A/N: This chapter is 1000% more cheerful and 1000% less plot-filled than the last two. Enjoy.
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Enterprise High
being a high school AU of ST: XI
with many hijinks
and much angst
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Chapter Forty-Three: Day of the Dove
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Kirk got home late that night. He climbed back through his window and stared at the teacup his mother had left on his nightstand. For a while, he wanted to break something, but it was a latent feeling, and really, he was too tired to do violence.
He felt a pang when he first saw the tea, but he couldn't muster up more than that. Even though it was horribly cold, he took a deep gulp that nearly trained the little cup. Then he fell into bed, and sleep.
x
Kirk didn't talk to himself very often, but when he woke up the next morning fully dressed and with a massive zipper pattern on his face thanks to his weirdly positioned jacket, he said, "Okay. I'm doing nothing productive today."
It was a pretty challenging proposition. The day was Sunday and he had four tests in the next week, and obviously had to beat Spock in all of them. But as he lay there, staring at the indentions in the ceiling, he came up with a pretty good plan.
First, he called Uhura.
"Are you alive?" she said.
"Yes," he said. Then he poked himself. "Yes," he said again.
"Had to make sure?"
"Shut up. Listen—"
"Is Spock alive?"
"Last time I checked. Do you—"
"Have you two worked out your issues, then?"
"Nyota."
"Because I think that basically this entire world is proof that men really, really need to have good emotional maturity before they should be released into the wild, I mean, you know about Leopold the Second, right? Belgium itself didn't have control of the Belgian Congo until 1908, can you believe it?"
"Oh my God, where the fuck are you going with this?"
"I'm just saying, if men aren't emotionally mature…" Kirk could hear Uhura's shrug. "Shit happens."
"Okay," said Kirk. "I mean, go on if you like, but I called to organize an outing."
"Ah, of what nature?" She was obviously intrigued.
"This is actually why I called you," said Kirk. "I'm not sure. I just know that I personally have experienced pretty massive amounts of stress recently, and I'd like to let off some major steam."
"Oh, can do," said Uhura enthusiastically. "You're thinking, paid, free, entertainment, social, what?"
"No parks," said Kirk categorically.
"A movie? Avatar 9 is out."
"High quality," said Kirk sarcastically.
"Okay, yes, but the more pop-culture… among… us… okay. Yeah, never mind, I just looked it up. Jesus, it got like two percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Food, then?"
"Lunch?"
"Um, do you know what time it is?"
Kirk looked at a clock. "Okay, or maybe dinner. God, I can't believe I slept that long."
"I've been up since seven," said Uhura perkily.
"Can you just… die?"
"Eventually, sure. Even so, we have plenty of time until dinner. Does that sound good? How about Obie's?"
"Hm." Obie's was an outdoor place near Market and Van Ness. They had amazing phở and chicken tenders. "Yes. Seven?"
"Yes. You call people?"
"I call boys, you call girls?"
"See you there."
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Kirk, maybe on purpose, encouraged the people he called to call other people, and okay, he wasn't planning for what happened to happen, but luckily Uhura had apparently done the same thing, so the male-to-female proportions were good. What happened was that fifty people from Enterprise High showed up at Obie's at seven o'clock on a Sunday night and promptly got their party on.
The staff at Obie's were more worried about turning a profit than underage drinking and with almost incident eagerness served everybody nice, frosty beers. Kirk nursed a longneck and looked around for Spock.
"He's not here yet," said Bones gruffly. He had just disentangled himself from two worshipful football fans and was almost done with his first Coors.
"Who?" said Kirk, falsely confused. "What?"
"Spock's not here yet," said Bones patiently. "You're lookin' for him, right?"
"Um," said Kirk, surprisingly nonplussed. "Yes. Yes I am."
"Yeah, how is that?"
"Well," said Kirk, "I almost died on Friday, I got arrested on Saturday, and today I slept until two PM. So my relationship with Spock is going pretty well, I'd say."
"Was that just Friday?" Bones whistled. "You are a lucky man."
"Yes," said Kirk. "Yes I am." He leaned up against a table and stuffed a fistful of fries into his mouth. "Or maybe really unlucky. Which is it? I can't figure out if my life has been shit, or awesome."
"The highs and the lows can be confusin'," said Bones. "I personally feel that you've led an awesome life. At least you're not an Antarean Scum-scraper. Or an Orion slave."
"Don't be my mom," said Kirk. "You know, the 'Eat your food! There are kids on Orion without replicators!' shtick."
"My dads said that to me all the damn time," said Bones. "When I brought Gaila over for the first time I made her tell 'em that replicators are standard on Orion, thank you very much."
They sipped their beers.
"You know what's weird?" said Bones. "I get this feelin' about you, Jim. I mean, Friday, when the hovercar exploded and everybody was freakin' out… I don't think anybody thought you'd died. Christine kept sayin' things about you bein' maimed and Hikaru was convinced you'd get burned bad enough to scar. But nobody thought you were dead. And it wasn't just them denyin' it to themselves. I really think that it didn't cross their mind."
Kirk looked at him. He was strangely unsure of what Bones was getting at. "What do you mean?" he said.
"You're—ah," Bones harrumphed. "You're immortal to us, I guess. And it's been just seven months since you moved here from a whole n'other place, and you're already, I don't know, a big granite statue. Winds'll wear you down, but you're not like Ozymandias. I mean, everybody is; the processes of the Earth—but that's not the point. As you are…" Bones shrugged. "I don't know, Jim. You just won't quit."
Kirk could think back to a time in his life when he wouldn't have known what to say to that. He smiled at Bones and touched his arm. "Thanks," he said, and, "Want another beer?"
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I-Chaya did not enjoy being walked in the Embassy's formal garden. Vulcan in origin though he was, I-Chaya did not adhere to Vulcan standards of decency and decorum. He liked romping massively and eating expensive ornamental flowers. Very expensive ornamental flowers.
"Not," said Spock, dire, "the dadenias—" Too late. A thin, tinkling bunch of pale yellow flowers disappeared into I-Chaya's cavernous gullet. The only course of action was to get them away from the flower bed before some high official came out and made disappointed eyebrows at Spock and his reckless dog. Most sehlat were well-trained and tame companions. Sure, they started out as wild, ravaging teddy bears with massive fangs and a not inconsiderable taste for blood and flesh, but Vulcans, thorough as they were, domesticated most of the insanity out of their sehlat pets. But since Amanda had been mainly in charge of raising I-Chaya, she had treated the sehlat more like a mutant Golden Retriever than an apex predator, and okay, I-Chaya wasn't going to rip anybody's arms off, but he certainly wasn't beyond mutilating flora.
Spock dragged the sehlat inside and gave him a stern talking-to that was undoubtedly ignored. Then he got dressed while still talking to I-Chaya, who sat on Spock's bed and panted fangily at him. "This shirt?" he said, holding up a patterned black blouse. "Or this one?" The second selection was red with gray stripes. I-Chaya rolled over onto a pillow. "Yes, I do agree," said Spock musingly, putting the red shirt back. "Black tends to look better on me. But what about trousers? Gray, black, navy, plum—"
I-Chaya whined a little.
"Plum? Do you think?" Spock extracted a pair of deep purple pants from his closet. "They do go with the pattern. Or, they add something rather sophisticated, I think. Yes, it's a good match." He laid the outfit on the bed next to I-Chaya, who pawed at Spock's arm. "Oh, you are a good boy," said Spock, unconsciously mimicking his mother. "Yes you are. Yes you are. You are so good." I-Chaya whined happily.
A few minutes later, Spock was worrying about shoes. "These or these?" he said, holding up two pairs of virtually identical loafers to I-Chaya, who raised his brows and tilted his head. "Yes, I know you think that they are indistinguishable, but this pair is older and more comfortable, but as you can tell by the rubbing on the toe, here," he put the shoe in front of I-Chaya's muzzle, "they are considerably more worn. However, this pair, which is manufactured by the same company, is a newer brand, an upgrade from the older pair. They are considerably less comfortable but—snazzier, if you will." I-Chaya sneezed. "I suppose you won't. Yes, I'll wear the older ones. This is only dinner, not a date."
He dressed, also spending some time on the underwear selection. "Although it is not like this choice matters," said Spock. "It did matter." He thought back to his relationship with Uhura. "You liked Nyota, did you not?" I-Chaya wrinkled his nose. "Do not be rude. She is an excellent human and friend. I do enjoy her wisdom. Men should possess the sort of senses women have. It continues to be socialized out of us, I suspect." Spock finished the last button on his shirt and turned away from I-Chaya to fetch a pair of socks. Sarek was standing at the doorway of Spock's room, apparently listening.
Spock jumped. Sarek's face went through a very small, if expressive, range of emotions. "Forgive me," said Sarek, his voice unusually textured. "I should not have intruded."
"No, I—" Spock tried to say, but Sarek shook his head.
"It is unforgivable to interrupt the sphere of privacy," said Sarek. "I simply recognized Amanda in your tone, son."
"I am sorry," said Spock, automatically.
Sarek shook his head again. "I am." Then he shook himself. "Now, in what event are you participating tonight, Spock?"
"A dinner, in the city, with friends from school," said Spock, continuing to his dresser. "I fear that it will be a popular event. Jim implied that I could call whomever I wanted to come as well."
"Jim," said Sarek, testing the name, and Spock felt a blush beginning in his cheeks. "Yes, private evenings are more generally desired."
"Even so, an opportunity to socialize is never to be wasted. Especially among human societies," said Spock. "There are so many unspoken rules to be learned and followed. It is somewhat amusing to experiment with them."
"I cannot entirely agree," said Sarek. "I find the variety of Terran social customs illogical and even somewhat intimidating, since, as you say, so many are informal law. In some cases, that which is unspoken runs stronger and deeper than that which is."
"In most cases, I would posit," said Spock, extracting the appropriate socks. "I think that it is quite frustrating to be human."
"Undoubtedly," said Sarek. "To be Vulcan is to be sure of oneself. To be human is to be always questioning."
Spock privately thought that to be Vulcan was to be deep in denial, and to be human was to be emotionally honest, but he wasn't sure that telling Sarek this would help either of them.
"I shall depart," said Spock, standing up from putting on his shoes. "I will return at a reasonable hour."
"I shall see you then," said Sarek, ushering Spock out of his room and closing his door behind him.
Spock went down and got his Volvo out of the lot. The wheel was very cold to his hands. He wished he had brought gloves. He wondered a little about seeing Kirk again; about whether or not that would be strange, about how much it would bother him that Kirk knew so much about him or if Kirk would be bothered that he, Spock, knew so much in turn. He moved his palms slowly over the wheel, trying to warm all of it up, and realized belatedly that he was better off keeping his hands on one part. When he turned, he would touch new parts, sections of the wheel not warmed by his hands, but that would be only when he turned; it would not last long, and then he would be back in a solid warmth.
x
Chapel said to Scotty, "How's the new hover car going, then?"
"Ah've yet t' recover from th' destruction of th' old one," said Scotty sadly, reaching for a pickle. Chapel had, by some miracle, caught him between sandwiches. "We should take a week off t' mourn her passin'."
"I agree," said Chapel seriously. "For one, that was just a tragic ending." She paused speculatively. "Exciting, though."
"Aye, ah did enjoy that part of it," Scotty agreed.
"And for another, it's going to be an absolute bitch building this new one, isn't it?" she said.
"Aye," said Scotty. "Aye. Th' plans are quite detailed an' ah hope that we can get th' lady finished in th' three months we've got."
Chapel sighed. "This doesn't sound like fun."
"Ach, t'will be," said Scotty, clapping her heartily on the back with the pickle. "Th' sweet taste of victory t'will be worth it. Also, th' massive scholarship."
"Oh yeah," said Chapel. "That too, definitely."
Elsewhere in the crowd, Uhura was watching Chekov and Sulu moodily. She had eaten at home—her father cooked nearly every night—and had just arrived. She had already downed half of a beer and was feeling very under the weather for some reason.
"What's up?" said Gaila, coming over and throwing her arm around Uhura's shoulders.
"I don't know," said Uhura morosely. "I'm just worried about everything, I think." Sulu kissed Chekov on the cheek and Uhura kind of felt like killing something.
"Tell me," said Gaila seriously.
"Conflict," said Uhura. "Tension. Everybody's got it. I don't know if Jim and Spock ever made up. I mean, you should have seen the issues they had. And Jim and Leo, and the Rihanh thing has just been on my mind for ages—I mean, people trying to kill us? And I'm still worked up from Friday—you know, from not knowing whether or not Jim was alive after that explosion."
"I understand," said Gaila. Uhura watched as she chewed on her lip a little. "I think—and this is a really hard thing to do, but it's served me well—but I think you just have to be how you are instead of worrying. Some people are natural worriers, and maybe you're one of them. But even if you are, I mean, and I hate to say it, but I do see that as a flaw, or as something you should work on. You just can't let other people affect you. You're the only one whose mind you really know, and so you're the thing that has to be important. Part of that is not interfering with others. Now—" She cut off Uhura, who had begun to protest. "I know you give advice to people pretty often. And I know you said some things to Spock last night about his relationship with Kirk. But that, to me, is different. If people are sure of themselves, they don't deserve to be censored. But neither of them was particularly sure. For one, they're guys. For another, they were hurting each other. There was a lot unsaid there that needed to be said." She sighed. "It's so complicated. Because I also totally see the merit of leaving things unsaid. Like, if two people really don't like each other, or if discussing something would legitimately hurt the other person—for the sake of the Thousand Gods, leave it alone. But if help can most likely be given—and you can't always predict the outcome, but that's what educated guesses are for—then by all means, give it." She was quiet for a second, and then she said, "It's best to live by that old Hippocratic rule: 'First, do no harm.'"
Uhura hadn't really expected a lecture, but it wasn't entirely unwelcome. She thought Gaila was probably right: she did worry too much. And she worried about things that definitely shouldn't have any actual impact on her life, like what other people thought about her, or what other people thought about other people, or what terrible things other people did to each other, physically or emotionally. And it was stupid.
"Okay," she said. "Gaila, seriously. That was useful." She paused. "If a little off-topic, at parts."
"I know," sighed Gaila. "I have things going on too, you know. But beyond that, I'm basically a font of wisdom and quality fashion advice. And quality sex advice! Ooh, don't forget that. Have you had very much sex lately?"
"Not a lot, actually," said Uhura. "I don't know. I'm just not feeling it."
"Acceptable," said Gaila. "Let me know if you need to feel it, though. I've been really straight recently and it's starting to bother me."
"Definitely," said Uhura. Gaila grinned and wandered off. Chekov and Sulu were still flirting with each other, but it didn't nauseate Uhura anymore. She walked over to them.
"This was a good idea," said Sulu to her, smiling. "Seriously, thank you."
"You are very welcome," said Uhura. "Done anything exciting this weekend?"
"Not a bit," said Sulu. "We watched some movies, played some games." Chekov kissed him on the cheek. "You know."
"Yes, I do," said Uhura, grinning. Over Chekov's shoulder, she saw Spock walk in to the patio area. He was dressed nicely, as usual, and looked a little greenish.
"Spock just got here," she said quietly to Sulu and Chekov, who both glanced back automatically. "Don't—act like you're looking at him!" she hissed. They both turned back around, wide-eyed. "He and Kirk—"
"Yes?" said Chekov. "Are they finally togezer?"
"Nothing that major, I think," said Uhura. "But Things Were Said, you know."
"That is important."
Uhura went to see Spock, who was hovering by the entrance, looking just a little scared. "Hey," she said.
"Nyota," he said, nearly smiling. "How are you?"
"I'm great," she said. "How are you?"
"Never better," said Spock. But his brow creased. "I am worried," he confessed.
"About what?" said Uhura.
"Seeing Jim again," said Spock.
Uhura still wasn't used to Spock calling Kirk Jim instead of James. It made her smile. "Don't worry," she said. "There are things that are meant to be, conversations you're supposed to have. It's hard to live in life without going through some tough shit, and everyone knows it. You'll be fine, I promise."
"Thank you," said Spock. "I will go find him."
x
Chapel was talking to Gaila when Bones came over, and inexplicably, Gaila smiled massively at them both and excused herself. "What was that about?" said Bones, sitting down next to Chapel.
Chapel blinked. "I'm really not sure," she said, watching Gaila sashay over to Scotty, who was doing terrible things to a French dip. "How's your weekend?"
"Awful," said Bones, dire. "I've been studyin' for those tests this whole time. I think the medical studies test is goin' to kill me."
"I'm with you," said Chapel. "Want to go study somewhere quiet?"
"Not really," said Bones, "but I guess we should. How about my place? My dads're both at work and I'm pretty sure our livin' room is bigger than yours."
"Probably true," said Chapel. They made arrangements.
The parking lot was small and right next to the patio area; Chapel could see her car from her table. For some reason, it took her and Bones a long time to walk to her car. She was very aware of his presence beside him. She glanced at him, her mind filling in the details her eyes couldn't capture: his dark brown hair was combed more precisely than usual, but there was a bunch of it sticking almost straight up in the back. His knuckles were big, as were the rest of his hands; it was hard to remember that when they had dissected a cat last year, his hands had been precise, already a surgeon's, whispering the scalpel around the thoracic cavity, separating muscle cleanly from the chest wall. But the pads of his fingers were soft, and his palm was warm, smooth.
She was holding his hand.
"Oh," she said, staring. When had that happened?
He just smiled.
A year later, when they reached her parking spot, she disentangled her fingers from his, making sure to brush the tip her pointer over his cuticles, his nails, which were flat and polished with clear coat. He smiled at her more, and she had a hard time finding her keys in her pocket.
They studied for a long time. They really did study, too. They explained things to each other and did exercises and when they got bored, they watched videos and raided the fridge. When she left, she kissed him on the cheek, and they wished each other luck.
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Kirk went inside and stood away from the crowd for a while. He liked people. He always knew what to do with them. He enjoyed talking to them and learning about them; liked the idea that they had so many secrets. He thought it was amazing that he could speak to someone, a random stranger, and learn a little of who they were. He also was intrigued by the secrets they kept. If he could stand there and be who he was without them knowing, what did that mean? Who was he to different people?
What he liked the best about people, he thought, was helping them. He had never realized this before. But most enjoyed himself when he and the hoverclub were working on the Enterprise. He would hand somebody a spanner or a memory chip, or install a gas line, and it felt so useful. He loved standing before them not because their attention was on them, but because he was organizing them—organizing their effort, focusing it, moving it along to a better place. He felt like a crystal that refracted light.
And then he saw Spock outside, in the crowd, saying a few words to each person he passed. Kirk watched the people greeting Spock: they all looked pleased to see him. He wondered if Spock knew he was so liked. He thought that Spock probably did not understand the impact he had on people. Spock looked away first, every time, even when he greeted Chekov, or Gaila, or Scotty.
He was not worried to see Spock again. No, the worry was pushed away by the desire to just stand next to Spock. He wanted to be in Spock's presence, in the beam of his eyes. He wanted to know Spock, know every inch of him and every synapse, every thought, every blink and twitch and breath.
Spock looked up and they saw each other through the glass. Kirk smiled easily, and Spock's face softened. Kirk went to the door and came back outside. The wind ruffled his hair. Kirk zipped up his jacket and looked around. The crowd thinned and Spock appeared again. Kirk imagined that there was a bubble of silence around them. The noise of speech went away, falling and disappearing like water from a great height.
"Hi," said Kirk.
"Hello," said Spock.
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Expect another chapter within the week, if not sooner, and another story (possibly two). As always, reviews are appreciated.