i'm counting out time

"We didn't? But I could have sworn- the memory is so clear to me--"

(Of what? Indeterminate salt-water splash? For Spock, a splash of sand; the water of meditation's imbibe; the arcane, Jim afforded him, opposite the mundane, in his own self.)

"We did not kiss," Spock repeated. Jim narrowly avoided visible deflation.

"You did, however, take my left hand with your right, after you had so gracelessly catapulted my body into the water."

"You're still mad about that?" The catapulting, not the hand-holding. He didn't dare to dream, on that count.

"Not disquieted. Simply...impatient."

That, Jim could remedy.