Reunion (co-authored by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
conjuredskies )
Feb. 11th, 2018 07:56 pmsmartass_captainFelix calls Jim in Yorktown every evening.
At first it's just to hear Jim's voice, some small assurance that this is real and the captain is alright. Jim had given the conjurer his schedule right away and every night when Jim gets home there's either a message waiting for him or a call coming through shortly after he's arrived. The days stretch into a week. Felix still doesn't know what kind of place Jim's stuck in. A whole city floating out in the Void? What is that even like?
"I'll show you as soon as I can, I promise. So much has happened..."
That's where they first begin to talk again. Jim fills Felix in on everything that's happened to him since they last tried to see each other. The negotiations and peace treaties that fell through, the rescue mission they received in Yorktown and the tragic consequences of taking it on. Losing his ship, rescuing what was left of his crew, stopping Thrall from destroying Yorktown and so much more. Jim tells Felix everything up until the moment his younger counterpart and Felix called him at his apartment. Felix hangs on every word, winces at every blow Jim mentions. He looks more and more worried as Jim tells his story. He knows Jim made it out and he's impressed, but the cost...
"It wasn't until after that I realized my PINpoint was gone and I was cut off from the Nexus...and from you. I sent the message to the house as soon as I got back." Hoping and praying Felix would come looking for him. He can see the hurt in the younger Caelus' eyes. Knows how close they've come to being apart for good this time. So Jim smiles and for once it isn't forced. "I'm going to be alright, Felix." He always says that, but this time he means it.
"I'm...I'm glad to see you coping."
"There's only one thing that's hurting me." Jim leans closer to the terminal, as though he could reach through the screen across an impossible distance and touch Felix if only he could get close enough. "I miss you. I haven't seen you hardly since this summer. Since before you disappeared. I'm tired of this, so whatever we have to do to get past it. I'm telling you right here, right now. I want to do it. I'm sorry for how I acted after we rescued you. Sorry I was too proud and too weak to be there for you when you needed me."
Felix swallows a lump in his throat, expression wavering between hopeful longing and shame underneath the hood he's wearing.
"I..it wasn't your fault." Felix stumbles over his words before the floodgates burst free. "It was my fault. I never faulted you for wanting to stay away, and I didn't dare show my face to you myself but...But I love you. I want you back. Nothing is right without you here."
"So no more running away then, for either of us. Once I get the PINpoint the other Jim is sending me I'll be there by your side again. I'll dye your hair for you so you don't have to see the reminder every day in the mirror until it grows back in."
"I..that would help." Then neither of them has to look at it. Jim's smile grows so soft when Felix bows his head in shame.
"I don't mind it white, but you'll look more yourself this way. Can go around in Tamriel and the Nexus freely without people asking questions."
"Thank you, Jim."
The days stretch into weeks. Every day Felix calls and every day Jim answers. It's not fair to have to rely solely on these machines with their electricity and signals to see Jim's face. Hear his voice. After everything that's happened to come this far and yet have the captain be so much farther away, in a place Felix can't reach. Too far for Felix to even fathom the distance involved. To even be sure Jim's real and this isn't just some intelligent recording left behind. Hearing his voice, seeing his expressions with a tiny delay reminding Felix he's somewhere in the Void. Somewhere Felix can't reach.
It's more than they've spoken to each other in months. Every day Jim sounds a little more relaxed until he's back to himself. Comfortable talking to Felix like he hasn't been in so long. It stirs something nearly forgotten in the conjurer, enough to scent the air uncertainly. He asks how Jim's day has gone and Jim gives him a smile that could outshine the rising sun. It's disarming, that smile. How can Jim still look at him that way? But he is, though Jim's stuck half a galaxy away he's smiling at Felix in that way that has always made a heat curl in the conjurer's stomach.
"What have I missed today?" The question is routine by now. Jim's come to realize by now that Felix doesn't often leave Jim's house in Iowa. Not until Stratos bullies him into leaving for a decent meal, or to get Felix fitted for new leathers, or to try taking up his drills and magic again. Felix sleeps on the couch so he can keep the terminal in sight otherwise and Jim tries not to keep the conjurer waiting. He's often stuck in meetings or with work and he can't shunt it off but it's a distraction at least. Felix has it so much worse stuck waiting with nothing to help pass the time.
