You Might Recall

"You look at home here, Mr. Spock."

Jim grins through the words, recalling one last mislaid novel to its proper place in the middle of the shelf. Spock watches him, hands folded in front of his waist, with no petty incline of head.

Elaborate, Jim thinks, but just then can't think of anything else to say. That's really all it is. He looks like he belongs. Who woulda thunk it, an alien who blends in perfectly no matter his surroundings or (benign) company?

He smiles again, huffs a breathy laugh and feels his cheeks crinkle up to his eyes. No, that's not right. That's only what he sees. But on Vulcan...

"I hadn't dared to hope...oh, but, then...you never do anything without a reason, do you, Spock? When you said for me not to grieve, you meant it. There were more important things you wanted me doing."

Following his first officer's cryptic, overriding orders, ever faithful, through the jabbed veneer of his chief medical officer's irascibility? It sounded about right. Nothing short of system normal, for the crew of the starship Enterprise.

"What did you estimate our odds of success?"

"I did not."

"You didn't? Well, that's..." Not extraordinary. Possibly just a little off-putting. Jim couldn't let himself take solace in that.

"It was not instructive to speak of infinitesimals."

He stares after Jim for some time, in the dim, dingy hull of the Bounty.

The Admiral's question had been somewhat apt. Spock does not possess any considerable measure of feelings towards the crisis of the whale probe and the resulting plight befalling humanity. It is logical to extend every effort to ensure the race's survival, in this time or any other, but he needs no feelings to govern his actions in the matter.

His feelings towards human survival are limited to those humans gathered around him; in particular, Jim.

Jim, surprisingly primarily logical in his quick-witted strategies, who had sacrificed the Enterprise.

He would not act illogically for anyone else.

"Spock."

"Yes, Jim?"

"You've told me this before, and I feel a fool for not remembering, but...you'll tell me again, won't you?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot remind you of information whose area of relevancy you have not specified."

"Your feelings, Spock."

A distant, canned voice resembling James T. Kirk's sounds in Spock's head: Have I hurt them? Have I hurt you?

Is it possible? It's not possible, for me...is it?

"What about them, Jim?"

Why they use each other's names so frequently, he truly never will know.

Jim sits back in the captain's chair, chin beaming up from fist. "Oh, nothing. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't dreaming them."

The incident. The encounter. The sting.

The troubled way, the returning syndrome, and the alternative factorization.

So many ways to name things, and Jim is sick of naming them, sick of knowing them.

"I want to be out there, with you, Spock...I'm sick of remembering."

Though he cannot feel it, the roll of his forehead, wrinkle by wrinkle, over Spock's temple brushes all his chaotic thoughts up against the Vulcan's own, and in an instant they are both scattered.

All I remember is that your name is Jim, and your eager impatience for me to remember more...

Such a terrible taboo to forget. Spock groans, and puts Jim to sleep.

Life is short. Too short, even.

Spock cannot say that it's not logical, because shortness is a relative term and they operate (operated) on stardates, flicks and ticks of the chronometer's span of the universe.

A blink, merely. Like eyelashes fluttering, as butterflies' wings.

Stars, but he's beautiful.

So life is too short, indeed. Too short, too sweet. And Jim steals kisses, when and where he can, little nips and tucks of concord - this is logical, this is right, this is real, just one more, Spock, just one more--

All of their lives. Yes, all of their lives, because they hadn't really begun, not like this, until they'd met each other.

"Jim..."

The intoxication is dark, deep, as fine chocolate to fine wine both red and passionate. No champagne bubbles or butyric milk dare lightheartedly shade this moment, as if they could ever alight the critical mass.

In one singular instant, Spock has pulled Jim in to his chest, tighter than all tension. Jim nearly cries for the ecstasy of it; this doesn't happen every day.

It'd be too much if it did, oh, far, far too much. They need the steady pulse of truth-flirting missions, revelations not spoken of, too deeply rooted, to keep them upright, directed.

"I'm drunk on you, baby," he whispers. Spock's only answer is a low growl.

Temperature readings in a biobed say Spock runs cool, metabolism slow and deliberate just as everything else about him.

Maybe it's the faster heartbeat, maybe it's his own immature excitement, but despite all logic, Jim has never felt so warm as when they're lying next to each other, hands touching and telling just about as much as they possibly can.

It's not feverish, but constant as the midmorning sun - and even more divine than that, for the sensation does not harshly burn and prickle.

Once, he'd had to ask for Spock to take his hand. Now, the Vulcan feels cold without it, without Jim's very essence sharing space with his soul.

The crew of a starship travels on the implicit assumption that there is always more out there, that further exploration will yield greater understanding; that, in some sense, there is no grand point to it all except the very journey itself.

Spock had said, I always shall be yours. Completely.

So a starship captain, set opposite him as king and queen in chess of a leveled field, must think to himself, is there more?

Is this all that we are? How could I possibly know?

And the answer is that he can't, he couldn't. He never will be able to understand.

Which is why he keeps on loving, keeps on trying.