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“It’s a souvenir,” Jim insisted as Oqo poked at the skin of his inner arm. “The locals offered, and I was the only one on the away team that took them up on the gift.”
“What is it?”
“Twrrllzzzrrrk,” he tried to say. “To tie the threads of fate within the skin. It’s a tattoo that leads you to your soul mate.”
Oqo squinted, their glowing magenta eyes slit as they studied the red and blue ink swirling in an indistinct pattern. “You think your fated mate is a nebula with an angel in it?”
Jim pulled his arm away from Oqo’s skeptical gaze. “They said it would change over time and that even soul mates aren’t set in stone. It will take a while for the pattern to settle. It’s not anything right now.” He looked down at his right forearm again. “And it’s just for fun.”
Oh. Those did look like little wings, didn’t they?
--
“It looks like it could be a face, don’t you think?”
The ship CMO frowned over the medical bed while she administered another round of routine vaccines. “Maybe. It looks like a moonfish cell in telophase to me. Or maybe the Cheshire Cat.”
“Cheshire Cat?”
“From Alice in Wonderland? The old Terran novel?”
“Never heard of it,” Jim admitted and resolved to look it up later.
--
“It does look clearer,” his mother agreed and Jim twisted his arm to show how the pattern had changed. “Last time you called it looked like a harp.”
Jim nodded. “Now I’m certain it looks like a hat. You know, the knitted kind you’d make us wear when it snowed.”
“Hmmm… maybe.”
Jim’s tattoo had gone through so many changes in shape, size, and color over the last two years, that he’d given up on divining any sort of meaning. He thought of it like one of those ancient Magic 8 balls they sold at spaceports, a fun token etched on his skin that reminded him there was still a little mystery and wonder in the universe.
“What would you do if you ever found your mystery mate?” his mother wondered.
Jim snorted. “One can only hope the universe paired me with someone who’d be okay with the fact I’m already married to my job.”
“Oh, Jimmy,” his mother sighed. “You’ve got room in your heart for more than just the bridge of a ship.”
--
“Vulcan.”
Jim blinked in the semi-darkness, nonplussed. “Computer, are you sure?”
“Affirmative.”
Jim flopped back on his bed and then lifted his arm once again to marvel at the clear lines on his arm, the first time the ink had come together to something uncompromisingly coherent. “Computer, translate.”
“Royalty, feminine modifier.”
Jim puzzled on that for a moment. “Computer, are there any monarchies on Vulcan?”
“Negative.”
“Any Vulcan who have become royalty on other planets?”
“Negative.”
He traced the lines across his forearm and sighed. It was past time to get out of bed, or he’d be late to his rendezvous with the Enterprise and Sam.
--
Jim was not brooding. He didn’t brood, and he definitely wasn’t going to brood at a damn bar.
But if he did brood, it was just because Sam always brought out the best and worst in him. He loved his big brother, admired and wanted nothing but the best for him. Whatever gene that one needed to talk to one's own family got skipped in the Kirks.
Instead of brooding into his scotch whiskey because he did not brood, he spent the next hour people-watching. It really was a hell of a ship, and the crew seemed to be exceptionally friendly. He liked that. He wanted that kind of culture on the Farragut.
Also, while not brooding, he was secretly playing against a striking Vulcan and his companion at the 3D chess set. The companion was Nurse Chapel, if he remembered the ship tour correctly, and she was playing a rather cunning strategy against the Vulcan’s textbook Modified Sicilian Defense. Jim winced as she took a rook, knowing exactly what predictable move the Vulcan would take next, and then was surprised when the mystery Vulcan did neither what Jim expected nor what Jim would have done in his place.
Maybe it was because the man was so striking or because Vulcan had been on his mind since he woke up this morning, but he couldn’t look away. He wondered if the pair were dating. She looked annoyed. Perhaps. Now the Vulcan looked annoyed. They were almost definitely dating or definitely not dating, he decided.
He was looking-not-looking, his head perched on his hand as they were interrupted by an ensign, which added another dramatic dimension to his idle people-watching. He ordered another whiskey and refused to look at his arm. The ensign was now seated beside him, which created a perfect opportunity to break his self-imposed silence at his bar where was not-brooding.
“Your, uh, Vulcan buddy should protect his queen.”
