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

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[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. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ The warp and weft of Spock's mind against his own is a heady thing; a steady presence, thrumming along to the pace of Spock's quickened heartbeat. Alien from his own in so many ways, yet so familiar in the same breath, reassuring and constant; Jim's not sure he could conceive of a universe devoid of it. If there is a known amidst the unknown, it is the way Spock's consciousness sparks against his; the same shade as his not-laugh, the flavor of it pleasantly sharp on Jim's tongue. What Spock holds delicately in the cupped half-moon of his hands, Jim cannot help but grasp firmly in both of his own, unabashedly now that he knows he is welcome. What kindness Spock does not spare for himself, Jim makes up for in his obstinance. It is their way of things.

The wind blows in off the water, rustling Jim's hair, already tousled from their time in the bar. The sea breeze adds a hint of salt to the air, tangy and fresh, invigorating. His mind is viscous and gold, shimmering where their edges meet and Spock's mind laps at his, like a rising tide. Jim has no defenses beyond the most basic of the mind's instinctual protections, but contrary to most, he does not shy away from the foreign presence. No, where their minds touch and crackle, Jim all but chases the sensation - not pressing inward, but brushing against the side, dancing along the razor's edge with swooping delight.

Perhaps it is true that Spock hides the harsher climate areas from him in this exchange, but it is also true that Jim is adaptable, that his light illuminates all that it touches, suffuses it with his warmth. It's possible that what Spock believes to be too dark and treacherous...might prove itself to simply be in need of a torch to light the way.

But Spock is proficient where Jim is not, and these accesses are hidden to him, as his mind maps the shape of Spock's, enveloping it in the same manner in which their palms meet, surface to surface, nerve endings aligned. It's a good thing they'd slowed their walk, because it is wholly enrapturing, and the last thing Jim should like to do is trip and fall flat on his face because his brain wasn't paying attention to where he was stepping. It's hard to pull his focus from it when Spock is so - Spock. When it feels so comfortable, despite the fact that as a member of a psi-null species, it probably shouldn't.

A far cry from his first encounter with Spock Prime, in that desolate cave. ]

Anything, huh?

[ Blue eyes sparkle with amusement, as is so common the case between them. The words are light but the undertone is - Jim resists the urge to name it. Their hands swing gently as they fall into step, ambling down the street. Jim squeezes lightly, the swell of emotion passing back as the loop resets. A tugging of the pigtail, as it were - as it always has been. Except neither of them is blinking, backing down and diverting. Spock allows him to press on, to toe the invisible bounds - to inch forward, with the tacit implication that the advancement is welcome.

And who is Jim to deny him? ]

I've always liked the ocean. I spent my life in crop fields before Starfleet, so I guess the novelty is probably part of the appeal. [ Voice soft, his gaze cuts from Spock to the darkened bluff, the edge of his thumb tracing along Spock's finger idly. ] There's something romantic about the sea. That's not an original thought, I know. For both are infinite, etc. But there's something - indelible.

Humans like to make wishes on it. A practice that runs back further than anyone can remember, you see it everywhere in folklore. Maybe it's just ingrained in us, I don't know. Sand wishes, cairns - doesn't matter how, people make 'em. Dreams, carried away on the water. [ Jim refocuses on Spock, tracing the contours of his face with contemplation, apprising. The coquetry in his tone - both spoken and unspoken, as his mind ripples against Spock's - is gentle, playful but earnest. ] Do you dream, Mr. Spock?

[ashaya]

[ He thinks of the suns of Vulcan, the shifting of sand across the cresting dunes. He thinks of the rock stained with the red of endless compression, the carved lines of wind across their ancient surfaces. He thinks of the stability of something that has stood long before and after him, the glint and heft of obsidian. But, where it is Jim's mind touches comes away with the taste of salt and Terran summer. It comes away with the seeping of blood orange through the fissured lines of fingertips. It wreathes him, sparrow song and wheat grass. It suffuses in him an emptiness that shapes itself in ichor, the mottled bruise of Vulcan skin.

To know more is to desire more. It is something that Spock hand known from the beginning. Perched upon the wall of his father's estate, overlooking the hillsides that sprawled on and on, he knew himself as one who could never permit himself the habit of wanting. What was given was what was given. He might have only controlled what was taken from him — him, in the heart of himself. Humans so ascribed their souls the seat there, had lodged the whole of their being in the muscle that beat rhythmic and slow. Spock would not know, tracing the boundary of wondering: were such fabrics afforded to him?

