Not together, they say. Jim's heard that before. Coming out of his own lying sack of shit lips for nearly a year, even. But these sorts of things take time to admit if they even want to. If other people and circumstances hadn't forced Jim onto admitting what his own traitorous feelings were would he be in the situation he's in now? Decidedly not. He could have danced around it for years. Ages.
Until he was forced to look it in the eyes for what it was. Like his older counterpart had with his partner. Because at his core he's still only Jim Kirk. Tamminy Photovolt and Lawrence Weatherhill should be free to define their relationship on their terms even if the choice is not to.
It still makes the captain curl a smile across his lips watching them.
"It's not something most folks have to consider until they're a different distance away from their star, to be fair." That's an awfully fixated gaze though. It would be unsettling if he hadn't seen it before in Scotty's face right before his best ideas seem to spring to light. Stopped, however, by Lawrence. Probably for the best. He's felt those problem solving migraines before. The best kind of headache, if pain can ever be treated as best.
And her lament, well. Jim understands it all too well. It speaks to the ache in his own chest to be so close to his mission and yet still held back from it. To the time wasted every day while new unseen phenomena sit just outside the scope of his grasp. To the nebula they have a newly formatted map of and all the possibilities beyond it, waiting for Jim's ship to be finished.
Maybe that's what Tamminy needs. Not Starfleet, perhaps. But her own version of what it is to Jim. She needs something here in the Nexus or back in her own world--
She's the only one left alive.
Jim licks at his bottom lip and swallows the words so nearly slipped past them. She would already be doing that if she could. Her mind? Her drive? She's not aimless by choice like Jim was. She's lost. Without a place to put that mind to use. And Lawrence? Without anyone to make use of the skills he has and stuck in a rut of his own disability and lack of options. Working as serfs on Ixis Naugus' land when they could be...
"I might know a place that could use a mind like yours." And then he smiles at Lawrence too. "Both of yours."
no subject
Until he was forced to look it in the eyes for what it was. Like his older counterpart had with his partner. Because at his core he's still only Jim Kirk. Tamminy Photovolt and Lawrence Weatherhill should be free to define their relationship on their terms even if the choice is not to.
It still makes the captain curl a smile across his lips watching them.
"It's not something most folks have to consider until they're a different distance away from their star, to be fair." That's an awfully fixated gaze though. It would be unsettling if he hadn't seen it before in Scotty's face right before his best ideas seem to spring to light. Stopped, however, by Lawrence. Probably for the best. He's felt those problem solving migraines before. The best kind of headache, if pain can ever be treated as best.
And her lament, well. Jim understands it all too well. It speaks to the ache in his own chest to be so close to his mission and yet still held back from it. To the time wasted every day while new unseen phenomena sit just outside the scope of his grasp. To the nebula they have a newly formatted map of and all the possibilities beyond it, waiting for Jim's ship to be finished.
Maybe that's what Tamminy needs. Not Starfleet, perhaps. But her own version of what it is to Jim. She needs something here in the Nexus or back in her own world--
She's the only one left alive.
Jim licks at his bottom lip and swallows the words so nearly slipped past them. She would already be doing that if she could. Her mind? Her drive? She's not aimless by choice like Jim was. She's lost. Without a place to put that mind to use. And Lawrence? Without anyone to make use of the skills he has and stuck in a rut of his own disability and lack of options. Working as serfs on Ixis Naugus' land when they could be...
"I might know a place that could use a mind like yours." And then he smiles at Lawrence too. "Both of yours."