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

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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."

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Life. What an impossibly huge, massive little word. It is very difficult - which cannot not be one of the reasons which his father's people still cringe from the very idea that it can be lived without the vicarious filter of logic so that nothing is directly experienced. Experiencing directly leaves a person vulnerable.

Spock follows the same philosophy. His reasons have always been his own. He has no desire to let that small piece of independence that he allows himself to slip.

"Maybe I have no desire for things to feel like they matter less," he suggests, pinning Jim with a look that, while not hard, warns Jim not to read too far - or not far enough - into those words.

He purses his lips before adding, "But it is not that you wanted to play with me that causes distress and, indeed, I should like to inform you that you should be more careful about soliciting from me things you don't actually hope for. If you want to know the way that I look at things that explains why I played at all, I will offer you what I can: that there is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying at all. You should know - the person who first showed me this, I am looking at him."

"I didn't say I didn't want it," Jim replies, "I said I didn't expect you to play." He smiles again, one eye squeezed shut and mouth pulled lopsided as he shakes his head. He himself has been named the reason for Spock's acquiescence. "I am really setting myself up today."

And today, as with all days, Jim hardly knows how to stop. "I'm just trying to get to know you, Spock." He already knows what kind of officer Spock is, what kind of man he is in a crisis, and that's important, but it's not the same as knowing what kind of man Spock is when he's bored and stuck in an elevator. A man who, it seems, requires dissection of every flip utterance that leaves Jim's mouth. "There's no logic, I just thought." He begins picking at the label on his beer. "I didn't think. I just open my mouth and it comes out. We can talk about something else."

"There is no need to belabor it. You set yourself up most every day," Spock says, projecting, more than really showing, a return of good humor from the captious hair-splitting that he fell into, like bad habit, at any sense of his own lack of certainty in a situation.

He folds his legs under himself and settles on his knees, rear resting on the heels of his shoes, before flipping the hat off his head and setting it neatly into one of the grocery bags. It makes him smaller, yet, somehow, manages to bring him a little closer to where Jim is seated.

Setting down his bottle, he rests his hands on his knees.

"Something else. Alright. Adult Vulcans prefer puzzles and strategy games as well as certain sports. We abandon other games that might have been acceptable when we were children. And even as children, the games that I played were not anything like that one we just attempted. Yet not entirely unlike the kind that you might have played yourself, Jim ... very much like variants on Blind Man's Bluff, Hide and Seek, Red Rover and, interestingly ... Uncle. Is this constructive to getting to know me?"

Uncle. Jim looks back at him, amusement and curiosity so bright in his eyes that Spock would be wise to prepare himself for a later interrogation on young Vulcan sport.

"Very constructive," he says, and though they're his own words, he'd never meant to be so formal. He wants to get to know Spock, but even more, he wants to talk to him. Be around him. Watch him. Listen. He's fascinating, endlessly, frustratingly so, Jim never knows what the hell is going to come out of his mouth, making each conversation a cliff over which Jim throws himself readily. "So what's the game?"

The effervescent amusement on Jim's face raises Spock's brows again, but he responds - in a voice which he suspects conveys the irony he feels at the subject. For it certainly would not be an appropriate game for an adult to play, such is the double-standard between Vulcan adults, who must be in control of themselves, and Vulcan children, who are considered not whole quite yet.

What is interesting is that the distinction when considered deeply enough is illogically arbitrary. There is no distinct line of maturity in any species but for what is written in a law-book somewhere. He does not voice this opinion amongst his father's people. He isn't stupid.

"Dap-lan-pa is a game of strength, skill and endurance in which two or more players face one another, hold the opponent's hand, interlock fingers, and then attempt to get the opponent to release this grip by bending the hand back and creating painful straining on the wrist. When a player can no longer stand the pain - or with older children, at such a point when pain manifests in their bearing, they declare defeat. There are, of course, rules, strategies and etiquette. It is usually played at about the same stage that children are learning their first pain suppression techniques. Very probably the only reason why the game is so often carefully ignored when adults know that it is being played."

Admitting it is, perhaps, Spock's way of trying to tell Jim that their formative experiences were not entirely alien in every way.

"Arm wrestling." Jim grins broadly at him, satisfied in his expectation that whatever Spock said could and would defy expectation. It's a game Jim would have played to the point of breaking his own bones as a child, an end to which he may yet push himself as an adult, if the competitive fire already making itself known in his belly is any indication.

However. "Spock, you're stronger than me. By a lot, and don't think I'm not jealous. And you have way more experience when it comes to not manifesting. How the hell am I going to win?" And is such knowledge enough to prevent Jim trying anyway? Certainly not.

The white that shows around Spock's dark irises is tantamount to surprised laughter on that face, and he says nothing until Jim is entirely finished speaking. Just sits as he is, legs curled under himself, palms gently resting on his knees.

"I was simply describing it, not telling you that we ought to play it. I'm an adult, Jim. I don't have any particular desire to seek out ways to be in pain ... unlike yourself." His lips give a tiny twitch. "And I additionally have no particular desire to play a game that is not equally challenging to the both of us. Let's not arm wrestle. But I would have no objection to, if you would be amenable, attempting to fashion a three-dimensional chess board with you. So that I can trounce you fairly."

The stare that he gives this time is nearly coy before he opens his mouth again. "I just wanted to reassure you that we had more than work in common. You seemed to be in need of such reassurance."

Jim laughs again, as much for the look on Spock's face as for his own mistake. "You get me all worked up about hand holding and wrassling and then you deny me?" He leans back, regarding him with still crinkled eyes. "You're a tease, Spock. Okay."

Slapping his hand against his own knee, Jim rallies. More than work in common, indeed. "You want to make a chess board? Now? Out of groceries?" Given their haul, it's not actually impossible, and Jim frowns. "Or just plan one?"

"Not now," Spock cuts in with strange fondness. "I never said now. Just that it was something that I might - do - wish to do."

Spock studies the groceries scattered around them for a brief moment before lifting his face to meet Jim's again. "It is also entirely unfair, Captain, to accuse me of being a tease. May I also point out that I have only refused to engage you in a game of strength when it would not be an engaging challenge? I have made no statement one way or another about hand holding or 'wrassling.'"

"Well, that's good," says Jim, responding to something he senses rather than sees in the other man's eyes. "Because I hold hands like a champion."

His heartrate has accelerated. This is noted with a detachment any Vulcan would be proud of, and a color in Jim's cheeks a Vulcan would not, and all at once Jim wonders if he's only had one beer, or more and lost track somehow. "Well. No chess, for now, and no wrassling. Now what?" Jim lifts a brow. "Red Rover?"

"I was not aware that they held frequent competitive hand-holding tournaments," Spock offers, before noticing the color rising on Jim's well-formed face, the corresponding blossom of sweat on his upper lip. He refuses to allow himself to read into - read anywhere into - the reaction, as equally possible that it is embarrassment or discomfort or (less likely) just the meager alcohol content listed on the label of the Corona Jim's worked his way through.

He refuses to allow himself to wonder. But he does allow himself to be fully candid about his intentions in taking the conversation this way - not simply because Jim had suggested to take it somewhere else. "I am willing to just talk. After all, I do not know the food which you are most predisposed to. Should this not be amended, should the reverse not be true, if you believe it important to know such things about my person?"

"Well, we can amend it," Jim replies, "But I'm not sure you'll be impressed. Half my favorite foods are made from the component parts we've just bought, and the rest can be summarized as containing meat, salt, and cheese."

Distantly, he wonders if Spock's knees hurt, perched so long like that as he is. Jim couldn't do it, one bum knee courtesy of a training exercise his first year as a cadet and the other an Orion pleasure bar. When it comes to long minutes spent on one's knees, this, as with arm wrestling, Jim will have to concede to Spock. "If it's a heart attack stuffed between two pieces of bread, I probably want to eat it."

"Why should I have to be impressed by what is your favorite? As I have been made well aware of, I am not your attending personal care physician." He pauses, before shuffling forward, until his legs brush against the bottom of Jim's shoe, to start dutifully unpacking the reusable grocery bags to organize the food by necessary temperature - and then further, by shelf-stable and perishable.

"As much as you may believe otherwise, I respect your life choices as an individual. I believe that I have already said so, but I reiterate that I look forward to seeing your enjoyment of Doctor McCoy's meal, and appreciate that the two of you have made leeway in your usual relationship for me." He pauses, before admitting. "I have never invited anyone over for anything of the sort before. As you can imagine, I do not often make or hold an acquaintance for long since becoming a part of Starfleet. And the blame is not on the humans that make up the majority of Starfleet's body of membership. Vulcan culture has been too self-satisfied to remain very little more than a collection of charming miscomprehensions in the minds of others. Interesting, then, that you seem so determined to press past that. You are a good man, Jim. You would have to do little else to impress me."

Edited 2012-07-01 06:45 (UTC)

Jim's smile, wide for the pass Spock takes at Bones' temper, gradually gentles, becoming something almost fragile as Spock continues to speak. He's working steadily, systematically, arranging the items that combined make some of Jim's favorite dishes in any world with care. Jim has room to draw his legs back, to give Spock more room in the little car. Finding that he likes the faint pressure against his foot as Spock works, Jim doesn't.

He's quiet as he listens. Most people don't speak to Jim like this, buying into his bluster and bravado as thoroughly as Jim sells it. Seeing no need in Jim for reassurance, most offer none. He, too, Jim is startled to realize, is also a collection of miscomprehensions in the minds of others. But not Spock's. Not Pike's mind either, or Bones', all of them exceptionally good men. And Spock counts him among them.

"I, uh," he says, suddenly at a loss for how to follow that, the verbal translation of the comfortable warmth in his gut too embarrassing to give voice to. "What do you think? Any of the perishables going to live?"

"I'm not an expert in food safety in the twenty-first century," Spock replies in comfortable monotone as he wedges butter and milk and yogurt and ... roast beef ... into a tetris-like vision of geometric efficiency. "But I should think that even after six hours, if the food isn't a raw ingredient, it should still be safe for consumption if it is heated to a safe temperature during preparation."

Reconsidering the roast beef, he takes it back out and holds it out toward Jim with a questioning eyebrow.

"Also. Captain. As it would be somewhat highly irresponsible of me as your First Officer to allow you to enter a future situation of casual diplomacy under-informed in such a way as to undermine your competency, I should have you know that hand-holding is a highly inappropriate topic to fold into conversation with a Vulcan with whom you are not deeply familiar with ... as such things in our culture are quite commensurable to what your culture would refer to colloquially as: kissing, with tongues."

Jim has the decency to flush, but it's less for his blunder than for his sudden awareness of Spock's hands, still holding that chunk of roast beef in offering. He's looked at them many times over the months, both here and on the Enterprise, felt them in anger and in support, but he's never really looked. His fingers are long, faintly green at the knuckles and the tips, strong in a way that's not intimidating so much as it is...fascinating. And Spock uses them for kissing.

"You started it," he hears himself say, rallying with a clear of his throat. He doesn't know what it is, exactly, that moves him to lift an eyebrow as he reaches for the meat. Spock himself, perhaps, or Jim's general need to let no conversation run its course in peace. "My earlier statement stands."

"Did I?" He asks as if he has no recollection of supposedly having started anything, and hands off the most perishable of the food before he sits back comfortably on his heels again, having been contented by the methodical re-arranging of food, possibly in the same way that Jim was comforted by games, or so he claimed.

"I don't recall." He pauses before adding, apparently not content to simply let the conversation move smoothly on, for whatever reason. Maybe the brow that Jim has arched in his direction. "Your face is very pink. Are you well? I suppose the air might be becoming a little too under-circulated but I don't foresee it causing any serious issue."

"M'fine," says Jim with a small, rueful smile, willing all that hot, red blood to drain away. "Just human." He looks down at his arms, now full of meat and cheese. There's no reason to let it go to waste, and no graceful way to eat it while seated on an elevator floor, but Jim hasn't spent too much of his life on grace.

He tears open the roast beef with his teeth, looking up at Spock after. Fucker knows damn well he'd been the one to mention a game comprised entirely of holding hands. "It's not going to make you sick, is it?" he asks. "Roast beef's got a pretty strong smell, and this is a little car."

"Sick?" Spock asks, truthfully puzzled for a few seconds, before putting together what Jim is suggesting. Finally moving from his fairly formal seating position, he slips back onto his rear to gather his knees in front of himself, resting his wrists across them and peering intently across at Jim. The expression on his face does not change, in particular, but amusement does relax it.

"The smell does not bother me. It isn't entirely pleasant, but it isn't entirely unappetizing either. We don't, as a matter of strong philosophical and ethical belief, consume animal flesh. That does not mean that we as a species are not adapted to enjoy it. We abstain because we cannot imagine not doing so. We abstain from many things. Principled restraint is a tree of contentment which also calm and peace bears to fruit."

"If I find contentment in a wellmade sandwich, what does that say about me?" Jim asks, tearing off a chunk of the deli meat with a smile that only broadens when it hits his tongue. It's a fair impression of a man who's not fascinated by the Vulcan precepts that frequently leave Spock's mouth, but an impression is all it is.

"When you say stuff like that," he asks, genuinely curious, "is it to remind yourself? Like a chant or an affirmation or something? Or are you trying to teach me?" Tearing off another chunk, Jim continues like a freight train, "What else do you abstain from to be content?"

Watching the other man's enjoyment contently, Spock has a ready answer for much of what he asks, even if he asks in quick succession. That Jim asks at all pleases Spock to such a point that the curve of his lips becomes not a smile, but certainly less of one thing, more of another.

"Every humanoid culture that the Federation has contact with, so far as I am aware, possesses a set of moral aphorisms. They are short, concise, often pithy, and this is because they are necessary to remind ourselves of. And easy to remember. An idea is only information. It will not do us any great personal good until we fully accept it as a perception of truth in our minds. A belief. I'm not trying to teach you anything that you don't wish to learn. I have no desire in my life to proselytize."

Spock's face gives its tiny quirk again. "I also should think that you already know much of what you ask for. I abstain from emotion ... when it clouds logic, when possible. From over-indulgence in anything ... but from unnecessary miserliness as well. From thoughtless gossip. From lying or hiding from truths, however unpleasant. From most mind-altering substances. From anonymous sex and further from indiscriminate affection. None of these things will provide me with contentment. And their absence, therefore, causes me no distress."

Swallowing the deli meat, Jim moves on to the cheese, tearing off a hunk and holding it up in offering in case Spock would like some, too. "You know," he says, "I'm not sure I had any hard and fast beliefs before Starfleet. I had a compass, I guess, I know what I feel is right and what's wrong, but no aphorisms. My stepdaddy wasn't really one for, well. Morals in general," he adds with a roll of his eyes.

"But Starfleet, the Prime Directive, our duties and goals, I could recite that all day and night, I love it. It feels important, you know? It's like somebody put to words the feeling I had stuck inside of me my whole life, what I wanted and where I wanted to go, what I needed to do."

Jim smiles, a little wistful, before cocking his head. "What the hell does indiscriminate affection mean?"

Spock holds a palm out to refuse the food - he isn't particularly hungry, so he doesn't eat. He hopes that Jim realizes that this is the reason, rather than anything more personal. He doesn't desire to offend anyone, least not Jim Kirk, but he doesn't dote on the feelings of others, either. Spock doesn't walk on eggshells any more than any other Vulcan; he thinks this of himself, at any rate.

"Having a moral compass is what makes you a good man," Spock observes, as if what Jim claims proves Spock's own point. "I told you once before that you are uniquely suited to the work that you've found your way to, and perhaps that is part of why you've found your way to it. Depending on whether or not one chooses to believe in destiny."

Spock does not claim one way or another, for himself, or elaborate on his own thoughts on what is important, and how he feels about the fleet and her duties and goals. Instead, he moves his head to the side in the opposite direction of Jim's, mirroring the small movement, if not the wistful expression.

"'Indiscriminate' meaning, not marked by careful distinction. 'Affection' meaning, fondness or liking, or the physical expression of these. If you require an FSE dictionary, they sell something close enough in this city." It's a tease, one that doesn't manage to not express a little of the affection that Spock has declared to require much discrimination. Nevertheless, he considers his answer carefully.

"It is a matter of intimacy. Real intimacy is what a Vulcan might consider a sacred experience. For instance, a mother and daughter would never expose the secret trust and belonging of the family to the voyeuristic eye of the public. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the Vulcan soul is reserved."

"You keep the real thing close," says Jim, supposing that he understands, even if he could never be like that, not completely. "I guess that makes it more special, knowing it's just for you and the person who's sharing it."

He's speculating, of course. He'd meant what he said in their earlier game, he loves the Enterprise, is head right over fucking heels for her, but there's never been a person Jim could say that he's been in love with. He cares for people, and deeply, has spent scattered, fervent moments passionately obsessed with every member of his crew, but never romantically. There'd even been a month where Jim was convinced he was in love with Bones, but the relationship proved too complicated to untangle into any one thing, and in the end, Jim had shied away from a form of it that could one day be broken.

He's quiet. He has been for a while now, Jim realizes, and he picks at the cheese, pulling a smaller hunk of it into his mouth. "So, no Vulcan PDA. I guess even the kind we'd think of as innocent on Earth is kind of impossible, now that I know holding hands is basically Frenching."

"More or less," Spock replies - words that are, tellingly, not particularly Vulcan. But the things that have influenced his beliefs in the area of relationships are not, more or less, completely Vulcan. He doesn't always wish this to be true, but he knows that he is - knows for how fervently it had meant something to hear his father admit that he loved his mother.

He could not have wished for more, except that, perhaps, his father had not needed to say so in the past tense. And, perhaps, that he would have been able to have the same courage as Sarek, and say the same words to those who deserve them.

Now, Spock is here, whatever that may mean for anything.

And he's been too thoughtfully quiet for too long.

"Further, if it isn't real, it has no point." Spock shrugs sharp shoulders gently from above where he has himself hunched over his own knees in the little elevator car. "Innocence is a curious word to use," he observes, but continues without further comment. "Kissing in the way that humans do holds an evolutionary purpose. As our evolution is different, different things serve different purposes. My touch transfers a great deal more information than yours would - if I allow it. Then again, it could not."

He settles a thoughtful look on Jim, before turning his head toward the roof of the elevator car. Someone has, at least, showed up to start working on getting the thing in working order again.

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

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