perform_admirably | as long as we know we're trapped, we still have a chance to escape

Entry tags:

ic,
jim kirk

as long as we know we're trapped, we still have a chance to escape

A trip to the grocer with Captain James T. Kirk has been an eye-opener for Spock, though perhaps his eyes have not been opened in the directions he would consider helpful or appropriate. 21st century eating habits are, frankly, disturbing - not merely in comparison to a philosophically Vulcan diet, but simply because he could not wrap his head around how so many people could feed themselves so much poison with so little thought.

And he is gradually becoming curious about turkeys. Standing in the meat section for just a moment too long had given him the chance to stare and be concerned by the iterations that it apparently came in - turkey ham, turkey sausage, turkey wieners, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. What is wrong with a food as it is that it can't just be itself, instead of a version of itself rendered and filled with nitrites?

Odious.

The preoccupation with processed meats has, at the very least, ended since they've entered the lobby of the small building in the Ocean View Apartments complex that Spock resides in. He shifts most of the canvas bags full of groceries from one wrist to the other to reach out and jab the appropriate button for the elevator. And begin the wait. Usually, he dislikes pointless waiting enough to take the stairs. But it seems like the correct decision, with as many heavy bags as they're both holding. Even though he did his best to quickly distribute the weight between them, one with a few too many cans seems dangerously close to losing a handle.

The logistics of daily living still leave something to be desired.

"Today more than any other day it becomes plain to me that the vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings are quarantined from one another until they possess sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to safely travel between stars. I do not think this society yet reaches the criteria for lifting that primal quarantine."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jim's already dubious expression collapses into a deep scowl. He's not only trained in engineering - his brain is programmed for it, as ruthlessly logical in this, if only this, as any machine. Before the lift even began to slow he sensed that something was wrong, and though he could yank the panel open and set himself upon the wires as rabidly as could Scotty, he does what any sensible human would do instead.

He bangs his fist against the panel, groaning, "Come on. Seriously?" as the elevator comes to a dead stop.

Spock does what any sensible Vulcan would do -- immediately as the elevator car comes to a complete stop, he reaches out to pound a fist gently against the emergency call button. It does not light up. When it doesn't, Spock hits the big red button with the pictogram of a firefighter on it.

It does not light either. Nobody comes over the speakers - not static, either.

He sets all of the bags in his arms down on the floor of the car and, very slightly, his mouth turns down in puzzlement.

"The control console is not responding," he informs Jim with entirely unhelpful neutrality. "What is your suggestion?"

"More button-pushing," Jim replies, fingers setting to just that, "Placing undeserved trust in our cell phones, shouting, eating all our groceries, escaping through the roof of the elevator, prying open the doors. In that order."

He punches his fingers into the buttons again. "Or, I risk electrocution, place undeserved trust in this time period's safety ordinances instead, and try rewiring this clunker. You got anything better?"

Spock does not have anything better - which is why his finger-tip is already flying across the very small keyboard of his cellular phone to send a text message to McCoy at the hospital. The man is unlikely to receive it for a few hours, but, strangely, Spock thinks to do this before anything else. After, he attempts to dial 9-1-1, only to have the phone inform him in pleasant female tones that he has no service.

It was not unlikely to be the case. McCoy won't be getting his message, apparently.

"You may begin shouting, Captain," he informs Jim, peering first around the small space of the elevator car, and then moving forward to give a slight look of considering consternation to the closed doors. Would it be wise to open them? They may be able to just walk off, if the car's breakdown was timed in their favor.

"Do not risk electrocution. I have no desire to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation for the duration of the time that we have yet to wait until help arrives. Provided that we cannot help ourselves."

The way that his eyes are still drifting to Jim, around the car, back to Jim again in broad sweeps says more than loudly enough that Spock doesn't believe yet that they can't help themselves if they need to.

"Be more action than I've seen in....almost a year," Jim grumbles, staring at the console. Despite statements that strongly suggest the contrary, he yanks open the console without fear and stares into it with great intensity.

"Well," he says after a moment. "I think I know the quickest route to the bottom."

"Action, Captain?" Spock murmurs in mild curiosity, picking his way through groceries to slide up behind Jim's back and peer into the wiring. Spock isn't at a loss for what he's seeing, and while he could easily repair any of the computers on the Enterprise, his skill is with systems, the more modern the better, and this ... if it is more to Jim's skills and knowledge, Spock is happy to leave it there.

Just because he can build a transistor radio out of scraps and paperclips does not mean he desires to do so.

"A quick drop and an abrupt stop," Spock observes politely, no stranger to gallow's humor - however much it might be frowned upon, from a Vulcan face. It is just the two of them. Jim Kirk has already informed Spock that he knows better, in a manner of speaking.

