Enterprise High
being a high school AU of ST: XI
with many hijinks
and much angst
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Chapter Thirty-Five: An Interval (II)
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Since Kirk's been really in love with Spock, it hasn't rained, which isn't a gigantic naturalistic commentary on the world being sunny and bright when your outlook is, but indicative of Seattle's incredible ability to attract all of the bad weather the Pacific coast experiences and thus shield the rest of the coastline from precipitative events.
See, Kirk's had other things to do while it rained. He had a boyfriend the last time it rained. He's had homework. He's had to listen in English. He's had something to do or pay attention to or deal with that has, invariably, distracted him from what Spock does differently on rainy days.
And so it isn't until January that when Spock runs into Kirk in the hallway before school, Kirk stops and stares.
"Good morning, James," says Spock with his usual arch carelessness. He is dressed impeccably for storms: he shoulders a long, black, silver-buttoned overcoat that flares open to reveal a crisp collared shirt and precisely pleated pants. Kirk blinks. Spock's hair is exactly in place, except for a single strand over his left eyebrow that has floated away in the humidity.
Kirk, meanwhile, is in a drenched brown jacket, jeans, and tennies. They make a picture.
"Good morning," Kirk says at last, and then, because he just can't help himself, "You're not wearing glasses."
"Indeed," says Spock, raising his eyebrow. "If there is one thing I hate, it is wearing glasses in the rain."
"Why?"
"Drops of water," says Spock, not blinking. "Flecks of obscurity. I enjoy the clarity of sight."
Spock's eyes have never been deeper, never been blacker. They gleam like raw flesh under an electric lamp. Kirk likes to see them like this, but at the same time, it is almost too much. Beneath glasses, Spock's eyes are dulled and corralled, refracted into smaller spheres of influence. They are less like a world when he covers them with lenses, and more like the surface of the ocean—fathomless, but contained.
Kirk isn't sure which he prefers.
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Meanwhile, Sulu is having a revelation of his own.
He spots Chekov outside of school, darting through the rain with his dark head bent, and follows him bemusedly inside. They open their lockers together and Sulu can't stop staring. Finally, he says, "Pavel—what in the name of Zephram Cochrane are you wearing?"
Chekov turns to grin at him. The boy's head is covered by a gigantic hat, black and striped on the outside with fuzzy werewolf-gray flaps that hang down over his ears and a tag of the same foggy fur turned up over his forehead. The headgear is ridiculous. He looks like a Balkan soldier, in a completely absurd way.
"I am wearing," he says proudly, his Russian accent even more pronounced, "an ushanka." Sulu stops to marvel at the way Chekov says the word, which slides off his tongue like water off a shining slope. Nothing is more natural for Chekov than Russian, Sulu realizes; he should have thought of this earlier, he should have realized that there was something Chekov was better at than math and physics.
"I love it," Sulu laughs. "You look amazing, Pavel. You are really crazy, you know that?"
"You think so?" says Chekov, blushing a little as he tugs his electromagnetics textbook out of his locker and stuffs it into his overflowing backpack. He tugs helplessly at the zipper and Sulu gazes at him fondly.
"I think so," Sulu says, and leans down to help.
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