familiar with as a Human being (he thinks of the Maru, as an example; months of his life for two minutes of satisfaction that are still totally worth it) but wouldn't expect from a Vulcan. Bones always berated him for getting too into something. Which further cements his belief that Bones and Spock really shouldn't ever hang out.

The reality is that he's looking at all this and trying to apply it to Spock when maybe he shouldn't be. And that's when he remembers Spock calling him, the things he's done and said, interesting - among other variations of the term. Intriguing. Fascinating, curious. Et cetera. And that feels weirdly good, that Spock would find him to be... Uh. He doesn't know. Enough to keep researching, he guesses. That's gotta mean something, right?

In the end, he asks Uhura.

"What?" Her head whips around, eyes boring deep into a part of Jim's soul that is trying so desperately to not cower in fear. "Spock's tutoring you? Who made him?"

"No one?" Jim replies hesitantly. "He's just doing it. I asked him but he said no. And Pike said he didn't ask him to. He just started."

Uhura blinks once, twice at him. "That's fucking nuts. You're the only person that he's done that for. He didn't even do that for me and we dated, Jim."

"Damn," says Jim. "He must think I'm fucking stupid then." Uhura hits him.

Chapter Text

It is 0130 hours when Spock leaves his office in order to head to the botany labs. His day has been long, and his work has kept him busy as the semester comes to a close. Despite this, each week he has found the time to sit with Jim Kirk for two hours. He would never admit so, but since the stability of his scheduled lectures has been interrupted by finals across campus, he has found solace in the regularity of their meetings.

Captain Pike has assured him this arrangement seems to be good for Cadet Kirk, as he appears to have lacked a considerable amount of stability in the past years of his life, and any time spent not bothering Pike is considered a mark of success.

Though, Pike also referred to the arrangement between them as Spock's "library dates," so he does not take everything Pike says seriously.

Regardless, he cannot deny that their meetings are satisfactory, and he hasn't disliked the progress Jim has made. His Golic scriptwriting has continued to improve remarkably. It has been a titillating experience, if only to see how a Human with little exposure to flesh-and-blood Vulcans interacted with their language. He is still determined to get Kirk to speak to him in Golic, as his cadence carries with it an intriguing lilt when he nears ends of phrases. Perhaps, a holdover from other languages learned, or a regional dialect.

He is torn from thought by a figure to his right, curled up on a bench. It was abnormal to see anyone else on campus at this hour outside a faculty building, notwithstanding those who functioned on a nocturnal schedule.

This is how Spock finds Jim Kirk, sitting alone in the dark, holding his favored copy of Le Petit Prince. He has heard of the 'comfort object' phenomenon, and has assumed this is Jim's. He detours slightly, coming to stand next to where Jim has his knees tucked up to his chest. His head rests upon them. As is his usual behavior, the cadet does not look up from his reading.

"Why are you awake?" Jim asks, turning a page. His words are slightly muted, jaw butted up against his legs. "This isn't very commander-like of you. Think of the impression you're giving students."

Spock considers a mocking reply, and ultimately decides against it. "Vulcans do not require as much sleep as Humans, and I will likely meditate later as a replacement. I was on my way to the Botanical Science Department's laboratories."

"Sure," Jim says. He turns another page. "Fun."

Spock purses his lips. That reply he considered wouldn't be productive.

"I would ask you the same question, it is certainly past the hour most Humans have retired."

Jim hums. "Can't sleep. Didn't want to wake Bones." He pauses. "He doesn't like it when I pace, and I wouldn't say I enjoy getting stabbed with sedatives." Jim finally looks up at Spock over his book. "If it's sitting out here or gettin' hypo'd… Yeah."

"Considering how small the dormitory accommodations can be, I understand this preference."

"…Have you met Bones?" Jim asks, eyes intense. "I'm not sure you'd get along. Actually, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get along. It's crazy that you're agreeing with him on this one."

He is surprised that Jim would jump to this assumption. Spock finds the experience of non-consensual medication much more distasteful than a pacing roommate - no matter how irritating he imagines Kirk is in close quarters.

"I was agreeing with you," Spock clarifies.

Jim is silent.

"Why can't you sleep?" he asks.

"Too cool for a circadian rhythm," is the answer. Spock stares at him, waiting. Jim stares back.

Eventually, he relents, and rolls his eyes. "I hate that you call my bullshit," he says, closing the book and placing it aside on the bench. Jim untucks from himself, unfurling, stretching his legs out straight in front of him. His heels push into the gravel, and the sound is crisp in the dark.

"This stuff with the Admiralty, I don't like my options."

"I am in agreement," Spock says.

Jim sucks air in, lets out a long breath. "This sucks." He shakes his head. "I understand what they're trying to do, but it reeks of them doing something just to show that they're doing it. They don't actually care what the end result is."

"Captain Pike said something similar. I find their reasoning to be curious, and they do not seem to think any argument against their decision to be sufficient enough to pause their proceedings. I am left to wonder if they are rushing for a reason they have not revealed. It does not appear they have fully analyzed your defense. Furthermore, as the matter of whether or not your solution constitutes cheating has since been settled, the Admiralty should take into consideration that serious punitive action is unnecessary," Spock states, confident in this deduction. "Their suggestion of rescinding your attendance is illogical."

Jim smiles, but it's out of futility more than anything else. "I get the impression that's what most people think."

"Yes," Spock agrees, "The board has already made it clear to Captain Pike that they want to avoid removing you from the Academy."

"So, what, they think that holding me back is the better option?" Jim's brow furrows. "I get that it's less overkill, but-"

"The proposed outcome would surely not hinder your progress as a Starfleet cadet, despite how they make it seem," Spock interrupts him. "They may mark your record, but as Pike said, they do not want to be seen letting you get off 'scot-free.'"

"If that's supposed to be reassuring, it's not. Them marking my record is the last thing I want, Spock," Jim argues.

"I do not see a way that would be avoided in any of the solutions the board proposes."

"Unless they drop it," Jim pushes.

Spock's face is neutral, but his eyes drill into him. The scrutiny makes him squeamish and he's overcome with the need to justify. The feeling is familiar but, right now, he can't place why.

"The way I see it: either I leave quietly, or they wreck me. Doesn't matter if it's just putting me back into junior classes or getting booted. It's all the same to me," Jim says, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. He can feel the tight skin against his throat when he swallows. He rubs his hands down his thighs and grips his knees.

"When I first levied my objections to your conduct, it was not my intention to put the status of your graduation at risk," Spock explains.

Jim scoffs. "They don't care. I'm fucked either way."

When Spock doesn't answer immediately, Jim opens an eye and peeks at him through his lashes. Spock's face is downcast.

"I simply do not see why your hacking of the Kobayashi Maru would be cause for leaving the Academy," Spock says to Jim's feet.

Jim brings his head back down to look firmly at Spock's eyes, trying to catch them.

"That doesn't matter," he says, when he finally manages to do it. "It'll go on my record. That's just as good as failing out in my book. And fuck me if my mom finds out, or Sam."

"About the cheating?" asks Spock.

"About the retention," answers Jim.

"You are saying that anything less than a perfect outcome is equivalent to total failure?"

"Listen, I'm sayin' that if the Admiralty wants to hold me back a year, that's a decision we're all going to have to respect," Jim says, scowling, as he puts his hands up in defense.

Spock's body language reads apprehensive, even if his face is blank. Jim sighs and looks down.

"Even if I try to fight their decision, it'll get noted if they don't decide to drop it themselves. And I really don't want to drag anyone else but me through it," Jim grinds a boot into the gravel at his feet. "So even if I try, I'm fucked. Same outcome no matter what I do. I know I said I no-wins are bullshit, but I just don't feel comfortable asking Pike to stick his neck out for me. Again."

"If there is anything I have come to learn about you, Jim Kirk, it is that you consistently underestimate the lengths to which people around you will go in order to ensure you are, in fact, comfortable." A part of Jim wants to know how painful it must be for Spock to actually give him a compliment, for once. He ignores it, leaves it up to mystery and determinedly keeps staring at the ground.

"Is there really no other instance in which you find yourself capable of achieving academic success?"

Jim doesn't say anything.

The silence stretches on for a minute, and it's not companionable.

When Spock speaks again, it is with a dry sort of humor. "I believe one Earth mannerism that applies is, 'do or do not, there is no try.'"

"Star Wars?" Jim is shot out of his head and into laughing. "I didn't know you watched old Earth movies."

"I do not," says Spock. "I merely understand that many quotations from Terran media are deemed profound and find themselves regurgitated into other forms of cultural lexicon."

"That's a really long way of saying you saw it somewhere else."

Spock thinks before nodding, "Yes."

Jim huffs a half-laugh, plants his hands back on his knees and pushes off the bench. He tucks his book into a pocket inside his jacket, and starts in the direction of the science building. When he doesn't hear Spock move after him he slows and looks over his shoulder.

"You coming?"

Spock, hesitating, answers, "If it pleases you," before beginning to walk to catch up.

Jim turns his head and shoves his hands in his pockets so Spock doesn't see him trying not to smile, hands itching to grab Spock by the arm and haul him over. He knows this particular conversation isn't over, far from it, but he needs to get out of here, needs to not be left alone, needs the distraction of another person. He wants to run. But if he had to pick between a night at some bar and getting silently laughed at by a Vulcan whose definition of fun included watching Jim Kirk make an idiot of himself, he'd take the latter. At least he can tease Spock into lighter topics.

In that moment, walking away from the dark green, he's grateful that Spock lets himself be goaded into them. He resolutely does not think about how, as far as he can tell, it seems he's the only one Spock does that with. Or that sometimes, Spock starts it.

When they get to the hall, past the ID check, Jim tells him, "Thanks. For earlier."

Spock looks at him, one eyebrow raised, as they make their way to the bank of turbolifts. "To what are you referring?"

Jim snorts, lightly punching him in the shoulder. "I know you know what I mean."

When Spock just turns his head again and keeps walking, Jim realizes he's going to have to be the one to say it.

"For the joke. You kind of shoehorned it in there, but, it snapped me out of it," he says, as they enter the lift. "So, thanks."

"I constantly find myself in awe of the Human predilection for stating facts that are already apparent." When Spock says it, it's totally flat, but Jim is rapidly getting better at reading him. Against all the evidence that he looks entirely serious, Jim knows he's just been personally insulted.

"Jesus Christ," he groans, and presses the control for sub-floor two.

The door to the room slams open, apropos of nothing, and McCoy almost screams.

"Bones," states Jim, hand flat against the doorjamb where he's pushed the plasteel into the wall. "Bones."

"Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph, what the HELL is wrong with you?" he shouts, having dropped the PADD he was taking notes on while reading case studies at his terminal.

"Bones," Jim tries again, stepping inside. The door closes behind him with a sad hiss.

"What?"

"Bones."

"Say it one more time and I swear-" McCoy takes a deep breath. "Yes, Jim?"

"I think I'm losing it," Jim says, like he's announcing his retirement at twenty-five.

"Oh great," McCoy says, pinching the bridge of his nose. He closes his eyes. This man is like a walking migraine trigger. As if to prove it, Jim sets his shoulder bag down in the middle of the floor and shrugs out of his jacket, throwing it over the side of his bunk. "You're just now figuring that out? And for what do we owe the pleasure of this epiphany?"

When Jim doesn't say anything, he looks at him again, finding Jim sitting down on his bed, head in his hands. "Please do enlighten me, 'o wise one," McCoy says. Jim grunts.

His hands drag down his face, stretching the skin under his eyes. "Did you know Commander Spock knows quotes from Star Wars?"

"Jim," McCoy says seriously. "He's Vulcan. Those green motherfuckers know everything there is to know about everything."

"Star Wars," Jim says, emphatically. "He quoted The Empire Strikes Back at me." And then he laughs, and Leonard thinks it sounds a little manic. "What the fuck."

"Have you even considered that he's probably lived on Earth for a while? That he understands pop culture references because he's a walking encyclopedia?"

Jim just stares at him. Leonard raises his eyebrows back, which makes Jim snort a laugh, and he falls back into bed and slips out his PADD to read god knows what.

(Bones will never, ever know, because Jim will make sure he never, ever finds out - but this is when he starts frantically searching for articles like 'HOW TO TELL IF VULCAN LIKES YOU??' And reading listicles titled 'TOP THREE TIPS FOR HUMAN-XENO RELATIONSHIPS!' And before you even ask, yes, he's using a VPN, he's not stupid.)

The next day, Jim makes another announcement.

"I'm so fucked," he says surprisingly evenly. "Like- I- Okay. Sure, he's hot, I have eyes, but oh my god he's funny. Bones, he's funny, he has jokes."

"Stop fucking talking to me about Spock, Jim," Bones shouts through the door. "I'm trying to shower in peace."

Jim sticks out his tongue, only because he knows Bones can't see him, and crosses his arms. "You're such a spoilsport."

"Jim! Stop sitting outside the door and trying to TALK to me!" he yells.

"Now Doctor, that's no way to treat your favorite patient," he tuts back. God he loves it here.

"I HATE you."

When he's out of the shower, the first thing Bones says after he's barely decent is, "If you don't stop talking to me about the goddamn professor you have the hots for, I'm requesting a room change."

"It's mid semester," Jim points out. He would never actually go through with it, he's too much of a softie.

"No it’s not. And I don’t care," Bones says back, as if he heard Jim's thoughts. "You're swooning like a southern belle and it's frankly disturbing."

"I'm not swooning." The good doctor looks at him like he's utterly insane. Which, in Bones' defense, he's sure that it looks like he just traded one Spock-related obsession for another.

A few days later, Bones has clearly had enough of his general complaining because it's only a Tuesday night when Jim gets ambushed. A tag-team effort by Bones and Sulu, Jim is caught totally unaware as he's attempting to scrape all known references to Vulcan mating practices from the dredges of some godforsaken decrepit databank. The Embassy has pretty great infrastructure but they clearly aren't fans of Terran IT, which makes for a wacky combination of souped up hardware running what looks to Jim like firmware three Human generations old.

They all but drag him off campus to that one bar - the one Pike took him to freshman year, when Jim thought his life was over (Jesus, for what felt like the sixth time at that point). Uhura and Gaila are already there, at a booth in the back, and Gaila waves them over with an enthusiasm Jim wishes he could match. He's starting to wonder if this is an intervention.

Gaila takes one look at him and slides her beer over. Not an intervention. "Wow, you look fucking sullen." Jim rolls his eyes and takes the glass.

"Yeah, I'm spending way too much time online. You know how it is."

Bones makes a noise that sounds like he's both choking and coughing at the same time as he slides into a seat. "No he's not, he's obsessing again," he remarks. Nyota sighs. Sulu nods solemnly along, like he's the wisest fucker here and didn't spend all of last semester drooling over Ben, which Jim politely points out. All he gets is a glare in return, and Jim staunchly decides now is when he's gonna have to start drinking if he's going to have any hope of keeping his mouth shut.

To give his friends credit, he has been kinda wrapped up in this. He knows that. But fixating is one of the only things that can give him the right kick. That, or whatever physically dangerous shit he can pull when Bones isn't breathing down his neck like a neurotic mother hen. He's lived his whole life chasing that high. The fact that he's suffering to chase it means it's harder to get this time.

It's because it’s starting to feel like he's not good at schmoozing. It's freaking him out, because usually he's the suave one of the group. ("You mean sleazy," Uhura corrects. "You mean slutty," he corrects her back. She is unamused.)

But recently, all of his attempts to bat his eyelashes have kind of fallen flat. Thus: the crisis. He watches the residual foam in his drink leave patterns on the glass. Is he- Oh god, is he not hot anymore? This is a major part of his identity, if he's not the pretty boy what is he? The smart kid? Fuck no. Look where that got him. Everything is way easier when he gets underestimated and looks good while doing it. Jim has spent his whole life trying to charm his way out of whatever, wherever.

Anyway, it's not like anyone really needs to know about his weird self doubt.

Later in the night, he's maybe three beers in. Gaila only drinks hoppy shit and it makes him want to sneeze so he's switched to a darker brew, whatever they have on tap. He's at the bar, chatting up a trim looking Efrosian, who keeps looking at him in a way that tells Jim, okay, he's fine. He's still hot. He's still got this, he shouldn't have even worried about it.

Unfortunately, that means, well, Jim's still got this. Which is gonna be a problem.

Simply put? He's still smooth. Enough for the Efrosian, at least.

So - it doesn't work on Spock. Which, right now? Is the only person he wants it to work on.

God damn it.

This time it's 0400, and Jim is in the computing labs, working on getting an old data drive to kick back to life. Designed in the twenty-first century, it's a remake from the late twenty-second. He found it at a junk shop one weekend when he needed to be somewhere else. He tries to remember why. When he can't, he figures it must have been a crap enough reason for him to get drunk enough to forget.

He has the whole unit laid out on the workbench, ESD mat covered in clusters of components. Jim had learned the hard way to keep like pieces together and actually use the magnetic small part holders to keep screws separated. He didn't like the way it made him organize but he'd take that over losing something he could never find a thread match for. He's not quite at the point where he'd willingly wear the grounding band, though.

He swings the mounted loupe over to where the tip of his screwdriver rests on the housing, gloved hand angling the unit to try and see under the connector that has the ribbon cable trapped down. It's not latched, that he can see anyway, and it doesn't look like there's an adhesive applied, so he can only assume there's gotta be a mechanical connection from the backside. He puts the flathead down, reaches up to adjust the light. He still can't see shit.

Jim sighs in defeat. He pulls up the schematics on the terminal to his right. It always feels kind of like giving up, but he knows Bones would smack him for thinking that; last week he had said, "Why can't you just accept help instead of throwing it into a river with a cinder block attached?" in response to Jim trying to weasel his way out of drinking a liquid slurry of something Bones had concocted for him. (One of these days he'll figure out how to get out of that situation, he swears.) He skims the information, looking for the parts list. Finding the component, E4, he pans over to the wiring diagrams and traces the lines to and from.

He's working himself through the connections that lead from the ribbon to further in, trying to figure out what's underneath so he can determine how hard he wants to tug, when he hears the door switch open.

"Lab's closed," he says, not turning from the work. He lightly pokes under the cable with the flathead, checking for any wiggle.

When there's no reply, he sighs, putting down the device and the tool. Fucking first years. Everyone in the department knows who he is (some better than others, he adds, to himself) so he can only assume it's a freshie who doesn't know any better. He closes his eyes, swivels his chair around, mentally preparing to have to meet the stare of a wide-eyed cadet, who still has hopes and dreams and other wild fantasies - and nearly falls off his chair when he opens them and levels with Spock's torso.

The room is silent, save for the sound of the door closing.

"So you are aware that it is after sanctioned usage hours, Cadet Kirk," says the Commander, and Jim can almost imagine him looking smug. When he looks up to check, Spock looks as unexpressive as ever.

"The door was open," Jim responds. Spock raises his eyebrow.

"It was not."

Jim swears inwardly. "Yeah, well, it was open when I got here."

"I highly doubt that."

He gives Spock his best, ‘Who, me?’ smile, and swivels back around. Spock doesn't move, but Jim can see his shadow stretch over the bench.

"You are repairing a data storage device," notes Spock.

"Repairing - maybe. Cracking it open? Yeah." In order for him to repair it, he would need to know what was wrong with it. "I can barely tell what's going on in here with how many components they've jammed onto one board alone. The way they packed this shit in is inelegant but effective." He plucks a spudger from the back of the bench and taps it against the unit. "Whoever designed it kinda just, crammed as much in as they could, I suppose."

Spock says nothing, but something tells Jim he's staring down the drive. Probably mentally taking it apart into perfect little sorted piles. He's seen the way Spock has talked second years through "simple electromechanical engineering problems" - if they make Jim's brain hurt, imagine what they must do to a sane person.

In the quiet, he can hear the shallow noise of Spock's breathing. It's a tad distracting, so he tries to center himself and get back into focus. He picks up the drive, flipping it over, and figures he may as well try a different approach, pulling up the parts list again to identify one of the ports on the side.

Spock's voice breaks the silence. "You can imagine that the designer did the best with what they had," he says. Jim gives him a quick look out of the corner of his eye. "To deconstruct something of this nature is as much a technical endeavor as it is an exercise in history. To look inside is to look to the past."

Jim furrows his brow as he scrolls for the wiring schematic connecting E3 to D7. "Sure," he says. "Listen, I'm tearing apart a data drive, not uncovering Earth's greatest psychological mysteries. I don't really find this stuff poetic."

Spock doesn't seem to care because he goes on, dissuaded. "Humans have evolved as a species against many odds because of their curated ability to adapt, by making associations where other mammals did not."

Jim looks up and around at him, with an eyebrow raised, and all Spock does is raise one back. He reaches over, deftly picking the drive from Jim's hands, and then decidedly takes a delicate torque driver from the bench, and loosens a screw somewhere god only knows. Then he neatly pops the interior from the housing with zero resistance. He puts the driver back, and then gently places the electronics and shell back on the mat. Jim stares at him.

"The parallels to sitting alone, fixing a piece from some time past, are not lost on me," Spock says, looking back at him directly, and the eye contact freezes him in place. Jim doesn't realize how close they are until he moves his arm to turn the internal control board over on the desk, and his elbow brushes Spock's hip. Jim breaks line of sight to investigate where the screw was that he missed, and when he finds it, he turns to Spock to say something bitchy about it - except Spock is still staring at him. And he didn't move away after the accidental bump, which is weird.

"I'm- Uh," he falters, having lost all steam. "I'm gonna- Yeah. I think I'm done for the night, um," because oh my god how has he not blinked yet, is he okay? Jim can feel fight or flight start to kick in, which is crazy. The only thing happening is that the Commander is standing kind of close for someone who hates physical interaction, and making prolonged eye contact after saying something marginally philosophical about how Jim's fixing himself, or whatever, and oh my god, is he being flirted with? Is that what's happening here? There's no way that's what's happening here. Is that why Spock is getting all quiet and intense on him? As if he's being scrutinized under a microscope? That can't be it, he's hallucinating. Projecting. Whatever. Wishful thinking, and all that. Wait, or is this supposed to be a therapy session? Do Vulcans do therapy? Jim wasn't even thinking about this through that lens until Spock brought it up, by the way. He isn't trying to fix himself one piece of archaic data storage at a time, Jim just wants to know what's inside this sucker - because if he's lucky, it'll be a twenty-first century hologame. He's always been partial to Doom.

He's so stuck in his head that he barely notices when Spock reaches over to turn off the bench light, and asks aloud for the computer to save and shut down. Jim snaps back to reality when Spock finally looks away in order to push the loupe back so he can rehome the few tools out on the bench.

"I got it," Jim says, pushing Spock's hand away from the mat. Spock flinches, flinches, when their skin meets and Jim jumps in his seat, confused, until he sees Spock tuck both of his hands behind his back, and he remembers. "Sorry," he says.

"Do not trouble yourself," Spock says, diplomatically. "No apology is necessary."

"Sorry anyway," Jim reiterates, sliding drivers and allen keys back into their designated slots. He peels the glove from his other hand. "Just because it's unnecessary doesn't mean it shouldn't be done." When he stands up from the chair, mat and parts tucked away, and turns back, Spock gives him a small, curt nod.

"Let's get out of here," Jim suggests, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair.

"Indeed," says Spock, and they turn towards the door.

Somewhere along the way, Spock had come to realize he was deeply invested in Jim Kirk's well-being. It was as Pike had said - this was incredibly out of character for him, but he had not lied when answering that Kirk had an internal logic system that Spock found inexorably fascinating. At times, the way Jim worked through problems was enthralling. He associated concepts in ways that appeared impulsive, irrelevant until asked to explain the connection, upon which he would begin working backwards from answer to question, an amused look on his face as if it was the simplest thing in the world. Except, nothing about his answers to anything Spock asked him were normal, not by the Academy's rubric, and certainly not by Spock's standards.

And so he had come to the unfortunate conclusion that if he was to be a part of Jim's schooling while he attended the Academy, that he would have to oversee his progress holistically - partially because he often had the thought that without it, Jim would have caused some other horrendous academic integrity scandal, and partially because he also saw in Jim what Pike seemed to; that he was very good at hiding things, but not perfect, and what Spock noticed through the cracks was a near suicidal tendency to shoulder burdens beyond himself for the sake of others - to never show anything as weakness, to doom himself if it meant another would not have to bear it.

He had decided to pull Jim from the lab the moment he had seen how Jim's body shifted from relaxed to taut when he entered the room. The artificial lights made his color seem washed out, leaving his skin looking sickly. Jim did not belong down here. It did not fit the man Spock had come to know - vibrant, often too exuberant for his own good.

So he directs the lift they get in together up to the surface - to the communal center of campus. Despite how it obscures him, the dark seems to fit Jim better. When they step from the lift and out of the building, into open air, Jim stretches upwards, letting out something between a yawn and a groan. He clasps his hands behind his head.

"I hate sitting down for too long, my neck always cramps up," he says, flexing his head side to side.

"You had been in the lab for a significant period of time."

"Yeah, maybe... Six hours?" he guesses. "It's like, I forget how time works and then half the day is gone. Y'know?"

"I do not," Spock states, thinking of the precise internal clock he has meticulously trained since youth. Jim laughs, and turns to him.

"Oh yeah? Never got lost in something? A good book? A really compelling botany study?" Jim is smiling and his face is open, goading. A few months ago, Spock would have found it disturbing. Now, he does not mind such mocking displays of emotion as much as he used to.

"I will confess I have experienced some detachment from my surroundings when I meditate, but I do not lose track of the time," he explains. "Rather, it simply exists outside my immediate scope of being until I have reason to recall it."

Jim whistles. "Wow, bet you're fun at parties." Spock raises an eyebrow at him, and Jim laughs again when he notices it. He begins to walk, and Spock follows.

They approach a grassy area of the campus, one of many pockets of greenery, and Jim bends down to touch a hand to the ground. "'S cool," he murmurs. Jim stands up, walking a bit further, and - to Spock's horror - his body flops down into the dirt with some force. It hits the sod with a thud. He lies still.

Spock quickly walks to his side, looking down upon Jim for any signs of illness. When Jim looks back up at him, his smile slides into confusion.

"What?" Jim asks.

"You fell intentionally," Spock says.

"Yeah. Did you think I didn't?" Spock does not answer. "Oh my god, did you think something was wrong with me?" He lets out a laugh. "Oh my god! You were worried!"

"I simply was concerned for your well-being. Humans are not known to collapse-"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," Jim interrupts. "You're kinda sweet behind all the Vulcan bitchiness, you know that?" Spock stares, unsure of how to respond, while Jim pats the ground next to him. "C'mon, sit down. No one ever called you 'bitchy' before?"

"No," he says, hesitantly, before gingerly taking a seat next to Jim's shoulder, crossing his legs under himself.

"Funny, I woulda thought someone would have at least once. You're sort of the pinnacle of resting bitch face." Spock doesn't know how, but Jim seems to pick up on some of his skepticism, because he immediately follows up with, "That's not a literal term, by the way. I'm not saying you look like a sleeping dog. It's when someone looks upset, even when they're not consciously making an expression."

"I admit - I am unsure if knowing this explanation makes your caricature of me better or worse."

Jim laughs at that, the edges of his eyes wrinkled when he looks over at Spock. His expression is teasing when he asks, "You make a habit of patrolling random labs at four in the morning? Or did you come looking for me?"

Spock doesn't reply immediately, and Jim lets out another small laugh, looking back up at the sky. "You don't have to answer that," he says.

"I find the campus at night to be conducive to ambulatory meditation," Spock explains.

"Okay, you know you can just say that you like taking walks, right? And did you know that when you talk it sounds like a kid trying to reach a word minimum on an essay?"

Spock thinks he should find this insulting, but strangely does not. He decides to omit his original impetus - that he has not experienced a restful sleep cycle as of recent and tonight's earlier meditation was not very successful in alleviating his fatigue. He did not anticipate finding Jim but does not consider it to be an unfavorable outcome.

"Your own vocabulary could perhaps benefit from the grammatical structures required by most academic papers."

"Hah! Yeah, okay," Jim says, tucking his hands behind his head. "Sorry not all of us have lifelong goals of being books on legs." Spock narrows his eyes at him, but it appears that Jim does not notice.

"Mom always said the same shit. I think she expected me to be like Sam in that regard. He was always smarter than I was." Spock doubts this, but does not say so. "He always got really good grades. Well - maybe that's obvious. He went to college and I didn't."

"You easily enrolled in Starfleet," Spock points out.

"Yeah, at twenty-two." Jim sounds defeated. "That's late for Earth kids. Sam was outta there the moment his ass turned eighteen."

"Your brother left you behind when leaving." It isn’t a question.

Jim scoffs, takes a deep breath, and breathes it out. He sits up, elbowing himself upright, and begins to pick stray grass from his clothes.

"The year after Mom went offworld, Sam left for college. It was just me and Frank, and it was bad before Sam left, but somehow it got worse. I crashed the car - did I ever tell you about that? I'll do that later - and they called my mom, and she was so empty about it. Not mad, not upset, just. It was like she wasn't there. When she came back, after having taken who knows how many shuttles, she slapped me." Jim laughs to himself, more air than sound.

"She wanted to know why I did it, and I couldn't just, tell her, could I? Looking back, maybe I could have." Jim tilts his head back, closing his eyes tightly. "I should have."

He watches Jim's face intently, memorizes the way his shoulders hold the tension his hands do not, and notices the exact moment the line of his mouth goes from mournful to resigned.

"Anyway, that didn't last for long. She had to get back to duty and it was obvious to her that I wasn't gonna be much use if I stayed in Riverside. So a 'Fleet buddy of hers got me hooked up with a seat to a colony that got established a few years back. It was fine, for a while. Some bad stuff happened."

Spock has seen firsthand Jim's tendencies to downplay his negative experiences when explaining them to others. He concludes that if Jim is admitting to things being 'bad' then they must have been indisputably terrible.

"When I get back, it's summer, and I figured Sam would be back - home from college for the break, but nope. Just me and Frank," Jim shakes his head and smiles, like this is just some fond memory of his, instead of what Spock knows to be the worst period of his life.

When he looks up at Spock, meeting his eyes for the first time since starting this part of the conversation, his face is set. His mouth is hard, the lines of his brows are sad. "It's worse," Jim admits.

Spock does not need to ask how much worse. Hesitantly, Spock leans closer. Jim, the man Spock knows to be so attentive, so much more than he lets on, doesn't seem to notice at all.

"You do not have to continue to speak if you do not wish to," Spock reminds him in confidence.

"I want to," Jim says, steadfast. Spock nods.

"It's not the first time I've talked about it, it's just-" He cuts himself off. "I think it's the first time I've ever talked about it with someone who doesn't have the power to commit me on the spot," and Jim smiles warily when he says it.

There have been many moments Spock has had the distinct feeling that Jim could have bolted out of a conversation. It reminds him of a terrified animal, cornered and looking for any way out.

"I would not punish you for speaking of something so personal, Jim, and much less 'commit' you to something I can only assume is negative in connotation," he says. Jim breathes out a slight laugh.

"I didn't want to be there. I did everything I could to avoid being at the house. If I was, I usually stayed in my room upstairs. Spent a lot of time on an old terminal that used to be Dad's." There's a moment where, when his eyes meet Spock's, they hold a barely-contained energy the rest of his face does not. "You wanted to know how I knew Vulcan."

Spock nods. Jim leans back on his hands, a smirk on his lips that holds none of the typical bravado.

"I was bored. I got through Klingon too quick. Found some old texts in Starfleet's servers, and not all of it was translated, which pissed me off. It was something I could do to avoid Frank, and I knew he wouldn't fuck with me if I told him I was studying - that was the one thing Mom always held sacred.

"When I finally got to the Academy, that first year, I spent a semester working my way into the local databanks. Not that it was hard getting in, but you guys," and Jim looks around, as if speaking it out loud would draw attention to it, "are paranoid motherfuckers."

Spock thinks that, with the amount of critical information stored under this academy, it would be unwise to not be cautious. Something about him must communicate this, because it seems like Jim interprets his pause, waving his hand through the air as if clearing smoke, and rolls his eyes.

"Anyway, hard part was keeping my backdoor open. Christ, I would block time out on my calendar to keep that thing updated. You can ask Bones, and I don't schedule anything."

"It is a wonder you have managed to complete any courses here, then," Spock says. Jim laughs loud.

His eyes reflect the dim light of the lamps, unmistakably blue despite the dark. "I got a bunch of recordings of Vulcan being spoken aloud. Don't tell Uhura this, but I would listen to them before meeting up with the club." His teeth are white in the dark when he smiles wide. "I was hoping eventually it was gonna get me laid."

Spock eyes him, and he's sure there's a trace of disapproval in his stature, because Jim laughs more, and says, "You're my favorite person to disappoint, you know that?"

"In order for me to be 'your favorite,' you must have had many instances with which to compare this to," he deadpans, and Jim opens his mouth in mock-shock.

