After Jim’s call, Kyle heads there. If it’s another not emergency, he’s... not entirely sure what he’ll do. They were fine, in the cell. It’s being outside - away from each other for a few days, Jim’d said - that messes with them both. And maybe it’s their pride, or the tired defensiveness that comes from not understanding how to accept something freely given, that prevents them from being as in sync as they should be. Kyle doesn't know.
(If he were more self-aware, he’d laugh at how pathetic the entire situation was.)
It had been a few days since... escaping, or if one could call it that. Kyle had mixed feelings about what had happened to the kedan eventually, but he couldn’t deny a vicious joy at the outcome. Maybe that was too hard, too cold, but life had made him that way. Pain was just pain, and there would always be unnecessary death.
He glances at his (now-healed) hands. Jim had become delirious by day two, so Kyle and Spock had taken turns. Each time the guards came in there was a silent war between them, each refusing to let the other be taken for too long, and yet both of them noticed that they spent far more time in there trying to protect the others. Once, he'd simply given up and stood between the guards and the other two. Jim had retaliated by sleeping in between Kyle and the door. He'd noticed, and he'd said nothing.
The leg, though. He knew about the surgery, and frankly he was glad Sora hadn’t had to browbeat anybody into anything. For his part he’d refused her treatment entirely, not out of spite or lack of faith in her competence, but simply because he wasn’t too proud to ask a magical healer to do it for him (there was little pride to be had when he was so out of his league, usually).
That’s yet another difference, he knows. Jim Kirk already has all the tools he needs to lead, everything Kyle doesn’t - but the only thing Kyle has that’s his and his alone is facing the worst the universe can throw at him and still getting out alive, somehow. He doesn’t hold it over Jim but for some reason it just rubs them both the wrong way. My self assurance is lecturing, he thinks. And he said I sound like Pike. What does that even mean?
He stops at the door to Jim’s house, holding up a hand to knock, and it drops to his side. He frowns, wondering if he should call Spock, and then to hell with it, he raps twice sharply.
JIM KIRK;
(If he were more self-aware, he’d laugh at how pathetic the entire situation was.)
It had been a few days since... escaping, or if one could call it that. Kyle had mixed feelings about what had happened to the kedan eventually, but he couldn’t deny a vicious joy at the outcome. Maybe that was too hard, too cold, but life had made him that way. Pain was just pain, and there would always be unnecessary death.
He glances at his (now-healed) hands. Jim had become delirious by day two, so Kyle and Spock had taken turns. Each time the guards came in there was a silent war between them, each refusing to let the other be taken for too long, and yet both of them noticed that they spent far more time in there trying to protect the others. Once, he'd simply given up and stood between the guards and the other two. Jim had retaliated by sleeping in between Kyle and the door. He'd noticed, and he'd said nothing.
The leg, though. He knew about the surgery, and frankly he was glad Sora hadn’t had to browbeat anybody into anything. For his part he’d refused her treatment entirely, not out of spite or lack of faith in her competence, but simply because he wasn’t too proud to ask a magical healer to do it for him (there was little pride to be had when he was so out of his league, usually).
That’s yet another difference, he knows. Jim Kirk already has all the tools he needs to lead, everything Kyle doesn’t - but the only thing Kyle has that’s his and his alone is facing the worst the universe can throw at him and still getting out alive, somehow. He doesn’t hold it over Jim but for some reason it just rubs them both the wrong way. My self assurance is lecturing, he thinks. And he said I sound like Pike. What does that even mean?
He stops at the door to Jim’s house, holding up a hand to knock, and it drops to his side. He frowns, wondering if he should call Spock, and then to hell with it, he raps twice sharply.