losthunter | Dancing, Drinks and Drag ((Jim, Verity)

Entry tags:

Dancing, Drinks and Drag ((Jim, Verity)

Hunter has been looking forward to this night for a long time. He has a table booked at his favorite Drag bar. He is looking forward to dressing up, and enjoying a few drinks with two of his favorite people. And he is sure that both Jim and Verity will enjoy a night out on the town.

Right now, Hunter is waiting in his New York apartment, where he is going to meet up with both Jim and Verity. It is the best place to get together, before heading out to the bar. Both Jim and Verity know his PINpoint coordinates. And besides, they don't have to navigate the Drag bar trying to find Hunter.

Tonight, Hunter is wearing a long gold dress. It is designed to show off his arms. And has a long exposed back. The look is completed with an elaborate head piece and deep, rich make-up that flatters his whole look.

He is excited to have Jim and Verity show up and to see their outfits.

[recommending a post order of Hunter/Jim/Verity]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If Jim likes new and unusual things to eat, he's in for a treat with Ver. But he kinda already knew that. He's very close to full-on friendship status with her, and if nothing else, her friends will never go hungry. "Good." Her smile is brighter and more open now that they've got steadier common ground.

"No pork, vegetarian, limited chocolate. I can deal." Indeed, she's taking this quite seriously. They can practically see the mental notes being taken. A potluck means a lot of new people, but she can handle that. "Sounds like fun. I promise not to bring too many things."

The waitress comes by with a second round for Jim and Hunter, and a citrus-flavored water for Verity. She does a courtesy check with the table, before moving onto the next table. It is a good crowd for the night.

There is a four-person Drag group that is now singing, off-stage, as they weave in between tables. Every now and then, they sit with a customer and sing to that person.

"I have also been slowly adding to Jim's library. We both share a love for the written word. Especially poetry."

Now that he's got his second martini, Jim finishes off the first one. He's steadily working on his main course, completely undistracted from this by the conversation at hand and the drag show splitting his attention.

"Verity actually helped me find that volume of Vulcan poetry I've got. There's this little shop in the Nexus, not too far from the market. How are the cooking experiments going, by the way?" he asks, raising his eyebrows at Verity. She sounds like she's got a good handle on the whole 'food should taste good even if we have to do unconventional things to it' thing, so he's interested to see what she's come up with.

"You know, Matt first pursued me with poetry," she admits quietly. Then she sips her water, half to hide a little smirk when Hunter mentions the poetry. Better to let Jim explain how she already knows.

"They're going well. So far, everyone likes what they've tried, and I'd know if they were lying." And how. "I think the leading favorite so far is the Vulcan spice tea cake. Would you like me to bring one?" And maybe something with those plums he liked.

Jim totally gets her food philosophy. Food should taste good, smell good, look good, and be plentiful whenever possible. Soon he'll learn just how much effort a woman with too much free time will put into these things.

"Vulcan spice tea cake? Wow, put me down for one of those."

Hunter enjoys the fact that they can all bond over food. And that they are bonding over food while eating food.

"Sure, I actually haven't had one of those before either. I've spent more time trying to get traditional kreyla right than doing a variety of stuff," Jim admits.

Oddly, despite talking to her a couple of times now, he hasn't yet heard about Verity's inbuilt lie detector, so her mention of knowing if people were lying earns a slightly puzzled, questioning glance. But in not asking outright, he also leaves enough of an out that she doesn't have to say anything about it if she doesn't want to explain.

"It's good to respect traditions. Especially if you're friends with someone to whom those traditions are important." Is 'kreyla' the Vulcan name for the tea? She'll have to find out.

The look is noted but not immediately answered. Ver glances around again to make sure nobody's going to overhear (the loud and distracting show helps them avoid that problem), and takes her time measuring her words. Then she sets down her fork and lifts her gaze to meet Jim's. "You're a man of science, so I understand if you don't want to believe me. I've been cursed with the ability to always knows when something isn't true. Yes, magic. No, not on purpose, my dad was just careless. No, I can't turn it off."

Hunter reaches over the table, to gently place his hand on Verity's as she explains about her curse. He knows that Jim has experience a lot of magic, since coming into the Nexus (and Hunter's own experiences with Kendra are part of the reason why). This is her curse to explain. He will just support her as much as he can.

Verity's eventual research will tell her that kreyla is a type of Vulcan bread, often sweetened and used as a breakfast item. Jim's more comfortable baking than trying to do anything too complicated, but Earth-made ovens just don't tend to be as hot and dry as the desert stone ovens that they're intended to be baked in.

