Canfuné (Spock/McCoy)
Title: Canfuné
Fandom & Pairing: Star Trek AOS, Spock/McCoy
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Genre: drama
Word Count: Around 1100
Beta: unbetaed
Prompt: Written for circ-bamboo's wonderful awesomely untranslatable: a comment fic fest. Slightly edited since it was first posted there.
Summary: Cafuné: the act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.
Leonard lay propped up against a pillow with Spock’s head on his chest, lazily running his fingers through the thick fine hair. It was fascinating in its texture, possessing a subtle silkiness that felt distinctly alien despite its human appearance. It behaved differently too, tending to fall in a single wave, almost like water. Of all his interactions with the infuriating Vulcan First Officer, this was the time he loved best. Their verbal battles were always stimulating, their sexual encounters with their understated struggle for dominance even more so.
But it was in this moment, in the hazy warmth of the afterglow, with Spock curled up against him, radiating heat, channeling his inner cat as Leonard gently stroked his hair, that he could finally begin to believe that the two of them - so different, so contrary - might have some kind of future together.
“Canfuné,” murmured Spock.
“Hmm?”
“Canfuné. A word from Brazilian Portuguese to describe the act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair. A concept that is puzzlingly lacking in Standard.”
Leonard’s heart flared with jealousy. Spock had probably learnt the word from Nyota. He kept waiting to Spock to come to his senses - to realize that he could be sharing his graceful body and brilliant mind with the lovely communications officer, or with their extraordinary captain. He could return to the woman who had supported him in the terrible days after the Battle of Vulcan. Or he could further that famous friendship with Jim predicted by the mysterious older Vulcan. At some point Spock would realize that he was wasted on a bitter, grumpy divorcee doctor who channeled the stress of floating in deep space in a tin can run by a bunch of whiz kids barely out of high school by lashing out at those closest to him. Spock would realize he could do better.
He mused over the description again. Tenderly. That the self-contained Vulcan would accept tenderness from him twisted his heart in a good way. He ached to offer the affection he carried within him. He knew he could love truly and deeply, if only given the chance, yet it always seemed to fail to satisfy when filtered through his awkward actions or his grouchy mouth.
“Does the concept exist in Vulcan?” he asked.
“It does not. It is too intimate an action to be lightly spoken of.”
Leonard basked in the warmth of being allowed intimacy with this extraordinary being. He let his fingers trail along the edge of Spock’s hairline, just above the temples where he knew the Vulcan mind-meld points lay. Spock hadn’t asked and Leonard was too scared to suggest it. He hid his fear in bluster about not messing around with alien consciousnesses, but in truth his concern lay with the banal nature of his own thoughts. If Spock had access to his mind, to his petty jealousies, to his trivial musings, to his occasional bouts of self-loathing, he would know once and for all that he could do better.
And yet Leonard longed to try it. After his bruising marriage, after years of being told that if he really loved her, he’d act in some way or another that he didn’t understand, after years of having her love sometimes offered freely and at other times perplexingly withheld, the idea of being able to truly feel his partner’s emotions, to able to truly offer his own without having to filter them through his inept actions or his gauche mouth - that was extraordinarily tempting.
He watched his fingers as they carded gently through the blue-black strands.
Maybe one day he would have the courage to offer.
*
Spock shivered subtly as the doctor’s broad fingertips teased above his temples before turning back into the depths of his hair. Cafuné. It was strange to him that it was a human culture, normally so given to imprecision in communication, that should have realized that this concept ached to be defined. He found the act of having his hair stroked more erotic than he could ever admit. He’d never had a lover so taken with his hair. Every shift of the fine follicles sent a frisson of arousal through his nervous system. And every touch of those fingertips against his skull sent fine tracks of honey-gold awareness across his mind.
He’d never understood why Nyota, whose mind felt a cool aquamarine of control and competence, had thought the doctor’s defining characteristic to be compassion. It had appeared to him to be better defined as belligerence. When the CMO had inadvertently touched him skin to skin during an emergency medical procedure following yet another ill-fated away mission, he’d expected to feel a chaotic medley of purples and blues, a mind colored like a bruise, disorganized and bitter.
Instead he’d felt a wash of sunshine, warm and healing, with golden yellow transitioning into deep orange and brilliant ruby of concern and empathy. The closest he’d ever felt to anything like it had been his mother’s mind but even she had not blazed with color in the generous way that the doctor did. In a universe now permanently cold and shadowy with the loss of the many billion subtle mental links that had held Vulcans together as a race, the bright heat of Leonard McCoy was a revelation and an inescapable temptation.
During their next argument he had caught the doctor’s large hand in his own and found that the anger overlay stress and that the stress overlay concern and that the concern blazed with welcoming warmth and he’d shut the doctor’s infuriating mouth with his own and felt a wash of violet surprise from the other man that someone could actually want him that way.
Leonard’s fingers were now tracing soft circles at the base of his skull. He buried his face against the human’s broad chest and let the warmth wash through him. Of all their time together, he liked this lazy aftermath the best. In the afterglow, Leonard’s emotions cleared. The grey stains that often hung over his mind like sullen clouds dissipated and the clarity of his fundamental character shone through like sunlight illuminating a stained glass window.
The fingers traced their way lazily along the edge of his hairline, brushing past the tip of his ear, moving tantalizingly close to his meld points once more. Spock knew that the doctor feared a mind meld, feared tainting his humanity with an alien consciousness. Spock feared it too, feared that his hard-won control would be drowned in a wild sea of chaotic human emotion. And yet he desired it above all else. In a universe now so cold and lifeless to his Vulcan’s senses, the temptation of drowning himself in Leonard’s golden heat was almost more than he could bear.
The fingers slid back across the top of his skull and he sucked in a deep breath.
Maybe one day he would have the courage to ask.
