exastris_scientia | retired open post // will still tag in if threads are ongoing!

I never said I expected you to trust me. I merely said you require more than it to sustain you.

[ he watches him peel and eat the pomegranate and sips his own drink. ]

Your denial will not change the facts. I do know you, though you do not remember. But if that must be left to the wayside so that we can proceed somewhat amicably, so be it.

There's some spice tea in that cupboard there.

[he doesn't respond to that, merely picking at the arils of the pomegranate, popping them into his mouth every so often. though he has stopped watching khan so closely, instead focusing on the table, his fingers, the juice spreading over his hands.]

I'm fine, thanks.

[ he won't say that it's julian's favorite tea. he won't tell him that he used to sneak it out of the area where the scientists worked on the compound. he wasn't the best at "public relations" as it were, but he could shine someone on, as was the term back then. gain trust. feign a certain emotional response in order to gain something in return.

like the tea from a young woman's desk who had a child that was around khan's age at that time. it was something none of them had until then, a simple thing, really. ]

As you wish.

[obviously he was charismatic enough. alexander sighs and most emphatically does not feel like a heel, like that close-as-it-comes to a kicked puppy expression is making him feel guilty for not being who this man thinks he is.

this was a mistake, coming out here.

while he continues to pick at the fruit in his hands, it starts to be more of an exercise in piling the tiny red gems in a neat heap on the table, instead of eating them.]

[ khan doesn't know how to treat the man who does not remember being his brother as anything else but that. guilt will do neither of them any good, and yes, khan feels guilty for failing to protect those whom he cares about. unable to take them to a place far from the reaches and disdain of their creators. unable to keep them from being used again.

guilt is not productive, but rage is. before this is done marcus will feel his rage. khan will cave his skull between his hands if he has his way. ]

I've---disabled any kind of ability to communicate with the outside world. I do, however, have some idea of what is going on. This PADD has limited access, if you wish to keep up on---current events.

[ he picks it up out of the mess of parts he has yet to organize, and projects each movement as he brings it over to julian, who is---well. he seems to be playing with his food. ]

Not as fun as those Pop Rocks that Kati enjoyed so much. I think they only served to disturb the rest of us.

[more things he doesn't remember. and he's not playing, that would involve something like throwing them around.

he's simply not that hungry. he looks up at the approach, at the words, then glances at the padd.

he'd like to know what happened, in london. at least. there should be some projection of casualties--he needs to know it wasn't that bad.

he takes the padd. he's not sure if he could hack it, given enough time--he's fairly sure that it's not time khan intends him to have at any rate. he looks up london first. the damage isn't quite as bad as he expected, at least on the surface. the research facility underground was secret, news on that wouldn't be broadcast. the article contains a short digression, the author had apparently tried to contact--commander, that's different--james t. kirk for comment, considering the library was named for the ship lost under his father's command.

he follows the link to a short starfleet announcement that admiral pike was given command of the enterprise again, with james t. kirk as his first officer.]

That's odd...

[he murmurs, looking at the photo of kirk in his dress uniform, at the re-dedication of the academy library that had been damaged in the attack by the romulans a year earlier.]

What is?

[ he asks, having gone back over to his worktable, and started to organize and figure out what he would try and work on next. again, he hadn't originally intended to stay in this place for so long. he had intended to be well on his way to san francisco by this time, preparing his attack on the daystrom conference room. the time for that has come and gone now, and he'll have to approach this from a different way.

he hadn't even commandeered the jump ship or the transwarp beaming device. he'll have to reevaluate things considerably.

he sighs, and comes back to the kitchen to rinse out the glass after having finished his drink. going out into the black of space was enough of an unknown he was made to bear for the sake of his people. he does not enjoy uncertainty. he calculates. it is his way. ]

[alexander has no idea what khan is scheming. he obviously is planning something--and he's gotten starfleet's attention. though they're calling him john harrison.

he glances up, not expecting a response.]

Captain Kirk was removed as the commanding officer of the Enterprise. By the way, the photo on your wanted notice isn't the most flattering.

[ well, they can't very well call him by the name they attempted to steal from him, can they? they also can't tell the world who he really is. because then someone might question the motive behind such a ruse. ]

Kirk, yes. In command of the Starfleet's flagship. I didn't realize he'd lost that position. [ he would have been at daystrom after returning from a survey of nibiru and the surrounding systems. pre-warp, all of them.

a brow ticks up at the mention of his wanted notice, and he comes over, resisting the urge to peer over julian's shoulder as he might have once. instead, he offers a hand, palm up. ]

May I?

[ julian might think him insane, but he's polite at the very least. ]

They only have one usable holo on file to make use of in my case. And as I recall I was quite out of it by that time due to their attentions. Hardly in my best form.

Where's this Kirk you're so curious about?

[alexander swipes back with his finger--he'd been looking at the wanted notice, hadn't yet scrolled to the bottom to see that he was on it too, 'wanted for questioning'. he hands the padd back up over his shoulder, to khan. john. what the bloody hell ever his name really was.]

Considering the fact that you made a few city blocks go up in a spectacular fireball, we might get to meet him sooner rather than later. They are going to send people looking, you know.

[ best to take the opportunity to learn about the enemy where he is able. even if his information is coming from someone whose memory has been heavily tampered with. he can fact check later. but when julian swipes back to show him the picture, he's certain that his heart has stopped beating in his chest.

recognition flashes over his features, but of course it would. it wasn't enough to use khan. it wasn't enough to take julian and twist him into something other than who he was. a shadow. but another one of their brothers, he now finds, is in julian's same situation and khan can do nothing about it. being a former captain, and now commander of a flagship---he would have been at daystrom. khan feels sick with the rage bubbling up like bile in his throat. ]

Christopher---[ one of their brothers, and one julian does not yet remember. the wrath khan will rain down on marcus and his will be far worse than anything they have experienced since the start of their starfleet. their federation. he will raze it to the ground. he will make it so unrecognizable, that no one will dare to try and reconstruct it. it will remain a ruin and testament to the consequences of the wrong course of action.

he doesn't realize he's snapped the PADD itself in two until he looks down at the separated pieces in his hands. ]

Edited 2016-01-20 13:33 (UTC)

[alexander would argue that his memory is perfectly fine, thank you. but the cracking of plastic polymers and the low whine of dying electronics is far more immediately pressing. he flinches bodily, some visceral reaction running through him, to the bones.

he doesn't protest the name khan gives the once-captain. he's too afraid to--the ease with which khan snapped the padd triggers something deep--fear that was programmed into him with drugs and psychological conditioning.

like a pebble starting a landslide, anxiety curls in his stomach. his fingers clench reflexively, nails digging pale quarter-moons into his palms, an attempt at distraction.

he abruptly shoves back from the table, thoughts of escape buried under a smothering layer of panic. His arm twinges with phantom pain.

the part of him that's a doctor, that's dealt with triage and trauma, the part that's julian, even unrecognized and forgotten, realizes he's having a panic attack. he doesn't know why.

He barely mumbles an 'excuse me' and emphatically does not run from the room, but he does retreat to the room where he woke up, barely even thinking before shoving the bed in front of the door--it opens inward, so it fairly effectively creates a barricade--and sitting in the corner, staring at the door.

he's going mad. he's been abducted by a superhuman madman and his mind feels like it's unraveling.]

[ khan doesn't realize the quickness with which julian takes his leave of both him and the room he occupies. there's only the one bedroom, sparsely furnished as it is, and he doesn't wish to make a ruin of it trying to look after julian. well, that had been the plan, but the shuffling of heavy items being moved against the door and wall---

---it's jarring. the reaction is wholly unlike any that he's familiar with. it's like a stranger wearing his brother's face with some of the same mannerisms, pulling him around by invisible strings into learned and conditioned psychological and physical reactions. it, too, makes that easy rage flare up like a brush fire, but he closes his eyes, pulls in a breath, sets the pieces of the ruined PADD down, and when he opens his eyes---

well, he's as calm as he's going to be.

khan hardly has a bedside manner, and so he's left at something of a loss as to what to do. he doesn't imagine the sound of his voice, or any attempt to enter will garner a good reaction from the man cowering in the other room. perhaps---quiet, then. ]

[he needs time to be alone, to think--to wonder why the name christopher sounds so right and so true, where he didn't know it moments before. more right than the name khan has given to him.

it's making have a crisis of identity far more than khan's stabbing himself with a screwdriver, more than the scans they'd taken.

he's catching flashes of memory that don't fit with anything else he recalls. on top of the already chaotic day he's had, it's incredibly distressing. he's not aware enough of khan's emotions to realize how distressing it is to khan.

He falls into a daze, then a fitful sleep.]

[ khan worked, staying close enough to the door, as julian worked himself to a near panic and then to a hardly restful sleep. it was unnerving, not knowing what to expect. of his brother, he would have known his actions nearly as well as he knew his own. but this one---

he's roused from a light doze (not that any of them were heavy sleepers exactly), and into pure wakefulness at a piercing scream of agony from the room. he was up in an instant, palms curled into fists as he bangs on the door. ]

Julian? Julian, if you can I need you to open the door. [ he'd rather avoid breaking it in and upsetting the situation more. his entire body was tense, and worry---no fear---kept his rage at bay. what had they done? was it something he was given? he leaves the door only to grab the tricorder from the table and then return to it. ]

Open it. [ beat. ] Please.

[he can't. he can't move. he'd been woken from fitful sleep by all of his muscles seizing, out of his control, and his mind being torn apart.

he chokes back a second scream, swallows it, curls in on himself as best he can when his arms and legs won't obey him.

he's felt this before. he knows it, but can't remember it--not fully. there's flashes of what might be memory, hazy and wavering in his mind, he's unable to hold onto them. he bit through his lip the last time, he thinks. why was there a last time?]

[ khan can hear him struggling even though that second scream is swallowed down. his lack of response only manages to push that fear deeper into him like a poison and he will not lose another of his family to this federation. he will not.

he pushes the tricorder into his trouser pocket, pulls in a breath to ready himself, and begins to punch through the door to tear it down. the bed is in the way, covered in debris and dust from his progress through the door, and he can see julian curled helplessly in one corner of the room.

he can feel stinging on his knuckles and on his palms, but he pays it no heed. he will heal. he's healed from far worse than the bite of a door.

once he's made a hole big enough to crawl through, he does, and climbs up over the bed. he kneels next to julian, bringing out the tricorder that slips a little from the blood on his hands, and beginning to scan him. ]

Can you hear me? Listen to my voice. It's going to be fine. You're going to be fine.

[ steady. even. calm. everything he is not on the inside right now. right now he is panicking, but he can't afford to show it any more than the ruined door. any more might do more damage than he can feasibly repair. ]

[julian is likewise healing, but it's not an easy process. he's been on strong opiates as well as whatever else was in the cocktail of drugs he's been given, and the healing muscle fibers are tightening to the point of pain that now has nothing cushioning it.

he's been hurt in the past, of course, all of them have, and normally he'd be able to handle it as stoically as khan is at the moment. but alexander doesn't remember that and he's caught between the two states of being right now. trapped between alexander and julian.

he draws in a hissing breath between his teeth--his jaw is locking too, he can't speak--and just looks up at khan.]

[ khan was trained, as well as any of the others in field medicine, but this is beyond his skill. he doesn't know what to do, or even that there would be anything to do to ease julian's suffering. he isn't so focused on the readings that he misses the agonized glance cast his way.

were this any of the others khan would wish for julian there to tell him what he could do to help. he is here, but not available in that capacity currently.

he snaps the tricorder shut, and shifts, carefully lifting julian up as quickly as he dares. it's something of an awkward cradle. he's so tense that he imagines he might shatter him to pieces for all the pain he is obviously in. ]

It will pass. [ he says it in a firm tone, as if he's demanding the universe to question it. ] It will pass, and you'll be terribly upset with me for not thinking of something clever to do in order to help.

I saw you back there in London, and I profess I wasn't thinking very clearly. I might have taken another doctor too then if I had.

[ a poor attempt at humor in a seemingly desperate situation. ]

Christopher would do better, even, I suppose.

[ they weren't---he wasn't---built to offer comfort. perhaps it's all just instinctual. he doesn't know. he remembers a time when some of them had been ill from all the tests they'd been put through, and one of the younger doctors sat with one of their group, humming softly. she also---

khan shifts so that he might card the fingers of one hand through julian's sweat soaked hair. he doesn't imagine the tune he remembers would be soothing should he try, so he settles for this alone. he hopes it will help. ]

[this is beyond field medicine--this is the result of long, calculated medical intervention, that is now wearing off. it could be called torture without a single ounce of exaggeration.

julian/alexander--he isn't sure what to call himself now, he thought he knew but he doesn't--groans slightly as he's shifted, eyes falling closed. he's shaking apart at the seams, but at least he doesn't feel quite like he's dying. not that he knows what that feels like, he doesn't think. then again, with how scrambled his memories are he can't be sure.]

Glad you didn't.

[his voice sounds small, and it's so hard to speak even those few words. he doesn't know what the doctors did to him, but he's starting to recall that there was something done to him in the first place.]

You may be, but I'm not certain I am.

[ he says it and continues what he's doing, trying to offer firm and steady support to the shaking man in his arms. another hand finds one of julian's own, to squeeze in support. he could also grip as tightly as he wanted, it wouldn't hurt. ]

[it's good that it won't, because he can't control the fact that his hand is seizing, bearing down with all its strength. which was never as much as khan's, and even less so now, but still.

he lets out a soft huff of air that might be a laugh, if you can interpret it broadly enough.]

They did this, I don't want them anywhere near me. Or you.

[he seems to recall enough that he doesn't think you're crazy anymore, that's a bonus.]

[ the grip he offers back is nowhere near his full strength. it is more for julian's benefit than his own, and he hopes that it conveys reassurance. his words are a comfort, however small. ]

I won't let them harm any of us again. They'll pay for what they've done.

[ also pay for the mistake that khan nearly made, but how could he have known that christopher was taken as julian was? he couldn't. it doesn't absolve him of this in his mind. not yet. perhaps he'll feel a measure of peace when all that remains of their world is ashes. ]

After London---I was going to take advantage of their arrogance. I was going to attack the Daystrom conference room where all of the captains and first officers of the ships would have gathered in the event of a terrorist attack.

If I hadn't seen you, and done as I did---[ khan has never faltered. he has never felt unsteady. he has never question his own steps until waking to this new and wholly despicable world. ]---Christopher would have been in that room.

[ and were he as julian was, fragile like they are, and without his memories---he might have died. ]

Just want to leave.

[that was what they'd intended to do. he doesn't want to be here anymore. damn all of them--they'd destroy themselves soon enough, and spare all of them the trouble.

they just need to get the others and get out of orbit. easier said than done.

he's silent for a while--talking is exhausting, just existing is exhausting right now--he almost seems to have fallen asleep again, especially since his eyes have stayed closed throughout this exchange.

he opens them to look up, pain still evident in them, but also determination. he's still hurting, still sorting through memories that are his but aren't--still.]

What now?

I know.

[ 300 years later and they are still exactly where they started. trying to free themselves from the clutches of their creators. from those who would use them until there was nothing left, or what was---was something broken into their own faulty image.

they are better. they always have been.

khan doesn't urge him to open his eyes. were he to fall asleep, he wouldn't rouse him unless necessary. ]

We have to be patient. You need time to recuperate. We need to find a way to get to Christopher before something happens.

[ something like one known augment threat in the wind, and another thought brought to heel missing. who knows what marcus might do to an unwitting james kirk. he shudders to think. ]

retired open post // will still tag in if threads are ongoing!

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