The Edge

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Part VII

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Jim knew Spock would be sleeping tonight; after working in the labs the previous one and the tiresome trip from the colony, it could not be avoided a second time. So for the first time in weeks, Jim lay upon his bed with the knowledge that Spock was right next door, doing the same. It felt utterly ridiculous to stare mindlessly at the overhead with Spock less than fifty feet away, perfectly aware that they both wanted to be sharing the same bed, telling himself they could not be. These were the sorts of seemingly illogical adult predicaments which children could not grasp. Jim wished to be young again.

He used the time to think. To truly consider the concept of the future, in this state, as more than a passing musing. They would have to continue on like this, the way they had today. When Jim imagined the full scope of that, years of this, it was baffling. How could he -- they -- possibly do today, hundreds of times over?

And yet, there had been times in Jim's life, he knew, that he had pulled off things like this. Living with Frank, Tarsus IV, countless missions, and hell, inconsequential as it sounded, finals weeks at the Academy, all achieved by doing precisely not that; by taking it one day at a time rather than considering the big picture. Looking back, he had no idea how he had gotten through any of them. But days had gone by. Then weeks. Then years. And he had.

He had wanted to, then. Now, it was different. Colors were dimmer, jokes were less funny, the volume on everything had been turned down. The bed was too big.

And he could not sleep.

He groaned, lamenting for the first time that the mattress in his quarters was a double, before shuffling over to Spock's side of the bed and flopping his face into the pillow that did not smell of him anymore.

---

A week passed in this way. Spock kept his promise to eat in the officer's mess when he could, though dinner for each of them only coincided with the other's schedule four nights of the seven, and on all of them, Spock ate alone. It was the way Jim knew he had preferred it at the beginning of the ship's mission anyway, and he also knew that were he to sit with him, Spock would not protest, but he never did and was confident that Spock understood this decision, was even satisfied with it for now.

On day three, Jim touched Spock for the first time in three weeks, quite on purpose, to bridge that gap so they might move beyond it. Rather than simply asking Spock to report when he had commented on long-range sensor readings that alpha shift, Jim had approached his station as he might have before this mess and bent over Spock's chair, placing a deliberate hand on his shoulder. The reaction was instant, Spock's whole body tensing, posture screaming discomfort, and Jim flared a surge of apology before releasing his gentle grip. He declared the whole event a failed experiment.

On day four, McCoy gave Jim a look that implied he was supposed to know what to do with it. Jim did not ask questions.

On day six, Jim really ate with Uhura, like he had said he would. He came to the conclusion that she would have made fine company had it not been one of the nights that Spock had been present, drawing her concerned gaze when she thought Jim was not looking.

On day seven, just before leaving the Bridge at the end of shift, Jim asked Spock if he would like to play chess that evening, again on purpose. Spock had looked over his shoulder, clearly taken aback, but had accepted, probably more for appearance's sake than true appreciation of the invitation.

Jim now sat, waiting in his quarters. It was four minutes to twenty-two hundred, their designated meeting time, and Spock was never late. He would be there in four minutes. And Jim had no idea what to do with him once he got there. They had been known to sit in silence during a game, entirely focused on strategy, but he had a feeling that would not fly tonight. If they did not talk, it would not be an easy silence, it would feel like they were trying not to. Jim had actually debated for a bit whether or not to make a list of appropriate topics before abandoning the idea.

The buzzer chimed and Jim jumped like he had not been waiting for it. "Come," he said, standing and smoothing his basic blacks, already beyond uncomfortable.

Spock did not look much better when he appeared. Hands clasped behind his back, he came to stand just inside the door, gaze darting back and forth between Jim and the chessboard, warily. "Good evening, Captain," he said.

"Evening." Jim pulled Spock's chair out for him, like usual. "Please," he said.

Spock approached more easily than he had entered, taking a quick survey of the room as he did. "I see your notion of cleanliness still leaves something to be desired."

It was said with a glimmer of an almost-smirk, most definitely an attempt to lighten the mood (for how much could have changed in three weeks?) and Jim found himself grinning. "Yeah, well," he said as Spock moved to sit, "some things don't change."

He expectantly lifted his face when Spock came near without thinking, pure muscle memory. Almost as soon as he had, he recognized his error, but it was not until Spock started to bend his own head that the Vulcan froze with realization, himself. They stared at each other for a moment before Spock quickly lowered himself into his chair, eyes now fixed to the board. Jim went to his own seat on the other side, grip on the table tight.

"... Some things do," he said, ironically.

"Captain," Spock addressed the table, "I had -- have concerns that our being alone is not yet quite appropriate."

Jim snorted, mirthlessly. "I have concerns it never will be." He dropped his head over onto his hand and nodded at the board. "Your move."

Spock hesitated, and Jim recognized it immediately. Allow Jim to lead him astray, or approach the situation logically? But any such wondering always meant Jim had already won the battle. Sure enough, with a resigned look, Spock reached forward and relocated a cautious pawn to the second level. Jim watched his long fingers more carefully than the placement of the piece.

Appropriate topics, he thought, as he made his own move. He should have made that list. Asking anything about Spock himself was off the menu; Jim knew almost everything and what he did not know, he did not yet want to know. Similarly, inviting Spock to discuss what he had missed in his absence, even ship's business, was a tricky subject. They were reduced to the more abstract, then.

"So, I heard there's this guy, somewhere," Jim blurted, and Spock's eyes flicked to him before moving back to the board, a signal that Jim had his attention, "that they did experiments on. He, like, has no testosterone."

Spock's left eyebrow raised. "Indeed?"

"Yeah. I dunno if they took it out or if he was born without it... well, I guess he couldn't have been born without it; maybe he's losing it over time, some disease or something, I don't know. Anyway," Jim adjusted himself higher in his seat, watching the board for Spock's most logical option, "they say he, like, sits there. Just staring at the wall. All day."

Eyes on the board as well, Spock hummed his consideration. "The Human testosterone hormone is one which enhances many things, desire, in all forms, obviously among them."

"Yeah, that's what the scientists working with him were saying," Jim agreed. "That he just... wants nothing else."

Spock's eyes moved to Jim again, gaze darkly curious. "You find this disconcerting," he said as he made another move. It was not a question, exactly. He sat back.

As in many things they had discussed over the years, Jim found himself surprised at Spock's surprise. So much which Jim had always thought the point of view of the majority had turned out not to be the case with Spock; he had always liked that. "You don't?" It took him a moment to remember it was his move.

"I confess, I find it somewhat comforting."

Jim glanced up long enough to smile and tsk softly at him. "Finding comfort implies existing discomfort," he said. "I believe that's an emotion, Mister Spock."

When Spock's face showed only continuing signs of thoughtfulness, Jim averted his eyes back to his task, both to let him think, and to avoid watching him do so.

"You in no way find the notion appealing?" Spock eventually asked. "To want for nothing?"

Jim snorted a laugh as he moved a bishop. "Spock," he said. "Think about how bored I get between exciting missions. And then think about how much more bored I'd get if I had none to look forward to."

"Indeed," Spock conceded. "Though, a fallacy exists in your argument."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" This earned him a flicker of a smile.

"Should you truly want for nothing," Spock went on, "neither would you want for wanting."

Jim stared at him. Spock had yet, as far as he could tell, to refocus on the game, even though it was his turn now. "Huh," he said. He shrugged. "... Still not sure that's a good thing."

"On the contrary, I believe it closely resembles Terran notions of Paradise. And some Vulcan."

Jim felt a funny little grin coming on. "So you think that guy," he said, "wherever he is, sitting on his ass, doing nothing -- you think he's in Heaven?"

"I acknowledge he is content."

