[ most of it's unconscious: that is, the way admiral kirk treats spock. he keeps his home a few degrees warmer than humans generally find completely comfortable, he always has vulcan teas and plenty of vegetarian options on hand, he often speaks in accented but nearly fluent vulcan when they're alone.. and he touches him. he touches him more, not less, than he does other people, in fact. usually it's a hand on his arm, or fingers brushing his shoulder, or fingers brushing fingers over a chess set, or handing him a cup, or just in passing.
it's not intentional, just the clear habit of long years together with the spock he'd known and loved. they'd been married, he'd admitted eventually, months ago, after one too many glasses of whiskey, as if it hadn't already been obvious. but it had hurt to say, hurt to think about, and he hadn't wanted to put any kind of pressure or expectation on spock. this spock and jim kirk, he'd said, had to make their own decisions about their own relationship, whatever it would or wouldn't be.
the enterprise is back for repairs, and since jim himself is back on earth after another tiresome diplomatic mission, well, it had seemed only natural to catch up with chris and the others, and then invite spock to dinner. it's not unusual for them, particularly now that jim knows spock finds it easier to talk to him, but it has been months since they've been in the same room together like this.
and now? after dinner, jim sits curled comfortably on his couch, nursing a glass of his favorite whiskey in his lap, whole body turned toward spock as he explains the particulars of his latest research project. the moment's soft and familiar and intimate-- or, rather, there are echoes of intimacy. another time, another spock. they would have been closer, even, than they are now. spock's knee would be brushing his, his fingertips sliding between jim's own, that corner of his mouth quirking the way it only ever does for jim. ]
Ashayam, I like where you're going with this, but I genuinely don't think you're going to convince Dr. Whelk to send you her data, and I'm not young enough to try batting my eyelashes at her anymore.
[ several seconds pass before he realizes what he's said, and he immediately winces, the haze of familiarity clearing up like a splash of cold water. he reaches up, pinching the bridge of his nose. ] God, I'm sorry, Spock. That was-- I don't know why I said that. [ no, that's not completely true. after the better part of a year here, it's hard not to.. feel.. things, however inappropriate they might be. ]
[ for jim the actions are unconscious; for spock he's gotten so used to it, to the little bits of fondness he's desperate for, that he's started trying to get more of it whenever possible. he wants to be treated this way by someone who clearly already knows exactly how to interact with him both with the nature of how he touches spock and how he speaks to him, knowing but not prying, taking his comfort into account without thought. to speak so easily in a tongue most humans struggle with no matter how long they try—
—there is absolutely nothing wrong with the jim kirk who is nearer spock's age, the jim kirk who so very recently had introduced himself with a handshake, of all things. however, spock finds interacting with admiral kirk to be, yes, easier. it is easier to share things that would feel like unconscionable secrets with a jim who knows him so fully already, who spock is aware knows every horrible, unlovable part of him and still looks at him with such fondness that more than once spock has felt overwhelmed simply from that.
spock had his own admission to jim months prior: he is lonely in the wake of losing both t'pring and christine for differing reasons, both of which feel like his fault (even though one is and the other is not, spock is only ever truly unkind to himself in these matters). he feels not enough. but spock has never not been enough for jim kirk, despite not being the bondmate he had clearly lost.
he finds that he misses jim most of all even though their partings are only ever temporary, even though he is always just a message away. that should frighten him. he should excise the feelings, stop trying to be for jim what he had lost. he should focus, should keep things to the human definition of friend, but he finds he cannot.
he wonders, often, if he's obvious or if jim simply feels it's a matter of course because it's what he's used to. jim is equal parts easy to read and impossible to decipher. but moments like this, when they can meet in person again, can sit together and discuss things like this that show spock every corner of jim's brilliant mind, one of the most attractive things about him if he's quite honest.
he is, briefly, distracted from the conversation. a fleeting, unbidden thought that he finds more and more difficult to suppress each time they're together. distracted just long enough that ashayam hits him like a blow as he starts piecing together his response about the data in his head and his eyes widen slightly, spine going rail straight as he feels his face heating up, going green from the neck to the tips of his ears. his heart beats faster in his side, he knows it was just reflexive on jim's part, an echo of the husband he lost, but for spock—
for spock, it's too late. jim's voice forming the word has nestled in his head, in his heart, and a vulcan's unique combination of both eidetic memory and hyperthymesia means he'll never, ever forget what it sounds like.
it takes him long enough to school his expression that jim has already started to apologize.
spock realizes, all at once, that if he doesn't do this, he likely never will.
so he reaches out, fingers grazing jim's knee, then along the side of his hand. purposeful, as he tilts his head just enough to catch the admiral's gaze. he is, unfortunately, fully aware that his cheeks are still stained green, but it's too late. it doesn't matter. his thumb brushes the line of jim's wrist. ]
Apology is unnecessary when offense has not been taken, Jim.
[ uncharacteristically, he feels himself starting to hold his breath before he forces himself to keep his respiration even. ]
[ trapped somewhere between humiliation and surging grief, he doesn't notice what's happening with spock until he feels fingers touch his knee. he nearly jolts, startled by the contact, but those fingers crawl up to his hand, to his wrist, thumb against his suddenly-racing pulse. his other hand drops away from his eyes, surprise making his breath hiccup once in his chest as he takes in the younger man gazing at him. spock is blushing, and oh, god, this is so dangerous.
a better, stronger man would disengage, would gently end the evening, reassert some boundaries. after all, spock is lonely. they're both lonely. jim has a broken bond that keeps reaching for this younger version of his husband, and spock's never met anyone that understands him so thoroughly. jim has been too familiar with him, too close, too intimate. he doesn't belong in this time or this reality. he's confusing whatever spock and the younger jim kirk could be. he knows all this, and he sees it, but he also knows that he's not a better or a stronger man. ]
I-- [ his voice wavers, a lump in his throat as he stares into the younger man's flushed, earnest face. spock doesn't even have to open up the connection jim had shared with his older counterpart, jim can see in his expression what hearing that endearment had meant to him. there's something electric in the curl of his strong fingers, in his dark, intense gaze. ]
You should feel offended, [ he finishes a little weakly, conviction noticeably missing from his voice. the truth is, though spock will always in jim's eyes be his husband, but younger, and the comparisons are impossible to avoid.. he's also very simply himself. and the longer that jim is here, the more of this spock's uniqueness he notices, he likes. he's even, shamefully, felt his thoughts drift toward him on long, sleepless nights; nights when he misses his bondmate's warmth at his back, his breath against his nape, the weight of his arm over his waist.
another breath shudders out of him, and he turns his wrist beneath spock's hand, fingertips dragging along his palm as he pulls back, then slides his fingers between the younger man's. ]
:) you have let me out of my self-imposed prison and now you will suffer
[ 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}
points to eyes points to u
it's not intentional, just the clear habit of long years together with the spock he'd known and loved. they'd been married, he'd admitted eventually, months ago, after one too many glasses of whiskey, as if it hadn't already been obvious. but it had hurt to say, hurt to think about, and he hadn't wanted to put any kind of pressure or expectation on spock. this spock and jim kirk, he'd said, had to make their own decisions about their own relationship, whatever it would or wouldn't be.
the enterprise is back for repairs, and since jim himself is back on earth after another tiresome diplomatic mission, well, it had seemed only natural to catch up with chris and the others, and then invite spock to dinner. it's not unusual for them, particularly now that jim knows spock finds it easier to talk to him, but it has been months since they've been in the same room together like this.
and now? after dinner, jim sits curled comfortably on his couch, nursing a glass of his favorite whiskey in his lap, whole body turned toward spock as he explains the particulars of his latest research project. the moment's soft and familiar and intimate-- or, rather, there are echoes of intimacy. another time, another spock. they would have been closer, even, than they are now. spock's knee would be brushing his, his fingertips sliding between jim's own, that corner of his mouth quirking the way it only ever does for jim. ]
Ashayam, I like where you're going with this, but I genuinely don't think you're going to convince Dr. Whelk to send you her data, and I'm not young enough to try batting my eyelashes at her anymore.
