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If Spock had known that Jim would make it so taxing to keep their relationship a secret, he never would have agreed to conceal it in the first place.
As it is, they’ve already filled out the proper paperwork and been cleared by their superiors within Starfleet. With each other— and in the eyes of the Organization— they are completely official. Jim made that perfectly and excessively clear when they first initiated this relationship with one another.
He’s not complaining, exactly. Anyways, he’d be lying if he said he shouldn’t have expected this in the first place. Jim’s initial proposition of, ‘We should keep this secret for now, y’know? We don’t want anyone questioning our command decisions with each other,’ has swiftly become a game of ‘How far can I push you before it becomes impossibly obvious to anyone with a pulse that we’re together?’
Still, he’s not complaining. He should be. He knows he should be. But—
He’d also be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying this, a little bit. Call it his human side, call it his inherently playful nature— though Dr. McCoy laughs when he refers to it as such— but he does enjoy the game that he and Jim are playing. He’s sure that’s part of why Jim is playing it at all.
“Commander Spock,” Jim says, eyes fixed forward on the main view screen straight ahead. Spock rises instinctively, leaving his station to join Jim at his right hand. For all intents and purposes, Jim’s attention is focused on the twinkling emptiness of space ahead. He’s lit, from Spock’s point of view, in the pink of the glowing nebula beyond, blond hair and golden skin illuminated in that rosy celestial glow.
“Yes, Captain,” Spock responds. He, too, forces his eyes to move upwards and fix on their view screen.
“Remind me again of our mission,” Jim asks him.
For a beat, Spock hesitates. Several possible scenarios run through his head, each more likely than the last, and the first being the consideration that Jim actually needs the reminder. He dismisses that thought quickly; Jim’s memory occasionally rivals his own.
It doesn’t take long for Spock to figure out he’s being toyed with. He is, after all, observant, and there is nobody he observes more closely than Captain Kirk.
“Our mission,” Spock answers, “is to go to the home planets of several dignitaries, collect them, and escort them safely to the upcoming peace conference on Babel.”
“Of course.” Jim says. He turns in his chair, as if he’s only just had a thought, bright eyes lighting up. Spock sees right through him, and Jim sees through him in return, an amused quirk to the corner of his eyebrows that Spock has seen before. Check. “Commander, how much longer until we reach our next destination?”
“Our next destination would be Nanuphus 241,” Spock informs him. “We will arrive in approximately ninety-six-point-thirteen hours.”
Jim whistles, reaching out and patting Spock on the back of his hand. It could almost be seen as casual, if Spock wasn’t a Vulcan— if everybody didn’t know Spock is a Vulcan, if everybody on the bridge wasn’t painfully aware that Vulcans are touch telepaths.
In that brief moment of touch, Jim’s fingertips barely brushing his bare skin, Spock lights up all over. It’s as though his synapses are exploding, sending unnecessary signals to every nerve in his body that he’s under attack. His heart even speeds up, the spark curling low inside him.
At his side, Jim’s grinning away, though he’s turned his attention more fully back to the view screen. Even with Jim’s eyes off of him, Spock still feels the fire inside.
“No reason to stay here that whole time, then?” Jim comments. He claps his hands down on the arms of his chair, pushing to stand. “We should probably get some rest, Commander.”
Spock, again, hesitates. It’s an outrageous suggestion; if he were to accept, everyone would, of course, know, and the game would be over, and—
“Spock?” Nyota says. “Your shift’s ending. He’s right, you should sleep.”
A rush of embarrassment floods him that he quickly wrestles back under control. In his haste not to be obvious, he overthought the simplest thing— he missed the time— and now feels even more obvious for it.
He hopes none of that shows on his face as he says, “Of course, Captain.” He inclines his head, says, “Goodnight,” and turns to leave.
“Class dismissed,” Jim says, to assorted laughs from the other crew members swapping out at the same time. He has to jog to catch up to Spock, his legs just that much shorter, but he makes it before Spock can shut the turbolift on him.
When Jim slides in at the last second, the doors slipping shut behind him, Spock still waits for a moment. It’s only once he’s sure they’re moving that he says, “I believe you were the one who suggested we conceal our true relationship with one another from the rest of the crew.”
“We are,” Jim says, so obviously delighted. He’s grinning away, not a care in the world. Just the look of him makes Spock’s insides feel— lighter. “It’s not my fault you get all embarrassed every time I look at you.” Jim leans in closer, elbow bracing him against the silver wall. “Do you have a crush on me, Mr. Spock?”
“I will crush you if you like,” Spock responds, unthinking. Jim laughs, his eyes dark.
