let's try to have a little fun.

STARFLEET IS A PROMISE; i give my life for you, you give your life for me. and nobody gets left behind. ensign silvia tilly is out there, and she has every right to expect us. we keep our promises. please report to your stations and designated safe zones on the starboard side. good luck, and god speed to us all

# CPTNPIKE. [ the best of starfleet ]

an independent portrayal of an independent portrayal of CHRISTOPHER PIKE from GENE RODDENBERRY’S STAR TREK. canon compliant with star trek discovery and star trek strange new worlds, primarily inspired by discovery.  adored by odette ( she/her. 26 )

to proceed please read my rules and if you have time, fill out the interest tracker ( it's fun, i promise ). i'm always accepting memes. discord is available upon request.

a study on: service, sacrifice, compassion and love, not abandoning who you are when faced with an impossible future.

     “Wow,” she says, though her voice holds only a touch of surprise, “I’d hate to see what you’d do if I really fucked something up.” A couple nights in the brig, perhaps? A stern dressing-down? Maybe she’d no longer be welcome on the Enterprise. 

     She doesn’t pout but rather grins at the mockery of her use of human vernacular, and in the span of her next breath, she lets herself fall backwards to join the captain on the ground. She’s sprawled out comfortably on her back, looking like she was meant to be there all along. Having a second pair of eyes for a routine inspection never hurt, after all. Surely this too can’t be an offence punishable by court martial. 

     Though she has to admit, she is curious as to how that would go over. 

     “Right, those. Cooties.” She puts her hands behind her head, not commenting on the show of pain on the captain’s face. “This must be that Starfleet sensitivity training I’ve heard so much about at work. You did pass that, right? Or take a refresher course?”

“    better not try and figure it out, huh.    ”     at this point, he wishes he had just accepted the offer when it was presented, he would already be back in his quarters dozing not so peacefully     —  but blessedly alone.    christopher had expected she would have moved on already, scurried away when he had made it clear he wasn’t moving, as a lower decks personnel would have.    ly...   there was no predicting what she was going to do.   

usually, he was a big fan of people he couldn’t fully read, but right now he was just annoyed.    

“     see, pretty comfortable.    ”     he grumbles, looking at her from the corner of his eye.    if anyone passed by them right now, there would be no way to just make them go away, she was making sure that he was going to make a bigger spectacle of himself than he already was if he didn’t get up and go with her.    he better keep her away from m’benga, or he’ll hire her on the spot.    “     top of my class, got great table manners, if you must know.    ”

     ‘ I’m not sure we’ll be able to convince anyone that any part of this is healthy. ’ 

     Still. Banana pancakes, easy enough. Back when he’d been on extended leave, when Cate had given him a place to stay at the townhouse in Edinburgh, he’d mostly paid her back in grand breakfasts and taking Callum to school. It was all he’d been useful for, for a while. He’d liked it, too. The stay-at-home dad thing had really worked for him. For a while. But sometime after becoming the best pancake-maker in Scotland, he’d started missing the stars too much. So he’d come back. Luckily for everyone on the Enterprise, he’d brought his pancake-making skills with him. 

     ‘ You really do this often? ’ he asked, already having gotten into making the batter. The only thing slowing him down was the unfamiliarity of the kitchen he was currently in, though something told him that, if the stories about Pike were true, then he might get familiar with it sooner or later. He hummed thoughtfully. Then: ‘ Suppose nothing beats a good meal to get everyone all together and happy, eh, sir? It’s… pretty smart, actually. ’ 

“    but we can all pretend when we go for our second serving.    ”    he shot back with a grin, shooing away the ghost in his mind so he can focus on the present;   at every other moment, it was front and center in his mind, the underlying mission of this ship.    for the next hour, and he hoped it wouldn’t come back to haunt him later, he pleaded with the ghost to find another anchor.   he was always pleading with ghosts for that;    one more happy moment, they are not going to last forever, and he would like to be selfish for once in his life.

it was an unusual get together.   captain dinners in his career had always been formal affairs, the captain selecting a few members of the crew, based on strict performance criteria, to have a three dish course prepared by the replicator or the cook;   everyone was always so nervous that the planned conversations fell apart, and the captain and the first officer lightly chatted together until everyone skittered away.    it hadn’t been like that with admiral april, him and his opening their doors to the crew with an open smile.   it seemed only right to keep up the tradition.   

once you're stripped clean, what's at your core?

silent admission

in tarot, the fool is numbered 0 – the number of unlimited potential. as the protagonist, he is ever present and therefore needs no number as well as no introduction. the world revolves around you in ways that i can't begin to describe, though you'd shrug it off if i were to begin to explain. i need you to know that time is running out. if you want to get this done, you need to start now. sloth is your greatest enemy in this world, and you can only run so far from the opposition when you start with such a disadvantage. keep your head high, yeah? the kid you were is still in there somewhere. you need to show him that it was worth it.

flightless bird 

the thought of your found family is what motivates you in your own little world. you touch the clouds, and the soil gives way under your footprints... this is utopia. if you were to erase one thing, it would be your memory. experience is important, but ignorance is bliss. identity, in heaven, should give way to happiness. you'd give anything just to sit by the swings and eat ice cream, but this isn't that kind of world. you have to get up and wash the dirt off of your scraped knees. i think you have an escapism problem.

“Nothing springs up out of nowhere,” Xandra replied plainly as they went to find a plate and a knife. “People take unusual occurrences and attribute it to something, like a fire god, so they have something to believe in when there is darkness or hopelessness in their lives. It is a very human thing to do.”

“My problem is that these fire gods they create are usually pains in the arses. New gods, especially fire gods, always are. All high and mighty at their first taste of power.” They set the bread onto the plate before walking over to him to set it there. “Next full moon, I won’t have to light the fire. They’ll do it before I can even try just to show off. Also, the whole village will be running around like headless chickens for this festival, and you know there are going to be several burns. I might as well raid my patch of calendula now whilst I’m at it to make sure I have enough salve. Will you be attending?”

xandra was right, which meant he had a busy week ahead of him;    christopher liked his job, liked it a lot more than the life he led before, and it was usually exactly because of this:  the chance to go around and investigate something unusual, learn something new.    he just didn’t like it when it involved religion.    “    so it is fire gods?   ”

 it would have been so much easier    -    had he done the normal human response where her presence is banished as far from sight, as far from mind, as possible.    there has never been a need for her to be as close to light as she feels upon this ship:    a ship so many of them truly do consider a home away from where they have left.    (    perhaps,  maeve wonders,  it would be easier for her to understand if she’d ever had anywhere she could call home.    )      ❝   now,     you’re working off the assumption that my reports aren’t be being terribly petty and using every overly specific scientific term I know.   ❞     if universe    &&    those with powers continue on refusing to allow maeve a path where she may hide out in some semblance of peace,    her intelligence might as well prove a curse to them too whilst she still does the jobs that she must.    it is better her than someone who truly buys into section 31’s beliefs.

 yet still she finds herself biting back a dry joke about how he,    surely,    should have better taste in people who end up on his bridge if it means so much.    she does not understand it,    and at times,    maeve feels as though she doesn’t understand him at all.    instead it is the melancholy of his words that lingers and twists around her attention. 

 self deprecating humour can wait,    at least for now.     ❝   and what would end up on such an important playlist?   ❞     it is a silent,    gentle way of sticking with topic a little longer    -    to try and understand a little better.    words don’t need to be disguised as borderline teasing:    they are such in truth regardless of how maeve would wish for them not to be.   ❝   humans have a lot of beliefs about music being a way to tell things about a person.    don’t worry,    I promise to put it in as convoluted language as possible if I’m ever questioned on it.   ❞

“    glad to see we both found the best approach to dealing with tyler,    ”    he notes quietly her lack of a reply to his second comment, becoming accustomed to listening not just to what maeve says, but what she chooses to sidestep.    there is only one other person on the galaxy who has any right to dictate what is happening on the enterprise and that is number one;    section thirty-one, the admirals, they may bicker and send as many requests and people as they wished, none of them would step foot on this ship without his brand of approval.

after all, at the end of the day, try as he might to deny it, this wasn’t purely an exploration ship.   war was at every corner of the galaxy, and he would not be able to head into battle if he didn’t trust the people behind him.     for a man with a known distaste of politics, he had a deft hand at playing their game, bluntness working worders for him;    it helped mask the cleverness and cunning behind the golden aura of the boyscout.