[ several seconds pass before he realizes what he's said, and he immediately winces, the haze of familiarity clearing up like a splash of cold water. he reaches up, pinching the bridge of his nose. ] God, I'm sorry, Spock. That was-- I don't know why I said that. [ no, that's not completely true. after the better part of a year here, it's hard not to.. feel.. things, however inappropriate they might be. ]
he's dead jim.....................
—there is absolutely nothing wrong with the jim kirk who is nearer spock's age, the jim kirk who so very recently had introduced himself with a handshake, of all things. however, spock finds interacting with admiral kirk to be, yes, easier. it is easier to share things that would feel like unconscionable secrets with a jim who knows him so fully already, who spock is aware knows every horrible, unlovable part of him and still looks at him with such fondness that more than once spock has felt overwhelmed simply from that.
spock had his own admission to jim months prior: he is lonely in the wake of losing both t'pring and christine for differing reasons, both of which feel like his fault (even though one is and the other is not, spock is only ever truly unkind to himself in these matters). he feels not enough. but spock has never not been enough for jim kirk, despite not being the bondmate he had clearly lost.
he finds that he misses jim most of all even though their partings are only ever temporary, even though he is always just a message away. that should frighten him. he should excise the feelings, stop trying to be for jim what he had lost. he should focus, should keep things to the human definition of friend, but he finds he cannot.
he wonders, often, if he's obvious or if jim simply feels it's a matter of course because it's what he's used to. jim is equal parts easy to read and impossible to decipher. but moments like this, when they can meet in person again, can sit together and discuss things like this that show spock every corner of jim's brilliant mind, one of the most attractive things about him if he's quite honest.
he is, briefly, distracted from the conversation. a fleeting, unbidden thought that he finds more and more difficult to suppress each time they're together. distracted just long enough that ashayam hits him like a blow as he starts piecing together his response about the data in his head and his eyes widen slightly, spine going rail straight as he feels his face heating up, going green from the neck to the tips of his ears. his heart beats faster in his side, he knows it was just reflexive on jim's part, an echo of the husband he lost, but for spock—
for spock, it's too late. jim's voice forming the word has nestled in his head, in his heart, and a vulcan's unique combination of both eidetic memory and hyperthymesia means he'll never, ever forget what it sounds like.
it takes him long enough to school his expression that jim has already started to apologize.
spock realizes, all at once, that if he doesn't do this, he likely never will.
so he reaches out, fingers grazing jim's knee, then along the side of his hand. purposeful, as he tilts his head just enough to catch the admiral's gaze. he is, unfortunately, fully aware that his cheeks are still stained green, but it's too late. it doesn't matter. his thumb brushes the line of jim's wrist. ]
Apology is unnecessary when offense has not been taken, Jim.
[ uncharacteristically, he feels himself starting to hold his breath before he forces himself to keep his respiration even. ]
I'M dead, jim
a better, stronger man would disengage, would gently end the evening, reassert some boundaries. after all, spock is lonely. they're both lonely. jim has a broken bond that keeps reaching for this younger version of his husband, and spock's never met anyone that understands him so thoroughly. jim has been too familiar with him, too close, too intimate. he doesn't belong in this time or this reality. he's confusing whatever spock and the younger jim kirk could be. he knows all this, and he sees it, but he also knows that he's not a better or a stronger man. ]
I-- [ his voice wavers, a lump in his throat as he stares into the younger man's flushed, earnest face. spock doesn't even have to open up the connection jim had shared with his older counterpart, jim can see in his expression what hearing that endearment had meant to him. there's something electric in the curl of his strong fingers, in his dark, intense gaze. ]
You should feel offended, [ he finishes a little weakly, conviction noticeably missing from his voice. the truth is, though spock will always in jim's eyes be his husband, but younger, and the comparisons are impossible to avoid.. he's also very simply himself. and the longer that jim is here, the more of this spock's uniqueness he notices, he likes. he's even, shamefully, felt his thoughts drift toward him on long, sleepless nights; nights when he misses his bondmate's warmth at his back, his breath against his nape, the weight of his arm over his waist.
another breath shudders out of him, and he turns his wrist beneath spock's hand, fingertips dragging along his palm as he pulls back, then slides his fingers between the younger man's. ]
:) 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. ]
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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. ]