"Action, Commander," Jim affirms, and maybe it's the hunger gnawing in his gut that prompts him to add, "Or whatever they called where you're from. Hugging without shirts."

He sits down abruptly, not resigned, exactly, but neither is he too reluctant to pull forth the contents of his own third bag. At a mere 4% alcohol, the Corona is unlikely to induce him into any state of inebriation, but Jim believes in the power of a cold beer. "You want something to drink?"

"Mating pair-bond maintenance," Spock replies, infinitely dry. It's obvious in the patient, slow dart of brows that Spock has understood Jim's meaning well enough, and he leans back against the elevator wall and rests his head against it and stares down at Jim for a very long moment.

That Jim has at least decided not to get himself electrocuted is relieving, to say the least - and entirely logical, given that there is no need to be overly frustrated about the situation if one is patient enough. Ideally, they might have been able to avoid the waste of time and the worry that some of the groceries may not react well to being unrefrigerated for so long. Ideally. But it will not be unhealthily long before someone realizes that the elevator car is trapped and, possibly more out of inconvenience than worry for Jim and Spock, will call a maintenance worker.

"I do not require a drink at this particular juncture," Spock informs Jim, and the way that the sentence is codified is not a yes or a no, in perhaps a way that is a favor to Jim. For small things that Spock is not willing to go so far as to allow himself, he will accept when Jim Kirk requests him to.

"Mating pair bond maintenance," says Jim, expression thoughtful as he pulls a second beer from the pack. They'd go better with the limes at the bottom of another bag, and hell, a chaser of tequila, but Jim will make do. Trapped in an elevator with Spock, he won't require the buzz of tequila to stay entertained. "That's very polite. I like that."

Resting his back against the wall, Jim stretches his legs out. In the cramped space, they almost reach the other side of the elevator, but it's not as uncomfortable as it could be. Jim smiles up at Spock, nodding at the other beer. "Just in case we reach a new juncture. So. How will we pass the time? You want to play Never Have I Ever?"

"Mmm," Spock agrees - at any rate, that the words are very polite, polite beyond the true intimacy of such things in a distinctly Vulcan way.

He bends to take the bottle carefully from the other man's hand, switching it to his other before wiping the condensation on his fingers onto the side of his pants and, slowly, sliding down the wall that he's leaning against to seat himself on the floor. It leaves him studying Jim's legs to figure the best, least awkward - socially, physiologically and geometrically - way to position them when they are at opposite angles.

Spock gives the bottle he's holding a slight, illustrative shake toward Jim before pressing his palm down on the metal cap and twisting it off, slowly enough to avoid foam all over his slacks, or anywhere else in the public space. Just because they're stranded in it does not mean it belongs to them.

"I have no particular desire." He knows what that game is, after all - he went to the same campus as most of the rest of them. Participation, however, had never been a requirement of observation in the study of foreign cultures. "However, as I also possess a certain standard level of intelligence, I am aware that when met with an irresistible force, rather than become an immovable object ... it is at times highly logical to acquiesce. I believe that we have already covered the relevant topic of your emotional, attitudinal and behavioral response patterns."

Sure, why the hell not, in fifty-eight words.

Jim's mouth ceases its gradual loosening around the mouth of the bottle, hanging in a gape for the space of whole moments before Jim grins.

"You know, I did not have a contingency plan for you saying yes," he says with a quiet laugh and a shake of his head. He looks at Spock sitting across from him, long legs in graceful lines and spine straight, holding his beer so precisely that Jim can see that the liquid is perfectly level. "Apparently," says Jim, "and you're going to tell me how some day, you already know the rules, but just to recap. I say 'never have I ever' something, and if you have done that something, you drink."

Jim holds up his beer, adding with a smug smile, "To illustrate, if you were to say, 'never have I ever been called irresistible by a Vulcan,' I would now have to drink."

Though Spock's brows lift in what is clearly satisfaction at being able to surprise Jim Kirk, the set of his mouth plainly says stop treating it like it was flirting when you know that it wasn't somewhere in your ultramassive ego although truthfully, even Spock can't be sure that a part of him wasn't. Can't even say that he doesn't flirt even if he doesn't consciously know how to flirt, because how otherwise could Nyota Uhura have sensed that he did return her interest, for as reserved as he is; desires to be; needs to be.

"Of course. It is logical to plan only for expected outcomes, if one cannot plan for all possible eventualities. Never," Spock says, with a long pause of consideration. He never lifts his drink on what he considers Jim's turn.

"Have I ever failed a test."

He studies Jim from across the distance, very intently, with very dark eyes, before without a change of expression or further explanation, taking a small drink from his own bottle. To give a little to get a little in return is not illogical.

