The Last Drop Grand Opening

[conflictresolution]

Who: Whoever would like to attend the grand opening mingle at the Last Drop
Where: Entertainment District – The Last Drop
What: The grand opening of the night club / bar
Warnings: Alcohol and low-level drugs




The Last Drop opens big and loud with neon lights and music that booms from within to be heard from the streets. There are two large bouncers at the door, but they were allowing people in very freely on this night until the room was at capacity then there would be a line. The bouncers only stop those who are already three-sheets to the wind and could cause trouble, but otherwise, they are there to break up trouble as the night wears on.

Inside, there was smoke machines, flashing lights, loud music and the drinks were flowing to anyone that wanted. There was plenty of dancing, some dart boards along the walls, a jukebox, tables and booths for patrons to have drinks and discuss business.

There are stairs that lead up to a second floor to one side of the bar, lights on the stairs. There were people lounging on the stairs and it seemed to be ‘employees only’. Patrons were allowed the lounge there as well if they were tired of dancing or the tables or booths were occupied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4aGrN9ZBg0

Comments

[ashaya]

[ And is it a surprise, that therein lies further similarity? For all Jim does not come to hope and expect, so too does Spock. A child born of two worlds, two cultures, two clashing ideals — Spock had learned it was easiest not to want what it was he could not have. He had learned to place aside such desires, to excise its ache like clever fingers to the flesh of stone fruits. Plucked from the tenderest parts of himself, he'd placed those riddled cores behind the length of his ribs. He'd swallowed them down, as though acidity of his own existence might prove detriment enough to keep them from the tentative and inevitable sprouts.

To Spock, it seemed an impossibility that Jim might not see himself as able to achieve anything he'd wanted for himself. He had grappled through the rankings, had endured injury dearer than death. He had pulled Spock from the depths of his own madness, had had Spock pull him from his own in return. How might he not see that such impossibilities were all possible for him? How might he not look upon the breadth of his achievements in the wake of what has happened and not see the indomitable of his own spirit? Perhaps that is where Spock sees him as something both within and beyond a sort of Humanity, an exemplar of something both ancient and new. Few should have reached these peaks in any lifetime, but it seems that Spock has encountered it twice over.

Should he have believed in fortune, he thinks, he would have thought himself as truly lucky.

And yet, such thoughts dissipate under the heady thump of the bass and the cut of the lighting. Spock, for all he is both alert and aware of decreasing proximity (and odd, that such calculations slip through his fingers as though a sieve), does not fully anticipate the way in which Jim studies him now. With the full of his attention, the heavy press of its weight against his skin, it is a task near insurmountable for Spock not to flinch. On other such occasions, it had been as natural as it might have been to meet Jim where he is. To hold his gaze for as long as they might have been permitted, a sort of gravity that so often came to interruption. But, there is something here.

There is something, and Spock feels the way his skin burns under the weight of his open appraisal. No matter the tumult of shame and something darker and without name, Spock cannot successfully keep such a tell from his face. That it is lesser than what might have been expected under such circumstance — his mind seeks distraction. This close, he might identify the shades of blue and green that comprise the bright of Jim's eyes. He might trace their complexity, the way they contrast and settle against the rounded dark of his pupils (interest?). He might find himself comparing the impossible qualities that extend across both time and space, the absolute sincerity unmistakable to any, but—

And then, the moment lapses. His words are lost under the continual roar of his heart in his ears, in the sudden dryness that overtakes his mouth. He should think he has opportunity for a response, a repartee, but then Jim is nudging him. He leans further into his side, makes no comment upon the increased rate of his heartbeat, and is laughing, the movement like the ruffling of a hand through the hair — the wind against one's back. If Spock should have thought to look away, it is a fruitless effort in the aftermath. Any such focus he might have placed upon the page beneath their linked arms, upon the beauty and the patterning of the nebulae Jim draws, is met only with the utter incomprehension that he pulls up in the next breath.

Since when— ]

Jim, [ he starts, somehow and impossibly, both searching and slow. He's tilted his gaze back up to him, the deep furrow of his brow impossible to miss. It's as plain as bafflement might be upon a Vulcan countenance, his mouth parting around the aborted words that he thinks to say, but then thinks the better of. He closes his mouth again, swallowing against the tenderness of Jim's convictions. And yet, and yet— ] Since you became the Enterprise's captain, I've engaged in no such entanglements.

[ He knows not at all where he might have gleaned such an impression; it is possible that the self that Jim knows may have crossed paths with such an individual, but it is difficult thing to conjure who it might be at all. There are few he might have looked to on the bridge, fewer who might have taken the time to understand him. A most fascinating creature, certainly, to withstand the explosive grief and emotionalism of a people displaced. A most curious creature still, to supposedly remain despite an impossible conflict. He should not think it fair to her, but he might see its possible origin. A relationship born of desperation, the need to hold fast to something when what keeps him upon Enterprise had not yet come to suit him.

No, he thinks. It too is a possibility it is simply a relationship mischaracterized. So often, Humans leap to conclusions without gathering necessary evidence. Even Jim, who Spock most oft trusts without question, is not always without error. And himself? No, he himself is not infallible too. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Wanting or not wanting isn't a choice, for him - Jim's guilty of the wanting, unshakeable human instinct that it is. No matter how keenly he's aware that daring to want more was always a recipe for disaster, that it didn't matter what it was you were after; that some people, such as himself, just weren't meant for the things that they wanted. He had learned his lesson young; he had reached for more, for the promise of something better, and it had ended with an abysmal bone mineral density and far too much grief for his age. Scraping by with what you had was surely the better option, the safer one, allowing him to protect the soft underbelly that Jim had never quite been able to form a shell over.

But it didn't stop the wanting, whatever he might have pretended. His enlistment in Starfleet was proof enough of that; if not the way his gaze roams over Spock now, blatant and brazen as ever. There is, however, a difference between the tendrils of wanting taking root, making themselves at home in his body (a sensation Jim is all too familiar with), and acting on it, reaching beyond what he is allowed.

It is true that seeing oneself clearly is an exercise in futility, and perhaps that's the issue here, for both of them. For Jim, he views his so-called achievements as survival; doing what needed to be done, at any cost. That he is a survivor is a bleeding, raw fact, and due, in no small part, to a healthy amount of luck. But he is not invincible; he never has been and he's always known this, despite the Devil-may-care attitude he'd shielded himself with in the early days of his captaincy. The more people tell you something about themselves, the more they are trying to convince you it's the truth. Well, that was obvious - how often had Spock claimed Vulcans do not joke?

And Spock...Jim can't imagine a door that's not open to him should he want it to be, save the xenophobia he had been victim to. Devastatingly handsome, wickedly smart, bitingly funny when he wanted to be. All the ingredients for charm, God forbid the hazard Spock would present, should he ever master it intentionally. But moving forward - space racism was not a comfort afforded to a world shattered, especially after Spock had single-handedly saved the very essence of Vulcan culture. There were simply too few Vulcans for the assholes on the council to ignore him. ]

You're getting the Vulcan glow. [ Jim doesn't know if Vulcans rightly glow or not when under the influence, but he has no other baseline to judge the green flush that's started to make itself known; so instead, he offers his water, nudging the glass gently against the back of Spock's right hand. ] Drink up, Commander.

[ There is definitely something - for all that they are edging beyond the boundaries of their normal wordplay, Jim knows how to read this kind of energy - which is charged, in what little space remains between them. But Jim is not nearly delusional enough to imagine that it is reciprocated. Spock is a friend and Jim is a self-acknowledged incorrigible flirt; if there is more that lies there, tucked in the cut of Jim's smile, the steady, fixed point of his gaze - well, Spock's probably polite enough not to call him out on it.

Besides, Spock had invited Jim's attentions, so clearly he must not mind them that badly. Jim didn't begrudge him it, either; to want was dangerous, but to be wanted? If he was half as handsome as Spock was, Jim would certainly indulge in it way more often.

He's not sure how he's expecting it to go, by poking at the homesickness he knows they're both feeling. As much as it is a comfort to have each other here, as much as they might make the best of it, neither of them are a replacement for all they left behind. Least of all Jim, hailing from the shittier, low-rent timeline; Jim would be missed, maybe, but not in the same way Spock would be, he's sure. Still, he digresses: he's not sure what he's expecting - honestly, nothing, as is so typical when he offers his empathy. That's kind of the point, offering it without anticipating reciprocity; that is the way of things, with them.

What he's not expecting is the confusion that passes over Spock's expression, and Jim shifts to look at Spock's face in full, searching it for - what, he doesn't fully know. Astounding drunkenness? But Spock's countenance is simply befuddled, bewildered, and in no way disoriented. Jim's own brow furrows in response, mouth hanging open for a second as he tries to find the words that will make this make sense. It's just - been an infallible fact of his universe, he can't rightly conceive that it might not be...

That it might not be.

Jim abandons his pen, his hand rising to brace against Spock's shoulder; a hearty motion, as if to confirm - what, that this is real? Maybe he's the drunk one, because this doesn't make sense. Earth's sky is blue, his middle name is Tiberius, and Spock is dating Uhura. ]

Nyota. She's your girlfriend. [ Jim repeats, equally as slow. He doesn't often use her first name - has been granted the privilege sparingly, though the ongoing joke remains between them - but this isn't a moment for humor. ] You two haven't...?

[ Jim stares at him for another long second, leaning back as if that will help him assess the truth of this, giving Spock a double-take before he relents and slumps back into position against his side, still trying to come to terms with the new world order. ] You haven't?

[ He hasn't. This Spock is single. Jim is very much not analyzing that information, still slightly off-kilter and unable to fully believe it. So far, the differences in their universes have been with events not...basic facts that they might know of each other. Something about the interpersonal nature of this divergence is hitting him oddly...and he's drunk, so surely some of it can be excused. ]

Aw, man, [ The hand on Spock's shoulder squeezes absently, as if it might be distressing news that his counterpart is in a relationship. ] Look at it this way: something to look forward to.

[ashaya]

[ Spock should argue it was a falsity, that any manner of Jim would not be missed upon his respective Enterprise. No matter the view he seems so persistently to hold himself across time, Spock has always thought it an immutable truth that it was their loyalty to Jim that made the Enterprise everything that it could be. Everything that it already was. Spock cannot see how anyone would not be looking for him, would not be rending the spaces between apart — much less, so much less, the Spock he'd left behind him.

And yet, here they circle foundational misinterpretations of their own being. Where much overlaps and aligns, there too is the failure to recognize upon Jim's end that even his timeline is not without its share of tragedy and devastation. It is not so brutal, not so swift — but, there are characteristics and settings and events that must occur. That have always occurred. That they are spaced or simultaneously makes little difference in the scheme of all things, Jim is still Jim. Jim is still Jim, no matter his presentation and standing.

Still: Vulcan glow, he tells him. As if it is not his proximity that serves as antecedent, the sudden and direct commentary upon his person? He should like to follow up upon what he'd meant, but for now Jim is insisting. He's pushing water along to him, water that he takes absently with the full wrap of his palm to place to his side. He does not trust the stability of his own fingers, the bubbling confusion only reflecting in kind as Jim too openly gapes at the prospect that he has no relationship to speak of. None.

That he has dabbled hither and thither notwithstanding, there has simply been as he has said: no one. There had been none since his academy years, none since the messy fumbling he'd committed to under Pike. T'Pring had gone with Stonn, which he had no objection to. Their courtship had been long and complicated, but it was necessity only after a time. It had been an expectation. Her parents had never approved, neither of him nor his mother. And this, among lesser slights and negative polarities, was not what he could abide. ]

No, sir. [ It is as firm a denial as any, a sincerity written in the way his brow still remains furrowed. He has no negative relationship with Lieutenant Uhura. Were he not Vulcan, he might classify their rapport as amiable. However, he has never so much as made interludes toward her person. She was witty and charming, but she and Spock had vastly differing opinions on what they would have needed from such a relationship. It is something he can readily observe, as surely as she might. He tilts his head, mind working through what may have changed such a stable interaction, sleek bangs falling askew. ] While Lieutenant Uhura is indeed a beautiful and capable woman, I have never found myself wishing to pursue anything beyond our professional relationship.

