Enterprise High
being a high school AU of ST: XI
with many hijinks
and much angst
x
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Obsession
x
"Oh shit, we should head back."
"What? Why?"
"It's been like an hour, Pavel. I think the race is over. Okay, no, the race is over."
"Just a few more minutes."
"Oh no, quit that, I know how persuasive you are, get away from me—"
"Hikaru! I am sad."
"Don't be sad! We just have to go—oh my god, quit giving me that expression. You're like a puppy."
"You cannot resist me! I am too cute!"
"Agh! Get off! Help! Help!"
"Hikaru, come back. I will stop molesting you."
"Promise?"
"Yes. I promise."
"Okay."
"Now we should go."
"Oh fuck, it's been another ten minutes… Pike is going to eat us alive."
"That is not… that is not done in America, is it?"
"Pavel. No. Cannibalism is not accepted anywhere. Okay? It's a figure of speech. You are so weird."
"You are so weird!"
"Oh my—okay. Just be quiet."
"Why?"
"Because—"
"… oh. Yes."
"Am I persuasive?"
"Yes. Hikaru, yes, you are."
"Okay. Now? Now are you ready?"
"I could—I would not mind more persuading…"
"I'm not surprised. … Feeling persuaded?"
"Mh."
"Good. Now come on."
x
Sulu and Chekov slunk in to the observation room to find Scotty tossing back a Guinness. He eyed them over the edge of the frosted glass.
"Glad t' see you're back," he harrumphed, pulling out his communicator. "Ah'll let Pike know his fishin' equipment is safe. And that th' two o' you're safe as well."
"Thanks," muttered Sulu, blushing. Scotty just shook his head and turned his back to call Pike.
"Zat was fun," said Chekov perkily, leaning in to Sulu's shoulder. "Are we dating?"
"Um," said Sulu. "Yes?"
"Oh, good," said Chekov, kissing Sulu's neck. "I like you wery much."
Scotty hung up and turned to stare, rather forbiddingly, at them. "What?" Sulu demanded self-consciously.
"Pike is goin' t' kill the two o' you," he said sternly. "Ah've been worried as well." Then his round face broke into a big smile. "Ah'm so glad you're finally datin'! Took you long enough."
Chekov grinned at the floor. Sulu, for the first time, felt something really warm sweep over him as he watched Chekov's darting, crinkled eyes. He'd never taken people seriously when they described things as dream-like, but this certainly was. He brushed the tips of his fingers over the skin under Chekov's ear. Chekov blinked, and smiled, eyes flashing up to him. It was amazing that he could do that—just touch Chekov, without asking. Watch him, and be watched.
He became aware that Scotty was still watching them, and looked up hastily. Scotty's smile broadened. Sulu felt a relief he hadn't known he needed. People approved. Good. That meant he wasn't crazy for having such a crush on Chekov.
The peace was shattered when Pike barged in and lectured them for fifteen minutes on being careful with his fishing equipment. Kirk and Spock finally showed up, Kirk looking rather put-out that nobody had come to congratulate him on his amazing win. Uhura kept giving Sulu and Chekov overly supportive glances. So when Pike finished glowering at them and said it was time for dinner, Sulu was deeply relieved.
Neither Sulu nor Chekov got much of a chance to talk to each other during dinner and the ride home. They sat beside each other and exchanged lots of bashful looks and tried to hold hands, but everybody kept cooing at them or involving them in games or talking about the race.
On the transport, as everyone else talked, Sulu watched the sun set behind Chekov's glowing head. The red light lingered in Chekov's locks, and sometimes cast his pale face in a rosy glow. Sulu spared a moment to be worried about how young Chekov was. But that was an unnecessary fear: Chekov was not a child. Sulu knew this as he watched Chekov take Chapel's hand during a game of Trial. Chekov's flexor muscles grew, and he moved his arm into the light, so that the thick hairs sprouting there shone scarlet. Later, when Sulu moved his hands across Chekov's back, he felt tension corded beneath Chekov's thin flesh. His heartbeat was strong. And his mind was the muscle Chekov flexed the most.
When they kissed goodnight, Chekov started laughing in the middle, because Sulu had said something funny earlier and he had just understood it. As Chekov giggled, lit up in the flat white headlights of Sulu's van, Sulu watched his shoulders bounce up and down, not like a child on a trampoline, but like a man being jounced on a bed, his back straight and his neck corded strong.
x
Kirk had played twenty-seven games of mahjong, read The Ethicist archives back to like, 2175 on The New York Times Online, and downed three doubleshot espressos when he realized that it was 3:22 AM and he really, really needed to start his essay.
He groaned. He didn't feel well. He felt sick. A very my-stomach-contains-only-mocha-laced-caffeine sick. He opened a blank document on his computer and stared at it. Then he found Comus on his PADD, scrolled listlessly through it, and sighed heavily again.
Bones had forced him to edit his essay two hours ago and then gone to bed, and Uhura and Scotty had traded their pieces with each other, like, yesterday (fuckers). Chekov and Sulu weren't online, and Chapel was online but he'd already tried talking to her and guessed, judging by her lack of reply, that she'd forgotten to log out before going to bed. So he didn't even have anybody to tell him to shut his whining face up and write the stupid essay.
Then he texted Spock.
dude you're probably already finished w/ yours but my English essay is not going well
He stared at the message for a moment. Why had he done that? He shrugged and put his PADD down. No harm, no foul. It wasn't like Spock was going to reply.
He had coaxed a thesis and four topic sentences out of his limp brain when his PADD buzzed, scaring the shit out of him. It was a text from Spock.
I am sorry to hear about your essay. In the interest of full disclosure, my essay is not going well either. What is the topic of your composition?
Woah, thought Kirk, and typed rapidly back,
comus. dude is a total don juan. fun but hard to analyze. what you writin about?
He went on with his essay, giddy. He'd come up with a kickass intro when Spock texted back,
The topic of my essay is Lycidas. I find it entirely appropriate that you chose Comus as your work to analyze. You have so much in common with the main character.
Kirk texted furiously back,
man fuck you, comus is awesome, he's blatantly trying to get into this girl's pants in the 1600s, that takes courage. and you're such a brownnoser 4 doing lycidas, isn't it like the most complicated poem ever
Spock replied almost immediately,
Lycidas is indeed a complex work, which is why I am currently awake at this (as I have heard it called) god-awful hour. Are you aware that in the original production of your masque at Ludlow Castle, Milton himself played Comus?
Kirk was not aware of that. He verified the fact on the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
dude, he replied, whole new level to the essay. thanks man. lemmie know if u need editing or whatever
Thank you, Spock replied, and good luck.
Kirk positively shone. He finished his essay in record time and slept well that night.
x
"Good morning," Kirk chirped to Spock. They were in the parking lot, heading into school.
"Good morning," Spock replied. He looked haggard. Kirk peered at Spock's eyes, which were floating above gray half-circles.
"Bones probably has a cream for that," he said, gesturing at Spock's face. Spock glared at him.
"My essay was difficult to compose," said Spock coolly. "I was awake for some time attempting to—"
"Yeah, that's interesting," said Kirk quickly. He really didn't want to talk about Lycidas. "Anyway, you ready for the quiz in physics?"
Spock stared at him for a moment. Finally he said, "Yes," in a rather strained voice.
Kirk laughed. "You forgot about it, didn't you?"
"I do not forget such important things," Spock said snippily. Kirk opened the cafeteria door for him. "Thank you." Spock was silent as they walked past the serving lines. "However, I did neglect to review the information that will be the subject of the quiz."
"Sucks for you," said Kirk sympathetically. "I got up early this morning to study." He waved his subdrive that had his paper on it around. "I nearly forgot this on my nightstand, if that makes you feel any better."
"It does not," said Spock darkly. They turned to go up the stairs to English.
"Well, sorry," said Kirk, adjusting the strap on his bookbag. "Just because you have the memory of a goldfish doesn't mean—"
Spock turned abruptly, surprising Kirk, who fell down the stairs.
x
"Nicely done," said Nurse Phlox, peering at Kirk's thumb. "This is a textbook spiral fracture."
"Wonderful. Amazing," said Kirk, gritting his teeth. He was hunched over the nurse's parchment paper-wrapped examination table, trying not to faint. Spock was hovering nearby, looking as apologetic as he ever did. Kirk could see his legs twitching, though, and he was standing so close to Kirk's shoulder that Kirk could feel his alien body heat keenly. "Can you fix it?"
"No. I do not have the right equipment. Also, I am an RN, not an MD, and the Federation's health policy requires MDs to look at broken bones." The nurse smiled. "I will wrap that for you and call the hospital." He reached for a drawer full of support bandages. "Mr. Spock, you will take Mr. Kirk to the hospital? He cannot drive himself, and it is unnecessary that an ambulance be called."
Kirk glanced over at Spock in time to see consternation flit across his face, then fade into serenity. "I would be pleased to drive Mr. Kirk to the hospital, Nurse Phlox," said Spock.
"Good for you," said the nurse, wrapping Kirk's bandage carefully. "I will contact Sacred Heart. Would you like to pet Emma with your other hand, Mr. Kirk?"
"Sure," said Kirk, wincing slightly as the nurse tightened the bandage before sealing it. The nurse whistled, and a delicate black and white cat emerged from under a bed and leapt nimbly up to Kirk's side. She started purring immediately, even before Kirk reached down to pet her.
Nurse Phlox smiled very, very broadly. "I will return soon," he said.
Spock watched Kirk pet Emma. "Do you like animals, James?" he asked.
"Yeah," said Kirk, rubbing Emma behind the ears. "Never had a pet, though. Other than a turtle who always came to see me in the pond outside of my old high school, in Riverside."
Spock had never heard Kirk talk about his old high school. "Did you like it there?"
"It wasn't bad," said Kirk. "I didn't like Riverside, though. It was too small. I don't like small towns. And I don't like shipyards. Riverside used to be a big agricultural community, but then Starfleet came in and built this giganatic shipyard, and it all changed. I would have been happy if it were just a farming town, truthfully. Instead there were all of these Starfleet brats in school with me. Half the kids disappeared every year. It was all… it was all inexact, and seemed like it would fall apart."
Emma's purring grew louder. Kirk scratched her shoulder blades, then ran his palm down her spine.
"What was Vulcan like?"
Kirk was looking at Spock with calm, clear eyes. Spock felt something strange and uncomfortable crawl up his spine. The room smelled of hydrogen peroxide and clean, sterile linen, and slightly of blood.
"Vulcan was hot," said Spock. "Vulcan was blunt and rocky. You have seen pictures, I presume. It is a red place, red and orange and brown, like some of your deserts, but everywhere. Our buildings were black or gray or blue, and there are no curves in our architecture. Except in school."
Spock paused. Emma sat up, and Kirk moved his hand between her forelegs, to get at her chest. She blinked her wide green eyes at Spock.
"Our classrooms were electronic. We were taught in a vast hall, the Nesh-kur Shi'oren—the Black School. It was a huge expanse of flat floor, with half-circle holes carved in it at regular intervals. The savensu da-kuv—the half-circle hole—was filled with photoreceptor screens and communicator electronics. It asked us questions and we answered. The savensu da-kuv were there to teach us facts. Sometimes our savensu whl'q'n, our teacher, would take groups of us and ask us questions that we had to discuss; sometimes we were put into larger savensu da-kuv, and it would ask many questions of all of us. We were taught intellectual cooperation. But we never learned social cooperation, or anything about social interactions other than Vulcan customs and traditions, and the customs and traditions of other species. But we did not learn any of the whys, like we are taught on Earth. Here, it is said, 'People act this way because…' but on Vulcan, it is said, 'People should act this way.'"
Nurse Phlox came back in just as Kirk was composing his expression. "I have notified the hospital," he said, going over to Kirk and adjusting his bandage again. "They should be able to see you soon, but evidently they have an influx of patients today, so the visit could take some time." He smiled at Kirk and Spock again. "I will notify your teachers, and your parents, if you would like."
"You don't have to tell my mom," said Kirk with a sigh. "I'll do it."
"And I will inform my father," said Spock. "Thank you, though."
"Of course," said Nurse Phlox. He tapped his PADD and transferred a leaving-grounds pass to Kirk's PADD. "You are free to go. Be very careful with the hand, Mr. Kirk."
"Thanks, Nurse Phlox," said Kirk, getting gingerly down from the bed. The slight painkiller the nurse had given him when he had first staggered into the office was helping, but not as much as he would like.
"Is there anything that you need?" Spock said as Kirk stepped into the hall, holding his hand in front of him.
"I'm good," said Kirk shortly. The movement just from walking was reverberating through his feet, up his legs and spine, down his arms, and into his thumb, which was beginning to throb. "You don't have any booze, do you?"
Spock looked offended at the very idea. "Of course not, James."
"You're not a prude," Kirk snapped. "You got wasted at Halloween." He scowled at the gray and white tiles passing beneath him. "Why'd you have to go and scare me like that? Now look. We're going to miss English and also, fucking ow."
"I am very sorry," said Spock tiredly. He had said this about eighty times after Kirk had bounced down the stairs and landed with a crunch and a scream. "I was offended that you were comparing me to a goldfish. Goldfish are my least favorite type of fish."
Kirk goggled at him. "Goldfish are your least favorite type of fish."
"Yes."
"What the fuck? Why do you have a least favorite type of fish?"
"Because I do," said Spock snippily. "I do not like goldfish. They are dirty and they are stupid. They are sometimes pretty, but other fish are more beautiful. For example, tetras have incredible colors, and loaches are playful."
"Tetras just sit there."
Spock opened the door for Kirk, but grudgingly. "I like them. They are self-contained and reasonable fish."
"You are so weird." Kirk shook his head. "So, have you ever broken a bone?"
"Yes," said Spock easily. "My back, my skull, my arms, and five ribs."
Kirk stared at him. "Shit, man. What happened?"
Spock looked ahead as he said, "I jumped off of a cliff."
"You—" Kirk's thumb started to throb even more intensely. "That's how you tried to kill yourself?"
"Yes."
"How old were you?"
"Thirteen."
"Wow," said Kirk. Then, "I was twelve."
"What did you do?"
"I overdosed on acetaminophen. Mom made me throw it up."
They were quiet for a while. The building was only a few meters behind them, and Spock's Volvo shone at the edge of the lot. It was a cloudy, breezy day, and leaves whirled around their ankles like a shallow stream of water.
"What did your parents do?" Kirk asked quietly. In the clouds overhead, the sun flickered.
"They moved us here," said Spock. "We left Vulcan very quickly after I healed, although the healing… the healing took some time. For a while, I was resistant to being healed. I re-broke my spine when I first awoke. I was in physical therapy for two years, but I have shown no signs of permanent damage." Spock got out his keys. They were close to his car. "What did your parents do?"
"That's a complicated question," said Kirk, staring at the car and not Spock. "My mom went… well, you've met her. You sort of know how she is. She—she was herself cubed. She got seriously intense and crazy and protective and really made shit happen."
Spock wanted to say, "Such as?" but they were getting into the car, and there was an unfathomable expression on Kirk's face.
"She was so nice," Kirk said, after a while. "She hadn't been, before that. Well, she was, but she wasn't around very much. Sam doesn't remember much of it, much of how she was before, because he's only a few years older than me, but he always said mom was different before dad died, which—makes sense. But after, she took all these crazy assignments in Starfleet, all off-planet, and didn't accept any promotions, and started… doing kind of badly, actually. She kept getting demoted, and should have been discharged, Sam told me, only they wouldn't, because of dad. She dated all of these guys—never girls, and Sam told me before, she dated guys and girls equally, or that's what he remembered—and we didn't like any of them. And she married this one."
Spock saw Kirk's hands twitch out of the corner of his eye. He pretended he hadn't seen, and started the car.
"We did not get along," said Kirk, and it was almost a laugh, the way he said it, but it was so far form a laugh that it was more like a sob—a grating, sharp one. "Sam and I hated him and he hated us, and mom left us to go work on some starbase, and we'd never even been offplanet. The only thing we had was dad's old car. It was this beautiful '95 Corvette, cardinal red, with a hydro-gas engine and everything. Mom had it locked in a shed but me and Sam always stole the keys and went and cleaned it and worked on it, when Frank was gone. But one time, mom came home, and—around this time, she barely talked to us. She always frowned, and didn't do anything with her hair, or try to dress up. She didn't pay any attention to us. She and Frank were drinking downstairs and Sam and I were upstairs playing some game, and we heard them leave the house, and we went to the bathroom window and saw them going to the garage, and we opened the window and heard them talking about the car—like it was theirs, not dad's. And a month later, after mom left for Regulus IV, Frank said he was going to sell the car. And Sam—Sam completely freaked out. Sam was fourteen and I was eleven, then. He and Frank got into this—this huge fight, and Sam left. He stormed out and he just—disappeared." Kirk stared out the window, unblinkingly. "He abandoned me. And Frank got so angry."
They were on the road, now. The hospital wasn't far off. Kirk's hands twitched again, and Kirk grimaced. He'd jostled his thumb.
"What did you do?" Spock asked cautiously.
"I stole the car," Kirk said, and unexpectedly, a grin slid over his face. "And then I drove it off the edge of a cliff."
Spock turned his whole head to gape inelegantly at Kirk for a full second, before Kirk screeched, "Red light!" and lunged for the wheel. Spock slammed on the brakes and stopped a full ten meters before the stop bar. There wasn't even anybody around he could have run in to.
"I'm already injured!" Kirk shouted, waving his bandaged hand. "Stop that! I want to live now!"
Spock shoved down the impulse to laugh hysterically. "Think of this as revenge. I surprised you, so you surprised me."
"Yeah, but you broke my thumb. This would have broken my… I don't know, everything? Car crashes are still bad! You didn't have to react that way!"
"Neither did you," Spock pointed out.
Kirk scowled at him. "Green light."
Spock hit the gas.
x
At the hospital, Kirk approached the front desk while Spock parked his car. The receptionist looked harried. He looked up and Kirk saw that his collar was undone and his tie was loosened to halfway down his chest.
"Can I help you, sir?" he said politely.
"Yeah, I'm James Kirk, Nurse Phlox from Enterprise High School called ahead…"
"Yes, we've been expecting you," said the receptionist. "If you could verify here and then have a seat…" He gestured to the thumbprint pad at the front of the desk.
Kirk pressed his left thumb to the screen (it was his right one that was broken), which flashed green. The receptionist smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Kirk." He went back to his computer, then glanced back at Kirk, who had stared to move away. "Mr. Kirk? You should know—there's going to be a slight delay, since you're not an emergency case. I'm very sorry."
"Oh. How come?" Kirk asked.
"The International Wrestling Tournament started its special bracket today," said the receptionist. "Humans versus Klingons. We keep getting humans with broken bones, so all of the osteoregenerators are in use right now. Again, I'm very sorry."
"It's fine," said Kirk, trying not to laugh. "If you see any of them, say good luck."
"It's too late for that," said the receptionist gloomily.
Kirk went to sit down in a far waiting seat. The waiting room was very small, and quite empty. Nobody ever had to wait at hospitals; they were extremely efficient these days.
Spock came in, half of his hair sticking up from the strengthening wind outside. Kirk told him what was going on, and they settled in to a comfortable silence.
After a while, Kirk's thumb started throbbing again. To distract himself—but mainly because he was curious—he said to Spock, "How many people have you dated?"
Spock blinked. "Three," he said.
"Who were they?"
"Why are you asking?"
"I can't ask? I was just wondering." Kirk did his best to look innocent.
"I have dated Nyota, Evan Gray, and Yvette Gessard." Spock eyed Kirk. "How many people have you dated?"
"Seven, officially," said Kirk.
Spock was surprised. "That is a low number, James."
"Yeah, I don't know the number I've had sex with." Kirk grinned. Spock sighed. "So why didn't it work out?"
"Why did what not work out?" said Spock innocently.
Kirk glared at him. "Don't be purposefully obtuse, Spock. Why aren't you and Mr. Gray or Ms. Gessard still dating? Or you and Nyota, for that matter?"
"Evan and I had differences of opinion. Yvette moved back to France. And Nyota and I—you know what happened."
Kirk did.
"Why this sudden interest in my romantic background?" Spock asked.
Kirk tried not to panic. "Like I said, I can't ask? I just—since you're half-and-half, I wondered how you worked with people. If… that makes any sense."
Spock shrugged. "I do not like people very much, to be honest."
"How come?"
"I did not grow up with people whose company I enjoyed. My mother was my only true companion. My peers—the Vulcans who went to school with me—they were less than welcoming to me. Humans are much more open than Vulcans." Spock's eyes were glassy, faraway. "Vulcans are not kind."
Kirk thought about his childhood: of being dragged between shipyards, of the many schools, the many kids who were too afraid of him to make fun of him. He had always wondered what it was like to have stayed the same, and constant, in one place, and for the first time, it struck him that for all the neglect, all the upheaval, all the confusion in his childhood, at least he hadn't been trapped.
There was a lesson, there. As soon as you stopped moving, things could get you. As soon as Winona settled down in Riverside, Kirk's life went wrong. As soon as Spock became mobile, came to Earth, his life got better.
"On Vulcan," said Spock softly, "there is nothing more important than sameness. We adhere to the same rules. Our customs are set in stone, and literally. And there my father was, a diplomat trying to bring his Vulcan mindset to Earth. Vulcans are open-minded in that they know they should be, to other species. So he married mother, and he and mother had me. And there our problems began." He shook his head, ruefully. "Mother was a rebel, even for a human. She showed me how reasonable it was to think outside the box. Father enjoyed that, I think. But even so, he did not entirely accept her—he could not. He was entirely Vulcan. But I—I had her in me, and him, and I straddled the line exactly. And nobody could understand that, not even mother, and especially not the children who attended the Nesh-kur Shi'oren."
Spock glanced over at Kirk, who was watching him intently. "That surprises me," said Kirk. "That you let them affect you."
Spock blinked. "I never said they did."
"Of course they did," said Kirk. "They had to have. People affected me. Or they would have, if I'd've let them."
"It is not like it is easy," snapped Spock. "Not letting people affect you. Especially when they do it over and over again. Especially when they know exactly what to say or do to hurt you."
Kirk's mind reeled. He actually drew away from Spock. He had never expected Spock, of all people, to encapsulate what he felt so perfectly and exactly. "I know," he said passionately. "I know. That's what the boarding bridge is for, Spock."
Spock had opened his mouth to reply when a nurse stuck her head out of the access door. "James Kirk?"
"I will stay," said Spock. Kirk nodded, and disappeared into the corridor. The nurse closed the door behind him.
Spock sat back, and let out the breath he had been holding.
x
They drove back to school.
"How did you and Nyota get together?" Kirk asked. They had not said a word to each other since Kirk had left to get his thumb healed.
"She was at the right place, in the right time," said Spock. "I liked her very much, and she approached me at a time during which I needed her." He glanced sidelong at Kirk. "And you and Leonard?"
Kirk laughed. "I just thought dating Bones would be a good idea. You know how he is—crazy in the best way. Good for me, to be romantically involved with a friend. I thought." The laugh turned bitter. "We know how that worked out."
"You were the one who ruined it," Spock pointed out mercilessly.
"That's not entirely true," said Kirk, eyebrow quirked. "But he's not really to blame. He's not very perceptive, but he's not to blame." He shifted around in his seat. "Spock, how on earth are you dealing with Nero?"
Spock's nostrils flared. "What makes you think I am?"
Kirk shrugged. "Good point. But don't you—I mean, how are you not just wanting to go kill him?"
"I would rather not speak on the subject," said Spock harshly. He jerked the car into a hard left turn. They were pulling into the school parking lot.
"Sorry," said Kirk quietly. "I worry about you."
Spock softened as he peered down the rows, looking for a space. "It is fine, James. He is a ghost to me, a ghost that I try not to think of." As he pulled into a spot, he said, "The time will come for revenge."
"It will," said Kirk. "I'm glad you think revenge needs to be had."
"I accept the modern theory of justice, which states that mercy in all things is necessary for the preservation of law. But, 'In order to preserve the highest ideals of liberty, we must constantly push at its boundaries, searching for new truths, even when they might uproot those we formerly clung to.'" Spock lips curved, feral. "I am seeing new paths, James. Paths that finish with that which finishes us all."
"That's how I know you're not fully human," said Kirk. "The very idea of revenge is just now occurring to you." He glanced down at his PADD, and saw the time. "Oh look," he said. "We've missed physics."
"What a shame," said Spock, the slightest hint of a laugh flickering in his deep voice.
x