Jim does let out a soft laugh when Spock returns his jest, something in his chest easing with the exchange of easy words, amidst everything that's become so difficult in the past few hours. Heartened proof that no irreparable damage has been done, that there is a way back through all of this. His smile is soft, if tempered by the gravity of everything else - but still there. Through everything, the two of them are still there. "Yes, I'd have to concur with you there. I'm much better suited to the time-honored tradition of admiring of art, rather than the creation of it."
Spock, he thinks, would be good at it. Slender, long fingers, a delicate touch when he wants it to be. That was the kind of attention to detail one needed with art, not the blunt, thick-and-clumsy Jim brought to the table. Steady though Jim could be, feeding wires in carefully to a component or soldering a piece of metal - graceful and deft he was not. If Spock had the inclination for an artistic pursuit, of course; which as far as Jim is currently aware, he doesn't. Is art considered illogical, or is there a grey area Vulcans operate in? He knows of the elaborate gardens, though one could argue that they did serve a practical purpose - be it for water retention, agriculture, or diplomatic reasons (Vulcans did so love to pretend that anything entertaining was for the benefit of their illogical guests). He's read Vulcan poetry, though it's a lot more passionate circa pre-Reformation, for obvious reasons. Still, the fact that it's available for him to read at all is proof that it's believed to hold value, though how much of that is cultural versus historical, Jim couldn't say.
"And yet, you contain multitudes." Jim says gently, and far more tactfully than he had the last time they had a conversation along these lines. A different set of circumstances, another life entirely. But he knows what Spock is getting at - he read the poems, didn't he? O the night is dark and full of howls, but the day is full of screams; new dawn alights the blood, which mars the sands; green and red and black! O, to see the kiss of death upon the land!
They weren't all love poems, after all.
"Maybe it is," Jim stares at him even when Spock doesn't meet his gaze, something evaluating in his appraisal. "I know that you feel, deeply. Powerfully. More than my tiny human brain can comprehend - hell, that's why humans have tear ducts, isn't it? Somewhere to offload the limbic system when its overwhelmed."
"Where do you offload?" His hand passes over the lump of Spock's, the blanket providing a barrier, over the green dots they both know are there, hidden beneath the surface. Spock speaks of the Vulcan way of survival, but Jim could give a damn - he cares whether or not Spock survives this onslaught, whatever means necessary. Jim's lips quirk at the edges, melancholic in some ways but with a hint of private amusement as he offers Spock the words they have always traded, back and forth, worn over like the pages of an oft-read book, with diligence and loyalty and most of all, that undying quality of true friendship: "Let me help."
"Spock, you literally just said you don't know if it will ever happen again. Remind me never to take you to the casino. You would be terrible at Blackjack." He undercuts the mood with a joke, intentionally giving them some room to breathe. Jim is definitely starting to get the sense that he's treading water in uncharted territory, that there is something nameless beneath the surface he's not quite reaching yet. A shape in the water, perhaps, obfuscated just enough that he can't quite make it out - though he has a sinking suspicion it will become incredibly obvious the closer they get to it. Spock dances around the subject, the cause, and Jim's eyes squint at the corners in thought. The cause and the symptoms, the blood fever, Vulcans would not likely survive -
His mouth is far too dry as Jim gathers himself and asks, human intuition leading him to the jump Spock has so graciously laid out the stepping stones for. "...this cycle is a...er, biological...imperative?"
It's the kindest way he can think to phrase it while his brain is in the process of 404.exe erroring out, still reeling from the marriage or challenge, AKA fuck or rage monster apparently??? How in the holy fuck have the Vulcans kept that under wraps for this long? Spock's tensing, telegraphing his discomfort, and Jim tries, however much it might be in vain, to school his expression into something appropriately neutral. The shock of it surely shows in his eyes, so Jim looks away on the off-chance Spock chooses now to make eye contact, instead focusing on the blanket. The texture, woven in and out in uneven rows, though perhaps that unevenness is more their fault than that of whoever made the textile - pulling, pulling, pulling, until it comes undone, and then - there will be nothing left between them.
"An arranged marriage." Jim translates, repeating it aloud for his own sanity. Of all the ways he could have expected today to go, this was not on his Bingo card. "Spock I don't - don't quite...understand. Breaking the bond, you can't...replace it with another? Was there no other way to - satisfy - the conditions, er - to soothe the fever and uh, abate the symptoms?"
