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“So Jim went on a date yesterday,” Bones told Nyota the second all of them had settled down, “with an older man.”
She gasped dramatically and threw a piece of popcorn at him, saying, “Scandalous!” Which was a bit rich, coming from her. Scotty was a full seven years older than she was.
Then, because they were two miracles of bio-engineering innovation away from being a hive mind, Spock finished for Bones, “Apparently, it went very well.”
“So spill, Kirk.”
Jim picked up the popcorn piece from the couch cushion and ate it, ignoring Bones’s predictable vaguely disgusted noise. “He’s very attractive. It was, a bit surreal actually. Bones, promise me this won’t make things weird.”
“Why?” Bones asked, immediately suspicious.
“Well he’s also a theoretical physicist, and his name is also Spock.”
“You’re joking.”
Spock just stared at him as if he thought it was all a very unfunny prank of some sort.
“I swear on my life, look.” He had saved Adult Spock’s old person social media for expressly this purpose. He passed the phone to his left so that Spones could look at it.
Bones said, “Holy shit,” and Spock obligingly clicked on something, maybe a photo, and Bones said, “Holy shit,” again. Nyota’s patience ran out and she crowded them over to peer at the phone too.
“You’re not kidding, he even looks like Spock a little bit.”
Jim’s mouth was full of popcorn but he made an ‘I know right?’ face back at her.
“Does he know about Spones?”
Spock frowned, as he always did at their nickname, but Jim and the rest of the group had decided that if they wanted to be referred to individually, they could prove they actually were separate being by spending more than five minutes in separate room. And yet, Jim had actually seen them go into the bathroom together and subsequently heard the toilet flush and everything. The name stuck.
“Not yet,” Jim answered her while Bones continued to internet stalk his hopefully soon to be boyfriend. “I figure that’s a second date conversation at least.”
“So there will be a second date?” Nyota asked, raising her eyebrows a couple of times.
“Of course there will be,” Jim said, giving up and snatching his phone out of Spones’s hands despite Bones’s indignant noise. “I’m irresistible.”
“Jim, this man is thirty-seven?” Spock asked.
“You’re twenty-five,” Bones put in, as if Jim might have forgotten.
“And I asked him out after weeks of work, so you can calm down.”
Luckily, Scotty arrived and in the ensuing rush to tell him about Jim’s newest drama and his completely characteristic ability to miss the dramatic part of it completely, the subject tired itself out. Unfortunately, they all squashed together on the couch to watch the movie, and Jim, who had the least body mass compared to the two couples, was relegated to being crammed against the armrest, half under Spock.
Spones, in typical Spones fashion, were arranged so that Bones was almost entirely on top of Spock, holding one of his hands to his chin and kissing it every couple of minutes. Spock, not to be outdone, would drop kisses on the top of Bones head occasionally, and his free hand stroked Bones’s elbow. Scotty and Uhura weren’t any better. They seemed to choose the most uncomfortable and inexplicable positions to cuddle in. Currently, Uhura hung off Scotty’s neck with her arms looped around behind both of their heads, and was kept from slipping onto the floor by Scotty’s arms around her waist and magic as far as Jim could tell.
Jim’s phone buzzed.
[Messaging: Now] Adult Spock: Jim, I wanted to reiterate that I . . .
He couldn’t stop himself from grinning as he opened the message.
Bones wasn’t even looking at him, but somehow he knew to say, “Must be your date if you’re blushing that much.”
“Shut up and watch the movie.”
Adult Spock: Jim, I wanted to reiterate that I enjoyed our evening together yesterday. I hope you are well. If you are available this evening, I would enjoy the chance to speak with on video in order to show you my garden, as you requested. I am afraid the flowers will have passed their peak by the time you are able to visit in person.
His face had to be roughly the shade of a tomato, but Jim genuinely did not care, and no one was actually looking at him either.
I’m available at or after 6
Adult Spock wanted to talk to him, and see him again, and for him to come over, eventually. Everyone else gasped suddenly.
“Wait what’d I miss?”
Spock waved a hand at the screen and Nyota said, “He just got shot!”
Which “he” was unclear, and the movie wasn’t helping, the camera spun around in dizzying circles, showing only flashes of buildings and someone’s fingers covered in blood. His phone vibrated again.
“Turn off your damn phone, Kirk.”
“It is off!”
“The buzzing.”
Adult Spock: I will call you then.
“Then how will he know when the other Spock texts him?”
Jim could always count on Scotty.
“Your talking is much louder than Jim’s phone,” Spock pointed out.
I look forward to it 😊
“No FUCKING way!” Bones burst out.
Jim had missed it again. “What?”
“What’s the point if you’re not even watching the movie?” Nyota complained. Spock gave up on them and used his executive control of the remote to turn subtitles on as Bones almost talked over her.
“The anthropologist! She’s the—JIM! SHE’s the one that shot him!! You’re missing the whole thing! I can’t believe it! I liked her!”
Indeed, it was the anthropologist, tucking a gun discretely back into a holster that had definitely appeared out of nowhere. The younger of the main two leads lay on the ground several hundred feet away.
“K’diwa, you are extremely irritating.”
Bones tipped his head back to look up at Spock. “But you’re stuck with me.”
Spock kissed him instead of answering and Jim leaned a little to the side to try and catch up on the actual plot of the movie.
“Now who’s being loud?” Nyota mumbled. The scene had cut to an ambulance and the music was tense and the camera still rather shaky. Presumably the younger lead wasn’t going to die, but the suspense had to be maintained somehow.
“Still Spones,” Scotty replied. Jim wondered if Spock was frowning into Bones’s mouth.
On screen, younger lead’s wife, who had had all of five lines so far in the movie and who Jim had forgotten existed until just then, collapsed crying into the older lead’s arms while the dramatic music swelled. She didn’t have any lines in that scene either, and neither, apparently, was she important enough to bother staying in the hospital, because when they finally cut to younger lead again, only the older main lead was there to watch him wake up.
“How are you feeling?”
The young lead groaned.
“I sent Arlene home to get some rest.”
That was her name. And a convenient explanation for why she wouldn’t appear again until the very last scene of the movie, presumably.
His phone buzzed again and showed a single smiley face from Adult Spock. Jim’s blush returned with a vengeance.
By the time the movie ended Nyota was actually, entirely on the floor while Scotty stroked her hair and massaged her scalp. Spock was nearly sitting in Jim’s lap with Bones in his, which gave Jim a prime view of their constant light petting.
“I think I liked last week’s movie better,” Scotty said.
“Well that one was critically acclaimed and this one was a shitty action flick, so, that’s probably a good thing.”
Spock pried one hand free and shut off the credits.
Nyota finally clambered up from the floor. “How’s your Spock, Jim?”
“We’re going to talk on a video call sometime after six,” Jim told her.
Bones said “OooOOooh!” until Spock flicked his ear to get him to shut up.
“It’s only five thirty,” Scotty pointed out.
“I know,” Jim said, struggling to extricate himself from underneath Spones, who did not cooperate in the slightest, “but I haven’t showered yet today.”
“Do you really need to shower for a video call?”
“I need to shower for me,” he replied. “And maybe get dinner started.”
“Speaking of,” Nyota said, “we should get going, we have reservations with Scotty’s parents in an hour.”
“Have fun,” Bones said. He and Spock had gotten up of the couch after forcing Jim to fight his way out from beneath them, typical, and were starting to clean up the snacks all over the coffee table.
“See you later. Good luck with your video date, Jim.”
Jim, walking them to the door, resisted the urge to correct them. It wasn’t a date, a phone call wasn’t a date.
“Bye.”
—
“Hello Jim.”
“Hey,” Jim replied. Spones were probably not listening, but if they were, someone was going to tease him for how smitten he sounded.
Spock was holding his camera at a weird angle, but he was smiling.
“I hope your evening as been enjoyable.”
“Yeah, it’s been nice. We watched a movie. It was terrible, but that’s okay.”
“It is always good to spend time with friends.”
“Yeah.” Second time he’d said that in less than thirty seconds, god. “How have you been?”
“Well,” Spock said, he was walking somewhere and all Jim could see was the corner of his ear and the ceiling. “I worked around the house today, and did some reading. A productive day. I believe I promised to show you the flowers before the light goes.”
“Yes, please.”
Finally, the camera was switched around and once Spock’s thumb moved out of the way, Jim had a nice view of his garden. Spock took him through various different plants and explained the environment they required. It was mostly incomprehensible to Jim, but the way Spock talked about it was enchanting.
“The insects especially appreciate this species,” Spock told him, “but it is rather too late in the evening now, I believe. In midafternoon I am always astounded by the biodiversity that can be cultivated even in the midst of a large city such as ours.”
“That’s amazing.”
“The tomato plants are rather past their peak at this point—” Spock pointed the camera in their direction. “I will take them out once the month ends.”
“They still look okay to me,” Jim admitted. “I don’t know very much about plants.”
Spock switched the camera back to front view. “And I have just bored you half to death with a half an hour lecture.”
“No, not at all.”
“You indulge me.”
“Nope, now I that I know you have such a beautiful garden I have an extra excuse to make it over there at some point. I grew up in Iowa, I always want more green space out here.”
Spock was walking somewhere again, and in a moment the camera was settled against something, so Jim had a better, much less shaky, view, but also from a very low angle. It looked like he might be in Spock’s kitchen.
“Then at some point perhaps we will make time to visit a park together. I would like to ask you, if this isn’t inexcusably forward, if you are available this coming Thursday evening. I have a conference this weekend so unfortunately, I can only offer you dinner, not a proper outing.” Spock disappeared from the frame.
Jim was grinning so hard he could hear it and it took him a second to wrangle his face into cooperation to say, “I’d be thrilled to have dinner Thursday.”
“Very well.” Spock was smiling as he came back into view, holding a bag of some sort. “We can talk again before then to arrange the details. I must say goodbye and make myself dinner now. Thank you for calling.”
“Thank you for calling,” Jim said, because it had been Spock’s idea. “We’ll talk.”
“Good evening, Jim.”
“Bye.”
The screen froze, and the call was disconnected. Jim turned his phone off and allowed himself a private minute to bury his face in his hands and scream silently.
He stepped back into the living room a minute later. Bones was sitting at the breakfast bar at his computer while Spock lay on the couch glaring at the papers he needed to grade.
“What did I tell you? I’m irresistible.”
“You have a second date planned?” Spock asked. Jim suspected he was interested not in small part because it was a distraction from however poorly thought out the student’s work was.
“Thursday.” He was grinning still.
“Congratulations,” Bones said, and he even sounded like he meant it.
—
“Spock!” Bones called from the couch. He was texting someone.
Spock hardly looked up from the sandwich he was putting together. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
“I recognize your tone,” Spock said darkly.
Bones muttered, “Fine,” and went back to his phone.
“What were you going to ask? Out of curiosity.”
“I’ve got another wrong number,” Bones said, and grinned in a truly evil way. “Guy doesn’t believe I’m not the girl he met at the bar yesterday. Sent me a dick pic. I sent him my standard picture of me flipping him off, he still doesn’t believe me. He gets one more picture for proof before I start sending him gay porn.”
“Why do you receive so many of these wrong numbers?” Spock asked.
“His phone number’s really easy to remember,” Jim said. Bones just shrugged.
“What were you going to ask Spock though?”
“I was going to call him.”
“Yeah that’s a terrible idea.”
Spock, from inside the fridge, said, “You see the necessity of having someone at hand constantly to keep him in check.”
