[Massive Beach Party Thread!] -- [Everyone]

[kirktastic]

Communication to All

Your oh so lovely Captain has reserved an entire bar for our use for our final night on Risa! You can get the position of it from the attached file. Nice little place, tucked up on the beach and right up against the waterline, full bar with everything you can imagine! I'll be seeing you all around sunset!


[OOC: This thread can run as long as we need it too, far past the 'end' of Risa Saturday night. Feel free to post anywhere, there's no order, who gives a damn about how the thread looks, just HAVE FUN!]

Comments

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"The 'epic romance'," George shook his head, thinking of how to describe it. "Like somehow he's just kinda tagged on the end of it, like the last bit of data from an experiment that's of neutral value. Not really useful but it's not hurting anything so it might as well just stay."

"Thing is?" George looked at Spock. "As far as our Chris is? We couldn't be a couple without him. It wouldn't be a complete circuit."

"Let's break it down," George looked out at the surf and back at Spock. "Why do you think he's feeling this way, however illogical the viewpoint may be?"

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

The three of them had always been together - or such was the... feeling Spock allowed himself. Yet, they had not been. He began slowly.

"Jim had been my captain for a year before Leonard joined the Enterprise. Yet we did not function optimally until he did so.

He is also rather apart from the normal command structure, as chief medical officer. He is not so cognizant of this, however, as regards both Jim and I as his superior officers as well."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"And off the Enterprise? How has your relationship functioned on shore leave?" George questioned. "Work is work, and I've found having a pretty strict delineation between how I act on bridge, and how I act in quarters has always helped me, whether it's now with Jim or in the past with Winona."

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"Our shore leave habits are rather different than yours - at least based upon my observations. We tend toward separate activities - not through any tiring of one another but due to different interests and needs. Our shore leaves have, historically, been fraught with danger as well.

Jim and I have spent the most time together this shore leave, despite my efforts to include Leonard. Jim's recreational sex interests are not as interesting, it would seem, to Leonard."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

George nodded. "Might surprise you to learn? But amongst humans, even amonst males, but our sex drives differ. Some folks could have sex day and night and start all over again, and some? Once in a while sets them up pretty well. It may be your Dr. McCoy is of the latter sort."

"How much do you know about terran romance?" George asked.

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

Spock raised an eyebrow.

"I am not naive as to human sexuality, Mr. Kirk. The Vulcan libido is also variable.

Romance, however, is a rather more impenetrable concept.

My Leonard is... the closest standard term is tender, I believe."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"Just wasn't sure," George said. "So you may have to reach Leonard through different means. Romance really isn't hard, I promise."

"I mean, yeah, it looks hard, and everyone has their own way of preferring to be romanced, but really it's just treating your lover special," George said, searching how to explain it and settles for examples. "Chris gives Winnie hand rubs, since her hands get sore from engineering. I take them out to dinner and dancing, or pick up presents when I go out that I know will make them happy even if they're silly. Buy Chris chocolate I know he won't buy himself, whereas Winnie gets flowers. They get me butterscotch fudge since it's my favorite. Whenever we get a shore leave together we try to go out to dinner and dancing or see a movie together. It's not all candlelight and roses."

"Although those are fun too. There's also instead of incredibly acrobatic sex, slow building sex," George said ponderingly. "Where you just take your time and tease your partner and just be attentive to what makes him feel fantastic. Sometimes my favorite times are when it's just that kind of sex."

"They're equals in your affection, but...it's okay to treat them different in how you go about expressing that love."

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps there is a need to... woo Leonard more thoroughly. Our change in involvement is perhaps more difficult for him to register as our previous relationship was categorized by what observers would class intense antagonism. Though I have... held him in high regard for no short time."

Spock has finished his drink and it loosens his tongue to this human who proves so logic and easy to talk to.

"I harbored fear as pon farr beset me - fear that these men would come to me out of duty and friendship instead of genuine desire. I do not wish Leonard to be uncomfortable in this, our new relationship."

If Spock were a human, he might even look rather unhappy about the confusion.

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"Sounds like you put the cart before the horse a bit," George said. "And mutual antagonism is fun, so long as you both realize there's love behind it. But aye...just show him you love him too. Don't neglect Jim in the wooing either. May get a few surprises there. But yeah, sounds like you could do some old fashioned courting of Bones."

