( closed )

[imaginate]

Characters: Kyle & various.
Date: Catch-all log for July.
Location: All around.
Situation: Various.
Warnings/Rating: War horrors, child abuse, mention of torture, physical and psychological.
Notes: [Action] or prose are all good. Ping me if you'd like a specific setup/threadstarter.

Comments

[jirk]

"I don't--" Jim bites it off, and he flexes his fingers against his cane. He can feel the shift of tendons over his knuckles, still battered and bruised from the fight and he takes a moment to focus on the pain, a wholly different sensation than his leg (spiral fracture, thank god it wasn't compound, broken in six different places it'll need plates to repair--).

"It's not about being alone, it's the fact that I have no idea what the hell signals I'm getting off of you, so I'm backing off."

There. Simple, honest. His frustration is raw and exposed like a nerve end, and there's anger there, too.

[imaginate]

He's backing off. This is probably someone who never does that in his life and something in Kyle claws at him to pounce at that show of weakness, rip it apart. That shows, briefly, in the tense of his jaw, along with a cold, calculating glance. The one he has when he's sizing up an opponent. Every movement is suddenly a tell, and he is hunting.

Except this is Jim. Kyle blinks and the hunter's gone. What's he doing? He'd said they were friends.

'Why are we fighting?' Confused.

[jirk]

"I have no goddamned idea." He's torn between amusement and exasperation.

[imaginate]

He pinches the bridge of his nose. This was so much more difficult and frustrating than being around Spock. At least the Vulcan was clear, and his needs were clear, too. Jim was just a mess of-- half-cobbled together parts, he was Kyle put together all wrong. A collage of old motorcycle rims, spaceship parts, and sewn together, painted gleaming white, like their ship. He'd learnt to see it, though. Where the paint didn't quite match, where rust had crept, and where the layers were old, dusty and tired.

'Do you want me to stay here?'

[jirk]

Cautiously, he side-steps around the question. "I don't mind the company."

[imaginate]

It's a simple question.

Kyle doesn't shout, or show his temper. Carefully, he says, 'Yes, or no?'

[jirk]

Jim doesn't have that restraint. His temper flares, even if it's obviously misdirected, the emotional equivalent of a blind throw into a glass room. "It's not about what I want! Will you just--" He drags his hands through his hair, practically bleeding irritation. "Will you stop that?"

[imaginate]

He maintains his own restraint (which surprises even him), and he speaks with a mild, moderated tone.

'I'm like Spock,' he says. 'Be direct. If you have a question, a request, a comment, whatever. Out in the open.' Uncomplicated. 'I'm not a mind-reader. That part of the ring's been non-functional since I got here.' And you're all murky.

[jirk]

"I'm not saying read my mind, Kyle. I'm trying to be direct, you're the one chasing shadows all over hell's half acre." And goddamnit, that sounds like Bones, and everything in him aches. They were never 'inseparable' in the traditional sense, but he's not used to not being able to see him whenever he wants, either, and having someone else patch up his injuries was an exercise in-- a lot of old issues he'd rather not get into.

"It. Look. We're friends, okay? Let's just be friends." Instead of fighting.

[imaginate]

How is "I don't mind" a direct answer to a yes-no question? He swallows it, frustratedly. Spock wasn't like this, and Kyle just wants the company of someone he can talk to without having all this reflected back at him. Everything he says or does just makes Jim angry, and vice versa. Maybe they're not cut out for anything beyond this.

'Thanks for the paints,' he says, tiredly. 'Maybe I should go.'

[jirk]

Except that feels more like a slap than a thank-you, and Jim's jaw tenses, he presses his teeth together until the sound of it grates in his head.

He has to think about this. Logic it out. (Spock would laugh, probably, or whatever the closest Vulcan equivalent is) It's like studying a chess board, seeing the moves come to light in his head, the strategies and possibilities and the overwhelming odds.

Kyle needs to be needed. He knows that, they talked about it. It's like giving back. And no one does that, right?

It's a weakness, to need things. All I ask is that you spare my crew. It's a weakness that they're used to bolstering in others, and-- Jim doesn't want to be the first one to give in (how will you use it against me?) but someone has to be, and when it comes to taking long shots on slim chances there's no one better for the job than Jim Kirk.

He exhales.

"Okay, let's try that again. Say I ask you to stay. What does that mean to you?"

[imaginate]

'It means you want me around. To talk, or -- anything. Just be there.' Want, not need, because they don't need anything from each other (Maybe a friend, but Kyle was sick of burying his friends). At last, a direct question, and he relaxes.

Honestly, he just wants Jim to stop being irritated with him. It's hard, to fight for everything. Kyle wouldn't mind something where he didn't have to, although he knows he'd have tremendous difficulty recognising it, let alone what to do with it when it happened, he still missed Guy too much.

[jirk]

He lapses into a moment of silence. The moves are becoming clearer on the board. "Okay, so on a two-way street, what's reasonable to expect from you if I ask?" As equals. Because Jim's sick of the way Kyle just throws himself under a bus - consistently and repeatedly - for everyone around him. Whether or not they need him to. He needs to be needed, and Jim needs him to want something for himself.

[imaginate]

'A conversation. Or my time.' He doesn't realise he's so used to giving that he stopped having much of an opinion on the matter. Except for the times he's fallen into deep despair and complained about the unfairness of it all, cutting off the pieces of himself that he needs and handing them over is so normal to him he can't even think of an alternate circumstance.

'I don't mind your company. I'd probably hang around, but only if you asked.' He doesn't like shoving himself onto other people, they're not interested. They want to talk about themselves, and that's fine. He's used to it, because he has to keep their stories alive. He was the only one who was left in the entire universe to do it.

[jirk]

Maybe it's cheating and maybe it's checkmate, but Jim just looks at him and something clicks. He holds up a hand. "Listen. I need to try and explain this in a way that we can both understand. A captain has to be strong for his crew, we can't show weakness or fear or-- anger or pain or any of that. You have to be one hundred percent, one hundred percent of the time. Do you know why I asked you to stay during the surgery?"

[imaginate]

'I understand.' It's simple, and direct. 'I don't begrudge anybody that. You can't show weakness because you can't have your crew think there's something out there you can't face. They'd lose faith.' All people had the stories they told themselves, of their own strength, and Jim had mentioned how much he hated being a nobody, here. He understood that. People told the same stories of Kyle, after all. Last of the Green Lanterns, and his lip nearly twists downwards in disgust. There was nothing to be proud of, acting like that. Not for him.

'No, I don't know why exactly you asked, but--' he hesitates. 'Honestly, if you hadn't explicitly asked me to leave, I'd have stayed there with you.'

[jirk]

"I asked you to stay because I trust you. Because we're friends, and because I know you could take it. That you could deal seeing me in pain, even though I knew it would hurt you, too." Because Kyle seems to think that's what friendship means. Hurting when your people do. Is it all he thinks it is?

"It's not a one-time thing. It was completely selfish of me and I get that. It was a weakness and I dealt with it. But it's always going to be there. I don't want to have to ask you to stay every time, because that--" he wrinkles his nose. "It'd make me feel fucking ridiculous and selfish all the time. You have to meet me half way."

[imaginate]

Something clicks. (Yes it had hurt, but he'd been able to deal with it. It was less painful than watching one of his own die.)

'Needing other people isn't a weakness, to me.' He wraps one arm around himself and uses the other to rub his chin, deep in thought. 'It's not selfish, either. It's just part... of overcoming fear.' He'd been alone in the universe. Needing people was a part of facing the fear of that loneliness, again. It was weird, and twisted in its own way, but it worked. Just like yellow weakness.

A long pause as he considers I want you around. It wasn't directly stated, he has to meet Jim halfway and try and read between the lines. Treat him a little like Guy, a little like himself.

'We have very different styles of leading.' The remark is slightly wry. 'I swear, every time I think you're like me, you turn around and act like Gardner.'

[jirk]

But Jim grew up alone. He watched his brother walk away. Needing people is a weakness because it means admitting that you can't do everything by yourself and he-- without his crew, how the hell is he supposed to admit that and live with himself?

He frowns a bit, draws in a breath.

"Yeah, well. Next thing I know you and Spock are going to be inviting me to the wedding, so you can guess how I feel."

[imaginate]

He tilts his head, completely incredulous. 'Are you... jealous?'

[jirk]

"What?" Just. A disgruntled expression forever. "No, I'm not jealous." Why are words so hard. "I'm glad he has you. Spock's lost enough people and you're good for him. You're good for each other, trust me, you couldn't have more of my blessing if you asked for it. I meant because you're like-- the perfect mix of him and me."

[imaginate]

The confusion stays. Kyle finds himself flexing his fingers, wishing he was holding something so he could play with it. 'Oh. Okay, then.'

[jirk]

Jim rolls his eyes in sheer frustration and tosses a pillow at Kyle. It's not a sudden motion, he makes sure he knows he's about to do it before he follows through. "It took me a year to get through to him." So maybe he's a little jealous. How much weakness does he have to admit before Kyle will just-- not want to take any more?

[imaginate]

'And it took me all of five minutes.' He catches the pillow, turns it over as if examining it, before he tosses it back, shifting into play mode. But this is too much like Bruce, coming in and saying Thank you for everything you're doing with Damian. Continue. that Kyle's not sure what to do with it, either.

He looks at Jim. 'I make people feel safe. That's as instinctive to me as your— captainly stuff is to you.' They admitted weaknesses to him that they didn't tell other people. Like Damian, hugging him, asking him not to tell anyone that he'd made a mistake as stupid as not being able to fulfil his mission, or potentially endangering his secret identity. Like Dick, quietly confiding that he missed his father. Or Bean, crying into his shirt.

He looks at the couch, and then he wanders over, and lies down on the floor, putting his feet up, resting both hands on his stomach so that he's close to Jim and looking up at him. Then, he rings up a construct pillow and plays with it, tossing it at Jim after a few minutes.

[jirk]

Jim sets the (real) pillow to one side. "It's not exactly jealousy. It's..." how can he say this without sounding like a total idiot? He ducks his head as he catches the construct. He's surprised at how well it mimics softness. Willpower, huh? He's pensive, trying to think of the right word, the right phrase. "It's awe."