expiationnet | OKCINDR POST #3

OKCINDR POST #3

Ever wanted to have CR with a character and wasn't sure how to get them to cross paths? Wanted a dating app so you can hook up with hot people? Wanted to just find friends because you're a lonely bastard?

With the update of the tablets and the apps, we now have a dating / friendship app called OKCINDR! Players can use it as they please for the two months that it's up -- just imagine that they're profiles to swipe right on and everything. The idea is to encourage CR that may be difficult to get with characters who may or may not be interested in events / posts / logs / other network posts.

So, on September 3rd, characters randomly look back at their tablets to see the following:

OKCINDR PROFILE RESET #3
PLEASE RESET PROFILE

This month, if players reset their profile, they will have a list of...questions...to answer:

What do you look for in a "relationship?"
Do you see through time?
When you stare into the void, is it the correct universe's infinite abyss that stares back?
Please define: existential crisis
How do you justify the color pink?
Does the data not corrupt exquisitely
Do do do does does does ththth e
Does the
Does the
Dies
data
done one one zero one

Additionally, this month, misfires on the meme are much more likely, whether it's a character who wouldn't post their own profile, or comments on other top levels.

Players, of course, are able to ignore this message. However, if a character wouldn't fill it out but a player would like to participate... the profile mysteriously resets itself. There may even be responses sent from Character A to Character B without Character A actually doing anything, if you'd like! This is a completely opt-in scenario! But for players who would like to participate fill out the post:

network profile

Character_Name

@username

ABOUT_ME

CODING

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        <img src="URL HERE" style="width:100%;height:auto;">
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ABOUT_ME
 
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</div><div style="margin:3px auto 0 auto;width:280px;font-size:8px;letter-spacing:1px;text-align:right;"><a href="https://tessisamess.insanejournal.com/155095.html" style="color:#999;text-decoration:none;">CODING</a></div></lj-raw>

If you'd like to for shits and giggles, here's some notifications that may be used:

Name (@username) followed you

Name (@username) unfollowed you

Name (@username) blocked you

Have fun! Code credit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Do you?

Not sure what there is to say.
You clearly have an opinion, Bones, so out with it.

[ See this is why he hasn't brought it up. To anyone, really, but especially his best friend. Everything Bones is probably going to say (well, almost everything, probably; he did have a way of surprising him), Jim has thought himself at one point or another; and hearing it externalized is something he's been avoiding. So...not that far off the usual order of things. ]

"Not sure" my ass. See, that kind of horseshit is exactly what I mean!

( Maybe it's a good thing they're distant, that Leonard has to order his thoughts before he can commit them to text. That Jim won't see the hurt gnawing at him, feeling lied to like an outsider, a reminder of the gulf of time between them. )

You and Spock and this whole clandestine lovers business. When did it start? Why?

[ Somehow, Jim doesn’t think he told me we’re soulmates across all of space-time and I believed him is gonna win him any points here. ]

What do you want me to say? It is what it is. We’re not exactly the type to send out gilded invitations.

[ Ah, there, finally a direct reference. Well, they’re not on the public network anymore, so he has more of an incentive to be honest. Still, part of him wishes they were having this discussion in person - even if another part of him is glad Bones doesn’t have the opportunity to read his body language, the way anxiety buzzes along his skin. Jim’s got a helluva poker face, but it doesn’t do much against Bones. It never has. ]

Don’t call him that, it’s not like that. He’s not a notch on the bedpost.

[ A beat, before his next response. He’s not sure how much he’s allowed to say and how much is Spock’s private…Vulcan business. ]

Shortly before you arrived. But I guess you could say it was always heading for this.

What do you mean ‘why’?
He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s one of the bravest men I’ve ever known.
He’s handsome. You’ve got eyes.
I could keep going.

[ If he keeps chewing on his thumb like that though, he won’t have a nail. He knows why it’s nerve-wracking - because it matters, Bones’ approval, knowledge of the not-so-distant future notwithstanding. ]

No, instead you're now the type to hide and lie to me about it. I guess there's really a first time for everything.

( It's low, he won't pretend otherwise. Something about shortly before you arrived sits ill with him, confirmation that he's been in the dark, not trusted, since he got here.

Another thought occurs to him, as equally unsettling. )

Jesus, Jim, how long have you been pining for him? Back home? What about Uhura, or is she just collateral in this...limerence?

Alright, pump the hate brakes. What, was I supposed to schedule an appointment, have a sit down?

I’m not hiding it, I’m just not advertising. The AI does enough of that on its own.

[ You never asked, Jim doesn’t say, though he’s sorely tempted. It’s true, though; instead of talking to him, Bones had thought it better to approach the subject by putting him on blast on OKCindr. Two can play this game, and damn if they both can’t fight dirty given half a chance.

Then again, that’s the problem with fighting your best friend. They know all the weak spots. ]

You asked when it started, but nothing worth talking about even happened until after the infection.

[ The accusation that follows hits harder, though. If Bones is looking to rile him, well, anger tastes better than anxiety at the back of his throat. ]

Are you kidding? You seriously have to ask me that?

[ You think that little of me? Well. Maybe there really is a first time for everything. ]

First of all, this has nothing to do with Spock. Our Spock, I mean. There was no secret, baleful pining. Christ, Bones, don’t you think you’d know if there was?

Secondly, Uhura. You think that wasn’t the first thing that crossed my mind? Spock and I wasn’t even a passing thought in my brain until after he cleared that up. In his universe, they were never together.

Bottom line, this isn’t some placeholder fantasy bullshit. I care about him. He cares about me.

I would have thought you would have known me better than to think I could ever use somebody like that.

If I never said anything, would you have even broached it?

( Such a question is one he might have been afraid to ask, but his own anger burns too hot, snarled up with the inexplicable hurt, the anxious feeling of betrayal. The infection is another sore spot, the source of that fear; left in the dark, scrambling for answers with just a note, and the struggle in Jim's voice. It felt, too much, like that hellish period of waiting only a few years ago, before he had to unwrap his best friend from that body bag.

Bones knows, knows they'd be better off if he just shut the comm off from the start, if he'd waited, instead of this explosion. Shame prickles up his spine, a mess of guilt for having lashed out, for doubting. Jim isn't that tomcatting Academy student anymore, and hasn't been for a long while now.

Still, he can't let this go. Not yet, stuck on Jim's explanations and not at all assuaged. )

Oh, so he cleared that right up, did he.

What about his Jim back home? Where does he factor into all this? Maybe Spock's not a placeholder, but what about you, Jim?

[ There’s so much he could say. I didn’t know how, I still don’t or I wanted time to understand it myself. Or maybe You’re the one person in the entire universe I wanted to tell and a part of me was deeply afraid of your disapproval, and now that I have it I don’t know what to do.

But Jim doesn’t say any of that, because this is Bones and he should know better than anyone- ]

That’s not how we operate.

[ It’s not, really. Bones backs him into a corner or vice versa, but they never approach each other like civilized beings. At least, if they did, it’s not like that in Jim’s time. Oh what change a few years could bring.

He’s going through that change now, albeit with a different catalyst. But he’s not from Bones’ time, and maybe that’s the problem here; the friction Jim doesn’t even know how to articulate. Bones knows him front to back, but he doesn’t quite know Bones the same way anymore. He doesn’t know what happened with Bones’ point in time, but it’s clearly not a bright future. ]

We haven’t gone public. We haven’t told anyone.

[ He knows it’s gonna make it worse. He knows - but even if he can’t bring himself to fess up to the bond, he does have to rip this littler bandaid off first. ]

Tendi knows. We didn’t tell her, she…walked in on something.

[ PG-13, but if Bones wants to believe Jim’s out being an intergalactic whore, well, he’s too hurt to disabuse him of that at the moment. ]

You’re serious? Yeah, he did. You should know him better than that too, Bones.

[ The fact that he doesn’t really hurts. More than Jim had already been afraid of, and a part of him wonders - is this what Bones really thinks? Or is he just pissed? The worst part is, it might be a little bit of both.

And then he hits a nail on the head and Jim’s enraged again; outrage on Spock’s behalf, on his own, all riding up a current of sadanxiousgutted. ]

You think he’s the kind of person that would do that to me?
You think I would let him?

( They used to, and he sure remembers it: the push-pull, back and forth. Before they warped off into the black; before they just, grew the Hell up, or changed, or both, settling into the easy camaraderie they've known for years. That Leonard has known for years, a realization that comes to him suddenly. It serves to bank a little of that fury, if not the underpinning ache.

The drink they shared – that he shared with Jim back home, he amends to himself – seems farther away than ever. )

Not for a long while, we haven't. Not for something serious.

( Hearing that Tendi knows, even inadvertently, still adds insult to injury, but Jim must know that. What else can Leonard say though? Clarify the hurt? Spit out another venomous barb, just to be damn sure he's not the only one upset here?

He doesn't say anything, not until those questions come up on his screen. As if to contrast Jim's anger, his own feels as if it's been siphoned away, leaving him numb.

I don't know. I don't know and I'm worried about you, goddammit. )

Just answer the question.
What about his Jim?

[ Jim’s not there yet, still settling into the routine of his five year mission. Or he was, before all of this. He died and came back, but he’s still in the running phase - running out to the stars, up and away, because it’s been nothing but insanity for years now. Aldrip is just the next crisis - though the way life has gone here has given Jim breathing room in a way he’s never had before, forced to confront some of these things.

Like this, right now. Forced to confront it, frustrated, working through - well, shit, all of it. ]

How long? You want to talk serious. What happened out there?

[ He doesn’t mean for it to hit low, but he’s pissed and sad and and and. All of the above.

Just more reason not to mention the mental bond, but that’s probably not going to win Jim any points down the line. No win scenario is really coming back to bite him in the ass, here. ]

He doesn’t know Spock wants more.

[ Which sounds so much worse, oh god. Of course Bones would get right to the heart of an issue Jim has been struggling with himself, amidst all the ones he’s managed to resolve at least halfway decently. ]

I know how it sounds. But he would never do that to me.

[ They both know they’re the ones from the fucked up universe, the dark timeline. It just makes Jim feel worse, the implication that he’s a second-rate prize, to be used and cast aside at the soonest opportunity. ]

Don't change the subject.

( They agreed, hadn't they, not to talk about Jim's future that's all Leonard's present; the reason he came to Aldrip rattled, smelling of smoke and phaser-fire. Now's not the time, but it needs to come sooner rather than later, because he can't carry it all by himself, not anymore. )

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Jim. It isn't about how it sounds, it's what it damn well looks like. Good intentions or not.

( Bones would bridle viciously against such a title if he knew, the way he had when the Ambassador crossed into their universe, when they were pronounced a splinter off the Vulcan's own "Prime" universe. As if the horrors Nero wrought were all that defined them, that all the stardust that knitted them together was wrong somehow, instead of just different. Different paths taken, all with their own heartaches and losses, yes, but also with joy, with compassion, with love.

Christ, he misses home so much. )

None of us are infallible, Jim. Not even him.

Talking works both ways.
What can't you tell me?

[ Because it's not that he won't, is it, it's that he can't. Jim can read that easily enough, well-versed in Bones' idiosyncrasies. Whatever he's not saying is heavy - that much, sure, Jim knows - but it's taking its toll. Did they agree, or did Bones clam up and Jim let him, because they didn't have the time, then, to do this? Fuck. ]

It doesn't look any worse than it sounds, don't give me that. You don't understand, but more to the point, I don't think you want to understand.

[ Yes, he's still hurt by all the implications - Bones hasn't exactly been gentle with them. That Jim is panting after it badly enough to be absolutely pathetic and let Spock use him as a surrogate for what he really wants - yeah, thinking about it is just making him angry again.

And in that deep, masochistic part of himself - yeah, maybe there's a part of him that worries it's true. Spock certainly believes that he's enough, but what if his Jim showed up tomorrow? Dark timeline twenty-eight year old mess doesn't really win out there.

If Bones wanted to argue about it - hell, he's the only person that can argue about it. He's the only one who lived it, who really gets it - but Jim knows it's true. It's an empirical fact that their universe is wrong. Off course, off kilter. Does it make them less? Maybe only in comparison, and that's the problem. ]

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not an idiot and I don't just think with my dick.
I know him better than you think. He's not lying to me.

I'm not having two different conversations at once.

( Leave it alone. "Please" goes unspoken, tired and so, so frustrated. )

You're right. I don't understand. I don't understand what possessed you to want to fulfill something he couldn't have at home.

( Like you're a replacement, he bites back, feeling like the disappointment and despair will choke him. It's too cruel to give a voice to it, too entangled in his own existential dread.

Healer or no, a miserably mean part of his soul wouldn't mind throttling his Prime!Kirk, wherever the Hell he is.

Leonard looks up from the comm – phone, whatever – to find he's wended his way back to the house without having meant to. Dammit. )

So you're the only one who gets to keep things to themselves and not get strung up for it, got it.

[ Look, they cracked open this can of worms, and there's only so many Jim can stop from spilling out, for his part in it.

But Bones, whew boy, he's throwing Jim a doozy. The shocked beat of silence between his messages speaks volumes, and Jim's heartbeat is pounding in his ears when he finally does reply. He hasn't punched the tree in the backyard in a while, maybe he should, Christ. ]

You genuinely think I'm that wretched?
And you think Spock is capable of that kind of cruelty?

If you honestly believe that's what's going on here, I don't know what else to say to you.
The rest of it would probably melt your brain.

[ Ah, there's the anger again, mixed with a cacophany of humilitationgriefanxiety. God, he can't remember the last time he fought like this with Bones. Maybe never, not like this.

Where is Jim? Disoriented, that's for sure. He was working on a broken fax machine, in between writing bits of code for the next Dark Web update - but now he's pacing in the backyard. ]

( He weighs the idea of turning on his heel and stalking right back down to the dunes for all of a few seconds, then casts it aside. Jim might not even be here– a thought the universe clearly hears, because Leonard can see Jim out back from the kitchen, when he gets there to fill a glass of water and cast uselessly around for aspirin that isn't there.

They don't fight like this, not lashing out and cutting deep, pissed at each other past the point of reason. Guilt and grief taste like bile in the back of his throat.

The brief glance he gives his phone is a mistake, and he shoves it away across the counter. Shoves himself away from the counter too, furious and heartbroken, and making one Hell of a racket when he clatters his way out the back door and into the sunshine again, facing Jim across the small yard. )

They killed everyone in Medbay, ( Bones blurts out without meaning to, looking shocked and stricken as if he's caught himself by surprise. )

Ships hit us like a swarm of wasps. Punctured the hull as easy as wet tissue paper, dropped in shock troops and annihilated whoever they could find, as quick as they could. The crew were just, they were everywhere, Jim.

( All his colleagues, his staff, his friends, those he knew for years and relied on, who relied on him in turn. The teams he was meant to rendezvous with on Deck Six, and found them all gone instead, still and silent in death, nothing to be done for anyone. )

[ Jim’s working himself into something of a state.

Is it really so surprising? He takes criticism like a knife to the chest every time, even when he tried his damnedest not to show it. He’s never been enough, his entire goddamn life, but then for a while - for a while he was. Or he thought he was, was convinced that he was. If not for everyone, then for his crew, at least. For Bones, most of all, his best friend, the person who had stuck by him when he was an asshole. Who’d cuffed him on the head and helped set him straight and -

As Jim has been reminded many a time, alcohol doesn’t make people lie. Words said in anger aren’t lies, either. There’s a part of Bones, however small, that’s thought these things. And Jim had no idea what to do with that. How to swallow it down like caster oil, because the one person that’s always been on his side, even if Bones disagreed (and hell, they disagreed often enough) - the rift between their positions has never been this wide. Or this personal.

Jim startles, having paused to rest his head against the catio. One of the strays, an orange tabby with a mangled ear, is pawing at him through the chicken wire. It brings a ghost of his smile to his lips, touching the pad of his finger to the cat’s paw. The catio, which he built for Spock, because he gives a fuck -

Jim’s not expecting the state Bones is in. There’s something…wild and wheeling, about it all. The confession bursts out of him and it’s not what Jim might have expected. More harsh words?

Maybe these are the harshest. ]

What?

[ It’s not that he didn’t hear him, it’s that he didn’t understand. Doesn’t compute. Doesn’t make sense. Jim stares, both of them caught in the unexpected nature of the moment. ] Jesus, Bones. That’s -

[ It’s not a firefight, as they’ve been vaguely referencing it thus far, it’s a slaughter. He can read that much from Bones’ expression.

And the dark timeline gets darker.

He doesn’t ask are you okay? How could he be? Especially when they have no way of knowing how it ended. The beat of silence pervades, before Jim gently asks: ] Who? Who did you - who did you see?

[ Maybe if Bones isn’t the only one carrying this weight, it’ll stop crushing him. As angry, hurt, and upset as Jim is, and even if their friendship turns out not to be what Jim thought it was - he’d still give this man both his damn kidneys. ]

Edited (mobile tagging at work RIP) 2024-09-17 22:43 (UTC)

( This is exactly why he hadn't wanted to talk about it now, not when they were already arguing past one another, mired in all their hurt and anger. He might've held himself together better if they left it for later, comported himself like the experienced medical officer he is, and not like a raw, suppurating wound.

His hands are steady as ever, fingers flexing and grasping at his sides, but the breath he takes, desperate for calm, hitches. Fuck. )

Don't- ( the warning goes swallowed up by a bubble of grief in his throat, broken by a cough he catches in the crook of his arm. Don't ask him that, they've strayed too far already, this isn't about him, Goddammit...

The names spill out anyway, a somber list of doctors, nurses, paramedics, the better part of his department just. Gone. Those crewmen and women he'd stepped over and around in that dimly lit corridor, searching for someone, anyone still alive. Then Rodriguez, the only one and only for a minute, hollow-eyed and gasping his last, untouched by the scorching phaser blasts and dying anyway.

Leonard's gaze is fixed on the catio behind Jim, his idle hands since clasped behind his back in a kind of loose parade rest. It's its own kind of distance, a grasping at all the tattered fragments of his self control. )

Spock had gone on ahead, to ensure the corridor was clear. When it wasn't, and those bastards came running, we lit out of there as fast as we could. Ship's intertial dampeners must've given out, because were thrown off our asses and into the bulkhead when Enterprise started listing.

( When she was dying, is what he realizes now. )

I must have hit my head, because everything went dark, and then I was here. Right where you found me.

[ It's a big, fat mess, that's what it is. Instead of talking about their feelings, they let them bottle up and boil over and now - well. Now they'll have to find their way out of this, somehow, but at least it's out in the open?

None of that makes Jim feel any better, really, but maybe if he repeats it enough, it'll have some kind of effect.

At the end of the day, though, it's two separate issues, and one is certainly more pressing than the other. Jim stares, a sort of buzzing making itself known in his ears. He doesn't want to hear this. He can't bear not to. There's a hopelessness and a grief to Bones' demeanor that's inarguable, a list of names a mile long and probably more, if the damage to the ship is as severe as Bones is describing. And if the Enterprise was listing sideways in deep space - if the inertial dampeners were offline and they couldn't jump to warp -

For every name Bones lists - saying them out loud, making them real - Jim is aware they're both hearing three more. Over 400 crew on board, and Bones - very well may be the only survivor. If you can call this existence survival. ]

God. Fuck. [ Jim doesn't think borrowing Spock's turn of phrase I grieve with thee will win him any points at the moment, despite the fact that it's way better than I'm sorry, but he's equally sure he doesn't need to say it. Bones knows, of course he knows. Bones is clearly bleeding over it - has been, this entire time, without saying anything. The least they could have done is gotten blackout fucking drunk together, for whatever that's worth.

Startlingly little, probably, but what else can they do? Tragedy after tragedy, it never gets any better for them. Two years. They get two more years from Jim's point in time, and on Jim's birthday, everybody dies. ] You don't know - who they were, or what they wanted?

[ No matter their current state of affairs, Jim finds himself moving forward, closing the distance between them. Maybe he's not supposed to, after the hissing, spitting fight they've been having - but when has Jim ever done what he's supposed to? Bones is in pain, that much is evident from the fact that he's clinging to parade rest to try and stopper it.

There's nothing Jim can say. Nothing either of them can do. There's no way to find out what happened, if anyone survived. There's only the monumental, swallowing loss opening up like a pit in front of them. Jim touches Bones' shoulder, an offering. Maybe he'll get punched for it - he doesn't rightly know anymore.

But he offers it anyway. ]

Hey. Come here. [ Jim's hand squeezes, offering a steady place for Bones to land. One of them has to stay upright, if the other is shaking apart - and by the looks of it, Bones needs to. ]

( Jim's expression is everything he can't bear to face, but Bones slides his gaze up to meet his anyway. This is always the worst part of delivering terrible news – and he's had to do it plenty of times as a doctor, speaking to families, to friends, to crew. When the light of hope winks out in their eyes, the realization, the understanding that comes, and then the upswell of certain grief.

And, too, the need for answers.

Does it matter who did it? He's run it over in his head for months by himself, as if it were the post-mortem of a tricky case. Starfleet was asked to help, and so they went, and they were ambushed. Bones shakes his head, a curt motion. )

Not anyone we've seen before.

( Had Jim offered a Vulcan sentiment, Bones might've walked. Or stayed, perhaps long enough to deck him the way Jim's body language says he might be expecting, with that caution in his steps. It isn't Spock's words he cares anything for right now, only Jim's. 'Fuck'.

Yeah. About sums it up.

Even then, even with the wide thread of pessimism woven into his very soul, Bones isn't so sure they're all lost. Not them. Not when they've faced so much more in the past and made it through. Bones is here, now, and it counts for something, dammit. It has to. It has to. He'll wake up there again, probably insensate from a head injury but no less alive, hauled off by Spock and fished from a Kelvin Pod with the rest of the crew... )

I'm fine. You're the one who's had the shock here.

( It's the usual scold, a reflexive rasp as he automatically reaches out to Jim in turn.

Jim's hand is warm through his sleeve, his grip grounding Bones where he stands. They've seen each other at their worst, so he doesn't even think to be self-conscious about the tears that are finally falling. )

[ Jim gets it, at a base level. Saying it out loud makes it real, makes it tangible in a way keeping it to yourself doesn't. Then you can hold on to the fantasy of ignorance; it is bliss, after all. He tries not to react, because he's not the one who had to live through it but - God, of all the things he could have expected, this was not on his bingo card for this afternoon. Bones' gaze is too gentled at the edges - Jim almost wishes they were still fighting, argument set to the wayside for the time being. It would be easier than this, easier than trying to tamp down on a swell of emotion so strong it threatens to shake everything down to the foundation.

It doesn't matter, but at the same time, it's the most important thing there is. But there's no information - there's nothing to be done. This has been Jim's problem from the jump with this place. Everything the do seems to spin the wheels, and things get harder, they get worse, they always get worse -

And for what? They don't even know. They may never, depending on how long they're stuck here...or if they ever escape. Why?

Jim doesn't believe in no-win scenarios, but Aldrip has been difficult. This, too, is another blow. An impossible situation, and it's getting harder to find the one where they win. Or maybe they do win, in whatever fucked up configuration their universe deems acceptable - but when is the cost finally too high?

Jim never did think he'd live past thirty.

The thought almost makes him laugh, which is incredibly inappropriate - and moreover, he doesn't think the gallows humor will go over well. It's not funny, it's devastating - if he did laugh, he's sure it would come out sounding hard, wrong. Instead, Jim slips into crisis mode; a Captain's hat he doesn't really feel like he deserves to wear, at the moment, but for better or for worse, it's his. He might not be the captain Bones deserves; hell, he might not even be the one he wants. But he's the one he's got. ]

If you're fine, I'm the Queen of Antarctica. [ Jim's grip is solid, firm, and he coaxes Bones into a loose hug that turns firmer when it becomes clear Bones isn't going to push him away. There are tears, wetness that Jim idly notes sinking into the collar of his shirt, but he doesn't call attention to it, hand fisting in the back of Bones' shirt, drawing him in. ] You made it. You're here - whatever that may mean. Maybe...maybe they'll show up, too.

[ Maybe if Jim says it enough, eventually, it'll become true. ]

( This is what he needed when he got here, dry humor and hope and the solid embrace of his best friend, the closest he has to a brother in the whole damn universe. Bones-the-dog was a perfectly good secret keeper and confessor, like all dogs, but there'd been no absolution in his soft brown eyes, just the endless adoration Leonard wasn't sure he deserved. Not the longer he held silent, a slow-seeping poison.

At least if he were back there, he could do something. Anything. Bones snuffles wetly against Jim's shoulder, whatever he says lost to the muffle of his shirt. Then he squeezes Jim tight again before he pulls back, thumbing away the tears from his eyes, wiping at the tracks on his cheeks. )

Your Highness, ( he says sardonically, buttoning his lip against the reminder, I have had months longer to square with this, you know, and curls a hand easily at Jim's nape, at the fine feather of dirty blond hair. Because he isn't, after all, the only one in need of comfort here. ) You know as well as I that we don't take any shit lyin' down.

[ Something loosens at the edges of the pain Jim can sense off Bones, a kind of relief. Even if it doesn't change anything about the actual nature of the situation - of being removed from everything mid-fight, the uncertainty, the agony of the unknown - it's easier for not holding it in. A burden shared is indeed a burden halved, and he's grateful that even with the rest of their disagreement, the discontent he hadn't known was growing untamed beneath the soil - Bones still trusted him with shouldering this alongside him.

Jim squeezes Bones again, letting him pull back when he decides to. His hand remains at Bones' back, releasing the tight hold into a flattened palm against Bones' shoulderblade. He doesn't say anything about the tears, doesn't draw attention to them - his own don't come yet, mostly from the shock. It hasn't fully sunk in, and how can it? It's too big, too monumental, and Bones is right in his assessment - he's had months to come to terms with it. Jim...needs some time.

Bones' hand is warm and firm against the nape of his neck, and Jim spreads his fingers against Bones' shoulderblade. Even with everything, he hopes that there's still this, underneath. Still brotherhood, their friendship - but the uncertainty hurts, too. It's all so much. ]

No, we sure as hell don't. [ Jim offers a hard smile, sadness softening the edges. ] And neither will they. We've been through a lot, our crew and we're fighters. They won't take it, either.

[ But still, Jim's brow furrows in worry, threatening a permanent etching. He's sure this is all Bones has been thinking about for months, and now Jim is sure he'll be much the same. What if - Uhura? Scotty? Sulu, Chekov, Spock, Rand - he shouldn't think like that, but it's like asking him not to think about a pink elephant. ]

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