Chapter Text
It’s inside the muted glow of the ship, that Spock is traveling down her corridors. He carefully divides his attention as he walks, splitting his thoughts between his intended destination, the science labs, and the steady stream of critical thinking creasing sharp angles above his eyes.
There are several crew members that pass him, maneuvering around him in a delicate array of patterns surely to avoid the Commander’s direct path. Spock is more or less mindful of his surroundings, if only to keep from running into a wall. But his true focus remains downward on a padd.
It’s sitting snug tight between his hands, lines of text seemingly moving with him as he scrolls from top to bottom in a free flow of report after report, various communique and incoming requests; all of them followed intermittently by the occasional science article.
It is a workable routine he maintains. After Alpha shift, Spock dines briefly in the mess, returns to his quarters for an acceptable ten point three minutes to retrieve said padd and perform proper sanitary practices before leaving for the labs. It is of the same spectrum and rhythm of uniform that Spock departs from his outer distractions, increasing his need for concentration toward the remainder of his carefully laid plans.
There are twenty six projects that he must oversee. Approximately forty-two percent of those tasks, requiring status updates or a more direct involvement of participation on his part. The members of his staff are intelligent and certainly capable individuals, he knows; he hand selected every single one of them. But there is a level of responsibility Spock cannot ignore as the ship’s Chief Science Officer.
Combined memorization of his standard path and the ship’s layout tell him he must take a left at this juncture and so he does. Spock turns the corner and in that moment, stumbles upon a more interesting set of text he has not yet had the opportunity to review. He tilts his chin slightly as he reads, two fingers propping off his hold to pinch them against the glass surface of his padd. Spock enlarges what looks to be an equation; a complex vector, pertaining to the potential evolution in a cluster of stars not too far from the Enterprise’s current position in space.
The puzzle drags his thoughts the rest of the way, its division becoming a singular unification of his focus, as he pours over the new data.
It is a fact of which Spock would later attribute to his not having seen the Captain’s approach in the first place when quite distinctly, there is a firm slap; a hand, suddenly striking his rear.
Spock stops abruptly in the hall, a strange sensation of complete awareness snapping his face up and straight ahead. The hallway is empty in this direction. Nothing but pristine, white walls and bright lights every which way. To his fortune, there was no one present to witness the state of unprofessionalism that vaults to the front of Spock’s mind.
Immediately, his thoughts supply him with a flash of gold fabric strut confidently into his peripheral vision; something he should have, would have, noticed had it not been for the string of integers attempting to divide upon itself on his electronic pages.
Spock frowns minutely. This admission in itself is overly problematic as it forces him to concede to this instance of distraction. He discerns there can only be one culprit.
Jim.
Jim, who has already come and gone from Spock’s forward path. The occurrence is untoward but it is also strangely, not as aggravating as he would have assumed. He stiffens, straightening tall as he breathes in through his nose.
Without further debate, Spock is absolutely certain of the grin that must have spread on the Captain’s face in the aftermath of his success, the action— the hand to his backside: sharp, swift, secret despite its near publicity, like a physical checkmate of Spock’s defenses, so caught unawares.
After a second too long blink, Spock finally turns around to stare at what is now the Captain’s unwavering departure. Jim disappears from Spock’s view without turning around; Jim does not greet him, or even remotely acknowledges this oddly, personal exchange.
Humans are quite perplexing.
He will have to inquire about this particular demonstration, later.