Here, have a tiny slice of epilogue from The Eternal WIP. PAST TENSE, I DO NOT MISS YOU

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Labor Day was big in
Riverside.  The church notices went out weeks beforehand, and the park
next to the elementary school was a madhouse by ten in the morning.
 Families from around town had donated their folding chairs and card
tables, and a long row of them groaned under the weight of ten different kinds
of potato salad and twenty kinds of pie. There were some real fire hazards down
on the end with hot plates, but Jim was still technically suspended. Not his
problem.

An enterprising art
teacher set up a facepainting station, and Jojo ran around most of the
afternoon with half her face done in shimmering blue and pink scales.  She
insisted to anyone who would listen she was a fairy dragon, and at some point
Bones had gotten a smear of silvery purple under his nose. No one told him, but
he’d noticed something was up and started scowling at every wide smile aimed
his way.

They’d headed out
early, citing school the next day.  Ny had gone too; Gala was doing well,
but not in any shape to come to the park, and Nyota had wanted to bring her a
few helpings of marshmallow salad.  The park grills were still going
strong as the sun set, Scotty commandeering one near six and kept up a steady
stream of hot dogs and burgers.  Very few sandwiches, surprisingly,
although Jim thought he saw some breadheels hiding in the mound of buns on the
table next to him.

At that point, Jim
bought another warm beer from the Knights of Columbus and dragged a picnic
table over to the grill from outside the cafeteria, ten years of preteen angst
carved into the wood and red paint flaking off in sheets. Sulu and Chekov
showed up soon after, followed by the sheriff in a brand-new, motorized
wheelchair.  Jim and Pike knocked their bottles together while the two
officers on duty looked on with longing.

“Hey, you lazy
assholes,” came Giotto’s voice
from their radios. “I see you over there. I need a body by the swings,
over.”

“Not me,” Sulu said
immediately, and slowly wilted under Pike’s raised eyebrow. “I mean.”

“Someone’s dog got
ahold of Mrs. Kowalski’s handbag and it’s dropping… stuff all over. Over.”

“Stuff?” Jim asked.

“Stuff? Over,” Sulu
said into his radio.

“Stuff,” Giotto said, clearly uncomfortable. “You
know, stuff. Adult stuff. Christ, this woman is older than my mother—”

“Not it,” Chekov said,
eyes wide.

“Someone’s got to go,”
Sulu argued.

“Suspended,” Jim said,
raising his hands.

“Medical leave,” Pike
said dryly. “Officer Sulu, please proceed to the scene. I’m sure you’ll handle
it with all the courtesy and professionalism I’ve come to expect from you.”

Sulu gave him a
hangdog look, but swung his legs over the bench and slunk off towards the
playground without any more complaining.  

“Ah, shite timing,”
Scotty said cheerfully from the grill. “Bangers up, lads!”

Four plates were
raised and filled, and Jim was about to take a bite of the first of two fat,
split brats when something beyond Scotty and the grill caught his eye.

A blink, and he didn’t
know what it had been. There wasn’t anything there on a second look, just the
treeline marking the edge of the park. Lots of walnuts and broken acorns on the
ground under them. Could be a squirrel.

Jim kept his eyes on
the trees said, “Hey, Scotty. Pass the ketchup?”

“Ah’ll ha’ ye know
catsup is no th’ thing te put on yon wee sausage,” Scotty said disapprovingly.
“Mustard. Only th’ mustard, ye ken, ah have it here—”

“Just give me the damn
ketchup.”

“’s no’ right,” Scotty
said sadly, but he passed the ketchup.

The park sat on a
sloping lot, which in some places was quite steep: the school at the top and
the woods at the bottom.  The hill faced west, and though the tops of the
trees with their firework bursts of scarlet and orange were lit, their trunks
sat in deep violet shadow.

Jim put a huge blot of
ketchup on the edge of his plate and plunked the bottle down on the table.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” he said, and plate in hand, he walked carefully down
the rest of the hill and into the waiting woods below.

He’d only taken a few
steps inside before he was completely swallowed in darkness, and only a few
steps beyond that before he stopped, tilted his head, and grinned.

“Hi there,” he said.
“Hotdog?”

“… I am incapable of
ingesting solid foods,” said a vampire who was not Spock, and Jim felt a
brief flash of shock shading into panic before a soft touch at his elbow turned
him towards the second vampire standing in the shadows.

“Hello, Jim,” said
Spock, fingertips resting briefly on his arm.

“Hey,” Jim said,
quieter, and couldn’t help a smile at Spock’s slow blink. “Hello.”

“I am pleased on this
occasion to introduce a member of my former nest,” Spock said, voice and
posture so stiff he seemed robotic. “Sarek, esteemed and venerated among all
Vulcans.”

The other, seemingly
older vampire nodded gravely. “Well met, James Tiberius Kirk.”

He wore long, dark
robes, his hair cut into the same simple style, his dark eyes familiar. It took
Jim a moment to place them, but when he did— when he remembered where he’d
heard that name previously— he blurted, “Wait, your dad Sarek? Sybok’s
dad Sarek?”

“The esteemed Sarek is
our progenitor, yes,” Spock said, incredibly wooden, and Jim barely stopped
himself from laughing out loud. Of all the bizarre and unimaginable places this
relationship had led them, he never once thought he’d have to meet the family.
Much less ever have the opportunity to embarrass Spock in front of his parents.

He kind of wanted to.
Did that make him a dick?

“I’m very pleased to
meet you, sir,” he said diplomatically, and next to him Spock seemed to relax a
fraction. “Would you care to join us at the table?”

Spock went rigid, for
no particular reason Jim could see. Sarek merely folded his hands.

“I thank you for the
invitation,” he said. “However, I have another engagement this evening that
demands my attention. With your permission, I will call on you at your place of
residence tomorrow evening.”

Jim very much saw
where Spock’s tortuous turns of phrase came from. “Sounds good to me.”

Sarek bowed briefly,
and then simply wasn’t there anymore.

“Wow,” Jim said, after
a moment. “I wasn’t expecting—”

“Please do me the very
great favor of never again inviting my father to ‘join your table’,”
Spock said through what sounded like tightly clenched teeth.

“Wait, what? Wait. Is
that a—?”

“Yes.”

“Did I just ask your
dad to—?”

“Yes,” Spock said,
aggrieved. “In the first sixty seconds of meeting him no less. You are a
singularly astounding man, as always.”

“Damn,” Jim said. “I’m
sorry?”

“I doubt that,” Spock
said, but his hand was on Jim’s arm again and with it, he turned Jim fully
towards him and raised the other to his face, thumb stroking his cheek. “But I
do appreciate hearing it.”

Jim was grinning again
as Spock leaned in. “I did say he could come over tomorrow.”

“Cease,” Spock
growled.

“Make me,” Jim said,
and laughed into Spock’s mouth when he did.