And when Felix hesitates or chokes on his words Jim is right there, as much as he can be. When the tears sting and prick at Felix's eyes and he can't hold them at bay Jim's voice is there to soothe him as best he can just like Felix used to when Jim would wake screaming from his night terrors. He talks until Felix has himself under control and then walks the conjurer through the steps needed to turn the volume up enough so that Jim can be heard from the couch. He talks to Felix until the conjurer falls asleep.
"Good night, Felix." And that becomes routine, too.
Every day Felix calls. Every day Jim answers. Every night Jim talks until Felix is able to drift to sleep, wishing and dreaming for this to be over.
Until finally there's fingers gently brushing Felix's hair out of his face on a sleepy morning oppressively silent thanks to the softly falling snow outside. Jim's still in his dress uniform, PINpoint gripped in his free hand. Felix starts awake and tumbles right off the couch. No one else should be here. No one else had these coordinates except...
"Easy, easy. I've got you." Jim's pulling Felix to his feet and laughing and there's none of the slightly off tone or the time delay of the terminal. Warm hands are on Felix's shoulders.
"You-- You're finally here."
"I couldn't wait until this evening for you to call. I wanted to see you."
It's not a dream. It's not a dream it's real this time. Felix hesitates when he reaches up to touch Jim's face. Make sure he's real. There's no beard or sense of misplacement, this isn't a cruel joke. It's him. Jim's come back.
They embrace, there's tears. There's laughter, and Felix thinks that perhaps Jim is the only person in all the worlds that could still make him laugh. They won't let each other go for hours. It's only after they've cleaned up later that Jim takes Felix to his small and empty apartment in Yorktown to fix Felix's hair for him. Looking more like himself again puts the conjurer at ease. Teases more smiles out of him and more easily. He's feeling brave enough to follow Jim outside and to see Yorktown for himself.
There's an undeniable shock when Felix's gaze swings from the spotless streets and vertigo-inducing towers (because he's never encountered anything like those, even) out to the horizon, or rather, a different horizon up there.
"....What?"
He's gripping Jim's hand very tight head craned back as he spins round trying to make sense of the buildings curving through the sky above - and below?
More than anything Jim wants to show Felix how Yorktown looks from outside it, from the bridge of his ship as they approached what Bones had called a snowglobe sitting out in the Black. In many ways Bones isn't wrong. There's a beauty to Yorktown's design in how it makes use of the artificial atmosphere and gravity shields to the best of its ability. To the rows of greenhouses providing the colony's food supplies and the towering skyscrapers on the opposite side of the flooring tackling the colony's business, financial, and political needs. It's A Starfleet Base first and foremost but it's brought business and trade with it as all populous places will.
For now they will have to make do with the tour Jim is giving Felix. Walking him past the Command building where Jim's spending most of his time these days. Showing him the tiny hole in the wall fusion restaurant serving Vulcan/Chinese food. Back toward Jim's apartment building when a voice cuts through the crowd.
"Captain Kirk?" And Jim finds himself falling into the role without letting go of Felix's hand. His posture straightening and face clearing to calm and collected before he turns around.
"I'm off duty at the moment...." A glance at the uniform the man is wearing tells Jim all he needs to know, "Lieutenant."
"I know. Admiral Cartwright told me to deliver this to you right away, sir." He holds out a small container, no bigger than a shoe box. "These were all that was recovered of yours from the Enterprise, sir. She was adamant you get them right away."
The awe of it all still hasn't worn off, for Felix. That's going to take quite a long time, because every turn brings another impossible vista, some new sort of alien strolling by, another device or sound or hairdo that just strikes him as strange. But the raw shock has eased, so that instead of his head snapping around, eyes darting hither and yon every two minutes, he's settled into a pleasantly overwhelmed haze. No-one feels the need to pay him a second glance, and given how out of place he feels that's a rather odd feeling. A suit works just as well as an invisibility spell, it turns out. It makes him feel as if he and Jim are the only ones who actually see each other.
It's an odd frame of mind he's in, but he's happy just holding Jim's hand and taking this peculiar space walk. So it's particularly jarring when someone else calls Jim's name. Breaks the illusion. He's on alert immediately, expression guarded as he turns to study the man. His hand stays tight on Jim's, but otherwise he's keeping half a step back, avoiding drawing attention until he knows what this man wants.
But his expression softens when the box is produced. A wry, rueful smile quirks his lips. Poor Jim. There can't be much in there.
Jim's grip on Felix's hand is safe and sure even as his other hand clutches tight to the container he'd been given while they walk back to the apartment. They pass by the holo-monument to the lives lost and Jim makes sure to clear away any speck of litter that might have accumulated. He shuts his eyes and bows his head in a moment of silence before he leads Felix back up the winding road (and if he looks back for the restaurant he'll find they have gone up indeed despite the road appearing more or less flat) and back toward his quiet apartment.
"I didn't expect to get something like this."
Jim's voice is so quiet it would be easy to miss amid the hustle and bustle around them. He lets them back into the apartment and sets the container down at his kitchen table.
He opens the box.
There's precious little inside.
A damaged holo of George Kirk, Wynona, and Sam standing in front of their Iowa farmhouse. A burned book too damaged to read that still bears a few recognizable letters in Cyrodillic--remnants of one of the books Jim borrowed from Felix's childhood home in Bruma to try and teach himself the language. Sitting at the bottom is a partially melted pendant. Jim lifts it out, wiping away the soot staining the metal and it's only now that his expression has clouded. He can't give that to Felix now. Not a scarred ruined remnant of what should have been an oath to honor. To love. To cherish. It's too close to home. Too reflective of the damaged broken men standing here at Jim's table. Too much of a reminder of the paperwork gone of all the work he'd been doing in secret. Felix deserves better. Jim will get rid of it.
Felix is there, at Jim's side, and though he's curious he also isn't sure if he should take more than a glance at what's in there. He focuses on Jim, on staying close and reassuring for him. But he does sneak a look, because he is still Felix Caelus. A tiny noise escapes him because that pendant looks strangely familiar but...
"I don't remember that."
"It's nothing." The reply comes much too quickly and Jim's already looking away, dropping the ruined amulet back into the container in a rush. Felix reaches for it when Jim's gotten rid of it. It looks like something from his world, but it's not something he's ever given Jim. The moment Felix touches it he feels the faint energy emanating from it. It is from his world, the same warmth a healing spell ought to give just faintly coming off the pendant. No panic knifing at Felix. This is what it should feel like.
"When did you get this...?" There's a ringing in Felix's ears, his own voice distant as it sinks in what he's holding. Trying to make sense of this tiny little blessing being here in his hand in a town in the middle of the Void billions of miles from Jim's home planet let alone Felix's own world. Felix is still connected to Mara's light even now. Everything is going to be okay.
Jim sputters and shakes his head. Half aborted gestures and words as he cuts himself off time and again trying to explain away what it is Felix is holding in his hand.
"It's...I.."
"You do know what this is." Felix can see it in Jim's expression. The gravity of the symbolism this pendant carries.
Jim nods then.
"It would have been two years. So..." Jim's hand is rubbing the back of his neck now, his own gaze locked on to the charred pendant in Felix's hand. Does he say how long he'd planned it? How he'd held onto it even after they rescued Felix from the Runeblades' grasp? He sighs.
"Two years at Halloween."
"I got it way before that but..." Jim shrugs, "I never got the chance to ask you if you wanted it."
Is this happening right now? Felix is flushed now, suddenly questioning the last few months anew.
"But I never realized... I didn't think you were interested in that sort of arrangement. Although it's not the first time I've been mistaken there..."
"I'll have to start over on my work if you want it." Jim lifts his head finally and meets Felix's gaze again.
"Your work?"
"Your paperwork to make you a Federation citizen and qualified to be a civilian contractor aboard my ship. And...my husband. It's a loophole in the regulations, and I thought--" Nerves making Jim ramble now as he gestures vaguely.
Felix's eyes are wider than they were outside, the conjurer reaching out to grip Jim's arm with his free hand.
"You're... offering me a place in this world." Does he understand? "O-on your ship?" At Jim's side, always? It's that shocked and hopeful awe that breaks Jim out of his stupor. He runs his hand through his hair and swears in half a dozen languages as he takes the pendant from Felix's hand and drops down to one knee in front of the conjurer. Holds the amulet of Mara out with both hands and offers it for Felix to take.
"A place here with me." Jim confirms.
Felix looks uncertain of what he's doing right up to the moment Jim holds out the amulet so emphatically. He reaches down, accepting it, but not without wrapping both his hands over Jim's. Meeting his eyes.
"I don't know what I'll have to do for this, or.... all of what it will mean. But I don't have to. There is no place I would be except at your side." Felix isn't imagining the way the pendant warms with both their hands touching it.
"You...seriously?" Jim's getting to his feet with Felix tugging him up, an uncertain smile starting across his face.
"You didn't seriously think I was going to turn you down, did you?"