"Gasp!" Jim states, sounding scandalized, "How could you? Me? A disappointment? I'm hurt." His hand covers his heart, and he leans toward Spock, angling his body the same way Spock had done earlier. When Spock gives him absolutely nothing in return, Jim holds character for a pause longer, until he clearly cannot anymore. His mouth scrunches, and a giggle gurgles up from the back of his throat, and then Jim is laughing again. This time there's nothing holding him back, and he's still looking at Spock.

Spock realizes then that most of their encounters end with Jim Kirk laughing at something he's said.

Spock feels like he has succeeded.

At age thirteen, Jim gets shipped off to Tarsus IV. Starfleet tells him he is one of nine who have survived one of the worst genocides to ever happen on Federation soil.

At age fourteen, he gets back to Earth after being ferried around what feels like half the galaxy because of course, of course no one comes to get him. There's no one to arrange for his travel so he's dependent on Starfleet medical - they're overtaxed as it is, they don't need to be worrying about a traumatized kid who can't even get his own family to care about him. Jim gets a taste of what foster care might have looked like. Frank tries to put him back in school, but the last place he wants to be is in a tight room, in rows, shoulder to shoulder with other miserable kids. Sam doesn't come back that summer. Jim gives up.

At age fifteen, he gets himself unfettered access to Federation servers.

Frank knew he got bored, fast, and frequently. But Jim knew exactly what would happen if he didn't stay occupied.

So once he learned as much Klingon as possible, as much Tellarite and Andorian as he could cram, he moved on to whoever the fuck this Surak guy was.

(Maybe, Jim thinks, if he can be useful, can learn about space, about warp mechanics and colony languages, his mom would stay longer. Or talk to him over vidscreen, not just audio. Maybe she would regret leaving him on Tarsus, or with Frank, if he could just prove to her he was something.)

It's pretty interesting, all things considered, and there's some phrases still untranslated in Vulcan that don't totally make sense to him. So he digs for the original text, and cannot fucking read it.

But that's never stopped him.

He finds the words that remained untranslated, figures out where they might fit in the text, takes the glyphs, matches them to phonemes. He sounds the swirls out, each phrase, takes the glottal stops from the languages he's learned and forces his mouth to move the air around in ways he never thought it could. A lot of the words he doesn't understand the purpose of, but he can say them.

At age twenty-two, when he gets to the Academy, and he can really get into the servers, he spends a solid week mapping access into their culture and language databanks. He's good at this but he knows it's pretty ballsy to crack something that you're currently living on top of, and he covers his tracks under sandboxes and neatly edited event logs. Jim eschews going out that weekend in order to properly install a robust enough backdoor so Starfleet can't kill it whenever they push data, and low profile enough to go unnoticed by whatever security they've got. He doesn't sleep because you don't really leave stuff like this incomplete - you're more likely to get caught, he's been there. His roommate Leonard ("Nah, Bones is better." "I don't even get to choose my own damn name?") looks at him with a level of suspicion that says he knows what Jim is doing, but doesn't know enough to tell him to stop. Jim sets a weekly alert on his PADD so he can remember to keep his code patched, labels it 'meal prep,' and that really doesn't get past Bones. (It's fine though, he only did it because Bones curses him out creatively, and he knows at this point that the man’s main form of stress relief is taking care of him while saying batshit things. Plus, Jim feels responsible for a good majority of said stress. He refuses to let the Catch-22 trip him up.)

He pours through recordings and syllabi, whatever it is the Federation has logged in the past century that he didn't find interesting enough as a teenager, and spends another week getting accustomed to taking notes exclusively in Ferengi. It's a callback to keeping all his correspondence in Klingon as a kid, because Frank was never sober enough to remember his universal translator. (Which he definitely stole from Mom. He can't prove it, but he just knows.) A girl in his chemistry one-oh-one lab asks to borrow his recorded notes for a night, after she had been out sick. Jim tells her he's got no problem with it, go ahead, they're pretty sparse - and only remembers she most likely can't even read them when he's half-asleep in bed. He wakes up the next day to a comm from the girl, a single capture of his notes with a "?" caption. Jim thinks about replying something kinda mean, decides against it, thinks about replying something kinda genuine, decides against that, too. The next week, she hands them back to him wordlessly. No one asks Jim for notes again.

Chapter Text

It's Friday, somewhere around midnight, when Jim decides to break into Spock's office.

Okay, break into is maybe not the right term here, but he knows he shouldn't have the ability to be on this floor. The last time he was here, for the study session that wasn't in the library, he may or may not have swiped the access credentials.

When he gets to the door, something stops him. Not nerves, but something like it. His arms feel heavy and his legs like concrete, even though there's this pervasive jumping itch under his skin. Adrenalized but paralyzed. He stares down the unassuming nameplate with Spock's commander tag emblazoned on it.

He must blank out, because the next thing he knows the door is sliding open and he's staring down the barrel of sharp Vulcan features instead. It's enough of a surprise that Spock pauses, unblinking, for a good fifteen seconds.

He has to know something is up, because after what feels like a lifetime, all he does is tilt his head, eyes moving to indicate the lift at the end of the hall. Jim nods. They walk in silence, his heart rushing in his own ears and the snap of boots echoing on the tile.

They exit the building, and Jim hesitates, unsure of where to go until Spock makes the decision for him and moves out towards the computational laboratories.

Fuck. He better start now or he's gonna pussy out.

"I told you I would tell you about the car right?"

Spock doesn't look at him. "You mentioned this, but you are under no obligation to discuss it should you feel pressured by your previous declaration. I would not consider it rude."

In the space where Jim would normally call back something snarky, designed to make Spock twitch, there is nothing.

Instead, a deep breath. He shakes out his right hand. Curls his fingers.

"It was my dad's. But after Mom left, Frank thought it was his. Kept it in the garage and never drove the goddamn thing unless he was trying to impress someone, I don't know." He huffs a weak laugh and shoves his hands in his jacket pockets. "I had to wash it like he did, though."

"God, I was such an angry kid. It made me so fuckin' mad that he acted like that. Not because only my dad could touch it, or somethin' - it was more about the entitlement, y'know?"

He looks at Spock, trying to not do so expectantly and failing miserably. Spock does not know, but he nods anyway.

Jim looks down. One foot in front of the other. Autopilot. "He thought he was owed it as payment for us." For a good ten seconds, the only sound is the crunch of gravel under their feet. His throat is dry. He swallows.

"Anyway, I was twelve, hadn't ever driven anything other than the bike before, but not knowing shit hasn't ever stopped me," and he smiles to himself. "Wasn't expecting the chase, but I feel like I dealt with it pretty well all things considered."

"You were pursued?"

"Cops."

He's half expecting some kind of judgement, because Spock clearly has opinions about Jim's propensity for breaking the law, but nothing comes. His face doesn't show approval nor disapproval, and the neutrality is, in and of itself, a kind of allowance.

"You took possession of the vehicle without permission," is all he says.

"Yeah. Honestly, I still feel like 'stole' is a strong word. He left the keys right there. Totally willingly." Jim can feel himself grinning something wrathful. "Although I guess he didn't think I'd try to drive it."

Spock raises an eyebrow at him and Jim has to look away.

"I didn't really know where to take it, kinda just got in and went, and it's not like I had this whole plan on what to do if I ever commandeered a whole ass car. Slammed the pedal as far as I could reach. For a bit it was just open road, but the moment the drones popped up I swerved hard. Killer whiplash." He clasps the back of his neck, and stretches. It's like recalling the ache makes it feel real again.

"Dangerous speeds, I guess. Also, kid in the driver's seat, so I get why they tailed me. Turned right onto the access road for this quarry a few miles out. Couldn't turn around because I'd ram right into them, so I just had to keep going and wouldn't you know it - the quarry is still right there, dead drop and all."

When Bones heard this part he had whipped out a PHQ-9 so fast it was like he had been waiting to slap one on Jim since they got room assignments. He was half-surprised it didn't already have his name and date of birth filled in.

"'Cause when I stole it, I didn't even really think about it until I saw the edge. Like, 'Oh fuck, I'm gonna die.' I wasn't mad it was gonna happen. Just that I wouldn't be able to do it in front of Frank," and he barks a laugh. "That's kinda fucked up, now that I think about it, but it made sense then."

"That was the first time I really, honestly, thought I was a goner. I don't know," Jim says, muffled, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I wasn't trying to die, really, more that I ran into the high likelihood I was gonna, and that if I did - well why not? Nothing had ever made sense until then. I had begun to wonder if Frank was right, because…" He trails off, mouth scrunched up. The words aren't forming the way he wants them to.

"Okay. It's like this - you spend that many years with a guy telling you that you're the problem, and as far as you can tell, he's right. That's gotta be why all the shitty stuff happened right? Because you're disruptive, and it makes their lives harder. So I was thinking, 'Fuck you, I'm leaving, and I'm taking this piece of Dad with me. You don't get to have it.' 'Cause then it would be easier for Mom, to not have to be reminded all the time, if the car and I weren't there."

He runs his thumb over his forefinger, catching the edge of the nail. There's a ridge there from when he slammed it in a door when he was sixteen. It never grew back quite the same. He raises it to his mouth to nip at the cuticle, pulling it away until it's long enough to tug at with his hands. 

"But right when I'm about to eat shit, I was so pissed, because I couldn't believe he had won. He won. He didn't want me there, right? So I'm just giving him what he wants, and he doesn't deserve shit! So, fuck, I had to jump out, I wasn't letting him win. No way. Fuck that. What could he do to me he hadn't already done? If all he's ever wanted was me gone, then all I had to do was live in spite."

He picks a little too far, and he looks down at his hand. The skin is stripped back, pink and raw underneath, painful. "Fuck." He shoves his hands in his pockets again. "Anyway, that's the car."

He doesn't look at Spock, not even when they make it to the building, coming to a standstill at the base of the steps up to the main entrance. There's lights on inside and Jim swears he can see the silhouette of some night owl student in a window on the third floor.

"I would like to ask a question, if you would allow me to do so," comes Spock's voice, smooth as it ever is.

"Shoot."

Spock hesitates, and Jim finally looks over to him. His eyebrows show some confusion, even if his face doesn't.

"It's informal speech, uh, it means, 'go ahead.' Like, 'fire away.'" Spock looks more confused. Jim sighs. "Yes, you can ask me a question."

He still seems cautious, which is surprising, because Jim would assume that if Spock had personal questions he would just ask them with zero regard - which is what he did most of the time with anything else. He wonders if Spock is about to ask him something beyond all the traumatic shit. He doesn't even know what that would be.

"Jim," he starts, gently. "How do you know Romulan?"

Okay, not what he was expecting.

When he thinks about answering, though, the crash of sadness that rushes through him is debilitating. He sits down - has to - the ground scratchy but cool under his palm, and, inexplicably, even the dim lamplight is too bright. He throws a hand over his eyes.

If he thought he couldn't bare to look at Spock the last time they had one of these midnight rendezvous, (which almost always seem to end in Jim revealing some shit he didn't think he ever would, what's up with that?) well, he really can't look at Spock now.

His hand falls from his face but his eyes stay closed. "I knew someone when I was a kid. They were a refugee, didn't ever really say why, but wherever they were before, they couldn't go back." His voice betrays him and cracks on the last word. Traitor. He smooths a hand up and down his thigh. "We were very different but- I don't know, it felt like we had that in common, at least."

He takes a deep breath, tries to steady himself again. "We both knew Standard but I was using a mix of American English and Standard at home, and Standard was their second language. No universal translators - not for us, anyways - so we learned around each other. I taught them some, they taught me some."

Another: breathe in, breathe out.

"It's-" he starts, and bails when it feels like he's gonna vomit. Jesus Christ, this is hard.

There's the noise of fabric folding in on itself, and a shift in the air that tells him Spock has moved. He opens his eyes, the light still too bright, but forces himself to focus where Spock has crouched down in front of him.

"When I got to Tarsus, it was fine for the first few months. Almost half a year before things started getting weird. Kodos, the bitch who was in charge, didn't tell anyone anything until it was too late."

Spock nods, knowing the story - the most contemporary reason the Federation has when arguing for heavier military involvement in the colonies.

"I thought, 'I wish I had died in the car,' y'know?" He frowned, "That would be better than getting executed in the courtyard of a shitty little mansion."

Jim takes in a long breath through his nose, holds it, eyes unwavering as he lets it out through his teeth.

"I ran."

For a blissful second, it feels like the admission hangs in-between them, a tether.

And then a sharp peal of laughter rings from the building's doors, and Jim nearly has a heart attack. The emerging students make their way out of the lab and veer off towards the dormitories, completely unaware of his little impromptu pity party. There's some rude perspective in that - the worst shit in the universe could have happened to him and it didn't matter. Not here, anyway.

He moves his palm across the ground, feeling the dry gravel scrape his skin and the dust catch in his nails.

He laughs, strained and pitchy, and drags his dirty nails through his hair. "Fuck, what the hell. Sorry, Spock. That's probably a lot."

It is not often that Spock is compelled to speak of his own struggles. In fact, he actively avoids it. But there is logic in fair trade, and it is so desperately clear that Jim doubts himself in many of the ways that he has, even if it was not for the same reasons.

"Jim," he starts, because he is not sure how to begin. Blue eyes pierce the dark. "It is every parent's dream to see their child excel, and so it is on Vulcan as well. My mother and father were no exception. They had imagined a life for me that I, too, had wanted." Jim's brow furrows, eyes flitting across Spock's face. "It did not come to pass."

"Why?"

"The Vulcan Science Academy," he says before pausing, and Jim nods. Of course he knows.

"I turned down their offer of attendance in favor of joining Starfleet."

And although Sarek did not say it, Spock knew it was a betrayal.

They had spent so long raising him to be Vulcan, to excel in the face of everything that was stacked in front of him, and to shun this part of the life planned for him was to throw away their work. To many, he's sure it looked like confirmation of his weaknesses - that he would put logic to the side in order to chase some Human whim.

And yet it had been the most logical choice of them all.

Until then, failure had been a great shame, a mark against both of his halves. He had long resigned to the fate of lesser-than. But to see his mother - his mother, brilliant, keen, tolerant - resigned to the same? Absolutely nothing could have stopped him from refusing.

If she had taught him anything, it was to defy all expectations: to "take no shit," as Jim had put it once. He refused to be accepted if it meant destroying a part of himself he had suffered to live with. If he was to be ostracized for his differences, so be it.

"You turned them down? Seriously? Isn't the VSA the ultimate higher education for a Vulcan? Why?"

"They..." How is he to word this? Reviled his genetics? Effectively spurned him - not as a student, but as a living, breathing being? "Considered my mother to be a disadvantage."

Jim looks at him, face scrunched up into an expression of surprise or disbelief. "What? That's so stupid."

"It was not a decision I made lightly."

"I fuckin' hope not," Jim scoffs. "They really talked shit about your mom?"

"Not in such terms."

"Well of course not - what, did they frame it like it was your problem?"

He considers this. "Somewhat." Jim raises his eyebrows in response to the lack of accuracy. Spock does not elaborate.

"Well. Fuck 'em." Jim sniffs. "Glad you did this instead."

Spock straightens up, notes how the lamplight falls across Jim's face, the set of his shoulders and curve of his neck, and folds his hands behind his back.

"Agreed."

It is only after the distress call - after Vulcan is no more, after the bridge, after they leave space behind - does Spock finally recognize Jim's accent. It's a version of the Vulcan he himself had learned, being from the House of Surak, and it is similar to how his mother spoke but without the traditional lilt and grace, the essential effortlessness that makes spoken Vulcan so logical.

The words carry their people, span the divide between pre and post Reformation. They will continue to do so, now more than ever. They must.

Jim doesn't butcher it by any means, but what Spock has heard is a bit stilted, utilitarian. Jim Kirk clearly learned it to learn it, not embrace it the way Spock spent most of his life doing - like he had something to prove.

The irony, now, that so many of those who he had illogically wished to prove himself to as a child, were gone.

He and Spock don't have time to reconnect after they get back dirtside.

Not for Jim's lack of trying. He comms him half a dozen times, and stalks Pike's office once he's released from medbay. It gets to a point where he's confident that Spock is avoiding him - he doesn't totally know what that means, other than they nearly killed each other, then nearly got killed by other means, and then they lived, and all in all it was harrowing at the calmest of times.

The first person who calls Jim is his mom. The second person is Sam. He doesn't pick up either but sends a text comm that he's still alive. The third person is Uhura, because she wants to know if he wants to get drinks with the rest of their surviving accompaniment - Bones had called them all "the worst barbershop septuplet he'd ever heard." Jim says yes.

Because the Admiralty do actually drop it, just like he wanted. Except now his mom really wants to speak with him anyway because he just saved Earth, or the galaxy, or the proper passage of time or whatever Prime had said, and he isn't sure this is a better outcome. Praise was always harder for her than reprimand.

