The purpose is to experience fear. Fear in the face of certain death.

[hischair]

When: 17th onward!
Rating: Gross sickly stuff.
Characters: Jim & you!
Summary: Catch-all log for Jim's friends! After the 16th when he felt ill, Jim's Augmented blood has started to fight back like it did during the two weeks he was out cold after dying in a decontamination chamber. His organs will be starting to slowly fail, blood (both his own and Khan's) will be coming up, and he's generally confined to his bedroom in his and Bones' apartment. As time goes on, his condition will be deteriorating until his essence rite is performed. Please put the date of your visit in the subject header! Forward/Back-dating and Prose/Action are all fine, as are video/audio/text which can be directed here for all personal calls while Jim is sick.
Log: 

[ He finds himself thinking of Christopher, more than anything. Of the last time he saw him, specifically, in the Hall of the Missing. Of not being able to let go of him for so long and crying like a son lost in the thickest of woods, longing to find his way home only to briefly find it and have to turn back into the darkness once more. Chris had held him, kissed his hair like a father, soothed Jim in a way he had never had to before, but then again neither of them had died and been torn apart in such violent ways until the Augment came into their lives. Even in death, he's still been there when Jim needed him.

He stares out of the window in his room, propped up against pillows as coughs rumble in the pit of his chest, looking at the City below where the horizon meets a fake, beautiful sky. If he lets the migraines take over for long enough his senses go haywire and a drowsy kind of tactile memory swims under his fingers and into his nose, of an admiral's uniform scented with aftershave that soothes his anxieties almost as effectively as the real thing.

"It's going to be okay, son."

He wishes he could find a bar to drown his sorrows in. Chris always, always found him when he was at his lowest point in backwater dives.

And then on occasion, during his more painful moments where there's no one around to hear his muffled crying into a pillow or witness the sheets crumpling in his fists, his thoughts drift to the decontamination chamber. Jim wakes himself up several times after passing out with Spock's name on bloodied lips and hopes to God he hasn't started doing anything as embarrassing as crying out in his sleep to betray his fright; he has the use of his lungs still, unlike his final moments where he hadn't been able to tell his friend a wealth of things that suddenly seemed so important. Look after the crew, you're the captain now. I'll miss you. I don't want to go, stay with me. It's shameful, but a couple of times he calls for Bones just to have his company, terrified under a firmly schooled expression that he'll die in the here and now, well and truly alone.

If he had been given diagrammatics on his condition in the form of a vessel's specifics, he would have written it off by now. It's as if the effects of his descent into the warp core are being clawed out of his body in slow motion by the deepening fever-tide, leaving Jim to hate every minute of having survived. Which is counter-productive, he knows, because he very much wants to live. ]

Comments

July 23rd // evening

[candothat]

[Ever since the talking dog informed the network that dreams would reveal the cure to this mystery illness, Chekov has been waiting and hoping for Kirk's. When it comes on the twenty-second, eagerness to help the captain is replaced by the feeling that he had no business seeing what those dreams contained.

He tries not to dwell on the content, not now. It's more important to determine what instructions the dream was imparting. Stars--it has to be something to do with stars. That was the only thing that each part of the dream had in common, and Chekov knows what it's like to want nothing more than to be out in the relative emptiness of space, stars in every direction, shielded from near absolute zero temperatures and interstellar radiation by the sturdy hull of a spaceship. That's home, even more than Russia is. That's Kirk's home, too. Since the captain is in no condition to go outside and stargaze--he might say otherwise, but Chekov is sure that McCoy would object to any excursion--it seems sensible enough to bring the stars inside.

Chekov knocks on Kirk's door before showing himself inside. His messenger bag is full of everything that sounded useful--paper, tape, markers, pens, pencils, paintbrushes, paint in black, white, red, and blue. Now is a fine time to make Kirk's ceiling more interesting.]

[hischair]

[ He's sitting up when Pavel lets himself in, smaller than his usual presence after losing some of his weight from lying sick in bed, fighting his own body to keep functioning through what feels like a slow-motion yo-yo effect. The pain of the decontamination chamber is stretched thin all through him and burned at the edges by a fever that never fully goes away.

The first thing he thinks when he sees Pavel is thank God I don't have to keep reading this book, and he sets aside a copy of War and Peace with great relish. ]

It's dangerous for you to come here, Chekov. [ With Khan running around. ] What do you need?

[candothat]

[If possible, Kirk looks even worse than he did the other day. Asking how he feels would be just this side of cruel; Pavel huffs in (almost) entirely put-upon annoyance instead.]

I need to go to my jobs, Captain, I was already out. [He starts unpacking his bag. Somewhere, barging into a captain's room and beginning an art project is probably insubordination, but.] Nothing--I need you to do nothing. I can be quiet if you would like to rest.

Is any of your furniture very sturdy?

[hischair]

Just ... don't mention my name or anything to do with Starfleet in public anymore, do me that favor if you're out there.

[ Otherwise I don't know how I'll even begin to stop worrying. The contents of the bag draw brows to meet a hair-line. ]

I think the desk's strong enough. [ Pushing up the sleeves of his top, he reveals slightly smudged ball-point pen constellations doodled from wrist to elbow. ] Are you going to be redecorating too?

[candothat]

I can do that, and I will also filter all messages I've posted since I came here. That will take a day, maybe two.

[But there's art to do now. Pavel pushes the desk closer to the bed before examining Kirk's arm. He has to tilt his head to see it, but--] Aquarius? And Capricornus? It's good--accurate--but I would rather not redecorate you, if that is all the same.

[hischair]

[ Humming his acknowledgment, he knows it's a matter of time before Khan starts using that ridiculously sharp mind of his. Every precaution helps, though. If only we had the ship, even at ground level ... ]

Bones drew them, they're the old-fashioned star signs that people assigned themselves depending on their birthday. I'd rather you didn't draw on me either, I'm starting to look like a broken PADD.

[ That's still a lot of pens. Enough that this is clearly pre-planned to hell and high water, which means Chekov saw his dream. That makes him uneasy, but only out of lingering embarrassment. ]

What are you going to draw on?

[candothat]

[Pavel doesn't know how much of a threat Khan is, or what kind of threat he poses. He's dangerous enough to warrant multiple warnings and, somehow, he was responsible for killing Kirk; that's sufficient cause for caution, as surreal as it is to have an enemy from home on top of all of the City's usual strangeness.]

I wouldn't have guessed that the doctor knows a part of the sky so well. Do they have symbolic meanings?

[Kirk's dream is the last thing that Pavel wants to mention as he collects paint and a brush and climbs up onto the desk. That's one of the worst things about the City--the invasion of privacy. People become more and more likely to share personal information as their time in the City accumulates and curses render even the best-kept secrets common knowledge. It's better, sometimes, to reveal secrets before curses reveal them.]

I have not decided. Do you have a favorite constellation?

[hischair]

From what I remember, Capricorn tries to maintain order by being persevering, whereas Aquarius is humanitarian and romantic. There's got to be something on the old zodiac in the City, this is around the right time-period for that stuff to be popular.

[ Jim turns his head to see Pavel's progress with the painting, whenever he starts. ]

I like all of them. You ... really think this is going to work?

[candothat]

That sounds like you and Dr. McCoy, a little--not that I think those superstitions are meaningful.

[Black paint first, for the sky. He doesn't look at Kirk, since painting ceilings is serious business and requires his full attention.]

Then Gemini, to start. That's my favorite. [Pavel frowns thoughtfully.] It may, if I guessed the meaning correctly. I have done stranger things during curses... I fought a monster in the sewer, made up an elaborate plan to get revenge, learned to take care of a horse, hacked into a computer that served as a cat's brain. I admit that the last one wasn't done during a curse. Oh--I have had two wives, also. Temporarily.

[hischair]

Everyone likes a fairy tale, now and again.

[ Holy shit, Chekov really is making him an actual sky. ]

... Damn. Two? Who were they?

[candothat]

[That response gets a noncommittal shrug as Pavel continues painting. Fairy tales are ridiculous.]

First was Lena, who was a good friend. She liked the old Russian authors--poets, mostly, and Tolstoy, too. [Don't think that War and Peace went unnoticed.] Second was Lucy, and we enjoyed being married so much that we started to date. ...I started to date, I mean, she doesn't--didn't--like words like that. There was Tessa, also, but we were never cursed to be married.

[hischair]

[ Whimsy is lost on the kid painting Jim's ceiling to look like space. Fff. ]

That'll be fun for Starfleet Command to hear about in the reports.

[candothat]

[Russians are not famous for their whimsical attitudes and outlooks. There is a reason for this.]

Then it's good that we will forget the City once we leave. I think that there are regulations against marrying the natives of other universes.

[hischair]

[ Is it ... because they're Russian? ]

We need to figure out a way to remember this whole place exists. Besides, what do you think Ambassador Spock's going to do for the rest of his life, remain single? I hope he settles down.

[candothat]

[Well, yeah. A bit, yes.

Pavel doesn't think that it's possible to retain memories of the City outside of it; he opts to keep this to himself along with his doubts about the feasibility of escaping.]

I don't want to think about Ambassador Spock's personal life. It must be very sad to be a Vulcan with human friends... our counterparts are probably all dead in that universe by his time.

[He doesn't sound bothered by this. Embracing the futility of avoiding bad things like losing memories and dying (again) is how Pavel remains relatively cheerful.]

[hischair]

Don't ever say that in front of our Spock, okay?

[ Jeez, kid. Way to roast someone alive on your brunch barbecue. ]

[candothat]

I would never even dream of doing that.

[Even if it's true, okay. It's time for stars now--white and blue for Castor, white and red for Pollux.]

[hischair]

Are you aiming to paint my whole ceiling? You don't have to break your back for me.

[ Or my decor. ]

[candothat]

Only if you want me to. My back will survive.

[The Gemini constellation is well on its way to being recognizable as such. So what if the stars are just blobs of paint? At least they're the right color, the right size relative to their distance from Earth, and in the right places.]

[hischair]

Your back's valuable to me.

[ But he's not terribly inclined to stop him, enjoying the look of Gemini from where it's starting to take shape. His gaze drifts off the would-be stairs to Chekov, smile softening. ]

The guys on the network who gave us lab access, they said they'd be getting people trinkets from home in exchange for favors. Have you ever known them to bring back something larger?

[candothat]

I will remember that.

[And he might need his back if Khan is the threat he has been painted as. Unlike some people, he still has to go outside to get to work and social engagements, you can't ground him.]

The new leaders? No one can say. The deities who were here before were willing to trade for anything--items from home, memories, lives, anything--and, even though their asking prices were high, they were honest. The car that I have is from a trade like that. Something bigger... [He shrugs and frowns at Kirk.] The Enterprise would be too large, I think, even if these new leaders are as powerful as the old ones.

[hischair]

Not the whole thing. What about a section of the ship? Half the things from Engineering could really be made use of in the labs.

[ Prices. He'll pay pretty much any price, personally, to get what they need. ]

[candothat]

[He starts on the Taurus constellation while he thinks about this.]

I don't think that the deities would have allowed that. Nothing that could be used to help us escape was made available, even through trades, and the things that we want the most had prices that no one would pay.

But those were the deities. The new ones, maybe, would be more agreeable than them.

[hischair]

[ His eyes never leave Pavel's work, though he keeps a weather eye on his sturdy his balance is. ]

What kind of prices did they ask, before?

[candothat]

[He's more likely to step off the edge than fall over. Truly, Kirk has the most graceful crew ever.]

They would only accept things that we were reluctant to give away. Memories, mostly, and sometimes abilities. These things weren't always taken away permanently.