James T. Kirk

He was no fool. This was a custom he didn't understand, and wasn't about to mess with. "First you'd have to explain it to me." He didn't plan on giving Ayel anything, certainly not something as important as this seemed to be, but it was something he wanted to be able to explain to Starfleet when they got there. "What does it mean to give one's name, and how could someone give it back?"

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Kirk wouldn't be tricked by lashes, by a low voice. But Ayel had already been asked to be quiet. Quieter. It could be done.

Sharra's hand throbbed at him, raw, angry, and the room was too bright.

Earth and Air, give me the right words.

"Not until--" her tongue was ashes, sticking against his teeth. He'd wanted Kirk's name before he insisted this--too greedy, and it had turned back on him.

"I want my name. Return it, and I'll tell you. I'll swear to it." Saying that felt like licking the field, scalding and dry. "But you have to give me my name. Hell! I'll sign for it, if you want a written oath. "

And if you'll actually give me electronics, you deserve what will happen to your computer banks.

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"I can't give you a damn thing until you tell me," Kirk challenged with narrowed eyes and a strong voice. Here, here... he was not their prisoner, not drugged and broken. A captain, what he as supposed to be.

"You have to tell me to get anything back," He met Ayel's firmly, "Until then, I have your name, your Captain's name, and her name."

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He almost snarled not the one that matters. Bit down hard on Sharra's tongue to keep it from escaping.

She was Fire and Air, like this room. The lights, the field. Too quick, too hot-tempered.

He looked down, rounded his shoulders a little.

"Swear you'll do it after I say, then. Promise me on the life of your Bones. And I'll tell."

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"Would you promise anything to your enemy on the blood of your Captain?" Kirk asked in retort. "I will promise you nothing, but I will hold to your names for the rest of existence if you tell me nothing."

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Federation promises are worthless, anyway.

"Fine. James. Done." He let out a long, shaky breath.

Leave out all the other names, Kirk only had the heart's name, the strongest name--no reason to give him any of the others, or any knowing he might cut another Rihann with.

"That is who I am. Understand? Like--" what was it, some barbarity Klingons would have done, "like cutting my hand off, so you can use it to fake an ident scan. But worse. Thief."

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"Your name is who you are." Pause, consider, "Your true name? ...Not Ayel. You gave us a fake one instead of your true? You mean use it to speak to other people?" He was trying to understand, ignoring his throbbing hand. "Why did Nero give me your name and his?"

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I don't ~~want to~~ know why. Sometimes he talks like we were always dead. That's when I'm afraid.

"Ayel is the name that most call me. The other--is a very close name." He leaned to keep from falling over. "You would call me that name if you loved me." A little huff of anger, a tiny hopeless laugh. "It's not just insulting. It's sick."

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Well, it was something to know. He'd tell Starfleet this information when they arrived. "Humans don't have two--" He stopped. Suddenly, he understood. Humans did have two names. People called him Captain, Kirk, James... but only the people he cared about called him Jim. And Bones... he was the only person who called McCoy Bones. A very close name.

Humans were freer with those names, but didn't they all have something like that? "I see, Ayel."

He stepped back once, "You both will be turned over to Starfleet, and they will decide your punishment. You'll be able to explain yourself, your reasonings, your defense, or proclaim your guilt if you want." Distance yourself, Jim. Just fucking do it.

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"My name. I'll return his." The words were small, tight, pushing the edge of human hearing. "For mine."

Don't keep it.

"Fair is fair?"

That was how they said it.

The rest was--not unimportant, but expected, known to him. Some form of the Right of Statement.

The truth would be told. .

He'd never said he would be there to tell it. A word not given could not be broken.

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"Your name is scarred forever in my skin," Kirk's voice was tight, "I cannot give it back completely. Your captain made sure of that, for all time." It was quiet, blunt, and as truthful as he could get with Ayel. "How could I trust your honor? In my eyes, you have no honor. Spock believed in your honor until the moment you destroyed his world."

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His honor. His honor-- what was left without it? And James would always doubt.

He'd spoken fairly; Kirk did the same.

"You can't," said Ayel, soft, final. "Maybe you never will."

"I don't have anything you want."

It was a low purr through licked lips--discourteous, vile, but effective. Whore's paint over the wound, sealing over doubt.

"Except his name. Why would I lie?" He craned Sharra's neck, arching. There would be time to explain his misuse of her self in the afterworld, if he were lucky. Her hips tilted differently, too low down, but they made the same kind of fluid motion. "On the worth of a strong, solid name like his? I can swear it for you on his name."

He grinned, a razor smile. "I won't lie. It's a good one. Was it always his? Was it a present?"

That was the ragged edge of what honor allowed. And the offer, while backhanded, was genuine.

The only thing Kirk valued was his Bones. A promise on that name was good.

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"You're forgetting, Ael," Using the name on purpose, "that Humans and Romulan cultures aren't the same. You do have something I want, but its not something you can ever give." Kirk spat the words, "I just hope you remember that I gave you every chance, every opportunity, that you didn't give the Kelvin, any of the ships you destroyed, or Vulcan." His finger rose, and he pointed through the barrier.

"I gave the three of you your lives. Whether or not you want them, whether or not you give a damn, that is something you will be in my debt for forever."

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The ache of it vanished under the smile, the hair, the fine tapered bones of new hands wearing old, old grief.

Something he could never give, that he already had?

Anything he had could be given away! Everything he had left ~~even his life~~ was his to spend.

Didn't touch the issue of debt. Something large there was very different, but debt was dangerous in any language.

And he was tired of throwing it down in the mud in front of 'Fleet boots.

"Well," he hummed, sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, pouted, "if you don't want him back, I'm happy to keep Bones with me."

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Ayel had stolen part of Kirk's life, his memories, part of his mental security. A part of himself that Kirk could never get back from Ayel.

"Then I'll keep Mandana. I guess that means the both of us have something the other doesn't want us to have."

He turned on his heel, and walked down towards Nero. This.. would be harder. The Romulan was bat shit insane.

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The air was shifting again, craning against the forcefield. The blue, wordless, meaningless blue, crackled and changed intensity. It was easier to see with his eyes closed.

They were quiet, mostly, had fallen away beyond forcing him to hear, to listen. Maybe they were impatient. Maybe would be waiting in his reflection next.

He was still, could feel the weight of his weapons, one maybe two of them. The air stopped and he opened his eyes. It would be worse if he waited.

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Kirk watched Nero through the force field. He made an incredibly striking female, as much as he had been a handsome Romulan. Too bad Kirk still wanted to rip his throat out.

He knew that much from the second he saw Nero's face again, whether or not it was the one from his nightmares and memories retold during the removal of his tattoos. He still wanted Nero dead, blood on his own hands. It made him feel... vindicated somehow in his own little way that he had been right in letting Starfleet make this choice, and not him, because he could never have made the most fair choice, only the one that spoke most of revenge.

It brought around more than he was willing to admit, just seeing Nero again, when he had the upper hand and wasn't a helpless prisoner. He wondered what Nero would make of his tattoolessness.

"Nero."

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It was Kirk.

One of them.

Dead? Or was this something he was seeing, rather than seeing. Could never tell.

He looked different, or the same. No, the same, when he should look different. The lights here lied, the lines of grief ghosted across him in close succession. They were burned into his bones, projected out like running lights. Didn't matter that they were off.

Naele was still crouched in his throat, glanced against the corners of his eyes and twisted his expression hard. He would waste no weakness on this creature, not in front of her. Not when he'd forced her to watch.

He said nothing.

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"You'll be tried separately from Ayel as Captain of the Narada." Was the first thing Jim chose to say to Nero. A threat, and a comfort, all in one. Simple, ~~not~~ easy. "We'll give you the chance at life that you didn't give billions of others. I'll tell them everything. Your side, our side, Ambassador Spock's side."

He held up his fingers. "I know his side." The meld positions, at least as best he could remember them. "Oren."

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The name bristled against his skull, against this shape, and a voice seethed out before he could stop it.

"Go home, " Naele hissed his words for him. Her voice could sear great men, soldiers twice her size, shook the cliffs of Mnaeha and the walls of the academy. "Spout to someone who cares, but don't disgrace the dead."

His heart twisted in his side and he gripped his arm, covered her name from her dead eyes. Kirk couldn't read, he was honor-blind anyway. All of them were.

"Whatever you think you know." It wasn't worth it. Waste words, waste her voice on this. On him. His breath escaped in a hard blow through her nose, the sharpest dismissal, and he closed his eyes again.

"A bird see's the orb weaver, knows it is death, but does not understand the threads around its neck."

A childish story. One she'd told him. It made less sense, had less comfort in this language. He'd give no Kirk Rihannsu.

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"There is only one dead being disgraced here, and that's the woman you loved. Ael is still alive, but you tell me over and over he is dead. He is there down the hall, trapped and awaiting sentencing because of you."

Jim shook his head. "I wish I could say I understand you at all, but I don't. You scribe stories into my skin about the two people you loved, but talk like both of them are dead. Some man you are... no honor, only filled with anger and revenge."

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He couldn't tell what he was hearing and what he was hearing. If anything were there or not, twisting in the liar's light in the liar's tongues. It was a path he had only navigated on occasion, one filled with men he'd kill if he lived long enough to meet them again.

"Ael," the name recalled colors, calmness. "You've never met Ael." The first came first, more on the air.

"I disgrace all the people I love, have disgraced them, but I will correct it," Nero continued, his voice and words following the winding shapes behind his eyes, the twisting patterns of light and not-light. He had taken far too long to equal the honor. She would have been ashamed of it. He was halfway there, but halfway did not matter in ruling passions.

His eyes parted but he didn't look at this phantom Kirk.

"I am not a man," that sounded like Naele, in her officer's brass, "The other you understood that before he caught us. You're a bhudt wasting borrowed words about things you don't understand.

"Waving arms and knives in a tantrum," he finished, half to the wall, "Maybe I don't have to take that future from you."

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Waving arms and knives in a tantrum? Trying to have even a basic conversation with Nero was like trying to navigate a maze full of traps blindfolded. "You made me understand some of it. You forced it into me, so I can't forget. You succeeded there, because I'll never forget. Do you even remember all that you told me?"

Kirk stared into the room, could meet those eyes without flinching. "I met Ael, through your words, through his own actions. Him inside my head, me inside of his. Someone who was sweet and tender and cared about you and still does but you treat worse than a dog until he's become as twisted as you. At least he has some sanity left."

"You need to stop disgracing him, because he's the only one you have left."

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"I told you stories." There was a hollowness in Naele's voice. It was true, for both of them. "You didn't understand."

Words, fluttering worthless words that didn't sink to the floor, spun around his head and dashed against the walls and he picked them apart, shard by shard, with his mind.

"I never disgrace him, don't waste his name like you, until it means nothing and holds no value." His head craned and he looked at this Kirk who was and was not real. Couldn't be this stupid and be real, or this foolish and be fake. "Burst apart and be quiet."

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