[ There might have been a time once. But, it had been many years since Pike's Enterprise and the tumultuous relations he'd explored there. That he works among those who might recall, who might remember? It is testament to the strength of their working environment and their individual tact. Barring the one incident with Miss Chapel, there had been no such difficulties since. It is not to say, of course, that Spock does not acknowledge or recognize the complicated dynamics that persist most regularly among those in the lower decks, but there is an understanding of what is deemed appropriate. In particular, there is understanding of what is deemed appropriate among the senior crew. And, even if there was an allowance for such entanglements with those upon the bridge, Spock cannot conceive of desiring to disrupt it. At least, not with their Communications Officer. Not after all these years.

Perhaps it was the events that transpired within his timeline? He might see it, he supposes. In the wake of all that they had lost, his footing not yet established — yes, she would have understood him in some capacity, but he cannot see how it should ever be fair to her. Not after a time. No, once he became enmeshed in the heartbeat of the Enterprise under Jim, how might he have been able to maintain such a thing long-term? It seems... Unfathomable. ]

I suppose, [ he says after a time, his hand coming to settle gently upon the bridge of Jim's forearm. It is reciprocal, a closed loop. As they always had been, he thinks. As they always will be. ] That in the wake of his grief under the circumstances revealed to me, he may have sought to establish a connection. [ It was enough, to suffer the agonies of another Vulcan's death. It was wholly another to suffer another Vulcan's devastation, the enormity of an ache. A cultural wound, so deep and profound that any Vulcan might be driven to uncharacteristic practices, any impulsive actions to cope. ] However, I am not inclined to believe... [ Even without intoxicants, Spock struggles to articulate his own thoughts upon emotional matters. That he speaks of it now is perhaps more a wish to clarify, to provide a correction — but, Spock knows too that it is rooted in his respect for them both. A truth. ] He may yet realize it, one way or another.

[ In the end, he cannot find himself further specifying. To do so is to admit that he is not capable of meeting the intimacy that he has seen her need. He has always been so subdued, so private in his dealings where strictly necessary, but she — she would wish for someone who would meet her in the ways that she desired and deserved. He cannot see himself being such a person for her long-term. Not with the strength of his loyalties, the absolute attention upon matters elsewhere. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ The notion that Jim is irreplaceable aboard the Enterprise is one he was disabused of the moment Pike informed him HQ was taking his lady away from him. The swell of emotion he'd been dealing with about the matter - cycling from anger to shame to mourning a life promised and not lived - well, he had deserved it. Even still, Jim stood by his decision, in the interim between Pike's office and seeking him out at the bar - presuming Spock would be given command, as he should have been from the first - and Jim would have been grounded, as was his original fate.

The fact of the matter was, Jim had meant it, body and soul, when he had begged Marcus for the lives of his crew. Please, sir. I'll do anything you want. Just let them live. That he should risk everything - and lose - for Spock? His right hand, his brother in arms, his friend?

The fact that it's a question is borderline insulting.

And sure, they would look for him - the dazzlingly stellar crew that they were, of course they would, to the absolute ends of their abilities - but when they did not find him, life would move on. Perhaps Bones would pour one out for him, on occasion, and that would be that. Like his father before him, continuing the worst part of the family legacy - yeah, that sounded about right.

Jeez, alright, he's switching to water after this drink - no more maudlin bullshit for him.

Spock accepts the water, the green flush in his cheeks indicating to Jim the need for it, and his smile softens from the sharp cat-and-mouse game they've been playing to something fonder. As if Spock needed help looking even better under the lights, the purple making the green stain darker, in the apples of his cheeks. ]

Seriously? [ If Jim's tone is doubtful, well, he's seen the way his Spock and Uhura look at each other. Even if they're not prone to public displays of affection, there have been displays. Unmistakable displays. Uhura's certainly satisfied with things, and Spock is...whatever the Vulcan equivalent of happy as a clam is. Vulcan mollusk in Rhombolian butter, perhaps? Jim knows this (or...he thought he did?!) to be true. ] You two are hands down the hottest and most intelligent people on the ship, and you're telling me you've never even thought about it?

Which is totally unfair, by the way. Save something for the rest of us mere mortals, would you? [ Jim nudges Spock again in the side, still reeling slightly; covering it up with humor - even humor that was blatantly and almost painfully true - was the best defense he had, paper thin or not.

Jim is already shaking his head by the time Spock finishes his thought, hand still warm against Spock's shoulder; he doesn't seem inclined to move it, even less so when Spock moves to grasp his forearm in return. Solid together, as they always are, and oddly comfortable in this new configuration that the libations have brought them to. Not that Jim's complaining - but at least the surprise topic hasn't injected any discomfort to their night. ]

No, Spock, I mean - there's a chance you could be right, I guess, but I'm...pretty sure this started at the Academy. [ Jim's tapped into the rumor mill via his yeoman, and though he's not stupid enough to bring it up in front of either of his officers - yeah, the timeline is a little...suspect. Alright, more than a little. The fact that Spock had submitted all the necessary paperwork (and Jim does mean all, he's the one who had to read the entire packet and give his signature) less than 48 hours after their return to Earth was - well, let it not be said Spock didn't cross his T's and dot his I's. ]

I don't know. You both - you've made it work. [ Jim shrugs noncommittally, the motion brushing up against Spock's side as it has been. Hyping up this Spock to go back home and make adorable Vulcan babies with his universe's Uhura was not on his bingo card for the night, and something about it just - Jim brushes past it, an emotion he doesn't name, doesn't want to pay more attention than he ought. He's pleasantly drunk and things are fuzzy at the edges; if the feeling persists in the morning? Then he should worry. But it won't, of course, so pay it no mind.

Where he succeeds in tamping down one thought, however, Jim fails in silencing another. Curiosity has killed his cat many a time, but the damn thing always seems to find more lives somewhere. So his mouth opens, the question passing his lips before he can think better of it. ] You haven't...pursued anyone else either, then? Or have you? I promise I won't laugh if it's Scotty.

[ashaya]

[ If it takes time for Spock to formulate a response, it is disguised in the way he finally capitulates to Jim's mistaken request to imbibe water. It is not the intoxicants, but it may well be, he thinks. As Jim makes ludicrous claims about his appearance, Spock finds himself finally relinquishing his pen and reaching for the water glass. That he drinks, perhaps a touch more deeply than he most typically does, means absolutely nothing of import.

He wills his heart to settle, but still it trips over its beats as though a cascade of stones along a hillside, a line of Terran firecrackers. He must wrestle his tongue to get it from sticking in the next beat, the foot of the water glass finally settling upon the table with a hollower thunk than before. ]

A most subjective remark, Captain. I do not believe you would find that a universally held sentiment. [ The same rumor mills feed information about Jim, never mind. He has no issues indicating that Jim is an attractive member of his species, that his masculine form is perfectly complemented with a sort of youthful gentleness that he retains well into his later years. Spock clears his throat, not near as soundlessly as he would have liked, but: ] Moreover, I have difficulty envisioning such a scenario where I would be inclined to court a Cadet.

[ Possible scenarios that would have permitted it notwithstanding. Spock is not some sister in a Terran seminary offering her flesh as a form of ritualistic worship. He knows full well what he may and may not get away with and what he can? He often has. However, there were no such scenarios that had occurred for him in his timeline. And, as much as the idea is generally not upon his radar at his age, he cannot necessarily discard that his other self would not have found such an opening. He had been angry and embittered in his years at the Academy. He cannot say he would not have seen the appeal. ]

I came to know her during your days aboard the Farragut, [ he begins, sure and slow. Light and sound smears at the corners, time moving as though fingers through the quieted seas of his home. Jim remains close, his Human heartbeat a relative unknown through the fabric of his shirt. He smells of the bite of whiskey, a subtle and Human sweat. He tucks his thumb idly into the shadows that play off the rise of his wrist bone. ] She had yet to graduate from the Academy, but her talent for communications was most obvious. After some consideration, she completed her studies and joined the Enterprise as an Ensign. [ She had been such a bright presence, he thinks. Sharp on the uptake, quick with her words. She had never viewed him as apart, but rather a part. She had been among the first. Even Chris, he thinks, occasionally struggled in his own right at the beginning. He and Number One had groomed him so readily for command positions that they had, at times, forgotten Spock had been so conflicted and so young. He considers Jim, considers the minute movements of his body. He does not lean further into the closed divide, but he does nudge Jim's arm. It is not to move it off him, no. But, rather to encourage it to less awkward place to rest. Across the bank of his shoulder, perhaps? ] I had yet to move to my current position, but remained aboard as a Lieutenant and Science Officer.

[ His time under Pike had been messy, complicated. He had struggled to find his footing, struggled in the wake of Michael's departure, struggled in the silence imposed by his father — he'd sought others, clumsily and with regret. Were he to use a Human turn of phrase, he might say he had many more doors closed upon him than opened. But, here he stayed. And here, he came to be recognized. ]

It was Nyota, [ he says, softly, ] that introduced us.

[ A memorable night. His hand had remained warm with the impression of Jim's during the hours that followed, their talks somehow easy. Simple, as nothing ever had been before. When they finally were made to part, Spock found himself wishing for further time to get to know him. Even though, Spock thinks, even though— ] She was most pleased with herself, I recall. [ And for not the first time this evening, Spock's eyes lower to the table before them. He watches the reds and blues play off the faceted glasses, the amber liquid left within Jim's. It's quite pretty, if he were to be honest with himself. The noise in the background, the music — it all fades into a muted mess. Here, Spock focuses upon him. ] You had made quite an impression.

[ There's the minute lift of a dark brow, the faint upward curve of his lips. Permissive, in all ways that Jim so often inspires in him. Permissive, in some ways, that he continues to be. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ The drawing sits abandoned on the table, half-sketched across the page. Their work has been devolving over the past two hours they've spent huddled in the booth, and it's sure to be an interesting read when they give it a once-over in the morning. Spock takes a measured sip of water, a pause in the conversation as he gathers his thoughts and Jim - ridiculous, painfully human thing that he is - his gaze drops to Spock's mouth, lips parted to accept the liquid. His gaze lingers, where it should not have dropped at all, before Jim manages to cut it away, to the condensation that's pooled on the table by his whiskey. Spock's heartbeat flutters against his side; always such a quick, fast-paced beat, a rolling snare in contrast to the pounding bass Jim is familiar with.

A most subjective remark. Jim can feel the wash of pink start to ebb into his cheeks, but it wasn't like Spock was unaware of Jim's compliments by this point. What was the point in feeling shame, anyhow? Life was too short to not tell the people you loved that you admired them; trust him, he knows. And if Spock invited the wanting, well, far be it from Jim to deny him, surely. The fact that the blush stains him anyway is another matter entirely. ] Universally, perhaps not, but I think you'll find it's a majority consensus aboard my Enterprise.

[ Jim's eyebrows fly up towards his hair at the indication that this Spock can't imagine courting a Cadet. It's as close to a lambasting of his counterpart as Spock is likely to get, and frankly, the dissonance is going to give Jim whiplash if he thinks about it for too long. That the relationship had become public on the neatest timeline possible while still being above board (technically) was simply a testament to Spock's ability to, as Jim would say, 'cover his tracks'.

The fact that he'd gotten away with it - well, overwhelmingly extenuating circumstances aside, if Jim had to hazard a guess, it was probably a combination of a number of factors. That the humans of Starfleet considered Vulcans beyond reproach in certain areas - and that Spock was willing to take advantage of those misconceptions, when it suited him - was an open secret; that Spock was similar in age to the young crew of the Enterprise, and despite the differential in experience and rank, many, again, could not help but measure him against human-centric ideas of maturity; and perhaps the biggest and most obvious of all: that if Nyota Uhura, woman that she was, had not welcomed the attention wholly and completely, Spock's balls would absolutely be hanging from the memorial statue in the quad. ] Not a one, Professor?

