Author's Note: (giggles manically Here is some pre-slash!
"Yes! I win!" whispers a voice suddenly on the Bridge. "I told you, Hikaru, the good money was on twenty minutes!"
Chekov is nearly jumping up and down in his excitement. Instead of being dull from lack of rest, sleep deprivation seems to only have made him more excitable. Pale blue eyes gleaming, he begins an impromptu (but also completely silent) victory dance as the rest of the crew turn as one to look not at him, but at the Captain, and then at their chronometers. Sulu curses, Uhura smiles triumphantly, and Spock silently transfers credits to both of his friend's accounts, raising an eyebrow. However, the show of humor does little to lessen his inner concern.
Jim Kirk is asleep. Sprawled in the Captain's chair in a position that looks appallingly uncomfortable, his face cupped in one hand, he is, as Sulu mumbles grudgingly, "out like a light."
After the credits have switched hands, so to speak, attention turns back to the Captain. Sulu is all for leaving him there for the duration of the shift, but then Chekov pales. "Suppose he sleepwalks," the Russian whiz kid says a little nervously. "Does anyone know if he sleepwalks? Just one unfortunately placed button and..."
"And an innocent asteroid bites the dust," Bones announces dryly, standing in the doorway. He glances around the room, running his fingers a little wearily across his forehead, and continues talking more quietly, working through the problem.
"No, how bout Spock takes Jim back to his quarters. It shouldn't be too difficult for that green-blooded hobgoblin to manage, now should it?"
"Indeed not," Spock affirms with a nod of his head. He looks at McCoy, and adds calmly, with the lightest of stresses:"My...superior...strength would be well put to use in such an endeavor." In an entirely illogical and yet profoundly satisfying moment, he enjoys the Doctor's responding grimace. In the softest of voices, Spock says something under his breath. It is a terran term, used commonly in popular culture, Jim has assured him.
"Spock: 1," whispers the Vulcan to himself, straight-faced. "McCoy: 0."
After he says it, Spock thinks of the time in the Gaming Room when Jim decided to teach him slang. Initially, he had been incredulous...
"That phrase is an extremely illogical insult. Humans really include it among their terms of slander and ridicule?"
"Frequently, Spock."
"When is it used?"
"During bar fights, family reunions, lover's spats; you say it when someone knocks you over in a crowd, when you order food in a Klingon resturant and it's still kicking, when you're joking around with friends...you name it. But it's most frequently used after someone displays that they are an insensitive git about something." Jim smirks.
"Presumably you have often heard this term used in reference to yourself." Spock inquires, the hint of a smile ghosting around his mouth, and Kirk nods emphatically.
"Loads of times."
"Would you use it in a sentence?"
Kirk had immediately began to pantomime an interaction between himself and a waiter.
"I asked for Cardassian fire tea, not this trash! This tastes like mud from the garbage heap outside! Oh yeah, that's how you feel about it, huh? Well, up yours, buddy. Up yours.'"
"And that's how you say it," Jim had finished, his face red from yelling, and he had smiled at the Vulcan. And Spock had stared at him, wondering again about the man's convoluted (consistently genius) thought processes; he imagines Jim's mind, quite illogically, as a stream of ideas flowing in and around each other, like interwoven strands of a jumbled ball of twine. A strange, overly tactile, adrenaline-junkie ball of twine with a death wish who becomes 'cuddly' when inebriated and whose thoughts, for a long time now, have been the cipher that Spock cannot solve; the enigma that continues to be a puzzle.
"Ahem."
Spock mentally shakes himself. He has been lost in thought; the slip-up must not happen again. He tunes into the conversation; the Doctor is speaking.
"Thanks for comming me," the Doctor relays brusquely to Uhura. "Looks like the old country doctor is the one winning the battle of wills. Let's save the asteroids- for fuck's sake, take him back to his quarters. I'll head over there-" His communicator beeps nastily and he reads the message and scowls- "... in a few minutes. Some grease monkey novice down on the Engineering Deck just burned his hand on some goddamn piping." His thick black hair, normally neat, is sticking out in all directions, and his sleeves have been shoved up past his elbows, not properly folded over the way he likes them, notices Uhura. But he's entitled to a little unkemptness-the poor man's been treating Lavodian flu among the crewmembers for nearly 14 hours past his shift now. She frowns, but out of concern, not anger. (Bones is a terrible hypocrite, ordering Kirk to sleep. Truly, he ought to be in bed himself.)
McCoy leaves the bridge hurriedly, with one last glance at his unconscious friend, and the crew return to their duties.
Spock, with many eyes on him, hoists the Captain up from the chair. His friend does not stir in his new position draped over his shoulder, and a collective sigh is released from everyone present. Spock ascertains that his grip on the man's legs is good, and then walks to the lift. He tries to forget exactly who it is he is carrying, but Jim's cool skin and soft breathing make such a thing impossible. The proximity is startling, and though he has attempted to make it as professional as the situation can be made, blood rushes to the tips of his pointy ears. He prays Nyota will not notice.
But it seems he has no luck. Before the lift closes, another figure steps hesitantly inside. The doors close; he indicates the floor desired, and the lift starts, but his hope is short-lived. In a move so reminiscent of earlier times that his breathing accelerates from the recollections (Vulcan destroyed; Amanda's eyes in the last moment), Nyota pauses the lift. He stares straight ahead, tries not to met her eyes, and tries not to think about the fact that Jim smells like sweat and mint and Starfleet detergent and the sharp, clean tang of snow from the planet they've recently negotiated with.
He fails miserably.
"I know we make light of it," Nyota says suddenly, and he flinches, "but sometimes," she pauses, gesturing at the Captain's prone form, and then says more quietly, "on a personal level, I hate how much he gives of himself for this job."
He is surprised. It is unlike her to be so direct- an attribute that likely stems from her fatigue.
Nyota rambles on, making no sense at all and simultaneously the best sense she's ever made. "Everything he's got comes to the table. It's that extra something that makes the Enterprise have the lowest mortality rates and the highest success percentages on away missions, and i wouldn't change that for anything. But it makes me think. He'd give anything for this ship; the crew. And we'd give everything for him."
Spock would give anything, he knows. He stares resolutely ahead and, trembling, wonders how long this has been true.
"When I first met him, Jim Kirk was the last person I ever would have thought I'd respect." Nyota says, undeterred by his silence.
"And now…" She trails off, looking down at her hands, but she doesn't need to finish the sentence. She steps in front of him, circumventing Kirk's legs, and lifts his chin with one brown hand. The look conveys more than words can ever hope to, and he is the first to glance away.
"You feel the same about the Captain as I do," Nyota whispers, then grins slightly to herself at her own words.
She starts the lift again, content in her discontent. He knows exactly how she feels.
When she is gone, he stands there in the lift for a moment more, stricken. He attempts to understand exactly what Nyota's meant and why it has unsettled him so, but he can initially define nothing. He replays the conversation over in his memory- and his breath halts for a moment, then resumes. In a flash of understanding, he realizes her error, and sways slightly. At the movement, Jim sighs, and mumbles something in his sleep. The tenderness this small exhalation provokes nearly brings him to his knees. He needs to meditate, but right now, he's drowning. This...feeling...it feels like it's taking over every part of him. The coolness of Jim's skin, the smell of snow. His head spins.
"You feel the same about the Captain as I do."
The lift slows, gradually coming to a stop. But a moment before the doors open and a professional, poker-faced Vulcan steps out, carrying on his back the love of his life, he mumbles something, actually mumbles, two words to himself in the white light.
"Not exactly."