"Little bit." Jim laughs even as Felix is pulling his captain into his arms for a fervent kiss.
Everything is going to be okay.
At first it's just to hear Jim's voice, some small assurance that this is real and the captain is alright. Jim had given the conjurer his schedule right away and every night when Jim gets home there's either a message waiting for him or a call coming through shortly after he's arrived. The days stretch into a week. Felix still doesn't know what kind of place Jim's stuck in. A whole city floating out in the Void? What is that even like?
"I'll show you as soon as I can, I promise. So much has happened..."
That's where they first begin to talk again. Jim fills Felix in on everything that's happened to him since they last tried to see each other. The negotiations and peace treaties that fell through, the rescue mission they received in Yorktown and the tragic consequences of taking it on. Losing his ship, rescuing what was left of his crew, stopping Thrall from destroying Yorktown and so much more. Jim tells Felix everything up until the moment his younger counterpart and Felix called him at his apartment. Felix hangs on every word, winces at every blow Jim mentions. He looks more and more worried as Jim tells his story. He knows Jim made it out and he's impressed, but the cost...
"It wasn't until after that I realized my PINpoint was gone and I was cut off from the Nexus...and from you. I sent the message to the house as soon as I got back." Hoping and praying Felix would come looking for him. He can see the hurt in the younger Caelus' eyes. Knows how close they've come to being apart for good this time. So Jim smiles and for once it isn't forced. "I'm going to be alright, Felix." He always says that, but this time he means it.
"I'm...I'm glad to see you coping."
"There's only one thing that's hurting me." Jim leans closer to the terminal, as though he could reach through the screen across an impossible distance and touch Felix if only he could get close enough. "I miss you. I haven't seen you hardly since this summer. Since before you disappeared. I'm tired of this, so whatever we have to do to get past it. I'm telling you right here, right now. I want to do it. I'm sorry for how I acted after we rescued you. Sorry I was too proud and too weak to be there for you when you needed me."
Felix swallows a lump in his throat, expression wavering between hopeful longing and shame underneath the hood he's wearing.
"I..it wasn't your fault." Felix stumbles over his words before the floodgates burst free. "It was my fault. I never faulted you for wanting to stay away, and I didn't dare show my face to you myself but...But I love you. I want you back. Nothing is right without you here."
"So no more running away then, for either of us. Once I get the PINpoint the other Jim is sending me I'll be there by your side again. I'll dye your hair for you so you don't have to see the reminder every day in the mirror until it grows back in."
"I..that would help." Then neither of them has to look at it. Jim's smile grows so soft when Felix bows his head in shame.
"I don't mind it white, but you'll look more yourself this way. Can go around in Tamriel and the Nexus freely without people asking questions."
"Thank you, Jim."
The days stretch into weeks. Every day Felix calls and every day Jim answers. It's not fair to have to rely solely on these machines with their electricity and signals to see Jim's face. Hear his voice. After everything that's happened to come this far and yet have the captain be so much farther away, in a place Felix can't reach. Too far for Felix to even fathom the distance involved. To even be sure Jim's real and this isn't just some intelligent recording left behind. Hearing his voice, seeing his expressions with a tiny delay reminding Felix he's somewhere in the Void. Somewhere Felix can't reach.
It's more than they've spoken to each other in months. Every day Jim sounds a little more relaxed until he's back to himself. Comfortable talking to Felix like he hasn't been in so long. It stirs something nearly forgotten in the conjurer, enough to scent the air uncertainly. He asks how Jim's day has gone and Jim gives him a smile that could outshine the rising sun. It's disarming, that smile. How can Jim still look at him that way? But he is, though Jim's stuck half a galaxy away he's smiling at Felix in that way that has always made a heat curl in the conjurer's stomach.
"What have I missed today?" The question is routine by now. Jim's come to realize by now that Felix doesn't often leave Jim's house in Iowa. Not until Stratos bullies him into leaving for a decent meal, or to get Felix fitted for new leathers, or to try taking up his drills and magic again. Felix sleeps on the couch so he can keep the terminal in sight otherwise and Jim tries not to keep the conjurer waiting. He's often stuck in meetings or with work and he can't shunt it off but it's a distraction at least. Felix has it so much worse stuck waiting with nothing to help pass the time.
And when Felix hesitates or chokes on his words Jim is right there, as much as he can be. When the tears sting and prick at Felix's eyes and he can't hold them at bay Jim's voice is there to soothe him as best he can just like Felix used to when Jim would wake screaming from his night terrors. He talks until Felix has himself under control and then walks the conjurer through the steps needed to turn the volume up enough so that Jim can be heard from the couch. He talks to Felix until the conjurer falls asleep.
