tushanshu_logs | Event | Sinbrilee

Entry tags:

Event | Sinbrilee | Bacchanal

Characters: Any and all!
Date: August 24 - 30th
Location: Sinbrilee
Situation: An ancient festival of an ancient city, all are welcome at the Bacchanal!
Warnings/Rating: Please label threads as appropriate.

Death and destruction cannot curtail the single most important festival celebrated by the denizens of Sinbrilee: The Bacchanal! The ghosts in and about the city have begun to gossip about high fashion and festivities, sending any that inquire to the Amphitheatre -- a grand, circular structure nestled in the west side of the city.

This structure bore the fall of Sinbrilee and the wear of time with dignity, having lost handfuls of archways and one long stretch of wall to crumbling decay. Despite this, it is obvious that the amphitheatre once hosted many a display and every more festivities than the mind can grasp. This was their solace and safety; here is where the people of Sinbrilee came to find the mind's escape from all that threatened them and their great turtle.

Ghosts have been busy throughout the week, clearing paths through debris and hanging great cloth banners of soft blues and greens to disguise the more blatant signs of its decline. Many hundreds of them shimmer and slid through the area, providing for tables upon tables of food, offering drink, and overseeing competition of sport and skill (some even denying death's non-corporeal curse to enter).

Here, well... Here is where the party begins!

Food & Drink | Music, Discussions, & Dancing | Wrestling & Competitions

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Painfully. She's got a mean right hook.

[But there's more to it, that Kyle's not asking. He wants Jim's honest opinion, and Jim has no idea why. He folds his arms, suddenly a little uncertain, like he's being pushed into a test he's not sure he'll pass. Or that he wants to.]

She's great. Great woman, good dancer. Love the wings. And she cares a lot about you.

School of hard knocks. She does that.

[He smiles fondly, and fidgets. Two of his favourite people on the turtle were getting along. He hadn't expected Shayera to force her way into his heart like she had, but she had, she was there, and she was looking at all of his demons, unflinching.]

[Including one that wasn't even his: she came from the universe where the Corps wasn't destroyed and Kyle didn't know how to tell her, or even if he should.]

[And then there was Jenny's ghost, weighing on his mind from his earlier conversation, but he doesn't want to ruin Jim's good mood with his own doom and gloom. He's well aware there's just too much pain in his life, and it often makes Jim hurt for him, which he doesn't like seeing.]

[Jim looks at him, actually looks, and his mouth quirks downward into a frown. There's something else here in the ruins with them and he can't quite see it or grasp it, it's like one of those spatial anomalies that you can only see if you cock your head thirty degrees and stand on one foot.

It's the alcohol, screwing with his perception, and he takes a moment to pull the sobriety to the surface. Willpower. Right.

And then he pushes himself away from the rubble and reaches out to take Kyle's wrist.]

Angel.

[He still doesn't know when it stopped being a title, and he clears his throat a little.]

What's on your mind?

Jenny.

[He shocks himself with the raw honesty and speed of his answer, and inhales sharply.]

It. Uh. She'd have loved [waves a hand towards the party] this.

[Jim tilts his head faintly. Jenny. Not a name he's heard, but the way Kyle says her name, and the past-tense-- Jim's jaw tightens incrementally. He knows, now, the elephant in the room was a window into Kyle's pain, that he wasn't sure he wanted to share.

Jim has no idea if he pushed him into it, or if Kyle's bringing it up because he actually wants to, and he thinks about it for a moment. Finally decides that although there's things he could do to manipulate Kyle if he had to, there aren't many people out there who could get him to do something against his will. Thinking he could be one of those people isn't flattery, it's horrifying. So he doesn't go there. This is something given, and Jim nods, careful.]

What happened?

[He doesn't usually talk about ex-girlfriends, never. He barely discussed Alex with Donna or Donna with Jenny and he's certain he hasn't spoken about any of them to Sora, but he's opened the floodgates now. It doesn't scare him, how easily Jim can make him open up - he's only worried about the constant river of hurt and suffering that Kyle's had to poured on him, willing him to take it, ease it, fix it. To make him better.]

[Not okay, but better.]

[He coughs, a half-laugh, at the question. Too much like Shayera's own What happened. So much. He was going to be a father, and he'd walked home to find - whatever that guy's name was - in the shower and he hadn't even felt angry, just hurt. So hurt.]

[Playing space cop. He shudders.]

What didn't happen?

[He rubs his palms together.]

She left, what else is new.

[He doesn't know what to say, so for a moment he defaults to nothing at all. There's more to it, Kyle's downplaying the worst. Typical Rayner, and Jim fights down a flare of irritation. Not his problem, not his pain. He knows how Kyle copes, and being needled doesn't work for him. His fingers flex against Kyle's wrist, and he lets him go, drops his hand against his thigh instead.]

Okay, let me--

[He reaches up with his free hand, pinches the bridge of his nose.]

How much do you want me to know?

[Jim's irritated. Because of his terseness? He doesn't know. It's habit to downplay everything, it's not as bad as it looks, there's been worse, partly because it's the honest truth and partly because he doesn't know how to convey its full horror without suffering a mental breakdown.]

[And all he's been here is just broken. He nearly reaches for Jim, but doesn't. They're still in public.]

How much - do you want to take?

[Giving has to be of his own free will, but so does taking.]

[That earns a faintly incredulous look, an upward cant of his brows.]

You have to ask that question? I want everything. But I'll stop at what you want to give.

[It's because he can't believe it, and has to keep checking it's real. Kyle purses his lips, brushes his fingers lightly over Jim's wrist before putting his hand in his pocket and drawing out a small green gem.]

This is a memory crystal. It has other uses, but mainly, it works like being in the Dream plane, but smaller. Specific doors, if you will.

[He holds it out to Jim.]

Hold it and squeeze it hard, open your mind. This one will only work for you.

[Um. Okay then. Jim stares at the crystal briefly, and then reaches out to take it. He'll worry about the implication of Kyle giving him things later, and he does as he's bid.]

Okay. Now what?

[Kyle furrows his brow at the expression on Jim's face - shock, too much of it.]

[He adds:] It'll also call me in case of emergencies. You know. If you can't get to the consoles or your communicator.

[A practical asset, not a gift in the strictest sense of the word, if that makes it less difficult. Jim's like Damian, he needs to name things for himself before he accepts them.]

[Then, he hovers his hand uncertainly, over it.]

Ready?

[Oh, he's onto you, pretty boy. But Jim doesn't protest or argue, he's too focused on the task at hand.]

Yeah. Let's do it.

[He closes his eyes, and the memories surface. The gem glows, it gives off no heat, only light. Unlike the Dream plane there's no emotion, only images juxtaposed together, and all there for Jim to read.]

[He doesn't pick and choose the light or the dark, Jim's earned more than cherry picking. Everything pours in, a barrage of images. Jenny's moving in. Kyle looks barely twenty two, messing with her bags. Todd's shouting at him. Alan's there, sorting it out. It switches. He's being held by the scruff of his neck, and Jenny's just sitting there, relaxing on the grass, no less beautiful in the uniform than she is out of it. This time, the picture shifts violently: Kyle's standing in the kitchen, furious at something, she's there soothing him, he's her angel, she'll always be there for him.]

[Always.]

[Back and forth. She's leaving, Alan's come to get her things. She's got her powers back, she's at his side, in space, and she's telling him he's going to be a father. He's ecstatic. He almost proposes on the spot, but she leaves with a promise. He'll have everything he dreamed of: a family, a job, a Corps.]

[Soon.]

[He's older, the weight on his shoulders fits better than it did when he was a kid, he's walking back into the apartment and she's - with someone else.]

[It's there that the image shatters and Kyle pulls back, breathing hard. Not her death. That's his, and Alan's. He can't give that to anyone.]

[Jim's learned not to flinch away from what Kyle's survived. The key word there, survived. He's not a fragile person, and no matter how much Jim wants to protect him (he wants to protect everyone, it's one of the oldest instincts he's even got) he knows that it's not honestly needed.

But this boils down to need versus want, it's what friends do for each other. They know you don't need them, and they stand there anyway, helping you weather the storm.

And it is a storm, he watches it unfold, and he knows Kyle well enough, has spent enough time in his head in the Dreaming, that although there's no emotional accompaniment to the images in the crystal, Jim knows or can guess or fill in the blanks for most of it.

It's one more thing that's happened, that hurts. Jim closes his eyes and swallows when Kyle pulls away, though his mouth is dry.]

Jesus.

[He never knew pain that deep until Spock showed him what it felt like to lose his people, his planet. Vulcans feel a lot more deeply than humans do. He has no idea what Kyle's excuse is, unless he's hiding pointy ears somewhere.

But no, that's a cynical, darkly amused thought. Designed to deflect. Jim wets his lips.]

And then she died.

She comes back.

[He averts his gaze, wraps his arms around himself, and fights the chaos of hurt and love and heartbreak. She'd made her choice, she'd died a hero, and that should have been it, but no, the Black Lanterns had dragged her back. Used her. No matter what he'd said to her corpse he'd known it was her.]

Dead things are supposed to stay that way. [He looks up, meeting Jim's eyes, not sure what he wants to convey - he's happy Jim's alive, like Donna is. But death is always... final.] In my world, people... tend to come back wrong.

[He wonders about that, there's a sense of... almost guilt, in Kyle's words. Jim exhales, tightens his grip briefly on Kyle's leg just above his knee, and then lets go.]

In my world, they don't come back at all.

[It's wry, a little bit of self-directed cynicism.]

[He knows. Christ, he knows and he hates that they have the same wounds, the same demons hanging over them. He wants to pull Jim close, hold him, soothe away all of his jagged edges, clean off the engine grease and the blood, and polish him so he shines even brighter, but Kyle settles for taking Jim's wrist, and looking at him in complete wonder.]

If anyone deserved that second chance, it's you, James.

[Jim shakes off his hand before he even realizes he's doing it, it's instinctive, a bad reaction to the wrong kind of praise and acknowledgement and he has the time to think what a fucking parallel this is to what he said to Kyle in the dreaming (the stars are all in envy of him) before his brain just crashes and closes it out.

You don't know. You don't know what it costs me to stand here, to survive when I lost so many people--

It's in the tangled snarl of his shoulders as his body language shifts and threatens to collapse on itself, but the truth of the matter is, Kyle does know. Better than anyone, and Jim's sorry for that, too.

Then, heedless of their surroundings he steps in between Kyle's knees and reaches for him, fingers curled against either side of his neck, thumbs brushing past his jaw as he pulls him in for a kiss.]

[It's a terrible, terrible mirror of what Jim's said to him and he realises it too late. Bites his lip in worry. He didn't mean it flippantly, it was careful, genuine, and he knows how many have fought and bled and died so they can both be alive, and have this. Whatever this is.]

[They thought he deserved it. What's so hard to accept about that? Kyle doesn't know, doesn't think he'll ever understand. Afraid of what it might mean if he gets there, thinks like they do - did.]

[But Jim's breathing the same air as he is, and Kyle pulls him closer, almost skin to skin, and kisses him back, desperate.]

[He's the one who backs away from it after a time, his fingers tight against Kyle's knees, and he clears his throat as he steps back into his own space.]

So. Dance with anyone fun yet?

[He can afford a teasing smile.]

Looking for a dance partner? I'm pretty sure you've already got everyone out there.

[That earns a Look.]

In case you hadn't noticed, I am pretty charming.

[... Which. Brings him right back to Clara, and Jim rubs a hand across his mouth in speculation.]

Are you going to be okay with her?

[He nearly quips, but something in Jim's body language stops him. Jim'd blanked out briefly.]

Yeah. [He was used to it, sadly.] Are you?

[Jim snorts, shakes his head.]

I'm kind of a bad drunk.

[He's not drunk, but he's not sober, no matter how he's acting. He's got demons, too, and they only seem to be louder and more numerous now. He didn't have as much on his shoulders back when he was really free to go out and get trashed.]

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