Title: Love in the Time of Science
Genre: Romance / Humor
Rating: T
Pairing: Spock x Kirk
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: No one acts more foolishly than a wise man in love.
Word Count: 3,142
Warnings: Sorry I'm putting you through all this, Spock.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Summary is an anonymous quote.
A/N: 5 times Spock failed to show Kirk how he felt, and 1 time he succeeded.
1.
There was nothing logical about love. Spock had not really dwelled on this thought overly much, since his previous interactions with the emotion had been logical. T'Pring, while they did not love one other, they were as fond as they could be, the pairing was logical, the choice logical. When he and Nyota became partnered, the feeling he had for her, which dwarfed the emotion he felt for T'Pring, was what he imagined love was. His mother had loved his father, she had smiled at him, the way Nyota smiled at him. If one must put a label – and emotion – on it, they were happy and content in one another's company.
But it is a year, maybe a little less, into their five year deep space voyage, that Spock realizes that that is not love, cannot be. Because that is what he feels for the other Bridge crew – it is… friendship. And he is disappointed because he had enjoyed the thought of being in love and now understands why it is hard for humans to explain. If it is so hard to know when you are feeling it, how could you explain it to others? When he comes to Nyota with this realization, that he actually feels friendship for her, she, obviously requires more explanation. So he tells her, and she understands. She tries to explain to him the difference, but she can't. All she can tell him is that he will know. But he wonders if he ever will know the difference between a regular emotion and an overpowering one.
And then, one mission to an M-class planet where the men are vastly outnumbered by the women, and Spock suddenly knows why it is so hard for humans to explain love.
"I'm so sorry, Captain, but there seems to be a slight problem with accommodations." The woman is feline in her beauty – eyes slanted, ears more sharply pointed than Spock's own, all her limbs are longer than proportionate – and she is watching the Captain the way a cat watches a bird.
"Oh, and what seems to be the problem?" He is smiling his diplomatic smile, the one Spock knows is just for show, because it doesn't make his eyes crinkle just so at the corners.
"I fear we miscalculated. We had arranged for double occupancy for many of the crew – but I fear the room assigned to you and your physician is not available."
"Works fine for me, darlin," McCoy drawls, "I'd rather spend the night up in my own quarters, so I'll just beam up after dinner."
Jim is laughing. "Look at you, man! A few years ago and you were terrified of space – now you're itching to go back!" McCoy opens his mouth – no doubt to offer some insight as to how many communicable diseases can be picked up by breathing alien atmosphere, but Jim has already turned back to their host. "So that settles him. What about little old me?"
"If it is amendable to you, we could place you in other quarters?"
"And who's quarters might those be?"
Spock doesn't even have time to offer his – he sleeps far less than humans and they had given him a room to himself, not understanding Vulcans – before she answers. "Mine."
Spock expected the Captain to be outraged, to make a joke, anything. But when he turns, Jim is smiling for real, eyes crinkled at the corner, a devilish gleam in their blue depths. "That sure sounds amendable to me." His voice is warm honey – the twang not as thick as McCoy's, but there if you're listening, and the sound of it shoots straight from Spock's ears to the tips of his toes. He has the sudden image of the pair of them, wrapped together, and without warning, rage surges through him, and his fist slams down on the table and a crack shatters up the entire length of the wood.
There is dead silence as everyone turns to stare at him. Only years of Vulcan self-control keep Spock's face impassive as stone.
"My apologies, Captain," he says, forcing down the quaver of his voice and unclenching his fist. It is shaking, so he places it in his lap, away from their eyes. "That species of insect appeared to be poisonous and I fear your proclivity for allergies."
There are still stares, but Spock remains stoic the entire rest of the meeting. And that night, he meditated for hours in order to quell the images in his mind of where the Captain is, and with who.
2.
He is not an idiot. Spock is the smartest individual aboard the Enterprise. So, even though he had, apparently, never been in love, he can recognize now why that is. Nothing he has ever felt has been like this. Vulcans feel – more deeply than humans, they simply do not display them. But it is easy to understand now, the foolish feats that humans in love seem overly fond of. The declarations, the romantic overtures. Vulcan courtship rituals are less prominent, but more straightforward, logical.
But, if he is being honest with himself, the thought of walking up to Kirk and announcing, as would be customary, his desire to court the Captain with the intent of a future bonding, terrified him. When he imagined it, his breath came fast and he could feel the beginnings of a panic attack. No, he could not do that, he was too unaccustomed to being the one courting. Nyota had approached him. He did not know Kirk's feelings, but the depth of his feelings compelled him not to wait.
So he took a less verbal approach and one day on the Bridge, when Jim leans over his consuls and asks if this is the planet they're at and points at a space on his display that is about 20 light-years off, Spock does something that would have made his father close his eyes in shame. He grasps Jim's hand lightly by the wrist and guides it to the correct position.
