"You look like a Vulcan, you know."
Shin simply raises an eyebrow, which is apparently amusing, because it startles a laugh out of Jamie that Shin has never heard in another being with such sharp detail.
He doesn't have the precise and logical hairstyle that the severe Vulcan in the picture Jamie hands him possesses, and he certainly doesn't have upswept eyebrows, but he has the most elegant set of ears curving gracefully from his head that Jamie has ever seen in his life. Shin is positively elfin.
"It's not some weird body mod, is it? Some people are very serious about their cosplay." It had taken Jamie a while to work up the courage to ask Shin about the ears, and now that he has done so, eagerly awaits the stoic explanation that is sure to follow.
"Negative. It is a genetic defect. I understand that the procedure for creating a body modification that would cause 'elfin ears' as you say, does not elongate them in the manner which my ears are shaped to. There is no available plastic surgery that can correctly accommodate the natural shape of my ears without prosthesis. As you have been touching my ears for the past one hour, forty five minutes, fifteen seconds and three nanoseconds, I can assume that you are aware of my lack of such devices."
The young man - Jamie doesn't want to say boy, but he looks so positively, strikingly young - spews out the paragraph of information without stopping to take a breath.
"Well if it looks like a Vulcan, talks like a Vulcan..." Jamie holds up another picture of a fictional character that he names as Spock. "See?"
Shin nods his head deeply, and tries not to wince at the pain that his shifting lacerations cause. "I am able to detect the similarities to our appearance. Based on the facts that you have told me so far of Vulcan interaction, it would be logical to assume that I do indeed present myself in such a manner. May I inquire why this is amusing?"
Jamie knows that Shin is in there because of brain hemorrhaging to his cerebral cortex and medulla oblongata, a fact that Shin willingly shared with him after learning that Jamie had been irreversibly paralyzed in an accident involving a red Corvette. Jamie laments about the corvette, while he practices doing wheelies and catwalks with the chair he'd been given. It is the singularly most illogical expression of dealing with illness that Shin has ever witnessed.
Shin talks of logic, and it's the most genuine thing that Jamie has ever had the fortune to come upon in another being. It isn't forced. Shin's words are simple, precise, and with such innocent honesty that it nearly aches.
Shin asks him why he does not express typical sadness over his lack of mobility, and Jamie tells him that he fully plans on walking again someday.
"Just gotta get better, first," he says, determination lighting a fire in his eyes. "That's why I'm here."
Jamie feels Shin's heartbeat, steady in his chest, just to confirm that he's a Human being after all. Shin feels a warm sensation float through his body at the sentiment he perceives in the action, but his face is placid.
Jamie knows that Shin is docile, and alexithymic as a result of his injuries. Every once in a while, though, it is almost as though he can feel something inside of his mind light up with amusement. He will instinctively look to Shin, half expecting him to be expressing or emoting the foreign tones, but it never happens.
Penda, the young woman who used to come in to visit Shin, tells Jamie that it's neurological, that he can't help it. Her features are filled with such sorrow, it is only then that Jamie truly understands the nature of his prickly friend's condition.
He's not such a Vulcan after all.
Penda doesn't come to visit any longer. Jamie thinks privately that he's glad that Shin doesn't experience the devastation of her absence. He thinks that she must be such a coward, to leave her boyfriend in such a state, alone. This is when Jamie decides to force his own company on the man.
He had originally known him as the newbie, just like all of the incoming patients to the Renshaw Rehabilitation Facility. After his stage of novelty wore off, Jamie had simply thought of him as 'the man in room 201.' Now, he simply thinks of him as Shin. Sometimes, he even calls him 'Shin T'Gai Spock.'
"I suppose that makes you Jamie T. Kirk?"
Shin wields the most dry wit, employs it at such times, that Jamie is often struck breathless with laughter.
It is after long months, that Jamie calls them friends. Shin is skeptical, not understanding why the brash paraplegic offers him such a thing that he cannot reciprocate. Jamie tells him that he does reciprocate, every day.
Shin says something like 'elucidate?' and Jamie tells him that Shin does not judge him. Shin does not think he is emotionally unbalanced because he's not sad, because he's fighting a no-win scenario.
Shin is there, supportive, when Jamie screams in frustration at the myriad of doctors examining and poking and prodding him, telling him there is a less than one percent chance of his ever regaining any functionality in his mangled limbs. Shin is steadfast, ever present. Shin, who refuses to be removed from the facility even after they have done all they can for him, because he knows that Jamie wishes him to stay.
Jamie brings him Star Trek books. Months go by, and Shin pours over them like a drowning man drinks water. He devours them, his long fingers pressing against the pages as if to absorb the words by touch alone. Jamie sits with him, watching as he finds solace in the teachings of Surak.
Jamie gives this to him, this way of life. Others would say it is foolish, and that is where Shin finds in Jamie the same thing that Jamie has found with him. Acceptance. Non judgment. Peace. 'Offer them peace, and then you will have peace.' Shin shows him the quote, tilting his head calmly, telling him how he feels purpose in these moments. His disorder has drove his girlfriend from him, and his friends in college have not come to see him once, his family is ashamed of their quirky son.
Amanda, his mother, tells him that he has a genuine disorder, and he should not lose himself to fantasy.
It is with his new found teachings that he calmly tells her that he forgives her. That he forgives Penda. That he forgives Allen Hadley, the man who is responsible for his injuries. Jamie watches Shin show peace to every person who has ever wronged him, and watches those people gasp in respect for his unusual friend.
They are in the recreation room, and Shin is standing in front of Jamie, with his hands folded calmly behind his back. He says that this has been a habit with him since childhood, not merely a Vulcan adoption. Jamie can believe it. Shin has this air of relaxation about him. It is not stoic and severe like the aliens in the Star Trek books, it is ... calm. Order. Languid posture.
Shin says he keeps his hands behind his back because he used to flail them about wildly and be made fun of for it. He says he wishes to seem more dignified. It is an aspect of his personality that Jamie can suddenly see from 'before.' Before the injury.
Jamie watches as Shin adapts. He grows stronger, the lacerations fade, the stitches are taken out. There are scars, but they heal. Jamie does not heal, even as he wishes to stand up he cannot. He smashes objects in his room, and goes back to Shin simply to feel the calming presence.
Two years. Two years go by, and Shin leaves first. He visits every day. Jamie soon follows, it is all they could have done for him at Renshaw. They let him go home.
Shin lives with his mother for a long time, meeting Jamie at the library or in the park, until he discovers that the eighteen year old is living with a bastard of a stepfather.
Jamie has invited him over for dinner, and Frank accuses the two of them of being faggots. Shin calmly deflects, and it aggravates the situation. Frank throws a punch that hits Jamie across the jaw. Shin sees Jamie's mother do nothing. Shin stands up, raises an eyebrow, and picks Frank up by the collar. He deposits him to the side, grabs the handles of Jamie's manual wheelchair and pushes him far, far away.
It is night time, and they go to their favorite spot in the abandoned Ceder Ridge park. Shin lowers himself down gracefully into the bench, and Jamie remains seated in his wheelchair across from him. He suddenly takes Shin's hands in his own.
"I should remind you that I am not an extraterrestrial, but that you did supply me with the material that formed your conclusion that I was a Vulcan. If I were such a creature, what you are doing now would be considered ... I suppose the word is fascinating."
Jamie tries a poor imitation of the Eyebrow Raise, and fails. He shakes his head and laughs, muted.
"Have you ever thought that Kirk and Spock had something more going on?"
"How do you mean, Jamie?"
"...Like they were more than friends. More than brothers."
Shin nods. Without any facial expression at all, he reaches a hand up to trace the edge of Jamie's jaw. Somehow, Jamie can tell his eyes are softer. Jamie can feel the spark behind Shin's fingertips, and he doesn't know how it is possible. When Shin speaks, his voice has such a quality that Jamie has never heard before, it is staggering.
"Do you think that we are t'hy'la, Jim?"
Jamie's eyes are large, unblinking, as he leans forward to press his forehead against Shin's.
"In every lifetime."
Notes:
[*]Curriculum Vitae is Latin for 'The course of one's life'
[*]As you can tell, I've completely taken the prompt in a different direction of ALTERNATE UNIVERSE altogether, but I hope it fills it somewhat. It was a challenge to write, and I tried to convey a sense of cross-reality throughout that I hope catches.