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"Smell this," Jim says, popping up beside Leonard and shoving a bright red tube under Spock's nose. Spock doesn't even flinch, just sniffs at it delicately, like he's used to Jim shoving things in his face. Leonard doesn't want to know.
"The note of silage is displeasing," Spock says.
"Huh?" Jim gives it a sniff, then rears back. "Ugh, smells like wet barn."
"As I said."
"Okay," Jim says. "I can work with this." He replaces the cap on the tube with a smack and slips back into the crowd, leaving Leonard and Spock standing in an alley between two of the street market's less popular stalls. It's a major holiday in Ipli and the place is packed. The locals are humanoid, tall and dark, and have no real sense of personal space, which makes for lots of friendly jostling and even the occasional elbow. Add in the tourists with their souvenir prayer wheels and cellophane bags of candied fruits and habit of stopping dead in their tracks to stare at their comms, and you can't take a step without bumping into someone.
Spock, who doesn't like crowds or noise or being touched, is only barely tolerating this endeavor. Leonard had been slowly creeping in the direction of the restaurant, hoping to drag Spock and Jim along in his wake, and got three blocks away before he had to admit it wasn't working and returned to find Spock exactly where he'd left him. He doesn't know why he expected any different. Spock wouldn't follow him anywhere unless ordered, and Jim's so wrapped up in his shopping he probably didn't even notice Leonard was gone.
He sighs and checks his watch. They're late for dinner, and if they miss out on the lucky dumplings because Jim's fucking around trying to find his boyfriend a present, Leonard's going to cause an intergalactic incident. The Ipli guidebook says they only make the dumplings one day a year, and despite the sun being directly overhead, the day's nearly over.
"How long is this going to take?" he mutters, looking for Jim and accidentally making eye contact with a local carrying what looks like a fat white cat in a sequined vest. Leonard flashes them both a nervous grin. They're big on smiling here, which is actually working in Jim's favor for once. After a year of being dragged across the alpha quadrant, Leonard's learned a smile isn't nearly as universal as Humans like to think, but Jim's been bullshitting his way through life so long he's having trouble adjusting to the fact that not everyone in the galaxy likes his face. He gets punched in the mouth a lot. Leonard increases his smile, just in case. The local smiles back. So does the cat thing. Leonard suppresses a shiver.
"Forever," Spock says.
Leonard looks up sharply, hoping Spock's joking, but no, his face is completely blank. "Pardon?" Leonard says, shocked into politeness.
"Jim is attempting to find a replacement for the incense I once used to meditate. It was manufactured on Vulcan, from Vulcan materials. I used the last of it some time ago."
"Oh," Leonard says. "Shit."
"Try this," Jim says, appearing in front of them without warning and holding up a purple cone the size of a blackberry. Spock's exhale seems a little longer than strictly necessary, but he bends his head over the powdery cone and breathes in.
Jim tilts his head, eyes bright. "What do you think?"
Spock pauses. Leonard doesn't know how it's possible, but somehow, while remaining completely still, Spock has become still in a completely new and meaningful way. Leonard hates that he can tell the difference. It means he's been spending way too much time listening to Jim gush about how smart and strong and amazing Spock is.
"The scent of resin is quite familiar," Spock says finally.
"Yeah, yeah," Jim says. "And you still like the, uh, mineral scent of this one, right?" He holds up another cone, this one orange.
Spock smells the orange cone; his eyes flutter closed. "Yes."
"Great. Be right back. Bones, hang tight, we'll get you there, I promise." Jim claps him on the shoulder and smiles, big and open, and then turns the smile on the locals and charms his way across the street. Leonard scowls. He can't even complain about his lucky dumplings now without feeling like an asshole.
"When the captain returns," Spock says, "I will request that he refrain from pursuing this any further."
"No," Leonard says, resigned, because he's not actually a jerk and what good's a lucky dumpling if you're eating it in the company of two unhappy friends. Or one unhappy friend and Spock, who would never admit to being either. "Don't do that. You know how he gets. Sometimes you just have to let him happen."
"Indeed," Spock says, exhaling loudly.
A troupe of dancers rushes past, dressed in long white skirts and nothing else. They spin and twist as they snake through the crowd, the tiny bells sewn into their skirts ringing with every step. There seem to be a hundred of them and none of them have shirts on and Leonard thinks maybe—
"Check it out," Jim says, once again appearing out of nowhere, this time with a flat brown donut surrounded by some frilly bits of yellow paper. "I told La Harza you didn't like the barn, but she says you need some red to balance the purple, and she's the expert, and also she didn't care what I thought, so I couldn't stop her from putting it in, but it smells okay to me." He takes a sniff and then holds his hand out for Spock, but Spock seems reluctant.
"The vendor fabricated this specifically for you?"
"Yeah, custom scents are kind of her thing. What did you think I was doing with all this running back and forth?"
Spock, for some reason, glances at Leonard, like he can get him out of this.
And, what the hell, it'll be a new year soon, on this planet at least. Leonard decides to rescue him. "Get in there, Spock. Time's a wastin'." He taps his watch for extra flair, and Spock gives him a disgruntled look without actually moving his face, like that wasn't the kind of assistance he had in mind. Tough. Leonard gives him a big ole lazy grin to top it off. Apparently Spock doesn't listen to everything Jim says, either. So he can just stuff all that Vulcan superiority.
Spock flares his nostrils slightly, as if he can read Leonard's mind and isn't impressed, and shifts his attention back to Jim and the cake of incense. It's sitting in a little flower made of tissue paper that just fills the center of Jim's palm. The whole thing's a weird combination of romantic and boring, which pretty much sums up these two perfectly as far as Leonard's concerned.
Jim's starting to look worried. "Spock?"
Spock gives the incense a gentle sniff, and then leans in and inhales.
"Do you like it?"
"Jim," Spock says, his voice full of wonder.
Leonard's only heard him sound like that when discovering some terrible new life form that's about to kill him. Last time it was a slime mold that lived off radiation and cooked everything dumb enough to come within three meters of it and of course Spock had wanted to get a closer look. Leonard had to pull him out of the cave with one hand while waving Jim off with the other, Spock high on Vulcan endorphins and insisting the entire time that he needed to go back for more scans. Spock's wondrous tone is no less upsetting now. He touches Jim's wrist, and Leonard hurriedly looks away, not sure it's something he should be seeing. The stand next to him comes into horrible focus. It seems to be selling mummified onions. Some have faces carved into them with jangly teeth and sunken eyes, their dirty roots teased out like hair. Leonard doesn't know what he could have done to deserve this, but he's real sorry for it.
"You like it," Jim says, sounding relieved and sort of awed himself. "Does it smell like the stuff you had?"
"No," says Spock, and Leonard can actually feel Jim deflate. He sneaks a look in case he has to curse out Spock later for breaking Jim's heart for the millionth time, but Spock has his hand cupped under Jim's and a tender look in his eyes. "But it is remarkably similar to the incense my mother purchased for me when I was a child."
"Oh," Jim says. "Is that good?"
"Yes," Spock says, and in the right light it might look like he was smiling. "She would return from the market and not even be fully in the house before removing her gloves and scarf, shaking out her hair and announcing how stuffy it was out there." His expression shifts minutely, as if finally putting together his mom had been dissing Vulcans and not the weather, and he looks even more like he might be smiling. "She would spot me where I was attempting to conceal myself behind the doorway to the study, but would call for me in the opposite direction, and then pretend to be surprised when I stepped into the hall." The corner of his mouth curves up. "She would kneel down to hug me, saying ridiculous things about how much I had grown while she was away; I would dispute them, and she would laugh and kiss my face and hand me a small cloth bag of incense that smelled very much like this."
Jim looks like he's going to melt into a puddle of feelings. "Spock..."
Spock pauses, probably waiting to see if Jim's ever going to finish that sentence. When he doesn't, Spock continues. "You have given me back a piece of what I lost, something I would not have thought to search out for myself."
"So you like it?" Jim asks.
"I do."
Jim beams at him. "La Harza's making up a batch for you, but it has to cure properly. This one's just a sample."
He pulls two hidden strings and the paper flower closes up into a bud, securing the incense inside. He passes it to Spock, who holds it in his cupped hands like it's something precious. Jim smiles at him a moment longer, and then deliberately turns to Leonard, giving Spock a moment to collect himself. Jim has always been a considerate and loyal friend, but Spock brings out a side of him that Leonard's never really seen before.
"You hear that, Bones? I did good."
"Always do, kid," Leonard says, finding his voice unexpectedly rough. He clears his throat. "But I was promised dumplings, and all I got here is zombie onion heads." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder and gets the satisfaction of Jim doing a triple take, his face getting more and more disgusted the more he takes in.
"They are udo," Spock says, having safely stored away his emotions and switched back to computer mode. "Used to ward off a parasitic fly that reproduces during the wet summer months."
"Sounds delightful," Leonard says. "Don't know why it wasn't in my guidebook."
Spock raises an eyebrow, clearly about to get Leonard back for something he said earlier. "It most likely was. Perhaps you skipped that section because it had no pictures."
"You know what has pictures—" Leonard says, jabbing a finger at Spock, about to let him have it on the subject of the borgo fly and the unspeakable things it does to the humanoid body, but Jim steps in and physically separates them.
"Hey, hey," Jim says. "Enough flirting you two."
Leonard makes a strangled sound, too upset to form words. The suggestion that his open and honest disdain for Spock and all of his logical nonsense might be mistaken for sexual interest, or even, god forbid, affection—it's a betrayal of the worst kind. Spock's bangs shift a fraction as if he's secretly having a feeling somewhere in his forehead.
Jim just carries on like he hadn't just said the worst thing he's ever said. "We gotta get some food in Bones so he stops making that face, and I gotta sit down and not smile for a while because my mouth is all worn out—Bones, not a word. You either, Spock." Spock closes his half-open trap, and Jim goes on, "Let's get out of this crowd, eat some lucky dumplings, and ring in the new year with a shot of fermented turnip wine. It's a hundred and ten percent alcohol, and I know that figure bums you out, Spock, but the science is in."
"They are not turnips," Spock says. "The spirit is made from a root vegetable native to this planet."
"You got me there," Jim says.
Leonard rolls his eyes, and Jim wrinkles his nose at him. Spock constantly correcting Jim's every word can get a little old. Jim takes it with surprising equanimity these days, but sometimes Leonard gets the feeling Spock does it just to see how much he can get away with. One day he's going to push too far and they're going to have a huge public fight on the bridge over something completely stupid, like if you can call a teapot from another planet "earthenware." Spock almost got him with that one.
Jim corrals them both and starts herding them down the street, smiling the whole way. Spock tucks his arms in close to his body as he moves through the crowd, awkward as a porcupine in a balloon factory, but otherwise doesn't complain, which is a nice change. Leonard himself is happy enough to go along with it until he sees where they're headed.
"The restaurant's in the other direction, Jim."
"Yeah, we're late, did you notice? We probably lost our table, but it's cool. La Harza told me where the locals go. There's a food cart in the park; makes the best lucky dumplings in Ipli. Only the best for you, Bones, and they're completely vegan, Spock, as long as you get the ones with the zig-zags. You're supposed to make a wish for the coming year before your first bite, too, so get thinking." He hugs them both around the shoulders and steers them through a jumbled up group of children dressed as four oxen, some root vegetables that probably aren't turnips, and most of a cart. One of the wheels is sitting on the curb, eating a piece of fried dough and crying.
"I think I'm gonna wish for one of those onion heads," Jim says. "It'll look real nice on my desk for when the Admirals call."
"Don't," Leonard says, just as Spock protests, "Captain—"
"No, it's my wish and I'll use it how I want. Now, who's hungry? I think I have one good smile left in me."
"I have never found you lacking in this respect," Spock says stolidly.
"Aw, Spock," Jim says, like this is the best thing he's ever heard. "That's so sweet. 'In this respect.' I love how specific your compliments are. I never have to guess what you're thinking."
"Lucky you," Leonard mutters.
"Mm!" Jim says, squeezing Leonard, and presumably Spock on his other side. "This is going to be a good year, I can feel it."
"It's September," Leonard grouches, just to be difficult.
"Nah, we're on Iplit, and if they're having a new year, so are we."
"The Jewish New Year often falls during the month of September," Spock offers.
"That's the spirit!"
Jim leads them out of the market and down a shaded alley between two multilevel stone buildings. At the other end is a little stream set in a rocky bed that runs along the base of a high stone wall.
"Okay," Jim says. "Traditionally you hop over the water for extra luck, but you can take the bridge with no shame." He points at a small footbridge, its railing tied with strips of gauzy white fabric that dance in the breeze. Three adults stand on the other side, cheering on a kid in a feathered skirt who's staring at the water dubiously.
Leonard gives Jim a suspicious look. "And how old are you, traditionally, when you do this?"
"What, that wasn't in your guidebook?" Jim asks, looking so innocent that Leonard considers shoving him in the water and holding him there until he's soaked through with bad luck. Jim just grins at him, knowing Leonard wouldn't dare. While they're glaring and grinning at each other, Spock surprises them both by hopping neatly over the stream and continuing on through the entrance to the park. Jim laughs and jumps over the water after him. Leonard follows Jim, clearing the stream easily, and ducks through the low stone archway. What looked like a private courtyard from the outside turns out to be a large public rock garden, though it's really more rock than garden.
There's rough white gravel on the foot path, and small grey pebbles surrounding groups of big square stones where people sit in clusters, talking and eating and shaking bells at each other. To his right there's a line of black marble slabs arranged like a cresting wave. At the center, meandering like a stream, a ribbon of ochre clay leads to a pool of red sand surrounded by clumps of scrubby dune grasses.
It looks like somewhere Vulcans would go to relax, and sure enough Spock seems absolutely riveted by a tough looking succulent growing out of a pyramid of river rocks. Leonard watches as he gently prods at one of its barbed leaves.
Leonard pulls his tricorder out of his med kit and passes it to Spock, who takes it with a muttered thank you and starts a surreptitious scan of his new friend. Jim might have instituted a no-tricorders policy on shore leave, but he also promised Leonard they could eat at the Ipli Dumpling Transit, and instead he's standing in a bunch of gravel surrounded by rocks, so he's not real inclined to care. Spock moves over to scan what looks like a waterfall of white and grey lichen spilling out of a stone bowl.
The whole thing's kind of nuts, really, and then Leonard notices the food cart.
"What the—"
"Find us someplace to sit," Jim says. "I'm gonna go smile my way to the front of the line."
Jim disappears into the group milling around in front of a structure that looks like a giant turnip wearing one of Ipli's pointy temples as a hat. A narrow hatch is propped open on the side of the turnip and a local in a white headscarf leans out, taking orders and passing down trays of dumpling, clouds of steam billowing out around them. Over their head, the swoopy asymmetrical roof spirals up like a snail shell, its five peaks trimmed in white and gold, strings of bells swaying at every corner. All that slapped on top of a literal cart, its wooden wheels tall as a man and decorated with gold coins that shimmy with the stand's vibrations. It must make a godawful racket when it moves. If it even can.
Two of the older kids are tossing rocks at the bells, trying to make them ring. To Leonard it looks like a great way to lose an eye, but the adults around them seem fine with it, and if he's learned anything during his time travelling the galaxy, it's that his unsolicited advice isn't always welcome, and he doesn't want to do something that might get them kicked out. He'll just have to wait until the screaming starts before offering his professional opinion.
He can see Spock longing for the sand pit, but no one else is sitting there, so after a moment of silent communication, they decide to imitate the locals. Leonard picks out a spot with their own private monolith and sits down on one of the stone cubes at its base. Spock sits across from him on a flat rectangular slab and points his tricorder at some gravel. Leonard checks his watch. Five minutes until the new year.
The kids manage to hit one of the bells and the crowd cheers. Someone calls for more wine.
Three minutes later, Jim arrives with a tray of dumplings and three very small cups of clear alcohol, which is a very bad sign, because if Leonard knows anything, it's that the smaller the glass, the faster it fucks you up. These are the size of thimbles and full to the top.
Jim sets the woven tray down on a rock and points at the dumplings, plump and steamy, and arranged in three groups. "Shredded root vegetable, smoked meat, and..." He trails off. "Other? Egg maybe. I didn't really understand what they were saying, but everyone agreed we had to try it."
Leonard checks that his med kit and communicator are within easy reach, and Spock gives him a discreet nod of approval. Jim picks up a mystery dumpling and raises it in the air. "Happy New Year, guys."
"L'shanah tovah tikatevu v'taihatem," Spock says, holding out his own dumpling.
"With luck enough for us all," Leonard says, mimicking the local blessing.
"Don't forget to make a wish!" Jim says, toasting them before shoving the entire dumpling in his mouth. Spock closes his eyes, in supplication or resignation; it's impossible to tell which. Leonard knows exactly how he feels.
Jim grins at both of them, face full of mystery dumpling, and Leonard shakes his head, lifts his dumpling in a toast, and—lord help him—wishes for another year just like this one.