[ Jim falls silent as Spock paints a picture of another life, another time entirely. There is both an ache to know and an ache to never find out that war within him, constantly; yet still he sometimes asks, and always, Spock offers. Perhaps it says something Jim is not willing to admit that he always cherishes the bits of knowledge, even if they hurt, on occasion.

But somehow tonight - with Spock pressed close, something loosened between them, Jim's admiration on tacit (alright, not exactly tacit, it's fairly explicit, he thinks) display - it does not hurt. He isn't forced to think of what was lost, as has been his constancy since arriving here - he considers what is right in front of him, what Spock shares willingly with him. A gift, one of Spock's gestures, and Jim finds he can accept it. His hand moves without question, or even thought, at the gentle prodding; for all that Jim might lead them in some instances, you would be hard pressed to find a place where he would not follow Spock. ]

A better impression, I hope, than the one I gave. [ He thinks it must be, for both of them, Spock and Uhura; for her to be pleased at introducing him, with no eyeroll to accompany a saccharine smile. There was a reason his Uhura didn't like him at first, why he was relegated to last name status only, and Jim's not exactly proud of it. Something to be said of low points, really; at least the only way left was up. Speaking of balls, actually, he's kind of surprised she let him keep his.

From the amusement evident on Spock's face, Jim knows it to be true. He is, however, distracted by effect that follows; the way the pull of Spock's eyebrow makes the shadow sparkle on his lid shimmer, the lights that play off their cups and cast sharp shadows on sharper cheekbones. His fingers brush idly against Spock's bicep, where they dangle so casually from the arm looped at his shoulder, a nonsensical, subconscious pattern. Unless Spock is saying - no, of course not. Preposterous and foolish, Jim doesn't bother letting the thought finish. He is wishing for more water due to the sudden dryness that makes itself apparent, but instead he moves his other hand for the whiskey glass, swirling a sip in his mouth before continuing. ] Let me guess - did I dazzle you with bar magic?

[ashaya]

[ And yet, is it not something they both seem to be swimming against this evening? The tide is strong and its brine is sharp. Spock weighs the impact of the intoxicants in his systems, finds his ability to grasp the numbers he so relies upon remains off its mark, and subsequently rests them alongside the staccato beat of his heart. Were it not Jim at his side, he should find such revelations alarming.

But it is Jim, Jim in ways that matter most to the Human and Vulcan in him. Jim, he thinks, should not intentionally move to injure or wound him without reason or cause. And this Jim, he thinks, watches him take a longer draught without the shuttered affair of others he's sat with before. He is not ignorant, knows Jim leans toward what is tangible and sensual, but knows too the loneliness of those who commit themselves to what lies indefinite, beyond. ]

As I've said, [ Spock murmurs, not calling him upon the observation of his person, but rather leaning into the incredulity that Jim displays in spite of it all. That he calls him professor and presses the obvious omission — it brings again an impossible warmth. No manner of tamping or protestation drives it back from the apples of his cheeks, from the fine points of his ears. And yet, his gaze remains upon Jim. As always, and as ever, his attentions return as though they had never left him. It had been a source of guilt profound, a shameful outline of frustration. But, now? Now — ] A flatterer and artist both.

[ Another life indeed. Any such flights of fancy might emerge for the Human mind, but Spock looks to what he may feel with the palms of his hands, might know with the brush of his fingers. Figures and facts, the solid and explainable. But, there had always been such peculiar exceptions. Such exceptions, Spock thinks, like Jim. ]

No, [ he says, the denial light upon the tongue. Jim's eyes are both bright and dark. Spock finds the contrast intriguing, finds himself watching the interplay of color and context. Spock finds himself wondering how he must look at that Spock across the Enterprise's bridge, how Jim must find him — mouth crooked into a smile —, across a crowded room. He thinks that one day, Jim would discover for himself how readily he might call Spock across any distance, how easily Spock might fall as though a shadow against his golden edge. ] You... Spoke with me. Our acquaintance at that time was short, but I found myself... [ He pauses, the wash of his words tangled within his throat. It reminds him of when he was a child, sentences and sentiments caught at the banks of his teeth. The impossibility of his loyalty is both tender and sweet, an unavoidable agony. ] Wishing, to speak with you more.

[ He does not make mention of the more embarrassing details. He needn't, not tonight. If such facts were true, like had always recognized like. Spock, floundering with his then relationship with Nurse Chapel. Jim? His complications — Spock cannot say that he misses it. He cannot say that he misses how snarled it had been, how raw the young emotions. Their time spent as Lieutenants had been anything, but the image that Spock should like to project. But, is that not how life is? He recalls his mother's fingers through his hair, Michael's last pieces of advice. Strewn across the stars to him, he'd seen the red of her flare. It was the last time he'd known her whole, but he had known that she had made it there. There, past a time he should ever behold.

Perhaps it is why he finds in this motion a comfort, bone deep and ancient. Jim answers the hand that reaches for him, moves through its tacit permission with an acknowledged tactility. Through the thin fabric of his thermal, Spock might feel how the meat of his fingers catch at the thread. Callouses, Spock recognizes, familiar and strange to him.

His fingers push toward the line of Jim's exposed wrist. Slow enough to rebuff, Spock weaves through his next sentence as though one threading the light of some distant star. ] As contentious as your initial meetings may have been, I believe it is possible he too has come to form a similar impression of you. [ He cannot conceive of a reality in which Jim was not integral to his typical day-to-day. He cannot conceive of a place where he would not seek him, would not find him in the quiet moments where all was fragile and fleeting. ] Illogical, perhaps, but no less true.

[finalfrontiersman]

[ If only Jim could admit he's been swimming against the impossible riptide ever since Spock stepped out of the bathroom this evening, but alas; of all his, at times, varied and eclectic skills, self-awareness - in this regard, at least - is not one of them. The things he claims he does not disturb, for Spock's comfort? Perhaps Spock is not the only one who takes comfort in sidestepping them, leaving the dark depths settled and still, for some unknown Future time. What time, you might ask? As he said before, Jim does not concern himself with future plans, sticks himself firmly in the here and now - but again, it's becoming more and more difficult to ignore, ever since his arrival in Aldrip. Since...that first night, and every night and morning thereafter; since he was forced to slow down and taste the life they've carved out here, modest though it may be.

But here, wrapped in the colored shadows of the bar, it feels - dangerously close to the edge. Water threatens to lap at his feet, the waves being made in the pool they contemplate growing larger than simple pebbles, thrown to disrupt the glass-like stillness. They should stop, as they always have previously, before the ripple grows too large to contain and Jim finds himself with his head below the water.

And yet. Fear has never been enough to stop him. Then again, in the choice between which to raise above the water - his own emotions, or Spock's regard - Jim knows which one he'd choose to save. Let him drown, every single time, and he'd be glad for it.

It's not flattery if it's true, Jim repeats with his eyes, the steady quality of his gaze, where all else feels like it's gone wibbly at the edges, shapeless smoke he can't focus on. The bar could be on fire, and Jim's not sure he would notice, caught as he is in the pull of Spock's darkened eye. Besides, there is already warmth here, how is he to tell the difference between this and the flame? No, not warmth - there is a heat, searing in his stomach, tingling up into his chest. It vices his lungs, his breath sharp and short in the interval. Is it the alcohol, or something stronger?

Another question Jim doesn't answer, though the water swirls as though to nip and catch at his ankles.

How long has he been staring Spock down? Humans, they fidget - Jim sometimes more than most, he'll admit - but like this, drunk and cozy, his attention captured so wholly, he simply can't move. For fear of breaking the illusion, of sending the boulder down the hill - no matter the direction, it would surely hit the water. In the pause between Spock's words, the edges of them rounded and deep, Jim takes a breath. If he is to dive beneath the waves, he might as well do it with as much air as he can get. ]

Wishing for something so easily attainable seems...illogical. [ Jim's lips quirk at the edges - not the glib, flirty ease of before, nor the bright brilliancy of his usual smiles - but something softer, self-effacing...sweet. It's not an expression he's ever employed before, and one, he thinks, no one else has ever inspired. It, put simply, belongs to Spock. ] I'm sure you made quite the impression on him, in return.

[ You did on me, Jim permits himself to think, his thumb catching on the fabric of Spock's thermals, and he's not thinking of his Spock, but isn't he? This Spock, Spock, who brought him home and made him tea. His gaze flits away from Spock's eyes, human nature finally winning out, the pink as evident in his complexion as the green of his companion. His head tilts, blue eyes flickering to the table, but unable to stray further beyond that - they've moved closer than casual conversation dictates, even in a place as loud and chaotic as a bar, but if they're getting any stares, Jim fails to notice. No - he fails to notice anything that isn't Spock, drawn back in like a starship slinging around a planet, awareness flickering to Spock's slow-moving, slender fingers.

Lips dry, Jim wets them absently, but meets Spock's gaze without flinching. Spock did not take the out in their verbal conversation - and Jim does not take it here, in the nonverbal one, staying still and allowing Spock to make contact, should he choose to close the distance.

They should stop, but as is so often with them, they do not. As with all things, having Spock at his side makes treading the unknown...enticing. ]

And what's your impression, Mr. Spock?

[ashaya]

[ There's a whole galaxy out there.

Loneliness lives in the bones of those who traverse it. It houses itself in marrow, makes of itself a companion where there are none to be found. Spock had relegated himself to the sidelines, to the fine gilding of a distant moon. He had placed his hands upon logic, had lost its foundations. He'd turned to time, turned to his sister — and the vacancies they'd carved within his person, they stung as though a mortal brand.

He holds no illusions. Loosened as his inhibitions may be, this calculated sacrifice is no more for his benefit than Jim's own. This Jim, who is permissive of his wandering mind in the early mornings. This Jim, who views himself as taking the spaces Spock silently leaves for him. This Jim, who is young and injured in ways he has yet to fully comprehend. And yet, how might Spock begrudge the man he'd come to know the shape of anywhere? Differences, similarities — they blur under the certainty, the firmness of being with which Jim treats him. Jim has always caught along all the boundaries of Spock's existence. He catches Spock now in the aimless patterns he draws along his bicep, in the way he sees prospect rise and recede with the same, animal circling that Spock himself commits to. He sees it too, in the tender and self-effacing way that marks to Spock the qualities he'd mapped one evening at the bar. That he'd mapped, in turn, upon the docks no matter the chaos and clamor that unfolded about them.

Full of people who will reach for you.

And isn't it always that there's too much to say, too little he might place the words to? Wrapped about the vicious thrum of his heart, caught at the teeth of his loyalty, Jim raises challenge. With the cut of his eyes and the tilt of his head, it is he who holds the knife. It is Jim, who keeps it to the twine of Spock's tethering. How long had it been, since Spock had last tasted that clarity? A curious hand at the lip of a rabbit hole, the infinite expanse of the wandering stars? All that is tender and fearful in him riots for want of self-preservation. All that is wounded and limping, all that bruises itself against the ache of what cannot allow himself to want — you have to let them, she'd told him. A figure in that illuminated dark, a beginning and an end to all things. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.

His fingertips move, a sort of finality. They gentle about the fine bone of Jim's wrist. What he cannot find with his tongue, he finds with impression. Impression, Spock thinks, immeasurable and sure.

I recognize you. A touch that isn't touching, but rather calls to be a part. Pushed along what comprises all that Spock is, the dip of hand beneath the surface of thought. There is no wish to read, the intention set only to give: the silvery stretch of night-spun birds, the fleeting contentment that belongs only in fragments to him. Golden fields. The smear of stars at warp. Jim, alight with laughter. I know you.

And then, with the passing of pieces and turn of the board, it vanishes. It's gone, and there lies only silence in the wake of Spock's fingertips. But, there is a solidity there. In the cool pass of his skin, the pads of his fingers linger at the shadowy bone of Jim's wrist.

His mouth does not bow, but there is something solemn and sacred in the way his eyes touch upon a now familiar brow, the greyed hollow of a temple. His mouth parts about the untasted syllables of a confirmation, the umbers of a Human pulse. ]

I find myself drawn, [ he says, the words a woven cast of something old and new. Time trails about his fingers, scatters under the warmth of Jim's skin and the blanketing scent of him, something he knows and does not. His eyes upon Spock are so blue, awash in the comprehension of a nameless thing, a concept that's set in motion. ] To speak more with you, too.

[ An inevitability pulled taut. A ripple that spans across a pond, the hands that cast a stone wrapped against a certainty that speaks of some assurance. Red sands, red blood — an understanding. A trust, that Spock would not hurt him. A trust, that such exposure to the raw and unfiltered parts of himself would not harm.

Curiosity had always been Spock's most Human trait. What could be stopped, what might be — he leaves it to Jim's discretion in the aftermath of motion that he has given, had burned at the seams to touch off. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Perhaps it is a fact of life that those who turn to the stars are all lonely, wandering souls. That there is a kinship to be found in it, tacitly acknowledged, the blade of it whetted by the great and wild expanse of space. Traversing through that empty, stretching vastness was not for the faint of heart, and usually of little interest to those who found they did not thrive - or at least, know how to survive - in solitude. Those that did might find comfort in the velvet-wrapped silence of space; Jim would certainly count himself among them. It was hard to feel lonely when you could look outside the window, and see the pulse of the universe passing you by in streaks of warping constellations.

Hard, but not impossible. And there, haloed in the light of the stars, lie Spock.

They are different, they are not the same. Reconciling the whole of his relationship with Spock was an exercise in confundity. That Jim should try to separate them in his mind was a human instinct, a way to make sense of the world, but that he should fail to do so in his heart - well, that too was the way of humanity. Wherever Spock was, whichever - Jim finds he can't ignore the pull. Can't even find within himself the will to wish that he could.

Jim is aware that the something passing between them is being given shape, growing long teeth in its shadow, the longer they sit there with neither of them backing down. But is it fear, as he had diagnosed so acutely before, or something much more exhilarating pumping through his veins, stealing his breath, dilating his pupils? Spock's gaze holds his in endless dominion, even as his fingertips trail down to Jim's wrist - and if he weren't already turning into a tomato, the burst of color would be even more noticeable, thrown into contrast under the pulsing red of the club lights. It has always been thus, in the measurements of their interactions - Jim offers, Spock accepts what he will allow himself to. Spock offers, Jim accepts, insofar as Spock trusts him not to take more than what he can give. But - this? Even Jim, enchantingly blind human that he is most of the time, is aware they're shooting past normal parameters.

The presence in his mind is gentle and warm, familiar in its ease. It feels so quintessentially Spock, like a cat bumping its head against his hand times a thousand (though perhaps, that is the alcohol?) The impression only skims the surface, suffused with everything that Spock is - dizzyingly complex, wholly enrapturing. Jim can barely comprehend it, that Spock should view him so favorably. He knew, in the intellectual sense, perhaps - but this is decidedly new. In all the times they've had cause to touch minds, Spock has never invited him in, even fleetingly, beyond mapping the shape of Spock's outer defenses, the flavor of his mind; Jim is always the imposition. Not that this feels like an imposition - no, Jim would definitely not define it as such.

Still, even though he was anticipating it to a certain extent, it's no less of a jolt - Jim jumps, nearly banging his knee against the table. It's not an unpleasant surprise, however; no, the awe that spreads over Jim's expression is proof enough of that. It lights up his visage, shining, bursting; that spark of life in him, brought to the surface, an authentic reaction he has no hope of diminishing. Though Spock is not digging deeper, the radiant joy is too much to contain; it crackles on his skin, jumps freely to the cool brush of Spock's hand. As he said before, he is the imposition; he has never been able to control that which rises in him so swiftly and completely.

His own hand briefly stutters against Spock's shoulder, though his fingers lay warm against the cloth separating them; tingling with the after-effects of his emotion, no doubt, strong and gripping as it is. Where Spock's hand might choose to linger or not, Jim gives him no direction; implicit permission, to do as he will. The boundaries they have worked so carefully to cultivate have been laid aside - for once, not by external force.

It's a heady thing to acknowledge. ]

That can be arranged. [ Jim murmurs, casting about for a grip of some kind on himself. It's a futile effort, however, with his worldview in shambles, when Spock keeps looking at him like that. It's moments like this where everything seems both possible, and impossible. A human illogicality for the ages. ] You are...easy to talk to.

[ And then, because truth is often the easiest path, and for all their dancing and regular jocularity, Jim can't face Spock's earnestness without offering his own unimpeded honesty: ] There's no one's company I enjoy more.

[ashaya]

[ And how is that they might know the shape of each other's loneliness both inevitable and self-imposed?

How is it, that they should find the dark and hungry things that nest down against the ache of their own bodies, that should refuse to raise their heads? How is it that Jim might pull from him the innate and ancient mysticisms, the poetry of Humans? Spock thinks of the verses oft repeated, the legends and lore that carry even into the parched valleys of Vulcan. For all that logic is foundation, for all that they should claim themselves unbiased - there is a romanticism that works even beneath their skin. Once, they too had been so passionate. Once, they too had worn it as Humans did. Once, he thinks, he might have been more ready and able to name what now ignites between them. As though cut off the embers of the Forge, as though sung as though bells upon the ritual hills - Spock might only just manage to bring himself to heel.

It is perhaps testament, to the way of his own teachings that the startle and burn of emotion that he finds within himself too surging, paired and coupled though it is, bleeds back as though a dampened echo. The sharper spark off flint, a hand through the ashes - Jim's warmth and Jim's joy suffuses the fissured parts of him. It promises, quiets. It tells him all he might not permit himself to believe, but must relent. In the dimmed corner of this establishment, beneath the garish lights that make more vivid the reddened flush that spreads across Jim's skin - Spock finds himself inexplicably drawn as he always is to what Jim extends without question. That accepts Spock, for all he might be and all he might give.

Time loops about itself, a thin and gossamer thread. No matter how he might untangle it, might pull through to its ends, there still lies the peculiar favoritism that the universe brings again and again and again. There still lies the repetition of them, of Jim and Spock and Spock and Jim. No matter the ages, the times, the events - no matter the cut of a smile or the shape of their lips -, he thinks it somehow possible that Jim might always find him. Stranded, detained - without the knowledge of his own name -, he thinks perhaps there are some things that must stay as though a constant despite improbability, impossibility. He thinks some things, like the slow thrum of Jim's pulse at the brush of his fingertips, are held only as fact.

And perhaps that is why, that Spock takes the path less tread. Perhaps that is why, that Spock leans up against the edge. Perhaps that is why, that Spock follows the joy that burns against the skin. Like curtains parted, a chessboard set - the opening gambit has given him no poor reception. It waits for his next step. It waits, for all that Spock might find himself at first cautious. Might himself not unsure, but tentative. ]

Somehow, [ Spock finds himself starting, soft and sweet and slow, ] I too cannot say another's should suit me more.

[ And perhaps that too is why, it is Spock that is turning his hand just so. Just so, as to brush the meat of his thumb over the heel of Jim's palm. Just so, as to permit it to linger in the warmer hollow, cupped as it is about the shape of his own shoulder. And that too, he thinks, that too -

How peculiar it is. How peculiar it is, that he should find himself against Jim within this context, that he might be subject to the intensity of his focus. And yet - against his shields, Jim's wonder flutters.

It takes what little restraint remains to withhold the depth of which he does not name and does not bring himself to ponder that batters at its opposite. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Their differences are, at first glance, easier to list than their similarities. It's evident to any who cross their path; Jim, dizzyingly human; Spock, ironclad in his stoicism in comparison. Human and Vulcan, two counterpoints that some might think would struggle to find common ground, let alone maintain it. But the longer one looked upon the two of them, stalwart in their friendship, on both sides - the more the depth of their similitude came into focus. Two ends of a spectrum, perhaps, drawing at last to the cyclical nature of things.

Human or Vulcan, Vulcan or Human - at a certain threshold, perhaps it is impossible to tell the difference. Jim, voracious reader that he is, has not restricted himself to the classics of one planet; amidst the Plath and Keats and Silverstein was Rorak, Aryraohr Ch'eshilrok, and yes, even the obscure works of Skavus. O Beloved! Thy scent still perfumes our bed. Pre-reformation was a wild time indeed.

In the end, some things transcend all known divides. The sensation of Spock brushing against his mind - the sparkling edge of it, like a blacksmith's hammer against a red-hot blade, kicking off a crackle of sparks in its wake - proves it to be so. Jim's wonder is uncontrollable, a wildfire that rolls across the landscape, flames licking at the trees that dot the hillside. That he might feel an echo of it reflected back at him from Spock is - the boundless awe doesn’t seem to cover it. Despite how humans seem to encompass multitudes, how they overload on emotion and still have room for more - Jim is almost overwhelmed himself.

It’s impossible to know what to make of it, beyond the certainty that sinks itself into his bones, fusing with the marrow. Spock has told him before, so tongue-in-cheek, that Vulcans do not lie - and Jim can feel the truth of this as solidly as he can Spock’s fingers upon his skin. In this moment, the distinction between the respective thems has been narrowed to Them, this Jim and this Spock, and Jim can’t find within himself an ounce of concern. Good things are few and far between in this world, and Jim’s experience has led him to grab the good with both hands. Worrying about the future does the present no favors - besides, that's a pastime best left to sober musings.

Jim knows their way, and that of the basic language of flirtation - but this is something new. Something breakable, like if he looks at it too closely, it will dissipate, a startled bird taking off on silvering wings. Spock's thumb comes to press just so over his palm, sweeping over the edge of his life line, worn as it is into him, a crag in the valley of his hand. Jim doesn't think he's ever been so thoroughly charmed before, so hot under the collar from the barely-there contact of his skin upon another's. It's becoming harder to blame the alcohol; it has more to do with who is doing the touching.

Jim clears his throat, which is no longer a subtle noise, not with how in tune with one another they are at the moment. It needn't be said, given what they can sense from one another, but Jim finds himself saying it anyway: ] You know...I don't mind your way of company, either.

[ His hand shifts beneath Spock's thumb, letting the side of it turn, brushing lightly against the juncture between Spock's thumb, and his forefinger. Deliberate, a frisson of the great and terrible Something passing again between them. Jim, too, leans against the edge of the precipice, as though to gauge the dark and depth of it. L'appel du vide.

Some humans may find it off-putting - it was nature to be wary of that which you did not understand, and it's no surprise this was a common hesitation amongst psi-null species. But Spock? It's as much a part of him as anything else, and Jim's reticence has never been about letting him in, so much as it was preserving Spock's comfort. ]

[ashaya]

[ And shall I know you, as the smokes off each great fire / as the ashes that should stain my fingers and my lungs — it comes to him in secret verses, in pages turned and marked. What should carry such emotion, as those who have ensconced it? Who have placed it deep within the self, a barrier between what once had been and what still might? It was not so long ago, that his ancestors wrote such poetry. It was not so long ago, that he might have been able to identify the grander, winding epics. The deserts hot and the oceans silent, emptied of the demons that so plagued mankind, it was them against the vastness. It was them, against the creatures that prowled in the depths of endless nights.

And yet, for all that they might claim the difference, Spock stands at the line. Neither, both — it matters not at all. At the end of all things, Vulcans obscure and Vulcans imply. With the turn of the wrist or the cut of an eye, it is their tongue that can excise the technical from the accurate. It is a statement that Spock himself might stand by, the exercise a point of survival rather than a point of pride. As a child, he had to learn to weave intention and intent. He had to learn to let those he encountered manage their own expectations, their own perspectives. Interpretation and bias would always color the conclusion of those who held him in their eyes and that bias and interpretation would steer him through the obstacles that should snare him all his life.

That he finds he does not allow himself to obfuscate, does permit himself to misguide — the subtle edge of some internal perspective, the hint of what Jim occupies like the rasping of a match? It should disturb more than it might. It should unsettle him, should bring shame to climb about eaves of his spine. It should bring him to restrain and contain, but there is nothing Jim that might ostracize. What greets him at the surface is the scintilla of delight, the hungry lick of flame — a Human, if by any other name, he would recognize Jim in the brightened way of eyes and the turn of his head. Like the rarer rains against the reddened skies, Jim's mind seeks to gain its fill of his. And Spock —

It is him and it is Jim. Neither meld nor an opening of the boundary, Spock holds himself behind his shields and gives in turn what he feels he might. A glimmer of an answer, a glimmer of a give — what Jim might feel is an echo of what Jim himself hands to him. The hue and heft are different, but no less pronounced or earnest. They are no less than what it is that Jim reflects and finds reflected back at him. End over end, tangled up against an indefinable and inexplicable edge, he should wonder if Jim understands what it is he is telling him. And —

He should wonder too, if Jim understands the enormity of his actions. He should wonder if the scrape of Jim's warm skin over his and the blunt edge of his thumb should be enough to narrow the world down to a precipice. Again, Spock finds himself with his hand upon the turning pages. He finds himself at the cusp of some unspoken evening, silver songbirds in the golden fields, sand beneath his fingernails. If he should attempt to divide it, should attempt to let it blend — Jim supplies an answer for him.

It is no longer the press of any such intoxicants. It is only them. It is only the lucidity brought as though waking up from a rest that one has needed, as though black tea hot upon the tongue. Spock hears the dry of Jim's mouth, feels the stutter-step of his heart in his. If he might shiver in the wake of it, if he might further lean into the line of Jim's body pressed so flush against his? He makes no comment on it.

He makes no comment, as he feels his lungs vise with all that is indescribable and unnamed. Instead, his fingers flex against the shape of Jim's wrist. His thumb presses in, mapping bone and callouses. It strays, a brush at the mount beneath the joints. ]

Jim. [ And it is only his name, but Spock holds it his mouth. He tastes it, at the backs of his teeth. At the copper of his blood, the idle shift in respiration — his eyes are at once so Human and so dark. ] You are aware, [ he pauses, quiets. Attempts, albeit uselessly, to redirect the flush that threatens to color the curve of his neck. ] Have you been made aware?

[ It is a leading question, but the meaning is there. It crackles at each point of contact, the brush of skin on naked skin. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ The question, really, is was it ever really gone? How could such deep wells of emotion ever be drained from the soul of a passionate people? No, they couldn't be - impossibility such that is was, instead they'd been brought to heel with logic. Logic, to rule where emotion had ravaged, in pursuit of a common dream, a civilized society. And yet, the harder one tried to shun their true nature, the more it seemed to come out in force.

Humans did seem to have a knack for pressing on the button Vulcans liked to pretend didn't exist. They had a penchant for sniffing out emotion like sharks scenting blood in briny water, and when they couldn't, it only provoked their curiosity. Yes, there were those humans that held wariness for that which was other - but there were others, like Jim and the other officers of the Enterprise crew - who held fascination in its stead.

Something has crumbled between them, that indivisible line blurred, and Spock, surprisingly, does not pull away. Jim keeps expecting him to; he dances at the edge, to see where exactly it is he is invited to step before he does so, tentative in his tread. Waiting with bated breath to see if he might trip on some unseen root, poking up from beneath the soil. Each pace brings them closer, yet still, neither of them balk from the circling that ensues. Spock's hand wanders against his, and Jim's totally lost control of the pleasant flush that rises in the apples of his cheeks, heat crawling up the back of his neck. He holds still, gaze locked on Spock - mesmerized by the intensity in the deliberate motion of his touch. They press closer together, as though drawn tighter by the contact, the long line of Spock's side fused to his own - Jim, hyper-aware of the lack of space where there is usually a carefully held measure. His touch tingles, pleasantly so, the feedback between them blending together until it is difficult - at least for Jim - to tell just who the emotions are coming from.

And still, they do not balk. They shimmer, together, and hold the line.

Spock's hand moves against his, tracing over roughness honed from a life spent building - be it the bloody work of peace, or the gentler work within a Jeffries tube - and he inhales quietly as Spock's thumb climbs higher, skimming the top of his palm. They're practically holding hands - which sounds so seventh grade when he thinks about it like that, jeez - and it has no right to be as hot as it is, if he's being totally transparent.

Jim's gaze flickers from their joined hands to Spock, the green that plays in purple shadow on his visage, the dark enticement of his eyes. The question is a valid one, and Jim pauses for a beat, goosebumps rising at the feeling that passes between them. Understanding, in some sense, though Jim has to admit, it's not explicit. ]

Not...in so many words. [ He settles on the answer that holds the most truth, because cultural sensitivity seminars only went so far, and it wasn't like they'd ever talked about it - not this Spock, or any other. Still, Jim turns his hand again slowly, intent clear, and allows his fingers to fold gently over the back of Spock's hand. The pad of his finger rests against a knuckle, and Jim lets his touch ghost there, whisper-soft. ] Why don't I tell you what I know?

I know...your hands are sensitive. [ Jim's hand shifts, sliding his blunt fingers lightly against Spock's, the drag of his calluses brushing against the slender length of his index finger. The glimmer of sensation the motion leaves in its wake is distracting, but no less gut-punching with the wash of awe that pours over him. And Jim, to his credit, persists. ] I know your touch-telepathy is most powerful in these nerve endings.

And I know, [ Jim's own thumb skims up the breadth of Spock's palm, his nail tracing lightly against Spock's fate line. If Jim wasn't a hands guy before (he was), he certainly is now. ] I've never seen you do this with anyone you weren't...fond of.

[ Never seen him do this regardless, not like they are now. What Jim has witnessed previously, he'd only observed in fleeting glimpses; two fingers, swiped against Uhura's as they parted from the turbolift. Save one exception, on a bar night not unlike tonight's, celebrating the commencement of their five year mission. Jim had been thoroughly drunk, clapping along with Scotty's bawdy bar songs - but Spock and Uhura had been in the shadowed corner, Spock's palms up and open on the table, Uhura's hovering over his while they - something. Jim had been intruding, he knew, in some gut-check part of himself, and he'd looked away.

He's guessing this is the something. ]

Did I miss anything? [ Jim asks quietly, the teasing edge softened by the fact that it's a genuine question. Spock, of course, can feel that it is, as Jim stills his hand, still pressed warmly against Spock's. ]

[ashaya]

[ And such is the way of things, that it had always been Jim that had inspired such ventures in Spock. It had always been Jim, who challenged the distance he'd kept at the core of him. It had always been him, who persisted where others would so often discard the prospect of all that Spock was and all that Spock is. Neither Human nor Vulcan, Spock had always been as though a moon somewhere. Understood by few, accessible to fewer - it was some point of wonderment that Jim had ever looked to him to begin with. It had been some point of wonderment, that he had held his hand out to him.

It is some point of wonderment now, that Jim does not rebuff him. In the cyclical lap of some grander contentment, in the current of something darker and unnamable that lingers just beneath, Spock might only divide which emotion belongs to each through the way of his teachings. The shields still hold, but the boundary is thinning. That he keeps grasp on them now is testament to the truth and his own understanding. For all that those like Jim might find themselves curious, the weight of Vulcan emotion is often too much to bear. It is often too much carry, to contain - to restrain, once the barriers open and there is nothing there to allow one to discern what is themselves and what is them.

And so, it is all that Spock might do to shore them up further as Jim turns his hand about his. It is all Spock might do swallow the sounds that threaten to wrench themselves free from the dark of his body, that threaten to make themselves clearest to him. It is all he might do too just to listen - to catch what it is that Jim says against the staccato beat of his heart in his ears. It is all he might do against the tide of Jim's sincerity, the genuine shape of his question. He feels it glimmer across the backs of his knuckles, along the length of his fingers. He feels it, in the drag of Jim's thumb against the meat of his palm.

And yet, it is moments as these that make Spock wonder if there were ever boundaries to begin with; if there were ever boundaries between the understandings shared, the insensible and nameless things between them. With the vastness of space and time bent about the certainty that there should always be them in some form or some aspect, how one might have not been drawn to the question? How could one not seek a conclusion? How could Spock, against the heat of Jim's hand all along the back of his, not find the curious and repeated images?

Spock does not sigh and Spock does not gasp, but there is something that catches in the way of his breath. As though one waking from a dream, the stretch of limbs and the opening of eyes - Spock's gaze drags to where their hands are connected. What filters through the dim haze of the surroundings seems wholly irrelevant as Spock hums an affirmative, more sensation than sound as close as he is. ]

A thorough assessment, [ Spock murmurs, words turned over from the unspeakable and tender in him. He does not examine the shape of it, though he might feel the bruise of its outline. It aches in ways welcome and intolerable. Were it ever named, Spock thinks, it should ache all the same. ] While not wholly inaccurate, there is indeed a gesture you have missed.

[ What comes breaks across the spaces they touch with more impression than distinction. Pale hair and pale eyes, her scent both soft and antiseptic. The pad of her fingertips pressing firm to the pads of his own, the resultant touch sharp and electric. Delight. Curiosity. Temporary, it seems. Temporary, as it - a shuffled deck. Dark hair, dark eyes. Perfectly Vulcan. There is nothing so clear here, but there too is the gesture. There too it dissolves.

And there too, does it silence. All that hums and flickers along the skin, it mutes before it rises. It comes with the telegraphed curl of his index finger up and over the back of Jim's. It presses no further against the possibility, but allows Jim to remain with it. To stay with it, should he so choose. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Jim cannot conceive of a universe where he did not look upon Spock and call him his friend. Yes, they had begun their acquaintance in strife in his timeline, but Spock Prime had been correct - to deprive them of the knowledge of all they could achieve together would be damaging indeed. Even if he let Jim think it would destroy the fabric of reality in some kind of devastating paradox (and of course he got away with it, bastard, because even if Spock had a difficult time trusting him at first, Jim has never been able to say the same.)

There is a wavering line that even Jim can sense, as the blend borders on seamless. He does not attempt to stretch it, does not attempt to do anything more than set the fluttering touch of his mind against it, gently, as if afraid it might shy away. That it doesn't suffuses him with warmth, just basking in the closeness, on multiple levels. So too, it seems, is Spock, and the loop continues, unimpeded.

Spock almost seems beyond words for a moment, the sense of something deep and ancient stirring, unknowable but no less awesome. It unfurls giant leathery wings, a sleeping dragon, casting shadow over the whole of him that Jim simply observes, blue eyes alight with interest - but not fear. Never fear. There is much Jim does not understand; indeed, much he may never fully have the capacity to - but it does not sending him running away. Instead, he quiets, and holds steadfast.

He takes back what he said before. The bar could be full of Klingons dancing the flamenco nude, and he doesn't think he'd have the strength to turn his attention away from Spock's intense gaze.

There is more here, beneath the surface, but Spock does not send it his way and Jim does not push for it to enter their loop. He's already used up his luck for the entire century getting to this point, and they've had a number of...revelations tonight. And yet, still more to come, all of which they will have need to untangle in the morning. For now, however, it is allowed to just simply - be.

Jim does gasp. It's involuntary and soft, a sharp inhale between barely parted lips, but it is there all the same. Punched out of him by wonder, the delighted burn of curiosity that comes with new discovery, and a frisson of true heat he does not dare put a name to. Yes, this Vulcan-hand-touch territory is far hotter than it has any right to be, and if Jim combusts, it is 100% Spock's fault.

They pause, Spock's finger curled against his own, inviting his courage. This, Jim can sense, is the point at which he either backs down from the precipice, or lets himself fall over the edge. It's not a question, really, no matter how deep and dark the fall seems - Spock is the one beckoning him. He would never let him fall.

Jim turns his hand, mimicking the gesture Spock had shown him. He lines up the pads of their fingertips, letting the sensation zing between their nerve endings. It does feel more intense - he's guessing in part due to the nerves, and also because the intention is clear. Have you been made aware? Well, he has now, and he very specifically did it anyway.

Jim's gaze flickers from their fingers, locked in the Vulcan embrace, to Spock's expression, studying it for an endless moment. Looking for any sign that this might be unwelcome, though he can - well, he can feel it's the opposite. Still, if this looseness is just an effect of the pair of them being inebriated...

He doesn't let the doubt cloud him over - no, those are sobering thoughts best left to a sober Jim and the light of the morning. ]

...can I ask, then, [ Jim starts slowly, leaning in just a little further - the way they're curled together, it's not a far distance to close. ] What's this gesture?

[ He punctuates his sentence by pressing a light kiss to the pad of Spock's thumb, where it rests over the back of Jim's hand. He doesn't linger or intuit anything overtly lewd in the human way of things - it's a quick touch, a brush against sensitive nerves, before he leans back, fond smile curling the edges of his mouth. ]

[ashaya]

[ Even to the Vulcan mind, there is no such peripheral ability to supply what belongs only to his eyes, what belongs only to his experience. Without a deeper connection, without the strength of even a simple bond — what Jim might catch is as though the glint of stars off nightbirds, ashes through the fist. For all Spock's mind is measured and precise, there exists the underbelly. There exists the things that do not fit. There is the inherent ugliness, the cut of blood off a fist. These are the things that he does not give to Jim. These are the rooms he does not open.

And yet, as though one might see how life plays through the lamplit windows, there is an implication there is more yet to capture. There is the insinuation, that this loop is merely surface. For all that Jim does not push Spock, Spock too will not push Jim. He will not push him, though he waits to see what it is he will do with the information that Spock has fed over to him in pieces. Memories of a life that the other never lived. Impressions, scents, and coloration — spice and earth and acid.

Revelation blooms through Jim. It too weaves through the bright cord of their contact, fizzles at its edge as though sparks off a Roman Candle, a molten and smoldering expanse. He knows there is much to say on some other morning or some other evening. There is much to detangle, too delicate for the clumsy way of their rifling, too precious and sacred lose. And yet.

Jim leans into the spaces that Spock affords him. A blind leap, a knife cut through the tether — he picks up the imagery. Jim uses it, with all the tenacity and tender ferocity that he has come to know exists within the skin. It should not surprise him, should not take off-guard to know that he should dare it — but, there it is. There he is, pressing their hands fingertip to fingertip. That Jim should ever doubt that he should catch him, that he might leave him to drown when he himself should do so first?

What greets Jim is the inevitable glow, the mounting of static. A zing, as Jim should so put it, that seeps into the absences. Drenching sinew and marrow, lighting up from within — it feels as though the first breath after the dive, the rain that chases the thunder in. It feels to Spock as though the isolation that surrounds himself is not so vast, that there is something...

Spock leaves it. He leaves it, as Jim curves in closer to him. He leaves it, as his eyes flit up to meet Jim's. As Jim catches the pad of his thumb against curve of his lips, the gesture at once filled with the typical creativity of Humans and at once unspeakably — Spock's fingers flex up against Jim's. An involuntary spasm, a minute twitch, but no less notable than the hitch of one's breath might be. That he struggles himself to ensure his respiration stays even — ]

I believe you will find, [ Spock starts, his words caught low in the throat. The syllables tangle up about their boundaries, blur into their kin. All he might convey to Jim is pahz-kwul, the sharper tongue of lightning. It sizzles off the edge of the skin, burns against the boundary of what makes Spock Spock and what makes Jim Jim. And yet, if Spock focuses — ] There is no Standard equivalent.

[ — If Spock focuses, he might find the possibility of language. Cut at the backs of his teeth and bittersweet upon the tongue, his mind flounders at the weight of their connection. For all he cannot say, for all he does not let himself convey, there is a fondness that bleeds through the foundation. There is a curiosity, a sincerity.

A question.

Formless and aimless, pointed and formed, it provides to Jim's questing mind a pier to lash itself to. A surety, a security. A silvery throughline, so long as he remains there. Stays there.

And wanderingly, slowly, Spock's curves his hand. And it is no less familiar, he thinks as somehow, inexplicably, it fits within Jim's. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Vulcans - most, Jim's sure, but his Vulcan in particular - like to put up a front that they are logical and organized - and this may be true, at the outset. Jim knows that his own mind is a whirling storm of emotion and memory, tightly bound within his skull; they'd traversed it together, but he's pretty sure he could have told you that anyway. Still, he can't help but wonder what Spock's mind is truly like - the fleeting impressions are wondrous, enchanting, the shape and color, the flavor that pervades, lingering at the back of his mouth. He can't imagine it would be anything other than extraordinary.

They're moving slowly, treading lightly, and Jim can't remember another time it's been like this. No - never like this, not with Spock or anybody else. It's never mattered, not as deeply as it does, right now. Jim's most serious something (he can't think the word, thinking it would make it real; he's worried if he does, it will reveal itself to be smoke, intangible and untouchable) was four months with Gary fucking Mitchell, of all people. Kind of dick, but in that way that was as fun as it was irritating - and the irritating was part of his flirting ritual. That's the closest thing Jim's gotten to a functional something, and it was limping along far before Jim dumped Gary on his ass in the quad (literally, twisting his wrist out of Gary's grip and sweeping his legs out from under him - they always were two seconds from fucking or fighting) and poured a box of his crap onto his head (three textbooks and a ball of clothes; the thump of the textbooks on his head was very satisfying).

But that's when he was young and stupid and not yet grown - okay, he's still young and sometimes-stupid, but Jim would like to believe he's grown, since then. And Spock is - his friend, in so many ways, both the enumerated and the immeasurable. Jim doesn't have many of those - friends, he means - not like this (is there anyone like Spock?), and he really is an idiot for getting as close to risking it all as he is right now but - it's Spock. What more does he need?

So yes, there's much to discuss (insofar that they actually talk about anything, because even for as emotional as Jim is in comparison, perhaps there's a reason they get on as well as they do, couching great and terrible truths in their banter), and much more to ruminate on (re: panic about later), but for now, while they're both amenable and not overthinking it - fuck, Jim's only human. He can be convinced to be a gambling man. Spock makes a very convincing argument (not surprising).

His eyes flutter shut for a moment against the wave of contentment that follows, the thrill of it, like a dip on a rollercoaster, stomach left behind in the aftermath. Jim's heartbeat is in his ears, pumping away like a runaway train, and he idly wishes, in some small, unacknowledged part of himself, that he was brave enough to signal more strongly - the human way, as they've been dancing around it. But there is a limit to how far he's willing to push his luck, and his lips against Spock's fingertips is surely of some similitude.

It certainly seems like Spock liked it, at least, twitching against his hand. Jim actually shivers a little, the shake imperceptible save for the wavering against Spock's side as it shoots up his spine, gooseflesh pebbling on his arm as the sensation crackles, electricity dancing between them. Yes, he's sure that's accurate - Jim doesn't think he could find the words either. Probably a very embarrassing noise, though, so he doesn't try to speak for a moment, too engrossed in absorbing the low, gravelly quality of Spock's tone. ]

We should get out of here. [ Jim finally says, quiet and low, biting his lip absently as Spock's hand curls around his own, the warmth and sizzle of their palms fitting together distracting. He carefully completes the grasp, folding his thumb over Spock's fingers, the pad of it brushing against his knuckles. The elation that flows between them - Jim's sure he's not the only one feeding it. ] Do you concur, Mr. Spock?

[ The flirtatious weight to his words is cut with something soft, something - something that belongs only to Spock. An answer, however indirect, to his question, another rotation in their dance - though Jim can't help but feel pleasantly light-headed from all the spinning. ]

[ashaya]

[ And perhaps to most Humans they are all that they should be and all that they are, but to Spock? To Spock, who has touched the minds of few and fewer deep enough sift through the contents that comprised the base of their thoughts? Not even the most Vulcan among them might have presented as orderly upon initial examination. What it was was more the initial veneer, the secrets of their character caught at the backs of their teeth. That Jim sups on the portions that Spock dispenses is in itself a particular rarity, but Spock finds less aversive than he ought. He finds it less intrusive than his culture says he must, the carefully sorted pieces of himself held together and apart.

Spock has never known how to proceed in a rush. He has never known how it felt to truly catch and to be caught. He has never known the staggering moments, the momentum spun about the hands and the palms. He has known the initial stumble, the initial surge of want — but, Spock? Spock has rarely savored, rarely sought. And when he was? Was it not more the excitement in attaining something viewed as impossible, something viewed as difficult? Hard? For all that he dabbled, for all could tell himself he might have explored, he was often no more than a novelty. A casualty of a curiosity, more appealing at a distance than in the weight of his heart. And so, is it not logical to proceed with a caution? Is it not logical first to scan the veritable minefield, to ascertain what Human emotion might greet him at the start? Is is not reasonable, to suspect that there is only this part? This part, where the idea of him is more potent than the self that moves? The self that talks?

And yet, did not Jim contrast all that had allowed at the start? Recognized only for what he contributed, recognized less for all that he could be and more that he was — Spock had never been one to know the intricacies of a purely Human thought, purely Human emotion. Once, he might have understood it more. But, that was many years divided. That he stands now with the fragmentary motion of his own warmth, the indiscernible shape of his thoughts? It more than most may have garnered before. It is more than most might have garnered at all, the indefinable filament that holds Jim free from the bulk and heft of what it is that he is and what it was that he was. Could be, perhaps. Should be.

And yet, what judgment might he hold for Jim? None. His mind and his body hold what is molten and gold as though water cupped in the palms. What brushes against him even fleeting and temporary — it is more than he had ever dared to desire. It is more than he had ever had means to want. Those who have crossed before, those who have may have crossed once, they never held such a fondness. They had never held such an elation, to be within the shadow of his mind and the breadth of his thought. They had never looked upon him as Jim does now, the full of his lower lip caught between the glimmer of Human teeth. His eyes turned up to the dark of his own, his thoughts skimming about the confines of what is possible and what is not.

Illogically, he finds himself in envy of the canines that pin cut of Jim's lip, the words that wrap themselves about the pink of his mouth. He finds himself in envy of the hand that holds his, the realization that he (for a moment) must from him part if only to come again together. He finds himself reluctant, perhaps, for all he should not as his fingers grasp about the heat of his Human palm — squeeze.

Perhaps it is this that Shakespeare and Neruda mean, in the way they must come undone. The frisson of electricity, for a moment cut. Spock itches more than he might find himself admitting to as he detangles himself from the comfortable loop of Jim's arm, finds himself peculiarly bereft of the weight that kept him steady. At a distance, the flirtation that banks off Jim's suggestion is a gravity that seizes its mark. If Spock leans into its pull, the rule and its laws? Who might call him on it, but the only that seems to remain in the spaces he's just put between both himself and the tug of this new (old) binary star?

Spock finds his mind sharper than the way of his body as he rises from their secreted spot, the music an uncertain vibration that rolls through the dark of the floors. He might feel it in his feet, the dimmed walls shifting minutely as he cants his head.

Like this, Spock waits with his hand turned to grasp his again silently. Extended, almost tentative, to accept where his words trip up belated to his mouth. ]

A most agreeable course, [ he says, his voice pitched just so that Jim might hear it over the roll of the bass and the pound of the drums. For all that tone chances at something gentle and sweet, there is a sort of reciprocal tease that rests in the way the corners of his eyes seem ever darker, ever more sharp. ] Sir.

[ It is not a question, for all that it could be. For all that it should. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Perhaps Jim is the odd one, here. The Human who does not mind the Vulcan walking through his thoughts and feelings; parting the ferns to enter the shaded glade, tread soft on the forest soil. Perhaps he is the strange one, to welcome Spock in as so many others would not - as though the wild and untamed country of his mind could ever be of comfort. Then again, the pair of them have always been intrepid explorers, at their core; is it so surprising that when Jim reaches out and Spock meets him, mind to mind, hand in hand - his reaction is predisposed to marvel? That what Spock allows him to glean in return, Jim holds close against his chest, accepting it with gratitude?

It's true there is a certain, unique pleasure to be found in the chase, and especially the pursuit of that which at first seems unattainable. Jim can't deny he's engaged in the practice himself; a tale as old as time. To want was fire, sweeping, electric passion; to want that which you cannot have was wildfire, raging and fierce - the sweetest kind of madness. For all of Spock's inexperience in this regard - the way of things, beyond the usual parameters of both their regular interactions or any other that Spock might have come to expect from someone engaged in the act of wanting - Jim does have the benefit of experience. This, he recognizes, lies outside of all of it; it's not about pursuing the unattainable, but rather that by virtue of appearing unattainable, the pursuit had been stopped before it began.

But that has never stopped the wanting, no matter how Jim might choose to blind himself to it.

And when the subterfuge is lifted, the line between what is attainable and what is not wavers - and how is he, a creature of emotion, supposed to have a prayer of stopping the flood? No, this is not the usual game, in any sense; this is something new, and for once, Jim is not entirely familiar with all of the rules that dictate fair play. Or maybe it's not so new; maybe it's been building all this time, hiding in the shadows, sneaking up on them. Maybe the bricks were fired over years, piece by piece, added one at a time to his pack - like a frog slowly being set to boil. Even so, Jim can't bring himself to set it down; not when Spock is daring to insinuate that the unattainable might actually be -

Jim has never been surprised by his own inclinations - not to the extent he's been, frankly, blindsided, tonight. It's the force of it, he thinks, deeper than he'd have thought to expect. The proverbial wool, being freed from his eyes - though perhaps it's more accurate to say that Jim is peeking from beneath the blindfold, because to take it off completely feels...too reckless.

What is stronger than the human heart, which shatters over and over; and still lives?

Look at him, he's drunk enough to be an over-dramatic loser. Spock releases him in order to comply with Jim's own suggestion, but still it feels like a loss, however temporary. He shifts himself, draining the last of the liquid courage from his glass (he has a feeling he'll need it) and swiping the notebook from the table to stick it in the waistband of his pants, beneath his thermal shirt. Eyes bright, Jim straightens, gaze flickering from Spock's extended hand - how long his fingers are, the careful composure of his stance, the magnetism that seems to exist, whether or not Jim is imagining it - up to his eyes, the dark quality of them that makes heat flush along the back of Jim's neck.

It probably doesn't help the way Spock's voice rumbles on the word Sir, audible over thumping base to be sure but honestly, Jim's pretty sure he would have heard him say that from beyond the grave. It doesn't take more than a beat for Jim to accept the proffered hand - with a quick, hopefully unnoticed swipe of his own palm against his pants, illogical as it might be - to ensure he's not sweating from the sudden heat. He takes Spock's palm in his own, the contact sparking between them again, a bright point that tingles, all the way up his arm.

Jim links their fingers, folding them together, flush rising in his cheeks again, hot and pink - it should not feel as good as it did to be holding hands, like he's in 8th grade sharing a goddamn juice-box on the playground - but the pleasant, tangled emotions rise again in the pit of his stomach, threatening another wave of fondness. ] Come on.

[ Jim tugs - his turn to squeeze - thumb brushing up against Spock's knuckle, and begins to lead them out of the bar. It's gotten packed since they first arrived, and it takes some doing to weave their way to the front of the building; Jim doesn't make a habit of arriving to the bar early on his nights out, but getting Spock situated had been worth the dip in imaginary swag points. They're jostled a little, but Jim just keeps hold of Spock's hand, letting their arms brush and their sides press together - unwilling to be separated.

They make it out to the front, Jim giving a two-fingered salute to the bouncer at the door - the wash of cool, fresh air is welcome after the warmth of bodies pressed together in the bar. This is one thing Jim thinks he can definitively say he likes about Aldrip: the sea breeze, still moderately detectable even in the downtown area. A coastal desert in some ways, with the raging sands that pressed against it to the South. ]

How are you doing? [ Jim asks after a moment of peaceable silence - broken only by the ebb of fondprotectmildconcern that Jim can't hide with them holding hands - once they've drawn a pace or two away from the light and sound that spills out of the Last Drop. The atmosphere further down the street is more fitting for their particular dynamic at present even if, in some ways, that just makes it all the more intense. ] With the chocolate. Are you hungry at all?

[ashaya]

[ More than likely it is both who have been relegated to oddities for all of their lives; pushed to the fringes of their respective cultures and societies, left to drift in the absences. For all that Spock might shield and Spock might block, there is an indelible connection that lays between them. If he were to let him into the full of him, to permit him to walk the tidied paths of what a Human should call a soul, Spock is uncertain if Jim should like what he would find. He is uncertain if he would like it in the small hours, in the middle of the night — he is uncertain, if he would be able to find it in himself to house it long-term. Like the passage of sun or the turn of the tide, there is often so much that one might wish to endure. Wish to learn. There is only so much warmth that one might hold until they are burned.

Spock had always thought himself the one that should blister, the one who should be as the ash that curled off the great fires that cut through the Vulcan nights. He had always thought himself a sufficient tinder, one who should be as the wick to keep others ensconced from the merciless, cutting storms. His own diminishment had seemed a natural course. It had seemed the only course, until he was told in softer tones that his Humanity was in its own way beautiful.

And Spock had almost believed it.

But, such wounds close if not allowed to fester. Such wounds limp another for the remainder of their days. Some wounds remain the same. The wounds that Spock carries are deep, have healed in ways both proper and wrong. They have been opened and closed, they have been pressed against sweetly as Jim does now and Spock lets him, the rabbit race of his own heart a staggered, blinded quarry. If it is Jim now that holds aloft the knife, it is Spock that fights the urge to bolt. It is Spock who bites down the reflex to make his excuses. It is Spock who tells himself it is only logical to seek an exit, that experience is a valuable teacher, that there is evidence that should support the contrary to his tentative expectation.

And then?

Jim reaches back for him. He takes his hand within his own, the contact both expected and not. It is anticipated and not, the bright way of Jim's eyes and the Human-hot flush of his skin. Before Spock might catch the errant thought, it has already cycled past their connection. It comes blurred and neon, the image of Jim under the cast of the light. The pink of his cheeks, the way his fingers lace between Spock's own. It is something that he might not put in word or name. It is something that sends his initial steps into something pleasant and artless as he beckons him on into the evening, weaves with him as though he were something too be precious to be lost to the press and sway of bodies. There is something ancient and fond that seizes in the dark of his lungs, escapes Spock's careful walls. It grows between them as though ivy, impossible to curtail it all. If he were able to tug free the roots, were able to detangle the knot of its dark body — what would then would be left of them? What would he then use, he thinks, to ensure Jim did not have to withstand all that he ever was and all that he is?

But, these are questions too to be saved for another night. Another night, when Jim does not lead Spock out into the cool of the open air. The static stars Aldrip burn dim above their head, the moon still and silent. Jim's arm and shoulder press against his own in a solid line and Spock finds himself... Comfortable, in the failure to disturb it.

He takes a steadying breath. The streets are quiet, the distant configuration of buildings smearing slightly as he tips his head. It is no more and no less than what he may have anticipated, certainly not the worst he has endured. No, if he recalls—

He pauses, the push of Jim's emotions calling him up from the lazier threading of thought. ]

It is a... [ He starts, attempting to taste the proper syllables upon the tongue before dispensing them. He is reminded of the difficulties he had drawing up the sounds as a child, knows that certain statuses have historically compounded it. He draws it as the residual glow of the bar fades behind them, his vision adjusting accordingly to the sparser lighting along the strip. ] Curious experience, though not a novel one.

[ No, it is not so new to him. He had once drank with Klingons, had experienced a rather intolerable headache in the aftermath. This? If he were to take a sort of internal stock of his current operations... The meat of his thumb rubs over the back of Jim's. It is as conscious as it is unconscious, as though he were attempting to commit its ridges and rises to some deeper memory. ]

Unlike times previous, [ he continues, his voice pitched just for Jim. His hearing is not so sensitive as his, something he had long grown accustomed to, and he finds himself almost too loud to his own ears. ] I find myself most relaxed.

[ It is true. He had never found himself enticed by such outings before. But, with Jim— well, what should matter is that there is nothing about his posture and surface considerations Jim might brush up against that state otherwise. ]

I too should ask that of you, [ he says, softer now. Almost unable to be heard, there is something that traces the outline of Jim's own concern and gilds it. An underscore of a sensation, a question poised at the tip of the tongue despite the words that come. ] I've come to understand meals lacking in substantial nutritional value are considered Human ritual when inebriated.

[ If there is a cast of something almost gentle in the dark of his eyes, but the truth of it lies in the vague humor that sizzles between their joined fingers, barest glimmer of a smile in the upward arch of a brow. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Jim sees glimpses sometimes, evidence of Spock's humanity laid plain in the light, just before it is quickly stifled, swapped out with Spock's unique brand of sleight of hand for Vulcan stoicism. Occasionally, Jim calls out these slips, but it's a rare thing; it runs as much a risk of spooking his companion as it is getting him to yield anything. This, perhaps, is the biggest glimpse of them all, and Jim is careful not to press, not to push too hard with their usual level of friendly teasing; some things were just too fragile, like cracking the shell of an egg, trying to peel it back from thin membrane without pocking the surface beneath.

Despite the pride Spock exhibits for his human mother (and despite the fact that xenophobia seems an odd choice (to Jim, anyway) for a people who purport the philosophy of infinite diversity in infinite combinations - but let it not be said that Vulcans didn't have their own illogical traps, too) Jim knows it's something of a sensitive subject. That Spock is more human than his peers in some ways, obvious or not, and to acknowledge it can be taken as an insult.

Even though Jim might privately think it a compliment.

So Jim keeps it simple, and doesn't allow himself to expect more than whatever Spock might give him. Whatever he sees fit to share - how can it be anything other than a pleasant surprise? Sure, Jim's not always the best at practicing what he preaches, he's been frustrated by it in the past make no mistake...but he's only human. And if Spock is willing to put up with that - willing to take Jim as he is, for whatever that might be worth - it's no hardship to meet him halfway.

The pleasant thoughts and feelings he's getting from Spock are met with pure, unadulterated wonder. He tries not to read into it, but seeing himself through Spock's gaze is just - well, it does nothing to help calm the pink in his cheeks, that's for certain. Whatever it means or doesn't mean (now is not the time to pluck petals from the flower, he likes me, he likes me not style, Christ) - rumination is best saved for later. For the present moment, Spock is still holding his hand, and Jim will enjoy what he has while he has it. Living in the present, because the future was unlikely to do him any favors.

Jim has to say, though: he's very much enjoying his present.

The streets of Aldrip are quieter the further they get from the bar, more dimly lit away from the neon lights, circling out of the downtown district. Ambling towards home, though their destination isn't terribly specific. Home. He's taking Spock home, to their home, and the thought strikes him as odd in how not at all odd it is. Spock's thumb runs over the back of his own, and Jim squeezes lightly, a tacit confirmation that he's still there, tendrils of contentment brushing over the surface of his skin. ]

I'll take that as a glowing review. [ Jim laughs, ducking his head to soften the sound amidst the quiet of the street. Their shoulders bump again, and Jim lets their sides lean together for a moment before drifting, casual as anything (aside from the fact that his heartbeat kicks up a notch, but it's fine.) ] Good drinking buddy can make all the difference.

[ Limbs loose, Jim shrugs and shoots Spock a smile, feeling his underlying concern echoed back at him. It's honestly sweet, and the fondness unfolds within him, unabashedly warm (what, he's drunk, he can't be expected to control it) - though Spock probably doesn't need to be holding his hand to understand that, the way Jim's eyes soften at the corners, blue glimmering in the low light. His eyes had always had a brightness to them, slightly unnatural - the unshielded radiation was anyone's best guess. Unnatural, perhaps, but not altogether unpleasant. ] Been reading The Care & Keeping of Your Human, I see.

You would be correct. We'd certainly be remiss if we skipped it...I'd imagine you would want the full ritual experience. [ And it helps cut the hangover off at the knees, or at least, Jim's well-practiced at the placebo effect of it all. Though to be honest, he's not sure how bad-off he actually is, or if it's just Spock. Jim's smile turns into an outright grin, and when they come to the next turn street, he shifts their direction, sending them down along towards the water. There were usually late-night food carts along the short riverfront, before it dumped out into the sea, and the darkened area of the docks. ]

If you want the technical answer, it's more about regulating blood sugar drops. [ Jim offers him a wink, that curl of mischief and friendly teasing echoing wordlessly through another graze of sensation between them; it's one thing to understand Spock's humor, in a way that passes so many others by, but another to feel it. Jim's never heard Spock laugh, but the sensation holds the same mesmerizing quality to it. ] Not to spoil the magic.

[ashaya]

[ It is more than he might expect.

It is more than he once might have expected to accept, the Human parts of himself that vie and volley for the barest glimpse of the sun. Spock had always known them voracious and hungry, frail and starved things that bit at the hands that buried them as he could in the dark. The grit of sand beneath his fingernails, the copper stench of blood - he'd spent the whole of his life trying in ways he might. He'd spent the whole of his life relegating himself to holding the blade in his fist, in killing what made him different. And yet, what good was it? Fighting what is inborn, teetering along the edge. For all he might have looked the part, played the part - there was too much of his mother in him.

There is so much of his mother in him and it is these pieces that perhaps Jim glimpses in the softer parts of himself. It is these slivers of being, the turn of her dark head. It is her gentle teasing, the upward curve of her lips. It is her deep curiosities, the tenderness and sensitivity that underlies all that she'd come to endure. He'd once wondered if she understood that it was not her that held the root of his shame, that such conflicts went by an entirely certain and different name.

He'd wonder it now, but the answer lives in the heart that throbs as a bruise against the stretch of a lung. It lives in the way that Jim looks at him, leans up against him. The warm brush of Jim's shoulder settles like a brand against his and Spock finds himself in equal parts drawn and quieted. He finds himself equal parts ready to retreat and ready to withdraw, but there is a deliberate patience in Jim. There is an understanding. There is a trust, grown far beyond the resultant something that may have once been called as casual as it was defined.

And yet, Jim takes his hand. He holds it, as though Spock himself were sufficient as he is. He cradles it, as though it were something worth keeping in his. For Spock, who knows only the temporary fancies and fleeting interests of those who came to convince him before - Jim just smiles. He just laughs. Jim just squeezes Spock's hand, lets him linger in the aimless and restless motion - the cut of Jim's knuckles under the meat of his thumb.

Jim had always a manner of nesting beneath the cool of Spock's skin. At one time, it had unsettled him. At one time, it had threatened to unravel all that Spock had attempted reweave. Gossamer and gilded, it had been himself that he tried so surely to balance. If he could not be as a Human aboard a Human ship, if he could not express the emotions that he'd learned so surely to suppress - but, there is no such disgust for him. Jim cycles back what is wonderment and wonderful, what is bright and effervescent. A fondness, that lures as though the stroke of fingers through the surface of still ponds. Spock can never quite permit himself to touch it with the full of himself, but the conflict - there's a sense of home in the loyalty that Jim's evoked. There is a sense of home in the way that Aldrip's days and evenings start with Jim.

And that sweetness - what is guilty and embarrassed mutes against the deluge. It lessens, in the good natured quality of Jim's teasing. And yet, heat crawls up the steps of his spine. It burns, along the back of his neck. If it might color the skin of his cheeks, the tips of his ears? It matters little, as Spock's hand flexes about Jim's own.

It matters little, he finds, as Jim flashes a smile both unfiltered and without any such self-consciousness. ]

Indeed? [ Spock tips to him, not so much a question as it is a form of his usual repartee. He is aware most certainly of the manners and methods that Humans use to regulate the absorption of alcohol, but just as Jim - Spock cannot deny there is a certain pleasantness associated in listening to the way Jim talks. Spock affects a manner of consideration, for a moment. Nudges his shoulder back against Jim's own, almost directional. He knows well enough that proteins and more complex carbohydrates will assist with mitigating any such effects of alcohol. ] A spoiling of ritualistic magics aside, Captain, I believe you shall find it has done little to deter my admitted... [ He pauses, tongue tracing the contours of the word he wishes to use. The sweep of the ocean tide is coming clearer still, the dim haze of the city's lights fading gradually. There is the turn of his dark eyes to Jim's, the staccato of his heart a constant. ] Curiosity.

[ And surely, plainly - it has not. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Trying to figure out what part of Spock is being revealed to him is an exercise in futility. Is it the half-human part, gifted to him by his mother? Pressed into his skin with gentle hands, suffused into the marrow of his bones? Or is it something alien entirely; something Vulcan, ancient and stirring, thrumming beneath the carefully cultivated surface, brought out by the inebriation. More accurately, perhaps it is both, working for once in tandem, rather than discord, the circle finally meeting its loop...or maybe that's wishful thinking. What does Jim know, anyway?

In the end, it doesn't really matter. It's Spock, all of it, as he is; and for all their teasing, Jim has never truly had a preference. If he was forced to choose, he'd probably say that Spock amongst friends - amongst the crew, that indelible camaraderie they all found together - was his favorite. Human or Vulcan? No one could rightly say. Free, to be...himself.

Perhaps there is one other thing he likes about Aldrip.

Jim is rapidly losing the probable deniability they've always employed, the longer they continue on as they are, with underlying intention. It's not so explicit, not even in the thoughts and feelings they pass back and forth like notes on a childhood datapad, but they're both - for lack of a better word - flagging something new. Something different, and the shape of it is sharpening, becoming clearer, outside of the pulsing lights of the bar. But the...mutual admiration is evident, easier than its ever been between them. New as it might feel, deep down, Jim knows the truth of it is far older than either of them would be willing to admit.

Spock seems reserved - which is kind of hilarious, considering how unreserved this entire experience really is in comparison with the usual - but it's more like he's waiting for something from Jim that hasn't arrived yet. Something other than the tacit acceptance he offers. Jim resolutely doesn't consider whether or not it's more or less enthusiasm that Spock's expecting - again, those are worries for sober Jim. A problem for future him, the mountain of which continues to grow, but it's fine. Do you see it, being totally fine?

It's fine for as long as Spock's thumb keeps stroking the back of his hand, that's for damn sure.

Jim truly is a monster unleashed, when his light teasing (with, admittedly, a flirtatious undercurrent) inspires a green-tinged blush from Spock. It's different here than under the colored lights from the bar, where the effects made the reaction seem apart from its verisimilitude. Here, Jim can see the true coloration in Spock's face, the way the flush spreads, viridescence rolling over his cheeks, the tips of his ears. It's as fascinatingly other as it is charming, gorgeous in a wholly unique way Jim's never had the pleasure to experience before, and so very Spock. If his appreciation is showing, well, Jim's the least likely to apologize for it.

Spock's hand remains in his, so he can't mind it too much, right? Besides...that was not the eyeshadow of a man who didn't invite at least a little flattering attention. ]

We wouldn't want your curiosity to remain unsated, would we? [ Jim's smile remains a permanent etch in his face (God, is his face going to hurt tomorrow or what? Worth it, though), as they amble down the side street to the water. Further down, there's the muted bustle of life - the food stalls, streetlamps offering warm pools of light to guide their way. Here, in the in between - Spock catches his eye, and fuck if it doesn't make his own heart leap. Their pace slows, whether intentionally of subconsciously - Jim couldn't say. ]

Are there any other curiosities I can...elucidate for you?

[ Their shoulders stay pressed together as they walk, hand in hand along the water. As pulse-pounding as it is (and Jesus, get a grip Jim, it would be embarrassing if he had any sense of shame left), it's also so - peaceful. The stillness of the water, the quiet of the night blanketing them, as if they're the only two on the planet. Peaceful is not a word he'd ever attributed to Spock - not because he didn't possess the quality, but because it wasn't a word Jim had much cause to use, generally. In fact, Spock was - well, he was the closest thing Jim had to peace aboard a starship. Late nights, early mornings, games of chess or sometimes just silent companionship, the two of them listening to music while they worked on their respective reports.

But here, in Aldrip, it had been true from the very first. Peaceful. A safe harbor. Spock had been there from the start. Jim's gaze traces his face, the dark in his eyes, the warmth tingling between their clasped hands. ] While we're on the subject.

[ashaya]

[ Are they not both?

Fanged and featherless things, creatures left to trace through the dirt, are they not monsters to those who would not know their contours? Would not know their wrongs from their rights? Improbable as it might seem, Spock is no stranger to such wonderous and fabricated things. He holds no sense of mystery about the occult, the arcane, the unspeakable way of one's breath against what is sacred and secreted. Though such forms do not exist to him, do not exist to the Vulcan that asserts itself against the Human, there is the shape. There is the shape, carved into the foundation. And there too is Jim's, known in texture and color and name. If he should hold it with a kind of certainty, with a gentleness that he does not spare the one that exists between his own bone and marrow, the harrowed and hollowed parts of what soul that exists? It matters little to him.

This part of Jim is no stranger to him. The catch of his eye and the turn of his lips. The way that he moves through the night with Spock in his grip, as though he might need to hold on to keep him upright? No, he has witnessed it. He has seen it, spun toward those who might offer the same. And yet—

Jim presses the advantage.

And Spock? Spock finds himself in ways complicit. He slows in his paces with him, falls neat into the pause that Jim creates both natural and pointed. He feels the way his own heart skips, stutters as though one who has tripped — an echo and an answer to the Human hum of his. For all that Spock's expression betrays little on the surface, Jim has always known him. Has always read him, often better than he might have read himself.

But, to Vulcan eyes, all that is bright and golden pours through the fingertips. It filters through the absences, the spaces that Spock carves to keep his mind from the temptation of what is Jim's. Jim's, whose mind is abstract and liquid. Even touching as this, even joined as this — Spock can feel the way it trails along the eddies that he himself leaves behind. He can feel the way it scents his, imploring and hungry and curious. And for all that Spock watches the way of his eyes, the way that they trace him from both within and outside, he keeps for himself what is dark and sickly and nauseous. He keeps for himself the ugliness, the parts of himself that he cannot give.

But, he wonders it. Wonders it, like the half-moon of nails against the ridge of one's knuckles. Worries it, like the point of one's canines against the cut of a lip. Speaks, soft and low and questioning despite it. ]

I believe you shall find there are a great many things that I am curious about, Captain.

[ Spock is so often the one to blink first, to flinch first. When the nights are long and the tensions run heady, it is so often Spock who finds excuses. It is so often Spock, who shores up his defenses. It is so often him, who entices the conversation from what lies in the spaces between. Aboard the Enterprise, among the quiet mornings here — it is so often Spock, who finds himself in retreat. It is so often him, who establishes the division. For Jim, he thinks. For himself. For the prospect of losing something that has become otherwise— ]

However, at this moment, I am most interested in anything you are willing to tell me.

[ Irreplaceable. Unnamable. A heavy and weightless thing. It flutters and flees beneath the brush of Spock's thumb, the heat of Jim's fingers that thread between his own. And even so, the loop continues.

And even so, beyond them both, the waves tongue loose and lazy along the endless stretch of shore. ]