nexus_sages | Single Guard Seeks Thief…

“It’s not exhibitionism unless you get caught.” He rolls his eyes and keeps his voice down, but he’s obviously trying not to laugh. “And I didn’t plan on our being interrupted. I just need to know it doesn’t take leaping out of a spaceship to excite you.”

He knows perfectly well he’s leaving that wide open.

"True, true...I think we've established that i'm not exactly stealthy, however. How would you keep me quiet? I could very well jeopardize the whole 'mission' by accident." Eyebrow waggle, eeeh? Eehh? Aw, Felix isn't grinning yet.

Jim is trying. But there's only so many ways he can insinuate naughties before Nana comes over and slaps him on the back of the head, so he wisely eats his food without being improper.

All is not lost – Felix would really have to be trying to resist that eyebrow waggle. He waits until Nana’s out of range before he breaks down laughing. He's had far too much practice at evading detection. Only when he’s caught his breath does he leans closer and can lower his voice: “I’ll think of something. You’re obviously too good at getting caught.”

He settles back and adds, slightly louder: “This is delicious, you know. Reminds me of the food in Bruma. Do people normally drink so much coffee? Because that raises an interesting question.”

"I survive off of coffee." Comes Jim's immediate response. "Seriously, you ever need to be awake for three days straight, you'll be thanking whatever gods Tamriel has for caffeine." Felix has earned himself a triumphant smile from the proprietress as she disappears back behind the counter.

He can't stop smiling. Felix's laugh is infectious and Jim catches himself grinning despite his attempts to be coy.

"I had to learn meditation," Felix says, a touch plaintively. Not that Tamriel doesn't have alchemical mixtures for everything including unnatural alertness. But he wasn't allowed to depend on them because Stratos.

"You, I can understand. But is it only you or does everyone in your realm need to be kept awake? And then why? What's keeping them all up at night?" The caffeine might be kicking in, but Felix only knows he's taking Jim's smile as encouragement.

"Me, work. Clint? Work. Verity? Wwwwwwork? I don't know, admittedly, on her part." Jim shrugs and tucks into his eggs. It's worth noting that his meal is significantly less food than Felix's is. Bones doesn't complain about Jim's coffee problem because he's even worse. Even in the future there is a need for coffee.

"There's a certain social pressure on a lot of worlds that values overworking oneself. Fast paced lifestyles. Sleep too little, work too much, and caffeine is the glorious bitch that lets you do it without dying. Or wanting to die, at least." Jim shrugs and pointedly sips at his own cup. "Personally, I hate sleep. Keeps me from doing what I want to do. Work, hobbies, people."

"I'm impressed you still manage to enjoy it all. A life without rest is just cruel." Felix pulls a face, but then shrugs a little. "At least you have a reason to stay awake."

The combination of less sleep, more toil sounds horribly unappealing. It's more pleasing to imagine Jim is just too impatient to spare time from indulging his various pleasures. Work, in his case, may be one of those.

"I suppose you don't have time to eat, either?" he adds, not quite able to avoid running his mouth.

There are much better reasons, but they are left unsaid. If Felix accepts Jim's words at face value, than good. That's how Jim wants it to be. He's not lying, not exactly, Jim does hate to sleep. He hates what he sees when he does.

Jim does love what he does. Wouldn't do it otherwise he's much to selfish.

"Eh?" Jim looks down at his plate and there's a tic--really just a flicker of some other expression before he's grinning again. Easy to miss, easily covered up. "Nah, used to eating on ship schedules. Little and often. Believe me, no one wants to clean up space-sickness in zero gravity with it floating everywhere." That is more of a lie, but he's hoping the image puts Felix off from asking further.

Actively hating sleep is often a harbinger of Better Not To Pry - but in Jim's case, it's really too easy to assume he's busy indulging himself. Felix has no business questioning that line.

He does wonder about the look Jim gives his food, though. That's really odd, from a man so bent on enjoying life. Truly excellent food is one of the cardinal pleasures, isn't it?

Whether or not it distracts Felix, it gets another silly face out of him. Jim will learn how to cue all the expressions at this rate. "Ugh. If you need any more healing, I'm not doing it in space. No drinking contests, either."

He's handled more disgusting things, but he does his best to avoid them.

"I'm losing track of how many of those lines are serious, and how many are euphemisms for sex." Jim shakes his head and polishes off the rest of his fourth cup of coffee for the day before he turns back to his eggs to finish them off too.

"The rule of thumb when dealing with me, is assume I take as little time as possible to stop myself from actively doing what I want to be doing." Jim winks in Felix's direction before turning dutifully back to his plate.

“Oh. I’ve assumed everything’s a euphemism since our first conversation.” He might have a very skewed view of Earth now. Granted, Verity’s obliviousness to flirtation sort of counteracts that.

He lifts his mug. “A fine philosophy. I’ll do my best to keep up.” Starting with finishing off his food, which is an easy task even if his stomach’s filling rapidly. He might regret the rush later.

"Good, because I've been flirting with you since our first conversation." Not that subtle is in Jim's usual Modus Operandi, but it never hurts to state the facts, now and again.

"So, I showed you a nice little homey slice of Americana out in the Nexus....I think it's your turn to show me something. UNless you're tired and want to head back to work already?"

"And you'll carry on, I hope." See, Jim? See that hopeful look he's giving you?

Felix sets his plate aside with a shake of his head, on his feet without a thought. After a meal like that, he really should be sleepy, and yet he just can’t wait to drag Jim back out there. “I couldn’t sit at a desk if I tried. Come on, let’s settle up and thank our hostess.”

He hums thoughtfully, fingers drumming on the table. “Do you like forests, by the way?"

He does, God he does. Jim licks at his lower lip, blue eyes flitting from Felix to the door. And then Felix is on his feet and there's a shiver down Jim's spine.

This guy is fucking phenomenal, Jim thinks. He's clever, witty, adventurous, not too serious...and a great lay. He'll get sick of Jim--they all do--but that's okay. Just a bit longer. He'll ride this out a bit longer. Felix is fun. Felix is different. And Jim likes that.

"Speaking my language already. Let me go pay Nana and I'll be right back." Jim squeezes Felix's shoulder as he brushes by and pays for their meal without so much as thinking about how that could be taken or whatever. Jim's the one that brought Felix here, so as far as he's concerned, he should pay for whatever happens. Nana gives Felix a knowing sort of look while Jim's charming her, before letting them go complaint free (that doesn't happen often) and taking them back to the commercial district.

"Forests? As long as they're not trying to eat me or kill me in any way, sure." Jim's entirely cheerful about the prospect. "I love the outdoors. And before you ask, yeah. The last forest I was in tried to eat me and mind control a friend. Sometimes other planets are fucked up."

Felix can see that look in his eyes, and it makes his own smile that little bit wider, quickens his already fast pulse. He’s caught off-guard when Jim goes to pay, but the touch at his shoulder almost distracts him from the implications entirely. Felix struggles to wait patiently, and only realizes he’s fidgeting when Nana looks his way. Somehow he doesn’t think she’s fooled by his attempt to look casual.

There’s a spring in his step as they head back out. He’s too jittery on his feet to cozy up to Jim this time. But he doesn’t stray far and his body stays angled toward the other man, his eyes drawn back to Jim in lingering glances while he listens. Mention of a homicidal forest is actually unsettling, but he can’t help laughing the way Jim describes it.

“Just sometimes?” He shoots Jim a grin, but there’s an inquisitive look close on its heels. “You, er… don’t happen to know whose forest that was, do you?” To him, every planet is synonymous with its ruler – its creator. Naturally that makes it very important to know who's in charge.

He's not aware of it, but Jim hasn't been smiling this much in a long time. Not genuinely, anyway. Felix is like a puppy, constantly wandering from one sight to the next as they make their way through the commercial district. He never goes far, always turning back to Jim and grinning and it only makes Jim smile all the more.

And that laugh. Jim could listen to that all day.

"Uninhabited and marked on the list of 'Fuck that Planet, Seriously" in my logs." Jim shakes his head. Spock won't let him put that on his reports. He's tried already. But the sentiment is there all the same.

“I hate fighting tree spirits,” he agrees. “The Nexus ones seem very tolerant. Thank Kynareth, I suppose? Anyway, I met one at the ball. Right in the center of the dance floor, and she wasn’t throwing bees at anyone.” To his shock and following relief.

He pauses to gesture for Jim’s attention and nod at a tailor’s shop advertising a specialty in catering to aquatic gentlefolk of taste. The doorway is an airlock (though an unusually tasteful one) and to Felix it looks horribly foreboding. “Is that normally here? On the route to Nana’s, that is.”

"Oh, Groot? He's a good guy. Great dancer, too." Jim ran into him (ha) at the party as well. Kind of hard to miss the guy.

Jim stops in his tracks and peers through the storefront window. "Might have been? I usually come from the other way." Jim is reminded suddenly of diving into the ocean while poor aliens try to chase him down. Good times. Good times.

Bones hated that.

"want to take a peek inside? how long can you hold your breath?" There's a spell for that, right?

Felix shrugs, then remembers he isn’t talking to his alteration instructor and admits, “Quite some time. That doesn’t mean I can talk underwater, more’s the pity.” He peeks in the window alongside Jim, murmuring absently. “Or ward either of us from getting soaked to the skin.”

Because having to strip off would just ruin his plans for the afternoon? Someone isn’t thinking ahead…

Instead he’s disappointed that the suits displayed look like they’re all meant for humanoid proportions. Okay, except the one with extra fin holes. “I wonder if they have sloads in the Nexus- slug-men, I mean. Probably too adventurous for them.”

"Okay so....it's gonna be your job to find a way to warm us up after." Jim, no. Jim you can't hold your breath for that long and how are you even going to talk to the salespersonthing. Jim?

He's going in.

"I dunno--" His voice echoes in the doorway. "I saw a rodent building a nuclear powered toaster around here once. I wouldn't put it past this place." The Nexus in general, Jim means. "Let's go! What's the worst that could happen?"

“Well for a start- hey, wait!” Jim! Where are you going? Felix dashes in after him before the door closes, not to be left behind. Then he remembers the consequences he was just about to point out and hastily tries to remember that waterbreathing spell… “You don’t think it’s really under water in there, do you…?”

Alas, it is. To start with there’s a lot of floundering, and a short chance to be dragged inside and sized up by the octopoid shop assistant. But the experience ends rather quickly with them both getting hauled out under the tentacles of said assistant. The octoperson deposits them on the street with an alarmed burble. They’re both equally drenched, but Felix is grateful to find he isn’t coughing and spluttering after all. That doesn’t dissuade the assistant from giving them both rib-rattling thumps on the back before Felix fends it off.

“I’m fine, I’m fine! He’s the one you need to check- Jim?” He twists around to peer at the captain with wide eyes, reaching for Jim’s shoulder. “Jim! Are you all right?” He can’t have swallowed that much water, can he? No, no. But that intellectual knowledge doesn’t stop his heart racing, nor take the edge out of his voice.

"Fu-hgk!" Jim tries to wave off the octopoid weakly, coughing up quite a lot of water for a moment or two there. Ugh water up his nose and in his...everywhere. Great. Just great. "I was...f...fine...until it grabbed me. Startled me was....was all."

Ugh. Hack cough cough. Wow he must look ten kinds of lame right now. Ugh...why did he think this was a good idea again? Oh, right, because Jim's an idiot and trying to impress his b---new friend.

Yeah. Totally. Ow.

"Th' tentacle guy totally groped my butt." Jim says weakly, once they're left alone again. He shakes his head trying to get it back into place but alas, it's perfection has been ruined by the water.

“They didn’t even have an air pocket. Unbelievable. I still can't believe you dived right in!” Felix lets out a relieved giggle, the adrenalin rush suddenly vastly more enjoyable now he knows Jim isn’t drowned. And on the upside for Jim, he has got Felix close at his side again, massaging his back and fussing over him.

“Wait, it what?” His mouth draws in a jealous twinge; he tilts his head and shoots a speculative look at the door, eyebrows raised disdainfully. Hmmph. Bother his captain, will you… “Shall I have a word with it?”

"I'd have been fine if it hadn't grabbed me and made me yell." Jim insists defensively, because oh yeah, he totally meant to inhale a lungful of water. That is his favorite afternoon post-meal activity. Ugh. It wasn't that bad. But hella uncomfortable though.

"Can y'really blame him?" Jim laughs, though it sounds more like wheezing at the moment. "Don't go back in there. You can't talk to them, more trouble than it's worth." besides, they're out here now, with air and everything and Jim wants to just pretend none of that happened.

"...They didn't have anything in my size, anyway." Still joking about it. It can't have been that bad!

“Mmm.” Felix inclines his head to concede the point, offering an arm to help Jim back to his feet. If Jim wants to dismiss the offense, he’s going right back to being amused. And damp, of course.

“At least you achieved one objective, captain.” He grins, combing a hand through his wet hair. “Now I have to keep up my end of the deal.”

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject