We Are Gonna Be Friends: Year One
Title: Jimmy the Exploder
Rating: PG (eventual NC-17, but not for a long while)
Pairing: k/s pre-slash
Length: ~4k
Genre: kid!fic, AU
Beta: the magnificent, the glorious, the loquacious 13empress
Summary: written for this prompt on the kink-meme. which then ballooned like a motherfuc monster. Spock and Kirk meet as kids, to the theme of the White Stripes "We Are Gonna Be Friends"
A/N: dedicated with much love and humble adoration to 13empress , who kicked my ass mercilessly with very large boots, and who came up with the mural featured in this chapter. You. Frikkin. Rock.
So,originally supposed to be brief, now it is a 12 parter to the original theme of the song "we are gonna be friends", with each chapter named for a white stripes song. honestly? i wasn't even that huge a ws fan before i wrote this, but they've definitely grown on me. i recommend listening to the songs for each chapter- i'll try to include a you-tube link to the songs at the end.
i will try (TRY) to update this weekly- i've got most of it written, but there are some blank spots to fill in. and occasionally RL rears its ugly head. BUT- it should be pretty regular. Wail and moan at me if it's not.
2237 late summer
He could see it, just there, at the far end of the meadow. It stood tall and proud, interrupting the otherwise unending skyline, rising a good hundred feet from where its root system stretched sucking fingers into the rich Iowan soil. A magnificent specimen of the Eastern Cottonwood, Spock thought to himself, and tucking his guidebook and data padd under his arm, he trundled off across the field as quickly as his short legs could take him while still retaining some semblance of dignity.
The shade from the enormous tree stretched for yards around the base of the trunk where it stood at the edge of the meadow, toes of the roots reaching into mud of a small creek that meandered along the edges of the new property. Spock shivered lightly as he stepped into the shadow of the massive being; the sun baked down on the fields, and he enjoyed the heat rising from the soil. His hand stretched out involuntarily as he approached the great trunk, fingers delicately stroking the light grey bark.
Populus deltoides, subspecies deltoides, of the Family Salicaceae. His fingers traced the surface reverently, pushing lightly, following the dusty whorls of peeling bark, the knobby twigs of the lowest branches. If he were human, he would have sighed in pleasure.
Grasping a leaf firmly in his two small hands, he pulled it backward against the joint, freeing it with a gentle pop. Leaf procured, he settled down in the long grass, scrolling through the programs on his padd until he came to the drawing app. The leaf was large, triangular, and toothed. Flat stem, dark green in color. Clutching his stylus in his fist, he began to draw.
Spock gasped suddenly awake, startled straight up from his unplanned nap by a large thump and the sound of branches whipping back and forth. His opened eyes were met head on by the straightforward blue gaze of a stranger, dirty faced and shirtless, browned from the sun and bedecked with leaves. He could feel himself gape in unabashed surprise.
The other boy tipped his head just so, blinked once, and then began to smile. He was missing two of his front teeth, and a rather spectacular smear of mud was crusting from the end of an eyebrow to the tip of his nose, but these imperfections in no way lessened the impact of that brilliant grin. He stuck out a grubby hand.
“Heya! 'm Jimmy! Who're you?”
Spock regarded the proffered digits with something approaching alarm. He did not want to touch this filthy stranger. He also did not want to give offense. What was the appropriate response? He could not think fast enough, and he could see the expression on the other boy's face beginning to flicker into disappointment, so he raised his shields and gingerly touched his fingers to the small hand in front of him. It was not long enough to be a handshake, not really, but the boy seemed satisfied that the social niceties had been observed. Without further ado, he bounced up in front of Spock, grinning and waving his arm.
“C'mon! Mom's making cookies! I'll race you back!”
He was off like a shot, bare feet thudding against the baked earth, hair glinting white and gold in the late afternoon sun. Spock stared after him in wonder, then gathered his stylus, his book, and his padd. It was only logical to follow the boy. After all, he was here to learn.
2237 fall
Spock hung slightly behind his mother as they entered the classroom. He knew that it was illogical to feel anxious, especially since this was the room where he spent nearly seven hours a day, but the strangeness of being here after dark with his parents was unsettling.
It had been 9 weeks since the start of the school year, and the cinder-block room was covered in evidence of the students’ diligent labors. Graded spelling tests adorned the bulletin board next to the door, hand-colored pumpkin cut-outs marched drunkenly in a wavering line to the edge of the windows. All of the other parents and students had departed already, leaving Spock to sit quietly at his desk while his parents roamed the room, inspecting his work. He forced his fingers to relax from his fists and lay flat on the desk, waiting patiently for his parents and his teacher to conduct their business.
“Mrs. Kirk, it will just take a moment, can you just…”
“I gotta get home. Jimmy! Get over here!”
“Please, Mrs. Kirk, it’s very important that I talk…”
“Sam! Put that down! Jimmy, I thought I said get!”
“Five minutes, Mrs. Kirk, just five…”
“Oh, all right, already. Sam, go wait in the truck. Jimmy- in here, now.”
Spock’s eyes widened as his teacher hurried into the room, a piece of hair drifting from its usual tight braid. She seemed flustered. She gestured distractedly at the woman who followed her in.
“Ah, Mr and Mrs…Grayson? I believe you know Mrs. Kirk?”
