The Vulcans thought that humans in space, unsupervised, would be too much for the galaxy to handle. And that was before Jim Kirk came along.

Anticipation was not an emotion Spock had intended to allow himself to feel; yet, it made itself known despite him, and that it was never satisfied made it harder to suppress, each time the Captain walked past or stood near and conscientiously avoided even the brush of their sleeves.

For verizonhorizon's prompt: "You know what would be really erotic for Vulcans? Henna hand art."

In which Kirk and Spock have had sex half a dozen times, but this time it counts.

Jim's pretty sure he's got mutiny right now. He's got a lapful of mutiny.

Bones pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, let me get it straight. A good chunk of the crew saw you and the hobgoblin trying to suck each other's faces off, but you're insisting that you've never kissed and that you're just friends. Oh, and let's not forget the little detail that both of you have girlfriends."

So there's this thing going around Tumblr where this dog leaves food for in his bowl for weeks and the human eventually discovers he's carefully saving back food for a stray pregnant cat. Cat is eventually adopted by human and cat and dog live happily in interspecies harmony. It is adorbs.

Candy, who is an amazing human being that I probably should never actually talk to because horrible things would happen to the universe, was like OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS SHOULD BE KIRK/SPOCK

Kirk and Spock temporarily have charge of a kid.

He knew the calm before a storm when he saw it. And one had been brewing for weeks now.

Traumatized by his experience on Tarsus IV, Jim Kirk runs away to Vulcan to undergo kolinahr.

This is not exactly what Jim thought the 'exploring strange new worlds and exotic civilizations' was about. Also, Vulcans are kind of crazy. Jim and Spock go through a alien ritual, which, yes, changes everything -- he's hoping for the better. Spock just wants to get through this with his sanity, if not his dignity, mostly intact.

Non-Starfleet AU. Jim owns a small bar in Chicago, keeps on picking up strays and taking care of everyone no matter how hard it makes his own life. Spock is a journalist writing feature articles for the Chicago Tribune; he depicts the world with uncanny skill, but hides more than one personal drama and is possibly under surveillance from the Vulcan royal family. They meet by accident just before their lives start to spin out of control.

Jim Kirk, a man of long drives and large personality, stumbles into a career in the PGA Tour. Fame, fortune and notoriety await him as Jim collects national media attention, groupies, a new best friend, the ire of the first lady of pro golf, and also, maybe, the love of his life.

She wouldn’t quite say it’s love, but they’re two young people mutually attracted to each other, and as much as Spock’s Vulcan side hates to admit any human weakness like lust, it’s only logical to Nyota that they’d be touching and feeling, testing each other and their boundaries, as much as possible, in rare moments alone even more so.

If a Vulcan has an emotional reaction, and there’s no one around to see it, does it still have any significant impact?

He knew his friend was puzzled by Spock and Uhura, but the fact that Jim seemed to be pining over the woman confused him. He had a high measure of respect for Uhura for flat out denying Jim. It was good for the captain to know that he wouldn’t get everything he wanted, but Bones was tired of seeing him act like a sullen child about it.

"I shall begin again. I have successfully initiated relations with the remaining elders of Vulcan, beginning talks of colonization, of rebuilding our people. Though they show no outward signs of suspicion, and take my word that I had been living in a hermitage since my Kohlinar, only just beaming out before the event, I sense that they are not completely at ease with my story."

Kirk was born in space, he sleeps best there. Lately, though, he has felt a new kind of restlessness in his bones. His sleep is interrupted by dreams, by reliving moments of a life that isn’t his.

For a genius, you’re a goddamn idiot.

It takes Jim a few minutes of standing in the corridor staring at Spock's door before he realizes why it didn't work. They always take their meals together. And, Jim realizes, he always smiles and flirts with Spock. Spock had no idea anything was going on at all. Perhaps he needs advice.

Because this is a normal relationship that progresses along normal lines at a normal speed. Because either of them even knows what a normal relationship might look like.

"What are you doing?" said Kirk when Spock started taking off his shirt.

He's not himself. Then, though his face doesn't move in the here and now, he feels himself give a low, soft chuckle. He hears it, and doesn't recognize the sound. Then the older Kirk claps his shoulder and squeezes it and says through the laughter, "Spock, you didn't really think I--"

"It isn't until things quiet down-- really quiet down-- that Kirk is able to let his brain come out of action mode and start processing everything that's happened to him."

"You showed a remarkable ability to function commendably even after enduring great physical stress."

Spock had not intended to watch them. He had only been at the dock because he had been unable to resist the temptation of seeing the Enterprise again, as illogical as that was.

Uhura wasn't ready to give up, not by a long shot, but in the end the only destiny she could control was her own.

Jim was never prone to insomnia. Not during his incredibly rigorous course-load at the Academy. Not the night before he broke into the lab to reprogram the computer to let him beat Spock’s little no-win scenario. Not ever, when it came down to it. So the idea that Jim was having sleepless nights because the Enterprise was on its first mission, which was a simple ferry ride to bring the Andorian Ambassador back to Andoria, was ludicrous in the extreme. Especially in light of the fact that it was only a few weeks since Jim and the Enterprise had saved Earth and pretty much the rest of the Federation along with it and that hadn’t kept him from sleeping. Then again… he was only acting Captain then and this mission was official…

I am aware that you may not rely on these testimonials in order to appoint me, but the Admiralty will require sufficient documentation to verify my commission.

The first time it happens, it just, sort of, well, it happens. He's sitting on the bridge, and they're kind of talking, but mostly just barking orders at everyone who'll listen because it's a bit of an emergency, and Kirk's got something about crew morale in the back of his mind because he's a damn good captain. And he's thinking about making them laugh, but he's also thinking about making sure they don't all die in the next ten minutes.

Starfleet first officers did not regress to childhood without at least submitting prior warning to their commanding officers. They'd theme:established that after the whole Pon Farr mess last year. There were rules about Vulcan biology and scaring the hell out of Jim now. This had to be in violation of at least three of them.

As much as Kirk tried not to let himself be influenced by old Spock's memories of the future, even he had to admit that he was having difficulty. It wasn't any specific event that bothered him, but the whole tone of the bridge was different. Spock was different. In old Spock's memories, Kirk had felt the two of them like two halves of a single whole, two sides of the same coin. They worked together like a well-oiled machine. He barely had to give an order before Spock had already carried it out, often anticipating him even before Kirk himself knew he was going to make the request. But that was old Spock and his Kirk. This was different, and after experiencing that sort of connection, the difference was frustrating.

Hikaru Sulu does not gossip. He is just present when other people say things about people who are not present, and then he sometimes repeats it to more people who might be interested. He doesn't gossip, because most of it is true. OK, sometimes he's wrong, but it's not like he's going to do research.

He is somewhat reluctant to admit it, but he and Spock still aren’t actually friends. Jim doesn’t fight with him any more – they work together well enough on the bridge, and there’s been no punches thrown since that first time. When he turns to Spock after Scotty (or, God help him, Chekov) has explained something that would be incomprehensible even without the accent, Spock translates. He’s even lost about fifty-percent of the mild condescension. Jim can deal with the other fifty-percent; he’s had enough women berate him for his arrogance to understand a healthy pride in your own abilities. It’s the other times that bother him.

Kirk nearly turns a simple trade mission into a diplomatic incident. Luckily, Spock will do a lot to cover his captain's ass.

They had taught him all about the physical size of it in the Academy, of course; he knew that the Galaxy was about twenty-five kiloparsecs across, which was the length of the old Route 66 about 2 x 1014 times over. He'd worked that out once, doodled in the margin of his notebook in class, but he still hadn't really comprehended it. Because every time it was impressed on him just how monumentally vast space was, all he heard was the potential for new planets to explore, new life and civilizations to find. And while that was true, he had never really grasped that in between lay vast expanses of emptiness.

"I'm afraid I am not familiar with that expression, Mr. Scott. What do you mean by 'they have got no balls?'"

It is the third mission of his command, and Captain James T. Kirk suspects he is going insane.

Her first date with McCoy is a good one: coffee and a museum in San Francisco. She enjoys it, likes talking to him. His humor is honest, but he's never cruel. He’s intelligent. He’s not bad looking. He makes her laugh. He talks about Jim Kirk more than she'd maybe like him to, but maybe that’s what she’s looking for. It’s only been a few weeks, and she still can’t look Kirk in the eye. Might never be able to again.

He merely can see that, in the course of their years together, he and Nyota will part ways, and his way will merge with the captain's.

"I have already made it clear that my desire is not to engage in this activity with Nyota, nor has it ever been. I was unaware that this was something she would require of me."

"I think the Keptan has an interest in Commander Spock."

"If the Captain requires someone to monitor his diet and activities until he is more stable, I will volunteer for such a duty," Spock says, and that's where it starts.

I can't tell from Spock, hobgoblin physiology being screwy and all, but the captain seems to be about six. Guessing that they've both lost the same number of years, Spock must be about the same.

"I am, as you know, aware of your relationship with your Captain. Were our people not so endangered I would not ask this of you. But with the future of the Vulcan race in dire jeopardy, I must request that you return to New Vulcan to take part in the koon-ut-kal-if-fee with a new mate of our choosing."

Jim is-- it hurts. It fucking hurts and he's going to die, this time-- he knows because Bones is shouting and Uhura's eyes look too shiny and Spock is leaning over him, saying "Captain, you--" and nothing else and his father always said command was a heavy burden but this is-- more."

It was clever, Kirk thinks, shackling them within reach of each other. Your garden-variety evil aliens would've known to chain them up so they could see each other-- that's a piece of cake to an experienced torturer-- but this, tying them up with enough give on the chains so they can reach out to each other-- is really cruel.

Who knows James T. Kirk better than James T. Kirk?

It's just rough, is all. He goes to bed at a reasonable hour, dreams all night about soulbonding and mindmelding true love shenanigans, then wakes up every morning to the realization that none of it is his own life. He likes his life, he does-- but he's pretty sure the Ambassador had not intended to turn him into a frustrated monogamist loser in the momentary span of their little information session.

He knows who the boy is--one James T. Kirk, lauded across the nation for his amazing skill at the trumpet. He goes to Columbia, if Spock recalls correctly, where he double-majors in Music and Jazz Studies and minors in Mechanical Engineering.

The word that has been haunting him lately, of which Vulcan has no approximation, is seduction. Intellectually, he knows what it means, in terms of a sexual relationship. It is an enticement, a tease, and he understands it. Intellectually.

"You are in love. Wait, should I put this in something you’ll understand?" Bones clears his throat, stands up taller, and folds his hands behind his back, raising a single eyebrow. "Fascinating, Cadet. It seems you have taken an infatuation to another person of superior status to you in the Academy."

At times, the images anger him. The man who put them there angers him. What gave him the right to leave him shaking and weak and compromised? What right did he have to force his own, alternate reality onto him? Where did he get off making him see things he could never…

The medical bay on the Enterprise is, like the rest of the ship, state-of-the-art. Its walls and floor and ceiling are a brilliant, oddly-cool white, and the chrome instrumentation by every bed and lining much of the wall-space gleams beautifully under the overhead fluorescents. The beds are soft and clean enough to keep any waylaid crew member at least comfortable, and the facilities are so well-equipped and up-to-date that any medical professional would likely make several killings just for a chance to touch them, let alone work with them. Ordinarily, Leonard McCoy would be beyond proud (and rather self-satisfied, if he may say so himself) of being able to call this beauty of a clinic his.

Jim quickly figures out he has to break the rules if he’s going to survive on the Enterprise.

Sarek watches his son and Kirk together and is reminded of his relationship with his wife - and how deep humans can love - and how humbling it is to be the recipient of such emotions.

When the Enterprise is asked to transport Vulcan colonists to their new home, Spock Prime comes with them. His presence changes everything – and leads to life-altering revelations for Jim and Spock.

This isn't quite where Winona Kirk expected to be at this point in her life even as recently as a week ago. Change itself isn't frightening to her, but she's taking--has taken, here--a step that's likely to create tensions with her sons.

So you've fucked Spock. Now what? In which word travels at warp speed on the Enterprise, Spock ponders the intricacies of human humor, and Jim Kirk still doesn't know where his towel is.

If there were ever a definition of too much of a good thing, Spock showing up in his office with a second Jim Kirk while the first one was licking his swollen lips and grinning like a demon.

The five times Spock wasn't in love, and the one time he couldn't deny it anymore.

There was something devastatingly cute about the mix of wide brown eyes, pale skin, pointed ears, and neat hair cut when packaged in a body barely over three feet tall and swimming in a blue science uniform top and dark undershirt that was entirely too big for his body.

She thinks that maybe in another universe, one where ships don't come out of lightning storms in space, she would have had a brown-eyed, steadier child with a penchant for mischief, who would have been still clever but whom she could have sent off to Starfleet Academy knowing he would do both her and his father proud.

"Spock. Just say 'I don't trust Starfleet not to mess up the only captain in the fleet who I can train up to my expectations and enjoys running into danger wearing a blindfold as much as I do'."

Female seeking male for intellectual conversation in multiple languages during the day and crazy-hot animal sex during the night. Knowledge of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs is a must. Also, if you can’t speak all three dialects of Romulan, you can just forget it. My man should be able to match me drink for drink at parties and also show some goddamned emotional sympathy when I break a nail.

"I know your son very well. I know that he is most likely to do what he is told not to do," Spock says, and she sees a flash of humor in his face, but maybe she imagined that, too. "I wondered if it might be in my interest should you hate me on sight."

Jim was using him. Perhaps it was that he was so used to seeing the physical effects of blatant cruelty that it hurt as much as it did when his rose-colored glasses were ripped suddenly away.

Two years later, the pon farr finally catches up with them.

James T. Kirk doesn't get passionate about something unless it has breasts. Leonard McCoy knows this. And then something changes.

"It was also brought to my attention that after marooning you on an ice planet and attempting to strangle you to death, failing to speak out for your defense would make me, in the popular vernacular, a douche."

"He's two hundred years old and tired, Jim," Bones answered sarcastically. "I'm surprised he hasn't broken down before this."

Kirk needs to get married for political reasons. Spock offers himself as the logical choice.

Contrary to popular belief, James Tiberius Kirk has not slept with the entire crew of the USS Enterprise. No, really.

Had he been human, he would have been well into what qualified as ‘infirm’ - seventy or eighty years old, where some humans simply can’t look after themselves. Instead, Spock is a vulcan of eighty years, still with dark, impenetrable eyes and a sharp mind and the strength to take down a battalion of klingons.

Spock needs Jim's help with a little experiment.

Jim took the silence as an opportunity to scrutinize his potential new friend, deciding with glee that his eyebrows were about as unfortunate as the severity of his bangs. In the absence of a response from the other, he was getting restless, head tilting as he fidgeted and bit his lip and shuffled his feet in the dirt, as he tried to deal with what seemed to his childish perception to be an awkward moment. He wasn't a shy child, but he sure as hell knew how and when to be a polite and charming one.

The captain cannot know about touch telepathy—he has encountered it, but it is likely that he assumes that the psi points are the only way of telegraphing; it is likely that it was an errant fantasy. Though it was… fascinating. And rather stimulating.

He wakes up with Spock's hand on his hip. Naked hip. Huh. Well, this is interesting.

However, it would, in fact, be illogical for you to beam down as the acting submissive. As you are captain of the vessel, they will expect you to be the "alpha male," so to speak.

Jim has a pet. His pet is not a Vulcan. It is not even a half-Vulcan. Jim's pet is a Tribble.