mari4212 | Ficpost, Conversations in a Bar (Reply)

ljmckay gave me a drabble prompt of Spock and The Doctor talking about losing their worlds It ended up being a bit more of a ficlet, because the Doctor didn't want to do succinct.

Fandom: Star Trek reboot and Doctor Who
Rating: PG

He did not know why he had sought out this bar, six months after the attack. It was, in Vulcan terms, illogical to seek to temporarily erase memories with an outside intoxicant. In human terms, he believed the term was "indulging in a bout of self pity".

Yet at a bar he was, the counter dark, scarred, and stained below his glass.

A dark-haired man man sat next to him, shoulders hunched beneath his leather jacket, staring into his own glass. Without looking up, the man started speaking, his voice halting. "You never really know how to deal with them. You never quite fit in, and it would kill you to always do so. But then, you knew they were always there, your touchstone, the place you defined yourself against. And now it's gone, and you're left gasping for air, stumbling because the wall you didn't realize you leaned against has fallen away."

The man looked to the side, his hands tightening even more against his empty glass. Finally, he turned and looked over his shoulder at Spock. "They tell you, when you lose someone, something, that the pain fades, it gets better in time. It doesn't. You just learn to live with it there, to accept it. But it stays with you for the rest of your life. You never forget it."

He shrugged. "Eventually, you learn to look past it, and you see what is still out there, things that are still fantastic and brilliant. And you love them just that little bit more, because you know how easily they can also be snuffed out, how precious and irreplaceable even one life is."

The man jumped off of his stool, tossed a few odd coins onto the table, and roughly patted Spock on the shoulder before striding out of the bar. Spock glance down at his own glass, still half-full, before following the man out. When he reached the entrance of the bar, the man was nowhere in sight, with a strange grinding noise fading out of earshot.