Ficlet: Luxury (Kirk - gen)
Title: Luxury
Author/Artist: igrockspock
Pairing(s): Kirk (gen)
Rating: PG
Summary: Kirk doesn't want, need, or deserve the captain's quarters
Notes/Warnings: Written for yahtzee63's Where No Drabble Has Gone Before challenge
Jim doesn't want the captain's quarters. The luxury of so much wide-open space is unearned. Maybe ten years from now, after long service in the line of duty, he'll deserve this separation from his crew. Now, though, he feels like a kid. The truth is, he's always been a kid, even though he's claimed adulthood since he was 12. Convincing Pike of the Romulan attack, becoming the first officer, diving through space to destroy the drill and save Sulu -- the whole time, he'd been thinking I'm going to win. Like it was a fucking game.
Don't get him wrong: he'll take the command. Maybe he doesn't deserve it, but he will excel. But the job isn't just leading away missions and firing on enemies and making brilliant tactical decisions that quite literally save the world. If one person -- just one person -- had pushed a button too late or freaked out or stepped away from their post for even one second, they might have all died. The fucking Earth might have been destroyed. The Enterprise has one hell of a crew, and they are his most precious resource. More precious than the Enterprise even. His job, his real job, is to take care of those people.
Someone must need these quarters more than he does. A married couple, maybe, or a group of ensigns who don't deserve to be shoved in a 4-bed bunk with a bathroom down the hall. There has to be someone with clothes and pictures and significant others to fill up this vast, luxurious space.
Reaching for the miniature PADD in his back pocket has become second nature now. Once, it had held the comm numbers of every female cadet at the academy -- half of whom are now dead -- but he brushes that thought aside and flips to the to-do list he's been keeping since his promotion. That he even has a to-do list would have been inconceivable two weeks ago, but he pushes that thought down too, because not only does he have a to-do list, he has subdivisions and headings and categories for it too. Under "crew-related tasks," he begins typing a note to see who could make use of these quarters, but he stops half-way through. Somehow he senses that giving up these rooms is a violation of protocol, something he actually has to care about now. He can't bunk down with the ensigns and yeomen and second lieutenants, however much he might want to. Instead, he makes a note to find out how to give his captain's allowance of extra replicator tokens and real water showers to someone who deserves it. It isn't much, but it will have to do.
Author/Artist: igrockspock
Pairing(s): Kirk (gen)
Rating: PG
Summary: Kirk doesn't want, need, or deserve the captain's quarters
Notes/Warnings: Written for yahtzee63's Where No Drabble Has Gone Before challenge
Jim doesn't want the captain's quarters. The luxury of so much wide-open space is unearned. Maybe ten years from now, after long service in the line of duty, he'll deserve this separation from his crew. Now, though, he feels like a kid. The truth is, he's always been a kid, even though he's claimed adulthood since he was 12. Convincing Pike of the Romulan attack, becoming the first officer, diving through space to destroy the drill and save Sulu -- the whole time, he'd been thinking I'm going to win. Like it was a fucking game.
Don't get him wrong: he'll take the command. Maybe he doesn't deserve it, but he will excel. But the job isn't just leading away missions and firing on enemies and making brilliant tactical decisions that quite literally save the world. If one person -- just one person -- had pushed a button too late or freaked out or stepped away from their post for even one second, they might have all died. The fucking Earth might have been destroyed. The Enterprise has one hell of a crew, and they are his most precious resource. More precious than the Enterprise even. His job, his real job, is to take care of those people.
Someone must need these quarters more than he does. A married couple, maybe, or a group of ensigns who don't deserve to be shoved in a 4-bed bunk with a bathroom down the hall. There has to be someone with clothes and pictures and significant others to fill up this vast, luxurious space.
Reaching for the miniature PADD in his back pocket has become second nature now. Once, it had held the comm numbers of every female cadet at the academy -- half of whom are now dead -- but he brushes that thought aside and flips to the to-do list he's been keeping since his promotion. That he even has a to-do list would have been inconceivable two weeks ago, but he pushes that thought down too, because not only does he have a to-do list, he has subdivisions and headings and categories for it too. Under "crew-related tasks," he begins typing a note to see who could make use of these quarters, but he stops half-way through. Somehow he senses that giving up these rooms is a violation of protocol, something he actually has to care about now. He can't bunk down with the ensigns and yeomen and second lieutenants, however much he might want to. Instead, he makes a note to find out how to give his captain's allowance of extra replicator tokens and real water showers to someone who deserves it. It isn't much, but it will have to do.