Title: Shady Articulation
Fandom: Star Trek 2009
Pairing: Eventual Spock/Kirk
Summary: AU. Jim has been raised by his father, changing everything and yet nothing at all. Psychologists' only worries, however, is that his father has been dead since his birth. Eventual K/S.
Warnings: Rated M, like most of my things for eventual violence, language, and other things not yet thought of. You've been warned, but you can take it right?
oOo
Jimmy is six when he starts to realize that not everyone can see the man who watches over him. He is old, like his mother, and has hair like Jimmy and eyes like warm oceans. When he smiles, small wrinkles appear on his face but instead of making him look older, they soften his face and Jimmy can't help but smile back. Especially since his mother doesn't smile often, and can't be in the same room as him for more than five hours at a time.
When she leaves, the man frowns and has a sad tilt to his lips, the lines on his forehead making him seem like an old, old man. The man is in full color, yellow shirt and crisp black slacks; healthy tan skin and shiny dark shoes. But whenever he tries to reach for him, Jimmy's hand passes right through. Even as this limits their interaction, the man still reads him books that Jimmy holds and turns the pages for, and shows him how to tie his shoelaces, and to count to 100 and back.
When Jimmy grows tired of studying the numbers as he knows them by heart now, the man stops and begins to teach him a shortcut called multiplication and goes up from there. The man has always been there and ready with information, advice and praises and Jimmy is content.
Until he stumbles on a list of mental disorders while looking through his PADD and begins to doubt himself and to eye the man wearily. In the dark of the night, under his covers Jimmy wonders to himself if he is crazy to see the man sitting on his chair and who floats sometimes when he wants to. He has read of bad things that happen to crazy people; how they're locked away in a room like prisoners.
He doesn't want to live away from his mother. The distant and sad, yet caring figure who is only labeled as 'mother'; or his brother who is both a manly idol and someone who understands why throwing mud at each other is essential for a kid. And he doesn't know if the man would follow him into the dark confines of a "psychiatric ward".
When his silence reaches three days the man seems sad to see him ignore the elder. Finally, he breaks and as Sam had gone to a friend's house and his mother went out to shop for groceries he tells the man to sit down very seriously on the couch. With sadness and yet amusement the man follows his orders. Jimmy places his hand centimeters above the man's knee, and very gravely tells him that he might be a figment of the six year old's imagination and could he offer the man a tissue?
After the man almost chokes on his laughter and Jimmy has thrown several cushions at -and through- him in a fit of righteous pique. He concentrates on his hand and then pats Jimmy on his head and this time Jimmy can feel fingers carding warmly through his head and feels his eyes sting in happiness. The man explains that he isn't crazy, but special. His eyes are special in that he can see people who aren't there. He is special, not insane.
Smiling, Jimmy leans into the physical touch and resolves to never ignore the man who has become so much more than a friend. As he feels the fingers fade, the man looks sick and pale and slightly see through, Jimmy panics and although the touch was nice it wasn't worth it if it made the man so fatigued.
When he is six and ten months, the man refers to his mother as "Winona" and Jim is eager to say it over and over again. To have more information on his parent, a private and strong woman who he looked up to; and her first name that had eluded him for his 6 years of existence now seems like a sweet secret on his mouth. The man laughs at his joy and in childish glee offers to teach him more.
So Jimmy is tasked to find his old chess set in the attic, where dust motes float and the heat seems to radiate from everywhere. The man directs him to a box labeled in his mother's scrawl, and almost ripping it open when he stops cold. There at the very top, is a picture of the man, in a black and white suit holding his mother in a pretty white wedding dress. He takes it out carefully and holds it up so the light hits it and Jimmy can see how younger the man is. Some wrinkles just aren't there when he smiles for the holopic.
The sound of glass shattering behind him makes him jump and whirl around, and he sees Winona on the floor with a glass of juice shattered and splattered all over the floor. She has a sad faraway look in her eyes like she did when he was younger and she's mumbling a name over and over again, dry sobs tearing through her and scaring Jimmy.
He puts the picture back and slowly approaches her, hearing the name "George, oh George!" over and over again. It's fairly obvious that its the name of the man, and also the name of his father that everyone praised when he went to those memorials on his birthday. He turns to the man and forgets the silent rule that he can't talk to things others can't see; asking him "Are you my father?"
The man, George, nods and kneels next to a gaping Winona, trying to futilely hug her.
"J-jimmy...are you talking to your imaginary friend again?" Her tone has a slight hysterical edge to it and Jimmy frowns remembering the medical text of disorders.
Gently tapping her cheek in soft chastisement, he says solemnly like George had when he'd explained why calling his brother an "Asshole" wasn't proper, "Winona, don't be silly. He's real and there but you can't see him. He's been here all my life."
There is silence when Winona hiccups as tears stream down and she tries to lift herself to her knees. She accepts with a watery "Of course dear."
Jimmy sighs crossly, and shift his attention to her left, "George, she won't believe me." She can only stare as her son conversed with what he proposed to be the ghost of his deceased father. "What's his full name?." Then he mouths something silently and finally turns to her and parrots. talker
"He says to tell you that to prove that I'm not insane," he spits out the word with obvious vehemence, "The best man at your wedding, is Christopher Pike who you've been kind of ignoring for the past six years which is kinda rude y'know? But anyway! You both met Chris at the time that he was having a fight with some guy named Jonathan Archer who later became your kind of close friends."
Jimmy took a breath and nodded in the self assured way of George when he felt that his point had better been understood or by god he'd get it through with a ball peen hammer. Winona on the other hand had no way to prove that Jimmy had gotten his information through other non-supernatural means. She settled her face in her hands, her head suddenly to heavy with an overload of info. If, on the slim chance, Jimmy wasn't lying and George had been there all this time seeing how badly she failed in her parenting skills towards Jimmy then it might have been better to live in ignorance.
Distantly, she could hear her son exclaiming how George was trying to hug her and that it was "kinda creepy how your hand just went through her shoulder, could you not do that again?" She snorted wetly, and opened her eyes, hoping perhaps childishly that she would see a transparent ghost white apparition of her husband.
She saw nothing and closed her eyes once more, hope gone.
Winona almost jumped when a small but startlingly strong hand grasped hers and blue eyes peered into her face. The expression was almost eerie in its resemblance to many of her Captain's while working in Starfleet. It was an expression that commanded immediate obedience no matter how ridiculous the order seemed. And suddenly his eyes seemed to reflect more light than was possible with the small attic window.
It was as if many sheets of white were lifting until what was a faint blur across her vision solidified into the outline of her husband. The lines were a bit blurry, the features nonexistent save for smudges of shadows and overall he had the disconcerting look of always in movement, even while kneeling in front of her holding her face gently in his tan hands. But it was indisputably her George.
Something broke softly in her and she could only hear the faint whisper as it drifted to her in his voice, "Live, my love, for me." before he was gone in the blink of an eye and Jimmy collapsed unconscious against her.
oOo
When Jimmy came to once more, it was dark out and his room was illuminated by his lamp and his father's belongings were scattered around his room, an old fashioned chess set with two drawers built into the deep rich wood lay besides him on his bed. Bone deep weariness settled into him so he couldn't even think to move out of bed to use the bathroom.
His door opened and Winona came in, a rare smile on her face, as an equally cheery George came in behind her. She carried a bowl of soup and something steaming in a mug. Setting it down on his bedside table, she checked his temperature and sat down on his bed.
There was a period of unhurried comfortable silence, and Jimmy watched as George surveyed the room with a pleased nod. He yawned, amazed that he could even be sleepy after just waking up. The sound seemed to prompt Winona into action as she leaned over and cradled his face in her hands like his father had done in the attic. She searched his face for something before she smiled and kissed his forehead.
"I don't know if you will ever understand what you have done for me my son. But thank you anyway."
Jimmy swallowed at the amount of love and tenderness and fresh, crisp emotions that were present in her voice. She wasn't distant like always, as if thinking of someone else, but it showed that she was here, with nothing but him on her mind and in her heart.
He smiled shakily and hugged her, overcome with joy as she hugged back just as strongly. Besides the window, George smiled to himself as he saw his wife and son come together in more ways than one.
