Not a time to Celebrate

[smartass_captain]

Jim's made it. Holidays are done, big damn speech over, all without alerting the crew to how detached their Captain has become in the last week and a half. With all the extra shifts he'd taken on over Christmas, it would be easy to assume Bones made him take the day off to rest and recuperate.

They'd be wrong.

Bones knew Jim wouldn't be on shift on the Fourth. He never does much of anything that day. If the end of December drains the light out of the Captain's smile, then the first week of January looks like it's killing him. He and Spock tried to get him out of his quarters and focused on something--anything else. But Jim's shut himself away in his room. There's a holo set up on his desk of a man who looks an awful lot like Jim, standing happily beside his mother.

Jim stares at it from his seat, before burying his head in his hands. His birthday isn't something to celebrate. It's a reminder of the tragedy that changed everything.

Comments

[conjuredskies]

"A terrible thing to do to a good drink." He pours out a little bourbon, curious to inspect it.

"I'm fond of games, though I didn't bring dice or anything." He doubts either of them is in the mood for riddle games. "I regret to say I haven't needed them for a while."

[smartass_captain]

"Guess it'd fit right in with what I was already doing if we just drink in silence like the sad fuck I am." Jim sighs, rests his head on his arm for a moment before he pours himself a bit of the brandy.

Hopefully they have sarcasm in Tamriel, because Jim's monotone 'yaaaay' before he downs the shot is so sarcastic you can taste it.

[conjuredskies]

"They don't all need dice," Felix points out. "Or pots, or cards." He studies Jim for a moment over his glass, unsettled by the captain's uncharacteristic flash of self-dislike. At least, it seems uncharacteristic to him. And right now he thinks it a passing twinge.

Well, down with the bourbon, which turns out to be as strong as he was expecting, and interestingly woody. Felix savors it respectfully, then shuffles a little closer to Jim.

"Do you have the Dragon-Chicken-Stone-Sword game? That's an easy one."

[smartass_captain]

Oh Felix, you have no idea. If Self hatred was Jim's birthday cake, this is only the sprinkles atop the icing of loathing,

"S'good brandy." Jim comments a moment or two later, staring into his cup. "Your brother's gonna be pissed." Might as well have some more. Felix gets a glance, but there isn't any of the light that's normally in Jim's blue eyes, nor the smile he wears so often.

"I don't, but I can learn. Genius repeat offender from Iowa. How d'you play?"

[conjuredskies]

"He hardly needs it. He's off pretending to enjoy dozens of official parties." Arguably he deserves all the booze for that, but Stratos is the least of Felix's concerns here. Besides, he's seen what the tribune gets paid.

He's disappointed not to get a smile. Jim hardly seems to have anything in him, as if exhaustion and sorrow have drained the life out. Perhaps if Felix can coax his attention to simple harmless amusements, he'll at least have some respite from whatever troubles his spirit.

"We’ll have to play properly, since we’re only two.” Jim won't find this game so strange, though. Felix sets the bottle safely aside so he can show Jim a set of hand gestures: fingers curled, pinched, flat, clenched, spread. “Dragon, chicken, sword, stone, spring. You tap the count of four, then the players all call out their choices. If you pick dragon, it beats the chicken and stone, but if I pick the spring or sword, I beat you, and so on. In my hometown people usually play it wrong to make sure everyone 'loses' as often as possible."

[smartass_captain]

Complex JanKenPon. Okay, Jim can do this. He scoots the bottle of brandy over and mimics the hand gestures a few times until he more or less has it memorized.

"Are there penalties for losing aside from drinking?" His lips twitch in what might have been the beginnings of a smile, but it hardly counts. Even his eyebrow game is weak today.

"Loser has t'tell a secret or do something or what."

[conjuredskies]

"If you like. Some of the options I wouldn't call penalties, exactly..." If Jim can't muster a smile, Felix will supply a smirk of his own, gently teasing, "Although if you'd prefer trying to win a few secrets from me, I'm game."

If he knew just how Jim feels talking about himself right now, Felix might be wiser than to countenance that option. He's just avoiding any penalties that might put too much pressure on a man who'd rather shut himself in a wine cellar.

