Chapter Text
“Can I ask you something, love?” Nyota’s voice was gentle as she traced small shapes into Spock’s forearm which rested across her chest. Their limbs were entangled and limp as the couple basked in the warmth of the moment.
“That was a question, was it not?” Nyota could just hear the smug eyebrow and matching smirk in his voice and rolled her eyes.
“You ass,” she poked playfully, then paused, “what was that earlier?”
“I’m afraid I do not know what you mean.” She could hear the mirth in his voice as Spock lowered his lips nearer to her ear and nipped momentarily. “A great many things transpired earlier.” It was downright cruel, almost distracting enough to make her forget what she was talking about in the first place.
“Uh-uh, you won’t throw me off that easily, Lieutenant Commander.” She turned around to face him and let a hand stray into his hair as he pushed his face into her neck in kind. Her eyes softened a bit. “You froze and stopped breathing properly for a full minute and a half earlier. What was that?”
Spock inhaled shortly before he responded and, on any other man, it may have been a stutter. “Perhaps a simple temporary lapse in attention, my dear.”
“Perhaps?” Nyota raised an eyebrow of her own. “The great Vulcan S’chn T’gai Spock does not assess in terms of ‘perhaps,’ you’re self-aware to a fault.” She shook her head slightly. “Listen, I don’t want to push, but as an expert in communication I do know a thing or two about body language and that looked like panic to me.”
Spock sighed in earnest now, speaking to exhaustion, maybe. It wasn’t something he would do in public or while in total possession of his faculties. “I do not wish to discuss this at the present moment.”
“That's fine!” Nyota rushed, quick to reassure, “Just, please– tell me when something is wrong? I don’t want to hurt you, even by mistake.”
Spock pulled back and looked into his lover’s eyes. “Most illogical.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, imbuing all of the care and affection he could without the telepathy of a mental bond between them. “You could never hurt me, ashayam.”
Remembering the dazed look in his eyes from before, Nyota wished she could believe that.