perform_admirably | (no subject)

So far as Spock is aware, Jim alone has yet to be over this late into the night.

In combination with Leonard McCoy, on a few occasions, for a variety of reasons, but Spock cannot recall Jim Kirk alone having spent so many hours in Spock's company, at such a late hour - and he certainly never had spent so many of them curled on Spock's sofa. Which is, perhaps unexpectedly, large, deep, and soft enough to encourage restful sleep but not so much as to be difficult to stand from once you've sat on the cushions.

It's a bad habit, but Spock does not always find his way back to the bed once he's started working on something at the sofa.

Jim has been in the small apartment for long enough that Spock eventually puts aside his stubbornness to retreat to the bathroom to change into a pair of dark, flannel pyjamas and brush his teeth.

When he returns, whatever space he had managed to find for himself on the sofa before standing has disappeared somewhere beneath Jim's legs. He nudges one of Jim's knees with the back of his hand.

"At this hour, I would be more comfortable if you would stay until the morning. Or was this simply the plan all along, and I had not yet been duly informed?"

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Jim gapes, but has presence enough to snatch at the robe, pulling it away, and then pulling Spock by the wrist to join him at the head of the bed.

"Well then," he says, pushing not the comb into Spock's hair but his fingers, "As an explorer with a mandate to pursue knowledge, you'll understand that I need to test this theory. Gather..." Thoughtfully, Jim lets his fingers drift down towards his own mouth, rubbing at his bottom lip. "Empirical data before I'm comfortable settling on a final conclusion. I'll call my first experiment, 'finding out if Mr. Spock's stated lack of need for sexual gratification is in fact total bullshit.' Supplemental theory to be tested in the same experimental timeframe: 'Can Jim Kirk stop mid-act of sexual congress?'"

It is a succession of things which Spock barely has time to gather a reaction to - or a non-reaction, given. At the same time as he tells himself not to grab like a child for the robe that belongs to him that Jim has taken, Jim reaches out to tug Spock toward the top of the bed.

The fingers raking through his dark hair are a surprise, but it is hard to truly enjoy the feel of them, when Spock is busy taking in Jim's long line of words. He recognizes the tone being taken. It is the tone that usually follows, from Jim Kirk, when he believes that he has found an answer that others (even Spock) have overlooked, and which he is determined to present at dramatic opportunity.

Spock is yet unsure what to think of this particular tone.

Eyeballing the laundry basket through the open door to the small bathroom, Spock launches the ball of dirtied towels into it with a toss that would have made a basketball player proud, but even as he does, even as he tries to push the blankets below him down with his feet as the chill of the room becomes evident again, he keeps a stare on Jim's face.

One over which his brows sink very slowly lower, knitting together at the center. "Knowledge without value and discipline is meaningless," he quotes readily, one of his favored rejoinders. "I do not see what could possibly be gained from proving or disproving that I am capable of separating need from desire in the context of an act of coitus."

Except that it is a test, and not the first. One of Jim's casual Spock tests, a test of humanity. And Spock does not want to deeply contemplate what it might mean that he is already considering the effort he should go to win, lose, or throw the test altogether, should Jim implement it.

"Who says there won't be value?" Jim asks, recognizing the security blanket for what it is at once, and works his fingers steadily into Spock's hair, smoothing and scratching lightly along his scalp.

Rather as one might an agitated feline, now that he thinks about it. "I intend to treasure the results of my experiment, whatever they may be." And he will, for Jim's already decided what the results of his experiment will be, and they are absolutely in his favor.

"You cold?" he asks, abandoning Spock's hair to rub at his shoulders, expression softening when he sees his face. Spock looks so stubborn, so determined not to give an inch that Jim yields instead, leaning in to brush his mouth over the determined set of Spock's own.

Spock's own inward determination falters slightly, twice - the first when Jim removes his fingers from their work, sifting through hair thicker than the severe cut of it suggests.

Again, when he leans in to press their lips together with a kiss that is gentler than Spock would have suspected from Jim some months ago. He returns the small affection with a brief brush of middle and fore-finger against the still swollen softness of Jim's lower lip. "Yes," he answers, with unashamed honesty. Comfort is not particularly a point of pride, even for a Vulcan. They do not tend to suffer where relief could be present ... with exceptions. And in this way, at least, Spock is very typical.

"The radiator is inefficient."

"I'll fix it," Jim murmurs, "Thing won't know what hit it," and wraps Spock up in his arms. Spock is, as ever, cool, but seems to warm where Jim can get his hands on him.

"C'mon, I'll stop hogging the covers. Everybody else to share my bed said I'm like a furnace. We can test that theory, too."

The hug comes as a surprise - nobody that had pursued him previously had ever been the sort to show affection in quite the same way as Jim Kirk, because Spock did not seek it. Even the emotion that Nyota had showed for him had been romantic, but reserved, in contrast especially to the easy physical hold that Jim pulls him into now.

Spock does not stiffen, but he does not react much, in confusion, at first - only relaxing into it after a few breaths, arms still held at his sides, but chin resting over the comfortable slope of Jim's shoulder.

"I would appreciate that," he says, holding his thoughts to himself, not willing to put them into the space between them. He puts a great deal of trust in Jim Kirk, but he can only hope that it will not be misinterpreted, when they leave the confines of the apartment the next day, Spock coolly respectful once again of a superior officer. As he should be.

Jim grins, enjoying the admittedly limp but comfortable droop of Spock's chin over his shoulder. "All right, you ragdoll, c'mon," he says, falling back and managing, perhaps through pure stubbornness, to get them laid out on the bed together without ever letting go of him.

He drags the covers up and fits himself to Spock's back, one warm arm slung across his waist. "I don't even know how long you sleep," he confesses to Spock's shoulder. "I need about five hours. Any less and you better be waking me up with coffee or a blowjob."

"More strange pet-names," Spock observes as his head hits the pillow on the side of the bed which has somehow become categorically his, despite the fact that it seems to Spock as if he owned all of the bed that morning when he woke in it.

There is an intake of breath a little too sudden to be natural to Spock, as their bodies settle more completely together. Jim's mouth exhaling softly near his shoulder, the weight of his arm and the drowsy heat of him, the unfamiliar feeling of a decidedly masculine body pressed into his back.

Unfamiliar, but far from unwanted.

"Between four and six," he answers, voice gathering into something softer, breathier in all-around comfort. "We can discuss the subject of penis-sucking sometime after your coffee tomorrow morning."

Edited 2012-10-10 07:39 (UTC)

Jim chuckles into Spock's neck, wriggling a little as he gets more comfortable. "That's going to be an amazing conversation. I advocate the use of props." There's a yawn threatening to split his chest, and Jim lets it out, snuffling beneath Spock's ear after. He will not surprise himself to all to discover he'd rather just show Spock all about penis-sucking come morning.

"Night, Spock."