Jim was in the middle of reading an engrossing book on his PADD in their hotel room – a good use of shore leave time, he felt – when he felt more than heard Spock coming to stand over him. He persisted in reading, deciding that if Spock wasn't going to raise whatever the issue was, neither was he. This seemed to work, until he realized he'd read the same sentence 24 times. At this point he looked up. "Okay, fine, what is it, Spock?" "There is a spider in the bedroom." "So? Leave the poor spider to live out its life in peace. It's part of an endangered species, you know." "Of course I am aware that spiders are now an endangered species." Jim thought he heard him mutter something under his breath too, but he wasn't blessed with Vulcan hearing and couldn't decipher it, so he returned to his book. When a minute later the half-Vulcan hadn't budged, he looked up again. "Well, what do you want me to do about it?" "Kill it." "That's a very violent sentiment coming from a Vulcan…" Jim said, mildly surprised. Then understanding dawned. "You're scared of spiders, aren't you?" "I believe the correct term is arachnophobe. And as some species are toxic to both Vulcans and humans, and neither of us have the skills to identify them, it is logical – " He was cut off in mid-speech by Jim standing up and hugging him. "Come on, don't give me that. I know you well enough to know when you're faking it. Besides, we're bonded. I can do this," he said, reaching out with his mind and touching Spock's. "And know that you're scared." Spock put his arms around Jim. "I swear I'm going to put up my mental barriers if you persist in doing that." Jim chuckled softly. "I know you won't. Anyway, where is this big, scary monster?" He clenched his bicep. "I, brave James T. Kirk of Enterprise, vow to defeat this foul beast and rescue my love from its clutches!" Spock raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, fine, I'm never doing that again." "Now that you've promised that, it's in the bedroom." "Now I'm not sure if I'm going to…" Spock gave him a look that was halfway between 'Seriously, Jim?' and a threat to withhold sex. "Okay, I'm going, I'm going." Jim said, heading off to the small bedroom. Spock sat down and picked up Jim's PADD. One eyebrow crept progressively higher as he saw what Jim was reading., wondering why he'd be reading a textbook on shore leave. Jim came back in holding a dead spider and stopped in the middle of saying of "The beast is vanquished." to launch himself at Spock and struggle to get the PADD off him as Spock held it calmly. "Damn your Vulcan strength." Jim muttered. "I'm sure you weren't saying that a few hours ago…" "Damn you!"
And there we leave them. We hope they'll enjoy the rest of their shore leave, that they'll actually do something vaguely productive, and that they won't destroy all of the hotels furniture. That would be bad…