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

[ jim can start to make out what he's saying, and he manages a small, abortive nod. he can see julian clearly now, and the others hovering near to him. he was confused before, but now he's just afraid, but not of them. everything he's ever known has suddenly turned against him, tried to kill him.

he feels julian's hand in his own, and his fingers twitch to try and curl around it. he can't really manage it. he feels a hand squeeze his shoulder, and someone gets up, it must be khan, but he's too tired to do anything but watch julian. then there are fingers in his hair, and he can't help the watering in his eyes.

khan needs to think, but he's dizzy with rage. chris nearly died. he nearly died from what they did to him, and they wish to subject the rest of their people to a similar fate of servitude and abuse. ]

[joaquin looks at khan, then crouches next to julian.]

Let's get you two off the floor, yeah? Come on.

[between the two of them, they get chris up off the floor--carefully, very carefully--and back to the sleeping rooms. julian nixes the pillow, they need to keep him flat for the moment, but covers him up with a blanket pulled up to the chest. joaquin grabs the chair, then goes back to the main room for julian's abandoned tricorder, brings it back too. he'll need it to keep an eye on chris's throat. or, at least, it'll make it easier.

then he intends to go talk to khan, to see how the hell they're going to kill marcus and everyone else who'd even think to do this to them.]

[ he aches, an aftereffect from being so tense from the ordeal, his body seizing up. he gives a small nod, failing to help that much when he's helped up off the floor, and back to the bunk he'd taken over.

he's grateful for the blanket, but more grateful that he isn't going to be left on his own, whether due to the fact that he's got a hole in his throat or they think he's this chris guy, he doesn't really care. but considering what marcus was saying---has all of this, his whole life---has it all been a lie? some elaborate scheme? god, he's too tired to think.

whatever it is, the last thing jim wants is to be alone, and he manages to slide his hand out from under the blanket, palm up in question to julian.

he sees joaquin come back with the tricorder, and then leave again. maybe he's talking to khan? he doesn't know. ]

[julian doesn't hesitate to put his hand in chris's. the anger is burning out of him, the brilliant flare reducing to a dimly glowing ember, to be fanned back into life when it was called for.

but it's not for chris. or jim. whatever he's calling himself, whoever he is. it's solely for marcus.]

I'll stay. I'm not going to leave you.

[ jim wants more than anything for this to be some kind of awful nightmare. he's gonna wake up in his apartment off campus to spock being his version of irritated because he's late for a duty shift. but he's not waking up. he's pretty sure he isn't going to and that, somehow, this isn't a bad dream.

he's been living the bad dream, and that's becoming more and more apparent as time goes on.

when julian takes his hand, it doesn't matter that he doesn't know the guy. it doesn't matter that he nearly died thanks to whatever that was--- it's enough to help him focus on anything else. not the headache. not marcus. not the torture. he squeezes back, gratitude in his eyes despite his fear. he wouldn't be there if julian hadn't saved him. ]

[julian stays. he'll stay for as long as it takes until he's healed--joaquin and khan come in for periods, waiting with the two of them. julian only leaves to get food for the both of them and to use the refresher. there's a second cot in the room that he drags close to chris at night, staying nearby.

he takes out the breathing tube once he's sure his airways won't close again, it's only a few hours after, and they have a dermal regenerator that he uses on the inflicted wound. now, it's time to wait.

julian knows what the withdrawal felt like for him--it had been awful, like his brain was splitting in two and his mind was half himself and half the other person they'd warped him into. and it sets in rapidly, without the regular treatments. it's scant days before they're in the thick of it.

julian has repositioned himself to sit on the bed behind chris, the other held close to his chest, julian's chin hooked over his shoulder. there are blankets tucked around each of them, courtesy of joaquin, who'd walked in to find them both fitfully asleep.]

[ After the incident with hacking into Starfleet's secure database, and the holo-recording that sent Jim into an allergic reaction that was only in his head--- It doesn't take long for the slight confusion to turn to full blown. The headache is worse than before, and it feels like he should pass out, but he doesn't.

Somewhere, after Julian has taken the tube out of his throat, and healed the wound, he's settled in behind him on the cot. He feels sweaty and sick, and the only solid thing are the arms wrapped around him, the heartbeat he can feel against his back, and the other man's chin hooked over his shoulder. He'd fought, hard as he could at first, to try and get away from that scant comfort.

He'd fought until he exhausted himself, and then slumped like a puppet with his strings cut. He repeated his name, his service number, his rank. He repeated the names of his best friend, Leonard McCoy. Another close friend, Spock. His command crew. Anything and everything.

But it was getting muddled, like clear water that is suddenly disturbed and sediment churned up underfoot. Chris. Christopher Travers. Why does that name sound familiar? Why does it sound like his own more than James Kirk? When he thinks about Julian, and the other two men, he doesn't wind up confused anymore---he remembers them too. He doesn't understand why.

It's a moment of clarity, in the midst of all this, that he isn't fighting anyone right then. It's likely only because he's exhausted, and he is. His head is still aching, but then there's anger too, and he's not sure where that's building from. It's easy to ignore for the moment. His voice is rough when he licks his lips and starts to speak. ]

I--I remember a waterfall.

[julian jerks out of the trance he'd been in--he's still sorting through his own muddled head, and meditation helps. he's heard the names that chris was repeating, committed them to memory--he hopes they weren't complicit in this. knows they probably weren't. the average human these days seemed far too optimistic for that.

the waterfall--julian remembers it too.]

It was one of the first times we'd left the compound. You were showing off, and broke your arm.

[ Jim---Chris---he feels the other man jerk a bit, and feels a little bad for startling him out of whatever he was doing. A large part of him that is still desperately clinging to Jim wonders if his friends and crew are all right. Did Marcus already spin some lie to them that Julian, Khan, and Joaquin were responsible for whatever death he chose to tell them befell him? How were they handling it?

How was Pike handling it?

It's tiring to think about it all, and he decides---he decides not to for a while. The waterfall, that memory, it felt---nice. Julian seems to remember it too, so that's good, right? ]

I'd never seen water that blue before. I remember falling, Khan pulled me out, and you were so upset.

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

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