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Christmas on the Enterprise was a slightly somber affair. After three years of traveling together, Jim had become used to the way the high spirits of his crew dwindled the closer they got to the holiday. There were exceptions, naturally—most of the alien crewmembers didn’t give a shit—but nearly every human onboard lost some of their morale during the Christmas season, despite the irrelevance of seasons on a climate-regulated spaceship light years away from earth. But that was understandable; a large proportion of the crew was human, and their families would be celebrating back home. The only surprising thing was that Spock seemed equally affected.
Jim was beginning to consider himself the galaxy’s best Spock-reader, and although Spock’s work never suffered—he was as infuriatingly meticulous as always, to a fault—there were minuscule tells that Jim prided himself on picking up on.
It always started just a few days before the ship’s annual Christmas lunch and party. Any other time of year, Spock would occasionally slip up and project signs of happiness: amused eyebrow slants, twitches at the corners of his mouth, a shimmering warmth in his dark eyes. As soon as the 359th day began to loom, he’d stop teasing Jim during their chess games, would decline offers from the crew to spend off-duty time together, and basically drew up into himself like an emotionally stunted clam.
Jim decided to approach the issue like the trained diplomat he was.
“Do Vulcans even celebrate Christmas?” he asked, on the bridge where his Commander couldn’t just walk out on him. “I mean, no, of course not, but do you guys have some sort of midwinter festival? A lot of cultures do.”
“I am aware of the universality of the custom,” Spock said. “However, Vulcans have no such need for celebration.”
“That’s a shame,” Jim said, taking a sip of his shitty replicator coffee. “It’s always fun to eat too much and give gifts.”
Spock’s mouth tightened. Jim shut up.
As depressed as he seemingly got, Spock never skipped out on his and Jim’s weekly chess match. It was the sort of tradition that had never been ratified into an official agreement, but Jim knew that after their morning shift on Sunday Spock would, without fail, appear at his door with an ornate chess set tucked under his arm.
Spock was the worst loser Jim had ever met, which was only made funnier by the fact that he tried so hard not to show it. They didn’t keep track of who won the most games—or, they weren’t supposed to, but Jim had a memory for this sort of thing and knew that Spock was leading four-hundred-and-twenty-six games to his four-hundred-and-eleven. Spock was, presumably, also aware of this, but he treated every defeat as though it was his first time being beaten in intellect by a farmboy hick. His ears tinged green and his mouth approached pout territory and Jim loved it.
Just as Jim was surrounding Spock’s bishop (Spock did horrible, clever things with his bishops, and Jim always prioritized getting them off the board), Spock said, “My mother’s heritage was Jewish. I grew up celebrating Hanukkah.”
Jim was struck with an image of a small Spock playing with a dreidel and had to bite back on a smile. The smooth skin between Spock’s brows was bunched into a frown, a frown too deep for Jim’s lazy chess strategy alone to warrant.
“And your father?”
“We have not celebrated since her death,” Spock said. “It was his belief that we partook in the custom only for her benefit.”
“You know, my mom was never big on Christmas. All the other kids would be on about trees and presents and all that stuff, and she’d sit me and Sam down and tell us about the decline of Christianity instead.” He shook his head. “She meant well. I’m sure your dad means well.”
“It is, perhaps, too easy for him to dismiss the human half of me.”
Jim smiled. “No offense, but I don’t think anyone could forget how human you are.”
“You once told me I feel nothing,” Spock said, slipping his bishop out of the clutches of Jim’s trap.
“I didn’t know you back then, and I was trying to provoke you. I’d already been inside your head,” Jim reminded him, tapping his temple. “Other you, I mean. I knew exactly how much humanity you had up in there.”
He tipped a pawn over and poked at the back of Spock’s hand. “What do you want?”
“Specify.”
Jim rolled his eyes. “You want Hanukkah, we’ll do Hanukkah. You want to completely ignore this time of year’s significance to you because it’s not logical, go ahead. I’m up for anything.”
