Jim had no idea if the malfunctioning turbines had been repaired yet. Given the length of time since the last complaint, he assumed so, but his own deck had luckily never been affected. Either way, he was very grateful for the real water shower right now.

It had been six days since McCoy had asked him if he was getting enough sleep, and five of those nights, Jim had dreamed of Spock. The fourth night, he had kept himself awake just so he wouldn't. The dreams were nice, pleasant, ranging from deeply arousing to merely comforting. It was not the dreams that were the problem; it was the waking. They made the urge to touch Spock greater, to look at him, even just talk with him. He had told himself the last three nights that he would banish them from his thoughts, that he would purposely focus on other things as he was drifting off. When work had not accomplished the task, he had attempted other fantasies, Uhura working her shift naked, threesomes with Orion girls -- none of it helped. They felt like they were not even of his own mind; pulling out of them was like trying to come down from the highest drug. They gripped him and would not let him return to himself. Even the alpha shift alarm was having difficulty waking him this week.

And then there was the not-small issue of the ones that were sexual. Jim had woken to sheets sticky with more than just sweat the first night, and the erection he was currently sporting, returning at just the memory of the dream, was proving more annoying than the stray concern of what they were going to start thinking of him down in Laundry. Shocking though it was, he twisted the knob toward cold and squashed the instinct to avoid the frigid spray.

He needed to get laid. That was surely the problem. It had been nearly two months since the last time he could remember having sex with Spock. But here, on the ship, when Spock was taken out of the equation, sex was not so easy to come by.

And even if it were, the idea felt strange and foreign now.

Jim knew how to emotionally detach when it came to sleeping with someone; he used to do it all the time. But now, the idea of going back to it inspired the same roiling in Jim's stomach that the veggie burgers McCoy pushed on him did. It wasn't the real thing.

Jim, half falling back asleep on his feet, jumped at a sound far too obnoxious for the late hour. He slipped a little on the tile, the hand pressed to the wall not nearly enough to support him, and looked around, more frantic than he would have been when fully awake.

It took hearing the sound a second time to even discover what it was -- the buzzer from Spock's quarters. Jim did not believe he had ever heard it in the entirety of their tenure on the Enterprise. In the early days, Spock had made sure to organize his bathroom time around Jim's, so as to avoid having to speak with him more than was necessary, Jim had suspected at the time. Then, in recent months of course, walking in on each other had hardly been enough of an issue to even merit locking the door. In fact, at times, it had been a goal.

That was clearly not the case in this instance.

The buzzer sounded again.

Jim sighed and swiped a palm down his face, scattering water droplets. Then he shut the shower off and snatched a towel from the shelf with a grimace. Wrapping it around his waist, he trudged for Spock's door and reset the door lock. It slid open and Spock blinked in the sudden light from the bathroom. The dark quarters behind him and his attire suggested he had been sleeping.

"It is oh three fifteen," he said. His dark eyes skimmed down Jim's form, quickly returning to his face.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Jim reached back for another towel and began dabbing at his head.

"You did not. You perplexed me," Spock corrected him, voice a little muffled by the cotton. "The shower has been operating for one hour."

Jim peeked out. "What, no decimals?"

To Jim's trained eye, Spock had appeared duly sleepy at first, but here he straightened. "One hour, precisely."

Jim stared at him. Something told him Spock had been awake the full hour. Had he been waiting for a suitable amount of time to pass before voicing his concern? He did look a little rigid. And it was rather strange to be taking an hour-long shower at three in the morning.

Jim cleared his throat. "I'm all right," he assured him. "Just... the shower felt nice, once I got in."

Spock's eyebrow crept up. "An illogical waste of water," he noted, idly, and Jim did not argue. "And the hour?"

Spock was being too nosy, and Jim ought to point it out, but it was habit for both of them to consider the other their business. He shrugged. "Just couldn't sleep." He blinked. "If I didn't wake you, what're you doing up?" He glanced pointedly back into Spock's cabin, avoiding the sleep pants the Vulcan was wearing.