He's gotta be crazy that Nero didn't scare him half as much as this does.

He spends most of the night trying not to think about the impending doom of a conversation with his mother, and the absurdity of how much he wishes someone could come along with him for it, be his emotional support for ten minutes (because if the call goes on longer than that, he's going to have to throw himself out an airlock, really). Spock would make a really good emotional support buddy, because his judgey face could kill someone unprepared and he'd probably find the whole thing supremely uninteresting. Jim laughs quietly to himself, taking another long drink of shitty, hoppy beer. It makes him think about Gaila.

The irony, that he is forced to speak with the one person he had spent the last few years desperately avoiding a conversation with. It has been at least a decade since they spoke face to face. Jim is desperately hoping she's not trying to rekindle their relationship right after what feels like three days of nonstop planetary disasters. It's, y'know, not the greatest of circumstances.

They've been through hell. Pike knows it.

They've been through fucking hell, and back, and he's miraculously alive, and things will be rough for a while but they'll be okay, and Jim Kirk will not stop fucking bothering him.

Maybe, he thinks, belatedly, this is his love language. The self-sacrifice was obviously one - though it had to be part self-loathing too - but maybe the hovering and the endless check-ins and the comms... It's Jim's way of saying, "Thanks for not dying."

He half expects him and Spock to be joined at the hip again, but the Commander is all but hiding from Chris. They speak maybe three times: once in medbay, before Chris gets released; once in his office, when he formally extends the offer of Enterprise’s First Officer; once when Pike asks off-the-record why half of his incident report is redacted. Spock doesn’t tell him the last one, and then the last he hears, he’s considering doing the responsible thing and ditching Starfleet and heading to New Vulcan.

Which makes Jim insisting Spock be his FO even more baffling.

Chris doesn’t remember the exact wording of that meeting in his office, but he remembers the gist of it, and the stubborn way Jim wouldn’t take no for an answer.

He had come along with the doctor - McCoy, the one who snuck him onto the ship, the sneaky bastard - who appeared to be trying his level best to restrain Kirk from essentially breaking through Pike's door.

Jim's ramble was breathless, rushed, and Pike has half a heart to call some kind of school nurse, because what the hell-

He'd said, "We know too much about each other's childhoods, and then we fought almost to the death, but his dad was there so it was ok! And then we actually did almost die - also I met another Spock but he's super old and not-him. He may or may not have had a thing with not-me. I only know that because we had mind sex." Pike remembers opening his mouth to say something because what, but Jim kept on rolling.

"Did you know that in another reality I didn't get shit for breaking the Kobayashi Maru? They thought I was a genius for doing it, and then immediately made it a rule you couldn't do it that way any more. Anyway, we're supposed to have an epic friendship and I'll be honest it definitely sounded like bullshit to me too at first, but then I did the whole Captain thing with him and now I'm sorta feeling like he's the only one? Like, I cannot imagine anyone else beside me in the chair? So, the ship isn't leaving without him, because I think Spock should basically be my ship-wife and the Enterprise is gonna be our kid."

And Pike is standing there looking at him, then at McCoy. And McCoy is looking back at him like, He's insane, right? Can you confirm to me this man is insane? And suddenly Pike is rethinking his suggestion to the Commandant that they give James T. Kirk the flagship of the fleet at twenty-five years of age.

It is only a week into Jim Kirk's nascent captaincy of the USS Enterprise, and he has spent nearly every day arguing with his first officer.

He was expecting Spock to be pissy, to be honest.

They never really talked through the suicide plot they decided to take joint custody of in order to kick Nero's ass. Jim still isn't over Spock marooning him, or choking him out.

Spock still hasn't totally forgiven him for that comment about his mother. Especially considering Kirk knew his motivations behind joining Starfleet. Ambassador Spock really had him curious (and confused, truthfully) since Jim actually makes him feel something, but he's starting to wonder if his counterpart was wrong about it all because a lot of what he feels is annoyance. If he was being emotionally adventurous, maybe even some mild hatred.

Some self-righteous anger too, because of course it's "this fucking kid" - Pike’s words, not his - who ended up his captain.

Spock had initially warned 'Fleet about Kirk, and Pike certainly knew, and although Spock fought hard to keep him on campus… It was mostly so Spock could observe him - this insane Human who seemed to believe he could change the laws of physics and mankind simply by willing it.

They bicker like a couple of ladies at bingo night and McCoy can't fucking stand it, Sulu is starting to learn to tune it out, and Uhura doesn't regret letting the thing with Spock fizzle out one bit. Kirk gets under Spock's skin in a way she wishes she never even had the opportunity to, it's so clear to her that they're meant for each other in some fucked up, machismo, "I need to be better than you at everything," kind of way.

It’s unbearable.

Chapter Text

He doesn't give into comming his mom until they're on the ship.

The call goes okay. Cordial, even. She congratulates him for graduation, for the captaincy. He says thanks, and tries not to think about how he'd spent a good chunk of the last month trying not to die. She tells him that Sam is doing good - on Deneva, with his wife now - and that the farm is okay. Jim nods. He's not actually sure how he would feel if Riverside had gotten blown out into the sky, to be honest.

He doesn't move from the chair when they disconnect, sits for long enough that his thighs start to numb. Jim doesn't realize he's gotten up and moved until he's turning on the sonic. Unsure when he got there, he cranks it up until the buzz reverberates in his ribs.

Jim showers methodically, his mind strangely dull, and he considers calling Sulu down so he can distract himself with shiny things.

The swords, he's talking about the swords. Although last time he did that, he cut himself by accident and Bones was about two seconds away from implanting a tracker chip into him or something. So maybe not the swords.

It's only when he's halfway to the observation deck does he note what time it is - 0147, too late for the start of the week, he's gonna be exhausted tomorrow and the stand-up is in less than 6 hours, Christ - and the mental math is distracting enough to almost mask his surprise at Spock's presence on the deck. Jim knows Spock doesn't usually sleep, so it's not that he's surprised he's awake, but that he's outside of his quarters.

Spock is wearing an extra outer layer. There's no visible indication he knows Jim is there, but there's no way he didn't hear him approach.

"Hey."

Spock turns his head a sliver as Jim pulls up alongside.

"Captain."

"Nice weather we're having."

He doesn't take the bait, and Jim thinks he's probably conducting mental analysis on whether or not to point out that Human small talk is fruitless. Surprisingly, the diatribe doesn't come. Jim glances at him, fidgets with his sleeve, and settles into staring out into the darkness at warp.

"You appear to be restless," remarks Spock.

"No shit, Sherlock," flies out of his mouth faster than he can really think about it. "Sorry. That was mean."

A pause.

"It is late."

"Yeah."

"Should you not be asleep?"

Jim feels the smile before it forms on his face. "Why do I feel like we've had this conversation before?"

"On campus, one evening-"

"I know, Spock, I remember." He sighs. He thinks about the Academy, eerily empty when they got back after everything. How Spock had avoided him.

"I remember," he says, quieter, into the dark.

They stand like that, staring forward, two parallels, for a good ten minutes. Neither speaks. Spock is the one to leave first. Jim wonders if that's the longest they've been in each other's company since Nero without picking a fight with the other.

When he finally gets to bed, it's 0220.

The first time they physically fight, it's after a particularly mindless diplomatic mission they'd been sent on in retribution for some infraction Jim had made on an assignment prior. No one explained to him what he did. For all he knew it could have ranged anywhere from forgetting to submit form 17-3.1 - Pike had suspiciously avoided telling Jim that being captain of a Federation starship would be a lot of paperwork - to accidentally leaving the nacelle schematics with a previously uncontacted planet.

That's a joke. He'd never do that, obviously. 

Not purposefully.

Unless he had to.

Despite the image he had cultivated, Jim was quite aware he wasn't a desolate idiot. His aptitude tests said as much, even if Spock and Scotty were the only people who believed he hadn't faked them.

Which was fair enough. He didn't think people expecting things from him would be good right now, because then he'd have the itch to slam dunk them, and who knows how much trouble that'd get him into. He's got a real, big boy job now. He doesn't want to fuck it up.

Spock had found him after beta shift ended, as he was teaching an informal hand-to-hand class. He had started holding them almost immediately after the Enterprise had undocked, because all of a sudden it was like no one wanted to spar with him anymore, even if it was for fun. He hadn't thought the captaincy would make him precious cargo the way it had, and he got the impression Bones had circulated some kind of memo about Jim's Human fragility without him knowing.

Holding classes was the only way he got to fight with anyone, let alone the people who would humor him. It was a pretty short list. A few lieutenants in Engineering and Security were good sports, and kept up most of the time, but he could sweep the floor with everyone else and it was starting to get a little repetitive. He loved the teaching, though - loved seeing the way his crew reacted to getting it, all the ways these smart, incredible, brave people he had the privilege of working with understood the instruction and integrated it.

He was in the middle of guiding a two-versus-one scenario between an Ops member - Lisa, who handled a phaser better than she let on, Jim could tell - Riley, and Matson. Lisa had Matson in a headlock, and Jim was coaching Riley through getting him out of it.

"If her left elbow is around him, that means her right side is going to be better positioned to defend." Jim shifts on the mat, showing Riley the reach, and the lieutenant adjusts.

"So what's the best way to avoid it?" Riley asks, breathing hard through his nose. "Considering I can't stop her from the left."

Jim looks to where Matson is. The headlock is strong, and Lisa has herself twisted into Matson, holding him low. Jim circles around to where Riley stands, and assesses.

"Do you see the way her right leg is braced?"

"Yeah."

"She's keeping Mat against herself to hold him there. He has the mass advantage but if she can keep him hunched, he can't use it." Lisa flexes slightly for emphasis and Matson makes an exaggerated choking noise.

"So all her tension is strained against him."

"Correct," Jim nods, "and her range doesn't go all the way down to the floor."

"But she can spin them both around to cover. Her right side is still guarded," Riley points out, and Jim is so proud of him right now.

"Sure, her side, yeah - but her leg, Riley." He points to Lisa's ankle. "Think about how much stress is on that joint right now."

He can see when Riley understands, because his face moves from concentrated to exploratory, and he instinctually crouches lower.

"Okay," Jim claps his hands once, backing away. Once he's out of hitting range, he calls, "Start."

Riley moves first, keeping his duck low and his vector beyond Lisa's reach for as long as possible. She reacts fast, Jim will absolutely give her that and more, pivoting and yanking Matson with her but the added weight makes her slower than she needs to be. When Riley darts out and connects with her right ankle, it falls out from under her and she staggers back, her arm still hooked around Matson. She's off balance, and if she can't recover fast enough, either Matson will break the hold or Riley will find an opening.

It's Riley who gets there first, again, pushing Lisa sideways into Matson, as opposed to pulling. Good job, Jim thinks. As she moves with the blow, he can see how her left arm gets crumpled, and her hold slackens. All it takes is Matson backing out of the hold to escape.

Lisa rights herself, no longer holding another 170-something pounds in place, and is fast enough to back away from the swing Riley is about to make. Matson has jumped away from her, out from her left side, and it means she's flanked now. Jim claps again.

Really - he's so fucking proud of them.

Even though they're all breathing heavy, Matson rubbing at the base of his neck, Riley and Lisa crouched, they look happy. Sweaty and happy. The endorphins are more likely what's getting to them, but Jim's excited for them, and he's probably grinning stupid with it.

"Fantastic, call that a wrap, everyone!" He jogs up to clap Lisa on the shoulder. "Killed it." She smiles wide, and when he turns, the other two are wearing the same look. All three of them relax to standing position, heaving and wiping the sweat from their faces.

"Thanks, Captain," Riley pants, and Jim gives him a pat on the back.

"Well deserved," he says, and points at Matson. "You too." Matson salutes weakly.

Lisa stretches, and the three of them trapse off the padded mat, towards the rest of the rapt class, and Jim watches them get congratulated by their shipmates. He smiles to himself. This - this - is the shit he signed up for.

Jim turns, attention towards the doorway, because even though he'd been preoccupied, he'd noticed Spock the moment his dumb inky bowl cut had peeked through the door. He looks from Spock, now waiting politely just inside the room, to the mat where he's still stood, and jerks his head, asking him to come over.

He does, deftly stepping up onto the mat, and most of the crew have spread into the rest of the room or out the door, so only one or two of them have the privilege of seeing their very mature, very serious, very captainly captain suggestively plant his hands on his hips and tease, "Like what you see?" to his first officer.

If Spock was prone to rolling his eyes, Jim thinks he would have. His hands remain firmly clasped behind his back, and he raises his head slightly. Jim hates when he does that.

"Your lessons have continued to grow in popularity despite the fact that most of the participants spend the time being hit by one another. A curious phenomenon," Spock comments, and Jim sticks his tongue out at him.

"Yeah but they like it, Spock, helps keep things from getting too crazy. Besides, they're really good at hitting each other."

"One would assume the point of melee was to not be hit," Spock says back, and Jim laughs, crossing his arms.

"One would think." Spock's eyebrow twitches. "What's up? Rest of the party too alive for you or what?"

He opens his mouth and Jim knows he's about to get hit with a Spock-ism of some variety, so he tries to cut that shit short by waving his hands in front of Spock's face.

"Nah, no, nevermind," Jim implores, "I know this all seems pretty wacky, a bunch of Humans kicking each other or whatever. But seriously, it's good for us." He frowns. "I imagine the contact wouldn't be up your alley." Spock tilts his head, considering the statement.

"On the contrary, I find the exercise rewarding. Although Vulcans are not prone to violence, self-defense and weapons handling is a prized skill, and is cultivated young when necessary." Jim is surprised, and it shows, because Spock follows up with, "We do not utilize combat unless we must."

"You're telling me you know how to fight hand-to-hand? I thought you guys were pacifists," Jim asks. When Spock doesn't answer, he knows he's right. "Like, fight fight?"

"I would not describe it as such."

"I don't care what you call it, all I can imagine is an itty bitty Vulcan punching, I don't know, a textbook, or something. It's cute." He means it.

"I regret to inform you that we did not practice on books, considering they are a highly outdated form of media. Nor was I taught to defend myself as an infant."

"Okay, so, when you were a kid, or a teenager," because he remembers that preteen Spock was a punk by Vulcan standards, and if he was going to get into any fights in the schoolyard it must have been around then.

Spock looks to the door of the room, and Jim thinks he's probably silently wishing he hadn't ever come in. But he turns back to him, lets out a breath that would have been a deep sigh from anyone else, and walks to the edge of the mat. Jim watches as Spock lifts his blue tunic over his head, the black regulation undershirt making him look trimmer than he's used to. He folds the fabric neatly, bending to place it on the ground, and Jim is struck when his brain puts it all together.

"Oh shit," he lets out, scrambling back a step or two, turning his feet out to the width of his shoulders. "Yeah, okay, yeah. Shit."

He barely has time to think of any other four letter words before Spock is coming at him, not at speed, but with enough intent to make up for it. He's not good at defense, passable at best, infinitely prefers to be offensive enough that he doesn't need to get into a defensive position. Apt that this motherfucker is the only one who manages to flip his own situations back onto him.

He's aware that Spock has longer arms, more reach, and although he doesn't expect him to swing for his head immediately, he knows Vulcans have superior strength to Humans. And it's not like he hasn't come for Jim's head before.

The moment Spock steps into range, Jim sidesteps, keeps his knees bent and stance wide. Jim knows he's usually faster, but he doesn't know how fast Spock is stationary. Knowing his luck, he's gonna be freakishly agile. Overachiever.

Jim moves to circle him, stay below and beyond, because he wants to see what he's gonna do.

Another five seconds, and the answer seems to be: nothing. Okay. Well, he lives to piss off Spock and is frankly convinced it's his divine right to, so he may as well try.

Jim calculates the angle, concludes coming at Spock's back is probably his best shot, and snaps a kick at Spock's right hip.

It doesn't connect, because Spock just rotates out of the way, and then Jim's thinking, Fuck it, and he's kicking at him, trying to corner him towards the edge of the mat - but he just spins neatly out of the way every time. Jim's being led in circles, god damn it, and it doesn't matter how close he gets, Spock isn't even using his hands. They're just sitting there, at his sides or behind his back, and it's getting to him.

He knows Vulcan soft bits are at their sides, under the rib cage, and Jim's almost unfurled a knee into Spock’s when he finally clocks him in the crook of his neck, hand an unyielding vertical plank, and it's not a nerve pinch but holy fuck, does it hurt. He feels like crumpling and barely manages to translate the downward motion into a roll away.

