[Prisoners in the Brig] -- [Kirk, Ayel, and Nero]

[kirktastic]

Kirk took the time to read himself. He had a feeling he was going to need it, to keep his calm. The tattoos were gone, leaving behind only faintly pinked lines that Bones swore would fade to white then fade even further. Only the ones along his left arm stayed, with Vulcan visible from his wrist over his hand. The ones he had asked for, his own story, his own personal grief that he knew from not one, not two, but three sides. His own, the oldest of the Spocks, and Nero's. Each conflicting, each painful, each one right in its own method which did nothing but piss him off a little.

Kirk felt his left hand start to ache as if it knew who he was going to talk to. He had the knowledge that they were girls, and a fast look at the security cameras had confirmed that. It was weird. They had hair. He just had to do this, see them in the brig, tell them the basics of what would be happening to them, and then he wouldn't have to see them until he testified at their hearing.

He could do this. Had to do this.

Kirk gestured for the guard to let down the first field, which let him continue down the hall. Ayel's cell would be closer to him, with Nero as far away as possible to keep the two from communicating. He walked up to the field, and looked inside, studying Ayel quickly before the other noticed (he hoped.)

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[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

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."

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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."

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

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.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"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."

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

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."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

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."

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

"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."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"I understood more than you want to credit me for. You want to believe that someone of the Federation isn't capable of understanding, so badly that you make yourself believe it even in the face of something else. I'll hold his name while he holds an important one of mine... you're like a blind child, turning your eyes away from every truth or twisting it until it is a truth that works with the things you believe are true."

It was a sad thing, something that Jim could pity. Not Nero himself, but for the crew that had followed him loyally. For the memories of a greater man Prime had known.

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

It was the best joke he'd heard in ages.

It couldn't be real.

A federation officer, a Starfleet Captain, telling him that he ignores the truth, prefers only what he believes to reality. A joke, told by the nohhua to amuse him at his very soul.

He hadn't heard Naele laugh since his wedding, but now it bounced off the walls in sharp staccato.

A gift.

Maybe he was dead.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

...Psycho.

Kirk didn't even have time, or the desire, to bother. He shook his head, walking away from Nero's cell and glancing only once at Ayel. Yea, the pity was there. Even from those stories, he could tell... what Ayel, Ael, had felt for Oren. He wondered if Ayel still felt it for Nero.

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

Naele's laughter fell away, trickled past him like sand and water, salt in air. It was cold, very cold, and Naele drew up to keep him warm. Her arms wrapped knees, her hair spilled across him, and he closed his eyes again before she could stare and drown him in her sorrow.

He was so tired he couldn't shiver.

Dead flesh didn't need to.