"Tell me what draws you to Leonard?" George asked curiously.

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"It seems illogical that he must now be convinced of what he already knows."

But Spock has seen Leonard's mind, knows the doubt is still harbored.

"My Leonard is..."

Spock paused. This was rather more difficult to put forward than he had calculated.

"How much do you know of Vulcans, Mr. Kirk?"

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

There's knowing up here," George pointed to his head. "And knowing in here." Places his hand over his heart. "Or here." Places his hand on his liver.

"A bit..you can't study the language without studying hte culture, otherwise you lose so many nuances. Plus, T'Lan was the Chief Engineer of our ship, and I would have lost even more arguments with her than I already did anyway if I hadn't learned a little. She was one of my best verbal sparring partners."

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"Then you are in some way acquainted with the Vulcan manner of emotional control. Because of my human half, this was in many ways more difficult for me than for other Vulcan children. I considered the kohlinahr. I pursued a path of suppression rather than simple control.

There is a small possibility I have offered myself deep injury through this path."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"I'd say far more than a small," George said meditatively. "You are both human and Vulcan...mind, I've no experience, but seems to me, trying to only be one without the other is saying you're right handed, and cutting off the left since it's not as useful."

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

Spock nodded.

"It is Leonard who convinces me that such may be a possibility. My Jim is many things to me, and he incites action. But it is my Leonard who demonstrates the worth of my human side."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

George smiled. "Does he know that?"

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"I had thought so. Yet as was demonstrated by other conversations with Jim, perhaps I am not clear when communicating with my human mates."

Spock shook his head slowly.

"My Jim believed 'I accept you as you are' meant 'I would prefer you not to have sex with other people.'"

Spock still doesn't understand that one.

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"One of the things that really helped my group was sitting down and having a long talk," George said. "We didn't go directly from in a relationship to monogamy....it took a while. Eventually I settled down, but it took me a bit to realize that was what I wanted."

"What we did, in the beginning, was sit down, all three of us, and lay out some ground rules. I was allowed to sleep around, so long as I used protection, was tested regularly, did not bring them back to our rooms, and informed them when I planned to, or if it was a spur of the moment thing, informed them afterward. I'd screwed up my relationship with Winnie before, when I thought I was obeying the rules she set out, but she'd meant them a different way. This time we were pretty clear. It helped, a lot, to break it down."

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"I am uninterested in dictating such boundaries to my lovers - though Leonard and I have well established that Jim is safe in his practices. Leonard and Jim settled between them that they are friends - they love each other yet not as I love them."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

George grinned cheerfully. "All I can tell you is what worked for me. Eventually, I stopped having sex with lots of people because really? Why settle for soft serve fast food ice cream when I had creme brulee waiting at home for me. Our boundaries weren't dictated. Would have told Winnie and Chris where they could shove themselves if they dictated them. They're things we sat down, discussed, and made the decision together. That's what was most important for us. To make decisions together and communicate when something was bothering us or needed to be changed."

"Relationships are hard work and they're constantly changing. The tide comes in, the tide goes out, that much is set...but the shapes it leaves each time are a new variation. Don't close the door on new variations, configurations. Honestly...really what's the most important from what I've discovered in a relationship is communication. Communications in words, communication in gesture, communication in deed."

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"I make no predictions about the eventual decisions of Jim. He is... unpredictable at best.

Communication among humans appears rather more complicated than in Vulcan relationships. We rely rather more thoroughly on the bond - it is difficult to take offense when you see the heart and mind of your lover."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"I can guess," George nodded. "Although, I'd think that it would be easier. One stray random thought..."

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

*eyebrow*

"Their thoughts are their own. Moreover, why would random thoughts affect me? Perhaps it is difficult to understand how these matters differ for Vulcans.

I wish them to be happy in their human way. I wish to protect their happiness, and however they choose to achieve it."

[kirk-george.livejournal.com]

"That's about three quarters of the battle," George smiled. "Everything else can be learned. Here's another idea...make a list to yourself of things you know your Leonard will not do for himself because he thinks they're indulgent or silly."