- THE END -
Fandom & Pairing: Star Trek AOS, Spock/McCoy
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Genre: drama
Word Count: Around 1100
Beta: unbetaed
Prompt: Written for circ-bamboo's wonderful awesomely untranslatable: a comment fic fest. Slightly edited since it was first posted there.
Summary: Cafuné: the act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.
Leonard lay propped up against a pillow with Spock’s head on his chest, lazily running his fingers through the thick fine hair. It was fascinating in its texture, possessing a subtle silkiness that felt distinctly alien despite its human appearance. It behaved differently too, tending to fall in a single wave, almost like water. Of all his interactions with the infuriating Vulcan First Officer, this was the time he loved best. Their verbal battles were always stimulating, their sexual encounters with their understated struggle for dominance even more so.
But it was in this moment, in the hazy warmth of the afterglow, with Spock curled up against him, radiating heat, channeling his inner cat as Leonard gently stroked his hair, that he could finally begin to believe that the two of them - so different, so contrary - might have some kind of future together.
“Canfuné,” murmured Spock.
“Hmm?”
“Canfuné. A word from Brazilian Portuguese to describe the act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair. A concept that is puzzlingly lacking in Standard.”
Leonard’s heart flared with jealousy. Spock had probably learnt the word from Nyota. He kept waiting to Spock to come to his senses - to realize that he could be sharing his graceful body and brilliant mind with the lovely communications officer, or with their extraordinary captain. He could return to the woman who had supported him in the terrible days after the Battle of Vulcan. Or he could further that famous friendship with Jim predicted by the mysterious older Vulcan. At some point Spock would realize that he was wasted on a bitter, grumpy divorcee doctor who channeled the stress of floating in deep space in a tin can run by a bunch of whiz kids barely out of high school by lashing out at those closest to him. Spock would realize he could do better.
He mused over the description again. Tenderly. That the self-contained Vulcan would accept tenderness from him twisted his heart in a good way. He ached to offer the affection he carried within him. He knew he could love truly and deeply, if only given the chance, yet it always seemed to fail to satisfy when filtered through his awkward actions or his grouchy mouth.
“Does the concept exist in Vulcan?” he asked.
“It does not. It is too intimate an action to be lightly spoken of.”
Leonard basked in the warmth of being allowed intimacy with this extraordinary being. He let his fingers trail along the edge of Spock’s hairline, just above the temples where he knew the Vulcan mind-meld points lay. Spock hadn’t asked and Leonard was too scared to suggest it. He hid his fear in bluster about not messing around with alien consciousnesses, but in truth his concern lay with the banal nature of his own thoughts. If Spock had access to his mind, to his petty jealousies, to his trivial musings, to his occasional bouts of self-loathing, he would know once and for all that he could do better.
And yet Leonard longed to try it. After his bruising marriage, after years of being told that if he really loved her, he’d act in some way or another that he didn’t understand, after years of having her love sometimes offered freely and at other times perplexingly withheld, the idea of being able to truly feel his partner’s emotions, to able to truly offer his own without having to filter them through his inept actions or his gauche mouth - that was extraordinarily tempting.
He watched his fingers as they carded gently through the blue-black strands.
Maybe one day he would have the courage to offer.
*
Spock shivered subtly as the doctor’s broad fingertips teased above his temples before turning back into the depths of his hair. Cafuné. It was strange to him that it was a human culture, normally so given to imprecision in communication, that should have realized that this concept ached to be defined. He found the act of having his hair stroked more erotic than he could ever admit. He’d never had a lover so taken with his hair. Every shift of the fine follicles sent a frisson of arousal through his nervous system. And every touch of those fingertips against his skull sent fine tracks of honey-gold awareness across his mind.
He’d never understood why Nyota, whose mind felt a cool aquamarine of control and competence, had thought the doctor’s defining characteristic to be compassion. It had appeared to him to be better defined as belligerence. When the CMO had inadvertently touched him skin to skin during an emergency medical procedure following yet another ill-fated away mission, he’d expected to feel a chaotic medley of purples and blues, a mind colored like a bruise, disorganized and bitter.
Instead he’d felt a wash of sunshine, warm and healing, with golden yellow transitioning into deep orange and brilliant ruby of concern and empathy. The closest he’d ever felt to anything like it had been his mother’s mind but even she had not blazed with color in the generous way that the doctor did. In a universe now permanently cold and shadowy with the loss of the many billion subtle mental links that had held Vulcans together as a race, the bright heat of Leonard McCoy was a revelation and an inescapable temptation.
During their next argument he had caught the doctor’s large hand in his own and found that the anger overlay stress and that the stress overlay concern and that the concern blazed with welcoming warmth and he’d shut the doctor’s infuriating mouth with his own and felt a wash of violet surprise from the other man that someone could actually want him that way.
Leonard’s fingers were now tracing soft circles at the base of his skull. He buried his face against the human’s broad chest and let the warmth wash through him. Of all their time together, he liked this lazy aftermath the best. In the afterglow, Leonard’s emotions cleared. The grey stains that often hung over his mind like sullen clouds dissipated and the clarity of his fundamental character shone through like sunlight illuminating a stained glass window.
The fingers traced their way lazily along the edge of his hairline, brushing past the tip of his ear, moving tantalizingly close to his meld points once more. Spock knew that the doctor feared a mind meld, feared tainting his humanity with an alien consciousness. Spock feared it too, feared that his hard-won control would be drowned in a wild sea of chaotic human emotion. And yet he desired it above all else. In a universe now so cold and lifeless to his Vulcan’s senses, the temptation of drowning himself in Leonard’s golden heat was almost more than he could bear.
The fingers slid back across the top of his skull and he sucked in a deep breath.
Maybe one day he would have the courage to ask.
- THE END -