life hacks (aka jim, no) • open

[caelus]

It's been a hell of a few weeks. Month? Little over? You know, he's not even really sure. Jim has had a hell of a time since getting here. His suddenly very much alive sort of girlfriend (ex?) being here, which he's cool with, but---wow he's already had that breakdown thanks. Admiral Pike is here---that breakdown is still forthcoming. Let's not even bring up the fight with Khan that ended with both of them brigged for a while. Then there was Q dicking around with everyone with his brand of practical jokes that had Jim letting Khan out of the brig of his own volition, and putting a few crewman into Sickbay. But he's gonna just pretend feelings aren't real things that you, you know, feel.

Spock would be proud, if it didn't mean his method of coping with his not!feelings were to find something to drink that isn't that synthehol crap.

So, he heads into the lounge, and over to the replicator. He's tapping away at the controls, trying to avoid speaking to it directly cause he doesn't want to announce what he's doing to the entire lounge. Kind of defeats the purpose of stealth. He gets an angry sounding noise from it when he tries something, raises a brow, and shakes his head.

"Okay, fine." They can do this hard way. Jim is totally okay with that. "You're gonna give me what I want, or I'm going to rewrite every subroutine you have."


[as promised: jim is hacking the replicator for real alcohol. feel free to help out by way of lookout or whatnot. gaila will be helping him out, so if you would like her to be involved when you tag in, just tag in on their top-level comment. from then the tagging order will go jim + gaila + your character = SHENANIGANS. if not, just tag in for jim, and we'll have ourselves some wacky fun. cool either way.

also, as a note: ash will be scarce because of rl/homework type things, so please bear with a bit of slow/delay on tags.]

Comments

[caelus]

"You must be pretty good to read people that easy." He doesn't know she means telepathic, but he's known a few people who ranked high on the Esper scale. His friend, Gary Mitchell, was one of them, but that didn't end the best way.

"Yeah, I've only been here a little while, and it's some pretty awful stuff." A beat, as he starts working on one line of code after the other. "I wish it were that easy, but it's actually not even in the system. I have to input everything." But, hey, she's a nice kid, and he doesn't want her to think he doesn't want her around or something.

"But I could use a hand making sure nobody else sneaks up on me, if you want to help."

[abyssum_invocat]

"If you'll tell me why you want alcohol in the first place," she says, implacably calm.

[caelus]

[no worries!]

Well, he supposes it wouldn't hurt. "Because the stuff we've got tastes awful."

And the other reason isn't really the best reason, but he's never been the best at using that genius-level head on his shoulders. He just wants a little something to take his mind off the past few weeks.

"And I really just wanna relax and not think too hard about anything for a little while."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Oh," she says, blinking. "Alright."

She's never had the synthehol--she's had alcohol, she's stolen a half a sip from whatever kind of schnapps her father was drinking, once--but she'll take Jim's word on his aims. "I can keep watch for you. Or go ask the lady at the bar."

[caelus]

Hey, he's no stranger to sneaking things from the adults. He and his buddy Thomas, when he was sent to live with his aunt on Tarsus IV, broke into the other boy's old man's liquor cabinet.

They got in trouble for it later, but it was worth it. One of the handful of good things he remembers from there.

He casts a glance back at the bar. He hasn't met the lady who runs it, and he'd rather not end up on the radar of security if he can help it. Well, more on their radar than he likely already is.

"How about you keep watch for me, and let me know if I need to beat a hasty retreat?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I don't think you're going to get in trouble for asking," she says placidly, but does dutifully pick a chair at close proximity, turning it so she can sit and see out to the room.

"I see people ask her for things all the time."

[caelus]

Jim casts another glance over at the woman working the bar. If he'd spoken to her already, he might be more inclined to go ask, but he doesn't know her.

"Maybe, but I prefer to play things close to my chest."

But he appreciates the kid taking watch next to him. He offers her a grin and a wink, and gets back to work on the subroutines.

"So are you here on your own?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"Yes," she says, "For almost a year. Maybe more than, I don't know. It's hard to keep track of a calendar without seasons here."

She seems remarkably placid for a child, really. "Are you here alone too?"

[caelus]

Jim frowns a bit at that. He has a new spark of anger towards Q, but he manages to keep it off his face. She's a kid. She shouldn't be alone.

"I'm---well, sort of. There's people here I know, but they aren't there where I'm from anymore."

Two of them, actually. And they were killed. Murdered.

"So, I guess I'm a little on my own."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Anymore?" she echoes. "Did they leave and travel?"

[caelus]

He goes a bit still at the question, stopping what he's doing at the panel for a moment as he tries to get his bearings.

"No, uh, I lost them."

[abyssum_invocat]

For a good solid minute Sinthia says nothing, and isn't really looking at anything, but the shrugs her shoulders. "I'm sorry you lost them. If you meant that way." Which she knows he does, but it's still difficult to bring that up with no precursor.

[caelus]

Jim offers a small shrug himself. "Happens."

He's lost a lot of people in his life so far. It's just the way it goes, he figures.

"So where are you from? If you don't mind me asking?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I was from Berlin," she says quietly in response, looking over for a second. "I live in Austria now--or I used to, before here. I was in the mountains near Innsbruck. It's 1944 for me."

There's a pause, and she sighs near-inaudibly, because she can't ever quite get her head around the fact that it's so far away from here. "Or it was. There's a war, but people have told me how their version ends."

[caelus]

The quiet response gets his attention. It tugs at something in him. He's not really sure why, but then---

That's the second World War. At least, it is if he remembers his history well enough.

"They told you?" he asks, stopping what he's doing. "I'm sorry."

It's never easy being told how things went, or will go, or should have gone. He's got a little experience with that, unfortunately.

[abyssum_invocat]

"They told me how their wars end," she says. "But nobody knows about me. I don't know if mine will end the same way." It will; she doesn't know it yet, but her stomach seems to roil in protest when she tries to imagine the future her father has planned out, the one he wants to usher in.

"Or if I just die like everyone else, and nobody would know that I was there."

[caelus]

Jim, under other circumstances, might have continued working and talking. Not through this, though. He stops messing with the replicator, turns to find a chair, and pulls it over to sit next to the kid. They're just outside of the panel, in case anyone wants to still use it to get something.

But the kid, Sinthia, is more important than anything he could be after.

"Hey," he says as he sits, and reaches out to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Just because nobody knows doesn't mean that things will go one way or the other." He should know, things still aren't going the way he was told they are "supposed" to go in his timeline.

"But you don't seem to me like the type to give up. You look like a survivor, and I know a little about that," Jim says, voice low as to not be overheard, but honest. "Sometimes you do things you wouldn't normally. Sometimes you do the things you have to in order to stay alive, and it may never feel right---but you do it and you keep going."

He squeezes her shoulder gently, ducking his head so he can look her in the eyes. "And I may not know a lot about this time in particular, or this ship, but if they are anything like the place I come from? Nobody is going to let anything happen to you here."


[ooc: wow that didn't hurt at all no.]

[abyssum_invocat]

"There's no way to know how it will end," she murmurs. "I...I don't know what will happen if I go back."

Half of her--more than half, if she's being honest--doesn't really want to, because she knows that likes back that way for her. More tests, more prisoners, more dying. More of everything horrible that comes with war like fleas to a dog.

"I wonder if my father will come here. If I did, I don't know why he couldn't." And it would be bad if he did; more, really, far more than bad, but the enormity of disaster that would be is a little beyond even her capability to put into words.