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Joy is infectious and Kyle lights up again. He's a little I never thought the day would come and the other half is jealous he doesn't live there, that he's not from a world where he hasn't had to watch people die. It's hard to know what's wrong about home when it's all the point of reference one has and this... this is home of a kind, too. This knowledge.

'Sleep?' he scoffs. 'Who sleeps when there's celebrating!' His hand reaches out again. 'That's the best part. Y'know that Kyle got his ring too? Same rank s'me.'

"I'm still holding out for this universe with 'Kylie', personally."

Jim sits on the edge of the bed, close enough for Kyle to touch if he wants, but not actively reaching out himself. "Hey. I guessed right. Good news."

And Kyle slaps Jim's wrist. He's over the moon and a lot of other planetary bodies besides, and he wants to enjoy himself. He's always more tactile when he's being playful, Jim sitting close to him only makes him more likely to reach out.

'Oi, I'm way cuter.'

His elated expression becomes more pensive, and he closes his eyes, resting on the pillow. Counting his breaths, ten, twenty. Focusing, a little.

Quietly, he adds, 'Good news. There's a world out there where I'm not broken.'

It's like the conversation about Kyle's scars, and Jim feels a brief sense of claustrophobia like the walls are closing in. He's had that sensation a lot since their torture, there were a few times when he, delirious and shaking, had thought the edges of the world were closing in on him. It's a little like a phantom limb, hurting when it shouldn't.

He reminds himself to breathe.

"Kyle," his tone is still calm. "You aren't broken."

That isn't the reaction he'd been expecting, and his smile fades completely, his gaze growing sharper as he attempts to sort what the words mean. The sentiment is... confusing. That's the word. He's confused. He doesn't understand how it's necessarily better that he's had to endure to so much, fight so hard, to get somewhere when another him had a (much) smoother road. His life had dragged him over the coals (and he'd screamed, too). There's something in the air, too, that wasn't there before, and Kyle tries to wade through the drunken haze in his mind to focus because this sounds important.

'Hm?' What are you talking about?

This is really not a conversation Jim wants to have while Kyle is drunk. This is not really a conversation Jim wants to have when Jim has to be sober, either. He rubs a hand over his face.

"Being broken is the same as giving up." Giving up wouldn't know what to do with you. His mouth quirks at the internal comparison. "You aren't broken. You get hurt, and you learn. Use it until it's a strength. You pick up the pieces. That's not being broken, that's being strong."

For some reason he can't quite name, he thinks of his mother. More specifically, the picture of her that someone took when she was coming out of the shuttle, Jim a swaddled bundle in her arms. He wishes, sometimes, that he'd known the woman she used to be and not the one she became after his dad died. She got harder. Remarried a man that didn't give a shit about her sons, kept doing her job, her duty. But for all that, he's never looked at her and thought she was broken, either.

"Saying that," he continues, slowly. So Kyle can follow, because Jim knows just how little gets through when you're that drunk. "Overrides all the credit you deserve for what you've survived. Okay?"

His grip on Jim's hand momentarily tightens. His blood runs cold and the light goes out of his eyes, but he doesn't get up. He only draws his legs up to his chest, curls up, protecting himself. Only his arm stays where it is, reaching out.

'Credit,' he says, flatly, humourlessly. 'Is that what they're calling it now, when I'm the last one standing in a field of corpses? Whose voices I don't even remember any more? That's something to be proud of? That they get to go on, and I don't?'

Jim closes his eyes. This is too new, too raw, everything aches. Damnit, how the hell can he tell Kyle any of the right things when he's sitting here with his own mind a mirror of everything on Kyle's? Jim knows he hasn't been through as much, hasn't seen the same horrors, but he's still been responsible for and failed so many people along the way--

Bones saved him. Bones saved him, out of everyone that died. Over four hundred of his people, his family. Jesus, he can't do this. He can't. Not right now.

He wants to disentangle his hand, get up and leave. Odds are Kyle won't even remember this discussion in the morning, but that's too much like leaving and Jim can't do that to him, not when he'd be following in the footsteps of so many other people.

Third category. Right.

He steadies his breathing. His pulse is still erratic, but he doesn't care so much about that. The sudden warring surge of adrenaline bleeds off, and he's left feeling cold and numb and sick. But he always takes the road less traveled. His voice shakes, but he answers as if it doesn't. Quiet.

"It's not something you have to be proud of. But it's not something that broke you, either."

The silence would tell him a lot, if he was more lucid. Right now everything's still swimming, all his usual inhibitions are gone and there's just him, raw and hurting and unable to deal with the weight of the universe on his shoulders. He thinks he can't carry it, but deep down, he's always been the only one who could. That's there too, under the grime, and part of him is wiping it off, looking for the light.

All Kyle really sees is a Jim-shaped blob, whose hand is in his. The pulse is like a drum, pounding in his ears, and he's getting a minor headache from how loud it is compared to Jim's words.

'Alone in the universe,' he says, quietly, bitterly. 'How's that for carrying everything by yourself.' He snorts, half-amusement, half-pained. 'It's not doing anyone a favour, it's not strong or noble. But everyone thinks they can do it.'

A pause.

'It breaks you. That's why - we shouldn't.'

His grip tightens. I didn't have a choice.

A better man would recognize the pain Kyle was in, and offer more comfort than letting his hand be held. But Jim's not in that place, he can't do it. It's taking enough out of him just to remain in the room, trying to keep his breathing steady, trying not to think about a cord tightening around his neck.

But it's harder to breathe for a lot of reasons, right now, and all of them ache.

