WiP snippet from the Kirk+Pike lemonfic!
The lemonfic won the poll!
I've floated a snippet from it before, which is probably why it got voted for so much. The snippet below, however, is from a completely different place in the fic. I did this because
1) The snippet I've previously floated is part of a complete section which may eventually be excised, in which case it would get its own post as a "deleted snippet."
2) I'm getting experimental with tone and format, and I wanted to see how it goes over (the original snippet is traditionally formatted.)
3) The snippet below actually mentions lemons!
It's Kirk+Pike, 438 words, rated R for language.
It takes place at the tail end of a banquet/ball celebrating the promotion and relief ceremony at the end of the movie.
snippet from Kirk+Pike lemonfic
"Would you like a lemon?" Pike asks, and waves a king's gesture over the table. There's a dish of lemon wedges there, liberated from the hor d'oeuvres table or maybe ordered specially from the kitchen because he is Admiral Christopher Fucking Pike and you will cut up a lemon for him if he wants you to.
Jim does not particularly want a lemon but he'll take anything Pike offers. "Thank you," he says and picks out a thin slice, no seeds.
Pike takes one, too, bites at the corner to tease the flesh away from the rind and then puts it whole into his mouth. Jim can see flashes of his teeth and hear the soft calamity of citrus evisceration. Pike smiles, purses his lips, and reaches up to pull out the empty rind in one smooth motion. He drops the rind on the table and chews the leftovers leisurely. He sees Jim watching him. "I'm trying to ward off scurvy," he says, and swallows.
Jim feels himself falling sideways into subtextual quicksand. Pike isn't in danger of scurvy but his spinal cord still looks like Swiss cheese. Pike is definitely a fan of dark humor
he calls the subdural brace his "jewelry" as if he can take it off, as if there aren't a dozen
wires coiling through the chewed-up cartilage between his vertebrae, as if the metal caps
erupting through the skin are medallions instead of sewers through which the doctors
thread their spindly tools
but Jim can't exactly join in without chancing offense and anyway, what if Pike isn't referring to his back at all? What if he's diverting attention from a different problem? Pike's brain is still scrambled from the coma so who knows, maybe he's eating lemons because to him they taste like blueberry pie.
The question then is, does Pike know that they don't taste the way they're supposed to? Maybe he's just blundering blithely through his day, pleasantly surprised that lemons are more delicious than he remembers, in which case it would be cruel to point out that the deliciousness is the mere result of a psychological condition
'mere' like the tender aftershocks of an earthquake, barely worth mention compared to the
first days after Pike woke when he spoke a language no-one knew, he thought his legs
were someone else's, he barked orders at the shadows, he blacked his sister's eye, he fell
into an unconsciousness as deep as death, he awoke at uncertain intervals to ask for water
or for someone to remind him of his name.
Pike is tough. He can handle a little dysguesia, Jim decides.
I've floated a snippet from it before, which is probably why it got voted for so much. The snippet below, however, is from a completely different place in the fic. I did this because
1) The snippet I've previously floated is part of a complete section which may eventually be excised, in which case it would get its own post as a "deleted snippet."
2) I'm getting experimental with tone and format, and I wanted to see how it goes over (the original snippet is traditionally formatted.)
3) The snippet below actually mentions lemons!
It's Kirk+Pike, 438 words, rated R for language.
It takes place at the tail end of a banquet/ball celebrating the promotion and relief ceremony at the end of the movie.
snippet from Kirk+Pike lemonfic
"Would you like a lemon?" Pike asks, and waves a king's gesture over the table. There's a dish of lemon wedges there, liberated from the hor d'oeuvres table or maybe ordered specially from the kitchen because he is Admiral Christopher Fucking Pike and you will cut up a lemon for him if he wants you to.
Jim does not particularly want a lemon but he'll take anything Pike offers. "Thank you," he says and picks out a thin slice, no seeds.
Pike takes one, too, bites at the corner to tease the flesh away from the rind and then puts it whole into his mouth. Jim can see flashes of his teeth and hear the soft calamity of citrus evisceration. Pike smiles, purses his lips, and reaches up to pull out the empty rind in one smooth motion. He drops the rind on the table and chews the leftovers leisurely. He sees Jim watching him. "I'm trying to ward off scurvy," he says, and swallows.
Jim feels himself falling sideways into subtextual quicksand. Pike isn't in danger of scurvy but his spinal cord still looks like Swiss cheese. Pike is definitely a fan of dark humor
he calls the subdural brace his "jewelry" as if he can take it off, as if there aren't a dozen
wires coiling through the chewed-up cartilage between his vertebrae, as if the metal caps
erupting through the skin are medallions instead of sewers through which the doctors
thread their spindly tools
but Jim can't exactly join in without chancing offense and anyway, what if Pike isn't referring to his back at all? What if he's diverting attention from a different problem? Pike's brain is still scrambled from the coma so who knows, maybe he's eating lemons because to him they taste like blueberry pie.
The question then is, does Pike know that they don't taste the way they're supposed to? Maybe he's just blundering blithely through his day, pleasantly surprised that lemons are more delicious than he remembers, in which case it would be cruel to point out that the deliciousness is the mere result of a psychological condition
'mere' like the tender aftershocks of an earthquake, barely worth mention compared to the
first days after Pike woke when he spoke a language no-one knew, he thought his legs
were someone else's, he barked orders at the shadows, he blacked his sister's eye, he fell
into an unconsciousness as deep as death, he awoke at uncertain intervals to ask for water
or for someone to remind him of his name.
Pike is tough. He can handle a little dysguesia, Jim decides.