Hello there! This is my first attempt at both writing fanfiction and Star Trek fanfiction, hee. It's mildly AU, Jim is still in the Academy and Spock is a librarian. Please be kind, and review so I can improve! Thank you very much for reading! :D
~Aiji
~0~
It was, all in all, quite a waste, Jim Kirk thought. It was an amazing day outside- a cool breeze was blowing, but it was warm enough for the grounds to be peppered by more adventurous female students in rather short skirts, eschewing jackets and the warmer uniform issued for spring and autumn. Laughing, joking, gossiping… and he wasn't there to take advantage of it.
At all, he thought glumly, as the lecturer droned on about the finer points of navigation in relation to astrophysics. What was the point of being a genius if he had to sit through twice as many lectures? He should make it a point to drift out of the top percentile in the next term, just so he could at least flirt a bit before autumn rolled around and everybody went back to wearing their warmer uniforms. Starfleet invited too many guest lecturers, anyway.
He rolled his neck as he left the lecture hall, feeling mild satisfaction at the very audible staccato cracks, and rubbed the nape.
"You shouldn't do that, Jim. One day your neck will stay that way." came an irate voice. Jim felt the edges of his mouth pull into a grin as he turned, bad mood evaporating.
"Bonesy! Looking as ill-tempered as ever, I am glad to see, means all systems are functioning optimally!" Jim laughed, slapping the shoulder of his friend, Leonard McCoy. "Anyway, some good may come of it. At least I would save effort editing the orientation of all landscape pictures that are meant to be portraits. I'd be able to see them properly just like thaa- hello there, ladies!" He swivelled on the spot, head to one side, sending a charming smile to a pair of giggling Cadets, who quickly ducked around a corner. Jim turned back to Bones. "I love spring," he sighed happily. "Your sour face does nothing to faze my enthusiasm, Bonesy. You should get out into fresh air more. What say you?"
A look of faint amusement crossed Bones' face. "I recall I have a simulation to run in 15 minutes, and so do you. Not to say that your dogged and incurable bone-headedness in the pursuit of legs-" Jim snorted in laughter "-Would not be a spectacle to behold, but thanks but no thanks."
"Don't pretend now. You were waiting for me, weren't you Bones."
"To make sure you didn't forget about that simulation. Bryce said you bailed on the one scheduled last week."
"Ah, but I had a reason. So you can't touch me," Jim replied and theatrically wagged a finger.
"I'm pretty sure 'research for the good of humankind' does not involve assessing the limbs of female Cadets, Jim."
"Somewhere, it probably does," the blond replied off-handedly. "But since it's you, Mister I-have-a-simulation-to-run McCoy." He took two steps, then paused. "Simulation deck 3, was it?"
"No, 7." Leonard McCoy growled, and walked past him into an adjacent corridor leading up to the simulation halls.
"My hero," Jim laughed, and followed.
~0~
The simulation was standard enough; an evacuation shuttle experiencing communications problems navigating a mid-ferocity space storm, with minimum damage and casualties as the main objective. A breeze, Jim thought. Then he remembered Leonard McCoy was with him. He always got into a flap when casualties were to be avoided.
"Don't go there, Jim, it's right in the trajectory of that belt of space debris." He ground out as Jim manoeuvred the shuttle through the storm. "No damn casualties, remember?"
"Maintaining the previous course, Mr McCoy, would have taken us too close to the orbital moon and thrown us off course completely. No time for that." He stole a look sideways (and narrowly missed a large space rock) to see Leonard's mouth drawn tight at the corners, a distinct frown on his face as he ran calculations through the shuttle's computer. He turned back to the manual controls.
He rather enjoyed piloting manually, even though he knew Bones would rather eat his own foot than set it on a manually controlled ship with James T. Kirk behind the helm. The debris belt was tricky though. He wondered if the amount of close shaves would be noted by the observing instructors. Of course it will. But he knew that most, if not all, cadets would choose the orbital moon over the debris belt, and as often as not, one theoretical passenger would die, at least. "Leaving the debris belt in five, four, three-" Pause for effect. The screen, which had been full of hurtling space junk and broken-up asteroids, cleared suddenly, and the proximity sensors that had been singing their urgency uninterrupted for the last 10 minutes faded into silence. The image of a planet, their destination, loomed, and a series of beeps sounded from a small console besides Jim's elbow.
"Communications up and running. Channels open to receive landing signal from base. This is Shuttle J-18, transporting civilians from evacuating planet Loran VII. Come in base." The relief in Bones' voice was palpable, and Jim couldn't help but smirk a little.
"Base to Shuttle J-18. You are clear to land." came the automated response.
"Beginning entry into atmosphere. Angle 15 degrees. Take her down, Jim."
An uneventful descent and smooth landing later, the simulation was finished. Jim swivelled his chair around, watching the return to reality as the lights came on and the hatch door in the 'shuttle' wall slid open, admitting the examiner observers. "Thank you, Cadets. The simulation is concluded."
"Thank you, Madam." Jim grinned, as Bones' eyebrows rose halfway up his forehead. They were almost through the door when the chief observer who had spoken (a rather attractive woman, Jim thought) stopped them.
"It is a requirement that you write a report on your actions, decisions and reasoning as a follow-up to the exercise. Full-length." She added meaningfully, as Jim opened his mouth. He shut it again and shrugged nonchalantly.
"Of course, madam. Will that be all?" Another patented James T. Kirk winning smile, guaranteed to melt hearts and resolve.
"That will be all, Cadet. Good day." She returned his smile with a cool and completely unaffected one of her own. Jim paused for a second, and then Bones was nudging him gently but firmly out of the simulation deck.
"I'm losing my touch, Bones. The winter has withered me away," Jim moaned. "My charm has evaporated, did you see how she didn't even blink? Doomed to celibacy, with nary a warm female glance to send me on my way. Oh, me." He hung his head, bottom lip protruding slightly. Then something seemed to occur to him. "I have to write a report."
"Indeed. Full-length." Replied Bones, who was finding it very difficult to keep a straight face. A celibate Jim Kirk was about as likely as an inflatable dartboard, but teasing his friend would be something he wouldn't pass on –it's not like Jim wasted an opportunity to do the same to him- so he decided he wouldn't relate how the chief observer had had to sit down and fan herself with her notes after Jim had gone through the door. Capillaries in the facial area dilating- Bones knew the biology of a blush purely as trivia, but the poor woman had been quickly progressing from 'blush' to 'brick red'.
They were going towards the canteen. "I wonder what's on the menu today," Jim wondered. "It's been a while since they served those bread dumplings with sauce, pork and sauerkraut, do you remember that? Or potato fritters and cream. I'm pretty sure I smelled potato." Just then, Cadet Uhura walked around the corner with her head held high. She barely glanced at them, making her way briskly towards the grounds instead.
She was wearing summer uniform.
Bones' hand was on his shoulder like a vice. "Lunch, Jim. Nothing Swahili on the menu today. Or ever. Let's get some food in you. Then we can do the report."
"Oh, me."
~0~
A good lunch did wonders to Jim's mood and growing dread of the report. He was practically bouncing as he dragged Bones the long way to the library, skirting the main building and cutting through the grounds to the promenade by the shore. The wind was a little nippier than he had expected, but he didn't actually mind. "You're being infantile." Bones growled.
"Short skirts and a healthy wind never hurt anybody. I feel ready to do that report, in any case."
Offering to block them from the wind with his own body may admittedly have been overkill. But damn, winter was over, and he had a report to write. He could already see, in his mind's eye, where the professors and observers would pause over his report, and discuss, debate, argue. He had gotten a few insights into the workings of things when he had a consultation over lunch with a female engineering lecturer. Instead of discussing Poebl's theory of hydrofusion and its role in subspace travel, they had had two hours of friendly banter on office procedures and politics. She was new and anxious to not get in trouble, and he had assured her she'd have no problems… But now he knew how professors and lecturers and observers pooled information about students, especially interesting students (among whose ranks Jim had no doubt he belonged) and discussed their personalities and calibre and everything else.
He knew they'd be pulling out his data when they read his report.
He picked a table in the library and slid into the seat, sprawling bonelessly and running a hand through his hair. Then he leaned his elbows on the table (a few girls looked away quickly) and pulled a PADD towards him. "Down to business, eh Bones?" A twitch of the eyebrows was the only acknowledgement he got; Bones' stylus was already moving. He grinned.
Across the library, past computers and shelves of neatly labelled tapes and discs, a pair of brown eyes watched him.
~0~
I think we all know to whom those eyes belong :D sorry about not writing more about Spock! I think this is going to be pretty slow-building Spirk, if I get that far. Again, this is my first attempt, so please review and help me improve! Have a great day
-Aiji