There was a pause. The woman, Mrs. Kirk, was unlike any other adult Spock had met. He had only encountered her once before, and she still seemed strange to him. She was petite, short with a wiry frame gone thin. Her hair was a graying shade of blond, tied into a lank ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore a pair of too-large jeans held up with a belt under an oversized Starfleet Academy sweatshirt, worn through at the elbows and showing a light brown stain down the front. Coffee, Spock assumed. He could see Jimmy trailing behind her, squirming in her unrelenting hold on his wrist. He looked as anxious as Spock felt. Jimmy caught sight of him, his face lighting in sudden relief, and he broke free of his mother’s hold with a quick jerk, running over to fling himself into the desk next to Spock’s. His face was scrubbed cleaner than Spock had often seen it, but his t-shirt showed signs of mud around the hem.
“Hi, I’m Amanda Grayson.” Spock’s mother strode forward, breaking the silence with a cheerful smile and an outstretched hand. The other woman regarded her warily, then took it briefly before letting go.
“Winona. Winona Kirk.”
“Sarek. It is a pleasure to meet the mother of one of my son’s classmates.” His father tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Do I recall correctly that you live in the house 0.93 miles west of us?”
Winona eyeballed Sarek balefully, then raised her hand in a surprisingly easy ta’al. “You do, sir.”
Sarek blinked. “Please, there is no need for formality. We are both parents of students in this class, and are here as such.”
It was at that moment that their teacher, Mrs. Fletcher, chose to break in, clearing her throat and gesturing for the adults to take the seats in front of her desk. She peered over her spectacles owlishly, waiting as their parents finished settling, then cleared her throat again. Jimmy had begun to fidget.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, Mrs Kirk. I have asked you here tonight to speak to you about your sons, Spock and James.” She peered at them again, reassuring herself that they were paying attention. Spock felt slightly nauseated. There was clearly something important about to be said.
“Spock and James… are two very smart little boys.” She paused for effect, and shot a quelling glare at Amanda’s beaming face. “In fact, they are too smart.” Amanda laughed, a loud noise in the silent room.
“Mrs. Grayson, this is no laughing matter.” She frowned severely. “Spock completes his work in less than ten percent of the time it takes the other students. He can read and write in two languages, seems to be capable of solving lower level algebra problems, and, given that the librarian has had to discipline him for taking books from the middle school science section, is fully competent in many areas of science and humanities.” She paused. “James, on the other hand…” Jimmy froze at the sound of his name, fingers poised to throw the paper airplane he had spent the last 2.37 minutes constructing.
“I wouldn’t even know James could read if it weren’t for Spock. He does not do any work in class, preferring instead to entertain his classmates, focusing especially on Spock. He is an earnest child, but I suspect him of having attention deficit disorder. I have tried tutoring him personally, but he is utterly unable to focus without some sort of physical activity. After the last session, Spock politely took me aside after class and proceeded to inform me that I did not need to concern myself with teaching Jimmy to read, as he was already reading nearly at Spock’s level. I expressed disbelief, and he went on to show me the schematics which he and Jimmy had jointly drawn up for a small robotic spaceship.”
Spock could see his mother’s shoulders shaking as she suppressed her laughter. He felt slightly betrayed. There was clearly nothing at all funny about this. He could not see his father’s expression from where he sat, but Winona just looked bored. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, pulling a cigarette from her pocket and sticking it behind her ear.
“Yeah, so the little buggers are smart. That’s old news.” She cracked her knuckles. “What’re ya gonna do about it?”
Mrs. Fletcher looked taken aback.
“Well, normally, in a situation like this, we would skip the student up a grade. However, since they are both very advanced, skipping them up one grade would likely make no material difference in their level of boredom. Also, because there are two of them, it is more feasible to keep them together and allow them to challenge each other. That is the basis of my proposal for going forward.”
“And?” Winona was clearly interested in getting to the point.
“Well…” Mrs. Fletcher sputtered, then recovered herself. “Simply put, I would like to introduce Spock and James to a personally tailored curriculum, designed for them by the school counselor after they have completed some aptitude tests. They would still be required to participate in classroom activities, and to complete a certain amount of work with their peers. It is important that they not feel alienated from their classmates.” She flushed briefly, with a surreptitious look at Sarek.
“This gonna cost anything?” Winona’s foot was tapping on her chair rung, and she was casting longing glances at the door. Spock was suddenly struck by her resemblance to her son.
“No, Mrs. Kirk. At least, not initially… there may be some expenses later on, in terms of more advanced equipment, and potential field trips. We’d have to see where this goes.”
“I’m widowed and on a pension. I don’t have money for anything outside of making sure he gets on the bus each morning.”
“Due to the nature of my job, I have access to a great many technologies and other resources which could be of assistance in this matter. I will happily provide them, both for Spock and for James.” Sarek inclined his head politely. Winona curled her lip.
“Don’t need your charity. Sir.” She stood abruptly. “I consent to whatever. Jimmy’s smart, he should get the best he can outta this crappy-ass school system. Just let me know if there’re any papers need signing.” She turned, pushing the chair out of her way. “James! Get your butt over here, we’re going.”
Jimmy scrambled down from the windowsill, knocking plants askew and catching his shirt-tail on the corner of the heating unit. He pulled free with an audible rip, and scurried over to his mother’s side.
“Mrs. Kirk, there are many important details that…”
“You’ve had your five minutes and then some. I’m going home. Jimmy!”
Amanda waved cheerily. “Nice to meet you!”
The door slammed. They were gone. Spock could feel every bone in his phalanges where his hands had been clutching each other. Mrs. Fletcher heaved a sigh.
“As you can see, Kirks of all generations can be a little… difficult.”
Amanda smiled, teeth bared. Spock thought Mrs. Fletcher must be quite stupid if she didn’t recognize a threatening facial expression when she saw it.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I rather like them.”
