crack_van | Where There Are No Phones by anowlinsunshine (R)

Fandom: STAR TREK:REBOOT
Characters/Pairings: Kirk; Kirk/Spock
Length: ~9500
Author on LJ:anowlinsunshine
Author Website: Master Post

Why this must be read: Kirk takes a vacation, hits his head and forgets everything about who he is. No one around him know who he is either, and so while he waits for someone to come looking for him, he settles down a in a small coastal town and slowly rediscovers himself. I love amnesia fic, and I love 'big' characters forced to live a 'small' life, and this fic completely satisfies both of these desires. It's sweet and quiet and a little achy, and just perfect.

Anthony finds a lot of things about himself.

He’s a social guy, for starters. He genuinely likes working at Tom’s place, looks forward to it, even. Tom’s a decent guy. He’s still a bit closed off, but Anthony figures he’ll loosen up after a few weeks. Anthony would be the same way, he guesses, if he had any aspect of his personality he knew well enough to hold back while acquaintances developed.

He doesn’t, though, and Judith is busy at her shop most days, so Anthony’s a bit starved for interaction. And he uses that word, “starved,” very specifically because that’s what this feels like. It doesn’t feel like he’s okay to go for most of the day without talking to someone, or seeing someone else; he feels restless when that’s happened, like he’s used to seeing so many other people all the time that being alone is something he should be wary of. It itches at his skin, in the back of his mind, and more often than not, he finds himself wandering around the town just to keep whatever part of himself it is that cares aware of the fact that yes, he’s not alone, not all the time.

So yeah, he likes bar-tending. Drunken conversation isn’t always the most intelligent, or even the most coherent, but it’s still conversation, and easy enough to keep going around him. There’re only so many topics it covers, and almost all of them go back to women. Which is fine -- Anthony’s also finding that he likes women, likes them a whole hell of a lot. He likes men, too, really just likes anyone who’s decently attractive and interested. He finds he’s more than a little shallow like that.

He learns that he’s not a fan of routines. He can follow them, sure: be to Tom’s by five every afternoon, mix these drinks for these customers without asking, slip an envelope with the credits for this month’s rent under Judith’s door every third Tuesday of every month. But he doesn’t enjoy them, and he thinks he’s only able to keep to them when he can see what it gets him (assured, steady socialization for the night; higher tips and a smile; a place to stay and, when the shop’s been slow that week, a plate of cookies outside his door a few days later). And when he can, he avoids establishing any sort of protocol. He runs every day because he’s apparently one to enjoy exercise, but he changes the time he runs, or for how long, or which way. He buys food once a week from the small green-grocer’s at the corner of Pickett and Mance, but never the same day, or the same time of day, twice in a row. And when he flirts with the waitresses at the bar, it’s always with something new, even as the action of flirting feels practiced, like something he used to do like breathing, too often to be memorable.

He learns that he likes reading, and apples, and watching the afternoon tide come in. He likes the dry days better than the rainy ones, and he doesn’t mind as much as he thinks he should that the sky this side of the mountains is pale, mottled gray, nothing at all like the blue in the pamphlet pictures, open and gaudy. He’s the type to sing in the shower, and to talk to himself just to hear a voice, whispers under his breath and small laughs at private jokes when there’s no one else around to laugh with him.

In general, small-town life doesn’t grate on him much. The longer he stays, the less of an anomaly or interest piece he is, and the more people talk to him. The bar’s the only one in town, so he gets to know everyone who visits, and most of the others he runs into at the green-grocer's or the clothing store or the park or on the way to somewhere else. He makes friends, and he makes might-one-day-be-more-than-friends, and they eventually keep him busy enough that he doesn’t mind that the mountains block almost all news and visitors from reaching and interrupting the slow pace of life here.

There are moments when it does bother him, though, when he wakes up and feels bored, like there’s something bigger he used to do or should still be doing. He’s most frustrated on these days, when he spends all of his time thinking, This is not where I’m supposed to be, and falls asleep no closer to knowing who he was than the headache pounding in his temples from pushing at his own memory too hard

Where There Are No Phones

Where There Are No Phones by anowlinsunshine (R)

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