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CHARACTERS: "Todd"/Guide, James T. Kirk, and all volunteers
LOCATION: Medical Bay
WARNINGS: Extensive description of the Wraith feeding process, and internalized self-loathing. Possible profanity.
SUMMARY: You can never win, you can only break even. With a Wraith, you can't break even - even if you are one.

He's growing used to the fire in his bones, and the thought disgusts him more than he would dare to admit. This repetition of siphoning off a bit of life and then slowly starving again is not the way of a Queen's man. It is short-sighted - but the kine are a short-lived species, as it should only be that they cannot imagine so far into the future. Yet he has agreed to this deal, and their short-sightedness is his own. It will not be long before he starves again, and then more humans will have to sacrifice themselves to him. So this vicious cycle will begin anew.

He kneads the dark vein that winds itself abound his wrist so that it does not swell with enzyme, but he closes his fist as he does so. He can grow used to the fire in his bones, but never shall he look upon a hungry hand without shame.

Guide waits in the medical bay, squinting at the too-bright lights. When he has the strength to do so, he stands; when he hasn't, he rests, sitting as regally as one can in torn leathers.

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Incidentally, the donation process isn't any easier the second time. It's just as scary, just as overwhelming, just as tiring... She doesn't immediately feel sick like she did the first time, at least, but that just leads her to believe that she was only sick the first time from nerves. She's a little pale, and everything aches, but her stomach isn't rebelling like last time. So that's good, right? Means it won't be as gross tomorrow, and it won't matter that Erik isn't there to help her through it again. Hn.

Raven's up on her feet a few minutes sooner than she likely should be, just because she needs to get away from the line of donors, out of that bed, make it easier to pull away from the situation. It helps that there are mostly different faces than the last time, but then... not really. Because it just reminds her that those people might not even be here anymore. She zips up her jumpsuit all the way, covers up the small bandage that's covering up the marks. Flexes her hands open and closed at her sides, like getting her circulation going will make her feel less tired, cold. She's not sick, no, but this is awful. Not being at her top condition is enough to make her feel weak, and unprepared, and a little bit scared.

But then she sees Jim. So.

Okay, maybe not as scared.

Luckily, there's a chair not to far from where he's standing. It's just as uncomfortable as every other piece of furniture in the medbay, but she's making it her new favorite chair for a while. She sits sideways on it, facing him, her head resting against the wall.

"Hey there, silverfox." Bad joke? Bad joke. She'll smile anyway, like the situation isn't really freaking grim. "You know, I thought I noticed the-" just gesturing with her fingers at her own temple. "-on the comm, but it looks even better in person."

He wants to go to her, which in itself is a strange feeling. Help her to her feet and wrap her in the blanket the doctors provide (to stop them from going into shock). It isn't his job, though, so he doesn't- or at least, he doesn't until she comes and sits next to him. Then he grabs a blanket and wraps it around her shoulders anyway, before stepping back out of her personal space.

The look he gives her is amused, but wry. "You don't think it makes me look old?"

It's only when she's pulling the blanket around herself a litter tighter that she realizes she needed it, but she won't let herself think about it, not when she's got a perfectly good distraction in Kirk being here.

"I think it makes you look distinguished." She somehow grins and winces at the same time, because no, that's not quiet right. "Like... stripes earned. Do they have stripes and stuff in, um, in Starfleet? For different accomplishments? 'Cause I think by now you would have gotten, like. Four or five, at least." Whaaaat is she talking about. "Yeah, that's what it makes you look like, to me. Somebody that's earned some stripes."

There's something endearing about the way Raven goes on, and Kirk is glad that it's not something she's lost since being up here. Like the rest of them, she's aged too, but unlike himself (or so he seems to think) she's held on to that flare of fun she arrived with. That part of her that jumped up the bleachers and dared him to follow.

He smiles, genuine. "They do. Have stripes in Starfleet, I mean. But if these are the only stripes I get from being on the Tranquility I'm not sure if that makes me happy or not."

So long as he doesn't return to his native continuum completely grey, he'll be mostly happy.

"Nah, that's just the first one people might notice. You've got stripes already, though. Other kinds." The longer she's sitting here, the more comfortable the chair gets. Or maybe she's just that tired from the donation, because man she could probably fall asleep right here at this rate. She's trying to keep her body moving though, in little ways, her toes tapping inside of her boots, and her fingers fussing with the ends of the blanket. Anything to keep herself from dozing off, intentionally or not.

