[video]

[jirk]

[Jim's sitting in his suite, wearing his command golds, looking serious as a heart attack. He's leaning forward, one hand braced against the armrest of his chair, the other fiddling with something on the console. Satisfied, he leans back more fully and nods once to the camera.]

Okay, let's get the introductions out of the way first. Name's Jim, Jim Kirk. Captain of the USS Enterprise. I serve in Starfleet in the year 2259 - Starfleet being a space-based armada focused on peaceful exploration and the discovery of new forms of life in the universe.

[There's a slight quirk to his brow, he coughs and then continues with all due charisma,]

I know there's people out there that've been here longer than I have, so I'm asking for your help - and the assistance of anyone willing. We know we're here to fight something, some of you know what and why. While I can understand the reasoning behind keeping that information to allies, I'd like to stress the fact that we're all in this together, regardless of worlds, races or creeds. This isn't something we can or should fight blind. So I'm proposing a broader alliance, a centralized repository of information, and the consideration of a unified front to face whatever's coming.

Additionally, I'm interested in the martial capabilities of the landed foreigners, any contingency plans that have been put in place to deal with the situations we're potentially facing here, and the sorts of scenarios that've been dealt with in the past.

[He exhales a little more sharply than necessary, and then he gives the camera a brief, two-fingered salute.]

Kirk out.



[and edited in after the fact, private to Kyle Rayner.]

We should talk.

Comments

[jirk]

[Jim just grins.]

Would I say that?

[imaginate]

I dunno, Princess, would you?

[jirk]

Well, I am a work of art. I mean, I'm no Conversion of St. Whatever ['Paul'] but I do okay for myself.

[Oh, the boy's all ego.]

[imaginate]

Not the first time a sculpture's told me how lucky I am to be looking at it.

[A small smile. He can lay it on, a little. Jim just admitted so much vulnerability to him, after all.]

[jirk]

-- Okay, that's actually a little creepy.

[YOUR LIFE, BRO.]

[imaginate]

[Hm. He just shrugs.]

Artist. Usually they go for 'moody', or 'temperamental'.

[jirk]

No, I mean. Talking sculptures. Creepy.

[He didn't mean you, Kyle. Gosh.]

[imaginate]

You haven't seen half the crap that qualifies as creepy.

[Quiet, maybe a bit bitter.]

[jirk]

[Instantly, the camaraderie is gone. If Kyle wanted to compare him to a flickering candle, that light was just snuffed out. Jim stares at him briefly, expression vacillating between seriously? and something else, something deeper. He's tired of this. Of everything he says coming back to him like a slap in the face, and he's done, he is so done putting up with it.

I need to be pulled back.

Yeah, well. Sometimes he needs to be pushed, too.]

So why don't you enlighten me.

[Or back off.]

[imaginate]

[And he instantly knew it was the wrong thing the moment it was out and he still did it. Inwardly, he curses.]

Sorry. I didn't-- think. At all.

[He chooses to back off.]

Sorry.

[jirk]

[Jim just looks at him for a few more seconds, and then he inhales, looks away and down. Then back.]

What do you want, exactly?

[imaginate]

[Kyle's expression is tired, and heavy.]

Sorry? That's a bit generic.

[jirk]

You did it again. You pulled me in and then you slapped me. It's getting to be a pattern with you.

[I put up with less from four-star Admirals than what I've tolerated from you.]

I don't care that you have more experience. That you've seen a whole lot of all the awful things in the universe. I don't. But when all you want to talk about is how you've got this awful burden nobody understands, you've seen stuff I can't even comprehend, you're telling me two things. [He holds a hand up to forestall comment until he's done.] I don't care if I'm right or not. This is me not reading you.

The first thing I'm hearing is that you don't want to be helped. Maybe it ties back to the pity, the fact that you can't accept that people might want to help just because they can and not because they want something. The second is that you want me to be perfectly aware of the fact that I'm less [that gets a slight snarl, a curl to one corner of his lip] than you are, and that's bullshit. So. What do you want? Because from where I'm sitting it seems like the only reason you even talk to me is so you've got a punching bag. [It's not the first time he's said that, but Jesus Christ, he thought they'd gotten past this fuckery.] And if that's it? Fine. Whatever. I can take anything you've got. But I won't go into our conversations thinking we're friends.

[imaginate]

[He crumples like he's been struck, and draws his knees up to his chest. His breath feels hot, skin feverish, and almost- he wishes he wasn't wearing such dark colours. Everything in him is screaming to run, to get out and breathe while he can.]