2238 winter
The house was large, but dilapidated, the paint peeling from the weathered boards of the eaves, the walk cracking where it met the concrete slab in front of the door. The windows were dark, with no promise of warmth flickering in the darkening afternoon. Spock shuddered involuntarily.
Jimmy dug for the key beneath the threadbare doormat, then turned the lock open, and returned the key to its original position. The heavy door swung open into a darkened hallway, gaping before them, and before Spock could say a word, Jimmy’s golden head had disappeared into the gloom.
Spock advanced cautiously, the winter light slanting down from a high window in the wall. There was an abandoned pair of shoes lying against the wall, and an impressive collection of dust bunnies under the hallway bench. The entryway was cold and sterile in an abandoned sort of way, and Spock shrank further into his coat.
“Jimmy?” he called, his voice thin in the air. “Jimmy?”A little louder.
“C’mon, Spock, I’m just upstairs!”
Spock drew himself upright. Only superstitious humans were uncomfortable in the dark. He was a Vulcan, and therefore immune to such vagaries of the imagination. He pushed through a door into a larger room, a dining room from the look of it. There were candles on the table, but the silver holders bore a thick patina of tarnish. Papers spilled from the desk in the corner, and there were cobwebs, Spock noted, in the upper northwest corner of the room.
At the far end of the room a large oak staircase marched up the wall, disappearing into the dark recesses of the upper level of the house. Spock made his way over carefully, stepping around a chair and attempting to avoid knocking over a stack of magazines balanced precariously against the wall.
He climbed the stairs slowly, hand on the banister. As he ascended, a light became visible, shining out of a doorway facing the end of the landing at the top of the stairs. Spock walked quickly to the door, the dusty floorboards creaking underfoot. He paused in the doorway, taking in the sight before him.
Jimmy was sitting in the middle of his unmade bed, legs crossed and staring up at the ceiling. His room was relatively small, but high-ceilinged; the bed was a large, old, four-posted number, with a nightstand to one side and a bookshelf covering most of the far wall. A desk in the corner held a number of paperbacks and several ongoing projects of a mechanical nature, as well as a small collection of plastic water glasses. It was warmer here- Spock could see the small glow of a space heater in the corner, and stepped fully into the room.
“Hey Spock, come over here!” Jimmy beckoned from the bed, smiling at him. “I want to show you something.”
Spock crossed the room, kicking off his shoes and climbing up onto the mattress to settle next to the other boy.
“Look.” Jimmy pointed, tipping his head back, and indicating the ceiling with one skinny finger.
Spock obligingly tilted his head to gaze at the space above them, and caught his breath in amazement. There, spiraling above them where once had been plain white plaster, was the galaxy. Stretching glowing fingers out from the center, painted in breathtaking detail against a pitch-dark formless void. Around the edges of the room were planets, all accurate in color, though not to scale, and labeled in both their standard and native alphabets. Sol and all her planets in a line on two sides, then other Federation members on the other two walls; Andoria, Tellar, Orion. He could see Vulcan, delicately red and orange, two spheres over from the top of the east facing window.
The walls, he noticed now, bore their own murals; an ocean scene with pirates and whales on the western wall, a jungle scene at the south, complete with pythons hanging from trees and an elephant in the corner. The north wall was glacial, the night sky painted over the top half while polar bears and seals lazed on ice nearer the floor. The eastern wall was the most unadorned, holding the room’s one large window, over which was painted the rising sun, its rays reaching down around the window to touch a peaceful meadow of grass and spring flowers.
“It is remarkable.” Spock studied it again, his attention fixed on the celestial scene above their heads. “Who painted it, do you know?”
Jimmy flopped back onto the bed, hooking his arms behind his head as he stared up at it. “Yeah, my mom and dad painted it when they found out I was going to be born. Mom’s the scientist- she made sure everything was accurate, but Dad was the one who painted it.” He smiled. “Sam’s got one too- his is different from mine.” He bit his lip. “Mom says that’s when they were happiest. When Sam was born, and then again when they knew they were having me.” His face was wistful in the fading light.
He rolled over suddenly, smiling at Spock. His front teeth had begun to come in, but he was about to lose a canine, and liked to move it about with his tongue as he spoke. “Hey, you want some water or some juice or something? We can have a snack before we go to your house to do our homework.”
“That would be agreeable.”
“Come on!”
Jimmy was out the door and halfway down the stairs before Spock had shrugged his shoes back on.
The kitchen made Spock’s eyes widen, but Jimmy didn’t seem to notice. He climbed agilely onto a stepstool next to the counter, extracting two glasses from an upper cupboard and clanking them on the sticky counter. A pile of dishes stood in the sink, the glasses overflowing with stale water. The plants on the windowsill were mostly dead, save for a few shoots straggling toward the sun. Spock could feel the tightness in his throat rising.
Jimmy stuck a glass under the faucet and turned it on. A rattle and a creak shook through the subterranean pipes, and a sudden gush of rust-colored water shot out, which Jimmy dumped, waiting for the stream to clear before filling the glass and handing it to Spock. He took the other and filled it before draining it and filling it again.
“Jimmy…” Spock looked around. “Surely something is wrong? Is your mother ill?”
Jimmy looked perplexed. “No, she’s at work.” He frowned. “How come?”
Spock gestured vaguely, attempting to reign in his instinctive revulsion at the state of the kitchen. There were fruit flies circling the wilted bananas on the counter.
“I…why does your house look like this? Does your mother not value her space?”
Jimmy looked around him, his face falling further into confusion. “Look like what? Spock, it’s just my house…”
“You mean… this is normal?” Spock felt his eyebrows could not climb any higher without sprouting legs and crawling into his hair.
Jimmy shrugged. “Um… yeah?”
“But Jimmy… this is unhygienic!”
Jimmy shrugged again. “’m not sick.”
Spock sighed. It was a horrifying task, but clearly no one else was prepared to take the responsibility for their living quarters. If none of them were to do it, then he must- it was unacceptable for persons to exist in such disarray. He rolled up his sleeves carefully, wanting to keep his clothing as far away from the sink as possible.
“What are you doing?” Jimmy regarded him curiously, propping his elbows on the counter.
“Preparing to wash your dishes. They are in an intolerable state.”
“Oh. Um. Ok?”
Spock coaxed the water into a temperature approaching hot and began to rinse the dishes, opening the dishwasher in readiness to accept the wet plates and silverware. There was a rustle behind him, and Jimmy turned.
“Hey. You. What the hell are you doing?”
Spock turned. The boy addressing him was older, about ten or eleven, and tall. This must be Jimmy’s brother, he thought. The family resemblance was striking. The newcomer’s eyes were wide in his freckled face.
“I said, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Spock blinked owlishly. “I am preparing to clean this kitchen.”
The look of dismay on the boy’s face rapidly began to shift into anger.
“Who the hell are you? And why the hell are you cleaning our kitchen?”
He took a step closer, his upper body leaning in. Abruptly Jimmy stepped forward, putting himself between Spock and his brother, reaching his hand toward the other boy.
“Hey, Sam, leave him alone. He’s just… trying to help.”
“We don’t need some little pointy-eared alien’s help, for fuck’s sake. We’re fine.”
“Sam…”
The boy turned onto Jimmy, gripping his arm hard enough that Spock could see him wince.
“Is this your doing? Is this creepy little kid your freaky brainiac friend I hear so much about?”
“He’s not creepy! He’s Spock!”
“Get him out.” Sam gave Jimmy a shake. “Now.”
He turned and stomped out of the room. In the distance a door slammed. Jimmy looked at his shoes.
“I… I’m sorry, Spock. You should probably go home.”
Spock gathered himself. Never had he seen a display like that. It was utterly illogical, both the reaction and the subsequent resulting behavior. He turned off the water, and wiped his hands. The look in Jimmy’s eyes when he met them was one part shame, one part anger.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
Spock nodded silently. He collected his coat, and let himself out the front door, walking home as the moon rose over the frozen prairie.
2238 spring
The last day of school had been celebrated with a fanfare that Spock had found wholly unexpected. The whole notion that school attendance would cease for a time period consisting of months was completely incomprehensible to him- he understood the history well enough, and the ancient necessity of crop harvest, but why this woeful neglect of education would have been allowed to persist beyond the mechanization of most farm labor was a mystery to him.
His mother said it was psychological, that humans need time off to assimilate information, and that children in particular required unstructured time for independent learning, but Spock felt… slightly unmoored at the lack of a formal structure to his day.
This morning he had asked his mother to provide him with an acceptable schedule of tasks and studies to complete his day, and had been summarily shooed from the kitchen and told to “go find little Jimmy Kirk and get him to explain to you the meaning of ‘play outside’.”
“Playing outside”, it seemed, consisted of getting as filthy as humanly possible in as small a window of time as could be arranged. They had gone wading in the creek, where Jimmy had shown him how to bind twigs together with grass stems, making small floatable rafts to race down the water way. It had been an easy extrapolation to construct a rather primitive set of miniature sailing ships, which, though they rode rather low in the water, stood at least a 48.75% chance of making it all the way to the bridge in town before coming apart. After the creek, they had climbed to the top of the nearest hill and proceeded to spend fifty seven minutes in the pursuit of rolling down the hill on their sides. Jimmy rolled down the hill seventeen times, enough times that he could only walk in a straight line after sitting with his head between his grubby knees for a minimum of five minutes. Spock allowed himself to participate a single time, as all non-life-threatening experiences are worth attempting at least once, but found the sensations of the resulting disorientation disagreeable, though he was willing to admit that the act of rolling itself was somewhat… exhilarating.
Following the hill rolling, they had engaged in a game which Jimmy called “Hide and Seek” in the corn fields behind the Kirk house. Spock had expected that the game would give him an unfair advantage, given the simple premise of the game itself and his generally superior hearing, eyesight, and speed. He had not counted on the overwhelming nature of the cornfield itself- it was young corn yet, but at four and a half feet high, it was already over their heads. Any gentle breeze whispered through thousands of leaves, a delicate susurrus which conveniently obliterated any sound of his quarry slipping away to a new hiding place. Green flooded his vision, an ever moving sea of waving stems, obscuring his vision and obstructing his line of sight.
He had eventually caught Jimmy, but not by pursuit. Picking a row of corn, he sat down in the middle of it, remaining low enough to not attract a quick glance, and waited instead for Jimmy to appear in front of him. He did, and Spock reached out a hand to grasp him, shocking the boy into a loud gasp, followed by gales of laughter.
It was only that night as he lay in bed, hair still damp from his bath, that he remembered how exactly Jimmy’s eyes had matched the high-flung color of the summer sky.
The White Stripes: Jimmy the Exploder
Now Jimmy
Well, do you want an explosion now?
Yeah Jimmy
Do you want to explode now?
Yeah monkey
Now you seeing red now
Yeah monkey
Jumping on the bed now
Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo
Green apples
On the tree and growing now
Green apples
Are gonna be exploding now
Yeah monkey
Are you seeing red now?
Yeah monkey
Jumping on the bed now
Woo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo
Rating: PG (eventual NC-17, but not for a long while)
Pairing: k/s pre-slash
Length: ~4k
Genre: kid!fic, AU
Beta: the magnificent, the glorious, the loquacious 13empress
Summary: written for this prompt on the kink-meme. which then ballooned like a motherfuc monster. Spock and Kirk meet as kids, to the theme of the White Stripes "We Are Gonna Be Friends"
A/N: dedicated with much love and humble adoration to 13empress , who kicked my ass mercilessly with very large boots, and who came up with the mural featured in this chapter. You. Frikkin. Rock.
So,originally supposed to be brief, now it is a 12 parter to the original theme of the song "we are gonna be friends", with each chapter named for a white stripes song. honestly? i wasn't even that huge a ws fan before i wrote this, but they've definitely grown on me. i recommend listening to the songs for each chapter- i'll try to include a you-tube link to the songs at the end.
i will try (TRY) to update this weekly- i've got most of it written, but there are some blank spots to fill in. and occasionally RL rears its ugly head. BUT- it should be pretty regular. Wail and moan at me if it's not.
2237 late summer
He could see it, just there, at the far end of the meadow. It stood tall and proud, interrupting the otherwise unending skyline, rising a good hundred feet from where its root system stretched sucking fingers into the rich Iowan soil. A magnificent specimen of the Eastern Cottonwood, Spock thought to himself, and tucking his guidebook and data padd under his arm, he trundled off across the field as quickly as his short legs could take him while still retaining some semblance of dignity.
The shade from the enormous tree stretched for yards around the base of the trunk where it stood at the edge of the meadow, toes of the roots reaching into mud of a small creek that meandered along the edges of the new property. Spock shivered lightly as he stepped into the shadow of the massive being; the sun baked down on the fields, and he enjoyed the heat rising from the soil. His hand stretched out involuntarily as he approached the great trunk, fingers delicately stroking the light grey bark.
Populus deltoides, subspecies deltoides, of the Family Salicaceae. His fingers traced the surface reverently, pushing lightly, following the dusty whorls of peeling bark, the knobby twigs of the lowest branches. If he were human, he would have sighed in pleasure.
Grasping a leaf firmly in his two small hands, he pulled it backward against the joint, freeing it with a gentle pop. Leaf procured, he settled down in the long grass, scrolling through the programs on his padd until he came to the drawing app. The leaf was large, triangular, and toothed. Flat stem, dark green in color. Clutching his stylus in his fist, he began to draw.
Spock gasped suddenly awake, startled straight up from his unplanned nap by a large thump and the sound of branches whipping back and forth. His opened eyes were met head on by the straightforward blue gaze of a stranger, dirty faced and shirtless, browned from the sun and bedecked with leaves. He could feel himself gape in unabashed surprise.
The other boy tipped his head just so, blinked once, and then began to smile. He was missing two of his front teeth, and a rather spectacular smear of mud was crusting from the end of an eyebrow to the tip of his nose, but these imperfections in no way lessened the impact of that brilliant grin. He stuck out a grubby hand.
“Heya! 'm Jimmy! Who're you?”
Spock regarded the proffered digits with something approaching alarm. He did not want to touch this filthy stranger. He also did not want to give offense. What was the appropriate response? He could not think fast enough, and he could see the expression on the other boy's face beginning to flicker into disappointment, so he raised his shields and gingerly touched his fingers to the small hand in front of him. It was not long enough to be a handshake, not really, but the boy seemed satisfied that the social niceties had been observed. Without further ado, he bounced up in front of Spock, grinning and waving his arm.
“C'mon! Mom's making cookies! I'll race you back!”
He was off like a shot, bare feet thudding against the baked earth, hair glinting white and gold in the late afternoon sun. Spock stared after him in wonder, then gathered his stylus, his book, and his padd. It was only logical to follow the boy. After all, he was here to learn.
2237 fall
Spock hung slightly behind his mother as they entered the classroom. He knew that it was illogical to feel anxious, especially since this was the room where he spent nearly seven hours a day, but the strangeness of being here after dark with his parents was unsettling.
It had been 9 weeks since the start of the school year, and the cinder-block room was covered in evidence of the students’ diligent labors. Graded spelling tests adorned the bulletin board next to the door, hand-colored pumpkin cut-outs marched drunkenly in a wavering line to the edge of the windows. All of the other parents and students had departed already, leaving Spock to sit quietly at his desk while his parents roamed the room, inspecting his work. He forced his fingers to relax from his fists and lay flat on the desk, waiting patiently for his parents and his teacher to conduct their business.
“Mrs. Kirk, it will just take a moment, can you just…”
“I gotta get home. Jimmy! Get over here!”
“Please, Mrs. Kirk, it’s very important that I talk…”
“Sam! Put that down! Jimmy, I thought I said get!”
“Five minutes, Mrs. Kirk, just five…”
“Oh, all right, already. Sam, go wait in the truck. Jimmy- in here, now.”
Spock’s eyes widened as his teacher hurried into the room, a piece of hair drifting from its usual tight braid. She seemed flustered. She gestured distractedly at the woman who followed her in.
“Ah, Mr and Mrs…Grayson? I believe you know Mrs. Kirk?”
There was a pause. The woman, Mrs. Kirk, was unlike any other adult Spock had met. He had only encountered her once before, and she still seemed strange to him. She was petite, short with a wiry frame gone thin. Her hair was a graying shade of blond, tied into a lank ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore a pair of too-large jeans held up with a belt under an oversized Starfleet Academy sweatshirt, worn through at the elbows and showing a light brown stain down the front. Coffee, Spock assumed. He could see Jimmy trailing behind her, squirming in her unrelenting hold on his wrist. He looked as anxious as Spock felt. Jimmy caught sight of him, his face lighting in sudden relief, and he broke free of his mother’s hold with a quick jerk, running over to fling himself into the desk next to Spock’s. His face was scrubbed cleaner than Spock had often seen it, but his t-shirt showed signs of mud around the hem.
“Hi, I’m Amanda Grayson.” Spock’s mother strode forward, breaking the silence with a cheerful smile and an outstretched hand. The other woman regarded her warily, then took it briefly before letting go.
“Winona. Winona Kirk.”
“Sarek. It is a pleasure to meet the mother of one of my son’s classmates.” His father tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Do I recall correctly that you live in the house 0.93 miles west of us?”
Winona eyeballed Sarek balefully, then raised her hand in a surprisingly easy ta’al. “You do, sir.”
Sarek blinked. “Please, there is no need for formality. We are both parents of students in this class, and are here as such.”
It was at that moment that their teacher, Mrs. Fletcher, chose to break in, clearing her throat and gesturing for the adults to take the seats in front of her desk. She peered over her spectacles owlishly, waiting as their parents finished settling, then cleared her throat again. Jimmy had begun to fidget.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, Mrs Kirk. I have asked you here tonight to speak to you about your sons, Spock and James.” She peered at them again, reassuring herself that they were paying attention. Spock felt slightly nauseated. There was clearly something important about to be said.
“Spock and James… are two very smart little boys.” She paused for effect, and shot a quelling glare at Amanda’s beaming face. “In fact, they are too smart.” Amanda laughed, a loud noise in the silent room.
“Mrs. Grayson, this is no laughing matter.” She frowned severely. “Spock completes his work in less than ten percent of the time it takes the other students. He can read and write in two languages, seems to be capable of solving lower level algebra problems, and, given that the librarian has had to discipline him for taking books from the middle school science section, is fully competent in many areas of science and humanities.” She paused. “James, on the other hand…” Jimmy froze at the sound of his name, fingers poised to throw the paper airplane he had spent the last 2.37 minutes constructing.
“I wouldn’t even know James could read if it weren’t for Spock. He does not do any work in class, preferring instead to entertain his classmates, focusing especially on Spock. He is an earnest child, but I suspect him of having attention deficit disorder. I have tried tutoring him personally, but he is utterly unable to focus without some sort of physical activity. After the last session, Spock politely took me aside after class and proceeded to inform me that I did not need to concern myself with teaching Jimmy to read, as he was already reading nearly at Spock’s level. I expressed disbelief, and he went on to show me the schematics which he and Jimmy had jointly drawn up for a small robotic spaceship.”
Spock could see his mother’s shoulders shaking as she suppressed her laughter. He felt slightly betrayed. There was clearly nothing at all funny about this. He could not see his father’s expression from where he sat, but Winona just looked bored. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, pulling a cigarette from her pocket and sticking it behind her ear.
“Yeah, so the little buggers are smart. That’s old news.” She cracked her knuckles. “What’re ya gonna do about it?”
Mrs. Fletcher looked taken aback.
“Well, normally, in a situation like this, we would skip the student up a grade. However, since they are both very advanced, skipping them up one grade would likely make no material difference in their level of boredom. Also, because there are two of them, it is more feasible to keep them together and allow them to challenge each other. That is the basis of my proposal for going forward.”
“And?” Winona was clearly interested in getting to the point.
“Well…” Mrs. Fletcher sputtered, then recovered herself. “Simply put, I would like to introduce Spock and James to a personally tailored curriculum, designed for them by the school counselor after they have completed some aptitude tests. They would still be required to participate in classroom activities, and to complete a certain amount of work with their peers. It is important that they not feel alienated from their classmates.” She flushed briefly, with a surreptitious look at Sarek.
“This gonna cost anything?” Winona’s foot was tapping on her chair rung, and she was casting longing glances at the door. Spock was suddenly struck by her resemblance to her son.
“No, Mrs. Kirk. At least, not initially… there may be some expenses later on, in terms of more advanced equipment, and potential field trips. We’d have to see where this goes.”
“I’m widowed and on a pension. I don’t have money for anything outside of making sure he gets on the bus each morning.”
“Due to the nature of my job, I have access to a great many technologies and other resources which could be of assistance in this matter. I will happily provide them, both for Spock and for James.” Sarek inclined his head politely. Winona curled her lip.
“Don’t need your charity. Sir.” She stood abruptly. “I consent to whatever. Jimmy’s smart, he should get the best he can outta this crappy-ass school system. Just let me know if there’re any papers need signing.” She turned, pushing the chair out of her way. “James! Get your butt over here, we’re going.”
Jimmy scrambled down from the windowsill, knocking plants askew and catching his shirt-tail on the corner of the heating unit. He pulled free with an audible rip, and scurried over to his mother’s side.
“Mrs. Kirk, there are many important details that…”
“You’ve had your five minutes and then some. I’m going home. Jimmy!”
Amanda waved cheerily. “Nice to meet you!”
The door slammed. They were gone. Spock could feel every bone in his phalanges where his hands had been clutching each other. Mrs. Fletcher heaved a sigh.
“As you can see, Kirks of all generations can be a little… difficult.”
Amanda smiled, teeth bared. Spock thought Mrs. Fletcher must be quite stupid if she didn’t recognize a threatening facial expression when she saw it.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I rather like them.”
2238 winter
The house was large, but dilapidated, the paint peeling from the weathered boards of the eaves, the walk cracking where it met the concrete slab in front of the door. The windows were dark, with no promise of warmth flickering in the darkening afternoon. Spock shuddered involuntarily.
Jimmy dug for the key beneath the threadbare doormat, then turned the lock open, and returned the key to its original position. The heavy door swung open into a darkened hallway, gaping before them, and before Spock could say a word, Jimmy’s golden head had disappeared into the gloom.
Spock advanced cautiously, the winter light slanting down from a high window in the wall. There was an abandoned pair of shoes lying against the wall, and an impressive collection of dust bunnies under the hallway bench. The entryway was cold and sterile in an abandoned sort of way, and Spock shrank further into his coat.
“Jimmy?” he called, his voice thin in the air. “Jimmy?”A little louder.
“C’mon, Spock, I’m just upstairs!”
Spock drew himself upright. Only superstitious humans were uncomfortable in the dark. He was a Vulcan, and therefore immune to such vagaries of the imagination. He pushed through a door into a larger room, a dining room from the look of it. There were candles on the table, but the silver holders bore a thick patina of tarnish. Papers spilled from the desk in the corner, and there were cobwebs, Spock noted, in the upper northwest corner of the room.
At the far end of the room a large oak staircase marched up the wall, disappearing into the dark recesses of the upper level of the house. Spock made his way over carefully, stepping around a chair and attempting to avoid knocking over a stack of magazines balanced precariously against the wall.
He climbed the stairs slowly, hand on the banister. As he ascended, a light became visible, shining out of a doorway facing the end of the landing at the top of the stairs. Spock walked quickly to the door, the dusty floorboards creaking underfoot. He paused in the doorway, taking in the sight before him.
Jimmy was sitting in the middle of his unmade bed, legs crossed and staring up at the ceiling. His room was relatively small, but high-ceilinged; the bed was a large, old, four-posted number, with a nightstand to one side and a bookshelf covering most of the far wall. A desk in the corner held a number of paperbacks and several ongoing projects of a mechanical nature, as well as a small collection of plastic water glasses. It was warmer here- Spock could see the small glow of a space heater in the corner, and stepped fully into the room.
“Hey Spock, come over here!” Jimmy beckoned from the bed, smiling at him. “I want to show you something.”
Spock crossed the room, kicking off his shoes and climbing up onto the mattress to settle next to the other boy.
“Look.” Jimmy pointed, tipping his head back, and indicating the ceiling with one skinny finger.
Spock obligingly tilted his head to gaze at the space above them, and caught his breath in amazement. There, spiraling above them where once had been plain white plaster, was the galaxy. Stretching glowing fingers out from the center, painted in breathtaking detail against a pitch-dark formless void. Around the edges of the room were planets, all accurate in color, though not to scale, and labeled in both their standard and native alphabets. Sol and all her planets in a line on two sides, then other Federation members on the other two walls; Andoria, Tellar, Orion. He could see Vulcan, delicately red and orange, two spheres over from the top of the east facing window.
The walls, he noticed now, bore their own murals; an ocean scene with pirates and whales on the western wall, a jungle scene at the south, complete with pythons hanging from trees and an elephant in the corner. The north wall was glacial, the night sky painted over the top half while polar bears and seals lazed on ice nearer the floor. The eastern wall was the most unadorned, holding the room’s one large window, over which was painted the rising sun, its rays reaching down around the window to touch a peaceful meadow of grass and spring flowers.
“It is remarkable.” Spock studied it again, his attention fixed on the celestial scene above their heads. “Who painted it, do you know?”
Jimmy flopped back onto the bed, hooking his arms behind his head as he stared up at it. “Yeah, my mom and dad painted it when they found out I was going to be born. Mom’s the scientist- she made sure everything was accurate, but Dad was the one who painted it.” He smiled. “Sam’s got one too- his is different from mine.” He bit his lip. “Mom says that’s when they were happiest. When Sam was born, and then again when they knew they were having me.” His face was wistful in the fading light.
He rolled over suddenly, smiling at Spock. His front teeth had begun to come in, but he was about to lose a canine, and liked to move it about with his tongue as he spoke. “Hey, you want some water or some juice or something? We can have a snack before we go to your house to do our homework.”
“That would be agreeable.”
“Come on!”
Jimmy was out the door and halfway down the stairs before Spock had shrugged his shoes back on.
The kitchen made Spock’s eyes widen, but Jimmy didn’t seem to notice. He climbed agilely onto a stepstool next to the counter, extracting two glasses from an upper cupboard and clanking them on the sticky counter. A pile of dishes stood in the sink, the glasses overflowing with stale water. The plants on the windowsill were mostly dead, save for a few shoots straggling toward the sun. Spock could feel the tightness in his throat rising.
Jimmy stuck a glass under the faucet and turned it on. A rattle and a creak shook through the subterranean pipes, and a sudden gush of rust-colored water shot out, which Jimmy dumped, waiting for the stream to clear before filling the glass and handing it to Spock. He took the other and filled it before draining it and filling it again.
“Jimmy…” Spock looked around. “Surely something is wrong? Is your mother ill?”
Jimmy looked perplexed. “No, she’s at work.” He frowned. “How come?”
Spock gestured vaguely, attempting to reign in his instinctive revulsion at the state of the kitchen. There were fruit flies circling the wilted bananas on the counter.
“I…why does your house look like this? Does your mother not value her space?”
Jimmy looked around him, his face falling further into confusion. “Look like what? Spock, it’s just my house…”
“You mean… this is normal?” Spock felt his eyebrows could not climb any higher without sprouting legs and crawling into his hair.
Jimmy shrugged. “Um… yeah?”
“But Jimmy… this is unhygienic!”
Jimmy shrugged again. “’m not sick.”
Spock sighed. It was a horrifying task, but clearly no one else was prepared to take the responsibility for their living quarters. If none of them were to do it, then he must- it was unacceptable for persons to exist in such disarray. He rolled up his sleeves carefully, wanting to keep his clothing as far away from the sink as possible.
“What are you doing?” Jimmy regarded him curiously, propping his elbows on the counter.
“Preparing to wash your dishes. They are in an intolerable state.”
“Oh. Um. Ok?”
Spock coaxed the water into a temperature approaching hot and began to rinse the dishes, opening the dishwasher in readiness to accept the wet plates and silverware. There was a rustle behind him, and Jimmy turned.
“Hey. You. What the hell are you doing?”
Spock turned. The boy addressing him was older, about ten or eleven, and tall. This must be Jimmy’s brother, he thought. The family resemblance was striking. The newcomer’s eyes were wide in his freckled face.
“I said, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Spock blinked owlishly. “I am preparing to clean this kitchen.”
The look of dismay on the boy’s face rapidly began to shift into anger.
“Who the hell are you? And why the hell are you cleaning our kitchen?”
He took a step closer, his upper body leaning in. Abruptly Jimmy stepped forward, putting himself between Spock and his brother, reaching his hand toward the other boy.
“Hey, Sam, leave him alone. He’s just… trying to help.”
“We don’t need some little pointy-eared alien’s help, for fuck’s sake. We’re fine.”
“Sam…”
The boy turned onto Jimmy, gripping his arm hard enough that Spock could see him wince.
“Is this your doing? Is this creepy little kid your freaky brainiac friend I hear so much about?”
“He’s not creepy! He’s Spock!”
“Get him out.” Sam gave Jimmy a shake. “Now.”
He turned and stomped out of the room. In the distance a door slammed. Jimmy looked at his shoes.
“I… I’m sorry, Spock. You should probably go home.”
Spock gathered himself. Never had he seen a display like that. It was utterly illogical, both the reaction and the subsequent resulting behavior. He turned off the water, and wiped his hands. The look in Jimmy’s eyes when he met them was one part shame, one part anger.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
Spock nodded silently. He collected his coat, and let himself out the front door, walking home as the moon rose over the frozen prairie.
2238 spring
The last day of school had been celebrated with a fanfare that Spock had found wholly unexpected. The whole notion that school attendance would cease for a time period consisting of months was completely incomprehensible to him- he understood the history well enough, and the ancient necessity of crop harvest, but why this woeful neglect of education would have been allowed to persist beyond the mechanization of most farm labor was a mystery to him.
His mother said it was psychological, that humans need time off to assimilate information, and that children in particular required unstructured time for independent learning, but Spock felt… slightly unmoored at the lack of a formal structure to his day.
This morning he had asked his mother to provide him with an acceptable schedule of tasks and studies to complete his day, and had been summarily shooed from the kitchen and told to “go find little Jimmy Kirk and get him to explain to you the meaning of ‘play outside’.”
“Playing outside”, it seemed, consisted of getting as filthy as humanly possible in as small a window of time as could be arranged. They had gone wading in the creek, where Jimmy had shown him how to bind twigs together with grass stems, making small floatable rafts to race down the water way. It had been an easy extrapolation to construct a rather primitive set of miniature sailing ships, which, though they rode rather low in the water, stood at least a 48.75% chance of making it all the way to the bridge in town before coming apart. After the creek, they had climbed to the top of the nearest hill and proceeded to spend fifty seven minutes in the pursuit of rolling down the hill on their sides. Jimmy rolled down the hill seventeen times, enough times that he could only walk in a straight line after sitting with his head between his grubby knees for a minimum of five minutes. Spock allowed himself to participate a single time, as all non-life-threatening experiences are worth attempting at least once, but found the sensations of the resulting disorientation disagreeable, though he was willing to admit that the act of rolling itself was somewhat… exhilarating.
Following the hill rolling, they had engaged in a game which Jimmy called “Hide and Seek” in the corn fields behind the Kirk house. Spock had expected that the game would give him an unfair advantage, given the simple premise of the game itself and his generally superior hearing, eyesight, and speed. He had not counted on the overwhelming nature of the cornfield itself- it was young corn yet, but at four and a half feet high, it was already over their heads. Any gentle breeze whispered through thousands of leaves, a delicate susurrus which conveniently obliterated any sound of his quarry slipping away to a new hiding place. Green flooded his vision, an ever moving sea of waving stems, obscuring his vision and obstructing his line of sight.
He had eventually caught Jimmy, but not by pursuit. Picking a row of corn, he sat down in the middle of it, remaining low enough to not attract a quick glance, and waited instead for Jimmy to appear in front of him. He did, and Spock reached out a hand to grasp him, shocking the boy into a loud gasp, followed by gales of laughter.
It was only that night as he lay in bed, hair still damp from his bath, that he remembered how exactly Jimmy’s eyes had matched the high-flung color of the summer sky.
The White Stripes: Jimmy the Exploder
Now Jimmy
Well, do you want an explosion now?
Yeah Jimmy
Do you want to explode now?
Yeah monkey
Now you seeing red now
Yeah monkey
Jumping on the bed now
Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo
Green apples
On the tree and growing now
Green apples
Are gonna be exploding now
Yeah monkey
Are you seeing red now?
Yeah monkey
Jumping on the bed now
Woo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo