MXTX, Social Issues, and Shipping

He shrugs and nods and does weird shake things with his carapce and their just like.... bro, why are you moving like that? He also talks so fucking slow and enunciates like his beautiful family is 20 years old. But when Grace is done being scurvy and rickets ridden and is capable of joining the thrum outside his earth enclosure, they realize Rocky spent a few years talking to a slow as fuck human incapable of converting to Eridian seconds in his head. He's pausing to congugate and he frequently needs words above a 1st grade level defined to him.

Alexander who greets David with a handshake and a pat on the shoulder, obviously close enough to stop and chat with David outside of work. And David puts a hand on Ilya's shoulder and goes "This is Ilya", and Alexander's eyes light up. But before Ilya can say anything, Alexander goes "Oh yeah, I recognize you from the pictures!", he smiles and shakes Ilya's hand. "That must have been a fun bareque, David talks about it often."

And Ilya's mind has shut off and is racing a thousend miles at the same time because yeah they did have Yuna and David over at Shane's Cottage this summer for a barbeque, as they have done often, but surely that - why would David have a picture of that on his desk?

He must manage a Thank you or something because Alex still smiles warmly as he tells thr two of them "Well, it was nice to run into you guys, I won't hold you up any longer. Enjoy your family Christmas" and Ilya, through the rushing in his ears, hears David say "Thank you, Alexander. Have a good Christmas as well, give my best to Elaine".

It's not until they're back in the car, groceries in the trunk on the way back to the house, when Ilya turns to David. There are a million things he wants to say, but he ends up blurting out

"You have pictures of me at your office?"

And he doesn't know what he expects David to say. No, this was all a prank orchestrated by my work colleague and me? Yes i do but only because Shane made me? Yuna told me to keep the Hollander-Rozanov brand strong I get five dollars everytime someone mentions your name?

The rational part of his brain knows these are all absurd. He's still not quite ready to be hit with David's completely sincere "Oh, yeah. With you boys on the road so often I like to keep pictures on my desk, you know? Yuna as well, of course. It makes me feel as if I have a part of my family with me even at work."

I love the surprise element of jim having always been there for real and that their relationship development wasn't an illusion and I think it prompts a cool ice breaking moment for them to serve together already as a super compatible unit in tos s1

BUT

my favorite thing is the implication that

1) james tiberius kirk has an extremely high tolerance to the recreational drugs of this planet, to the point that he acted 100% normal the whole time he was there and wasn't even a little bit blazed