Nyota's Pride | STXI | PG-13
Title: Nyota’s Pride
Series: STXI
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~900
Pairing: Uhura/Scotty (main), Uhura/Spock, Uhura/OC
Summary: Uhura has an emotional history with her hair.
Disclaimer: I'm a regular non-profit organisation here.
A/N: An st_xi_kink_meme request: ‘I want a fic where the girl gets her hair cut and the guy likes it (whether because it's not his damn business what she does with her hair or because she looks good however, or whatever I don't care)’.
One inch gone.
Beneath the baking Kenyan sun, Kiano Hiuhu yanks on Nyota Uhura’s long, tangled pigtails and calls her an ugly ostrich.
She bursts into tears of outrage and shoves her classmate to the ground. She’s all awkward angles of elbows and knees, but her heart is tender and easily enflamed.
After Nyota is pulled off the boy and admonished for lashing out rather than discussing her complaint, she is dismissed early.
No one is home. Nyota shears her hair off to the root and her grandmother cries when she finds the thick, inky strands littered across the kitchen floor.
Apparently Nyota’s hair is meant to be her pride. The essence of her beauty. Apparently.
She can’t stand to see her grandmother cry, and so promises to never cut off her hair again.
Three inches gone.
“Your hair is so inspiring I could write poetry about it. Don’t ever change,” Aron Banks whispers into the ridged arc of her spine, and Nyota turns her face into the pillow so she doesn’t roll her eyes.
She’s proud of her hair; it’s undoubtedly beautiful. Nyota is not without vanity. When she looks good, she feels good about herself.
But when her boyfriends are more attracted to her hair than her, that - that doesn’t feel good at all.
Aron’s departure follows with Nyota’s hurried excuses of an early morning lecture that she simply can’t be tired for, because she’s a freshman and doesn’t want to look like a fool.
Ten minutes later and Nyota shaves her head to the sensitive scalp. Chunks of hair fall like casualties of war, and Nyota feels like a fucking queen.
Her grandmother was wrong. Her hair couldn’t be her pride. Nyota had to be her pride.
Ten days later Aron Banks breaks up with her and Nyota hardly notices, because it's like he’s broken up with a person she isnt’t anymore.
Five inches gone.
Lieutenant Commander Spock is the only man who never comments on Nyota’s hair - and so she grows it and grows it in hopes that he will notice. Notice her, because even her intelligence isn’t catching that discerning eye.
She acknowledges she shouldn’t be depending on her looks, but she’s only human. Her heart is still soft, even if her mind is sharp. When she’s unsure of herself - and, despite what people might think of her, she often is - Nyota leans on the crutches of her past.
Turns out Spock doesn’t care about the hair at all - likely doesn’t care about Nyota’s appearance in the slightest. What he cares about is being cared about - like, needing a makeshift mother now that his has passed on.
And as much as she wants to be what Spock needs, Nyota can’t be that. She knows herself and she knows that her patience won’t last in trying to play house.
She loves him, but not enough.
Nyota forgets to cut or trim her hair for a year; she’s busy mourning her fallen friends, peers and professors.
Nine inches gone.
Scotty loves Nyota’s hair.
So does everyone and their uncle. Old news.
Even so, there is a pleasure that follows Nyota at the end of every shift. That moment when she lets her hair down and lays her cheek on Scotty’s thigh; allows his fingertips to drag lightly across her scalp, press firmly at her temples and skim through the strands with apparent reverence as Scotty rambles on about his day like they’ve been doing this for years.
With Scotty, Nyota feels at home in her skin, her hair, her body, her mind.
She grows the hair longer to accommodate his tastes, because - hell if she knows why - Nyota genuinely wants to make him happy.
Eleven inches gone.
“I love you,” Scotty admits into the crook of Nyota’s neck, among the thick curtain of her hair.
Nyota hacks off the length on the next day. Right down to a spiky pixie cut that she bleaches fucking white and makes her feel terrified invincible and vulnerable fortified.
She knows what to expect when she sees Scotty next. Shock and speechlessness masked with a good-natured smile as he mentally retreats with the realisation that this girl is not perfect or entirely beautiful or even all that stable.
Well, Nyota ends up correct in one aspect. Scotty is speechless - just not in the way she expects.
The man nearly swallows his tongue at the first sight of her. He literally drops a wrench on his foot and knocks his head against a Jefferies tube in his haste to rush to her side and cup her face in his hands as he laughs and says, “You’re bloody mental, hen - know that?”
Nyota searches his earnest eyes, lit up like Christmas, and remembers how she held Spock’s face like this. And realises she likes it the other way around so much more. “I’ve always known that. Have you?”
“Aye,” Scotty says with a quiet smile. He cards his fingers through Nyota’s hair and sends it into wild disarray. “Why the hell d’you think I love you so much?”
Inches and years and inches later...
Nyota gets married with magenta hair and so does Scotty because he is particularly drunk on that night and wants to join in on dyeing shenanigans.
Scotty gazes at her like she’s fucking perfect, and Nyota realises she’s damn proud of herself for putting that look on his face.
Series: STXI
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~900
Pairing: Uhura/Scotty (main), Uhura/Spock, Uhura/OC
Summary: Uhura has an emotional history with her hair.
Disclaimer: I'm a regular non-profit organisation here.
A/N: An st_xi_kink_meme request: ‘I want a fic where the girl gets her hair cut and the guy likes it (whether because it's not his damn business what she does with her hair or because she looks good however, or whatever I don't care)’.
One inch gone.
Beneath the baking Kenyan sun, Kiano Hiuhu yanks on Nyota Uhura’s long, tangled pigtails and calls her an ugly ostrich.
She bursts into tears of outrage and shoves her classmate to the ground. She’s all awkward angles of elbows and knees, but her heart is tender and easily enflamed.
After Nyota is pulled off the boy and admonished for lashing out rather than discussing her complaint, she is dismissed early.
No one is home. Nyota shears her hair off to the root and her grandmother cries when she finds the thick, inky strands littered across the kitchen floor.
Apparently Nyota’s hair is meant to be her pride. The essence of her beauty. Apparently.
She can’t stand to see her grandmother cry, and so promises to never cut off her hair again.
Three inches gone.
“Your hair is so inspiring I could write poetry about it. Don’t ever change,” Aron Banks whispers into the ridged arc of her spine, and Nyota turns her face into the pillow so she doesn’t roll her eyes.
She’s proud of her hair; it’s undoubtedly beautiful. Nyota is not without vanity. When she looks good, she feels good about herself.
But when her boyfriends are more attracted to her hair than her, that - that doesn’t feel good at all.
Aron’s departure follows with Nyota’s hurried excuses of an early morning lecture that she simply can’t be tired for, because she’s a freshman and doesn’t want to look like a fool.
Ten minutes later and Nyota shaves her head to the sensitive scalp. Chunks of hair fall like casualties of war, and Nyota feels like a fucking queen.
Her grandmother was wrong. Her hair couldn’t be her pride. Nyota had to be her pride.
Ten days later Aron Banks breaks up with her and Nyota hardly notices, because it's like he’s broken up with a person she isnt’t anymore.
Five inches gone.
Lieutenant Commander Spock is the only man who never comments on Nyota’s hair - and so she grows it and grows it in hopes that he will notice. Notice her, because even her intelligence isn’t catching that discerning eye.
She acknowledges she shouldn’t be depending on her looks, but she’s only human. Her heart is still soft, even if her mind is sharp. When she’s unsure of herself - and, despite what people might think of her, she often is - Nyota leans on the crutches of her past.
Turns out Spock doesn’t care about the hair at all - likely doesn’t care about Nyota’s appearance in the slightest. What he cares about is being cared about - like, needing a makeshift mother now that his has passed on.
And as much as she wants to be what Spock needs, Nyota can’t be that. She knows herself and she knows that her patience won’t last in trying to play house.
She loves him, but not enough.
Nyota forgets to cut or trim her hair for a year; she’s busy mourning her fallen friends, peers and professors.
Nine inches gone.
Scotty loves Nyota’s hair.
So does everyone and their uncle. Old news.
Even so, there is a pleasure that follows Nyota at the end of every shift. That moment when she lets her hair down and lays her cheek on Scotty’s thigh; allows his fingertips to drag lightly across her scalp, press firmly at her temples and skim through the strands with apparent reverence as Scotty rambles on about his day like they’ve been doing this for years.
With Scotty, Nyota feels at home in her skin, her hair, her body, her mind.
She grows the hair longer to accommodate his tastes, because - hell if she knows why - Nyota genuinely wants to make him happy.
Eleven inches gone.
“I love you,” Scotty admits into the crook of Nyota’s neck, among the thick curtain of her hair.
Nyota hacks off the length on the next day. Right down to a spiky pixie cut that she bleaches fucking white and makes her feel terrified invincible and vulnerable fortified.
She knows what to expect when she sees Scotty next. Shock and speechlessness masked with a good-natured smile as he mentally retreats with the realisation that this girl is not perfect or entirely beautiful or even all that stable.
Well, Nyota ends up correct in one aspect. Scotty is speechless - just not in the way she expects.
The man nearly swallows his tongue at the first sight of her. He literally drops a wrench on his foot and knocks his head against a Jefferies tube in his haste to rush to her side and cup her face in his hands as he laughs and says, “You’re bloody mental, hen - know that?”
Nyota searches his earnest eyes, lit up like Christmas, and remembers how she held Spock’s face like this. And realises she likes it the other way around so much more. “I’ve always known that. Have you?”
“Aye,” Scotty says with a quiet smile. He cards his fingers through Nyota’s hair and sends it into wild disarray. “Why the hell d’you think I love you so much?”
Inches and years and inches later...
Nyota gets married with magenta hair and so does Scotty because he is particularly drunk on that night and wants to join in on dyeing shenanigans.
Scotty gazes at her like she’s fucking perfect, and Nyota realises she’s damn proud of herself for putting that look on his face.