Chapter Text
Not a single customer.
Nada. Zilch.
He had opened the shop earlier in the day, around two, and hadn’t seen a single soul.
He sighs, probably for the fifth time in half an hour. Opening this tech shop was supposed to be his way out of the underground work, away from the grind that left bruises on the soul and credits that always felt sticky.
But it hadn’t brought much.
But it was his, and he was proud of it. Especially since he liked making money that didn’t feel dirty. He would get a few repairs here and there, enough to break even, but business was admittedly slow.
So he was still hosting at night. A job that, with each year, becomes a little more unbearable to clock into.
Though he likes the money the club gives him. And he really needs it as the income covers his regular rent and the other utilities associated with the shop.
He sighs again, running a tired hand through his hair. He scans around his little shack of electronics.
The shop vibrated with its own quiet life in the changing glow of stacked monitors along the back wall—old televisions and mismatched screens layered like crooked, humming towers, their surfaces alive with muted music videos or various genres, looping in hazy bright colors.
When someone stepped closer, the feeds would glitch and shift, pulling the viewer’s own image across every panel in a seamless, full-scale panorama that made the whole wall feel alive and watchful.
Vines and broad-leafed ferns spilled from hanging planters and shelf edges, stubborn green life he coaxed through the humid, ozone-tinged air of the undercity, their leaves brushing against clunky communicators and glowing circuitry.
It was a small rebellion, keeping something alive in a place that tried to stay half-dead.
On the opposite wall, the analog cat clock ticked away, its tail and eyes waggling back and forth in a ridiculous rhythm, a relic he’d hoped would draw in curious eyes.
It had, for a while. Fleeting interest, like everything else.
He sighs, and glances at the time. A little after seven, and he’s due at Mudd’s in four hours.
He’s just thinking about closing up early and retreating upstairs to relax a little before his shift when he hears the electronic bell chime at the entrance.
And it feels a little like speaking of the devil, despite not knowing the customer, but his somewhat bleak thoughts on his semi-failing business make it feel so.
But who walks in makes all the air leave the shop and has him clenching his jaw and gripping the countertop until his knuckles ache.
Vulcan.
They ran this region and the three neighboring areas, making them the largest syndicate. The other groups, gangs, and squads ran amok in the bordering territories, but it was known they were only able to do what was allowed by the Vulcans.
Jim wasn’t big on knowing too much about what any of the groups got into—reasons why he liked being a host at a club. It was probably the only industry none of them cared to control, and they were never seen in any of the clubs.
Seedy entertainment was strictly Human affairs. And Jim, like most, preferred it that way.
He had worked his way up to the better clubs before becoming one of Mudd’s cash cows. Mudd never asked his ‘delights,’ as he referred to his staff, to screw the guests for money.
He was one of the few clubs that didn’t have it as a requirement. And since Mudd wanted to run a clean club, only gambling and drugs were allowed.
Which was fine with him. He had kept his nose clean for years and preferred not having to spend his shifts dissociating from his body to escape the now.
At Mudd’s, he was simply expected to entertain. And that included well-timed jokes, flirting that made him want to yak, and the every once in a while pointed touching with the guests.
It was good money. Easy money.
He was charismatic, and had all his teeth—as Mudd had said upon hiring him.
Working for Mudd kept him out of the worst of what this life had to offer.
But what are the odds that a Vulcan steps into his shop?
He had seen what they do to others—well, not the Vulcans themselves—but the other rings that run the other territories. Had been unlucky enough to live in some of them, till he could afford to apply for residence in the better areas—Vulcan-run.
They were their own type of ruthless, and the best way to keep out of their sight was paying their tax, moving if you didn’t like it, or if you couldn’t afford it, of course.
Most of the groups only messed with each while civilians were essentially collateral. He didn’t want to even think about what type of consequences the mental freaks gave out.
He and anyone he knew always turned the other way when they were spotted, especially in groups.
They were a unique bunch, allowing women in their rankings—probably ‘cause they could beat the brakes off you just as bad. They didn’t even walk around with weapons since they technically were the weapons.
Though as much as it pained one to admit, any Human that could afford to live in the Vulcan regions could expect fewer shootouts, robberies, and assaults.
The turf wars still happened, and anyone unlucky enough to be in the middle of one—oh well. But the adjacent factions had to plan more calculated attacks; they didn’t have the type of power and stealth to cause a string of chaos.
It hadn’t been anything like he grew up—Vulcan territory was peaceful.
Outside of using their presence to clear out a space, Vulcans left Humans alone.
Which meant typically it was Humans hurting Humans.
So he puts his best customer service foot forward, though it’s behind a tight smile that’s anything but welcoming.
He tells himself to just serve the customer as usual—with the goal in mind not a sale, but to get the Vulcan the hell out as soon as possible.
“Welcome, what can I do for ya’?” He asks, leaning against the counter, palms down against the glass tops.
The Vulcan says nothing. His eyes scan the shop in a way that drags across every glowing monitor, every trailing vine, the cat clock, the shadowed corners—like he’s memorizing the layout, claiming the space simply by looking at it.
The heavy, textured overcoat he wears pulls tighter across his broad shoulders as he moves, the dark fabric swallowing the neon bleed from the screens whole.
A long jagged scar sliced down his forehead—cutting clean through the straight black bangs and right pointed brow before trailing over his right eye.
He thinks momentarily about the person who could have put it there. Then about how they’re probably not among the living.
His black hair was cut in that severe, precise Vulcan style that somehow sharpened every angle of his face, drawing the eye straight to the quiet intensity that was making Jim’s pulse quicken with each passing second.
He’s probably just scoping the area his mind suggests—which for some reason makes the hairs on Jim’s arm prickle and heat crawl up the back of his neck.
After he’s done, scan complete, his dark eyes settle on Jim, and he has to force his palms still, flat against the counter, as he stares into Jim’s soul it feels like.
“You repair communicator devices?”
The question is attached to a low, even tone of voice that somehow fills the small shop like smoke, evading his lungs and leaving him light headed.
“I do.” He says with the same tight smile.
He removes all the snark that dares to bleed through, ‘cause it wasn’t like he didn’t have a giant fucking sign in the window that stated as such.
The Vulcan says nothing at that, assesses him for another moment, eyes pinning him in place, then reaches in his jacket pocket, eyes still on Jim, and takes out his communicator, laying it on the counter.
Jim somehow keeps the same smile as his eyes break away from the dark ones still glued to him and drop to the device.
The screen’s front is cracked and flickering when he goes to pick it up and click the power button; he watches as it glitches on, displaying a discolored blend of fractured data.
“Five minutes.” He says and releases a breath he didn’t realise he was holding when the Vulcan steps away from the counter and wanders to the opposite wall, looking at the tech graphs he has displayed there.
He gets to work.
He unscrews the cover and…
It’s broken.
He could put on a new screen easily and stop the glitching, and he will, but the communicator itself was broken. He sets out replacing the screen first, he’ll let the Vulcan know when he’s done.
He grabs a cleaning cloth, wiping away at whatever the hell is caked on in the deeper circuit, a mix of something crusted red and blue.
He doesn’t care to think what it could be.
Not sure if he even wants to find out.
“This is a peculiar clock.” The Vulcan quips, back to him, staring at the cat clock on the wall.
And he can’t help the slight jump. He hadn’t expected the guy to say anything else.
“It’s old. Vintage,” he says, thinking it better to speak back then not respond at all, finding the comment odd in a way that makes his skin itch.
He gets back to work. Cleaning the communicator and unscrewing the back to check the main board, just to confirm that yeah, it’s done for. After that he looks through his bins of assorted communicator parts for the right one.
He looks up, needing to know where the Vulcan is and sees him approaching the group of monitors. As always, when one approaches, the picture changes to the watcher—a neat little trick done with a set of hidden cameras.
He swallows hard, seeing the Vulcan enlarged on the screens with his back turned makes him almost wish he had never added the feature. His face stretched across every panel, towering and severe. His dark eyes magnified and seemingly staring back at Jim.
His eyes flicked back to the communicator clutched in his hand, noting with a flicker of irritation how it trembled. He dragged his focus back to work, fingers moving with practiced deftness across the screen despite the unsteady rhythm.
