fic: an inverted image, g
Jun. 10th, 2009 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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singularityTitle: An Inverted Image
Author:possibly_thrice
Rating: G. For once. In my life.
Pairing: None. You can read this as Pike/Kirk or past Pike/George or past Pike/George/Winona if you know me or any combination you like of the above, but there's really none within the fic.
Summary: "Kirk holds himself as if he is utterly at odds with his surroundings, like for lack of a better opponent he will treat empty space as his enemy." Written for Star Trek Reboot Drabble Challenge #3: Where No Drabble Has Gone Before.
A/N: Kind of pointless. And although purportedly from Pike's point of view, it would not be unreasonable to call this my homage to the fact that Kirk is, indeed, extremely pretty, as much love as I have for Pike.
Upside down, here and now, he does not look like his father.
He is flat on the table, spread limp and graceless across dented wood; and the sprawling long-boned shape, at least, is not jarring to his subconscious, his careful expectations. Probably every curve of out-flung arm, of slouching hips, can be traced back to an identical memory of movement in George, after a long day, slumped back over the bed. And yet: upside down, here and now, he does not look like his father. There is nothing undone or released or vulnerable in the way he stirs, winces, raises a big square hand to his eyes. Pain, yes, but no tainting peace, no truce with the unforgiving, smoky air that Pike suspects is burning his raw face.
Kirk holds himself as if he is utterly at odds with his surroundings, like for lack of a better opponent he will treat empty space as his enemy.
George Kirk was, above all, a man who looked not only like he fit his skin but also like a man who fit his sky, who was, no matter where he went, at home. It was part of what made him a natural candidate for command. Pike watched the holovids. Even dying, he was working in absolute tandem with the metal bucket the Kelvin had been reduced to, he was sewn to the controls under his hands, not fighting, never fighting.
James Kirk is a fight on (or not on, as now) legs. "You whistle really loud," he groans, and there's tension in his neck that reaches far deeper than stiffened muscles. Pike saw, oh, call it twenty seconds of the fight, the last twenty seconds, where the kid was going down, and there are echoes of how he twisted, how he fell, in his clenched fist, in the sinusoid line of his bloody knuckles. Having seen it, Pike can't help but fancy that the ragged self-destructive joy is still alive in his brightly-illuminated profile.
It's this, he knows, with the sudden clarity that is part of why he's here to seek the brilliant and best, that is part of what will make James Kirk a natural candidate for command. Frank antagonism of an entire world, an inverted image of his father's peculiar genius for unity. A correction: brimming with the brawl still thick on him, Kirk does look like his father. He just isn't his father. Two instincts, distinct and opposed.
But it occurs to Pike that he is not at all sure the two instincts don't stem from one source. There is more than one way to not believe, he thinks.
And he finds, tilting his head, that he has something to say to this violent, angry, unfamiliar boy.
Author:
possibly_thrice Rating: G. For once. In my life.
Pairing: None. You can read this as Pike/Kirk or past Pike/George or past Pike/George/Winona if you know me or any combination you like of the above, but there's really none within the fic.
Summary: "Kirk holds himself as if he is utterly at odds with his surroundings, like for lack of a better opponent he will treat empty space as his enemy." Written for Star Trek Reboot Drabble Challenge #3: Where No Drabble Has Gone Before.
A/N: Kind of pointless. And although purportedly from Pike's point of view, it would not be unreasonable to call this my homage to the fact that Kirk is, indeed, extremely pretty, as much love as I have for Pike.
Upside down, here and now, he does not look like his father.
He is flat on the table, spread limp and graceless across dented wood; and the sprawling long-boned shape, at least, is not jarring to his subconscious, his careful expectations. Probably every curve of out-flung arm, of slouching hips, can be traced back to an identical memory of movement in George, after a long day, slumped back over the bed. And yet: upside down, here and now, he does not look like his father. There is nothing undone or released or vulnerable in the way he stirs, winces, raises a big square hand to his eyes. Pain, yes, but no tainting peace, no truce with the unforgiving, smoky air that Pike suspects is burning his raw face.
Kirk holds himself as if he is utterly at odds with his surroundings, like for lack of a better opponent he will treat empty space as his enemy.
George Kirk was, above all, a man who looked not only like he fit his skin but also like a man who fit his sky, who was, no matter where he went, at home. It was part of what made him a natural candidate for command. Pike watched the holovids. Even dying, he was working in absolute tandem with the metal bucket the Kelvin had been reduced to, he was sewn to the controls under his hands, not fighting, never fighting.
James Kirk is a fight on (or not on, as now) legs. "You whistle really loud," he groans, and there's tension in his neck that reaches far deeper than stiffened muscles. Pike saw, oh, call it twenty seconds of the fight, the last twenty seconds, where the kid was going down, and there are echoes of how he twisted, how he fell, in his clenched fist, in the sinusoid line of his bloody knuckles. Having seen it, Pike can't help but fancy that the ragged self-destructive joy is still alive in his brightly-illuminated profile.
It's this, he knows, with the sudden clarity that is part of why he's here to seek the brilliant and best, that is part of what will make James Kirk a natural candidate for command. Frank antagonism of an entire world, an inverted image of his father's peculiar genius for unity. A correction: brimming with the brawl still thick on him, Kirk does look like his father. He just isn't his father. Two instincts, distinct and opposed.
But it occurs to Pike that he is not at all sure the two instincts don't stem from one source. There is more than one way to not believe, he thinks.
And he finds, tilting his head, that he has something to say to this violent, angry, unfamiliar boy.