Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
The crew had carried itself admirably, considering the Enterprise had happened to dock at the Terran colony during its Summer Festival right next to the carnival. They'd only been on the rides ten or fifteen times, not counting the holodeck simulation, of course, and only been late coming back to the embassy by about a half hour every night.
Their last day there, Kirk had ordered the entire bridge crew to spend the afternoon together, citing productivity or something like that. Really, it was just an excuse to laugh his ass off at Spock and Bones bickering over what ride to go on next. Also for all of them to be Scotty's audience at the boardwalk where he somehow won the watergun game twenty-six times in a row (they counted) before the grumpy proprietor shooed them off.
It was about an hour before sunset, and they were about ready to return, when all of a sudden Uhura (who was holding a red heart-shaped balloon she had suspiciously gotten from somewhere) stopped dead in her tracks.
"Oh. My God."
"What is it?" said Kirk.
Uhura merely pointed. A man, dressed in a 20th-century-style candystriped suit and a straw hat, was paused behind his old-fashioned vendor wagon, handing two little children a pair of ice cream cones.
"Ice cream!" Chekov cried.
"I haven't had a proper ice cream cone in three years," Uhura said, still frozen in place.
"Keptin, Keptin, Keptin, please can we get some ice cream?" Chekov was dancing a little. He probably shouldn't have had all those root beers earlier.
"Um," said Kirk, probably trying to say something witty but failing in the face of Chekov's sheer unbridled teenagery. "Sure."
Uhura and Chekov were already running before he'd had a chance to finish.
"Me first!" said Chekov, skidding up to the ice cream man.
Uhura huffed a little, but said nothing.
"Um, I would like, I would like..." Chekov pointed to all the flavors in a paroxysm of indecision. "Wait! I would like..."
"Some of us are waiting, Ensign Chekov," Sulu said, a hand on his hip.
"Wah, wait, I am almost done! I want, uh the, eh..."
"Why not get The Cosmos?" the vendor suggested.
Chekov looked up.
"One scoop of every flavor, with whipped cream and a cherry on top, in one of our signature Galaxy-Class waffle cones."
"A scoop of every flavor?" said Kirk, boggling.
"That would result in a novelty comprised of fifteen scoops of your confection," said Spock. "To attempt to eat such a dish would be illogical. At the very least it would undoubtedly cause digestive discomfort."
"Wow, brilliant deduction," McCoy stage-whispered to Kirk.
Meanwhile, Chekov had set his mouth in a determined line.
"Give it to me," he told the vendor.
"What!" Sulu blinked in disbelief.
"I am pie-eating contest champion in my hometown from age of six. I love ice cream best of all, and I am skinny kid, da? I can do this."
Uhura gave a derisive laugh. "Pavel, Pavel, Pavel. I worked in an ice-cream parlor the summer I was sixteen, and I'm sorry, but you haven't begun to work up the stamina necessary to tackle ice cream like that. Here, watch how I do it and pay attention."
She raised a finger to the vendor. "I'll have one Cosmos, please."
"Nyota," said Spock with a gasp.
"No, no, no," said Chekov, blocking Uhura's way. "It is my order, and I order Cosmos. And I will finish it before it melts!"
"Hah!" Uhura smirked. "Why don't we both get one, huh? And then, when I leave you in the dust, we can all watch you surrender."
"Russians invented ice cream," Chekov told her with a snarl.
"Only because all their cream was already frozen," Uhura sneered back.
"Officers, officers," Scotty spoke up finally. His face was completely invisible behind all the stuffed-animal winnings he was struggling to carry, and his voice was muffled. "I have a suggestion."
Awkwardly, he half-lowered, half-dropped his prizes to the grass. When he stood back up, his hair was mussed, his eyes bright.
"A wager," he said, with a wicked grin.
At first Spock had volunteered to be judge, but the others had vetoed him.
"Nothin' doin'," Kirk declared. "No fraternization of judges and contestants. Sulu, you're out too."
"I assure you, I am quite capable of providing an unbiased ruling, Captain."
"Nothin' doin'!"
In the end, they chose Scotty to be judge, who accepted the honor with grace, only demanding to be included with the winners in return. The stakes were high: the losers would have to compile and transmit the winners' weekly data reports to Starfleet, easily the most hated task of the senior officers. And the rules were very precise.
"Now," said Scotty, taking his duty seriously. "Each of ye gets yer cone, and I count ready, set, go, and then it starts, yeah? Winner is the first one to hold up both empty hands. Rules are simple: no drop of ice cream is allowed to touch the ground, or yer disqualified, and -- I shouldn't have to say this -- but all the ice cream needs t'have been consumed WITH A MOUTH and swallowed INTO A STOMACH. Oh, and... no puking afterwards, yeah? Because that's gross."
Uhura and Chekov nodded solemnly.
"Right," said Scotty. "Now, gentlemen, back your officers."
"Pavel," said Sulu firmly.
"All my money on Uhura, baby," said Kirk.
"Teenage hormones are tantamount to crystal meth," said McCoy. "I'm with the kid."
Everyone looked to Spock.
"This is a very illogical wager," he said, sounding almost petulant.
Uhura raised her eyebrow at him.
"However," he continued hastily, "having learned firsthand of many of the Lieutenant's ... unexpected skills ... I predict she will be the victor."
"Right, then," said Scotty. "Ice cream bloke, if you will?"
The vendor held up two massive cones, both easily the size of flower vases.
Chekov took his without taking his eyes from Uhura's.
Uhura took hers, smirking a little.
"Now! Take yer marks. Get set. GORGE!"
The carnage began.
For the first few minutes, it was truly breathtaking to watch. Two masters, probably at the top of their field, facing off for what would probably be the only time in Constitution-class-starship-bridge-crew-shore-leave-carnival-ice-cream-eating-contest history.
Even so, it was clear that Uhura was outmatched. She was taking small, systematic bites -- extremely quick ones, but nothing that could compete with Chekov's huge lunging attacks and near-nonexistent chewing. By the time five minutes had passed, Chekov's cone was halfway gone, Uhura still had about seventy-five percent left, and McCoy was beginning to pace from one to the other, highly agitated about their health.
"Come on, Nyyyotaaa," yelled Kirk. "Spock and I have put our faith in you, woman. Don't let us down!"
She kept going at the same pace, apparently not paying attention.
Meanwhile, Sulu had been whooping it up at Chekov's side, making up little rhyming cheers on the spot and jumping up and down. "Tastes like victory, doesn't it, Pavel? Delicious, delicious victory!"
But then the tide turned.
Chekov took another huge bite, but this time, he took about three times longer to chew it than usual, and it seemed to be quite an effort. Uhura, on the other hand, had finally begun to speed up. And she was taking larger bites, too, though her pace remained as systematic as ever.
"Highly impressive," whispered Spock, in awe.
"Yes!" cried Kirk. "That's what I'm talking about! Look at her go!"
"Don't let them distract you, kid," McCoy told Chekov fiercely.
"You're still WAY ahead," added Sulu.
Chekov looked dazed as he went in for another bite. His eyes were a little glassy.
"Holy shit!" they heard from Kirk.
Somehow, Uhura had managed to get down to the last fourth of her ice cream cone in less than a minute.
"Yes!" cried Kirk.
"No!" cried McCoy.
"Nyetbl," slobbered Chekov. He frantically tried to speed up, but in vain; he'd used up all his strength. All he could manage was one more weak mouthful before, disastrously, he had to pause for breath. Uhura was at fifteen percent now.
"Look!" said Scotty, pointing to the side of Chekov's cone. Three long lines of melt had slid down, unnoticed, and were about to fall.
"Yes!" cried Kirk.
"No!" cried McCoy.
Chekov made one last-second attempt to lick them up -- missed -- and in that split-second they could see his eyes cloud with defeat and grief and an unmistakable I failed you, Russia...
And then Sulu shot his hand out in the best stop-thrust in the quadrant, and the strawberry-chocolate swirl landed safely in his palm.
"Hey!" exclaimed Kirk, but Sulu had already licked up the drops and rushed to Chekov's side. He accidentally knocked heads with Chekov, who gave him a sidelong look of shock as Sulu took a huge mouthful of ice cream.
"Keep going," he told Chekov, or tried to.
"That's cheating!" cried Kirk, pointing at them. "Disqualified!"
"Actually, Captain," said Spock, "Mr. Scott's rules required only that the ice cream be consumed by, and I quote, 'a mouth.' It did not specify whose."
"Spock, whose side are you on?" exclaimed Kirk.
Uhura had two mouthfuls left.
Sulu took three huge bites, shoved the last part of the cone into Chekov's mouth, and pushed him at Scotty.
"nnnDONE!" Chekov exclaimed, holding up both sticky, filthy palms.
"No!" cried Uhura, gasping.
"YES!" cried Sulu, grabbing Chekov around the waist and twirling him.
"There's no fucking way that was fair," Kirk fumed as Sulu hauled Chekov onto his shoulders and started to run a victory lap. "There's just no way that was fair! Come on! Scotty?"
"Hmm, I dunno, Captain, I dunno," said Scotty, musing.
McCoy was doubled over and wheezing with laughter.
Meanwhile:
"We won! Yes!" Chekov cried at passerby from Sulu's shoulders as they danced down the boardwalk. "Winners!"
"Hell yeah," said Sulu. "Don't mess with Russia!"
"Never mess! We will triumph!"
Everyone clapped and cheered for them wildly, though they had no idea what was going on.
"Hikaru?" said Chekov over the noise.
"Yeah?"
"You are better than everything."
Sulu didn't know what to say. He just craned his head up, and Chekov craned his down, and their lips met in a very awkward, very sticky kiss.
"Hikaru?"
"Yeah?"
"I feel a little sick."