[smartass_captain]

"Okay. Best outta three. Winner gets to order the loser t'do something. Tell em a thing, do a thing, whatever." It's a decent enough distraction, and Jim already knows what he'll ask of Felix when he wins to make sure this goes exactly where he wants it to.

No, the idea of losing didn't cross his head, and he is not thinking about how he's going up against a conjurer who can probably cheat to win pretty easily if he wanted to. No, Jim, you're not supposed to take a shot of brandy until after you lose a round. Jim? Oh well, maybe he's just warming up.

"Count to four, and draw." Jim nods. He's going to throw down sword.

[conjuredskies]

"Agreed." He's content with this. Sure, Jim's still liable to drink himself senseless, but this way he's got something other than pain to focus on while he does.

Cheating being less fun when your drinking buddy isn't in a lighthearted mood, Felix is playing fair for now. "One, two, three, four- dragon! ...Ah."

He concedes with a shrug. Oh no, he has to drink some more bourbon while he plots what to ask of Jim. Maybe it'll help him think.

[smartass_captain]

The fact that Felix could literally just not tell Jim all of the permutations of what wins over what is an edge enough. This is a psychology game more than luck, after all. Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword after all, since the hand gesture for 'sword' is the same for 'paper' in Jim's version of the game.

It makes Jim snort and grin a tiny bit. Bones would like this drinking game, he suspects. Spock wouldn't understand it.

"You'd think a dragon would beat most anything else. This game's balance system seems skewed." Tap, tap, tap, tap--rock!

[conjuredskies]

"And one stone chips the sword," Felix agrees. "If you ask me the only one acquitting itself well is the chicken-" Perhaps that's why he just picked it. "...Which swallows the stone. Hah!"

[smartass_captain]

"Heh." Oh, is that a smile? Jim's shaking his head but he can't hide the turn his mouth is making at Felix's genuine enthusiasm. "The first penalty game approaches eh?"

Jim estimates a shot of so of the brandy into his glass and then knocks it back. His face feels warm, and not from crying now.

Whatever spring is, he's gonna try that next. Since liquids is the whole point of their game.

[conjuredskies]

"I'm not worried." Want a free secret, Jim? Felix's enthusiasm, the slight widening of his own smile, it's all for that little upturn of your mouth. Coaxing that smile out without pressing it from you is the more important challenge here, never mind the game.

He's still ready to count them in, though- and picks sword, unluckily enough. He's not prepared to bluff his way out, and there's a rueful quirk to his mouth before he thinks of it. "Damn. I always overthink this..."

[smartass_captain]

"Maybe you shoulda been. Jim inclines his head slightly and pours a heavy shot of the brandy into Felix's glass.

"So. You're gonna forget everything that happens tonight. It doesn't leave my room and it doesn't come up again. nothing I say matters. nothing we do matters. Not tonight."

[conjuredskies]

Privately, he really is concerned again. While Jim fills his glass, he lifts his eyes to the captain's face. What is he letting himself in for, here? Keeping things between them, never attaching any strings - those were already the rules here, so what makes Jim feel the need to explicitly make them tighter?

For that matter he might question if he can even keep that promise. But if it's what Jim wants then Felix is pretty sure he can.

So he lifts the glass and inclines his head, making the promise before he seals it with the drink: "All right. You've got my word."

[smartass_captain]

"..Okay." You don't have to talk to me, but you should talk to someone. Wasn't that what Verity had said? Jim nods a few times. "You can ask me anything you want. Anything from here on out."

Jim knows it's not this simple. not this easy. That things he's liable to admit to will ruin everything. But maybe it's for the best. Either way, this is the only way he can think to make himself believe it's okay to talk. About anything.

Don't worry Jim, that brandy carries a speechcraft bonus

[conjuredskies]

Felix stares at him for a few seconds before he nods slowly. He's entirely blindsided. But- it's a clever plan, in a way. He doesn't know what choices Jim is facing - his people don't even have a concept of therapy the way Earth cultures do. What they do understand is the need for counsel, and confidants. Maybe a conjurer used to keeping pacts and secrets isn't a bad choice for either, Felix thinks.

