Work Text:
His bare arm burning over her cool waist. His breath easing out in regular, soothing intervals against the back of her neck, through her tousled hair, and pale long legs tangled up with hers. True darkness bathed around them and the echoes of their cries from lovemaking still bounced against the walls and back to her, becoming the only sounds left in the room.
All except for the rough rumble of Spock snoring in abrupt balloon-wheezes every five seconds.
Her huff matched his snore as she pulled both pillows from her bed — letting Spock’s head fall flat on the mattress and his snores to hitch like a car jumping after hitting a pothole — and sandwiched her head between the cushions. The snores trucked on while he snaked his left arm over her naked waist, hot fingertips teasing aimlessly at the edge of her bra a size too big with a hole near her collarbone, before they dipped again to run along her rib cage. Even in his sleep, he played her like his lute. Sweet and tender and the kind of thing she had shamefully dreamed about alone, in this same bed, but now, even dreamless sleep ran from her.
In merely four hours and thirty seconds, Christine’s alarm mere inches from her hand would scream in their ears. It was always scheduled when he slept over to go off an hour before they were on duty, which gave him ample time to get back to his quarters, and the both of them time to dress. It used to wake them just thirty minutes earlier than duty, but that only led to them scrambling out of her too-small-definitely-built-for-only-one-person bed and tripping over each other as she shoved him back to his quarters. The alarm change had been coming for a while anyway…since someone on Beta shift probably already knew about them.
“Spock, you have to go!” Christine whispered…but she couldn’t stop the laughter bubbling up from her still warm chest where he had been laying and kissing just ten minutes ago. His mouth was the only thing muffling her giggles as he kissed her and held her pinned against the open door frame. His hands roamed under her puffy pink shaggy robe, and hers buried and lightly tugged greedily in his hair, and she didn’t miss the soft exhale he let out against her lips.
“I am merely saying goodbye,” he whispered, knowing, just knowing that she loved this, and she loved him this way, when he teased her and a Vulcan smile threatened to reach out and touch the tips of his Vulcan ears, when they were both just like two crazy kids sneaking around. And when he said it in that matter-of-fact way of his, she had half a mind to just drag him right back into her room.
Christine Chapel was in love. And it was the greatest feeling in the world.
Biting his bottom lip, she said in the firmest tone she could muster, “We talked about this.”
“You are still laughing.”
“Go, Vulcan. Let me get some sleep.”
His face grew more analytical. “It is fifteen minutes until we have duty, you will not have time - “
He didn’t get much farther, freezing in her arms, and a firm hand grabbed onto her elbow. He yanked them both down almost to the cold, unforgiving ground of the ship and peered over her head.
It took Christine only a split second to notice what he already had: a member of the Beta shift walking across the opposite hallway.
“You think she saw us?”
“I am unsure.”
“Spock, your hand is still in my robe.”
“I fail to see how that is related.”
Another snore whined against her ear, higher pitched now, and not for the first time since they started dating, Christine wanted to smack him. Lovingly, of course. Briefly, she wondered how much of a violation it would be to go to the lab, get a sedation hypo, and stick it in herself.
“Don’t be stupid, Chapel,” she muttered to herself…only for Spock to mutter something in Vulcan and hug her tighter. She glared at him, even if she pulled the thick covers up tighter over the both of them. “You’re lucky you’re the hottest thing on this ship.”
In the coming days, whenever Spock slept over, Christine read nearly every piece of material on sleep: from scientific journals to articles written last week with catchy headlines. With a vigorous attitude and no plans on giving up, Christine set to work.
First, she slipped a cylindrical pillow under his neck while he slept. That just made him snore louder.
White noise had never worked for her, and neither did counting ships.
“Warm milk is disgusting,” she muttered, swiping away another article.
Spock frowned from across the table. “Who would drink warm milk?”
Monday was box breathing, Tuesday was sleep meditation while lying next to him, Wednesday she didn’t sleep at all and didn’t nap in hopes that Thrusay she’d be tired enough to sleep right through the snoring.
By Saturday, she had had it.
It was during lunch in a rec room when Uhura watched as her best friend nearly fell asleep into her food for the fifth time that she lightly kicked her in the shin. “Chris! What’s happening to you? You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
Christine glared and loudly slurped stale coffee. “You’d be accurate.”
The communications officer was unfazed though, and smirked. “Spock really wearing you out that much, huh?” She was the only on aboard who knew about their relationship…not by choice, but because the poor girl had no poker face.
“There isn’t enough sex in the world to make me this exhausted. Ny…Spock snores.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious!”
For the next three minutes, Uhura tried to stop laughing. She really and truly did, but every time she looked at Christine’s poor sleep-sapped eyes, shoulders slumped, and her frown hanging lower than her chin, she just started cracking up all over again.
“Okay, okay, I’m done…” Uhura managed through giggles, and Christine raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but…who would have ever thought that Vulcans snored! Especially him!”
“Well, he does, and it’s killing me!”
Uhura snickered and covered her mouth. “Alright, alright. Well…have you tried falling asleep first?”
Pausing, Christine cycled this suggestion around in her head. Had…had she really not tried that first? Spock was a very good sleeper, snoring aside, and fell asleep within sixty seconds and woke up the same way. His snoring probably wouldn’t wake her once she was in a deep sleep. Usually, he passed out first, leaving her to stay awake and read a research paper with his arms tied like thick twine around her waist. It might mean sacrificing sex for a few nights, but if a small change in routine meant that she could sleep peacefully again, then it was worth it.
“You…might have an idea there,” she admitted.
Spock had arrived at her quarters an hour after his shift ended, as usual. Worries about his snoring faded into the background as she kissed him before the door even shut behind him.
“Hey, handsome,” she teased.
“I do not understand these names you give me.”
Christine giggled and kissed him again, like a kid going in for another brownie after they promised themselves they’d only have one. “That’s what makes it fun.”
After eating, the pair sat and read the latest releases from scientific journals until Christine got too antsy and moved to sit in his lap.
They continued reading, but with Chritine’s hips sitting nestled on top of his, and his chin resting on her shoulder, it wasn’t long until he started kissing her neck between her yawns, and those strong, insistent Vulcan fingers started pressing into her waist.
Christine whined softly even as she turned into him and kissed across his face. “Spock…” She needed sleep! But…but she had wanted this so long, and now she had him, and some treacherous, fearful, shameful part of her worried that if she pushed him aside even once, she might wake up to find they were just friends again, and the dream would all be over.
So, for a few minutes, she continued to kiss him, turning around in his arms to straddle his hips. He easily carried her with one arm to the bed, planting her down beneath him as his hot lips began trailing along her neck, shoulders, and lower, unzipping her jacket. Only when they both began to pant did she pull back, hands still guiltily under his tight undershirt.
“Spock, can we…do you mind if we…don’t?”
He frowned. “You do not wish to have intercourse?” His confusion wasn’t hostile, but genuine…which she couldn’t blame him for, since she had had her hips grinding against his and her mouth all over him just thirty seconds ago. “We have intercourse 88.7% of the time I come to your quarters. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, I’m just…I’m really exhausted.” She hated that it sounded like a line, like she was getting out of it, like she had to lie to him. But she eagerly found his hand and let her palm press flat against his, so he would know that there was no deception coursing through her…all he would feel was exhaustion, concern, and the typical thrum of anxiety that ran inside her. After all, Roger had never believed that someone could be too tired for sex, or that headaches could be that much of a deterrent, or that she might just not be in the mood. And the man still lingered in the back of her mind in little ways like that.
But Spock just nodded, his eyes open a little more, only in confusion as for why she would feel so much stress over telling him a little thing like ‘not tonight’.
“Understandable. Would you like me to still stay here?” At her nod, he had all the information he needed. No demands for when they would eventually have sex again, or for more of an excuse. He only stood up, wished her a goodnight, and Christine laid back in the bed. It took her seconds after he shut off the light to fall asleep.
Spock may have been alright with forgoing sex, but after two weeks of spotty sleep but no sex, Christine was starting to get a little impatient and unsatisfied with her solution. Her boyfriend was a perfect specimen of man and Vulcan, and she was a weak, weak human woman when it came to him, especially when he wore just the black shirt to bed that clung to his shoulders. And her sleeping wasn’t much better anyway.
His snoring had stirred her from a light sleep, damp mouth kissing the back of her neck, and Christine buried her face into her pillow to bite down on it.
Her pillow muffed her words: “Get up.”
Spock made no moves at first, and Christine rolled her eyes and shook at that broad shoulder of his until his dark eyes began to open, bleary and with annoyance crowding the edges. He looked at his bedmate, who clearly hadn't just woken out of a sound slumber, with a bright, alert focus in her eyes and her shoulders clenched together. He stared at her in silence for a few moments before asking in a voice that sounded hurt, “Why?”
“To the lab. Because I can’t sleep.”
This was a lot of illogic for Spock, especially in the middle of the night. But he did as his girlfriend said, getting up and dressing before following her across the ship and into the lab.
Christine sat Spock down and immediately began running more detailed scans on his respiratory system, nose, and throat. Spock sat in silence as his girlfriend poked and prodded at him until he finally seemed to really wake up, and he asked, “Christine, can I ask why you’ve woken me up in the middle of the night to run an examination?”
“Because…” she sighed and let her hands fall and plant firmly on his thighs. “…because you snore, Spock. And I can’t sleep!”
Hardly offended, Spock stared at her and blinked. “I do not snore.”
“Yes you do.”
“I never have before.”
“Spock, my darling, sweetheart, love of my life, you beautiful Vulcan. Look at my eyes. I haven’t slept in days. I promise that you snore.”
Spock’s focus turned away from her, and he stared at the floor for a long few minutes. Christine rested one arm against his shoulder and let him run through his thought process, however long that needed to take, until she got bored and started pressing very light kisses behind his ear. He was thankfully able to think during her displays of affection.
“I only sleep on my side when we are together,” he proclaimed evenly.
“Huh?”
He turned to her and held her wrists. “You requested our first night together, two months, eight days and five hours ago, that I hold you. This requires me to sleep on my side. When I am alone, I sleep on my back.”
Christine instinctively began thumbing against the hard muscles of his thighs. “So sleeping on your side disrupts your respiratory system, and it makes you snore?”
“It would appear so.”
The two remained silent for a few moments, Christine letting her mind wander to silently appreciate his mussed-up hair and bedhead. All unhelpful thoughts, but she was still tired, so she couldn’t help it very much.
After a second, she gasped, her nails digging into his leg. “I’ve got it! I’ll sleep on my side and hug you, that way you can sleep on your back!” Dark circles prominently hung under her bright, excited eyes.
He tilted his head. “That would be acceptable, but what if you start snoring?”
Deadpan, Christine replied, “Wear earplugs.”