multiversallogs | Bite they little heads off! Nibble on they tiny feet!

Bite they little heads off! Nibble on they tiny feet!

Who: EVERYONE.
What: Catenrat party.
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Givdi the 22nd of Toidaren
Notes: The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread. When your characters are ready to leave, they'll be given a little wooden cheese, a glass fish, and a voucher for a big basket of snacks.
Warnings: None yet. Please put warnings up on individual threads.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap. Above the doorway and wound through a few of the sets of antlers some enterprising soul has placed a garland decorated with little blue and green fish.

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He makes it about halfway through the movie before his chest is tightening up and he quietly leaves to find the bar. He settles onto a stool, making a fist around a napkin and orders a full glass of whiskey.

A whole glass. It's what it'll take to even start to get through to his system.

Trance had kissed him a good-bye on the cheek. He wondered if when she made the universe better with what she did to him, if she got her wings. He drums his fingers on the bartop impatiently as he waits for his drink.

"I hope you're a patient man."

Jim hops onto the newly-vacated stool to Rhade's right, smiling. "They're swamped tonight. The bartenders are doing the best they can but it's a bit of a wait."

He swings around on the stool so he's facing Rhade, and so he can keep an eye on the bartenders and flag one down when they're not so occupied. "Did you get in to see Dr. McCoy all right?"

His brows raise and he swivels to look at the Captain. He's seen him once or twice in his skulking around the network, but not more often. It's a welcome distraction, immediately an ease off his mind as he sits up a little more formally and salutes him.

He misses protocol a little. Even if Jim isn't High Guard, he can adapt.

"Captain Kirk. It's a pleasure." He holds out his hand, his boneblades along his forearm still covered with metal ones at the moment as the real ones healed. "I'm extremely patient, but company makes the wait less noticeable regardless. And yes I did. I appreciate the recommendation."

Edited 2011-12-27 07:16 (UTC)

Jim's first impulse is to suggest they stand down from ceremony, to tell Rhade it's all right to call him Jim. He's a young captain, still new at it, and not among his Starfleet peers; he's more given, these days, to to favor familiarity over formality.

But some people--especially those who have served with some military or peacekeeping organization--enjoy the formality, are comforted by rank and ritual. Spock seems that way, and hell if this guy doesn't remind him of Spock. Jim thinks it over, and decides that maybe in this case, following protocol for now and giving the man time to warm up to him later is the best course of action.

So he nods his acknowledgement of the salute, and shakes Rhade's hand firmly. "Likewise, Mr. Rhade. I have to agree that company makes many things more bearable. And I'm glad to know Dr. McCoy was able to accommodate you." He smiles, and edges, just slightly, out of formality, adding, "He's my closest friend as well as being one of the most outstanding members of the fleet at large, not just my crew; I was happy to make the recommendation."

And he's served for most of his adult life (a considerable time, considering Nietzscheans are pretty much considered adults as soon as they hit puberty). It is comfortable, at least a bit. But he's also aware that he's far away from the High Guard, and his failures there.

"You may call me Gaheris." He opens up the invitation. "He had technology that was different to what I was accustomed to aboard the Andromeda, but effective nonetheless."

And then there's his drink, his oversized amount of whiskey that he takes with a nod and downs a few swallows like it's water and not scorching its way down his throat.

Jim smiles, warm. "Thank you, Gaheris. You can call me Jim." That's more comfortable--even Spock calls him that, sometimes. Bones always does. He may be their captain but the use of his name signifies he's their friend; he wants that here, too.

He doesn't even bat an eye at the whiskey. He's visited enough places and served and studied with enough races to know everyone's got their tolerances and tastes. "We're fortunate his medkit made it here with him. He's had to rely on what passes for state of the art here, in a few cases, and I don't know how the man functions in those conditions."

"I was surprised you didn't have nanobots as a part of conventional treatments on board your ships. But unsurprised there are none here." He puts down his glass and folds his hands around it on the bartop, looking around for the bartender.

"Since you were kind enough to give me the recommendation, perhaps I could buy you a drink."

"Thanks. I appreciate that."

He glances in the direction of the bartenders, too, but then his gaze returns to Rhade, one shoulder shrugging. "We don't have a lot of nanobot technology in use in medical situations, in Starfleet. Bones--Dr. McCoy--and I had a run-in with some alien nanotechnology at the Academy. He was pretty instrumental in putting a stop to some attacks going on at the time. But outside of that it's not something we have a lot of experience in."

"What about human subspecies, do you have those?" He is used to there being several varieties, engineered to live on several planetary types. And the idea that there is another interplanetary organization out there still standing is extremely interesting.

Even if they're both stuck far away from it.

Jim shakes his head. "No, nothing like that, either. There's just one human species on Earth. When we spread out to the stars, some people, over time, developed certain adaptations to their new homes. Sort of like the way a person raised in a high-altitude city is more acclimated than someone who was raised at sea level. But they're all the same species at the end of the day."

But he's curious, always has been about other cultures, races--and now universes, he supposes. "Are they common, where you're from? Human subspecies and nanotechnology?"

"There are. Castellians are adapted for wet planets- some of them breathe water. Inari see in the dark. Heavy Gravity Worlders are adapted to extreme gravity. I'm a Nietzschean, homo spapiens invictus."

He reaches to the strap of one of his arm-wraps, something that appears very much to be a guantlet at the moment, with the boneblades capped by metal spikes. But he loosens it on one arm and slips it off, showing Jim the boneblades beneath.

But they're sawed off two thirds of the way down, uncomfortably blunted like a rhino deprived of its horn.

"A poor example. Usually my people have these." Then he puts the armwrap back on, carefully so the spikes cap the docked bony protrusions.

Jim nods thoughtfully as Rhade re-settles his arm wrap. "Homo sapiens invictus," he echoes. His expression softens, a faint smile curving his lips. "I'm reminded of something," he says, and then he recites:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

"I was reminded of that recently, by a friend," he goes on. "Invictus. Great poem. Also, it means 'unconquerable', if I'm remembering my lessons right."

He leans against the bar, curiosity fully engaged. "I can't imagine 'Nietzschean' was chosen without some thought as to the meaning. Are you and others like you the supermen? The superior men and women, striving for power and authority, not afraid of risk? ...If I remember that right, too."

And there's no judgment in his questions, no implication that he finds those ideas wrong or unworthy. They're merely different, and he merely wants to understand.

"Henley." He perks up at that, pleasantly surprised that Kirk knows of it. "It does. The unconquerable wise man." Almost amusement. He once believed entirely that their name was truly the case, that they could stand against their enemies fearlessly. He didn't know they would foolishly turn on each other.

But it is nice, for a moment, to remember again what it's like to be proud of what he is.

"We were intended to be. However, due to less favorable factions of my people and war in recent years, other humans have taken to calling us 'Ubers' as an insult. The Superman concept has been unfortunately abused and is not what our progenitor intended for us."

Jim nods, sadly. "The concept was abused in your time, and it was abused in Nietzsche's. People co-opted it and corrupted it to justify their grabs for power and their striving toward superiority. The wrong kinds of superiority. They forgot--or overlooked--what the man himself said. No one had yet reached those ideals. But people decided they had. Or they tried to convince others."

Something about the way Rhade confirms Jim's supposition, and the way he discusses the diversion from what their creator intended, leads Jim to think that Rhade still takes a great deal of pride in who he is.

"I'm sorry if it's an insensitive question," he offers, treading lightly. "Did something similar happen among the Nietzscheans? Corrupted ideals? Or factions using them to justify their own ends?"

"A combination of those. It's complicated, but there's no longer a Commonwealth where I come from. There's only the one ship with a makeshift crew. And there was a much larger threat coming. People from either side were too busy squabbling and bullying one another, preying on the weak, to focus on what would bring them advantages in the long term."

He takes a drink from his glass again, swallows and purses his lips as he looks at the rim of it. "Do you suppose you'll be able to return to your Starfleet?"

"I'm sorry for those circumstances. It's a shame when people lose sight of the long term."

Jim pauses, considering the question. It's funny--just a few short years ago, Starfleet was the last thing he wanted. He was angry, carrying a chip on his shoulder the size of the planet, blaming Starfleet for his father not being there and for Tarsus IV. He'd enlisted on Pike's challenge, dared to be something better. His entire first year at the Academy he hadn't been convinced he should be there at all.

But in the last few months everything had shifted, changed. Starfleet, and the Enterprise in particular, along with her crew--that was his home, now. That was where he belonged. And it hurt him, left him distressed not to be there.