The captain doesn't interrupt or object, even if he couldn't see how serious this is to her, which he does. When she's done, he pauses a moment to make sure he's got all that, before he responds, truthfully, "I believe you. I've seen enough magic to know that it's real, and that's actually one of the more... straightforward curses I've heard of so far."

Verity may have ideas about how to make that work. Like a pizza stone.

A grateful glance darts Hunter's way and her hand turns over under his to take hold. She's told the story dozens of times, but it never gets easier.

Jim's ready acceptance is a relief, which is written plain on her face. "Thank you. And I apologize in advance for all the times I'll infuriate you with it. And it's okay if you have questions about it. I'd rather people just ask than try to sneaky-test me."

"It was the fact that we both had a curse affect our lives that bonded Verity and I together. The first time we met."

"And then I got to know this beautiful woman, and loved her even more."

Oh. Well, put that way, Jim can definitely see how a friendship developed between them so easily. That's a hell of a common ground to have.

He really only has one major issue to address at the moment, while they're on this subject. "So if classified information ever comes up, or something else I can't talk about, giving you the cover story would not just be pointless but pretty rude."

Hunter gets another grateful look, this one longer and coming with a smile. "Thank you." He's always been too kind to her, she's sure, but no point looking that gift horse in the mouth. Besides, he's got great teeth.

"I'd prefer if you just told me it's classified. I can respect that," she answers Jim before warning, "But I also know the difference between can't and won't." And boy doesn't that just make morning runs with Samus all the more interesting?

As a small consolation prize, she offers, "You can also tell me to back off. I know that sometimes I'm not great at knowing where the line is."

"And in those moments when you can share the whole situation with her, I have always found that Verity gives me the best advice when I have a problem."

Hunter turns to Verity, so it is less like talking about her in the third person. "I always value what she suggests. Even it is to grow up and look at a different option I have not considered."

Jim nods along with her, and does his very best to keep that 'ooh, busted' look off his face. "Yeah, there's some overlap between the two, but they're not always the same," he admits. It does help, though, to know that he can just tell her not to go down that line of questioning, though depending on the circumstances, he's not sure that'll be enough. Depends on how hard his own secrets are biting him in the ass, he supposes.

He does direct a small smile over at Hunter, before looking back at Verity. "I've seen a little of that firsthand myself," he agrees. Although another thought does occur to him that he should ask about. "Can you tell when it's just a partial truth?" He'd rather not shut down conversation entirely every time they tread near some of his worse emotional landmines, but he doesn't want to keep setting off her bullshit detector either.

Hunter gets a smirk, and she reaches over to playfully chuck him under the chin. "My advice only works so well because you do such a good job following it," she teases.

"No, not always the same," she agrees with Jim, "but consider how most of the people who get cursed end up. We're the functional ones out of our little coterie." She shrugs and sips her water, wishing she'd ordered another martini now. But that's no good kind of coping. "So we kinda have to stick together. Hunter's easy to want to have around."

No, she won't always give up when asked. She kind of has a thing about ditching her friends when they need her. He would too. Nobody said having Verity around was all sunshine and roses, and if they did, the listener clearly forgot about the thorns. "I can. But I can't always figure out which part is which. Look, Jim, I appreciate the concern, but please don't worry too much if you slip up. Everybody trips it sometimes. I trip it sometimes. It's a headache, not the end of the world. Just try to be forgiving when I need some space, and I'll try to be forgiving when you're being human. Okay?"

"And by, 'it's a headache', a lie can cause her pain in the head." Hunter notes softly. It is why he would never lie to Verity, because he wouldn't want to see her caused any pain. Even unintentionally.

It is always important to Hunter that Jim understands that.

Actual headaches... man, that sucks. But Jim nods in agreement. "That works for me. I know it's human to goof up every now and then. I mean, hell, one of the first things we learn about Vulcans is don't touch, and the first day I met Spock I probably still touched him at least half dozen times. He doesn't hold it against me either but that still doesn't mean I shouldn't put in the effort when I can."

Seems like it's probably a good time to change the subject, since he doesn't want to make things weird, but he's not quite sure where to take it from here, and he stalls a moment as he takes a sip from his martini.

Ver nods along with the explanation, not quite meeting anyone's gaze for a moment. Hunter is so good to her, helping her explain these things. He'll be getting thank-you pastries in a couple days.

