[ for a long moment, spock searches jim's expression. watches him, watches his reactions, feels the jumbled emotions drag across his nerves through the transference from just this touch alone.
had jim said any of those things aloud, spock would have mild but somehow deadpan answers to them. a big one certainly being the simplest: from the very moment admiral kirk ended up in this particular timeline, the course of it had begun to change. there is no knowing, now, where things will go, because this has never happened before.
kaiidth, he might say, if he were feeling particularly insistent. we are where and when we are meant to be.
but jim doesn't say any of those things aloud. instead he tells spock to be offended, that he should be, and to that spock finds himself able to actually breathe out what counts as a full laugh, from him. ]
You are well aware, [ he says, tone arch despite the flush still on his cheeks, his ears, ] that I am uniquely unsuited to doing what I should.
[ but then jim's hand is turning against his, and it's spock's breath that shudders quietly this time as jim's fingers drag along his palm so, so much more intimately than he ever has before, when he threads their fingers in a manner that he knows they're both aware would be uniquely obscene if anyone were to see it—
—he shivers, unable to help himself, and leans closer. ]
I do not wish to be offended, and so I will not be.
[ spock's breath hitches, as he'd known it would. it's illicit, the slide of their fingers together, deliberate, shockingly, breathtakingly intimate. jim knows to slide his thumb along the side of spock's, then drag over his mount-of-venus. he holds his gaze as he does so, heart fluttering unsteadily as spock leans in closer. ]
It's one of many qualities that will make you an incredible but deeply frustrating first officer, [ jim agrees with a sigh that's gentle, that's helpless in its adoration. ] Not to mention a stubborn bastard of a bondmate. [ god, he shouldn't say that. spock isn't his husband, but jim doesn't want to think about him bonding with anyone else, either.
his free hand sets his glass aside, then lifts, curling against the hot-flushed curve of spock's pointed ear, then gliding down to cup the side of his neck. heat prickles along his own skin at the familiarity of it, echoes of a hundred times, a thousand times before, the memory of a hand on his hip or his waist or his ribs, splayed against his back, curled around his bicep. fingertips against his face, mind-to-mind. a hundred-thousand times spock has touched him in the halls of the enterprise or on some new planet or in one of their bedrooms, in their beds, skin-to-skin.
he tries. he really tries to push it all back down, to make this only the present, only jim and this moment, this spock, but it's impossible. spock is spock is spock, all the things that make them the same and all the things that make them unique, and he aches with the months of trying to pretend he doesn't feel just like him, that heart and mind and soul don't yearn in their entirety. every inch of him has been telling him that this man is his husband, his bondmate, t'hy'la, even though it feels disrespectful to both of them to believe it. ]
Spock-- [ heat pricks at his eyes, grief and desire and love and pain, and he squeezes them shut. this can't be casual or experimental or some kind of fling for him, and he knows that spock knows that, wouldn't still be here encouraging this if it wasn't important to him, too.
it's that thought alone that allows him to open his eyes again, lean forward, and kiss him. ]
[ logically, spock knew this would happen if their encounters went in this direction. knew that jim would know how and where to touch, as he always has in all other ways.
knowing it logically doesn't make the sound in his throat any easier to swallow when jim's thumb brushes his hand in ways, in places, no human should be able to know exactly how to do with such ease; it drives a heated spike of want through him, his heart pounding a little harder in his side, the look in his eyes as jim watches his expression not unease or regret but the sharp and sudden realization that he is, in fact, well in over his head when it comes to being able to even pretend to keep his steadiness.
because his breath hitches again as jim speaks, his brow furrowing just so with the effort of not saying something incredibly stupid right off the bat. he wants to, but he doesn't.
instead, he says: ]
I have under good authority that you enjoy both deeply frustrating and stubborn bastard.