"Yeah, but..." Jim scoffed to himself, never as sure of his words as Spock. It often made him feel like his point was less valid than the Vulcan's. He loved a challenge. "If he never desires anything, he never gets to experience a desire fulfilled."

Which he thought was an excellent point, now he had managed to articulate it, but Spock's attention merely returned wistfully to the game, some of his earlier mask sliding into place. "There are worse things," was all he said to that. And Jim understood far better, as he often did at the conclusion of their debates, Spock's side of things. If fulfilled desire was never possible, perhaps living without desire entirely could be considered preferable.

Jim could relate to that, when he looked at it that way.

He swallowed. "Yeah," he said, watching Spock not look at him.

They played the rest of the game in silence.

---

It was interesting; Jim had always hated being held as a child. He had been too busy for his mother's somewhat needy arms when he was very small, content to explore the wilds of the house, from Under The Bed to That Stuff Beneath The Sink, and eventually, she had given up. Exploring still intrigued him, but he did not think he was looking for anything in particular anymore. Perhaps he had found whatever he had been.

Spock's thumb brushed rhythmically over his ear and Jim softly smiled into the palm cupping his face, settling back more comfortably against Spock's warm chest. Occasionally, especially as Spock got sleepier, Jim could still pick up a stray thought through the touch, as though the floodgates of the meld had been closed, but trickles still seeped through the cracks. A nose absently nuzzled the back of his neck and he felt Spock's eyes close by the whisper of his eyelashes.

"What's t'hy'la mean?" he whispered, because it felt like the kind of thing you whispered about, and the thumb migrated almost reverently over his lips. He would have assumed any other bedmate was telling him to shut up and go to sleep, but Spock's mood was still perceivable.

"Why?" Spock sounded and felt a touch amused. He just loved knowing things Jim did not, Jim was certain sometimes.

"You, like... thought it at me," Jim dutifully explained. Most of the time, reading Spock's thoughts was just that: reading. He would watch them go by like the view out a transport window. Sometimes, Spock would stop and gently guide him to something, or vice-versa. And occasionally, something would come across as though Spock were shouting it at him, hey, over here!, sometimes whether he meant to or not.

"Did I?"

Jim gently jabbed an elbow into his ribs and Spock squeezed the fingers of the same hand, near painfully, in retaliation. "I liked the way it felt," Jim admitted, using his free hand, as Spock had none, to tug the blankets over their shoulders. He sensed Spock's mirth at the way he had to maneuver his trapped arm to achieve it. "What's it mean?"

"I should think you would understand by now that how a thing feels in the meld is its meaning."

"It's what it means to you," Jim said.

A burst of humorous pleasure from Spock, that aloud would have translated as a laugh; satisfaction that Jim was cunning enough for this game. "I could explain no more than what it means to me."

Jim turned within the circle of Spock's hold to face him, tugging their entwined fingers loose to snake his arms around Spock's waist and lie flush against him. Spock shuddered and it took Jim a moment to recognize it as vestigial arousal, rather than the cold. "To you," Jim said, "it's me."

Spock's eyes, brightly dark in the warped starlight from the window, flicked to Jim's lips and then back to his own. "It is," he agreed.

"Yeah, see, that doesn't help me." Jim grinned, hands moving up over Spock's shoulder blades and then back down again. "Is it like an endearment?" he asked. "Are you calling me some cute, cuddly little Vulcan creature or something? 'Cause not to rain on your parade, but I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with that. I'm very rugged and manly, you know."

"I fail to see-"

"Yeah, yeah, sure you do." Jim nipped at his chin. "What is it?"

Spock tipped his head for him when Jim's lips moved down his neck. "There is no Standard equivalent."

Jim snorted against his skin. "I bet there isn't," he said, and he reached around the arm Spock had draped over his and drew the hand up from his own waist to his face. "Show me."

