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tampered2013-09-03 01:50 pm
logistical) wrote in tampered2013-09-03 01:50 pm
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. ]
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. ]
no subject
[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.]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
[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.]
no subject
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. ]
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[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.]
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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. ]
no subject
[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.]
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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. ]
no subject
[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.]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
[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.]
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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. ]
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[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.]
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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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[He's standing at Jim's bedside with McCoy - exchanging worried looks, and drawn to each other in shared pain. They can only try.]
[But he's done, grieving. Holding to the past makes no sense. It hurts, but he will put it away, examine it when he knows what to do with it. They move to the bridge again. I would be happy to accompany you, he says, in the memory, and Jim smiles. You. Happy?]
[Instead of the real answer, he changes it. Yes. Happy. He loosens his grip, and prepares to pull away, like a receding tide.]
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He takes a deep breath and wipes the mess off on a sleeve, passing a hand on his eyes. Human minds aren't made for telepathy and his feels like a child having sat right at the front of several roller-coasters, thrilled but woosy. Damn, but he wishes they were still connected to see if that would amuse Spock. You're strange too he thinks, before it sinks in they've already detached from the mental contact.
His voice cracks as he swallows, licking his lips. ]
That was ... [ Belatedly, he releases Spock's wrist. Whoops. ] Jesus, Spock.
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[Tilting his head, he looks at Jim, up and down.]
A wild ride?
[He's never melded with a human other than Nyota, and her thoughts are usually extremely different. Jim's new, and Spock isn't quite sure how to deal with all of... that.]
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Still giggling, Jim splutters against an upper arm as he sags. ]
Yeah, it — it really was. [ And because he's given up resisting. ] Guess I've still got a perfect record.
[ A wild ride. Christ. ]
You're welcome.
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In future, would you prefer I provide alcohol for you beforehand?
[Let the teasing begin. 8'D]
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in retaliation!!across a shoulder before slouching right back in his seat so he can see the ceiling. ]Only if you eat chocolate, smartass. [ He pinches the bridge of his nose. ] Can we start with a hot drink? Break me in gently.
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ew, boogers you'll pay for that!!. Spock frowns.]I do not see how that is an acceptable trade.
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[ But for now, Jim nudges a knee with his own and offers a tired smile. ]
You just blended my brain like a Spock-Jim milkshake. It aches. Make some tea? [ It feels like he needs to root himself in the present, drinking something might help. ] Please.
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Kindly alert me if you experience headaches, or frequent nightmares. Vulcans do not meld with other species, the long-term effects are not widely known.
[But I chose to share my mind with you, he leaves unsaid. Standing up, he nods.]
I have little experience with Terran versions of the beverage. Nonetheless, I shall attempt to do so.
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Just make whatever you'd usually drink, I'm good for anything.
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[He wanders into the kitchen and takes out everything he needs, getting to work efficiently, not particularly concerned if Jim stays where he is or follows him.]
(no subject)