"Inquiring after the state of your mental health," Spock quipped, and yeah, it was too late to argue with a Vulcan.

Jim scrunched his facial muscles and shook his head, wiping the towel over it again. "Okay, okay," was all he bothered to say. When his eyes reemerged, he noticed Spock's had lowered once more to his state of undress. He waited. "Spock," he said, after a moment, and the fact that he had to say it at all was quite telling.

Spock looked away from Jim entirely. "I apologize," he said to the damp floor. "It is... difficult. She... T'Pid is just beginning to sleep now as well, and when she is dormant in my mind..."

Jim had not allowed himself to think much of her. He had never met her, and for now, he liked it that way; it made it easier to pretend that she was some figment of his imagination, likely to disappear one day. It made it easier to forget that she was now closer to Spock than he was. Apparently, when she was sleeping, it was easier for Spock to forget too.

"What's it like?" he found himself asking.

Spock looked a bit surprised by the question. "I cannot say," he said. "I am half-Human, and then... I imagine for most it would be... comforting. It is not without comfort for me, but it is predominantly intrusive." Spock then looked like he was considering something oddly interesting. "Her thoughts are more ordered than mine or yours. She does not dream. I suspect if she did, she might be more present, at this time."

Jim's eyes lowered to the floor as well. "Does she know?" he asked. He looked up. "About me?"

"The nature of the bond dictates that she knows everything." Spock looked somewhat guiltily away. "I fear that all you placed in my confidence is in hers now, as well. "

"So, like... she could listen to this, now?"

"Negative," Spock said. "Even were she conscious, the distance provides a muffling effect. It transmits emotions -- mood, danger. Were it ever as all-encompassing as a meld, it would be most impractical. Transmitting thoughts requires physical contact or true effort."

So, I could kiss you, right now, and she wouldn't know, Jim thought.

"I find myself wondering, at times, how it would..." But Spock didn't finish.

Jim did not need him to. He wondered all the time himself what it would be like between them, and he had never even experienced it. "Yeah," he said softly. He stood straighter and took a step back. "I think the late hour makes us a bit too truthful, Mister Spock," he said, purposely light, half an attempt to create an opening to leave.

"Indeed."

Jim shook his head, but did not go. "I don't want this to, like..." he said. "We can't keep defining us by what we're not. Or it's gonna turn in to all we are." He swallowed. "I like to remember why I love you, not just that I do."

"... I cannot fault your logic, even should I find it difficult to implement." Spock said nothing more, but his expression, still fixed off somewhere, was intent, nearly troubled.

"What?" Jim prompted, certain there was something to prompt.

"I feel anger," Spock said, and when he met Jim's eyes, yes, Jim realized he did. "Your instinct to blame. However illogical, there exists some part of me that feels entitled to you, after..."

Spock had clearly stopped himself. That was apparently too much to speak of, even to Jim. Jim wanted to agree with him. They were good people, and that was in spite of all the shit life had thrown at both of them, especially Spock. Didn't they deserve at least this?

Jim stepped forward before he could think not to, palms moving to Spock's bare chest almost of their own volition. His mouth was open, prepared to say... what? You can still have me? Jim would let him, yes, but would Spock be the same person he loved if he let himself?

No. That was defining them by their lack again, not their substance.

Jim looked up into Spock's face. The Vulcan's eyes were hooded, his lips parted, waiting for something, standing on the edge of some cliff over which he would lose himself, and no, Jim would not be the one to push him.

He stepped back, breathing ragged, and Spock's eyes shut in what may have been relief.

"I think it's time for bed," Jim said, and then started. "I mean, not-" He groaned and rubbed his fingetips into his eyes. "I'm going to go in there." He gestured back toward his door. "And you're going to go in there." Back into Spock's cabin. "And I will see you in the morning."

Jim watched Spock stand there a moment before the other's choice to agree became apparent in his stance. "Yes."

Jim nodded. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Captain," Spock said before moving into his dark quarters, and for once, Jim did not protest the title.