and wasn't it a long way down? [open-ish]

[goldn_boy]

WHO Jim Kirk (TOS) and OPEN-ish
WHAT Hunger week and magic windows are not mixy things
WHERE Around, mostly CGM
WHEN This week; days in comments
NOTES There are threads for specific days; feel free to tag wherever you think your character would be likely to or make a new one. Multiple threads welcome, etc. Sorry about the tl;dr! Contact me if you

Comments

Friady night

[with_discipline]

T'Pol had never been good about hiding her emotions. It had made joining Starfleet easy; she'd blended in where other Vulcans stood out, and were punished for it. She had never truly embrace emotion, but she had embraced its usefulness.

Now, though, she was desperate for the Vulcan discipline and logic her mother had tried so hard to teach her. T'Pol only had one mirror, an it had turned on her the night before last. At first she'd thrown a blanket over it to hide the images - but eventually it slipped, and she still wasn't sure if it had fallen on its own or if she had ripped it away to feed a curiosity she didn't want to acknowledge.

She'd tried meditating, but the full moon had made things difficult, and she'd felt sick since. Sick and abominably hungry. Eventually she dragged herself out of her room, tired of watching images of her mother, alive and well, following T'Pau to a freedom Vulcan had never - could never know. The images of Tucker, his face whole and undamaged, taunted her. He laughed, he smiled, he was occasionally

[goldn_boy]

He hadn't meant to take anyone else's food. It was a bit like sleep-walking, the state he'd been in the past twelve hours or so, and he looked up with a start at the knock. Warily, he went to the door, though he was shaken at least from his thoughts.

Opening it, he took in the notably unhappy Vulcan on the other side. For himself, he seemed distracted, and not-quite put together.

"T'Pol," he said, in some confusion, as if her presence were a surprise which indeed it was, though it was not, in the normal course of things, an unpleasant one.

[with_discipline]

She didn't wait for an invitation inside, and instead tried to brush past him to look around his room. "You've been to the kitchen several times," she said, voice almost accusatory. "You aren't the only one noticeably hungrier recently."

T'Pol turned away from him in what seemed like another quick scan of the room, but it was to hide the way she pressed a hand against her stomach. She was starving, but at the same time, the idea of eating sickened her. Vegetables weren't the only things she'd been considering digesting lately, and she was almost certain she'd eaten something she otherwise wouldn't have during the full moon.

[goldn_boy]

Jim blinked at her, confused for a moment, registering only one thing.

"You're hungry," he said, stating fact but one that seemed to pain him, personally. He thought back. "Oh god, I didn't mean... here."

He went to a shelf, began poking through the things he had there, and then his dresser drawers. Fruit. She liked fruit, didn't she? She did when she was a wolf, anyway. He stared down at the store in his drawer, emptied of clothes but with apples, oranges and a bag of nuts. He didn't remember putting that there. He did remember this happening before, nearly twenty-five years ago now, and felt sick.

"I... I don't know why I have these," he said simply, notably agitated. "I'm sorry."

[with_discipline]

"You took them," she pointed out, unsettled by that confusion. "Of course you know." But he was acting oddly, and she wasn't sure why, and her frustration was growing, rather than lessening. She'd found food, that should have been enough.

[goldn_boy]

Jim gathered up the things he now knew did not belong to him, feeling an unfamiliar shame. How had he messed up so badly? He remembered the look on his mother's face, finding food under his bed, in his desk, hidden behind his books. Not angry. Sad and helpless. He'd almost have preferred anger. Because he knew it didn't make any sense, intellectually. He knew he wasn't going to be hungry, not at home.

And then there was the window, showing him a home without him where George had lived to grow old with Winona, surrounded by happy great-grandchildren.

"No, I don't... I haven't been myself," he admitted, because that was the least of it. "I'm sorry." I've just been so hungry was not an excuse. He brought the bowl of fruit and other things over to her. "I really am, I... won't do it again."

[with_discipline]

She reached out for the bowl, taking it from him abruptly, and holing onto it far tighter than was necessary; her knuckles were whitening around the bowl edges. This was the way people reacted in other universes: they apologized for mistakes, not because they had been threatened but because they had made those mistakes. It was abominably frustrating when what she wanted was an argument.

"Perhaps you've noticed that we are rarely given the opportunity to be ourselves." T'Pol knew the best thing to do was to storm out an return to her room where she could balance the hunger and the nausea in peace - but there was no peace as long as the mirror threw all her work in her face. So she lingered.

"You haven't left your room in sometime."

[goldn_boy]

"Really?" Jim realized how stupid that sounded after he said it, and he glanced over to look at the clock. He hadn't realized, but he was also uninterested in telling anyone about his little problem. It was the city, it was a weakness and it wasn't anyone's problem but his. "I haven't been feeling well." True enough.

But T'Pol was agitated, too, and Jim hadn't seen her quite like this. "Are you upset I told everyone we'd been together?" he asked, latching on to some reason for her to be angry with him. "I'm sorry about that. I don't think anyone cares."

[with_discipline]

"I don't care," she pointed out - though she wasn't sure that was the truth, and she could think of one person who might have cared. She hadn't spoken to him in - she wasn't sure how long it had been. But she knew she'd been watching him as he should have been for much too long - and yet all she wanted was to continue watching. "That doesn't upset me."

She paused, and added, however untruthfully, "I'm not upset."

[goldn_boy]

Jim looked at her skeptically. "Really?" he said. "Because you seem upset."

He gestured helplessly towards the food. "I am sorry about that. It's inexcusable, I know, but it... it stems from childhood. I used to, ah, horde food. It doesn't happen very often anymore. Just when I'm stressed. I didn't mean to take it from you."

[with_discipline]

"That doesn't--" She cut herself off. Of course it didn't change the fact that he had taken it, or that she was clearly feeling some emotion about it. Yelling - no, expressing her frustration may be an adequate distraction, but information was certainly the more logical one.

"Why?"

[goldn_boy]

Jim would probably have preferred yelling.

"Why what?" he asked carefully.

[with_discipline]

"Why did you used to do this?" She gestured to the bowl of fruit she still held, still trying to hold back the agitation. "Horde food."

[goldn_boy]

He wanted to calm her down. But he was not going to talk about this. He glanced again at the screen, tearing his eyes away. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I don't do it anymore."

[with_discipline]

T'Pol followed his glance and frowned, shifting to see what he was looking at. She saw nothing though, and the frown between her browns deepened as her eyes shot back to him. "Don't you? It seems you've been practicing."

[goldn_boy]

"It was a mistake," Jim said. "Must be because I'm so hungry, but I wasn't thinking. It was wrong." Pointedly, he set the jar of nuts down. "You... were right to come take it back."