Spock looked speculatively at him and Jim shrugged, snagging Spock’s rook with a pawn. He wasn’t looking to pressure Spock into some big, tawdry celebration or remind him unduly of his dead mother, but—Jim saw an opportunity to make Spock happy, he took it. Sue him.
“What do you want, Jim?”
“Hm. A year with no near-death experiences would be nice.”
“Once again, it is not near-death if you die.”
“Semantics,” Jim said, waving a hand and eyeing Spock’s exposed king. “I don’t know, Spock. There’s the Christmas party on the 355th, that’s always fun.”
Spock’s raised eyebrow said all that needed to be said about his thoughts on that particular statement. In fairness, Jim had always been surprised to see Spock show up at all for the Enterprise’s Christmas parties, which featured a non-Vulcan-friendly amount of drinking and bad singing. Jim was often the first to grab a karaoke microphone, and he could rope Uhura into a stunning duet of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough if she’d had a few to drink. Spock always kept to the sidelines, looking vaguely disapproving.
“Do Vulcans ever sing?”
Spock gave him the look that Jim privately interpreted as his equivalent of eye-rolling. “Not the way humans do,” he said.
“So the party’s not for you,” Jim said. “We can figure something else out. Hell, I can track down a menorah and if all you want to do is light the candles, that’s cool.”
“Thank you for the offer, Jim. I will consider it.”
Even though he lost the chess game, Jim counted the afternoon as a win.
Spock, it turned out, owned a garish holiday sweater.
“I love it,” Jim said, the moment Spock opened his door. “Never take it off.”
Spock’s eyebrow arched. The effect was ruined by the obscenely fluffy jumper, which was science-blue and had a Star of David embroidered on the front. Jim suspected that Amanda had made it herself. Jim’s own jumper was similarly awful, with ‘FILTHY ANIMAL’ emblazoned across a background of reindeer and snowflakes. No one ever got the reference, but Jim’s love of classic movies had prompted him to custom order the thing during his first year at the Academy.
“Your own choice of garment is,” Spock said, “interesting.”
“Thanks, man. Let’s get this show on the road.” Spock stepped aside to let Jim into his room, which was as sparse as Jim remembered. “I brought decorations,” he said. “If you don’t mind. I just knew it wasn’t gonna be festive in here.”
“By all means,” Spock said, and Jim unleashed the tinsel.
Ten minutes later, Spock’s mouth was twitching with undiscernible emotion as Jim set down the final touch: a gold menorah he’d borrowed from a young ensign who was in awe of Spock. The rest of the room was draped in a frankly ridiculous amount of clashing gold and silver tinsel, streamers, and glittery Stars of David.
“You gotta give me some pointers on how you used to celebrate,” Jim said. “I dated a Jewish girl once, but she refused to let me meet her parents so I never learned how to do this properly.”
“Your effort is more than adequate,” Spock said quietly. “We were never this…decorative. Our tradition was merely to light a candle for each night of the festival. My mother made latkes, and we exchanged small gifts.”
“Oh, cool,” Jim said. “I got you a gift. Hang on.” He dug around in his back pocket and pulled out a small wrapped gift, which Spock regarded like it might poison him. Jim laughed. “It’s just Sarkovian tea. Other you told me you liked it, so I tracked down some on the black market. Which, hard to do when you’re a famous Starfleet captain, even if you are known for bending the rules.”
“You procured it illegally?”
“Only because we’re in the wrong star system to get it anywhere else. If legality’s that much of an issue, we can take a detour to the Ilveron system.”
“That will…not be necessary,” Spock said. His mouth twitched. “Thank you, Jim.”
Bones and Uhura were on the night shift, so the only spectators to the lighting of the first candle were Jim, Sulu, and Chekov. Scotty turned up, but late, with a bottle of chocolate liqueur that Spock politely accepted. Jim doubted he’d ever drink it, but it was still an amusing enough prospect to think about: a drunk Spock. Sulu and Chekov had pitched together on a rare plant species that made Spock’s face light up when they presented it to him, with a warning not to touch the leaves when they were purple.