[ which is a start; an attempt at regaining some sense of attitude, of teasing. until jim's hand slots against his ear, down his neck, and he swallows. what spock doesn't realize though, is that while some things are clearly learned, others simply come naturally: he tilts his head into the touch, the movement at once both his own instinct and a perfect echo of what jim surely knows, the angle exact.
so too is the hand at jim's bicep, which is where it ends up settling of the options the admiral had been thinking of. also natural, instinctive, simply where it makes sense, is logical to touch.
spock has found he is not a being adept at flings. he learned so the hard way when he expected much more of what christine wanted than she actually did. they are both, jim and himself, aware that this is not casual or experimental in any way.
no, the way spock presses into the kiss to return it is practically fervent in its want, in how it feels, oddly, like coming home from a long journey in a way he's almost frightened to think about for too long.
he focuses instead on each point they touch: their twined fingers, jim's other hand still at his neck, the surge of their mouths as a helpless little sound does finally escape his throat, one that would be absolutely mortifying in any other context or with anyone else.
and he is, by now, good enough at 'reading the room' that the tone of jim's voice saying his name isn't lost to him. enough that he drags his thumb across jim's knuckles, slides his other hand up further to cradle the side of his neck, fingertips brushing against the base of his hair at his nape, and when he nudges their foreheads together to speak, his voice is low. their lips brush with each word because he can't bring himself to draw back any further than that. ]
I am here.
[ just that. steady, solid, alive, and here. within jim's reach, his grasp, spock is spock is spock and a defining feature of what makes spock is dedication to james tiberius kirk. ]
[ he does very much like deeply frustrating and stubborn bastard. he'd married the most frustrating, stubborn bastard in the galaxy, and as it turns out, he's always going to be weak for him.
and everything about this is surreal. jim is in his fifties now. he's still in great shape, but he's softer around the middle, the crow's feet around his eyes are deeper than ever. he's tired and knows he looks it. he's a widower and a workaholic and a grieving mess, even more than a year since losing his husband. by all rights, nothing about him should be that appealing to a younger spock with his entire life and career ahead of him.
and that's not all, is it? the way he touches jim, the way he looks at him, it's all like his own spock is right here. it's like double-vision, almost, and kissing him--? god, it's like every kiss he's ever shared with his husband, it feels just like him.. though the eager way this spock pushes forward, fervent, almost desperate, is.. new. different.
jim manages a shaky little laugh as he's all but pushed back into the couch cushion, making his hand cupping spock's neck and jaw a steadying touch, an anchor. he smiles, unsteady, as the younger man's brow rests lightly against his own, lips still brushing, so close. god, he can feel the heat of him even through the layers of their clothing, the hungry way he holds him startling and an unexpected balm to his ego.
then he speaks, and the older man has to blink away more tears threatening. yes. yes, he's here. he's alive and real, and if he wants jim even a fraction as badly as jim wants him, then james kirk is a very lucky man indeed.
he kisses him again because he can, because he needs him, will always need him, even if it's selfish. ] Spock, [ he murmurs as they break apart again, just for the pleasure of saying his name, and lifts their twined fingers so he can duck his head and kiss the pads of spock's, sucking the tip between his lips and grazing it with his teeth. ]
[ see? spock is extremely right, as always. he is also, as noted previously, in over his head. not emotionally, he knows where he's at with that. they're in similar places there despite the different reasons; a selfish little part of spock feels a coil of satisfaction, gratification, to feel genuinely needed, to be touched with desire and want with no social bear trap for him to step directly into. he doesn't think of it in that metaphor, that isn't how he's built, but that's what it is. was, rather.
what it is now is exactly what he's wanted for months now. jim's touch, the transference of affection and heat buzzing lightly at the edges of his thoughts, his emotional balance.
spock remains where he is for that moment of steadying, brushes a kiss at the corner of jim's mouth, stays close, watches him, and decides, abruptly, that he would very much prefer to never let go. illogical nonsense, and yet.
this time he melts into the kiss rather than surges into it, but not because he's any less eager. it's because a line of tension has been drawn out of him, the realization that he does, in fact, get to have this. that he does matter, that he is enough, that jim can breathe his name out like that and—
—every single thought derails all at once because when they draw back, because jim is—
well—
it's not something that happens, really, to people like spock, for many reasons not just that even the brush of fingers against one another is barely appropriate for public sight. and the soft press of lips is overwhelming enough, but that brief flicker from before of 'that sound i made would be deeply embarrassing anywhere else' falls right out a twelve-story window because it's nothing compared to the way spock's breath hiccups despite every attempt to stop it when he feels the blunt edges of jim's teeth graze his fingertip, the slight, slight suction to get it near enough to them so he can do so.
spock is, to put it colloquially, completely fucked.