He can feel his heart beating loudly in his ears, can feel his pulse pounding strongly in his fingertips. His palm is sweating, pressed skin to skin against him. Jim doesn't seem to notice, just follows the path of his own finger to the correct star cluster. And when Spock pulls his hand away and drags his finger pads slowly, so slowly away that they trail against the tendon at his wrist, Jim turns to him, eyes wide and bright.
"Thanks, Commander! I was about to take us about to take us way in the wrong direction!" His eyes are crinkling at the corners as he smiles. He claps Spock on the back before squeezing his shoulder in gratitude.
He watched as Jim walks back to the Captain's chair, pretending that it doesn't bother him that Jim didn't seem to notice. "Of course, Captain."
3.
They pass a Vulcan colony a few months later, "by accident" Jim says, but Spock knows it is because Elder Spock told the Captain that the VSA wished to give Spock an award for a recent paper he had done on Vulcan biology in deep space. Spock had not planned on going, having no interest in desisting their mission to receive a piece of paper. But his alternate-self had seemed to know his intentions and told Jim and Jim had taken offense to the fact that his First Officer didn't want to be credited for his work.
Which is how Spock finds himself standing in line with other Vulcans receiving various awards, listening to their short, to-the-point speeches. And he has an idea.
He will thank the Captain for his award, for it is really because of Jim that he's in deep space, able to do this research at all. He will find Jim's face in the crowd of hordes of stoic Vulcan families, and look him dead in the eye, and tell that this is for him. Pleased and terrified with this idea, he's planning out the words he will say when his name is called. He walks across the stage, the audience silent as a tomb, when he hears a huge, undulating cheer come from somewhere in the first few rows.
It is Jim.
He knows it even before he looks, but when he does turn his head, Jim is standing on top of his chair, with Bones trying unsuccessfully to pull him back into his seat. He is cheering wildly, waving a little flag that says, "Go Spock!" He is bouncing up and down so enthusiastically that he almost falls and only McCoy's hold on his waist keeps him standing.
"Woo-hoo! Yeah! Stick it to the man, Spock!" He cups his hands around his mouth to yell. "The Enterprise loves you!"
Spock never thanks Jim in his speech, he doesn't make a speech at all. Instead, he blushes green to the roots of his hair, takes his award, and hurries off the stage. He is asked politely, but firmly to never accept another award that he might be granted in person, but, honestly, Spock doesn't mind. It was worth the entire trip just to watch Jim cheer for him.
4.
It has been seven months, two weeks, four days, and three hours since the moment Spock realized that the feelings he has for the Captain might be more than friendship. It has been four months, one week, two days, and six hours since he has started trying to show that Captain that. But he has thus far made no progress.
The tightly controlled coil of emotions he keeps inside of him makes their weekly chess matches much more pronounced. Though if Jim notices any difference, he hasn't said anything, nor acted any differently. He is the same Jim that always comes to their matches: open and warm, speaking fondly of the crew and teasing Spock at every opportunity.
Today though, Spock is wound tight. He knows that tomorrow they will dock on Risa to grant the crew some much needed shore leave. He knows they type of place Risa is and the type of man the Captain is. He is handsome and draws people to him, people who would seek to know him carnally. And there are many of those people on Risa. Spock does not want to think about the fact that this time tomorrow Jim could be locked in an embrace with someone who was not Spock. He wanted to ask the Captain to remain behind, to create an imagined emergency that would force him to stay, anything to keep that from happening. But the Captain deserves a break, too, and Spock can't, in good faith, ruin his shore leave because he is jealous.
"Spock, are you okay?"
When he glances up, he sees the Captain is staring at his hand and notices with surprise that he had been tapping one of the pawns against the table in agitation as he fumed. He stops abruptly. "Yes, Captain, I was merely thinking."
"Must have been some thinking," he mutters, eyes still glued to Spock's hand. Spock feels a thrill at the notice, and, feeling decidedly wanton, drags his fingers slowly, absentmindedly down the pawn. Jim's eyes are laser focused and he clears his throat. "So what are you doing for leave tomorrow?"
His mind scrambled for something to say that Jim would find interesting. "There is an exhibit on some of the latest warp core drives that the Technology Academy has just released."
Finally Jim drags his eyes away and up to Spock's face, and his eyes are keen with interest. "That sounds cool!"
"Would you – " Spock swallows, narrowly avoiding clearing his own throat, " – care to join me?"
The Captain grins at that and enthusiastically agrees and Spock could try and tell himself that his ears do not burn with pleasure, but he would be lying.
5.
"Captain!"
Jim's arms pinwheel and for one precious moment Spock thinks that his barely-there footing on the edge of the cliff will hold, but gravity tips him backwards in slow motion and even as he falls he's reaching out to his Commander. "Spo-" And Spock is running forward, but he's too far away, he's too slow, Jim is falling too fast –
When Spock reaches the end of the cliff, Jim is crashing into the water below. There's no room for any thought. He doesn't think. He dives off the cliff after him, a perfect swan dive into the frigid waters below. The cold begins to seep into him almost at once but he dives down, following the swiftly sinking form of his Captain. He reaches out, lungs straining, hands burning from the chill and grabs the first piece of him he can reach.