[Fire, huh. Kyle's water, and he feels trapped inside the dam. He thought he was past this, well past feeling so trapped and edgy around Jim, and immediately his mind goes back to his room, with his paints. With Guy, or with Sora, working there. The quiet. He struggles for it, fingers scrabbling for purchase, but it's too much like drowning.]

[Still waters. He exhales, and says quietly-]

Then don't. Nobody asked you to help me.

[I'm not going to be a burden. That's all he hears, from Jim. Tell me why I should carry you, and there's no reason.]

[jirk]

[There's a part of him that feels cruel, for eliciting that kind of response. And there's another part that would take anything over that stalwart neutrality Kyle slips into when he's trying to prove how damned tough he is to the universe.]

Do you even know how to ask for help?

[It's tired. Resigned.]

[imaginate]

No point. It's not coming.

[Equally quiet and resigned.]

Last of my kind, remember?

[jirk]

Take your ring off.

[It's not quite an order.]

[imaginate]

[There is a long pause where he gives Kirk a curious, questioning look, and there's momentary coldness, but he complies, sliding it off and putting it on the table.]

[jirk]

You've got two choices.

[He lifts a hand, ticks down his middle and index finger to reiterate.]

Accept that you aren't alone any more. Or drive away anyone who sees the worth in you, because they see the worth in you. So maybe I can't match you, so what. Big deal. My entire bridge crew is made up of people who are the absolute best in their field, that I can't even touch. I don't care. Meet me half way and I'll do whatever I can to make sure you're never alone. But you have to meet me. I'm not going to put up with being treated like shit by some guy who doesn't give a damn about me.

[imaginate]

[He is standing on a rooftop with broken bones and screaming muscles and Damian is holding him, quietly. He is sitting in a hospital room and John's hand is on his shoulder, reassuring. Then, he's on a field full of blood and detritus and dead Black Mercy and Guy's arm is around him, as though afraid Kyle will slip away if he lets go (I know what your worst fear is). There's a fruit on his face and Zatanna is hugging him too (did anyone tell you you're kind of amazing).]

[His language is not words. These do not just... happen, for him; he lives in the quiet strokes of the brush, in movement, and in music. Where you can wrap up your sadness with greys and blacks, put hope in a small painting of a lighthouse by the sea (stop pushing paint around Kyle, none of this means anything). Where joy is the simple things like sitting on a sofa flirting with someone and not having to think about pain, or war, or the feel of intense heat on his skin as they tore Ion out of him and expected him to live with the silence in his mind, alone.]

[He needs to be pulled back. Usually, other people do it, but he's cognizant, now, of what's happening to him, and well. He fights everything. He might as well fight himself, too.]

[Out of sheer desperation, (because he can't find the words, he never had those) Jim gets wrapped in a hug. Kyle's fingers curl in his shirt; it's not a tight grip, but it is one that says I do give a damn. He rests his head on Jim's shoulder, steadying his breathing, taking what he needs. And he is still waters again, calm, neutral.]

[At peace.]

[jirk]

[For someone who touches other people so casually, so freely, Jim really doesn't like being touched himself. Contact he doesn't initialize is usually either sexual - women at bars, lingering little touches that hold the promise of a wild night - or violent, and he thinks of Spock's hand around his throat and squeezing.

He freezes at the contact, hands held well out of the way to forestall a more visceral reaction, and he just lets Kyle hug him.

Then, lightly,]

Wow, is it just me or was that first base?

[I get it.]

[imaginate]

Getting ahead of yourself.

[It's quiet, but light. He hasn't let go yet.]

[jirk]

There any other place to be?

[He hugged Kyle when he came out of the antechamber saying, they broke my symbol, James. It was an instinct, then. He'd have done it for anyone projecting that level of required comfort because at the end of the day, he buys into the whole needs of the many thing a lot more than he'd ever admit to anyone but Spock. He can set aside his own needs and wants and desires for other people. Even his life, if he had to.

But this is different. This is something taken, not asked for, and he's not quite comfortable with that.]

You okay?

[imaginate]

No.

[He senses something (a misstep? He always gave when people touched him first, this must be a difference between them), and he steps back, out of Jim's personal space, once again returning to his defeated posture, albeit slightly more open.]

But when I say that, even when it's the absolute truth, nobody knows what to do with me.

[jirk]

[Jim shakes his head. Nonverbal communication. He can do that. He reaches out to put his hand on Kyle's shoulder, fingers slightly flexed. A concession.]

I'm not nobody.