his eyes have gone wide, the pupils narrowing to slits before blowing out again, he blinks one set of eyelids and then the other, then he opens his mouth and nothing comes out—
—his fingers twitch slightly, one of the free ones brushing lightly across jim's lower lip, his gaze now unblinking because he can't look away. he thinks he says jim's name but it sounds a little thready so maybe he didn't. he swallows, shifting slightly where he sits, and he should be embarrassed by how he briefly presses his thighs together, but he's too busy moving just afterward, turning, swinging a leg fully over the admiral's lap to sit astride him, fingers of his free hand trailing through his hair, the tips grazing his temple with the helpless transfer of blind heat and want.
he should be more composed. more well-regulated. better able to control himself. he is, in fact, none of those things at the moment.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
:) you have let me out of my self-imposed prison and now you will suffer
had jim said any of those things aloud, spock would have mild but somehow deadpan answers to them. a big one certainly being the simplest: from the very moment admiral kirk ended up in this particular timeline, the course of it had begun to change. there is no knowing, now, where things will go, because this has never happened before.
kaiidth, he might say, if he were feeling particularly insistent. we are where and when we are meant to be.
but jim doesn't say any of those things aloud. instead he tells spock to be offended, that he should be, and to that spock finds himself able to actually breathe out what counts as a full laugh, from him. ]
You are well aware, [ he says, tone arch despite the flush still on his cheeks, his ears, ] that I am uniquely unsuited to doing what I should.
[ but then jim's hand is turning against his, and it's spock's breath that shudders quietly this time as jim's fingers drag along his palm so, so much more intimately than he ever has before, when he threads their fingers in a manner that he knows they're both aware would be uniquely obscene if anyone were to see it—
—he shivers, unable to help himself, and leans closer. ]
I do not wish to be offended, and so I will not be.
joke's on you, i'm a masochist
It's one of many qualities that will make you an incredible but deeply frustrating first officer, [ jim agrees with a sigh that's gentle, that's helpless in its adoration. ] Not to mention a stubborn bastard of a bondmate. [ god, he shouldn't say that. spock isn't his husband, but jim doesn't want to think about him bonding with anyone else, either.
his free hand sets his glass aside, then lifts, curling against the hot-flushed curve of spock's pointed ear, then gliding down to cup the side of his neck. heat prickles along his own skin at the familiarity of it, echoes of a hundred times, a thousand times before, the memory of a hand on his hip or his waist or his ribs, splayed against his back, curled around his bicep. fingertips against his face, mind-to-mind. a hundred-thousand times spock has touched him in the halls of the enterprise or on some new planet or in one of their bedrooms, in their beds, skin-to-skin.
he tries. he really tries to push it all back down, to make this only the present, only jim and this moment, this spock, but it's impossible. spock is spock is spock, all the things that make them the same and all the things that make them unique, and he aches with the months of trying to pretend he doesn't feel just like him, that heart and mind and soul don't yearn in their entirety. every inch of him has been telling him that this man is his husband, his bondmate, t'hy'la, even though it feels disrespectful to both of them to believe it. ]
Spock-- [ heat pricks at his eyes, grief and desire and love and pain, and he squeezes them shut. this can't be casual or experimental or some kind of fling for him, and he knows that spock knows that, wouldn't still be here encouraging this if it wasn't important to him, too.
it's that thought alone that allows him to open his eyes again, lean forward, and kiss him. ]
we are the same
knowing it logically doesn't make the sound in his throat any easier to swallow when jim's thumb brushes his hand in ways, in places, no human should be able to know exactly how to do with such ease; it drives a heated spike of want through him, his heart pounding a little harder in his side, the look in his eyes as jim watches his expression not unease or regret but the sharp and sudden realization that he is, in fact, well in over his head when it comes to being able to even pretend to keep his steadiness.
because his breath hitches again as jim speaks, his brow furrowing just so with the effort of not saying something incredibly stupid right off the bat. he wants to, but he doesn't.
instead, he says: ]
I have under good authority that you enjoy both deeply frustrating and stubborn bastard.
[ which is a start; an attempt at regaining some sense of attitude, of teasing. until jim's hand slots against his ear, down his neck, and he swallows. what spock doesn't realize though, is that while some things are clearly learned, others simply come naturally: he tilts his head into the touch, the movement at once both his own instinct and a perfect echo of what jim surely knows, the angle exact.
so too is the hand at jim's bicep, which is where it ends up settling of the options the admiral had been thinking of. also natural, instinctive, simply where it makes sense, is logical to touch.
spock has found he is not a being adept at flings. he learned so the hard way when he expected much more of what christine wanted than she actually did. they are both, jim and himself, aware that this is not casual or experimental in any way.
no, the way spock presses into the kiss to return it is practically fervent in its want, in how it feels, oddly, like coming home from a long journey in a way he's almost frightened to think about for too long.
he focuses instead on each point they touch: their twined fingers, jim's other hand still at his neck, the surge of their mouths as a helpless little sound does finally escape his throat, one that would be absolutely mortifying in any other context or with anyone else.
and he is, by now, good enough at 'reading the room' that the tone of jim's voice saying his name isn't lost to him. enough that he drags his thumb across jim's knuckles, slides his other hand up further to cradle the side of his neck, fingertips brushing against the base of his hair at his nape, and when he nudges their foreheads together to speak, his voice is low. their lips brush with each word because he can't bring himself to draw back any further than that. ]
I am here.
[ just that. steady, solid, alive, and here. within jim's reach, his grasp, spock is spock is spock and a defining feature of what makes spock is dedication to james tiberius kirk. ]
no subject
and everything about this is surreal. jim is in his fifties now. he's still in great shape, but he's softer around the middle, the crow's feet around his eyes are deeper than ever. he's tired and knows he looks it. he's a widower and a workaholic and a grieving mess, even more than a year since losing his husband. by all rights, nothing about him should be that appealing to a younger spock with his entire life and career ahead of him.
and that's not all, is it? the way he touches jim, the way he looks at him, it's all like his own spock is right here. it's like double-vision, almost, and kissing him--? god, it's like every kiss he's ever shared with his husband, it feels just like him.. though the eager way this spock pushes forward, fervent, almost desperate, is.. new. different.
jim manages a shaky little laugh as he's all but pushed back into the couch cushion, making his hand cupping spock's neck and jaw a steadying touch, an anchor. he smiles, unsteady, as the younger man's brow rests lightly against his own, lips still brushing, so close. god, he can feel the heat of him even through the layers of their clothing, the hungry way he holds him startling and an unexpected balm to his ego.
then he speaks, and the older man has to blink away more tears threatening. yes. yes, he's here. he's alive and real, and if he wants jim even a fraction as badly as jim wants him, then james kirk is a very lucky man indeed.
he kisses him again because he can, because he needs him, will always need him, even if it's selfish. ] Spock, [ he murmurs as they break apart again, just for the pleasure of saying his name, and lifts their twined fingers so he can duck his head and kiss the pads of spock's, sucking the tip between his lips and grazing it with his teeth. ]
no subject
what it is now is exactly what he's wanted for months now. jim's touch, the transference of affection and heat buzzing lightly at the edges of his thoughts, his emotional balance.
spock remains where he is for that moment of steadying, brushes a kiss at the corner of jim's mouth, stays close, watches him, and decides, abruptly, that he would very much prefer to never let go. illogical nonsense, and yet.
this time he melts into the kiss rather than surges into it, but not because he's any less eager. it's because a line of tension has been drawn out of him, the realization that he does, in fact, get to have this. that he does matter, that he is enough, that jim can breathe his name out like that and—
—every single thought derails all at once because when they draw back, because jim is—
well—
it's not something that happens, really, to people like spock, for many reasons not just that even the brush of fingers against one another is barely appropriate for public sight. and the soft press of lips is overwhelming enough, but that brief flicker from before of 'that sound i made would be deeply embarrassing anywhere else' falls right out a twelve-story window because it's nothing compared to the way spock's breath hiccups despite every attempt to stop it when he feels the blunt edges of jim's teeth graze his fingertip, the slight, slight suction to get it near enough to them so he can do so.
spock is, to put it colloquially, completely fucked.
his eyes have gone wide, the pupils narrowing to slits before blowing out again, he blinks one set of eyelids and then the other, then he opens his mouth and nothing comes out—
—his fingers twitch slightly, one of the free ones brushing lightly across jim's lower lip, his gaze now unblinking because he can't look away. he thinks he says jim's name but it sounds a little thready so maybe he didn't. he swallows, shifting slightly where he sits, and he should be embarrassed by how he briefly presses his thighs together, but he's too busy moving just afterward, turning, swinging a leg fully over the admiral's lap to sit astride him, fingers of his free hand trailing through his hair, the tips grazing his temple with the helpless transfer of blind heat and want.
he should be more composed. more well-regulated. better able to control himself. he is, in fact, none of those things at the moment.
enjoy your activated cat, admiral kirk. ]