He doesn't know what Jim's reasoning is, of course. But that doesn't matter. He's offering his trust. Be gentle with it.

"Anything? I hardly know where to begin," he murmurs. His gaze drops to his empty glass for a moment, not to stare at Jim while he thinks. Start with something simple. "How are you feeling- really?"

Also liver hating alcohol!

[smartass_captain]

"Begin wherever and ask as much as you think you wanna know." Jim shrugs and pours himself a heavy shot--still brandy-- even though he won that round. "Me? I feel really fucked up. Kinda pathetic."

He stares down at his empty glass, rolling it between his fingers.

"I didn't want you to see this side of me."

Eloquent self-destruction in a bottle!

[conjuredskies]

Felix places the bourbon in reach in case he prefers to swap, but then slides over to wrap an arm around Jim's back. He's damned if he's letting the captain subsist on liquid comfort alone.

"Why not?" he prompts quietly. He could insert his own guesses, but now seems a good time to listen, to finally get some sense of the ground they're treading.

[smartass_captain]

"Because...I'm a pretty fucked up person. And.." Jim sighs, sets the glass down and leans into the embrace. "I don't want this to stop."

No one wants Jim Kirk the way he is. That's a lesson he's been taught over and over again. Everyone leaves. The best he can hope for is a fun time as long as it lasts. "..Pretty shitty and selfish, huh."

[conjuredskies]

...Jim wants him to stay. Felix leaves his glass aside, the better to pull him close. He wants me to stay.

The distraction makes him fumble over his answer: "No. No, I don't think so. I never expected you to let me close, I mean- considering our positions..." He swallows, trying to get a grip on what he means to say. "You've been nothing but good to me since we met. Were you truly afraid I'd be...frightened off? Just because I found you mourning?"

[smartass_captain]

"I didn't mean to. I'm awful at this sort of thing. Never had a real relationship that lasted longer than a laughably short time before." Maybe this is his way of chasing Felix off, letting him see a glimpse of the rest of himself.

The parts scarred and broken.

"I'll fuck it up, and I'm a mess. I don't sleep, I'm a total ass." Couldn't even keep his family around. Ugh. This is a dangerous line of thinking. Jim needs to stop before he starts crying or something equally unseemly.

[conjuredskies]

"I can't claim my record's much better," he points out quietly. It's probably not the time to start comparing, but Felix is quite conscious he's hardly an innocent, and the relationships are the least of it.

"Tonight doesn't count, remember? You can't fuck up." His tone is light, but he's speaking with assurance. If Jim needs to cry, he's not going anywhere. Worse than sobbing is sobbing alone. "You're exhausted and in pain. That's no sin. But why haven't you slept? I know you don't like to, but..."

He hesitates. It just seems to him this must be more than grief for a father never met. After all, he was older than that when his mother died and it never affected him so. Maybe that's callous thinking. Her death never shadowed his birth.

[smartass_captain]

"Nightmares." Jim is shaking slightly. Felix is right. Tonight doesn't count. Tonight means nothing. He could very well be lying, right? It doesn't matter.

"Of when I died. Of Tarsus. Of Frank. All the time, so real...I don't want to talk about this anymore." It's a start. The door opened, if only for a moment. And Felix has enough details that he can either look into them on his own, or ask a certain sibling for the details Jim can't talk about. "I don't stay for nights after because I don't want people to know."

[conjuredskies]

"It's all right. You don't have to talk," Felix soothes. He shifts so he can rub Jim's back slowly, keeping his other arm around him. Not because he's sure it's the right thing to do but just to offer comfort, and because sometimes physical sensation is good for grounding the mind. That's what they taught him; that's what he hopes.

His expression is worried, though. He can't blame Jim for shaking. The names he doesn’t understand, but the rest is enough to crack the toughest soul. Nightmares hounding him from rest, the shock and violence of dying and returning... Jim's no undead, Felix is quite secure about that. The one upside of necromancy being basically conjuration magic is that it's even easier for him to spot. But surely you don't just slip in and out of death without it leaving a mark.