Re: Shifting colors.mirror_brightlySeptember 29 2009, 00:48:21 UTC
“Everyone.” The word bled out, an answer trickled alongside the marks on Kirk's skin. “No one believes...no one but Spock.
“Spock believes Oren.” The comb lifts and no marks follow. No marks for the living alongside the dead. “Tells him that he can stop Hobus. Oren's shikaen do not believe Spock, do not trust him. Spock has sworn on the life of Oren's star, on the life of his unborn son, and Oren swears on the lives of their families, on his own.
“Decalithium is rare, and they waste precious time to gather it. They betray their homes, their honor, and give it to thaessu hands on Vulcan.” The light is shining in his eyes. It glinted off the dampness of the grates, and Nero squinted against it, blinking and turning to face the unmarred floor beside Kirk's head. The human's hair is matted with blood and the denaturing dust from the crates. It smells like the compactor on the Narada and Nero backs away just slightly, unconsciously wary of the combining fumes.
“They do not give Oren the red matter, the Vulcan's do not trust that he will save his world...the Federation thinks he will end Vulcan, attack Earth, and they send him on his way.” With a long, silent pause, Nero craned his head into the Klingon emergency arc-lights and stared at Kirk's forearm. The skin was still bare and he began marking the next symbols even before their story fell from his lips. “They force him to return home and Spock tells him, swears to him, that it will be alright.
“Oren watches,” the words sighed through his teeth and his brow furrowed as the calm arcs of Romulus curled Kirk's wrist. “He watches as the arm of Hobus slides through space. It strikes Eisn, alternates above and below reality. It spares Oren... the Narada, and the lights come back on. The ion surge is strong enough to tear apart reality, but the lights come back on.
“It hits chi'Rihan, chi'Havran and the planets roll, struck deathly still by the shock, pushed from their eternal turning like falling leaves.” His voice was softer as the words came, smaller, and a fine tremor clipped through his fingers as he pressed the comb into Kirk's skin. “Rihanna do not come back on.”
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 29 2009, 01:22:03 UTC
All at once, even through the drugs, he knew. Memories that are not his but are. He has experienced them, many times over, flickering past his consciousness. But these in particular he had experienced first hand, so to speak, in the mind meld.
Oren is Nero.
It clicked into place with a heavy thud, making Kirk's body jerk like Nero had placed a tazer against his skin. He sucked in a breath, trying to breath out words, "He meant it, meant it, tried to convince them, why would he give his help and take it away, he meant his promise!"
His voice cracked on the last word, caught completely in the moment trying to scramble out the words running lose in his brain before he lost them again. Images conflict - Nero's story and Spock's memories.
Re: Shifting colors.mirror_brightlySeptember 29 2009, 01:59:28 UTC
“Tried?” Nero asked low and even, his face twisted as his eyes came open. He repeated himself, low and hard as they focused on the human before him. Nero's voice dropped alongside the comb as the marks completed themselves, his hands fisting in Kirk's wiry, matted hair to twist the human's head parallel with his shoulder. “He did not promise to try.”
“That wave he tried to convince them to allow him to attempt to stop,” Nero seethed, every other word flooded with his hate. “It overloaded every living organism on my homeworld, let them dangle lifeless and still.
“I watched it while Spock tried, while he talked.” Nero's hand shifted in Kirk's hair and he dropped the human's head, suddenly disgusted by the feel of it. “The wave shattered the stability of Eisn, broke it apart in tongues of fire and radiation. I watched while it burned our world apart, as it ripped the oceans from the land and melted everything I ever knew into ash.”
Nero rose as he spoke, his eyes narrowed on Kirk. “Watched as my star....my....Mandana....” The breath left his body as the word fell free from him. He gaped in silence and his expression slacked-the memory was too fresh, now. “Thlhom Mandana, thlhom faelirh....
“They burned,” Nero stated softly into the light and, for the briefest of moments, he was Oren again. His hate faded into his sorrow, and he forgot Spock, Kirk, everything. His eyes closed and the colors of the world were gone, there was only silence, and in it...in it there was his Mandana. Her eyes didn't see him, he could feel her against his back, not moving, not breathing, just...there. A weight draped across him with terrible certainty.
“Nohhua...” His hands came to his eyes-covered in Kirk's blood and the cold spread of ink. Nero ground his face into his palms, clawed at the marks on his skull. He could feel her there, the stretch of her across his back, her still breath against his neck, her blank eyes looking past him. More than life he wanted her to leave, but more than anything he wanted her to stay. “Nrai caernui arham,” he muttered, short and quiet against the heels of his hands, “Kaevra arham, aelhih, arham.”