There. That was a completely friendly and not-brooding way to start a conversation. Not nosy at all. He let his brain autopilot his way through a charming social interaction while simultaneously imploding because: Vulcan. Queen. Royalty. Could this be his-
“I really don’t want to be hit on right now.”
Jim could appreciate that. But perhaps he should keep a close eye on this Ensign, regardless. He tugged his right sleeve a little higher and watched her stalk out of the bar. It was instinct that made him follow her, he insisted to himself, not the prognostic tattoo.
---
“Just sit there,” Uhura insisted as she pulled out a dermal regenerator.
Jim sat and started to poke at his nose, ascertaining if perhaps she had broken more than just skin during her hallucination.
“Don’t touch it,” she snapped, fiddling with the device’s settings.
“You’ve got a mean right hook,” he complimented.
“Yeah, I spar with- what is that?” she asked, staring openly at Jim’s arm.
Obligingly, he tugged the uniform sleeve down all the way, showing the geometrical patterns in orange and gray.
“'Frustrating.'”
“Yeah, it is,” Jim said in awe of her insight.
“No, I mean it says ‘frustrating’ in High Golic. It’s not a common Vulcan dialect. What did you think it said?”
“Royalty,” he admitted defensively.
Uhura scoffed and pointed to the curly part near the top of his mark. “If you removed this, it would change it from an adjective to a noun, and then ignored this diacritic mark, you would get ‘royalty’ in the common Vulcan.” She narrowed her eyes. “So you’re the kind of guy who gets a tattoo without being sure what it means?”
Jim grinned and then winced as it pulled on the skin of his nose. “Yes, I guess I am. Does that offend you?”
“As a linguist, yes.”
“It’s a Twrrllzzzrrrk,” he admitted, eyeing her as she started to wield the dermal regenerator at his face. “Are you sure you know how to use one of those?”
“Yes. And it’s pronounced Twrrllzzzrrrk. It’s quite an honor to be bestowed one, isn’t it?”
“It was a souvenir from an away mission gone right. But it’s turned into so many things over the years, I wouldn’t know my soul mate if they punched me in the face.” Jim raised his eyebrows expectantly, which only made Uhura roll her eyes back.
“Nope.”
Jim sighed. “Understood.”
“Now hold still,” she warned, pointing the dermal regenerator at his nose.
Jim flinched. “You’re making it worse.”
“You’re being a baby.”
He decided right then he liked Ensign Uhura, even if she wasn’t his fated soulmate ordained by the universe.
--
“Well, that was something,” Uhura muttered into her drink.
“Yeah, that was just Sam being Sam,” he exhaled, staring off at the tense retreating figure of his big brother. The bastard took his cookie. “Sometimes he can be, uh…”
“Frustrating. ”
Jim froze, and then something warm and almost familiar filled his veins as he saw an elegant hand reach over the table to pluck Sam’s abandoned drink off their table. He followed that hand, its arm, the shoulder, to the face of the most striking person he’d ever seen. He’d know, because he’d spent over an hour staring at said face as it stared back at a 3D chess set.
Jim was still lost somewhere in the depths of the Vulcan’s eyes as he heard Uhura start introductions.
“James, meet our chief science officer, Mr. Spock.”
He felt everything all at once. He held out his hand, and the arm attached to that hand felt like the Twrrllzzzrrrk would burn right off his skin. He could practically feel the smugness rolling of the ensign as she stared at his arm and their clasped hands. He tasted the heat of the being in front of him.
Had he been waiting his whole life to feel like this?
Also: did he look stupid? He felt like he probably looked stupid.
“Why don’t,” Jim tried, hand still clasped around the other man’s, never wanting to let go, “you join us?”
They talked all night, the three of them. It wasn’t until months later, after many quick comms, the occasional Enterprise-Farragut rendezvous, and one wild away mission with the Enterprise crew that Jim felt comfortable rolling up his sleeves and tilting his forearm for Spock to inspect.
“Have you ever seen a Twrrllzzzrrrk?” Jim finally asked.
To tie the threads of fate within the skin. However, now it had been the same purple and blue-inked script since the moment Jim grasped Spock’s hand in the bar. He didn’t need to translate Spock’s expression or what was on his own arm.
Spock was in awe, but not surprised.
T’hy’la.