“Fuck you.”
The fridge door closed and Spock turned around with his eyebrow raised. “Is that a promise?”
“Can you two keep it in your pants for the next five to fifteen minutes? Please?” Jim asked them. “Then I’ll be out of your hair for a whole several hours.”
Bones finally put his phone down.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to get in a car with him? You’ve been texting but—”
“Are you sure you want to start this conversation with me? Your roommate freshman year of undergrad? The one who—”
“Alright,” Bones interrupted him hastily. “You can take care of yourself.”
The room fell silent again and Jim bounced his leg. Spock came over with his plate of sandwiches, one of which Jim politely declined. In an interesting reversal of their typical couch cuddling habits, and Jim was only a little bit embarrassed to spend enough time with them to know in such detail how they tended to cuddle, Spock draped himself over Bones’s lap and Bones reached around him to grab a sandwich.
“You appear nervous,” Spock said.
“I’m fine.”
And of course he was, he was fine. Adult Spock, who he was not going to call Adult Spock to his face, was remarkably easy to talk to, they’d hit it off, this was a second date, and no one was supposed to be this nervous about a second date. Nerves were for first and third dates, second dates were supposed to be exciting, or if you were unlucky, an indulgence. He wasn’t supposed to be nervous.
He checked the time again, and when he looked up, he was on the receiving end of the double Spones eyebrow.
“I want a third date,” he admitted, and glared at them as Bones looked at him pityingly.
His phone buzzed and he nearly dropped in a mild panic.
“Go, good luck, have fun,” Bones called as Jim was already half way to the door.
“Stay safe,” was Spock,
“If he breaks your heart Spock will kick his ass,” was Bones again.
“Jim is far more likely to break his heart.”
“What?”
“You are ‘a catch’!” Spock called out as Jim was closing the door, and he barely heard him continue just to Bones, “Jim is a highly – “
Jim shut the door and locked it.
Adult Spock was waiting in the loading zone, and he smiled as Jim slipped into the passenger seat, transferring Spock’s long coat to the back seat along with his own.
“Hey.” Jim hated that his voice had gone breathless like that.
“Good evening Jim.”
“Good to see you.”
He stared out the window as Spock pulled back into traffic.
“How has your day been?”
“I worked,” Spock said simply, “it was no different than usual. How have you been since we last spoke?”
Nervous, was the real answer, but Jim wasn’t about to say that. “Fine, Spock and had to convince Bones not to prank call some random creep.”
“Your friends enjoy playing pranks.”
“Um, just Bones and Uhura, really.”
“And you,” Spock said.
“And me.”
They stopped in traffic and Spock looked over at him briefly. Jim couldn’t help smiling.
“When I was in college,” Spock said, a car behind them honked, as if they could go anywhere either, “my friends and I shrink wrapped one of the other student’s cars. I believe he had to get it specially removed so as not to ruin the paint. Although, that may have been because of the duct tape.”
Jim could only gape at him.
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not.” Spock looked amused.
“You shrink wrapped someone’s car?!”
They were finally able to move up several yards.
“What the hell did they do to you?”
Spock’s expression lost some of its joviality. “Relentlessly harassed another friend.”
“Oh,” Jim said, “that’s a pretty good reason.”
“No it isn’t,” Spock said, “but it was rather satisfying, I believe.”
The restaurant Spock had picked wasn’t one Jim had ever been to before, but he liked Indian food, and in another in a line of too many coincidences between the Spock’s, adult Spock was also a strict vegetarian.
“Tell me about your work,” Jim suggested after they ordered, and Spock did. He talked about the experiments he had done previously, the lab he was working with at the moment, the equations he was still trying to solve with his mathematician colleague, the computer program that was still full of bugs, the equipment his researchers were trying to design, and then the history of theoretical physics as a field.
In the middle of his lecture about the cold war he stopped himself to ask for the third time, “Are you sure you wish to continue discussing this?”
