Enterprise High
being a high school AU of ST: XI
with many hijinks
and much angst
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Chapter Twenty-Eight: Catspaw
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On Halloween morning, Spock awoke with a headache. He swung his legs over the edge of his bed and held his head in his hands for a while, trying to ignore the pounding above his ears. He had accidentally shoved his pillow off of his bed in the middle of the night and his neck hurt as well. Hunched and with his eyes closed, he could imagine that he was back at home, in the room he'd had for years. He believed this for a while, and when he finally opened his eyes to see that he was as far from home as could be, sorrow struck him like a wave. This room was smaller and nicer; the carpet was green instead of blue, and the walls were painted a pleasing sepia and cut in half by crown molding, while in his old room, the wallpaper had had a beautiful, swirling blue and silver pattern.
He dressed and packed his bookbag, wincing whenever he accidentally moved quickly or tilted his head. He wanted, more than anything, to walk downstairs and find his father making breakfast while his mother sat at the table getting her things ready for school. He would ask her for the medkit and she would bring it to him and sit next to him, rubbing his shoulder concernedly, as he told her that he was Fine, mother, just a small headache, there is no need to worry. He'd take a Vicolenol or an Advilamine and set the electronic massager to knead his neck while she cooed over him and he and Sarek did the Vulcan equivalent of rolling their eyes. And then he'd kiss her goodbye and head off to school, and it would all be normal and sweet.
He shrugged the sadness away. There was no downstairs to go to in their apartment in the Vulcan embassy. Instead, pushing his glasses resolutely up on his nose, he walked down the hallway in between the living quarters and the entertaining quarters, into the kitchen, where Sarek sat alone, reading the news on his PADD.
"Felicitations are in order," said Sarek, glancing up. "I believe today is Halloween. Do you plan on attending Mr. Sulu's celebration of the holiday?"
Spock, who had gone to Sulu's Halloween parties since he had moved to Earth, nodded, then winced. "Are you aware of the location of a medkit? I awoke with a headache."
"There is one in the first cabinet," said Sarek, and returned to his PADD.
There was no electronic massager in the medkit, so Spock took a few pills and prayed they would work. He said goodbye to Sarek and drove to school.
The very first thing he saw once he'd entered the building was James Kirk, in a toga, arguing with Vice Principal Archer.
"Okay, at my old school, we always wore our Halloween costumes to school on Halloween day," said Kirk angrily. "You seriously have a 'no costumes' policy here? That is so twenty-first century."
"The fact remains," said Archer, "that you have to either change or be suspended for refusing to cooperate."
"That sucks."
"Yeah," said Archer unsympathetically. "I'll escort you to the bathroom so you can take the toga off."
Kirk huffed a bit and then, scowling, deigned to follow Archer down the hall. Spock, who had paused to listen to the exchange, made eye contact with Kirk, who winked at him. Spock simply raised his eyebrow.
"Who were you supposed to be?" Spock asked half an hour later as Kirk slid into the seat next to him before English.
"Scipio Africanus," said Kirk. "I heard Nero was dressing up as Hannibal Barca, so I thought it'd be appropriate."
Spock was at a surprising loss. "Excuse me?" he said. "Who?"
Instead of rubbing it in, Kirk said, "Oh, a guy from my military history class. Scipio Africanus beat Hannibal at the Battle of Zama, ending the Second Punic War."
"Ah," said Spock. "I thought that Hannibal was barely able to lead his contingent over the Alps because of all the elephants."
"The elephant thing is exaggerated," said Kirk, looking irritated. "Here's how it happened…"
And he proceeded to tell Spock more than he had ever wanted to know about not just the Second Punic War, but all of the Punic Wars, and some about the Macedonian Wars as well, and the significance of Vergil's Aeneid and Republican hegemonial imperialism within all of it.
Uhura rescued him right before class started by calling his communicator. Spock hurried over to her.
"That was terrible," he said seriously. "I had no idea James was so obsessed by military history."
"I am shocked that he hasn't done that to you before," said Uhura. "I mean, he's generally not bad, but sometimes he goes on tangents. Leo could tell you, if he were willing to talk about Jim."
"Does he want to join Starfleet?" Spock asked.
"I'm not sure," said Uhura speculatively. "His father, you know."
"Yes… I can see how, with James, that fact could either encourage or discourage him."
School crawled by. It sounded like everybody was coming to Sulu's Halloween party. Sulu's parents were, as usual, conveniently absent, although both of his sisters were home at the moment. They were not particularly responsible and had agreed to acquire the bulk of the alcohol.
Chekov, like Spock, had a difficult time understanding the whole getting-to-a-party-on-time-is-very-lame concept, but that was absolutely okay with Sulu because it meant that Chekov showed up about an hour before even the robotics team started to trickle in. The reveal of Chekov's costume was quite dramatic: Sulu, not even in costume yet, heard a knock on the door as he was searching for Dixie cups in kitchen island and answered it to find… nothing. He frowned at the street for a few minutes, turned around, and was confronted with the capped tip of a foil and somebody shouting, "En garde!" in a Russian accent.
He screamed and threw himself backwards. He'd just started breathing again when he realized who held the sword. It was Chekov, dressed in a royal blue broad-brimmed hat garnished with a gigantic white plume, a long tunic of the same color with full, flowing sleeves, and knee-high black boots over black hose. A thick fleur-de-lis was stitched onto the front of the tunic, and a belt and scabbard adorned Chekov's midsection.
"Milady," said Chekov, grinning widely, his blue eyes flashing. "For now, I shall spare your life."
"Oh my God," said Sulu. "Oh my God," he repeated, and then, "Christ in a bucket."
"Are you okay?" said Chekov, bending down and finally looking concerned.
"How did you get into my house?"
"The backdoor was unlocked," said Chekov. "While honorable, d'Artagnan would not want to present himself too obwiously to his enemy."
"You went around the back?" said Sulu, finally standing. His knees shook a bit. "Okay. Seriously. Don't do that again. Unless you want to kill me, or something."
Chekov was offended. "I would newer want to kill you, Hikaru."
Sulu glared at him. "Good to know. Listen, I'm going to go put my costume on. Stay here and don't attack anybody, okay? Inoue and Sh'Ragh are around here somewhere, and Sh'Ragh could probably kill you with his pinky."
He left Chekov in the kitchen, dashed up stairs and put on his suit, and came back down. Chekov was sitting, alone, at the island, twirling a bottle of vodka. He looked up and his jaw dropped.
Sulu's pinstripe suit was much like any other pinstripe suit. There was a white handkerchief stuffed in the breast pocket, and his tie was black over his white collared shirt. His shoes were polished black derbies and his fedora, also pinstriped, was tilted at a rakish angle. His toy machine gun was propped on one jacketed shoulder. He raised a corner of his mouth at Chekov, who tried not to melt.
"What… what a nice costume," Chekov gulped after a while.
Sulu was concerned. He spun around. "You don't like it? I mean, I didn't put much effort into it, but still. Is it just nice? Is it too much? Maybe the handkerchief isn't necessary…"
Chekov, at the moment, didn't think that anything except for the tie and the hat were necessary. He hurriedly said, "Oh, no, no, it is fine! Is a good gangster costume! You look wery… scary."
"I do not look scary."
"Well, okay, I was being faceetious."
"Faceetious?" Sulu grinned.
Chekov scowled at him. "Do not make fun of my accent."
Laughing, Sulu threw up his hands. "Whatever. Want to start the party early? I have like twenty bottles of vodka. The liquor store had cheap Sovlova."
Chekov had a shot, declared it undrinkable, and chided Sulu for not obeying his orders to purchase good Russian vodka. Sulu rolled his eyes and got him some lager, which made Chekov a little happier. They talked for a few minutes, Sulu trying not to stare at Chekov's legs (he wasn't even wearing pants, for Christ's sake, just tights) and Chekov trying not to stare at Sulu's hat. And then a Klingon wandered into the kitchen.
"Hey, Sh'Ragh," said Sulu, while Chekov tried not to choke on his Märzen.
"Sup," said Sh'Ragh gruffly, sitting down next to Chekov and grabbing the opened vodka. He was (Chekov thought) about eighty feet tall, forty feet wide, and very brown, but curiously, he was wearing a short, human-haired wig over his ridged scalp. He was also clean-shaven and clothed in jeans and a t-shirt.
"Nice human costume," said Sulu.
"Thanks," said Sh'Ragh, wiping his mouth after taking a long swig of the vodka.
"This is my friend Pavel Chekov. Pavel, this is my sister Inoue's fiancé, Sh'Ragh, son of Sh'Kahm, of the House of Antaak."
"Nice to meet you," said Sh'Ragh in perfect Standard. "Who are you supposed to be, Athos, Porthos, or Aramis?"
"D'Artagnan, actually," said Chekov. He didn't have to continue because Inoue, who Chekov had never met, entered the kitchen and everybody suddenly became very busy staring at her. She was wearing a low cut, form-fitting suit of armor. A silver warrior's sash fell across her chest, and a prosthetic ridged forehead with long, black braids was fitted over her scalp.
"Wow," said Hikaru. Chekov made funny noises. Sh'Ragh whistled at her, and she came to sit on his knee. Beneath the prosthetic, she had sharp cheekbones, a wide forehead, and bright eyes, just like Hikaru's. She was taller than Hikaru, as well, quite unlike Miko, who followed her in. Miko was dressed as Marilyn Monroe; blonde wig, white dress, beauty spot and all.
"Your family is wery attractive," said Chekov after he'd been introduced to Inoue.
"Thanks," said Miko and Inoue at the same time. They grinned at each other. Chekov thought that Inoue looked a lot calmer and nicer than Miko, but hadn't Miko said that Inoue was the troublemaker of the family?
"So how come you guys chose to stay here for Halloween?" said Hikaru. "A high school party's got to be old-school for you."
"I want a night off," said Inoue, mostly to Sh'Ragh, who nodded in agreement. "We've been at Starfleet headquarters every day since we got back from Theta V. Sh'Ragh's being ceremoniously naturalized and I'm having to do another training course in Rutivian culture. Even though I live on the Rutivian homeworld and could teach my teacher a thing or two. Fucking regulations."
"How did you meet?" Chekov asked curiously.
"Oh, Theta V's a small planet," said Sh'Ragh. "I grew up on the T'Rasshanagh outpost, near Cetidan—that's why I speak Standard English so well." Cetidan was one of the primary Terran colonies in the Klingon sector. "I got assigned to Theta V when I was in the KDF. When the planet was being attacked by Romulan pirates, my cohort helped evacuate Inoue's school."
"It was very romantic," said Inoue. "He broke his leg falling down a flight of stairs. One of his comrades and I had to carry him outside."
"I fractured my ankle and you and T'Shena did not carry me, you just let me lean on you."
"Either way, he proved his strength and manliness," said Inoue, trying not to grin. "And from the noises you were making, T'Shena and I thought you were dying, not just suffering from a fractured ankle. Klingons aren't supposed to complain that much, are they?"
"I hate you," said Sh'Ragh.
An hour and a half later, the party was in full swing. Miko, Inoue, and Sh'Ragh laid claim to one half of the dining room table and mostly talked to each other, although when a few Klingon students from Valor High showed up, Sh'Ragh went to socialize with them.
Kirk showed up in a toga again and told anybody who would listen all about the Second Punic War, at least until Uhura, dressed in a flowing white robe, Egyptian headgear, and a fake beard, hit him over the head with her ankh crook for being annoying.
"Hey, fuck you, Cleopatra," said Kirk, rubbing his head angrily.
"I'm Hatshepsut, dumbass," said Uhura. "Get your pharaohs right."
"Oh, come on, you're mad at me for telling people I'm not Julius Caesar!" Kirk paused speculatively. "Although if I were Julius Caesar, and you were Cleopatra—well, then there'd be a historical precedent for us getting it on."
Instead of arguing, Uhura rolled her eyes and plied him with alcohol.
Spock, cured of his headache, showed up later than he would have wished, since he had been talking with Stonn and forgot the time. Scotty answered the door wearing a curly gray wig and a matronly sort of green-plaid dress with an embroidered rampant lion on one shoulder and a Gaelic thistle on the other.
"Arabella Richard, I presume?" said Spock. In the 2100s, Arabella Richard had united the four nations of the British Isles under one flag, much like James Mugabe, who did the same for North America a few decades later. She was famous incorporating the symbols of Britain and Ireland into her clothing, and for having steel-gray hair. She was commonly called the Iron Queen—a few purposeful steps up from Iron Lady.
"Good one," said Scotty, motioning Spock inside. "An' you are…?"
Spock's costume was indeed puzzling. He wore a blue shirt and blue pants, decorated with small, rudimentary drawings of waves. He had painted the entirety of his body blue and had even spray-painted his hair. The effect was overwhelming, and very strange.
"I am a body of water," said Spock. "Note the evidence of the tide." He motioned to the little waves.
"You're a pun," said Scotty, not quite able to believe it. "You dressed up as a pun—again—for Halloween."
"Yes," said Spock. "I enjoy puns. Do you not recall that I have been a pun every year that I have attended Hikaru's Halloween party? And, where is Hikaru?"
"Ah have no idea," said Scotty, sighing. "Spock, you are th' strangest person ah know."
"Thank you. I will go find Hikaru now."
Hikaru was talking to Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner, who were dressed as Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Dehner looked jaunty in green and even had a quarrel of arrows slung over her shoulder, while Mitchell was charming in a flowing pink dress that was right out of the fifteenth century. Christine Chapel was there too. She was… well, that was a quandary.
"What are you?" she and Spock asked each other.
"I am a body of water," said Spock. Chapel rolled her eyes.
"I'm a beard," said Chapel.
"What?"
"A beard," she repeated. She was indeed covered in fake hair in the shape of a three-dimensional goatee, with the moustache riding on her head as a hat.
"I do not understand," said Spock.
"Don't worry about it," said Hikaru quietly to him. "Remember last year, when she came as cheese?"
"Yes, and I did not understand then—"
"It's just better not to think about Chris's costumes. Starts to make your brain hurt. Here, have some Kalhua."
Spock made himself a very small White Russian and wandered off. Kirk was flirting with two girls and three boys at the same time. Spock was impressed despite himself. Bored, he was about to go find Uhura when he ran into Bones.
"What the hell are you?" said Bones, staring at Spock's costume. Bones's costume was obvious: he was a pirate, with the parrot, hat, eyepatch, coat, cutlass, and all.
Spock explained his costume and talked with Bones for a little while. He glanced back to where Kirk had been, but he was gone.
Kirk had found a few of Hikaru's less reputable friends outside and shared a joint with them. After an hour he wandered back inside to find Spock deep in conversation with some guy he didn't know about some topic of astrophysics. Kirk, suddenly inspired, grabbed Spock's shoulder and pulled him into the living room, where about twenty people were watching The Ancient.
"I have been thinking," said Kirk softly into Spock's ear, "that we should go up to the school."
"What?" said Spock, trying to detach himself from Kirk. "Why?"
"I have no idea," said Kirk firmly. "But it'll be awesome." He pushed a bottle of scotch into Spock's hand. "What are you waiting for?"
During the hour that Kirk had been outside, Spock had kept adding to his White Russian, so that by this point, he felt warm, blurry, and lushly content. As such, he thought about Kirk's proposition intently for a few moments, found about twenty logical reasons to say no to it, and said yes anyway.
"Awesome," said Kirk. "Come on. Hikaru lives crazy close. We can walk there."
They tottered down the avenue, in and out of the circle of streetlights. Spock was merely quite tipsy from the chocolate in the liqueur, and Kirk was more high than drunk. Still, it took them nearly half an hour to get to Enterprise High.
They had to pause at the back of the school, where the sidewalk veed into the parking lot. The blue oat grass puffing out of the ground next to the sidewalk was covered in jewels. The sprinkler had clearly just gone off, and in the moonlight, the plants sparkled, capturing tiny photographs in the dewdrops clinging to their leaves.
Spock stared at the plants for a while, trying to understand how something so beautiful could just be sitting there like that, before Kirk dragged him away.
They went around the back, to the garage where the Enterprise was stored. Kirk unlocked the side-door, disabling the alarm with fumbling fingers, and went inside. Spock, who was curiously interested in every detail of the things around him, took a while to follow him. He inspected the frame of the door, and its brass handle and jagged lock, before pushing his palm against the cool metal and entering the garage. Kirk had turned one small handlight on and thrown the sheet off of the Enterprise. He was propped against the back wall, staring at the hovercraft and sipping moodily from his bottle of scotch.
Spock veered around the vehicle and came to sit next to Kirk, who offered him the scotch. Spock declined, realizing somewhere in the cloudy back of his mind that he was going to be sick soon. (He hated throwing up, but for some reason, this fact failed to worry him as it generally did.) His blue paint was smeared around his lips and eyes, and the color on his hair was starting to flake. Kirk marveled at how unkempt he was.
"You're messy," he said uselessly, poking Spock's cheek. A bit of blue attached itself to his finger, and he tried to wipe it on Spock, but since Spock was wearing all blue, he couldn't tell if it was working or not. Eventually he wiped the finger on his toga, leaving a long cerulean smear down one side.
"I am not messy," said Spock composedly. "I am merely a bit rumpled. You are messy. I looked it up and you killed twenty thousand Carthaginians at Zama."
"If you're holding my costume against me, then, then you're one to talk—I don't even know how many Romans you've killed. You're the sea. They hated the sea. Did I tell you that story? About the sea?"
"What story?"
Kirk grinned, leaning up against Spock's shoulder. "I looove this story. Okay, so, the First Punic War."
Spock groaned and tried to scoot away. Kirk protested and grabbed Spock's thigh, squeezing the big muscle in it painfully. Spock stopped, glaring at him and trying not to lean into the tug of Kirk's big hands.
"Listen to it," Kirk pled. "It's great. So the Romans stumble into a war with Carthage, right? In Sicily. And this is before Rome is a great power. So the Carthaginians are running around in ships, and the Romans, well, they've never really been out of Italy before, so they don't build a fleet for ages because they've never built a fleet and they're afraid to—the Romans hate doing new things. And when they finally do build a fleet, they do this really interesting thing. Because they're used to fighting on land, they build this boarding bridge onto their boats. So when they engage the Carthaginians, there's this gigantic, spiky thing is on the prow of the Roman ships, and they ram into the Carthaginians and toss down the boarding bridges and the bridges bury themselves in the Carthaginian ships and the Roman soldiers run across them and kill all of the Carthaginians. And the Carthaginians, before they're dead, are basically like, 'Oh my God, what the hell is this? What is happening here?' And they loose the battle because they're so freaked out by the Roman boarding bridge."
Spock stared at him.
"Don't you get it?" said Kirk. "The Romans were afraid of the sea. It terrified them. They wanted to feel like they were back on land, so they fought as if they were, and it gave them such a huge advantage that they were able to defeat the largest sea power in the Mediterranean."
"Is this a metaphor?" said Spock guardedly.
Kirk smiled. "Yeah."
"That is—that is sad," said Spock. "You do not have to be that afraid of—whatever it is, James."
"The Romans got over it eventually. They stopped using the boarding bridge after a few years."
"Well, good for them, but you are not an empire."
"Yeah. No man is an island. John Bon Jovi."
"John Donne, I believe—"
"Haven't you ever—" Kirk sighed. "Never mind."
"Here." Spock wrested the scotch out of Kirk's grip. "Let me get that boarding bridge for you."
"Hey!"
"You do not need it," Spock chided, slipping the bottle into his pocket. "Nor do you need pretenses. You are James Tiberius Kirk, are you not?"
Kirk nodded, looking confused.
"Does James Tiberius Kirk need pretenses? Or boarding bridges?"
"No?" said Kirk, slightly cross-eyed. "Listen, I was doing well for a while, but I'm wasted enough that this conversation is really starting to escape me. I think my blood is mostly ethanol at this point. Please can I have the MacArthur's back?"
"Absolutely not," said Spock primly. "In fact, I am going to go pour it out."
There was a bit of a tussle at this point. Spock won with ease, although Kirk proved to be a very slippery opponent (however, this was not on purpose; it was merely a product of his inebriation). Outside the garage, Spock poured the scotch into the grass, where it pooled for a few seconds before sinking into the ground, leaving only dark earth and a potent fragrance lingering in the air.
"You're mean," slurred Kirk from the door. He had managed to stand up and make it to the doorframe, which he leaned against as if it was a bone and he was a muscle. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was pouting energetically. "You drank too! You're drunk!"
"I am not drunk," said Spock, and promptly repudiated this by dropping the empty scotch bottle into the grass and being utterly unable to find it. He straightened and continued, "I am merely tipsy. And unable to find the bottle. Dammit."
"Did you curse?"
"It is possible. Help me find the bottle."
Kirk flapped his hands. "It's all fine. People'll pick it up later. You're gonna fall over if you keep looking. Well okay I'm gonna fall over if I help you look. I mean, I don't think this doorframe is really very steady, actually." Kirk clutched a bit at the wall. "I'm impressed you're standing."
"You are loquacious under the influence," said Spock. He noticed how tottery Kirk was and gave up on the bottle. Carefully, he maneuvered Kirk's arm around his neck and brought him to lean on the Enterprise's hood. Kirk's warm breath tickled the short hairs at the back of his neck.
There was another tussle; Spock didn't quite know how this one started. Eventually he found himself laying with his head on Kirk's arm, their shoulders propped against the windshield. He was supremely comfortable. But when he closed his eyes, the world spun massively, so he kept them open. Kirk hummed discordantly to himself.
Some time passed; Kirk didn't know how much. He might have fallen asleep, except he didn't remember having his eyes closed, and he didn't feel at all rested. He was marginally less intoxicated, however. When he looked at the time, it was nearly three in the morning. Spock, dead asleep, was drooling enthusiastically onto his toga and looked to have been doing so for some time.
"Hey," muttered Kirk, poking Spock in the chest. Spock shifted and growled. Actually growled. "Woah. Uh, okay, sleep a little more." Kirk backed off. But his shoulder was getting very sore from the considerable weight of Spock's head—Vulcan brains would weigh a lot, Kirk thought—so he shook Spock's elbow. Spock growled again, but Kirk didn't give up. Finally Spock opened his eyes and sat up very quickly, obviously angry. Then he grabbed at his head and his stomach in quick succession, eyes bulging in sudden panic, slid off of the hovercar, dashed outside, and was riotously sick.
By the time Kirk got himself off of the Enterprise, Spock was done and had sat down against the cool brick wall of the building. He looked miserable and tired. Kirk grinned; he was a very cheerful drunk, unless he felt particularly angsty. He heaved Spock to his feet and clapped his shoulders.
"Now that you've got that out, let's head back to Hikaru's," said Kirk. "He gets anti-hangover hyposprays en masse for his parties. I'd do almost anything for that kind of cash." His tone became momentarily wistful. What would it be like to have so much money at one's disposal? He shook the regret away, focusing on Spock, who had really ceased to look like himself and resembled, in many ways, a wrinkly blue carpet, in that he was rumpled, fuzzy from grime, and, well, still very blue.
"I'm surprised you come to these types of things," Kirk added to Spock. "I love getting plastered because—well, the boarding bridge, I guess. But you? What have you got to forget about?"
"Altered state, to differentiate," said Spock, barely moving his lips. "Also, mother."
Kirk frowned in sympathy. Spock sighed, straightened, and shook himself, visibly throwing off the sickness and the alcohol. He immediately looked much better. "Shall we?" he asked, and extended his arm to Kirk.
At which point it hit Kirk like a ton of tribbles.
There was absolutely no reason for the timing. Spock was as little himself as he had ever been—yet he was still, through the blue paint and the emotions and the undignified vomiting, discernibly the same. Kirk realized all in a rush that the kernel that was Spock's incredible personality persisted despite absolutely anything life pushed at him. He was stubborn, like he had been in the hospital that night his mother had died. He was snobbish, as he had proven at the grocery store, months and months ago. And he was determined, as Kirk had witnessed on the racetrack. He was all of these things at once, in just one blink of his eye, and beyond that, a thousand things more, all of them maddening and frustrating and confusing and… perfect.
"Why," said Spock, "are you staring at me?"
"Uh," offered Kirk, his head spinning, "your paint is really smudged?"
Spock scowled at him. "Then let us continue back to Hikaru's, as I have previously suggested, so that I might cleanse myself." Again, he offered his arm to Kirk, who took it dreamily.
"You do not seem yourself," said Spock suspiciously as they started back towards Sotomayor Street. Kirk winced. He was holding Spock's forearm as if it were a live grenade. Kirk had, for the first time in his entire life, absolutely no idea what to do with his feelings. It was Spock. What the hell? What could he possibly do other than freak out and be aloof?
"Stomach's bellyaching," Kirk bit out. "Don't feel so great."
"I am very sorry," said Spock, directing Kirk out of the way of a streetlamp that Kirk hadn't even laid his peripheral vision on. "Alcohol can indeed be quite upsetting to one's digestive tract. As the saying goes, you may at this point have too much blood in your alcohol system."
Kirk couldn't help it. He giggled.
Spock, rather smug, trod on.
The night had unfurled its wings hours before, but now the clouds had parted just enough to let moonbeams and points of starlight fill the streets. The lamps all had little varicolored oculi dancing around their white, deep sources, and the bice leaves of the trees and hedges were nearly gray with the moon's sharp angle. The air smelled like salt, exhaust, and the promise of rain. The silence was deafening. Kirk felt like his ears were going to fall off and crawl away, or maybe they already had. What noises that sounded were like fireworks and screams; their footfalls, comparatively light, echoed like a handclap at Golkonda.
Spock's voice stunned him. "Do you plan to stay the night?" he asked. Kirk had never listened to Spock's voice before; the clipped, high tone of it, the carefully formed phonemes with their hint of something alien.
"Yeah," said Kirk. "Mom knows I get up to shit, but I don't like to rub it in. You?"
"I will remain at Hikaru's house as well," said Spock. "Consumption of chocolate for the purpose of intoxication is not exactly smiled upon by Vulcans."
"I see," said Kirk, reminding himself to get Spock a box of Godiva ASAP.
Sulu answered the door and waved them wordlessly inside. The open loudness of the outside snapped into a muffled breath inside of the house, as people, all over the floors and chairs, breathed and snored as one. Sulu had saved them a spot near Uhura, Chapel, and Gaila, who had managed to secure an entire couch in one of the smaller sitting rooms and were sprawled over it, fast asleep.
Sulu, not at all to Kirk's surprise, went and curled up in another part of the room next to Chekov, whose gigantic blue hat obscured his face entirely. While Kirk watched them with something like hollowness in his chest, Spock fluffed the cushions they were expected to bed down on.
"There is only one blanket available to us," said Spock grumpily. The thing was little more than a throw. Kirk didn't think he was ready for this—for sleeping so closely to Spock, and for the sheer unresolved sexual tension of it. Kirk shrugged as if it didn't matter and came to lie down on the pillows.
"I must wash," said Spock. "Do not steal the blanket. I will be back momentarily." He swept off. Kirk watched him go. His stomach hurt. When he closed eyes, the world only spun a few times. He liked Spock. That was strange. That was strange. Oh dear, he was very, very tired.
He fell well asleep before Spock got back, and when he woke up the next morning, Spock was just as far away from him as he would have expected. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not been able to enjoy sleeping next to his new—ought he say it?—his new crush. Upon inspection, Kirk realized that Spock was no longer blue; he had clearly taken an entire shower before going to bed. But there was still some blue paint in the creases of his eyelids, and it was all Kirk could do not to reach over and carefully wipe it off.
Sh'Ragh and Scotty made an incongruous pair, and also breakfast. About forty people had spent the night and Hikaru passed around a bowl for monetary contributions—"Eggs and bacon for half the senior class isn't cheap," he called as everybody mmmed and oohed over their food. Gaila, who had come as a pumpkin and probably would have won for Most What the Fuck Costume if not for Chapel's astonishing beard, came to sit next to Kirk, who had come late for breakfast after taking a while in the bathroom.
"Did you have a good time?" she asked, chewing interestedly on a strip of bacon.
"Yeah," said Kirk, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth. "Amazing. Lit up with two guys dressed as Cheech and Chong and then went to the school with Spock."
"Ooh, how romantic," said Gaila innocently. "Did you do anything illegal? I mean, is the student body going to be terribly offended by graffiti or vandalism come Monday?"
Kirk actually had to think about this for a moment. He wasn't the vandal type, and Spock certainly wasn't, but he had been very unlike himself—or possibly, more like himself than ever—last night.
"Nope, we didn't leave a trace," said Kirk. "Just went and gazed lovingly at the Enterprise for a while, then staggered home."
"Sublime," said Gaila. "I watched The Ancient with everybody—have you seen that? I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life—and then made out with Gary and Liz for a while. Oh, and Edith Keeler. Her costume's great, did you see it? She was a 20th century astronaut."
"Terrifying," said Kirk with a shudder. "Did you know that they didn't even have zero-pressure back then?"
"How archaic," said Gaila, shaking her head.
He toyed with telling Gaila, or maybe Uhura or Sulu, about his realization concerning Spock, but he realized that he probably would not be able to do it justice. Instead he went home, high-fiving Sulu and avoiding Spock (though he didn't know why, considering the Strange New Thing. Or maybe that did explain it—well, Kirk was just not sure).
He said good morning to his mother, who merely mentioned that she'd seen the police report for last night and was very proud indeed that he hadn't been on it, and disappeared into the bathroom, where he removed his clothes piece by wonderful piece until he was completely naked and about to plunge into the steaming shower. He took a moment to prepare himself before stepping in; that moment meant that the initial beat of the water on his skin was that much more marvelous.
As Kirk shampooed his hair, he thought: Well then. Spock. What the hell is that about? The topic of why took him until his cleanser, when he accidentally switched over to because, which mainly involved erotic daydreams and the occasional twinge of (now fond) annoyance. Eventually he remembered that water was a finite resource, scrubbed his shower gel on and off hurriedly, and turned off the water at the thirty-minute mark.
A few minutes later, as he was putting pajamas on and getting ready for bed (even though it was eleven in the morning—he'd had a late night, after all), something occurred to him. He hesitated, then reached for his communicator and called Spock.
"Yes, James?" said Spock rather sharply.
"Sorry to bother you," said Kirk, trying to sound as apologetic as possible. "I have a really weird question."
There was a silence.
"Can I ask it?" said Kirk.
"If you must."
"During the last race, did you radio me after I'd turned off the main feed?"
"Excuse me?"
"Somebody was talking to me, and—well, it just occurred to me that it might not have been you. I thought it was, but… I just, I just wasn't sure. Whoever it was said that there was no pressure on me to finish the race, and that they didn't want me to be hurt or anything."
There was another silence.
"I spent almost the entire duration of the race… editing… the electronic log of the Enterprise," said Spock at last. "A call was made to you after you cut power to the main feed, by Leonard."
"Oh," said Kirk. "Okay."
"Is that all?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
Kirk closed the communicator.
Okay, he thought. That sort of changes things.
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