The Preserver by bigmamag (NC-17/Explicit)
Well, folks, here’s my last rec for Star Trek Reboot for May, and I saved one of the best for last. I hope you’ve had as much fun discovering these works as I have had reccing them!
Fandom: STAR TREK REBOOT/STAR TREK ORIGINAL SERIES
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Length: 45k
Author on LJ: bigmamag
Author Website: On LJ and On AO3
Why this must be read:
With my now-known love of presumed-dead fics, what do you think one featuring actual death does to me? Yes, it gets my hurt/comfort bell ringing. This is not, however, a typical “deathfic,” at least not the way I define it, because, well, the dead person is brought back to life for starters, and the story goes on to not only fix that, but fix a few other things in Star Trek canon that were in need of it!
At the very top of the story, we learn that Spock has been killed in action, saving Jim’s life. Jim’s grief is palpable and all-consuming; he’s recently realized he’s in love with his friend and hadn’t had the chance to confess it. Elsewhere, Spock!Prime feels the onset of pon farr and decides that he’s lived a long enough life that maybe this time, he’ll just let the fever take him. On his way, he feels the stirrings of the old bond with his space husband coming from somewhere, which is strange because the man’s been dead for a very long time.
Against the backdrop of all this, a monstrous being/entity/goddess called The Preserver takes both sets of Kirks and Spocks hostage to be kept inside a collection of what she deems unique creatures from all over the multiverse. The rest of the story shows just how they defeat her.
This story is a tremendous accomplishment, not only setting up this nifty premise with a truly evil villain (and a truly unique OC that is her reluctant henchman), but also giving us the fix-it fic we’re all craving vis a vis Kirk!Prime’s canonical death. But beyond that, the author’s characterizations of each man are so spot-on, you will be hearing the actors’ voices in your head as you read, and seeing their mannerisms in your imagination as well. (Srsly, Shatner’s essence lives here.)
The whole thing comes to a very satisfactory conclusion with all the Jims loving all the Spocks, the baddie dead as a doornail, and, for me, a wonderful sense of having been transported to a wholly original place by this wonderful bit of storytelling. I guarantee you will be, in turns, crying, laughing, and marveling at the imagination it took to create this great story. Read it!
An Excerpt:
Note: This exchange is between reboot Jim and Spock
Jim laughed loudly, and Spock enjoyed the sound of it after days of not hearing it. Or was that weeks now? Jim quieted after a moment, the smile almost gone from his face as if he had somehow heard Spock’s thought.
“I missed this,” Jim said seriously, eyes searching Spock’s own. “You don’t-I knew for certain that I would never talk with you again. I’d never faced death before that, not really.” Jim drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms to them, appearing much like a small child, staring forward past the dome and into the black abyss. “My dad dying, I was barely a minute old. I’ve seen men and women die in duty, many of my friends from the academy died in the Battle of Vulcan, but no one close to me had ever died. I can count the number of people whose death would break me on one hand, and I don’t even need all my fingers. When you died…Bones said I might not pull myself out of harm’s way. He was right. I know that he’d do it himself, pull me back if I was dangling over the mouth of hell itself. I know that, and I love him for it. But he can’t always be there, and he’s just as humanly vulnerable as I am. I guess you were invincible in my mind. You always managed to survive whatever anyone or anything dished out, but more than that, you were the missing piece in the puzzle of my fucked up life.
“It’s like, you know what my life was before Starfleet. Pike was a piece, making me want to try for something better. Bones was a piece, he was the first to instantly want to be my friend and stick around even if no one else saw a reason why. You, you were earned, you were the last piece that I wasn’t looking for because it’s been lost so long that you just figure it’s in an old couch cushion you threw out and forget about. You didn’t like me, but somehow I changed your mind, and you just fit perfectly. And I thought, if I can pull that off, save Earth and gain you as a friend, then what the hell can’t I do? Pure ignorance. I knew nothing. You died, and I felt like throwing out the whole damn puzzle.”
“Jim,” Spock said softly, equal parts touched and broken by the words Jim spoke.
“I still don’t believe it, you know?” Jim continued in a brittle voice. “I mean, how can I? Maybe you’re not really next to me; maybe you’re just part of the magic in this place. Maybe I wanted you to be alive again so badly that I created you, and you stay because I can’t make myself let go.”
Caught in some great emotion, Jim rested his head on his knees and arms, his eyes closed tightly. Spock gazed at his friend, overwhelmed with Jim’s continued grief. He found himself wanting to alleviate some of that doubt, soften the tired lines of his captain’s brow and coax another smile. Uncertain, Spock did something he had only done with his mother; he reached over to lay his hand atop Jim’s hand. It was an intimate gesture, perhaps akin to the human custom of kissing the forehead. Jim’s eyes flew open at the touch.
“My logic is not applicable in this dimension; therefore, I cannot use it alone to convince you that I am ‘real.’ You forget that I, too, have no proof that you are indeed my captain. You could be as much an illusion to me as I supposedly am to you. Yet in this instance, I choose to believe in what I feel is right.”
The Preserver
Fandom: STAR TREK REBOOT/STAR TREK ORIGINAL SERIES
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Length: 45k
Author on LJ: bigmamag
Author Website: On LJ and On AO3
Why this must be read:
With my now-known love of presumed-dead fics, what do you think one featuring actual death does to me? Yes, it gets my hurt/comfort bell ringing. This is not, however, a typical “deathfic,” at least not the way I define it, because, well, the dead person is brought back to life for starters, and the story goes on to not only fix that, but fix a few other things in Star Trek canon that were in need of it!
At the very top of the story, we learn that Spock has been killed in action, saving Jim’s life. Jim’s grief is palpable and all-consuming; he’s recently realized he’s in love with his friend and hadn’t had the chance to confess it. Elsewhere, Spock!Prime feels the onset of pon farr and decides that he’s lived a long enough life that maybe this time, he’ll just let the fever take him. On his way, he feels the stirrings of the old bond with his space husband coming from somewhere, which is strange because the man’s been dead for a very long time.
Against the backdrop of all this, a monstrous being/entity/goddess called The Preserver takes both sets of Kirks and Spocks hostage to be kept inside a collection of what she deems unique creatures from all over the multiverse. The rest of the story shows just how they defeat her.
This story is a tremendous accomplishment, not only setting up this nifty premise with a truly evil villain (and a truly unique OC that is her reluctant henchman), but also giving us the fix-it fic we’re all craving vis a vis Kirk!Prime’s canonical death. But beyond that, the author’s characterizations of each man are so spot-on, you will be hearing the actors’ voices in your head as you read, and seeing their mannerisms in your imagination as well. (Srsly, Shatner’s essence lives here.)
The whole thing comes to a very satisfactory conclusion with all the Jims loving all the Spocks, the baddie dead as a doornail, and, for me, a wonderful sense of having been transported to a wholly original place by this wonderful bit of storytelling. I guarantee you will be, in turns, crying, laughing, and marveling at the imagination it took to create this great story. Read it!
An Excerpt:
Note: This exchange is between reboot Jim and Spock
Jim laughed loudly, and Spock enjoyed the sound of it after days of not hearing it. Or was that weeks now? Jim quieted after a moment, the smile almost gone from his face as if he had somehow heard Spock’s thought.
“I missed this,” Jim said seriously, eyes searching Spock’s own. “You don’t-I knew for certain that I would never talk with you again. I’d never faced death before that, not really.” Jim drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms to them, appearing much like a small child, staring forward past the dome and into the black abyss. “My dad dying, I was barely a minute old. I’ve seen men and women die in duty, many of my friends from the academy died in the Battle of Vulcan, but no one close to me had ever died. I can count the number of people whose death would break me on one hand, and I don’t even need all my fingers. When you died…Bones said I might not pull myself out of harm’s way. He was right. I know that he’d do it himself, pull me back if I was dangling over the mouth of hell itself. I know that, and I love him for it. But he can’t always be there, and he’s just as humanly vulnerable as I am. I guess you were invincible in my mind. You always managed to survive whatever anyone or anything dished out, but more than that, you were the missing piece in the puzzle of my fucked up life.
“It’s like, you know what my life was before Starfleet. Pike was a piece, making me want to try for something better. Bones was a piece, he was the first to instantly want to be my friend and stick around even if no one else saw a reason why. You, you were earned, you were the last piece that I wasn’t looking for because it’s been lost so long that you just figure it’s in an old couch cushion you threw out and forget about. You didn’t like me, but somehow I changed your mind, and you just fit perfectly. And I thought, if I can pull that off, save Earth and gain you as a friend, then what the hell can’t I do? Pure ignorance. I knew nothing. You died, and I felt like throwing out the whole damn puzzle.”
“Jim,” Spock said softly, equal parts touched and broken by the words Jim spoke.
“I still don’t believe it, you know?” Jim continued in a brittle voice. “I mean, how can I? Maybe you’re not really next to me; maybe you’re just part of the magic in this place. Maybe I wanted you to be alive again so badly that I created you, and you stay because I can’t make myself let go.”
Caught in some great emotion, Jim rested his head on his knees and arms, his eyes closed tightly. Spock gazed at his friend, overwhelmed with Jim’s continued grief. He found himself wanting to alleviate some of that doubt, soften the tired lines of his captain’s brow and coax another smile. Uncertain, Spock did something he had only done with his mother; he reached over to lay his hand atop Jim’s hand. It was an intimate gesture, perhaps akin to the human custom of kissing the forehead. Jim’s eyes flew open at the touch.
“My logic is not applicable in this dimension; therefore, I cannot use it alone to convince you that I am ‘real.’ You forget that I, too, have no proof that you are indeed my captain. You could be as much an illusion to me as I supposedly am to you. Yet in this instance, I choose to believe in what I feel is right.”
The Preserver