A double update it's 2019 babey
"Do you have a quiet room?" Spock asked once he had finished his vegetarian take out (shamelessly paid for using Frank's credit card).
Jim froze, fork halfway to his mouth. "What's wrong with this one?"
"I require meditation."
Jim put down his food and smacked his forehead. "Oh, duh," he paused, and then said: "but Spock, I don't think it would be a good idea to be in separate rooms - if Frank comes back and we don't hear him come in we're screwed."
Spock sighed.
"I'm sorry, Spock," Jim said, placing a hand on his knee briefly before jumping up onto the bed and pulling the covers over himself, "look, I'll go to sleep. That's basically the same thing, right? I'll be quiet, promise."
"I do not believe you could ever be quiet, even in sleep," Spock said, and dragged the round carpet from the center of the room to the far corner, "which is why I will be over here."
Jim pointedly wrinkled his nose at him and shouted I would come up with a great reply to that but I'm being quiet! as loud as he could in his mind in the hopes that Spock would hear it.
Spock, now kneeling on the blue-and-green bullseye rug, quirked his lips before shifting his weight and schooling his features. Jim might have doubted it was even there in the first place had he not felt Spock's amusement himself (which was so weird, by the way. Feeling someone else's feelings. It was like dirt and coco powder - at a glance they were the same; it was only once you tasted them that you knew the difference. And alien feelings tasted like a colour Jim had never even seen, so it was a task only undertaken once fully awake.).
As Spock's breathing slowed, Jim tried not to think loud thoughts. He burrowed down into his blanket and watched as Spock sat, tranquil as the night air, breathing in and out slowly. A singularly unique being. That was what Spock had called him after they had melded, after his mind had expanded beyond its reaches to encompass the alien sitting in the corner of his room. He didn't feel all that singularly unique - he wasn't the genetically engineered hybrid from another planet with an entire universe inside his head.
Jim could spend a life contented with dreaming about the way Spock thought, could spend nights eternal losing himself in what it felt like. And here he was, half in daydream, half in grounded awe of the stoic elf sitting on his bedroom floor.
What had his life become.
Spock opened his eyes, which slightly startled him. At first he thought Spock was gonna be all you're thinking too much or I really must go into a different room because you're annoying (the Spock-voice in his mind was something like Jim's stuffy school librarian) , but he didn't say a word, and neither did Jim. They didn't need to, really, because they weren't trying to communicate; rather, the world had shrunk around Jim's tiny room, the moonlight streaming in through the only window on Earth, and they were breathing it all in, together.
Spock looked more serene and peaceful than Jim had ever seen him, even in Spock's own memories (which Jim was forgetting more and more; they weren't his memories and he couldn't remember the taste of Plomeek soup, but although it frightened him in an abstract, distant way, it was alright because he still had Spock here to tell him about it if he forgot it all. He had the feeling that Spock could sit there and explain the workings of the kal'ta plant to a molecular level and Jim would still be enraptured).
Then, Spock closed his eyes again, the rest of his face unchanging, and Jim mirrored him. It was late. He should sleep.
He was thinking too loud; but no matter how hard he tried he could not stop feeling like he was mentally yelling something half-formed and only somewhat understood.
It was late.
Jim scrunched his eyes firmly, resolving to not open them again, and purposefully slowed down his breathing. He forced his mind away from reality, and started imagining silly situations in order to let Spock meditate; he leisurely drifted through T'Kasi's triple-star system, making up increasingly fantastical things to fill the gaps in his knowledge.
He didn't know when he fell asleep, but he was jostled awake as Spock, now finished his meditation, peeled back the covers and slipped in. Maybe if he could have taken a moment to think about the situation Jim might have found it strange, however sleep was one hell of a drug so all he thought on the matter was something akin to: oh, Spock's here. He also couldn't seem to remember if Vulkhansu were a cuddly species or not (man, Spock was an alien) and so he promptly made the decision that they were, and threw an arm over Spock.
He was surprised at his own actions (was he surprised? Or was it Spock? Who knew) but then they both settled down into the warmth of the bed. They were facing each other, Spock's hand had curled around the front of jim's shirt and Jim blinked once, twice at the sight before drifting off once again.
Jim woke up sore. He expected to, but that didn't make it suck any less.
He groaned and rolled over. Suddenly, Spock's eyes were millimeters away from his face, blinking at him. Jim let out a yell in surprise and jerked backwards.
"Jesus Spock, you scared the shit outta me!" he exclaimed, looking up at the ceiling.
"I apologise," Spock said, "you must attend school today."
"Nice pillow talk Spock, we really should do this again sometime."
Spock briefly flushed green. "I am not talking to the pillow"
Jim rolled over to look him in the eye. "You can pretend you don't have all sorts of dumbass human slang in your eidetic head but it won't work."
"You must attend school. It will not do to neglect your studies, as after I am gone you will need to return to exactly what you were doing before," Spock said, "as if it all never happened."
Jim turned to look at the ceiling again. "Never happened. Right."
"I must also teach you to shield before you go. I have no wish to endure high school through you."
Jim huffed out a laugh and put a hand on his forehead. "You've got a whole to-do list, don't you? How long have you been up, anyway?"
"Vulkhansu require less sleep than humans."
"That's not an answer."
"Four point eight three hours."
"Hours?" Jim echoed, "why didn't you... I don't know.. Go and do something? Or wake me up?"
Spock also turned to look up at the ceiling. "Your arm was over me, and I did not move it in case you woke up."
Jim glanced over at Spock. His hair wasn't as messed up as he'd hoped, and the tips of his ears were green. They'd managed to tangle the sheets at their calves throughout the summer night and their hands were dangerously close together.
"You could have woken me up," Jim mumbled.
"Humans need more sleep than Vulkhansu," Spock said, and then continued as Jim's mouth opened to rebut, "I did not mind. I was able to meditate lightly until you awoke."
"Well that's something, at least," Jim yawned and stretched before sitting up, "now what's first on your itinerary?"
Spock looked pleased. "First you must attend school and I will work on the relay, and also we will soon have to deal with Frank."
Jim yawned. "Nice plan in theory, but you need me here and school won't teach me anything I can't learn here."
"I am able to function without-"
"Point number one-" Jim held up a finger in front of Spock's face- "you don't know what food tastes like. You think you do because you know what I know, but I know that we have very different taste buds and I don't know if Snack Mates are vegetarian or not. You could end up with a bad taste in your mouth at best, food poisoning at worst."
"I hardly think-"
"Number two!" Jim held up a second finger and Spock gave him an are you serious look. "You're fucked if Frank comes home - or if he's already here - and sees you. I can only convince him there are no little green men around if he doesn't see any little green men."
"I am not a little green man, Jim."
"And number three!" he held up a third finger, "it's like, ten am. School's already started so there's no point."
Spock closed his eyes for a second, which was like, the human equivalent of chucking a fit, and acquiesced.
Back in the barn, Jim was still fiddling with the antenna, inching it in the direction Spock told him with his left hand (his right hurt like a bitch) while he stuck a screwdriver in the subspace amplifier. It buzzed when Jim pointed the antenna slightly to the left of where he had it before, and Spock practically lit up.
Spock connected the transformer to the subspace relay, and then stopped. "The high voltage transformer should boost the power for the relay, but now there's the issue of whether or not the magnetron will be enough for the relay to receive the transmission in subspace before it emerges into normal space," he said.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," Jim replied.
The whole thing looked like a mess. What was once an alien interface had become an exposed circuit board with an antenna sticking out of it, and the wall beneath it had opened up and brought forth a heaping of alien wires, crudely twisted together and joined to the guts of an Earth microwave.
But it just might work.
"Send a really short message," Jim suggested, "just like, your space coordinates or something."
Spock plugged in his padd (which still blew Jim's mind. It was a supercomputer, the size of a piece of paper) and drew a single line of swirls before placing it down again. He double checked the work they had done while Jim sat patiently (anxiously) off to the side.
So. Wow. This could be it. He'd forgotten how quick Vulkhansu ships were but they had to be pretty fucking fast. They were spaceships. So. Once Spock sends that message, he could be gone.
Just like that.
Even though he hadn't been here long, something in Jim threw a violent protest to the idea of Spock going somewhere he couldn't reach.
Spock froze where he was fiddling with a red wire, as if sensing his line of thought. He turned to Jim.
"I am… grateful for your help, Jim. And your," Spock looked away, an aborted sentence changed to something else, "materials."
Jim smiled, although it got stuck in his throat somewhere along the way. He would have liked to know Spock more, he thought. Really know him, not just information without experience. This felt like a grand journey that was resolved before it even started. His hand throbbed.
"You're welcome, Spock," he said.
Spock sent the message. The antenna whirred to life, the screen of the padd blinked, there was a sound like the whole ship took a breath in-
And then it spluttered, coughed, and died.
Do I know how a subspace anything works? no
Also, is padd meant to be capitalised? Like, Padd or PADD?
Double also, I'm aware padds are fedaration tech, but I'm just assuming Vulcans have ipads too. The fact that they're called the same is completely coincidental.