Edited 2012-06-30 06:04 (UTC)

Spock earns a sharp bark of surprised laughter, Jim's eyes wide and crinkling in equal measure as he takes a drink of his own, his failed test courtesy, of course, of the man seated across from him. "Don't think you were the first to fail me," he says, pointing with his bottle, "I have a string of failed sobriety tests as long as Iowa is wide."

He's supposed to ask his own question now, but Jim just can't. "Okay, I have to know. What test?"

Spock accepts the laughter patiently, still staring across the distance with deliberate neutrality as Jim takes the drink that they both know Spock is already aware that he will. The patience wavers only slightly, just enough for one of Spock's brows to give a very tiny dart.

"I do not recall anywhere in the prescribed rules for this game that I am required to answer a request for elaboration."

But Spock does, however vaguely. The vagueness is not out of evasion, though he does not wish to elaborate on his experiences as a child just yet, either - even to Kirk. The vagueness Spock uses deliberately, to link his own experiences with those of Jim Kirk. To the words that Spock does slightly regret speaking to the man on their first meeting.

"It was a test of character," he replies simply. "It's your turn."

"Bullshit," Jim exhales easily, even as he's filing that small clue away for later contemplation. "You've got character up to your pointy eyebrows, but fine. My turn."

Resting his head back against the thin wallpaper, Jim considers. "Never have I...ever been in love." After another moment's thought, Jim drinks. The Enterprise counts, and Jim will fight Scotty for her, and he will win. So long as the challenge isn't drinking.

The tiny dart of Spock's pointy eyebrows this time is almost slightly challenging at Jim's objection, rough language aside. But pushing it to the side suits Spock - as Jim has said, it's fine.

What comes as a surprise to Spock is how immediately, honestly, without hesitation, he swallows more of the bright-tasting beer (he prefers the flavor of this one by far to the one that was given to him on the beach). Jim never specified the type of love: romantic, platonic, filial. And Spock cannot press himself so far as to pretend at anything less than love when Jim Kirk had used those very same feelings against Spock on the bridge of the Enterprise. Nor does he hold a grudge. Still.

It seems like entirely too long before Jim responds to his own condition. About being in love. And perhaps later that evening Spock will contemplate Jim's actual statement down to the component words: Been. In. Love.

"Never have I ever ... " He squints. He is out of ideas. He is not very proficient at this game, he believes. "Been caught undressed in a public area."

"Oh, please," Jim exhales, watching Spock expectantly, "Please drink, please drink and give me something to bring Bones, it's been way too long since I've seen him do his happy dance, just - "

Cutting himself off, Jim drinks, as Spock must have known he would, and holds up a hand. "I'm not taking a drink for every time. There's not enough beer and there's not enough beer here to get me drunk, but there would be a swift and imminent state of emergency in my bladder and we are still in a confined space. And before you judge," Jim continues, suddenly aware that he's babbling, that he's nervous, and, perhaps even more uncomfortably so, he doesn't know why. "Spend a month in Riverside, Iowa and see how bored you get, and if we're talking the Academy, again. See Riverside for details. What the hell was I supposed to do, suddenly exposed to so many new and fascinating alien species after a lifetime of farmgrown, cornfed vanilla?"

He's already drunk this round, but Jim takes another pull from his bottle. He's an explorer, dammit. He'd explored.

Spock doesn't. But he does stare at Jim, deeper this time than he has for the entirety of their conversation since having been trapped for whatever duration within an elevator car: counting 27 minutes now. He could estimate to within ten seconds, but he is currently too engaged in studying Kirk's face and certainly too-blue eyes with a mixture of confused discomfort and consideration.

Vulcans come in a great deal of variation; blue-eyed is not one of those variants. He thinks he might inform Jim Kirk of this one day, but not, decidedly, this one, and certainly not after that long-winded, defensive response.

Too defensive for a man who seems so comfortable with his reputation from where Spock can view him from.

"I have no desire to spend a month in Riverside, Iowa," he says, confusion still coloring his voice before he reigns it back into something more sterile. "And have determined, this time from personal experience, that this game is absolutely, irrevocably, highly, illogical. It is apparent that it considers itself a way for individuals to better learn intimate information about their peers, but I have to wonder what is the point of that information when it is gained through such an unsavory channel as ... manipulation. What is the point?"

Perhaps in protest - though his face remains almost blank - Spock drinks his bottle down to less than a third remaining.

"It's not unsavory," Jim returns, his face strangely hot, but then, the air is getting close in the small car. "It's just a game. It's supposed to build camaraderie through the revelation of shared experience." Having pulled that straight from his ass, Jim takes a minute to congratulate himself, even as he wonders if desert species have superior water retention. At the rate Spock is going through that bottle, they'd both benefit from it right now.

"And it's not manipulative to talk about all the things we've done. It's just...it's talking, Spock. If you didn't want to talk about being caught undressed, why'd you bring it up?"

"It is not unsavory to you," Spock murmurs, with a telling drop of the contraction. He drops his eyes to the contours of the near-empty bottle before raising it to rest the smooth mouth beneath the point of his chin in thought.

"If it is just talking, then why can we not just talk?" Then, darting his eyes up to meet the other man's for not even a full second before dropping them to the uninteresting carpet of the elevator, Spock says, "Apparently, I wanted an admittance from you that you have vulnerabilities, but it is also apparent that wanting an admittance was so much more desirable a thing than having one. If you also want to have a revelation of shared experience, for what reason did you not just ask to talk, rather than placing it within the framework of a Terran verbal game?"

And there it is, the cause of all Jim's preemptive agitation, ruthless in its exactitude. Wanting an admittance is so much more desirable than having one, and Jim's given him nothing but precisely what he's asked for.

"Allow me to counter that with an equally presumptive question," Jim replies, something closed in his expression now, "And ask how a man who values so highly the vulnerability of fear in commanders can be distressed by the admittance of vulnerabilities in general."

"Distressed?" The word is out in the open like it's meant to incite an argument, but Spock stops himself before he can begin. Jim's response has a function. Spock is in control of his reactions.

"Your criticism is sound and I will take it under advisement," Spock replies slowly, before continuing in a much less careful voice, though not as friendly as it had been when he'd first accepted the drink from Kirk. "But I ... do not believe that my distress is general. It is that my logic seems to be uncertain where Jim Kirk is concerned." He slumps slightly where he sits against the wall, as if admitting it has taken more emotional energy than Spock had to give. It isn't vulnerability that is distressing. It is that truly seeing what he's been searching for is no less serious than being given a razor and a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully into another soul. Of course he would be concerned of such a thing. Of course, if Jim had such an easy, seemingly effortless way of getting beneath Spock's careful control.

"This is rare enough that I may be suffering from a state of hyper-awareness."

Jim watches him, realizing not for the first time, but for the first time with such fullness, that at times he has as much difficulty reading Spock as Spock does him.

"Let's...slow down," he says, all too aware that he's been the one to send them hurtling forward. Even for a human, Jim has always been a creature of strong feelings, and never one to hide them, baldly passionate about even simple things and, unfortunately, just as sensitive.

"I'm not trying to insult you," he says, choosing his words slowly and with deliberation, "and I don't understand everything about the way you look at things. At me. But, as a Vulcan, as a person who...actively looks at things in a way that's the opposite of how I do - " Jim gives into impatience all at once. "I don't know what that means, Spock. What good is being hyper-aware of me if you don't understand anything I do? I don't want to distress you. Humans make games of things to make them - " He stops himself with a laugh, well aware of the irony. "To make them easier to deal with."

Spock's eyes are the only part of him which fidget, though there is a sense in his extended, slowed down silence that he would like to be running a hand through his hair, rubbing at the bridge of his nose - gesture dander.

"No insult exists where none is taken," he replies, with the same locution as a boy reciting a set of classroom rules. Giving in just slightly to nervousness, he wipes his damp hand again on the leg of his slacks. "Then the game is like a joke? It is a kind of humor?" Spock considers this. He would, of course, endlessly equivocate on his own ability to sense humor or tell a joke, despite the fact that any being with their own sense of it and decent intelligence could clearly see and hear that Spock understands it. Perhaps a gift from being raised by his mother.

That doesn't mean that he has to agree with the game, now that he's played it. It is not Spock's apparently preferred method of dealing with it.

"I don't find myself predisposed to this game. That is not your fault. But if you suggested playing it out of a need to make things easier to deal with, one has to wonder what is so difficult right now that you require a game?"

The need to know the answer, of course, is very compelling, now that Spock has realized the question exists. But, perhaps more importantly, he's shoved the burden of offering explanations off of himself once again. And onto Jim Kirk.

"Life, Spock," Jim exhales, doing what Spock won't and rubbing at the bridge of his nose, a hard pinch to keep the growing headache away. "Life is difficult. People are difficult. I don't regret...feeling everything that I do, being human, being emotional. It's worth it, but it's hard. And it's not a joke or humor to make it a game, or..."

Jim pauses, filling the silence with a long drink from his bottle, condensation slipping from the base to slide over his knuckles and wrists. "A game makes the hard things easier to talk about, and the easy things more fun. If it's a game, things don't matter less, but they feel like they do. 'Cause it's just a game. And to be honest, I didn't think you'd take me up on it."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject