A/N: Guys—Sprocket. Isn't that just the cutest?
Enterprise High
being a high school AU of ST: XI
with many hijinks
and much angst
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Chapter Eleven: Bread and Circuses
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"I don't want to talk about it, Winona."
"Maybe you don't, but I sure do. You can't just barge in here and tell me something like that and then want to leave."
"And yet." He started towards the door.
"Christopher."
Pike paused, hand near the button to open the door.
"Christopher," said Winona. "I understand what you're going through."
"You—you understand? How could you possibly understand?"
"You had to have thought I'd understand a little if you came to tell me something like that."
"Well, yes, but—"
Winona shook her head. "No, never mind. I am too tired for this. I just got an assignment and I should be going. Just, don't mention this to Jim, okay?"
"I would never."
"Good. I'll see you around?"
"I'll see you around."
Pike left. Winona plopped onto a couch.
What an interesting development, she thought.
x
Speaking of interesting developments.
Chapel woke up first, at around seven thirty. She rolled over to find Spock and Uhura sleeping side by side, Spock's arm thrown loosely over Uhura's shoulders. Chapel made subtle but persistent noises until Uhura opened her eyes, saw Chapel gaping at her, and winked slowly.
Chapel poked Sulu hurriedly in the ribs. He moaned and rolled over, covering his eyes with his blanket. Damn. She tried Bones next. He actually tried to hit her. Scotty responded better. He sat up and looked over to where Chapel was pointing.
What th' hell? he mouthed at Chapel.
Chapel shrugged, eyes wide.
Uhura pulled herself out from under Spock's arm. He made a quiet, adorable noise and grabbed her pillow, hugging it to him, before going completely back to sleep.
Scotty and Chapel dragged Uhura into the kitchen.
"Well?" they demanded.
Uhura couldn't stop smiling. She sighed and spun, her nightgown whipping around her legs. "He kissed me!" she trilled. "We'd all fallen asleep, and I was having this dream. It was the strangest thing, like all of these layers of darkness were unpeeling around me and finally everything in front of me was white, and I woke up and the curtain had been pushed aside somehow and the streetlamp was shining in my face. So I got up and yawned a bit and played a couple of games on my PADD before I noticed that Spock wasn't in the room so I went looking for him and he was sitting in the back room, looking out at the garden, and he looked so sad. And I said his name and he looked at me and—I don't know. He just got this expression, like he was looking at something he'd never seen before."
She paused to take a long drink of water. She was high with elation.
"And I went and sat next to him. And the atmosphere was—it was like molten electricity. Like everything was still, but full of—potential, as if it was all about to become kinetic and active. And I knew what he was thinking, sort of. About how he'd, you know, tried to kill himself at one point. And I knew that the atmosphere must feel different to him, I mean, it was kind of haunting, kind of nostalgic. He was so obviously sad. So I said something like, 'When things are bad, then the good looks particularly beautiful.' And we got into this amazing analogy about water in the desert, and I offered to make everything better, I guess you could say. And he said he was already better."
She fluttered. "And then he kissed me! He just leaned over and there were his lips and I was like, buh. Just flattened. You could have hit me with a rocket launcher and I wouldn't have moved."
She stopped.
"What?" said Chapel.
"Well, the next bit, I don't know about," she said. "He said—he said it like a statement. He said, 'You love me,' and I said, 'I do,' and then we just kept kissing and kissing and, well. We ended up on the floor." She sighed hugely. "He got on top of me. It was the best thing that has ever happened to me. In my life. Although I think sex with him might be so good that I would explode, and not metaphorically. Like actually."
"So he never said he loved you?" said Scotty.
Uhura shrugged. "He never said."
"Huh," said Scotty and Chapel at the same time.
Uhura rolled her eyes. "Come on. Like it matters."
"It does matter!" said Chapel. "It means he's not as in to you as you are to him."
"So? He's at least in to me."
"But if you want it to go somewhere, there has t' be equal footin'," said Scotty.
"Oh, not necessarily," said Uhura. When Chapel and Scotty both tried to say something, she interrupted. "That is to say, I don't care. He can feel however he wants as long as he keeps putting his tongue in my mouth. And he was definitely lying last night, he has been kissed before, because he sure knows how to do it."
x
When Kirk woke up at eight, Uhura, Scotty, and Chapel were not in the room. Everybody else was asleep. He had a massive headache and didn't feel like doing a thing but getting out of Sulu's house, taking a long, hot shower, and going back to sleep. He attempted not to wake anybody else up, but as he was leaving, he accidentally dropped his bag on Bones's head.
Bones let out a series of muffled curses, flailing. Chekov, Sulu, and Spock all shifted identically in their sleeping bags and blankets. Kirk tried not to giggle and pulled his bag off of Bones's skull, whispering sorry.
Bones mouthed obscenities at him. Kirk, thinking for a moment, leaned down and whispered in his ear, "Can I come over to your house?"
For a moment, Bones seemed incapable of replying through his rage. Then he covered his eyes and nodded shortly. Kirk, grinning, left Sulu a note thanking him for a great time (Not really, he thought) and tossed his bag on his motorcycle. Bones came out a few minutes later and Kirk followed him home.
x
Uhura made sure to be close by when Spock woke up. She was cross-legged next to their makeshift bed, working on Vulcan vocabulary on her PADD. She saw his eyelids flutter and glanced over. He stretched, pushing the pillow away from him, and automatically reached up his hand to smooth down his hair. Then he saw her staring at him.
Her heart melted when a small smile played across his lips.
He sat up and leaned over, resting his hand on her shoulder. He kissed her lightly on the lips, then on the cheek, and moved back, further away but still intimately close. Uhura could see Scotty and Chapel peeking around the wall. She ignored them.
"Good morning," she said softly.
"Good morning," he replied. He looked hazily content. She was glad to see she had wrought such a change in his attitude. He seemed almost decadently lazy. He kissed her again, deeper this time. He obviously didn't care if anybody else was in the room. He hadn't even looked around to see who was awake.
"Would you like to leave?" he said. "We could go back to my house and—" The pause was well-measured and small. "—study."
"I would love to," said Uhura, surprised at how deep her voice was.
She managed to rouse Sulu from his coma and say goodbye, inserting as many meaningful winks into the conversation as possible. But Sulu was extremely stupid early in the morning and kept asking what was wrong with her eye, so she left it at that and went home with Spock.
x
Chapel and Scotty cleared out quickly. Bones invited them to his house; evidently Kirk had fallen asleep on Bones's bed after taking a shower and Bones was bored to high heaven. They left Sulu and Chekov to sleep.
Chekov woke up at around eleven. Sulu was still completely out. Chekov wandered into the kitchen and found eggs and bacon. Sulu was roused by the divine smell of cooking breakfast.
Wrapping his blanket blearily around his shoulders, he stumbled into the dining room. Chekov was dropping bubbling sunny-side up eggs onto a plate, accompanied by three long, crisp slices of bacon. He had even replicated some rolls. Two frosty glasses of orange juice were already sitting on the kitchen bar.
"Pavel," said Sulu, frozen by the entryway. "You made breakfast?"
Chekov grinned at him, plate in one hand, spatula in the other. "Da, Hikaru. Does it look good? My mother says I am a wery talented cook. Now you can see if I am."
He chivvied Sulu into a chair and set the plate in front of him.
"Dig in," he invited happily. Sulu, still unable to believe what was happening, tasted the eggs. They were delicious.
"Pavel, this is amazing," he said, his mouth full. "You should be a chef!"
"Oh, you are, huv do you say, encourageable?"
"Incorrigible, Pavel. And that's not entirely true. I'm not bad, I just like your cooking."
"Ah. My English is not the best. Thank you."
They cleaned up the kitchen when they were finished. Then they wandered into the game room. Sulu had a number of old holoprograms Chekov was interested in, primarily those based on old science fiction movies and television shows.
"Sci fi doesn't hold up very well," Sulu commented as Chekov flicked through the programs. "I don't get why people are still such big fans of stuff from the past. The 21st century especially had some low-quality output."
Chekov frowned. "I beg to differ, Hikaru," he said, selecting a program and assigning it to the computer. "It is the ideas, they are vhat are constant through time. You can haf terrible effects and an incredible story."
"Yeah, but—what'd you choose? Star Wars? Come on, it's just Joseph Campbell in space. There's nothing creative about it."
"Do you dislike all early science fiction?"
"Basically."
"You don't even like Battlestar Galactica? Or Raker's? Saber? Babylon 5? Geocentric?"
Sulu shook his head. "I don't do anything before the 22nd century. Period."
"I never liked you," Chekov informed Sulu. "Science fiction was inwented by the Russians much before the 22nd century." He snapped on the hologlasses for the Star Wars program. "You are not allowed to play with me. Go sit ower there while I haf fun in the 20th century."
Sulu threw up his hands, laughing. "Fine, be that way."
Chekov, mouth set, was already in the program. Smiling at the boy's attachment to camp, Sulu activated a 22nd century game of his own.
x
Uhura had never been to Spock's house before. It was a large, brown-red structure at the end of a cul-de-sac in the upscale part of Lessels. Since Chapel had given her a ride to Sulu's, Spock had driven her to his house.
Uhura realized that this visit might be a little more than she had bargained for. She hadn't gotten much sleep last night and probably looked terrible, though she'd done her best in the bathroom back at Sulu's. Her hair was tamed and her makeup had been corrected, but she knew she had bags under her eyes and her skin was oily. Spock, though, looked perfect. Not a hair was out of place. How the hell did he manage that?
"My parents are home," said Spock quietly. He had met Uhura's parents when he'd gone over to her house. But this was inherently different. Uhura's father was very laid back and would have reacted the same to Spock were he dating Uhura or not. But Spock's parents—
"My mother is a kind woman, but she is protective of me," said Spock. "My father will seem—frankly, he will seem unkind. But that is his way. He will reserve judgment of you for quite some time. I am sure he will like you, however. And while I-Chaya is very enthusiastic, do not be afraid of him."
"I-Chaya—?"
Spock had already gotten out of the car. He hurried to the other side of the car and held the door open for her. She smiled, forgetting her question, and he kissed her lightly.
"Mother?" called Spock, opening the front door. "Where are you? I have brought someone to meet—"
Uhura squealed as a huge, shaggy creature bounded out of a room off the entranceway and threw itself at her. She staggered backwards as the thing licked her face enthusiastically, its front paws resting on her shoulders.
"I-Chaya! Down!" snapped Spock. The creature dropped down, wagging its stub of a tail woefully. Spock rubbed it roughly between the ears. "Do not assault Nyota," he commanded sternly.
"Is—is that a sehlat?" Uhura managed, wiping her face. The creature looked like a gigantic teddy bear with six-inch incisors that grew over its lips and past its chin.
"Yes," said Spock. "I-Chaya has been with me since my birth. Haven't you, boy?" he said, scratching the sehlat's chest lovingly. "Good sehlat."
That thing can provoke conjunctions from him, Uhura thought with amazement. He must really love it.
"Good morning, dear," said Amanda from the entrance to the kitchen. "Who's that you've got with you? I-Chaya, over here." She snapped her fingers. I-Chaya bounded across the living room to her, leaping over the sofa on his way.
"This is Nyota Uhura, mother," said Spock, taking Uhura's hand. "She is the girl I have been tutoring in Vulcan."
Amanda's eyes snapped from their hands to Spock's face. "Tutoring?" she said dryly.
"In Vulcan," said Spock steadily. Uhura stared at her shoes.
"Are you still tutoring her, then?" So that was where Spock got his desert-dry wit.
"Yes, mother," said Spock. "In addition, I have entered into a relationship with her."
Amanda wiped her hands on the towel she was holding, now staring at Uhura. She looked somewhat surprised. Uhura fidgeted. Then Amanda's face broke into a smile.
"Come in," she said. "I'm sorry, here, have a seat, I'll make you two some breakfast. You can call me Amanda. So, you're learning Vulcan, dear? Who's your teacher?"
Spock's lips twisted as if he were trying to repress laughter; he was clearly remembering her confession from the night before. Uhura felt her cheeks go warm and was thankful that nobody could see her blush.
"Mr. Sinor," whispered Uhura.
"I know Sinor," said Amanda, her back to Spock and Uhura. "He's a friend of your father's, Spock. He just moved here this summer, didn't he? He really seems to like Earth."
"I've noticed," Uhura managed to say. "He's a great teacher."
"Yes, quite," said Amanda. "He was a lecturer at the Vulcan Science Academy before he started consulting for Starfleet. I understand he teaches in his spare time. Has Spock's tutoring been helpful?"
"Definitely," said Uhura. "I didn't need any help, per say, but I like to do well in my classes."
"She can speak eighteen languages, mother," said Spock.
"Very impressive," said Amanda. "Ash'en eo ohn kahshivay'e?" she said, turning to Uhura.
"Om'shavon neishakash a'fur da'koyif," Uhura replied smoothly.
"Soufa," said Spock. "Stop. My Andorian is rusty, as one would say in English. What were you saying?"
"Oh, nothing," said Amanda, her eyes lighting up. "I love that language even more than Vulcan. I'm very glad to find somebody who can speak it. Sh'fay om'shavak goyinkan, asibit'k?"
"Ay, mesakasun ohn dr'koyif," said Uhura.
"Yes, I suppose we should return to Standard. Sorry, Sprocket," she said to Spock.
Uhura's eyes widened. Sprocket? she mouthed to Spock.
"It is her nickname for me," whispered Spock, looking irritated. "I dislike nicknames."
Uhura couldn't help but giggle.
Amanda served them grilled vegetables and eggs, putting down a bowl of raw meat for I-Chaya, who positively attacked the food. She and Uhura discussed Spock a little, which made Spock scowl into his Brussels sprouts. They were nearly finished eating when Sarek entered the kitchen, dressed formally.
"Good morning, father," said Spock.
"Good morning," Sarek replied, kissing Amanda on the cheek and scratching I-Chaya's chin. He turned expectantly to Uhura.
"This is Nyota Uhura," said Spock. "We are in a relationship."
God, he's so blunt, Uhura thought. She looked at Sarek, who was looking back at her with absolutely no expression.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Sarek."
"Greetings, Nyota," said Sarek. He turned back to Amanda. "I must leave. I will return at two o'clock."
"Be careful, dear," said Amanda, smiling and squeezing Sarek's hand.
"It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance," said Sarek, nodding to Uhura. He put a hand on Spock's shoulder and left.
Uhura let out the breath she'd been holding. Amanda nodded knowingly.
"He has that affect on you, at first," she said. "You get used to it."
After breakfast, they spread their homework out on the living room floor. Amanda left to go shopping and they ended up making out on the couch for an hour. Uhura was pleasantly surprised that she could distract him from schoolwork.
"We never really discussed entering into a relationship," said Uhura between kisses. "You're sure you want to?"
"Do I seem to be hesitating on the matter?"
Uhura laughed. "I'll give you that. Hey, who else have you dated? I know there was Evan Gray, last year, and uh, was her name Bette? In freshman year?"
"Yvette Gessard," he said. "Her family moved back to France. Evan and I broke off our relationship because we differed on a number of crucial points."
"Oh? Such as?"
"Evan was interested in pursuing a sexual relationship. I felt, at the time, that I was too young for such an association."
He saw the expression on Uhura's face still.
"Of course, I have matured," he said quietly. Then, to drive the point home, he licked her ear.
They weren't going to get back to homework for quite a while.
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