Get the Vulcan out, he repeats to himself.
When he’s done, he looks up to see that the Vulcan has left the screens and approached the counter, his eyes on him again. He wonders when his attention left the wall to him and just how long the guy might have been watching him.
He gives a small smile and slides the communicator across the counter, and watches as the Vulcan picks it up and shoves it back into his coat pocket.
“You completed that in 3.8 minutes.”
“Oh,” he shrugs, not really sure what to make of the comment. “I just gave an estimate.”
He receives a short, blank stare once again, as if the Vulcan is peeling him apart layer by layer, assessing every hidden weakness and secret.
The look feels heavy, pressing down on him, wrapping around his throat and chest.
“How much for fixing my device?”
“Oh, I didn’t fix it.” He says with a slight shake of his head, “Your communicator’s one drop away from being completely done for. I recommend getting a new one as soon as you can.”
But the blank face he receives has him fumbling, feeling like he should explain in the clearest detail before he ends up on a missing person’s holo-board over the freeway.
“I just popped on a new screen and fixed the glitching, but it’s on it’s last leg, and if someone tries to ‘fix it’ they’re just scamming you.”
And he can’t help the bite of his tongue at his words as the Vulcan’s eyes just trace his face.
He thinks that implying the Vulcan is capable of being scammed is gonna get his head slammed into the counter but—
That doesn’t happen. Instead, there’s the slightest touch of something hot in the air between them, and he wills himself not to jerk back.
“The charge?”
“There isn’t a charge, I didn’t fix it,” he reiterates this time with a slight snort. He wouldn’t have even charged a regular person for it, so he’s not gonna charge this guy.
“One hundred.” The Vulcan says, and Jim can’t help but laugh out loud a little.
“Persistent, but still no charge.” He assures with a slight wave of his hand.
“Two hundred.”
Another laugh, he didn’t peg Vulcan’s to be this oddly friendly. “I said—”
“Four hundred.”
And he stops, his smile falling flat. And he feels his hands at his side shake. ‘Cause the Vulcan isn’t joking. They didn’t joke.
And he’s far from being friendly.
He’s still staring with that same expressionless face, but his demeanor mirrors one of a predator locked onto its chosen prey. It radiates from him in dark waves, wrapping around Jim.
Dangerous.
He swallows hard around the dry lump that has suddenly wedged itself in his throat.
He doesn’t want to owe him anything. Doesn’t want to be involved in this conversation more than he has to.
And so he recites his original plan in his head. Get the Vulcan out as quickly as possible.
So if that meant being a little complacent, so be it.
He smiles tightly and punches in a four-hundred-credit invoice for a communicator he hadn’t even fixed.
He thinks that if he doesn’t accept the payment, it’ll remain there in the system and will be sent back.
It’ll probably take two or three days, and by then the Vulcan would have forgotten about him, he’s sure.
As he’s punching in the sale, the Vulcan pulls out a sleek platinum credit chip from his coat pocket.
Then Jim’s communicator rings, jolting him, and he watches as the Vulcan’s arm with his credit chip lowers—he still hasn’t paid.
He takes his communicator out of his pocket to silence it and can’t help the eyeroll at Mudd’s name across the screen. He presses the silencer and shoves it back in his pocket.
Of course, any small idling on the crap, old POS system Jim could afford pushes him out in this short amount of time, and he has to punch in the purchase again.
Four hundred credits. He swallows around the amount. Not nearly as much as he’s been tipped by his more generous guests, but not cheap.
Get him out. He tells himself again.
He is just about to hit submit so the guy can pay when his phone goes off again, and he knows it’s Mudd.
“You will not answer it?” The Vulcan asks, and the question leaves him momentarily gapping as he blurts out a response.
“I’m speaking with you, a customer, that would be rude.” He says.
“You may answer it.”
And Jim holds the scoff back from the ‘you may’, but reaches in his back pocket and pulls out his communicator and answers, walking a little down the counter in a small move of professionalism and privacy.
“What, Mudd?”
“Aw, that’s how you greet your employer?” Mudd’s voice bellows through, “Need you to come in early, there are guests with credits wanting to spend them.”
“Not due for work till eleven, Mudd.” He practically sneers into the receiver.
Being one of Mudd’s cash cows came with its own drawbacks. The man thought Jim should be on-call whenever enough rich assholes were present at the club.
“Do you have a phone number for your establishment?” the Vulcan asks, his eyes locked on Jim.
Jim swallows hard again, the motion tight in his throat, knowing those eyes had never left him—not for a single second.
“Ah, sure.” He says, walking back to the register, opening the drawer beneath it where he kept a box of business cards.
He had got them made. A bit overzealous with thinking about how the shop would go, as he had two unopened cartons full of them.
The number was his own personal so it was an honest waste.
He holds out the holographic card to the Vulcan and gives another smile as Mudd’s voice prattles on in his ear.
He’s not sure why the Vulcan would need it. His communicator was broken, but whatever.
He’d do anything to get the Vulcan the hell out.
He turns slightly away again, hand still outstretched to the Vulcan as he turns his focus back on Mudd.
“Fine, I’ll be there early, but like ten minutes early.”
“I’d be happy even if it was a minute.” He laughs, the sound ringing in his ear, “There’s money to be made, Jim!”
He rolls his eyes at this and again when Mudd continues on, going on about nothing really.
Then he jumps at the touch of the Vulcan’s fingers brushing his as he takes the card from him.
Those dark eyes just stare into his, and he once again feels like he might actually get his head slammed into the counter at the accidental touch.
The brief contact lingers like static. The Vulcan’s touch had been hot and the lingering heat sends an unwelcome shiver down his spine.
When he had been approved to live in their region he had been read a small list of explicit rules to follow.
Pay your tax. Do not interact with any of the Vulcans unless they initiate first. And above all, do not touch them. Not even an accidental brush was permitted—it was enough to have one fined, or worse.
But no painful punishment descends.
Instead, Jim can only watch, pulse hammering, as the Vulcan slowly flicks the business card between his long fingers once, then twice, a deliberate, almost sensual motion. Before slipping it into his coat pocket.
He hangs up on Mudd, their business done and he’s back to his main goal right here and now.
Get the Vulcan out.
He punches in the charge, tsking at the system kicking him out again. This time though, his fingers shake as they input the sale. The Vulcan raises his credit-chip to pay and once done, Jim feels slightly relieved.
Slightly.
“Have a nice evening.” He says to the Vulcan as he would to anyone, but the flick of dark eyes leaves him breathless and pinned in place.
He receives the smallest nods of acknowledgment, and the Vulcan turns, slinking out the same way he did on the way in, leaving the shop feeling smaller and heavier in his wake.
As soon as the Vulcan is out of his shop, he counts to sixty before moving from behind the counter and across the store, locking the front door, drawing the shades, and setting the alarm.
He exits the back door, where the front street noise can’t reach. He locks the back, and turns, entering the door right beside it that leads to his studio. He unlocks it, climbing the stairs that immediately greet him.
At the top is the second front door, he supposed, and when he punches in his access code, he’s finally home.
It’s an odd layout, but having his front door not viewable from the main road makes him feel hidden, though he really isn’t.
Before he started renting the bottom floor for his shop, it had served as the landlord’s storage. It hadn’t been a big renovation; getting the junk out was the hardest bit, and the floors and walls were all intact.
He stretches his arms above his head, a sigh escaping as the tension from the shop finally starts to bleed out. Happy to be back in his space.
He lives in a small one-bedroom apartment, but it was his and he was happy to have something to call his own.
Life hadn’t started out this way.
His place is a living extension of the shop below—compact, cluttered in the best way, and alive with color and light.
Dense hanging vines and broad-leafed plants spill from every available surface and ceiling hook, their leaves glowing under shifting neon strips of pink, electric blue, and warm honey.
The air smells of the faint green sweetness of living things fighting back against the concrete sprawl.
Glowing monitors and half-finished projects crowd the walls and low shelves: open circuit boards, dismantled communicators, tangled cables, and salvaged holoprojectors that cast soft, ever-changing cityscapes across the ceiling.
