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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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"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?"