"What the fuck," he spits, and all Spock does is raise an eyebrow, and that's when Jim decides to rush him headfirst. He knows Spock will probably pull the same move (how nonviolent of him) so he holds his torso back at the last moment, getting Spock in the chest. It works, which is crazy, but he only has a moment to relish it before Spock drops to the ground, sweeping a leg out to try and hit the ankle Jim still has planted.

Jim anticipates it, because it's an obvious weak point and he had just gotten done explaining as much to Riley earlier, so he's already jumping out, landing on his other foot. From there it's quick to try and knee him dead in the shoulder, and he does so successfully - until Spock grabs Jim's thigh with both hands and yanks him hard enough that Jim has to use his arms to keep himself from slamming into the mat. He tries to use his other leg to kick Spock in the sternum, but he fucking catches that one too, pulling Jim again.

His back hits the mat with a thud, hands skidding out from under him, and with both his legs in Spock's hold his only option is to try and use the floor as leverage. Jim grits his teeth and crunches up to headbutt Spock in the forehead, which he definitely didn't see coming because he looks alarmed before Jim closes the last inch and he falls backward, Jim going with him, his knees straddling Spock's neck. It's a stupid move, but Jim prides himself in his ability to do dumb shit - until he remembers, Oh yeah, three times the Human strength, which is when Spock comes out of his momentary daze and swings both his arms up, effectively tossing Jim over his head. He only has a second to roll out of it, and when he spins around, Spock has already gotten up and is about to throw a punch directly at Jim's back.

In a last ditch effort to intercept what he knows would hurt like a bitch tomorrow, he dives forward to tackle Spock's abdomen. They topple backward together, Spock falling but curling around him in a way that limits his movement, so all he can do is grip tighter when Spock tries to haul him off. Spock tries again, but Jim digs his feet into the ground behind him and pushes his shoulders further against him, hands grappling and finding a hold by twisting into the fabric of Spock's shirt. It's a shitty hold, but it's a hold all the same, which feels like a point for Jim in the grand tally he keeps for whenever they go head-to-head in literally anything.

Spock grunts, the first sound he's made during this whole debacle, and gives up on hauling Jim off in order to roll them both over, trapping Jim against the mat with a knee dug into his hip, and shin keeping his thighs flat. Jim grimaces, his skin pinched between Spock's lower leg and his hipbone, and his hands are still buried around him, so he digs his fingernails in and squeezes, hoping it'll communicate… Not surrender, but something. Spock tugs at Jim's forearms, right knee pushing into Jim's ribcage as he levers himself up and free of Jim's grip, and when Jim finally gets a look he's flushed green, chest heaving, hair plastered to his neck and shiny with sweat.

Jim's thoughts go like this: hip ouch, chest ouch, Christ this guy is heavy, could probably go for a groin kick but that's a dick move, Spock looks so dumb right now I wish I could take a picture, nah that would be pretty mean, I mean I wouldn't mind something like that but that's because I’m hot like that, not to imply Spock isn't hot right now because he is, sorta a post-fuck look - and now Jim has to contend with the suddenly very real, very intrusive thought of, Huh, wonder what Spock looks like getting fucked.

Which is such an unacceptable thought, thanks brain, and it's also an insane thing to wonder about your coworker, who is also your subordinate, and who is currently on top of you. Not cool. Super not cool, actually.

The moment Jim thinks it, Spock looks pained and Jim can feel the wince, like he's been burned, and he scrambles up off of Jim in order to stand. His eyes are wide, and he almost looks- Well, Jim thinks he looks freaked out, for lack of a more nuanced take. He's pretty good at understanding Vulcan non-expressions but this is something else.

He stands there, towering over him, the overhead lighting blurring through the sweat in Jim's eyelashes.

It's barely ten seconds before Spock turns away but it feels like minutes, and Jim doesn't have to turn his head to look because he already knows Spock's grabbing his shirt from where he folded it earlier.

He hears the door open and slide close with little fanfare. Jim breathes in, holds it, breathes out.

Fuck, Spock's hot.

He kind of forgot about that part.

Then he realizes: aw fuck, he's totally hard, and this has just gotten supremely embarrassing. Because not only did his ass get handed to him on a platter, but Spock's the one serving it, and apparently Jim likes that kind of thing. It's only week two - what's he gonna do when this eventually gets out? That their captain can't even beat his first officer in the one of the few things Jim actually has the chops to brag about?

It's not that Jim doesn't feel some level of pressure to perform when he's with Spock. He does - every encounter feels like a dance, and sometimes they're in step, and sometimes they're not. The bridge crew can attest to that. Jim thinks- No, knows they've been doing this since they met. They're different enough that they see what the other doesn't, but similar enough that, at the end of the day, they end up on the same side. (Thank god for that, because he'd never want to be on a Vulcan's shit list. There was a reason Surak wrote all that pacifism shit.)

Which, at its core, is the allure, isn't it? Probably has been the whole time, now that he's thinking about it. The challenge of the whole Spock thing. The whole experience of having an insanely competent first officer, of being captain, of having people who look up to him, not down on him. That Spock is charm-resistant, completely immune, has been from the Academy onwards, and often downright rude. (Even if he says he's simply being honest, Jim's pretty sure he knows what he's doing.)

Even the people who hate Jim most of the time must have soft spots for him - otherwise it's a pretty insane choice they've all made to be on the same ship as him.

The way Spock seemingly doesn't is something Jim needs to change. Or if it's already there, he needs to find it.

He consciously decides then, flat on his back and lights burning spots into his eyes as he blinks away the sweat and the pressure in his head, to finally try to push Spock further and further until he breaks. Fractures somewhere.

Because that's really what he's been trying to do this whole time, isn't it?

The next bridge shift goes by without much to note - officially, at least, because unofficially he's been playing a game of 'What Question Makes Spock The Maddest,' and so far? He's winning.

Maybe that's not how you're supposed to count score but he doesn't care, because Spock has been funny when he's mad since forever, and now that Jim's confirmed that he's finally found someone who can keep up with him on the mat it's his new life's mission to make sure Spock's pissed enough that he can drag him into another match. The first fight was fun if he ignores the panic, and he's hoping it wasn't a fluke. At the moment, this is his best plan for trying to ensure round two happens. It's probably not the best plan, but it's something, okay.

The plan has the added benefit of keeping him from being bored out of his fucking mind when they're mid-warp and getting a whole lotta fuck-all on the sensors. In fact, he's pretty sure it's also the only thing keeping him from losing his mind when he's not in the center seat, too. Scotty has banned him from performing 'unplanned maintenance' without supervision, so there went his preferred method for killing time after finishing all the goddamn paperwork.

He's not going stir crazy, really, he's not. It's just that space is so big and they're so small, and there's only so many days where he gets to really feel how lucky he is to be there. Most of the other ones make him want to start taking stuff apart.

He asks stupid questions of Spock, things he learned at the Academy - things Spock knows he knows - and when he looks over to see his reaction, Spock has this bare look on his face, as if he has to sit there and tolerate it because he can't just execute James Kirk on the bridge of a Federation starship, as it would be a messy and generally unwise idea.

It's not an admission of anger from Spock, but it's the closest thing Jim will probably ever get outside of a life or death situation, and if the solution is to beat each other up? He'll gladly take it.

In hindsight, it's probably less than ideal, because it's close combat, and every time they brush skin, even if it's only momentary or separated by cloth, Jim knows he's something feral. This thing under his skin that's eating at him. And that Spock can probably feel it.

He wasn't sure until now if it was even for real, if this stupid fucking crush had gotten this far, but unfortunately, it's very for real, and he wants Spock's ass. Maybe to fondle it a 'lil, but definitely so he can kick it.

Jim wins.

Not when they fight, absolutely not. But he wins the game of getting Spock to fight him again in the first place.

They have a standing date in the gym now. It's every Tuesday, 1900 hours. He doesn't know how he convinced Spock to agree to it.

The weeks when Jim goes a little too far, really cranks up the sarcasm, they tack on that Thursday too, same time and place, but they're a bit scrappier when it comes to day two. He's tired, and Jim can't really keep up those days, but he fucking tries, alright? Spock doesn't seem like he's tired, from the outside anyway, but his movements are a little slower. A little less thought out.

It's the most delicious thing Jim's ever felt, knowing Spock's off his game.

There's faint green bruises on his arms. Jim only gets glimpses of his wrists between movements, but they're there, surely, and there's no way he's racking them up in the labs for chrissake. So it's gotta be this.

Jim doesn't stare. He doesn't. And he definitely doesn't look at his own in the shower, pinks and purples and blown capillaries, and he absolutely doesn't think about Spock's hands putting them there.

Chapter Text

When they argue on the bridge, it's because Spock is not convinced the Captain fully understands the concept of the Prime Directive.

Jim is not convinced that Spock knows how to take a fucking joke.

He does it to piss Spock off, of course, so maybe it's not all his fault. He could probably tone down the flirtatious overtones too, but that's half the fun and lord knows Jim needs more fun in his life. After a few weeks of trial and error, he's taken a liking to gently skirting Starfleet rules where he can, push the envelope a little. He's always sort of done that, to be clear, but he's normally more inconspicuous about it. The dumbshit questions were effective against Spock but there's a finite number of things he can ask before someone gets Bones to eval him again. Jim justifies it in the name of efficiency. Spock loves a regulation, a mission done by the book, and although Vulcans love technicalities too, it's only when it suits their needs. Jim knows that and takes full advantage.

Which is exactly why Spock figured he would know better by now. 

Last time it was because Jim got excited upon learning that Renix was home to a species of mammal that closely resembled the Terran cavy, which he insisted he had to examine. The unsaid implication that he wanted to take one back to the ship was blatant. Spock did not see the significance in such an endeavor, as the Renixian specimen was in no way related to the cavy, and moreover did not match in size. Jim implored Spock to understand that this was the novelty of it - that this would be the "biggest guinea pig he'd ever see in his life." Spock did not buy it.

When Jim finds himself surrounded by a horde of angry mammals on the away mission, Spock experiences a fleeting, savory moment wherein he considers not alerting the security team. Jim's panicked, smiling face, and the nervous laugh he kept hysterically breaking into made Spock dismiss the thought. He took longer than he would for any other crew member, but he commed Giotto. Eventually.

This time, Jim has unsuccessfully spent the mission trying to get Spock to eat one of the study plants. The Botany Department had noted, after initial survey, three distinct varietals of a species they speculated had evolved as a neurotropic in response to the endemic fauna, many of which displayed rudimentary levels of telepathic communication. They hypothesized that the plant, which was structured similarly to a monocot, used the sedative effects as a way of dissuading potential grazers from eating too much, thus leaving more alive to continue to reproduce. By taking advantage of their group telepathy, a whole herd may become intoxicated and lose interest. It became clear after a brief period of observation that some mammals were using the plants as a sedative, to no clear or specific advantage.

"Oh my god, it's like the deer and the mushrooms thing. Like cats on catnip. Except they're literally smoking grass," Jim said, giddy.

"The creatures ingest the grass by chewing its leaves and digesting, to imply that any of them were complex enough to devise a way to smoke the plant would be-"

"Ugh," Jim huffs, cutting Spock short. "It's a- Jesus, am I going to have to explain North American slang terms for marijuana? Please say no."

Spock says nothing, and Jim looks at him, imploring. "Spock. Spock, please say no, Spock. If I have to sit you down somewhere and walk you through a list of all the dumb names Humans have come up with-" He throws his hands up in the air. "Y'know what? I'm not even going to think about it any more."

Later that day, Jim makes a note of following Spock around planetside for a full hour, pointing at plants and asking, "Is that it?" repeatedly. Whenever Spock informs him that, no, it is not, Jim makes a face completely unbecoming of Starfleet's youngest captain in history. Whenever Spock informs him that unfortunately, it is, Jim tries to convince Spock to put it in his mouth. In the absence of that, Jim asks Spock to put it in his mouth instead.

Spock has gotten very good at ignoring Jim when necessary.

Days later, after more samples had been collected and environmental readings were taken, Jim decides to snag some. Spock peripherally catches him doing so whilst he is directing two of the senior geologists in their discussions of plotting ground density results. He does not confront him until the away party is counting supplies and confirming that they have not left anything behind, or that they haven't forgotten to log anything coming back with them.

When Jim does not offer to remove or properly count how many grams of the grass he pocketed, Spock deftly sidles up to him, and speaks low, under his breath, "If you were not going to do so now, when were you planning on documenting the samples of Pabulum leniendi you have collected?"

Spock is not looking down at Jim's neck, and cannot see the way his hairs stand on end, but he can see the way his shoulders tense up out of the corner of his eye.

"Shit," Jim swears, quiet and barely a whisper. "I can't get anything by you, can I?" He turns his head toward an outcropping of metamorphic rock.

"Giotto!" he calls to the security team, "Spock wants to look at a rock over there. Cool?" Giotto gives him a nod and a thumbs up, and Jim gives him two thumbs up back. He has tried to explain this to Spock before, and although Spock understands perfectly well the concept of handsigns, which are nearly universal among social creatures with articulate limbs and complex communication, he refuses to accept Jim's reasoning for usage. Humans are too readily galvanized by reassurance even when it is highly superficial and often employed too liberally to be of meaning. Jim disagrees. It is a point of contention.

When they are far enough from the rest of the away team, Jim turns around, and Spock stops, facing him.

"So, what, now you're not just the first officer, but the fun police too?"

"If you consider the act of knowingly falsifying documentation from a scientific survey of a foreign planet something the 'fun police' would regulate, then, yes," Spock concludes. Jim glares at him. Spock squints back.

"Jim, what were you going to do with the samples?"

The Captain crosses his arms at the question, juts his chin out in defiance. Spock distantly wonders why Jim is only so openly obstinate in matters of little reward.

"Sulu dared me to," Jim says, which is definitely a lie. When Spock doesn't reply, Jim catches on.

"Okay, I dared Sulu, and he dared me back."

Silence.

"Fine. Whatever. Listen, it's probably not even that serious! For all we know, it'll be completely impotent. Plus," he adds, "This crew handles their liquor way too well, do you think this is going to be the single blade of grass that tips the scale?" Jim holds up a single strip, produced from his pocket, and waves it around in front of Spock.

"This does nothing to resolve the matter of incomplete documentation," Spock intones.

"Sure it does," and Jim, jubilant, grabs the rest of the plant matter on his person. He wiggles his eyebrows. "Who's to say there'll be any to document?"

Spock is not entertaining such folly, and he is about to say as much when Jim's expression changes, inspired, eyes focusing minutely, his jaw softening into something less defiant, more inquisitive. Jim steps forward, invades Spock's personal space. Perhaps not any more than the other times Jim has done so on the ship, but the expanse of flat rock and lack of crew around them has the curious effect of making it more intimate than it is.

Jim plucks one blade from his right hand with his left, holding it between thumb and forefinger. When he looks from it, then to Spock, he grins.

"Y'know, maybe this stuff wouldn't be too bad for you. You're pretty high strung most of the time. Bones said it might be good if you relax a little from time to time, even if it was a joke." His tone is teasing. His eyes are half lidded, and his gaze is wandering over Spock's face, clearly reading whatever infinitesimal tells he has the habit of finding. He recalls Nyota describing this look as Kirk's "'come fuck this' eyes" - a vulgar description, to say the least.

"I very much doubt this is what Doctor McCoy had in mind."

Jim tilts his head a small amount. "Oh? Is there another way you want to let loose?" The way Jim is looking at Spock is starting to spread frisson up his spine. He recognizes his own response to the scrutiny distantly, as though it is another's.

When Spock does not immediately answer, Jim takes that hesitation and runs with it - slowly bringing the grass to his lips, darting his tongue out to catch it and sweep it back into his mouth. He sucks on it, lips pursing, before drawing it out languidly. He keeps his eyes trained on Spock's the whole time, watching as his facial expressions morph from horror, to concern, back to horror. Jim thinks it's really funny.

"Yeah. Doesn't taste like much," and when he sucks the grass in the second time, he pulls the whole long strip into his mouth. He doesn't know what it looks like to Spock, but Jim's assuming that being Vulcan means this particular party trick will be his first exposure. It's gotta be good.

After a moment, still watching Spock, he rolls his tongue out of his mouth, kind of makes a show of it. The blade, tied in a triple knot, sits pretty on the tip of it and he plucks it off.

"Isn't that neat?" he says, smiling.

"Is this supposed to be impressive?" Spock delivers crushingly. 

"Not necessarily," Jim replies, shrugging and tossing the knot to the ground beside him. He picks another blade from his hand, holds it up in front of Spock. "To the right person, it probably is. But most of the time," Jim steals a quick look over his shoulder, back to where the rest of the away team is tallying, and lowers his voice. "It's because I ask them if they want me to teach them how."

