Mingle Log!

[notscrapmetal]

When; July 5th through July 7th!
Rating; G+
Characters; Open to ALL, 4th Wallers and Citizens!
Summary; The celebrations continue, and the Anonymous regime has summoned guests that Citizens might (not) prove very thrilled to see! As opposed to other Fourth Wall events, all visiting characters will have been invited to the City, or they must arrive here of their own will.

Mingle! Explore~!

Log;

There's so much to do and so much to see in this City of cities. From tromping through Xanadu, long walks along the shore, shopping in the Square, hunting in the forest, meeting a contact in the Underground, or getting as many answers as possible at the Welcoming Center how can anyone decide on just one. In three days time so much can be done!

Shops and restaurants are having specials. Happy hour has become happy days in some bars. This is quite the occasion! When the City decides to celebrate, it becomes contagious. Why not smile and strike up a conversation with a stranger? After all, a stranger is a friend you haven't met yet.

Comments

[hischair]

[ He really is his First Officer's antithesis, no more so than when Chris turns around and Jim feels his expression crumble, taking a step back and listing to the side. He shakes his head as he stares, the hand that had gripped an unresponsive shoulder and wrested that (now pristine, how) uniform rising as if to keep the distance.

Throat working to swallow a lump, his lips part on a shaky breath. ]

[pikes]

[ pike knows what a face like that signifies, he's seen it before, directed at others, and now it's on jim directed at him.

he stops for a moment, a couple of seconds at most, but he's walking forward anyway, the sounds of his feet and cane thumping loudly on the floor as he approaches. ]

Jim, come here. [ a demand, but also a request. ]

[hischair]

[ It's like being on autopilot, curling his hand into the front of his shirt as he paces over and feels something dead and dry lodge on his tongue like a paperweight. Bowing his head, he stands before his own personal hero and feels an intense shame for the breaths that burst out of bitten, shivering lips. ]

Sorry.

[ For not saving him, for anything he did that was never good enough. Sorry for being this weak. ]

[pikes]

[ he's never considered jim weak. a man would be blind to think that of him, what with every thing he's gone through (and so much more that pike doesn't know, but even then, his opinion will not change). pike is human, and this is not weakness to him.

he drops his cane and pulls jim to him, encasing him in tight hug and leaning against him and his one good leg for support. ]

It's all good, son. You're good. [ whatever your sorry for, i forgive you. ]

[hischair]

[ After a moment spent stiffly standing in place, the line of Jim's shoulders breaks and he wraps his arms around Chris in a tight hug, hiding in his shoulder, fists tight in that horribly familiar jacket. Jim's never been very good at schooling himself beyond artifice and ego, brittle underneath like a stick man taped together and ready to snap when hit from just the right angle. It's as if a sledgehammer hits home when Chris is moving and alive. He can hold Jim back this time.

The ugly crying bursts out of him in gouts of hiccups, a thin whine loosening somewhere in his chest that whips every shuddering sob past wet lips, loud and angry. The Halls echo with the sound of grieving. ]

[pikes]

[ there's nothing that pike can do but stand, stand and hold jim with whatever strength he has left. old men like him were always meant to die, whether by old age or by the threat of their jobs; he knows that well, but the thought of it still lingers, still hurts. no man wants to die, and as he laid dying on the cold floor with spock's eyes watching him, he realized how much he wanted to live, how there were so many things he still could've done.

so many people he was going to leave behind.

he rests his chin near jim's head, kissing his hair like a father would his child, eyes closed in an effort to keep his own emotions within. silence reigns, broken only by the sound of kirk's grief. ]

[logistical]

[Aside from his routine sweeps of the city and the occasional meal with Nyota, Spock hardly leaves Jim's side. First he told himself it was duty, and when that didn't feel right, he added friendship and the equation made a little more sense. Jim is in a volatile stage and while even Spock is feeling... unstable, he will not permit this to obstruct the performance of his duty. He will continue being exemplary. Or volatility was perhaps the incorrect description. Spock has never seen Jim so still. It makes him nauseous.]

[He'd separated from Jim briefly as they'd entered this location, letting his Captain wander, but he is drawn back by the noise. Keeping his distance, he lets father and son reunite (he was privy to this man's dying thoughts, after all). Grief was a private thing, just as the expression of emotion itself was a private thing, for Spock, and despite watching his mother, or his crew he had never quite gotten used to how open humans were with it, sometimes.]

[If either of them catch his eye, he will look away, giving them their space.]

[hischair]

[ Latched onto Chris like a burr is no way to see or speak to him, to tell him in myriad ways how much Jim wants to keep him around for decades yet. He knows this is all part of the City and its so-called 'charms', but he can't see the draw in it. Chris is going to disappear sooner or later. Who would want their loved one to be torn from them for a second time? Sniffing, he eventually calms under the soothing attention. For a while he nods to prove he's getting there, it's going to be fine in a moment, just another and another. When he peels a hand away to rub at his nose and ease back, he can't quite release his grip on a shoulder. At least he's on his own two feet again, watery-eyed and looking younger than his years with jumpy half-words valiantly trying to level out. ]

I tried to do what you would've wanted me to do.

[ Regarding Khan, all of it. Spock had bolstered his conscience considerably (and out of the corner of an eye, Jim notes that splash of blue) yet it was the notion Christopher would approve that drove Jim to be the better man.

He wipes his face off hastily on a decorated sleeve and plies him with earnest eyes. ]

I didn't know what that was, so I messed up. [ Almost getting the crew annihilated by Vengeance, the fall from the heavens. ] I miss you.

[pikes]

[ pike grip on him doesn't get any looser, possibly because he has no one else to lean on but jim, his feet are starting to kill him, standing around for too long, but they aren't so important. ]

Maybe you did, but you know it now. That's all I need from you, Jim.

[ he raises a hand and uses it to card through the back of jim's head in a soothing manner as he talks, quietly listening to all that jim is telling him in the spur of the moment. whatever it is that jim thought he wanted him to do is probably the opposite. he doesn't know what to feel about that yet. ]

I miss you. [ for him, it's only been seconds, but that's a lifetime already, too.

he opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees his spock, out at a corner watching them with his vulcan eyes. hearing them, probably. pike remembers the attempt to relive him of the pain, the anger, the sadness. spock's eyes have been incredibly human, then, too.

pike's lips curl, a sad smile on his face. ]

[logistical]

[He meets Pike's eyes and it all comes back in a flood: the anger, the pain, the confusion, the loneliness, and Spock is there, attempting to soothe it as best he can, because no one should feel that alone when they die. He returns Pike's smile with a curt, formal nod, but remains at a distance, watching for intruders.]

[hischair]

[ With his brow resting against Chris's jaw when Jim feels fingers running through his hair, he can't seem to stop crying, muted through the noise is. His fists grip and smooth on shoulders, arms, running along them to keep a tight hold. The emotion churns him like a whirlpool inside, everything he wants to say crumbling like old wrecks getting dragged under cyclic sobs. It's a relief to that Chris accepts how Jim has screwed up and finds he's grown because of it, even without the details; almost firing torpedoes into Klingon space would have been immeasurably foolish, not a thing about it echoing the man he had always tried to emulate. ]

You saved me. Every day. A-And I couldn't save ...

[ Eyes screw shut and tears drop onto his shirt, looking up after stifling an upset noise at the I miss you back. He has to say this now, has to get it out while Chris can be told exactly how much more of a hero he is than Jim. Instead, what comes out is — ]

What do I do if I don't have you? [ Shaking his head, he finds he gravitates back into that comforting embrace, small and sad. ] I wanted to kill him for taking you away. I would have done it, if Spock hadn't helped me out of it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. [ Lips purse and he feels himself sway minutely, something about the motion making him feel ever so slightly better. ] Sir, I — I died. The warp core was misaligned, I needed to ... or everyone would've —

[ The words feel like a confessional. ]

I was scared, sir. I'm sorry. I felt, feel so alone. I don't want you to leave me again, I can't take being in my head with the dark, I can't stop feeling like there's ...

[ Nobody who understands. Not really. Not the excruciating pain, the terror and how Jim can't calm that down on his own; it's the heart he provides the Enterprise with, not his head.

His gaze slides to the blue-shirted figure nearby and Jim closes his eyes, memorizing how fabric scratches against his stubble, damp with his tears. Through them, he admits the truth of the matter to his First too, never raising his voice when Vulcan ears will hear perfectly and, Jim trusts, understand how they convey such different, wildly important things for both Chris and Spock respectively. ]

I'm all messed up.

[ The way he clings to Chris might as well be a direct physical representation of how much he needs Spock around, too.

Jim closes his eyes. ]