To Hear a Hand (4/?)
Title: To Hear a Hand
Rating: PG-13 for now, to be safe.
Warnings/Pairing: Eventual Kirk/Spock, light Spock/Uhura. Unbetaed.
Summary: James T. Kirk's birth is a medical impossibility. A horrible miracle. After all, genetic deafness was cured two centuries ago... Protective-friend!Bones. Based on a poem by Willard J. Madsen.
Notes: Apologies for the wait. Plot bunnies/writer's block are a bitch.
(Chapter 3)
Chapter 4: Transitions
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The pulse of loud music throbbed through the soles of his feet and the bar seat where Jim sat hunched in a corner. A crowd of bodies pressed around him, grinding or generally bumping. Jim felt a bit overwhelmed, but that was okay, it was normal. Here he was just another person, a pretty face in a sea of others where no one cared about differences, race, or species. Jim liked to lose himself like this once in a while.
He motioned to Gil, the bartender and owner, for another drink. Gil raised an eyebrow but complied in a jiffy, placing a bright yellow Cardassian Sunrise on the polished wood-imitation bar before him. Jim and Gil had an agreement: Jim refrained from getting into any brawls in his place, and Gil's club would continue being the only bar in the entire county that wouldn't boot him out on his ass the moment they recognized his face. He grinned and gulped at the froth spilling over the lip of the glass - who cared if it was a girly drink when the tang of the sugary-ice and alcohol felt so good on his tongue? The "manly" men with their beer and hard liquor could get bent.
The Sunrise was cooling, but not enough to stop sweat from forming on his brow. Jim nudged the glasses back up his nose from where they'd been slowly slipping. He'd had a headache before he even walked into the joint, and the mild irritation of contacts wasn't something he'd wanted to deal with tonight. He leaned forward on his elbows, basking in the flashing lights and watching projected words stream in front of him. If Jim saw their mouths moving, he could often match a person to the words. A couple of women at the corner of the bar were speaking in what appeared to be rapid, very dirty Esperanto, giggling over their drinks and sliding their hands up each other's shirts. There was a person beside him who appeared to be male, covered with long brown fur and wearing nothing but a utility belt slung over one shoulder. He spoke something Jim didn't recognize, and only translated as a phonetic "Ooooh" on his projector. Jim spared a mild glare at his wrist translator.
Looks like I'll have to update the damn thing again.
It wasn't as if he didn't have the time to buy and modify another language packet, it was just the matter of money. Currently, Jim was broke as a bum. The last of his credits had been spent on a fairly pricey 'just for fun' Klingon software download and the drink he held in his hand. Maybe he could pilfer another drunken cadet's translator; gods only knew there were enough of them in the room for easy pickings...the thought made him grimace.
Then she walked into the bar. Dear God, it was like a bad joke even in his head, but she was all long legs in tall boots and a high ponytail and dusky brown skin that slammed into Jim like the hardest case of deja vu he'd ever experienced. Jim blinked slowly as she sat down, dazed. Why was he getting all worked up over one woman? He hadn't felt as agitated by anyone in years. He spent another moment examining her face while she perused the drink menu. She...was so familiar it hurt, but Jim was 99.9 percent certain he'd never seen her before in his life. He had to find out her name - maybe it would ring a few bells.
Jim's gaze dropped to her chest. Well, it wouldn't hurt if he got a piece of that too.
---
Nyota knew something was …different about the man the moment she saw him. His thin-rimmed glasses were the first sign (because really, who wore glasses these days), but they weren't the jist of it. Then he opened his mouth and the wrongness turned into a desperate itch under her skin. Half of her training in Starfleet amounted to observing people (she'd passed Accent and Body Language Identification with flying colors), and the way he shaped words immediately stood out from those around him. Nyota felt her curiosity piqued despite herself, and it compelled her to answer his first question.
"My name is Uhura." She fought back a tiny smirk.
"They don't have last names on your planet?"
"Uhura is my last name." She took a small sip of her Budweiser Classic, watching the stranger do the same before sending her a crooked smile. Then he seemed to remember himself.
"Sorry, my name is Jim. So you're in Starfleet?" There it was. She watched the form of his lips, aware of the careful way he enunciated each word. Nonetheless, his repeated 's's revealed a slight lisp - a drag on the consonant which this "Jim" didn't seem to be aware of. In the following pause, Nyota pulled out of her observation to reply to the somewhat stupid question. She was wearing a cadet uniform, after all. Her swiftly-calculated opinion of the man dropped by a large margin.
