Kirk's Rules of Dating
Nov. 8th, 2017 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamer~Dreamer~
PS wish me luck on my interview tomorrow
Main Points:
Star Trek (the 2009!movie verse)
Summary: What it says on the tin.
Word Count: 1424
Rating: Teen?
Kirk has a few rules about dating. He never tries to explain that directly, because he’s pretty sure no one believes the idea of him taking rules seriously, but it’s true.
What’s important is it’s his rules, his way of living his life. If the rules make sense, he’ll follow them, up to the point where they become something necessary to break. If they make no sense, he won’t hesitate (though he’s learned a little more about the art of being subtle about it, again, something that most people wouldn’t credit him for—but then, most people don’t know him as well as they think they do).
1. It has to be consensual.
He doesn’t care what kind of alien race, men, women, whatever. It has to be able to give consent. He’s got a little more leeway on how drunk a being can be before they become incapable of giving consent, but he always ensures that he’s just about as drunk if that becomes an issue, and he has an almost uncanny sense of how drunk someone really is. It’ll serve him well as Captain, he thinks, when he actually has to be responsible for other peoples’ lives, and he takes that seriously. Even if people don’t think he does. Like Uhura. She definitely doesn’t think he cares, but as much as he lusts after being Captain, he’s not unaware that there’s actual work involved. He just knows himself well enough that the only work he’ll actually dislike is the paperwork, and maybe giving reports to the more annoying of the admirals, and a little bitching about it with Bones who hates both things about as much as he does, if not more so, and everything else won’t seem like work but play, so it’s definitely worth it.
Point is, he’s got a sense about these things, and if someone’s interested but way too out of it, he’s figured out how to gently steer them over to Doctor McCoy (who was startled the first time, and maybe a little bit the second time, and then was impressed, which was nice because he’d never had a friend who respected him before). If the being is awake enough after that, though, he’ll wink and promise them a rain check as flirtatiously as he can and leave it at that.
Oh, and those who don’t respect consent? These days, that’ll pretty much be the only thing that’ll get him into a fight. (Sometimes he’ll hit on the wrong person, and that’ll get a fight too, but he doesn’t care as much about infidelity and if they’re willing to cheat, that should preclude jealousy if you’re the type because you probably shouldn’t be dating someone who’s interested in cheating if you’re a being that gets jealous. Most people don’t see it the way he does, though, which is weird, but it’s not like he sees the world the way they do either.) Sometimes Bones will join in the brawl, especially if it’s bad, but if there’s drugs or alcohol involved in the attempt to get someone to do something against their will he’ll take care of the person involved instead. It’s the only time he can get first aid out of his friend without grumbling.
2. It’s not all about him.
People probably would be surprised about this one, too, but then again, he’s fairly certain, given little things like snap judgements and test scores, that a majority of them are actually morons. He hopes he doesn’t get too many of them on his ship, or that they’re manageable idiots like Cupcake, but unless he’s a senior officer he probably doesn’t get first dibs or anything like that.
He’s as honest about this as he is about anything else, which is another rule, although that’s more of an overriding one than just one about relationships. He’s a student in the Hedonist school of thought, and yeah, he went back and read those ancient Greek texts. They were onto something. If everyone has pleasure, if everyone’s happy, then there’s no need for sadness or anger or jealousy or anything like that. Though, yeah, honesty’s probably a big issue there, again.
He’s up front about the fact that this is a one night stand, maybe more if they both feel like it, but no strings attached, just pleasure. He goes out of his way to make sure his partner (or partners, sometimes) feel good, though. They can babble about problems, if they want, and he’ll help if he can, but he makes no promises. It’s also practice for being a Captain, since he’ll be expected to solve a bunch of problems of the people serving under him, but hopefully by that point they won’t be serving under him, because while it doesn’t matter too much to him, getting his partner in trouble for not following regulations isn’t part of his process. He wants to leave them with the idea the someone actually saw them and liked them for who they are without any societal obligations or titles.
3. Variety is good.
Though that’s kind of more of an observation than a rule.
4. He’s honest.
Again, that’s one of his first rules of living, but he’s not going to lie about who he is or what he wants. Differences in expectation can ruin lives, and the point is to make them both feel good. Not mopey. He’s usually successful about not breaking hearts, but sometimes people react in ways they didn’t expect, let alone him. He’s actually calculated his success streak before, and the margin of error is within known tolerances, so he doesn’t adjust his strategy too much.
5. Flirting is like breathing.
It only means something if the being of interest wants it to. If not, he’ll just smile happily and try someone else.
6. Friendship and sex are kind of interchangeable.
In his world. He realizes that’s not how most people operate, but that’s how he is. In fact, he’ll actually make friends with some of the ones he’s slept with. Including Gaila, who actually is the only person he’d actually read the rules out loud to, and apparently his attitude is very much like an Orion’s, which makes sense. They’d giggled about it.
The thing is, he enjoys just chatting with people, learning about them, how they operate, what makes them tick, just about as much as he enjoys a good orgasm. It’s slightly tilted on the side of orgasm, but that’s just biology. It means he’s not too put out when someone refuses to have sex with him. When Uhura had refused him, for example, that meant that, okay, no consent, no go, but she’s going to be my friend whether or not she actually realizes it.
He only goes for ‘friendly sort-of-ex’ mode with people he’s analyzed to find they’d be okay with that. So Gaila’s one, even with the occasional sex, but the first-year science track cadet Asha was not.
7. It has to be appropriate.
Which, okay, he’s pretty sure he has a different definition of than most people, not that it doesn’t match the pattern of how he thinks. He is actually serious about the fraternization rule, when they actually get on the ship, because the thought that his rank might be enough to get people to say yes even when they don’t actually mean it frankly kind of weirds him out. During a disaster’s also a no, unless he can distract someone from their pain or worry or fear by flirting with them, in which case it’s a definite yes. To improve morale, sure. On a diplomatic mission, probably not, unless it would actually help negotiations. He has trouble articulating when’s appropriate, and he’s actually rambling drunkenly to Bones about that one day, beer in hand, but thankfully the quip about him not knowing appropriate if it bit him in the ass is actually just a joke, because Bones does actually sort of believe it’s possible for him to be an adult or follow rules he set himself, even if he might not think it likely he follows them too much. Except for #1, because he’d earned that one and they were friends who didn’t just assume that the other would force anyone to have sex or anything, because that’s just barbaric.
Part of the reason, though, he’s going overboard now is that he knows soon enough it won’t be appropriate for him to do too much, so he better get in that wet dream material when he can.
