Disclaimer: Nu.
Also, not so much on Rebel Without a Cause, either.
Warnings: Profanity.
A/N: Okay, look, I'm an insomniac who just moved and is currently between both jobs and degrees. I've got loads of time on my hands. And apparently that time is being spent writing this. *sigh* If that's wrong, then...
"Essential" is also in the same verse as "Inefficient" and "Speed."
Thanks for reviewing.
Essential
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
- The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery
Attributed as one of James Dean's favourite quotes, and inscribed on his memorial in Cholame, California.
Sam goes through a James Dean phase when he's fourteen, slicking back his hair and trying to take up smoking.
Jim still thinks his big brother walks on water at his point, so he follows Sam around with his collar turned up, trying to walk with a swagger and slouch.
It starts when they uncover the dusty holovids in the attic, buried in a cardboard box marked "George" in shaky handwriting. They watch Rebel Without a Cause with rapt, glowing eyes.
Jim realizes it's a turning point in his life, in more ways then one. Winona walks in just after Jim Stark's dad promises to be dependable, and completely loses it. Jim stares with wide eyes when his mother tears the wallpaper off the walls with her fingernails and screams. The snapped remains of the holovids disappear back into their box and are locked away in the attic.
Jim can't remember seeing his mother very often after that. It's probably a coincidence that the off-world assignments come in fast and heavy from then on, but he's always had a buried suspicion that it's not.
At any rate, James Dean changes James Kirk's life. It'll become starkly apparent ten years later, when he tries to be cool and brave and better. But it's obvious just a little while after that first time he saw the dead legend, when he plays a game of chickie run with himself and almost crashes and burns at the bottom of a cliff.
Jim speeds by his brother, who by then has moved on from his jaded anti-hero. When he reaches the edge he almost decides to go down with his ship and go out with a blaze of glory. He bails out, though, rolling across the ground, and sees the sports car do a swan-dive over the edge of the quarry and fall like a shooting star.
That marks another turning point in Jim's life, and once again, it's all James Dean's fault.
Years later, the effects of James Dean will swagger back into Jim's life, and take his best friend Leonard McCoy along for the ride.
Sometimes Jim says things like he's quoting people, and Leonard will try to memorize the statements so he can take them home and look them up and maybe gain some insight into the insanity of his best friend.
It starts when he's searching for "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today," which Jim had uttered to Leonard when he was more than a little buzzed and staring up at the stars as if he could reach them if he just stood on his toes and stretched.
That's when Leonard connects the dots for the first time between Dean and Kirk, staring at the holopic of a blue-eyed blonde with a tragic smile.
He scrolls through the rest of Dean's quotes and recognizes some of them from when they passed over Jim's lips.
The only greatness for man is immortality.
Well, if that's all Dean wanted, Leonard thinks cynically, he certainly was great.
It all starts to come to a head on Jim's twenty-third birthday, when he's retreated, like he does every year, to some dark corner of his mind and hidden himself away from the world. He's completely smashed by the time Leonard finds him, quiet and moody. He's sprawled across the floor, and Leonard sinks down to sit next to him just in time to catch the red title credits on the holovid.
Rebel Without a Cause.
"S'was my dad's favourite movie," Jim mutters.
Leonard only nods, because it's not like Jim will hear anything he has to say right now.
He shifts closer to Jim while James Dean's angst-ridden youth pleads with his dad to be a man. Jim falls neatly into Leonard's side, head dropping to the crook between his neck and his shoulder, breath fluttering against Leonard's throat.
When the final tragedy of the film plays out Leonard starts carding one hand through Jim's soft blonde hair.
They stay still and quiet like that long after the credits have finished.
Some musty part of Leonard's memory stirs and points out that James Dean died when he was twenty-four, and if Jim keeps going he's only got one year left.
It's something Leonard's worried about before. Jim shines so bright and hot he's always afraid that the kid will flare up and burn out on day. Shine so brilliantly he'll go supernova. Too bright for the world to bear. It's true that only the good die young, the really great ones go before their time, before they can be worn down or adulterated or broken.
And Jim's always lived fast.
Leonard tells the worries in his head to shut up. Jim won't die. At least not while Leonard is around to keep the moron from killing himself.
Of course, things get a little dicey shortly after that when Jim almost drives Leonard and himself straight into the sea in a 1969 Stingray.
Leonard realizes he's still shaking when the two of them walk home, the Corvette sealed away in its garage sepulchre. Jim won't talk about what just happened, but Leonard is prepared to wait.
And eventually, one night, Jim tells him. Beneath a quiet haze of tequila and bourbon, Jim talks about Sam and Frank and fast cars and James Dean and death.
Bones listens. Then he insults Jim properly and let's him know that he's not going to die alone. And he's not going to live alone, either.
Jim smiles at him, the brilliant movie star smile that makes Bones feel like he's the only one that gets to see it.
Besides, Bones thinks later, when Jim's breathing is even and steady and the only noise in the quiet. James Kirk may be a lot like James Dean, but they're not the same.
James Dean might have been a rebel without a cause, but Jim always has something to fight for.
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