Archive of Our Own ^beta

1. someday - Rob Thomas

She tips her head up, watching shuttles slowly depart, and curls fingers into fists.

"It's not too late to change your mind," he says from behind her. "We could call them back." Amusement overlies panic as he adds, "I know a guy with a really sweet ride who could probably catch up."

Spock does not respond. She remembers the image of herself standing here only days before, speaking of things she herself had thought impossible, and then she thinks of herself and Jim on the beach. Of the cool of his fingers contrasted by the bright shining warmth of his mind slipping deep into her own.

She thinks of spending decades in such a state. Of allowing herself to be caught up and hidden within him as Ambassador Spock had intimated.

Spock finds she has no objections to that.

"It is not too late," she agrees, turning to face her captain. Jim is watching her, brilliant in command gold, and Spock takes great enjoyment in the sight of him. "However, I find myself unable to think of a logical reason to do so."

Indeed, when he smiles, she can think only of reasons to stay.

2. feeling good - John Barrowman version

Okay, maybe it's possible that he has a little thing for her hair. Just a little.

Spock raises one eyebrow at him over the edge of his padd. "You are researching Vulcan hairstyles?"

"Uh, no," Jim snatches the padd back. "I wouldn't be doing anything like that because that would be weird." He flicks the padd off and tosses it behind him. He's aiming for the bed, but it falls short. Suave. Real suave.

She's being nice, he knows that, when she turns away from him. Well, mostly nice. It's a practical thing too. Getting out of the uniform dress is a pain (which is precisely why she doesn't wear it much. A tragedy since the only thing he likes better than her hair is those legs) and he's always up for pulling down a zipper.

"I disagree, Jim," she murmurs as he unzips the dress. "I do not believe it would be weird at all. Researching such matters when living with a woman affected by them is quite logical." She turns around, letting the dress slip from her body to the floor. "Indeed some might consider it sweet."

Jim grins. "Yeah?"

She nods. "Yes."

He reaches for the first pin. "I think I can work with that."

Oh yeah, he has a total thing for her hair.

3. somewhere in between - Lifehouse

It bothers him. She knows that it does. Spock is not particularly skilled in the determination of human emotions, but Jim has never been a difficult one to read.

He tries to be quiet, to avoid disturbing her, no matter how much she assures him such gestures are not necessary. On the contrary, she wishes to be awake and with him when he is troubled.

She hears the soft whisper of his feet against their floor and opens her eyes. He's pacing again. She watches through the privacy screen as he takes the slow circuit of the living area and back again. She does not know what has disturbed him this time, but she can surmise it is but one of the dozens of issues currently awaiting review on his desk.

Command is not something she has ever sought and for precisely this reason. Better to occupy her mind with issues of scientific pursuit than the well-being, both physical and emotional, of several hundred crew of varying species. She does not envy Jim the pressures relating to it.

Concerning herself with the emotional and physical well-being of one is difficult enough.

"Jim," she says, her voice soft and gentle, "come back to bed."

4. insensitive - Jan Arden

He doesn't know how she does it. Well, he does. She's a Vulcan. It's in her nature to be this cold. That whole emotional mastery thing means that she has to do this. He knows this. He does.

Except he doesn't like it. Not one bit.

Spock stands before him, her posture flawlessly perfect, staring at him with that distant gaze and god, he might hate her just a little right now.

"You can't be serious," Jim says, pressing hands palms down on his desk. "Spock -- "

"It is the only logical way," she insists. "If the ship is to survive, Jim, I must do this. No one else but I has the skill or experience."

"Fuck that!" Jim snaps. "Spock, not two hours ago -- " He breaks off, closes his eyes, and tries not to feel the way her body had clenched around him. Tries not to hear the broken gasp of his name, quiet and intense, whispered in his ear. "I don't know how you do this. We were -- "

She looks at him then, and, for a moment, he thinks he sees her control flicker just a little. "It is not so easy for me as you think," she says. Now he can hear the effort of control. "It is, however, my duty as both a Starfleet officer and a Vulcan. Now, more than ever, Jim, I cannot disregard that. I cannot." She holds out two fingers, her expression just ever so slightly fragile. "Please, I ask that you understand."

He shakes his head. "I can't." And he can't, he really can't, but he matches her fingers with his anyway. "Come back to us." To me.

Spock inclines her head and leaves.

Jim drops into his chair and pushes his face into his hands.

He can't.

5. Round Here - Counting Crows

Spock steps into the alley. She pulls the shawl tighter about her features and ducks her head. She dare not look skyward. Dare not look up lest the Ekosians notice her alien features. She hurries along, her legs eating up the concrete (pavement, she believes they call it. Curious that even half a galaxy away from Earth, such concepts can be so completely and thoroughly replicated) as she attempts to make her way back to the Zeon shelter.

It is difficult to make it unnoticed, but she manages it. Getting into the tunnels is more difficult, however, it too is accomplished.

She passes the Zeon that helped them in their escape on her way to the room she and Jim have been assigned. He nods at her and she nods back, saying nothing. What is there to say? The reality of his life horrifies Spock on a level she had not thought possible.

Such brutalities are of the past in her world both of them (she is not fool enough to believe some of the attitudes have been completely eradicated, but that is a matter for another day) and she cannot comprehend a life where years of this stretches out before her. She cannot imagine having to watch Jim lie in a street and die. She knows he would not be able to do the same. He is incapable of such behavior. He would attempt to rescue her and die in the process.

Such a thought twists at Spock, claws at her control, and if she is shaking when she steps into the room with Jim, she covers it well. "Remove your shirt," she says, brisk and efficient. "I have located sufficient medical supplies."

"Gee, since you put it that way," Jim drawls, his grin teasing, but still tinged with pain.

Spock bites down her rage when the whip marks are revealed to her gaze. They need to return to the Enterprise at once. Without appropriate treatment they will scar him. Worse still they may grow infected and from there lies an outcome she dare not consider.

Not if she wishes to leave this planet without eradicating each and every Ekosian upon it first.

Spock is a Vulcan. She is bred to peace. She is not, however, a fool. Beneath the iron of her control lies savagery awaiting only the opportunity to run free.

For what they have done to him she is tempted to permit it.

"Lie down, Jim," she says instead. "I will attend you."

She will not harm the Ekosians, however much she wishes that she could, it will have to be enough that by their own choice, they are damned to a future so horrific one can only describe it as a living hell.

Jim flinches beneath her hands and she murmurs soothingly until he settles again.

She will not harm them, if only because she would have to leave him to do so and, right now, Spock would sooner die. It is a small mercy but it is all that she can give them.

It is more than they deserve, but on matters of mercy, that is the point.

6. Possession - Sarah McLachlan

Okay. Pon farr. Sex crazed Vulcan. He can do this. He can. It's just sex, right? It's just Spock riding him like always. They do this all the time. She rises up, her body arching, and she murmurs something that could be his name in this voice that's somewhere between sex goddess and death come calling and holy fuck he is so lost.

She rocks forward again, hair swinging forward around them like a curtain, and her eyes focus on his. Jim stares up at her, completely enthralled, and it freaks him out more than a little. He's made her come more than once. He's made her come so hard she's pretty much blown every circuit in that gorgeous brain of hers, but he's never ever made her look like that.

He reaches for her, hands sliding around her neck and into her hair, grabbing fistfuls and holding on tight. Spock makes a noise that might be a growl and presses her mouth to his, her mind sliding into his with a possessiveness that she never shows and Jim's so fucking hot he thinks he could die.

Her mind whispers to his, her fire ignites his, and Jim's only dimly aware of rolling them. Of slamming into her body with a ferocity that is not him. He doesn't know how this isn't hurting her, but then she's laughing and yanking him closer and he's so close to coming that he can't care about anything but how goddamn amazing she feels and this is so going to kill him.

And he only wishes he cared. Jim closes his eyes and lets himself go.

7. everything burns - Ben Moody f. Anastasia

Spock looks at the Admiral's face. "I am certain of it."

Pike nods. "I know you are. Fact of the matter is, Spock, I am too. I'm sure he's out there, but Starfleet wants the Enterprise and those medical supplies at Altair II by tomorrow morning. There's no time left. I've tried everything, but -- " he curls his hand into a fist and drops his gaze.

Light years away in Jim's chair in his ready room, Spock does the same.

"I believe, captain, that your signal is becoming most distorted," she says finally. Her other hand slips out, keying in commands which cloud the signal.

Before Pike can protest, she snaps the channel closed.

Rising, Spock adjusts her uniform and lifts her head. The Enterprise is required at Altair II.

The Enterprise will be late.

Opening a channel to the bridge, Spock keeps her voice cool as she asks, "Lieutenant Uhura, status on the search parties if you will."

She will not leave him. She will not.

8. Broken - Lifehouse

Jim doesn't know how this is supposed to work. He's not supposed to have this. He isn't. He wakes up in the middle of the night (or what passes for it on the Enterprise) and is always surprised that she's still there.

He's not sure why she still is. Captain of the Enterprise or no, he knows how this works. He's an interstellar fuck up. He stumbled his way into saving the universe and, for some unknown reason, she thought he was worth helping. She pulled every string she's got and a dozen more besides to get him this ship. This command. She went through the charade if offering herself up as his First when they both know she had every right to demand it.

She still comes to his quarters every night, crawls into his bed, and wraps herself around him like he's some kind of treasure she'd be batshit insane to let go of.

He's pretty sure this is some kind of crazy fantasy. That he's still in Sickbay, doped up from that vaccine thing Bones gave him, and he's going to wake up and she'll be gone.

Worse, she'll have never been there.

Jim presses his face into her hair, inhaling the scent of it, feeling the heat of her body radiate into his.

Her hand moves, palm gently sliding over his hair and down onto his back. "I can assure you, Jim, that this is most certainly not a fantasy." Her voice is calm, ever so slightly amused, and yeah, she's laughing at him. She's laughing at him, but at least she's being nice about it.

"And how do you know that" he mumbles, lips ghosting the curve of her ear.

"If you were to have a drug-induced fantasy," Spock says, reasonable despite the way her breath catches and she snuggles closer, "I do not believe we would be so passive in our behavior."

"Fucking like bunnies, huh?"

She tips his face back and regards him. "It is supposed to be your fantasy. I am merely providing an appropriate comparison. Were this my fantasy -- "

"I wouldn't be here?" Jim asks.

Spock's eyes gleam with mischief. "No. At this particular moment you would be engaged in the pursuit of refreshments as we would have had a night far more eventful than this."

"Like sehlats in heat?" Jim teases.

She slides one leg against his, body pressing closer, "Indeed."

9. when you love someone - Bryan Adams

Were she asked, Spock might admit that she was unprepared for this. There is no logical reason by which a human being should evoke such emotion in her.

No logical reason why, in response to it, she has not shut him out. James T. Kirk has bedeviled her from the very moment of their first meeting. Since she stared him down in an assembly, privately infuriated by the challenge in his gaze, and demanded a respect he would not give.

A respect she has since earned in spades. Spock curls fingers around a stylus, aware that they are on the bridge and such thoughts lead to temptations that, some day, she may not be able to suppress.

She turns her head to watch Jim converse with Chekov. She thinks, were it possible, she would give him anything. He glances her way, his gaze lingering on her for a moment, and she knows he would return the sentiment.

Most illogical.

She returns attention to her console and experiences a moment of regret that this she cannot share with the Lady Amanda. This her mother would wish to know.

Closing her eyes, Spock breathes deep.

I love him, Mother. I do not understand it, I am wholly overwhelmed by it, but I am certain of it. I love him.

She has no basis for it, no evidence by which she can judge, but in the privacy of her own thoughts, Spock imagines that her mother would approve.