fic: swashing buckles, righting wrongs, 3/?, pike/kirk, r

[possibly_thrice]

Title: Swashing Buckles, Righting Wrongs: From the Fabulous Adventures of Captain James Significant Pause Cook, 3/?
Author: possibly_thrice
Rating: Still R. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'M GETTING THERE.
Summary: Prompted by st_xi_kink . Kirk never meets Pike or Uhura, and runs off with a broken-heart-crazed McCoy to be a pirate. For a moment, it seems as if there will be an actual plot. Then I reveal that I'm actually just doing this to set up angsty Captain Pike/Pirate Captain Jimmy dubcon.pike_2009
A/N: I really thought porn was going to happen. Then the ridiculous dialogue got out of hand. Not in the fun way, either. *sigh*

“…and then we‘ll see about getting my new ship, ah, ship-shape, huh?” Jim says, rocking back on his heels.

He isn’t too concerned about leaving the bridge crew in the hands of his less able, dashing, generally charismatic friends, for two reasons. One, Bones might not have his flair, his leadership abilities, his panache! -- but he is at least fairly good at maintaining control. It’s a doctor thing, no doubt. And the two pilots are reliable, if it comes to physical confrontation. Besides, they all have what Bones affectionately (at least, he thinks it’s affectionate) calls walkie-talkies, or, when he’s feeling expansive, fucking archaic goddamn walkie-talkies, in case of emergency.

Two, he can smell the unity on them, on the way they move fluidly, as if tied by parallel fingertips and rhyming spines, the instincts forged at unnatural speed by that greatest of bonders, kneecap-cracking terror. If he hadn’t been able to get a grip on Pike before being shot at, that connection would have been a distinct disadvantage. Now that he has, it’s an absolute advantage. The new-penny loyalty runs too deep for them to risk the man’s life when there are alternatives.

He thinks.

But hey, his hunches are usually right, and just now he is working out of a visceral desire to see another universe avenged, a desire that aches in his gut and slides, dark and insidious, behind his eyes; he has no intention of stopping.

So he waves cheerily at Bones, who is still, a full seven minutes after he informed Jim that his and Scotty’s plan was batshit insane and then going right along with it, looking at him like he is batshit insane.

“Are you sure --” Bones starts.

“Very.”

“Reckless bastard.”

“You old flatterer, you,” he coos, and frog marches Pike to the turbo lift.

He has enough experience with Federation starships to know what deck the captain’s quarters will be on, but he pauses the turbo lift on its way up, and it comes to a stuttering halt almost before it begins to move.

He steps away from Pike and shoves him around until they are face to face.

Pike regards him blankly, although Jim suspects that is exhaustion more than any real self-control. But the way the corner of his mouth twists is almost enough to make Jim like him again. He rarely sees that kind of bitterness in nice, legal officers, that level of complex loathing.

“Thought we should have a talk,” he says. “Captain to former captain, you know?”

“Really,” Pike says. It sounds a bit like ‘fuck you’, though that might be the echoes in the high, empty lift, all glass and blued metal and white plastic, as ridiculously, uselessly pretty as the rest.

“Yeah, really,” Jim says.

“All right, then. Tell me: how did you, of all people, end up here?”

Jim considers him, savors just how lost Pike is, how uncomprehending.

“How did you know my father?” he says, at last.

The abrupt, devastating hope barely evident in how Pike’s hands clench and he chews the inside of his cheek and tilts his head ever so slightly, re-calculating, re-adjusting makes laughter bubble up in Jim’s mouth, but he swallows it, waits, tries to look nervy, expectant. Young. He hasn’t felt young in three years, but Pike clearly doesn’t know that.

“I did my dissertation on the U.S.S. Kelvin,” Pike says. Jim swallows something that is very much not laughter. “And we were friends,” Pike continues, quietly.

“I see. You were friends. And then, after he‘d died… you wrote an essay about him,” Jim says, without inflection, without so much as raising an eyebrow, even though Bones has taught him several really good degrees of elevation for corresponding degrees of incredulity.

“I was assigned the U.S.S. Kelvin,” Pike says, holding Jim’s gaze. “It wasn’t a choice. And I might have done it anyway. There are many ways --” and Jim is fairly sure he detects a trace of pointed disapproval here “-- to pay one’s respects.”

“Guess running off to be a pirate doesn’t qualify, in your books?”

Pike doesn’t bother to answer.

“Because I happen to disagree. But why don’t you tell me something about him,” Jim says lightly, taking a step closer. “See if you can change my mind.”

“Why are you doing this?” Pike says, instead. Jim’s mildly disappointed that he didn’t immediately fall for the act, not least because it wasn’t entirely an act. Not that he plans on having his mind changed, but he is hungry for a concrete description, for a frame to hang the shreds of the Vulcan’s memory on. But Pike looks so desperate, so tempted, that it’s only a matter of time.

He shrugs. “Money. Power. The call of adventure. I’m pretty sure I used to have a list pinned to my dresser. If you don’t have anything to tell about my father, George Kirk, the great man --”

Pike moves. It’s a thoughtless, shapeless gesture: Jim can’t tell whether he intends to shake him or slap him or punctuate his speech with his palms, but either way he stops Pike’s wrist, wraps one big, unforgiving hand around Pike’s sleeve, and waves his phaser meaningfully.

“Yes? You had something to say?”

“Your father sacrificed everything he had for other people --” Not a promising beginning.

“You don’t say --”

“-- and he was the craziest son of a bitch I ever met. He believed in honor and duty and, Christ, love at first sight. Delusional, yes,“ Pike says, smiling mirthlessly. “You know how he met your mother? Studying replication and high-level technological infrastructure at the Academy for an impossible, ludicrous invention that saved a civilization, later. He was insane, he was always working marvels, at your age. They both were. Why are you doing this?”

He nearly growls that last, the trailing tail of one long breath. Jim becomes aware that he’s unconsciously been tightening his hold on the man’s arm, and he lets go, drawls, “Why shouldn’t I be? What about him, what about them, means anything to me? My mother left me planetside for ten years because she felt like it. He died.”

“You look like him and you talk like him and you think like him.” Pike says, obviously frustrated, rubbing the marks Jim‘s fingers left.

“I’m not as much like him as you think,” Jim says.

Pike ignores him. “He would have had no problems with a plan as risky and bold as yours, except for the part where it involves theft and threats and murder. You could have been twins, for god’s sake. He didn’t believe in no-win scenarios, either. It‘s something Starfleet‘s lost,” he adds, almost wistfully.

“And he learned his lesson,” Jim says. “I don’t intend to. I don‘t care much about what he believed. What did he do?”

“Well, let’s see,” Pike says, dry as bone. “In the first twelve minutes of his captaincy, he saved eight hundred lives. He did exactly as he believed, and had his own kind of victory. You… you don’t believe anything, do you?”

Jim grins.

“How did this happen? How did you of all people end up --”

“I think you should remember that I’m asking the questions,” Jim says, calmly. “So you idolized him, is that it? You were one of his fans and you knew what everyone knew, saw what everyone saw, and you think I should have been made in his image. That because you had a bad case of hero-worship you’re allowed to expect anything of me. You’re allowed to expect me to be him because you‘d prefer it that way. Is that it?”

Pike nods, slowly, his expression somewhere between dizziness and contempt. “Like how you think because you resent other people’s expectations of potential you inherited from him, you’re allowed to take what you want because you can. That’s exactly it.”

Jim laughs and laughs and laughs.

“The only explanation you can think of for my particular genius is that I’m a spoiled brat who gets off on wreaking havoc and undoing what my father‘s done?”

Pike says nothing, still staring, staring, staring, his eyes wintry.

“You’re an idiot,” Jim says.

Pike repeats himself.

“I’m a ways past that, no-longer-Captain Pike. I know what I want. I want a freedom that the Federation could never give me. I want freedom from the Federation, in fact, because the Federation is a cancer on this galaxy, on the skies. And I mean to get that freedom. The Enterprise is part of that, piracy is part of that, the universe is part of that. If having what I want means casualties along the way --” He shrugs. “Well. At least theft and murder and piracy are honest. I believe in that more than I do in my father. Something Starfleet’s lost, my ass. What you told me is that good men don’t survive good governments.”

“And you’re a good man?” Pike says.

“No. If I were, I wouldn’t be trying to negotiate with the Admiralty, now, would I? We all have our little vices. If you played politics enough to get assigned the flagship, you of all people would know that.”

“Jesus,” Pike mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Is this about George or your allergy to bureaucracy? Starfleet is an imperfect system. Hell, the Federation is an imperfect system. But… ‘piracy is more honest‘? All that is is an excuse to fuck around rather than doing something about the internal flaws on the right side of the law.”

“Oh, I can do plenty about the internal flaws on the wrong side,” Jim says. “Killing them, for a start. One officer at a time.”

“That -- that’s the easy way,” Pike says, and he actually sounds surprised; no, disgusted, and disgusted not because Jim’s a murderer but because he’s not inspiring social change in the most effective manner possible. It would be more impressive if Pike didn’t choose this moment to lose his balance and slump back against the wall, but Jim generously decides to ignore that, because he’s… amused, and fascinated. It’s like Pike keeps forgetting his patronizing-cum-pleading pre-prepared speeches, every minute or so, and breaking into his own weird, less than moral set of standards.

“The easy way?” Jim says, taking another step forward.

“Exercising this petty vengeance,” Pike says, tiredly. “Meaningless symbols of your personal defiance. It’s easy, and gratifying, and useless. You’ll never be part of the cure for your imagined cancer, fighting battles in a war that because you’ve made it a war you won’t win.”

He looks Jim in the eye, cool, recollected. “But I suppose you’ve proved that you’re not as much like your father as I thought, all right.”

Jim leans in. The sour anger is a building headachey pressure in his skull. He thought Pike was stupid and now he knows that he’s not nearly stupid enough, that Pike is, in fact, perceptive in his fucking sleep, from what he can tell. Blunt and pompous and not stupid enough.

And, at the same time, right now, right here, he is vulnerable.

Jim’s always been lucky. It’s time to get the rest of what he came for. The ship is already his; his special brand of justice won‘t wait.

“You don’t really think my father could have done better than me at bringing down the Federation?” he demands, mock-injured; then he shifts, changes in an instant, murmurs coyly, “Who taught Reverse Psychology 101 in your day? The Academy ought to find a replacement,” close enough that Pike flinches at the warm breath on his face.

Flushes a little, too.

“Seriously. Don’t be so disappointed that I can’t live up to your old fantasy,” Jim says. “And stop trying to engineer a surprise redemption, it’s not healthy.“ He touches Pike’s jaw, curious. He likes the way the bruise changes color sickeningly under his fingertips, and the clean line of it.

This, he knows how to do. This is easy. Messing with their heads -- Pike’s had a good try, but he can win this, now that it’s boiled down to fury and inappropriate intimacy.

Pike narrows his eyes.

“What --”

“I understand, you know. You admired my father so much. I’m a let-down. But…”

He scoops up both Pike’s limp wrists in one hand and pins them to the wall, above Pike’s head. Pike doesn’t have time to react before Jim eases the length of his body against Pike, presses his hip into Pike’s thigh and the point of his phaser between Pike’s ribs.

“Let-down? You’re a lunatic,” Pike chokes out.

“Shh. You’ve had your moment to convince me,” Jim says, digging the phaser in. "My turn."

Comments

[azurelunatic]

“Who taught Reverse Psychology 101 in your day? The Academy ought to find a replacement,”

I think I like this guy.

[possibly_thrice]

*dead* Who? Kirk, or the lucky professor in question?

[azurelunatic]

Both.

It would be hilarious if that were an actual class.

[possibly_thrice]

If it's not a class, it should be. Or at least a unit within Negotiation 101.