The weight was too much and Nero stumbled back, the world was all silence as his back hit metal and his weight sagged across it. The bright scrape of steel on grates drove Mandana away, and the world was a whorl of color as he opened his eyes. It was green and red and black, fuchsia and yellow, but nowhere was it orange.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 30 2009, 03:40:55 UTC
This was not good. It was another of his captain's--elsewhere moments. He had seen it gathering, the tension coiling tight under Nero's skin.
Ayel bit his own tongue. He should have taken over the tale, should have started out Ael is born in Ramnau, to the son of a son of miners, and this hard, hot life is all he knows, until... But he is not yet dead, if never again Ael, and this halted his tongue, stayed his hand.
The Standard clattered out of Nero's mouth as if bitten free, hard and brittle. "Cut him loose. How doesn't matter. Get him out of my sight."
"Hrrau joaie." Ayel felt ice creeping under his skin as he stood, bending close against Kirk. It was better to have his feet under him for this.
They had to have those codes. That meant Kirk had to live. And he was brave--almost stupidly brave. A little like Bhaon's youngest.
He was also the enemy.
"It's time to go, James." Ayel hardly realized he even spoke. He didn't know the sound of his own voice.
He freed Kirk's arms with the practiced leverage of offset snips. Such useful things. Weighted for a klivam hand, they slit metal like it was paper and parted cable like water. Four smooth clicks and it was done. Another four and Kirk's feet were free.
Now. What to do with him? Hefting him by the armpits was a negative--it would shove his ribs against his lungs, maybe burst them on bone, and they needed him alive. Marring the hand-sign, after everything Kirk had endured for it, would be worse than murder.
A moment more, and Ayel shrugged back inside his coatsleeves, pulling them over his fingers.
"You should have told me," he said.
And he reached down to grab Kirk by the ankles.
(Hrrau joaie - at once. [Sketchy grammar is sketchy; proceed with caution].)
Re: Shifting colors.kirk_georgeSeptember 30 2009, 04:03:28 UTC
George finally was able to focus long enough to wriggle his arm free, pushing up against the restraints. Something snapped, and he was able to breathe freely, move freely. Without thinking he scooped the gun Nero was wearing up, and turned to fire at Ayel, who was the biggest threat right now. Had to protect Jim. Jim had the actual information, was his son. Needed to protect him.
Pain shot through him as he swung off the table, barely able to breathe, to see straight but he had to run, had to stay free, couldn't get home but maybe...maybe he could get home to come to him.If Muhammad can't go to the mountain, gotta bring the mountain to Muhammad. His thoughts were getting more and more disjointed. Hope Bones could fix this, had to keep going while he could think, had to get news out. Had to keep moving.
He ran through the ship. It wasn't just a Warbird somehow. It was different, weird. He kept getting turned around turned sideways. Made his neck creep, made him think he was going nuts. Kept moving and he found the bridge.
Searched the bridge...controls too complicated to pilot home. Had to call home. ET Phone home. Had to get the Enterprise. Had to...needed them. Needed home.
He finally managed to decipher the console, focusing his whole attention on it.
He spoke fast, coming up with a code as he set it to contact the Enterprise. "Enterprise, this is Kelvin. Requesting assistance docking for Medical Shuttle 37 and the command shuttle. No ability to come in unassisted. Authorization as follows." He sent the console codes for the Kelvin. Next step would be to set it to repeat. Hopefully they'd figure it out. Or trace the call or...
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 30 2009, 15:00:03 UTC
There was a hard whine and a sharp, loud sizzling crackle. He snapped around to follow it and his shoulder exploded in light and pain. The bolt struck with such force that he spun, twisted off-kilter and slammed back against the crates.
Ayel screamed. Rage, outrage, and agony burned everything green. Overcharged! Hope it fries him. He stepped forward, clutching the wound with his good arm, but his knees refused to hold. He let go, spread his hand to keep from landing on his face, and hot liquid slithered out between his fingers, stained the grates.
It was dark, and seeping slow. Missed the arteries. He would live.
He tried to move the arm. Hot nails marched down the bone, driven in by steel jackboots as his fingers twitched, clenched, spasmed, and fell uselessly still. Nerve damage.
"After him." It was a hard, hateful cough--his? Yes. Ayel was talking to himself outside his head, again. That wasn't good, he knew it wasn't. He pushed with his right arm, scrabbling to get vertical, and landed hard on his backside instead. Not going anywhere for a while. He leaned back, light-headed, following the hot yellow lights above him as they moved and buzzed, tilting at him in a weirdly personal way. It would be better if he could lay down, smoother...
No! He snarled curses under his breath, seething and raw. He wasn't going to bleed out on the floor like a slaughtered hlai.
But he couldn't stand. He knew what he must do, and again, again, he could not do it. Because of another Kirk. Lieutenant George Samuel Kirk. That was his whole name, elegant, powerful. A long and noble design, even in Standard.
It should fit just fine if they carved it on James' thigh.
(Hlai - large, flightless bird farmed for its meat.)
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 30 2009, 15:15:06 UTC
There was a bright sound, high pitched and sharp to his ears. There was a dull sound, like the knife slamming into meat. There was a loud sound, something that echoed between his ears and sounded almost familiar. Another dull sound, like a sac of clothing hitting the laundry room floor.
It happened before Kirk could force himself up on a single arm, almost hitting the ground as blood ran down his limb. He stared at the grating, stared at nothing, stared at blood and ink mixing into black and following the pattern of tattoos until they were obscured.
Everything seemed distant and far away, even the pain. His own thoughts felt just as far away, as if he was in a giant black space all by himself. A single clear thought came to him.
Look.
So he did.
The world swayed as the drugs in his system messed with every part of him. Maybe he was dying. They had pumped him absolutely full of sedative, pain killer, and who knew what else. He had lost a great deal of blood in hours of tattooing, the searing wound on his chest from the original blast that had sent him unconscious, and the broken hand wasn't helping. He was giving everything he had in him to fight to stay conscious.
His eyes trailed along the floor, and caught something shiny. A thick liquid, black-reflecting-yellow in the strange lights all around them. He followed its river-course to the source, and his entire universe stopped.
Someone (didn't he know that person? why couldn't he see straight?) was leaning back against those crates, shoulder a mess of blood with the spark-sheer-white of bone visible. The world swayed again, blurring, like seeing a double picture, then settled again.
This time, the picture was startlingly clear.
Bones.
It was Bones leaning against those crates, screaming in pain, mouth moving. Kirk started to move, his body feeling as ungraceful as a child. I promised. Can't stop fighting. Can't stop fighting until he's here. He's here. Have to get to him. The words came faster now, but everything else so far away. Each crawling-step made gravity twist and squeal, turning the world on end until he could no longer tell which way was up. Just knew he had to keep moving.
Finally, just close enough to touch. "Bones!" Screamed in his mind or with his mouth, he didn't know.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 30 2009, 16:18:25 UTC
James moved in heavy, drunken lurches, slow and broken. Ayel watched with a certain--not detachment, no, he couldn't claim that anymore--but a haziness, a faraway feeling, like a dream. The pain proved this was real, a sharp sticking nuisance he couldn't banish, wedged knifelike in his arm. He could get to his feet in a moment, when the room stopped tilting.
He was cold. Something cold against him, against his leg--he knew, could feel what was happening, and made himself look anyway. Everything leaned a little, everything but the hand, James' hand, resting there on his thigh.
Without thinking, he moved to swat it away.
It was like wires crossing, sparking apart and fusing together, a shudder of connection from the top of his head to the floor of his spine. It couldn't be refused, so strong, so certain.
Who or what was a Bones? Bones like that, special, bright and intense. He'd wanted so badly and it was here, right here, it was in him, it was him, found him, finally. Fear and relief bloomed against the inside of his skull, drove his eyes to water, burning, so bright.
Jim. His name was Jim. Yes! His.
No, no, that wasn't right--he was someone else--it hurt so much, it was hard to think. Had to try, had to try to stay.
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 30 2009, 16:27:50 UTC
The world in his head and the world around him had become one, all pasted over with a bright green filter that was whatever Ayel had pumped into him. The pain was forgotten, the tattoos were forgotten, even the simple idea that he was captured was forgotten.
All that mattered was the man under his hand.
Those words came into his mind. The mind needed no translation of a word, or did it, or did Kirk's mind do translation subconscious, who knew. He heard it in Standard, accented, thick, and scared.
I'm here. Told you I'd come back. I'm here. Never let you go.
Kirk sat back, clumsy and swaying and nearly falling. He barely thought, maybe not at all, as he drew Bones close, opposite to that damaged shoulder, still feeling hot blood running down his skin. Kirk himself was icy cold, even if it had been a human touching him. The man he needed the most was here. He had dreamed of Bones, and Bones had come.
Bones was hurt. Bleeding. So much blood... dying.
I'm here. As if he wasn't knocking to the gates of Death's mansion himself. You're safe.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 30 2009, 17:07:37 UTC
You're safe. The thought broke over him with total certainty, radiant, captivating. It drew him in, like music, like velvet against the chill.
No one ever spoke to him like that, only family, and the only family he had left had hidden his name away, silenced himself completely in the wake of his grief...But silence was no barrier to the heart.
We. We're safe.
(No they weren't, it was cold, it was dark and the guards were always there, waiting, they would arrive any moment and take him away again, didn't matter how tightly Ayel held on, it wasn't ever enough--)
Ayel reached out anyway, smoothed a hand down his back. Shielded him with the arm that would still move (so cold under his hands, he must be sick, must be dying, what had they done to him), used the arm that still did what he wanted. Wrapped close and pulled them together. Always together. Nothing would part them. Safe! Always, I promise--
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 30 2009, 17:24:37 UTC
They were achingly similar, for a moment. One pain-blind, the other drug-blind. Time slowed, stopped entirely. What was occurring outside was distant and unknown. So far away.
He was warm, something to cling to in the darkness behind his eyelids. Just as his friend always had, Kirk felt himself being pulled against the other's warm body, shielded against the green. He thought about the dream, all over again.
"Promise me you won't stop fighting 'til you see me holding you.
"...Until you're holding me. I can stop fighting then?"
"When you see me, when you feel me, you can let go and let me take care of you."
Bones was here. He had seen him. He could feel him in his arms. Bones had come.
To his drugged mind, it made perfect sense. So, he gave up. Kirk collapsed against that warmth, letting his eyes stay closed, as the last of the fight went out of him.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 30 2009, 18:55:42 UTC
There was nothing but their breathing, just faintly out of time, slightly out of step with the world and with each other, slick and difficult with pain--that was true, that made sense...He was drifting somewhere, not outside his body but through it somehow, to where they touched.
Had to keep him warm, take care of him. That was so true it hurt--never looked after himself. Someone had to.
Bones had to. He understood. He did. It was right there and so clear. I love you.
He just held on, waiting in case there were tears or screaming or a lashing out of hands and feet. Couldn't let him hurt himself. Any more than he already had.
But that was all, just I love you, plain and bright as he settled close, relaxed and uncoiled, calm at last.
Had to keep him warm. He was stubborn about that kind of thing--that was true enough, too, that was the same--mulish? Yes, mulish about...Little stuff. Physicals and paperwork (you could not get him to do something he did not want to do) and whatall. Plain stubborn. And loving and his.
He pressed lips on skin, kissed his forehead--testing for fever and finding it even behind the chill--and kissed his cheek.
Y'know, delirium like that's a sure sign of high fever. His own thought for...the words had changed shape between them, somehow, but the meaning was the same, warm and teasing with the easy feeling of a chuckle rippling behind it. Damn it...Love you more.
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 30 2009, 19:08:57 UTC
There were tendrils in his mind, picking through memories, tossing aside what wasn't needed, incorporating what was. The very flavor of Bones' words, that liquor-thick peach-sweet accent that Bones got only when he was truly worried (or sex sedated). The kiss to his forehead, testing as doctors might have hundreds of years ago. That was Bones. All Bones.
Not a seriously injured Romulan with no control over his mind-gift.
I'll be okay. You're here. You can fix anything. After all, you fixed me.
His fingers, the ones that weren't swollen and ugly colors, came up and pressed against the wound. Bones was hurt. Couldn't let Bones die in his arms. Bones, you're hurt, need to get you somewhere safe... Why wasn't here safe? Something just nudged at his mind, telling him it wasn't.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 30 2009, 19:42:48 UTC
Anything, yeah. He could fix anything. Had fixed the--no, no one fixed the ship, she fixed herself, but she did better with him there.
Sure. He could fix it. Just needed time.
Bones was hurt. He was hurt, they were hurting, so much.
He had to get...Something had happened, one more bad thing in a long line of bad things. And too soon, too soon the guards would be here. That image didn't make it. There weren't faces for that feeling in here (where was here? outside of where it usually was, a place that wasn't all his) because...Jim...had never seen it. Just a kind of seasick dread that made Ayel truly horrified of green, made green strange to him for the first time in his life.
The feeling was red, too, and black and empty.
He was being prodded, gently, stroked with love and fear and cold careful fingers that tried to knit hope against the hole in his skin.
Somewhere safe? He knew it would hurt if he laughed. He tried to anyway. Oh, yes au'e, hurry.
Yes. If he could just find his feet. Where had they gone?
These had to be the words he wanted, please let them be right...Hell with this! Help me up. We should run.
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 30 2009, 20:05:26 UTC
Kirk might have never have seen the inside of the prison-hell before, but he was getting flickers of it now. Feelings, feelings that had texture and taste and imagery, coursed through him and urged him right on. Affecting each other, two enemies, drawn into the same dream-nightmare.
Help me up. Run.
He could do that. Bones needed help. For Bones, he could keep fighting. Just a little longer. He had to force his legs to work, to get them underneath him so that he could balance. One good arm stayed wrapped around his friend, pulling them both up with strength he didn't know he had left in him. Scabs broke open and bled again, and the world tilted at a 90 degree angle.
Kirk was forced to lean against the crates, his entire body shaking as he struggled to keep their combined weight up. Come on, baby... I need you to stand for me. Can't keep us both up. His hand shifted, slippery with blood.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everOctober 2 2009, 02:07:10 UTC
When he was finally upright again, wrapped in arms he trusted, movement in the side of his vision made Ayel turn his head.
Someone running.
(That was Ikeil--the alarms screaming behind them, around them, so loud the stones trembled, so loud his skull bled--Ikeil had turned wrong, slid and slammed into the wall, and taken off down a dark side tunnel that did not scream.
Ikeil hadn't met up with them. Wouldn't be meeting them. Had to forget, name him later, write him down and keep him close, but not now. Had to run.)
Can't keep us both up. The captain was being ridiculous again. Always taking on so much for him.
Ayel's trust was absolute. Affection sneaked out in other ways, other words, but the meaning was the same.
“Spock believes Oren.” The comb lifts and no marks follow. No marks for the living alongside the dead. “Tells him that he can stop Hobus. Oren's shikaen do not believe Spock, do not trust him. Spock has sworn on the life of Oren's star, on the life of his unborn son, and Oren swears on the lives of their families, on his own.
“Decalithium is rare, and they waste precious time to gather it. They betray their homes, their honor, and give it to thaessu hands on Vulcan.” The light is shining in his eyes. It glinted off the dampness of the grates, and Nero squinted against it, blinking and turning to face the unmarred floor beside Kirk's head. The human's hair is matted with blood and the denaturing dust from the crates. It smells like the compactor on the Narada and Nero backs away just slightly, unconsciously wary of the combining fumes.
“They do not give Oren the red matter, the Vulcan's do not trust that he will save his world...the Federation thinks he will end Vulcan, attack Earth, and they send him on his way.” With a long, silent pause, Nero craned his head into the Klingon emergency arc-lights and stared at Kirk's forearm. The skin was still bare and he began marking the next symbols even before their story fell from his lips. “They force him to return home and Spock tells him, swears to him, that it will be alright.
“Oren watches,” the words sighed through his teeth and his brow furrowed as the calm arcs of Romulus curled Kirk's wrist. “He watches as the arm of Hobus slides through space. It strikes Eisn, alternates above and below reality. It spares Oren... the Narada, and the lights come back on. The ion surge is strong enough to tear apart reality, but the lights come back on.
“It hits chi'Rihan, chi'Havran and the planets roll, struck deathly still by the shock, pushed from their eternal turning like falling leaves.” His voice was softer as the words came, smaller, and a fine tremor clipped through his fingers as he pressed the comb into Kirk's skin. “Rihanna do not come back on.”
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Oren is Nero.
It clicked into place with a heavy thud, making Kirk's body jerk like Nero had placed a tazer against his skin. He sucked in a breath, trying to breath out words, "He meant it, meant it, tried to convince them, why would he give his help and take it away, he meant his promise!"
His voice cracked on the last word, caught completely in the moment trying to scramble out the words running lose in his brain before he lost them again. Images conflict - Nero's story and Spock's memories.
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“That wave he tried to convince them to allow him to attempt to stop,” Nero seethed, every other word flooded with his hate. “It overloaded every living organism on my homeworld, let them dangle lifeless and still.
“I watched it while Spock tried, while he talked.” Nero's hand shifted in Kirk's hair and he dropped the human's head, suddenly disgusted by the feel of it. “The wave shattered the stability of Eisn, broke it apart in tongues of fire and radiation. I watched while it burned our world apart, as it ripped the oceans from the land and melted everything I ever knew into ash.”
Nero rose as he spoke, his eyes narrowed on Kirk. “Watched as my star....my....Mandana....” The breath left his body as the word fell free from him. He gaped in silence and his expression slacked-the memory was too fresh, now. “Thlhom Mandana, thlhom faelirh....
“They burned,” Nero stated softly into the light and, for the briefest of moments, he was Oren again. His hate faded into his sorrow, and he forgot Spock, Kirk, everything. His eyes closed and the colors of the world were gone, there was only silence, and in it...in it there was his Mandana. Her eyes didn't see him, he could feel her against his back, not moving, not breathing, just...there. A weight draped across him with terrible certainty.
“Nohhua...” His hands came to his eyes-covered in Kirk's blood and the cold spread of ink. Nero ground his face into his palms, clawed at the marks on his skull. He could feel her there, the stretch of her across his back, her still breath against his neck, her blank eyes looking past him. More than life he wanted her to leave, but more than anything he wanted her to stay. “Nrai caernui arham,” he muttered, short and quiet against the heels of his hands, “Kaevra arham, aelhih, arham.”
The weight was too much and Nero stumbled back, the world was all silence as his back hit metal and his weight sagged across it. The bright scrape of steel on grates drove Mandana away, and the world was a whorl of color as he opened his eyes. It was green and red and black, fuchsia and yellow, but nowhere was it orange.
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Ayel bit his own tongue. He should have taken over the tale, should have started out Ael is born in Ramnau, to the son of a son of miners, and this hard, hot life is all he knows, until... But he is not yet dead, if never again Ael, and this halted his tongue, stayed his hand.
The Standard clattered out of Nero's mouth as if bitten free, hard and brittle. "Cut him loose. How doesn't matter. Get him out of my sight."
"Hrrau joaie." Ayel felt ice creeping under his skin as he stood, bending close against Kirk. It was better to have his feet under him for this.
They had to have those codes. That meant Kirk had to live. And he was brave--almost stupidly brave. A little like Bhaon's youngest.
He was also the enemy.
"It's time to go, James." Ayel hardly realized he even spoke. He didn't know the sound of his own voice.
He freed Kirk's arms with the practiced leverage of offset snips. Such useful things. Weighted for a klivam hand, they slit metal like it was paper and parted cable like water. Four smooth clicks and it was done. Another four and Kirk's feet were free.
Now. What to do with him? Hefting him by the armpits was a negative--it would shove his ribs against his lungs, maybe burst them on bone, and they needed him alive. Marring the hand-sign, after everything Kirk had endured for it, would be worse than murder.
A moment more, and Ayel shrugged back inside his coatsleeves, pulling them over his fingers.
"You should have told me," he said.
And he reached down to grab Kirk by the ankles.
(Hrrau joaie - at once. [Sketchy grammar is sketchy; proceed with caution].)
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Pain shot through him as he swung off the table, barely able to breathe, to see straight but he had to run, had to stay free, couldn't get home but maybe...maybe he could get home to come to him.If Muhammad can't go to the mountain, gotta bring the mountain to Muhammad. His thoughts were getting more and more disjointed. Hope Bones could fix this, had to keep going while he could think, had to get news out. Had to keep moving.
He ran through the ship. It wasn't just a Warbird somehow. It was different, weird. He kept getting turned around turned sideways. Made his neck creep, made him think he was going nuts. Kept moving and he found the bridge.
Searched the bridge...controls too complicated to pilot home. Had to call home. ET Phone home. Had to get the Enterprise. Had to...needed them. Needed home.
He finally managed to decipher the console, focusing his whole attention on it.
He spoke fast, coming up with a code as he set it to contact the Enterprise. "Enterprise, this is Kelvin. Requesting assistance docking for Medical Shuttle 37 and the command shuttle. No ability to come in unassisted. Authorization as follows." He sent the console codes for the Kelvin. Next step would be to set it to repeat. Hopefully they'd figure it out. Or trace the call or...
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Ayel screamed. Rage, outrage, and agony burned everything green. Overcharged! Hope it fries him. He stepped forward, clutching the wound with his good arm, but his knees refused to hold. He let go, spread his hand to keep from landing on his face, and hot liquid slithered out between his fingers, stained the grates.
It was dark, and seeping slow. Missed the arteries. He would live.
He tried to move the arm. Hot nails marched down the bone, driven in by steel jackboots as his fingers twitched, clenched, spasmed, and fell uselessly still. Nerve damage.
"After him." It was a hard, hateful cough--his? Yes. Ayel was talking to himself outside his head, again. That wasn't good, he knew it wasn't. He pushed with his right arm, scrabbling to get vertical, and landed hard on his backside instead. Not going anywhere for a while. He leaned back, light-headed, following the hot yellow lights above him as they moved and buzzed, tilting at him in a weirdly personal way. It would be better if he could lay down, smoother...
No! He snarled curses under his breath, seething and raw. He wasn't going to bleed out on the floor like a slaughtered hlai.
But he couldn't stand. He knew what he must do, and again, again, he could not do it. Because of another Kirk. Lieutenant George Samuel Kirk. That was his whole name, elegant, powerful. A long and noble design, even in Standard.
It should fit just fine if they carved it on James' thigh.
(Hlai - large, flightless bird farmed for its meat.)
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It happened before Kirk could force himself up on a single arm, almost hitting the ground as blood ran down his limb. He stared at the grating, stared at nothing, stared at blood and ink mixing into black and following the pattern of tattoos until they were obscured.
Everything seemed distant and far away, even the pain. His own thoughts felt just as far away, as if he was in a giant black space all by himself. A single clear thought came to him.
Look.
So he did.
The world swayed as the drugs in his system messed with every part of him. Maybe he was dying. They had pumped him absolutely full of sedative, pain killer, and who knew what else. He had lost a great deal of blood in hours of tattooing, the searing wound on his chest from the original blast that had sent him unconscious, and the broken hand wasn't helping. He was giving everything he had in him to fight to stay conscious.
His eyes trailed along the floor, and caught something shiny. A thick liquid, black-reflecting-yellow in the strange lights all around them. He followed its river-course to the source, and his entire universe stopped.
Someone (didn't he know that person? why couldn't he see straight?) was leaning back against those crates, shoulder a mess of blood with the spark-sheer-white of bone visible. The world swayed again, blurring, like seeing a double picture, then settled again.
This time, the picture was startlingly clear.
Bones.
It was Bones leaning against those crates, screaming in pain, mouth moving. Kirk started to move, his body feeling as ungraceful as a child. I promised. Can't stop fighting. Can't stop fighting until he's here. He's here. Have to get to him. The words came faster now, but everything else so far away. Each crawling-step made gravity twist and squeal, turning the world on end until he could no longer tell which way was up. Just knew he had to keep moving.
Finally, just close enough to touch. "Bones!" Screamed in his mind or with his mouth, he didn't know.
His hand landed on a thigh.
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He was cold. Something cold against him, against his leg--he knew, could feel what was happening, and made himself look anyway. Everything leaned a little, everything but the hand, James' hand, resting there on his thigh.
Without thinking, he moved to swat it away.
It was like wires crossing, sparking apart and fusing together, a shudder of connection from the top of his head to the floor of his spine. It couldn't be refused, so strong, so certain.
Who or what was a Bones? Bones like that, special, bright and intense. He'd wanted so badly and it was here, right here, it was in him, it was him, found him, finally. Fear and relief bloomed against the inside of his skull, drove his eyes to water, burning, so bright.
Jim. His name was Jim. Yes! His.
No, no, that wasn't right--he was someone else--it hurt so much, it was hard to think. Had to try, had to try to stay.
can't stay isn't safe i am so scared help..
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All that mattered was the man under his hand.
Those words came into his mind. The mind needed no translation of a word, or did it, or did Kirk's mind do translation subconscious, who knew. He heard it in Standard, accented, thick, and scared.
I'm here. Told you I'd come back. I'm here. Never let you go.
Kirk sat back, clumsy and swaying and nearly falling. He barely thought, maybe not at all, as he drew Bones close, opposite to that damaged shoulder, still feeling hot blood running down his skin. Kirk himself was icy cold, even if it had been a human touching him. The man he needed the most was here. He had dreamed of Bones, and Bones had come.
Bones was hurt. Bleeding. So much blood... dying.
I'm here. As if he wasn't knocking to the gates of Death's mansion himself. You're safe.
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No one ever spoke to him like that, only family, and the only family he had left had hidden his name away, silenced himself completely in the wake of his grief...But silence was no barrier to the heart.
We. We're safe.
(No they weren't, it was cold, it was dark and the guards were always there, waiting, they would arrive any moment and take him away again, didn't matter how tightly Ayel held on, it wasn't ever enough--)
Ayel reached out anyway, smoothed a hand down his back. Shielded him with the arm that would still move (so cold under his hands, he must be sick, must be dying, what had they done to him), used the arm that still did what he wanted. Wrapped close and pulled them together. Always together. Nothing would part them. Safe! Always, I promise--
Forever. For however long they had.
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He was warm, something to cling to in the darkness behind his eyelids. Just as his friend always had, Kirk felt himself being pulled against the other's warm body, shielded against the green. He thought about the dream, all over again.
"Promise me you won't stop fighting 'til you see me holding you.
"...Until you're holding me. I can stop fighting then?"
"When you see me, when you feel me, you can let go and let me take care of you."
Bones was here. He had seen him. He could feel him in his arms. Bones had come.
To his drugged mind, it made perfect sense. So, he gave up. Kirk collapsed against that warmth, letting his eyes stay closed, as the last of the fight went out of him.
I love you.
Words he had never been able to speak aloud.
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Had to keep him warm, take care of him. That was so true it hurt--never looked after himself. Someone had to.
Bones had to. He understood. He did. It was right there and so clear. I love you.
He just held on, waiting in case there were tears or screaming or a lashing out of hands and feet. Couldn't let him hurt himself. Any more than he already had.
But that was all, just I love you, plain and bright as he settled close, relaxed and uncoiled, calm at last.
Had to keep him warm. He was stubborn about that kind of thing--that was true enough, too, that was the same--mulish? Yes, mulish about...Little stuff. Physicals and paperwork (you could not get him to do something he did not want to do) and whatall. Plain stubborn. And loving and his.
He pressed lips on skin, kissed his forehead--testing for fever and finding it even behind the chill--and kissed his cheek.
Y'know, delirium like that's a sure sign of high fever. His own thought for...the words had changed shape between them, somehow, but the meaning was the same, warm and teasing with the easy feeling of a chuckle rippling behind it. Damn it...Love you more.
That was right, too.
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Not a seriously injured Romulan with no control over his mind-gift.
I'll be okay. You're here. You can fix anything. After all, you fixed me.
His fingers, the ones that weren't swollen and ugly colors, came up and pressed against the wound. Bones was hurt. Couldn't let Bones die in his arms. Bones, you're hurt, need to get you somewhere safe... Why wasn't here safe? Something just nudged at his mind, telling him it wasn't.
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Sure. He could fix it. Just needed time.
Bones was hurt. He was hurt, they were hurting, so much.
He had to get...Something had happened, one more bad thing in a long line of bad things. And too soon, too soon the guards would be here. That image didn't make it. There weren't faces for that feeling in here (where was here? outside of where it usually was, a place that wasn't all his) because...Jim...had never seen it. Just a kind of seasick dread that made Ayel truly horrified of green, made green strange to him for the first time in his life.
The feeling was red, too, and black and empty.
He was being prodded, gently, stroked with love and fear and cold careful fingers that tried to knit hope against the hole in his skin.
Somewhere safe? He knew it would hurt if he laughed. He tried to anyway. Oh, yes au'e, hurry.
Yes. If he could just find his feet. Where had they gone?
These had to be the words he wanted, please let them be right...Hell with this! Help me up. We should run.
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Help me up. Run.
He could do that. Bones needed help. For Bones, he could keep fighting. Just a little longer. He had to force his legs to work, to get them underneath him so that he could balance. One good arm stayed wrapped around his friend, pulling them both up with strength he didn't know he had left in him. Scabs broke open and bled again, and the world tilted at a 90 degree angle.
Kirk was forced to lean against the crates, his entire body shaking as he struggled to keep their combined weight up. Come on, baby... I need you to stand for me. Can't keep us both up. His hand shifted, slippery with blood.
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Someone running.
(That was Ikeil--the alarms screaming behind them, around them, so loud the stones trembled, so loud his skull bled--Ikeil had turned wrong, slid and slammed into the wall, and taken off down a dark side tunnel that did not scream.
Ikeil hadn't met up with them. Wouldn't be meeting them. Had to forget, name him later, write him down and keep him close, but not now. Had to run.)
Can't keep us both up. The captain was being ridiculous again. Always taking on so much for him.
Ayel's trust was absolute. Affection sneaked out in other ways, other words, but the meaning was the same.
Hell, I'm a grown man; I can stand. Lean on me.
They were getting out of here.
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