Jim's hand reaches out, crosses the small distance between them, and tucks the blade into the high collar of Spock's undershirt. His finger trails a bit, traces the edge of the fabric, follows to where Spock's tunic disappears under his jacket. Jim doesn't quite allow his hand to move further under, but the proximity alone is dysregulating. He can feel the warmth of Jim's fingers - not the sensation of temperature but the feeling behind it - and the wanting of acceptance, wishing for and willing Spock to let him in. It rubs up against his consciousness. 

Jim wants in.

Spock does not think Jim is aware that he is telegraphing his feelings so openly, and he will not allow himself to divulge it to him unless directly asked.

"Captain," he says, firm.

"Hmm?" Jim answers, looking up languidly, taunting.

"This feels wholly inappropriate for the situation we are currently in," he states, and the emotional flash he gets from Jim is strong.

"Meaning this would be less inappropriate if it was happening somewhere else?" Jim smirks. When he had raised his eyes, they seemed to get stuck at Spock's mouth - they finally make the final few inches upwards. Spock stares back. He is not intimidated.

"That is not the conclusion I intended to imply," he says, "and this is not the first time I have been compelled to remind you that my main concern will always be the well-being of this ship, her crew, and her mission."

Jim stays silent, but his eyes don't move, and his hand still rests against Spock's clavicle. His gaze is steady, searching, and he parts his lips in order to wet them with his tongue.

After a moment, Jim huffs, and disengages, stepping back. Spock does not show it, never will, but he is so relieved by the distance that it feels as though a pressure has been lifted from the atmosphere around him.

Jim is heading back to the crew, flagging down Giotto, and Spock takes a brief respite to control his heart rate, breathing steady in order to return to equilibrium.

When he returns to find the final tallies and logs complete, he zeros in on Jim again. Spock scans the information, and not seeing an entry of the botanical mass he took, he makes a decision. Although Spock could have certainly just entered the information without much fuss, it was the principle of the act with which he disagreed.

He steps up beside Jim, who is speaking to a member of the botany team - a young lieutenant who has been conducting research into the life cycles of algae when exposed to differing types of radiation. Jim turns to acknowledge him. When Spock opens his mouth to speak, he notes the way the Captain's nose flares, and Spock realizes he is about to set off what could aptly be described later as an exothermic, chain reaction.

It's right after shift change, and Spock is hyper-aware that everyone knows the argument in the transporter room, which had carried over from before their extraction with the rest of the away team, was bloodier than usual. Jim's jaw is clenched in a way that makes his facial muscles jump, and Spock is hot on his heels when he stalks out of the room and towards the captain's quarters. Whatever crew they see spend no time in plastering themselves to the bulkhead in order to get out of the way. 

(They don't say anything on the brisk walk there, but later someone will tell Jim that both of them looked so angry it's a near miracle that they didn't start mauling each other right there in the corridor.)

Jim slams his hand against the door release, and steps inside with a bounce to his step that Spock recognizes as the fleet-footed way he gets into fighting stance. He twirls once he's a step or two in, shooting Spock a dangerous look. Spock senses his own nostrils flare, almost faltering into a sneer, and decidedly closes the door behind him.

"Computer, engage door privacy override, authorization First Officer Spock." 

"Acknowledged."

The grin that takes over Jim's entire face is downright manic. It sends a thrum of heat and adrenaline and thrill through Spock's nervous system.

"I am compelled to remark that I am consistently surprised by your ability to function under duress, even when it is the product of your own making," Spock juts his head sharply, honing in on Jim. The rage is back. He takes a step closer, and Jim does not move. "Do you ever find yourself wishing you had not acted in such a way?" 

Jim's eyebrows fly high on his face, eyes dancing. 

"You know what, Spock?" he says, while one of his pointer fingers finds its way towards his mouth. He bites it, and although it looks absentminded, Spock knows better at this point than to think anything Jim Kirk does in front of him is truly innocent. He appears to think for a moment. 

"No," Jim releases his finger, holding it up and away, pointing at Spock, "Actually, never. Not a shred of it. In fact-" 

The finger points up, "No remorse."

And a second joins, "No dignity."

A third, "And absolutely," Jim leans forward, "no shame." He plants his hands on his hips. "Just because Vulcans are allergic to having a good time doesn't mean my life should have to become a boring mess of reports and data and samples and whatever. I refuse." 

Spock bites down into his own teeth. It would be highly inappropriate for a service member to punch his superior officer, but that knowledge does not seem to help him at this very moment. 

"You remember, Captain," and he hopes this will bring some sense back into the conversation, "that this vessel is staffed by a complement of highly trained professionals who look to you every day for leadership." 

"Oh yeah?" Jim asks, before shaking his head. "Pity. That's on them. They should know better." He has the audacity to look thoughtful about it. 

"If your behavior continues-"

"Oh, my 'behavior?' Tell me, what does that mean?" 

"-then I have no doubt that the crew will find themselves suffering in their duties. The ecosystem of the Enterprise is a balanced-" 

"The crew?" 

"-operation that hinges on the ability of her crew to follow the leadership of her command staff."

Jim raises his hand, as if waiting to get called upon to ask a question. He does not wait. "I call bullshit. This ship can run perfectly fine without me and my 'behavior.' She's done it before and she can do it again. Spock, what's your point?" 

"Captain," Spock states, the repetition rapidly going stale, "Your actions on multiple occasions have made the crew's work more difficult."

"Oh, hold on, sorry - me fucking around is distracting the crew? Are you sure about that? That seems like a weak justification, even for you. You're the only one who noticed anyways." Jim's eyes narrow. His brow furrows and his head tilts slightly, focus. "Or are you just using that as an excuse because it makes it easier for you to ignore me?" 

And if he wasn't angry before, well, Spock certainly is now. 

"Captain-"

"That's definitely it," Jim interrupts. 

He is trying so, so, so hard to keep the pesky urge to strangle him tethered. He moves his hands behind his back, clasped tightly, nails biting into palms. 

"To openly disrespect a senior member of staff on an away mission dangerously sets a precedent for other, more junior levels of the crew. You must lead by example - this is an inherent role the captain of a Federation starship must play, regardless of their personal feelings on the matter." 

Jim's jaw drops open. 

"Disrespect? Are you fucking serious right now?" His hands fly up, pressing his palms into the sockets of his eyes. "Disrespect. Jesus Christ, okay." Jim's hands drop from his face, palms held open in front of him, and he looks up, as if imploring the ceiling to understand whatever illogical woe he has with Spock's choice of wording. 

"I just- What-" he tries. He moves his eyes to stare at Spock. "Spock, does this make no sense to you?" Jim points between them, back and forth, gesturing to the space between them. Spock does not understand. 

"Oh, cool, you don't have an answer to that. Is that because you're being purposefully obtuse, or because then you'd have to admit you have emotions and sometimes they're enjoyable." Jim shakes his head. "That's totally it, isn't it," he sighs. "Spock, you're a great first officer, and i've never doubted that you would be. But you've also spent the last three-quarters of the year leading me on and i'm kind of sick of it."

This is news to Spock, and the additional information does not cause him alarm. It doesn't.

"I have done no such thing."

"No, no no no, you absolutely have. You're gonna stand there and tell me I'm the only student you've ever agreed to tutor one-on-one because you pitied me? Admit it. You find me interesting. And," Jim adds, with an expression of confidence, "I'll have you know, I've done my research, okay. I know exactly what it means when a Vulcan is interested in you. Uh-huh. Yeah, don't give me that look. You know exactly what I'm talking about." 

"I do not know-"

"Spock. You do. I know you do."

He swallows, his throat unnaturally constricted. His eyes fix onto Jim's face.

Jim bites his lower lip, eyes sharp, and absentmindedly licks over where the bite left an indent, rolling his tongue over and then back over his bottom teeth. Spock is fascinated by the action, absentminded as it is, the frisson running through his spine again, hot and acidic.

"C'mere," Jim says, and it takes a conscious effort on his part to process the words and consider them. 

He manages to break his eyes from Jim's mouth in order to inventory the situation again.

Spock finds, much to his own disappointment, that he is abruptly, supremely, attracted to James Kirk.

Not only this - but that he has little interest in any course of action that does not include acknowledging it. It's terribly inconvenient that it doesn't seem to make Spock hate him any less.

It's a confounding feeling, and he is not sure how to deal with it. He feels stuck in place, unable to move, paralyzed. He is confident that pon farr has not begun, and so Spock is left with the harrowing realization that he should be in complete control of his faculties.

He finds that he is not. Unfortunately.

Jim radiates a smugness that indicates he knows this, and plans to take full advantage.

The resulting potential energy sits between them, charging the air. Jim thinks it feels all-consuming, raw and haggard and a touch desperate, and based on how Spock looks right now Jim comes to the conclusion that it's probably mutual. It's not every day you see a Vulcan horny. 

Jim wasn't quite sure at first, but Spock is hard and now that he's realized it, it's so obvious that it's killing him.

He knows he wants that inside of him the moment Spock finally steps closer and pushes up against him, doesn't even need to see it to know he's gonna relish it. To know how the hardness is gonna fill him out and split him apart. When Spock's fingers find his wrist and hold Jim against the bulkhead, the sharp intake of Spock's breath tells him that the thought made it across.

It's obvious he's still pissed, because his eyebrows are nearly horizontal, pinched together, and his neck is flushed. His mouth is slightly open. It's like he's losing control of his face. This close, his eyes look pitch dark, and it also kind of looks like Spock might punch him. Jim thinks that would suck but also maybe be a little bit awesome. He's never really wanted to get that beat up in bed, not after… everything - but sometimes fucking was just another form of brawling and he wasn't afraid to admit that they satisfied the same itch.

Although Jim hadn't gotten turned on the same way when Spock had him gasping on the bridge, that wasn't to say Jim hadn't been jerking off to it for days after. Not any of the things said, fuck no - just the feeling of Spock's hands on him, the warm strength and quick reality that Spock could kill him if he actually wanted to.

Comparatively, their sparring has barely gotten past the surface. 

Spock pushes up further and slides a leg between Jim's, nudging him open until he can feel his junk resting on Spock's thigh. His breath gets stuck in his throat and he has to manually tell himself to breathe again. His ears are ringing a little, so he shuts his eyes to try and compensate for the way his blood is probably rushing through his body at speeds heretofore unseen by man. It's like the feeling he gets right before launching into warp after a stopover, this lurch of adrenaline with nowhere to put it.

Except this is different, he reminds himself. Because he can put it directly under Spock's chin, where he grabs and crashes their mouths together. It's not good - teeth clicking, noses bashed, but Spock doesn't let go of Jim's wrist.

In fact, he wrenches it higher, stretching him out in a way that makes him readjust his foot position to accommodate, and the moment Spock licks into his mouth is the same moment Jim's dick rubs up hard against Spock's thigh. His tongue is rough sliding against Jim's, akin to the feeling of running a finger against the grain of a short velveteen. Jim can feel the way his groan gets swallowed into Spock's mouth, and when Spock pulls away to grab Jim's other wrist, Jim follows his mouth until he physically can't move his neck far enough.

He's not desperate enough that he's whimpering. Yet. But Spock's hands are strong against him, he's pinned at three points, and his dick is starting to bite into the seams of his pants. Warmth climbs up from the base of his spine, spreading through his chest and gut - a crawling heat that seems to touch every organ in his body on its way to flush his chest and collarbone.

The second wrist seems to strengthen whatever it is Spock is reading from him because he looks down, then back to his face, and raises one goddamn motherfucking eyebrow. Jim gives him a look that he hopes says, and what are you gonna do about it, huh? - but considering he knows what he looks like when he's tied up and begging, probably comes off as touchmepleasepleasepleaseplease.

Jim had fantasized about Spock holding him down and fucking him before - maybe by the wrists, maybe the throat, definitely by the hips and hard enough to bruise - but he hadn't thought about being tied up. 

If he could goad Spock into this too… Christ, there's a whole world of possibilities that explode behind his eyes and while he would usually tamp them down, push the fantasizing to the side of his brain as background noise, he knows Spock can probably taste the visuals. Or something. 

So he tries to project them even more, relish in the potential of being strapped to a bedpost and left there, or his ankles restrained and clipped to his hands, or leashed to the table, or-

This time, when Spock stretches out Jim's wrists, he pulls them away from the wall. They both stumble forward and backwards, legs tangling awkwardly until Jim finds his footing. Then Spock is moving them, hands above his head, towards the chair across from the bed, and Jim kind of wonders at the thought that he's inherently in a surrender position. 

He wonders what it says about Spock that he put Jim in it, and then wonders what it says about him that he likes it.

Spock angles Jim back into the chair, and his knees buckle as he falls into it, arms still held, now pushed back behind his head. Jim's chest heaves as he catches his breath - not because he's winded but because he feels like he's gonna explode if Spock doesn't get his hands on his body soon - and it's then that Spock finally lets go. Jim hopes that it's because Spock got the message, but when Spock moves further back, taking a step away from the chair, Jim finally whimpers. Moans. He's not sure. His ears are still ringing. Whatever it is, he knows it's way too revealing.

Spock never loses eye contact with him, and Jim can tell now how blown his pupils are, because his eyes are even blacker than they were up close. When Spock starts to strip, Jim is forced to break line of sight only because the hair on Spock's chest, traveling down his abdomen, quickly becomes his newest catalogued spank bank deposit. Jim has the overwhelming urge to lick it down to his dick. He silently wishes Spock still had a hold on him so he didn't have to beg out loud, Spock would just know to expect it.

It's then then Jim realizes that at no point had either of them asked for any kind of consent. 

It's not that Jim doesn't value it - he does, and takes it quite seriously, at that - but this whole thing with Spock feels different. It's not his usual, so, so not his usual, and still he's not sure in what ways. Jim does know it's gonna be messy, both in the immediate sense and maybe the long term. Jim also knows it's gonna be rough. He's hoping that by the end of tonight he's gonna be so fucked out that he won't have to think about the consequences for at least a few days.

He gets snapped out of his momentary self-reflection when Spock comes back to the chair, kneels down, and starts undoing Jim's fly.

"Whoa, hey-" Jim starts, hands grabbing at Spock's in a feeble attempt to stall him. "I can- Let me-"

"No," says Spock, with the kind of finality that really rubbed Jim the wrong way when they first butted heads on the bridge. Jim thinks, there's probably a joke in there about being rubbed the right way, heh, but the second Spock tugs his underwear down to grab Jim's cock he completely loses all sense of space and time. Fuck thinking, it's like his entire brain shorts out, and that never happens. A spark, and he's gone.

"Holy shit," is all he can muster, slamming his head back into the chair's backrest so hard there's an audible thud through the plush upholstery. Aw fuck, he's probably gonna have to figure out to clean cum off this thing, isn't he - but then he goes right back to not-thinking because Spock takes him into his mouth, slicking him up with spit and sucking him down further. Jim feels the gasp leave his throat, but doesn't hear it because it's silent, and then he has to breathe through his nose because it didn't actually draw any air in.

His hands shoot out for something, anything to hold onto, and he finally finds Spock's head. Scrabbling for purchase, fingertips pushing into his hair, trying desperately to not shove him onto the rest of his dick. When Jim drops his head back down and curls his body forward in an attempt to not choke Spock, he can feel Spock's tongue start to move against him. The moan Jim gives Spock back gets wrenched out of him, sacrificed in the plea that he does that again, fuck, keeps doing that.

His hands curl around Spock's ears, finding their curve and holding on like it's the only thing between him and some unfathomable depth. He looks down, watches as Spock's sharp, pretty mouth stretches over him, sees the way his lashes flutter against his cheeks when he draws a deep breath in through his nose, airway tight because- and this is when Jim decides that he can't look anymore, actually, because if he does he's going to come right the fuck now. He'd actually like to enjoy this more, thanks. Plus, it feels like Spock would be slightly disappointed if he came approximately four minutes after he had started, considering Jim's reputation.

Except most of his reputation was built on one night stands, hookups, and hastily cobbled together relationships that mostly didn't survive to see the month roll over. Just because he was a good lay (and he knew he was) didn't mean he was prepared for this - whatever this was.

He gets yanked back out of his head again when Spock draws back off Jim with a slick, wet pop, and Jim exhales with the simultaneous relief and dismay that he's done so.

"Jim," Spock starts, looking dazed, and it's only then that he realizes that this whole time he's still had a firm grip on Spock's ears.

"Shit, sorry," Jim breathes, letting go immediately. Which is when Spock whines, actually whines, and Jim looks at him in confusion until thinking, oh, and placing his hands gently back on the swooping curls of his ears. He ghosts his thumbs over the tragus cautiously, not entirely sure what Spock wants, but he's rewarded when he strokes over the upper helix and Spock's voice rumbles- no, purrs. It's low in his throat, and Jim really, really wishes Spock still had his dick in his mouth.

So he tugs, lightly, trying to choreograph his movements, guide Spock back to him, and it takes a second before he seems to get it. But when he does, he swallows down around him with a fervor that Jim can only assume is because his ears make him fucking horny, oh my god. When Jim pinches the lobes, Spock does the purring thing again, and Jim nearly comes down his throat right then and there. The only thing still tethering him to this mortal plane is the fact that Spock is naked, and he's not, and it's deeply unfair. There will be absolutely no climaxes from anyone until he's able to be entirely skin-to-skin with him. He's owed that much, he thinks.

When Spock looks up at him, lazily, but with one eyebrow raised in response to the thought, the laugh Jim exhales is more like a squawk. Utterly undignified, he's sure. 

"Fuck," he rasps, closing his eyes again, laughing some more. "Somehow I thought this would be, like, more… I don't know, classy? God, you're such an asshole sometimes. It's like nothing's even different than usual, except my cock's in your-"

"Cease speaking," hums Spock, mouth occupied. Jim has a moment of fascination that Spock managed to actually enunciate that so well, and then gets thunderstruck with the knowledge that Spock said that directly into him. Like, into his head.

"I told you to stay out of there unless you have to," he croaks. As far as admonishments go, it's not very threatening. 

Spock clearly does not take it for either, because he continues in his work diligently as he ever does - head bobbing with a rhythm that Jim can barely decipher. The pattern is irregular, but he can't imagine Spock ever doing something based entirely on impulse without any kind of ground in science. (So to Jim it feels irregular until he realizes what it is - the beats are the god damn fibonacci sequence, Jesus Christ this guy.) The thought of which really shouldn't be as hot as it is, but when he dares to open his eyes and look down again, Jim has to reconcile the whip smart, perfunctory asshole he knows with the kneeling, disheveled man before him. Which is when he decides, yeah, fuck this, and pulls Spock off with a tug on his ears.

His dick falls from Spock's lips, and there's spit and precome dribbling down from the corners of his mouth to under his chin, and Jim really, really needs to get his hands on Spock. Like right now. Like right the fuck now. He strips his shirt off while he's still sitting, and hooks his thumbs into his underwear and pants, so that when he stands up he can slide them off together in one motion. Spock stares up at him, still crouched before the chair, head level with Jim's thighs. So Jim hauls him up by the arms, revels in the soft slide of hot skin against his own, and walks Spock backwards toward the bed.

Jim stumbles when the back of Spock's knees meet mattress, and he's forced to sit. Jim's hold on him means they both end up falling on top of one another, snapping Spock out of whatever daze the ear rubbing put him in. Jim wriggles until he's straddling him, tucking his head down into the crook of Spock's neck. 

"Do all Vulcans have an ear kink? Or are you just special?" 

He does not answer immediately, and Jim decides he wants to test the limits, just a little. 

The reply comes quickly enough. "Vulcans do not often experience unique erogenous zones based on their physiology. It is likely that my hybri-" and then Spock cuts off with a sudden breath, because Jim has bit down onto his earlobe. 

He licks over the bite, salving it, before moving up and taking the upper helix into his mouth and sucking. Spock's chest rattles as he breathes in another sharp breath, grabbing Jim's waist, fingers pressing into his flesh, and pushes him away so he's made to let go and sit back on Spock's thighs. 

"So you’re special," Jim says. Spock looks unperturbed, but his cheeks are more flushed than before, and it's spread down his neck, reaching the hair on his chest. Jim settles down, squeezing Spock's thighs with his knees. He wraps a hand around Spock's dick, gently rubbing a thumb up the underside- 

And it is then that Spock remembers that he began this whole encounter furious. He realizes he should probably still be angry. 

Curiously, he cannot find it within himself to get that far. Upset, maybe, is where he has landed. 

A gasp gets pulled out of him when Jim presses under the head, into the frenulum, and Spock is once again appalled at his own lack of control over his responses to stimuli. On very few occasions has it been so poor. Granted, he did not know exactly what to expect in a situation like this. Had this been under the haze of pon farr, control would be the least of his worries. 

All to say - he has never done this before, and so far, he has been making it up as he goes, following all the leads Jim is telegraphing over. Not to mention all of the subconscious leads Jim doesn't know he is telegraphing over. He is allowing his body to do the things that make sense to him, which is in itself a kind of logic, he reasons. Yes, it must be. Otherwise, he has no acceptable explanation for why he purred (purred! What an irrational noise to make) when Jim had rubbed his ears. He admonishes the unfortunate cat-like ancestry of the Vulcans who came before him.

After all this is over, he will have to swear Jim to secrecy.

He focuses his eyes again, unsure when they became unfocused, and looks to Jim's face. He finds him smiling, eyes locked into Spock's, searching and inquisitive. A wave of information washes over him, carrying a plethora of situations Jim has extrapolated into potential futures. Spock is not sure if it is intentional or not.

It is an interesting experience, because half a year ago he would have thought that all of James Kirk's decisions were made with zero calculation or forethought. He had assumed that Jim formulating and thinking through it all in the microseconds between events was, statistically speaking, improbable at best. For a Vulcan, this would be expected. For a Human? A feat. 

However, despite the improbability, he must unfortunately conclude that this is simply standard operation for Jim, because Spock has now had the opportunity to hear the speed at which his synapses process available information. His ideas are made up on the fly, yes, but to say he had not thought them through would be false.

It contextualizes the past few months for Spock - because when Jim is not being horrendously illogical, Spock is often forced to admit that he is a brilliant captain. He has proven himself to be just as quick-witted as when they worked together during the confrontation with nero, and he is still the very same cadet who managed to singlehandedly ace the only test that every other command track enlistee had been forced to fail. 

Although Jim had declared his hatred for 'the diplomacy part of the job' on multiple occasions, Spock would have not known it by watching alone, because he treats everything as if it were an engagement - words chosen carefully in accompaniment to actions Spock had previously believed must have been considered ahead of time. The combination of hatred and awe James Kirk has managed to elicit from him ever since they met would be downright inexcusable if anyone from Spock's home ever found out.

His thoughts quickly realign with the present when Jim licks his thumb and swipes it over the tip of his penis, pressing into the slit. The touch is light, but steady, and his thumb circles a bundle of nerves Spock didn't even know he had. He is doing an admirable job, he thinks, of keeping his mouth from making any more embarrassing noises. Jim is still grinning, foreboding, and his grip changes - his hand squeezing up from the base, tugging on skin enough that Spock hisses through his teeth but not enough that he ever once considers asking him to stop. 

His smile widens and the fingers of his left hand ghost over Spock's stomach, feeling hair and skin warmer than his own. Jim rests his hand lower, slides it down between Spock's legs, and cups his balls, pressing gently. Spock cannot help the involuntary impulse that causes both layers of his eyelids to flutter, as if struggling to blink something away.

"Huh," Jim says, clearly amused. He presses down again, this time accompanying it with a smooth, less firm tug on the shaft of his penis. Spock's abdomen flinches.

Jim removes his hand so he can lick over it, lather his thumb with spit, and wraps it back around his cock. He strokes slowly, varying pressure, watching for response - all the while intermittently squeezing below, handling sensitized skin. Spock remembers that he still has his hands on Jim's hips and pushes his fingertips further into his skin, gripping harder, finding ground where the bone meets flesh. A bright spark of bruising flashes across to him - something Jim wants, so much so that it takes Spock a moment to process it is a desire and not a fear - carrying an implicit ask. His immediate consideration is that he will grant such a wish, if he is allowed it. 

Spock does not enjoy violence, far from it. But he cannot deny the satisfaction of claiming something he has frequently had to stop himself from doing. The amount of times he has had to divert his own thoughts from some form of physical retribution after Jim has asked a particularly irritating question would certainly scandalize any other Vulcan. 

He rationalizes that if he is to ever exact revenge, of a sort, it will be here, where he seems to actively want Spock to do so. It is a surprisingly mutual arrangement. 

He thinks back to earlier, up against the wall, considers the thoughts Jim did purposefully assault him with, and finds within them a through line - that Jim does not want to be in total control. It is counter to what Spock would have expected, as Jim had always seemed to do best when he was able to predict how others would react. Perhaps, like the gym, this is a place where he can shed that notion. His fingers tighten into Jim. The joy he feels under them is foreign.

Jim wants Spock to withhold things from him - entirely because Spock can, and because Spock will know he actually wants it, and because Spock is one of the few people who can ascertain for themselves that Kirk can handle it. Spock doesn't think that Jim would have orchestrated their sparring sessions exclusively as preparations for a moment such as this, but he also does not put it past him.

"Hey," Jim says, pushing himself up.

Spock does not reply verbally, as he knows Jim will soon enough seek to fill the silence. 

He grins as he does. "You should fuck me."

Spock blinks.

"Or, I don't know," Jim continues, "Put something inside of me. Your hands? Oh my god your hands." The sharp intake of breath Jim pulls in causes his chest to rise suddenly, and he exhales out the words, "Please, your hands."

"I am not-" Spock says, sentence beginning before he has actually conceived of what he is wanting to say. There is no extant guide for a level of intimacy such as this, for a Vulcan. The act would be inconceivable, overwhelming and otherwise unnecessary, professional procedures notwithstanding. 

The pause in his speech must be long enough that Jim takes the momentary lapse for hesitancy, not rejection, and he flops onto his back, pulling Spock by the waist up over him. His other hand reaches off to the side, further up the bed, pawing around the rumpled pillowcase. He grabs something tucked underneath, and the pop of a bottle cap tells Spock that Jim has procured a bottle of lubricant. He turns it upside down in order to dose a generous amount onto his index and middle fingers. Jim reaches behind himself, twisting his hips to the side in order to lavish the lubricant behind his scrotum, above his anus. 

Spock is distantly aware that he is staring, perhaps too intently, because he is shocked from his observations when Jim readjusts his legs either side of Spock's body, grabs his right hand, and guides it between his thighs, up against the cleft of his buttocks. Just the act of grasping his hand is an overwhelming sensation, and the subsequent slick against it even more so. Spock is momentarily taken aback by the undertow - the want and need, and the peculiar focus with which Jim has dedicated to this task - that the connection affords him. 

He has come to expect this from the moments in which Jim touches his skin, but his ongoing inability to prevent the lapse in his concentration will require further study.

Spock breathes in, then out.

Jim reaches, singling out Spock's middle finger and smoothing lubricant over it, before pulling it towards himself. He presses it against his anus, and Spock can feel the pulse of Jim's blood as his finger breaches the tight ring of muscle. The skin is supple, wet, and Spock shudders involuntarily as warmth spreads into his hand.

"I have never-" Spock starts.

"I know," Jim answers, pushing the finger deeper. His breath hitches and it takes an undue amount of concentration to release it. Jim groans, and pulls him even deeper.

The pressure around his fingertip is unlike anything he has experienced before - the sensation is different to other exploratory endeavors he has undertaken, and the setting is far from the clinical or scientific. It is almost claustrophobic, to have his finger buried into Jim. 

Jim's hand moves him, angling and pressing Spock's hand at an angle. "Like-" he starts, accompanied by a small jerk of his wrist. "Just- If you press up with your-" and then his words devolve into noises mimicking speech, but saying nothing of meaning, presumably because Spock's finger has pushed up against a soft bundle of flesh inside. "Oh fuck."

He yanks Spock's hand out, with the kind of urgency that startles him, and quickly lets go. "Two," he says.

Spock looks at him.

"Add another one," he clarifies, sucking in a breath. "The pointer finger too."

Spock obliges.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, fuck, shit," Jim curses, head slamming back onto the pillow, and Spock stills, whole body pausing. Jim pans his eyes down from the ceiling to check in, and Spock looks kind of like a deer in headlights, panic clear in his rigidity. 

"No, you're fine," Jim clarifies, and Spock relaxes minutely - he can see him let out the breath he must have been holding. He's searching Jim's face for something, Jim doesn't totally know what, probably either a stop or go ahead. 

"It's just- I-" Jim swallows, body adjusting. "It's just a lot. Gimme a sec." 

He breathes through it, the feeling of Spock's fingers foreign but not unwelcome, and he can almost taste what it would feel like if he hit the second wall. If this is only two fingers, holy hell. Jim rolls his hips back slightly, angling against the tilt of Spock's wrist, pushes down until he feels the muscle release. It takes a good half a minute, but his abdomen finally lets go, tension easing out of him, and he hums.

"Okay," Jim breathes, and Spock moves his whole body forward, arm folding at the elbow, pushing a little further inside. Jim is trying, really, really, really hard to control his breathing, he promises, because otherwise he thinks he would be hyperventilating. Spock curls his fingers upward, testing the resistance, and Jim bites around the moan in his throat. 

It's weirdly more intimate than he was expecting. And it's not like he's new to this - far from it, actually; the collegiate title of 'the Federation's biggest slut' was earned fair and square, thank you very much - but the eye contact is so much more than what it usually is. 

What he means is, there's not more of it, per se, but it's more. It means more. 

Which, wow, is a revelation he'll deal with later - because Spock is scissoring him open and fuck it's hot, and fuck he needs more right now. He's thinking, three, four? And Spock leans back, pulling his fingers out. He gently takes the bottle of lube, dispenses another glob onto his ring finger, and pushes the pads of his fingers back up against Jim's ass. 

His hand is cool, but when he moves inside to his first knuckle, the warmth overtakes all other sensation, and Jim has to push his head back into the sheet and hold his eyes closed in order to keep himself together. 

"Move," he grits out, and Spock's response is hesitant, slow. He's probably cataloguing the way Jim reacts, every infinitesimal shift of his body, every swallowed breath. Jim has the distinct impression that he's being examined, which would ordinarily be incredibly unsexy, but, here, in this context, it isn't. It's weird to come to terms with, maybe to be expected, because Jim's entire life has been thrown out of wack ever since Spock showed up. Since the Maru, really. He's done so many things in the past half a year that he'd thought he'd never do. If anything, this is probably the most familiar thing of all of them.

He feels Spock slide in until his pinky and thumb are flat up against his ass, skin taut between the fingers. Jim moans, unable to catch that one before it makes its escape, and reminds himself to breathe through his nose. He laughs weakly. 

"I'm out of practice," he remarks to himself, more than anything, and for a fleeting second, there's a flash of something hot, a stab of something angrier, in a flavor he's not used to. He opens his eyes to look at Spock, who seems to come out of a spell to catch Jim's bewilderment. 

Spock looks down, eyes obscured by dark lashes, and the flush on his cheeks grows greener. "Apologies," he says, quietly, barely over a murmur. Jim stares at him. 

"You're good," he assures. "Is that- Like-" 

"Transference," Spock says, and god, he's still flexing Jim open, he almost fucking forgot. Jim's brain loses the plot for a second, before coming back online enough for him to process what Spock has said.

"Oh," is all he can reply. 

He reaches up, curling his body as far as he can without making Spock pull out of him, and lightly touches Spock's shoulder. His fingers brush warm skin, trying to tug Spock closer without having to grip. Spock follows, resting his weight on his left hand, carefully placed next to Jim's right hip. Closer, he can see the muscle of his shoulder working as he moves into and out of Jim, hand slow, but deliberate. Jim slides his hand around Spock's neck, pulling forward until their lips meet. It's... Yeah, tender, is probably the word. It's not one Jim uses often. 

He slots their mouths together, pushing against Spock's lips with his tongue, asking for permission, and when it's granted he sighs into it. The moment stretches, time quickly becoming a useless unit of measurement. Just them, where they meet, in the air and body, and that's about it.

He doesn't actually know how long they stay like that. Long enough that Jim's body gets time to fully adjust to the fullness, and he can sense the shift in his arousal - nearing the place between exploration and knowing what he wants and exactly how he wants it done to him. 

"Fuck me," he mumbles, into Spock's mouth. When Spock pulls back to look at him, his pupils are blown wide again, and Jim can sense a sudden wave of desire, followed by lingering apprehension.

"You are sure?" Spock asks.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I don't say shit I don't mean." 

Spock raises both eyebrows pointedly, and Jim snorts. 

"Lying doesn't count."

"You are changing the parameters to suit your needs."

"Don't I always?" he says, and Spock moves his head down again to kiss him. Jim thinks he does it so he can have the last word, effectively.

He gets caught up in that for a moment, until Spock pulls his hand away and Jim breathes out heavy, left feeling cold and empty without it. He closes his eyes. There's a dip in the bed as Spock's weight shifts - him sitting back, probably - the click of a bottle, and the shifting of gravity again. When he looks, Spock is hovering, holding a dollop of lube, presumably. Jim tries to look expectant, maybe demanding, but Spock's expression doesn't so much as twitch up until Jim can feel Spock press the head of his dick against his ass. Spock's mouth falls open and he exhales a shaky, unsteady breath, and presses in just a little further. Jim sucks a breath in instead, feeling the stretch again.

He reaches down, touches his hand to Spock's hip, and lets his knees fall open either side of him. Jim brushes his hand towards himself, trying to motion that Spock should go further, give more - and he does, pushing further incrementally. 

It's not anywhere near enough.

So Jim hooks his legs around the back of Spock's thighs, and pulls him closer at the same time that he pushes himself down, arching up to meet flush with Spock's hips. The slap of skin and slight grunt of surprise from Spock is well worth it. 

Jim gasps, breath thready, and laughs so dryly it's barely a rasp. It's not like Spock is huge, or anything. He's definitely closer to the average than Jim would have expected - not that Jim has thought about it. Definitely not. And he's never fucked a Vulcan before, so his usually available crowdsourced data is lacking. But he's thick, and this is the part that gets to him because all that daydreaming about the second wall gets thrown out the window when he has to mentally contend with the raw feeling of getting split open - the one he had salivated over when this whole debacle started.

Jim licks his lips, eyes darting down to see what Spock's face looks like, and it's fucking delicious. He's flushed, breathing labored enough that Jim can see the rise and fall of his chest, and he's not exactly trembling per se, but he can feel the tension in his body and the purposeful stillness. Classic Spock stoicism, holding back for no perceivable reason. He grins, adjusting the cant of his body so he can better slot himself up against Spock.

Jim clenches, pushing himself down further, the strain on his muscles stretching him taut while his core stiffens - and he can feel exactly where he's being stretched even more, where his ass is tight around Spock's dick, where the lube has dripped and spread. The look on Spock's face is worth the trouble, a cross between, don't fucking do that, and whatever Vulcans must say when they cuss out god. 

He can feel the pulse in Spock's veins get tenser, and finally, fucking finally, he looks at Jim with heady, unadulterated annoyance. It's so worth it. 

It's even more worth it when Spock grabs him by the sides, slips out, flips him over, and then lines back up and pushes in again. Jim tries to laugh in surprise but he feels more giddy than anything else.

"Didn't realize you liked being handsy," he says, pushing his head up so he can crane his neck over his shoulder to meet Spock's eye. "That a new thing? Or just a result of environmental factors?"

Spock is unamused. Jim can feel it through their skin, somehow. Jim wiggles his hips back further onto his cock.

"C'mon, I want it, you gotta be able to feel that."

"I can."

"Then go for it," Jim says, trying to project the seriousness that, yes, he really does want it, he's not just saying that, and that when he buries his head in his crossed forearms, he's trusting Spock with it.

There's a pause, and then Spock is moving. Jim groans, breathing out, and he adjusts his breathing in time with the soft roll of Spock's hips. The way Spock fucks into him is gentle, oddly precious. He wasn't expecting it considering the way this started, which both is and isn't something Jim thought he'd ever have the confidence to conclude. Just another thing he can add to the list of surprising things he's found out Spock is capable of. It's a list that's getting long. 

As sweet as it is to have him all shy and shit, Jim's probably never gonna get this opportunity again, and he's not squandering his chance to get absolutely railed by his first officer. Fuck that shit.

"Fucking- Can you take the training wheels off?" He says, just a touch of confrontation. Jim adjusts the spread of his knees, wiggles his hips again. "I'm not a princess. Most of the time anyway." he can feel Spock's hand on his thigh tighten. Jim weighs whether or not to prod further, or let it lie. In the end, he can't help himself, he never can. 

"Plus," he begins, "I know you've got it in you. What the fuck did you spend all your time at the academy doing, huh? Just reading books?" He cranes his neck to look over his shoulder, and manages to catch Spock's eyes for a brief moment. "Weren't you getting some left and right? I mean look at you. How were you not?" 

There's that flash again, the burning sensation from earlier. The transference. It sets his skin alight and briefly coats his brain in something angry, but not quite. He has very little time to think about it, to be honest, because the next thing he knows - Spock has yanked both his thighs closer, causing Jim's knees to settle aside Spock's, and he's curved down over him, body pressing him down. Jim is quickly reminded of how heavy Vulcans are. Yeah, he's gonna like this, for sure. 

"You are frequently infuriating," Spock says, voice sounding like it's from behind clenched teeth. He spreads a hand over Jim's spine, between his shoulder blades, and then he starts moving again, and the pace he sets is brutal.

"Shit," Jim swears, but it gets completely swallowed up by the sheet and the mattress under him, and the sweet drag of cock is a feeling so overwhelming that he - once again - doesn't have the time to think of a better way to keep his airway from getting slightly crushed when Spock decides his hold isn't good enough, apparently, and elects to press one hand down on each of Jim's shoulders instead. He can't even get around it to lift himself up a bit, because he's pinned down in such a way that he can't get a hold, arms currently running defense so his brain doesn't get slammed into the headboard. 

Carnal is too ridiculous a descriptor, even for him - not when it's just them. But shit, the last time he got fucked into a mattress like this, he was a first year who kept convincing himself he could take the guys who only wanted overt dominance during sex. There's probably some deeper meaning there, but he barely has the wherewithal to even shelf the discussion for later because he gets shoved down harder. His neck is pushed into the bed at an odd angle, and it's uncomfortable, just skirting painful. This is on top of the fact that his mouth is stuck open, lips dragging raw on the fabric. But just the same as he's recognizing the ache where his skull meets his spine, he's feeling and categorizing every twitch, every arc of movement from Spock's hips as he fucks into him. And god, does it feel fucking amazing. 

The little moans he's making are probably pitiful, and hiccupy, and the rushing of blood in his ears drowns a lot of it out. He doesn't even think Spock is reading how scrunched up he is, because if he was, he would have said something about it. Asked if Jim was okay - too polite for his own good, seriously. So that means either Spock has actually lost it for real this time, or he's too in his head to figure out whatever Jim has going on. He doesn't know which one is necessarily better. 

But he knows it's fucking good, and he's silently berating himself for not managing this sooner. If he had known all it took was playing with his first officer's undying love for rules and regulations on the collecting of specimens, he would have stolen rocks or trees or even dirt from a planet a long time ago. 

He doesn't even know how he'd steal a tree, but he knows he'd do it for Spock. 

"Fuck you," he growls out, words strained with the way his throat is crushed against the mattress. 

"I thought I was already doing that," is Spock's grating reply, and Jesus Christ Jim wants to fucking kill him. The snap of Spock's hips is barely enough distraction to keep him from saying so.

He can feel the impending cliff running up to greet him and he's so goddamn close, so close he could probably just come into his own hand if he could reach down and-

That's when Spock stops, and Jim swears he could actually kill him.

"Fuck, please, I- Fuck," he gasps, turning his arm and trying to wiggle his hand under himself until Spock presses down into him further, one hand holding his hip still and another grabbing the bicep he's trying to bail himself out with. It means that Spock ends up buried deeper in him, and the stretch has him feeling like he's getting crushed - which only makes the whole inability-to-get-a-hand-on-his-dick thing even worse.

Jim struggles, testing to see if and where he can get enough purchase to push back, and he can't. The realization comes alongside the movement of Spock's hips again, his grip still strong on Jim's arm. It's gotta be the telepathy, because he doesn't know Jim's tells that well, and there's no way he's deducing them that quickly.

Did Vulcans even know what edging was? The concept didn't seem very logical. He can feel the build again, and his toes strain against the fabric of the sheets. Jim knows his jaw is clenching but barely registers it - only knows because he tries to say the words, come on, and nothing comes out. He grunts, nose flaring with a wide breath in, and he's so fucking close, and god it feels so good and Jesus fucking Christ and-

Spock slips out of him, purposefully, and Jim releases the tension in his jaw to shout, "Fuck!" In frustration. "Jesus, gimme-" he says, grasping behind him,

Jim takes it all back: he hates the telepathy. Because it's clear Spock is tracking how close he is and then, just. Stopping. He's into withholding, but this is a whole other thing. 

Any attempts on Jim's part to touch himself or rub up against the sheets keep ending in Spock finding new and inventive ways to hold him still, up to the extreme point where he's still got a hand on Jim's hip, arm now wrapped around his chest, and he's fucking up into him. It's all Jim can do to not whine and just breathe, trying to find some place to put his hands, struggling to do so and giving up on the idea - wondering how close he is to begging Spock to let him touch himself.

The answer is very close, because maybe another two minutes and Jim is gasping and begging Spock, please, over and over, the word's repetition as rhythmic as breathing. It's pathetic. But fuck, he can't stop, and what's worse, he doesn't want to.

Maybe it's something about the realization that takes him over the edge, because abruptly, he's there and coming like a motherfucker. Jim feels his body go taut, strung on a wire. He keens, whines, scrabbles behind him desperately to pull Spock closer, drive him deeper. He strains against the hold, gripping onto Spock's hips and letting his vision cross out. 

A moment of peace.

And then Jim breathes in sharp through his nose, terse aftershocks just starting to run through his body, and Spock is still fucking going. 

Too much, way too much. Not painful, but his nerves feel like they're peaking the same way some sensors do when they get too high an input, unable to differentiate between just a bit above capacity and astronomical overload. His lungs expand uncomfortably when he breathes in deeply, and then he can feel the tensing of Spock behind him, the delayed low moan as he comes. Jim's blurry vision resolves as Spock's hold slackens and he slumps against Jim, as they both sag down into the bed. He finally lets go, arms falling down to rest at Jim's hips. 

He swallows, wetting his dry lips, and barely keeps himself from whimpering when he feels Spock slip out of him.

"Fuck," he says. Spock hums some kind of acknowledgement.

"You good?" Jim asks, turning his head back to check. Spock looks fucking wrecked, good lord. He lifts his head to meet Jim's gaze and all Jim finds is the same old contemplative stare he's used to. But it's funnier, now, against the backdrop of Spock's flushed cheeks and ruined hair.

Spock clears his throat. "Yes."

Jim snickers, and lets himself fall sideways, flopping onto his back and throwing his arms out. His left hand just barely reaches Spock, and he brushes his fingertips against the skin of his leg. It's a small tremor, but Jim sees Spock shiver. He smiles. 

"Cleanup," Jim states, and Spock nods. Jim starts to sit up, but Spock is already rising in the direction of the bathroom so Jim sinks back into the soft sheets. A minute later, he feels the bed dip, and opens his eyes to see Spock holding out a damp towel. 

"Thanks," he says, as he takes it from Spock's hand. Spock nods again. Ever a man of few words, Jim thinks to himself in a fancy accent, and he tries not to laugh as he wipes himself down. When he gets up to take the towel back to the bathroom, he stumbles and almost trips over his own useless legs. Spock looks over with a furrowed brow and Jim waves him off. 

He's shambling back a moment later, and Spock has finished wiping lube and cum and spit off of himself and has placed the neatly folded rag on Jim's bedside stand. He pulls the sheets back and slides into Jim's bed like it's his, which would normally piss him off but somehow, inexplicably, it's the cutest thing Jim's seen this week. 

"You're going to sleep?" Jim asks.

Spock pauses. "I will rest," he answers.

Jim shrugs. "Fine with me. You don't snore, right?"

"I have no reason to believe I do."

"Cool." Jim walks around to the other side and pulls the sheets back so he can crawl in. "Scoot." Spock shifts over, allowing Jim more room, which he graciously accepts by turning onto his side and tucking the sheets up under his chin.

He looks over at Spock's profile from his pillow, illuminated softly, and has to swallow around the sudden roughness in his throat. "Lights at five percent, please," he asks the room.

Spock gives him a look as they dim.

"What?" 

"You do not sleep with the lights off?"

"No. It's hard to fall asleep that way. You do?"

Spock thinks for a moment. "When I sleep, I prefer it."

"You're saying this is okay, then," Jim says. 

"In a way," Spock responds.

Jim closes his eyes. "Well, feel free to do whatever once I'm asleep."

There's a pause, and then Jim can feel the rustle of Spock moving closer to him. He opens his eyes again to find him laying on his side, a mirror of Jim's body. "Can I help you?"

Wordlessly, Spock reaches for Jim's temple, and brushes away the hair trapped between there and the pillow. The touch is light but Jim can swear he feels Spock's fingertips buzz with the contact, the thrum of blood under his skin reverberating against Spock's pulse. 

"You can come in," Jim says, almost a whisper. "If you want."

Spock lifts his other arm, drapes his hand over Jim's cheek, presses his fingers forward, and listens.

The room is dark, but Jim is bright - thoughts like sunlight, dappled and spread across plains of wheat and grain. They flit around, never still, struggling to be contained. He is not used to connecting with a mind undisciplined - his only melds had been with his parents, light and reassuring, less an exploration than an expression of warmth and solidarity when he had struggled. The bonding with T'pring had been transactional, the same way a Human handshake signaled intent without much binding promise. The Terran need to reassure commitment with a gesture easily ignored later had never made much sense to him but, looking back, perhaps it was not so foreign after all.

The chaos of Jim's thoughts hold an echo of something like order, even though Spock cannot read it. Predictable unpredictability, he reflects, and a moment later he can feel Jim's attention shift. His mind focusing, sharp, like light through a lens, concentrated to a point. It jitters with energy, ceaseless movement even in close attention. The resilience surprises him.

Outside here, Spock can feel Jim shift under his hand.

"You're soft," Jim says, voice groggy. The mental murmur that accompanies it is smooth, a forward touch, and Spock shudders under the press of contact. He can feel Jim's hands actually press up against him, flat at his chest.

Spock drifts his thoughts across, lazy, not bound by the usual strict ethos of a ceremony. His ancestors would disapprove.

Then again, they had seemed to disapprove of many things Spock was, so he concluded that this would not be too unexpected.

Jim laughs, bright, but it doesn't reach his lips. It exists just where they meet, the shared psychic atrium filling with mirth and a fondness Spock had not considered before. The serotonin floods him, spilling over from Jim's chemical release of endorphins, he's sure. The Human concept of 'afterglow' is now more logical to him than before, when Doctor McCoy had explained it after referencing Jim's propensity for thrill-seeking and other risky forms of behavior.

Sex, the act itself, had always seemed a practical matter to Spock. He never had to consider the after, and the before had been a source of dread for him ever since he came of age. Now, lying in a bed that does not belong to him, he finds that the after is not as daunting as he expected it to be. It is… comfortable. Spock is unsure whether he would categorize it as pleasant, but he finds he has no particular desire to be anywhere else at the moment. 

He is surprised when sleep takes him, because he rarely finds it necessary when his body does not require it. Jim's breath is a steady metronome and the presence of Jim's mind, sated and languid, wraps around his in a way that reminds him of how I-Chaya would curl up in the shade to nap. 

He falls into unconsciousness peacefully, thinking of nothing. 

The next day, for the first time in a long time, Jim wakes to the feeling of something warm and solid pressed to his back. Someone. 

Most times, Jim didn't stick around a few hours past the adrenaline crash. 

He racks his brain trying to piece together the steady breath on his shoulders, the heavy arm over his waist. 

Ah, heavy. 

He remembers now, and spends a moment silently wondering how he got himself into this mess in the first place. 

He doesn't feel any of last night until he shifts, and fucking shit he's sore. He twists, gingerly, until he's staring down the barrel of a still face he's never been this close to before. Now, he can take time to examine it. There's a slight shadow of stubble on Spock's chin and his lashes are much longer than Jim has ever noticed.

Spock wakes slowly, more so than Jim would have thought he would - in his head, he had assumed it was like turning on a machine, off until power was supplied - but this is way more serene than that. 

Spock's eyes open just enough for Jim to see the edge of the double eyelid under eyelashes, and it takes several seconds before he seems to get his bearings and look up fully into Jim's face. Spock doesn't panic, but Jim can see the moment that the realization of where he is hits, because Spock's eyebrows hitch a bit higher and his eyes open wider. Jim can feel Spock's whole body tense up, and then forcibly relax.

The other thing Jim feels is another something inside him, just kinda…. Hanging out. Something at the back of his head, sitting at the base of his neck, where his cranium meets his spine. (And it's not the ache from where Spock ruthlessly pushed him down, Christ.) 

I'm so fucked, he thinks. 

Spock gives him a look. 

What? Why is he-

Jim.

Oh.

So this? Right here? Is the very first moment Jim finds out that they can talk telepathically.

Spock and Jim stare at each other, unblinking, frozen. 

Which is when shit truly goes south.