It's early and Jim's eyes are still mostly closed so he doesn't realize Spock's in their shared bathroom until he bumps into him.
"Captain."
"Hey," Jim says, yawning. "Didn't see you there."
Spock's standing in front of the mirror, wide awake and impeccable in science blue. Jim's got on briefs and, if he's lucky, his junk isn't hanging out. He scratches his bare stomach and squints in the unforgiving light of the bathroom.
"Perhaps you would have more success in perceiving me if your eyes were open."
It's too many words too early in the morning and they don't sound important, so Jim just skips ahead to his thing. "I gotta pee."
Spock sighs in that way he has of not sighing. "If you must."
This strikes Jim as funny and he chuckles as he gets his dick out. He has a long, satisfying piss, then tucks his dick away and wipes his hands through the sanitation field. Now fully awake and bored, he leans against the counter and watches Spock, who has apparently picked today to experiment with eye shadow. He has a neat little arrangement of brushes and powders on the counter and is meticulously applying an iridescent lavender up to the slant of his eyebrow.
"That's new," Jim says.
Spock switches to a smaller brush and adds a sweep of rich velvety purple to each lid, then dabs a metallic purple over the top that shimmers under the light and makes his dark eyes look even darker.
"It is," Spock says, once he's done, turning his head from side to side and scrutinizing himself in the mirror. "I am uncertain of the effect."
It's sexy hot, but Jim doesn't think he can say that while still in his underpants without Spock filing a complaint against him. There are probably rules about that sort of thing. He assumes. He's only been captain for, like, five minutes.
"I like it," Jim says.
Spock considers this. "It is not...too much?"
The long pause is strange. As is the vague language. Jim doesn't know what's going on, but it's not like he's ever let that stop him.
"Nah, you look great," he says. Then, why the hell not, maybe Spock needs to hear it: "Super hot."
Spock's eyes meet his in the mirror. "You are mocking me?"
"I'm what?" Jim blinks in surprise.
"Making false statements meant to humiliate me," Spock says in a deadly even voice.
"I know what it means," Jim says. "I meant I—" Wouldn't, he'd been about to say. Only he had. After Vulcan, when he'd goaded Spock into losing his shit and used his mom as the bait in order to get command of the ship. Later, during the long trip home on impulse, it had occurred to Jim to apologize (Bones, it had occurred to him through Bones), and Spock had accepted, acknowledging the logic of his actions, but there are obviously some residual bad vibes between them. He sighs and rubs at his face. "I wasn't," he finishes.
"My mistake," Spock says stiffly. "I am unused to people commenting positively on my physical appearance."
That lets Jim off the hook, except there's no way Spock's walking around looking like that and no one's even given him so much as a thumbs up. "Are you sure? I can't believe people aren't lining up to tell you how gorgeous you are."
"They are not," Spock says.
"What about Uhura?"
"Lt. Uhura chooses to express herself in more culturally appropriate ways."
Jim has so many questions. Like: Does he call her that in bed? And: Appropriate for whom? Also: What the fuck?
"You're hanging out with the wrong people, Spock."
"My mother would frequently remark on how handsome I was, but her opinion cannot be considered unbiased in this regard."
Hearing Spock speak of his mother so casually in that same terrible voice makes Jim feel like a jerk. He slouches against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. "Well, I meant it, and I barely even like you, so consider that."
"Your sincerity is noted," Spock says.
It sounds perfectly neutral, but also like an invitation to shut the fuck up, and Jim's starting to think he should have left the bathroom as soon as he realized Spock was using it because the energy in here is getting weird. He could just fuck off and try this morning again once he's caffeinated and wearing pants, but Spock's staring at himself in the mirror, and even though his face looks as blank as it always does, something's off.
Jim's about to apologize, again, when Spock picks up a black pencil and leans in to the mirror. "Cosmetic adornment of the eyes is a traditional means of expression on—amongst Vulcans," he says, adding angular double wings that echo the shape of his eyebrows. It makes him look even hotter, but Jim's learned his lesson.
"As an adolescent, it was not a practice I felt I could take part in without drawing further attention to my physical differences. Such considerations carry less weight now than they once did." Spock straightens, gives himself one last searching look, and puts the pencil down.
Jim translates that to: I didn't want to try it in case the other Vulcans made fun of me.
It's pretty fucked up that Spock's only doing this now because there's no one left to laugh at him, but Jim knows about fucked up. "Back home, in Iowa, if I wanted to express myself I could choose between football or binge drinking."
Spock tips his head and raises one fabulous eyebrow.
"I know what you're thinking, and yes, but in high school I was scrawny, like, off-puttingly so. Just imagine this whole situation," Jim circles a hand in front of himself to indicate the whole awful entirety of James T. Kirk, "but under a hundred pounds and semi-feral. It wasn't a popular look."
He was also traumatized, mouthy, and too smart for his own good. Nothing like his dad—and Riverside never let him forget it. His name was everywhere—on the shipyards, the old highway, the high school football field—and his photo hung on the wall outside the principal's office, where Jim spent too much time slumped in a chair, staring at it and tormenting himself with the thought that his father had saved him and his mom and eight hundred other people, and Jim couldn't even save himself.
"You were ostracized?" Spock asks.
Jim thinks of Tarsus and laughs. "That's one way to put it, yeah."
Spock turns to face him. "My peers would routinely gather to evaluate my facial features and come to the predictable conclusion that I looked more Human than Vulcan. I knew it was intended to provoke me, but that knowledge alone was not enough to master my emotional response, and after repeated attempts they accomplished their objective and suffered the results."
"Spock," Jim says, fascinated. "Are you saying you beat the shit out of those little Vulcan assholes?"
"Colloquially, yes," Spock says.
Jim laughs, for real this time. "Who knew? Both of us sent to the principal's office, ninety-eight trillion miles apart."
"I was not sent to the school administrator. I was taken to the head of our clan."
"No! For a fight? That's hardcore."
"My loss of control was considered a serious transgression. I was...encouraged," Spock says, "to undertake an intensive program of guided meditation to correct my emotional instability."
Jim's going to go ahead and pretend not to notice that ominous pause or how the last part sounds like a direct quote. "What about the other kids? Did they have to undertake an intense program to correct their being dicks?"
Spock just fucking shrugs. Jim is liking him more and more.
"I got a lot of detention," Jim says, "which meant I had to sit quietly in a room with a bunch of other delinquents after school—on our own time—which is obviously a violation of basic rights, but no one in the administration agreed with me on that. So I used that time to hack into the disciplinary module and suddenly there was this weird glitch where my name would randomly disappear off the detention roster seconds after it was added." He pats himself lovingly on the chest. "You can't lock this up."
"It's true you are difficult to contain," Spock says.
Jim grins at him because that sounds like a compliment if you ignore how Spock once tried to get rid of him by launching him into space.
"Listen," Jim says, pushing himself away from the counter. "Let me get dressed and we'll go down to breakfast together. If anyone tries to give you shit about your new look or tell you how sizzling hot you are, I'll remind them it's not culturally appropriate."
"That is acceptable," Spock says.
"Great! You're excited—I can tell," Jim says, and he's not even being sarcastic. He really thinks Spock might be into it, which means everyone who said it was a terrible idea to make Spock his first officer can suck it because Jim's fucking awesome at making decisions. "I'm gonna hop in the shower; you can stay and work on your eyeliner or whatever."
Spock raises that eyebrow again. "That will not be necessary as I'm sure you'll agree my eyeliner needs no further work."
He strides out of the bathroom and Jim turns to watch him go, stunned. Because was that a joke? He's pretty sure it was a joke. And at Jim's expense, too. He catches sight of his dumb face in the mirror and just starts laughing. Because he was right. This is going to be awesome.