conjuredskies | In From the Cold (for smartass

"They're still in the Nexus. Why are we back if they're still in the Nexus?!" The how no longer really matters. However they got back it wasn't a way anyone else could use. Felix wouldn't just abandon everyone if there were a feasible way to get people out.Nor would he have let this go for so long were that the case.

All this time, all the rituals. Was that what this was all for? Just for the two of them?

"I have to--" Hands are on his shoulders and Felix is lucky that Jim's too weak to throw a punch right now because the flash of anger is very much real. "They're starving, Felix!" Trying to pull out of Felix's grip is only going to end with Jim on his ass on the floor shaking with emotion he can't sustain right now.

"We have to go back. I have to go back."

Felix sinks to the floor with him, the twisting knot in his chest echoed in his expression.

"You can't. We can't." That's technically not true and he doesn't technically care. "The PINpoints still don't work, Jim. And I won't- they're going to be fine. They still have the expedition. They'll find what they need. With your notes and plans they'll survive."

Jim's not the kind of man to leave anyone behind, not the kind of man to lead from the safety of the back lines. Definitely not the sort to put his own safety above another's, especially not so many. Felix knows more than most about Jim's past, more than anyone else save for his other self. So he should know why Jim's upset.

Hell, he's told Felix about Altamid even more recently.

"This isn't...how could you leave them behind? If you were going to--if you were going to get yourself to safety, you could have." Why did he take Jim? But Jim knows the answer. Because if he could save only one person, it would have been Felix. It doesn't make the knowledge that Isidor and his friends and all the other people they were protecting are back there suffering while he's warm and safe back aboard his ship.

"Fuck...!"

"Because I had to! I couldn't take anyone else. Because I'm not you." It comes out in a jumbled guilty rush and he sucks in breath before he says anything more. His eyes are on Jim's face and his despair and just... that look in his eyes that Felix will do anything to try and stop. Has done.

"Because I can't save everyone," he says more quietly. "And I won't let you destroy yourself trying to."

Because he does know. He does understand, well enough to see how it would end.

Better to die saving lives than to live with taking them.

Isn't that how it goes? That's how Jim sees the world but Felix Caelus isn't, has never been Jim Kirk. And he knows Jim well enough to see that he would absolutely follow through with that mantra before he left a single person behind. He's sounded Jim out well enough to step in and intervene on his behalf. It's something Spock or Bones might do, and even as Jim's making the comparison he's gritting his teeth because it doesn't make him any less angry that it came to this.

That someone who wasn't him made the call. But that's what happens when people care about you. Spend enough time sticking your neck out for others and someone's bound to try and do it back eventually.

"I wasn't--" The captain isn't going to try and sell that lie when he's too weak to stand on his own. It doesn't stop the vitriolic hatred at his own weakness or inability to help those who have been left behind. Or the way his heart wrenches at how desperate Felix looks at this moment staring back at Jim.

"Fucking...can't believe you. Why didn't you tell me what you were planning? I could have helped--maybe we could have found a way to make it work! We didn't try."

"You would have stopped me." They both know that's true. "You wouldn't have left without the others and you wouldn't have backed down from going on that expedition. I was... I tried to find another way. For weeks. I should have taken you away before the PINpoints stopped working but I ran out of time."

He swallows. "We couldn't take the others. It doesn't work that way. It's not like your science. I was lucky I had anything to bargain for this much."

Jim wants to argue. The words hang in the air between them and to each of them they are a silent accusation. What Felix felt he had to do versus what Jim believed to be his responsibility. The captain can't stop imagining Isidor and the others suffering, cold and hungry. The expedition they planned was hardly a guarantee. The dangers ahead of them all frighteningly real and everyone so weak after weeks of their ordeal...

And yet he can't quite fathom losing Felix there. There's a part of him that squirms at the thoughts brought to the surface when Furiosa told him to look after her people if she fell. At how he trembled at even the thought of Felix being left alone should Jim die out there. He knows survivor's guilt.

It doesn't make him feel any better now.

Accepting such an answer, settling for the world the way it is has never sat well with him. He doesn't believe in losing. Even when it's happening.

"What did it cost to save the two of us?" Maybe...maybe. If Felix doesn't have anything more to barter then Jim could try. He doesn't know how dangerous that might be, only that he has to at least try to make a suggestion. Try to make a difference. Try...to save the others.

"Jim... no." His heart might break to say it but he can't do this. Felix reaches out to touch Jim's face, cupping his cheek, willing him to understand. "We're lucky we both have our souls right now. I had something they wanted, last time. Something we can both live without. It won't be that simple again. And- and they won't let you take the others regardless. Reynard wants them there. Or Winter does. It's one thing for two to slip away but taking all his..."

...There's no good word to use there.

"...They'd be the ones who paid the price, Jim."

"They're already paying the price." Reynard. It's not the first time he's pulled this kind of shit during winter but never has it been this bad before. Never have so many suffered, cut off from their worlds. Jim doesn't understand how a man who's so pleasant to be around the rest of the year can be so dangerous in winter.

He doesn't understand spirits or their natures. To Jim, Reynard is--was-- a friend. One that's seemingly turned on them. Even if he had an enemy in the Nexus he was trying to deal with, to get everyone else caught up in the collateral damage...It's unthinkable.

"So what are we supposed to do? Relax in comfort and pretend our friends aren't back there fighting for their lives?"

"Tend to your ship." He's thought about this. About what he'd say. "Take care of each other. Rest. Get stronger. So when the PINpoints begin to work again you can go back ready to help them."

He doesn't know if that's enough. If his reasoning will make Jim somehow overlook what Felix did to get him here against his will. But his hands are on Jim's arms and he's kneeling in front of his betrothed - his husband - willing the man to understand.

"I couldn't... I couldn't let it happen again. Don't you see...?"

Felix's hands are on his arms and his plea is desperate. He couldn't let Jim relive it again. And Jim does see, even if he doesn't like it. Felix recognized the shape of the shadow that was swallowing Jim whole and took him out of it before he was lost to its depths. He's mad, yes. But Jim also understands.

Tend to the ship.

That thing Jim's been forgetting, all this time? It's smacking into him suddenly hard enough to make him suck in a sharp breath far too quickly. He has to cough at the discomfort it causes but it doesn't derail the realization that he's been missing form his ship for months at this point. Just how in the hell are they going to explain this?

"I can't believe Headquarters isn't crawling up my ass this second trying to figure out where we've been all this time. Fuck, this isn't the sort of thing we can just explain away, either..." And yet his quarters is still here intact. Tiber is still here and well fed. Neither Spock or Bones are lingering and with the hum of the engines he's sure they're heading somewhere rather than docked at a Starbase.

Felix sees that realization hit and there's a selfish kind of relief in it. Something for Jim to trouble himself with that isn't getting mad at Felix or questioning how he pulled off this abduction.

"It's all right." His hands squeeze tighter. "It's all right, Jim. We've been gone a day- a couple of days, at most. It's still the beginning of the winter in this universe. Spock and McCoy know the truth, but officially you had- some flu, the doctor named it last night." He'd been too exhausted himself to take in every detail, just trying to explain enough for Jim's concerned friends to let them be.

"He wanted you in sickbay but Spock talked him out of it, thank Stendarr."

"Wh--no that's not--"

That's not at all how the time dilatation between their worlds usually works. Jim might be weak and on the verge of passing back out but he knows that much. For how long he's gone back and forth between his ship--his universe--and the Nexus he's got a fairly strong idea of how the time difference works.

It means Jim's right back on focusing how Felix pulled this off, though at least not in the sort of way that involves trying to yell at his husband.

"You--he did? How did we get back...Felix that doesn't make sense. Are we in the right world?"

"We are. I promise, this is your Enterprise. You know I could always tell the difference. Besides, how else would your crew have known me?" He draws a long breath. "I... made a pact to get us back. And daedra don't... their realms aren't bound to the linear progression of our time. Times. So... this was a small bonus."

Felix has a way of telling the people from various planes apart and Jim's seen him do it before. It never occurred to him that he'd be equally as able to tell the places themselves apart. Maybe he means he checked to make sure Bones and Spock were the right ones...but again they wouldn't have known who Felix was if they weren't.

Probably. The captain groans in frustration.

Jim's too damn tired to think out the If/Thens of alternate realities and their governance right now. On the one hand his desire to go back to the Nexus with more supplies is redoubled thinking that they've got time on their side, but even that urge is tempered with the slow begrudging realization that Kirk can't help anyone until he's helped himself. Neither Spock nor Bones will even countenance listening to him until he's rested. Recovered enough to be fit for duty.

Or at least what Jim considers to be fit for duty that Bones will relent to. No one's going to help Jim get back into that place looking like he does now. Half dead sitting on his floor in a delirium.

"Have you...eaten yet?"

Felix relaxes slowly. Not just because he seems to be off the hook. Because it sounds like Jim's panic is fading, and he's turning his mind instead to the immediate problems that face them. He's accepted their situation.

Which means Felix can stop worrying so much and finally let out that long sigh of breath he's been holding in all this time. They're safe, safe and warm and he can actually make the most of it now. Focus on looking after Jim.

"I... don't remember. I tried. They gave me some kind of... bran paste." That's what it tasted like to him, anyway. He'd got some stew out of the replicator as soon as they left him alone. Not that that had fared any better, since... He shrugs weakly. "I couldn't stay awake."

Jim grimaces at the mention of the mash, but it's honestly not surprising that actual food would probably be a poor idea at least at first after what they've gone through. Which means means he's probably even worse off. Ration bars might stay down but anything from the replicator is just asking for his enfeebled insides to mutiny.

"I don't suppose Bones left you any instructions for when I woke up aside from going to see him...?" He doesn't relish the idea of heading down to the medbay just yet. Facing Bones and his completely reasonable questions that Jim won't have an answer for. Or at least, won't want to give an answer for.

And for all his stomach twists painfully at the thought of food within reach, there's a strong urge to just go back to sleep lingering too. Probably not a great sign right now though.

"Not to let you pass out again before you ate something. On pain of a trip to the sickbay." And to call him, of course, but Bones had to know Felix would take that as optional. But making Jim eat? The conjurer's all in favor of that. If Jim sleeps without food he'll just get weaker and sleepier.

He pushes himself back on the floor and starts the process of clambering wearily to his feet. Then extends a hand to Jim. "...Come on, beloved. It's your turn to be looked after."

Jim watches Felix struggle to get to his feet. He can't understand the tumultuous warring emotions that mingle unwanted in his chest. Licking flames of anger that dance away when the heavy iron weight of worry presses against his ribs instead. A fierce pride that swells when his betrothed finds his feet that chills and withers to shame that leaves Jim without breath. It's all too much at once and never has one person meant so much to him before.

He's felt conflicted before about people. Friends and more but nothing like this. Nothing like this sea of swirling currents that threaten to pull him under but for the hand extended toward him to pull the captain up to his feet. It's too much. Jim's too exhausted yet. Clammy hands grip onto Felix's and allow the mage to pull Jim up to his own two shaky feet. Nothing is going to be processed either emotionally or logically until he's had a chance to rest.

"I'm not so great at that." It's the least Jim can admit to, knowing that by now Felix will be aware at least somewhat of how bad off Jim was when Felix brought him away if Bones has had a chance to look him over. "Anywhere's got to be more comfortable than the floor though."

Felix is usually more cautious. More aware that wounded feelings and causes for anger don't simply vanish. But he's exhausted in so many ways, and for now it's too easy to believe that Jim is - not happy, but on the way to forgiving him.

Felix wants to believe it'll be that simple.

They both have to catch their balance as Jim's pulled to his feet. Felix grabs at Jim's arm and holds him steady, hopeful affection all over his face.

"We don't have to go far." Just over to the couch. He nudges Jim to sit down, pushes the uneaten food aside roughly before he goes to get more of that mash stuff. "Eat what you can, and then we'll see if you can manage a shower before you rest."

It's not the worst Jim's ever been. Experience helps tamp down on the urge to eat as much as he can get his hands on no matter how tasteless. It's food, sustenance, nutrition and he needs it badly. But Jim also knows what will wait for him if he rushes this so he makes himself sit up straight rather than hunching over the bowl. Forces himself to take his time with every measured bite.

It's a blessed reprieve from everything Jim can't make himself focus on yet. Counting and waiting taking up all of his active thoughts. It leaves Felix time for his own hopes. His own denial. It's easy to think everything is moving toward being fine. Tiber's curled up on the far end of the couch purring with contentment for having Jim back. He knows well enough not to curl up on Jim yet.

Unease flickers through Jim's expression as he strips for the shower but it only lasts a couple of seconds. He feels like he hasn't been entirely bare like this for months and the thought of wasting water jolts him awake just enough for him to remember they're on the ship. A sonic is much less worrisome for him now. He needs a deep, long bath at some point but not tonight. They'd both drown in the tub when they inevitably pass out. It's with a numb autopilot that Jim brushes his hair and teeth. Things he hasn't had the luxury to worry about now a small comfort.

Jim's clean. Fed. Safe.

It will still have to be Felix who lays them down together but he may not notice that. Jim doesn't pull away from him. There's no energy left to do anything but relent to the siren call of sleep for some time...

Felix isn't as restrained as Jim, but luckily he's more focused on making sure Jim eats than inhaling his own meal. Reaching out to stroke Tiber's back in reassurance. Helping Jim strip off and wash and getting them both into bed.

This time he can curl up with Jim. Wrap an arm over his waist and relax against him and sleep... a little easier, this time. There'll be Bones to inform, but that's when he wakes. There'll be dreams, but he won't remember them.

For now, he's content with his reward.

It'll be a while before he rouses again. Makes himself get up and see to clearing up the room.

Jim doesn't rouse when Felix does, at least not at first. The captain lays in bed and listens to the conjurer move about the room with eyes closed.How untroubled his movements are. Lazy from sleep and relaxed. As though all of their friends and companions weren't suffering in some distant date because not even time is the same here as it was.

His stomach twists. Equal parts hunger and disgust.

Jim waits until Felix has excused himself to the shared bathroom before he slips out of bed and pulls on his clothes. Sets the replicator to make him a plain turkey sandwich (should be bland enough to stay down Jim hopes) while he pulls on a clean uniform for the first time in months. He doesn't wait for Felix to come out before he leaves, taking the food with him.

It feels almost unreal marching down the halls of the Enterprise-A after so long being kept from the thrumming hum of her engines. Smooth (but different from the old Enterprise's, Jim hasn't yet forgotten her heartbeat for this one) and comforting. Home.

Yet, somehow. Not where he belongs right now.

Still, he puts on his best face and greets everyone who wishes him well. Waylays any concerns that arise for the captain's well being. A flu, they would have been told. While the truth lay buried in the cold weeks from now in some alternate reality they'll never return to--a world where the crew had to deal with Jim's disappearance. Maybe it's because he's spent so long in the Nexus that he thinks of that so readily. The what if's pile up on top of each other as a distraction from what's eating away at him.

"If it ain't on fire I don't wanna hear about--Jim!" The doctor's startle only adds to Jim's guilt. Torn between a duty he has to his people here--his family--and the people he's left back in the Nexus however unwillingly. Jim puts up suspiciously little fuss as he follows McCoy back into his office and starts nibbling at his sandwich while the doctor locks the door.

"Don't ask. I know you're going to but please. Don't. We were stuck somewhere cold and dark without enough to eat for weeks. That's all you need to know." Jim doesn't want to have to go further. Bones waves the explanation off when he turns around.

"I coulda told you that when Caelus brought you both in. Felix, I mean." That's taking some getting used to yet. "He explained enough of it. What am I missing?"

"...We were the only two who escaped. The others are still there." It's out of a determined need to recover that Jim's eating now. His stomach feels like a lead weight inside of him eating while he thinks of their faces.

"Son of a bitch. No wonder you're half dead." Bones knows just enough to understand why Jim would have been worse off. There was someone to save. Others, too, from the sound of it. Jim's head won't be here on the ship while they're still in danger. "You'd be mad to go back. You were half dead when you got here."

"I can't go back. Not yet, anyway." Captain Kirk glances around the office before he forces the rest of his meager meal down. "I'm too weak yet and we'd only be stuck again or punished for leaving in the first place."

"I won't say I'm sorry he brought you back, Jim." McCoy sees the fire in Jim's gaze when the captain snaps it onto his best friend. He knows nothing is that easy for Jim Kirk. "If you can't go back then--"

"I need to focus on what I can do. Recover. Right?" There's bitterness in Jim's words but not denial. He gets up from where he's been leaning against Bones' desk and settles himself next to the doctor and dutifully rolls up one sleeve so Bones can get to work looking him over.

Focus on what he can do now.

Like have a talk with his husband.

There's a stabbing jolt of fear when he comes out of the bathroom and finds Jim gone. A moment's panic before Felix realizes he can't possibly have gone far. The PINpoints still don't work, and he hid them away for good measure. If Jim's not in the room then he must still be on the ship. Up to the bridge, or to see the doctor. He's never felt the confinement of a ship to be a mercy until now.

He didn't wait to tell Felix he was awake, though. Felix ignores the dancing unease in his stomach. Jim's never been a patient man, and he's likely too tired yet to want to deal with more conversation than necessary. He probably decided just to see his crew and get that part over with.

That must be it.

Which leaves Felix... at a loose end. No Jim to tend to. No bowls left to tidy up. Tiber fed and his water changed. He collapses onto the couch, digs his phone out to send a message to Stratos. But then he's alone with his thoughts for the first time in hours.

He still can't regret anything. There's a twinge of guilt when he remembers Isidor's face. Danny's fear. He tries to imagine what his father would say and he cringes a little in the silence. Caeluses are people of duty, honor, loyalty. His aunt Arvenna and her legion defended the walls of the Imperial City to the last man. Uncle Hesperus killed himself with the strain of keeping his fellow soldiers alive out in the desert. Both his parents risked their lives in the Great War. A hundred generations of ancestors who stood and fought and died with their comrades, for their Emperor, in the name of duty.

So his actions weren't entirely becoming of his lineage. But Felix has always been the one to flirt with disgrace.

And the truth is, if he asks himself: would he rather they'd stayed? Would he have made a different choice, given the chance to do it again? Every fiber of his being screams a shrill and silent 'NO.'

No. He did the only thing that Felix Caelus could do. The others with their machines and their magic and their warriors will be fine.

Felix gets some tea - the warmth is a comfort - but after that the only thing he has strength to do is curl up with a book to stare at.

And wait.

Creaky floorboards don't exist in this world, but Felix has a bit of a tell that Jim's coming back in Tiber popping his head up from where he was sleeping all of a sudden, tail twitching back and forth in agitation before the kneazle hops down and makes a beeline for the door. Gives a butt wriggle before leaping up onto Jim's shoulder and trilling right in his ear to check and see what's bothering his bonded human.

The captain sighs and reaches up to ruffle Tiber's fur between his ears but he's setting the kneazle down almost immediately after. Now is not time for plays or for attention. No distractions, this time.

Jim doesn't bother kicking off his boots before he moves further into the quarters to face Felix where he's spread out on the couch.

"We need to talk."

In From the Cold (for smartass_captain)

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