Title: Ready, Set, RUN! (2/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Playtime!verse one-shot, set between Playtime and The Good Life. Pike spends a weekend with the boys.
Previous Part: 1

Part Two

“Ice cream?”

From his hands and knees, Pike looks up at the hopeful Jimmy. “Starship captains shouldn’t fight their crewmen with toothpaste, and they certainly don’t deserve ice cream if they do.” He grimaces as he continues to scrub the tiles. In all the years of owning the house, Pike has never had this kind of up-close and personal encounter with his kitchen floor. He idly thinks that maybe it was due for a deep cleaning.

That doesn’t mean Christoper wanted to play housemaid this weekend.

Archer is supervising McCoy and Spock’s imprisonment in the bathroom. They have been ordered by Admiral Pike to “Wash up until your hair isn’t sticky and the only place I see toothpaste is on your teeth.”

It will be a miracle if Archer doesn’t come out of that bathroom as covered in the goop as his two troopers.

After happening upon the battle scene—a rather loud, volatile screeching had drawn in the adults—Pike had been horrified at the state of his kitchen (not to mention his wards) while Jon had howled and thumped a fist on the nearby wall in amusement. Archer’s hand had come away trailing what Pike now suspects is a combination of spittle and toothpaste from Lenny’s ‘flying minty missiles of doom.’

With a grin, Jon said, “At least they are creative little buggers.”

Upon asking Spock what he had been thinking (knowing it was fruitless to ask Jimmy or Lenny), the Vulcan had blinked at him solemnly. “I am conducting a study of prepubescent behavior in Terrans. Mother says that this will, I believe, ‘be good for me.’ The Captain and the Doctor have offered to aid me in this endeavor.”

Pike thinks he isn’t going to survive a weekend of “prepubescent behavior.”

The woeful-looking Captain Kirk brings him back to the present. “Pwease, Mr. Pwike.”

Oh no. Jimmy only backtracks in his developing vocabulary when he is certain that its adorable quality will daze the recipient into allowing Kirk to have his way.

Pike sighs and tries not to touch anything, especially himself, while he goes over to the sink to wash his hands.

Jimmy relentlessly pursues his need for ice cream, fairly bouncing on the spot in his third pair of clean clothes that afternoon. Christopher personally wiped down the boy, knowing that young Kirk would more likely flood Pike’s guest bathroom than actually manage to put the water on his person.

The boy smells strongly of spearmint.

“James, I said no.“

“But Spock is hungry!”

“Spock will eat at dinner time like the rest of us.”

“But he’s hungry now!“

“Jimmy,” Pike says, fixing a stare on the child, “are you lying to me just so that you can have a treat before dinner?”

“No,” mumbles Kirk. It is the droop of the boy’s head that gives him away.

Pike squats down to his charge’s level, careful not to kneel lest he need to change his clothes as well. “Look here, son. I know you want your friends to have a good time, but trust me, you don’t have to work for it. They are perfectly happy to be here because you are with them. Understand?”

Jimmy shrugs, but Pike is certain that the smart child does.

He tips up that stubborn chin gently and smiles at the child. “Why don’t you show Spock and Lenny your rocket collection?”

“Bones’s awready looked at it.”

“Spock too?”

The boy shakes his head.

“Then shouldn’t you treat one friend as you would the other?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay then.” Pike straightens, wincing at the cramp in his lower back. “Go see if Mr. Archer will let you into the bathroom.”

The boy pelts out of the kitchen and, a moment later, Pike hears a banging from the other side of the house and the muffled shout “I wanna come in!—’Cause I’m the Capt’n!!—I AM SO A CAPTAIN ‘N I’LL HIT YOU WID MY SHIP—” Then the fading, “Bones! Spock! Mr. Pike says we can have ice cream for dinner…”

James T. Kirk will be the death of him.

Satisfied children are either napping or close to napping on various surfaces in Pike’s living room—Jimmy curled on the floor partially under the coffee table, Spock on the sofa with arms neatly folded, and Lenny propped drowsily against Jon.

Archer looks satisfied as well and says as much. “I want to live at your house, Chrissy, if you’re willing to serve ice cream for dinner every night!”

“Don’t call me Chrissy or I’ll kill you,” Pike warns absently since he is engrossed in the book in his lap. “We had regular food too.”

A sleepy voice mumbles, “Old people like sweet stuff just like kids ‘cuz they’re gonna die.”

Pike’s brain fizzles, finally works through that statement and he stares over the edge of his reading glasses at McCoy.

Spock saves him the trouble of responding. “That is illogical.”

One of Lenny’s eyes peeks open to roll in Spock’s direction. “Nuh-uh. When you’re really, really old, you’re gonna have to die. Mama says people like Mr. Archer get simple in the head as if they were little, so they like the taste of candy and ice cream better.”

“Fascinating.”

Pike drops his book to stuff a fist into his mouth, but not before he can muffle a sob-like sound. Archer, muttering something too quietly, tilts McCoy away from him in obvious irritation.

Lenny frowns and resettles where he was.

Jonathan is having none of that. “Kid, you can’t insult me and expect me to be your pillow.”

Both of McCoy’s eyes are open now. Jimmy twitches and mumbles into the carpet, unaware of the imminent show-down between adult and pseudo-adult.

Lenny sits up. “I wasn’t in-insultin’ no one! It’s true! You had twice as much ice cream as Spock and he had lots!”

“Boys,” interrupts Pike.

Archer and McCoy ignore him. Spock is very attentive for a “prepared to engage in a restful period” Vulcan.

“Don’t point that scrawny finger at me!” Jon avenges his injured chest by a poke of his own, with just enough muscle to make Lenny scowl deeply.

“Y-you Goddamn Klingon!”

Jimmy stirs with a “Muh…? Kwingon?”

“Leonard!” Pike whispers with equal fury, “Jon!”

They look at him. He lays his book on the coffee table, picks up the agitated McCoy and moves the child away from Archer. Then, with some finger pointing of his own, he gestures to his friend to high-tail it. “Go cool off, Jonathan.”

Jon stares at Pike for a moment, judging the level of seriousness on Pike’s face. Then he rises in silence and walks down the hall. Pike relaxes at the sound of a door closing. He’ll handle that ego in a few minutes.

Handing Lenny a pillow, he pats the end of the couch not occupied by Spock. “Lie down.”

McCoy’s mutinous face peeks over the top of the pillow. “I ain’t tired.”

Pike sighs, definitely more weary than simply tired. Jimmy is still curled on the floor, but his eyes are open and watching everything.

“Please try,” he almost begs.

Without another word, McCoy finds a position on the couch that indicates his dissatisfaction; he puts his back to Pike.

Christopher nods to Jimmy, who obediently closes his eyes, and watches the children in the silence of the darkened living room. Because of their young age, their bodies will eventually override the emotional need to remain awake. Five minutes later, when no one shows a sign of stirring, Pike walks to one of two guest rooms and taps on the door quietly.

He accepts the low grumble as a sign that Archer won’t have his pistol trained on the door and slips inside.

Jonathan is lounging on his bed, back to the headrest and a leg drawn up. Pike purposefully ignores that the man is still wearing boots on his newly purchased coverlet. (Winona had insisted that the pattern would add color to the almost bare room. Pike has to admit that she was right—though not to Winona in person.)

But he cannot ignore the open bottle of scotch. “It’s a bit soon to be fortifying your nerves.”

“I’m not,” Jon says. “I’m drowning my parental woes.”

“You aren’t a parent.”

“Why else do you think I’m drinking?”

Pike is surprised. He sits down at the end of the bed. “I thought it was your regular mantra that the universe would probably end before you had children. I simply assumed that you meant you didn’t want to be a father.”

“It’s not… like that, Chris. I have just always known that I’d be pure crap at it.” Jonathan half-mutters into the bottle as he drinks, “Hell, I proved that with the kid, didn’t I?”

They are friends and have years worth of knowledge about each other; but some subjects they have never broached simply because it seemed unnecessary. Now Pike realizes that in allowing sleeping dogs to lie, he has forgotten one of the more important aspects of being Archer’s friend: that Archer needs Pike to dig beneath the man’s flippant and boisterous attitude for bits of sober truth.

Pike pinches the bridge of his nose. “There’s a reason you were honored for your years in the education system, Jonathan. You have the ability to go toe-to-toe with kids on their level. They may not always like it, but they need it. Yeah, you were acting childish a moment ago—”

Jonathan’s smile is slightly sheepish. The man uses his free hand to pick very real lint off of his pants.

Pike resists the complaint that wants to be voiced. “—but that doesn’t mean you don’t recognize when one of the kids needs an adult and not a peer. Honestly, you’d make a great parent, Jon.”

They fall into silence until Archer clears his throat. “Not to cheapen the moment, old son, but since when is it wise to leave miniature Nazis unattended for more than half a second?”

Pike grimaces. From one fire straight to the next.

He starts to leave but takes a step back and reaches down to squeeze his friend’s ankle. “You’ll always have a place with my kids,” he says.

Pike turns away and pretends that he hasn’t noticed the naked gratefulness in Archer’s eyes.

It is pleasantly surprising to find that his living room is whole and unmarked by the terror of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. He also notes with interest that Lenny, despite his protest, has fallen into a peaceful sleep—and not alone. Jimmy is pressed against McCoy’s back, their heads almost touching as they share a pillow.

For Pike, the thought of Jimmy comforting his friend with a close presence is simply not unexpected at all.

I don’t know what happened. This piece refuses to be contained. I blame Archer.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Ready, Set, RUN! (9/9) – from February 18, 2011
• Ready, Set, RUN! (8/?) – from February 16, 2011
• Ready, Set, RUN! (7/?) – from February 10, 2011
• Ready, Set, RUN! (6/?) – from February 3, 2011
• Ready, Set, RUN! (5/?) – from January 31, 2011