When Spock woke up again, he was pleasantly surprised about how warm it was. From the fever-induced chilliness to the air to this comfortable state of approximately... ninety-nine? degrees, he could say nothing except that it was enjoyable.

He fumbled for the blankets, intent on settling them over his shoulders again, he found that the blankets wouldn't move. Irritable beyond a point that was acceptable for Vulcans, Spock pulled on the fabric more insistently.

It gave, and the folds of fabric settled upon his neck... as an arm fell over his shoulders moments later.

Spock believed the human saying was to 'jump like you've been shot'- which he must admit was illogical more than usual; how would one feel up to jumping if they had been shot?- when one flinched in surprised. So, it was suitable to say that he jumped as though he had been shot at the sudden pressure of the human appendage over his torso.

Heart hammering, Spock realised why it was that it was so warm. Captain Kirk was... he was... sleeping... next to...

"Captain?" Spock asked- more said- feeling a wave of disapproval as he heard his voice being a half octave above where it normally was. "Jim!"

Kirk seemed oblivious, probably was, too, and simply pressed closer into the warmth that was Spock's fever radiating off of him.

Chest heaving, Spock fought back the fight or flight reflex. He would not harm his Captain. This was his Captain. No matter how... illogical... irrational... improper...

Spock drew in a deep breath through his nose, forcing himself to lie very still.

When he spoke again- approximately seven point six seconds later- his voice was calm and collected, volume increased. "Captain Kirk. Wake up."

Kirk mumbled something and shuffled onto his back. At least with the new arrangement, Kirk's forehead was no longer pressed against the small of his back, his hair no longer tickling like sweat dripping down his back.

"Captain," Spock repeated, having a slight notion that calling him Jim right now would only lead the aloof Captain into thinking that he was in bed with one of his... female acquaintances. It wasn't until after he thought that that he thought maybe calling him Captain was a bad idea, too.

Kirk sighed heavily. Spock repeated his name again, resisting the urge to simply push Kirk off the bed. Illogical and improper.

"What d'ya want, Spock...?" Kirk muttered sleepily. There was a slight pause before Kirk let loose with a yelped exclamation of a colourful metaphor as he scrambled to get out of bed. He ended up falling to the floor in his haste, but Spock could not garner enough interest in the resulting thud to inquire on Kirk's safety.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, squeezing his eyes shut. Personal boundaries were back. No interruptions. Control.

His temporal lobes pounded painfully.

He needed to meditate. Immediately.

"Shit. Shit," Kirk said again, seemingly unable to process words. "Sh... I'm sorry, I just- son of a bitch." His voice was muffled, and Spock chanced a glance to find Kirk burying his face in his hands. "I am so sorry," he said, looking up again. His face was red and he would not meet Spock's gaze.

Spock would have been puzzled at the reaction of embarrassment if he had actually cared enough to. His Vulcan physiology was still coming down from the shock of having someone so close, much less his Captain. He didn't have the capacity to feel embarrassment, only sheer... Violation? He wasn't even sure what he was feeling. He was not allowed to feel. While casual physical contact was unwarranted and unwelcome, emotions were almost as just.

Control.

"Spock?" Kirk's voice was hesitant.

"Your sentiment is unnecessary, Captain," Spock managed. "It is logical. You have been working around the clock. No apologies are necessary." Now that Kirk had vacated himself from his bed, Spock took a moment to stretch inconspicuously.

"Ugh." Kirk strode to the other side of the room. He jambed his fist onto the computer controls. "Bones!"

Doctor McCoy's voice filtered through after a moment. "McCoy here."

"Isn't it time for Spock's next dose?"

"What? Oh... shit. Yes. We've had another breakout of that fever down here in Sickbay. I'll send an orderly to you." A pause, broken by rustling in the background and McCoy saying something on the offhand, to a nurse. "How is he?" he asked, louder again.

Kirk looked across the room at Spock.

"My symptoms have diminished," Spock said. "The headache is the worst of the symptoms, which I should be able to combat with meditation..." he trailed off. He vainly hoped that Kirk would understand the underlying meaning that Spock wanted him to leave so he could meditate, and knew without conscious thought that Kirk would not 'get it'.

"You hear that?" Kirk asked, looking back at the computer monitor.

"Yeah, I heard him and I don't believe that. Let me talk to him."

"I am listening, Doctor."

"I'm not talking to the wall, dammit!"

Kirk sighed and swivelled the computer to face Spock. Spock raised an eyebrow at McCoy's picture on the screen.

"Now, Spock, enlighten me. You were sick as a dog not twelve hours ago. You're just magically- poof- better?"

"I did not say that I had made a full recovery. I simply said that my symptoms had diminished."

"Well?"

Spock raised both eyebrows in question.

"Tell me what your symptoms are, you green-blooded hobgoblin! Jeez."

"Since I woke up, my headache has intensified-" although mostly for reasons that he was not going to admit to Doctor McCoy- "and my eyes feel swollen. There are pervading aches and pain. My body seems to have become more acclimatised to the temperature in my quarters. Although it would not harm to set the temperature in my room higher," he said, flicking his gaze towards Kirk.

"It's already boiling in here!" Kirk exclaimed.

"Don't touch that temperature," McCoy snapped. "I want your body temperature first before you do that. Healing atmosphere or not, it won't do any good with a fever. Listen, Jim, I've got a mess down here, I've got to go. Call me if anything changes. Dirks'll tell you more. Bones out."

Kirk frowned and Spock returned his gaze to the ceiling as McCoy's image flickered from the screen. He closed his eyes and took three deep breaths, pushing the blankets away from himself a moment later.

"What are you doing now?"

"At present, I am going to have a sonic shower." He paused at Kirk's dumbfounded look. "Is there a problem?"

"How can you feel like having a shower?"

"We have no other means of getting oneself clean."

"You've been sick."

"That, Captain, is very much the obvious fact here," Spock replied, shifting his weight uncomfortably. As much as Kirk made a fuss about him being sick, he knew that he was, and he also knew that if he did not get into the shower soon, he would not be able to stand through an entire shower.

"You don't need to be overex... oh hell, I'm not one to talk. Just hurry up," Kirk said, waving his hand towards the bathroom. "Bones'll skin me if he knew I let you out of bed."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I do not believe that Doctor McCoy would skin you. He is a healer, not a psychopath."

Kirk rolled his eyes. "That's debatable. Go shower. You look like shit."

Spock permitted himself a brief shake of the head at Kirk's slang and strode into the bathroom.

"Why'd you let him out of bed?" McCoy demanded.

"Bones, you know I can't stop him."

"He doesn't need to be romping around!"

"Romping around? He's having a shower, not having sex," Kirk retorted.

"How long has he been in there?"

"How the hell should I know? I'm not timing him."

"Dammit, Jim, what if he collapsed?"

"If he collapsed, I would have heard him collapse. Duh," Kirk said in a tone of the obvious.

"I don't hear him making any noise," McCoy said.

"I don't care to walk in on him while he's in the shower," Kirk fired back. "Anyway, I thought you were sending Dirks here with a hypo, not you. I thought you were busy!"

"Don't change the subject. I figured maybe you and Spock would create problems for Dirks so I decided to stop by myself."

"When do we ever cause problems?"

"Right now."

There was a buzz on the bathroom door. Spock opened his eyes with only the slightest twitch of a frown.

"Spock?"

Spock cleared his throat. "Yes, Doctor?"

"If you're still alive, you need to get back in bed," McCoy stated.

"It would be logical to assume that I am, in fact, alive, due to fact that I am speaking to-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. You got clothes on?"

"Bones, you are so-" Kirk started, but McCoy cut him off.

"Shut up, Jim. Spock?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm coming in."

Given that the doctor and the Captain had been hovering outside his bathroom door for the past six point three minutes, the breach of his privacy was not wholly unexpected. The complaints that would follow would, of course, were expected also.

"Spock, you- hot damn," McCoy said, immediately reaching for the temperature controls as steam rushed out of the bathroom. "I told you not to touch the temperature!"

"My core temperature is at an acceptable range to increase the atmospheric temperature," Spock replied calmly.

"Come on, get up. Get back to bed!"

Spock calmly pushed himself to his feet, pleased when he did not sway. He had not been lying; his temperature was back down. He didn't need a tricorder to tell him that. The hasty sonic shower had woken him up a bit and he had slipped on the traditional black Vulcan robes while Kirk had stepped out. Then he had turned back to the bathroom, turned the heating system up, and settled into meditation. If he had to meditate under cover of taking a shower, so be it. He wanted privacy and quiet; two things that he seemed to be missing out on lately.

"As you wish, doctor, but I can assure you that I have been restored to near-complete health."

"Oh yeah? You got a bag of Vulcan magic tricks we don't know about?" McCoy asked, powering on the tricorder.

"I have a Vulcan healing trance," Spock replied easily, not flinching from the close proximity of the tricorder behind his shoulder.

"Oh, yeah, that trance... if you've got that, why did you take so long?"

"I was..." Spock paused, searching for the words he wanted. "Unable to reserve enough mental strength to correctly capture the trance."

"So, you were too sick," McCoy said.

Spock sat on the edge of his bed. "I believe I said that, Doctor."

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Well, your temperature is back down to thirty-four. I guess that trance does work. It'll be lucky if it doesn't go back up now..."

Spock arched his back in a subtle stretch. "I am seventy nine percent positive that it will not."

"Great. Headache?"

"Minimal."

"Stomach?"

"The nausea is gone."

"Light-headedness?"

"Also absent, as well as the vertigo."

"Sensitivity to light, sound...?"

"Minimal."

"Would the prisoner like something to nosh on while he's being interrogated?" Kirk asked, sarcastically, from his place of sitting at Spock's desk, feet propped up and arms behind his head.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "'Nosh on'?

"Food, Spock," Kirk said, exasperatedly.

"Oh. Tea would be sufficient."

"You can't live off of tea," Kirk muttered, but went to the replicator all the same.

"Jim's right; you need to eat. Pick something or I'll pick for you."

"Plomeek soup."

"Ugh," Kirk muttered, switching out the data cards for the replicator.

"Shut up, Jim. Just get it for him."

"Yes, sir," Kirk said sarcastically. "Happy to please, sir."

Spock watched his acquaintances' glance towards each other, the lazy smile that they bounced off of each other. He raised an eyebrow at their interaction.

Friends... He wasn't sure that he would get to the concept for a long time.

Still, Spock thought as he settled back more comfortably into the middle of his bed, crossing his legs as the old Americans used to say 'Indian style', it wasn't a terribly unwelcome concept to ponder.

But the little motion right there at the end with Spock relaxing while they're around signals that he does care for them more than the average person, y'know? :)

Secondly, I know some people asked if this would become a Spirk story, so I hope that I did not offend or annoy anyone with the platonic sleeping together that transpired here. I love platonic sleeping together for my fandoms. If I offended you, I'm sorry. That was not my intention. I just wanted some awkwardness between them.

I do not own Star Trek. Love to hear your comments as usual; thanks!