you have all done this to yourselves, remember that
This thing may have grown/hemorrhaged a plot. Be afraid. 
leupagus, you are hereby It and you have until the beginning of January before I start whining. :D
Title: If You Can't Dance to This, It Doesn't Matter (2/?)
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: Still PG, god help me if I put sex in this
Warnings: High school AU with no idea where it's going ;)
Notes: So I guess there's more where that came from. Now that I'm continuing this, I have to do things like establish an actual setting, and introduce more characters, and give people backstories. You see what you've done? This is all your fault. If you're frightened now, we can still pretend that first part was a one-shot. It's not too late, you know.
Summary: Jim gets to know the new kid at school. He's a little strange, but so is Jim, so it works out.
In this part: Barriers of friendship are torn down, Bones is a jerk, there is way more awkwardness than anyone can handle, and allusions are made as to why Spock acts like he does.
Jim regrets not putting on a shirt to answer the door, when he opens it to find Spock standing on the other side.
“Uh,” he says intelligently, feeling suddenly naked. He tries to suavely say hello, but it comes out as, “What are you doing here?”
Spock won't even make eye contact; apparently something very interesting is going on above Jim's left shoulder. “You were not at lunch today. I was... concerned.”
“Oh,” Jim says. “I got suspended.”
Shock is obviously what it takes for eye contact. “Suspended?” says Spock. “Why?”
Jim shrugs. “Barnett's got it in for me again. Accused me of cheating on my organic chem test last week because I had all the same answers as the smart kid in the class. I told him that was because they were the right answers, and,” he twiddles his fingers in the air, like magic, “inquiry, probation, two-day mandatory vacation.” He steps back from the door, trying not to hide behind it. “Come in.”
He turns his back on Spock to run upstairs for a shirt, and wonders as he does whether he'll come back to find the guy still standing on the porch.
Two sniff-tests and a semi-clean t-shirt later, Jim thumps downstairs again to find that Spock has actually moved all the way into the front hallway, where he's defaulted to standing around awkwardly.
“Something to drink?” Jim asks, leading the way to the kitchen and feeling pleased when Spock actually follows.
Spock accepts a bottled water and seats himself at the kitchen table. The wind flings dead leaves at the window behind him. Jim can see in the distance that his neighbour is out on the tractor, pulling in hay bales.
“How'd you find your way out here, anyway?” Jim asks, dropping into a chair and breaking the seal on his water.
Spock fidgets with the cap from his. “When you did not appear for lunch, I found Leonard McCoy to ask where you were. He said he did not know but essentially communicated that I should come find you myself, and gave me directions to your home. I borrowed my mother's car when I arrived home from school.”
“You have your license?” Jim blurts in surprise.
Spock gives him an odd look. “I am of age to possess one, Jim. I obtained it during the summer, after moving to Iowa and before beginning the school year. I might have taken the exam earlier but learning to drive in Japan is an expensive and time-consuming endeavour, and Tokyo has a more than sufficient public transit system.”
That's a lot of new information to process at once; Jim tries to pick out the most important details, and probably fails. “Tokyo?” he says.
Spock inclines his head. “I lived there for four years. Before that, Jordan, and my early childhood was spent in Germany. Have I never before mentioned this?”
Jim shakes his head slowly, fascinated. “What do your parents do, that you've moved around so much?”
“My father is a diplomat. My mother is trained as a teacher but has worked only occasionally during my lifetime. She chiefly remains at home, taking care of the house.”
Jim has known Spock for three months, has talked to him five days a week during that time, and still, he realizes, he doesn't know a damn thing about him.
“What's your favourite colour?” he asks impulsively.
Spock blinks. “Pardon?”
Jim feels his cheeks go hot. “Never mind,” he mumbles. “Ignore me.”
Spock raises an eyebrow. “Blue.”
Jim grins down at his water.
Spock looks around in the silence that follows. “Where are your parents?”
“Mom's out of town on business,” Jim says.
“Your father?”
“Don't have one,” he mutters into the mouth of his water bottle. “And no cheap substitutes anymore either, thank God.”
Jim can see the furrow in Spock's eyebrows, because of course he heard all of that, but he doesn't say anything so they both let it slide.
