( mixed. ) pasa mi corazón del frío al fuego

[ashaya]

Who: Spock, Jim, Gwen, Peter, and various.
Where: Various locations (see prompts for details).
What: Gnosia-related shenanigans.
Warnings: Uh. Probably more than a few? Most likely: references to genocide, references to starvation/famine, references/overt descriptions of being targeted by racially motivated crimes, general violence, and gore. Maybe some vaguely racy commentary here and there (linked).

Comments

[ashaya]

[ The moonless sky above turns. Like folded paper caught through with a pin, it tips about the concept of words that are not words and words that were not. Your dark hair curls about the points of your ears as the wind surges and silences, electric on the tongue. The figure before you still marches on.

She's quick, but you are too. Your small feet pad across the stone, cool in the desert night. ]

Michael! [ Your voice is so soft, so young. She is so tall next to you, imposing and so Human. She is familiar to you. She is familiar to you and you realize - with the jolt of your heart - that you love her. You love her, but it is not something new. ] Michael, wait! Where are you going?

[ Her form flickers before you. Older, younger. Younger, older. The severe angles of her hair settle into short, tight curls. Back again. The lay of her coat smears between the greys of their home and the blues of a smart, fitted uniform.

She turns on her heel, her dark eyes sharp. Her expression is set with firm determination, but her features are so unlike your own. She lets you move in, closer. Close.

You too are tall and not, the same and yet different. You have seen yourself outside yourself before. She has too. She has too and she looks past you, almost to the left.

You still, but you are no longer you. Or are you?

"You're not supposed to be here," she says. Her rounded ears show beneath the varying stylings of her hair, her hand settling against the strap of her rucksack.

"Who are you?" ]

[spidermenaces]

(peter, wherever he is, will most likely never experience something like this ever again. a dream that feels so real and ethereal, personal and unknown, and yet, he feels like this is exactly who he is, who he is supposed to be, what his life once were.

affection overtakes him, stronger than he ever felt, a vulcan's view, overwhelming and yet normal, logic should override it, and yet, he feels it so inherently to what he is, to what she is. she's not like him, of course, he can feel the shape of his ears, her appearance unlike his on the surface, but half as his in blood.)

... I'm me.

[ashaya]

[ Michael as a child and Michael as a woman makes a slow, easy circle about the Peter who is Spock and the Spock who is Spock in the dream, the memory. This is what is not told about psionic species: it is their capacity to recognize interlopers. It is their capacity to understand that, even in the throes of some gentler death, that those who tread within their recollections and their fabrications will be discovered. Cast out, should the drive be fierce.

But, Peter is not cast out. It is hard to say if it is the Gnosia solely that compromises his ability to, but you will find yourself looking at yourself. You will find Spock looking at you. Older, yes, but not nearly so as you yourself know yourself to be. As Peter, who too is you, knows him to be. ]

"No, you're not. Spock was never this kind of hesitant," [ the image of Michael says, head tipping in ways that resemble and don't the way Spock too tips his as he glances at her with the slightest narrowing of his gaze. ] "And he never said that to me, out here."

[ It would appear that he didn't. Off just to the side, something else is repeating. Spock, not as you, exits the household. He asks Michael to wait. Michael makes excuses, says she must leave because his family, his home is in danger. She talks about separatists, extremists.

And then, you feel the pulse of certainty. The certainty, as the corrected variant cuts her off as she attempts to march off again. Spock, little as he is, tilts his head back to meet her gaze and with defiance says: Our home. We'll fight them! Together.

The memory-dream stutters. Stills. The Spock that is older turns to face away from the scene, staring instead down the hillside that sprawls beyond the boundary of their home.

There is no undoing what is here. But, there is something that can be done. Michael seems to wait, observe. She looks at the you who is you and the you who is Spock. She swallows.

Awaits something, some answer. Her expression is guarded, tight. ]

[spidermenaces]

(each second that he spends in this dream, the more he realizes that he never wants to do this again, whatever exactly this is. he can't tell, the flimsy realization of what is dream, what is reality, and whether either of them belong to him can't be anything other than that. dream-like qualities of what might as well be a reality boggle, and he tilts his head much like he has seen spock do so many times. a habit that he doesn't have in another life, one that is much far away.

he listens, because he must, but he doesn't know just what to do. his words come out, and they're not his, and there's even more expectancy of an answer, of a decision.

peter's hand just holds the one belonging to his older self-not-self. please, solve it.)

[ashaya]

[ And what is a dream to the dreamer? What is a dream for the one who crosses, the boundaries skipped and tumbled through? What Peter sees is no more and no less the core of something raw — something shelled and shucked and struck. Struck, as though a hand against the knuckles. The first, bitter dregs of love. Love, in ways that one can neither define nor refine. Love, in ways he says he cannot.

But, love he does. Love he does, as the image of himself stutters on within the background. Young eyes round and dark and glassy, there is more to the exchange. Sister, you can make out. Family, you can make out. As you slip your hand within the hand that is still and not your own, you can hear yourself. You can hear yourself, speaking.

But, I love you.

Love? Michael, younger and sharper, scoffs. You aren't capable of love.

Something shudders, seizes. The image about you freezes — again. What is Vulcan, you know to be Vulcan, shifts from under the feet. It fissures, unsteady and uncertain, but there too lies the oddity: you do not fall. The crevices that yawn beneath are crevices in name only. What is dark remains still dark, but there is something — it moves. A thousand threads and a thousand tongues, it glimmers wetly at the edge of the dream. It holds there, hungry.

You know it is not you. You know too, in the you that is you, that it is not Spock. ]

You are not meant to be here, [ comes Spock's voice, finally. The one you hold the hand of. It is only just lighter to the ear, but no less graveled than it is now. He smoothly moves into a crouch, his expression unreadable as he assesses you. But, you understand. You understand, innately, the conflict that plays out behind your own eyes. You know that you miss someone terribly, but the ache has gotten less. You know that something here wounds you, but the injury is smaller now in comparison.

What little is left of you is making an appearance, voice pitched to your own ears. As if the gnosia cannot hear you, if you are quiet enough. ] There are ways to rouse yourself.

[ There are indeed, but he cannot tell him. It is only the inclination that you will have to be sturdy and you will have to be quick. There is only this: he squeezes your hand, once or twice or thrice. Pauses. He repeats it, again.

Book, you parse. But, what book? ]