caelus | academy days ● with whistles

[jim had taken the dare from pike, of course he had. it wasn't like him to not take someone on when they challenged him in that way, even if he was a delinquent at the best of times. so the genius level repeat offender went to starfleet.

he divided his time between sex, pranking captain pike, and studies, exactly that order. things were good for a while, he aced his classes, became top of his class in survival strategies and tactical analysis, and was the assistant instructor in advanced hand to hand combat techniques. there wasn't anything he wasn't doing better than someone else if he gave himself the opportunity (at least that's how he saw it), until that time of the year rolled around.

it wasn't one he talked about, then again, it wasn't something he was supposed to really talk about. the events had been redacted, rephrased, and retold so many different times that sometimes even jim had a hard time keeping it straight for himself. he thought he could distract and distance himself. he thought he could deal.

but two days later, captain pike would be getting a call detailing the fact that jim had failed to show for any classes or meals over the past two days that could be told, and he was failing to respond to any attempts at communication. he hadn't been seen or heard from by anyone, not even his best friend leonard mccoy who was more than a little concerned. it wasn't like jim.

when his communicator goes off with a priority message, jim debates ignoring it too, but finally relents. he flips it open, voice a little rough from having not talked for a while.]

Leave me alone, man. I don't want anything but that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"He wasn't the brightest specimen of humanity."

He would like to think that's what Pike would say, but he isn't sure, so he won't. He takes the new bottle when it's slid over, but doesn't take a drink yet.

"Yeah. They found it. Apparently some of the other colonists had managed to storm the mansion to take control of what was left of the food and the guards themselves. There was a fight, I remember hearing the explosions, but at that point I was too exhausted to do anything but hide with Thomas. April found us just a while after.

They couldn't separate me and Thomas for days after that. Found us hiding a couple of times, cause we couldn't sleep without---" He watches a condensation ring start around the bottle from the water sliding down.

"It's why I was in the supply closet. I just---this time of year I can't. I don't feel safe around people. It's stupid but I-- It was always better to scavenge when it was dark. Less chance of being caught by patrols."

Pike nodded, letting Jim explain how it all ended. It was an awful set of circumstances but Jim made it out okay, if only barely.

Chris decided to give Jim another assurance that he might not really need to hear verbalized, "You're safe here. Right here, right now, you're safe here." He wasn't going to say what would happen in space, but now Jim was okay.

"And you know you're in a position to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone, ever again. Don't you?"

"It's hard to believe you'll ever be safe after something like that." He says it, and glances away. "But I'm trying."

He bites his bottom lip then, and then shakes his head a little. "I guess. How do you even come up against something like that though? What's the right decision? How can you know it's the right one?"

Pike understood that too, considering he'd gone through Talos IV. He still didn't know it was entirely over or if any of this was completely real and he supposed that he would never really know.

"I know."

He took another drink of his beer before answering, "You don't. In any situation, you can only make the best decision with the information you have at the moment. Sometimes, the best one is more important than the right one."

And Kodos did neither.

He'd heard rumors about that. It's the Academy, people talked. He watches him again when he says that he knows, and for once in a very long time, he believes that. If there's anyone, outside of Thomas and the small handful of survivors from the part of the colony that was abandoned to the whims of a madman, then it's Pike.

"I'm not sure I'm cut out for those types of decisions."

"I think if you thought you were, I'd be really worried about giving you a ship someday."

This sounded entirely too much like the talk he'd had with Phil Boyce, before Talos IV, and before accepting the position at the academy.

"I've thought about whether I'm cut out for those types of decisions more times than I can count. You're never really sure."

That actually earns a soft chuckle that isn't forced. He sniffs, and takes a sip of his slowly warming beer that he's just been staring at.

"How do you learn to deal with that then? I mean, those decisions---the lives of your crew---?"

"Sometimes, it's easier than you'd think. We all accept, on some level, that we could die out there. Space is dangerous. Everyone knows that the people that leave spacedock may not be the same people that come home. But it's always tiring."

The next thing he was going to admit, required another drink of his beer.

"And sometimes it's not. Sometimes you realize you need a break from deciding who lives, who dies, who's on the away team and who stays on board. Then you take a planetside position while you wait for your ship to be built."

So, Pike really was the last person to pass any judgement on Jim for having these thoughts, since he'd had them himself.

He listens, he's paying attention, closer to the Jim Kirk that just a few days ago was acing every subject thrown his way. His ma told him things, even though she was mostly on deep space science missions.

Jim never had a chance to meet his father, and he's found something of a surrogate dad in Captain Pike.

"I think---I think if I can manage to be half of the captain you are and my father was---then that'd be enough."

Maybe it's not much coming from a cadet that pretty much told you off for dragging him out of the dorms, but it's what he's got. He means it.

Seeing the change in Jim's attitude made Pike feel a little better. He was going to be okay, and that was comforting.

And when he mentioned that being half the captain he and George were, well then he felt touched and the smile on his face before he picked up his beer again said so.

"I think you're going to be a good captain. Maybe even one of Starfleet's best."

academy days ● with whistles_loudly

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