Ficklets.
Title: this thing all things devours
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nero/Mandana, Pike/One, Nero/One
Summary: Riddles in the dark.
A/N: Blame boosette . No, really.
Nero sits down the edge of the slab, his bony hip digging into the bruised flesh of Pike's upper arm. He is slouching forward a little, and he scratches his jaw, idly: he looks younger, like this, his face smooth under the tattoos, his unsubtle body language lazy. Pike can see the blood vessels in his eye, like pale marble veined with green. "My wife would have liked you," Nero says, mouth forming half a bitter smile, which wavers, the relevant muscles atrophied, maybe, from a quarter of a century's neglect. “She always did like the strong and silent type.”
He leans in. “I didn't used to talk so much,” he whispers, and Pike is so cold that the breath on his ear is like a brand.
He wishes he could swallow his tongue.
“You're not married, I take it,” Nero says. He pulls down Pike's left eyelid and pushes down with his blunt fingertip until Pike can feel the whorls through his own skin. Spirals of heat. “But you love someone. Yes.”
Pike stares at the ceiling. Without depth perception it is not so frightening: the difference between a planet in the dark and a cheap map of the globe.
“And you will not see her again,” Nero says. It does not have the cadence of a threat. It's just something they both know. “This is-- sad. I'm sorry.”
He removes his finger from Pike's eye and reaches up to grasp the air in a fluid pantomime of someone accepting a gift. The tendons stand out in his thin forearm, and the back of his long hand is tented over the spread bones. Pike's eyes are watering. He blinks. Nero bobs his head, kissing air, and Pike watches One's tapered pale fingers form in Nero's loose grip, the sharp pink knuckles, and as he traces the sight of her she blooms into existence, a second ahead of his gaze, from the wrist up. She looks terribly young, once she is whole, her hips hollow, her spine curving, the poor posture something she worked out of herself years ago but here it is, merciless and lovely.
She pushes Nero's hand down to rest on Pike's elbow and kisses Nero on the lips. It looks. Inevitable.
Pike has never missed the standard electric blanket more. His body like old ice, rotten and bubbled through with regret.
“Understand,” she says, pushing Nero so far back that his shoulderblades are almost touching Pike's stomach, climbing up to straddle his waist, “that this is for the good of us all, Chris. We need the time.”
Time.
Nero opening up on top of him, breaking open. A whisper of his dead wife's name and. Pike turns his face away.
Title: Cellar Doors
Rating: PG
Pairing: One/Winona
Summary: In accordance with Winona's wishes, Pike raises Jim without interference from anyone, until Winona dies and the woman who loved her comes to see her son.
A/N: For st_respect . Somewhere in my head there is an epic AU that this is part of, unsurprisingly.
She drives there, in a rented groundcar, with the windows rolled down and the wind hot on her face, bearable only because the air is in such violent motion and she likes how the speed of it hits her skin, splits her eyes. The desert is not exactly a blur as she zips across it: the details are there but pulled long, grainy streaks of saffron and russet and burnt sienna, like Winona's hair in an accurate light.
One reminds herself that it would be better to keep her eyes on the horizon; running this ancient vehicle is nothing at all like piloting a starship. Her fingers tighten on the rim of the wheel.
She is so thoroughly and sensibly focused on the uninspiring asphalt stretched out in front of her for the rest of the way that she almost misses the turn onto the dirt driveway, and is forced to veer sharply to avoid crashing into one of the alien-looking Joshua trees. Her tires make a raw sound against the road, like someone being opened up without anesthetic.
When she gets out, the dust is still rising in transparent brown clouds. Also a skinny ragged boy only at the curving cusp of adolescence has materialized on the front porch of the sagging ranch house to stare at her, open-mouthed. He is shading his eyes with his hand and his face is dark, but One knows who he is.
"Jim?" says a man's voice from inside the building. "Who is it?"
Jim doesn't answer.
She wonders what she looks like to him. Her uniform shirt clings to her sides, itchily. There are ropes of watery mucus cooling on her face, thick and salty but clear, pulled forcibly from her tear ducts by the wind.
Footsteps. Creaky wood. Christopher Pike, the man's name is, she remembers, before he shows up in the doorway. He looks about her age. Too young to be serving as father to Winona's child. But here they are.
"I am Lieutenant One of the U.S.S. Yorktown," she says. Her words crackle in her own ears.
Pike goes very still.
"The funeral's tomorrow," he says. "In the city. How can I help you?"
Jim doesn't look at him and he doesn't look at Jim.
"Lieutenant Commander Kirk and I were in a relationship up to her death," she says, flatly. "While she was dying she told me I ought to visit her son."
Beat.
Such pale eyes, trained on her.
"If you are willing, that is," she says, softly.
"Jim?" Pike says, although his gaze does not leave her face.
Jim lowers his hand. His eyes are full of reflected heat and dryness and empty space, the eyes of an earthbound desertgrown child, and his face is sharp and not much like his mother's, except for the expression; that, though, is so similar that One's knees almost buckle under her. Maybe from relief.
"You're a bad driver," he says, and "Okay."
Pike hides his smile with a closed fist. "Come on in," he tells her; Jim's already sauntering back through the yawning doorway to the dim depths of the front room, which looks invitingly cool, from where she stands. "Do you take tea?"
"God, yes," she says, wiping her stinging cheek, and follows.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nero/Mandana, Pike/One, Nero/One
Summary: Riddles in the dark.
A/N: Blame boosette . No, really.
Nero sits down the edge of the slab, his bony hip digging into the bruised flesh of Pike's upper arm. He is slouching forward a little, and he scratches his jaw, idly: he looks younger, like this, his face smooth under the tattoos, his unsubtle body language lazy. Pike can see the blood vessels in his eye, like pale marble veined with green. "My wife would have liked you," Nero says, mouth forming half a bitter smile, which wavers, the relevant muscles atrophied, maybe, from a quarter of a century's neglect. “She always did like the strong and silent type.”
He leans in. “I didn't used to talk so much,” he whispers, and Pike is so cold that the breath on his ear is like a brand.
He wishes he could swallow his tongue.
“You're not married, I take it,” Nero says. He pulls down Pike's left eyelid and pushes down with his blunt fingertip until Pike can feel the whorls through his own skin. Spirals of heat. “But you love someone. Yes.”
Pike stares at the ceiling. Without depth perception it is not so frightening: the difference between a planet in the dark and a cheap map of the globe.
“And you will not see her again,” Nero says. It does not have the cadence of a threat. It's just something they both know. “This is-- sad. I'm sorry.”
He removes his finger from Pike's eye and reaches up to grasp the air in a fluid pantomime of someone accepting a gift. The tendons stand out in his thin forearm, and the back of his long hand is tented over the spread bones. Pike's eyes are watering. He blinks. Nero bobs his head, kissing air, and Pike watches One's tapered pale fingers form in Nero's loose grip, the sharp pink knuckles, and as he traces the sight of her she blooms into existence, a second ahead of his gaze, from the wrist up. She looks terribly young, once she is whole, her hips hollow, her spine curving, the poor posture something she worked out of herself years ago but here it is, merciless and lovely.
She pushes Nero's hand down to rest on Pike's elbow and kisses Nero on the lips. It looks. Inevitable.
Pike has never missed the standard electric blanket more. His body like old ice, rotten and bubbled through with regret.
“Understand,” she says, pushing Nero so far back that his shoulderblades are almost touching Pike's stomach, climbing up to straddle his waist, “that this is for the good of us all, Chris. We need the time.”
Time.
Nero opening up on top of him, breaking open. A whisper of his dead wife's name and. Pike turns his face away.
Title: Cellar Doors
Rating: PG
Pairing: One/Winona
Summary: In accordance with Winona's wishes, Pike raises Jim without interference from anyone, until Winona dies and the woman who loved her comes to see her son.
A/N: For st_respect . Somewhere in my head there is an epic AU that this is part of, unsurprisingly.
She drives there, in a rented groundcar, with the windows rolled down and the wind hot on her face, bearable only because the air is in such violent motion and she likes how the speed of it hits her skin, splits her eyes. The desert is not exactly a blur as she zips across it: the details are there but pulled long, grainy streaks of saffron and russet and burnt sienna, like Winona's hair in an accurate light.
One reminds herself that it would be better to keep her eyes on the horizon; running this ancient vehicle is nothing at all like piloting a starship. Her fingers tighten on the rim of the wheel.
She is so thoroughly and sensibly focused on the uninspiring asphalt stretched out in front of her for the rest of the way that she almost misses the turn onto the dirt driveway, and is forced to veer sharply to avoid crashing into one of the alien-looking Joshua trees. Her tires make a raw sound against the road, like someone being opened up without anesthetic.
When she gets out, the dust is still rising in transparent brown clouds. Also a skinny ragged boy only at the curving cusp of adolescence has materialized on the front porch of the sagging ranch house to stare at her, open-mouthed. He is shading his eyes with his hand and his face is dark, but One knows who he is.
"Jim?" says a man's voice from inside the building. "Who is it?"
Jim doesn't answer.
She wonders what she looks like to him. Her uniform shirt clings to her sides, itchily. There are ropes of watery mucus cooling on her face, thick and salty but clear, pulled forcibly from her tear ducts by the wind.
Footsteps. Creaky wood. Christopher Pike, the man's name is, she remembers, before he shows up in the doorway. He looks about her age. Too young to be serving as father to Winona's child. But here they are.
"I am Lieutenant One of the U.S.S. Yorktown," she says. Her words crackle in her own ears.
Pike goes very still.
"The funeral's tomorrow," he says. "In the city. How can I help you?"
Jim doesn't look at him and he doesn't look at Jim.
"Lieutenant Commander Kirk and I were in a relationship up to her death," she says, flatly. "While she was dying she told me I ought to visit her son."
Beat.
Such pale eyes, trained on her.
"If you are willing, that is," she says, softly.
"Jim?" Pike says, although his gaze does not leave her face.
Jim lowers his hand. His eyes are full of reflected heat and dryness and empty space, the eyes of an earthbound desertgrown child, and his face is sharp and not much like his mother's, except for the expression; that, though, is so similar that One's knees almost buckle under her. Maybe from relief.
"You're a bad driver," he says, and "Okay."
Pike hides his smile with a closed fist. "Come on in," he tells her; Jim's already sauntering back through the yawning doorway to the dim depths of the front room, which looks invitingly cool, from where she stands. "Do you take tea?"
"God, yes," she says, wiping her stinging cheek, and follows.