dear_mun | (no subject)

She hasn't eaten?

[ Doctor mode is a go-- wait wait wait what? ]

It's ridiculous, that's what it is.

I keep telling her a meal-a-day does not keep the doctor away. Now I've got proof.

Good timing, Bones.

[ He'd clap you on the shoulder, but he's in space...head space...this is not the space he wanted! Oh well at least you're here.... ]

Ridiculous? Ridiculous how?

Damn right it doesn't. You keep tellin' her to breathe, Jim.

[ Ah, well. He'll give a nod anyway. ]

We're all stuck there and get cursed every few days, that's how.

She's not pregnant.

[ But yeah okay maybe he can do that. Mun's breathing as long as he's replying at least, which is a ...good thing. In theory. ]

Cursed. Really. [ grasshoppers in the siiiiilence going whaaaaat ] Is that shorthand for something less voodoo-sounding?

[ Or...is it actually voodoo. Because. That...we're going 50/50 on extremely cool and extremely not okay, the latter more because Bones is apparently stuck there on his own, which just isn't going to fly. ]

In case you haven't noticed, oxygen is sort of essential for human life.

[ Yes, replying is a good thing, even if Bones won't admit it. ]

Unfortunately, no. I haven't been hit with anything too bad yet, but there's a girl up here who was turned into a cheetah.

[ He will just... not mention the mistletoe curse, because this is Jim and Jim would never let it go. Ever. ]

Is it? Learn something new everyday. What would I do without you?

[ It's okay Bones. The mun Knows. Cue twilight zone theme.

Record skip BACK sound effect because hold the communicator ...girl into a...

Uh... ]

Bullshit.

[ Not your bff because he's eloquent.... ]

A lot more stupid things, probably.

[ And you're supposed to be a genius, Jim. ]

You wanna bet? She's goin' to be turned into one again this weekend, except she won't be a cuddly little kitten this time.

[ Cub. Whatever. The point is, shit happens. ]

Yesterday there was a carnivorous plant who sang.

Gee thanks.

[ (TROLL) ]

Cub. Wait, what's...hold on.

[ Squinnnnnnnnnnt... carnivorous plant who sang...indeed. He's wondering if it's an ex-human or an ex-anything-else-not-a-plant, also wondering how long Bones has been in such a place. Exploring new worlds is a part of the mission but that comes with a handful of understood components to the statement, not the least of which is that they - the crew of the USS Enterprise - do so as a unit of some kind. How Bones got so far off and alone isn't something Jim can get his head around really when he knows he was just eying the back of the man's head. So what happened? Girls turning into wildcats. Singing foliage. Okay. Weird.

But probably the carnivorous part is important too and the rest of whatever else Jim doesn't know. He doesn't like being in the dark for too long. ]

What have you been hit with?

[ Primary concern? Funny how that friendship thing works. ]

Anytime.

[ How long? A little over a month now, and he's gotten off light on the curses. He would tell him, if he asked, just like he'd tell Jim that he has no idea how the hell he got there and that Jim should get Scotty and figure out a way to pick him up please and thank you, just like he'd tell Jim that he's stuck working in a hospital with technology no more advanced than that you'd find in 2012. He doesn't like it, doesn't like the City and especially doesn't like being alone there, and no matter how many people are around him at any one time, that is what he is there (save, perhaps, for when he's with Pink and Tessa; then not so much). ]

Wish I knew.

[ It's not PTSD or anything like that; they were all checked out after the Narada incident. Starfleet protocol; he should know, seeing as he'll have to do the same after particularly disastrous away missions. The facts, though, are simple: Jim was only on the ship because of Bones, the ship was hit, Bones may have only survived because of Jim, Jim was thrown off, Bones didn't stop it, Jim came back and nearly died, Bones didn't stop it, Jim saved the world, they all recuperated while the ship was patched up, and then out they went again -- only for Bones to disappear into a strange city for a month by himself. ]

Apparently whenever I go back, no time will have passed. If I go back.

[ On his side of things, if this is a side, if you can call it a side when there doesn't appear a side to be on in the first place - just a vastness of what Jim's been told must be thoughts and whims and just a general blank subconscious where ideas ought to be - Jim catches out that more than just his predicament at hand is wrong. He doesn't have to be told everything outright, particularly not with Bones, but even so he's not a telepath in the least. Intuition and the nuance of knowing someone deep down is still not mindreading, well, not for him at least. Not for Bones either. Jim likes that. Margin for error. Keeps things interesting.

But that's personal. This kind of screwup he isn't fond of, the technical kind, the kind where it's clear they are in way over their heads because when he gets out of here Jim has the distinct feeling (a feeling which is more a sense of knowing) he won't remember this conversation, he won't know that even though Bones might be standing with his arms crossed five feet away, Bones is somehow also somewhere else - sentient, alone, and at a loss somewhat. If what the other man says is true of himself, then it stands to reason it's true for jim as well even if not everything lines up. It's unsettling, very not okay which goes without saying, and he doesn't want to just leave it at that. Not knowing doesn't change that it will have happened, or no time having perceivably passed.

There's a lot they should discuss, starting from point A, technically, practically. But before even that, he pauses, kicks at the empty space like a door he could walk through if there was a door, which there isn't. Not even a wall to punch. Figures.

But he's just proved three years instead of four, he's just done his father proud, he's just begun. In a way they all have, haven't they? If? That's not acceptable.

Didn't you get the memo, Bones? It's chained to your unofficial caretaker's license: Jim doesn't believe in no-win situations.]

Hey. None of that.

You will come back. If I have to drag you back myself. I owe you one, remember?

[That's not why he'd do it of course and they both know it, but there's something to be said for keeping your chin up. Jim can do it for both of them, if it comes to that.]

[ He won't remember, at least not there, and he knows that. It isn't going to stop him from being relieved that this conversation is happening at all, though. Maybe he's fast asleep back in the City, maybe he'll wake up feeling a little bit better because this has happened in this place of thoughts and, more often than not, complaints. Maybe. Maybe not, and he's not exactly an optimist at the best of times, so he's leaning on that -- but he'll let himself be selfish, for now. It's good to see him, good to talk to him, even if he won't remember. ]

Wish you'd hurry the hell up about it. Network's gonna be filled with sex talks in a few days and I'm not lookin' forward to it.

[ That said, if he had a choice between Jim trying to get him out of there and failing or Jim being in the City with him? He'd pick the first. Jim's too bright a star to capture in a jar like that. The crew needs him, the ship needs him, Earth needs him, the Federation needs him. Bones needs him. And he's sure it wears on him sometimes, when the lights go out and he's trying to turn his brain off, because responsibility like that... if it didn't wear on him somewhat, Bones would have to give him a wake-up call. In the grand scheme of things, though, Leonard McCoy is one man (and so is James T. Kirk, but that's not the point). One man or the Federation itself? Jim needs to pick the latter, even if there's not a choice for him to make. ]

Did I hear sex talks? Maybe I should check this place out...

[ Blink.

Blink.

Stare.

Okay. Okay, not the weirdest thing he's ever experienced, and after Spock he should be used to this shit. (He's not.) At least it's Jim and not him -- actually, no, that doesn't make it better at all.

Right. Moving on. ]

That's just one curse. They're not all as harmless.

Sex talks. [ He's doing quite a lot of parroting back but some of these curses just sound weird. Which is better than harmful outright he guesses and take what you can get, etc, etc, etc. All the same, it's hard to take anything at face value when you're already talking about a Magic sounding thing instead of a Science sounding thing. Then again if there's time travel then who knows. That's magic to some people and miraculous even to ex-skeptics. Some things don't get explanations. Or if they do, they come later. Doesn't look like they get a choice but fine, challenge accepted. ] Obviously it's my duty [ if not as captain then as uh best friend... ] to get there and take over for you. On our way out, obviously.

[ Jim can think of worse things to talk about after all. Abstinence for example. But again he's aware that's hardly the point. What's Bones not saying? That's what he's trying to key into. Jim's mind isn't a quiet thing but contrary to the run and jump exterior there is a semi-method to the madness. It's not like if he lets it go still and empty then the other man's thoughts will just fill in the space, but if he frames it in what he knows so far with what he's relatively sure of without asking, it gives him an idea, and sometimes an idea is enough. ]

What exactly've you been doing there? What's the last thing you remember before you were there actually?

'cause minutes ago I was making good on a promise. [ Promise. Challenge. Same difference probably and he's pretty sure in that case Captain Pike would agree. Anyway. Point being: captain, captain with the best broken in crew their side of space, ready to punch out into god knows where. ] And you, you were five feet away. Give or take.

[ The so what gives quality of it all is hard to miss but it's not directed at Bones so much as their circumstances. What happened? What's the trick? And how does he untrick it? Or trick it better.

Whatever gets him his chief medical officer back in the condition he ought to be. ]

[ They are weird. That's part of what disturbs him about it. What the hell are they to the deities running the place? Animals in a zoo? Rats in a maze? Are they entertainment, experiments, energy to keep that damn clock ticking so the universe keeps going? He doesn't have any answers, just theories -- and Jim will want answers, will want to find answers if there aren't any, and that scares him. Out in the City, he doesn't know what the deities can do. Here, though, he does. Here he knows about a man losing his childhood memories because he died in the City and wanted to live again. He's not going to let that happen to Jim. ]

Which one of us is the doctor, again? [ Don't even try and use 'experience' as your bargaining chip, Jim. He was married, and while things were certainly... 'frosty' is a mild term for it... before the divorce, staying with a partner for an extended amount of time had its benefits. So does medical school. ]

What've I been doing? Learning how to use medical tools from two goddamn centuries ago. Most people there are from around the 2000s, and here I am from 2258, keeping an eye on a girl from the 1800s and having most of my conversations with a guy from 1992.

[ He runs a hand through his hair before crossing his arms again. ] Last thing I remember is being about five feet away from you. We were shipping out. When I arrived, I thought it was some sort of transporter malfunction -- maybe it had fucked up my memory, too. Made more sense than suddenly being where I'm not supposed to be. Tried hailing the ship from my communicator, ended up broadcasting all over the City network instead.

[ McCoy doesn't have the answers. He wishes he did. In a way, out here, he does -- the invisible hand of a writer picked him up and stuck him somewhere else. That doesn't tell him how he can get out and go back, though, and it doesn't do either of them any good. How do you argue and outmaneuver something like that? How do you challenge something that can press a key a few types and erase your challenge from your thoughts?

Then again, if anyone can find a way to do it, it's Jim. ]