One thing's for certain, he's never letting Kyle get this drunk again. He sorts through everything Kyle's saying, looking for something to focus on.

Finally, "You aren't alone anymore."

He closes his eyes and lets the words wash over him. Usually, they do nothing, because he's tried giving and accepting them, but he's found they don't soothe much of the grief and horror. They've only been used to sting.

You are patient.

He was. He hated being so but he was, when it mattered, and he'd waited to hear that for years. The Corps was there but the Corps hardly spoke about it.

Jim's words are little, but Kyle's always clung to what little he has, and pulled himself up with it. (It's all he's getting, he should make every scrap count.)

'No,' he says, finally, breathing steady, words calm. The storm's passed. 'I earned the right not to be.'

But I still bury everyone, and no one buries me.

He tightens his grip a little on Kyle's hand. There's a part of him that knows he's failing at this, but he doesn't have the right words. He gives himself a moment, and then shakes his head and reclaims his hand slowly.

"Get some sleep, huh?"

'Mm.'

He reaches out, for Jim's hand, and squeezes it gently before he curls up on the bed. It's thank you and sorry at once.

'Stay here?'

He exhales. He's already standing by the time Kyle talks, but he stops, and nods once. Then he just slides down beside the bed, his back against it. Sitting on the floor. He's at that state of being too tired to sleep, and too manic to do anything but sit and vibrate. He wants to go out and get drunk, but that's probably a monumentally bad idea. So he just tips his head back against the mattress and kicks out one leg in front of him. The other one he draws up and wraps his arm around it.

"Sure."

Kyle plays with the hair around Jim's ear briefly, before he withdraws, and curls up completely. Something about the silence feels belligerent, but he's too tired, and too drunk. (Somewhere out there, he's not suffering.)

'Don't tell John,' he says, before falling asleep.

Less belligerent, more wounded. Jim sits in perfect silence, listening to Kyle's breathing. That makes him think of the cell, too, where breathing was the only noise and it echoed, loud and hollow--

That reminds him about something, and he gets onto his knees and turns to look at Kyle briefly, and then at the ring he's wearing. He's not supposed to sleep with it on. So Jim, frowning, says his own name, and the code he'd chosen, and slides it off.

It's a heavy weight in his hand, and he curls his fingers around with it. So much power in such a small thing. But it can't put planets back together.

He rolls it between his thumb and index finger, and then he reaches out to put it on the nightstand.

He doesn't dream. He's tired enough not to and the wave of joy from spending the night drinking too much means the dark things are at bay, even if he cracked a little, earlier. He's always slept in fits and starts in a strange place, but the bed is warm and the blankets comfortable. He barely moves at all.

Guy sometimes stayed awake next to Kyle when he slept, watching over him, ready to wake him up when he saw the signs of uneasy dreams. Jim's presence hardly measures up in terms of closeness (his brother knew him on such an instinctive level Kyle highly doubted anyone could reach it) but the trust is enough.

When morning comes Kyle wakes quietly, taking a moment to look around, confused. He barely remembers coming here, let alone the conversation that followed, and his instincts almost scream that he's been kidnapped.

Then he spots Jim. 'Hey.' Rubbing his eyes, he looks again. Yes, it's him.

'Morning.' He's cheerful, having slept well.

Jim jerks out of the light doze he'd been in, head tucked down against his chest. "Wh-- morning." His mouth feels like an ashtray, and he rubs at his face to wake himself up.

Kyle coughs. The alcohol is still in his system, and he feels a bit fuzzy, but for the most part, he's much more clear-headed.

'How'd I land up here? I usually sleep in the living room.' Next to the paints, in case he got inspired to do something. He looks around for his ring and slides it on.

"Believe it or not, I carried you." It's teasing, and Jim gets up, heads into his bathroom. Comes back a moment later with a glass of water.

"Do me a favour and drink like four more of these. You were pretty wasted."

He accepts it without complaint. 'Sorry,' he says, sheepishly. 'I'm... usually a lot more careful. I guess I needed the good news.'

A pause, and he looks more worried. 'I didn't say or do anything to you, did I?'

He knows how vicious he can be, when he lacks restraint and forethought. Alcohol was a bad catalyst, but normally he didn't drunk that much, and when he did, the ring purged it so he could concentrate properly.

Jim raises an eyebrow. It's in him, to point out that it was the last time Kyle got drunk that he broke his damn nose, but he lets it go. Everybody gets one free shot, he's not going to hold a grudge about it, though he does wonder where the vitriol came from in the first place.

"I'm pretty sure my ass is asleep from sitting on the floor all night, but that's not your fault."

He hasn't forgotten what happened the last time he'd been this drunk. And Jim had stayed with him, too, which makes him wonder. Maybe the ring recorded it and he can consult it later. Or maybe he's just better off not knowing.

Either way, he just smiles. 'I'll make it up to you. Breakfast?'

"I need a few hours of real sleep." It was selfish, staying here through the entire night. Most of it he spent awake, thinking. Trying to get halfway through some harebrained scheme before his brain jumped rails to the next topic it wanted to dwell on.

He throws himself down across the foot of the bed, drags the blanket up over his head. "Besides, tribbles probably ate everything."

Kyle slides around him and adjusts the blanket so there's more space for Jim to make himself comfortable. 'I'll make it anyway, for when you wake up.'

It's a thank you, of sorts, for sticking by him.

He's about to just give Jim some privacy, before he fiddles with his ring. 'Do you want me to give you dreamless sleep?'

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CW war trauma

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