Spock's mind slipped easily into his, more easily than normal after the previous meld, thumb skirting fondly over Jim's eyebrow before sliding to the proper meld point. Home, Jim always thought, and knew it pleased Spock that he did.

T'hy'la, Spock showed him again, guiding him this time, though at first, it was still just Jim; Spock's warm perception of him, but still himself, the impression of looking at his reflection in a mirror. Spock could not separate the word from him, Jim now understood, which made explaining in this way more difficult, even if it lacked the language barrier. Nom-tor du panu.

That had ghosted over Jim's mind in the last meld as well, and the same feelings accompanied it, fierce, affectionate possessiveness.

Is that it? Jim wondered, and it must have come across as a tickle of curiosity and bemusement to Spock.

Mine, was the first thing to come across. World. All. Everything.

Jim attempted to withdraw without even realizing he had until Spock stopped him, like a gentle hand on his shoulder, in order to separate them correctly. Jim opened his eyes, shaky in Spock's grip, and Spock's fingers carded back through his hair like he was calming a frightened animal. Jim felt almost feverish, though perhaps that was merely the heat of Spock.

Jim swallowed. "Soulmate," he suggested, weakly.

Spock's fingers stilled briefly before continuing their ministrations. "That would... suffice," he allowed, though Jim understood that was all it would do, which meant it would not, really.

He scooted impossibly closer and lifted his head a tad to catch Spock's lips, barely, almost a request for permission. Spock made a soft noise and the hand in his hair moved to guide his head, opening his mouth and twining their tongues in Jim's. He flattened a hand against the small of Jim's back and guided him onto it before settling between his legs.

"Jim," he whispered against his lips, hands sliding beneath him to cup his buttocks, pulling him upward. A finger edged along the crease.

Jim made an unintelligible sound, needful, why was he so desperate tonight?, and Spock dipped his hips down, lifting one hand back to his cheek.

"Jim," he said again.

"Mmm."

"Jim."

"Mmm?"

"Hey."

He felt a less than tender shake to his shoulder and he rose with a jerk, sitting up and blinking against florescent light. When he felt he had his bearings, he reached up and curiously peeled away the paper stuck to his forehead to squint at it. McCoy snatched it from him, looking frustrated to mask what Jim was sure was amusement, and replaced it on his desk.

"Chapel let you in?" he demanded as though it mattered to him, and Jim blinked some more.

"Uh..." He shifted in the doctor's chair and winced at the brush of his pants against the erection he had woken with.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Wake up, Jim," he said, and then he observed him appraisingly. "You're not supposed to be on duty, are you?"

Jim shook his head. "Relax, Bones, I would come to you if I were falling asleep on duty, no. Beta shift is weekends for me. And you know that."

"Just doin' my job."

"Yeah, yeah." Jim stretched, attempting to pop his back. "Was just waiting for you to get off; thought I'd do poker night, tonight."

"Maybe you should go to bed early, instead," his friend suggested, still watching him. "Have you been sleeping?"

Jim wanted to stand to back away from him and more easily dismiss the subject, but the last thing he needed was McCoy noticing his aroused state. "Yes, Bones," he insisted. "Mostly, anyway. Just a little trouble lately. Nothing medical."

McCoy looked unconvinced. "You need me to prescribe something?" he asked. "Mild sedative?"

"I'm fine. I just proved I can fall asleep, right?"

"Fine, fine. S'cuse me for trying to help." McCoy straightened from his position, leaning over the desk. "You ready to go then?"

Jim had calmed to perhaps half-mast now, thank God, and he nodded, even if the ache in the pit of his stomach was going to be rather more difficult to banish. "Yeah," he said, standing and rubbing at his eyes a bit.

"Sulu will be happy to see you," McCoy told him as they moved out of the office and into the outer Sickbay. He nodded acknowledgment at M'Benga, just arriving for gamma shift. "Chekov will be happy to see you, but not your game."

Jim snorted. "Kid has no poker face." When they had reached the hallway, Jim gestured for McCoy to go ahead of himself into the jeffries tube, which he thought was quite the offer, considering. If someone was going to have to stare at someone else's ass, well, Jim had the nicer one, if he did say so himself. But it was only a one deck climb. The doctor slipped in ahead of him and started up the ladder, glancing briefly down to make sure he was being followed.

"So what's with the sudden surge or socialness?" he called.

"Sudden surge of socialness," Jim echoed. "That's hard to say. Hey, Bones," He looked up at the doctor's feet, "say that three times, fast."

"Damn it, Jim, I'm serious."

"So'm I," Jim said. "It's hard to say."

McCoy stepped out of the tube at the next opening and waited for Jim to emerge, expression stern.

Jim shrugged at him as he did. "Bones, you're unhappy when I hole up in my quarters, you're unhappy when I come out of them -- what is it you want me to do?"

McCoy regarded him, his look resigned, which could have meant he thought Jim was right or that Jim would not be convinced he was not. "I don't know," he said. "You know, aside from being your best friend, I am technically your psychiatrist."

"Oh, God, can we please not go there?" Jim set off down the hall toward the rec room, but he knew better than to think McCoy would drop this.

"I know you, Jim," he said, jogging a few steps to catch up with him. "You're not clinically depressed. This is a situational problem, which means it can be worked through. Believe me," He pulled Jim to a stop before he could enter the crowded room they had reached, "I would love to just be able to medicate you and have done with it."

"Not your responsibility."

"It is. Actually." He shrugged. "In more ways than one."

"Nice of you," Jim said, only half-bitter. "But easier said than done as long as the offending agent remains, yeah?" He shook his head. "And I want it to."

McCoy hesitated, face strange, and Jim was suddenly even more uneasy. "Don't... make that the case, Jim," he said. "Please, don't put me in that position, okay?"

Jim had considered Spock growing too uncomfortable with the situation and requesting a transfer. Oddly enough, this had not occurred to him. "This is my social life, Bones, not my work," he said lowly. "Which is not your business."

McCoy knew better than to be offended, even though Jim had sort of meant for him to be. It never was simple, forcing his friend to realize that he had crossed a line. Ever since he had taken Jim under his wing years ago, he had assumed exclusive rights to all aspects of him, as if he were his child.

"If the personal becomes the professional," he said, and Jim could sense the irony, how that phrase had turned on him.

"It won't. And you know," Jim glanced down the hall, toward the lift, and took a step in that direction, "I think going to bed early is sounding good, now."

"Oh, come on, Jim, don't ruin the evening. You don't have to leave mad."

"I'm not mad," Jim insisted with faux nonchalance. He lifted his hands in a casual mimic of defensiveness. "I'm just leaving." He stopped moving, so his friend might believe him. He nodded toward the rec room entrance. He could hear Uhura humming. "They'll be waiting to start; you go ahead."

McCoy looked reluctant. "You'll really sleep?"

"I'll really try," Jim said, and that would have to be enough.

McCoy sighed, eyes scanning Jim up and down, quickly. "... All right," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Jim nodded and waited for the doctor to leave the hall before continuing his trip to the lift. He felt sick and he wanted Spock where he could see him. Who even knew where he was right now, or what good it would do Jim to see him when he could do nothing to comfort him, but he felt the irrational urge to demand his location from the computer. He passed the lift in order to round the corner to the deck's mainframe and do just that.

"Computer," he addressed it. "Locate Commander Spock."

Botany labs, it informed him. Deck three.

Jim stood there a moment, breathing and staring at the name. Then he returned to the lift and stepped inside this time.

He sighed, reaching for the rail. "... Deck five," he told it, obediently.

---

Jim had no idea if the malfunctioning turbines had been repaired yet. Given the length of time since the last complaint, he assumed so, but his own deck had luckily never been affected. Either way, he was very grateful for the real water shower right now.

It had been six days since McCoy had asked him if he was getting enough sleep, and five of those nights, Jim had dreamed of Spock. The fourth night, he had kept himself awake just so he wouldn't. The dreams were nice, pleasant, ranging from deeply arousing to merely comforting. It was not the dreams that were the problem; it was the waking. They made the urge to touch Spock greater, to look at him, even just talk with him. He had told himself the last three nights that he would banish them from his thoughts, that he would purposely focus on other things as he was drifting off. When work had not accomplished the task, he had attempted other fantasies, Uhura working her shift naked, threesomes with Orion girls -- none of it helped. They felt like they were not even of his own mind; pulling out of them was like trying to come down from the highest drug. They gripped him and would not let him return to himself. Even the alpha shift alarm was having difficulty waking him this week.

And then there was the not-small issue of the ones that were sexual. Jim had woken to sheets sticky with more than just sweat the first night, and the erection he was currently sporting, returning at just the memory of the dream, was proving more annoying than the stray concern of what they were going to start thinking of him down in Laundry. Shocking though it was, he twisted the knob toward cold and squashed the instinct to avoid the frigid spray.

He needed to get laid. That was surely the problem. It had been nearly two months since the last time he could remember having sex with Spock. But here, on the ship, when Spock was taken out of the equation, sex was not so easy to come by.

And even if it were, the idea felt strange and foreign now.

Jim knew how to emotionally detach when it came to sleeping with someone; he used to do it all the time. But now, the idea of going back to it inspired the same roiling in Jim's stomach that the veggie burgers McCoy pushed on him did. It wasn't the real thing.

Jim, half falling back asleep on his feet, jumped at a sound far too obnoxious for the late hour. He slipped a little on the tile, the hand pressed to the wall not nearly enough to support him, and looked around, more frantic than he would have been when fully awake.

It took hearing the sound a second time to even discover what it was -- the buzzer from Spock's quarters. Jim did not believe he had ever heard it in the entirety of their tenure on the Enterprise. In the early days, Spock had made sure to organize his bathroom time around Jim's, so as to avoid having to speak with him more than was necessary, Jim had suspected at the time. Then, in recent months of course, walking in on each other had hardly been enough of an issue to even merit locking the door. In fact, at times, it had been a goal.

That was clearly not the case in this instance.

The buzzer sounded again.

Jim sighed and swiped a palm down his face, scattering water droplets. Then he shut the shower off and snatched a towel from the shelf with a grimace. Wrapping it around his waist, he trudged for Spock's door and reset the door lock. It slid open and Spock blinked in the sudden light from the bathroom. The dark quarters behind him and his attire suggested he had been sleeping.

"It is oh three fifteen," he said. His dark eyes skimmed down Jim's form, quickly returning to his face.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Jim reached back for another towel and began dabbing at his head.

"You did not. You perplexed me," Spock corrected him, voice a little muffled by the cotton. "The shower has been operating for one hour."

Jim peeked out. "What, no decimals?"

To Jim's trained eye, Spock had appeared duly sleepy at first, but here he straightened. "One hour, precisely."

Jim stared at him. Something told him Spock had been awake the full hour. Had he been waiting for a suitable amount of time to pass before voicing his concern? He did look a little rigid. And it was rather strange to be taking an hour-long shower at three in the morning.

Jim cleared his throat. "I'm all right," he assured him. "Just... the shower felt nice, once I got in."

Spock's eyebrow crept up. "An illogical waste of water," he noted, idly, and Jim did not argue. "And the hour?"

Spock was being too nosy, and Jim ought to point it out, but it was habit for both of them to consider the other their business. He shrugged. "Just couldn't sleep." He blinked. "If I didn't wake you, what're you doing up?" He glanced pointedly back into Spock's cabin, avoiding the sleep pants the Vulcan was wearing.

"Inquiring after the state of your mental health," Spock quipped, and yeah, it was too late to argue with a Vulcan.

