ooc: Hey all! I don't know if I'll put up any open prompts for this one; memshare is one where I'd prefer to customize starters! Please hit me up on Discord, Plurk, or via PM and I'd be happy to put up a starter. Happy for Jim to run around in someone else's dream, bring someone into his, or a mix of both. Some ideas, re Jim's memories/dreams:
Party on the Enterprise! A celebration of a mission well-done, with plenty of aliens and humans alike having fun in the rec room.
Jim's childhood in Iowa, running amok with his brother Sam. Jim hasn't seen Sam in well over a decade, given that his brother ran away from their stepfather, Frank. Expect this memory to be happy, but with a bit of a melancholy edge. TW: Child AbuseIf you want more concrete detail about the abuse, emotional or physical, that Jim and his brother were subject to, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, this prompt will contain oblique references to Frank (mostly that Jim would rather be out in the cornfields than have to go home and deal with him).
TW: Genocide, StarvationAt the age of 14, Jim lived briefly on a colony world, serving out a juvenile detention sentence in the form of rehabilitation, instead of a juvenile detention center. Things were going well, right up until they weren't; the governor of the colony created a manufactured food shortage, inducing a crisis during which he divided the population according to his version of eugenics. 4,000 people were murdered, AKA half of the colony's population; Jim was marked as one for death, due to his sub-optimal genetics (re: his recessive traits and allergies). He escaped, along with several other children from his school. They survived for four months stealing food and running from the governor's guards; eventually there was an uprising, and in the ensuing fight, the protected class rose up against the guards, and everyone was killed. Jim and the remainder of the kids were the only ones to survive, totaling 9 survivors out of the original 8,000 colonists.
TW: GenocideIf Jim had a nickel for every genocide he's witnessed...this is the battle for Vulcan memory. Nero, the crazed Romulan who killed his father, creates a black hole at the center of the planet Vulcan, and billions of lives are taken by the singularity.
They writhe in the darkness of the mind, half-formed creatures with sharp teeth that prick at the skin as they pass. A child's cry, the warmth of the sun on your face, the hazy burn of embarrassment, settled in the sternum - everything flashes by in flickers, some flaring more noticeably than others. They are impossible to hold onto, intangible, smoky wisps that pass through thick fingers, unable to be tethered - until one decides to go for the glowing coals, instead.
There is pain and fear and adrenaline and -
Jim is running.
The lights turn on, all at once, pushing the vestiges of the dreamlike state away, and leaving only the scene in front of them. Lungs burning, face aching - the beating Khan left him with hadn't yet faded, bruises sure to form in the next 24 hours (provided he lived that long, with the fucking day he's been having) - Jim is sprinting down the corridor in his Starfleet-issue black thermals, as fast as his feet can take him. His abdomen, too, has pain he ignores - internal bleeding or not, there's no goddamn time to stop and find out.
"ENTERPRISE - PREPARE FOR IMMINENT PROXIMITY DETONATION."
"The torpedoes - you armed the damn torpedoes!" Jim can't help but laugh, swatting sideways at Spock as they skid around a corner - if this is different from the reality of the memory, Jim gives no indication that he's noticed. Dreams are confusing in that way, melding fact and fiction - that it's Spock's voice over the intercom doesn't seem to register as in conflict with the fact that Spock is next to him.
They pass a viewing window, Jim barely pausing to glance at it as he continues on his predetermined path, but the image is striking - a Dreadnought-class cruiser tilts away from them outside, the hulking mass of it cutting an intimidating figure against the moon behind it. Or it would, if not for the shudder of a large explosion that ripples through it, fire and force violently rending the cargo bay apart. The vibrations of the blast reach them - they're too close not to feel it - shaking the Enterprise and blinking the lights out before they reluctantly flicker back on.
"Spock, come on!" Jim's voice echoes from where he's disappeared somewhere down the hall, intent on his destination. "The gravity is failing, we gotta move!"
And where else might Spock be, but running with him?
To dream or not to dream, to be aware and not — it is something that Spock has been part and parcel of. It is something he has known, as much as Jim has known. For all that Humans slumber with the fire of days beneath their skin, so too do Vulcans. So too do all that swim and fly and crawl. So too do those who profess to know nothing of the smeared and stuttered landscapes, the emptiness that lays at the bottom of one's emotional wells.
What it is Spock who is Jim who is Spock sees is not at all unimaginable or without understanding. What is cinder billows across the palms, what is lit from within the wick of the self is familiar as it is satisfying. What wanders weaves, nets tangled so about the self that the body of consciousness falls through. Falls down, down —
Down the hall. Down the bright glit of corridors. The Enterprise shapes itself strangely, looped where it should pause. And yet, Spock follows. He follows, because it is Jim that tells him to. He hears himself who is not himself over the intercom, feels himself in the rapid rabbiting of his heart. He feels the swat on his arm as if it is not him, but who is he otherwise? To share what has been once explored is not a novel experience. He has partaken in the muddled mess of memory, tumbled through the strands of parallel existence.
This is another, but he cannot recall starting a meld. He cannot recall when it was they'd both settled down to doze, but — Jim's form flits beyond a bend. Normally, in times such as these, he would recognize Spock's presence. He would come around to face him, not carry on as though he were not there. Not in body, not in flesh.
Not like this, the lurching form of a ship he's only ever glimpsed cutting stark against the viewport. No, he realizes quite suddenly, this isn't at all that Jim should typically drag him to. This isn't something he'd tasted more than the vestiges of, the residual ashes a film at the back of one's teeth.
Spock picks up the pace, his own heart rabbiting as he tries to discern where it is Jim's gone. He smooths along the bond, fingers threading through the length of it. The ship is somehow empty, for all the alarm blares bleak and vibrant.
There have been times, since the advent of their bond, where Spock has led Jim through that which his fraught imagination has foisted upon him. Eased his consciousness back from the edge, led him back to something easier, lighter; coaxed his subconscious mind in carefully, with slender fingers and a gentled touch - soothed the illogical, vivid imagery so that when Jim awoke, it was with peace instead of panic.
This, now, is different. Jim's subconscious mind responds as per usual, the pulse of his essence just as it should be when Spock touches the bond, winding comfortably between his fingers - but the dream does not change. The edges do not warp and ease into something different, they refuse to be smoothed - they are as ragged as Jim's labored breathing, as sharp as the exhaustion that permeates, painted over hastily with adrenaline. How long has he been awake? He's lost track.
There's something ominous about this dream, some telltale equivalent of mental gooseflesh. No, this is not a dream Jim would share, given the option. The Enterprise groans and creaks, listing to the side as the gravity does, indeed, fail - Jim is there, standing on the wall, the hallway now a dangerously long gap in the floor. He gestures, hand outstretched towards Spock. "You have to jump! Come on - we have to get to Engineering! It's the only way to restore power!"
The ship lurches, caught in the pull of some kind of gravity (Earth's? It seems a known fact of the dream, though nothing specific has indicated it thus far). Jim wheels back, off balance, and falls further down the hallway, disappearing into the darkness - the ship is out of control, energy drained as the emergency floodlights flicker.
"Spock!"
Jim's voice echoes through the dream, beckoning him deeper into the ship. The hallway warps, each flash of the lights oscillating between the ship they both know so well - similar to their shared inner mindspace, combining the colorful, clean hallways of Spock's Enterprise and the sleek, silvering design of Jim's. Still, intrinsically, it seems that there is no wrong course - either way, this ship is their home, and they surely know how to navigate it.
Jim is dangling from one of the service bridges, as the darkened hallway opens up to light; he's fallen, precarious, holding onto a man who can only be Scotty with one hand, barely held up by a skinny teenager with the other - Chekov, it seems, dirty work goggles crushing sweaty Russian curls. Chekov turns his head, looking to Spock for help, eyes wide and panicked. "Commander! Zey are falling!"
And what might he do, he thinks, when the dream itself refuses to be soothed? When the edges wind about his fingertips, weave into something wholly without comfort and wholly without ways to move? He might pick along the boundary, he supposes. He might find within the barrier a means or modes of some escape, but Jim’s consciousness thrums and flickers. It bends about his knuckles. It makes no headway, but refuses relent. It refuses to relent, as much as Spock too does. Jim’s mind had always been one that challenged him. It had always been one that caught him at the heels, that tripped him end-over-end into the warmth from which he had been hiding. And now? What it determines to show him is what he determines it must. And as much as Spock should contest as much, it seems he has no option. None, he thinks.
Not yet.
And yet, the corridors continue to shift. No matter how fast it is Spock pumps his legs, he seems never to quite catch the proverbial rabbit. He never quite seems to know where the dream opens, where it is relaxes. He never quite sees the body of it, the whole of the shape it envelops them in. He never quite touches where it is it gives. But, Jim—Jim does. Jim knows where it is leading, knows where it is his feet must fall. As though written already, Spock is nudged along. He knows, rationally, that Jim should be safe along these halls. He knows he should survive the gulf that opens, that he should quite as readily make the distance that Jim cries and calls across. He know, but—
Illogical as it is, his body responds. (And why shouldn’t it? The vision is not real, he knows, but the distress that Jim feels is real enough for them both.) It wheels along with a temporary boost of adrenaline, the aching hum of the ship about them as it breaks leading him further on. He reaches, of course. He jumps where he is beckoned. He pieces together what it is that must be happening (power failures, gravity, the delicate wiring that keeps them all in place)—and then, as he jerks his head up, it’s Chekov. Where it is the lights dim and shudder and fail, he sees the shape of him vacillate through what is known and unknown to him. Young still, yes, always young still, but—he hears the bridge below them groan. He hears, as much as sees, the danger the dream has placed them in. It feels too much a memory to be fully dream, too much a dream to be fully memory, but Spock has no time to pick through the grain of it. He has no time, but to react.
Dream or no, Spock has no interest in enmeshing further betrayal or tragedy into the tangled mess that lies before him. He knows it no better to awake to something so suddenly, as much as he knows it no better than to let it continue as such. He pulls up to a halt before the broken lip, reaches to encircle the finer bones of Jim’s wrist.
Jim has many terrible memories - this is no secret. He has murmured the truth into Spock's skin, and the ones too terrible to speak he has shown, instead, be it intentionally or through the chaotic fragmentation of his dreams. This is...different. This is something Jim has never mentioned, and for good reason. His mind doesn't often conjure it - a form of self-preservation, as Jim understands it. The physical pain alone had been harrowing, let alone...well. It seems it will become all too clear in time, and what's worse is Jim doesn't have the usual inkling of awareness that Spock can coax out from beneath the subconscious - or rather unconscious - workings of his mind. No, for him - this dream is real. For them both, as he pulls Spock through it unwittingly.
Spock hauls Jim back over the edge, and together they manage to bring Scotty with him. Jim's slightly shaky with the pumping adrenaline, but he bumps his shoulder up against Spock's, mind curling gratefully around the bond - which is another inconsistency, as he seems to remember it's there, and react to it, within the dream. It, of course, could not have existed during the time of this memory - yet Jim brushes the golden thread, slides his mind against Spock's with familiarity. Such is the logic of dreams, and Spock has apparently been folded into this one all too easily.
"Even if we get the warp core online, we've still got to redirect the power!" Scotty wastes no time, grasping at Chekov's arm. "Someone has to hit the manual override. Laddie, there's a switch. It's - "
"Behind ze deflector dish! I'll flip ze switch!" Chekov takes off, sprinting up another set of stairs to disappear into the bowels of the ship. Jim grabs Spock's arm, squeezing briefly before he's off, too, taking after Scotty. "Let's go!"
“EVACUATION PROTOCOLS INITIATED. PROCEED TO EXIT BAYS AND REPORT TO YOUR ASSIGNED SHUTTLE.”
Working their way through engineering is complete chaos. The ship is well and truly falling out of the sky, as they skid around a corner into the shuttle bay. People are screaming, the ship listing, heavy machinery falling to the side, unable to launch and evacuate. Jim's eyes widen, and his hand finds Spock's breast, grasping at his shirt with thick fingers. "Come on!"
"Oh no, no, no, no!" Arrival at the warp core, lines of empty engineering workstations that Scotty sets upon like a bloodhound, feels even more foreboding. Jim braces his hands on his knees and does his best not to wheeze, catching his breath after the dead sprint it took to get there. Scotty's manic tapping at the console doesn't tell them anything they don't already know, despair evident in his face when he turns back around to report to Jim and Spock. "The housings are misaligned. There's no way we can redirect the power! The ship's dead, sir...she's gone."
Edited (if you saw that no you diDNT) 2025-01-23 21:34 (UTC)
And what should one do with them, Spock thinks, but hold them? What should one do, when given the tangled root of one's psyche? What should one do, but work to untangle it? His hands are steady and sure with him—with Jim. What it is he has deigned and not deigned to give is entirely up to him. It should be entirely up to him, not parceled from the self and the soul as though a pithos sharded, a mirror cast up from the dirt. It should not be his to see, to experience. It should not be he, who plucks it like one does something buried in the garden, the wet well of rain forcing it up and forward to slice across the palms of hands and the soles of feet.
