tall star
It's been a while since I've made ~First Contact~ with an artist about writing for their art, but Blair very graciously allowed me to do that for this piece, so I hope you enjoy!
He scrapes the universe. He touches every stitch and seam of the sky.
All creation is liquid ingenuity, defying and surpassing logic, in his hands, those so sensitive hands.
He is everything, and yet he is one singular point of light, in the enormity.
That's what Captain Kirk thinks, without realizing it (and, conversely, realizes, without thinking it), as he navigates a barren corridor of the Enterprise late at night, post-mission or perhaps pre-course. His feet know the layout, connected to some uncertain set of synapses in his brain, but his eyes have started to fade.
It's too late. It's never too late. He ends up at the observation deck almost by accident.
Almost. But surely not actually.
Spock is there.
He doesn't ask, doesn't make a sound. The heels and toes of his boots adjust in a subtle deference that even he doesn't understand.
Well. By this point, Jim isn't sure there is anything Spock doesn't understand. He's almost more essential to the ship than Jim himself is.
In some ways, more essential to Jim than the ship. Which isn't possible. Shouldn't be, anyway. But maybe it's true.
With every new planet and star system they visit, Jim finds himself thinking that the truth shouldn't be half so subjective as it is, as it so garishly paints itself out to be, many-sided. How can you chart a course if you don't know where it is you're going?
Spock knows. He bridges that gap. Jim won't even say that he accepts where he is lacking, and stands aside to make up in the negative space of the difference, because by this point he thinks maybe Spock could steer the Enterprise all on his own.
Maybe. And maybe, if Jim lets himself be a little selfish...maybe he wouldn't want to.
He knows. He knows.
And he understands it all. He's not just watching. He understands.
He's trying, anyway.
It's like being back in Iowa, on the farm. Sure, you didn't actually tell time by the sun, even in the countryside they didn't do that much anymore, but the position of the sun in the sky did say something to you - even if that something was just "lunchtime" or "time to head back" - because maybe they'll be worried or maybe they'll be mad - or "gosh, what time is it, anyway?"
The sun is...a friend, certainly. But it's been quite a long time since Jim has been stationary, orbiting only the sun.
A long time. Relatively. But all things in space and time are relative. There are only so many universal constants.
There are so many stars in the galaxy - no, in the universe. God, so many. Too many. And yet...
Spock's more like the chrono than he is like the sun. The sun warms, and then it crackles, and then it burns.
The chrono just ticks. The chrono's always there.
Ticking. Not smiling. Waiting. Not watching.
Made by humans. Counting stolen time.
The chrono's just there. You could ignore it, if you wanted to.
You can't ignore Spock. And Jim has never once wanted to.
He's like a benevolent black hole, magnetic cosmosis that speaks without saying, knows without knowing, holds without holding.
Which is ridiculous, of course. Spock's only just one man. Human or Vulcan or halfway between as he is, the point of their many missions exploring the galaxy isn't to pedestalize and irreparably revere alien life. They're only alien if you're still stuck under Earth's sun. It's a disservice not to be level-minded with and about them.
So it's ridiculous for a starship captain to be so captivated. He should be looking to his instruments, to his communicators and his helmsmen and his engineers, and the yeomen and the medical staff who cross in between, walking with corporeal steps on aluminum floors.
He should be looking to his science officer, his first officer. Sometimes. Quite often, even. But not so pointedly and constantly as the needle in the compass.
What's that old saying?
When you look at someone like the stars are in their eyes, or like they hung the uncountable stars that are in the sky?
Sure, that's Spock. That's Jim and Spock. But more than that.
Always more than that.
Knowing that you can touch a star, with two fingers outstretched and then with all of your mind, all at once all at once all at once, but you can't, you can't, because the laws of physics say nothing ever touches anything else, not really...
...but James Tiberius Kirk has touched a star. The tallest, and the grandest, and the most visionary. He can barely breathe for the ecstasy of it.
And the star pulses, innocently. All-knowing, because it's asking all questions. Raises its eyebrow, a flash of debris in brilliant colors that would make the old folks back in Iowa tut, say look at the sky, it's dirty, when it erupts in brilliant purples and pinks.
Maybe it is dirty, a little bit. In the way that newborn animals are dirty, when they arrive in the stall, because they're touching the earth.
Because there's something down there. Because there's something up here.
Because there's something out there, and it reached out and touched me with the most private inner lining fabric of its infinite, eternal soul.
Like silk. And it rustles and it creases and it doesn't make a sound because space is silent, space is graceful, space is beauty and horror and terror and balance.
Spock didn't sew up the sky. He merely embroidered it.
(Perfectly, of course. With infinite infinitely beautiful precision.)
And the sky is nothing without its stars.
Touch the earth. The grass grows. It's been nurtured by the sun, backed by the ground, but each precious seedling is so much more like a star.
Oh, yes. A million points of light. And more.
Earth to Mr. Spock.
.Earth to Captain Kirk
Are you with me?
?Are you there
Always.
.Positive
Are you sure?
.Of course
That's right.
Always.