Still, to know the answer now makes it no wiser for him to lean into the brush of black and fertile earth, the turn of the Terran sun over the lip of the horizon. Though Jim's mind is eager, nests down into the silences Spock presents as though his affordances were more than the steadying pour of smoke off of incense, Spock reminds himself that there is no returning were he to press ever forward instead of just holding back. There would be no unburning the intrusion, the permissive shape of all that might have been.

Were Spock weaker than he is, how far back might have he crossed the trenches of his own doing to him? To Jim, who looks upon him with a tenderness like the press of fingers through warmed wax, like the suppleness of resins in the cracks of broken roots? Like all who read of and breathe of Humans, he knows that to covet the sun is a folly.

But, what does one do when it is pressed in the hands?

He cannot look at it, but the knowledge fizzles like a brand at the base of the skull. ]

“Being in night, all this is but a dream.”

[ It tips from his tongue, pine straw and chamomile. He knows the shape of the verse, its sectioning. Jim pools knowledge into the unfilled cup of his mind, the memory of idle dreams and swimming laps upon the Enterprise slotting into rank and file line. It matches, a lovely patterning. It pairs the flat and endless seas of cornstalks, the silks within their husks.

Jim traces the contours of his face with the blue of his eyes. Dimmed under the hold of night, they appear as though the shadow of lara-kushel. Spock cants his head. The angle is not accidental, the line of his throat exposed to curious flittering, the assessment that lies behind the upturn of Jim's syllables.

It is not flattery, Jim had said, if it was truth.

Something warm sparks at the corners of Spock's dark eyes. ]

Vulcans are not immune to aspirations. There are wants, goals. Pursuits.

[ Logical, certainly, but no less weighted in its veracity. Spock turns his wrist, bringing closer to him the hands that Jim swings. A tightening orbit, in the way that Spock curls his index finger about the blunt end of Jim's restless thumb. Loose enough to escape if he wishes, but along the boundary he sends the fluttering plumes of smoke and ash, the columns of wind-blown creatures described only in books. ]

There are those, too, who move in defiance of what others hold as the logical path.

[ Himself. The stretch of stars at the lip of Vulcan. Endless, yawning nothingness between what burned and died and lit as candles in the dark.

A refrain: all such creatures do. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ Spock's mind leaves a swath of sparks in its wake, where it brushes his own - salty and fresh and other, the plunge of the cool unknown a balm against the sweltering of his own consciousness. It's hard to ascribe description to such things - the intangible - when Jim has operated on such a physical wavelength, his entire life. The more he maps, charting the previously uncharted, the more enchanted he is. Spock's mind has, for lack of a better word, texture - hidden pools where Jim's mind lingers, fitting snugly against him. Sifting sands, the particulate fine where it slides against him, leading him on to the next, and the next.

For once, Jim is comfortable. It's a strange thought to have, amidst all the unknowns of their situation here in Aldrip, but it's true. Not something he ever would have guessed at, either, after his the first meld on Delta Vega - like an ice pick to the frontal cortex - despite the echoes of something else that seemed to haunt the experience. Jim hadn't gone digging to find it, the mind's self-preservation preventing him from doing so.

But here, now, he thinks he might understand what he was sensing. A calling, some enigmatic likeness between their two minds that felt - relieved, in the other's presence. A salve to a wound Jim hadn't known was there. Should it be so surprising, when Jim knows he could equate the feeling by the human standard, by having Spock at his side, always the two of them, taking on the universe? Perhaps it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, then; or maybe its just a fantasy constructed from his human consciousness as a way of framing their connection in the emotional language that he understands - but if Spock doesn't mind, Jim sure as hell isn't going to say anything. ]

All nights are days to see till I see thee, [ Jim quirks a brow, something tender shining in his eyes - the way they've been exchanging lines since the Tower is a language in and of itself; perhaps one they're more comfortable speaking in, like the way Spock's hand fits into his. ] And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

[ Spock tilts his head, acute angles thrown into sharp relief with the shadows that catch on his cheekbones, and pool down the side of his neck from the halo of the streetlights above them. They lead Jim down the long line of Spock's throat, coming to rest at the hollow there, where his Adam's apple sits - actually, what do they call that, on Vulcan? Jim's never thought to ask, and the thought of a Vulcan named Adam is so fanciful it strikes him funny, a wisp of fondness threading through his surface thoughts - fondadmirationcontentheat - skimming along the connection between them.

Spock pulls them closer, sides brushing as they walk, down towards the warm light the late night food stalls are giving off. There aren't many people here, one or two dotting the barstools lined up at the counters for each stall - the herds will come later, when the bars close. Spock's mind sends pulses of warmth suffused with the heady incense Jim is so familiar with - he's been considerate to light it when Jim isn't home, or with the windows open in the cozy house they share - but it reminds him of Spock, inextricable from the whole. It reminds him of home, spiced and warm. ]

The logical path. [ Jim smiles to himself, cutting his gaze away as his heel drags, bumping the texture of the cobblestone path beneath his shoe. Sometimes this place just didn't seem real - the folksy charm of it (at least, to Jim - a seaside city with 21st century allure. Physical money, paper books, vintage appliances), the brief moments of calm (Spock and Bones in a dapple of sunlight while they picnic at the library, a shared pot of tea in the evenings, Spock's soft breathing next to him as Jim passed over the divide between waking and dreaming), the warmth that they had found here. Despite everything they had endured here and everything that was to come, sometimes it still felt...well, like a strange dream. ] What's a logical path for one to walk may not be the same as another.

[ And Spock has always seemed the type to carve his own, as daring a man as any Jim had ever known. His fortitude, his compassion - to list all the qualities Jim appreciated about Spock would take more time than the evening they had left. ] Defiance looks good on you.

[ashaya]

[ And is it not a Human thing, to believe that the mind is only so capable of grasping what is tangible and solid, what is palpable and true? For all that Spock might too prefer the realm of the concrete, there is something to be said of Human mysticism. It had fascinated, for all that superstition and hunches might be so described as learned consequence and the rapid shifting of data — the combined symmetry of what is tasted with the senses and is sieved within the mind. And yet, had Spock not experienced such illogical impetuses? When he was younger, greener — had he not been seized by such things too?

Perhaps it is his service with Humans that have stained his perspective with such fantastical things. Perhaps they were always destined to pollute the orderly line of his thinking, bring such concepts of hope and luck to his metaphorical door. Yet, for all that Spock may have thus far resisted the full depth of their influence, there was always something further to uproot. There was always something further to let his fingers card through, the fabric of his being both flexible and inflexible. Diaphanous, Spock thinks, and steeled.

But, with Jim —

There is no drag of the self against the other. There is no grit or grain, no scale or tooth. Where it is Jim touches is both steady and smooth, honeyed on the tongue and in sweet within the stomach. It curls against the line of consciousness, nectarine and copper. Fingers across the still of ponds, the circumference of bruise — Spock does not press, despite the gentled encouragement. He does not submit, though Jim's thoughts become as the weaving birds amid the hottest parts of Terran days. For all that they might sing and ruffle and flit, Spock might only watch them.

He might only remain grounded. ]

And, thou away, the very birds are mute, [ Spock answers, the fairest brush of a reciprocal heat and the glimmering note of satisfaction caught just so upon the teeth. What Jim might grasp is secondary, hints beneath the surface of what is fonder, softer things.

He too has not found himself opposed to the steady way of their routine, to the particular comfort that such habit brings. To work alongside him is no less agreeable than living alongside him, but there is an unnamable quality. There is something in the way Jim looks upon him, studies him — eyes upon his hands as he is cooking. The tuck of his smile when it is he laughs. The sleep-warm brush of waking consciousness against the backs of his knuckles, Jim taking from him his coffee without much complaint.

Now, such transfer is deliberate. What he might feel, what Jim might feel. The shield remains, but there is something in the way of its consistency, its quality. There is an underlying—

It matters not. It is not something to look upon this evening, close as they are now. It is not something to examine in his current state, despite the way there is no absence of mirth at the corners of his mouth. ]

You would ascribe that particular emotion, [ he says, the cobble evening again beneath their feet as Spock idly aims them toward a suitable stall. It had been banked for such occasions, though he had oft not factored himself in. Beneath the dimmer lighting, Jim's skin makes itself a show of something warmer, golden. His dark follow the gilt that it brings, touching upon the dip of a temple. The bridge of his nose. Freckles, Spock thinks, that so dot across his cheeks like the artful streak of stars. ] And yet, logic does not preclude the possibility of deviation.

[ It doesn't, of course. And yet, it is that particular uniqueness that Spock too had admired in Jim. That sense of being, the possession of a formed and forming surety. His logic, balanced against the cradle of his empathy.

He clears his throat, softly. ]

Do these offerings meet ritual qualifications?

[ He knows they do, but even still. He plays at his games as well as Jim does too. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ There are certain things - certain inconsistencies in reality - one is confronted with, especially aboard a starship. With the vastness of the universe spread out before you, unfolding like an endless velvet darkness, the great maw staring back - it can be difficult to find relative direction. To reconcile the known with the unknown, to stand at the edge and not fall in. And yet - when the great and terrible and unnameable fall upon you, when victory seems impossible - Jim is all too prone to hope. To faith, to leaping even if he's unsure of the landing.

