tampered | ( open )

Entry tags:

( open )

When: September 2-3rd, daytime.
Rating: G.
Characters: Spock (

logistical) & OPEN.
Summary: Someone has acquired a lute and is playing.
Notes: Wrote in [action] but prose is also welcome.
Log:

[ Spock hasn't yet installed a door to cover that "magnificent hole in the wall" (as Jim has dubbed it. McCoy was far more less forgiving), and claims it is due to lack of sufficient currency. That is true - he prefers to save rather than spend right away - but he is getting quite comfortable simply being a busybody and listening to the goings-on of the other apartment. The transition was inevitable and he shouldn't be putting it off, but the displacement to the City, even with the crew, had not been easy. He found living in a metropolitan area constricting considering he had spent the majority of the past few years on board a spaceship, where they could leave at a moment's notice. He'd have taken the expanse of Vulcan's deserts over this in a heartbeat, and not for purely sentimental reasons. ]

[ However, there's no longer a home except the Enterprise, no family save for her crew, and while he has made an attempt to make his residence presentable he has no intention of getting to know the City. Walks are limited to exercise - though he needed little - and his routine is strict, but offers little comfort or intellectual stimulation. ]

[ Even work is progressing frustratingly slowly. Unlike Jim, who finds other outlets for the restless energy, Spock diverts his into more projects. He would read, but since Khan was at the library, Spock avoids it as much as he can, and he occasionally skims the books Nyota has finished and placed on the shelf to be returned as soon as possible. ]

[ So one day, he quite spontaneously decides to find himself a lute. The exact object wouldn't be present in the City, but there was wood, and strings, he could make do. When he's satisfied, he sits in the middle of the living room, and begins to play. ]

[ Maybe you are visiting. Maybe you are walking by, or coming home and wondering what the music is. Or maybe you are an angry neighbour who wants to know when that racket can stop. In any case, the sound carries. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ There's a stillness lingering with pent-up words behind closed lips as he watches Spock closely to gauge his feelings. The crew is everything to both of them, Jim knows that. It just so happens that Spock makes up a different kind of everything, too. To say he's surprised at the offer would be an understatement, especially given how voracious Spock was in driving him off the idea last time. Jim wasn't planning on bringing it up as a viable option for them any time soon, respecting the boundary. ]

You know you don't have to do that, Spock.

[ Nothing will change if they don't and their relationship doesn't mean any less without that strangely intimate addition. ]

Indeed. It is unnecessary.

[But the context from the last request is different. There, it was for selfish reasons, and now, it is not. It's that simple.]

That is precisely why the offer is now open.

[He doesn't need to explain the reasoning, he knows. Jim will get it. Some things just need to be said out loud, though.]

[ The twist of a smile is wry, though he doesn't contest that. It didn't feel unnecessary last time he asked (well, demanded, that was definitely a mistake) for a meld, given his intentions had been good. It's easy to see how he messed things up in hindsight.

Now that he's been given the green light, Jim's more than a little shy of the idea in case he wrecks something else all over again. ]

When would you want to do it? [ It can all be Spock's decision, tailored to his comfort. That's the least that could be done, except, ] As long as you want one, too. I don't want to go in your head if it's just a favor.

[In Spock's mind this is really how the first discussion should have gone. Jim shouldn't be taking it lightly, and shouldn't have demanded. The fact that's falling together now is just a plus, really.]

I have no preference. The location, however, should offer complete privacy.

[Emotional transference. That shouldn't be mentioned or shared with anyone else, really.]

Do you still intend to share what you originally proposed?

[He doesn't need to know that now, but.]

[ They're alone right now, who knows where the others are. With an original idea of showing Spock how things were when he first arrived, priorities have shifted slightly since then. ]

You were able to get in contact with the Enterprise back then, but it couldn't pick up the rest of our signatures on the transporters. If you still remember something and this whole place made you forget it, maybe I can help by showing you what happened.

I didn't want to ... push this on you.

You are not.

[That's what's different from last time.]

[He gets up, and places the lute securely on the shelf, before pulling up another chair, for Jim.]

I believe... you deserve to see Admiral Pike's last moments. If... you are amenable.

[To preserve some part of him, and carry it with you.]

[ Rising, he absently rubs his wrist as he stands to one side, the fracturing of his heart concerning Christopher's untimely death dancing behind uncertain lowered eyes on the chairs. ]

Would you ... [ Jim wets inexplicably dry lips when that offer's on the table, needing to be broached in short order. Too soon, almost. ] Would you be there with me?

[ He isn't sure if he can watch that man die or feel so alone immediately after. Not again. ]

I don't know how this works.

[ There was a lot of our minds will be one BAM last time. ~~He went in dry!!~~ ]

[Doubt. Discomfort. Pain. Things that sadden him to see, in Jim. And he'd seen his friend's eyes go glassy, and his body slump. Yet, this hurt too.]

[Softer:] I will be present throughout. And after.

[ That'll be okay, if Spock's staying. Jim doesn't know what he expects but with that peripheral knowledge floating around it cuts his apprehension in half. Nodding along before he can bite out an answer, he sits down at a slump. ]

Okay. [ I want to see Chris. It feels pertinent (albeit pointless) to add, ] I trust you.

[ Some things do bear saying, once in a while. ]

[He pulls his chair slightly closer. Physical presence, as he's learnt, can be helpful, and he wants to ease Jim's apprehension as much as he can. Having experienced one before he probably knows what to expect, but... he is melding with a different Spock.]

There may be momentary discomfort.

[He raises his hand, and it hovers, some distance from Jim's face. Whenever you're ready.]

I'm way ahead of you.

[ One last look at friend and Jim closes his eyes before he can watch that hand pull closer; anticipation's a bitch. He immediately starts to recall all those times he's been told how beneficial meditation is and why it's such a great tool to use to quiet a busy mind, but he's never even wished he could do it properly before now. It couldn't have hurt, in all likelihood.

Jim does his best to clear his head, unlike the last time when it felt like entire star systems were being shoved aside in order to bring him to the right place. ]

[He gives it only a moment, not wishing to drag out the waiting. Placing his fingers firmly on Jim's cheek and brow, Spock applies light pressure. Their thoughts, one and the same.]

[He's not as experienced with this as Spock Prime is, a few snapshots of the ship pass by in a flurry, attached to them is a feeling of warmth: home, family, mine, before it all calms down. His mind is a loch (peat soil), gentle winds rippling the surface, held in by the mountains, content to be what it is. The depths are murky, objects only discernible when the water is disturbed, or by sharp eyes.]

[Brief, and sudden, the death of Vulcan, and Jim's death, are all there, swirling whirlpools, but he dampens those. They are not for sharing, not right now. He simply waits, searches for the moment Jim mentioned: I was here previously, let me see.]

[ He sucks in a sharp breath when the meld connects. It's nowhere near as caustic as the previous one, putting him in Spock's mind and a sea of consciousness that makes his head ache from the off with tomes afforded to grief in endless mausoleums that he's guided from as his own mind surrenders, pushes in the same moment. The same sense of home, family, mine applies to the Enterprise with fervent force like a storm around its eye, protective and fierce and fueled by love as harrowing as the deepest note of a lion's roar that carries for lightyears. Following Spock's lead, that sense of one, Jim pulls him into the past from his own viewpoint.

The entire City is grey from the moment he vomits into a fountain (hurts, it hurts) and Bones is there to haul him free, so much time spent languishing in slow-motion with the constant fear of this is death, none of it is real worn as an invisible cowl. There's not so much the sight of Spock as the overwhelming fright and desperation to get back to where they were on the ship when Jim finds him, holding onto Vulcan-shaped driftwood. You are dead. It's like being stabbed and then Bones is whispering in his ear, holding him up, there's a room and Jim wants to grab onto Spock who looks like he's withering inside. He isn't scared when Spock looks like that because it means he has to be brave.

The first time he lets him out of his sight (Use the tricorder to take readings, come back soon) he walks back to the closed door and stands there leaning on it for a full five minutes, stopping himself from going after him. Spock vanishes and there's the same anger as before, the grey slips into place and his eyes just want to see the right shade of blue. It's cold for a week in the City and its forests, he sleeps where he drops against trees, gets up and carries on. Bones is angry. You'll get sick, Jim. Uhura is grief-stricken and Jim is so cheated that none of them feel the need to turn over every single rock.

This could be a volcano. Grey, ashen, obscured. There's no blue to be found and it seems so much like he let him die somehow, burned up not by fire this time but time and space itself. ]

[He's tempted to linger on the ship, afford Jim some measure of joy, even when things were quiet aboard, there was still something to do, some new place to explore or monitor. Something was happening.]

[Another day.]

[He follows the memory, forming a cohesive chain, watching himself and McCoy through Jim's eyes. That Spock is falling apart, chips and blocks, struck by a blunt instrument, his hands bloodied, a recollection of beating Khan surfaces, and Spock carefully places it together with what's playing. Jim deserves to see, even if it's shameful. Spock had wanted to be the one to avenge him, even if that seems so hollow, and so pathetic. Then, it had been real. That Spock, the one Jim is trying to be brave for, considered it real.]

[You are dead, says the Spock, in the memory. Yes, says the Spock, sitting in the chair in an empty apartment. He was dead, and it hurt. McCoy is soothing him. How strange, that he should understand the man in a moment of such terror and loneliness, rather than weeks of serving next to him. The image shifts, briefly, and they are looking at Jim from the other side of the glass. It is all shifting, blurry, they are crying and it hurts, everything hurts. A black hole has opened inside them and is swallowing the joy, the wonder, the newness of home, all of it is fading and slipping. I'm scared, Spock.]

[His hand slides away from the glass. In Jim's memory, his hand reaches for Spock's knee. Grey changes to blue, they are both in the forest, hunting for different people. But at least, there's both of them now.]

[ It the touch upon a knee that anchors him and immediately strips the memory to something barren and bland - the land is dry and close enough to a desert as a young Jim ever wants to get.

You'll be alright, says Sam, and Jim can tell he's sorry but he still walks away. He walks on and on, Jim doesn't know whether to run after his big brother or back to the house, only that he doesn't like this. Don't leave me. It's so hot behind that pane of glass, it tastes like Iowa on the worst of days, but Spock stays with him. Jim forfeits part of himself, the better half, then and there.

It hurts as he strains to see through the blinding darkness but he isn't afraid before his last thought dims.

You're here.

A tumbling chaos of emotions crack like fissures under the weight of devotion Jim feels for his new brother; yelling at him and only having compassion throughout their altercation on the bridge, not a shred of real anger; Chekov, Scotty and Sulu are telling him that Spock is lost and Jim asks for guidance from Bones only to be told He'd let you die, which is wrongwrongwrong, Turn the ship around, get us over that volcano, he snaps, gratified when no one argues (if they did, he would have torn them out of their seat and charted the rescue with his own hands). It's his decision, the cost is his to pay. It pales beneath one striking instinct when he storms out of Christopher's office and tears off his uniform in his apartment, furious and wrecked as his hands shake at the idea of losing his ship, what he couldn't possibly convey to the older man or put into words when it came to saving Spock.

If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul. ]

[Is this mine to see? he asks, as he watches Sam leave. Jim is being ripped apart as the figure in the distance gets smaller and smaller, and Spock quietly smooths a hand over the rough edges. I'm sorry, he says, knowing it's too old a wound, too far away for him to touch, but he's there anyway, and he'll try. I do not believe this is a no-win scenario, just as Jim speeds past in the car.]

[Help me not to be, and Spock doesn't move his hand, doesn't move from where he is, not for a second. Time freezes, it all still hurts so much, but he and McCoy are in the hospital room, waiting for a miracle. Spock knows they don't happen, they don't exist at all but he holds on to hope as surely as McCoy does, because the doctor is giving it to him freely when he has none. Like this, they wait.]

[He's surprised, when it shifts again to Nibiru, and cautiously, he follows, filling in the gaps to form the complete narrative. He is in the middle of a volcano, somehow alive, knowing he's going to die to ensure these people have a chance where his own did not. It is all warm, and pleasant, and he thinks perhaps this is what being under Vulcan's sun felt like, on that final day, the day he escaped only by happenstance, and it feels fitting, somehow, to meet his end here. There is so much to be done, and part of him doesn't want to go, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few by far. He is simply... sorry, that he didn't get more of a goodbye.]

[There's a wrenching feeling in his stomach and he recognises it as a transporter beam. The next thing he knows Jim and McCoy are in front of him and he feels (illogically) grateful, and... angry that they have broken the Prime Directive, just for him. They're in the office and he is insufferable to Pike, because he wants the blame to be centred on him, not on Jim, never on Jim. You cost him his ship. And yet, he stands there and says he misses you. Nothing makes sense.]

[I'm sorry, he says again, as the memory rewinds, repeats that last argument they had with Pike before being demoted and reassigned. I did not intend to cost you our home. Our family.]

[ You can see it all, is the underlying sentiment. I couldn't erase you from me now if I tried.

He would have liked to feel the Vulcan sun, even if it was harsh and the air ... he knows it was stifling sometimes, that there were sand-storms and voices, two men talking. Nothing else. A vague sense of a planet that could have been his second home is bolstered by the echoes of an old man's memories that welcomed and shrouded Jim with astonishing difficulty. Different dimensions, and he isn't an exact copy of another Kirk. Doesn't want to be.

You are my family. The last thing he wants is for Spock to feel guilty, even if for a short time Jim was wounded that his friend couldn't wrap his head around why he couldn't bear to lose him. Nothing crosses his mind when Spock beams aboard in one piece save an exultant brand of joy that obliterates any care for consequences. Christopher chastises him. Janeway reminds Jim of his old friend and it's to her when she arrives that he pieces together an immediate demand-come-request: When you go back you have to find Ambassador Spock and tell him to leave early. Romulus will be destroyed if he waits. Which means Jim, as he knows himself, will cease to be and so will everything and everyone else, but Jim never wants Spock in any incarnation to suffer. Vulcan here might have simply continued as it was in the time-line.

It's dark in the bedroom. Chekov stands on a chair painting stars and Jim lies in bed, pale and thin as he watches him under hooded eyes as stars begin to take shape. Jim thinks of what he's missing. What does he keenly feel the loss of more than the sight of his own world's timeless starcharts?

Do you know any Vulcan constellations?

He's never seen them from the planet's surface but he knows they are accurate. ]

[He follows trail of dust as the car disappears over the horizon, the policeman chasing it, and realises that even if the door is open, it does not need to be stepped through. This is part of Jim, just like his wonder and impulsiveness are part of him, and while Spock doesn't understand much about it he can still accept it easily.]

[He frowns, when he witnesses the request. We have no idea what the repercussions on the timeline will be, but ultimately his answer is not a no, it is a cautious request for further information. Nero carelessly changed history. If they are to reverse the effects they must be more thorough. While he disagrees that such a decision must be made on behalf of their entire universe, he can understand... the sentiment. I am not suffering. I have you, Nyota, and the crew.]

[To bolster that, and in response to Jim's unvoiced request, the landscape changes to the Vulcan desert. In the distance there is a house. This was my home, he says, as a small boy climbs over the rocks. There's a pure sense of freedom that rings all over it, even as the boy falls and scrapes his hands, and it remains as the images shift and that boy is now fully grown, standing on the bridge beside a friend - a good man - and eagerly looking forward to exploring the stars.]

[The stars. Spock is looking up, at Jim's ceiling, missing home, and Jim is now the one standing behind him. Their loss is one and the same, like Spock Prime's, except it is so much less when it is divided between them.]

[ He loves Vulcan with a sense of familiarity that acts as a consequence of Prime's emotional mind-meld, yet that isn't all. It's his Spock's home, oops, I guess you are mine, sorry, it's beautiful and arid with an honesty to it that bred his friend. I could stay. Jim could remain in those memories and watch every second of Spock's life and still prompt him for more. The effort that comes in directing the meld is enormous but, for the sake of getting to where he wants to be, Jim tries.

He strips the images, the sounds, the shapes until there's a way to sink beneath it all, ignoring the hazy world that contains them.

Inhaling an exhale not his own, passing it back.

His forehead rests against another in real time. He smiles as he settles somewhere in Spock and sloughs off the things that have built Jim from the inside-out until they look like lights in an ocean look where we are with the dark waves lapping all around, hemming in a sanctuary private and perfect. He can't tell where he ends and Spock begins, open spaces.

This is beautiful. ]

[Spock doesn't love, not as he's consciously aware of it. He is sentimentally attached to a few things, a few people. Love is a curious concept, something he is reaching for and brushing the tips of, not fully comprehending. It doesn't fit logic, and so he thought he has no place for it, but Nyota is proving otherwise, and so is the ship and crew. He feels an overpowering desire to keep them all safe from harm, even if that's not realistically possible; he feels he's intelligent enough to manage something like that.]

[I never intended to spare your crew, says Marcus, and Spock feels (he feels) the volcano at Nibiru rise up inside him and swallow this man, he would see Marcus dead—]

[Except Jim is right in front of him, instead of far away, with such a contrasting, intense joy at a five year mission and is tearing everything down that Spock stands, quietly, and waits.]

[Look where we are, Jim says, and Spock sees it; a carpet of stars. It is aesthetically pleasing, he thinks, and too late, it'll be conveyed to the other mind present with him, but it's not like Jim would broadcast that. Jim keeps his confidence.]

[They're on the bridge of the Enterprise, they're home, and nothing else matters.]

[ He ushers his emotions forward when Spock considers how he doesn't love, that Marcus ought to die in the moment he betrayed them - I'm here, Jim thinks, the futility of the situation hinging in the darkness of his mind where he goes sometimes. It's okay that you're totally wrong about not feeling anything. I won't tell anyone.

Warm pleasure swarms back on a tidal wave of amusement when Spock approves of their abstract home, and invasive happiness bouncing to the surface of Jim's thoughts like inverted raindrops on a pool, disturbing the calm to fleck outward and ruin the peace. It's shocking how quickly that joy translates into a wounded longing when the Enterprise rears up, automatically craning to see (sense?) Spock at the science station, his right hand. Jim is happy but broiling with regret that he hasn't found a way to take them there yet, bittersweet and guilt-ridden. Just as fierce is his determination to do it and not to leave a soul behind. Like when Spock left here and it wasn't his fault but it hurt. Jim doesn't blame him. He never did.

You can't leave me.

It's a gutting concept, but it's not like Spock would broadcast that. Spock keeps his confidence. ]

[He cranes a metaphorical neck forward, examining each emotion, attempting to classify it, but they're all colours quickly filling up a canvas and he's left staring at a painting he doesn't quite understand. I am half human,, he comments, Perhaps it's only logical that I do acknowledge some emotion.]

[As if on cue, the images dissolve, everything blends together like water pouring down a drain. He's seated at the science station, it's the ship and he turns around, expecting Jim in the chair, to console and steady him with a nod. You are the Captain, this is not beyond you. Instead he sees... Pike? In the chair? No. He's lying on the floor and everything's burning around them. Spock places three fingers on his face and a flood of loneliness and pain pour in. He wishes to categorise the unfamiliar things, keep all that is Christopher Pike safe, but Jim's there and I can't go; he's the closest I have to a son—]

[Jim's hand is on his shoulder, he sees tears and more than one thing in his mind wants to wipe them away...]

[I will not leave, he answers, firm, unyielding as he always is. There's no logical reason to do so, so he simply will not, and utterly doesn't consider that it's based on sentiment. The ship - and at Jim's side - is where he belongs. It's foolishness to consider other possibilities, even sitting in the chair himself. He's not frightened of it, but neither does he care very much. He sat in it once, but that was for his friend (he knows that now, the word is slowly taking root, he'll tend to it as attentively as Sulu does his own plants).]

[I will not leave, he repeats, as they are walking away from the funeral, and Spock is following Jim, watching his every small movement, wishing to preserve what joy and fire is there in the man.]

[ I like both sides of you. There's a helpless sentiment behind it, a How could I not? that Jim doesn't bother to answer. There's no need to, not when everything retreats (or tries to) at the sight-sound of Chris dying, his thoughts. The grief yawns and reopens a chasm in Jim that spans all the way back to his childhood and running a Chevy off that cliff so he'd have one less ghost of George Kirk to contend with. Chris is gone, the closest I had to a father.

His grip on Spock is unsteady, needy. He can't sob because the tears feel like a noose on their way up from the pit of his gut that ensnare his vocal chords. Faint, tentative surprise slips through the meld when he realizes the depth of Spock's care; uncertain what to do, Jim's affection flares a hungry red and has a moment's yearning, badly hidden afterwards in the somber blacks and greys of a funeral that should never have taken place. He's never been one to cling to death when he has the option of life and Spock is his (best friend, but then there's Bones for that, Spock is just plainly his in ways he can't describe, no word does what they have justice) and Jim —

Jim nudges the forehead against his own, the profiles of two noses brushing, and everything is still pulsing red like the promise of a heartbeat behind a veil. ]

[You are very strange, he teases. Only Nyota had liked both sides of him. He hadn't wanted for friends - he couldn't miss what he'd never understood, could he? A sliver of regret bubbles in him and he decides immediately he dislikes it.]

[And all of it disappears, crushed under the weight of Jim's grief. Instinctively he stretches out a hand (knowing what it costs, Vulcans are not tactile), and his palm hits glass.]

[they are gone]

[Glass. He stares. The funeral never should've happened, none of the crew should've been lost. Spock hears a distant echo, inquiring about the psychological evaluations, and the words post traumatic stress and survivor's guilt are frequently mentioned but nothing comes of them. All he has is the proof in Jim's mind; that Jim won't share easily, and neither will Spock.]

[Black and grey fades to white, and blue. San Francisco. The air is clean, sharp, Jim's waking up from his coma. There's a word, drifting on the wind, but it remains unsaid, unacknowledged. A weak, flickering flame, which goes out, it's not fully here, not yet. Spock stays there, with McCoy. In real time, he does cry, they're Jim's tears.]

[He loved you, Spock says, after a while. I have preserved that, and he wished for you to know.]

[ If he could share the murkier recesses of his mind, the places he goes to hate himself and replay his failures, there's a high likelihood he still wouldn't willingly take Spock there, even without the kneejerk reaction to barricade it from sight. It says enough that the surface is skimmed, not broken, and he lifts the hand from the glass because Spock reached out. Jim understands and appreciates. He can anchor the tears that are shed on his behalf, absently holding fast to the wrist of the hand touching his face in real time, the pad of a thumb soothing lines back and forth, over an instep.

These are new memories; Jim doesn't remember waking. He knows only the darkness, watching with the air of a spectator as Spock and Bones stand by his bed and a riot of color dims to a simple pale glow.

Thank you. And then, It's going to be weird, not hearing you soon.

It hurt when Jim wrenched his head away from Prime's fingers, he doesn't want that to happen again. The difference in knowing Spock's thoughts here and having to guess at them suddenly feels enormous. ]

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