jimboobs

"Well, Mr. Spock, you really know how to sweep a guy off his feet."

Spock looked pointedly at the floor, lips pinched and eyebrows raised. After a beat, Jim followed his gaze. Boots and heels, all quite firmly planted.

"...alright, then. You really know how to knock a guy's socks off, how's that?"

Certainly, an ironclad idiom. Since Spock couldn't see his captain's socks, he'd have no reason to object, or to raise the hypothetical contrary conclusion that since he had not seen the podial garments anywhere but at their supposed constant and appropriate position inside said boots they must logically still be there.

And yet, Spock now pursed his lips.

Jim bit his own lip and muttered, "You're really throwing me off my game here, Spock." Of course, he made the mistake of assuming that his first officer would not hear the gripe, and was caught out by an especially wise and put-upon look. Couldn't a man complain in peace about the quality of chivalry on his own sworn, even betrothed, starship?

Well? Couldn't he?

Jim hung his head. He couldn't.

"You know what, Spock?"

"What is it, Jim?" Spock returned dryly, his first meaningful and largely unimpressive contribution to the conversation since it had taken the present turn. It wasn't rare for Jim to ask such nigh-rhetorical questions; the answers were nearly always immaterial retorting barbs. He found, nevertheless, that he enjoyed them.

"You knock my tits off, okay?" Jim accompanied this vociferous sentiment with the slapping of his palms against his pectorals, wincing as he remembered that the impact still didn't and likely wouldn't ever be completely painless. "Can't argue with that one, can you?"

Spock opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly - miraculously - thought better of it. There was a general awkward silence, populated only by anti-furtive blinks and swallows.

It was illogical. Spock had not been anywhere in the vicinity when Jim had had his mastectomy. He was, therefore, incapable of having been the one who had "knocked" Jim's "tits" off. But they were, indeed, off. And that...was all Spock really cared to indulge in thinking on the matter, at this moment or any other.

Unless, perhaps, said other moment were to occur at a time of physical, mental, and emotional serenity, at which point he would have nothing more pressing to focus on save their mutual esteem.

Footsteps sounded at the far end of the corridor; yeomen, because...because.

"We'll settle this matter of linguistic differences in my quarters later, yes, Mr. Spock?" Solely linguistic. Not necessarily xenolinguistic. And thus, it portended...human meanings. "Say, 2200 hours?"

"You have just said it, Captain," Spock replied, hands locked neatly behind his waist and eyes raised to the sky. "I find no further planning necessary."

As he turned to (blessedly, among whichever shared deities) depart for the science labs, Spock found himself stumbling directly in the path of the very same awaited yeomen, and also found Kirk watching fondly after him. It was much of the same expression he had been wearing when Spock had performed whichever apparently admirable actions that had engendered the entire idiotic exchange.

It was, despite all of the time wasted just prior, quite logical to await the presence of that smile, and to cherish it thereafter. So Spock did. So Spock had. So Spock would, once he had regained his composure in both physical and mental states. Perhaps emotional, as well - it was just...more difficult, with the captain around.

"Spock," Jim said sweetly, in a voice that Spock could only think to befit wholly neutral salutation. Quite pliant and conciliatory of the captain. Soon, he would be calm.

Soon. "Don't be such a boob."