He heads for the surface immediately and takes great lungfuls of air. Jim in unconscious or – No. He crushes the thought down. He missed all the rocks, the splash came from to the left of them. The force of striking the water simply knocked him unconscious. Spock begins to swim for shore as swiftly as he can. He doesn't know where his communicator is, doesn't have time to try and find it in the water. There is only one thought in his head.
When he drags Jim onto the beach, he isn't breathing and Spock feels the dark spiral of panic begin to choke him. No, no, no… this is just like Khan, Jim lying lifeless and dead too far away for Spock to reach. He could no nothing then but take out his anger on the one who had caused it. But there was no McCoy, no healing blood this time, no one but Spock.
"No, Jim, no…" He pumps a half a dozen time on Jim's chest, trying to get his heart beating. "Please, don't leave me…" He leans down without a thought to blow air into his lungs, once, twice. "Don't go," he whispers against those blue lips.
But there is sudden swift intake of air and Spock reels back just in time for Jim to roll to his side and cough up lungfuls of water. Spock is limpid with relief, shaking with it.
When Jim rolls over onto his back again, taking deep breaths, he grins at Spock. "You gonna kiss and tell?"
Spock doesn't even make a witty comeback, he collapses on top of Jim and just listens to him breathe.
+1.
The observatory is always empty at this time of the night, so when Spock walks in and sees someone else standing in front of the viewing window, watching the stars whiz by, he stops in surprise. But he recognizes that breadth of shoulders, that relaxed pose, that tousled hair. "My apologies, Captain. I will leave you the room."
Jim turns at the voice and brightens when he sees that it's Spock. "Commander! No, no, no, some company would be nice."
Still feeling like he's intruding on a private moment, Spock takes a place standing at the window next to Jim, trying to unobtrusively observe the man next to him. The glow of the stars makes his eyes glow like twin stars themselves, bright blue and vibrant and real. Without the bulk of the crew around, Jim's face is relaxed, and Spock is giddy with the thought that the Captain felt so comfortable with him.
"This is my favorite part of the mission," Jim said abruptly, gesturing out the window. "Getting to look out at the universe and know we can go anywhere we want." He watches the stars for a long moment. "What's your favorite part, Commander?"
Spock is staring at Jim's reflection in the window and he answers without thinking. "You, Captain." Those impossibly blue eyes widen and Spock is turning to Jim even as Jim turns to him. He does not think, there is no planning in this moment, no conscious thought or reasoned out strategy, there is nothing but Jim.
Spock has one glimpse of those wide, startled eyes before his own slide close. The first brush of lips is hesitant, testing. Spock is beginning to pull away, when Jim makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat – half wanting, half surprise – and leans forward, bringing them back together.
The second kiss is emotion – an outpouring of every word unsaid, every thought unspoken. Tongues slide together messily, hands clench in uniforms, then scramble to push the fabric aside, wanting to feel the smooth touch of palm to skin. When Jim fumbled with Spock's shirt, he reaches up to help and their fingers brush against one another in a completely different kind of kiss. Spock pulls his face away with a ragged groan, forehead slumping onto a shoulder, at the sensitive contact. When Jim uses this new position to trace the delicate shell of his ear with a warm tongue Spock's knees give out, and only Jim's arms around him keep him vertical.
The kisses and touches slow after that, the two content to bathe in simple contact with one another.
"Fuck, Spock," Jim chuckles. "I thought you'd never notice that I liked you."
He blinks. "I – what?"
"I mean, I had to practically threaten the Admiral to let us go you award ceremony, and, I mean, there's only so many dumb questions I can fake to get your attention before people will start to think I'm slow."
Spock knows he looks dumbfounded.
"And eventually the near-death situations to get you to rescue me just become flat-out dangerous and Bones told me I had to stop doing that." He laughs and shrugs.
"You fell off that cliff for my attention!" His voice cracks on the last word and Jim blinks at him.
"What? Oh, no, that was for real." He grins, open faced and charming. "But that was our first kiss, so you can't really complain, can you?"
Spock doesn't know whether he wants to strange Jim Kirk, or kiss him again, so he does something he has never done in his entire life. He laughs. Jim seems shocked, but after a moment joins in, but he doesn't know the depth of Spock's amusement. Imagine, the two of them, both trying to achieve the other's attention for months.
"So," Jim asks when the laughter dies down, waggling his eyebrows. "Wanna take this back to my place?"
For all that humans enjoyed their romantic overtures, there was something to be said about being to the point. Spock quirks a brow in an expression that is half enticement, half amusement. "I do believe that is amendable, Captain."