[Fanfiction] This Cracked World, by callieach
Title: This Cracked World
Author: callieach
Fandom: Star Trek xi
Characters: Kirk, ensemble, implied Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R
Warnings: a lil foul language, character death, angst, prose thinking it is poetry...
Word Count: 750
Summary: Kirk and the universe are broken together.
Disclaimer: Characters are Roddenbury, et cetera's. Title is from Sylvia Plath.
Note: Plot inspired by Sylvia Plath's "Street Song," where I've also yanked some quotes from to add to this post. Structure inspired by my sitting at my piano with a blank manuscript pad for an hour and not composing a goddamn bar.
"By a mad miracle I go intact
Among the common rout (...)
Nobody blink a lid, gapes,
Or cries that this raw flesh
Reeks of the butcher's cleaver"
(1-2, 5-7)
Intro
The world is broken.
Movement One
The world and the whole damn universe are broken and the one person who could fix it is gone.
Kirk is broken, too, so that's how he knows the universe is. They commiserate over shared loss. Kirk knows the universe's pain of trying to appear intact and functional when the reality is far from that.
They are broken together. They have no hope of repair.
Kirk, like the universe, shows everyone that he is still just as competent and unyielding as before. (The universe does this, too, not allowing her walls to crumble and her realities to collide. For the most part.) If anyone notices the farce - if anyone notices the way he wanders the halls, a man half-alive and seeking solace - if anyone notices the way he continues to smell of burning soft tissue, a dozen showers and days later, they do not say.
Movement Two
Revenge healed not a single wound, though it had been sought.
Kirk had paced and hollered and commanded, as he ought, until Chapel touched his arm lightly. Her blue dress splotched with blood and her face splotched with tears, she said, "he's dead." (But that wasn't her line; she'd taken it from him. Stolen it from a dead man.)
When he had returned to the too-hostile environment to lay waste, nobody stopped him. Spock had even helped, citing later the acceptability of vengeance in certain situations.
Revenge had been sought, but it healed no wounds. Kirk and the universe remained resolutely broken.
Interlude: A Solitary Reprise
There was a flash, he remembers. A blinding flash, intense heat, and a noise: a scream. He reacted quickly, as always. Not quickly enough, it seemed, as those first wafts of burning, dying, disappearing skin stuck to him and blood coated everything.
He remembers reaching for his communicator. He remembers insisting that everything was going to be all right and standing tall, even though he knew better and his legs felt rubbery. Boneless.
Movement Three
He'd presided over the service, his voice not breaking once, though charred skin filled his nostrils and blood coated his hands. And then he sent the small metal tomb out into space. (Because it was protocol; Bones would've never wanted that.) And then the crew had chatted over finger-food and Kirk had walked among them, lost like a dying man. If anybody noticed anything odd with him, they did not say.
A new medical chief was assigned, who declined the dead man's quarters, if that's all right with you, sir. It was fine by Kirk, who abandoned his own room in favour of the one he refused to follow protocol to have cleared.
McCoy had had a window, which he kept covered to pretend he wasn't in space. Kirk uncovered it to stare out and pretend he was yelling at the regulation funerary box when he said, "I hate you."
Days of merely pretending to be alive later, he said, "I don't remember giving you permission to die, asshole," and then, quieter, "this is mutiny, doc."
Movement Four
"Even as my each mangled nerve-end
Trills its hurt out
Above pitch of pedestrian ear,
So, perhaps I, knelled dumb by your absence,
Alone can hear
Sun's parched scream,
Every downdall and crash
Of gutted star"
(21-28)
Shore leave on Earth is the last place he wants to be, but he won't deny the brass to deprive the crew. He's a good captain. He tries to look like he is, at least.
Kirk walks around crowded Earth city streets and hates everyone. They are too loud, too dangerous and destructive. The sun is too bright, too. At least, in space, it is easier to be lost in the numbing folds of darkness and silence.
The universe is broken and Kirk is a dead man walking, still smelling of burnt skin. If anybody notices, if anybody cares, they do not say.
Epilogue
The universe surprises him and tries to fix them both. The singularity is not an accident, it is fate. The Enterprise goes through and creates a new timeline for the Enterprise on the other side. That Enterprise has a captain who doesn't have to act whole, because he has his Bones right there beside him.
The broken Kirk can't resist two things: a brief kiss to McCoy's temple and a warning to his doppelganger. ("When they tell you to go to Risiva II, for fuck's sake, don't," is the most eloquent way he can put it.)
Back in their own timeline, he feels to be made of solid flesh and bone again, instead of poor imitations. His crew notices and they do say.
The stench of charred flesh stops following him soon after.
Author: callieach
Fandom: Star Trek xi
Characters: Kirk, ensemble, implied Kirk/McCoy
Rating: R
Warnings: a lil foul language, character death, angst, prose thinking it is poetry...
Word Count: 750
Summary: Kirk and the universe are broken together.
Disclaimer: Characters are Roddenbury, et cetera's. Title is from Sylvia Plath.
Note: Plot inspired by Sylvia Plath's "Street Song," where I've also yanked some quotes from to add to this post. Structure inspired by my sitting at my piano with a blank manuscript pad for an hour and not composing a goddamn bar.
"By a mad miracle I go intact
Among the common rout (...)
Nobody blink a lid, gapes,
Or cries that this raw flesh
Reeks of the butcher's cleaver"
(1-2, 5-7)
Intro
The world is broken.
Movement One
The world and the whole damn universe are broken and the one person who could fix it is gone.
Kirk is broken, too, so that's how he knows the universe is. They commiserate over shared loss. Kirk knows the universe's pain of trying to appear intact and functional when the reality is far from that.
They are broken together. They have no hope of repair.
Kirk, like the universe, shows everyone that he is still just as competent and unyielding as before. (The universe does this, too, not allowing her walls to crumble and her realities to collide. For the most part.) If anyone notices the farce - if anyone notices the way he wanders the halls, a man half-alive and seeking solace - if anyone notices the way he continues to smell of burning soft tissue, a dozen showers and days later, they do not say.
Movement Two
Revenge healed not a single wound, though it had been sought.
Kirk had paced and hollered and commanded, as he ought, until Chapel touched his arm lightly. Her blue dress splotched with blood and her face splotched with tears, she said, "he's dead." (But that wasn't her line; she'd taken it from him. Stolen it from a dead man.)
When he had returned to the too-hostile environment to lay waste, nobody stopped him. Spock had even helped, citing later the acceptability of vengeance in certain situations.
Revenge had been sought, but it healed no wounds. Kirk and the universe remained resolutely broken.
Interlude: A Solitary Reprise
There was a flash, he remembers. A blinding flash, intense heat, and a noise: a scream. He reacted quickly, as always. Not quickly enough, it seemed, as those first wafts of burning, dying, disappearing skin stuck to him and blood coated everything.
He remembers reaching for his communicator. He remembers insisting that everything was going to be all right and standing tall, even though he knew better and his legs felt rubbery. Boneless.
Movement Three
He'd presided over the service, his voice not breaking once, though charred skin filled his nostrils and blood coated his hands. And then he sent the small metal tomb out into space. (Because it was protocol; Bones would've never wanted that.) And then the crew had chatted over finger-food and Kirk had walked among them, lost like a dying man. If anybody noticed anything odd with him, they did not say.
A new medical chief was assigned, who declined the dead man's quarters, if that's all right with you, sir. It was fine by Kirk, who abandoned his own room in favour of the one he refused to follow protocol to have cleared.
McCoy had had a window, which he kept covered to pretend he wasn't in space. Kirk uncovered it to stare out and pretend he was yelling at the regulation funerary box when he said, "I hate you."
Days of merely pretending to be alive later, he said, "I don't remember giving you permission to die, asshole," and then, quieter, "this is mutiny, doc."
Movement Four
"Even as my each mangled nerve-end
Trills its hurt out
Above pitch of pedestrian ear,
So, perhaps I, knelled dumb by your absence,
Alone can hear
Sun's parched scream,
Every downdall and crash
Of gutted star"
(21-28)
Shore leave on Earth is the last place he wants to be, but he won't deny the brass to deprive the crew. He's a good captain. He tries to look like he is, at least.
Kirk walks around crowded Earth city streets and hates everyone. They are too loud, too dangerous and destructive. The sun is too bright, too. At least, in space, it is easier to be lost in the numbing folds of darkness and silence.
The universe is broken and Kirk is a dead man walking, still smelling of burnt skin. If anybody notices, if anybody cares, they do not say.
Epilogue
The universe surprises him and tries to fix them both. The singularity is not an accident, it is fate. The Enterprise goes through and creates a new timeline for the Enterprise on the other side. That Enterprise has a captain who doesn't have to act whole, because he has his Bones right there beside him.
The broken Kirk can't resist two things: a brief kiss to McCoy's temple and a warning to his doppelganger. ("When they tell you to go to Risiva II, for fuck's sake, don't," is the most eloquent way he can put it.)
Back in their own timeline, he feels to be made of solid flesh and bone again, instead of poor imitations. His crew notices and they do say.
The stench of charred flesh stops following him soon after.