Author's note: Spock's various capabilities are often used as Deus Ex Machina plot solutions. He is three (or five) times as strong as a human. He has telepathy. He has an eidetic memory, absolute time sense, inner eyelids… But humans have a lot of really cool skills too, that we often don't think about because we take them for granted.

-o0o-

Chapter 1. Reading body language.

"How do you have enough data to form that conclusion?" Spock asks, eyes narrowing slightly.

Jim glances at him, thoughts still on the chess board in front of him.

"Huh? About Hernandez and Scotty? Well, it's obvious."

The Vulcan just looks at him, and Jim runs a hand through his hair, trying to find the right words.

"It's… just look at the way they're not looking at each other. They're both embarrassed about the argument they had, they know the other is embarrassed too. Now they're trying to figure out what to do about it. Scotty's still a bit angry, Hernandez feels a bit guilty. Even so, I bet Scotty's going to apologize first."

The Vulcan looks quickly at the two men at the other end of the rec room, glance furtive as if he is doing something inappropriate. Jim thinks he looks a bit lost.

"What can you tell, Spock?" He coaxes.

"They are standing in two different groups of people. Approximately four meters, eleven centimeters from each other." (Jim hides a smile. He never gets tired of that precision.) "I have not observed them exchanging words. They do tense their shoulder muscles more frequently than usual, which is usually indicative of some distress."

Jim nods encouragingly, but as far as the two humans' emotions go, Spock is not able to conclude anything more about the source of that distress. Darting another glance, he ventures:

"Mr. Scott was scheduled to do crew evaluations today, but from the creases on his elbows and knees, I surmise he spent at least an hour crawling in the maintenance shafts instead. Junctions 255-257."

Jim raises his eyebrows. Spock is grateful that he at least has no trouble interpreting that communicative signal, and promptly explains:

"There are some insulation threads adhering to Mr. Scott's left shoe. Insulation work is currently going on in that area."

"Pretty impressive, Sherlock. But not really the kind of observations I was fishing for."

"I do not know, Captain." There are few things he dislikes more than saying that. "I can gather no data from which to draw conclusions about their interpersonal relationships, certainly not in the three point four minutes we have been in this room."

He cannot help but feel a (shameful and hastily suppressed) twinge of irritation. Even worse, he finds that the captain is studying him when he looks back.

"You are inferring their emotions and estimating their future actions from their body language and facial expressions," Spock notes, telling himself that there is nothing wrong with doing this. For a human.

"Yeah." The captain smiled at him. "And if I had to take a guess, I can tell from yours that you find this a bit frustrating."

Spock knows that he has stiffened involuntarily, but he is certain the physical reaction is very slight and that it would not have been noticed, and criticized, by his teachers. Nonetheless Jim immediately reacts:

"Spock… I'm sorry. I know it's impolite in Vulcan culture to look for emotions in others. I just can't turn it off, any more than you can turn off that time sense of yours."

"I did not realize my controls were weak enough to subject you to my failure of control."

"I don't feel subjected or inconvenienced by anything. But the more I get to know you, the easier it is for me to read you. And I plan to keep getting to know you better, so you might just have to find a way to live with that. If it helps, I think most of the junior officers find you totally impossible to read."

Spock shook his head, "Your metaphorical use of 'read' seems apt. Once the skill is acquired, it is impossible to not utilize and requires no exertion. Before the skill is learnt, however, attempting it entails a great deal of cognitive investment."

"Yeah. Bones giving you a hard time?"

"The doctor is of the opinion that I should have predicted Ensign Turner's emotional collapse and decreased her work load beforehand."

Jim let out a breath slowly, hand hovering over his bishop. "I think 'should' is a bit harsh. You're her commanding officer, not her parent or partner. She should have talked to someone. In fact we've tried our best to drill it into every cadet that they have to talk to someone when they start feeling panicked. And she's already back on duty, all she really needed was some time off. What her landing party found on that moon… We'll all feel better when we find those smugglers and deliver them to a starbase courthouse."

Jim pulls his hand back slowly from the chess board, seeming more to sense Spock's trap, (eight moves ahead), rather than compute it.

"But yeah, the more you can see those kinds of subconscious signals that humans send out, the better you'll be at commanding them." His gaze lifts to Spock's, and for all that Spock knows that the human is officially mind-blind, a psi-null with no telepathic ability, Spock somehow feels a wave of calm certainty being projected at him. The phenomenon is as vexing as it is… fascinating.

"And you're getting better at it all the time."

"If so, it is very marginal and at a deplorable pace."

Jim's hand closes on the bishop, moves it up a level. There is probably a trap there somewhere, but what the hell. He leans back, considering his words.

He could tell his First that even by human standards, he isn't actually that bad at intuiting human needs and emotions – maybe slightly below average. But slightly below average will never be enough for Spock, not with one of his junior officers in distress, and him possibly having been in a position to prevent it.

"Look, yes, you're not particularly good at this Spock. It's one of your weak areas. And you have a particular dislike of being bad at things and having to struggle with them. Believe me, I sympathize. But aren't there some ancient Vulcan maxims about that being character building?"

Spock almost sighs. "Indeed. A great many maxims."

-o0o-

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment below. What did you think about the story? What are some other human "superpowers" that Spock might be surprised by?

(Also, a special shout out to WeirdLittleStories - I hope you're feeling better!)