As he watched the careful way Spock placed his gifts down on his desk, Jim felt a warmth blooming in his chest, just at the thought of how their makeshift family was coming together to make something entirely their own.
Spock wore traditional Vulcan robes to the Christmas party, dark navy and unfairly flattering. Bones followed his gaze and sighed.
“Your little crush gets any more obvious and we’ll be into drawing names in hearts territory.”
Jim spluttered into his mulled wine. “I don—”
“Sorry to eavesdrop,” Uhura said from behind him, not sounding particularly sorry, “but you really do need to make a move before the heart-eyes on the bridge at six am drive us all to suicide.”
“We’re talking about Spock, right?” Jim said.
“That’s the one.”
“Your ex, Spock.”
“If you’re worrying about his sexuality, don’t,” Uhura said.
“I’m more worried that this is all an elaborate plan for you to justify murdering me.”
Uhura rolled her eyes. “You’re dumber than I give you credit for, Captain. I want Spock to be happy, I think you’d be more bearable if you were in a committed relationship, and if Spock moves into your room I get his suite.”
“That’s a hell of an ulterior motive,” Jim muttered, trying to cover for the way he could feel his mind racing. He didn’t think of Spock like that. Or, he didn’t think he thought of Spock like that. There was the fact that he would have happily died to keep Spock safe, and the undeniable truth that Spock was hot in an uptight sort of way, and there was also the thing about how he loved him more than anyone else in the known universe. “Right, so, that’s weird.”
“Good Lord, you really didn’t realize.” Bones looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “Two years of homoerotic chess games and the man doesn’t realize.”
“They’re not homoerotic.”
Bones and Uhura exchanged a deeply patronizing look.
“They’re not that homoerotic.”
“One time I had to leave a room because you two were playing chess in it,” Uhura said. “I just needed to be anywhere that wasn’t watching you two eye-fuck over the most sexless game in the world.”
“Hey, golf is the most sexless game in the world,” Jim protested. “And I don’t think you’re allowed to swear in front of your superior officer.”
“Earlier today you said fuck me in the ass with a pineapple because Sulu said we were going to have to take a detour on our way to Fjormold.”
Jim downed his drink. “I know what I said.”
“Are you well?” Spock asked, after Jim had spent half an hour rather unsuccessfully trying to avoid him.
“Have you been speaking to Uhura?”
“I converse with Nyota on occasion, yes.” Jim found himself distracted by how high Spock’s cheekbones were. At the same time, he realized that he had been distracted by Spock’s cheekbones on numerous past occasions, and had passed it off as a friendly admiration of bone structure.
“Right, right, of course, because you dated.” Jim chuckled. It sounded like he was gargling knives. “And then broke up. But remained friends! So that’s cool.”
“Is there a purpose to this line of conversation?” Spock asked.
“Nope, just crazy how these things work out. Like, relationships. Crazy.” Jim wondered if using his phaser to stun himself would mean he had to take another psych eval. Probably. “I think I’m gonna…go. Lie down.”
Back in his room, Jim sat down in the center of his floor and stared at his wall, wondering when on earth he got bad at flirting. Not that he was flirting with Spock. But if he was, it was so far below his usual standards that Jim worried his brain chemistry might have been irreparably altered.
He’d been sitting for twenty minutes when he heard the chime of someone requesting entry. He knew it was Spock before he opened the door.
“You left before I had the opportunity to present you with your gift,” Spock said, expression unreadable.
“You got me a present?”
Spock nodded solemnly and held out a square. It was covered in shiny gold paper and topped with a bow. Uhura’s interference was written all over it.
The gift itself, though, that was all Spock. There was something delightfully sentimental about the outdated sketchbook and pencils; Jim only remembered telling Spock once that he preferred drawing on real paper. Underneath was a slim physical book, gorgeously bound in a material with a leathery texture.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“It is a collection of Vulcan poetry,” Spock said. “I believed it might assist you in the study of the language.”
