It’s been 5 years. On this blog I’ve met so many beautiful people, learned so many things. It helped me grow as a person, taught me some hard lessons, and showed me a bit of a reflection of myself that’s been vital in trying to be better than I was.
But it’s time to close this chapter. I’ve been thinking lately that I should get on here, that I should post some writing or finish anything, but whenever I get here I do nothing but stare. Having that expectation, the weight of obligation, it’s drying me up. I talked with Sabrina recently, @thewinningscenario, and she expressed similar feelings. So, here is it: I’m archiving this blog.
Thanks for the long ride, guys. There are a few of you I’ll message directly. I haven’t finished the final stage yet, so expect a few more posts.
Never give up. Hold on to the good things. Appreciate the small kindnesses.
His glass lower, his gaze sharp as he takes in the micro-expressions on Jim’s face. He waits, until the inevitable eye contact, and though he’d hoped to bite the building anxiety such vulnerability caused, he knew he was too late. Too late by years, it felt.
It takes him a moment, partly because he’s hesitant, partly because his ability to put words to the indescribable is limited. “There’s a feeling you get, the first time your parent looks at you like they don’t know you. Like they’re shocked you aren’t who they thought you were. It’s the worst kind of freedom, when you don’t have to be what they think you are anymore. Like you’ve been given the reins to go anywhere except they’ve taken the map and every destination you can see looks exactly the same as the last.” Chris stares in the middle distance, reaches for his glass and drains it as he expected there to be more. “I remember what that feels like. Now, just like I did in that bar in Riverside.”
It surprises a laugh out of him. He shakes his head, half incredulous, half amazed. Sometimes he thinks Pike can read minds, he reads people with such exactness.
“And your solution was to show me a map?”
A smile forms. “I’d say that gives me more credit than credit is due. A map? No. Some directions and a kick in the ass? Perhaps.”
[ Pike only ever adopts Jim in the verses where he retires from Starfleet, and honestly? He’s always wanted kids, even if he never could seem to find a partner he could settle with to begin the process. I guess the way I play Pike, he’s a teacher as well as a leader, with this sense that he needs to guid as well as issue orders.That sort of mindset slips easily into a parental sense. ]
Declared MIA: Captain Kirk, James T. Commander Spock, Schn T'gai. Lieutenant Commander McCoy, Leonard H. Lieutenant Uhura, Nyota. Cadet Niven, Ezra.
There’s not a lot he can do from his desk in London, and even less at his assigned housing four blocks away. The nearest ship to their last known location had priority orders to finish their supply run to Starbase E17 before they could deviate and search for the ship.
He has the progress tabbed, communications from that sector filter into his email based on mention of any of the key words he’s set it to: NCC-1701, Enterprise, Kirk. So far it’s a wall of appendices to daily reports: No transmissions from the Enterprise.
There’s nothing in the world Chris would rather do day in and day out than what he did now, but sometimes the mantle of Admiral dragged him down deep in frustration.
He feels it like a spotlight now. Alexander Marcus. His friend, his CO, his betrayer. Technically this is a tribunal, though every face is one he’s known for years, a few he’s directly commanded early in their careers who had since surpassed him. They should have, by policy, found a team of ranked officers that didn’t have a direct conflict of interest and sowed them along the bench, but Chris understood. He wasn’t the only one Alex betrayed, just the closest to the center.
How well did he know Alexander Marcus?
He remembers sitting on a bench after a boxing match, striking up a conversation with another young man, one that was hesitant and mistrustful (on his part), but eventually spanned through the locker room, to a barstool at a pub-style restaurant, then sitting on a fence post, staring up at the night sky. What did they talk about? Chris doesn’t remember. Maybe they were getting to know each other, which is a strange thought to entertain. It feels like there was never a time he didn’t know Alex. They were cut from the same cloth. Brothers in all but blood.
So where’s the difference? What did Chris do differently with his own life, if he did anything different at all?
He remembers lying on the top bunk of their shared quarters, trying to calculate if the red alert ended mid-Beta shift or early-Gamma, knowing all the while it didn’t matter and his sleep schedule was fucked either way. Alex had been radio silent since he returned from the showers, but now broke out a long sigh.
“It’s dangerous out there.”
At the time, Chris had laughed, lost in the memory of Alex at his back, covering their retreat to the shuttle launch while Chris navigated and cleared the path for the rest of the team. “Yeah, no kidding.”
But Alex hadn’t meant that menacingly, at the time it wasn’t the seed of traitorous intent. He was a man fresh from combat.
Not unlike the time, decades later, after the first few meetings Chris attended as a Fleet Admiral, Alex sat in his office, tipping a glass of whiskey to him, and said, “It’s strange, having you across the table and not at my back.”
Was he to interpret every interaction now as a double entendre? Was he meant to turn their lifelong friendship into a veneer for treachery? Did the dinners with June and later Carol have to be recast as a front for a hidden evil?
Scores of eyes bear down on him as he collected his thoughts at the podium. This is not a momentous occasion, not by a long shot. Change had to happen, there was no stopping the flow of new Admirals rushing in to fill and reshape the chasm Alex’s actions had caused.
In all likelihood, his testimony will be lost in the countless others due to give their accounts. He will be lost in the tide of accusation and denial. But h had a voice, and he would use it, and hope for the better.
“Alexander Marcus illustrated something important about how we define an enemy of the Federation. In pursuing the defense of the system he pledged his life to, he created a conflict that struck us deeper than any enemy ship ever could. In the wake of destruction and death his actions caused, we must consider how we treat what we see as an enemy. His actions speak of a deepset paranoia, and a mistrust in what we don’t know and don’t understand. When we call anyone our enemy, we set ourselves apart from them. We isolate ourselves. We act as if we will always be at conflict with every hostile force we encounter.”
“Alex believed the Klingons were our enemy. He was my friend, but perhaps now he’s proved himself to deserve that mantle more than the Klingons do.”
“All Starfleet personnel must obtain authorization from their CO as well as clearance from their medical officer before initiating an intimate relationship with an alien species.” (VOY: “The Disease”)
sdfsldkfslkj this is the part of Bones’s job he hates the most, going through all the forms on his PADD to give the green-light to all these potential sexual encounters he just WISHES HE DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE but you know he actually DOES SOME RESEARCH to see if people will be COMPATIBLE whereas Jim just ticks the box, all, FREE LOVE, BONES and Bones has to be like GODDAMMIT DID YOU EVEN READ THE FILE, JIM, THEY DON’T EVEN HAvE ORIFICES and Jim is like, wow, Bones, they can still have fun, don’t judge