“I’m sure,” Jim said, and waved at him to continue. Spock still hesitated. “I’m actually following along, I promise, one of my roommates is studying theoretical physics, and we can never get him to be quiet about it either.”
“Your roommate is studying theoretical physics?”
It was Jim’s turn to hesitate, wondering if it was too early to mention Spones. It seemed to strange to pass up the opportunity, so he said, “Yeah. Actually, weird coincidence, his name is Spock too, and he’s uh, also vegetarian.”
Spock didn’t look freaked out, which was a good sign. “Is he also from Boston?”
“No,” Jim said, relieved, “Pittsburgh.”
“Is he also out tonight with a man named Jim?” Now Spock seemed to be gently poking fun.
“No,” Jim said again, “he’s dating our other roommate, Bones, well, I’m the only on who calls him Bones. They’re definitely either working or, taking advantage of the empty apartment.”
Spock was definitely amused. “I see.”
“I’d like you to meet them, at some point.”
He watched Spock’s face very closely, noting the extremely subtle way his shoulders straightened and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“I would be happy to meet your friends, Jim,” Spock said.
—
Spock's hands gripped his hips and were edging around towards his ass. For his part, Jim was determined to get Spock's shirt off, the only problem was that he wasn't particularly inclined to ask Spock to remove his hands, nor to abandon his prime position licking down Spock's neck.
"Jim," Spock murmured, and bit his ear gently.
"Yeah?"
Coming up for air to see what Spock wanted to say let him tug more insistently at Spock's shirt but then Spock was hauling him so his hips sat against Spock's hips, which Jim was definitely on board with.
"Yeah okay," he said but Spock was kissing him before he had gotten the words half out.
They were supposed to be going to dinner, Jim had even picked out several restaurants with lots of vegan options, but then he hadn't quite been ready to go, and Spock had already parked his car, and Jim had offered him a glass of water while he finished loading the last of the dishes into the dishwasher and then somehow they'd found themselves making out on the couch, like magic. It wasn't yet seven; Jim couldn't find it in him to feel rushed.
Spock tasted sweet and his skin was soft under Jim's fingers and his hands on Jim's hips—
There was the sudden sound of the door and then Bones voice interrupting someone –Baby Spock, who else could it be— "Oh—hell, Jim."
The door closed with a snap and Spock’s hands left his hips like they were burned. Jim suppressed a sigh. He should have been paying closer attention to the time. He knew Bones and Baby Spock were coming home for dinner, and now they were outside on the doorstep. Adult Spock was blushing just ever so slightly.
“C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
Spones broke off their conversation, one of the ones Jim couldn’t follow if his life depended on it where they just talked over each other constantly, as Jim opened the door.
“I thought you were going out to eat,” Bones said.
“We are,” Jim said, “Spones, this is Spock, Spock, this is Bones, and Spock.”
They frowned in sync with each other and Jim tried not to laugh.
“Leonard McCoy,” Bones said, and Adult Spock shook his hand politely.
“Please to meet you Mister McCoy—”
Baby Spock said “Doctor,” at the same time Bones said “Leonard,” and Adult Spock was smiling again.
“Pleased to meet you, Doctor McCoy, may I call you Leonard? Pleased to meet you Mister Spock.”
“Please,” Bones said, and then elbowed Baby Spock not too subtly in the ribs.
“Nice to meet you,” Baby Spock said. The Spock’s did not shake hands.
“Perhaps you will come in?” Adult Spock asked after a beat of silence. “Jim needs to get his coat, but we are about to leave.”
The next three and a half minutes were spent in extremely awkward near silence as Spock put his shoes back on and Jim collected his wallet and keys and coat and lip balm and Spones unloaded the groceries they’d apparently ended up buying.
“Bye then, see you tonight,” Jim said.
“Will we?” Baby Spock asked, looking up, surprised, from the freezer.
“Um, well, maybe not. I’ll text you.” Jim waved at Bones, who was rolling his eyes, and escaped out the door Adult Spock was holding open for him, hoping he wasn’t blushing too much. Luckily, Spock wasn’t looking at him.
“Shall we walk to the restaurant?”
“Sure, through the park?”
“That is acceptable.”
Spock’s hand was warm in Jim’s and the cool evening breeze helped with disguising the blush. The park was only two blocks away, but Spock still hadn’t said anything as they stepped up onto the path. Jim looked over at him.
"Why are you making that face?"
Spock took a slow breath. "It has been a long time since I have been, well, since I have had friends as roommates. The three of you seem close. That's a blessing."
Jim waited to see if he would go on, then asked tentatively, "What about your friends?"
"My friends? From my early twenties, my two closest friends from then have passed away. One in 2003, he was in the Air Force, and the other in 2011, from cancer."
“Oh, uh—” Jim could feel his face moving through a variety of expressions as he desperately tried to think of something to say.
“Don’t worry,” Spock told him gently. "Their deaths were, from a certain perspective, before their times, and that continues to irk me, but I have made peace with myself. I cherish the time we were able to spend together."
“You miss them.”
They had stopped walking. The conversation they’d found themselves having seemed more important than an early dinner. Spock gestured that they sit on a nearby bench.
“Of course, as do our other friends.”
Jim watched his expression closely. Spock did not look upset, but extremely pensive.
“But they are not gone completely,” he continued after a moment. “I have a large collection of correspondence between myself and my friend in the Air Force, some videos, some letters, and some of his things. There is a large photo album of the two of them, including my friend who had cancer, at the house of a mutual friend. I have electronic copies of most of them. That friend and I used to compose music together. He had an ear for it, although he did not play any particular instrument with any regularity.”
“That’s lovely.” It came out quieter than he expected. Imagining Spock with his very pretty house and his friend’s things, probably in a closet, the way he talked about them like he still found a way to interact with them on some semi-regular basis. He had to bite his lip.
Spock looked over. "I have upset you? Jim, I--"
"No," he was crying now, and that was endlessly embarrassing, "I'm just thinking about what I'd do if Bones and Spock died."
Spock drew him closer and wiped his cheeks, which only served to make Jim more teary.
"You would rely on your other friends and support system."
That was probably true but, "I just don't really have a lot of family. My dad died the day I was born, there's a ton of violence where I grew up, and we lived with my uncle because my mom's in the navy, then my older brother ran away when I was eight, and after that I was in the foster system until my grandmother got guardianship. I'm not in touch with any of them except her."
Spock was watching him with such a gentle and sad expression.
"I'm so sorry I didn't mean to tell you my whole sob story I—"
"Jim, I'm honored."
He had to tuck his face into Spock’s shoulder and recover his composure for a moment. Spock’s arm around his back, thumb rubbing soothing circles, was both incredibly sweet, and not very helpful in his efforts not to break down full on sobbing in the middle of a public park.
The sun was starting to set and the wind starting to pick up, and Jim really did want to make it to dinner, so he tried not to get Spock’s collar too damp and wiped his face before sitting back.
“Okay.”
Spock took his arm back and grasped Jim’s hand instead. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah. Let’s eat.” He stood and pulled Spock up after him.
They walked in silence the rest of the way and by the time they reached the restaurant, Jim trusted his composure again. “Thank you,” he said before Spock opened the door.
“For what?”
Jim only shrugged. Spock looked at him for a second longer than pulled him close and kissed his forehead.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” Jim asked, aware he was only repeating Spock, but genuinely curious. Spock, mimicking him, only shrugged. It was hopeless trying not to laugh at him, and Jim didn’t bother. He pulled Spock down the necessary couple of inches and kissed him on the forehead. “Alright really now, let’s go inside.”
Spock pulled the door open, for Jim to step inside, and the wind shut it behind them.