Jim, who had been dropping Vulcan words into conversation for the better part of a year because of the way it never failed to make Spock blink a few times in quick succession, grinned up at him. “This word here says love,” he said, pointing to it.
“It is a collection of love poems.”
“Right.” Jim’s skin felt warm, as though the climate of Vulcan was emanating from the book over to him.
“It was remiss of me,” Spock began, “never to tell you how it…felt, when I thought that you were gone.”
“Oh,” Jim said.
“I was not unaffected.”
“Yeah, I remember you crying. It was weird, please don’t ever do it again.”
“I realized I was in love with you.”
Jim sucked in a breath and tried to muster up annoyance at the friends who had very clearly directed this entire ordeal. He found himself, instead, with a racing heart and a very large lump in his throat.
“I was unfamiliar with the notion of human love, although I knew my mother must have felt it for my father. I had assumed that I was free from such feeling. Until that day,” Spock explained, sounding very logical about it, but Jim could see the intensity behind his eyes. “That was why I ended my romantic liaison with Lieutenant Uhura.”
“That’s,” Jim said. “Huh. I think I’m gonna sit down.”
He walked over to the bed, legs shaking all the way, and carefully opened the book to its first page. The struggle of translation calmed his racing thoughts, and he only had to work out the first line before he felt calm enough to speak.
“Will you read it to me?”
“In Standard?”
Jim shook his head. “No, in Vulcan. I just want to hear it in your voice.”
Spock moved cautiously into the room, taking the book from Jim’s outstretched hand. It was curious to hear poetry from the mouth of a Vulcan; Jim was somehow aware of the deep emotion contained in the words he didn’t understand, although Spock injected no drama or theatrics into his performance. He read the poem as a human might read a grocery list, and yet there was something in his voice that made Jim think, with increasing certainty: He loves me.
The poem was short, and melancholy: the words Jim knew the sounds of were ‘to long,’ ‘to wish,’ and ‘alone.’ By the end of the final line, his pulse felt very nearly steady.
“That was beautiful,” he said.
Spock handed the book back to him. Jim’s thumb knocked into the point of Spock’s index finger.
“There’s a Christmas tradition I’m betting you’ve never done,” he said, a tiny bit breathless with the prospect of it. He got up to rifle through a drawer, holding up the sprig with triumph. “It’s not the real thing, of course, and I’m hardly catching you under it, but. Mistletoe.”
“I am not acquainted with all of your earth customs,” Spock said, and Jim knew that he knew what mistletoe was, the little shit.
“The idea is, two people find themselves under one of these, they’re.” Jim cleared his throat. “They’re supposed to kiss.”
“A curious tradition.” But Spock was smiling, something Jim had only seen once or twice the entire time they’d known each other. It was gorgeous.
Jim held out the mistletoe in one hand and extended two fingers of the other. Spock stared.
“You are familiar with the Vulcan—”
“I wasn’t just learning the language.” Now he thought about it, though, Jim had spent longer than was perhaps necessary poring over the PADD which discussed Vulcan mating customs.
Spock stepped closer and rested his index and middle fingers against Jim’s. It was such a simple gesture for a human, but Jim felt like a romance heroine who’d been swept into a passionate embrace with a tall dark stranger. The tips of his fingers tingled.
“Oh,” Spock breathed, which was when Jim remembered that Vulcans were touch-telepaths.
“Sorry,” he said, or tried to say, but between the first and second syllable Spock’s mouth was on his, kissing the human way. Jim dropped the mistletoe so that he could wrap his arms around Spock’s neck, shivering when Spock’s hands encircled his waist.
“Your thoughts are…loud,” Spock murmured, when Jim broke away to press kisses along the sharp ridge of Spock’s cheekbones. Jim paused. “It is not unpleasant.”
“Wow, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Jim said, too breathless for sarcasm to infuse the words. “Can we just stay here until New Year’s?”
Spock’s hands found their way under Jim’s shirt, and he shuddered despite their warmth.
“I would not be averse,” Spock admitted, pulling him back into a deep, languorous kiss.
In the end, they didn’t leave Jim’s room until Christmas Day.