"Good night, Felix." And that becomes routine, too.
Every day Felix calls. Every day Jim answers. Every night Jim talks until Felix is able to drift to sleep, wishing and dreaming for this to be over.
Until finally there's fingers gently brushing Felix's hair out of his face on a sleepy morning oppressively silent thanks to the softly falling snow outside. Jim's still in his dress uniform, PINpoint gripped in his free hand. Felix starts awake and tumbles right off the couch. No one else should be here. No one else had these coordinates except...
"Easy, easy. I've got you." Jim's pulling Felix to his feet and laughing and there's none of the slightly off tone or the time delay of the terminal. Warm hands are on Felix's shoulders.
"You-- You're finally here."
"I couldn't wait until this evening for you to call. I wanted to see you."
It's not a dream. It's not a dream it's real this time. Felix hesitates when he reaches up to touch Jim's face. Make sure he's real. There's no beard or sense of misplacement, this isn't a cruel joke. It's him. Jim's come back.
They embrace, there's tears. There's laughter, and Felix thinks that perhaps Jim is the only person in all the worlds that could still make him laugh. They won't let each other go for hours. It's only after they've cleaned up later that Jim takes Felix to his small and empty apartment in Yorktown to fix Felix's hair for him. Looking more like himself again puts the conjurer at ease. Teases more smiles out of him and more easily. He's feeling brave enough to follow Jim outside and to see Yorktown for himself.
There's an undeniable shock when Felix's gaze swings from the spotless streets and vertigo-inducing towers (because he's never encountered anything like those, even) out to the horizon, or rather, a different horizon up there.
"....What?"
He's gripping Jim's hand very tight head craned back as he spins round trying to make sense of the buildings curving through the sky above - and below?
More than anything Jim wants to show Felix how Yorktown looks from outside it, from the bridge of his ship as they approached what Bones had called a snowglobe sitting out in the Black. In many ways Bones isn't wrong. There's a beauty to Yorktown's design in how it makes use of the artificial atmosphere and gravity shields to the best of its ability. To the rows of greenhouses providing the colony's food supplies and the towering skyscrapers on the opposite side of the flooring tackling the colony's business, financial, and political needs. It's A Starfleet Base first and foremost but it's brought business and trade with it as all populous places will.
For now they will have to make do with the tour Jim is giving Felix. Walking him past the Command building where Jim's spending most of his time these days. Showing him the tiny hole in the wall fusion restaurant serving Vulcan/Chinese food. Back toward Jim's apartment building when a voice cuts through the crowd.
"Captain Kirk?" And Jim finds himself falling into the role without letting go of Felix's hand. His posture straightening and face clearing to calm and collected before he turns around.
"I'm off duty at the moment...." A glance at the uniform the man is wearing tells Jim all he needs to know, "Lieutenant."
"I know. Admiral Cartwright told me to deliver this to you right away, sir." He holds out a small container, no bigger than a shoe box. "These were all that was recovered of yours from the Enterprise, sir. She was adamant you get them right away."
The awe of it all still hasn't worn off, for Felix. That's going to take quite a long time, because every turn brings another impossible vista, some new sort of alien strolling by, another device or sound or hairdo that just strikes him as strange. But the raw shock has eased, so that instead of his head snapping around, eyes darting hither and yon every two minutes, he's settled into a pleasantly overwhelmed haze. No-one feels the need to pay him a second glance, and given how out of place he feels that's a rather odd feeling. A suit works just as well as an invisibility spell, it turns out. It makes him feel as if he and Jim are the only ones who actually see each other.
It's an odd frame of mind he's in, but he's happy just holding Jim's hand and taking this peculiar space walk. So it's particularly jarring when someone else calls Jim's name. Breaks the illusion. He's on alert immediately, expression guarded as he turns to study the man. His hand stays tight on Jim's, but otherwise he's keeping half a step back, avoiding drawing attention until he knows what this man wants.
But his expression softens when the box is produced. A wry, rueful smile quirks his lips. Poor Jim. There can't be much in there.
Jim's grip on Felix's hand is safe and sure even as his other hand clutches tight to the container he'd been given while they walk back to the apartment. They pass by the holo-monument to the lives lost and Jim makes sure to clear away any speck of litter that might have accumulated. He shuts his eyes and bows his head in a moment of silence before he leads Felix back up the winding road (and if he looks back for the restaurant he'll find they have gone up indeed despite the road appearing more or less flat) and back toward his quiet apartment.
