No surprises lie in wait within the cup. It's not even from a chain, but the nondescript offerings of the communal mess hall in the officers' barracks here at the HQ. So much of him is volume and flash, weaponized extroversion, that it's easy to forget Jim Kirk is a kid from Nowhere, Iowa, raised in a bare bones, workaholic Starfleet officer's household. Simple things as a comforting baseline holds true, despite the chaotic turn his childhood took (not that anybody besides one Doctor McCoy knows anything about that; Jim's never let on, and most of it's been sealed in an iron-clad juvenile record anyway).
There's no need to fill the air with smalltalk. Sometimes, he can just shut up, too.
After a while,
"Have you ever very nearly made a fatal error, like almost slipping off a ledge because you weren't looking, and you're left with that... unhelpful adrenaline that's not actually fight-or-flight, because it's relief as much as it is terror?"
Smalltalk and companionable silence both could rank on a scale of time wasting activities that the robotically productive among us may choose to eschew, but without anything pressing for Spock to bring to Jim's attention, he is available to indulge in the latter, for the time that it lasts. Normally, there is a blackness to behold, a cold vacuum separated by glass. There will be again, soon enough.
The coffee offers very little in the way of nutritional value, and tastes a little like something died. He's tempted to ask what the point of it is by the time Jim breaks the silence with--
Something Spock judges to be figurative. Gamely;
"An experience that is often as emotional as it is physiological. I imagine for beings who have not yet mastered the division between these two components, that the former would linger beyond the latter."
"You'd imagine," could be agreement, and Jim takes a slow sip of his coffee, reminding himself that no, Vulcans don't lie, but they can dodge questions. He wonders if Spock even realizes he hasn't answered, though. Probably not. Probably a topic beneath him, despite the fact that Jim thinks he's better at splitting his heart and his body than his first officer-- something he's aware would get him the eyebrow arch to end all eyebrow arches were he to mention it.
There is no further elaboration. Jim's not sure if he actually feels like trying to poke his friend into understanding what he's talking about - he's gotten pretty good at it, he feels, but sometimes the mental sensation of hitting his head against a willfully obstinate wall becomes tiring. You know, fondly. Sort of.
Sometimes he also doesn't need to. Spock's way of watching Jim is typically Vulcan in fixed, if mild study, in which he may or may not be replaying in his mind the current conversation with the kind of accuracy that gives accusations of robot some weight. Jim could be agreeing with him in his echo. It is also oblique.
"Yes, I imagine," he affirms, regardless. "The experience you describe is not uncommon, shared throughout a multitude of species. But its behavioural expression differs between type."
Clearly.
He recaps his coffee to retain its heat.
"But to answer your question, I have. Do you refer to a ledge in particular, Jim?"
A year ago he might have elaborated, today he doesn't. Strangely, it's due to feeling closer to Spock. Jim's come to understand that trying to shove things into the half-Vulcan's face to try and force his human side into cooperation is not only largely useless but most often counter-productive and insulting. (Not to say he doesn't still give it the old academy try.) Better to not meander.
"I think I've finally come around to it being all relief."
Humans can be difficult, but when you commune with them daily, on an ongoing basis, with a desire to understand them, there are patterns and trends one can follow, each as unique as there are people. Any reticence on Jim's part is taken for what it is, in this event, and Spock's face doesn't do anything so drastic as smile.
"You think so?" --is rhetorical in its musing, because of course Spock thinks so, or he wouldn't have said. Jim sips his coffee, looking up at the construction of his ship. Their ship; their home. How could he have been thinking of leaving? Finally, these months later, the embarrassed, fight-or-flight pinpricks don't alight the back of his neck at the memory. Yorktown station is incredible, but he's already bored of it. He would have been killing himself as a Vice Admiral.
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no subject
There's no need to fill the air with smalltalk. Sometimes, he can just shut up, too.
After a while,
"Have you ever very nearly made a fatal error, like almost slipping off a ledge because you weren't looking, and you're left with that... unhelpful adrenaline that's not actually fight-or-flight, because it's relief as much as it is terror?"
no subject
The coffee offers very little in the way of nutritional value, and tastes a little like something died. He's tempted to ask what the point of it is by the time Jim breaks the silence with--
Something Spock judges to be figurative. Gamely;
"An experience that is often as emotional as it is physiological. I imagine for beings who have not yet mastered the division between these two components, that the former would linger beyond the latter."
no subject
There is no further elaboration. Jim's not sure if he actually feels like trying to poke his friend into understanding what he's talking about - he's gotten pretty good at it, he feels, but sometimes the mental sensation of hitting his head against a willfully obstinate wall becomes tiring. You know, fondly. Sort of.
no subject
"Yes, I imagine," he affirms, regardless. "The experience you describe is not uncommon, shared throughout a multitude of species. But its behavioural expression differs between type."
Clearly.
He recaps his coffee to retain its heat.
"But to answer your question, I have. Do you refer to a ledge in particular, Jim?"
no subject
A year ago he might have elaborated, today he doesn't. Strangely, it's due to feeling closer to Spock. Jim's come to understand that trying to shove things into the half-Vulcan's face to try and force his human side into cooperation is not only largely useless but most often counter-productive and insulting. (Not to say he doesn't still give it the old academy try.) Better to not meander.
"I think I've finally come around to it being all relief."
no subject
But it's a little there in spirit.
"A most logical adaptation, captain."
no subject
"Hopefully I'll still be able to see the ledges."