Jim's nearly peeled the entire label off of his bottle when Spock stands up. “I must go,” he says. “I have several assignments to complete.”
“Oh. Sure,” Jim says, hopping to his feet too and then standing awkwardly, scratching at his forearm. “How's the science fair thing going?”
“It is going well,” Spock says, and then he hesitates. “Will you be home tomorrow?”
“Nothing better to do,” Jim says with a shrug.
“I would appreciate your help with another aspect of the experiment, if you would not object to my returning tomorrow after school.” Spock is looking off over Jim's shoulder again.
“Sounds good. If we're blowing anything up, we can go out in the yard,” Jim says. His heart flutters a little at the thought.
He's rewarded with a lightning-quick smile, gone as fast as it arrived. “Very well. I will see you tomorrow, then,” Spock says.
Jim follows him to the door and waves as he gets into his car.
“I am a giant loser,” he says to himself, leaning against the doorframe as Spock leaves in a cloud of dust.
***
When Jim goes back to school on Thursday, he walks swiftly up behind Bones in the hallway and slaps him in the back of the head.
“Ow! What the fuck, you undersocialized monkey!” Bones cradles the back of his head with one hand, glaring up at Jim.
Jim glares right back. “You knew I got suspended on Monday,” he says. “Why didn't you just tell Spock that? He was worried! He came to see me at my house!”
Bones straightens up and rolls his eyes. “No shit, he did. That's why I told him how to get there.”
Jim sputters incoherently.
“So?” Bones prods. “How did that go? Not that I really want to know anything beyond the barest facts, mind you.”
“What?” Jim says. “What the fuck? What are you talking about? How did what go?” He has a feeling he knows what Bones is talking about but he's going to feign ignorance as long as possible, for his own sake.
“Jim! Did you finally get into his pants or didn't you?” Bones rubs at his face angrily. “Please tell me you got it out of your system. I'm getting sick of all the mooning and tension. It never takes you this long.”
“I...” Jim's frantic grab at ignorance has completely missed, and he's left standing shamefacedly in the middle of the Science hallway. His shoulders sag with the weight of defeat. “No,” he says, “I didn't 'get into his pants'. No seduction of any kind occurred.” He looks up at the ceiling, blinking under the glare of the lights. “We worked on his science fair thing yesterday afternoon.”
“Oh my god,” says Bones, “I don't believe you. Isn't your mom still out of town?”
“Yes.” Jim looks away.
“Do you not want to fuck this guy? Did I misread the situation?”
Jim takes a deep breath. “You didn't misread anything. I want to fuck him.”
He looks back at Bones, and they stare at each other in silence for a moment.
“Have I been magically transported into the nineteenth century?” Bones says finally. “What's with all the repression? Goddammit!”
Jim puts his face in his hands. “I don't know. It's weird. I really like him. He's just so innocent and, like, charming. I have no idea what to do when I'm around him.”
“You're a mess. That was your Christmas present, you know. I did everything but put a bow on him for you.”
What a friend. Jim takes another deep breath. “How's things with Uhura?” he asks.
“Unlike you, I got to second base last night.” Bones looks proud of himself.
“Unbelievable,” Jim says, and walks away.
***
It snows, and Spock's lunch spot moves indoors, to the library (which does allow food, provided that it's lunchtime and no one is manhandling the books or computers while eating). It's a foregone conclusion that Jim follows him, but this new locale just isn't the same kind of experience; there's no breeze wafting across Jim's face and ruffling Spock's hair, there's no sun warming their skin and making Spock look slightly golden in the light, and there's no rough tree trunk to lean against and find an excuse to sit right next to Spock so they can talk. In the library, they tend to sit across the table from each other.
Also, the chess club apparently considers the library to be their turf, and interlopers are not well-tolerated, so Jim and Spock find themselves roped into joining the club. Spock, honestly, probably doesn't need much coercion; he looks in his element here, focusing his attention on the board when he plays and chatting easily with Pavel and Hikaru and Scotty about chess, and physics, and other nerdy things. He talks to Hikaru a lot about school in Japan.
Jim misses having all of Spock's attention on him. To make up for it, he learns how to play chess and figures out how to beat the other three guys, nine times out of ten. He and Spock are much more evenly matched in ability, but the thrill of having that attention focused on their games and trying to overcome Jim's insane playing style is almost as good as all those sunny, relaxed, one-on-one lunches he doesn't get to have anymore.
He probably shouldn't complain too much, though, because Spock has also started coming over to his house most Sundays, to work on the science fair project. They spend afternoons messing with components out in the barn, flipping through physics and chemistry textbooks, abusing Google when the textbooks can't solve their problems, and arguing heatedly about thermodynamics and why most of Jim's prototype sketches may or may not be impossible to realize in any universe.
Jim's mom is home exactly one of these days, and when Jim nervously introduces her to Spock, she nods and smiles distractedly at them and says that dinner will be a frozen pizza, if that's okay. So Jim and Spock look at each other, and then Spock stays for dinner, picking the pepperoni off of his slices and giving it all to Jim as they eat in front of a MASH rerun on the TV.
“The project is nearly finished,” Spock says, during a commercial break.
“Yeah.” Jim feels a little nervous at the thought of where this conversation could be going, and stares fixedly at the Mazda ad on the screen as he takes another big bite of his pizza.
“We are, in fact, on target for successful completion before the science fair.”
“Good deal.” Jim still can't look at Spock. Are they breaking up? They aren't even together. Fuck.
“You are available on the weekend of the event, correct?”
Jim almost misses the implication of that question. “What?” He whips his head around to face Spock, kind of embarrassingly fast.
Spock just looks at him placidly. “My mother has said that she will drive us to Des Moines.”
“Us?” Jim's brain is still catching up.
Spock turns to face the TV. “Of course I wish for you to attend. You have made an enormous contribution to this project and I doubt I could have completed it without your help. I cannot fathom your not receiving all due credit for your work.”
“Oh,” says Jim. “Okay. I'll go. I look forward to it.”
Spock glances back at him and the corner of his mouth curls up, just a little. “As do I.” He reaches over and drops another piece of pepperoni onto Jim's pizza.
TBC, oh god
This entry was originally posted at http://waketosleep.dreamwidth.org/20436.html. (
comments)
leupagus, you are hereby It and you have until the beginning of January before I start whining. :D
Title: If You Can't Dance to This, It Doesn't Matter (2/?)
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: Still PG, god help me if I put sex in this
Warnings: High school AU with no idea where it's going ;)
Notes: So I guess there's more where that came from. Now that I'm continuing this, I have to do things like establish an actual setting, and introduce more characters, and give people backstories. You see what you've done? This is all your fault. If you're frightened now, we can still pretend that first part was a one-shot. It's not too late, you know.
Summary: Jim gets to know the new kid at school. He's a little strange, but so is Jim, so it works out.
In this part: Barriers of friendship are torn down, Bones is a jerk, there is way more awkwardness than anyone can handle, and allusions are made as to why Spock acts like he does.
Jim regrets not putting on a shirt to answer the door, when he opens it to find Spock standing on the other side.
“Uh,” he says intelligently, feeling suddenly naked. He tries to suavely say hello, but it comes out as, “What are you doing here?”
Spock won't even make eye contact; apparently something very interesting is going on above Jim's left shoulder. “You were not at lunch today. I was... concerned.”
“Oh,” Jim says. “I got suspended.”
Shock is obviously what it takes for eye contact. “Suspended?” says Spock. “Why?”
Jim shrugs. “Barnett's got it in for me again. Accused me of cheating on my organic chem test last week because I had all the same answers as the smart kid in the class. I told him that was because they were the right answers, and,” he twiddles his fingers in the air, like magic, “inquiry, probation, two-day mandatory vacation.” He steps back from the door, trying not to hide behind it. “Come in.”
He turns his back on Spock to run upstairs for a shirt, and wonders as he does whether he'll come back to find the guy still standing on the porch.
Two sniff-tests and a semi-clean t-shirt later, Jim thumps downstairs again to find that Spock has actually moved all the way into the front hallway, where he's defaulted to standing around awkwardly.
“Something to drink?” Jim asks, leading the way to the kitchen and feeling pleased when Spock actually follows.
Spock accepts a bottled water and seats himself at the kitchen table. The wind flings dead leaves at the window behind him. Jim can see in the distance that his neighbour is out on the tractor, pulling in hay bales.
“How'd you find your way out here, anyway?” Jim asks, dropping into a chair and breaking the seal on his water.
Spock fidgets with the cap from his. “When you did not appear for lunch, I found Leonard McCoy to ask where you were. He said he did not know but essentially communicated that I should come find you myself, and gave me directions to your home. I borrowed my mother's car when I arrived home from school.”
“You have your license?” Jim blurts in surprise.
Spock gives him an odd look. “I am of age to possess one, Jim. I obtained it during the summer, after moving to Iowa and before beginning the school year. I might have taken the exam earlier but learning to drive in Japan is an expensive and time-consuming endeavour, and Tokyo has a more than sufficient public transit system.”
That's a lot of new information to process at once; Jim tries to pick out the most important details, and probably fails. “Tokyo?” he says.
Spock inclines his head. “I lived there for four years. Before that, Jordan, and my early childhood was spent in Germany. Have I never before mentioned this?”
Jim shakes his head slowly, fascinated. “What do your parents do, that you've moved around so much?”
“My father is a diplomat. My mother is trained as a teacher but has worked only occasionally during my lifetime. She chiefly remains at home, taking care of the house.”
Jim has known Spock for three months, has talked to him five days a week during that time, and still, he realizes, he doesn't know a damn thing about him.
“What's your favourite colour?” he asks impulsively.
Spock blinks. “Pardon?”
Jim feels his cheeks go hot. “Never mind,” he mumbles. “Ignore me.”
Spock raises an eyebrow. “Blue.”
Jim grins down at his water.
Spock looks around in the silence that follows. “Where are your parents?”
“Mom's out of town on business,” Jim says.
“Your father?”
“Don't have one,” he mutters into the mouth of his water bottle. “And no cheap substitutes anymore either, thank God.”
Jim can see the furrow in Spock's eyebrows, because of course he heard all of that, but he doesn't say anything so they both let it slide.
Jim's nearly peeled the entire label off of his bottle when Spock stands up. “I must go,” he says. “I have several assignments to complete.”
“Oh. Sure,” Jim says, hopping to his feet too and then standing awkwardly, scratching at his forearm. “How's the science fair thing going?”
“It is going well,” Spock says, and then he hesitates. “Will you be home tomorrow?”
“Nothing better to do,” Jim says with a shrug.
“I would appreciate your help with another aspect of the experiment, if you would not object to my returning tomorrow after school.” Spock is looking off over Jim's shoulder again.
“Sounds good. If we're blowing anything up, we can go out in the yard,” Jim says. His heart flutters a little at the thought.
He's rewarded with a lightning-quick smile, gone as fast as it arrived. “Very well. I will see you tomorrow, then,” Spock says.
Jim follows him to the door and waves as he gets into his car.
“I am a giant loser,” he says to himself, leaning against the doorframe as Spock leaves in a cloud of dust.
***
When Jim goes back to school on Thursday, he walks swiftly up behind Bones in the hallway and slaps him in the back of the head.
“Ow! What the fuck, you undersocialized monkey!” Bones cradles the back of his head with one hand, glaring up at Jim.
Jim glares right back. “You knew I got suspended on Monday,” he says. “Why didn't you just tell Spock that? He was worried! He came to see me at my house!”
Bones straightens up and rolls his eyes. “No shit, he did. That's why I told him how to get there.”
Jim sputters incoherently.
“So?” Bones prods. “How did that go? Not that I really want to know anything beyond the barest facts, mind you.”
“What?” Jim says. “What the fuck? What are you talking about? How did what go?” He has a feeling he knows what Bones is talking about but he's going to feign ignorance as long as possible, for his own sake.
“Jim! Did you finally get into his pants or didn't you?” Bones rubs at his face angrily. “Please tell me you got it out of your system. I'm getting sick of all the mooning and tension. It never takes you this long.”
“I...” Jim's frantic grab at ignorance has completely missed, and he's left standing shamefacedly in the middle of the Science hallway. His shoulders sag with the weight of defeat. “No,” he says, “I didn't 'get into his pants'. No seduction of any kind occurred.” He looks up at the ceiling, blinking under the glare of the lights. “We worked on his science fair thing yesterday afternoon.”
“Oh my god,” says Bones, “I don't believe you. Isn't your mom still out of town?”
“Yes.” Jim looks away.
“Do you not want to fuck this guy? Did I misread the situation?”
Jim takes a deep breath. “You didn't misread anything. I want to fuck him.”
He looks back at Bones, and they stare at each other in silence for a moment.
“Have I been magically transported into the nineteenth century?” Bones says finally. “What's with all the repression? Goddammit!”
Jim puts his face in his hands. “I don't know. It's weird. I really like him. He's just so innocent and, like, charming. I have no idea what to do when I'm around him.”
“You're a mess. That was your Christmas present, you know. I did everything but put a bow on him for you.”
What a friend. Jim takes another deep breath. “How's things with Uhura?” he asks.
“Unlike you, I got to second base last night.” Bones looks proud of himself.
“Unbelievable,” Jim says, and walks away.
***
It snows, and Spock's lunch spot moves indoors, to the library (which does allow food, provided that it's lunchtime and no one is manhandling the books or computers while eating). It's a foregone conclusion that Jim follows him, but this new locale just isn't the same kind of experience; there's no breeze wafting across Jim's face and ruffling Spock's hair, there's no sun warming their skin and making Spock look slightly golden in the light, and there's no rough tree trunk to lean against and find an excuse to sit right next to Spock so they can talk. In the library, they tend to sit across the table from each other.
Also, the chess club apparently considers the library to be their turf, and interlopers are not well-tolerated, so Jim and Spock find themselves roped into joining the club. Spock, honestly, probably doesn't need much coercion; he looks in his element here, focusing his attention on the board when he plays and chatting easily with Pavel and Hikaru and Scotty about chess, and physics, and other nerdy things. He talks to Hikaru a lot about school in Japan.
Jim misses having all of Spock's attention on him. To make up for it, he learns how to play chess and figures out how to beat the other three guys, nine times out of ten. He and Spock are much more evenly matched in ability, but the thrill of having that attention focused on their games and trying to overcome Jim's insane playing style is almost as good as all those sunny, relaxed, one-on-one lunches he doesn't get to have anymore.
He probably shouldn't complain too much, though, because Spock has also started coming over to his house most Sundays, to work on the science fair project. They spend afternoons messing with components out in the barn, flipping through physics and chemistry textbooks, abusing Google when the textbooks can't solve their problems, and arguing heatedly about thermodynamics and why most of Jim's prototype sketches may or may not be impossible to realize in any universe.
Jim's mom is home exactly one of these days, and when Jim nervously introduces her to Spock, she nods and smiles distractedly at them and says that dinner will be a frozen pizza, if that's okay. So Jim and Spock look at each other, and then Spock stays for dinner, picking the pepperoni off of his slices and giving it all to Jim as they eat in front of a MASH rerun on the TV.
“The project is nearly finished,” Spock says, during a commercial break.
“Yeah.” Jim feels a little nervous at the thought of where this conversation could be going, and stares fixedly at the Mazda ad on the screen as he takes another big bite of his pizza.
“We are, in fact, on target for successful completion before the science fair.”
“Good deal.” Jim still can't look at Spock. Are they breaking up? They aren't even together. Fuck.
“You are available on the weekend of the event, correct?”
Jim almost misses the implication of that question. “What?” He whips his head around to face Spock, kind of embarrassingly fast.
Spock just looks at him placidly. “My mother has said that she will drive us to Des Moines.”
“Us?” Jim's brain is still catching up.
Spock turns to face the TV. “Of course I wish for you to attend. You have made an enormous contribution to this project and I doubt I could have completed it without your help. I cannot fathom your not receiving all due credit for your work.”
“Oh,” says Jim. “Okay. I'll go. I look forward to it.”
Spock glances back at him and the corner of his mouth curls up, just a little. “As do I.” He reaches over and drops another piece of pepperoni onto Jim's pizza.
TBC, oh god
This entry was originally posted at http://waketosleep.dreamwidth.org/20436.html. (
comments)