But, he is here. He is here, among the flicker and fall of a home that is not his as much as it is. He is here, hauling Jim up from the edge of some yawning oblivion. It is him, who follows Jim tread. It is him, who is translating what it is Jim is told before it is they have fully told it. There is no other reason for the Enterprise to list as she does, to suffer the break through the atmosphere. There is no reason other than—but, Jim's mind is there. It is there and it tethers them. And even now, even now—he knows he cannot out-race what has already happened. He cannot outpace it, as much as he attempts.
It is dread and it is frustration and it is something unholy in the cold and barren parts of him. It is something that surges up against the bond, that thrums with an agony that has not been seen or vocalized before or after or since. He recalls his hands knotted up within Jim's, remembers the ache that had persisted in the aftermath—he remembers and remembers and remembers—
"Jim," he says, following as he's always meant to. Following as he does as he gropes and grapples and stumbles for him. "Jim," he starts again, steering around to the front of him as Jim bends over his own knees, as his lungs catch. His heart throbs against his side, chest vising as he crouches down to look at him. To really look at him.
His hands are already upon his shoulders. He does not attempt to wake him, knowing how it must end. Knowing how it must end, but—perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps, he thinks, he might mold it. Shape it. Bring to the fore something else, anything else—he projects the thought of fingers, the thought of an anchor. He thinks of planting his feet, his mind tugging against what holds them both to the other. Gold around the backs of his knuckles, as if to surface. To coax up, from some depth—
I could not have been here, he murmurs across the expanse. He digs his heels in further, eyes widened against the prospect of what must be coming. Of what was. Of what has been here since the outset—his mouth twists at the corners. He does not think, he does not—I would not have allowed it.
He could never have. He would never have. He should have been the one, the only one. He should have taken it all for him. For them. If there was not Jim—no, Spock could not replace him. Spock could never—no, he should never forgive himself. He would never forgive himself. Without Jim, who might he become? How might he have pushed against the tide so young and so fearful and so without the wit and practice that Jim held as naturally as any, more surely than him?
PTSD, as it has been described to Jim, comes with a variety of symptoms. It manifests differently for everyone - which sounds like a bullshit way of saying that pretty much anything could fall under the diagnosis. Some people get angry, some get depressed; some are violently lonely, while some elect to isolate, unable to withstand the well-meaning company. Jim would like to say that he's an exception, but that would be...categorically untrue, and lately he's been trying this revolutionary idea called 'practicing honesty', so. It's true, he's experienced all of these symptoms at one time or another - which maybe lends some credence to the claim that they all fall under the Post-traumatic stress disorder banner - but he's not admitting shit, not out loud, at least.
The point, however, is that trouble sleeping is not uncommon - be it trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or even trouble waking up. Trouble all around, that's what PTSD did for a person.
Perhaps there's a part of Jim that knows it's a dream, deep down, but the picture is too vivid for him to differentiate - rolling fields, covered in fuzzy (yellow? orange? at times, blue; such is the nature of dreams, ever-changing and strange, not quite right but intrinsically known) spores, nothing but barren waste. He is 29 and he is 18 and he is 14 - but it feels like he's 6, desperation and loneliness and the absolutely crushing despair of hopelessness compressing his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
It's not all in his head, though, is it, because his bones are brittle and aching, too knobbly and visible, his skin uncomfortably tight around his joints. It is difficult to breathe, though Jim's managed a scrap of fabric over his mouth, to stop from taking in the spores. He remembers his own appearance less distinctly; he remembers how it hurt to move, how the cloth rubbed his face raw when he went on his fruitless supply runs - but looking at his reflection became less and less of a priority as the weeks had stretched into months.
Jim sits on the steps of the research station, heart pumping as quickly as it can these days, with a mess of cannibalized equipment in his lap. He licks dry lips, fingers shaking, but steady enough to twist wires together, activating the relay signal he'd built. He shouldn't be using it again so soon after the last signal - the one that had finally gotten through, he thinks, because the guards were on him so quickly last time - but Emmi had died two days ago and Tommy was certainly next, if the infection in his eye got any worse than it already was. Jim shakes out the trembling in his hands, ignores the sting of the electricity as he holds the wires together with thumb and forefinger, closing the connection.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Tarsus Colony Four, requesting immediate assistance for myself and eight other juveniles. I am at Research Station 6, but I - I can't stay long. General Kodos has declared martial law, and half the population is dead. There is a planet-wide famine - we have no food, and are in need of immediate medical attention."
Jim squeezes the wires, ignoring the burn, the seared flesh. His hands are a mess, they have been for weeks. It's no worse than all the rest. He has to stop the transmission soon, or risk discovery. "We will be killed if Kodos finds us. I repeat, mayday, mayday, mayday. We are in need of immediate assistance."
A pause, and the message finally takes on a new, pleading tone that betrays his youth. "Please...please help us. We can't last much longer. Over."
Any textbook will tell you that the Tarsus IV Disaster was thirteen years ago. The Tarsus colony's crops had failed, and a Klingon blockade had held up aid from Starfleet. But what had turned the crisis into a disaster was Governor Kodos' decision to cull the colonists. Kodos had been sympathetic to the eugenicist cause during the wars, and the moment strife hit the colony, Kodos implemented a eugenics theory of his own, killing off colonists who were old and weak or too young to contribute, supposedly to preserve food stores for those that remained. Starfleet should never have allowed him authority over the lives of others. It was one of Starfleet's more substantial failures.
It was the Enterprise's maiden voyage and Chris's first as its first officer. The Enterprise was en route to Tarsus IV with relief supplies when it was attacked by Klingons. The Enterprise successfully engaged, but its mission was delayed, along with its supply shipment.
The rest, the books usually leave out.
When the Enterprise arrived, something was off. The colony was not responding to hails. A scan of the surface revealed that there were only half as many life signs as they'd been told to expect, and even those were faint. The air around the camp was choked with fine grey ash. They could be walking into a trap. It made sense to send tactical and security ahead.
At April's urging, Chris had been one of the first to beam down to the surface, with a security team in tow. The first to see the inhuman misery that greeted them on the ground.
Half of the colony had been systematically obliterated, dematerialized en masse, returned to the universe as swirling clouds of carbon dust that mixed with the bare, red sun-scorched earth. Among those who survived the culling, some had not survived the violence that followed, the Governor seemingly among them. And those that remained were on the verge of starvation.
Chris remembers it vividly. The metallic smell of blood in the center below the observation tower. A human inventory with an excruciatingly long list of missing and presumed dead. Coordinating calls to next of kin when there was no family left to place it. Keeping extra rations out of the hands of the suffering because, when you've been starving, finally getting the food your body needs can sometimes kill you faster. The way some people didn't even look afraid or relieved, just... hollow.
Chris knows it haunted April. It haunts him, too. He doesn't beat himself up anymore for spending the extra few minutes on cross checks and all-call, since it was an unfamiliar ship they'd rushed to crew. But he sometimes dreams about it even now, when he has far more to populate his nightmares. Sometimes he knows it's a dream, but he still can't change it. It's just a time-loop his subconscious gets stuck in. Trying and failing, remembering and forgetting. Ultimately, those dreams are always the same.
Except tonight.
Tonight, it starts--
The bridge of the USS Enterprise is quiet, save for the faint crackle of static over the comms. Captain Robert April is at the CONN, arms folded tightly across his chest, his gaze fixed on the viewscreen. First Officer Christopher Pike stands at his side, or at least he thinks he does. The edges of the space around him feel a bit too bright, too sharp, but fluid at the edges. Like the ship behind him might not be quite the same if he looks back again.
Over tinny speakers, a boy’s voice cuts through everything else. Raw and trembling. Desperate. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Tarsus Colony Four, requesting immediate assistance for myself and eight other juveniles. I am at Research Station 6, but I—I can’t stay long. General Kodos has declared martial law, and half the population is dead. There is a planet-wide famine—we have no food, and are in need of immediate medical attention.”
"We will be killed if Kodos finds us. I repeat, mayday, mayday, mayday. We are in need of immediate assistance. Please…please help us. We can’t last much longer. Over.” With that, the message ends and the room is silent, the boy’s final plea hanging heavy in the air.
The first thought in Chris' mind is, this is wrong. Not just wrong in the way that the death of innocents is always wrong, but in the sense that something isn't right. He's aware that time is off somehow, but that doesn't strike him as problematic. The now Chris is experiencing simply came before the past he remembers. The present-past and the past-present. He is Billy Pilgrim, unstuck in time. He was here before. He is here now. He will be here again. That doesn't bother him. The call does, because it's different.
Weren't we just engaging the Klingons? Weren't the Klingons jamming our communications array? He could have sworn to it, but he doesn't see them anywhere. Their comms are open. Communications intercepted the message only moments ago. Did this happen before? Did we miss it? Did we ignore it? He doesn't remember liberating a research station. He remembers.... well, he remembers that most of the facilities were already burnt to cinders, an attempt to destroy evidence of the Governor's plans that the Governor himself succumbed to. Did someone find them? Did these people die trying to reach us?
"Pike?" Captain April is tall and steady, his voice calm as it echoes across the room. Pike tries to focus on him, but it takes a moment, like he's tuning a radio dial between two stations. Chris blinks again and nods to April, returning to the scene. Usually, this is when he fires photon torpedoes. But the only thing in front of him now is the vast emptiness of space.
"Helmsman, set in a course for Tarsus IV, maximum warp. And get engineering on the horn. Tell them it's all hands. Lieutenant Freeman, open a channel, same frequency." If he's stepping on toes, April allows it. Maybe he doesn't know what he's supposed to do, either. Chris's subconscious usually tells him.
"This is Commander Christopher Pike, USS Enterprise. We received your transmission, and we're on our way to your location with supplies and medical. Recommend that you shelter in place if the building can be secured. Otherwise --- I'll find you."
Nightmares are always more terrifying when they start to get unpredictable, when they deviate from the set path. Jim's no stranger to this - the evolution of bad dreams, the way they reflect reality, picking up tried and true horrors and adding in a strange infusion of new ones for maximum potency - he's woken up in his fair share of cold sweats. Tonight, he doesn't get the luxury of waking - his hand moves to drop the wired connection, despair a palpable ache in the back of his throat, a pervasive bitterness that's difficult to swallow around. No one was coming to help them. They hadn't, for months - Jim's desperate call for help was being flung out into nothingness, or worse, intercepted by the very people he needed help escaping from. He flexes numb fingers after dropping the wire - his hand has a tremor in it now, though whether it's from the electricity or the insanely low blood sugar, Jim couldn't say. He's stuck listless for a moment, staring at his own hand - could a dermal regenerator even fix that, or were the scars too deep, now? Layered over, fresh burns on top of old ones, dusty black staining his palms - a part of him, now.
Jim's engrossed in his own errant train of thought - though distantly, he knows he needs to move, to get his ass up and get the hell away from here - that he almost doesn't register the fact that the jerry rigged pile of junk he's passing off as a radio is crackling to life, buzzing a return transmission through. A part of his brain tells him it can't be real (he's not holding the wires together anymore, how can power be running through it?) but such is the logic of dreams - it doesn't matter whether it's possible or not, because someone's answering him.
Hope is a violent thing, ugly, strong enough to break ribs; it squeezes Jim's heart in his chest, making it difficult to breathe (or is that just his reduced lung capacity, making itself apparent?) He's frozen for a heartbeat and a half before he pulls the device closer in his lap, clinging to the edges of it. Commander Christopher Pike, USS Enterprise. Jim can't tell if the name is familiar (shouldn't it be Captain? Something about it rings strangely...), but the tone is - Starfleet. It has to be. The Enterprise is a Fleet ship (but it's still in the shipyard in Iowa, isn't it? How can it be running missions?) He can't remember. It doesn't matter - Starfleet. They're coming for them - they're really coming for them.
This isn't right, something in Jim says, distant, easily able to be pushed down. No, it wasn't. Starfleet hadn't come for them. His time on Tarsus had ended in the care of a Vulcan science vessel, with the USS Oregon following shortly behind. Their rescue had been an accident, with the Vulcan D'Kyr class diverting to Tarsus due to a need for a routine engine check...his message had reached no one.
Shaking hands lift to activate the comm again, after the message loops. Jim doesn't know how far help is, and sending another comm might be risking it - but there's no stopping him, talking to the first new voice he's heard in ages. "I can't stay. They're monitoring frequencies in this area, the guards are - probably on their way. I'll - I'll come back, when I can."
He wants to be more specific, wants to tell the Commander where exactly he can find their dwindling group - hidden in the forest, a cave by the defunct power plant, so as to obscure them from any thermal scanning Kodos might have - but he can't. He can't compromise the other kids' safety on an open line. "Bring a doctor. Tommy's eye...it doesn't look good. Over and out."
Reluctantly, Jim stands unsteadily, shifting to hide the radio back under the dead brush, half covered in dirt so it just looks like more junk amidst the wreckage that was now the majority of Tarsus. He wishes he could take it, could listen to any more messages that might indicate salvation - but it's too bulky, too much to carry when he needs to escape into the woods. Jim takes a breath and sets off to do just that, the mantra in his head making it easier to put one aching foot in front of the other. He's coming, they're coming, he's coming, they're coming...
When the dream solidifies, hazy edges coalescing into something tangible, a vast field takes the stage to set the scene (though the distance is...hard to make out, is that a farmhouse? A castle? Hm...) The sun on this planet is close to Earth-normal, though it has an orange temperature tinge to it, not quite the same, but it fluctuates - some patches warmer than others, though the logic of dreams makes it all seem cohesive, somehow. The field that spreads in rolling terrain is similar enough to something familiar, though what grows in it seems to vary - wheat, one moment, but turn your head and it might be soybeans, shimmering at the edges of peripheral vision, and something else entirely when you turn back. Jim, for his part, doesn't seem bothered; if he notices, it doesn't show. Instead, his sandy mop of hair bobs through the field, hands reaching out to touch the plants as he passes. He has an experiment to check on, so he's just taking a quick look on his corn before Kimiko calls them all in for supper (why is the thought so coated in melancholy?)
He traipses through the field, cutting across to the plot where he'd planted his corn, but before he gets there he finds - another boy. Out in the middle of the field, raven-haired and totally new, to Jim, which can't be right - doesn't he know everybody, at the farm? But there's little else it could be, and Jim's far too curious about the blue-green eyes the boy has - uncommon, in Jim's time, enough that his own are notable as well.
"It's almost dinnertime," Jim says, slowing to a stop in front of the other boy. He tilts his head, assessing him curiously. "Are you coming, or what?"
He's not sure how he became free -- just that he was somehow able to escape from the Palace's oppressive walls, the perpetual eye of allies and foes alike (mainly foes, admittedly), away from all of the pomp and circumstance and bustling economy, and into something new, something different, something exciting. He comes bounding towards Jim, clothed in light linen robes, his beaded braid knocking against his chin, skin dark underneath the beaming sun. He looks somehow both out-of-place and at home here all at once, though his beam can't be tempered.
"Is it dinner already?" Does he belong somewhere here? Aren't they going to kick him out? Even more pressing than that is the fact that there's another kid here. Another one! Not someone serving him, not a noble kid who's been instructed to suck up to him or stop him in his tracks, not another parade of stuffy adults -- another kid!
"I'll come!" He hops over to him, scuffing at his shoulder with his knuckles in a swift, unpracticed motion, as though he's only ever read about people doing it in books. "Will you show me the way? What's for dinner?"
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expiationlogs2025-01-13 12:39 pm
Jim Kirk | Star Trek AOS
TW: Child Abuse
If you want more concrete detail about the abuse, emotional or physical, that Jim and his brother were subject to, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, this prompt will contain oblique references to Frank (mostly that Jim would rather be out in the cornfields than have to go home and deal with him).TW: Genocide, Starvation
At the age of 14, Jim lived briefly on a colony world, serving out a juvenile detention sentence in the form of rehabilitation, instead of a juvenile detention center. Things were going well, right up until they weren't; the governor of the colony created a manufactured food shortage, inducing a crisis during which he divided the population according to his version of eugenics. 4,000 people were murdered, AKA half of the colony's population; Jim was marked as one for death, due to his sub-optimal genetics (re: his recessive traits and allergies). He escaped, along with several other children from his school. They survived for four months stealing food and running from the governor's guards; eventually there was an uprising, and in the ensuing fight, the protected class rose up against the guards, and everyone was killed. Jim and the remainder of the kids were the only ones to survive, totaling 9 survivors out of the original 8,000 colonists.TW: Genocide
If Jim had a nickel for every genocide he's witnessed...this is the battle for Vulcan memory. Nero, the crazed Romulan who killed his father, creates a black hole at the center of the planet Vulcan, and billions of lives are taken by the singularity.for Spock
They writhe in the darkness of the mind, half-formed creatures with sharp teeth that prick at the skin as they pass. A child's cry, the warmth of the sun on your face, the hazy burn of embarrassment, settled in the sternum - everything flashes by in flickers, some flaring more noticeably than others. They are impossible to hold onto, intangible, smoky wisps that pass through thick fingers, unable to be tethered - until one decides to go for the glowing coals, instead.
There is pain and fear and adrenaline and -
Jim is running.
The lights turn on, all at once, pushing the vestiges of the dreamlike state away, and leaving only the scene in front of them. Lungs burning, face aching - the beating Khan left him with hadn't yet faded, bruises sure to form in the next 24 hours (provided he lived that long, with the fucking day he's been having) - Jim is sprinting down the corridor in his Starfleet-issue black thermals, as fast as his feet can take him. His abdomen, too, has pain he ignores - internal bleeding or not, there's no goddamn time to stop and find out.
"ENTERPRISE - PREPARE FOR IMMINENT PROXIMITY DETONATION."
"The torpedoes - you armed the damn torpedoes!" Jim can't help but laugh, swatting sideways at Spock as they skid around a corner - if this is different from the reality of the memory, Jim gives no indication that he's noticed. Dreams are confusing in that way, melding fact and fiction - that it's Spock's voice over the intercom doesn't seem to register as in conflict with the fact that Spock is next to him.
They pass a viewing window, Jim barely pausing to glance at it as he continues on his predetermined path, but the image is striking - a Dreadnought-class cruiser tilts away from them outside, the hulking mass of it cutting an intimidating figure against the moon behind it. Or it would, if not for the shudder of a large explosion that ripples through it, fire and force violently rending the cargo bay apart. The vibrations of the blast reach them - they're too close not to feel it - shaking the Enterprise and blinking the lights out before they reluctantly flicker back on.
"Spock, come on!" Jim's voice echoes from where he's disappeared somewhere down the hall, intent on his destination. "The gravity is failing, we gotta move!"
no subject
To dream or not to dream, to be aware and not — it is something that Spock has been part and parcel of. It is something he has known, as much as Jim has known. For all that Humans slumber with the fire of days beneath their skin, so too do Vulcans. So too do all that swim and fly and crawl. So too do those who profess to know nothing of the smeared and stuttered landscapes, the emptiness that lays at the bottom of one's emotional wells.
What it is Spock who is Jim who is Spock sees is not at all unimaginable or without understanding. What is cinder billows across the palms, what is lit from within the wick of the self is familiar as it is satisfying. What wanders weaves, nets tangled so about the self that the body of consciousness falls through. Falls down, down —
Down the hall. Down the bright glit of corridors. The Enterprise shapes itself strangely, looped where it should pause. And yet, Spock follows. He follows, because it is Jim that tells him to. He hears himself who is not himself over the intercom, feels himself in the rapid rabbiting of his heart. He feels the swat on his arm as if it is not him, but who is he otherwise? To share what has been once explored is not a novel experience. He has partaken in the muddled mess of memory, tumbled through the strands of parallel existence.
This is another, but he cannot recall starting a meld. He cannot recall when it was they'd both settled down to doze, but — Jim's form flits beyond a bend. Normally, in times such as these, he would recognize Spock's presence. He would come around to face him, not carry on as though he were not there. Not in body, not in flesh.
Not like this, the lurching form of a ship he's only ever glimpsed cutting stark against the viewport. No, he realizes quite suddenly, this isn't at all that Jim should typically drag him to. This isn't something he'd tasted more than the vestiges of, the residual ashes a film at the back of one's teeth.
Spock picks up the pace, his own heart rabbiting as he tries to discern where it is Jim's gone. He smooths along the bond, fingers threading through the length of it. The ship is somehow empty, for all the alarm blares bleak and vibrant.
And still, he calls out.
"Jim!"
no subject
This, now, is different. Jim's subconscious mind responds as per usual, the pulse of his essence just as it should be when Spock touches the bond, winding comfortably between his fingers - but the dream does not change. The edges do not warp and ease into something different, they refuse to be smoothed - they are as ragged as Jim's labored breathing, as sharp as the exhaustion that permeates, painted over hastily with adrenaline. How long has he been awake? He's lost track.
There's something ominous about this dream, some telltale equivalent of mental gooseflesh. No, this is not a dream Jim would share, given the option. The Enterprise groans and creaks, listing to the side as the gravity does, indeed, fail - Jim is there, standing on the wall, the hallway now a dangerously long gap in the floor. He gestures, hand outstretched towards Spock. "You have to jump! Come on - we have to get to Engineering! It's the only way to restore power!"
The ship lurches, caught in the pull of some kind of gravity (Earth's? It seems a known fact of the dream, though nothing specific has indicated it thus far). Jim wheels back, off balance, and falls further down the hallway, disappearing into the darkness - the ship is out of control, energy drained as the emergency floodlights flicker.
"Spock!"
Jim's voice echoes through the dream, beckoning him deeper into the ship. The hallway warps, each flash of the lights oscillating between the ship they both know so well - similar to their shared inner mindspace, combining the colorful, clean hallways of Spock's Enterprise and the sleek, silvering design of Jim's. Still, intrinsically, it seems that there is no wrong course - either way, this ship is their home, and they surely know how to navigate it.
Jim is dangling from one of the service bridges, as the darkened hallway opens up to light; he's fallen, precarious, holding onto a man who can only be Scotty with one hand, barely held up by a skinny teenager with the other - Chekov, it seems, dirty work goggles crushing sweaty Russian curls. Chekov turns his head, looking to Spock for help, eyes wide and panicked. "Commander! Zey are falling!"
no subject
Not yet.
And yet, the corridors continue to shift. No matter how fast it is Spock pumps his legs, he seems never to quite catch the proverbial rabbit. He never quite seems to know where the dream opens, where it is relaxes. He never quite sees the body of it, the whole of the shape it envelops them in. He never quite touches where it is it gives. But, Jim—Jim does. Jim knows where it is leading, knows where it is his feet must fall. As though written already, Spock is nudged along. He knows, rationally, that Jim should be safe along these halls. He knows he should survive the gulf that opens, that he should quite as readily make the distance that Jim cries and calls across. He know, but—
Illogical as it is, his body responds. (And why shouldn’t it? The vision is not real, he knows, but the distress that Jim feels is real enough for them both.) It wheels along with a temporary boost of adrenaline, the aching hum of the ship about them as it breaks leading him further on. He reaches, of course. He jumps where he is beckoned. He pieces together what it is that must be happening (power failures, gravity, the delicate wiring that keeps them all in place)—and then, as he jerks his head up, it’s Chekov. Where it is the lights dim and shudder and fail, he sees the shape of him vacillate through what is known and unknown to him. Young still, yes, always young still, but—he hears the bridge below them groan. He hears, as much as sees, the danger the dream has placed them in. It feels too much a memory to be fully dream, too much a dream to be fully memory, but Spock has no time to pick through the grain of it. He has no time, but to react.
Dream or no, Spock has no interest in enmeshing further betrayal or tragedy into the tangled mess that lies before him. He knows it no better to awake to something so suddenly, as much as he knows it no better than to let it continue as such. He pulls up to a halt before the broken lip, reaches to encircle the finer bones of Jim’s wrist.
He pulls.
no subject
Spock hauls Jim back over the edge, and together they manage to bring Scotty with him. Jim's slightly shaky with the pumping adrenaline, but he bumps his shoulder up against Spock's, mind curling gratefully around the bond - which is another inconsistency, as he seems to remember it's there, and react to it, within the dream. It, of course, could not have existed during the time of this memory - yet Jim brushes the golden thread, slides his mind against Spock's with familiarity. Such is the logic of dreams, and Spock has apparently been folded into this one all too easily.
"Even if we get the warp core online, we've still got to redirect the power!" Scotty wastes no time, grasping at Chekov's arm. "Someone has to hit the manual override. Laddie, there's a switch. It's - "
"Behind ze deflector dish! I'll flip ze switch!" Chekov takes off, sprinting up another set of stairs to disappear into the bowels of the ship. Jim grabs Spock's arm, squeezing briefly before he's off, too, taking after Scotty. "Let's go!"
Working their way through engineering is complete chaos. The ship is well and truly falling out of the sky, as they skid around a corner into the shuttle bay. People are screaming, the ship listing, heavy machinery falling to the side, unable to launch and evacuate. Jim's eyes widen, and his hand finds Spock's breast, grasping at his shirt with thick fingers. "Come on!"
"Oh no, no, no, no!" Arrival at the warp core, lines of empty engineering workstations that Scotty sets upon like a bloodhound, feels even more foreboding. Jim braces his hands on his knees and does his best not to wheeze, catching his breath after the dead sprint it took to get there. Scotty's manic tapping at the console doesn't tell them anything they don't already know, despair evident in his face when he turns back around to report to Jim and Spock. "The housings are misaligned. There's no way we can redirect the power! The ship's dead, sir...she's gone."
no subject
But, he is here. He is here, among the flicker and fall of a home that is not his as much as it is. He is here, hauling Jim up from the edge of some yawning oblivion. It is him, who follows Jim tread. It is him, who is translating what it is Jim is told before it is they have fully told it. There is no other reason for the Enterprise to list as she does, to suffer the break through the atmosphere. There is no reason other than—but, Jim's mind is there. It is there and it tethers them. And even now, even now—he knows he cannot out-race what has already happened. He cannot outpace it, as much as he attempts.
It is dread and it is frustration and it is something unholy in the cold and barren parts of him. It is something that surges up against the bond, that thrums with an agony that has not been seen or vocalized before or after or since. He recalls his hands knotted up within Jim's, remembers the ache that had persisted in the aftermath—he remembers and remembers and remembers—
"Jim," he says, following as he's always meant to. Following as he does as he gropes and grapples and stumbles for him. "Jim," he starts again, steering around to the front of him as Jim bends over his own knees, as his lungs catch. His heart throbs against his side, chest vising as he crouches down to look at him. To really look at him.
His hands are already upon his shoulders. He does not attempt to wake him, knowing how it must end. Knowing how it must end, but—perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps, he thinks, he might mold it. Shape it. Bring to the fore something else, anything else—he projects the thought of fingers, the thought of an anchor. He thinks of planting his feet, his mind tugging against what holds them both to the other. Gold around the backs of his knuckles, as if to surface. To coax up, from some depth—
I could not have been here, he murmurs across the expanse. He digs his heels in further, eyes widened against the prospect of what must be coming. Of what was. Of what has been here since the outset—his mouth twists at the corners. He does not think, he does not—I would not have allowed it.
He could never have. He would never have. He should have been the one, the only one. He should have taken it all for him. For them. If there was not Jim—no, Spock could not replace him. Spock could never—no, he should never forgive himself. He would never forgive himself. Without Jim, who might he become? How might he have pushed against the tide so young and so fearful and so without the wit and practice that Jim held as naturally as any, more surely than him?
He could not fathom it.
for Pike
PTSD, as it has been described to Jim, comes with a variety of symptoms. It manifests differently for everyone - which sounds like a bullshit way of saying that pretty much anything could fall under the diagnosis. Some people get angry, some get depressed; some are violently lonely, while some elect to isolate, unable to withstand the well-meaning company. Jim would like to say that he's an exception, but that would be...categorically untrue, and lately he's been trying this revolutionary idea called 'practicing honesty', so. It's true, he's experienced all of these symptoms at one time or another - which maybe lends some credence to the claim that they all fall under the Post-traumatic stress disorder banner - but he's not admitting shit, not out loud, at least.
The point, however, is that trouble sleeping is not uncommon - be it trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or even trouble waking up. Trouble all around, that's what PTSD did for a person.
Perhaps there's a part of Jim that knows it's a dream, deep down, but the picture is too vivid for him to differentiate - rolling fields, covered in fuzzy (yellow? orange? at times, blue; such is the nature of dreams, ever-changing and strange, not quite right but intrinsically known) spores, nothing but barren waste. He is 29 and he is 18 and he is 14 - but it feels like he's 6, desperation and loneliness and the absolutely crushing despair of hopelessness compressing his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
It's not all in his head, though, is it, because his bones are brittle and aching, too knobbly and visible, his skin uncomfortably tight around his joints. It is difficult to breathe, though Jim's managed a scrap of fabric over his mouth, to stop from taking in the spores. He remembers his own appearance less distinctly; he remembers how it hurt to move, how the cloth rubbed his face raw when he went on his fruitless supply runs - but looking at his reflection became less and less of a priority as the weeks had stretched into months.
Jim sits on the steps of the research station, heart pumping as quickly as it can these days, with a mess of cannibalized equipment in his lap. He licks dry lips, fingers shaking, but steady enough to twist wires together, activating the relay signal he'd built. He shouldn't be using it again so soon after the last signal - the one that had finally gotten through, he thinks, because the guards were on him so quickly last time - but Emmi had died two days ago and Tommy was certainly next, if the infection in his eye got any worse than it already was. Jim shakes out the trembling in his hands, ignores the sting of the electricity as he holds the wires together with thumb and forefinger, closing the connection.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Tarsus Colony Four, requesting immediate assistance for myself and eight other juveniles. I am at Research Station 6, but I - I can't stay long. General Kodos has declared martial law, and half the population is dead. There is a planet-wide famine - we have no food, and are in need of immediate medical attention."
Jim squeezes the wires, ignoring the burn, the seared flesh. His hands are a mess, they have been for weeks. It's no worse than all the rest. He has to stop the transmission soon, or risk discovery. "We will be killed if Kodos finds us. I repeat, mayday, mayday, mayday. We are in need of immediate assistance."
A pause, and the message finally takes on a new, pleading tone that betrays his youth. "Please...please help us. We can't last much longer. Over."
no subject
It was the Enterprise's maiden voyage and Chris's first as its first officer. The Enterprise was en route to Tarsus IV with relief supplies when it was attacked by Klingons. The Enterprise successfully engaged, but its mission was delayed, along with its supply shipment.
The rest, the books usually leave out.
When the Enterprise arrived, something was off. The colony was not responding to hails. A scan of the surface revealed that there were only half as many life signs as they'd been told to expect, and even those were faint. The air around the camp was choked with fine grey ash. They could be walking into a trap. It made sense to send tactical and security ahead.
At April's urging, Chris had been one of the first to beam down to the surface, with a security team in tow. The first to see the inhuman misery that greeted them on the ground.
Half of the colony had been systematically obliterated, dematerialized en masse, returned to the universe as swirling clouds of carbon dust that mixed with the bare, red sun-scorched earth. Among those who survived the culling, some had not survived the violence that followed, the Governor seemingly among them. And those that remained were on the verge of starvation.
Chris remembers it vividly. The metallic smell of blood in the center below the observation tower. A human inventory with an excruciatingly long list of missing and presumed dead. Coordinating calls to next of kin when there was no family left to place it. Keeping extra rations out of the hands of the suffering because, when you've been starving, finally getting the food your body needs can sometimes kill you faster. The way some people didn't even look afraid or relieved, just... hollow.
Chris knows it haunted April. It haunts him, too. He doesn't beat himself up anymore for spending the extra few minutes on cross checks and all-call, since it was an unfamiliar ship they'd rushed to crew. But he sometimes dreams about it even now, when he has far more to populate his nightmares. Sometimes he knows it's a dream, but he still can't change it. It's just a time-loop his subconscious gets stuck in. Trying and failing, remembering and forgetting. Ultimately, those dreams are always the same.
Except tonight.
Tonight, it starts--
The bridge of the USS Enterprise is quiet, save for the faint crackle of static over the comms. Captain Robert April is at the CONN, arms folded tightly across his chest, his gaze fixed on the viewscreen. First Officer Christopher Pike stands at his side, or at least he thinks he does. The edges of the space around him feel a bit too bright, too sharp, but fluid at the edges. Like the ship behind him might not be quite the same if he looks back again.
Over tinny speakers, a boy’s voice cuts through everything else. Raw and trembling. Desperate. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Tarsus Colony Four, requesting immediate assistance for myself and eight other juveniles. I am at Research Station 6, but I—I can’t stay long. General Kodos has declared martial law, and half the population is dead. There is a planet-wide famine—we have no food, and are in need of immediate medical attention.”
"We will be killed if Kodos finds us. I repeat, mayday, mayday, mayday. We are in need of immediate assistance. Please…please help us. We can’t last much longer. Over.” With that, the message ends and the room is silent, the boy’s final plea hanging heavy in the air.
The first thought in Chris' mind is, this is wrong. Not just wrong in the way that the death of innocents is always wrong, but in the sense that something isn't right. He's aware that time is off somehow, but that doesn't strike him as problematic. The now Chris is experiencing simply came before the past he remembers. The present-past and the past-present. He is Billy Pilgrim, unstuck in time. He was here before. He is here now. He will be here again. That doesn't bother him. The call does, because it's different.
Weren't we just engaging the Klingons? Weren't the Klingons jamming our communications array? He could have sworn to it, but he doesn't see them anywhere. Their comms are open. Communications intercepted the message only moments ago. Did this happen before? Did we miss it? Did we ignore it? He doesn't remember liberating a research station. He remembers.... well, he remembers that most of the facilities were already burnt to cinders, an attempt to destroy evidence of the Governor's plans that the Governor himself succumbed to. Did someone find them? Did these people die trying to reach us?
"Pike?" Captain April is tall and steady, his voice calm as it echoes across the room. Pike tries to focus on him, but it takes a moment, like he's tuning a radio dial between two stations. Chris blinks again and nods to April, returning to the scene. Usually, this is when he fires photon torpedoes. But the only thing in front of him now is the vast emptiness of space.
"Helmsman, set in a course for Tarsus IV, maximum warp. And get engineering on the horn. Tell them it's all hands. Lieutenant Freeman, open a channel, same frequency." If he's stepping on toes, April allows it. Maybe he doesn't know what he's supposed to do, either. Chris's subconscious usually tells him.
"This is Commander Christopher Pike, USS Enterprise. We received your transmission, and we're on our way to your location with supplies and medical. Recommend that you shelter in place if the building can be secured. Otherwise --- I'll find you."
He will. This time, he will.
no subject
Jim's engrossed in his own errant train of thought - though distantly, he knows he needs to move, to get his ass up and get the hell away from here - that he almost doesn't register the fact that the jerry rigged pile of junk he's passing off as a radio is crackling to life, buzzing a return transmission through. A part of his brain tells him it can't be real (he's not holding the wires together anymore, how can power be running through it?) but such is the logic of dreams - it doesn't matter whether it's possible or not, because someone's answering him.
Hope is a violent thing, ugly, strong enough to break ribs; it squeezes Jim's heart in his chest, making it difficult to breathe (or is that just his reduced lung capacity, making itself apparent?) He's frozen for a heartbeat and a half before he pulls the device closer in his lap, clinging to the edges of it. Commander Christopher Pike, USS Enterprise. Jim can't tell if the name is familiar (shouldn't it be Captain? Something about it rings strangely...), but the tone is - Starfleet. It has to be. The Enterprise is a Fleet ship (but it's still in the shipyard in Iowa, isn't it? How can it be running missions?) He can't remember. It doesn't matter - Starfleet. They're coming for them - they're really coming for them.
This isn't right, something in Jim says, distant, easily able to be pushed down. No, it wasn't. Starfleet hadn't come for them. His time on Tarsus had ended in the care of a Vulcan science vessel, with the USS Oregon following shortly behind. Their rescue had been an accident, with the Vulcan D'Kyr class diverting to Tarsus due to a need for a routine engine check...his message had reached no one.
Shaking hands lift to activate the comm again, after the message loops. Jim doesn't know how far help is, and sending another comm might be risking it - but there's no stopping him, talking to the first new voice he's heard in ages. "I can't stay. They're monitoring frequencies in this area, the guards are - probably on their way. I'll - I'll come back, when I can."
He wants to be more specific, wants to tell the Commander where exactly he can find their dwindling group - hidden in the forest, a cave by the defunct power plant, so as to obscure them from any thermal scanning Kodos might have - but he can't. He can't compromise the other kids' safety on an open line. "Bring a doctor. Tommy's eye...it doesn't look good. Over and out."
Reluctantly, Jim stands unsteadily, shifting to hide the radio back under the dead brush, half covered in dirt so it just looks like more junk amidst the wreckage that was now the majority of Tarsus. He wishes he could take it, could listen to any more messages that might indicate salvation - but it's too bulky, too much to carry when he needs to escape into the woods. Jim takes a breath and sets off to do just that, the mantra in his head making it easier to put one aching foot in front of the other. He's coming, they're coming, he's coming, they're coming...
for Claude
When the dream solidifies, hazy edges coalescing into something tangible, a vast field takes the stage to set the scene (though the distance is...hard to make out, is that a farmhouse? A castle? Hm...) The sun on this planet is close to Earth-normal, though it has an orange temperature tinge to it, not quite the same, but it fluctuates - some patches warmer than others, though the logic of dreams makes it all seem cohesive, somehow. The field that spreads in rolling terrain is similar enough to something familiar, though what grows in it seems to vary - wheat, one moment, but turn your head and it might be soybeans, shimmering at the edges of peripheral vision, and something else entirely when you turn back. Jim, for his part, doesn't seem bothered; if he notices, it doesn't show. Instead, his sandy mop of hair bobs through the field, hands reaching out to touch the plants as he passes. He has an experiment to check on, so he's just taking a quick look on his corn before Kimiko calls them all in for supper (why is the thought so coated in melancholy?)
He traipses through the field, cutting across to the plot where he'd planted his corn, but before he gets there he finds - another boy. Out in the middle of the field, raven-haired and totally new, to Jim, which can't be right - doesn't he know everybody, at the farm? But there's little else it could be, and Jim's far too curious about the blue-green eyes the boy has - uncommon, in Jim's time, enough that his own are notable as well.
"It's almost dinnertime," Jim says, slowing to a stop in front of the other boy. He tilts his head, assessing him curiously. "Are you coming, or what?"
so sorry for the wait, had some health stuff!!
He's not sure how he became free -- just that he was somehow able to escape from the Palace's oppressive walls, the perpetual eye of allies and foes alike (mainly foes, admittedly), away from all of the pomp and circumstance and bustling economy, and into something new, something different, something exciting. He comes bounding towards Jim, clothed in light linen robes, his beaded braid knocking against his chin, skin dark underneath the beaming sun. He looks somehow both out-of-place and at home here all at once, though his beam can't be tempered.
"Is it dinner already?" Does he belong somewhere here? Aren't they going to kick him out? Even more pressing than that is the fact that there's another kid here. Another one! Not someone serving him, not a noble kid who's been instructed to suck up to him or stop him in his tracks, not another parade of stuffy adults -- another kid!
"I'll come!" He hops over to him, scuffing at his shoulder with his knuckles in a swift, unpracticed motion, as though he's only ever read about people doing it in books. "Will you show me the way? What's for dinner?"