He knew he was failing to control his expressions as he sat next to Spock on the edge of his bed. His lips parted as Spock expressed his concern for him, the hot breath coming out in puffs, drying the saliva on the pink flesh.

Spock was so cool beside him, he radiated coolness. It was like running your hand over an ice cube and feeling the waves of cold rolling off.

He cleared his throat. It sounded loud in the small space between them. "What are you concerned about?"

Spock blinked, his warm eyes a sharp contrast to his cool demeanor, to his cold body.

"You have been acting…different than usual. I want to know why," he said turning his head.

Jim sighed. Again. Dammit. He looked down at the floor, tugging at his top lip with his bottom teeth.

"I uh…" he paused, considered saying that he was fine. But Spock wouldn't buy it for a second…he would just feel lied to.

He looked back up at Spock and struggled between an answer and just ogling Spock's perfect face. He was taking too long to respond.

"I've been having trouble sleeping…" he said, cutting off Spock before he had the chance to launch a response. "Do Vulcans dream Spock?" He looked up at the other man, his eyes a swimming pool of questions and emotions.

"No," Spock responded. Jim nodded almost imperceptibly. "Well…you're half human…have you ever dreamt?"

"Yes. Once." The answer surprised Jim. He felt a hundred questions spring to his tongue but kept them steadied there.

"It occurred after Vulcan was destroyed," Spock hesitated. Opening up on whatever level this was…was beyond his normal bounds. But Jim's eyes waited, his brows concentrated, his breath hitched.

"I dreamt of my mother falling to her death," he said in a quiet voice. Jim closed his eyes and bowed his head for a moment. "I'm sorry Spock."

A quiet beat elapsed between them.

"Are your dreams keeping you from sleeping well?" The question was innocent, but immediately Jim's mind raced to thoughts of him rutting into Spock, his hands in his jet black hair, this lips green and bitten and swollen, sweet and sour like a ripe green apple.

His mouth watered, as if on que. He had to reign in his thoughts. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed, willing down an erection that he knew wasn't going anywhere as long as Spock was sitting on his bed, less than a foot away.

"Yeah…" he croaked. "I've been having a lot of dreams lately and they've been keeping me up," he dared to look up at Spock who had the tiniest hint of concern sprawled across his features. "Jim…" "Spock, I can take care of myself. Although I appreciate the concern," he was throwing his walls up.

"What have you been dreaming of?" Spock asked, pushing past the flimsy boundaries just erected.

Hesitant ocean eyes glanced over the slim, muscular body next to him. There were two dreams in particular that were robbing him of his sleep. Somehow it seemed like the easier option to tell Spock the dream that didn't involve him snapping his hips into Spock's quiet slick heat….

"Jim?"

He fought the urge to wring his hands together, so instead he placed them beside his body on the bed. Unfortunately that lessened the space between them.

"I dream a lot about…when I died," he said, the words coming out like a whisper. He looked over at Spock whose face fell into an even deeper solemnity.

"I try not to dwell on that event," Spock said, nearly broken.

"It's okay Spock…I'll be okay…I always am," he smiled but it was fake. It felt fake.

"I can't imagine not dreaming," he said nearly inaudibly to himself. "I fail to see the purpose of dreaming," Spock responded instantly.

He looked up and smiled. This time it was genuine. He loves how Spock questions things. Well, right now he loves it. Sometimes he hates it, wants to punch him in the face for his perpetual insistence when it comes to his driving curiosity.

But in this moment it makes Jim's eyes sparkle. "Dreams are important Spock…they're how humans can…deal with things, process things…" he said, his eyes darkening as he reached the end of the sentence, as if in realization.

"What is there about your death that you need to process?" Spock asked, confused. "I uh…I don't know. Dreams are also influenced by traumatic events. God…I just wish it didn't feel so real…" he admitted, dropping his head in his hands.

As soon as the words came out of his throat, he realized he probably said too much.

He quickly lifted his head out of his hands and felt like he was gravitating towards Spock. Spock. Spock. Always Spock. On the bridge and in his head…curled into his dreams like the fist the commander had wrapped around his neck that day on the bridge.

Jim's control was slipping, it was being sucked into the vortex created by Spock's eyes.

"You're in my dreams all the time," he said, realizing that his face was perfectly level with his First Officer's, the breath of the latter skimming across his skin.

His features screamed vulnerability, his eyes trained on Spock's lips.

"Do you know what I wanted more than anything in that moment…when I laid there dying?" He saw a wildfire of emotion burning beneath Spock's cool skin. "All I wanted was to feel the skin of your hand against mine."

He careened dangerously close to Spock, his skin longed for the same touch now in this moment, just as it had then. He breathed hard, his erection straining uncomfortably against his pants. Usually when he felt this way he escaped to his quarters, to his shower, and washed away the thoughts and the memories and the tension. But there was no escaping.

Against all logic, ignoring the screaming voice in his head to stop, he raised his right hand, like a street guard telling vehicles to stop..and he spread his fingers into a Vulcan salute.

Spock didn't hesitate for a moment…he brought his hand up to meet Jim's.

Jim let a sound slip from his mouth that he didn't even recognize as his own. Relief and lust and exhaustion and desperation flooded out of him with that one singular sound. Touching Spock's hand like this was like sticking your finger into an electrical socket. Something clicked in Jim's mind but he didn't even have time to realize it before Spock's hand was gone.

The Vulcan was doing a terrible job of concealing the shock in his eyes. Jim panicked. Spock was on his feet.

"I do hope that you can get better rest Captain," Spock said in a tone that reached but failed to sound normal.

Spock couldn't take it. The way Jim looked in that moment…so raw and vulnerable and…what he had felt when their hands met was indescribable. All of Jim's thoughts ran screaming through his mind. And in them were things he wasn't prepared for.

"Spock…" he said in a shattered tone.

"I must retire for the evening," Spock said, forcing his body to turn and disappear into their shared bathroom.