“I know you would,” he replies. He tilts in just a bit closer and reaches past Spock, thumbing the option on the panel to stop the turbolift in place. It jolts to a halt, and Jim swoops upwards, drawing Spock into a kiss.
Spock is half-human, and his endorphins rush when Jim kisses him like this— when Jim kisses him at all. Spock is half-Vulcan, so he has control over those emotions, and still he lets them run wild. It’s more joyous to let the feelings take him over than to fight them back; it feels closer to love. He likes to feel love.
The Vulcan in him also thrills at how Jim’s hand glides down from his shoulder, his touch ghosting until he reaches bare skin. His fingers circle first around Spock’s wrist, a spark of sensation that burns like a brand. They move quickly to his fingers, pressing them together, wrapping them up in each other.
Spock’s spine feels like it’s gone. Nobody’s ever made him feel like this before; nobody’s ever made him want to feel like this before.
When they separate, he finds his heart rate accelerated, his breathing rushed, his temperature raised. Jim, it seems, is experiencing all those same symptoms, flushed and delighted and hazy-eyed when he drifts into Spock’s side, head on his shoulder.
“You’re one-of-a-kind,” Jim says, apropos of nothing. He presses a kiss underneath Spock’s jaw, reaching up to swipe his fingers along the pulse point on his other side in a two-sided kiss. Spock can’t help his shiver, and Jim’s lips turn up in a corresponding smile. “Please, Commander— Remind me again of our mission?”
Spock feels his own lips twitch. He fights the smile back, just to be playful, when he tells him, “Our mission is to maintain an unrevealed relationship while you attempt to disrobe me on the bridge.”
Jim laughs out loud, and that same rush of sunshine fills him once again, just like it did when they kissed. Love, love, love. When Spock reaches out, he feels that love pulsing through Jim in waves, too.
“Then we’re succeeding so far,” Jim says. “And how long until we reach our destination?” He hooks his fingers in Spock’s uniform shirt, the backs of them grazing the bare skin of his chest where no human heart beats. Instead, his Vulcan heart races in his side, close enough for Jim to feel.
“If you let the lift move, Captain,” Spock tells him, “We would arrive in your quarters within two minutes.”
Jim reaches out without hesitation and thumbs the panel again, bringing it to life with a flash of light. The lift is moving again seconds later, rushing towards the higher staff quarters.
Though they’ll arrive in seconds, Jim still takes advantage of these few short moments, his hands stroking from Spock’s throat up to thread through his hair, displacing it into looser pieces he can hold when he kisses him again. Everywhere he touches Spock’s scalp is another explosion rocketing through him, slithering just under his skin; Jim’s tongue in his mouth is unexpected, and he makes a soft noise before he stops himself. Jim makes a harder sound in return, hips pushing into Spock’s.
The lift dings, and the door flies open, and Jim rips himself away from Spock with impressive speed, separating them completely. Spock smooths his hair back into place while Jim tucks his shirt back in hurriedly, which is— interesting, since Spock doesn’t recall actually untucking it in the first place. His own hands, desperate to get onto Jim’s skin, itch to return there.
“C’mon,” Jim says. “I’ll race you.”
“Just accompany me,” Spock insists. Jim actually does pause, then. “I will allow you to race me back to the bridge for our next shift.”
“Yes,” Jim says, clapping Spock on the shoulder. He’s grinning, like he knows exactly what that burst of sensation has done to him. “Alright, fine. I’ll accompany you,” he concedes. The grin widens, and Spock knows he should anticipate his next words before they even come. “Only if you hold my hand.”
Spock pretends to be put-upon, but there’s nobody in the corridor and only a few more steps to Jim’s door, to their joined quarters.
“As you wish,” Spock allows. Jim threads their fingers without hesitation, an open-mouthed kiss as their palms connect and their fingertips brush over thin, bare skin. Spock’s knees partially don’t exist for the rest of the walk to their room, before Jim’s keying in their combination and knocking Spock backwards onto their bed.
“You’re horrible at keeping secrets,” Jim informs Spock, stripping his uniform shirt up and off over his head, straddling Spock’s waist like it’s his favorite place to sit. “Everybody looks at you and knows.”
“That is because you—” Spock begins to argue, but Jim swoops down in a rush of human-cool golden skin and steals his words with his breath, kisses him in broad strokes, hands gliding down his arms to tangle their fingers together again, and it ultimately doesn’t matter. Everybody could look at either of them and know; it’s not about who knows, anyways. It’s about the game, and Jim loves to try and beat Spock at games.
The grin Jim gives him when they separate this time, too, is intimately familiar, and Spock can feel this one deep in the core of himself. Checkmate, that smile says, before diving back in.