Messages

[no_ones_slave]

Yeah, Gaila doesn't know how to work the private communications buttons. She doesn't really bother to try. She does relay her current coordinates though.

To Pavel: Here I am!

To Man Jim: I really really wanna see you. So when you get a chance, could you stop on by?

Comments

A different time from above

[original_fine]

Jim grinned as he received Gaila's not-so-private message and the coordinates. Now that everyone knew where she was, he figured she would not lack for company.

It had been a relaxing few days on Risa, but by the time he got the message Jim was ready to see more of the planet. He wore the green shirt the other Jim had had made for him, and stopped by.

Re: A different time from above

[original_fine]

Jim was silent as she spoke, looking up at her.

"Because that's not unnatural to me," he said quietly. Which was a nice way of saying "because you know I'll consent anyway."

Jim was much happier when he was on missions where the enemy was obvious, the solution not easy but definable. Freeing people, fixing his ship, rescuing Spock. In those situations, he didn't have to feel guilty about doing the right thing. Didn't have to feel like he was taking something away from someone else. It was like with Jim, when he'd turned and walked back down the hall, like the only person who could make James T. Kirk feel inadequate was James T. Kirk.

He knew it was "right," being considerate of this new, untested relationship with Spock and McCoy. But he felt that there could be no evil in enjoying Gaila. And he didn't know how to reconcile them.

"You're not wrong," he said. He was rejecting her, against his will. He could see that. "I don't think you're wrong. I want you, Gaila. I want this. But I can't. Spock needed me, and I went to him, and I

Re: A different time from above

[no_ones_slave]

"I'm not wrong. And being polyamorous isn't wrong. And fucking who you feel like when you feel like isn't wrong." Gaila nodded. "Except when at last you see the error of your ways. You love them, right? So they deserve to be treated right by you. You said it; they deserve it. And what's right is your monogamy, and your exclusivity, and your not fucking whoever you want. Captain Kirk always does the right thing. Which makes me wrong."

Gaila was really angry, but her voice sounded really flat still. She could hear it; it didn't sound right. It was almost mechanical; it was weird because she didn't get mad a lot, but she did sometimes, and usually she yelled and screamed and threw things. But she didn't feel like doing that now. She didn't feel like anything.

Re: A different time from above

[original_fine]

Jim didn't know Gaila well enough to read her every emotion. But he knew people, and he knew women, and he could tell that Gaila's flat affect was worse than her yelling or throwing things or slapping him. He knew how to deal with those. This was real anger, real hurt. The kind that wasn't a fit of temper, to kiss away or wait out and forget.

He rose, reaching out for an arm because it was what he did. "That doesn't make you wrong. It makes this wrong. For me. Right now. It makes me wrong for putting you in this position. That's not the same thing. I have a right to fuck whoever I want until that hurts someone else." But he was hurting Gaila, in some indefinable way that went beyond mere cock-teasing. "I'm sorry that I've hurt you in the process. It isn't you."

Re: A different time from above

[no_ones_slave]

"No, I understand. It's the principle of the thing. Sleeping around, it's low, and shameful, and dirty. You would never want to hurt anyone, Jim."

Then Gaila's brain started working, but she wasn't thinking about Jim at all. She was thinking about the Farragut. Most of her friends were dead now, and the place she'd earned there was gone.

She just kept losing.

"You can go away now."

Re: A different time from above

[original_fine]

Jim was starting to feel a glimmer of anger now, low and insistent and unjustified and more than a little prompted by guilt.

"The principle is that it hurts other people. It's not--"

But she was telling him to get out. She wasn't going to listen, and he didn't have an argument, because it wasn't dirty or shameful but he wasn't going to do it anyway and what was the justification for that? He didn't want to hurt anyone, but he was hurting her or hurting them and he was clearly choosing them.

Better to go. To come back later, or find some way of helping her remotely. He did not want to leave things this way.

But it seemed, for now, he had no choice. This wasn't something he could fight.

Jim moved to the door, his feet feeling leaden and his heart going out to her. This wasn't, obviously, just about sex. And somehow or other sex had gotten very confusing lately.

"I'm sorry, Gaila," he said softly, and shut the door behind him.