fic: we've got to stop meeting like this [academy crack]
Title: We've got to stop meeting like this
Fandom: ST (Reboot)
Characters: Gary Mitchell, Spock, EVERYONE.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8.5k
Summary: Gary keeps running into this guy named Spock.
Notes: This kind of answers the question of where was Spock during all that Academy crack, but then it dips into something else entirely. Can stand alone as just a run-of-the-mill Academy fic. Many many many thanks to
waldorph and zlot for reading this over and laughing in all the right places and leaving MS Paint drawings where shit needed to be fixed and generally being amazeballs. (AO3)
There's a lesbian bar not far from Starfleet Academy called Gaila.
Gary has heard 15 different stories as to why the bar is called just GAILA, and they only get more perplexing once Kirk introduces him to Gaila herself.
She's never confirmed or denied the following:
A) that the owner saved her from whatever brutal things Orions are doing to sentient creatures this week, and fell in love with her, but she wouldn't shack up with him so he opened a bar for her.
("Gary, does anyone else know you're this sentimental?")
B) that the bar is actually something like DYKES or FLANNEL or IF YOU LIKE GIRLS AND ALCOHOL COME THROW MONEY AT US, but the city calls it Gaila because once a woman sees Gaila there, they never go back to men and their cocks again.
("Creative and flattering. True? Well.")
C) that Gaila owns the fucking bar.
("I'm so busy with my schoolwork!")
C2) that Gaila's mother owns the fucking bar.
("That does solve a lot of problems.")
D) that Gaila makes a nightly appearance there, gives some kind of performance for women only, and so the bar is just Gaila like the cafeteria is just the cafeteria or Kirk's room is just Slut Paradise.
("I'm positive you or Jim would have managed to sneak in already if that were the case.")
Though the night Gary walks in there and sees a pale, long-limbed Vulcan sitting at the bar, he stops giving a fuck about the name of the bar and just thanks God for Gaila.
Gary slowly edges his way towards the Vulcan, making eye contact with his favorite bartender and giving the vague hand signal for "the special, please, and don't charge me because I look like your baby brother."
The drink is waiting for Gary when he finally reaches the Vulcan's elbow.
"So," Gary begins as he takes his drink. "You're quiet."
Gary takes in everything about him: his legs are even longer than he thought, his posture is perfect, his hair slightly ruffled in the back from a wildly gesticulating bride just behind him, and Gary's stomach drops when his head slowly turns and wide brown eyes meet his own.
"This is the only establishment in a six block radius of my apartment that uses fresh, non-synthesized, fruit juice in its concoctions," he replies coolly.
Gary leans over and sniffs a cocktail glass that's nearly empty.
"Buddy, that's not just fruit juice," Gary laughs.
"It takes a significant amount of ethanol to affect my nervous system," the Vulcan reassures him. "Approximately --"
"Don't tell me," Gary interrupts. "I want to find out on my own."
"I do not intend on ever imbibing that many drinks again."
"I can be persuasive." Gary gives the ta'al and says, "Gary Mitchell."
"Spock," he says, returning the gesture. "Thank you for not --"
A drunk girl suddenly throws herself at Spock's back and is automatically thrown right back by a quick backwards flex of his shoulders.
"You must be a great dancer," Gary remarks. "So what effect does ethanol have on you? I'd like to earn my xenobiology badge for the scouts."
"Cadet, you are too old to be in the scouts," Spock says as another drink arrives. "I suspect you know this, but I thought I would inform you all the same. If your academic curiosity persists: I am not completely Vulcan."
"I thought you moved a little too smoothly," Gary says. He finally succeeds in annoying the massive dyke off the stool next to Spock and sits down happily, leaning on his hand and giving Spock his biggest smile. "Maybe it's just San Francisco being Federation headquarters, but every goddamn Vulcan here has coathangers for collarbones. You seem looser."
"Ethanol does have that slight effect on my biology," Spock replies. "A very weak muscle relaxant."
"So during the day: coathanger?"
"Eventually, not keeping correct posture becomes more painful than correct posture."
"Fascinating," Gary says.
"Why are you here?"
"Waiting for a friend," and really, where is Kirk? Gary wants to simultaneously introduce them to each other and keep Spock to himself forever, so maybe it's for the best that Kirk is running late and giving him a few more minutes in this limbo of pleasant banter. "This week's been tough and sometimes you just need some pussy, you know?"
Gary watches Spock carefully but damn, he's good. He looks at Gary blankly, ticks an eyebrow for a split second, and says blandly, "Indeed."
"Is that an 'indeed' for sympathy or empathy?"
"That is an extremely circumloquacious way of inquiring my sexual orientation," Spock replies. "I appreciate its cleverness."
"But not enough to answer."
"I am not pursuing the development of a sexual relationship at this time, no."
"That's fine," Gary lies because it is so not fine he wants Spock in him now. "Like I said. Here for the ladies tonight."
"Mr. Mitchell," Spock begins, "You are aware that this establishment is --"
"Straight girls are here all the time," Gary interrupts. He takes a moment to survey what he can see of the room, since Kirk will want to know what it looks like out there the second he arrives. "Sometimes to support their friends, most of the time to get away from the meatheads that molest them in other bars and are too terrified of damaging their fragile masculinity to go to a gay bar, even one where the odds are ridiculously in their favor."
"An astute assessment."
"Plus, women watching women hook up all night are a little more open and pliable and a little needier, not quite so -- you know, lowered defenses on pretty much every level." Gary looks back to Spock and adds, "It's not like, preying on anyone. It's just an observation. A woman here for a few hours -- when I show up, she'll --"
"I sympathize with strong-willed women," Spock interrupts. "My mother is very much that kind of woman. As is my…"
"Girlfriend? Wife? Fiancee?"
"Intended," Spock finishes. "Perhaps a little more -- rigid -- than my mother."
"Well, Spock," Gary says, "Losers who aren't surrounded by beautiful people can write the anthropological study exploring this phenomenon of straight men scoring in lesbian bars, but we can live it."
"You may," Spock says. "If you will excuse me for a moment."
"Sure, sure," Gary says with a slight wave. He sips his drink and over the rim watches Spock walk towards the bathrooms. He puts his drink down and is about to follow him when there's a fierce clap on his shoulder and he's turned around on his stool. Kirk's face awaits.
"So what's it look like out there?" he yells over the music.
"Dammit, Jim," Gary sighs. "Bridal parties at five, two, and seven o'clock."
"Which do you want to hit first? Give me your evaluation, Cadet!"
Eventually, he forgets about Spock.
*
Gary runs into Spock again outside a toy store.
Technically, they're both outside a toy store; Gary is outside Maurice's Playland and Spock is outside Andre's Playground.
Gary walks over and grins at Spock. "The owners of these shops must be in cahoots together," Gary remarks. "Putting a sex shop and a toy shop across from each other."
"The proprietors are older gentlemen from West Algeria," Spock says. "Married to each other -- so, yes, I believe this layout is both convenient and amusing for them."
"I wonder how many kids have stood in the middle of the street and demanded a train-shaped buttplug instead of an actual model train," Gary muses.
"I have heard of two occurrences," Spock says and he clarifies when Gary raises his eyebrows dangerously. "My father often had business in San Francisco when I was a child."
"You were one of those kids," Gary gasps. "No -- shut up -- really? Did you -- which did you get?"
"Good afternoon, Cadet," Spock replies. He walks away from Gary, who watches him go and tries not to sigh audibly.
"At least tell me what color it was!" Gary calls after him.
*
There's a Betazoid quartet performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gary runs into Spock during intermission.
"I wonder that humans can appreciate the telepathic component of the Betazoid performers," Spock says as Gary orders himself a cocktail the size of the symphony hall itself.
"You're such a snob," Gary laughs once he has his drink in both hands. "You mean can we poor stupid humans appreciate the projections of the performers? It doesn't fake a full-blown telepath to appreciate the sensations of pride and accomplishment, a self-aware appreciation of beauty, and that second harp player is harboring distinctly unprofessional feelings for the conductor."
Spock stares at Gary for a moment before Gary rolls his eyes and says, "High Esper ratings. Like, Starfleet knows what the top of the chart looks like because of my scores. And there are telepaths in my family. Don't be a snob. It happens in humans sometimes."
"Indeed," Spock says.
"Indeed you've just been schooled?" Gary asks with a grin.
Spock gives a slight nod of his head and Gary laughs as he drinks some more.
"Your shields are excellent," Spock adds. "I sense very little bleeding through of your emotions."
"Well, yeah," Gary replies. "Only had it, uh, my entire life."
"You're mocking me," Spock says with some astonishment.
"Ha, yeah, I do that." Gary puts his drink down and uses the straws because it's seriously putting a strain on his arms and he's not drinking fast enough to lighten the load. "I think I'm also a little empathic, which doesn't run in my family, to our knowledge."
"Indeed?"
"Well, our friend -- me and Jim, friend from the bar you didn't meet --"
"I had a previous engagement," Spock explains.
"Sure, anyway, me and Jim and our friend Bones -- well Bones is just about the -- he's that guy whose eye is always twitching from stress and rage and you're always a little pleased when you meet for lunch and he hasn't murdered forty people yet -- which, actually, would be much easier for him considering he's a doctor, so let's up it to eighty."
"Hardly seems like a psychological profile befitting a doctor."
"Or the best kind of doctor," Gary retorts. "Objective as hell, smart as anything, just. Abrasive, so you know he means it."
"And your empathy…"
"My empathy, right, well, he's older than us by a year or two or five -- than me and Jim -- so he worries all the time, but he stops when I'm around and, you know, willing him to calm the fuck down, or I touch him and I feel it bleed into me, so I get pissed off and go to the gym for an hour, but he's calm as a kitten for a night."
"That does suggest empathic abilities," Spock agrees. "I had thought my mother was, if not unique, then very rare, for her exceptional Esper ratings."
"Oh, I'm sure loads of people -- loads of humans -- have it, but -- well, take my friend Jim again. Pretty high ratings, somewhere in the low 80s, but he doesn't do anything about it, and I think he's a much better empath than I am, but he just writes it off as charm, and buddy -- you can be charming, but not that charming."
"That is not surprising," Spock says.
"What?"
"Should his empathic abilities be made a matter of public record, it would impact his Starfleet career, would it not? Allowances would be made, and he would no longer be a marvel to be wondered at, but an intelligent empath."
"That's cynical," Gary notes.
"As a telepath and a member of the faculty at Starfleet, I can assure you there would be no benefits in the curriculum to your friend revealing his empathic abilities -- he would have to travel off-world in order to learn how to enhance his gifts from natural empaths."
"As it is, he'll be a great starship captain who'll charm the hell out of sentient creatures left and right."
"That -- yes."
The lights flash and Gary sighs at how much of his drink he still has left, fucking Spock.
"Nice running into you again," Gary says.
"The feeling is mutual." Spock nods slightly and heads back to his seat. Gary watches him go and then turns back to his drink, downing as much as he can before he has to really head back to his seat.
*
Spock is made for Gary's attention span -- for ten or fifteen minutes, he's overcome by this presence, which then disappears, leaving Gary to pine for another ten minutes and move on to his next conquest or obsession without a second thought.
Of course, once he begins looking for Spock, he notices Spock is -- well -- everywhere.
Like that classroom (not a lecture hall, but a very small, intimate classroom) in Pulaski Hall as Gary walks by one afternoon. He does a double take and strolls inside, and there's Spock in his full officer's uniform, which might be enough to dry out Gary's mouth completely.
"Lieutenant…?"
"Commander," Spock says, his eyes flicking to the faint black stripes on his black sleeves.
"Of course. How stupid of me." Gary realizes he's dumb struck, remembers he doesn't get dumbstruck, and motions out the door with his thumb. "I'm late for a meeting in 245. Walk with me?"
"My next engagement is in the opposite direction," Spock says.
"Oh." Gary taps his fingers against his leg and asks, "What do you teach?"
"Here, I teach Advanced Phonology. I also teach a larger class in ethics."
"Neither are in my specialty -- I guess I'll never have you," Gary sighs. He shuffles his foot slightly and then gives Spock his most diabolical grin. Spock only raises an eyebrow slightly.
"Your meeting, Cadet?"
"Commander," Gary says with the slightest nod.
They part ways outside the classroom and Gary looks back briefly as he laughs to himself.
*
"Jim's too much of a gent to ask, so I have to," Gary begins when they're all about four champagne cups into Christine Chapel's engagement party. "Is Chapel knocked up?"
McCoy, to his credit, doesn't sputter but only raises an eyebrow slowly as he sips from his cup. "Christine --" he finally begins.
"Whoa, she's Christine now," Kirk slurs. Gary puts an arm around his shoulders and lets him lean because for Kirk, the party started as soon as his last class of the week was over. At three o'clock in the afternoon.
"Christine's old fashioned about things," McCoy says.
"What's that got to do with anything?" Kirk yells, half at McCoy and half into Gary's shoulder.
"She's old fashioned," he repeats. "And Korby's leaving for a three-year mission in a few days…"
"Oh my God," Gary chokes. "She's -- how could you let that happen? We raised you better than that, doctor!"
"I don't get it, why is she a drink," Kirk asks.
"She's a virgin," Gary hisses back.
Kirk bursts out laughing and tries to squirm away in order to inform the bride-to-be of this, but Gary sets his cup down and keeps both arms around Kirk. "Come on, it's not that funny. You were a virgin once, too."
"Not since I was like, a baby," Kirk replies. "I was born fucking."
"Hand him over, Gary, I'll go put him to bed," McCoy sighs as he puts his drink down.
"Yeah, Bones!" Kirk yells. "Put me to bed hard, and --" Kirk grunts and Gary tilts his head a little to watch a violent red blush creep up McCoy's neck, "That thing you do with your --"
Gary watches McCoy manhandle Kirk into the back rooms of the house, and then decides to grab another drink because 'putting Jim down' takes a little longer than he expects, most of the time.
He grabs a cup and notices the person next to him presently pouring champagne into his glass.
"So. Bride or groom?" Gary asks.
Spock looks over, ticks his eyebrow up slightly, and hands the bottle to Gary. "I was not aware the terminology applied to the couple before the wedding itself."
"It probably doesn't, but I don't know how to orally distinguish between fiancé and fiancée," Gary replies. "Chapel or Korby?"
"Dr. Korby," Spock replies. "He supervised an independent study project of mine when I was a cadet. We remained close. And you?"
"The booze." Gary sips and clarifies, "My friend McCoy is a doctor over on the Med campus. He and Chapel work together, and he dragged me and my friend Jim along."
"Yes, your friend Jim -- I believe I heard his cackling when I arrived."
"It's Thursday, he has no classes on Friday, so he starts the weekend early."
"You have a detailed knowledge of his schedule," Spock remarks.
"Ha, do I?" Gary asks. "We all know each other's schedules. Kind of the best part of every August -- get together with a few dozen beers and your friends, plot out your schedules for the semester. I mean, you could let those patterns just form, but we like to be practical about it."
"I was quite unaware of that aspect of cadet behavior," Spock says. "I did not live in the dormitories when I was a cadet."
"Ooh, lucky," Gary says. "The three or four of us -- Jim, McCoy, me, and whatever lucky fourth can stand us, so maybe Gaila -- were thinking of getting a house or apartment off campus next year, but. Well, who knows. Campus is kind of fun."
"Perhaps you can inform me of what I have been deprived of by not living in the dormitories as a student," Spock says.
"Nothing you can't get in even bigger doses off campus," Gary laughs. "Sleeping with your hallmates, crowded showers, the hysterics of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, no privacy -- okay, off campus housing might be an amazing thing to look into."
"It's a wonder you are able to focus on your studies with all those distractions."
"What about on Vulcan? How do the most practical people in the Federation deal with being young, hormonal, and crowded into confined spaces together for four to six years?"
"As I only lived in the dormitories during those early years of my education --"
"How early?"
"Until I was eleven. Five to eleven. Vulcan children are still -- developing their logic. My mother informs me they are very much like humans at that age."
"Kids are assholes," Gary says. "I should know, I was one. A child and an asshole."
"Indeed?"
"Oh yeah, I was a total bully," Gary replies. "Kids made fun of me, you know, weird telepathy thing, and then I got an early growth spurt and it was just easy to beat them up and be the mind-reading freak."
Spock was quiet and sipped his champagne. "If you will excuse me, I have not congratulated --"
"Now, Spock, come on, I'm not like that anymore," Gary protests. "And yeah, it's petty and everything but -- you know -- I was a kid."
"I do have to congratulate the couple on their engagement."
"You do, but you're an awful liar."
"How can that be a lie if you just admitted it to be the truth?"
"…shut up, it just is."
Spock presses his lips together and walks off towards Chapel and Korby, leaving Gary to drink his champagne even quicker and pour himself another cup. McCoy strolls up a few moments after that and pours himself a fresh glass.
"This shit is like lighter fluid," McCoy says.
"Not like you can afford better," Gary says.
"Now who bunched up your panties while I was gone? You're too drunk to be this bitchy."
"Not drunk enough," Gary sighs. "No, just some guy. Totally don't get him." Gary looks at McCoy and adds, "By the way, don't let a drunk guy clean you up after a handjob. There's a reason Jim's passed out in a spare room and not doing brain surgery right now."
"Dammit," McCoy sighs when he notices the front of his pants. "Hold this."
Gary drinks his champagne and McCoy's, and tries not to bore holes into Spock's back too deeply.
*
WE ARE LATE FOR BREAKFAST CLUB
SHUT UP
great now uhura is mad i hope you're happy
THE MORE YOU PAY ATTENTION THE QUICKER YOU'LL GET THE FUCK OUT
"That is not necessarily true," a calm voice says over his shoulder. Gary jumps and, of course, it's Spock. "Forgive me, your PADD was in my line of vision."
"That's not even a little bit true," Gary says.
"Why are you hovering outside the meeting rather than participating?" Spock asks.
"Waiting for my friend Jim," Gary says. The door of the classroom that the Starfleet Xenolinguistics Club appropriated for its emergency meeting has a window in front of which Gary can hover threateningly. He points Kirk out and says, "That's him. He's the treasurer."
"That is your friend Jim?" Spock asks as he stares through the glass. He seems to be giving it way more thought than Gary expected. "Suddenly, I -- many things make sense."
"Oh?" Gary asks.
"The club's president, Cadet Uhura --" And Spock points her out, somehow using only a slight motion of his chin, "Is my aide for Advanced Phonology. She is --"
"Ha, yeah, we know Uhura all right," Gary laughs.
"Do you?" Spock asks, an eyebrow slightly arched.
"Oh yeah, she was on the shuttle that first took me, Jim, and McCoy to Starfleet. Actually, it's an amazing story --"
"You," Spock says, and he genuinely can't keep the astonishment out of his voice that time. "She -- yes, you are the three cadets and -- you had intercourse in the bathroom. Loudly. With that cadet. The one who -- why is he yelling?"
"Small world," Gary laughs. "Smaller shuttle, I think. But yeah, Jim and I -- we hit it off right away." Gary watches Spock carefully and says, "I just blew your mind, didn't I?"
"Not literally, but yes, you have profoundly shocked me at the -- incestuous nature of Starfleet Academy relations."
"Can't be surprising, I mean: we're the best of the best, in all the same classes, similar interests, complementary specialties -- we're all bound to run into each other and fuck each other at some point."
Spock says, "I cannot agree with that assessment entirely."
"Come on," Gary says with his best grin. "Jim and I cover a lot of ground. If it's not me, it'll be him. Or Gaila -- do you know Gaila? Sweet girl, she's --"
"Cadet, if you will excuse me. Please inform Cadet Uhura she should message me when she is through here."
Spock is gone and a minute later, the meeting is dismissed and Gary sighs.
When Kirk finally steps in the hallway, Gary gives him a shove in the shoulder. "I saw that -- you knew Breakfast Club was happening but you kept yapping on like Doctor Pancake Fascist won't order without us."
"I was doing you a favor!" Kirk shrieks. "You were giving that Vulcan guy the 'fuck my mouth, please' face and I thought a few more minutes would help you out!"
"It's not like that," Gary sighs, and then he sees Uhura leave the room. "Hey, Uhura, your Vulcan was looking for you."
"My what?" she asks, the tips of her hair hitting Kirk in the face when she spins around.
"Dammit, keep that shit in check, it's like a fucking weapon," Kirk snaps.
"Honey, you really need to start eating breakfast earlier if you're just going to get snippy during meetings," Uhura informs him. "And no, I'm not on McCoy's pre-approved list of 'things you can eat', you pervert, so don't ask."
"I didn't even say anything! God! See if I keep my promise about not fucking Gaila on your bed."
"See if I keep my promise about not fucking Gaila without you in the room."
"I -- was not aware that was an option," Kirk says, all the anger gone out of him suddenly. "Tell me more."
"Were you saying something?" Uhura asks Gary. "About Commander Spock? Who, by the way, is not interested in you."
"You don't know that," Gary retorts.
"I'm his aide. Believe me. I know. He is not, and never will be, hitting that," she says as she looks him up and down.
"Why am I the only one who doesn't know this guy?" Kirk asks. "I hate being left out of shit. Who has nailed him?"
"Let me check the wiki I keep of my adviser's sexual partners, oh wait. I'm not a creep like you are, Cadet."
"Uhura, you should come to Breakfast Club with us," Gary says. "Gaila's there, so it's a safe space, and McCoy should keep Jim in check."
"Bones doesn't keep me in check," Kirk protests.
"Wow, you like, broke out in a little bit of a sweat as you said that," Uhura laughs. "That's so. I've never seen anyone so completely owned."
"Would you give her the message about her exotic sex toy already so I can get some fucking pancakes into my mouth?" Kirk asks Gary.
"What message?" Gary asks.
"You're impossible! Both of you!" Uhura shrieks.
"He just wanted you to know he was looking for you, for fuck's sake," Gary says. He nudges Uhura in the arm and motions to the door leading outside. "Breakfast? Come on, the Commander was really impressed at how we're all one big happy family… who happens to have a lot of hot, sweaty sex with each other."
"Sweet of you to say, but I'm not part of that family," Uhura replies as they exit the building and head for the usual breakfast spot. "I haven't had whatever aphrodisiac your group insists on getting intravenously --"
"Sex is stress relief, according to our doctor, and I'll have you remember that we did better than you in that ethics class last semester," Kirk notes in between violating passers-by with his glances. "You know, the one you were offended we were even able to take because we were just baby first years and, well, that's just embarrassing for you, isn't it?"
"You may be a genius," Uhura says, "But I work hard, harder than anyone I know, and I dread the day you're in command of a starship and need to get a blow job before you can even think of handling a crisis."
"Know what, just for that? You should be my comm officer during my Kobayashi Maru test," Kirk says.
"Oh, don't even -- don't you dare put my name on that list."
"It's 'don't you dare put my name on that list, Captain.'"
Uhura lets out a guttural, frustrated moan and shoves the door of the breakfast place open, making a beeline for the empty chair next to Gaila. "Your friends suck," she informs her roommate.
"Oh, sweetie, you just don't know them like I do," Gaila coos as she pulls Uhura in for a hug and lets her lean against her chest. "Hi Jim, hi Gary," she calls over Uhura's head. "Like, for example, did you know that sucking on that mole right beneath Jim's right ear --"
"Tell the world, Gaila," McCoy sighs as he looks around for a waitress.
"Like the world doesn't know," Uhura replies.
"Everyone needs to leave my mole alone," Kirk announces.
"Gary has a much better secret about his shoulder blades," Gaila begins.
"Everyone knows about Gary's shoulder blades," Kirk replies. "Gaila, do better."
"What about you, sweetie?" Gaila asks Uhura. "Should I tell them about your --"
"NO," Uhura says as she sits up straight. "Roommate confidentiality, you tell them nothing about --"
"Speaking of roommates," Kirk begins, "Uhura mentioned something about the three of us maybe --"
"Oh, this is so exciting! Are you finally up for the three-way?" Gaila asks Uhura excitedly. "I knew you would come around!"
"You talked to her about it?" Kirk asks as Gary watches his eyes almost fill up with joyful tears. "Gaila, I just -- you are the greatest."
"We are not having a three-way!" Uhura shrieks into one of those sudden silences that had just permeated the entire restaurant as she spoke.
"All right," says their usual gruff waitress, who chose that moment to sidle up to the table. "You're not having a three-way. Can I recommend an omelet?"
"It's best to carb up before strenuous physical activity," Gaila says, "And Jim is very much a strenuous --"
"Bowl of fruit, two eggs scrambled, lunar toast, a seat away from these maniacs," Uhura says.
"I kind of love our horrible friends," Gary says to McCoy quietly.
"No talking until we all order," McCoy snaps. "Dammit, stay on point, Mitchell."
"Yup," Gary says to himself. "Love them all."
*
The Battle of Vulcan happens in what turns out to be their final year due to the decimation of the student body and an intense case of terminal field promotions.
Gary and Gaila ended up on the USS Proxima and, like not enough others, manned an escape shuttle out of the wreckage of too many starships and were picked up by an Andorian ship on its way to the rendezvous point in the Laurentian system.
They're on the bridge of the Harrison, Gary charting the Romulan ship's potential trajectories and the routes for each of the remaining starships to take back to Earth while Gaila argues with the engineering chief (who is an ageist and a speciest and a sexist and an asshole), when Gary thinks his brain has died because the air is filled with Spock's voice. The Enterprise.
"A Vulcan?" the main communications officer asks before even replying to Spock. "Where's Captain Pike?"
"Yes, I am a Vulcan and, as I said thirty-seven seconds ago, Acting Captain Spock of the USS Enterprise."
The Harrison's viewscreen comes alive and there's Spock, sitting in the captain's chair, tense as anything and looking -- well, looking like hell.
"Captain Malik," Spock adds with a nod.
"Captain, report, what is Enterprise's status? We heard from the officers who have managed to reach the rendezvous point that there was a battle in Vulcan airspace with a Romulan ship."
"There was," Spock says slowly, "With the result that every ship dispatched but the Enterprise was destroyed, as was the planet itself."
"Commander," Malik replies just as slowly. "Explain."
"Enterprise is presently en route to the rendezvous point, where I will issue a full report of the events that transpired," Spock says. "We will shut down all but essential communications and services in order to reach the rendezvous point in a timely manner, with our remaining power favoring the weakened engines. However, the bare facts are true: the five dispatched starships and their crew were destroyed, as was the planet Vulcan. Captain Pike has been taken hostage by Nero of the Romulan ship. Please pass these facts along to Starfleet and await a more detailed report upon our arrival. Spock out."
It's all silent then, except for their equipment, and the communications officer opens a channel to Starfleet, stammering the entire time because it's five ships, all cadets, fucking gone. Not gone -- destroyed, which has implications of there, in pieces, wreckage and bodies just out there, going where ever space takes them.
Malik orders Gary and Gaila both to take a break when they've been there seven hours straight, and Gary's temporary new bunkmate seems to see the look in his and Gaila's eyes because he gets the fuck out the minute they arrive.
They go through the motions of fucking, but Gary stops and lowers his face to Gaila's chest, and he cries like he hasn't since he was a kid.
"It's all right, my breasts are here for you," Gaila says as she rubs his back soothingly. "And so is my mind, of course, but you seem to be very relieved that my breasts are here."
"Six billion people on Vulcan, Gaila," Gary mumbles, half his mouth against her skin, "And I'm -- and the Enterprise is okay and that's all I'm worried about. Jim -- if Spock can get a transmission through, maybe we can comm them, and I mean, McCoy got one through earlier, you know, telling me he snuck Jim on board so now --"
"They're all right," Gaila soothes. "The hard part was surviving the horrific firefight, wasn't it? And we did that, and the Enterprise did that, so we'll all be fine now. There's this wonderful brothel on Laurent IX and a cousin of mine --"
"Yeah," Gary agrees, more to himself than to Gaila, doing the math, endlessly doing the math -- six starships, 1500 people on each, the variable being that Romulan ship -- insufficient data, and he's fucking tired, so he gives up on thinking and pulls Gaila a little closer. "Yeah, Jim's okay, and McCoy has to be, and even your bitch of a roommate. God, she's not even a bitch, she's too smart and dignified for our stupid asses, I don't even know why she hangs around us."
"She finds you all very immature and challenging," Gaila says. "Or was that a rhetorical question?"
"It was both, thanks," Gary says, a little slurry with sleep and it's the last thing he remembers, Gaila rubbing a hand between his shoulder blades and kind of sniffling in his hair.
When Gary wakes up, Gaila is still there, one hand still on his back, one hand in his hair, both of them completely wrapped up in each other and fuck, what would he have done without a friend like her? He listens to her sleep for a few more moments and then nods off again, that battle Spock mentioned a few lifetimes ago when he commed on the bridge apparently content to go on without them.
But the Enterprise never makes its rendezvous, and Gary remembers that as the last time he sleeps for a week.
*
It turns out the Enterprise is okay, just -- not at the rendezvous point in the Laurentian system. The Harrison gets back to Earth before the Enterprise, on the day the drill is hauled out of the Pacific.
"This little white ship, man, just flew in and zapped the chain and then flew out again," someone tells him and Gaila as they watch cranes borrowed from the Portland shipyard stretch out the drill and chain on the lawn outside the Academy library.
They spend their time until the Enterprise arrives at Earth spacedock in the Academy's labs analyzing the little data the ship is able to send on its slow trek back to Earth. Classwork, exams, what? It's a week-long practical final that will pretty much determine What the Federation Does Next, and it comes down to people like Gary and Gaila -- people who weren't injured badly enough to be recovering in Medical, or undergoing intensive counseling, or on the five starships, or are still patrolling the Neutral Zone in case the Klingons want to start shit.
Their supervisor, a Betazoid who's technically a linguist but hiding out in their lab because Gary and Gaila aren't trying to kill her telepathically with their sadness, turns the viewscreen to Federation news when someone on the lawn outside screams about the Enterprise arriving in spacedock.
Gary clutches Gaila's hand when the cameras capture what's left of the crew filing out from the ship to the shuttles back to Earth -- not enough operations and security crew, certainly not as many as a Constitution-class ship should have. They're led by a guy in a red shirt with a huge fur coat over one arm and a huge smile on his face, and Gary doesn't have enough functioning brain cells to put any of that together into something coherent.
There's a completely broken baby science staff (like anyone can blame them), all of them dragging their feet and looking around for people, unsure of where they're going, really.
There's the command staff emptying the upper decks, looking harried but again, okay. Relieved. Making each other laugh and yeah, that's relief on all their faces, and pure fucking glee.
What's left of medical consists of McCoy pushing Pike's wheelchair and snarling at any cameras that come within ten feet of them, Chapel leading several Vulcan elders down the ramp as she resolutely refuses to make eye contact with anyone, and a handful of doctors and nurses. Just a handful -- Gary counts twelve total. Gary wonders what the fuck happened there -- it must be why McCoy never commed to mention that, in addition to sneaking Kirk on board, they survived everything and Kirk and Spock kind of saved the world.
"Oh, there they are!" Gaila says as she spots the bridge crew emerge. Gary counts the right number of science, command, and operations officers -- he sees Uhura walking with -- shit, with Sulu, who was already on his way out of the Academy when Gary's class arrived but was still trudging through a doctorate in astrofuckitall, and Chekov, a curly-haired prepubescent in Uhura and Gaila's year with a nasty habit of table dancing with the drunkest person at any given party and turning down offers to work for every private organization in the Federation because he has Starfleet or bust (metaphorically, please only metaphorically) tattooed on his lower back.
Finally, there's Kirk and Spock.
"They're all right," Gary chokes out. "Jim's okay, he's okay."
"Of course he is," Gaila says as she throws her arms around Gary's neck, and they try to hug and watch the screen simultaneously. "Oh! Viewscreen, center focus." Gaila tilts her head and laughs. "That's -- Nyota's adviser! Who she was, you know."
"Oh my God, they were?" Gary laughs as he discreetly wipes his eyes, keeping his arm firmly around Gaila's waist. "She lied. Remember the first time she came to breakfast with us?"
"Oh, they weren't then -- it's only been in the last few weeks." Gaila looks at Gary and adds, "Funny how long ago that seems."
"Sad, Gaila, not funny."
"Can't it be both?" she asks.
"I guess," he says as he chokes out a short laugh of complete and utter relief.
They turn back to the screen, Kirk and Spock still the focus of the particular feed they're watching. They're totally lost in their conversation, Kirk's trillion-watt grin being broadcast across the Federation while Spock looks down at the ground and leans into Kirk's space, occasionally whispering into Kirk's ear as they walk down the ramp.
"They are so going to fuck," Gary says. Their supervisor looks appalled and turns to the screen again to avoid listening to him. "I mean, Jim is going to bang him into a parallel universe."
"He's never looked at Nyota like that," Gaila remarks. "And Jim's never looked at me like that."
"Well, not at your eyes."
She nudges him in the shoulder and they laugh.
"We should go meet the shuttle," Gary says.
"Along with everyone else on Earth," Gaila replies.
"You're right. Let's go to the bar. They'll find us there."
*
Gary and Gaila are asleep in their usual bar, in their usual booth. Gary holed up in the corner and stretched out so Gaila could lie on him, and fuck, that worked surprisingly well. They wake up when the table rattles because McCoy has thrown himself into the seat across from them.
"Leonard!" Gaila shrieks. "Gary, wake up, we have to hug Leonard!"
Gaila runs around and slides in next to McCoy who, for the first time in Gary's whole fucking life, hugs someone back as fiercely as he's being hugged.
"Thought you and Mitchell were done for with the rest, you should have commed."
"And you!" Gaila shrieks as she pries herself off McCoy and slaps his arms and chest. "You! Should! Have! Commed! And -- and -- Leonard!"
Gary orders another pitcher and third glass for McCoy, and settles in to watch the play that's just started in front of him, succinctly entitled, "Starfleet cadets celebrate being alive by removing each other's tonsils in public."
*
Uhura shows up, but there's no making out, not even crying, just a round of whiskeys for the table.
"So you survived," Gary says when she's on her second drink.
"Yup," she says.
"Is 'yup' the correct terminology for the emotions you're feeling right now?" Gary asks.
She spends fifteen minutes explaining why it's actually the perfect word of all the ones she could have chosen, and Gary's glad to have distracted her, if only for fifteen minutes.
Sulu and Chekov show up and decide to start doing doubles of shots of some vodka only Chekov can pronounce, and Gary kind of just wants to push the curls out of Chekov's face every time he throws one back and his cheeks get a little more flushed.
"He's seventeen," McCoy informs the table with a look towards Chekov. "No one try anything."
"I lost my virginity in a drinking contest to a pair of twins in Moscow when I was fifteen," Chekov informs them. "Shut up, doctor."
"Like… you wrote an IOU on a card and they misplaced it?" McCoy asks hopefully.
"Hector and Marina from Portugal," Chekov corrects. "I could not walk for two days."
"I think Jim needs to give up his heavyweight belt to you," Gary says.
"But -- the orgy -- there were seven of us!" Gaila protests.
"Yeah, but we were all in our twenties. He was fifteen," Gary replies.
"We'll see when Jim gets here," Gaila says, because there's a literal belt and she likes to wear it naked sometimes.
"I'll just get Jim a new belt," Sulu finally says. "I kind of, you know, owe him my life. If he wants to --"
"How?" Gary asks. "How'd he save your life? What the fuck happened up there, by the way? You guys keep shitty logs when you're busy saving the galaxy."
"I will fucking tell you everything, Gary Mitchell," Sulu says, "And I even put some of it into rhyme because it was a fucking slow trip back from Saturn on impulse engines, and I was the designated driver, you know."
They buy another round of shots and drink to Jim, who has saved all of their lives in one way or another over the past three years, and who will probably do it again in the years to come because it's kind of his thing now, isn't it?
*
They've been in the bar all fucking day and most of the night when Kirk finally walks in, showered and wearing his most beat up jeans and worn out t-shirt that has a hole near his ribs. Most of them are too drunk to stand, except Kirk has walked in and it's Gaila with her ultra metabolism that climbs out of the booth again to run into his arms and shriek gleefully that he's alive and a hero and wonderful and alive.
"Fuck, you bastard, you gave us a scare," Gary says when he finally lifts himself out of the booth and makes his way over to Kirk.
"And you, you son of a bitch," Kirk murmurs near Gary's ear, and he even bites him on the lobe while he laughs. "Way to not even comm us, you know, just a little note --"
"We went through this with McCoy already, jeez, I get it, I'll call next time, Mom," Gary laughs.
"What's a guy gotta do to get a drink around here!" he yells over Gary's shoulder, and Gary holds him all the tighter for another moment before turning back to the table.
"Wasn't that sweet," McCoy drawls.
"You better be liquored up, Bones, because I'm going to be on your lap in five minutes and staying there 'til dawn, okay?"
"Can't wait," McCoy sighs while everyone laughs.
"Hey, where's Spock?" Gary asks as Kirk pours himself a pint. "I saw the two of you on the feed, thought. Well. I don't know."
"Spock," Kirk sighs, his eyes trained on the bottom of his glass. "He's -- I told him where we were. I don't know, man. Guess he's with his dad." Kirk takes a sip and says, "We lost his mom when Vulcan imploded, but his dad's okay. He's alive. So. I really don't know. But I told him we'd --"
"Spock," Uhura interrupts, but she's looking at the door.
Gary turns and there he is. He's spotted them and makes his way over, and Uhura rushes out of the booth to meet him. He puts a hand up, then softens and rests his hand on her shoulder for a second. Gary watches Spock's eyes flick to his own in recognition, and notes everyone else that's with them, but they finally settle on Kirk. Gary lets go of Kirk and lets Spock enter his personal space and whisper near his ear something like:
"I cannot grieve as my father does."
"Understood," Kirk replies. "What gets you drunk?"
"Mudslides," Uhura supplies helpfully, and then looks into her shot of whiskey like she didn't say anything.
"I find that particular drink has the correct proportions of ethanol and --"
"Round of mudslides, please, over here," Kirk calls out.
"I've been waiting for this since the day I met you," Gary comments to Spock over Kirk. Kirk turns on him and raises his eyebrows.
"You know Spock?"
"Are you fucking me?" Gary asks.
Spock replies simultaneously, "The cadet and I are well acquainted."
"He -- fuck, never mind, it's a long story," Gary sighs. He slides back into the booth, next to Sulu and Chekov, while Kirk and Spock drag chairs over and position themselves at the head of the table. "So."
Their mudslides (particularly laden with ethanol for the humans, all of them with frozen chocolate on the rim) arrive and Gary blacks out after that.
*
He wakes up at the bar, face pressed against his folded arms, mouth wide open and drool all over his sleeves. He blinks slowly and looks around without picking up his head, which is sure to try and murder him with the hangover of his life the minute he does.
Everyone else in their group also slept in the booth, somehow -- even McCoy, who will bitch about his neck and back until kingdom fucking come (maybe not, since he's using most of Gaila's chest as a pillow), and they're all still asleep.
Except for Kirk and Spock at the head of the table. At some point, Kirk turned his chair around and folded his arms on the back so he could rest his head and listen to Spock. Spock sits upright in his chair, shoulders straight, hands in his lap, head bowed slightly as he speaks softly to Kirk. Kirk replies in a hushed tone, full of sibilants and so very gravelly --
"Since when do you speak Vulcan?" Gary asks incredulously.
Kirk lifts his head and blinks at Gary, and for a minute, Gary would swear Kirk had no idea who he was, or had forgotten he was there.
"Yeah," he says. "Go back to sleep, okay?"
Gary burrows back into his arms and stares at Kirk and Spock for another moment until his eyelids slip closed and finally stay shut.
*
Kirk shows up at Gary's dorm room one morning and says:
"The Enterprise is mine. Can I count on you to be my first?"
Gary tilts his head because it's a Saturday and Kirk isn't actually smiling that much when he asks.
"No way," Gary laughs like Kirk has just asked him to help him move without beer or something equally ridiculous.
"Wait, what?" Kirk asks. "Did you just say no?"
"I want my own ship someday," Gary says, "and if I come with you now, I'm never going to get it."
"You don't know --"
"Besides, they've got stuff for me to do down here until the Exeter is ready to head out and patrol with you. Someone's got to figure out what the hell to do with that singularity you guys left next to Saturn," Gary laughs.
"Gary," Kirk sighs as he rubs a hand along his face. "What the fuck am I going to do without you? Who the fuck --"
"You shithead," Gary says. "Did you really not notice?"
"Notice what?"
"That there's a Vulcan out there, with amazing abs and a to-die-for bone structure, who is never going to be anyone else's first while you're around. Go get him and leave me alone. I've got company."
"Really?" Kirk leers. "Anyone I know?"
"Get the fuck out." Gary grins and shoves Kirk in the shoulder, and steps back into his room.
"I made pancakes and ate them," Gaila announces when he walks back into the kitchen. "I left you some batter, but you should make more. Or synthesize them."
Gary looks at the mess in the kitchen and considers his options.
"You're not going with Jim?" she asks.
"Are you?" he asks.
"He already has a chief of engineering," Gaila says matter-of-factly. "I wouldn't settle for anything less."
"Good," Gary says. "Can I call dibs on you now?"
"Only if you really do get the Exeter," she considers. "If they change their minds and give you the Hood, I'll leave forever."
"Good to know," Gary laughs.
Fandom: ST (Reboot)
Characters: Gary Mitchell, Spock, EVERYONE.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8.5k
Summary: Gary keeps running into this guy named Spock.
Notes: This kind of answers the question of where was Spock during all that Academy crack, but then it dips into something else entirely. Can stand alone as just a run-of-the-mill Academy fic. Many many many thanks to
waldorph and zlot for reading this over and laughing in all the right places and leaving MS Paint drawings where shit needed to be fixed and generally being amazeballs. (AO3)
There's a lesbian bar not far from Starfleet Academy called Gaila.
Gary has heard 15 different stories as to why the bar is called just GAILA, and they only get more perplexing once Kirk introduces him to Gaila herself.
She's never confirmed or denied the following:
A) that the owner saved her from whatever brutal things Orions are doing to sentient creatures this week, and fell in love with her, but she wouldn't shack up with him so he opened a bar for her.
("Gary, does anyone else know you're this sentimental?")
B) that the bar is actually something like DYKES or FLANNEL or IF YOU LIKE GIRLS AND ALCOHOL COME THROW MONEY AT US, but the city calls it Gaila because once a woman sees Gaila there, they never go back to men and their cocks again.
("Creative and flattering. True? Well.")
C) that Gaila owns the fucking bar.
("I'm so busy with my schoolwork!")
C2) that Gaila's mother owns the fucking bar.
("That does solve a lot of problems.")
D) that Gaila makes a nightly appearance there, gives some kind of performance for women only, and so the bar is just Gaila like the cafeteria is just the cafeteria or Kirk's room is just Slut Paradise.
("I'm positive you or Jim would have managed to sneak in already if that were the case.")
Though the night Gary walks in there and sees a pale, long-limbed Vulcan sitting at the bar, he stops giving a fuck about the name of the bar and just thanks God for Gaila.
Gary slowly edges his way towards the Vulcan, making eye contact with his favorite bartender and giving the vague hand signal for "the special, please, and don't charge me because I look like your baby brother."
The drink is waiting for Gary when he finally reaches the Vulcan's elbow.
"So," Gary begins as he takes his drink. "You're quiet."
Gary takes in everything about him: his legs are even longer than he thought, his posture is perfect, his hair slightly ruffled in the back from a wildly gesticulating bride just behind him, and Gary's stomach drops when his head slowly turns and wide brown eyes meet his own.
"This is the only establishment in a six block radius of my apartment that uses fresh, non-synthesized, fruit juice in its concoctions," he replies coolly.
Gary leans over and sniffs a cocktail glass that's nearly empty.
"Buddy, that's not just fruit juice," Gary laughs.
"It takes a significant amount of ethanol to affect my nervous system," the Vulcan reassures him. "Approximately --"
"Don't tell me," Gary interrupts. "I want to find out on my own."
"I do not intend on ever imbibing that many drinks again."
"I can be persuasive." Gary gives the ta'al and says, "Gary Mitchell."
"Spock," he says, returning the gesture. "Thank you for not --"
A drunk girl suddenly throws herself at Spock's back and is automatically thrown right back by a quick backwards flex of his shoulders.
"You must be a great dancer," Gary remarks. "So what effect does ethanol have on you? I'd like to earn my xenobiology badge for the scouts."
"Cadet, you are too old to be in the scouts," Spock says as another drink arrives. "I suspect you know this, but I thought I would inform you all the same. If your academic curiosity persists: I am not completely Vulcan."
"I thought you moved a little too smoothly," Gary says. He finally succeeds in annoying the massive dyke off the stool next to Spock and sits down happily, leaning on his hand and giving Spock his biggest smile. "Maybe it's just San Francisco being Federation headquarters, but every goddamn Vulcan here has coathangers for collarbones. You seem looser."
"Ethanol does have that slight effect on my biology," Spock replies. "A very weak muscle relaxant."
"So during the day: coathanger?"
"Eventually, not keeping correct posture becomes more painful than correct posture."
"Fascinating," Gary says.
"Why are you here?"
"Waiting for a friend," and really, where is Kirk? Gary wants to simultaneously introduce them to each other and keep Spock to himself forever, so maybe it's for the best that Kirk is running late and giving him a few more minutes in this limbo of pleasant banter. "This week's been tough and sometimes you just need some pussy, you know?"
Gary watches Spock carefully but damn, he's good. He looks at Gary blankly, ticks an eyebrow for a split second, and says blandly, "Indeed."
"Is that an 'indeed' for sympathy or empathy?"
"That is an extremely circumloquacious way of inquiring my sexual orientation," Spock replies. "I appreciate its cleverness."
"But not enough to answer."
"I am not pursuing the development of a sexual relationship at this time, no."
"That's fine," Gary lies because it is so not fine he wants Spock in him now. "Like I said. Here for the ladies tonight."
"Mr. Mitchell," Spock begins, "You are aware that this establishment is --"
"Straight girls are here all the time," Gary interrupts. He takes a moment to survey what he can see of the room, since Kirk will want to know what it looks like out there the second he arrives. "Sometimes to support their friends, most of the time to get away from the meatheads that molest them in other bars and are too terrified of damaging their fragile masculinity to go to a gay bar, even one where the odds are ridiculously in their favor."
"An astute assessment."
"Plus, women watching women hook up all night are a little more open and pliable and a little needier, not quite so -- you know, lowered defenses on pretty much every level." Gary looks back to Spock and adds, "It's not like, preying on anyone. It's just an observation. A woman here for a few hours -- when I show up, she'll --"
"I sympathize with strong-willed women," Spock interrupts. "My mother is very much that kind of woman. As is my…"
"Girlfriend? Wife? Fiancee?"
"Intended," Spock finishes. "Perhaps a little more -- rigid -- than my mother."
"Well, Spock," Gary says, "Losers who aren't surrounded by beautiful people can write the anthropological study exploring this phenomenon of straight men scoring in lesbian bars, but we can live it."
"You may," Spock says. "If you will excuse me for a moment."
"Sure, sure," Gary says with a slight wave. He sips his drink and over the rim watches Spock walk towards the bathrooms. He puts his drink down and is about to follow him when there's a fierce clap on his shoulder and he's turned around on his stool. Kirk's face awaits.
"So what's it look like out there?" he yells over the music.
"Dammit, Jim," Gary sighs. "Bridal parties at five, two, and seven o'clock."
"Which do you want to hit first? Give me your evaluation, Cadet!"
Eventually, he forgets about Spock.
*
Gary runs into Spock again outside a toy store.
Technically, they're both outside a toy store; Gary is outside Maurice's Playland and Spock is outside Andre's Playground.
Gary walks over and grins at Spock. "The owners of these shops must be in cahoots together," Gary remarks. "Putting a sex shop and a toy shop across from each other."
"The proprietors are older gentlemen from West Algeria," Spock says. "Married to each other -- so, yes, I believe this layout is both convenient and amusing for them."
"I wonder how many kids have stood in the middle of the street and demanded a train-shaped buttplug instead of an actual model train," Gary muses.
"I have heard of two occurrences," Spock says and he clarifies when Gary raises his eyebrows dangerously. "My father often had business in San Francisco when I was a child."
"You were one of those kids," Gary gasps. "No -- shut up -- really? Did you -- which did you get?"
"Good afternoon, Cadet," Spock replies. He walks away from Gary, who watches him go and tries not to sigh audibly.
"At least tell me what color it was!" Gary calls after him.
*
There's a Betazoid quartet performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gary runs into Spock during intermission.
"I wonder that humans can appreciate the telepathic component of the Betazoid performers," Spock says as Gary orders himself a cocktail the size of the symphony hall itself.
"You're such a snob," Gary laughs once he has his drink in both hands. "You mean can we poor stupid humans appreciate the projections of the performers? It doesn't fake a full-blown telepath to appreciate the sensations of pride and accomplishment, a self-aware appreciation of beauty, and that second harp player is harboring distinctly unprofessional feelings for the conductor."
Spock stares at Gary for a moment before Gary rolls his eyes and says, "High Esper ratings. Like, Starfleet knows what the top of the chart looks like because of my scores. And there are telepaths in my family. Don't be a snob. It happens in humans sometimes."
"Indeed," Spock says.
"Indeed you've just been schooled?" Gary asks with a grin.
Spock gives a slight nod of his head and Gary laughs as he drinks some more.
"Your shields are excellent," Spock adds. "I sense very little bleeding through of your emotions."
"Well, yeah," Gary replies. "Only had it, uh, my entire life."
"You're mocking me," Spock says with some astonishment.
"Ha, yeah, I do that." Gary puts his drink down and uses the straws because it's seriously putting a strain on his arms and he's not drinking fast enough to lighten the load. "I think I'm also a little empathic, which doesn't run in my family, to our knowledge."
"Indeed?"
"Well, our friend -- me and Jim, friend from the bar you didn't meet --"
"I had a previous engagement," Spock explains.
"Sure, anyway, me and Jim and our friend Bones -- well Bones is just about the -- he's that guy whose eye is always twitching from stress and rage and you're always a little pleased when you meet for lunch and he hasn't murdered forty people yet -- which, actually, would be much easier for him considering he's a doctor, so let's up it to eighty."
"Hardly seems like a psychological profile befitting a doctor."
"Or the best kind of doctor," Gary retorts. "Objective as hell, smart as anything, just. Abrasive, so you know he means it."
"And your empathy…"
"My empathy, right, well, he's older than us by a year or two or five -- than me and Jim -- so he worries all the time, but he stops when I'm around and, you know, willing him to calm the fuck down, or I touch him and I feel it bleed into me, so I get pissed off and go to the gym for an hour, but he's calm as a kitten for a night."
"That does suggest empathic abilities," Spock agrees. "I had thought my mother was, if not unique, then very rare, for her exceptional Esper ratings."
"Oh, I'm sure loads of people -- loads of humans -- have it, but -- well, take my friend Jim again. Pretty high ratings, somewhere in the low 80s, but he doesn't do anything about it, and I think he's a much better empath than I am, but he just writes it off as charm, and buddy -- you can be charming, but not that charming."
"That is not surprising," Spock says.
"What?"
"Should his empathic abilities be made a matter of public record, it would impact his Starfleet career, would it not? Allowances would be made, and he would no longer be a marvel to be wondered at, but an intelligent empath."
"That's cynical," Gary notes.
"As a telepath and a member of the faculty at Starfleet, I can assure you there would be no benefits in the curriculum to your friend revealing his empathic abilities -- he would have to travel off-world in order to learn how to enhance his gifts from natural empaths."
"As it is, he'll be a great starship captain who'll charm the hell out of sentient creatures left and right."
"That -- yes."
The lights flash and Gary sighs at how much of his drink he still has left, fucking Spock.
"Nice running into you again," Gary says.
"The feeling is mutual." Spock nods slightly and heads back to his seat. Gary watches him go and then turns back to his drink, downing as much as he can before he has to really head back to his seat.
*
Spock is made for Gary's attention span -- for ten or fifteen minutes, he's overcome by this presence, which then disappears, leaving Gary to pine for another ten minutes and move on to his next conquest or obsession without a second thought.
Of course, once he begins looking for Spock, he notices Spock is -- well -- everywhere.
Like that classroom (not a lecture hall, but a very small, intimate classroom) in Pulaski Hall as Gary walks by one afternoon. He does a double take and strolls inside, and there's Spock in his full officer's uniform, which might be enough to dry out Gary's mouth completely.
"Lieutenant…?"
"Commander," Spock says, his eyes flicking to the faint black stripes on his black sleeves.
"Of course. How stupid of me." Gary realizes he's dumb struck, remembers he doesn't get dumbstruck, and motions out the door with his thumb. "I'm late for a meeting in 245. Walk with me?"
"My next engagement is in the opposite direction," Spock says.
"Oh." Gary taps his fingers against his leg and asks, "What do you teach?"
"Here, I teach Advanced Phonology. I also teach a larger class in ethics."
"Neither are in my specialty -- I guess I'll never have you," Gary sighs. He shuffles his foot slightly and then gives Spock his most diabolical grin. Spock only raises an eyebrow slightly.
"Your meeting, Cadet?"
"Commander," Gary says with the slightest nod.
They part ways outside the classroom and Gary looks back briefly as he laughs to himself.
*
"Jim's too much of a gent to ask, so I have to," Gary begins when they're all about four champagne cups into Christine Chapel's engagement party. "Is Chapel knocked up?"
McCoy, to his credit, doesn't sputter but only raises an eyebrow slowly as he sips from his cup. "Christine --" he finally begins.
"Whoa, she's Christine now," Kirk slurs. Gary puts an arm around his shoulders and lets him lean because for Kirk, the party started as soon as his last class of the week was over. At three o'clock in the afternoon.
"Christine's old fashioned about things," McCoy says.
"What's that got to do with anything?" Kirk yells, half at McCoy and half into Gary's shoulder.
"She's old fashioned," he repeats. "And Korby's leaving for a three-year mission in a few days…"
"Oh my God," Gary chokes. "She's -- how could you let that happen? We raised you better than that, doctor!"
"I don't get it, why is she a drink," Kirk asks.
"She's a virgin," Gary hisses back.
Kirk bursts out laughing and tries to squirm away in order to inform the bride-to-be of this, but Gary sets his cup down and keeps both arms around Kirk. "Come on, it's not that funny. You were a virgin once, too."
"Not since I was like, a baby," Kirk replies. "I was born fucking."
"Hand him over, Gary, I'll go put him to bed," McCoy sighs as he puts his drink down.
"Yeah, Bones!" Kirk yells. "Put me to bed hard, and --" Kirk grunts and Gary tilts his head a little to watch a violent red blush creep up McCoy's neck, "That thing you do with your --"
Gary watches McCoy manhandle Kirk into the back rooms of the house, and then decides to grab another drink because 'putting Jim down' takes a little longer than he expects, most of the time.
He grabs a cup and notices the person next to him presently pouring champagne into his glass.
"So. Bride or groom?" Gary asks.
Spock looks over, ticks his eyebrow up slightly, and hands the bottle to Gary. "I was not aware the terminology applied to the couple before the wedding itself."
"It probably doesn't, but I don't know how to orally distinguish between fiancé and fiancée," Gary replies. "Chapel or Korby?"
"Dr. Korby," Spock replies. "He supervised an independent study project of mine when I was a cadet. We remained close. And you?"
"The booze." Gary sips and clarifies, "My friend McCoy is a doctor over on the Med campus. He and Chapel work together, and he dragged me and my friend Jim along."
"Yes, your friend Jim -- I believe I heard his cackling when I arrived."
"It's Thursday, he has no classes on Friday, so he starts the weekend early."
"You have a detailed knowledge of his schedule," Spock remarks.
"Ha, do I?" Gary asks. "We all know each other's schedules. Kind of the best part of every August -- get together with a few dozen beers and your friends, plot out your schedules for the semester. I mean, you could let those patterns just form, but we like to be practical about it."
"I was quite unaware of that aspect of cadet behavior," Spock says. "I did not live in the dormitories when I was a cadet."
"Ooh, lucky," Gary says. "The three or four of us -- Jim, McCoy, me, and whatever lucky fourth can stand us, so maybe Gaila -- were thinking of getting a house or apartment off campus next year, but. Well, who knows. Campus is kind of fun."
"Perhaps you can inform me of what I have been deprived of by not living in the dormitories as a student," Spock says.
"Nothing you can't get in even bigger doses off campus," Gary laughs. "Sleeping with your hallmates, crowded showers, the hysterics of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, no privacy -- okay, off campus housing might be an amazing thing to look into."
"It's a wonder you are able to focus on your studies with all those distractions."
"What about on Vulcan? How do the most practical people in the Federation deal with being young, hormonal, and crowded into confined spaces together for four to six years?"
"As I only lived in the dormitories during those early years of my education --"
"How early?"
"Until I was eleven. Five to eleven. Vulcan children are still -- developing their logic. My mother informs me they are very much like humans at that age."
"Kids are assholes," Gary says. "I should know, I was one. A child and an asshole."
"Indeed?"
"Oh yeah, I was a total bully," Gary replies. "Kids made fun of me, you know, weird telepathy thing, and then I got an early growth spurt and it was just easy to beat them up and be the mind-reading freak."
Spock was quiet and sipped his champagne. "If you will excuse me, I have not congratulated --"
"Now, Spock, come on, I'm not like that anymore," Gary protests. "And yeah, it's petty and everything but -- you know -- I was a kid."
"I do have to congratulate the couple on their engagement."
"You do, but you're an awful liar."
"How can that be a lie if you just admitted it to be the truth?"
"…shut up, it just is."
Spock presses his lips together and walks off towards Chapel and Korby, leaving Gary to drink his champagne even quicker and pour himself another cup. McCoy strolls up a few moments after that and pours himself a fresh glass.
"This shit is like lighter fluid," McCoy says.
"Not like you can afford better," Gary says.
"Now who bunched up your panties while I was gone? You're too drunk to be this bitchy."
"Not drunk enough," Gary sighs. "No, just some guy. Totally don't get him." Gary looks at McCoy and adds, "By the way, don't let a drunk guy clean you up after a handjob. There's a reason Jim's passed out in a spare room and not doing brain surgery right now."
"Dammit," McCoy sighs when he notices the front of his pants. "Hold this."
Gary drinks his champagne and McCoy's, and tries not to bore holes into Spock's back too deeply.
*
WE ARE LATE FOR BREAKFAST CLUB
SHUT UP
great now uhura is mad i hope you're happy
THE MORE YOU PAY ATTENTION THE QUICKER YOU'LL GET THE FUCK OUT
"That is not necessarily true," a calm voice says over his shoulder. Gary jumps and, of course, it's Spock. "Forgive me, your PADD was in my line of vision."
"That's not even a little bit true," Gary says.
"Why are you hovering outside the meeting rather than participating?" Spock asks.
"Waiting for my friend Jim," Gary says. The door of the classroom that the Starfleet Xenolinguistics Club appropriated for its emergency meeting has a window in front of which Gary can hover threateningly. He points Kirk out and says, "That's him. He's the treasurer."
"That is your friend Jim?" Spock asks as he stares through the glass. He seems to be giving it way more thought than Gary expected. "Suddenly, I -- many things make sense."
"Oh?" Gary asks.
"The club's president, Cadet Uhura --" And Spock points her out, somehow using only a slight motion of his chin, "Is my aide for Advanced Phonology. She is --"
"Ha, yeah, we know Uhura all right," Gary laughs.
"Do you?" Spock asks, an eyebrow slightly arched.
"Oh yeah, she was on the shuttle that first took me, Jim, and McCoy to Starfleet. Actually, it's an amazing story --"
"You," Spock says, and he genuinely can't keep the astonishment out of his voice that time. "She -- yes, you are the three cadets and -- you had intercourse in the bathroom. Loudly. With that cadet. The one who -- why is he yelling?"
"Small world," Gary laughs. "Smaller shuttle, I think. But yeah, Jim and I -- we hit it off right away." Gary watches Spock carefully and says, "I just blew your mind, didn't I?"
"Not literally, but yes, you have profoundly shocked me at the -- incestuous nature of Starfleet Academy relations."
"Can't be surprising, I mean: we're the best of the best, in all the same classes, similar interests, complementary specialties -- we're all bound to run into each other and fuck each other at some point."
Spock says, "I cannot agree with that assessment entirely."
"Come on," Gary says with his best grin. "Jim and I cover a lot of ground. If it's not me, it'll be him. Or Gaila -- do you know Gaila? Sweet girl, she's --"
"Cadet, if you will excuse me. Please inform Cadet Uhura she should message me when she is through here."
Spock is gone and a minute later, the meeting is dismissed and Gary sighs.
When Kirk finally steps in the hallway, Gary gives him a shove in the shoulder. "I saw that -- you knew Breakfast Club was happening but you kept yapping on like Doctor Pancake Fascist won't order without us."
"I was doing you a favor!" Kirk shrieks. "You were giving that Vulcan guy the 'fuck my mouth, please' face and I thought a few more minutes would help you out!"
"It's not like that," Gary sighs, and then he sees Uhura leave the room. "Hey, Uhura, your Vulcan was looking for you."
"My what?" she asks, the tips of her hair hitting Kirk in the face when she spins around.
"Dammit, keep that shit in check, it's like a fucking weapon," Kirk snaps.
"Honey, you really need to start eating breakfast earlier if you're just going to get snippy during meetings," Uhura informs him. "And no, I'm not on McCoy's pre-approved list of 'things you can eat', you pervert, so don't ask."
"I didn't even say anything! God! See if I keep my promise about not fucking Gaila on your bed."
"See if I keep my promise about not fucking Gaila without you in the room."
"I -- was not aware that was an option," Kirk says, all the anger gone out of him suddenly. "Tell me more."
"Were you saying something?" Uhura asks Gary. "About Commander Spock? Who, by the way, is not interested in you."
"You don't know that," Gary retorts.
"I'm his aide. Believe me. I know. He is not, and never will be, hitting that," she says as she looks him up and down.
"Why am I the only one who doesn't know this guy?" Kirk asks. "I hate being left out of shit. Who has nailed him?"
"Let me check the wiki I keep of my adviser's sexual partners, oh wait. I'm not a creep like you are, Cadet."
"Uhura, you should come to Breakfast Club with us," Gary says. "Gaila's there, so it's a safe space, and McCoy should keep Jim in check."
"Bones doesn't keep me in check," Kirk protests.
"Wow, you like, broke out in a little bit of a sweat as you said that," Uhura laughs. "That's so. I've never seen anyone so completely owned."
"Would you give her the message about her exotic sex toy already so I can get some fucking pancakes into my mouth?" Kirk asks Gary.
"What message?" Gary asks.
"You're impossible! Both of you!" Uhura shrieks.
"He just wanted you to know he was looking for you, for fuck's sake," Gary says. He nudges Uhura in the arm and motions to the door leading outside. "Breakfast? Come on, the Commander was really impressed at how we're all one big happy family… who happens to have a lot of hot, sweaty sex with each other."
"Sweet of you to say, but I'm not part of that family," Uhura replies as they exit the building and head for the usual breakfast spot. "I haven't had whatever aphrodisiac your group insists on getting intravenously --"
"Sex is stress relief, according to our doctor, and I'll have you remember that we did better than you in that ethics class last semester," Kirk notes in between violating passers-by with his glances. "You know, the one you were offended we were even able to take because we were just baby first years and, well, that's just embarrassing for you, isn't it?"
"You may be a genius," Uhura says, "But I work hard, harder than anyone I know, and I dread the day you're in command of a starship and need to get a blow job before you can even think of handling a crisis."
"Know what, just for that? You should be my comm officer during my Kobayashi Maru test," Kirk says.
"Oh, don't even -- don't you dare put my name on that list."
"It's 'don't you dare put my name on that list, Captain.'"
Uhura lets out a guttural, frustrated moan and shoves the door of the breakfast place open, making a beeline for the empty chair next to Gaila. "Your friends suck," she informs her roommate.
"Oh, sweetie, you just don't know them like I do," Gaila coos as she pulls Uhura in for a hug and lets her lean against her chest. "Hi Jim, hi Gary," she calls over Uhura's head. "Like, for example, did you know that sucking on that mole right beneath Jim's right ear --"
"Tell the world, Gaila," McCoy sighs as he looks around for a waitress.
"Like the world doesn't know," Uhura replies.
"Everyone needs to leave my mole alone," Kirk announces.
"Gary has a much better secret about his shoulder blades," Gaila begins.
"Everyone knows about Gary's shoulder blades," Kirk replies. "Gaila, do better."
"What about you, sweetie?" Gaila asks Uhura. "Should I tell them about your --"
"NO," Uhura says as she sits up straight. "Roommate confidentiality, you tell them nothing about --"
"Speaking of roommates," Kirk begins, "Uhura mentioned something about the three of us maybe --"
"Oh, this is so exciting! Are you finally up for the three-way?" Gaila asks Uhura excitedly. "I knew you would come around!"
"You talked to her about it?" Kirk asks as Gary watches his eyes almost fill up with joyful tears. "Gaila, I just -- you are the greatest."
"We are not having a three-way!" Uhura shrieks into one of those sudden silences that had just permeated the entire restaurant as she spoke.
"All right," says their usual gruff waitress, who chose that moment to sidle up to the table. "You're not having a three-way. Can I recommend an omelet?"
"It's best to carb up before strenuous physical activity," Gaila says, "And Jim is very much a strenuous --"
"Bowl of fruit, two eggs scrambled, lunar toast, a seat away from these maniacs," Uhura says.
"I kind of love our horrible friends," Gary says to McCoy quietly.
"No talking until we all order," McCoy snaps. "Dammit, stay on point, Mitchell."
"Yup," Gary says to himself. "Love them all."
*
The Battle of Vulcan happens in what turns out to be their final year due to the decimation of the student body and an intense case of terminal field promotions.
Gary and Gaila ended up on the USS Proxima and, like not enough others, manned an escape shuttle out of the wreckage of too many starships and were picked up by an Andorian ship on its way to the rendezvous point in the Laurentian system.
They're on the bridge of the Harrison, Gary charting the Romulan ship's potential trajectories and the routes for each of the remaining starships to take back to Earth while Gaila argues with the engineering chief (who is an ageist and a speciest and a sexist and an asshole), when Gary thinks his brain has died because the air is filled with Spock's voice. The Enterprise.
"A Vulcan?" the main communications officer asks before even replying to Spock. "Where's Captain Pike?"
"Yes, I am a Vulcan and, as I said thirty-seven seconds ago, Acting Captain Spock of the USS Enterprise."
The Harrison's viewscreen comes alive and there's Spock, sitting in the captain's chair, tense as anything and looking -- well, looking like hell.
"Captain Malik," Spock adds with a nod.
"Captain, report, what is Enterprise's status? We heard from the officers who have managed to reach the rendezvous point that there was a battle in Vulcan airspace with a Romulan ship."
"There was," Spock says slowly, "With the result that every ship dispatched but the Enterprise was destroyed, as was the planet itself."
"Commander," Malik replies just as slowly. "Explain."
"Enterprise is presently en route to the rendezvous point, where I will issue a full report of the events that transpired," Spock says. "We will shut down all but essential communications and services in order to reach the rendezvous point in a timely manner, with our remaining power favoring the weakened engines. However, the bare facts are true: the five dispatched starships and their crew were destroyed, as was the planet Vulcan. Captain Pike has been taken hostage by Nero of the Romulan ship. Please pass these facts along to Starfleet and await a more detailed report upon our arrival. Spock out."
It's all silent then, except for their equipment, and the communications officer opens a channel to Starfleet, stammering the entire time because it's five ships, all cadets, fucking gone. Not gone -- destroyed, which has implications of there, in pieces, wreckage and bodies just out there, going where ever space takes them.
Malik orders Gary and Gaila both to take a break when they've been there seven hours straight, and Gary's temporary new bunkmate seems to see the look in his and Gaila's eyes because he gets the fuck out the minute they arrive.
They go through the motions of fucking, but Gary stops and lowers his face to Gaila's chest, and he cries like he hasn't since he was a kid.
"It's all right, my breasts are here for you," Gaila says as she rubs his back soothingly. "And so is my mind, of course, but you seem to be very relieved that my breasts are here."
"Six billion people on Vulcan, Gaila," Gary mumbles, half his mouth against her skin, "And I'm -- and the Enterprise is okay and that's all I'm worried about. Jim -- if Spock can get a transmission through, maybe we can comm them, and I mean, McCoy got one through earlier, you know, telling me he snuck Jim on board so now --"
"They're all right," Gaila soothes. "The hard part was surviving the horrific firefight, wasn't it? And we did that, and the Enterprise did that, so we'll all be fine now. There's this wonderful brothel on Laurent IX and a cousin of mine --"
"Yeah," Gary agrees, more to himself than to Gaila, doing the math, endlessly doing the math -- six starships, 1500 people on each, the variable being that Romulan ship -- insufficient data, and he's fucking tired, so he gives up on thinking and pulls Gaila a little closer. "Yeah, Jim's okay, and McCoy has to be, and even your bitch of a roommate. God, she's not even a bitch, she's too smart and dignified for our stupid asses, I don't even know why she hangs around us."
"She finds you all very immature and challenging," Gaila says. "Or was that a rhetorical question?"
"It was both, thanks," Gary says, a little slurry with sleep and it's the last thing he remembers, Gaila rubbing a hand between his shoulder blades and kind of sniffling in his hair.
When Gary wakes up, Gaila is still there, one hand still on his back, one hand in his hair, both of them completely wrapped up in each other and fuck, what would he have done without a friend like her? He listens to her sleep for a few more moments and then nods off again, that battle Spock mentioned a few lifetimes ago when he commed on the bridge apparently content to go on without them.
But the Enterprise never makes its rendezvous, and Gary remembers that as the last time he sleeps for a week.
*
It turns out the Enterprise is okay, just -- not at the rendezvous point in the Laurentian system. The Harrison gets back to Earth before the Enterprise, on the day the drill is hauled out of the Pacific.
"This little white ship, man, just flew in and zapped the chain and then flew out again," someone tells him and Gaila as they watch cranes borrowed from the Portland shipyard stretch out the drill and chain on the lawn outside the Academy library.
They spend their time until the Enterprise arrives at Earth spacedock in the Academy's labs analyzing the little data the ship is able to send on its slow trek back to Earth. Classwork, exams, what? It's a week-long practical final that will pretty much determine What the Federation Does Next, and it comes down to people like Gary and Gaila -- people who weren't injured badly enough to be recovering in Medical, or undergoing intensive counseling, or on the five starships, or are still patrolling the Neutral Zone in case the Klingons want to start shit.
Their supervisor, a Betazoid who's technically a linguist but hiding out in their lab because Gary and Gaila aren't trying to kill her telepathically with their sadness, turns the viewscreen to Federation news when someone on the lawn outside screams about the Enterprise arriving in spacedock.
Gary clutches Gaila's hand when the cameras capture what's left of the crew filing out from the ship to the shuttles back to Earth -- not enough operations and security crew, certainly not as many as a Constitution-class ship should have. They're led by a guy in a red shirt with a huge fur coat over one arm and a huge smile on his face, and Gary doesn't have enough functioning brain cells to put any of that together into something coherent.
There's a completely broken baby science staff (like anyone can blame them), all of them dragging their feet and looking around for people, unsure of where they're going, really.
There's the command staff emptying the upper decks, looking harried but again, okay. Relieved. Making each other laugh and yeah, that's relief on all their faces, and pure fucking glee.
What's left of medical consists of McCoy pushing Pike's wheelchair and snarling at any cameras that come within ten feet of them, Chapel leading several Vulcan elders down the ramp as she resolutely refuses to make eye contact with anyone, and a handful of doctors and nurses. Just a handful -- Gary counts twelve total. Gary wonders what the fuck happened there -- it must be why McCoy never commed to mention that, in addition to sneaking Kirk on board, they survived everything and Kirk and Spock kind of saved the world.
"Oh, there they are!" Gaila says as she spots the bridge crew emerge. Gary counts the right number of science, command, and operations officers -- he sees Uhura walking with -- shit, with Sulu, who was already on his way out of the Academy when Gary's class arrived but was still trudging through a doctorate in astrofuckitall, and Chekov, a curly-haired prepubescent in Uhura and Gaila's year with a nasty habit of table dancing with the drunkest person at any given party and turning down offers to work for every private organization in the Federation because he has Starfleet or bust (metaphorically, please only metaphorically) tattooed on his lower back.
Finally, there's Kirk and Spock.
"They're all right," Gary chokes out. "Jim's okay, he's okay."
"Of course he is," Gaila says as she throws her arms around Gary's neck, and they try to hug and watch the screen simultaneously. "Oh! Viewscreen, center focus." Gaila tilts her head and laughs. "That's -- Nyota's adviser! Who she was, you know."
"Oh my God, they were?" Gary laughs as he discreetly wipes his eyes, keeping his arm firmly around Gaila's waist. "She lied. Remember the first time she came to breakfast with us?"
"Oh, they weren't then -- it's only been in the last few weeks." Gaila looks at Gary and adds, "Funny how long ago that seems."
"Sad, Gaila, not funny."
"Can't it be both?" she asks.
"I guess," he says as he chokes out a short laugh of complete and utter relief.
They turn back to the screen, Kirk and Spock still the focus of the particular feed they're watching. They're totally lost in their conversation, Kirk's trillion-watt grin being broadcast across the Federation while Spock looks down at the ground and leans into Kirk's space, occasionally whispering into Kirk's ear as they walk down the ramp.
"They are so going to fuck," Gary says. Their supervisor looks appalled and turns to the screen again to avoid listening to him. "I mean, Jim is going to bang him into a parallel universe."
"He's never looked at Nyota like that," Gaila remarks. "And Jim's never looked at me like that."
"Well, not at your eyes."
She nudges him in the shoulder and they laugh.
"We should go meet the shuttle," Gary says.
"Along with everyone else on Earth," Gaila replies.
"You're right. Let's go to the bar. They'll find us there."
*
Gary and Gaila are asleep in their usual bar, in their usual booth. Gary holed up in the corner and stretched out so Gaila could lie on him, and fuck, that worked surprisingly well. They wake up when the table rattles because McCoy has thrown himself into the seat across from them.
"Leonard!" Gaila shrieks. "Gary, wake up, we have to hug Leonard!"
Gaila runs around and slides in next to McCoy who, for the first time in Gary's whole fucking life, hugs someone back as fiercely as he's being hugged.
"Thought you and Mitchell were done for with the rest, you should have commed."
"And you!" Gaila shrieks as she pries herself off McCoy and slaps his arms and chest. "You! Should! Have! Commed! And -- and -- Leonard!"
Gary orders another pitcher and third glass for McCoy, and settles in to watch the play that's just started in front of him, succinctly entitled, "Starfleet cadets celebrate being alive by removing each other's tonsils in public."
*
Uhura shows up, but there's no making out, not even crying, just a round of whiskeys for the table.
"So you survived," Gary says when she's on her second drink.
"Yup," she says.
"Is 'yup' the correct terminology for the emotions you're feeling right now?" Gary asks.
She spends fifteen minutes explaining why it's actually the perfect word of all the ones she could have chosen, and Gary's glad to have distracted her, if only for fifteen minutes.
Sulu and Chekov show up and decide to start doing doubles of shots of some vodka only Chekov can pronounce, and Gary kind of just wants to push the curls out of Chekov's face every time he throws one back and his cheeks get a little more flushed.
"He's seventeen," McCoy informs the table with a look towards Chekov. "No one try anything."
"I lost my virginity in a drinking contest to a pair of twins in Moscow when I was fifteen," Chekov informs them. "Shut up, doctor."
"Like… you wrote an IOU on a card and they misplaced it?" McCoy asks hopefully.
"Hector and Marina from Portugal," Chekov corrects. "I could not walk for two days."
"I think Jim needs to give up his heavyweight belt to you," Gary says.
"But -- the orgy -- there were seven of us!" Gaila protests.
"Yeah, but we were all in our twenties. He was fifteen," Gary replies.
"We'll see when Jim gets here," Gaila says, because there's a literal belt and she likes to wear it naked sometimes.
"I'll just get Jim a new belt," Sulu finally says. "I kind of, you know, owe him my life. If he wants to --"
"How?" Gary asks. "How'd he save your life? What the fuck happened up there, by the way? You guys keep shitty logs when you're busy saving the galaxy."
"I will fucking tell you everything, Gary Mitchell," Sulu says, "And I even put some of it into rhyme because it was a fucking slow trip back from Saturn on impulse engines, and I was the designated driver, you know."
They buy another round of shots and drink to Jim, who has saved all of their lives in one way or another over the past three years, and who will probably do it again in the years to come because it's kind of his thing now, isn't it?
*
They've been in the bar all fucking day and most of the night when Kirk finally walks in, showered and wearing his most beat up jeans and worn out t-shirt that has a hole near his ribs. Most of them are too drunk to stand, except Kirk has walked in and it's Gaila with her ultra metabolism that climbs out of the booth again to run into his arms and shriek gleefully that he's alive and a hero and wonderful and alive.
"Fuck, you bastard, you gave us a scare," Gary says when he finally lifts himself out of the booth and makes his way over to Kirk.
"And you, you son of a bitch," Kirk murmurs near Gary's ear, and he even bites him on the lobe while he laughs. "Way to not even comm us, you know, just a little note --"
"We went through this with McCoy already, jeez, I get it, I'll call next time, Mom," Gary laughs.
"What's a guy gotta do to get a drink around here!" he yells over Gary's shoulder, and Gary holds him all the tighter for another moment before turning back to the table.
"Wasn't that sweet," McCoy drawls.
"You better be liquored up, Bones, because I'm going to be on your lap in five minutes and staying there 'til dawn, okay?"
"Can't wait," McCoy sighs while everyone laughs.
"Hey, where's Spock?" Gary asks as Kirk pours himself a pint. "I saw the two of you on the feed, thought. Well. I don't know."
"Spock," Kirk sighs, his eyes trained on the bottom of his glass. "He's -- I told him where we were. I don't know, man. Guess he's with his dad." Kirk takes a sip and says, "We lost his mom when Vulcan imploded, but his dad's okay. He's alive. So. I really don't know. But I told him we'd --"
"Spock," Uhura interrupts, but she's looking at the door.
Gary turns and there he is. He's spotted them and makes his way over, and Uhura rushes out of the booth to meet him. He puts a hand up, then softens and rests his hand on her shoulder for a second. Gary watches Spock's eyes flick to his own in recognition, and notes everyone else that's with them, but they finally settle on Kirk. Gary lets go of Kirk and lets Spock enter his personal space and whisper near his ear something like:
"I cannot grieve as my father does."
"Understood," Kirk replies. "What gets you drunk?"
"Mudslides," Uhura supplies helpfully, and then looks into her shot of whiskey like she didn't say anything.
"I find that particular drink has the correct proportions of ethanol and --"
"Round of mudslides, please, over here," Kirk calls out.
"I've been waiting for this since the day I met you," Gary comments to Spock over Kirk. Kirk turns on him and raises his eyebrows.
"You know Spock?"
"Are you fucking me?" Gary asks.
Spock replies simultaneously, "The cadet and I are well acquainted."
"He -- fuck, never mind, it's a long story," Gary sighs. He slides back into the booth, next to Sulu and Chekov, while Kirk and Spock drag chairs over and position themselves at the head of the table. "So."
Their mudslides (particularly laden with ethanol for the humans, all of them with frozen chocolate on the rim) arrive and Gary blacks out after that.
*
He wakes up at the bar, face pressed against his folded arms, mouth wide open and drool all over his sleeves. He blinks slowly and looks around without picking up his head, which is sure to try and murder him with the hangover of his life the minute he does.
Everyone else in their group also slept in the booth, somehow -- even McCoy, who will bitch about his neck and back until kingdom fucking come (maybe not, since he's using most of Gaila's chest as a pillow), and they're all still asleep.
Except for Kirk and Spock at the head of the table. At some point, Kirk turned his chair around and folded his arms on the back so he could rest his head and listen to Spock. Spock sits upright in his chair, shoulders straight, hands in his lap, head bowed slightly as he speaks softly to Kirk. Kirk replies in a hushed tone, full of sibilants and so very gravelly --
"Since when do you speak Vulcan?" Gary asks incredulously.
Kirk lifts his head and blinks at Gary, and for a minute, Gary would swear Kirk had no idea who he was, or had forgotten he was there.
"Yeah," he says. "Go back to sleep, okay?"
Gary burrows back into his arms and stares at Kirk and Spock for another moment until his eyelids slip closed and finally stay shut.
*
Kirk shows up at Gary's dorm room one morning and says:
"The Enterprise is mine. Can I count on you to be my first?"
Gary tilts his head because it's a Saturday and Kirk isn't actually smiling that much when he asks.
"No way," Gary laughs like Kirk has just asked him to help him move without beer or something equally ridiculous.
"Wait, what?" Kirk asks. "Did you just say no?"
"I want my own ship someday," Gary says, "and if I come with you now, I'm never going to get it."
"You don't know --"
"Besides, they've got stuff for me to do down here until the Exeter is ready to head out and patrol with you. Someone's got to figure out what the hell to do with that singularity you guys left next to Saturn," Gary laughs.
"Gary," Kirk sighs as he rubs a hand along his face. "What the fuck am I going to do without you? Who the fuck --"
"You shithead," Gary says. "Did you really not notice?"
"Notice what?"
"That there's a Vulcan out there, with amazing abs and a to-die-for bone structure, who is never going to be anyone else's first while you're around. Go get him and leave me alone. I've got company."
"Really?" Kirk leers. "Anyone I know?"
"Get the fuck out." Gary grins and shoves Kirk in the shoulder, and steps back into his room.
"I made pancakes and ate them," Gaila announces when he walks back into the kitchen. "I left you some batter, but you should make more. Or synthesize them."
Gary looks at the mess in the kitchen and considers his options.
"You're not going with Jim?" she asks.
"Are you?" he asks.
"He already has a chief of engineering," Gaila says matter-of-factly. "I wouldn't settle for anything less."
"Good," Gary says. "Can I call dibs on you now?"
"Only if you really do get the Exeter," she considers. "If they change their minds and give you the Hood, I'll leave forever."
"Good to know," Gary laughs.