Maybe that's contagious, or maybe Spock's just using that as an excuse for what already lurks beneath his own skin; if so, Jim won't call him out on it. Maybe it's a bit of both, or maybe they just feed off each other - back and forth, an endless, golden loop. Jim settles into the push and pull of the mental landscape, how easy it feels to rest there with Spock. The longer it goes, actually, the easier it seems. Maybe he's just projecting - but hey, he's most definitely had worse nights.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow. The answer is thought, not spoken, almost involuntarily so in the wake of the sensation that pours from Spock's mind to his. Jim nearly blushes, heat rising in his neck, just barely tinging the tops of his cheeks - but he stifles the urge, determined not to blink first. Not to inject doubt into their evening, to let it anything impugn everything they've been exchanging tonight - especially not when Spock would likely be able to feel it. ]

No. But it sure likes to try. [ Jim chuckles to himself as they make their way down the street and towards the stalls. Spock was one of the most bullheaded, steady, defiant people he'd ever met - and Jim means that as a compliment, honestly. Sure, when the obstinance was aimed in Jim's direction, it was a pain in the ass - but no less admirable, truth be told. That Spock had the resilience to carve his own path in a world that did not recognize the value of it - Jim had no shortage of regard for the man beside him.

They stop astride a small booth, tucked between two others, offering up a variety of french fries. Sweet potato, golden, something fancy involving a truffle. Jim's lips slide into a smirk to hide his growing grin and he nods, slipping a hand in his pocket to free the requisite currency from the confines of his pants. He had been the designated treasurer, since he'd arrived; the coins were something Spock seemed to have zero interest in, beyond the strangeness of their shape and the composition of their metal. ] Greasy and salty, you've hit the nail on the head, Commander. Someone been studying up?

[ Jim's also going to hazard a guess that these fries aren't made with peanut oil, given that Spock's the one who stopped them there, and he quite possibly had the entirety of Aldrip catalogued for Jim's allergies. He orders a big batch for them to share, sliding the coins across to the shopkeep, before moving to lean against the pickup window. ]

Did you ever do the Sophomore Slaughter crawl? [ Jim's presuming the tradition was shared across their universes, but who knows, it wouldn't be the first difference. Even if it was, he's not sure he can picture Spock participating - a bar crawl through San Francisco, while sophomore cadets waited nervously for their track acceptance emails to Command, Engineering, etc. Or maybe he did participate, downing shots impassively to fuck with the humans around him. The image makes Jim smile, as he draws Spock's hand between both of his own, covering it completely with the warmth of his palms. ] I think that was the last time I had a night out like this one.

[ Jim doesn't think it'll end quite the same, with the Command track hazing ritual - streaking into the Pacific Ocean - but that's probably for the best. ]

[ashaya]

[ There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Mercutio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

And hundreds of years from and since, the stars dying and dead and reborn again — there is much about all that there is that Spock does not know too. There had always been more than the Vulcan suns, the Terran moon. There had always been another constellation, another destination. Another bead upon a foreign tapestry, woven in thread and yarn.

Spock has seen a great deal, experienced a great deal more. He has touched the fathomless and inconsistent, tasted with his hands and mind and mouth. He has known the bend of space, the loop of time. He has traced its contours, the sinuous curve of tomorrows yet to come. And yet, there is always more. There is always more, in the tilt of the head and the cut of a mouth. A grin. The way the light pools warm and orange off the seams of an affected contrapposto. Citrus on the tongue, Spock thinks, as Jim holds any part of himself so close and secreted. A hand, cupped in the nest of Jim's own.

Spock's fingers curl, smoke and fire and ash. Sand through the throat of a glass. Perfumed and feathered, the dark spill of earth. His eyes flicker upward, focus upon the solid and the present. The tangible and the sure. Jim's bright eyes, met with the steady shadow of his own. ]

No more than usual, sir. [ Spock murmurs, the syllables stained with the weight of a breath. And yet, there is something coy that plucks about the boundary. There is something humored, in the way it toes against the edge. He had made a gamble, it seems. A guess, built upon the foundation of preference and allergy. The knowledge of Human metabolism.

Experience.

Against the backdrop of the sea and the clattering of the cooks behind the counter, Spock considers. He considers — ]

Not as such, [ Spock says, soft to the ear. His other hand rises, shadows the curve of the gentled net Jim's cast. ] However, I was informed my attendance would "strengthen rapport" among my cohort. [ His thumb tucks into the curve of a wrist. He feels the Human thrum of his heart beat, a slow staccato.

