crack_van | Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother by waldorph (PG-13)

Fandom: STAR TREK:REBOOT
Characters/Pairings: Winona Kirk/George Kirk, Winona/Frank, Jim Kirk/Spock
Length: 2337
Author on LJ: waldorph
Author Website: also at AO3
This is a story within the Illogical (√π233/hy7) universe: Approximately 140,000 words told over the course of 22 stories; each complete on its own; each focusing on a different character.

Why this must be read:
(In honor of Father’s Day this Sunday)

Frank Hallie never meant to be the wicked stepmother in the story. This story demonstrates what waldorph does so well: she makes me care about the ‘other’ characters- i.e. anyone who isn’t Jim Kirk or Spock. Jim and Spock are easy characters to love. They’re brave and bold and brilliant. They’re handsome and charismatic (Jim) or handsome and enigmatic (Spock) and they save worlds while upholding the ideals of the Federation.

This is a story about Frank- a man that’s barely in the movie (voice only, over the phone yelling at Jim for stealing the car) and the default of fandom is to make him a villain, yet another antagonist or obstacle for Jim to overcome.

This story made me weep for this man, and it made me hate (just a little bit) Jim.

None of us will ever meet a ‘Jim Kirk’ or a ‘Spock’ because their greatness can only exist within fiction. But we all know a ‘Frank.’ Hell, in more ways than I’d care to admit, I am a Frank. He is a good man, but an ordinary man who made the mistake of being swept into the Kirk’s orbit, of standing next to greatness and suffering in comparison.

Frank deserved better.

Jim doesn't have friends, but everyone loves him, but everyone's nervous about him—Frank doesn't know what to do with the fact that Jim makes him want to hit him. He's not—he's not that guy. Jim's not his kid, but he's his step-kid and his responsibility, and sometimes Frank even likes him in spite of himself—and he loves Sam.

But Jim just drives him right off the edge of reason—the car was a goddamn metaphor, alright? The car is Frank, the ground is his patience, and there's Jim, with his foot to the floor, running right off the cliff.

It doesn't help that one day Frank finds him in all the bills and Frank's stock portfolio, frowning at the numbers and then, with disdain no 8 year old should muster with their stepfather, Jim Kirk informs him that he's being cheated, that there are 20,000 credits missing over the course of seven years, and maybe he wants to call his broker.

Frank's hands twitch, and all he wants to do is smack Jim's snide, arrogant little head. Instead he gets a beer and goes out to the barn to be with the cows. He never wants to kill cows. He just— Jim pushes buttons Frank doesn't know he has until Jim's grubby little fingers find them. And Frank can't seem to give the kid a break.

Years drag on and he doesn't want to, so much. Jim has daddy issues a mile wide, because everyone compares him to his father, because his birthday is the day his dad died—and the way it translates is that Jim hates Frank because he's not George, and Frank hates that because there's not a fucking thing he can do about it. Jim, who hates being held to his father's image for comparison, is holding Frank to that exact standard.

Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother