it is all chaos and entropy. the thing is that the chaos and entropy make it beautiful and lovely.
yes, it's true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is terrifying. i have lived through some of the unfairness - i got born like this, with my body caving into itself, with this ironic love of dance when i sometimes can't stand up for longer than 15 minutes. i am a poet with hands that are slowly shutting down - i can't hold a pen some days. recently i found a dead bird on our front porch. she had no visible injuries. she had just died, the way things die sometimes.
it is also true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is wonderful. the sheer happenstance that makes rain turn into a rainbow. the impossible coincidence of finding your best friend. i have made so many mistakes and i have let myself down and i have harmed other people by accident. nature moves anyway. on the worst day of my life she delivers me an orange juice sunset, as if she is saying try again tomorrow.
how vast and unknowing the universe! how small we are! isn't that lovely. the universe has given us flowers and harp strings and the shape of clouds. how massive our lives are in comparison to a grasshopper. the world so bright, still undiscovered. even after 30 years of being on this earth, i learned about a new type of animal today: the dhole.
chance echoing in my life like a harmony between two people talking. do you think you and i, living in different worlds but connected through the internet - do you think we've ever seen the same butterfly? they migrate thousands of miles. it's possible, right?
how beautiful the ways we fill the vastness of space. i love that when large amounts of people are applauding in a room, they all start clapping at the same time. i love that the ocean reminds us of our mother's heartbeat. i love that out of all the colors, chlorophyll chose green. i love the coincidences. i love the places where science says i don't know, but it just happens.
"the universe doesn't care about you!" oh, i know. that's okay. i care about the universe. i will put my big stupid heart out into it and watch the universe feast on it. it is not painful. it is strange - the more love you pour into the unfeeling world, the more it feels the world loves you in return. i know it's confirmation bias. i think i'm okay if my proof of kindness is just my own body and my own spirit.
i buried the bird from our porch deep in the woods. that same day, an old friend reaches out to me and says i miss you. wherever you go, no matter how bad it gets - you try to do good.
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Give me Steve, Eddie, and Robin at a bar on a Friday night.
They've had a few drinks, and a shot or two when a song comes on, and Steve immediately jumps to his feet with an, "Oh shit!!"
It's Madonna's Get Into the Groove and for a moment Robin and Eddie think Steve is in pain, that he hates the song as is going to ask the DJ to change it.
Except Steve waltzes onto the dance floor, right into the center.
There aren't too many others dancing, it's early still, barely nine in the evening but the spot lights are on and the DJ flicks on the multicolor strobe as Steve parks himself on the dance floor.
Robin laughs and wishes she had brought the disposable camera instead of leaving it in her junk drawer at home.
Eddie meanwhile rolls his eyes, and pretends not to notice the tightness of Steve's jeans or how the light catches the flecks of gold in his hair and eyes.
He's been attempting to hide his pathetic little crush for awhile now, complaining to Robin every chance he gets when Steve does something particularly charming or handsome.
She tells him, as sagely as she can muster, to grow a pair and do something about it already.
But how can he, Steve was, well, Steve...lovely caring, hot as hell, Steve.
What chance did Eddie have?
So he sits there, miserable, nursing his beer, letting his eyes trail after Steve while Robin giggles beside him.
They've never seen him dance, it's bar, they're drunk, the worst that could happen is he makes an ass out of himself and they all go home with a great new story to tell the party later.
God Robin really wishes she brought her camera with her.
But then Steve is moving and he's fluid, never missing a beat. It's some kind of choreography, intentional and practiced movements that wouldn't be out of place in a music video. Eddie and Robin look at each other because, what the fuck, where did this come from??
And people are cheering and whooping, strangers scattered here and there sitting off of the dance floor. There's a sense of comradery, like they're all witness to something and being allowed to share and indulge in this little impromptu performance, but all too soon the song is over and Steve heads back to his seat with a small round of applause and a blinding smile pulling at his flushed cheeks.
"Steve, what the fuck was that??" Robin blurts out before Steve can even sit. Eddie nods, a little dazed, beside her and tears at the paper label on his beer bottle, maybe if he can keep his hands occupied he can keep them to himself.
"What was what?" Steve breathes out as he hops onto the stool beside them, Robin in the middle.
Robin's mouth falls open as her face scrunches into something exasperated but fond, "What was--that! The dancing!"
"Oh, that," Steve huffs with a lazy smile, he leans his elbow on the sticky wood bar and waves at the bartender to signal for another gin and tonic, "I used to help Carol with her choreography for cheer".
Eddie pinches his thigh below the bartop and chews the inside of his cheek as the image of Steve in the Hawkins High cheer uniform begins to solidify in his minds eye, fuck.
Robin elbows Eddie without looking, somehow reading his mind, and throws her hands out, beckoning Steve to continue because that isn't nearly enough information.
"Yeah, she'd come up with routines and you know, they are meant to be done with more than one person, and I mean she and I were friends before Tommy so," he shrugs and smiles at the bartender as they pass him the drink, "I dunno, it was fun, and I remember that one the most".
"Plus," he says with a smirk, "Carol always said the best thing about dance is that you can tell who appreciates the performance and who appreciates the person doing it," he winks as Robin scoffs and calls him gross, but Steve isn't looking at Robin.
Eddie swallows as molten heat creeps up his neck and over his ears, the urge to hide his face, run for the door, melt into the floor, is immense.
But Steve doesn't move his gaze, he smiles softly at Eddie and winks again over Robin's head which she promptly drops into her hands.
"I'm surrounded by horny idiots," she grumbles but the words are muffled in the din of the bar and her own hands as Steve tips his head back to the dance floor and holds out his hand for Eddie to take.
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Happy Pride! Jim & Spock? Can be in the Sybokverse or on their own eitherway is perfect!
a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5
“I believe I have the right to face my accuser.”
Jim is going to tear this asshole apart.
There’s muttering throughout the crowd, the auditorium filled to the brim for one cadet’s academic dishonesty disciplinary hearing. These are always open to be attended by the accused’s peers, but usually no one bothers, having far better things to do on a Friday morning. Jim is flattered, honestly.
Admiral Archer nods and everyone turns as one of the instructors stands and walks stiffly to the other podium.
Jim is honestly taken aback. A Vulcan giving him shit over this? He squints, trying to place him, suddenly sure he’s seen him somewhere before. Possibly just in the halls, but the familiarity feels deeper than that. He’s met a lot of Vulcans, to be fair.
“Cadet,” he greets.
“Defend the logic of your accusation,” he says, falling into familiar vernacular and only barely keeping himself from saying it in formal Vulcan. This guy might appreciate it, but Archer won’t, and Chris had told him not to be too much of an asshole.
The Vulcan raises an eyebrow. “The purpose of the test is to assess your response to no win scenarios. Altering the parameters, while admittedly an impressive feat of programming, shows both your lack of understanding and your casual disregard for the institution of Starfleet.”
“I don’t believe in no win scenarios,” he says confidently, flashing a smile to the assembled admirals that, in different circumstances, tends to get him laid.
He stiffens. “Your belief in them does not change their existence. In an impossible situation, you must react to the circumstances given to you. Anything else is entertaining delusions.”
“Bullshit,” Jim says immediately and sees Chris pinch the bridge of his nose. Oops. This is a perfect time to go into the speech that he has prepared, about how if he was actually trying to cheat he would have been more subtle about it, about how cheating was his answer to the question presented by the test, and how that applies to how he would really react as a captain.
But then the Vulcan gives him the bitchiest look he’s seen in – well, about four days, but he’s suddenly so sure where he knows him from.
~
Spock doesn’t understand how someone with so little regard for both etiquette and moral standards has survived this long in the academy. He’s intimately familiar with the doors that having a famous father can open, but surely there must be limits.
James Kirk opens his mouth, presumably to continue his insulting and inappropriate defense of his actions, then his eyes narrow, widen, and he demands, “Spock? S'Chn T'Gai Spock? Son of Amanda Grayson and S'Chn T'Gai Sarek?”
For a moment, all he can do is stare. “Have we met?”
His syntax when first faced with him had made him think that James Kirk was familiar with Vulcan, as unlikely as that seemed, but now he’s sure. Not only because of the correct pronunciation of his family name, but in how he has addressed him. Vulcan society is matriarchal. It is correct to identify him first as his mother’s son, and also appropriate to leave off his father’s title as ambassador when identifying his family origin, as his father’s position is supposed to be secondary to his mother’s. His mother married into his father’s clan, but that doesn’t change formal conventions.
Even on Vulcan, he is rarely identified correctly.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” James Kirk says, then takes out his communicator and starts typing.
What.
“Cadet Kirk!” Admiral Archer barks. “Put that away and comport yourself as your position demands or we’ll be here for more than accusations of your cheating.”
“Apologies, Admiral,” James Kirk says, placing his hands behind his back and looking like he’s taking this seriously for the first time. “If you’ll just allow a couple minutes-”
Spock’s communicator goes off.
“Commander,” Admiral Archer says warningly.
“One moment, please,” he says, his stomach rolling as he takes out the communicator. He’s hoping that this is another of James Kirk’s tricks, because when he’s placed it on silent only his family can contact him, and his mother marks all of her correspondence as non urgent. There is no good reason for his father to contact him.
He opens it up and blinks twice, to be certain of what he’s seeing.
Sybok has sent him a text base message. His elder brother never sends him text based communication, as he believes that Spock will not respond timely or authentically, and so only video calls him. Usually at inopportune times.
stop being mean to jimmy :(
He is a genius. Several things suddenly make sense all at once.
He is of course aware of his older brother’s dear friend who he only refers to as Jimmy. In the tragedy of Tarsus IV, when all should have been lost and the corrupt governor threatened to kill half the colony and did kill a not insignificant amount of them, it was Jimmy and Sybok who worked together to create a sort of resistance and keep people alive long enough to for their jury-rigged signal to make it through.
Receiving that strange message from Sybok after years of silence had let him, and their father, know that something was wrong and alert Starfleet.
Jimmy, who had been a minor at the time, and so his identity had been kept from the public at his request, and who had visited Sybok on Vulcan but Spock had examinations at the time and had not been permitted to travel across planet to meet him.
James Kirk looks at him, a smile hovering around the corners of his lips.
James Kirk. Colloquially known as Jim. Jimmy.
Spock had designed the Kobayashi Maru with his brother’s experience at Tarsus IV in mind. He had been different after, just as prone to arguing with their father, more prone to arguing with everyone else, but he’d been sturdier too. As if that experience had at once confirmed and destroyed all of his worst expectations of people.
James Kirk does not believe in no win scenarios and he has demonstrated that more aptly than any simulation could.
“I rescind my accusation of academic dishonesty towards Cadet Kirk.”
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