Jim scrunched his facial muscles and shook his head, wiping the towel over it again. "Okay, okay," was all he bothered to say. When his eyes reemerged, he noticed Spock's had lowered once more to his state of undress. He waited. "Spock," he said, after a moment, and the fact that he had to say it at all was quite telling.

Spock looked away from Jim entirely. "I apologize," he said to the damp floor. "It is... difficult. She... T'Pid is just beginning to sleep now as well, and when she is dormant in my mind..."

Jim had not allowed himself to think much of her. He had never met her, and for now, he liked it that way; it made it easier to pretend that she was some figment of his imagination, likely to disappear one day. It made it easier to forget that she was now closer to Spock than he was. Apparently, when she was sleeping, it was easier for Spock to forget too.

"What's it like?" he found himself asking.

Spock looked a bit surprised by the question. "I cannot say," he said. "I am half-Human, and then... I imagine for most it would be... comforting. It is not without comfort for me, but it is predominantly intrusive." Spock then looked like he was considering something oddly interesting. "Her thoughts are more ordered than mine or yours. She does not dream. I suspect if she did, she might be more present, at this time."

Jim's eyes lowered to the floor as well. "Does she know?" he asked. He looked up. "About me?"

"The nature of the bond dictates that she knows everything." Spock looked somewhat guiltily away. "I fear that all you placed in my confidence is in hers now, as well. "

"So, like... she could listen to this, now?"

"Negative," Spock said. "Even were she conscious, the distance provides a muffling effect. It transmits emotions -- mood, danger. Were it ever as all-encompassing as a meld, it would be most impractical. Transmitting thoughts requires physical contact or true effort."

So, I could kiss you, right now, and she wouldn't know, Jim thought.

"I find myself wondering, at times, how it would..." But Spock didn't finish.

Jim did not need him to. He wondered all the time himself what it would be like between them, and he had never even experienced it. "Yeah," he said softly. He stood straighter and took a step back. "I think the late hour makes us a bit too truthful, Mister Spock," he said, purposely light, half an attempt to create an opening to leave.

"Indeed."

Jim shook his head, but did not go. "I don't want this to, like..." he said. "We can't keep defining us by what we're not. Or it's gonna turn in to all we are." He swallowed. "I like to remember why I love you, not just that I do."

"... I cannot fault your logic, even should I find it difficult to implement." Spock said nothing more, but his expression, still fixed off somewhere, was intent, nearly troubled.

"What?" Jim prompted, certain there was something to prompt.

"I feel anger," Spock said, and when he met Jim's eyes, yes, Jim realized he did. "Your instinct to blame. However illogical, there exists some part of me that feels entitled to you, after..."

Spock had clearly stopped himself. That was apparently too much to speak of, even to Jim. Jim wanted to agree with him. They were good people, and that was in spite of all the shit life had thrown at both of them, especially Spock. Didn't they deserve at least this?

Jim stepped forward before he could think not to, palms moving to Spock's bare chest almost of their own volition. His mouth was open, prepared to say... what? You can still have me? Jim would let him, yes, but would Spock be the same person he loved if he let himself?

No. That was defining them by their lack again, not their substance.

Jim looked up into Spock's face. The Vulcan's eyes were hooded, his lips parted, waiting for something, standing on the edge of some cliff over which he would lose himself, and no, Jim would not be the one to push him.

He stepped back, breathing ragged, and Spock's eyes shut in what may have been relief.

"I think it's time for bed," Jim said, and then started. "I mean, not-" He groaned and rubbed his fingetips into his eyes. "I'm going to go in there." He gestured back toward his door. "And you're going to go in there." Back into Spock's cabin. "And I will see you in the morning."

Jim watched Spock stand there a moment before the other's choice to agree became apparent in his stance. "Yes."

Jim nodded. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Captain," Spock said before moving into his dark quarters, and for once, Jim did not protest the title.