Collectibles he should have sold for decent credits sit among them—vintage data pads with cracked screens, antique Earth tech curiosities, a small fleet of miniature starship models he’d rebuilt from scrap just because the wiring fascinated him.
None of it was for sale. Technical curiosity always won out over profit.
A large window dominates one wall of his bedroom, its smart panels currently opaque and sealed against the outside world.
He keeps them closed most nights, especially when getting ready for a shift. Beyond them, when he does open the panels, the full city sprawls out like a living circuit board, but right now he wants the cocoon.
He strips quickly and steps into the shower, letting the hot water beat against his skin as steam fills the small bathroom. He lathered carefully, then spent extra time moisturizing—slow strokes over his arms, chest, and neck, before spritzing on a light cologne that carried warm notes of spice and something faintly sweet.
All part of the look.
To the point, it’s muscle memory.
He styles his hair with careful fingers until the blonde waves fall just right—swept back and curling softly at his temples in that effortless way that took a lot of effort.
He adds a touch of subtle shimmer to his eyelids and brown mascara to darken his lashes a bit.
He slides into his maroon suit for tonight. It’s a sharp three-piece, lines hugging his frame, the wide lapels and draped trousers giving him the polished edge Mudd’s higher-class crowd expected.
No skin, all couth.
He checks the mirror one last time, giving himself a cheeky thumbs up. He looks good as always, and can admit that the getting-ready ritual does stroke his ego a little.
Then he stands from his vanity and slings his jacket on. Before he heads to the door, he’s at his kitchen island unscrewing a bottle of Romulan vodka and reaches for his shot glass right beside it.
Another part of the routine.
Two-shots was Jim's nickname when he first started in the clubbing industry; he had been a lightweight then, as that was all he needed to have a good time.
Now he takes them ‘cause he can’t do this shit sober. Needs something to loosen him into the fantasy he’s expected to put on.
The hover-cab Mudd calls for all his workers is already idling at the curb when he steps outside into the drizzle.
Cool mist kisses his face as Jim slides in, the city lights smearing across the tinted windows, unaware of shadows in the corners watching.
₊˚.༄
The sleek hovercar sat motionless half a block down the shadowed side street, its tinted windows drinking in the neon lights and sudden rain drops.
Three point two hours in which Spock had not moved, had not blinked more than necessary, every sense tuned to the small glowing shop and the Human inside it who had, in the space of minutes, branded himself into the core of Spock’s being.
“Why are we just sitting here?” McCoy groans out, not for the first time, shifting in the driver’s seat with the restless energy of a man who knows he will not receive a satisfactory answer.
“We are waiting.” He responds as he did each time, even, from control that felt thin.
“For?” McCoy asks, not for the first time, and the ‘for’ finally comes out, appearing from behind the building walking through the short alleyway. “Oh, him.”
Spock feels his muscles tighten the instant he sees the man—exactly as they had the first time those blue eyes had lifted to meet his across the store.
In the shop, hours earlier, Spock had catalogued every infinitesimal reaction: the way the blonde’s pulse had jumped visibly at the base of his throat when their gazes locked; the faint flush that crept beneath the sharp line of his jaw at the sound of Spock’s voice; the way those clever fingers had held themselves out to him, begging for the touch Spock himself had engineered.
He had craved it the moment the human’s attention drifted elsewhere, seizing the narrow advantage to press skin to skin.
Heat, immediate and illogical, floods the nerves of his right hand where their fingers had brushed.
The contact had ignited something feral beneath his skin, a spark that still burned, demanding more.
More skin. More breath. More of that startled, defiant gaze turned soft and willing beneath him.
It had left him aching in the limited time he had spent in the human’s shop—needing the blonde with a possessiveness that bordered on violence, needing to own every startled inhale, every flicker of heat in those eyes, needing to mark him so thoroughly that no other gaze would ever satisfy.
Spock’s breath remained perfectly controlled, but something darker, more primal, uncoiled in his chest as the man emerged.