"Yes. I'm studying xenolinguistics, not that you know what that means-"
"Study of alien languages. Morphology, phonology, and syntax," the blonde man replied with another crooked smile and more lisps.
…Perhaps her initial estimation of his intelligence was unfounded. She snorted, not caring how unladylike the sound made her. "Hmm, and here I thought you were just a dumb hick who only has sex with farm animals."
The heat of the room getting the better of her, Nyota took another long pull on the beer. Jim didn't seem to be as offended by her comment as she had expected. His grin broadened, looking more amused than anything.
"Well, not just farm animals. Truly though, I have to have something to do when I'm not out wreaking havoc. Languages just happen to be a hobby of mine."
Nyota didn't bother to hide her irritation and disbelief. Did this guy think he could get into her pants just by pretending they shared an interest? "NaDevvo' yIghoS," she said in blunt Klingon, knowing it would be futile if the man was pretending. Normally she wouldn't be so rude, but if she hated one thing, it was a fake.
Jim frowned in what appeared to be frustration, but his face held no confusion. He downed the last of his glass and slid off the barstool. "Didn't mean to bother you." His hands jerked and Nyota flinched in surprise, not expecting what he did next. 'Sorry. Just wanted to learn your name.' His hands fell and he turned away.
"Wait!" she called before she even registered opening her mouth. The blond man hadn't taken more than a step away, so when he turned Nyota was met with the full power of piercing blue eyes behind two thin panes of glass. 'You know Standard Sign Language?' she signed slowly, fully aware of her mistake in making assumptions about this man. Even now his sent her a wan smile that seemed more real than those before it, like she really had been staring at a pretender earlier and this smaller, golden man before her was the genuine article.
'I learned SSL before Standard,' he said, stepping closer. 'A very kind woman taught me when I was young.' With those signs Jim's eyebrows seemed to scrunch up in a sudden realization.
Nyota felt her own eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but before she could formulate the important question as to why, someone set a heavy hand on Jim's shoulder and spun him around. Of course, it was the chauvinistic Giotto and his little gang.
"This guy bothering you, Uhura?" the red-clad man said. She willed her face to calmness before it could morph into a scowl - the male cadets here with her were far too overloaded with testosterone for their own good.
"No, he's not. I can take care of myself, thanks."
Jim brushed Cadet Giotto's hand away with a smile. It was the same 'pretender' smile she recognized from earlier. "You heard her. She can take care of herself, so clear out, cupcake." Nyota watched Giotto scowl and turn red as Jim turned back to face her. And even as he raised a fist she knew exactly where the situation was going. Kinyeshi… This is going to get ugly.
The first punch shattered Jim's glasses.
---
Jim knew he should've stepped back. Hell, he knew that his words would lead to provoking a fight, but he couldn't help himself. Especially after "Cupcake" had shattered his glasses into tiny bits.
Gil was glaring at him from behind the bar, letting him know without words or hand gestures that he wouldn't be welcome back after tonight. Thankfully he'd given Jim a break, letting him recover at a small table with a drink in hand, tissue up his nose, and the crushed frames of his glasses lying forlornly on the table next to a pair of starship salt-and-pepper shakers. Jim stared down at the lenses, already trying to work out just where he'd get new projector chips and frames with no credits to his name. Usually he wore the contacts if he felt in the mood for a brawl…
He resolutely ignored the man who slid into the chair across from him. The Starfleet Captain had probably saved Jim from another near-death experience; as loathe as he was to admit it, he'd gotten in over his head. He ran a finger over the jagged edge of a lens before he finally looked up. The wizened man stared at him silently, which was good because Jim wouldn't have seen him talking anyway. He vaguely recognized the man's visage from some news cast, and with a small effort Jim placed a name with the face.
"I couldn't believe it when the bartender told me who you are," the old man said. It was hard to read his lips between the fuzz of the alcohol and the loss of his projectors, which Jim had come to rely on for communication with those who didn't know SSL. Nonetheless, he managed to catch the gist of what the man was saying. He threw a glance at Gil and the bartender scowled back. Jim leaned back with a sigh and put his glass down.
"Who am I, Captain Pike?" If Pike was surprised that Jim knew his name, he didn't show it.
"You're your father's son."
Jim bit back the sarcastic "No, really?" scrabbling at his throat and settled for watching the man speak.
"For my dissertation, I was assigned the U.S.S. Kelvin. Something I admired about your dad... he didn't believe in no-win scenarios."
"He sure learned his lesson," Jim snorted.
"Depends on how you define winning. You're here, aren't you?"
Jim's mind jumped to a day years ago, when he'd been just a little boy asking his who his father was. The price of his curiosity had been a loss of innocence, a loss of the belief that his life was his own; it had been paid for by his father. Adding George Kirk's death to that of Jake's - when both men were serving in the force - had probably been what set him against Starfleet in the first place. Jim squeezed his eyes shut, trying to evade the inevitable pain his memories caused. In doing so he missed Pike's next words, only gaining a headache and a questioning stare from said man.
"Why are you talking to me?" he finally dragged the words out, finishing the glass of alcohol on the table without really paying attention to what it was anymore. This guy was kind of irritating, talking to Jim about his Dad like he'd really known the man - like he really knew Jim. All the young man really wanted to do was go back to his cheap board room and crash.
Pike's face was lined earnestly. "I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor. Your aptitude tests are off the charts. You could be anything, anybody. Or do you like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest?"
With those words, Jim's sparking irritation blew up into outright anger. In another world, a different time, he might have let Pike's words roll off his back with nothing more than a snide comment to acknowledge its passing. As it was, the question touched something inside him he hadn't known existed until it bubbled up his throat like hot bile.
Jim glared stiffly, watching Pike flinch dramatically as his glass careened off the edge of the table and hit the ground with what was no doubt a deafening smash. Funny how lack of sound cut down on withdrawal reflexes. Jim neither jerked when the glass smashed nor cringed when he met the full force of Pike's half-startled, half-angry glare.
"You don't understand," the words pushed from his brain to his lips with little conscious thought. "You and the whole fucking Federation think you've got fairness and equality all down pat. You can be Andorian or Orion or fucking Vulcan-" here Jim paused, trying to get a grip on his slurs around a drunken mouth and blurry vision that couldn't quite register Pike's expressions. "You can be anything and get a job. But when you're human - black or white or omni or poor - they expect you to be a fucking perfect human."
Pike's mouth was moving, saying something, and Jim could feel the weight of Gil's dark glare prickling the back of his neck. He was going to have to pay for the glass, but Jim's mind was lightyears away from finances right now. Starfleet just didn't understand the little flaws in the system they'd built. Earth took pride in being an 'equal opportunity for all' planet, but the flaws of the human race were too deeply seated, too intricately entwined with their very genetics to ever be completely eradicated.
Jim had been thinking about this for a long time.
Still ignoring whatever Pike was trying to say, Jim pried his hands from their death-grip on the table's edge and asked the man, "Did you look at my medical file, Captain Pike?" He didn't wait for a reply, already seeing the negative answer in the widening of the man's eyes and the twitch in the tendons of his neck.
"I went to school to be a doctor once. They told me I couldn't communicate clearly enough with patients to diagnose them or even treat them. And what the hell good would I be as an engineer if I can't even hear the fucking warning alarms going off? 'Cause all it takes is once." Jim leaned back in his seat, meeting the stunned gaze of once of Starfleet's most commended officers. "When you're human, they expect you to be a fucking perfect human, Captain Pike, and sad little deaf boys don't count. So this-" he flung his arms out, nearly knocking his drunk ass out of his chair in the process, "this genius repeat offender thing? It's all I've got." Hands laced together behind his head, cradling his scalp as Jim stared through hooded eyes at Pike, who seemed totally incapacitated by shock. Jim merely felt weary to the bone. This night had gone on far too long.
He sighed, repeating a question still left unanswered. "Why are you talking to me, Pike?" They both sat silent for a moment, one in a haze of astonishment and racing thoughts, the other simply wishing to get the moment over with. He was tired of talking about his failing shadow of a life.
Suddenly the captain sat forward, eyes earnest and a hand coming to rest over the wrist Jim had let drop to the table. Jim stiffened but did not move, watching warily as the older man's eyes filled with a hard determination and his lips moved to speak.
"You're right," Pike's words nearly made Jim jerk out of the man's grasp. "The Federation has stagnated - we've gotten too complacent in our doctrine of equality and superiority over the prejudiced… Enlist in Starfleet, Kirk, and I'll help you shake up the universe."
Somehow, the fire that had taken hold of Pike's eyes made Jim pause in his knee-jerk reaction against all mentions of Starfleet. His genius head raced even through the alcohol, his mind screaming with the possibilities as his gaze engaged in a fierce, silent judgment with the Captain's. Jim swallowed and spoke a moment later.
He didn't refuse.
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NaDevvo' yIghoS - Klingon - "Go away"
Kinyeshi - Swahili - "Damn"
(Chapter 5)