Star Trek does not belong to me, of course.

*****

Jim would never have expected Spock to be the cuddling type. But then again, he had been wrong about Spock in the past.

For example, he had not expected Spock to start actively seeking his company - and showing up at Jim's quarters with a chessboard under his arm every single day (not that Jim complained, but honestly, Every. Single. Day.) undeniably counted as such.

Nor had Jim expected Spock to reciprocate his attraction and for a long time believed that he was merely projecting (but soon enough, all the furtive and wistful glances and fleeting touches made him rethink this).

And until about an hour ago, he definitely had not expected Spock to display such amounts of passion and desire in their first sexual encounter – but evidently, Jim thought, as they laid back down on the bed after having cleaned themselves, this was not to be the case either.

In fact, their whole relationship up to this point could be characterized as a string of situations which began by Jim making an assumption, proceeded by Spock proving this assumption wrong and ended by Jim being rather shocked, but very pleased by the unexpected turn of events.

At this very moment, it appeared that the chain of surprises would continue, judging from the fact that Spock suddenly shifted closer, which was very close indeed, pressing the length of his body against Jim's, when Jim had not expected him to want more than having their shoulders touch. Wrong again, Jim thought. Spock meanwhile finished his movement by placing a possessive arm across Jim's chest and then going quite still, clearly indicating that this was the position he intended to fall asleep in.

Jim quickly recovered from the amusement at his bed partner's snuggling action when he noted that he still felt very hot. Extremely hot that was. Sweatily, unpleasantly, almost unbearably hot.

Heated as their intercourse may have been, he definitely should have cooled down by now. Instead, he seemed to be heating up more and more. He briefly wondered whether he was running a fever and even felt his forehead with the back of his hand. This only confirmed that all parts of his body were equally hot and moist with perspiration.

Although when he focused on it, he realized that he was able to trace the epicentres of the heat: his right shoulder, actually make that his whole right arm, his right thigh, well, in fact the whole right half of his body plus the long searing stripe of skin on his chest that was covered by that scorching arm ...

Oh.

Well, that should have been obvious. No wonder he felt overheated when he was being held in a burning hug by the living heat generator himself.

Jim began to feel keen sympathy for all those poor bacteria who lived in hot springs and geysers. But then, they probably liked living there because they liked the high temperatures. He certainly did not like this. Or any other circumstances that had him deliberating whether it felt more like being baked in a furnace or bathed in lava.

But he liked Spock.

And somehow he did not suppose that rolling away from him to the farthest possible place on the bed would convey that particular sentiment ... Actually, a selfish little voice in his mind added, more like rolling away from under him, because Spock was really lying half-way on top of him and in all seriousness, who could possibly think this would be a comfortable position?

Nonetheless, the problem at hand was that Jim didn't know whether Spock gave any significance to what they did, post coitum. Maybe he didn't care that much, and the current arrangement of their bodies was just random. Albeit purposefully trying to boil somebody else's blood did not seem very - he really was thinking too much about this.

This was all because of it being the first time he was about to sleep in the same bed with him. Although sleep did not seem like a very probable result of his current condition. Melting seemed more likely. Still, he didn't want to disappoint Spock and waking him up by pushing him away would most likely qualify as such.

Supposing Spock was already asleep, of course. But his breathing was even - not to mention hot - so Jim supposed he was. Obviously there was no excessive heat bothering him.

It reminded him of one hot summer night of his childhood when the air conditioning in their house had broken and he had laid on his bed with the windows wide open, the sheet feeling all scratchy and damp under him, the air stuffy and oppressing, and he had been thinking about icicles, falling snowflakes and frozen rivers ...

And thus, thinking about icicles and avalanches and blizzards, Jim endured another couple of minutes to make sure Spock was asleep and then, at a speed of an inch per minute, slowly but surely began pulling himself from beneath Spock.

Finally, placing a safe distance between himself and the heat-radiating body, he let his head drop down on the pillow and relishing in the relative coolness of the sheets, he wiped his brow and exhaled in relief. He would not melt tonight, after all.

Still, he did not expect to freeze any time soon, either, which was exactly what happened when an even, if slightly accusatory voice, cut through the silence.

"Why have you just removed yourself from my embrace?"

"I... you – look, not that I don't like, erm, touching you, but I was getting really hot from that – temperature-wise, and I just can't sleep like that. In the heat." Jim fumbled with his explanation.

"I see." Spock said. But before Jim could congratulate himself on quickly getting the awkward moment out of the way, he added: "What I do not see, however, is why you did not simply tell me so and preferred to sneakily extricate yourself from me."

"Well I guess I didn't want to … make it seem like I didn't like it.''

"But you did not like it." Spock said coldly.

"Well I did not like the heat," Jim reacted and after a moment jokingly specified again. "Temperature-wise."

But Spock would have none of it: "I had been under the impression that communication was one of the fundamentals of a working relationship. Therefore, I do not understand why you thought it would be better not to inform me of whatever difficulties you were having."

"Well, I thought it was, well, a little too early to start communicating like this?" Jim blurted out, a little angrily, because he had made an effort.

Long silence.

Too late for that. Not too early. He should have said it was too late at night to discuss it. That would have sounded better. Not too early. What was he thinking? Too late sounds so much better. Well too late for this, too.

At last, Spock said, frostily: "I see."

And that was that.

Spock apparently had nothing more to say on the matter and so Jim spent the next few moments pondering whether he had just managed to magnificently screw up and destroy the charm of their first night together, then he inwardly berated Spock for automatically playing the offended party, then he fought amusement and disbelief at having just been seriously thinking sappy thoughts about first night charms, after which he devoted a couple more minutes to suppressing the suddenly emerging dread that this particular first time might also very well be the last, because frankly, he still didn't find out whether Spock required cuddling as an essential part of relationship - this briefly amused him again - but then, at a long last, he fell asleep, dreaming of nothing at all.

****

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