At least this time around, the press haven't figured out where Jim is currently living, so they can pester him incessantly for soundbites about the Kirk family tragedy. Neither has Command explicitly ordered him to put in an appearance at the annual Remembrance Day ceremony, only strongly suggesting that he do so, a suggestion that he has zero intention of following. But he can't find some crappy dive bar where he can hide out and drown his sorrows, not when the most popular Federation news streams have plastered his face all over the networks over the last few months, and today in particular. Nor does he want to go to the Nexus, where awkward questions are bound to plague him from all manner of people.
No. Today he just wants to be left alone.
But he's not the only one who feels that way, he's pretty sure. Someone who won't have stupid questions or need the rundown on why Jim Kirk's birthday is nothing to celebrate.
He hasn't really heard from the older captain since the interrupted chess game, over a month ago. Don't call me, I'll call you, he'd said. Maybe not in those exact words, but Jim had understood the message loud and clear, and he's known better than to push, to tread over landmines when he doesn't know the terrain. Especially when he'd already tripped over one that cut deeply enough that his counterpart had all but fled the apartment, never once looking back.
But there's no need to ask questions today. Not about this, or anything else. What can it hurt to offer a small olive branch, to attempt to make right whatever he did wrong? He may want to be alone, but that doesn't stop him from being lonely, and he's missed the strange rapport they'd been building together, a shared understanding that can't be explained or described. The essence of what it means to be James T. Kirk.
His message is brief. If you need a drink, my door is open. He doesn't really expect an answer back, not right away. Maybe not even today at all. Whether because the ship needs the other captain's attention, or maybe he's spending his off-duty hours getting plastered in his quarters, like he has for so many years in the past. A few drinks, a cheap fuck, or maybe picking a fight with whoever seemed the most likely to knock him on his ass and give the pain physical form, something to make him feel alive, not just existing day to day.
So it startles him when his PINpoint receives an immediate reply, and a cold weight settles deep in his stomach as he reads the error message.
PINpoint coordinates do not exist?
Jim sends the message again, hoping that it was only a momentary glitch, knowing in his heart that it's not, even before the same emotionless error returns. A dozen possibilities flit through his mind in an instant, each one of them more ominous than the last, and he can't even begin to decide which one is the worst-case scenario.
He doesn't know why. And what's worse, he may never find out. He doesn't know where in the Nexus he can find the right door, even knowing where it leads, the thought of setting foot there shivering up his spine, all while knowing that he would, if lives depended on it. But there's nothing. And all he has is his imagination to fill in the gaps.
He pours himself a drink and downs it, knowing that it's useless, that there's nothing it can do for him.
no subject
It's the same almost every year.
At least this time around, the press haven't figured out where Jim is currently living, so they can pester him incessantly for soundbites about the Kirk family tragedy. Neither has Command explicitly ordered him to put in an appearance at the annual Remembrance Day ceremony, only strongly suggesting that he do so, a suggestion that he has zero intention of following. But he can't find some crappy dive bar where he can hide out and drown his sorrows, not when the most popular Federation news streams have plastered his face all over the networks over the last few months, and today in particular. Nor does he want to go to the Nexus, where awkward questions are bound to plague him from all manner of people.
No. Today he just wants to be left alone.
But he's not the only one who feels that way, he's pretty sure. Someone who won't have stupid questions or need the rundown on why Jim Kirk's birthday is nothing to celebrate.
He hasn't really heard from the older captain since the interrupted chess game, over a month ago. Don't call me, I'll call you, he'd said. Maybe not in those exact words, but Jim had understood the message loud and clear, and he's known better than to push, to tread over landmines when he doesn't know the terrain. Especially when he'd already tripped over one that cut deeply enough that his counterpart had all but fled the apartment, never once looking back.
But there's no need to ask questions today. Not about this, or anything else. What can it hurt to offer a small olive branch, to attempt to make right whatever he did wrong? He may want to be alone, but that doesn't stop him from being lonely, and he's missed the strange rapport they'd been building together, a shared understanding that can't be explained or described. The essence of what it means to be James T. Kirk.
His message is brief. If you need a drink, my door is open. He doesn't really expect an answer back, not right away. Maybe not even today at all. Whether because the ship needs the other captain's attention, or maybe he's spending his off-duty hours getting plastered in his quarters, like he has for so many years in the past. A few drinks, a cheap fuck, or maybe picking a fight with whoever seemed the most likely to knock him on his ass and give the pain physical form, something to make him feel alive, not just existing day to day.
So it startles him when his PINpoint receives an immediate reply, and a cold weight settles deep in his stomach as he reads the error message.
PINpoint coordinates do not exist?
Jim sends the message again, hoping that it was only a momentary glitch, knowing in his heart that it's not, even before the same emotionless error returns. A dozen possibilities flit through his mind in an instant, each one of them more ominous than the last, and he can't even begin to decide which one is the worst-case scenario.
He doesn't know why. And what's worse, he may never find out. He doesn't know where in the Nexus he can find the right door, even knowing where it leads, the thought of setting foot there shivering up his spine, all while knowing that he would, if lives depended on it. But there's nothing. And all he has is his imagination to fill in the gaps.
He pours himself a drink and downs it, knowing that it's useless, that there's nothing it can do for him.
It burns the whole way down.