Dancing, Drinks and Drag ((Jim, Verity)

[losthunter]

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]

Comments

[boldygoing]

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.

[brave_heart_verity]

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.

[losthunter]

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

[boldygoing]

"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.

[brave_heart_verity]

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.

[losthunter]

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.

[boldygoing]

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."

[brave_heart_verity]

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?"

[losthunter]

"And did the natives see the Enterprise?" Hunter asks curiously. "Did you sort of accidentally make First Contact?"

[boldygoing]

Jim winces a little. "Maybe, probably, and maybe?" he says, with a small laugh. "There's pretty much no chance they didn't see the ship. I don't know if that was enough of a distraction in the long run that they're gonna forget the two weirdoes who came out of nowhere and ran off with their sacred scroll, but they shouldn't have seen what we looked like, I think."

[brave_heart_verity]

"Well, at least you don't have to worry about things going to your ship's head if they start worshipping it or something." Ver sits back and glances around the room briefly before sipping her water. It's a busy place, between the show and the waitstaff moving around and all the people in their sequined finery.

"How'd command take it?"

[losthunter]

Speaking of the waitstaff, their waitress does another check on their table to see if they need more drinks (it is how they make their money) and to clear any plates. But it is only a brief interruption, and the Drag Queen doesn't seem to trying to eavesdrop on anything. She is trained to ignore conversations after all.

Hunter turns his attention to Jim, wondering the same thing.

[boldygoing]

Whether or not the waitstaff is trained not to listen in, Jim doesn't say a peep about Starfleet while the waitress is around, ordering a third martini (hey, let's be fair, it's not a lot of liquid). He's still got some food left, but despite the conversation, he hasn't let that slow down his progress. There won't be a crumb left by the time he's done. If people want to assume it's because he likes the food that much, he's not going to dissuade them.

"They were furious," he answers honestly, but he doesn't want to go too far down the road of the aftermath, because tonight's supposed to be fun. "They wanted to bust me back down to cadet. Admiral Pike convinced them to just demote me to commander." Ah, there's what he wanted to avoid, that gnawing feeling in his gut whenever his mentor comes up. He pushes past it, not meeting the eyes of either other person at the table. "Unrelated events got in the way and I ended up captain again, but we should leave that for another time. It's not a happy story."

[brave_heart_verity]

No complaints from Ver about keeping mum when strangers are about. She gives the waitress a little shake of her head, in no need of anything at the moment, and waits for Jim to continue. An unhappy ending isn't her favorite kind of story, but if it's the one he needed to tell she won't complain.

"I'm sorry," she offers after a quiet moment.

[losthunter]

Hunter reaches across the table to gently squeeze Jim's hand in his own. He knows how important Admiral Pike was to Jim.

"Why did Samus think that the volcano story would be a good one to tell?" Hunter hasn't had any one-on-one conversations with Samus. But he has a gut feeling that tells him that Samus would want the story told for a reason.

[boldygoing]

Jim doesn't say 'it's okay,' because it's not, really. "Thanks."

He shrugs, when Hunter asks his question. "I'm still trying to figure that out. But as awful as everything turned out, even though we violated the Prime Directive, we saved a civilization. She told me that's nothing to feel bad about, and now that I've had time to think on it, I can't say I disagree. I don't regret what we did."

[brave_heart_verity]

She stirs her drink idly, mostly as an excuse to look down while she thinks.

"Telling the hard stories gets easier the more you do it," she suggests at length. "That's why she makes me do it, too." She takes a breath and one corner of her mouth quirks up. "And maybe she wants us to know things about each other, like that we're both willing to break the rules when it's important."

[losthunter]

Hunter knows that all of them have hard stories to tell. And it is true, that he doesn't struggle anymore, telling the story about Kendra, or how she changed his appearance.

"My two beautiful rule breakers." Hunter grins. He is going to lift Jim's hand to lightly kiss his knuckles.

[boldygoing]

"Could be it," Jim agrees, and despite the unhappy ending of his volcano story, he easily smiles fondly at Hunter. "Come on, you can't tell me you haven't done it too."

[brave_heart_verity]

They're so cute. Ver smiles into some middle ground and looks over at the stage while they have their moment. She's suddenly interested in trying to guess how many sequins are on that dress.

[losthunter]

"I have my own stories of breaking a few rules." Hunter arches his eyebrow slightly. "And you know, sometimes you just have to get out of your comfort zone."

The performance on the stage is getting close to the finale, where they invite people onto the stage. Hunter smiles. "Like tonight."

He stands, winking at Jim and then Verity, and then heads to the stage. He is quickly pulled up onto the stage, among a few others, to enjoy the last dance of this performance.

[boldygoing]

"Guess that's my cue," Jim says dryly, looking over at Verity. "You okay to watch the table for us?" He's pretty sure the answer is yes, given the don't-expect-me-up-on-stage signals she's been giving off, it just seems polite to ask.

[brave_heart_verity]

Hunter's move surprises her, but she's proud of him for being brave and gives him a thumbs-up with the smile that answers his wink. Then she gives Jim a nod and a smirk. "You kidding? How'm I gonna blackmail you two if you don't get up on stage?"

It isn't really blackmail if she doesn't post it online, right?

[losthunter]

Hunter is more than overjoyed when Jim does make his way up to the stage too. And he is able to give him a welcoming hug, before one of the Drag Queens claims him as a dancing partner. Another Drag Queen holds out her hand to Jim.

The music is nice and upbeat. Great to dance to. And there is lots of room on the stage that even with extra people up there, it is not overcrowded.

Around the restaurant, the Drag Queen waitresses are delivering fudge brownies to the tables. And extra little something, to end the night.

[boldygoing]

The better question is, is it really blackmail if at least one of the subjects has zero problems with being seen in public like this?

Jim laughs at Verity's answer, and touches two fingers to his brow in a brief salute before heading up to join the others on stage. It's been a while since he's danced, but his body hasn't forgotten how, easily tuning in to the rhythm of the music and the motions of the other danceers.