"You've changed, you know? Since you got here."

He takes the moment of her settling to pull a chair out to sit down next to her, relenting instead of towering over her, but his gaze doesn't leave her when it doesn't need to. The chair squeaks just a little as he takes a seat, watching her expression. Gauging how she's feeling, watching as the fatigue catches up with her. Being bitten by the wraith leaves a bizarre sensation of being in pain while having the strength to bench press a bus, it's always disorienting.

Kirk knows it far more intimately than he should, according to McKay.

"I think we all have," He confesses heavily, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Anyone who's been here for a while."

"It's not all bad, though. At least I don't think so."

Not right at this very second, at least. She's sure she's changed in as many good was as bad, but she's not really thinking about it like that right now. It's difficult to really focus on anything for very long right now, but not as much if she just tries to remember what it was like talking to Jim for the first time, compared to how it is now. Different, but not a bad different. And she's about to comment with something regarding just that, but when she turns to look at him again she sees he's already looking back.

"I'm fine." If not just sounding a little bashful - she doesn't hate that he's watching her. "Bet I could still kick your butt right now if I had a reason to."

"I better not give you a reason, then," Jim says, smiling and leaning back just a little, giving her some space back and making it seem that he isn't paying as close attention. Even if he is. But he gets the impression that she probably doesn't mind as much as she makes it sound she does.

Especially since he hands her a cup of water off the stand next to him, without looking away from the amber of her eyes.

She takes the cup without comment, although she does end up smiling against the rim of it when she takes a sip, leaning back against the wall again and turning her gaze back to the rest of the room. Ideally, in the perfect scenario ( ie: the kind of situation that never happens on the Tranquility ), this time could be spent smoothing over the rough patch that's cropped up between them, time for her to jump back into the swing of things, just like before. But instead she's got this twinge in her chest from where the wraith fed from her, something like pain, but really it's her body trying to heal itself faster than what the wound allows. Like she's trying to shift just one part of her appearance, but something's stopping it. Feels weird, man. So she's looking out to the rest of the medbay, brow furrowing tight as she tries to stop herself from grimacing too much.

"How many times have you gone through this?" It sounds less casual than it should, more of a how did you deal with this? than a casual inquiry, but really it's just from the fact that she can't tell if she's going to be sick or if her regen cell thing is just acting up again, protesting this kind of intrusion. She's not about to reprimand him for something she just signed up for too, but she can't really wrap her head around the idea of handling this without the aid of her mutation.

"Three or four times," Jim says, and he lets his attention leave her when she curls into the blanket and the cup. He can tell she's in pain, that she's uncomfortable; he can't fathom what it's like for people with advanced healing. Jim is fairly certain he wouldn't have been able to operate half as good as he did with the stimulants the doctors provided afterward.

He shifts his weight and rubs his chest without thinking about it, where the permanent scar from feeding rests on his sternum. Jim glances sideways to her. "They can give you a stimulant, if you're feeling rough."

"So four." Here, have a brief but highly skeptical look from Raven, because she's sure this isn't really something you could lose track of. Unless it was more than three or four and he was just that bad at covering up the fact. But she won't dig into it, because that's not the point.

"Stimulant like what, caffeine?" She considers it, but only for a second. "I feel like I might freak out if I'm anymore stimulated than I already am." It was meant to sound clever, not- ah. "I mean I already feel like I could run a marathon right now if I could just, um, convince myself to get out of the fetal position. For more than a minute." Cause now she really is curling up, her heels finding the edge of the chair she's sitting on as she sinks down into it.

His mouth quirks, "I know that feeling." And he does, the sensation that you can do anything but you're so uncomfortable that you can't. "It's not caffeine, just something to clear your head and take some of the pain away." Jim doesn't know much about which medications did what; hell, Bones has put so much crap into him over the years that Jim is convinced he could be a walking pharmacy.

But they always work (when he isn't allergic to them), so he can stand by that at least.

"Mmn, okay, yeah. I could go for that." Excuse her while her rests her forehead on her knees, successfully hiding her face as she squeezes her eyes shut. "Where do I sign up?"

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