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

[exastris_scientia]

1. pick a character and tag them in the subject line.
2. post pictures, starters, whatevs
3. profit!

Comments

[asklepian]

[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.]

[teknikos]

[ 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.

[asklepian]

[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.

[teknikos]

[ 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.