"I didn't expect to get something like this."
Jim's voice is so quiet it would be easy to miss amid the hustle and bustle around them. He lets them back into the apartment and sets the container down at his kitchen table.
He opens the box.
There's precious little inside.
A damaged holo of George Kirk, Wynona, and Sam standing in front of their Iowa farmhouse. A burned book too damaged to read that still bears a few recognizable letters in Cyrodillic--remnants of one of the books Jim borrowed from Felix's childhood home in Bruma to try and teach himself the language. Sitting at the bottom is a partially melted pendant. Jim lifts it out, wiping away the soot staining the metal and it's only now that his expression has clouded. He can't give that to Felix now. Not a scarred ruined remnant of what should have been an oath to honor. To love. To cherish. It's too close to home. Too reflective of the damaged broken men standing here at Jim's table. Too much of a reminder of the paperwork gone of all the work he'd been doing in secret. Felix deserves better. Jim will get rid of it.
Felix is there, at Jim's side, and though he's curious he also isn't sure if he should take more than a glance at what's in there. He focuses on Jim, on staying close and reassuring for him. But he does sneak a look, because he is still Felix Caelus. A tiny noise escapes him because that pendant looks strangely familiar but...
"I don't remember that."
"It's nothing." The reply comes much too quickly and Jim's already looking away, dropping the ruined amulet back into the container in a rush. Felix reaches for it when Jim's gotten rid of it. It looks like something from his world, but it's not something he's ever given Jim. The moment Felix touches it he feels the faint energy emanating from it. It is from his world, the same warmth a healing spell ought to give just faintly coming off the pendant. No panic knifing at Felix. This is what it should feel like.
"When did you get this...?" There's a ringing in Felix's ears, his own voice distant as it sinks in what he's holding. Trying to make sense of this tiny little blessing being here in his hand in a town in the middle of the Void billions of miles from Jim's home planet let alone Felix's own world. Felix is still connected to Mara's light even now. Everything is going to be okay.
Jim sputters and shakes his head. Half aborted gestures and words as he cuts himself off time and again trying to explain away what it is Felix is holding in his hand.
"It's...I.."
"You do know what this is." Felix can see it in Jim's expression. The gravity of the symbolism this pendant carries.
Jim nods then.
"It would have been two years. So..." Jim's hand is rubbing the back of his neck now, his own gaze locked on to the charred pendant in Felix's hand. Does he say how long he'd planned it? How he'd held onto it even after they rescued Felix from the Runeblades' grasp? He sighs.
"Two years at Halloween."
"I got it way before that but..." Jim shrugs, "I never got the chance to ask you if you wanted it."
Is this happening right now? Felix is flushed now, suddenly questioning the last few months anew.
"But I never realized... I didn't think you were interested in that sort of arrangement. Although it's not the first time I've been mistaken there..."
"I'll have to start over on my work if you want it." Jim lifts his head finally and meets Felix's gaze again.
"Your work?"
"Your paperwork to make you a Federation citizen and qualified to be a civilian contractor aboard my ship. And...my husband. It's a loophole in the regulations, and I thought--" Nerves making Jim ramble now as he gestures vaguely.
Felix's eyes are wider than they were outside, the conjurer reaching out to grip Jim's arm with his free hand.
"You're... offering me a place in this world." Does he understand? "O-on your ship?" At Jim's side, always? It's that shocked and hopeful awe that breaks Jim out of his stupor. He runs his hand through his hair and swears in half a dozen languages as he takes the pendant from Felix's hand and drops down to one knee in front of the conjurer. Holds the amulet of Mara out with both hands and offers it for Felix to take.
"A place here with me." Jim confirms.
Felix looks uncertain of what he's doing right up to the moment Jim holds out the amulet so emphatically. He reaches down, accepting it, but not without wrapping both his hands over Jim's. Meeting his eyes.
"I don't know what I'll have to do for this, or.... all of what it will mean. But I don't have to. There is no place I would be except at your side." Felix isn't imagining the way the pendant warms with both their hands touching it.
"You...seriously?" Jim's getting to his feet with Felix tugging him up, an uncertain smile starting across his face.
"You didn't seriously think I was going to turn you down, did you?"
"Little bit." Jim laughs even as Felix is pulling his captain into his arms for a fervent kiss.
Everything is going to be okay.
