Title: Goodbye, Holidays (1/3)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Pike/Archer, Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Fifth installment in Holiday!verse; sequel to For Holiday’s Sake. The aftermath of Nero’s attack leaves the Pike family on edge.
A/N: So, it looks like 2016 might return us to the Holiday AU. That said, this will be a short story in preparation of what’s to come.

In the silence, a clock ticks and a chair leg creaks. The atmosphere is deceptively restive; there is something cloying in its stillness, an unannounced tension quickly approaching full capacity.

“Stop babying him, Chris.”

The look that Christopher Pike cuts at his companion is more stern than amused, and the warning in his voice is unmistakable. “This is not babying, Jonathan. This is taking care of my injured son.”

A droopy-faced beagle in his lap, the man sitting at Pike’s kitchen table sighs with great exaggeration.

Pike says nothing and returns to stirring the bubbling tomato soup in a pot on his stove. He had doubled his efforts at improving his cooking skills in the last month. The reason is sleeping at the opposite end of the house, wrapped in blankets and bandages.

Chris’s hand tightens on the ladle.

He’s going to kill Nero. He is. Just as soon as Jim is well enough to be left on his own.

…Hell, who is he kidding? Chris is terrified of leaving Jim alone now.

Archer has moved from the chair to the counter without Pike noticing and lifted Porthos up to his eye-level. He says in a sad, old-man voice that is supposed to belong to the dog, “Mr. Jim wouldn’t like it if his dad went to jail for murder.”

It takes Pike a moment to lie. “I’m not going to murder anyone.”

Jon lowers his dog. “Sure you are. I know what that look on your face means. Somebody’s ass is grass—and I can guess whose.” He sighs softly through his nose this time. “Look, we both know I’m the last person to give advice on taking the higher road, but… don’t let your anger control you, Chris.”

Pike jerks the ladle out of the pot and slaps it down on the counter. “Why do you keep harping on this, Archer? Do I have a fucking gun in my hand?”

“No because I hid your gun,” Jon replies gravely, then frowns. “Don’t say bad words in front of Porthos.”

Damn him, thinks Chris. He steps back, turns, paces away. When he comes to the wall of the kitchen, he pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. He is unable to look at the framed photo in front of him. The young, happy boy in that picture is gone. Every day Chris is faced with a man who looks hunted, who flinches at being touched and who retreats into silence when it’s clear he is in great pain. His son is suffering, and Chris is suffering with him. That they have managed together these few weeks after Jim’s miracle from the hospital is a miracle.

Part of him wants to force Jim to talk to him; the rest of him knows it’s too soon—and that there is a good reason Jim won’t confide in him. Jim knows as well as Chris does that Chris can’t tolerate hearing the details of Nero’s attack. It doesn’t matter that Pike already knows them, has forced Jonathan—who stubbornly insisted on taking Jim’s statement alone—to let him read over the case file. Jim, despite all, is trying to protect his father from the ugly truth.

From revenge.

Chris almost damns them both, his partner and his son. He has a right to be angry; he has a right to react!

“Christopher?”

Pike opens his eyes, realizes his mood must be like a neon sign to a man who has known him for decades. He half-turns toward Archer and orders, “Stir the soup. Don’t let it burn.” Then, moving quickly, he makes his escape.

Jon’s call catches Pike just on the cusp of closing the kitchen door leading to the backyard. But the man doesn’t ask where he is going or what he plans to do, only, “You’re coming back?”

Chris looks at him then, the person standing at the stove with the abandoned ladle obediently in hand. Jonathan’s skills at cooking are worse than his and it’s likely the tomato soup won’t survive. Thinking that, and yet knowing that Jon is trying to please him despite the repeated rebuffs, fills Chris with regret.

“Yeah,” he answers, “just need some air,” and lets the screen door swing shut. His long strides carry him swiftly down the stoop and halfway across the yard. When he pauses by the fence to glance over his shoulder, he sees Porthos’ face staring mournfully back at him through the screen.

Chris refuses to look back a second time.

This soup won’t burn, Jonathan thinks determinedly. He can’t face Pike with yet another disappointment.

So deeply concentrated on his task is Jon that belatedly he hears the tell-tale signs of the other occupant in the house coming into the kitchen. It’s Kirk’s quiet grunt of pain that alerts him, and he immediately turns from the stove in rising panic. But after moving forward, he stops just as quickly as he starts, his arms falling slack at his sides. From past experience, he knows that any attempt to intervene will be staunchly refused. Jim Kirk would rather crawl on his hands and knees than accept help.

Sometimes Jon could swear that Pike and Kirk have to be related by blood. They are just the right amount of ridiculously stubborn, and they don’t like to admit to weakness to anyone.

It’s painful to watch Kirk slowly shuffle his way to a chair at the kitchen table. Jon is able to breathe in relief once Jim has managed to seat himself. The picture he makes is heartbreaking. The kid is all gangly limbs and jutting bones (having lost too much weight because of the strong pain medication he has been taking), and he looks exhausted. It’s only the hint of defiance in Kirk’s eyes that gives Jon some comfort Jim isn’t nearly as broken in spirit as he is in body.

The rest of them are the ones struggling from the emotional trauma of the attack. Sometimes Jon doesn’t think they will recover who they were before it happened; sometimes, though he is connected to Kirk only through Pike, he barely recognizes himself in the mirror. There have been long nights in which he has listened to Chris comforting his son through nausea and relentless pain; those nights he entertained selfish thoughts, thinking he might leave since he wasn’t useful anyway. The fact that he never made it past the bathroom door, however, only means he is too weak to be a proper coward.

In the light of day, reality is harsher. Jon is frustrated and scared, uncomfortable and self-loathing of his weakness and his inability to give them closure. He has never felt more worthless in his life.

In the silence of the kitchen, Jim looks around, no doubt thinking Pike should have been there instead of Archer.

When the spark in Kirk’s eyes fades, Jon feels it like a punch to his gut. He asks uncertainly, dumbly, “Want something to drink?”

Head lowered, Kirk traces a finger along a groove in the table. “Water would be okay.”

Jon thinks Jim needs more than water, maybe something strong like whiskey to take the edge off this entire hellish experience, but Chris—not to mention Kirk’s boyfriend—would kill him if he even suggested it as a joke. Besides, Jon has told himself he needs to become a better role model now that he is a boyfriend to a man with a child—not that he thinks Jim could have anyone more spectacular to look up to than his father.

Truthfully, Jon is not so willing to be the drunk, obnoxious Sheriff anymore. He can’t let Pike feel shame for ending up with a loser, especially a loser who cannot protect the one person Chris cares most about in the world.

Jon sets a glass of water down in front of Kirk, watching Jim twist the glass around in one hand without drinking from it. In hopes a neutral topic will relieve the awkwardness between them, he inquires, “How’s McCoy?”

The reply isn’t immediately forthcoming. “Still angry.”

Jon winces. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Jim says.

“It’s not yours either. He should’ve known you wouldn’t thank him for jeopardizing his residency.”

Jim sniffs once, then shrugs. “Soup’s burning.”

Jon’s head snaps around. “Shit!” He hurries back to the stove. Sure enough, the damn soup has glued itself to the bottom of the pan. Jon cries a little.

Jim is staring at him with a smidgen of interest now.

Jon dares to taste the concoction in the pot and remarks half-heartedly, “It doesn’t taste burnt.”

“I’m not eating that,” Kirk decides.

Jon attempts a pout. “Not even a little bit?”

Jim shakes his head.

Jon drags a hand down his face and says a very bad word. He dumps the pot, ladle and all, into the sink with the mutter “Archer fails again.”

Jim wants to know, “Where’s Dad?”

Jon thinks about lying.

Jim’s jaw visibly tightens as if he senses the lie already.

Getting anything past Kirk has always been a trial. Jon decides he isn’t in the mood for a game. “Perimeter check,” he answers seriously, taking a seat at the kitchen table across from Kirk.

Jim’s show of temper dissipates all at once. “Again?”

“Yeah.”

“Nero’s not coming here,” Jim says after a tense moment of silence. “He made his point already.”

“Too fucking well,” Jon replies darkly, remembering that night he’d found Pike’s son dying in the parking lot of the Sheriff’s department. Somebody he had thought had been a jokester had called his office phone and told him his Christmas present was waiting outside. If it hadn’t been for his insatiable curiosity, he would have dismissed the call altogether and Jim would have died. Though, in reality, Jim had almost died anyway by the time the paramedics showed up.

Furious, Jon had wasted no time in putting his boys on the hunt for Nero and his gang, but the bastard had been prepared and gone to ground, leaving lackeys behind to stonewall their investigation. They have Jim’s account of the brutal beating but have no perpetrator in hand—or likely will in the foreseeable future.

“Stop it,” Jim says suddenly.

Jon looks at him. “What?”

“Whatever you’re thinking, just stop.” Jim seems to withdraw further into himself. “I can’t deal with both of you being like this.”

Jon stays momentarily silent because he understands all too well what Jim means. It does pain him, however, that Kirk doesn’t trust in him yet. “Jim,” he says, “I’m doing my best to keep him out of it.”

The kid’s eyes flash, just briefly. “Then why the hell are you letting Dad do the perimeter check?”

“Because if your father thinks he’s out of it, then we lose.” He sits forward, lowering his voice despite that the fact that Chris is out of earshot. “Pike is not the type of guy who sits on his ass once his family has been threatened. He’s here right now because you need him to be here, but don’t mistake that for complacency, kid. He’ll jump the fence the moment he thinks he can.”

Jim pales. “No. He can’t go after Nero.”

Jon rakes a hand through his hair. “We agree on something at least.” Coming to his feet, he grabs a jacket draped over the back of the chair. “My lunch break was over an hour ago. I need to get back.”

Kirk looks like he wants to ask something but doesn’t, instead nodding his head.

Jon hesitates on his way out and decides he can be brave just once. He drops a hand to the young man’s shoulder. “Hang in there.”

Jim nods again.

Jon dons his Sheriff’s hat hanging by the front door and says goodbye to Porthos. Outside, he spots Pike standing by the mailbox, nothing in hand, just staring off into space. Knowing there isn’t anything Chris wants to hear from him, Jon turns his back to the sight and climbs inside his truck. As he backs out of the driveway, he observes Pike walk to the front door of the house and disappear inside.

Jon stalls his truck just at the edge of the drive where it meets the road and tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

They were happy, and he had been on his way to becoming a part of this family. But Nero—the bastard—had known exactly where to hurt them to ruin it all.

The truth is that Jonathan hasn’t hidden Chris’s gun to prevent a murder. No, he only intends to make certain that Chris is not the one who puts the bullet in Nero’s head.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Goodbye, Holidays (5/5) – from February 26, 2016
• Goodbye, Holidays (4/5) – from February 17, 2016
• Goodbye, Holidays (3/4) – from February 8, 2016
• Goodbye, Holidays (2/4) – from January 27, 2016