"It's the only thing I want," he confesses, staring down into his glass. "To get the two of us home, me and Bones." He looks up. "To get all of us home. We shouldn't be here."

He smirks almost boyishly, a brow raising.

"We shouldn't. We've been given no chance to resist coming here. I resent it in some ways. However, I can no longer return." He comes very close to admitting that he died before coming here, but a sense of embarrassment and shame wells up with it. Nietzscheans were hardy. Nietzscheans were survivors and they weren't self-destructive and they were proud. They didn't devalue their own lives. They didn't lose and they didn't fail.

How could he hold the rest of his kind accountable when he couldn't even manage to properly survive?

"However, there might be some people you can talk to about stelanmancy. Their skills are exemplary. The fact you're human would prove a benefit but you would have to do so unconnected to Hellsing. I would only ask if I gave you their contact information that if they sounded generally positive on the potential of sending you back to your universe you wouldn't mention me but you would let me know." It would also help explain some of the disappearances, if that were the case.

Jim nods at Rhade's explanation, suspecting the reason why he can't return is he died in his home universe. From what research he's managed to do, it seems to be a reasonably common circumstance in this city. People die where they belong and wind up here.

He doesn't say anything, because, honestly, what do you say? I'm glad you're here seems rude and Jim's not glad any of them are here. I wish you were back home isn't any better--for what, to go back to being dead?

But after that, it's his turn to raise a brow. "I can leave Hellsing out of it," he agrees, clearly eager to know more. "They're pretty much out of the research I'm doing as it is; it's a personal project."

"Being that I'm xenian-" he pulls over a near-by receipt "-you shouldn't mention me either. They don't like them. But they would be able to help." He motions to the bartender to borrow a pen, and writes the contact information for another cohort, and the Candlelighters that he knows to be involved in stelanmancy. They have been getting better, and Hasibe had confirmed that their rumors weren't exaggerated.

At least it potentially explains why his boneblades are damaged. He holds the receipt out to Kirk.

"I'll leave you out of it."

Jim glances at the information on the slip of paper before folding it and putting it in his pocket. He knows Rhade can't have come by this information easily, and without great risk; he's both grateful and a little humbled to be receiving it.

"I owe you one for this."

"For the drink as well. What would you like?" Again, a brow arcs up, and its hard to tell whether he's joking or not.

Jim reminds him very much of another captain, perhaps when he was younger. In the days when Dylan was first given command of a ship. When he was fresh and new and enthusiastic. It was before the Nietzscheans had decided the Commonwealth must fall, and when Rhade still opposed the destruction of the Systems Commonswealth.

It's both a comfort and something that burrows in his gut and lodges there like stubborn Magog larvae. He wants to warn him to stay away from him before he tries to get close to him. He's also greedy for the feeling that he used to have with Dylan.

"Do you like strategy games?" he's asking before he can stop himself.

Jim watches him a moment; no, he can't tell if Rhade is joking or not. "Another beer will be fine," he says, smiling. And musing to himself, again, how much this man reminds him of his XO back home. He knows Vulcans are supposed to be emotionless, rational, remote, but there are times he could swear Spock is deliberately pulling his leg.

Maybe he's clinging to those reminders. Maybe he's clinging to this man's company because he misses Spock, misses home. But he's also enjoying the easy companionship that's sprung up between them; it's like what he has with Spock, these days, only he and Rhade didn't have to hate each other and be combative first. He supposes he's grown too used to having his pair of senior officers and intimate friends at his side, always, and having Bones here might have only made the absence of Spock, or a collected, calming presence like his, that much more obvious.

Whatever it is, he is enjoying this. He smiles at Rhade's question, nodding. "I do. Well. I do all right at chess, traditional and three-dimensional. I have a passing familiarity with a few other games but I'm always interested."

"I enjoy Chess. I'm more fond of Go. I have a trilevel board for it, and unfortunately it's the only one I have available to me if I don't go to one of Gediron's temples." Which he still does sometimes, despite the unfortunate meeting that he had soon after arriving.

Jim nods, smiling. "I've tried my hand at Go a few times. Only a few times, so I'm not going to be the most challenging opponent at first. But I'm willing to play. And learn." He's only good at chess because he has someone aboard the Enterprise to challenge him; given a good challenge here, he's sure he could grow.

And he loves a good challenge.

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Bite they little heads off! Nibble on they tiny feet!

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