Guys! I went for my first scan and I am pleased to announce it's a blob! A blob with fingers, technically, but still. And it's kinda stupidly cute in a weird could-be-an-alien-life-form kinda way. So cute I'll forgive it for the fact that I still feel like death warmed over.

So please forgive my absence the past few days: I've been blobbed. This part features a Jim I've not really had much chance to play around with, and despite him only being sixteen, deals with some pretty adult material. There's lots of swearing and alcohol, and some witless asshole who spikes the wrong kid's drink.

Also, would you believe this chapter marks 350,000 words I've written in this fandom. More than 300,000 of them this year... eep!


"Gonna need to see some kinda I.D. kid."

Jim was not in the mood. He flashed his credit chip at the bartender and took one of the stools for the night. Clearly not caring enough to do more than the rudimentary checks, the bartender slid Jim a Bud and a tall glass of something lime green and so cold it was smoking.

Jim didn't even bother sipping for taste. He threw back a large gulp and laughed breathlessly as the cold burn sped down his throat.

"Man, that's good shit." Jim wheezed, speaking to the back of the bartender who had already moved on to serve a couple of human women with tinsel wrapped around their necks.

Jim frowned and finally took notice of the music playing in the bar. Huh. Christmas. When had that happened?

In his defense he had spent most of the last year in the bowels of a ship he was literally keeping in the black with spit, a few hasty prayers and – certainly in the case of the hydraulic cooling system, a wad of hastily chewed apple peppermint gum. He wasn't even one hundred percent sure what planet they were currently docked on, only that it was somewhere in Beta Quadrant and they should probably be avoiding Starfleet for a while.

He didn't think he'd been there before, which ruled out their usual haunts and the locals were talking in a language he'd never encountered. It was soothingly melodic and suited their long limbed, lilac hued bodies. Several of them were singing along to the Christmas music and Jim groaned into his glass. He crosses half the known universe and he still can't escape.

He'd thought he'd managed to find a decent dive to get obliterating drunk in but either he'd lost his touch since hooking up with Cy, or even the depressed lowlifes of this planet were all won over by the spirit of joy and fucking laughter.

Jim contemplated leaving and finding some place else, but doing so would mean heading back outside, and knowing his luck that would take him directly into Cy's path. Jim had three days dirtside to enjoy and enjoy them he would, which meant as much alcohol as the credits he had allowed him and company far more appealing than the unwashed scum of the galaxy he currently hung out with.

It wasn't that Cy would stop him, but he would insist Jim had a chaperone, which was bullshit. Jim was sixteen. He didn't need or want anyone holding his hand, and every time Cy tried to insist Jim would point to the fact that he'd managed a whole year by himself without anyone to watch his back.

It had been an epically shitty year for sure, but he'd done it.

So no. No moving. No attracting Cy's weird brand of over protectiveness that never seemed to extend to when he wanted to use Jim to bait one hook or another.

And so what if he'd found himself in holiday fucking central? Another couple of drinks and he'd not care either way.


Jim had just finished his third…fourth pint of that insane green liquid and had managed to put his intense dislike of all things festive to bed in a mound of fluffy, drunken thoughts, when someone slid on to the stool next to him.

Jim gave them the cursory once over, mostly to see if they were someone he wanted to waste the energy of conversation on, and immediately brushed him aside as uninteresting.

Human, so either a tourist or an unsavory sort…like Jim, really. Another glance and he was firmly checked under 'tourist'. He was tall, fit, but there was a softness in his face that made it clear he'd have no idea how to handle himself if Jim were to jump over and smash a bottle in his face.

Not a threat.

"Let me get that for you." Jim had just waved down another drink and shrugged. Free alcohol was free alcohol, and while he knew nothing 'free' ever was, he also knew that if he tried anything, Jim would be the one leaving with his wallet and possibly his boots as well. Jim's boots were falling apart.

"Thanks…"

"Deacon." The man smiled, a slightly nervous edge to it as he reached over and pushed the shot glass closer to Jim. It had already been in reaching distance, there was no reason at all for him to have done so, unless…

Yep, there it was. The microscopic spec that floated to the bottom of the glass and rapidly dissolved.

Interesting. Jim mentally recategorized Deacon from boring tourist to asshole in need of a lesson and fixed on his best smile. That smile had gotten him away with murder in the past and probably would continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

"I'm Sam." He'd used his brother's name plenty of times in the past. On Risa there were people who only knew him by that name – a nasty shock for his brother if Sam ever did show his face again.

"Not a fan of the holidays Sam?" Deacon asked, his eyes on Jim's glass as he raised it to his mouth.

Jim smirked, "Now what gave you that idea?" He asked, knocking the shot back and holding it before casually spitting the mouthful into his empty beer bottle. He kept it in his hand and pretended to take another few chugs before sliding it over the counter to be collected with the trash.

Deacon hadn't picked up a thing and Jim felt like rolling his eyes. He might look like jailbait – and there was not a single person in the room who'd genuinely believe he was a day over sixteen – but really, what did this asshole take him for?

Deacon prattled on about the holidays, and his work trip, his family… the guy was married for Christsake, he had teenage kids… Jim zoned him out, mentally cataloging all the ways he really wanted to smash the guy's face in. A year ago and he probably would have not even bothered with the subterfuge, but he had a better control over his anger these days, which was to say that he recognized how little he actually had and tried to limit the ways in which he might lose his temper and cause real damage.

He knew he should just call Cy. One look at him and Deacon would piss his pants like the coward he was.

But he wouldn't. He'd deal with this by himself, work out some of that Christmas induced aggression and continue to get so insanely drunk they'd need to roll him back onto the ship.

After twenty minutes, he excused himself for the bathroom and didn't really have to fake the wobble in his step as he made his way to the back. That green stuff was strong. Really strong. He should check and see if they sold it by the bottle.

Predictably, Deacon was right behind him and Jim let himself go lax and boneless as he was pulled out back, hand under his shirt and warm breath on his cheek.

"I don't even like guys." Deacon told him, pushing Jim against the wall. "But…god, you're pretty."

Okay, just for that Jim was kicking him in the balls on principle. He seriously needed to start growing facial hair or something. This sort of shit would never have happened to Cy. Okay, granted, there weren't many people who would have been able to manhandle Cy anywhere, and while Jim had finally had a growth spurt he was hardly what you'd call bulky. But still. There were only so many times Jim's ego could take being called 'pretty'. Even the guys on the Gynt had learned the lesson by now, though Jim had slammed a hatch on Brinn's fingers to prove that point.

Sometimes people needed to have all their fingers broken before they got the message. Deacon was clearly one of those people.

He was practically holding Jim upright by that point, still whispering about his wife, his family, how he didn't normally do things like this… Jim could believe him. He'd been far too nervous when spiking his drink. That didn't make it any better, in fact it irritated Jim more. He just wanted to have a quiet drink and now here he was staring in some would be sexual predator's midlife crisis.

The joys of literally being born under a black star, he supposed.

"Are you gonna hurt me?" He asked, trying to remember how to sound sweet and innocent when all he'd been doing for the past half hour was planning how vicious this beat down was going to be.

"Just a little." Deacon told him. "You'll like it, promise."

Jim snorted. Where had he heard that before?

In the end, Deacon didn't even put up a fight and Jim got no pleasure at all in hitting someone who just lay there whimpering like the pathetic waste of life he was.

He did take the guy's boots though, and his wallet. "And the moral of this story is?"

A whimper was the only answer he got.

"Not quite what I was going for, but I'll take it." Jim shrugged, letting Deacon drop to the floor in a pathetic huddle of limbs. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some quality brooding to return to. Enjoy the holidays."


"Jesus Christ, kid, you trying to pickle your liver?" Jim rolled his eyes up to look at the huge figure that loomed above him. He'd gone back inside the bar and continued to drink, only shrugging at the bartender when Deacon had finally been able to stumble back through the bar and make as hasty exit.

"Fuck off." Jim said moodily, his head too heavy to lift off the bar.

"Why the hell do I put up with you?" Cy grumbled, poking Jim hard in the ribs.

Jim growled and glared at him. "Because your ship would fall out of the black without me." He said.

"I could find me another engineer." Cy pointed out, one large hand practically lifting him off the stool and more carrying than dragging Jim outside.

"Not for what you pay." Jim slurred. "Put me down."

"Nope."

"I'll puke on you." Jim threatened, his stomach already rolling with the enforced movement.

"Do it and I'll cut your water rations." Cy threatened.

"We don't have water rations." Jim yelped. "You promised you'd get a new filter three months ago."

"I got you that part you wanted for the engine. Stop whining."

"That part keeps us from blowing up when we exit planetary atmospheres." Jim had to force himself not to puke when Cy's arm wrapped tight around his belly and hauled his unsteady feet across the street.

"Well we can't have everything, can we?"

"You're such an asshole." Jim groaned.

"And you're a whiny bitch. Nice boots by the way."

"Early Christmas present." Jim slurred. "Fuck man, I hate Christmas."

"And I'm sure it hates you back, Princess. Especially if you punched it in the face. Been fighting again have we Jimmy?" Cy's grin was terrifying. For all that he had problems with the majority of Jim's various neuroses, he actively encouraged Jim to start fights. Better out than in was his philosophy when it came to anger.

"Jerk off tourist spiked my drink." Jim complained. "S'fucking rude."

Cy didn't hesitate or pause, but he did look down at Jim curiously. "I need to be paying someone a visit?"

Jim snorted. "Thanks mom, but I'm a big boy. I can beat people up all on my lonesome."

"Don't I fucking know it, scrappy little shit."

Jim laughed at him, slightly mortified when it sounded more like a giggle. "I'm so fucking drunk, man." He confided.

"And I'm too fucking old to be babysitting." Cy grumbled. "You pass out, I'm leaving your ass here."


Jim didn't pass out. At least, not that he was aware of. He did wake up the next morning feeling like he'd been hit by a speeding cruiser and something had crawled into his mouth to die there.

Cy banged on his door with no consideration to the epic headache Jim was nursing and threw a heavy box down on Jim's lap.

"What the hell is this?" Jim frowned, opening the box to find the long desired filter for the water system.

Cy looked him up and down critically. "Install it and go shower already. You smell like a fucking brewery."

Jim grinned so wide his face hurt. "Holy shit, you do have a heart."

"Keep talking, I'll drown your scrawny ass in the shower." Cy threatened.

"Yeah yeah, I love you too." Jim was already hauling himself up and mentally listing the tools he'd need to make the repairs.

"Yeah, whatever." Cy grumbled. "Merry fucking Christmas, kid."

Jim paused, glancing down to the filter in his hands and what might actually have been the first Christmas present he'd had since his mom had died.

"Yeah," he said, voice catching. "You too, man."