nexus_sages | (no subject)

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Of all the things Jim Kirk wishes he could do right now, getting good and drunk to drown his sorrows is certainly towards the top of the list. But his doctor says no, absolutely not, and never in his life has he wanted to go against doctor's orders less than he does lately.

So the captain finds himself in the Forum, unsure even what the hell to do with himself, and he gingerly eases himself down onto one of the couches, moving with the careful patience of the recently physically injured, before he notices the date on a nearby calendar.

Father's Day. Huh. How... stupidly appropriate.

"For those who've lost a parent... how the hell do you honor their memory? Even if you haven't, do you bother doing holidays like this?"

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"Huh. Don't think I've met any of those. What're they like?"

"They're both humanoid, but pretty different," Jim says, picking at the last bits of his pizza crust. "Romulans look pretty similar to humans except for the pointed ears and green blood. Culturally they're kind of like... space Romans, I guess. Klingons have these forehead ridges and they're really into the whole warrior culture, glorious death in battle kinda thing."

"Huh. And these are the guys who make trouble in your neighborhood?" Clint's finishing off the last of his last piece, as well. Hooray, pizza!

Jim's not particularly hungry anymore, but he's pretty determined to finish off the rest of what he has left rather than take the ease way out and feed it to the dog. And he nods in response to Clint's question. "We've got a... I guess you could call it an armistice, with both of them. Official Neutral Zone set up between their space and ours, but it doesn't always work out. The Romulans are at least sort of trying to make nice lately, though."

Lucky may be disappointed, but Clint's not going to fault Jim for it. He's eating what he took, not a thing wrong with that. "Sounds a little like the Cold War was back home. You see a lot of cloak and dagger action?"

"Not personally," he says, shaking his head. Yeah, there was the brief attempt to pass as K'normian arms dealers in Klingon territory, but they got caught pretty much immediately, so he's not gonna count that. "Starfleet's supposed to be more about exploring the unknown than going on military campaigns. And I'm pretty new at the job."

"That does sound like the better thing to be doing, really."

Jim nods, and manages to smile a bit. "Less than twenty percent of the galaxy's been explored so far. Someone's gotta do it."

"Twenty percent still sounds like a heckuva lot," Clint muses. "You see all sorts'a wild stuff?"

Now this, this he prefers to talk about. "A couple of things. Some pretty cool astronomical phenomena, like this one planet we found where it rains sapphires, or the nebula made primarily out of gold dust and tequila. It's not drinkable, sadly."

"Okay, you have got to put together a greatest hits tape of cool space stuff to watch. Raining sapphires, that's great!"

"It'd be nice to skip the more boring, mundane survey missions and just do the highlights in real life," Jim agrees. "Honestly, with all the scientists and researchers onboard, Starfleet really should send along some real astrophotographers. We do take pictures but they could be better, you know?"

Clint nods, then chuckles as a thought strikes him. "Hey, here's an idea: get a film crew to do a documentary: life on an exploration ship. It'll either be the best sci-fi show ever made, or it'll be the Office in space!"

"Is it really science fiction if it's real life?" Jim asks, somewhat rhetorically. And then, because he doesn't get the reference, "What office d'you mean?"

"Eh, gotta figure reality TV's always got someone putting a narrative on it, right?" Oh, hey, missed reference. Bad Clint. "Oh, uh, 'the Office' is this sitcom pretending to be a documentary about the people who work in this office. It's all, like, office shenanigans and water cooler politics and desk drama and that sort'a stuff."

"A whole show about that? And people don't find that boring?" Jim has never tried an actual office type job. Many other things, yes, but not that. Even if he'd had the right background for it, an unexciting workplace like an office never held any appeal for him.

"Eh, I couldn't really get into it, but some'a the folks in my building think it's just nuts." Clint shrugs expansively. "I think mostly they tune in to watch the office clown prank his boss, and the ways his boss is kinda slowly going crazy."

Ah, that makes more sense. "Wish fulfillment," Jim guesses. "Do most of the fans work the same kind of job?"

"I'm gonna guess, a lot of 'em," Clint agrees.

Of course, now that he's brought it up, Jim can't help but wonder. "Do they do the same kind of show with superheroes?"

"Oh, god," Clint groans, facepalming for a moment. "There was a reality show with a younger team, the New Warriors... but it kinda went bad. Like, really bad."

"Bad in what way?" Jim asks, because that could mean something hilarious or something horrifying depending on what happened.

"Alright, well, the thing about reality TV is there's always some producer trying to push you to do stuff that'll get ratings. So, the team's leader, he figures catching a villain team where they've gone to ground would make for a nice, juicy fight, right? And they find this team that's dug in in a little house in Stamford, Connecticut, and there's a fight. In a suburb. In the middle of the day." Clint's expression is growing more sober by the moment as he relates the tale. "Now, one of these villains, Nitro, his power is he can make things explode. Like, he could pick up a rock and make it go off like a grenade. He gets away from the main fight, and one'a the New Warriors chases him down, throws him against a school bus, in front of a school. In the middle of the day."

He hangs his head and gives Lucky's ears a scratch.

Okay, yeah, that definitely falls on the more horrifying end of the scale. "That's terrible."

Clint nods. "Yeah. Things got pretty bad for a while after that."