The dream was never the same twice. Tonight, Chekov appeared to him in civilian clothes that suggested a historical Terran setting. The landscape around them was vague and misty. Spock held the younger man in his arms. He kissed the ensign's pale throat to amuse himself as he leisurely unbuttoned the white shirt the young man was wearing. There was no need for haste in a dream.

There was, however, some urgency mounting in them both as he explored the warm, firm flesh underneath the garment. The Vulcan reached down to the front of the ensign's pants, ostensibly to check what sort of fastenings lay there. His fingers lingered on the growing evidence of his lover's arousal.

The navigator's hand closed over his. "Sir," Chekov said, politely begging excuse as he removed himself from the Science Officer's grasp.

Spock raised an eyebrow, puzzled by this development until the ensign smiled and began to unfasten the lacings of the pants himself. Once this task was finished, Chekov surrendered himself once more into his superior's arms with a contented sigh.

Spock's mouth repossessed the young man's hungrily as the Vulcan's hands pushed the remaining fabric down from his dream-lover's hips. Running his lips down the chest he'd so recently bared, Spock paused to plant possessive kisses on each hardened nipple. His progress once more was slowed as he knelt and savored the delicious area just below the young man's navel.

Grasping firm buttocks for balance, the Vulcan took the entire length of his lover's erection into his mouth.

The ensign was already impossibly hard. Mere anticipation of the probable diversions with which they would while away the long night before them had him close to the edge of his first climax.

Spock did not delay this culmination. He labored with single-minded industry. His practiced lips and tongue adeptly brought forth a hot, bursting orgasm from the ensign within moments.

He allowed his young lover a moment to recover, enjoying the way that the navigator's chest colored delicately and heaved with spent passion as the young man let his head fall back. Since extended recovery time was not necessary in a dream, he soon gave the navigator's hips and thighs a long, silently petitioning caress.

With a grateful smile, the ensign turned and knelt on the damp grass. He stretched out, resting on his elbows and wordlessly inviting the Vulcan to take what he desired.

Pausing only to brush the tail of the long white shirt out of his way, Spock did not hesitate to claim that pleasure vigorously...

***

The Science Officer was not certain that Lt. Uhura scheduled weekly sessions with him in the Officer's Lounge solely to improve her skills with the lyrette. If learning advanced techniques were her true aim, then she would not -- as she often did and was doing at the moment -- sit and listen to him play with her eyes closed and a vague smile on her face.

As the closing strains of the transposed and re-arranged Elizabethan madrigal faded, she sighed and opened her eyes halfway. "Mr. Spock, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were in love."

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow as he unshouldered the instrument. "Since the piece is romantic in tone, I will assume that comment is meant to be a compliment to my musicianship."

"Not necessarily." She smiled as she roused and accepted the lyrette. "Somehow you just have that air of being in love today."

He turned the music stand towards her. "Exactly how would you define an 'air of being in love'?"

"You are as all true lovers are," she quoted, experimentally plucking out a line of the melody,

"Unstaid and skittish in all motions else

Save in the constant image of the creature

That is beloved."

Spock folded his arms. The unwarranted amount of time he's spent contemplating his situation with Chekov lent the quotation an annoying illusion of accuracy.

As the lieutenant scanned the score noting key changes, the Vulcan reflected that this frivolous conversation might be opportunity to gain some insight into his current dilemma. Human beings in general had more experience with accidental and unwanted emotional entanglements. Lt. Uhura in particular seemed adept at interpersonal relationships.

"And if I were in love," he asked, careful to have his tone convey that he was merely proposing a hypothetical situation, "what would you advise I do?"

"You?" She looked up at him over the music stand. "I don't know. I know what I would do."

"And what would you do?" he prompted as she paused to experiment with a particularly melancholy strain.

"Make me a willow cabin at his gate," she quoted.

"And call upon my soul within the house;

Write loyal cantons of contemned love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night."

"An appropriate citation in light of our current musical selection," Spock said, a little sourly. "But poor advice, surely."

"Oh, you think so?" she replied, sounding amused. "He jests at scars who never felt a wound."

"Surely a more proactive stance would be desirable."

She shrugged. "Sometimes it's like the old song says, 'You can't hurry love. You've just got to wait.'"

"Hmph." The Vulcan crossed his arms and felt affirmed in his private belief that a preponderance of human emotional difficulties were caused by poor management skills and ignorant adherence to the nonsensical, ill-conceived rhetoric of their popular culture.

***

Spock sat at his desk in his cabin, mentally reviewing what he intended to say when Ensign Chekov arrived. After much thought and deliberation, he decided that a straightforward approach would be most efficacious in resolving the situation. Taking no action was merely prolonging the inevitable and creating unnecessary tension.

The doorchime sounded. The ensign, as expected, was prompt. "Come."

"You wished to speak with me, sir?"

When the Vulcan turned, he had to pause a moment and forcibly banish the knowledge that came to him unbidden of how the sweet young body before him looked without a concealing uniform.

Chekov, too, seemed a bit unnerved. Although he did not lose his composure, the ensign's cheeks pinkened noticibly.

This was unfortunately reminiscent of young man's coloring when aroused. Spock cleared his throat and motioned for the ensign to take a seat adjacent to his desk. "Recently, I have been an experiencing a series of disturbing dreams in which you seem to take a part..."

The ensign's delectably soft mouth dropped open in a most picturesque expression of surprise. "I have been having dreams as well."

"Yes." Spock had to clear his throat once more. He picked up a stylus from his desk as if he intended to do something with it only to replace it a second later. "I am aware that you are. It is my belief that as a result of the accidental mind touch that took place between us several weeks ago, we have formed a linkage of some sort. We are not dreaming separately, but are rather co-creating these fantasies through that link."

He paused as the younger man struggled to take this explanation in. At last Chekov looked up, his sensuous lower lip pulled into a frown. "I don't understand. How can this happen?"

"I am at a loss to explain," the Vulcan admitted. "It is a singular occurrence without parallel in my experience."

"But the dreams..." Chekov shook his head slowly. "They are so...."

"I believe they are indications of a strong physical attraction between us."

Spock intended these words to be only factual, but they had a most profound effect on the ensign. The Vulcan could seem reactions of shame, relief, guilt, and desire compete for position on the young man's expressive features.

Fearing the conversation was on the point of degenerating in to the sort of emotional scene he'd sought to avoid, the Science Officer continued. "Despite my strong impulse to indulge this attraction, there are numerous factors that would problematize a potential liaison between the two of us. There are significant differences in age, rank, and culture to be dealt with. Meetings would have to be secretive. Discretion and restraint would be necessary... Are you following me, Ensign?"

Chekov's mobile features were unusually still and blank. "I think so."

"And you would have to enter into the relationship realizing that this unexpected and unwanted attraction could disappear as quickly as it arose," the Vulcan warned. "Both of us need to seriously consider these factors rather than letting ourselves be swept along by mere passion."

The ensign stared at him. Rather than weighing the argument his superior had sketched out for him in an obediently rational manner, the young man seemed to be in the grip of strong sentiment. As his mentor watched in astonished dismay, Chekov's mouth hardened into a firm line. His eyes glittered with anger.

"Then I suggest we forget this conversation took place," he said, his words sounding short and clipped despite his accent. "I would not wish to unnecessarily endanger either of our careers or reputations with an... unexpected and unwanted attraction." The young man almost spat the words out. "And I assure you, I would never stoop to being a mere 'indulgence.'" He rose. "If you will excuse me, sir."

Without waiting for permission, the ensign stalked out.

Spock watched the door close behind him, momentarily dumbstruck .

"Well," a part of his brain commented dryly. "A straightforward and factual approach did bring closure to the situation..."

***

"You look in the mood for music," Uhura said as the Vulcan entered for their weekly session. She had arrived at the Officer's Lounge before him and was strumming the borrowed lyrette in a manner that would be much more appropriate to a Terran instrument.

Two nights of lonely dreaming made it tempting to growl at her. "Perhaps you misjudge my demeanour, Lieutenant," he said instead.

She smiled and quoted, "If music be the food of love, play on,

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die."

"Illogical," he said, compacting into one short word his regret over his mishandling of the incident with Chekov, his continued longing for the ensign, and his annoyance at Uhura's damnably uncanny ability to perceive his embarrassingly Human frailties.

"C'mon over, Sugar," she said, patting the seat next to her. "I think I need to be the teacher today. Looks like you're learning a lesson about singing the blues..."

***end***