InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Eat the rude"

captain james t. kirk (buckleup) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2009-06-07 14:45:00

Entry tags:

!closed

CHARACTERS: James T. Kirk, George Kirk
LOCATION: the bar George's been hiding out at
TIME: second day into the Gentlemen!plot
NOTES: Weirdest father/son ~~reunion~~ first meeting ever. Contains excerpts from Alan Dean Foster's novelization of the movie. Credit to him for his savvy writing.

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"Where you come from--in your future--did I know my father?"

Spock responded without hesitation. "Yes. You often spoke of him as your inspiration for joining Starfleet. Indeed, as the inspiration for everything that you became. He was, I believe, immensely proud of what you accomplished."

"That means--I must have accomplished something besides a spell in prison."

Sharply angled eyebrows drew together. "Prison, Jim?"

Kirk waved it off. "It's nothing. At least, I hope it turns out to be nothing. But that's a matter for the future, isn't it? The future that lies ahead of us and that we're going to try to sway."

"The future that we must sway," Spock corrected him. "Otherwise there will not be one. Not for you, not for your father, not for anyone."

Kirk was still trying to imagine what life would be like had his father not perished years ago while trying to stop Nero. The sleeve of one arm was wiped across his eyes.

"I am responsible for whatever is upsetting you," Spock commented immediately. "That was never my intention. Something you should know: he proudly lived to see you become captain of the Enterprise."

Captain. That was how this Spock had addressed him when they first encountered one another. It was still hard to accept.

Jim sighed. It wasn't so hard anymore, accepting being called captain. He'd held that rank for over two months now--longer, if one counted his stunt as Acting Captain during the Nero Crisis. However, when he thought about the fact that he was a twenty-five-year-old captain, gold shirt, stripes, and all and his father, who was six years older than him, was a mere lieutenant who was captain for only twelve minutes made him feel...somewhat inferior.

"If you're half the man your father was..." Pike stopped himself mid-sentence. Nostalgia wasn’t working. Perhaps promise would be more tempting. "Jim, Starfleet could use a guy like you. You're headstrong but you're smart. One without the other is useful. Both employed in tandem point toward a potentially dynamic career. You could be an officer in four years. Have your own ship in eight. Unusual, but not unheard of. I know people as well as ships. I believe you could do it."

He'd done it, alright, but at what cost? Vulcan? Seven Federation ships? More cadets than Jim could count? He rubbed at his eyes. Jim knew he deserved his captaincy, knew that he was, despite his age, one of the best captains in the fleet. Yet, compared to what his father had done, it seemed so minuscule, so unimportant. Sure, he'd saved the Earth, but he'd lived through it. What his father had done was noble beyond Jim's ability to express with words in any of the dozens of languages he would deny he knew.

Living in George Kirk's shadow had never been easy. He was proud to be his father's son, but at the same time, it had put a heavy weight on his shoulders that didn't seem to have any signs of lifting--a weight that seemed to only press upon him with more force now that he knew his father was here.

"Your father was the captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother's and yours. I dare you to do better."

Despite the medals that were hanging in his quarters, somewhere, wherever the Enterprise happened to be while he was here, the numerous commendations tacked on to the end of his very short service record, and everything he'd done... He didn't feel like he did better.

Jim didn't feel well about any of this at all. Was he supposed to be elated that his father was here? Angry? Compared to Seven's experience with her dead parents, his seemed so meaningless, but he couldn't help but feel like he'd be more comfortable sitting back in Seven's room instead of doing what he was doing now.

Looking for his father.

And he froze in the doorway when he saw him. It was from the back, but the early 2200's Starfleet uniform gave him away, as did the rusty-blonde hair that Jim had inherited from him. Instinct told him to turn and walk away, but stubbornness commanded him to stay.

Jim wasn't in uniform himself. Different clothes than the ones he'd worn to and from Cordelia's after sleeping with her, as he'd had the sense to duck back into his own apartment, shower, and change, but if his hair and eyes didn't give him away, surely the phaser that was shoved in his back pocket would do the trick.

There wasn't any easy way to do what needed to be done, but be damned if Jim Kirk wasn't going to act like it was.

Swallowing his nerves and pushing that 'nothing affects me' front forward, Jim walked the rest of the way into the bar and placed himself on the stool right next to his father. He waved a hand at the bartender to get his attention, then pointed at one of the taps.

If he was going to do this, he would do it with a drink in his hand.

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twelveminutes
2009-06-07 09:53 pm UTC (link)

Drowning his troubles was not a foreign concept for George Kirk. He'd been using alcohol as a coping mechanism since he was old enough to walk into a bar and pass as someone who was old enough to order a drink. He wasn't an alcoholic - although his father had accused him of it more than once in his youth - but the burn of the liquor as it rushed down his throat and chased away his troubles oftentimes helped unlike anything else could. And now that he'd found himself in this strange place, with a son who was grown and a full-fledged Captain no less... well, George knew if his own father were around they'd once again be having a spirited 'alcoholic or not' debate.

Yet try as he might, he couldn't seem to pull himself off the bar stool. He couldn't think of one single reason to do it, either. Seeking out Jim wasn't an option. He needed to wait for his son to come to him. And now, even so much as speaking to another (although who would he talk to besides, perhaps, Amanda?) about the issue was out of the question too. So he stayed where he was, not quite nursing his drink but certainly drinking it slowly enough that he didn't become a drunken fool.

A heavy sigh caused his shoulders to shudder a bit and he frowned down at his glass. The things Doctor McCoy had told him were still flashing before his mind's eye, the words meshing together in some sort of litany certain to drive him insane. Everything - Jim, Winona, Sam, even the son-of-a-bitch Frank - all of it caused his gut to churn and his heart to ache. When standing on the bridge of the Kelvin, he'd been willing to sacrifice himself without a second's pause. Now, though, knowing what he knew, George simply couldn't say he still felt the same way.

Not that it mattered. He was stuck in Colligo along with everyone else and best he could tell there wasn't going to be anyone leaving anytime soon. So it was for the best, really, that he just stayed where he was and continued to drink until...

Until what? He couldn't say for certain, and didn't have to as the sensation of someone sitting beside him drew his thoughts back to the present. He half-turned, expecting it to be yet another lady interested in spending time with him, and immediately froze in his seat.

Jim.

It was the name of his son, the name he'd chosen, the name of the man now sitting beside him and motioning for a drink as though this sort of thing happened to him everyday.

Unsure what he was expected to do in a situation like this, George simply took a second to drink in the sight of his youngest before swiveling back to face the bar once more and raising his own glass to his lips. If the boy - man - wanted to do this without the benefit of words, that suited him just fine. He honestly wasn't sure what he would say anyway.

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buckleup
2009-06-07 10:28 pm UTC (link)

Internally, Jim Kirk was panicking, spazzing and flailing in all directions, trying desperately to figure out just what the hell he was doing. There was a voice inside his head that sounded like Winona, reprimanding him--You never think things through, do you, James? You leap without looking. Your father always did that and look what happened to him--and another voice laughing at him, mocking him; a voice that sounded an awful lot like that asshole Frank--Way to go, Jimmy-Boy. He pushed both voices aside and focused, instead, on the drink that was placed in front of him.

Jim stared ahead at the wall as he took a long sip of the drink, deciding against just chugging it all in one gulp like he normally would, not wanting to appear like some drunken frat boy who partied his way through the Academy in front of his father.

His father. Who he was sitting right next to. The man who'd died on his birthday, the man whose killer had tried to strangle him on that platform--James T. Kirk was considered to be a great man. He went on to captain the U.S.S. Enterprise, but that was another life; a life I will deprive you of, just like I did your father. A man whose crippled ship Jim had given the order to fire upon after offering assistance to him. As much as Jim would have liked to have sent Nero right to his grave, he couldn't ignore Starfleet regulation and put aside his burning desire for revenge on his father's behalf and offered to help. Thank God the Romulan had refused. Jim had no idea what he would've done if Nero had been brought on board--

But that wasn't anything to think about right now.

Putting his drink down, Jim reached into the back pocket of his jeans that wasn't currently housing his phaser and withdrew a folded piece of paper. He'd taken the fact that no one could speak or hear into consideration before leaving the apartment and had taken out a pad of paper and wrote down a quick train of thought of things he wanted to say to his dad, yet was unable to vocalize.

He turned to his dad, still not really looking at the man, and pushed the folded square towards him across the bar's smooth surface. It read--

Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. I'm twenty-five years old. I only spent three years at the Academy. I pretended to stalk someone who is now a member of my crew as an excuse for being in Xenolinguistics. No one would've believed I liked languages. I piss a lot of people off. Spent more than my fair share of time in jail before being prodded into Starfleet by ~~Captain~~ Admiral Christopher Pike. I admire him, but I'll never tell him. I think he knows, though.

I drove your corvette off a cliff when I was thirteen. Frank was going to sell it. Destroying it instead seemed like a good idea at the time. Sorry.

I beat the Kobayashi Maru test. Reprogrammed the simulation to beat the no-win scenario. Was commended for original thinking after I was near-expelled for "cheating." Suppose they took stopping Nero into consideration, but who am I to complain?

You probably have a lot of questions and I'm not sure I have all the answers, but I'll try.

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twelveminutes
2009-06-07 11:12 pm UTC (link)

A letter. Jim had given him a letter to read. It made sense and showed definite forsight, which meant this visit definitely hadn't been accidental as George had worried it might be. Without a second's pause he placed his hand overtop the page if only to ensure that Jim couldn't change his mind and take it away. For a moment, though, that was all he could do. Simply sit there, with his hand covering the only thing he'd ever been given by his son, while he worked up the nerve to actually unfold it and read what was written.

He managed it after another swig of his drink. His eyes scanned the page but the first thing he noticed wasn't the words that were there but rather the handwriting they were in. Handwriting that should have been as familiar to him as his own, yet wasn't. That same ache in his heart began anew and he swallowed past the lump in his throat as he forced his mind to comprehend the words themselves. By the time he'd finished reading, he was a jumbled mess of emotion that he wasn't even sure he could properly identify.

Finishing his drink in one large swallow, he only absently noticed as the bartender placed another one in front of him. George was far too busy picking up the pen and pad of paper that he'd been using an hour or so earlier to speak to someone else. He stared hard at the page as he wrote, afraid if he looked back to Jim he'd lose his nerve. When he finished, he slid the pad to his son's elbow and picked up his new drink, still not daring to quite look at him, while he waited for Jim to read what he'd written.

- I told your mother not to name you Tiberius. I'm glad she half-listened.
- I'd have done the same thing with the car if those were the choices. No apology necessary.
- I spent more time in trouble than in class, when I was at the Academy. Three near-expulsions by my third year. Thinking back I'm not even sure what they were for, but the knack for getting into trouble is something you come by honestly.
- There's no such thing as a no-win scenario.
- I don't have any questions, not yet. I just need to say that I should have been there for you and I'm sorry I wasn't. And for what it's worth, I couldn't be more proud of you if I tried.

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buckleup
2009-06-08 10:43 am UTC (link)

There was something about the way that they were both going about this that struck him as...right. He'd gone through life being told by those who knew George Kirk that he was just like his dad--looked like him, acted like him, spoke like him--and sitting here next to him was like being slapped in the face with that truth. Not in a bad way, but a powerful dawning realization that near brought him to tears. He was just like him, wasn't he?

Jim turned his attention to the pad when he felt it touch his elbow, taking it from his father and holding it up to read. There was a small, amused smile on his face at first--but soon he had to bring the other hand up to catch the choked sound that wouldn't have escaped his lips, anyway, thanks to whatever was going on here, but did so anyway on instinct. I couldn't be more proud. Reading those words made his eyes sting and he blinked back the tears, feeling more embarrassed about showing such emotion in front of a parent than he had in front of Seven of Nine. But, it was something that he'd never heard from family before. Maybe Sam had said it to him once or twice when he was younger, before the older boy took off out of an inability to deal with Frank's shit, but when it came down to it, he really only received such meaningful compliments from Bones and Pike.

He put the pad down and reached for the pen, writing down more and then passing the pad and pen back over to his father.

- I hate James, but I hate Tiberius more. Admiral Barnett felt it necessary to say my name in full at my promotion.
- Mom and I don't get along. I scare her. She won't say it, but it's more than obvious. She did have the decency, if you can call it that, to send me a message after I was given my ship that read, "Don't screw this up, James. I'm not cleaning up your messes anymore." Surprising that she even bothered to contact me at all.
- I don't talk to Sam. I think he's living on a planet somewhere in the Beta Quadrant. I don't keep up and I doubt he keeps up with me.
- First time I met Admiral, then-Captain, Pike was when he picked my drooling, bleeding ~~ass~~ self off the floor of a bar after I got into a bar fight. Can't honestly say that was the first one I'd been in. Or the last.
- There's a solution for everything. The Maru, Nero--and for Vulcan, too, if Sulu and I had been a little faster with the drill or if I'd known the full details of the situation prior to Chekov's message...
- I assume you've spoken to Doctor McCoy. Bones has been to me what Sam never was and never will be. That's something I feel you should know.

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twelveminutes
2009-06-08 10:01 pm UTC (link)

George had made sure to give Jim as much privacy as the situation would allow while reading what he'd written to him. He'd debated on whether or not to write the words that expressed his pride in his son, wanting to be able to say them more than anything else. He had ultimately decided that if something were to happen and he were to wind back up on the Kelvin before they regained their voices, at least he would die knowing that he had done his best to make sure his son knew how he felt. That was what really mattered, in the long run.

So he sipped his drink, his gaze flickering to the bartender as the man began motioning for some drunken customer to leave, and returned his gaze to Jim only when the pad and pen were once more given to him. He read the words that had been written much like a drowning man clinging to a raft yet was scarcely able to comprehend some of it either due to plain not knowing what the man was writing about or an inability to imagine the things that Winona had apparently done following his death.

It took him a moment of idle tapping of the pen against the edge of the paper before he began to write again. When he'd finished, he slid the pad and pen back to his son much as he'd done before and, just like before, picked back up his drink.

- I told her Tiberius was a terrible name. As a cadet, I used to theorize that part of becoming an Admiral meant being able to turn a good occasion into a slightly worse one. Just curious but what name would you have wanted?
- I'm not sure what to say about your mother. She sounds like a far different woman than the one I married and I know almost as little about Sam as I do about you, so I can't comment on him except to say that he should have been there for you.
- I lost count the number of bar fights I've been in, or the number of times that my father had to come haul me out of some trouble or other before I finally opted to join Starfleet. In my opinion, every fight I've been in has built my character in some way. Some more than others.
- You lost me with this one, son. Drill? Vulcan?
- I have. Nearly gave me a heart attack when he dumped all of the information on me at once. It's obvious he cares for you and is watching out for you. That's what's important.

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buckleup
2009-06-08 11:02 pm UTC (link)

Jim hadn't wanted to write those words about his mother or Sam, knowing well that his parents had been very close before the Kelvin encountered the Narada, but he had no reason to lie to the man. There wasn't any guarantee Jim would catch himself and say 'mom' instead of 'Winona' when speaking about his mother, as he'd stopped referring to her as a son normally would back in high school. And Sam...

He picked up the pen and wrote--

- Sam and I were pretty close as kids. Stuck together after Winona left, but things hit a point where he couldn't take them anymore and he took off, too. Don't really blame him much for it. If I hadn't been so keen at that age on pleasing everyone, maybe I would've followed him. Not like Frank would've noticed.

Done with his drink, Jim motioned for a refill, adding more to the page.

- I like Jim. It fits. If you ask Bones, he'd probably say 'Captain Jackass' is more suiting. He and Pike took turns, it felt like, dragging me out of bars while I was at the Academy.
- Pike's the only Admiral I trust. Those paper-pushing desk-jockeys don't understand what it's like to be the Captain of a starship--but Pike, he's been there. Only reason he's not and I'm sitting in his chair is because of...

That line trailed off, as it led to the next one. The question where his father had called him son. Jim stared long and hard at the page, barely noticing the refilled beer that was set down next to him and lifted his eyes to throw his father a helpless sort of look. He held it before letting out a soundless-sigh, pursing his lips in irritation, and returning to writing.

- Nero. The Romulan Captain of the ship you encountered. He's from 2387. The singularity you saw, that lightning storm in space, it was a temporal rift caused by the detonation of a red matter-fueled black hole device in the 24th Century. The red matter device wasn't his, but he got his hands on it. He drilled a hole in the center of Vulcan and dropped fired the device into it. Jim swallowed, but forced himself to keep writing. Vulcan's gone. The whole planet. That was two months ago.
- What did Bones tell you?

Putting the pen on the pad, he pushed it back to his father and busied himself with sipping his drink.

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twelveminutes
2009-06-10 09:21 am UTC (link)

There was a lot of information to be found in what Jim had written, and George was grateful he hadn't allowed himself to get well and truly drunk. That would have made this entire conversation all but impossible. Fortunately the lack of verbal communication wasn't stopping them and, George admitted to himself, was quite possibly helping. It was easier to simply write some things down than to say them outloud. Plus it gave him a chance to re-read the parts that were only just now clicking into place.

Setting his drink down, he delved into writing a response as he had with the others.

- Sam still should have stuck around.
- Captain Jackass, huh? I guess you could be called worse.

George stopped there, his brow furrowing a bit and jaw clenching as he read about Nero, Vulcan, all of it. It was a bitter pill to swallow, the realization that his own sacrifice still hadn't stopped the madman that had attacked the Kelvin without warning or apparent reason at the time. Granted his family (and he assumed the others) had gotten away, but it still felt like a hollow victory in a lot of ways.

- 2387, huh? That would explain why he was able to cause such damage. George hesitated, casting a sideways glance at his son before returning his attention to the notepad. I should probably tell you that you did everything you could, and that you shouldn't blame yourself, but I doubt it will help. I wish I could say that the losses you're going to face are going to fade when compared to the victories, but that's not true either. So instead I'll stick with something my father told me right before I took my first assignment: The measure of a man isn't in how many accomplishments he has or how many failures he wishes he could fix. It's in how he goes about achieving those accomplishments, and what he learns from his mistakes, that truly define him.
- The fact is, Jim, you're the youngest Captain in history and you were entrusted with the flagship, and both are deserving rewards. The minute you start to think you're deserving of them without thinking about how you could have done it all differently is the minute that stops being true.

George paused, taking a sip of his drink to steady his nerves while studying the final question that had been asked of him. He wasn't sure how to respond to what he'd been told by Doctor McCoy, so rather than try to paraphrase and risk getting it wrong, he instead wrote three simple words.

-See for yourself.

Then he pulled out his PDA, opened to the conversation that took place, and slid it, along with the notepad, back to his son's side.

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buckleup
2009-06-10 11:40 am UTC (link)

Jim read over the conversation, swallowing a huge lump in his throat at Bones having mentioned his mother leaving and Frank's bastard antics before he had. Sighing heavily, Jim put the PDA down and picked up the pen again.

- Frank is my step-father. Jimmy, Jimmy-Boy--that's what he called me.
- Bones wasn't joking about the genius bit. I don't like people knowing this, but ~~seeing as you would've known this if you had been~~ to put it the way Pike phrased it, I'm the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest. No one needs to know that I understand exactly what Chekov's talking about when my Tactical Officer starts babbling in complex equations.
- I wasn't supposed to be on the Enterprise. Bones sneaked me on board. I overheard the message about a lightning storm in space and that coupled with me knowing that a friend had intercepted a distress call from a bunch of Klingon ships that were attacked by one, massive Romulan ship, clicked and I made my presence known. Pike saw things my way... But, if Sulu hadn't left the dampeners on and delayed our jump to warp, we would've been destroyed, too. Though, I know, now, that the reason Nero didn't fire on that ship was because Spock and I were on board and he recognized the name of my ship.
- Pike had myself, my helmsman, and some guy who's name escapes me right now, space jump from the shuttle he took to Nero's ship after promoting me to First Officer. That one idiot got himself killed because he didn't pull his shoot when I gave the order to. Sulu and I disabled the drill, but we weren't fast enough. Chekov barely beamed us back in time and Spock was only able to save some of the Vulcan elders and his father. ~~his mother--~~
- Spock and didn't see eye to eye on what we were supposed to do next and needless to say, I pissed him off and woke up in an escape pod on Delta Vega. Met my chief engineer, Scotty, there and the future version of Spock from 2387. A mind meld, some orders, and the equation for trans-warp beaming later, and Scotty and I are beamed back to the Enterprise.
- I provoked the Spock from my timeline and got my ass beat down on the bridge per his older self's orders. He realized he was emotionally compromised and relinquished command to me. I ordered a pursuit of the Romulan ship. Spock came to his senses, though, and he and I beamed aboard Nero's ship and while he took care of the black hole device, I saved Pike.
- A week of political bullshit later and I'm promoted.

He shrugged like it was nothing and passed the pad, pen, and PDA back to his father.

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twelveminutes
2009-06-15 01:47 am UTC (link)

George took a long swallow of his drink before he began writing this time, his handwriting as small and neat as ever.

- I figured that out on my own. Truth be told, I'd call you Jim no matter what anyway.

- I stand by what I wrote the first time. I'm proud of you. What you did, what you accomplished, that can't be taken away from you. And just think. All of that, and it's probably just the tip of the iceberg at what you're going to get to see and experience.

He didn't add any more, because he'd run out of questions at this point. It was a lot to take in all at once. He figured if Jim wanted to ask him anything, he was the sort who just would. Still trying to come to terms with everything, George took another sip of his drink and contemplated whether or not he might push on with another after he'd finished.

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