"Good morning, Chekov."
Chekov mumbled something unintelligible while extracting the Cap'n Crunch from the cabinet. Late-afternoon sunlight lit the kitchen, and Jim Kirk sat at the table perusing the wanted ads. His former navigator collapsed onto the chair next to him, rattling the table. Chekov slouched down until his chin was inches from the bowl of cereal and sleepily shoveled some into his mouth. The loud, crunchy chewing could be heard even over the sounds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer issuing from the living room.
"Spock and I saw you last night, near Scruggs's Bar."
The chewing abruptly stopped, and Pavel froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
"We were walking home from the open-mic. I didn't know you had any friends with a car." Chekov, and most of the household for that matter, lived his social life far away from the house, for fairly obvious reasons, (chiefly among these being Scotty). However, in a city as small as Burlington, social circles and cliques had such overlap with others that it was nearly impossible not to know your friends' friends. Like high school, without classes and less hormones. Usually, anyway.
Chekov's chewing resumed, though in a much slower rhythm. After a long moment, he swallowed and said, "Oh, yah, that ees a new friend of mine. He ees new to town." Chekov continued to stare down at his cereal, not meeting Kirk's eyes.
They taught cadets to lie better when I was at the Academy, Jim thought. To Chekov he merely nodded and asked innocently, "What's his name?"
After another moment of Chekov chewing his soggy cereal far longer than it needed, he said, "John."
"John?" Kirk asked, politely.
"Yah, John, do you have a problem with that? And vat are you looking at?"
"Just noticing the new hickey on your neck."
Chekov clapped a hand to his throat.
Uhura chose that moment to walk into the room, wearing her Hooters uniform, which consisted of a skimpy halter top, skin-tight, black capri's, and dangerous looking stiletto heels. "Other side, Pavel. That's a pretty spectacular one, too. Hope he paid you well," she added nonchalantly.
Kirk stared at her, mouth open in shock.
"There's no need for that, Nyota. Just because Mister Chekov plays the other side of the field doesn't mean he's a..." Kirk stopped when he saw Chekov's face. His cheeks were almost crimson, and his eyes were almost popping out of his head staring at his former shipmate.
"How... How did you..." Chekov stuttered.
Uhura carried a can of strawberry Slim-fast to the table and grabbed the comics section. "Please, Pavel. You come home at dawn every other night smelling like sex, you're the only one in the house with a cell phone, and last time you helped out with rent you pulled a wad of cash from your pocket and counted out two hundred dollars." She took a sip and turned the page. "And then there's all the empty condom boxes in the bathroom. Honey, nobody but prostitutes and starship captains gets that much tail." She winked at Kirk as she said it.
Kirk tried to get a hold of his confused thoughts and conflicting morals. "Uhura, you seem awful light-hearted about this."
"Why shouldn't I be? Pavel's helping pay the rent for once, and this is the one job he can't really get fired from. Unless he pisses off his pimp."
"I do not have a pimp!" Chekov said vehemently. He glanced once at Kirk, then returned to staring at his cereal. "I am a free agent."
"Good for you, Pavel," Uhura said.
"But it's immoral!"
Uhura shrugged. "Against your morals. But then, you were raised in Iowa."
"But it's dangerous!"
"I can take care of myself!" Chekov interjected.
"He can take care of himself. And with all those condom boxes, I assume he's playing it safe." She looked up and stared hard at Chekov. "You are playing it safe, right?"
Chekov blushed harder, and mumbled, "Yah."
"Every time?"
"I said yah! And you're not my mother!"
"Don't act like a child, then."
Chekov swore under his breath in Russian, and started eating his cereal again with a vengeance. Kirk was still staring at Uhura.
"I can't believe you're being so casual about this! He's selling his body!"
Uhura cocked an eyebrow at him. Kirk knew this meant he was on dangerous ground. "I work at Hooters. I wear next to nothing to get bigger tips. If that isn't selling my body then I don't know what is. And I don't remember you throwing a hissy fit when I applied there."
"You know that's different."
"Yeah, Pavel gets paid better."
"And it's illegal!"
"So's half the stuff we did on the Enterprise. Don't even get me started on some of the shit you, Bones, and Scotty pulled on shore leave."
"He's just uptight because he hasnae gotten laid for six months," Scotty called, joining the conversation from his couch. Kirk wished for a phaser so he could kill Scotty or himself. He wasn't sure which.
Instead Kirk got up from the table after a measured stony silence, which he had perfected as a captain, and walked to his and Spock's room with dignified, controlled steps that managed to portray how pissed off he was much better than angry stomping. He shut the door to their room quietly, then listened as Chekov whistled and Uhura told Scotty he was an asshole. Just the reaction he'd hoped for.
*****
He met Spock's eye when he came in that night from work, hoping to share his findings (and subsequent suicidal thinking), but something in Spock's glance made him stop before he started. Instead he watched silently as the Vulcan prepared for bed, feeling unaccountably on edge. Spock, for his part, said nothing at all, and wore an air of aloofness even more obvious than usual. So it was that Kirk slept uneasily and woke up with a bad headache, which he took out on the rest of the house in that special way that only men used to positions of great authority can manage.
Both Uhura and McCoy were aware that the two men were troubled, but neither knew why. McCoy watched them both closely, as it was a rare day when all three were home from work and McCoy had managed to wake up before noon and not immediately open a bottle of brandy. Spock spoke to no one, and decided to clean the house thoroughly, much to Scotty's dismay. It was difficult to watch "The View" with a person vacuuming right beside you. So he turned up the volume as loud as it would go and refused to budge from his seat on the couch, even while Spock tried to vacuum around him. Eventually Spock was vacuuming the upholstery, saving Scotty’s couch for last. But when it came time, Scotty was as adamant as before in refusing to budge. So, in a gesture most un-Spocklike, the Vulcan forcibly lifted him by his shirt collar (he was still not wearing any pants) and deposited him on the floor with a hard thump.
“Ouch! What inna hell was that for, mister Spock?” Scotty’s pride was bruised as well as his rump. Spock just gave him a hard look, and continued vacuuming with an alarming amount of vigor.
“I am quite sick of your apathy and total disregard for others, mister Scott. It was only logical.” He finished quickly and practically stomped out of the room. Scotty was left on the floor in shock and confusion. After that, Spock abandoned his cleaning and spent the rest of the day in his room, much to the relief of the others. Kirk invited McCoy out for a drink (he claimed it would cure his headache--McCoy had his doubts), Uhura went of to work (telemarketing this time) and Chekov was, as usual, nowhere to be found. Scotty was concerned about being left in the house with a Vulcan that had apparently lost his mind, but since he could think of nowhere else to be, he just flipped on “One Life to Live” and tried to stay out of the way.
At the bar, Kirk and Bones were “getting friendly with the natives” in the form of two waitresses in black pants and low-cut tops. In the interims where the girls were off serving others, the two men sat at their table and discussed their concern about Spock.
“He was awfully cranky this morning for a supposedly emotionless Vulcan.”
“Yeah, but so was I Bones. Maybe it was just a bad night.”
“I don’t know. Something is familiar about this, I just can’t put my finger on it yet. I’d be gentle with him if I were you. He seems a little stretched, if you know what I mean.”
“You’re just paranoid. Anyone can have a bad day, or in Scotty’s case, a bad decade.”
McCoy laughed at that, and they moved on to other topics.
*****
The next day, Kirk arrived home from work in the evening to an empty house. Well, empty except for the cockroaches that scuttled about in the corners. At first it was unnerving, but then he came to appreciate the silence and calm that so rarely graced his life these days. Then Spock came in. Or rather, stomped in, slammed the door, and practically sprinted to the bathroom and locked the door. Kirk was speechless for a minute, then decided he ought to investigate. He knocked on the bathroom door gently and called for Spock. He could hear the shower water running, and knocked a little louder.
“Spock?”
“Go Away!” The muffled shout came through the bathroom door. Well, that was weird, Kirk decided. He wasn’t sure if he should try again, especially without reinforcements. He shrugged and retreated back to the kitchen where he’d been reading the paper. Forty minutes later he heard the bathroom door open and the sound of Spock going down the hall to their room.
Eventually Uhura came home, and Scotty too, and the house was no longer quite as uncomfortably tense. Kirk tried stay awake, subconsciously avoiding the bedroom, and eventually passed out on the chair in the living room near Scotty. In the morning he could not explain his avoidance of the room, and now he was paying for it. He called in sick at work, since the chair had given him a stiff neck, and went into his bedroom to take a nap. Spock was still asleep in his own bed, his face relaxed and innocent-looking, and Kirk felt silly about his unease around the Vulcan the day before.
Kirk was awoken by McCoy, whose face had appeared at the door, whispering “psst! Jim, get up! I gotta tell you something.” Kirk woke up squinty-eyed and gave McCoy a death-look, but the doctor would not be deterred and Kirk reluctantly got out of bed and followed him out into the living room.
There, to his surprise, were all the other members of the household, minus Spock. He looked at everyone in confusion, and finally turned back to McCoy.
“What the hell is going on?”
“We’re having a house meeting.”
“Well then where is Spock?”
“Actually, it’s about him, so we sent him on an errand.”
“Why?”
McCoy began to get impatient.
“Just sit down and shut up so you can find out, Jim.” Kirk let the assault on his pride go, and sat down, too bleary-eyed to argue. McCoy continued. “So, you know that Spock’s been weird lately, well, last night at work I got to thinking. How many years have we been here now?
“Two and a half, I think. What the hell does this have to do with anything?”
“Jim, how long has it been since we went to Vulcan to see Spock’s, uh, marriage?”
“Dammit Bones, I don’t know. I just woke up. Lemme think....that was about four years before we ended up here, give or take, so seven years. So what?”
McCoy smacked himself on the forehead.
“Jeez, Jim. I think you‘re going senile. ‘Seven year cycle’ ring a bell?” He looked expectantly at Kirk. Actually, everyone did. Kirk blinked and concentrated....seven year cycle.....
“Oh God.”
“Hey, I think Mr. Clueless has finally got a clue.”
Kirk gave Chekov a dirty look.
“So what can we do about it? I don’t want to pretend to die again. Can we find him a, uh, girlfriend or something?
“You’d send a poor lass into the jaws of a Vulcan in heat?” Scotty looked horrified. “You’re crueler than I thought.”
“He’s an alien, Jim. An extraterrestrial. We all might be weird, but at least this is our planet. We can’t just send him out or find some unsuspecting woman to push at him. What if he was arrested, or injured? He’s quite obviously not human if you look close enough. His blood is green, for god’s sake.” McCoy pointed out.
“Hmm, you’re right.” Kirk sighed. He really didn’t want to think about it right now. “Maybe it’s not Pon Farr. Maybe he just has a virus or something.” Kirk looked hopefully at McCoy, who shook his head.
“No Jim, it’s not a virus. I’m positive. He‘s in Pon Farr, and he‘s in trouble.”
“Well, we can’t just let him die,” Uhura exclaimed. Kirk blinked up at her, the rusty wheels in his mind starting to turn. She was an attractive woman, and she already knew that Spock was an alien. Maybe.... but Uhura must have sensed it because she emphatically shook her head. “Don’t even think about it, James Kirk. I’ve got enough to worry about without being locked away as a Vulcan sex-slave for days on end. I have two jobs. No way.” He glanced at Chekov, who immediately looked alarmed.
“No way, no how. Do you know what my hourly rate is? No health-food store cashier could afford me.” Chekov practically spat out the words “health-food store.” It was no secret that Spock‘s new lifestyle was ridiculed by the Russian. “You couldn’t afford me either, Kirk, so don’t even try to buy me off. Plus, I‘ve heard how Vulcans can get when they‘re in their ‘time.’ I can‘t risk any damage. I won‘t do it.” That shut Kirk up for awhile. It shut everyone up for awhile, as they tried to think of a solution. Finally McCoy snapped his fingers.
“I’ve got it.” Everyone looked up at him. “You, Jim. You already share a room, and he’s your best friend. Ha Ha. I bet the poor sucker would even enjoy it. I’ve seen the way he leans into your touches.”
Kirk panicked.
“What!?! Me? I don’t think so. I, uh......AHH, NO!” What was that about Spock ‘leaning into his touches?’ What the hell was McCoy getting at? It was too much for his tired brain. Even if he felt affection for his friend, his last experience with Pon Farr had left him scarred--right across the chest, in fact. He sighed. “I can’t do it. He’s my friend. He’s my best friend, but I’m not going to let myself be thrown in there with him like that. Haven’t I suffered enough for his Pon Farr?” No one appeared moved.
“C’mon, Jim. You’re the perfect choice. And since when have you been afraid of a little nooky?” McCoy poked at Jim, who slapped him away.
“This is serious Bones. The last time we were involved in his Pon Farr I almost died. That’s enough for one friendship, isn’t it?”
“He WILL die if you don’t do something, Jim. Are you willing to let him?”
Kirk quailed. Mostly he just wanted to curl up into a corner and die himself. Surely it would be better than what was to come if he went through with it.
“It’s only logical, Jim.” Uhura piped in, and it was one of the first times Kirk had ever seriously wanted to harm her.
“But I’m straight,” Kirk asserted, and to his dismay, everyone rolled their eyes.
“Sure you are, Jim. But he’s still you’re best friend, and he’s the only one that cleans the house. What do you think would happen if he were gone?”
Kirk had to agree that it wouldn’t be pretty.
“Well, how do I keep him from thinking I’m a challenge instead of a....a mate?”
“It's easy, Jim-boy. Just tell ‘im. Just make sure you bring it up before he‘s completely out of it.” Kirk heard the victory in McCoy’s voice and groaned. He knew he was giving in. He tried to look on the bright side: A few days off from work? Quality time with his best friend? His first non-self induced orgasm in six months? Well, that sounded okay, at least.
“If I do this, you all owe me. Big time.” Everyone nodded and made motions to the affirmative, and also, suspiciously, looked relieved. After Kirk noticed an exchanged glance between Uhura and McCoy, he realized what had happened.
“Wait a minute--did you guys already plan to make me do it?” He looked at each of them in turn. They all avoided his gaze. “I knew it. This is a conspiracy! If I were still captain I’d have you all court-martialed for mutiny! Damn it, I think I need a drink.” McCoy obligingly produced a glass and a bottle of brandy.
They all heard the door open and close, and the sound of footsteps. Kirk winced. Everyone else went silent. The footsteps quickly went to Spock and Kirk’s bedroom and shut the door behind them. Everyone looked at each other, relaxing.
“He’s home,” Uhura whispered.
Kirk mumbled, “I think I need another drink.” Scotty was sympathetic and handed him the whole bottle.
*****
The time had come, or at least, so everyone else thought, as they pushed Kirk towards the bedroom. McCoy had called him in sick for the next few days. Kirk resisted, but knew there was little he could do against four others. At least they’d given him the bottle of Brandy. They shoved him towards to door, and he went, resigned. He turned back before opening it.
“If I die, I’m coming back to haunt you, Bones!” Kirk pointed his finger. McCoy pushed something into his hands. “What’s this?”
“Lubricant and condoms. I wouldn’t want Spock to pick up any STDs.” Kirk swung at McCoy, but he managed to duck. The other three giggled, and Kirk‘s face burned.
“I hate you all.” He sighed and opened the door, while the others all melted into the background. He shut the door behind him and gulped nervously. Spock was sitting on his bed, back to him. He appeared to be in some sort of trance, and he didn’t seem aware of Kirk’s arrival. Kirk took a step in and cleared his throat.
“Spock?” He said timidly. The Vulcan whipped his head around, surprised.
“Jim?”
“I uh, I’m here to help if you, uh, need it.”
“Help with what, Jim?” Spock's face was as Vulcan as Kirk had ever seen it.
“Um, you know...” Kirk made a helpless gesture. “You’re in Pon Farr, right?”
There was a long silence. Kirk shifted uncomfortably, realized with embarrassment that he was still holding the bag with lubricant and condoms, and dropped them on the bed. Spock opened his mouth to speak.
“If I were, there is little you could do to assist.”
“But if you were, and...and you didn’t, um....you would die, right?”
“Correct.”
“It has been seven years, right? It is Pon Farr, isn't it?” Please Please Please say no, thought Kirk.
Spock sighed.
“It is.” Well, that was that. He was trapped.
“I don’t want you to die, Spock.” He sighed. “Well, since it’s a mating drive, then, you know, what if we, um, mated?” At least he’s not the worst looking man around, thought Kirk. It could have been, he shuddered, Scotty.
He took another swig of Brandy, then offered some to Spock and sat on the bed next to him. Kirk noticed that his heart was beating much faster than it should have been, and felt at a loss as to what he should do. Worse, a blush was creeping up his face. Spock seemed also to be in a state of discomfort.
The uncomfortable silence grew, impossibly, more uncomfortable, as both men sized up the other in furtive sidewards glances. Then, accidentally, the two men locked eyes. The room disappeared around them, and in a simultaneous and subconcious decision, they sort of lunged at each other and landed in an awkward embace that caused them to roll right off the bed and break the bottle of brandy in the process.
Those that were listening at the door gave each other worried glances when they heard the glass break, but then a muffled laugh that sounded like Kirk and a pleased moan that could have been either of them came through the door, and they covered their mouths in laughter. Uhura and McCoy high-fived.
*****
Two days later, a refreshed Spock and a bedraggled but smiling Kirk emerged from the bedroom. McCoy was the only one home to note their emergence, and welcomed them at the kitchen table. Spock nodded in response, as coolly logical as usual, while Kirk said nothing at all, but rushed to the cabinet and, retrieving all the ingredients for a bowl of cereal, shoveled spoonfuls of it into his mouth at an alarming rate. He looked like a man who hadn’t seen food in years. Spock watched Kirk with a raised eyebrow, and McCoy noted the hint of affection behind his gaze. He chuckled to himself, looking over Kirk’s hunched form for any signs of damage. He noticed a few small bruises around his collar, and Kirk looked just like a man who hadn’t eaten or slept much in two days should, but other than that he appeared relaxed and healthy. He would be happy to report to Uhura when she got back that their match-making had been a success.
(stay tuned for the next episode: Kirk and Spock have a little trouble ‘adjusting,’ Uhura brings home a new housemate, and Scotty needs a new couch)
