( closed )

[imaginate]

Characters: Kyle & various.
Date: Catch-all log for November.
Location: Around.
Situation: Various.
Warnings/Rating: None yet.
Notes: [Action] or prose are all good, if you'd like a specific setup, kindly ping!

Comments

[imaginate]

A mechanic? I don't know any.

[He steps over, examines the bike as though it holds a few more clues.]

He mention anything else? Which shop he's from..?

[jirk]

Metal Sector?

[He shrugs.]

He wasn't chatty.

[imaginate]

[Kyle just frowns.]

Dinah used to work at one, but if she wanted this sent here shouldn't it have been—

[He rubs his chin, suddenly worried.]

Ring, anybody missing?

UNABLE TO LOCATE AGENT OF THE REACH.

[Kyle sighs. No matter how often he'd changed it to Jaime's name, the ring stubbornly hated the scarab and if it could have emotions, would probably be glad it was gone. (How'd they managed to keep a ceasefire again?)]

You think you could help me finish this? I know jack squat about bikes.

[He's more tense than he was, but it hasn't quite hit yet.]

[jirk]

[Jim frowns slightly.]

Yeah, 'course. I owned one back in Iowa. A couple hundred years more advanced, but hey. I can figure it out. Later. What's up?

[imaginate]

[He shakes his head, wanders over and slots himself in Jim's arms.]

What's up is we just lost another, and I guess he wanted me to have this.

[jirk]

[He sighs, and rubs a hand across Kyle's shoulder in a gesture meant to comfort.]

Sorry to hear it. What do you need?

[imaginate]

[He accepts, though he takes that hand and squeezes it, gently. It's not needed that badly, not right now, he's still going through the process of really accepting that somebody else he knows is gone (home?). Dimly, he thinks of Bianca, and makes a mental note to talk to her.]

He was taking care of an egg, with Clara, might want to check on it.

[A pause, and he smiles, wan.]

Jaime. Good kid. Origin story a little too close to mine, you know?

[jirk]

[Given the fact that Kyle's origin story isn't something he'd wish on anyone, much less an even younger kid, Jim's expression tightens briefly, and he lifts Kyle's hand and kisses the back of it.]

I'm pretty sure I can get it running. Think we should?

[imaginate]

[His gaze falls on the motorcycle: it's half-finished, no doubt Jim could not only fix it but make several improvements, and Jaime's not here to see the result. This place, it does something even worse when you lose someone, and it's easier still to imagine it taking everything, and worse still, bringing them back so he can lose them all over again.]

[I've been here too long, he thinks, with a jolt, and tightens his grip on Jim. It's too easy to wake up one morning and not sense him there, or in the house, or anywhere--]

[He fights it, and smiles, brittle, up at Jim.]

You know I love it when you smell like engine grease. [A gentle nudge. Go on. It'll give you something to do.]

[jirk]

[Jim gives the bike another critical look, already figuring out the logistics and details in his mind, what he'll need to do or buy, the tools he needs. Jim's no mechanic, but he knows enough to get by. Sometimes it seems that's the motto of his life. Enough to get by. Luck more than skill, and what skills he has are always second best. He hasn't even thought of the 'Fleet's survival course in years, but he remembers crossing the finish line after the victor.

Food for thought.]

Careful, I'll start rolling around in it. And engine grease, for the record, never comes out of bedsheets.

[imaginate]

[Innocently:] Who said anything about bedsheets?

[jirk]

Tablecloths. Upholstery fabric. Wood. Drains.

[Really he can continue onward...]

[imaginate]

[Kyle laughs.]

I have a ring that can clean and sterilise pretty much anything. Now, is that a warning... or an offer?

[jirk]

Carpe diem, sweetheart. It's whatever you want it to be.

[Jim runs his hand along the fame of the bike, and then sits back on the couch. Every once in a while, he regrets giving his away in Iowa. But they're made to be ridden.

Jim twists his mouth off to one side. Then,]

If I get out of here before you do, I'll look for you. You know that, right?

[imaginate]

Oh he speaks Latin now, without an accent.

[Kyle straightens and leans on Jim, not so much needing comfort as much as preferring to be as near him as physically possible.]

Yeah, I know.

[Leaving is not something Kyle likes to think about, even if he's made a few vague plans. Most of them involve yelling at Dr. Palmer. He suspects (or maybe he knows, deep down) he'll go on when Jim disappears, an iron will is useful for that much.]

[Quietly-] But what if you were brought back, and didn't remember? Or I was?

[jirk]

We'd deal with it.

[Jim reaches up to thread his fingers in Kyle's hair.]

It'd depend on what timeline I was from. I've got all my notes and stuff, that shit'd be hard to fake, and I already know about the existence of alternate realities and the ways your life can change from one event to the next. But if I was nineteen? You'd probably want to strangle me.

[God knows he looks back on those days with some recently-gained wisdom and is nothing but annoyed at himself. He was a prick back then.]

[imaginate]

[Kyle makes a small, amused noise.]

Probably.

[He twines his fingers with Jim's, and silently regards a spot on the wall, where he'd started painting some kind of flower and never finished.]

If it was me I'd give him a choice. Look at what's stored on the memory crystal, and then decide which way he wants to go. Then again, I'm... a little less likely to freak out.

[jirk]

For the record, it'd feel weird as hell.

[He sighs, ruffles Kyle's hair and then shifts so he can drape his legs across Kyle's lap.]

Knowing things are possible or have happened doesn't mean lightning strikes twice. I'd probably think you were crazy.

[imaginate]

No, but I'd want to know about the possibilities.

[Him and Sora. Him and the future. Guy lived every day as it came, but Kyle was buried in a world of possibilites, and forks in the road. He'd want to know, to pick, however badly he might react at the time.]

Prepare for it, in some cases.

[jirk]

[Jim tips a hand to one side.]

So I'd tell him. You. Any recommendations for how?

[imaginate]

[Shakes his head.]

I'd leave that to your discretion. He'd take it hard, but he'd come around. All Kyle Rayners learn to roll with it, we're chill that way.

[jirk]

[He wrinkles his nose.]

I don't think I could even do a-- thing with some other version of you.

[In which 'thing' is a handy stand-in for 'relationship'.]

[imaginate]

[Kyle leans against him, curling up, squeezes his hand.]

I've changed. This - version of me. I don't think another me could.

[I'm yours.]

[jirk]

[He frowns thoughtfully. That's not quite it, for him, and for some reason he feels compelled to clarify.]

It's more like... it'd feel like manipulation, even if I wasn't trying to.

[And then he laughs, drops a hand across Kyle's chest.]

Change is all about will, huh? You could do it. You can do anything.

[imaginate]

To me, it's telling the whole truth.

[He nods once, satisfied that it's the words he was looking for, and shifts uncomfortably, against Jim.]

You keep saying it and there's so much else that - [suddenly, he pulls free, sits up, and frowns.] What was I going to say? That I can't really do anything. [He gives Jim a curious, surprised look.] Fuck that. I'm awesome. [He prods Jim's chest, not to hurt, but to add to the point.] James, did you know I brought down the Black Circle single-handed? Or that I stopped a bloody civil war without raising a finger? Or that I waltzed into Psion territory completely undetected - I glow, by the way, no mean feat - and saved the whole universe? Or that I beat an assassin by the fucking Warlords of Okaara, not just once, but about five times?

[Deep breath.]

How am I not one of the best at what I do? Everyone who loves me believes it but me.