James Tiberius Kirk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
boldygoing) wrote2018-09-06 07:22 pm
boldygoing) wrote2018-09-06 07:22 pm
Happiness is a Thing to be Practiced, Like the Violin
The day after Jim sends Zunar to Hunter, another small package arrives. The paper crane is amateurishly folded, and one of the wings is crooked, but inside is another short message, scrawled in Jim's hand.
I hope you've got a little extra space in your saddlebags.
Jim has never really had to give meaningful gifts before; with no one to dote on and no real hankering for collecting anything, why would he have? But ever since the dream (vision?), he's started to realize that more has changed than he thought.
Fortunately, he's always been a quick learner.
Slowly, one evening at a time, he reaches out to Hunter not in words, but trinkets, small tokens of apology and affection. A small bouquet of assorted flowers from the ship's botany labs, after making sure they're all safe for human contact. A packet of the good coffee from his personal stash, tucked inside a tall ceramic mug with Starfleet's insignia etched in its side. An origami Omuta rose, the paper perfumed to smell like a real one, light and fragrant. A pocket-sized canvas painting of a mountain landscape, clearly followed step-for-step from one of the instructional videos Hunter gifted him before the mission, still at a beginner's level but with a proud JTK painted into one corner. A round, palm-sized holoprojector whose image banks are stuffed full of stellar photography: asteroids ringed around a brilliant seafoam green planet, a baby star wrapped in spirals of hot glowing gases, a shimmering red-gold nebula painted across a canvas of star-studded black.
After a week, however, Hunter will likely recognize the same iPad he sent to Jim two weeks ago, a ripe red apple weighing down a note to its screen. Play me, it says, in Jim's handwriting this time.
There's a second video file in the tablet's databank now, and while the first fifteen seconds or so are filled with the sounds of Jim fumbling awkwardly with the device's manual controls, the background is clearly the captain's quarters, aimed at the couch below his viewport.
Jim enters the frame, clad in his golden Starfleet uniform, and waves to the camera. "Hey, Hunter; long time no see. Uh, things are going pretty good here so far. We checked out three planets in the same system this week, didn't find sentient life, but one of 'em had this really cool garden with these dragonfly lizard things. That's, um, that's where I got the first flower I sent you. The lab guys let me name it zinnia venandi." He smiles uncertainly, a little awkward and nervous, worried about overstepping his bounds. "Hunter's zinnia."
A beat, and Jim leans forward, picking up something out of frame and setting it on his lap, and he takes a deep breath. "...look, I've been a dumbass about all this for a long time now. I know you said you were okay with it, but I think I was just... I don't know. Scared, in denial, whatever. But I've had a... wakeup call, and I... miss you. A lot." He's rehearsed this several times, but saying it out loud, somehow it's still just as hard to expose his heart, to admit what he really thinks and feels.
"I don't know how to deal with this whole not-having-your-magic thing or what the hell I can even do to help. I hate being useless and I can't even be there to listen to you or give you a hug or anything. I hope Zunar's doing a good job in my place, but I wish I was there for you too."
Aware that he's begun to ramble, Jim stops again. "I have no idea what I'm doing. But I want to try again, if you'll let me. Try to fix what I've fucked up."
He raises his hands, and in them is a violin and bow, and as he settles them into the right position to play, a glint of light catches the blue and silver ring on his middle finger, freed of the chain that's held it close to his heart since the launch. "Sorry if this sucks, I've only been practicing for a week," Jim says with a weak chuckle, having never played for anyone before, let alone someone he cares about. "Computer, play accompaniment track 3841."
It's an old song, by Jim's reckoning, but he's dug deep into the archives to find something from Hunter's era, something to say what he's so utterly inept at admitting in his own words. And though Jim's skill with the instrument is still rusty and hesitant, he's right on key, the sweet sounds of "Love's Just A Feeling" singing from the tablet's speakers.
Jim smiles to the camera, and all he can do is hope it's enough. "Shanah tovah, Hunter."
“Just as we can play beautiful music only when the strings on the violin are in proper tension, so we can grow only when we are stretched from what we are to what we can be. There is no growth without tension.”
― J. Grant Howard
I hope you've got a little extra space in your saddlebags.
Jim has never really had to give meaningful gifts before; with no one to dote on and no real hankering for collecting anything, why would he have? But ever since the dream (vision?), he's started to realize that more has changed than he thought.
Fortunately, he's always been a quick learner.
Slowly, one evening at a time, he reaches out to Hunter not in words, but trinkets, small tokens of apology and affection. A small bouquet of assorted flowers from the ship's botany labs, after making sure they're all safe for human contact. A packet of the good coffee from his personal stash, tucked inside a tall ceramic mug with Starfleet's insignia etched in its side. An origami Omuta rose, the paper perfumed to smell like a real one, light and fragrant. A pocket-sized canvas painting of a mountain landscape, clearly followed step-for-step from one of the instructional videos Hunter gifted him before the mission, still at a beginner's level but with a proud JTK painted into one corner. A round, palm-sized holoprojector whose image banks are stuffed full of stellar photography: asteroids ringed around a brilliant seafoam green planet, a baby star wrapped in spirals of hot glowing gases, a shimmering red-gold nebula painted across a canvas of star-studded black.
After a week, however, Hunter will likely recognize the same iPad he sent to Jim two weeks ago, a ripe red apple weighing down a note to its screen. Play me, it says, in Jim's handwriting this time.
There's a second video file in the tablet's databank now, and while the first fifteen seconds or so are filled with the sounds of Jim fumbling awkwardly with the device's manual controls, the background is clearly the captain's quarters, aimed at the couch below his viewport.
Jim enters the frame, clad in his golden Starfleet uniform, and waves to the camera. "Hey, Hunter; long time no see. Uh, things are going pretty good here so far. We checked out three planets in the same system this week, didn't find sentient life, but one of 'em had this really cool garden with these dragonfly lizard things. That's, um, that's where I got the first flower I sent you. The lab guys let me name it zinnia venandi." He smiles uncertainly, a little awkward and nervous, worried about overstepping his bounds. "Hunter's zinnia."
A beat, and Jim leans forward, picking up something out of frame and setting it on his lap, and he takes a deep breath. "...look, I've been a dumbass about all this for a long time now. I know you said you were okay with it, but I think I was just... I don't know. Scared, in denial, whatever. But I've had a... wakeup call, and I... miss you. A lot." He's rehearsed this several times, but saying it out loud, somehow it's still just as hard to expose his heart, to admit what he really thinks and feels.
"I don't know how to deal with this whole not-having-your-magic thing or what the hell I can even do to help. I hate being useless and I can't even be there to listen to you or give you a hug or anything. I hope Zunar's doing a good job in my place, but I wish I was there for you too."
Aware that he's begun to ramble, Jim stops again. "I have no idea what I'm doing. But I want to try again, if you'll let me. Try to fix what I've fucked up."
He raises his hands, and in them is a violin and bow, and as he settles them into the right position to play, a glint of light catches the blue and silver ring on his middle finger, freed of the chain that's held it close to his heart since the launch. "Sorry if this sucks, I've only been practicing for a week," Jim says with a weak chuckle, having never played for anyone before, let alone someone he cares about. "Computer, play accompaniment track 3841."
It's an old song, by Jim's reckoning, but he's dug deep into the archives to find something from Hunter's era, something to say what he's so utterly inept at admitting in his own words. And though Jim's skill with the instrument is still rusty and hesitant, he's right on key, the sweet sounds of "Love's Just A Feeling" singing from the tablet's speakers.
Jim smiles to the camera, and all he can do is hope it's enough. "Shanah tovah, Hunter."
“Just as we can play beautiful music only when the strings on the violin are in proper tension, so we can grow only when we are stretched from what we are to what we can be. There is no growth without tension.”
― J. Grant Howard
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The gifts have made Hunter smile every night. He truly appreciates the time Jim is putting into the thought of the gifts. The origami swan. The flowers. The coffee and the mug. The origami rose. The canvas. The holo-projector. Each one is special. And each one truly a showcase of Jim's romantic side.
A side that Hunter is pleased to be learning more about.
And then he gets the iPad -- the same night that Zunar protected Hunter from the witch trying to summon him to her aid again. Wrapped in his sleeping bag, with Zunar in his lap, Hunter held the red apple to his chest as he pressed play.
He had almost forgotten how handsome Jim is when he wears the golden Starfleet uniform. And he feels a little breathless at seeing him again, even on the iPad screen. Moments later he is catching his breath again, at the surprise that Jim had named a whole species of alien flora after him.
And then Jim tells Hunter that he has been a dumbass. He sits up to pay attention to everything that Jim is saying. He reaches out to touch the screen when Jim talks about how much he misses Hunter.
His eyes go wide when the glint of light catches the ring on Jim's finger. And then there are tears of joy in his eyes as he watches Jim play the song. He closes his eyes to let the music carry into his soul, where he needs it most.
When the screen goes dark, Hunter opens his eyes again. Zunar chirps up at him.
With a nod, he pulls out his PINpoint and brings up Jim's contact information. A text feels really impersonal right now. So he decides to actually call the other man.
Just to hear his voice.
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If he'd been feeling tired at all before, the sleepiness is chased away the instant he sees who's calling. He sits up in bed, and opens the channel. "Hunter?"
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"I just finished watching your video. And I just needed to tell you how much it meant to me." He hopes he doesn't sound as tired as he was feeling.
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"I miss you a lot, too Jim."
"I got scared too. And I tried to run away from everything. It didn't work."
Hunter runs his hands over Zunar's fur. "I am making one more stop, and then will return to New York. To bring closure to everything."
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As one of the experts in Running Away 101, Jim understands deeply how strong the urge can be to run from your problems - and that in the long run, all it does is avoid them for a while. "Can I see you when you get back?"
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"I have missed you so much." He feels his voice crack a little with the emotion.
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He hesitates a moment, pretty sure he knows the answer already. "Are you... okay?"
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"I wasn't... okay... Fuck..." How is it that question is so hard to answer. He can't pretend he is fine anymore. He knows that.
"But, I don't feel as lost as I was." It is the best he can give.
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"I will call when I get back to New York." That is twice he referred to the city as just New York. And not home.
"And we will talk. About everything."
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