The deep maroon suit clung to every lean, devastating line of his frame like liquid sin poured over him—wide lapels framing the strong, elegant column of his throat, the draped trousers shifting with each step to accentuate the long, powerful muscles of his legs. The rich fabric caught the wet neon glow of the city, turning him into something luminous and untouchably beautiful.
His blonde hair was styled in soft waves; a faint shimmer dusted his eyelids, sharpening the striking blue of his eyes, and a delicate gold hoop glinted in one ear.
He looked quite pleasing in this style of attire.
He looked like everything Spock needed to claim for himself.
The human lifts a hand above his eyes, squinting against the downpour, hair already curling at his temples in damp golden strands that Spock wants to fist his fingers through.
Wants to tilt that face up and taste the rain on those lips.
The hover-cab that had idled at the curb for twenty minutes prior opens its door with a soft hydraulic hush.
Spock’s gaze devours every detail as the blonde walks to it—confident stride, small genuine smile already forming for the driver, voice muffled by rain and distance as he greets the man with an easy warmth that belongs to Spock alone.
He watches him enter. Hears the cadence of that voice offering a laugh that should be his.
Then he watches the door shut, and the hover-cab pulls away, it’s taillights cutting through the drizzle, carrying the human into the pulsing veins of the undercity night.
“He’s one of Mudd’s workers,” McCoy comments, tone dry.
“You are familiar with him?” He asks, turning slightly, eyes fixed on the raindrops racing down the windshield as if they might reveal the cab’s path.
“Not at all. But he’s getting into Mudd’s hover-cab; he uses it to pick up his employees. Offers it as a safety measure. Mudd owns three host clubs in the region, the main one must be where he’s headed. Kid looks like the cream of the crop.”
He hums at McCoy’s words.
Yes, he recalls the call, hearing Mudd on the other end, remembers James stating his name when he answered the call.
He feels satisfaction well in his veins as things are already falling into place, quite easily.
The human had been too giving, unknowingly offering his personal information like a gift laid bare for Spock’s taking.
The pieces were aligning like they had been waiting for him to simply reach out and claim them.
Claim him.
“I will need you to make quick arrangements to deliver something for me within the hour.”
“Of course.” McCoy snorts, his sarcastic lilt carrying, and Spock exhales evenly at the man’s familiar irreverence, the sound almost fond in its predictability.
“And find everything you can about him.” He says, pulling the business card from his pocket. Spock holds the card to him without shifting his stare from the now-empty street.
McCoy takes it and reads the name aloud, “James K. - Tech Connoisseur.” He hears the man snort softly, “Kid’s gotta work on his tagline.”
“McCoy.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll get started on it. I’ll send someone to monitor him.” He says.
“Send them in three days.” He corrects.
He doesn’t want James becoming aware of his shadow just yet.
“How much do Mudd’s employees make?”
“Probably a thousand credits on a good night.” McCoy shrugs.
He feels a sharp twist at this. Feels his jaw clench. The four hundred he had paid James would not impress him.
“Ensure that who you send pays double.”
He ignores the huff McCoy makes. “You interested?” He asks, brows quirked in question.
Spock says nothing.
McCoy, who has been by his side long enough, knows silence is the louder response than words.
“Poor guy.” He mutters and powers the hover-car on.
Spock makes the slightest of sounds. An almost imperceptible hum in the back of his throat—a sound of agreement.
Because interest was far too mild a word.
The memory of that fleeting contact still seared—warm human skin, the faint tremor in the man’s pulse, the way those eyes had widened just enough to betray the spark of fear and something hotter beneath it.
It had set him off completely, leaving him needing more of the blonde with a hunger that clawed at the edges of his control.
He would have every inch of that skin, every gasp, every defiant spark extinguished beneath the weight of his claim.
The rain intensified, streaking the windshield, but Spock’s gaze remained locked on the empty curb as though he could see the imprint of James’ footsteps.
McCoy pulls away, going on about the deal in the northern region they’re needed at. The rain droplets smear against the windshield, pelting down as they weave through oncoming traffic.
He feels the slightest irrational stab of disappointment as he watches the human’s shop come out of view.
As if the connection has been broken and the thought pounds around his mind, causing his blood to heat with need.
James.
He would have him.