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When Captain Kirk beamed up to the Enterprise for the first time, his eyes were pink and gold.
Spock watched him shake hands with a purple-eyed Pike. “Take good care of her,” Pike said, smiling.
“I will, sir,” said Kirk. He turned to Spock and raised a nervous ta’al. “Live long and prosper.”
“Peace and long life,” Spock replied calmly. “Welcome to the Enterprise. I am Commander Spock.”
“You’re my first officer, right?” said Kirk.
“Correct,” he said, perfectly Vulcan.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you on the bridge,” he said, smiling, and his eyes were tinted blue.
-----
Kirk won their first chess game. Spock hadn’t been expecting that.
“Wanna play again?” he said, smiling, and his eyes turned gold and blue.
Spock decided he didn’t hate Captain Kirk.
-----
Occasional chess games became regular chess games became anticipation for their next rematch, and Spock didn’t know when, but at some point it became less about the game and more about just being with Jim.
He loved sitting across from him, drinking in his presence and studying the way his face crinkled when he smiled and the way his fingers twitched above a piece before he played it and the way he ran his fingers through his hair. They’d play, and they’d talk, and it’d be over and Spock would be left dizzy. Jim made him dizzy.
Spock had never felt this way before.
-----
Spock decided meditation was futile. There were only two point three five hours left before his next shift started. So he changed out of his meditation robe and put on his contacts and silently left his quarters.
His soft footsteps echoed in the silent room as he entered the observation deck, and he caught sight of Jim leaning against the large window. Spock had half a mind to turn back, but then Jim turned around and smiled and all notions of leaving disappeared.
“Hey Spock,” Jim said. He was wearing an old, soft-looking Starfleet Academy t-shirt and loose flannel pajama pants. It was the first time Spock had ever seen him out of uniform.
His eyes were gold. They shone with reflected light. Spock could see the stars in them.
“Greetings, Captain,” Spock replied.
“Call me Jim. We’re off duty.”
“Jim,” he conceded.
They stood next to each other in comfortable silence for a while. Spock watched the stars pass by, little dots on the horizon. The observation deck was calm and peaceful.
“What brings you here, Spock?” said Jim softly after a while. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Indeed. And yourself?”
“Same. It’s always nice out here. Quiet. And the stars are pretty.”
“Indeed,” said Spock again, breathtaken simply by the way Jim spoke. He turned towards him and watched him watch the stars.
After a while, Jim turned to him as well, and they made eye contact. Spock felt a rush of some sort of emotion he couldn’t identify. Jim’s eyes were blue.
“S’probably time for our shift soon,” Jim said.
“We have but twenty minutes left,” Spock confirmed, reluctant to end their time together.
“I guess I'll go change,” said Jim. And he walked away. “Bye, Spock.”
Spock stood alone in the observation deck a little longer. The room somehow felt colder with Jim gone.
He wondered what blue meant.
(He wondered what color his own eyes were.)
-----
The red alert blared loudly, lights flashing. Spock snapped out of his meditative trance instantly.
He rose swiftly and left his quarters, rushing up to the bridge without even changing out of his robe. Spock was at his station quickly, shouting out needed data before even being asked. He spotted new life form readings that had not been there before.
“Captain! There are infiltrators on deck nine!”
“Let’s go, Spock,” said Jim, and he grabbed a phaser and got up so fast the chair spun and Spock followed him into the turbolift. “Sulu, you have the conn. Do not fire on the ship, see if you can get them on a tractor beam.”
The doors were closing as Sulu shouted “Yes sir!”
“Deck nine,” Jim called.
Spock watched Jim as they descended. He was laser focused, and he had that look in his eyes, that look that so clearly communicated that he was the captain, despite being in sleeping clothes. His eyes were yellow, as they often were when he was in command mode.
“Spock,” Jim started, “when we get down there, you go right, I go left. Phasers on stun. Detainment is top priority.”
“Yes, Captain,” he said, and readied himself for action. “Understood.”
The doors opened, and instantly they were being shot at.
Spock avoided a blast from what appeared to be a projectile gun; not unlike those of twenty-first century Earth. In the back of his mind, he wondered why a post-warp society would continue to use such primitive weapons. He stunned one of the aliens, and nerve pinched another, and their squishy green bodies flopped unceremoniously to the floor. There were a total of five aliens, and Spock saw another go down in the corner of his eye, shot by Jim, which left two aliens.
He dodged to the right and stepped around one of the fallen aliens. Jim shot them both, one-two, and they dropped easily. “Good job, Captain,” said Spock breathlessly. And then he looked behind him to see Jim covered in blood.
“Spock,” he said, wide-eyed and pale, “I think, I think they shot me.” His knees buckled and he fell to the ground.
“Captain!” Spock rushed over to him and kneeled over him, hands hovering over the bullet wound in Jim’s abdomen. He reached up and pressed the button on the intercom. “Spock to sickbay, the captain is severely injured. Send a medical team immediately. And a security team as well, to transport the infiltrators to the brig,” he added.
“Spock,” said Jim, in awe. “Your eyes are green.”
Spock froze.
He had forgotten his contacts.
“Spock, why are your eyes green?” Jim continued, bleary eyed, losing blood fast. His own eyes were purple, but swirls of blue were getting stronger.
Spock didn’t answer. His brain was pounding with fear, for Jim’s life, and for their friendship, now that Jim knew he wasn’t a real Vulcan. And shame for thinking such a thought and for feeling fear in the first place.
“Now there’s red-orange, too. What does red-orange mean, Spock?” prodded Jim, lifting up a hand, not touching his face. Spock pressed both hands on Jim’s wound to try and stop the bleeding. Jim hissed. His shirt was soft, Spock’s brain supplied unhelpfully.
“A medical team is coming, Captain,” Spock said.
“There’s purple too, and gold, and red,” said Jim. “That’s a lot of colors.”
“Captain.”
“What do they mean, Spock?”
The medical team arrived with security, and Jim was lifted onto a stretcher by a dark blue-eyed Doctor McCoy, and the five aliens must have been carried away as well, but Spock was focused on Jim.
If anyone noticed Spock’s eyes, they didn’t say anything.
The red alert was over. Spock made a stop at his quarters before going back to the bridge—it was still his shift after all—to change into his uniform and pop in his contacts.
Gray overtook the mix of colors in his irises. He couldn’t place the emotion that welled up inside him as he watched.
Relief, he decided. Relief.