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[chasedthestars]

It shouldn't matter.

He's seen the holo a thousand times, maybe even tens of thousands. It's burned into his brain - he could close his eyes and see each individual lock of hair, each dimple in their happy faces. He knows exactly what it looks like without looking at it at all, but it's not here, and Jim's punched a jagged hole in his bedroom door before he even realizes that he's angry.

He leaves the house with an aching hand and a crunch of boots over dry, red earth, fingers clutched tight around a single faded photograph. He has one holo, one, of he and Sam and their mother. One holo of them smiling like a family, Jim's face small and round with youth and no trace of George but for his eyes, Winona Kirk's arms around him and a smile like he can't remember seeing anywhere but this holo, and now it's...

Looking down at it, Jim fights the urge to spit into the dirt. Now that holo has been ripped from his PADD, replaced instead by a wrinkled piece of paper, the colors about as vibrant as a piss stain, and their clothes - even their clothes have been altered from army brat red to gingham and leather, and Jim's had enough.

This place has taken his ship, his friend Ishiah, and now his fucking family photo, and he is done with sobriety for a while. Pushing through the doors of the closest saloon, he figures he might just be done with consciousness, too.

[ooc: one of those public privates? if your pup feels up to dealing with an angry captain in a dangerous mood, feel free!]

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[leftwithmybones]

McCoy comes home to find disaster. He takes in the whole room before he puts together the pieces and knows that something happened. "Jesus, Jim," he mutters to himself, but he doesn't go after him just yet. He takes the time to tidy up the mess, feeds the cat and the dog, and then takes a good hour to patch up the door. It's a temporary solution, but there's a couple of thin planks over the door and Jim will get his privacy when he comes home.

He grabs the primitive first-aid kit when he sees the blood and then thinks better of it, jamming gauze in his pocket before he locks up behind him, walking along the nearby route until he catches sight of a saloon. Jim's not in the first, but he is in the second. Without a word, McCoy drops into the stool next to Jim, taking out the gauze and gesturing with his chin for the wounded hand.

[chasedthestars]

Jim's cheeks are propped sloppily against the knuckles of both hands, his face pointed at the counter where the photo rests, a empty shot of whiskey atop it like it's going to blow the fuck away.

He's only a little surprised by Bones' arrival, and offers the hand up without complaint. "How'd you know?" he asks. "'sides the violence to the door."

[leftwithmybones]

"You bled a little and both the animals were fine," McCoy says evenly, not mentioning the fact that he had to give them both a pat-down just to make sure of the fact. He's not going to make jokes to make Jim feel better. Hell, he's not even sure if that'd do the trick. Instead, he focuses on the easy rhythm of holding Jim's wrist in place with one hand while the other binds the fingers in place. "I put the blood together with the broken door and I figured something happened."

"Besides, I was bound to turn up in one of these things anyway," he says, gesturing to the saloon. "Maybe it's just my lucky day, finding you in this one."

[chasedthestars]

Jim snorts against the heel of his hand, a bitter and too loose rumble of sound. The empty shot in front of him isn't the first he's downed tonight. Jim's not sure it's even the fourth.

"That's me," he says, more likely to wince for the gentle way Bones is holding him than the sting of broken skin. "Everybody's lucky charm."

[leftwithmybones]

"Are you actually shitting me?" is McCoy's growled reply. "You caused me to worry about going grey and early heart attacks on a daily basis with your exploring," he reminds Jim. "Lucky charm? I'd hate to see what unlucky means," he says, snugly tucking the gauze into the bandage and releasing Jim's hand.

He sees the picture out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't press -- not yet. "What are we drinking?"

[girlsolo]

Kate has done the responsible things. Left notes, gone to work and gotten sent home, groomed a horse that wasn't hers and made sure he had a home, done the community service she paid off before she even committed to monogamy with Declan. She's trained, she's eaten, she's hydrated, she's slept, she's left more notes, she's fed the damned dog she didn't even like that much when Declan got her and she hasn't fucking run away.

Yet.

Tonight, she leaves the dog with Phoebe who's good at not asking questions and even better at being kind to people and animals. There's an offer to go with her, but Kate says she needs to be alone. Since she took Black Belt Barbie down the first day she got here, and she's got pistols and knives, strapped on, leather enough for night in the desert and a dangerous look in her eyes, Phoebe lets her go.

Kate's thinking to run. Walking toward the edge of town. There's miles. Mountains. Indians. Even if they're like the ghosts from London. Maybe she'll find the way out of here if she walks into the desert and just keeps walking.

But there's a saloon and her throat's already dry and she only has a little water and for Declan's sake she's tried to stay sober. He deserves better than her hiding the hurt in the bottom of a bottle. He deserved better than her. But today...he's not going to get it.