He lays his palm flush to the back of Jim's, the corners of his eyes crinkling only just so. A hint, perhaps, to what stories lie beneath. ] In retrospect, I cannot say it did not serve its purpose.

[finalfrontiersman]

We're off-duty, Spock. [ Jim murmurs quietly, but it's not a phrase filled with reproach - there's an undercurrent there, something charged, bolder than either of them have been so far. An implication, perhaps, that sir when they're decidedly off-duty - when they're standing hand in hand like this, too close and too intently to be entirely innocent - holds a different meaning. Still, Jim does nothing with it; lets it linger in the space, beneath the surface, eyes finding Spock's before they break away again - drawn in, over and over, like the tide lapping at the shore. ]

How badly did you beat them? [ Jim can't help his smile, warm with affection and amusement in equal measure. The mental image of a Spock as a cadet, resplendent in red, completely deadpan and tossing back Irish Carbombs like they were water - what Jim would give to see that. They would have gotten into so much trouble, if they were students at the same time - whether Spock would have wanted to, or not.

He knows Spock finds it equally as amusing, even if he'd never admit it in so many words, and another slight shiver runs up Jim's spine as Spock's thumb finds the soft skin of his wrist, resting just over his pulse. Jim's hands curl around Spock's, aligning their knuckles as the pads of his fingers brush slowly over the back of Spock's hand, the drag of his calluses light. ] I'm not saying it's right, but Command's been using drinking ability as a fortitude metric for years. I can see where that would have worked in your favor.

[ Jim hums quietly at the back of his throat, one hand releasing Spock's, since the Vulcan seems to have that area covered. It seems only fair Jim's newly freed hand should come to rest against Spock's side, mimicking his seeking of Jim's pulse - finding the rabbit-quick heartbeat that resided there, fluttering against his hand. It had the added benefit of allowing Jim to spread his palm, to settle comfortably with Spock, decidedly, pulled into his personal space. ]

[ashaya]

Jim, [ he amends, though there too is no reproach in that. There too is no reluctance. It is softer in the mouth than it is in the palms of Jim's hands, tuned to the ear as a breath. If it is gravity that keeps them grounded, then it is the well of Jim's that keeps Spock from nudging his way back. Against the cusp of the night, Jim is impossibly bright. Framed as he is by the orange-gold light of the stalls that dot the harbor behind them, he appears both warmed and gilded. Affection, like the taste of the oranges, bites across his tongue. ]

Indeed, [ he says, smoother than his heartbeat would suggest. Jim's proximity, the heat of his palm — it rests against him as a brand, the stutter-step of his heart a hummingbird beat within the chest. He knows that Jim might feel it, but there too is an excess of stimulus that must be caged and cornered and corralled. What is physiological falls lower upon the metaphorical "totem pole" when faced with the sweeter curiosities that brush along his shields. ] I believe they had implied I had "drunk them under the table."

[ Spock pauses, almost as though in thought. It is a guise more than not, a secondary action tucked within the first. The meat of his thumb rubs against the curve of Jim's wrist, nipping into the shadow the fine bone casts beneath it. ]

Despite its colloquial usage, I found it be quite literal.

[ And if there is a humor that rests within it? There is something that shimmers soap-slick and quick against the division that defines himself from Jim. A pull of smoke off fire. A sizzling candle, the dampness of fingers choking off the flame that keeps close the wick. ]

[finalfrontiersman]

[ His name from Spock's lips never gets less sweet; it's true, as with most things, that Jim started it, and here Spock was finishing it. Gifted to him, soft and simple, an exception to the otherwise ineffable rule. Jeez, he's so far gone that even this is getting him - but Jim can't help it, satisfaction welling up beneath the surface in response. ]

You took no prisoners. [ Jim laughs warmly, able to picture it easily in his head - probably at that one bar, closest to campus that was always packed with a sea of red, everyone drunkenly bemoaning Spock's abilities, getting completely trashed themselves. His fingers curl against Spock's side, feeling his heartbeat thrum like a humming bird beneath his palm. ] Just confirms to me that I didn't need to take your penalty shots during trivia, you sly bastard.

[ It's clear from the amusement in his eyes, the tang of it bright and fresh where their skin touches, that Jim doesn't mind. His fingers skim against the side of Spock's hand, more than content to stay, just like this.

The arrival of their food interrupts, however, passed to them through the window, and Jim has to release Spock's side in favor of accepting the small paper receptacle. They seem fresh, at least, hot enough to scald if they eat too fast. Jim groans appreciatively, holding it up between them. ] Perfect drunk food. Soaks the ethanol right up.

[ Whether or not that holds any scientific merit, Jim snags a fry hanging off the edge with his teeth, grinning playfully. ]