No other lovely Vulcan lady who might want a dashing Starfleet officer for a husband? Jim finds that, out of everything they've discussed so far, unequivocally the most difficult to believe.
no subject
Spock, he thinks, would be good at it. Slender, long fingers, a delicate touch when he wants it to be. That was the kind of attention to detail one needed with art, not the blunt, thick-and-clumsy Jim brought to the table. Steady though Jim could be, feeding wires in carefully to a component or soldering a piece of metal - graceful and deft he was not. If Spock had the inclination for an artistic pursuit, of course; which as far as Jim is currently aware, he doesn't. Is art considered illogical, or is there a grey area Vulcans operate in? He knows of the elaborate gardens, though one could argue that they did serve a practical purpose - be it for water retention, agriculture, or diplomatic reasons (Vulcans did so love to pretend that anything entertaining was for the benefit of their illogical guests). He's read Vulcan poetry, though it's a lot more passionate circa pre-Reformation, for obvious reasons. Still, the fact that it's available for him to read at all is proof that it's believed to hold value, though how much of that is cultural versus historical, Jim couldn't say.
"And yet, you contain multitudes." Jim says gently, and far more tactfully than he had the last time they had a conversation along these lines. A different set of circumstances, another life entirely. But he knows what Spock is getting at - he read the poems, didn't he? O the night is dark and full of howls, but the day is full of screams; new dawn alights the blood, which mars the sands; green and red and black! O, to see the kiss of death upon the land!
They weren't all love poems, after all.
"Maybe it is," Jim stares at him even when Spock doesn't meet his gaze, something evaluating in his appraisal. "I know that you feel, deeply. Powerfully. More than my tiny human brain can comprehend - hell, that's why humans have tear ducts, isn't it? Somewhere to offload the limbic system when its overwhelmed."
"Where do you offload?" His hand passes over the lump of Spock's, the blanket providing a barrier, over the green dots they both know are there, hidden beneath the surface. Spock speaks of the Vulcan way of survival, but Jim could give a damn - he cares whether or not Spock survives this onslaught, whatever means necessary. Jim's lips quirk at the edges, melancholic in some ways but with a hint of private amusement as he offers Spock the words they have always traded, back and forth, worn over like the pages of an oft-read book, with diligence and loyalty and most of all, that undying quality of true friendship: "Let me help."
"Spock, you literally just said you don't know if it will ever happen again. Remind me never to take you to the casino. You would be terrible at Blackjack." He undercuts the mood with a joke, intentionally giving them some room to breathe. Jim is definitely starting to get the sense that he's treading water in uncharted territory, that there is something nameless beneath the surface he's not quite reaching yet. A shape in the water, perhaps, obfuscated just enough that he can't quite make it out - though he has a sinking suspicion it will become incredibly obvious the closer they get to it. Spock dances around the subject, the cause, and Jim's eyes squint at the corners in thought. The cause and the symptoms, the blood fever, Vulcans would not likely survive -
His mouth is far too dry as Jim gathers himself and asks, human intuition leading him to the jump Spock has so graciously laid out the stepping stones for. "...this cycle is a...er, biological...imperative?"
It's the kindest way he can think to phrase it while his brain is in the process of 404.exe erroring out, still reeling from the marriage or challenge, AKA fuck or rage monster apparently??? How in the holy fuck have the Vulcans kept that under wraps for this long? Spock's tensing, telegraphing his discomfort, and Jim tries, however much it might be in vain, to school his expression into something appropriately neutral. The shock of it surely shows in his eyes, so Jim looks away on the off-chance Spock chooses now to make eye contact, instead focusing on the blanket. The texture, woven in and out in uneven rows, though perhaps that unevenness is more their fault than that of whoever made the textile - pulling, pulling, pulling, until it comes undone, and then - there will be nothing left between them.
"An arranged marriage." Jim translates, repeating it aloud for his own sanity. Of all the ways he could have expected today to go, this was not on his Bingo card. "Spock I don't - don't quite...understand. Breaking the bond, you can't...replace it with another? Was there no other way to - satisfy - the conditions, er - to soothe the fever and uh, abate the symptoms?"
No other lovely Vulcan lady who might want a dashing Starfleet officer for a husband? Jim finds that, out of everything they've discussed so far, unequivocally the most difficult to believe.