Except the part about her not running. Because she pushes open the doors to the saloon, sidles up to the bar, sits, orders 'tequila and keep it coming'. So she's not running, but she is drinking, and it probably means something that she notices the bloody hand before who its attached to.

Even when she does, she can barely manage enough pokerface to offer a lame, "Not even a week in the Old West and you're already gearing up for a showdown. Who's the unlucky wall?"

What? She might be a fucking trainwreck, but she knows I fought the wall and the wall won when she sees it.

[chasedthestars]

"Door," Jim corrects, and in the mood he's in, it's either laugh, cry, or pull another wall down, so he opts for the first. "Didn't like the way it was looking at me."

He glances sideways, gaze slipsliding with whiskey a little too far before it settles, but when it finally finds Kate, he frowns. Anyone's presence is easy to miss in the tumult of the last few days, but he knows he hasn't seen her, not even in passing.

"Where've you been?"

[girlsolo]

"Got in a staring contest with a rattlesnake," she says and tosses back the shot of what passes for tequila in this place and orders another before the glass even hits the counter.

"Might as well leave the bottle." She tips her head toward Jim, when her gaze locks with the bartender's. "His too." Normally, she wouldn't be drinking like this without someone to watch her back, but the danger she's in here isn't anything good back up can fight and if she does find a fight or worse, even drunk, she'll take Jim at her back any day

She kind of shrugs, sober still, and knowing she's avoiding his question. Thing is, she doesn't have a good track record with getting the words out. Not without the waterworks and Jim's already seen her cry and made her cry two times more than 99% of any other human beings still alive to tell about it. "Snake's dead. Declan's gone. I'm still here." Two of those things are true and there's tequila in her glass again, so she drinks that instead of crying.

[chasedthestars]

Even most of the way to drunk and heart aching, Jim's brain immediately tries to tie the two together. Terrain change, Ishiah gone, and Declan, too. There has to be a reason, a pattern, and one day he's going to figure it out and get them all out of here. One day, he resolves, and the flurry of thought has taken only a breath, one that he exhales with a frown.

People here seem resigned to loss, but Ishiah's not just anybody, and neither is Declan. "Your fella," he says, hands tightening around the whiskey bottle as he drags it closer. He might not know her as well as he does some of his friends, but he knows the set of her mouth, that particular clench that comes when a person's trying not to care enough to cry. "I'm sorry, Kate."

[girlsolo]

"Don't be." It's sharp, fast, harsh, more of a whip slicing the air than words. "He was miserable here and I didn't deserve him anyway. It's my fault he's gone. So just don't be."

Taking it out on Jim's not fair, not when he's got that look on his face. Something that's eating at him too. It's just...he can take it. He can take her when she's raw and bitchy and looking for trouble. She's sure of it.

Her lips tremble but she presses them together tightly, reaches for the bottle and looks away from him. He already knows her too damned well and sometimes that's a good thing, but not right now. "What're you looking to leave in the bottom of that bottle, spacebabe?"

[wizard_errant]

Dairine is scoping out the grounds when she catches sight of Jim stomping into a saloon, and just changes direction without really thinking about it. It doesn't seem to be anybody's week, as if the whole Old West atmosphere has brought foul temper with it. And maybe a few nightmares.

Nobody even looks up when she walks into the saloon, which is one way this is an improvement over London. Possibly the only one; that remains to be seen. It takes a second to find Jim, who seems to be making pretty good time in the Bottle Acquisition Olympics. She just sits down next to him, without worrying about pesky things like invitations.

"What's wrong?"

[chasedthestars]

What meager shame reserves Jim carries are rarely used for occasions like this. Almost getting eaten in the jungle, making Dairine and Bones worry and Max cry, he'd been ashamed of that. Fucking things up while Captain, however small, he'd been ashamed of that, too. Drinking his way through a bad night has never been something he's thought twice about, but when he turns to see Dairine next to him, Jim considers revising that opinion.

"Bad day," he says. "Week." He takes another drink, smaller this time, then asks, "Should you be in here?"

[wizard_errant]

Dairine ignores that last bit, just like she would have ignored it from Nita. Not that she isn't usually up for a good game of No But I'm a Grownup, Really, but it'd just be a diversion from the part where something's wrong with her friend, and anyway she doesn't care all that much if he thinks she's younger than she is.

She reaches for his hand, turning it over to get a look at the bruised, bloody knuckes. What personal space? "Tell me, then."

[chasedthestars]

Jim pushes his free hand restlessly through his hair, exhaling a breath and, apparently, all his troubles out at once. "Just this place. The way it messes with things. Takes people, changes stuff around, takes my..."

Jim looks at the photo and licks at his lips, tastes whiskey and the phantom bite of blood. Were she not here, he'd have started a fight by now. "Takes my PADD."

[wizard_errant]

It's certainly the place for it. There are ghostly faces aplenty that would probably turn fairly solid if you hit them. Dairine lets go of Jim's hand, eyeing him closely.

"Oh. That. Yeah, it messes you up." He's not the first to try drinking it all away and won't be the last, and just because her own coping mechanisms head in a different direction, it's not like she doesn't know that. She follows his gaze to the picture and her forehead furrows.

"Wait, what's that? Is that what it did to your PADD?"

[heretofight]

Tommy'd had about enough of this shit. Soon as he'd settled into the world being one way, it changed on him. He'd played at being nomadic for the last year, living out of a duffle bag and only giving out his name when forced, but that wasn't his nature. He wanted a home, regardless of how much he fought it, regardless of how many times that option had been taken away.

And how the fuck was anybody supposed to feel at home in a place that changed so drastically, while everybody slept?

It put him on edge, made him angrier than he'd been in weeks, and that afternoon, he found himself in one of the dusty saloons, nursing a whiskey and thinking at least the clothes weren't so fucking awful this time around.

Small mercies.

When Jim came banging through the doors, Tommy shifted just enough to get a look at him over his shoulder, brow arched.

[chasedthestars]

Intent as he is on blowing straight through to the bar, even at rest Tommy's a mountain, drawing Jim's eye as surely as does the arch of brow he's throwing him. It might not mean a thing, hell, it might be how Tommy says hello, but Jim takes one look and feels his blood boil that much hotter.

"Got a problem?" he snarls, barely pausing on his way to a stool. He needs a drink, maybe two, and then he'll think about making a return trip to Tommy's table.

[heretofight]

"I look like I got a problem?" Tommy said, that same look on his face with just an edge of amusement to it.

So far, there wasn't much cause to worry. He wasn't even sure they were friends, in the strictest sense, and he wasn't gonna get worked up, yet, over whatever bug had crawled up Jim's ass.

[chasedthestars]

"Kind of sounding it, buddy," Jim returns, and doesn't stop to wonder if it's just his imagination that has Tommy laughing at him. Right now, he doesn't much care, picture tucked into the pocket of his fucking chaps and ass hard against a stool.

He grabs the bottle of whiskey from the bartender when he goes to fill his glass, glowering until the ghostly fucker slinks away.

[heretofight]

"Must be hearin' things," Tommy answered with a dismissive shrug, and maybe he was poking the bear a little, but he was kind of curious and it seemed the better option to going over and talking about their feelings.

[devilwoman]

She hadn't intended to go into the saloon, had in fact been out in search of a hat shop to find something to shade her eyes from the hot sun, but when Saffron saw Jim heading inside she didn't hesitate. Especially not with the way he was walking, and the look on his face.

It wasn't hard to find him, her eyes moving straight to the bar, and she made her way through the tables with a swish of her skirts, ignoring the catcalls of the ghost cowboys who recognized her from the club. "Hey, honey," she said once she was at his side, standing close by rather than taking a seat just yet. With her height and him on a barstool, it didn't make much difference. She was about to ask him why he was trying to speed his way to the bottom of a bottle when she saw the bloody knuckles.

"What in the 'verse..." she exclaimed softly, taking his hand gently in both of hers to assess the damage. "And me without any clothing to fashion into a makeshift bandage."

[chasedthestars]

"We have to stop meeting like this," says Jim, and though it's meant as a joke, he finds he means it. His mood's as black as it's ever been, whole body strung tight and all but spoiling for a fight. He's not fit company for anyone right now, let alone someone as kind as Helen.

"M'having a bad day," he says, carefully pulling his hand back to wrap tight around some whiskey instead. "You should find nicer company tonight."

[devilwoman]

"Worried you might offend my delicate sensibilities?" Saffron retorted, her tone a little sharper than it might normally have been to cover up the sharp twinge of hurt at him taking back his hand, however gently. "I'm not made of glass, Jim. I can stand a little roughness."

[chasedthestars]

"Just offering an out," Jim murmurs, and beneath the burn of whiskey, he has the decency to regret offense he's already caused, even as he's trying to affect the opposite.

"I don't like this place. Everything about it is wrong except the people, and they don't even stay."

[devilwoman]

She took a seat on the stool next to Jim, further cementing her refusal to leave his side. "Maybe I don't want one," she said. She'd already known with him she wasn't going to want one. Now that she had people, after years of having no one, she wasn't one to let go of them easily.

"Who?" she asked simply, the tune he was singing a very familiar one.