"What is that, Dan? What's that you smell of?"

"Nostalgia."

—Watchmen

oOoOoOo

Jim stood against the wall, leaning slightly on his side. His weight had shifted from right leg to left leg at least ten times in the past thirty minutes, if he had to guess. There wasn't much else he could do, apart from go back for refills, and he'd done that already. Five times.

This was the point of ambassadorial balls he always looked forward to: the halfway point. The dance floor was filling up, the orchestra currently reduced to a string sextet, which was an improvement; one of the trumpets had been almost squawking. Even the most uptight Federation politicians were well on their way to becoming completely sloshed, if they weren't there already, and were finally starting to loosen up. Silver-haired ladies, who had attained that color not through age but through a box of hair dye and a desire to appear more experienced and sagacious, were now hanging on the arms of their more youthful male counterparts, regardless of the species. The men, at least the humans, were equally intoxicated and looking to score, though with the dates they brought with them and not with their coworkers.

Not that Jim had a date he could hope to bang, anyway. His desk job as rear admiral, garnered after fifteen years of service to Starfleet, took up too much of his time to allow for romantic social interaction, and that was putting it mildly. Hell, Jim thought, the job sapped his libido completely. Gone were the days where James Kirk would romance any woman alive regardless of their species, eventually whisking them away to the nearest bedroom. It wasn't just women either—his assistant, Thomas, was pretty damn attractive when thought was put to it, with jet black hair and dark, lively eyes. But with the amount of work on Jim's plate recently, he hadn't even made a joking pass at the boy. Just a nod, or a grunt of acknowledgement. Not a single good-natured slap on the ass as he passed, no nothing. He was that far gone.

So he took another sip of whiskey, halfheartedly looking across the swelling contents of the dance floor and thinking of the old days. Specifically, of the Enterprise. This "whiskey" was only whiskey in name, synthehol crap compared to the bottles of liquid amber Scotty had managed to sneak onboard the Enterprise.

God, how much Jim missed that ship, its crew. The five year mission had passed far too quickly for his tastes, and when the mission hadn't been renewed they all went their separate ways. Jim hadn't really kept in touch with any of them, save Bones. He'd only overheard about happenings. Uhura was still in Starfleet, flitting between ships as the most sought-after linguistics officer; Sulu was captain of a small ship, with Chekov as his first officer; Scotty was on commission at Starfleet, teaching, of all things; and Bones had retired to Earth, working on and off as a doctor in northeastern North America. And Spock, well, he had heard nothing.

Purposely, he had heard nothing.

The music started up again, a new, almost melancholy undercurrent to the clink of crystal and silverware and jumbled conversation. Jim wasn't very good at identifying instruments based on sound alone, but he heard a drum set, piano, and something very similar to a trumpet in the mix. Probably the strings had gotten tired, decided to hand the scene over to the jazz musicians. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't distracting enough either. Jim's eyes roved around the dance floor, looking for something else, anything else, to keep him occupied. He looked at the innumerable heads and saw a myriad of browns and blondes, silver and red and—

And a single head of straight, sleek, jet-black hair, cut in an all-too-familiar fashion, with all-too-familiarly pale, pointed ears poking just barely from the blackness.

Jim blanked completely. One moment he was leaning against the wall and the next he was walking, dazedly, into the crowd. It parted grudgingly for him, perhaps with a few noises of disapproval, but Jim hardly heard. His heart was all he could hear, a tribal beast rattling at the bars of a cage that was sliding from his ribs and into his stomach at a pace so fast he thought he might be sick. But no, he kept moving, bolstered by sudden shots of adrenaline that went straight to his brain and made it buzz. It had been ten years since he'd felt so alive.

And then he was there, standing only a foot away, putting his hand on the thin shoulder. Spock turned, and his heart skipped several beats at the closest thing to sheer surprise he would ever see cross a Vulcan's face. His hearing returned, in part; all he could hear was the band and Spock's disbelieving voice. "Captain—Admiral Kirk."

Jim smiled genuinely for the first time in ages. "Dance with me?" he asked.

Both of Spock's eyebrows lifted towards the ceiling for a brief moment before settling back down. His head inclined. "If you insist."

The dance floor parted around them as they moved, a few surprised faces turning to watch, but they didn't pay any attention to those. Instead they settled into the appropriate position, not too close together. As they made to hold hands Jim saw with a pleased start that, in addition to his sciences blue dress uniform, Spock was also wearing white gloves.

"Nice handwear," Jim commented. They began to sway, a little awkwardly. Jim figured Spock wasn't much for dancing, though he wasn't terrible at it. What made him say yes, then?

"The first event I attended involved an unpleasant amount of shaking hands. I decided to wear them to all future events, though in this case they appear to be merely a precautionary measure."

Jim shrugged. "Ambassadorial balls tend to be more refined."

"True," agreed Spock. "They are trained not to be culturally ignorant, after all."

"I do believe there was a snide remark in there," Jim said. "Still, I like the gloves."

They danced in silence for a while longer, listening as the songs melded easily together into an altogether easy beat. Then Jim spoke again. "What've you been up to?"

"The same can be asked of you, Admiral."

"I figured the change in title would be all you needed to hear."

"That is true," Spock replied. He fixed his gaze on Jim's face, making the human's cheeks flush a bright and inexplicable pink. "However, it is not all I wish to hear."

"Heh." Jim ducked his head as they turned on the spot. "Don't know what to say about desk work."

"You captained another ship before becoming Admiral. Perhaps we could discuss that?"

"Not much to discuss," Jim said morosely. "It wasn't anything life-changing, really. Not like on…like when we were on a ship together."

"It was a military-oriented ship, correct?" Spock asked. He was no longer staring straight at Jim, but his eyes flickered up toward his every so often, like a high school girl afraid of being spotted by her crush.

"Yeah. Like I said, pretty boring." He turned his eyes briefly to Spock. "You still haven't told me how you've been."

Spock's mouth turned upwards slightly. "I am training to become an ambassador."

Jim chuckled softly. "Can't say I'm surprised. You always were the peaceful one."

"It was the most logical decision available to me," Spock went on. "I have no desire to become captain of any ship, much less waste my time in any higher position."

"You're just in it for the science," Jim commented.

"That would be an accurate statement," Spock agreed. "I believed the same could be said for you."

"Believed?" Jim asked.

Spock didn't answer. Ahead of them, the trumpet wailed away, putting sound in the space between them. Jim didn't try to augment the sound. He was looking over Spock's shoulder, into the open windows where the stars winked away at the crowd. What had he done, going to Spock for a dance? What had he done, not thinking for the umpteenth time in his career, instead choosing to trust his gut and wander straight up? Opened up that same can of worms from ten years ago, he thought rather bitterly. Started back on an old habit I thought I broke when I left the Enterprise. God, why is it so easy to fall all over again?

"May I ask a personal query?" Spock murmured.

Jim shook his head a little, shooting another nervous smile over the Vulcan's shoulder. "Go ahead, again."

"Why did you not renew the Enterprise's mission contract?"

An odd, choked chuckle escaped Jim's throat. "I can't do anything about whether the Council renews—"

"You carried a substantial amount of influence with Admiral Pike, even then. In any case, the question has never been whether you can do something, but whether you will." His eyes flickered back to Jim's and locked on their targets. "You were the one who illicitly defeated the Kobayashi Maru exam, after all."

Any trace of Jim's smile, however weak, dissolved completely, and his feet came to a halt. "Do you honestly want me to tell you?" he asked, voice low.

"I would not be asking if that were not my intent," Spock answered. They were almost whispering now, a still and near-silent island amidst an ocean of movement and loud chatter.

Jim sighed, long and slow. "It must've been the second year of the mission. We were playing poker on a lark, trying to see when you'd throw down your cards and call the whole thing illogical. But you didn't. You sat there for the whole game, taking every single loss in stride until you whipped all our butts three times in a row. And you didn't say a word about it after the third time, after we knew it wasn't a fluke—you just said 'Good game, gentlemen' and walked off like it was nothing."

"And this event led to your—?"

Jim shook his head. "It just…it just got me thinking. About you. A lot about you. How determined you were, how devoted. How patient and steady, and compassionate, and I wondered how you—" He looked around, chuckled nervously again. "Can we keep dancing?"

When Spock obliged, and they began to revolve again, Jim started back up. "I just hung onto that, kept wondering for the next three years. When we got to be friends, it was better, and I had less to wonder about, and I'd almost completely put out the fact that you and Uhura were…well. An item. And when you two stopped dating in the fourth year, I tried so hard to rack up the courage to ask you. And then, well…"

"Go on," Spock urged. His voice was no longer quite as level, but the change was almost undetectable.

"It was maybe a week before the mission ended," Jim said. He was watching their hands, not really seeing them, a knot forming in his stomach. "I'd finally made the decision to ask you, I knew how much I cared and how much I wanted to show you that I cared, and I went up to your room to ask." He exhaled. "I didn't even make it to your room. I saw you and Uhura in one of the corridors, and she was hovering over you, kiss…kissing…" He swallowed over the sudden lump in his throat.

"And then I couldn't," he choked out. "I turned around and went back to my quarters. When Pike asked if he should try getting the mission renewed, I just shook my head. I just couldn't. It was impetuous and childish and downright fucking selfish, but I couldn't stay on the same ship as you for another five years, caring so much for you and watching you two kiss like that every day." The knot in his stomach fell out, and Jim felt drained, empty. "Now you can hate me again, if you want," he croaked hoarsely, shutting his eyes.

There was silence again; even the trumpet had stopped, replaced by what Jim thought was a cello. Jim felt a pang as he realized that yes, he missed that trumpet. Even if it was a piece of metal, it had been a conduit for him, a way to hear his pent-up heartache vocalized before he'd done the same thing with words. And god, that was a stupid idea—what the hell had he been thinking? He half-wanted to cry.

A sudden pressure on his hand broke his reverie, and he opened his eyes, half-dazed. Then he saw. Though they were palm to palm, Spock's long fingers were pressed gently against his own, until Jim's epidermal nerves were focused wholly on the feel of white silk gloves and the fiery heat behind the fabric. And Spock's eyes were looking into his, with an intensity that could've melted ice.

Something in him quivered dangerously. "Spo—"

"That kiss," Spock murmured, and Jim had to lean in closer to hear, "was Uhura's doing, not mine. She wished for us to become a couple again, and cornered me in order to convince me. It was not convincing," he added in a harsher tone. "It only made me more—how did you phrase it?—determined not to rejoin her. I had realized in the interim that I cared little for the 'fairer sex,' to use your idiom. At least, not as much as I cared for the more rugged sex."

It took a moment for the eloquent wording to click. "You what?" Jim asked stupidly.

Spock flashed him what constituted a wan smile in Vulcan terms. "Uhura had managed to corner me just before I went to ask if you would, could be romantically interested in me, but you were not in your quarters when I reached them. All other opportunities that week were cut short when you disappeared before I was able to ask the question."

Jim felt suddenly very hot and very sick. "You…oh, God." His head fell, forehead resting against Spock's shoulder. After a moment, he croaked, "I feel so stupid."

"The same can theoretically be said of myself. Only theoretically."

"All this time," Jim murmured, "we were just dancing around each other." He raised his head and began shaking it furiously like a wet dog. "Spock, I am so, so—"

"Jim."

They came to a slower halt, and Jim felt Spock's gloved fingers against his cheek. He opened his eyes despite his better judgment. Spock and his touch were still there, gazing into him in a way that was no longer intimidating or embarrassing, but that made his entire body tingle with a feeling he'd believed was long gone. "There is no need," Spock murmured, "to apologize. However, if you are insistent upon it…"

Spock straightened and pulled his hand away, increasing the distance between them. Still looking into Jim's eyes, Spock put his gloved hand to his mouth and tugged the glove off with his teeth. There was a fluidity of motion as Spock lifted his hand towards Jim, palm forwards, in a gesture that was oddly familiar. His fingers looked even slimmer without the added bulk of fabric, the pale skin almost glowing next to the stars. Jim had almost forgotten how lovely Spock's hands, those incredibly adept and talented hands, could be.

"Spock," Jim murmured, "what're you—?"

Though he undoubtedly had heard, Spock ignored the comment. "As you have stated rather colloquially, we have both failed not only in efforts to remain emotionally connected as friends, but also in attempts to broaden the scope of our relationship. I propose that now, while we no longer under the constraints of close-quarters professionalism, we make efforts to satisfactorily perform both tasks."

It was still there, that crisp, scientific tone, like conversing with a dictionary, coupled with the kind of effusive explanation one would get from Merriam-Webster. Still, and despite a smile, Jim had to translate for his own sake. "You want to date?"

"In the simplest terms," Spock replied, "yes, I do." The fingers of his extended hand flexed and unflexed, demanding Jim's attention again.

And suddenly it hit him. "El'ru'esta," Jim breathed. "Hand embrace. Spock, that's—"

"Rather appropriate an offer, when one factors in the years spent apart," Spock interrupted.

"Too much," Jim corrected, shaking his head. Even though it took him a second to remember the appropriate hand sign, Jim tucked his thumb, pinkie, and ring fingers into his hand, and proffered the resulting gesture to Spock. "Let's take it slow," he offered. "Let things go where they ought to."

The Vulcan's eyebrows lifted slightly as he blinked, and Jim recognized the expression as one of gentle surprise. "Ozh'esta," he noted softly as he copied the motion. He reached and bridged the distance between them; their skin touched for the first time that night, perhaps in forever, and Jim felt a little thrill of heat at the contact. "I am…surprised that you know the significance of these gestures. Most humans would neither remember nor understand."

Jim's lips quirked upward for a moment, and he set their dancing back into motion. "Didn't someone say something once about how I'm not your average human?"

"I believe someone did," agreed Spock.

They drew closer together, still revolving on the spot. Spock leaned his head against Jim's shoulder, and the admiral's heart fluttered in surprise and delight. "Comfortable?" he murmured.

"Especially so," the Vulcan answered. His lithe frame relaxed into Jim's waiting arms, as if suddenly the weight there had dissolved into the dance floor.

A moment more of silence, infinitely warmer and more amiable than before. Then Spock spoke up. "Although it does not bother me, Admiral, I feel compelled to ask."

"Go on, Ambassador."

"Are you perhaps wearing cologne?"

"I'm pretty sure it wore off a while ago. Why?"

"Your scent is, for lack of more eloquent phrasing, magnetic."

The heat of their joined hands tingled at the periphery of Jim's brain. "Nostalgia's pretty attractive that way."

Author's Notes: HAPPY SPIRK DAY! As if you really needed proof I'm alive, right? I couldn't go today without posting this little treasure, and lifting your Spirk Day spirits a smidge! Well, hopefully lifting them. This story's a little bit melancholy now I think about it.

I'm slowly working on my Drabbles. The feeling's been gone a bit since college started and I have an huge influx of homework, but I'm gathering it up. My genius brain also decided to give me another storyline idea, so I'm toying with that a little and wondering how much of it would constitute fandom. But I won't get into that.

Though, if I did put it on my Fictionpress, would you want the link?

Anyhoo, I love all of you people and hope you have a fantastic day/rest of the month. Thanks as always to the most fantastic beta ever, xladyjagsvolleyball16x, whose name is still too long but who looks at that anyway. Next posting will be (hopefully) soon! Until then, everybody have a fantasmical, Trek-filled day!