pursuedthestars | Iowa

Iowa was boring. It was really, really boring and it was starting to eat away at Jim's psyche. He felt like he'd done everything, seen everything, knew everyone and it was boring. He didn't know how much more stagnation he could take. The urge to do something, anything, was growing in his belly, hot and fierce and strong.

Jim kept ignoring it because he knew (he knew) what he might end up doing. He ignored it to drink and to date and to walk and drive and fight. But, it was still there. Still waiting and Jim knew he wasn't going to be able to ignore it for much longer before he gave in.

It was dark tonight, warm and sticky. Jim's feet were stretched out in front of him, dirt gathering on his boots. Inside, Frank was watching something loud on the television and his mother was off somewhere, doing her thing. It was just him and the vast openness in front of him.

He sighed and tapped the porch with his fingers, watching streaks of light brighten the night sky before it sunk back into its darkness. Those people were doing something. Something good, something new and something that wasn't sitting on a damn porch on a Thursday night.

God, he sucked.

[NFB but open for usual things]

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He shrugged again.

"Not really," he replied after a spell. "I see a way to escape. To get swallowed up and never come back to the ground."

"And do you think that's a good thing?" she wondered quietly. "See, the one time I went to space, I hated it. It was claustrophobic and I just wanted nothing more than to come back down again."

She knew that had to do with the circumstances of how she'd ended up there. But it had been a pretty vividly unpleasant experience for her.

"But from down here, even after that... It looks like so much possibility."

"Maybe." He sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment. "My mom probably feels that way too. She spends most of her time there."

"Does she?" Natalie murmured. "I didn't know that."

There was a lot she didn't know.

"I never told you that?" He blinked and glanced down at her shoulder and the empty landscape around them. "Huh."

Natalie shrugged a little, with a glance back at him. "I guess it just never came up."

She'd met her mother but still felt like she knew more about his father instead.

"Not that important," he said, shrugging. "She's there for work."

"Mm." She gave his hand a little squeeze. "When I was a kid, I would've never thought people would go to space for work. Now it seems it's all anyone goes there for."

That, or exile.

"This world's pretty much used up when it comes to exploration," he replied. "People here gotta go somewhere to get their rocks off."

"I'm not sure anyone explores at all in Peter's world." It didn't seem like it form her point of view, but she also knew being part of the Hegemony probably skewed the things she saw in the direction of politics. "They just go off to colonize. Or are sent to colonize once they've outworn their welcome on Earth."

"Do they colonized uninhabited worlds?" he asked. "Or take over places where people are already settled?"

"Uninhabited worlds, with minor terraforming, as far as I know," Natalie replied, her eyes to the sky. "I don't think I've heard of any pre-existing life anywhere."

"I'm thinking of going up there," he confessed quietly. "I've got nothing to do down here. No point."

Natalie wasn't surprised. She tugged on his hands, pulling his arms more tightly around herself.

"I think you'd do well up there, Jim," she said.

Jim made a noncommittal sound and sighed. "I don't know. Not really what I thought I'd be doing once the time came."

"I know." They'd had similar conversations before. Or at least parts of conversations. Conversational snippets. "But you really belong somewhere bigger than this. You're of the multiverse."

The way she felt she was, these days. Paths were opening up.

"Maybe." He sighed again. "I never wanted to be bigger than this though."

"Doesn't mean you have to be bigger," she replied, turning her head. She caught his cheek for a kiss. "Just the space around you."

Jim sighed and closed his eyes. "I don't know. We'll see what happens."

"Or you can just come work for me," she told him lightly, joking just to lighten his thoughts. "I could use someone to type up my lecture notes. The pay would be... okay-ish, and partly dealt out in sex, probably."

It worked because Jim laughed.

"While I am great at sex, who says I would wanna type out your lecture notes?" he asked, snickering still. "If I worked for you, I'd want to be doing something exciting, at least."

That sound was a part of why Natalie had shown up tonight. Hearing it made her smile up at the starry sky.

"But you think everything I do is boring," she pointed out in turn. "I don't know if I have anything exciting for you to do."

"Not everything," he said, shaking his head. "You're exaggerating."

"Then, pray tell, James T. Kirk," Natalie replied, raising her eyebrows, "what don't you find boring about what I do?"

"I don't think the traveling's boring," he told her. "That'd cool. Interesting. Just the reasons for traveling."

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