It sucks so bad. She tries not to think about it too much. Ah, awkward pause in the conversation, her old familiar friend. She glances around, looks down at her plate, then takes a breath and summons a smile. "So... now that I've been good, I think I've earned a reward. I love stories and you live in space." So c'mon, Jim, spill.

"And there are a few stories that don't contain classified information, that would make a great story." Hunter encourages Verity's request.

"Sure, that's fair," Jim agrees readily, pondering what story she might find more interesting. The Battle of Vulcan is a no-go; that's way too depressing and/or horrifying for a night out on the town. Same goes with the USS Vengeance. Maybe the Nibiru mission... sure, it led to disaster, but things went relatively well until the paperwork at the end, and that wasn't part of the actual mission so he doesn't have to include it. "Samus did mention I should tell you the volcano story sometime."

He hasn't told Hunter the entire saga either, although he doesn't know if maybe one of his crew mentioned it while Hunter was sitting vigil at Starfleet Medical. Jim has the excellent excuse of being comatose at the time to excuse his ignorance of that.

"We got sent on a survey mission to an M-class planet called Nibiru in Celes Sector, to catalog the native species and see if there was a warp-capable civilization to contact there. There were natives, but they were about at Bronze Age levels of tech, and the Prime Directive forbids any interference with the natural development of sentients so that there's no alien influence on their culture until they're ready to join galactic society. So we were just going to watch from orbit, record as much as we could, and flag the planet as unsuitable for mining or colonization. But then the geology department noticed this giant volcano near the biggest native settlement that was getting ready to blow, and our scans suggested it'd be an apocalyptic eruption."

"Needless to say," he says dryly, "we decided that not interfering with a species' development and letting them get killed by a volcano instead was a pretty stupid idea. Spock put together a gizmo that'd absorb all the energy from the eruption and let off the pressure; the trick was, it had to be set into the caldera by hand before it could be activated, and with the ash cloud in the way, we couldn't beam anyone down. So they had to go in by shuttle, and that meant making sure the natives were all looking the other way." He pauses for a moment to make sure they're both still following, and in case he needs to clarify anything so far.

Edited 2017-08-07 00:33 (UTC)

Verity seems to be following along well enough. She's in full-on chinhands mode. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get her to sit down and be quiet. Works every time.

"So, what blew up?" She's had an interesting life and has learned this is the point in the story when things usually go wrong, but be fair, she's not exactly off-base thinking something's going wrong at this point.

Hunter is also paying close attention. This is not a story that one of Jim's crew had told him during Jim's stay at Starfleet medical.

And he waits for Jim's answer to Verity's question. Wondering how the story finished.

Jim is half-tempted to answer that with, 'Admiral Pike,' but that's going to open up a couple cans of worms he'd rather leave alone for now. "Nothing blew up right then, exactly, but there was a fair amount of running and screaming..."

Here's where the story gets weird, in hindsight. "I had Scotty reconfigure our shields for atmospheric pressure and we put the Enterprise in the ocean." Yeah, in hindsight, that is a stupid idea. "That let us kinda... submarine close enough to launch a shuttle near the volcano. Bones and I went into the natives' settlement in disguise to find some way of getting their attention. Those robes were awful and we had to cover up from head to toe so they wouldn't notice we looked different... Anyway, I found this temple thing and they were all bowing down to some kind of scroll, so I grabbed it and ran like hell. Got the whole village chasing after us, so mission accomplished, so Sulu, Uhura, and Spock were able to slip the shuttle into the caldera. I ditched the scroll in a tree a ways away from the village, and Bones and I jumped off a cliff into the water to get away."

"We swam back to the Enterprise, and that's when I found out Spock's harness had snapped and the shuttle's engines got cooked by the ash. Sulu and Uhura made it back okay, but Spock was stuck in the blast zone, and either the volcano was gonna kill him or his super ice cube would. It would've taken too long to prep another shuttle and I figured line-of-sight beaming was our only shot at saving him, so I ordered that we surface and go after him. Got him safe on board about two seconds before his gadget went off and vaporized the top layer of magma."

Edited 2017-08-07 21:43 (UTC)

Yeah, a joke like that wouldn't go over well in this crowd. Better to stick with the action, which is certainly riveting. Stealing a cultural artifact, jumping off cliffs, climbing around in volcanoes...

"That is one heck of a way to introduce yourselves to the natives. You think they're gonna remember you all next time someone stops by to see them?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject