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“Jim, has Starfleet Command instructed you to relay information to me?”
“Nope, not at all.” Jim said idly, angling the camera of the PADD onto the pulled down white screen.
“Then I do not understand why we are in the conference room with you preparing a digital presentation.”
“I told you, I’ve got to show you something important.”
“Jim, is this similar to the time you wished to show me a holo of four cats in a small basket?”
“That was a cute holo!” Jim defended, turning to Spock. “You love cats!”
“I hold an acceptable amount of affection for them.” Spock replied coolly.
Jim snorted, shaking his head at the blatant ‘excuse’. Spock loved cats and he knew it, he just wouldn’t admit it. The last time they’d had a cat on the ship— courtesy of the Remani Prime Minister’s trip to Deep Space 3— the thing had been damn near inseparable from Spock, curling around his legs and scurrying after him in the hallways. Spock himself had pretended to be unbothered by it, but Jim had caught the guy petting the animal on several occasions as well as one time feeding it meat— actual meat— which meant he must have replicated it specifically for the cat.
“Jim, if there is nothing of import to be discussed—“
“There is something important to be discussed here, just hold your horses,” He muttered, swiping around on the PADD until finally it brought up his presentation. "Here we go! Okay, I’m ready.”
Jim propped the PADD up where it was, ensuring that the presentation on the device was projected on the white screen, then picked up the clicker and turned to Spock. The man was sat in a chair Jim had directed him into, levelling him with his customary eyebrow lift.
“So, you probably wonder why I asked you to come in here today,” Jim began, smiling brightly at Spock, “And I can tell you that the reason is very legitimate and you are going to be glad I had you sit in for it.”
Jim pressed the clicker, and the presentation began. A slide with the words ‘Reasons Why We Should Date’ were written in yellow on a background of black with tiny, tiny stars.
“My presentation is entitled, ‘Reasons We Should Date’.” He announced, and he saw Spock’s eyes widen perceptively as he took in both the words on the screen as well as what Jim had just said.
Jim pressed the clicker again and the next slide showed up, a yellow ‘1’ in the corner along with a crudely drawn picture of Spock.
“Reason number one: you are immensely attractive, and I have no idea how to deal with that. This is source of much frustration for me, as well as a distraction on the bridge. No matter how hard I try to focus, I just can’t seem to work productively; but it’s surprisingly even worse when you aren’t there.”
Jim clicked again, and this time the picture of Spock was removed, and in its place there was a chart with an arrow pointing downwards diagonally.
“Now I don’t have the exact statistics, but whenever you’re not there, my work efficiency decreases. I still get stuff done, but it takes longer. However,” at this, Jim clicked to the next slide which showed the same crudely drawn picture of Spock from before, but this time along with a badly drawn picture of Jim. The graph from the previous slide had also been flipped so that it now showed a positive correlation. “When you’re on shift with me or in the same room when I’m doing paperwork, my efficiency rises. This is great not just for my evaluations and Starfleet Command, but also for the Enterprise as a whole. In order to maintain this positive work ethic, I judge the solution as being this,”
Jim pressed the clicker, and suddenly the two drawings of Spock and Jim were holding hands, with a weird red heart drawn in between them.
“We should date.” Jim declared firmly. He looked to Spock to see if the guy was following, and indeed, he was if the slight tinge to his cheeks was any indication.
“Now, reason two,” Jim started, going to the next slide, this one containing a picture of a chessboard, a stack of books, and two people facing each other with their arms in defensive positions. “We have similar interests, such as chess, discussing journal articles and books, and also sparring. Now, we may not have all of the same interests, but that’s good. It allows us to have passions and hobbies outside of each other, and if we want, we can just share them with one another and explore them together.”
Jim clicked to the next slide, this one showing a clipart of a man fishing. “For example, fly fishing.”
Spock shook his head, so Jim went on to the next slide, a photo of a hovercar tournament. “Hovercar racing.”
Again Spock shook his head, so Jim continued to the next example, a photo of a Vulcan playing the Vulcan lyre. “Or music.”
At that Spock looked slightly approving.
Jim quirked a smile and moved on. “Another example is cooking, which leads me to point three; you enjoy cooking, and I enjoy eating. This really is self-explanatory.”
Jim clicked on to the next slide, one which showed a holo he had taken of his breakfast earlier that day. “However, I won’t be so cruel as to let you handle all the cooking— unless you want to of course,” He amended quickly. “Even though I may be pretty awful at cooking actual, proper meals for dinner and lunch, I make mean breakfasts, and they taste even better in bed.”
He threw Spock a wink, and again the guy’s cheeks turned faintly green. Still, his expression was pretty much as blank as a board.
“Reason four!” Jim exclaimed loudly, focusing in on Spock since he hadn’t been able to think of a decent picture to use for this point. “Is that I am well-versed in pop culture, and I can enrich your life daily by handing you out bits of knowledge about it. Now you may think they’re useless, but it’s still interesting to learn. Besides, you never know when they might come in handy.”
“It is useless information, Jim. At what point would it be necessary to know that the Republic of China owns every single panda in the world?”
Jim clasped his hands behind his back and primly replied, “I’m sorry, Spock, but you’re going to have to save all of your questions for the end of the presentation.”
The guy looked a bit put out at that, but remained quiet, allowing Jim to move on.
“Reason number five; we have intellectually stimulating conversations together. We can talk about pretty much everything, from conspiracy theories, to cultural differences in the galaxy, and even what kind of bread is the best.”
Spock opened his mouth as if to say something, but Jim immediately interrupted him. “I know you think it’s brown grain bread, but you’re wrong. It’s garlic bread. Now on to reason six— healthy competitiveness.”
Jim returned to the presentation once more, clicking forth the next slide. It was another badly drawn picture of Spock and Jim, facing each other in a standoff position wearing their Starfleet colours; blue for Spock, and gold for Jim. “I know competitiveness is usually seen as a negative, but in our case, I think it’s actually quite good. For example, when we play chess, we’re just improving our strategic ability, not trying to beat the other person terribly. Whenever one of us loses, the other one always congratulates the winner, and there’re no hard feelings. This is what I mean by healthy competitiveness.”
Spock nodded along, looking thoughtful.
“Now, reason number seven,” Jim declared, then pointed at Spock. “You’re responsible for about 45% of my impulse control, and that is super important during away missions.”
A light frown marred Spock’s face. “You are not in possession of 55% of your own impulse control.” He accused.
“True, I’m in charge of like 25%; the other 30% is Bones. That’s why I said you’re super important during away missions, since on the bridge usually everyone else keeps me in line.” Jim explained before clicking over to the next slide.
“I would like to re-visit point one again: You being damn attractive. As you can see I’ve provided some evidence to support my statement.”
The slide showed several holos of Spock, some having been taken when the man was aware of the camera, others where he clearly had no idea. There were close-ups, full body shots, and one of Spock in his Vulcan robes, among others.
Spock’s eyebrows jumped, clearly not expecting all those holos of himself.
“As you can see, you look damn fine in a close up, you look damn fine from top to toe, and you look damn fine in Vulcan robes, making you all around a fine piece of ass.”
“Jim.” Spock chided, his cheeks darkening.
“Now, some of the features about you that I find personally to be very attractive include your slanted eyebrows, that bowl haircut of yours— seriously, love the symmetricity of it— and your dark, brown eyes. That’s not to say that I just like you because of your looks, because I like you and what you consist of as a person too, but y’know it’s nice to have something pretty to look at.”
It really seemed like all Spock was doing during the presentation was blushing, but to be fair, Jim wasn’t giving him any opportunity to do much else.
Clicking over to the next slide, Jim announced, “So, from that previous slide we can see that there is clear evidence to me finding you attractive, which kind of leads into my next point: you find me attractive too.”
The slide showed a list of perhaps fifteen bullet points which all fell under the headline ‘How I know you find me attractive’.
Spock stilled in his seat.
“So I’ve got a short list here, just fifteen reasons, as to how I know you find me attractive. Some of them include things such as going drinking with me when you don’t even drink alcohol, going with me to museums I like, and even giving me back massages. You may argue that you do some of these just because I’m the captain and I need to be in working order for the ship to run successfully, but that’s not entirely true. We’re all equally important aboard the ship, and also, it’s not necessary for you to bring me coffee every time I’m working late.”
Spock looked as if he were going to argue, but Jim held up a finger to stop him. “I actually really need to get through this presentation, Spock, I just realised I only have fifteen minutes left before my shift starts.”
“What is the duration of the presentation?” Spock asked, furrowing his brows.
“Bones timed it as being twenty minutes and we’ve only gone through ten; I still need some time at the end for your questions. Anyway, moving on.”
The next slide showed holos of Spock and Jim together, one from the Christmas last year, one of them during shore leave, and one of them in the rec room playing chess. Clearly they had both been unaware that the last holo had been taken as they were focusing entirely on the game at hand.
“Reason ten we should date: we look so good together.”
Jim let the slide stay on for another few seconds, simply admiring the holos before clicking onwards. “Right, reason eleven: I am more than willing to adopt a rescue shelter cat with you.”
At that Spock perked up, sitting up straighter in his seat.
“Seriously? That’s the thing that caught your interest?” Jim asked incredulously, and at Spock’s nod rolled his eyes. “Actually this is perfect, because it brings me to my next point: you say you have no emotions but that’s a blatant lie.”
The next slide showed another list, this one entitled ‘things Spock has said that are a blatant lie’, and the word lie had been bolded and underlined for emphasis.
Spock frowned. “I do not tell untruths.”
“Well, let’s discuss that shall we?” Jim fired back with a knowing smirk, then pointed at the slide. “As you can see, there are several things you’ve lied about in the past— or maybe you truly believed them, but you’ve since shown them to be untrue. For example, you claim you have no emotions.”
“Vulcans follow a strict practice of controlling our emotions, but that does not mean they are non-existent.” Spock clarified calmly.
“…Well, this kind of makes my point worthless then.” Jim admitted, biting his lip. After a moment he shrugged. “Still, I’ll go with it. So, even though you claim you have little to no emotions, I’ve seen you show things like kindness to Uhura, irritation towards Bones, and affection towards cats. I don’t know what it is about them, but you seem to really have a fondness for the little rascals. But anyway, some other things you’ve ‘lied’ about is not having a favourite dish— which is your mom’s Plomeek soup— not playing the Vulcan lyre when you’re upset, and not worrying about Uhura whenever she goes on a first date with someone.”
Spock seemed to be slightly affronted by those points, especially that last one, and he stiffly pointed out, “It is not a lie when you simply sidestep the truth.”
“Aw, you little shit,” Jim grinned, throwing Spock an amused look. “Damn, that’s another thing I like about you, but I forgot to put it into the slideshow.”
At Spock’s questioning look Jim cleared up, “Your snarkiness, Spock. I like your snarkiness.”
“I see.”
“Okay, moving on! I’ve only got like five minutes so I’m gonna have to rush through this.” Jim murmured, clicking to the next slide which just showed a picture of a hand. He turned to Spock with a grin. “Reason number thirteen we should date – I think I’d be good at handjobs. Literally.”
Jim unfortunately didn’t have the time to enjoy Spock’s cheeks turning an insane shade of green, hurriedly clicking along to the next slide which showed a holo of the entire bridge crew at an Andorian restaurant during shore leave.
“Okay, yes! So here, number fourteen, the reason that we should date is that we have friends in common, so our circle of friends wouldn’t change if we got together, meaning we wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of acclimatising and getting to know new people.”
Spock nodded along to that, thinking it a selling point. Jim was just sure the guy liked that, since he’d always had trouble making friends. At least on Earth, he couldn’t be too sure about anywhere else.
“Right, so my next slide,” Jim began, flipping to the following slide which showed a line chart which looked to be positively correlated. The chart was also entitled ‘My attractiveness throughout the years’, and at the bottom included two photos of Jim, presumably in his teens. “Is just to show you what a great investment I would be, looks-wise. As you can see when I was a teenager, I wasn’t that great-looking; very gawky, very nerdy, very downright undesirable. However, throughout the years I’ve grown steadily more attractive, and I can only see this continuing the older I get.”
Spock threw Jim a curious glance, but he ignored it in favour of continuing on with his presentation. “This is also supported by several examples, such as evidence A,” Jim gestured at his face with a winning smile. “Evidence B,” Here he motioned down his entire body. “And evidence C,” He concluded, tapping the side of his head.
“Interesting.” Spock murmured, a thread of amusement lacing his tone.
“So for my final slide,” Jim babbled, trying to rush through the last bit. “I’d just like to reiterate, we look damn good together,” Jim clicked through to the next slide which once again showed holos of Spock and Jim together. “And even though you or some others may not find yourself to be the most attractive being ever, and you might sometimes come off as rigid and cold-hearted, that doesn’t change the fact that the way you make me laugh and brighten my day makes me feel like you’re the most amazing being in the universe.”
Clicking on to his final slide, Jim turned to Spock and proudly declared, “So in conclusion—“
“We should date?” Spock interjected.
Jim pointed a finger at him. “I like what you’ve taken away from this presentation.”
Once more Spock flushed, and it really must have been some kind of record for the amount of times he’d done that in the last twenty minutes. Not that Jim was complaining.
“So; thoughts?” Jim asked, smiling encouragingly at Spock.
The guy stared at Jim, his face unreadable. Eventually he admitted, “Your logic has some merit.”
“Some?” Jim asked primly, slightly offended. He’d put in quite a bit of work on the presentation, he liked to think he deserved something more than just ‘some’ merit.
Spock tilted his head, unwavering gaze on Jim. “What is the aim of your presentation, Jim?”
“That we should date.” Jim frowned, his smile faltering. “I thought that was obvious.”
Spock inclined his head. “I see. Do you believe it will be a successful match?”
“Well…” Jim began uncertainly. “It depends entirely on you, to be honest. You are allowed to say ‘no’ if you want.”
Spock stared at him in silence, not saying a single word for what felt like ages. Finally, he declared, “I believe it is only appropriate that we try out your theory in practice in order to draw conclusive results.”
Jim’s face erupted into a beaming grin. “I like the way you’re thinking.”
The corner of Spock’s lips twitched up, and the sight had something warm flood through Jim’s chest.
“I love it when you smile.” He said faintly.
Spock’s eyes seemed to soften, and he looked down bashfully for just a split second. It was damn cute.
“Jim.”
“Yes, Spock?” Jim asked, smiling tenderly.
“You must depart now if you wish to make it in time for your shift.”
“Shit.”