Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’d come to the bar to celebrate losing another job.

For once it wasn’t actually his fault.

Well okay, it totally was. But the girl had been so worth it.

Besides, so what if he was a couple of hours late for his shift? It was only a shitty retail job anyway; they could have gotten any Tom, Dick or Harry to stack shelves for the short duration of his absence. But apparently his “lack of commitment” was unacceptable, so they’d demanded his (grossly purple) uniform and name badge back and pointed meaningfully at the door.

And Jim had happily walked out it.

He didn’t need their stupid job anyway. They could stick it up their unreasonable, uncompromising asses.

He finally had his damn GED now anyway. He could get a better job, with better wages. Ride the tidal wave of success that was inevitably going to come crashing his way any day now, until he was in a position to buy their stupid business right out from under them and show them the door.

Yeah, he would totally do that.

As soon as he’d finished drinking away the last of his final pay check.

“Your cadets are total assholes,” he slurs, dabbing at his still bleeding nose with yet another wodge of napkins.

“I have it on good authority that you didn’t walk away when you should have son,” the grey-haired old guy tells him.

“I shouldn’t haf’ to walk away, they shouldn’t be assholes in the first place,” Jim grins bloodily. “Won’t make goo’ officers if they can’t ignore a ‘lil teasing. You should check for tha’ ‘fore you recruit them.”

“I’ll be sure to inform the rest of the recruitment department of your stellar advice,” old dude replies wryly.

Jim chuckles nasally, and then winces when the motion jars his aching jaw and makes the back of his throat sting like a motherfucker.

“Oh for-” old-dude sighs, standing up and walking round the table to lean over Jim. “Tip your head back you moron,” he’s told gruffly. Then before Jim can protest, he twists two fresh napkins up and rams them up each one of his nostrils.

“Ow!” Jim protests, “that hur’ like a bitch!”

“Suck it up kid. It’ll stop the bleeding.”

“Fuck you. And your cadets.”

“I’m sure you’d enjoy that immensely. So no.”

“You have no idea how much Captain,” Jim grins again, deliberately eyeing the guy up and down.

“Oh, so you do know who I am. I was beginning to worry my boys had rattled your head a bit too much.”

Jim tries to snort and immediately regrets it again.

“You have Captain stripes on your jacket,” Jim groans with a wave of his swollen hand, “I’m drunk, not blind.”

“Captain Christopher Pike, currently of Starfleet Recruitment,” the man finally introduces himself. Jim ignores the hand that’s extended his way until Pike gets the message and sits back down again.

“Never heard of you,” Jim deadpans. Pike rolls his eyes, probably knowing full well that that’s a blatant lie.

“You know, I couldn’t believe it when the bartender told me who you are.”

“And who am I, Captain Pike?”

“Your father’s son.”

“Oh great, you’re one of those,” Jim rolls his own eyes. “Hey!” he yells across to the bar, raising his empty glass, “Can I get another one? This guy’s buying!”

“I’m not buying you more alcohol Kirk. You’ve had enough already.”

“Well I’m beyond broke, so suck it up Captain. You’re buying.”

“Kirk-”

“Look,” Jim cuts over him. He groans again, stretching his legs out, “Let’s just skip the part where you tell me all about your amazing career and how awesomely inspiring my dad was to you and all the bullshit yeah? I’ve heard it a million times before, so why are you even talking to me man?”

“’Cause I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor. Your aptitude tests are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest?”

“It was one time,” Jim laments overly dramatically, “I get arrested one tiny little time and suddenly everyone is all “no, you can’t have this job, you’re a thief and a liar”! It’s unjust I tell you. Unjust!”

Pike stares at him, his confusion obviously having grown over the course of their little chat.

“It was a very nice bike,” Jim tells him mildly. “And her previous owner wasn’t looking after her properly. I saw it, I took it, and I showed her a damn good time.”

“You know, that instinct to leap without looking, without considering the consequences?” Pike eventually breaks into the awkward silence, “That was your father’s nature too, and in my opinion, it's something Starfleet's lost.”

“Cool, where do I sign up?”

Pike looks at him blankly, obviously shocked into silence.

“I’m serious el Capitano! I need a new job, and you seem to be offering. Where do I sign? What? I thought I’d save you from reciting your recruitment spiel. Give me the forms!”

Jim sits back and grins around his nose napkins.

He arrives at the shipyard thirty minutes early, simply because he knows Pike was expecting him to show up seconds before departure.

The Captain is already onboard the otherwise empty shuttle, entering information into a control panel in the helm cabin. Jim slips in quietly and unnoticed with a smirk.

“So can I get an advance pay check?” he opens with, sliding into the empty co-pilot chair. “Only I really am hard up for credit.”

Pike jumps about a foot in the air and then shoots him in an incredulous look.

“The Academy is a college Kirk, not a business. You’ll get a monthly stipend to cover basic food and living expenses, same as any Earth further education establishment.”

“Well that’s shit,” Jim complains. “How am I supposed to buy booze?”

“You don’t son,” Pike says flatly, accompanied by a disappointed look.

“I’m gonna find out where you live and raid your personal stash instead then.”

“What makes you think I have a stash kid?”

Jim raises an eyebrow and waits, kicking his feet up onto the helm control panel.

“Go find a seat in the back Kirk, before I change my mind and kick you off the shuttle, period.”

Leonard McCoy is an interesting guy.

For one, he looks as shit as Jim feels.

For another, he has a hip flask full of really nice neat bourbon.

They meet when they stumble off the shuttle onto the too bright Academy campus and McCoy pukes his guts up right in front of Jim’s feet. He misses Jim’s boots by less than an inch, and then apologises by plying him with whiskey and bemoaning his existence and cursing his ex-wife.

Jim immediately decides to be obsessed with him.

“Hey sweetie,” Jim smiles coyly at the brunette girl behind the desk in the college admittance centre. “Could you come and help me with all these forms? Only there’s so dreadfully many.”

She smiles back timidly, and takes the PADD Jim holds out to her.

“Which bits do I have to fill in?” he chuckles, batting his eyelashes. “I’m so confused by it all.”

“Well you’ve got your name, education and most of the basic information done,” she giggles, “You just need to add your home address in these boxes here.”

“1421 on 11th Avenue, here in San Fran,” he tells her instantly.

She enters the information with a few taps on the screen, and then frowns slightly.

“That address is already registered to a member of Starfleet Mr. Kirk, and it’s listed as a single occupancy. It says here that it belongs to Captain Pike. Are you sure that’s right?”

“You can call me Jim,” he grins. “And yeah it is. I know him. He’s an old family friend; I’ve been staying with him for a couple of months now. Finally talked me into following in his footsteps. I guess he just forgot to update the records. He’s a busy man, what with all the hard work he does for recruitment.”

“Oh okay then… Jim.”

And just like that, Jim has confirmation that the address he found in Starfleet’s personnel database is correct. The Academy really should improve their firewalls…

Now to steal some booze and prove a point.

“Hey… you wonna go for a drink later Miss…?”

“Durone. Annabella Durone, but you can call be Anna, Jim.”

One hour, one exchange of comm numbers, and one hell of a lot of lying about his past later, and Jim finds himself with a letter stating his general acceptance into Starfleet Academy.

Next up; avoiding as much of orientation as possible!

“Hey Bones! I’m home!”

He kicks the sliding door the rest of the way open when it gets jammed, and pushes into the small dormitory.

“What the fuck kid?” the grumpy southern doctor snarls, storming right up into Jim’s personal space. “This is a single room, get the fuck out.”

“I’m afraid there’s been an issue with housing this semester, and a lot of singles are having to unexpectedly double up,” Jim lies with a false sigh, frowning as hard as he can manage. “I was supposed to have a single too, so I get it, it sucks. But I’m here, so we’ll just have to deal.”

“Tomorrow I’m going to complain, and then you are going to leave. Starfleet and I had a deal; I get a single room, I don’t have to do all that PT crap, and I don’t have to teach bratty snot-nosed undergraduates, and in return they get access my medical research and trauma surgery skills.”

“Well I’m sorry Bones, but this is just how things have turned out,” he says quietly, trying to sound meek and totally not like a guy who just hacked the dorm assignment rotas.

He totally hacked the dorm assignment rotas.

“Fuck everything,” Bones growls. “And don’t fucking call me Bones. I have a name, use it.”

“Sorry Doc, I won’t nickname you then. Now please tell me you have more alcohol stashed somewhere?”

So you see, here’s the thing. Jim lives his entire life with the simple goal of defying everyone’s expectations.

For most of his childhood, that had meant being as big an underachiever as he could manage. He was a Kirk, which meant he was supposed to be whip smart, get all the best grades and go on to having an amazing career doing something meaningful. Just like his Momma, and just like his dearly departed Daddy and their parents before them.

And he’s always fucking hated that his path is apparently so predetermined, so he’d done the exact opposite of what he was supposed to, dropped out of high school at the earliest opportunity, and become a bum-about lowlife taking pointless dead-end job after worthless job.

That’s not to say he didn’t still learn stuff, because try as he might, he couldn’t entirely switch his brain off. Not even excessive alcohol consumption entirely dimmed his IQ and information absorption rate. But he made sure not to study anything formally, to not put his intelligence to use. Because that was what was expected of him.

He’d finally finished his GED just three months ago because his asshole manager had told him he’d never amount to anything and that he was too stupid to be given the promotion he’d applied for. So he’d walked away, sat the exam the next morning, and then thrown the certificate in the manager’s face along with his notice that afternoon. The manager hadn’t expected him to be able to do it, so he had. Purley to be contrary.

Then he’d had two more minimum wage jobs that lasted just one month each (and which he only applied for in the first place because he needed more credits for booze again), and then the night at the bar had happened.

On the one hand, joining Starfleet felt an awful lot like he was finally falling in line with everyone’s expectations of him. But on the other, pretty much everyone who used to be in Jim’s life has entirely given up on him by this point, so straightening his life out is actually the last thing they expect.

So now he’s torn.

Between whether to stay or go.

But he’s here now, and it’s becoming clearer by the hour that the senior staff (and most of the cadets too) all expect him to wash out before the end of the first semester. So really, sticking it to them and holding out is the best way to go against the grain.

Having decided to stay (and having survived the orientation from hell day yesterday), Jim’s first order of business is to continue defying Pike’s expectations.

And if he shocks the hell out of everyone else in the process, so much the better.

He’d been recruited for his command track potential. An Officer in four years, his own ship in eight. That’s what he’d been told by the grumpy Captain on the shuttle ride over when he’d refused to leave the shuttle cockpit. Jim had thought about demanding to do it in three instead, but that felt too predictable. So he’d nodded and hummed agreeably in all the right places and let Pike fill all his forms out and send them off.

And then today he’d gone to his course coordinator to get his timetables and demanded to be switched into science track.

His dad had been command track. His mom was a ‘Fleet engineer. His paternal grandfather a ‘Fleet nurse, and his maternal grandmother a lawyer.

Fuck following in any of their footsteps.

“You want to change to a science course…?” the Commander blinks at him.

“I’m thinking Geological Sciences” Jim smiles cheerfully, throwing the open Academy prospectus onto her desk. He’d seen it lying open on the relevant page on a stand in the building foyer and grabbed it on a whim.

“You do realise your sponsorship is for command track, right? And you don’t have the qualifications for entry into the Earth Science department.”

“So sign me up for the foundation year first.” Jim shrugs.

“You won’t graduate in four years if you do that.”

“And?” Jim shrugs again. “It’s not a race to finish.”

“And even if your sponsor agrees to allow the change, your deal is only for four years.”

“Wait, what does a sponsor even do? It’s not like there are tuition fees to pay; Earth colleges are free to Federation citizens.”

“You have a criminal record Mr Kirk. You’re sponsor guarantees your good behaviour and provides your stipend as Federation law excludes you from receiving the usual allowances.”

“Sooooo… who is my sponsor?”

“That would be Captain Pike, Mr Kirk.”

“Ahhhh shit.”

He knew he should have waited another week before breaking into the man’s house.

-I’m sorry, I’ll bring the rest back?-

-Who the hell is this?-

-It’s Kirk. Please continue providing my stipend-
-Also I promise not to raid your kitchen and steal your booze again-
-And I need you to sign off on my course change-

-How did you get this number?-

-It was on your file-
-Please don’t reject my course change?-

-That file is restricted access-

-I’ll upgrade all the firewalls if you sign off my track change?-

-Bring my tequila and rum back, and then we’ll talk-

“Did you know Bones, that Captain Pike is totally a pushover?”

“Ggaaggghhhhrrr,” Bones moans intelligently into his pillow.

“Like, I just had to buy him dinner and a pint or three and agree to help him with some paperwork and something else about dog walking responsibilities and he gave in and said I could do what I want?”

“Oh god, it’s three fucking am!” Bones cries after glancing at his chrono. Then he shoves his pillow over the top of his head and yanks his sheets up to his neck.

“Is it? Huh it is,” Jim laughs. “Must have lost track of time while in that third bar.”

“Go the fuck to bed Jim,” comes the highly-muffled reply from his roommate.

“Nah, I better take Pike his credit chip back first. I didn’t ask before I borrowed it.”

Bones throws the pillow off his face.

“The fuck is wrong with you kid!? Wait, are you drunk?”

“Pike is really fucking rich man, it’s unbelievable.”

“You’re a damn suicidal manic and I hate you.”

Jim grins drunkenly at him and trips backwards onto his own bed. Pike can wait for his damn credit chip.

“You’re not command track?” Uhura asks him disbelievingly. He’d run into her in the mess hall and decided to do the unexpected once again. i.e. be really nice to her without flirting. Well, he’d try to not flirt with her; she was pretty damn hot.

“Nope,” he smiles, spreading all his brand-new course materials out in front of him. He picks up the one titled Introductory Geological Mapping and begins to flick through it, tracing the symbols with his index finger.

“You’re going to train to be a Rock Jock?”

“Well, I have to test out of the foundation year first, but I’m working on it. Well, not the jock part. I hate sports. Eugh.”

“There’s more than one way to be a Jock Kirk.”

“I apologise profusely for my drunken indiscretions and promise not to be too much of a dick when I know you’re in the vicinity?”

“I don’t believe you’re capable of such restraint.”

“Ouch Uhura, you wound me!” He clutches dramatically at his chest and pulls an exaggerated look of hurt. “What must I do to earn your good opinion?”

“My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”

“Sexy, smart and well read. I like!”

Uhura snorts and stabs another piece of wilted lettuce with her fork.

“You’re such a dick,” she sighs, but Jim can see the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“So long as it remains unattached from my forehead, I can live with that,” he smirks, passing the xenolinguist his chocolate pudding cup. She looks at it and then him in surprise, but takes it with a smile when he shakes it at her with a nod.

Score one for Jim!

Somehow, he makes it through the first three months of the Academy with only one formal reprimand, two bar fights, and one instance of indecent exposure that Pike gets him off the hook for.

(Jim had to grovel lots and agree to walk his dog on weekends as well as weekday mornings for that, but he can live with it. It’s a cute dog)

“Booooooones,” he sings off key as he swings into the dorm they still share despite McCoy’s grumbling. “Bones and winter pine cones! Sweet like Orion pheromones, grumpy like Davy Jones!”

“If you rupture my ear drums, I will make you pay!”

“My awesome roommate Bones with his peach cobbler and cherry stoooones!”

“Shut up Jim!”

“More precious than gemstooooones!”

“JIM!”

“Guess what Pike just condooooned?” he finishes, spinning on the spot on one foot.

“I will only ask if you promise to stop making my ears bleed.”

“He totally agreed to let me stay here over the Christmas holidays. AND he gave me this.”

Jim whips the suspiciously bottle shaped package out of his bag and presents it to his roommate with another blinding grin.

“Well I never,” Bones drawls, eyeing the kittens on the paper amusedly, “he does like you after all kid.”

“I knooooow. He’s such a fool.”

“And here I was thinking he’d never forgive you for the exploding phaser incident last month. Well stick it under the tree with the other parcels kid.”

“We have a tree?”

“I drew one on a drawing app on a PADD and propped it against the wall,” he waves, indicating the aforementioned device.

“That is a shit drawing Bonsey.”

“And I’m a Doctor, not an artist. Shut it and go back to licking your rocks.”

Jim drops the rock on Pike’s desk with a dull thud.

“You left. For two months,” Jim pouts accusingly.

“I work for recruitment Kirk,” Pike replies, not even looking up at him. “Shockingly enough I have to travel around and recruit people sometimes.”

“Two months! I had to break into your house again for more credit when my stipend ran out!”

“I had noticed. You set all my alarms off.”

“I may also have borrowed your brandy again,” he admits as well with a shrug. “So I brought you a rock to say sorry.”

Pike finally puts down the PADD he was working on and deigns to meet his eyes.

“A rock,” he deadpans, glancing at the item in question.

“Yes. It’s a piece of Acasta Gneiss, so it’s almost as old as you are.”

Pike glares at him. Jim reminds himself that despite all evidence to the contrary, Pike actually likes him, and therefore wouldn’t kill him where he stood. Probably.

“It’s a metamorphic rock from Canada,” Jim continues, grinning and jigging in his enthusiasm. “It was previously a granitoid, and according to radiometric dating of zircon crystals within it, it formed 4.2 billion years ago. That means it’s the oldest known exposed rock on Earth!”

“Kirk. Get out of my office.”

“But it’s a nice rock!”

“Kirk!”

“Get it? It’s a gneiss rock!”

“KIRK! OUT!”

Jim had finally tested out of the Foundation class just before Christmas and jumped straight into the full-fledged Geological Science course.

He’d picked it on a whim just to be unpredictable, but actually, it was turning out to be pretty fascinating.

He now likes rocks. Who could have predicted that out come?

God, he’s turning into such a nerd.

“Bones,” he groans, staggering into the little hidden alcove in the sciences library that his roommate prefers. “Bones I fucked up.”

By that he means I pissed the wrong guy off and now my arm is broken.

Bones pushes his headphones off with a silent sigh and turns his swively office chair to face him.

“Whose girlfriend did you try to poach this time?” Bones asks him unamused, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I swear I didn’t know about the boyfriend,” Jim whines. “the guy was just stood there at the bar looking all cute and pouty so I bought him a drink and asked him if he anyone had ever told him his eyes are the colour of polished Idocrase before. And then this big ugly brute appears and shoves me into the bar and tells me to keep my paws off what’s his. I tried to leave, I swear, but he grabbed my arm and called me a toothpick twat and broke it.”

“You tried to leave?” Bones drawls disbelievingly.

“Yes! I mean, I called him a bastard and insulted his parentage first, but that’s water under the bridge right?”

“You.” Bones punctuates harshly, stabbing Jim in the chest with his finger, “Are going to be the absolute death of me.”

But he does shove his work materials into his satchel and drag Jim to the clinic to fix his arm.

“Mind the thin sections!” Jim yells as Galia and Gary come barrelling towards him.

It’s first mess, and Jim is frantically trying to finish his sketches before the igneous petrology lab session this afternoon, and eat at the same time.

“What’s a thin section Jimmy?” Gaila asks cheerfully, sliding onto the bench beside him and pushing her breasts against his arm. Jim looks down at them fondly and wiggles a bit against her, smiling at her dopily when she winks at him.

“It’s a really thin slide of polished rock that you can shine light through and magnify to see all the minerals in it, snookums.”

“You two are gross,” Uhura grouches, dropping onto the bench on the other side of the table. As per usual, Jim immediately passes her his dessert and gets a smile in return.

“Well you can join in precious,” Gaila smirks at her, running a hand smoothly down the side of her own face. “Open invitation, any time.”

“Christ no, I might catch something and then McCoy would bitch at me too.”

“Yeah!” Gary grins through a mouthful, “You might catch some fun and a sense of humour!”

“Hey!” Jim protests, elbowing Gary in the ribs. “Uhura is perfectly lovely already. Apologise you brute.”

“Not on your life, you suck up,” Gary cackles, shoving more mashed potato into his mouth.

“Ooooo pretty,” Gaila interrupts before either Jim or Uhura can retort again. Instead, the Orion pulls one of Jim’s PADDs out of the pile and holds up the sketch on it. “Why is it rainbow coloured Jimmy?”

“It’s a garnet-mica-schist under cross polarised light,” Jim tells her distractedly, holding up another slide under his portable magnifier. He flicks the filter down and rotates it, trying to estimate the extinction angle of the plagioclase.

“I have no idea what that means!” Gaila beams. Jim pats her shoulder consolingly and she wiggles
happily against his arm again.

“Captain, oh my Captain. Sailor of the stars and lord of all Starfleet. The fairest and kindest of all the-”

“No.”

“I haven’t even asked for anything yet sir!”

“Whatever ever it is, the answer is no.”

“But-!”

“No.”

“But I have-!”

“No.”

“-Compulsory fieldwork and-”

“Not buying you anything Kirk.”

“-and I need decent walking boots and-”

“This is what your stipend is for.”

“-and a rock hammer and hiking trousers and stuff.”

Pike looks at him despairingly.

“Stipend.” He says pointedly.

“I already spent this month’s though.”

“On what!? I only gave it to you yesterday! Actually don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.”

“Bones needed a liquid based pick me up. Friends help friends. Come oooon Pike, do me a solid?”

“I am not your friend, I am not obligated to help you when you’ve been an idiot.”

“I will happily exchange my labour and my body for goods and services sir.”

Pike throws one of the many rock specimens now on his desk in Jim’s general direction.

Jim’s new mountaineering boots are awesome.

They’re Mammut brand, fully waterproof, breathable and lined with motherfucking memory foam. It’s like wearing a soft cottony cloud of bliss.

His new hammer is even more awesome.

Twelve and a half inches of Estwing rock shattering perfection. 850 grams, solid steel, and a lifetime guarantee since 1923. Only the best for wee little Jimmy!

He might even gift Pike another random rock as a thank-you!

Unlike Command and Security track cadets, Science cadets don’t have to go on any survival courses until their Underclassman year. As lowly Plebes, Jim and Bones are therefore free of such annoyances.

Except Pike apparently doesn’t like him as much as he thought, because two days after he’s arrived back from his end of year sedimentary logging course in Spain, he’s shunted unwillingly onto a different shuttle and shipped out to the Mars Colony with the Command Cadets.

“I could be in the paleo lab studying ancient pollen grains,” Jim moans to Gary as he zips up the EV suit.

“Well you should stop pissing Pike off and stealing his money and shit Kirk.”

“I can’t help it. I’m a kleptomaniac and he has so many nice shiny things.”

“Well try to look at the bright side!” Gary jokes, “You get an advanced survival course certification, you get to see some interesting space rocks and dust, and then you get to share my bed and my body later tonight! You know my blowjobs are awesome!”

“Thank god for your libido,” Jim grins, jamming the helmet onto his head and clicking the oxygen supply on. “Life wouldn’t be the same without it!”

Summer is a drag.

He’d gotten used to the constant workload of trying to cram both the foundation year and the first undergraduate year into just nine months, and now that he’s managed it, the sudden drop into relaxation time is jarring.

God he’s bored.

“So sign up to an Academy summer school,” Bones grumps when Jim moans at him again.

“But there’s no geology ones,” he groans, flopping dramatically onto Bones’ bed. Bones glares at him and pulls his hospital smock out from under him.

“So pick something else. I don’t give a shit what, just stop whining at me twenty-four seven.”

“But Boooooonnnnes!”

“I have to go Jim, my shift starts in fifteen minutes.”

“Bonsey! No!” he whines as high pitched as his vocal chords will allow.

Bones just slams their still broken door shut between them, leaving Jim to wallow in his misery alone.

“Fuck everything,” he spits sarcastically at the water-stained ceiling.

Then he rolls over, picks up the nearest PADD and starts scrolling through the summer school options.

“Languages. Really, did you have to?” Uhura asks him unhappily. “It was a joke, not a suggestion.”

“Jar, I like very much!” he laughs in his worst German accent. “It vill be most interesting!”

“I am not helping you with assignments Kirk.”

“Aww, but you’re my favourite.”

“McCoy is your favourite. Don’t bullshit me.”

“Do I give Bones all my cake? Do I huh? I’m so underappreciated, woe is me!”

“Go die in a hole Kirk.”

It had seemed like a brilliant idea.

When Jim had first hinted that he’d maybe like to sign on for a summer school project to his eternally exasperated sponsor, Pike had immediately tried to push him towards some of the Command electives. But Jim was adamant he was staying well away from that predictable temptation, and insisted on doing something else. Pike had grumbled, but Jim had him wrapped around his little finger, so Jim got what he wanted.

And what he wanted was to do something new, something he hadn’t tried before, something challenging.

Uhura had then pointed out how utterly shit Jim was at languages. And Jim had been unable to back down from the challenge.

Which was turning out to be a bit of a mistake.

Not because he was particularly struggling with the course content of introductory Vulcan, but because by the stars! the damn instructor was distracting as all hell.

Talk about gorgeous.

“It’s not fair,” he whines to Bones, hanging with his head off the side of his bed.

Bones raises an eyebrow and continues pulling his boots off.

“No really, it’s not, you don’t understand!” he continues, making grabby hands at his roommate. Bones avoids his grasp with well-practiced ease and sinks into his desk chair instead, well out of Jim’s reach.

“Pretty sure I do kid. You’re a hot blooded teenager who can’t think with the brain in his head.”

“But he’s so pretty.”

“Jim, how off limits are teaching staff and instructors again? After last time?”

“Screw Pike and his stupid rules!” Jim pouts.

“You nearly caused a minor diplomatic disaster because you couldn’t keep it in your pants!”

“I didn’t know she was engaged! She never said!”

“She was wearing an engagement ring!”

“It was dark!”

“You had her fingers in your mouth when her fiancée walked in!”

“Not her right ring finger!”

“She’s was a Bradellen! The ring was on the finger in your mouth!”

“This is beside the point! Hot Vulcan instructor! Share my pain!”

“If you so much as glance in his direction suggestively, I will grass you up to Pike.”

Jim huffs and rolls over, presenting Bones with his back.

“Some best-friend you are,” he mutters sulkily. “I’m disowning you. Gary is my favourite now. He gives me awesome sex.”

“Does this mean you’ll stop talking to me and stop trying to hit on me?” Bones asks, flicking his desk lamp on.

“Yes it absolutely does, you unfair villainous sex heathen.”

“Oh thank god,” Bones drawls amused. “I thought I’d never be free of you.”

Jim throws his pillow at his best-friend’s head.

Half way through summer and three failed plans to attract the instructor’s attention later, Jim has a realisation.

“Oh my god, you like him too!”

This he says to Uhura while they’re both flicking through a vocabulary textbook on her primary PADD. They’d both stopped scrolling to stare at the same man at exactly the same time as he strolled purposefully through the library and down into the stairwell opposite them.

Uhura freezes and then slowly turns to glare at him.

“If you even so much as try to use him for your own gains Kirk, I will eviscerate you so fully, Captain Pike will be dancing on your grave in glee for years to come.”

“Okay but you agree he’s hot right?” he asks, ignoring her threat with casual familiarity; that’s just how their friendship works.

“Oh god, he so is,” she moans.

Jim stares at her wide eyed and silent.

“That was the best noise I’ve ever heard you make! Please do it again.”

Uhura smacks him round the ear with a heavy archaic paper book off the shelf behind them.

Totally worth it.

“Jim,” she hisses in his ear, nudging his arm insistently.

Jim looks up from the Bowen’s mineral reaction series diagram he was studying, and immediately sees what Uhura is calling his attention too.

It’s the hot professor again.

“Oh you gotta be kiddin’ me!” Bones drawls, pinching his brow. “When you said “Vulcan Instructor”, you didn’t just mean he teaches Vulcan did you?”

“Professor Spock. He’s so adorable,” Uhura sighs smiling. “Look at his ears…”

“…They’re so lickable,” Jim finishes with a dreamy sigh of his own.

“Please McCoy, you have to save them,” Gary mock sobs, clutching dramatically at the sleeve of Bones’ red cadet jacket. “It’s destroying them! Jim hasn’t fucked me for over a week! He’s lost to me! Lost! I can’t take it anymore!”

“Don’t be so crude Mitchell, you ass,” Bones growls back, shrugging him off in disgust. “Why am I friends with you all?”

“Because I buy you ridiculous amounts of booze and discreetly install porn screensavers on your ex’s Comm terminal for you,” Jim grins.

“You’re right,” Bones agrees surprisingly, looking thoughtful, “I do only like you for your materialistic worth! I knew it had nothing to do with your horrific personality!”

Jim narrows his eyes menacingly, and then goes back to staring with Uhura when Bones utterly ignores his implied death threat.

“So Professor, I was wondering if you could help me out with a small problem?” Jim asks, sliding up to the Vulcan in the hallway.

“My office hours are between 11 and 2 every other week day Cadet. I will attend you then if you still desire assistance.”

And with just that, he glides gracefully off down the hall, leaving Jim to sulk alone.

“I still desire assistance!” he announces, bouncing into Professor Spock’s office the next morning at 11 on the dot.

“It is neither a Tuesday nor a Thursday Cadet. And you should not have entered without first knocking.”

“Sorry, failing of mine. So about these Nomative Case words-”

“Cadet,” Spock interrupts. “Please leave my office immediately.”

Jim shuts his mouth with a clack, but continues to stand there.

Spock raises a perfectly symmetrical eyebrow.

“I just thought you should know you’re really cute,” he garbles out in one breath.

“I neither need nor desire your opinion of me Cadet Kirk. Now please leave before I call security.”

“You know my name!?”

“Cadet Kirk, leave immediately.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna-!” Jim squeaks, and bolts back out the door.

Jim decides he doesn’t like the sexy sleek Vulcan after all when he goes to Pike and reports him for sexual harassment.

Pike yells at him. A lot.

Apparently Spock is his first officer and therefore beyond off limits.

He’s also forbidden from finishing his summer course in Vulcan.

“Why do they hate me so,” he moans into Gaila’s breasts that night. “I try so hard, and get so far, but in the end it never even matters.”

“That’s a pop culture reference!” Gaila squeals with glee.

“Yes it is gorgeous,” Jim grins, sliding up to mouth at her neck.

“Oh god Jimmy, keep doing that.”

“Oh you I bet I will,” he drawls before ordering the computer to dim the lights.

Uhura informs him that Spock is a member of the xenolinguistics club, and to everyone else’s horror, Jim immediately applies to become the society’s treasurer. Then he tricks Pike into officialising his candidacy. Which on the one hand earns him a month of unwanted diplomatic training when the Captain finds out, but on the other does mean that his election campaign has to be allowed to run even when the current committee tries to forbid him.

Which then turns into Jim somehow winning the position to everyone else’s further horror.

Uhura pretends to seethe, but Jim knows she’s secretly pleased that she now technically has Jim under her thumb.

She’s the new President after all.

“I krol-tor ish-veh bezhun. Au nam-tor wuhinik” Jim smiles across the table at his practice-conversation partner.

“Ik nam-tor riolozhikaik,” Spock replies, with a slight tilt of his head, before continuing in Standard. “They are comparable to those of any number of humans with brown irises and therefore cannot be unique.”

“Yeah, but I like them anyway Spocko.”

“I find your perversions of the name gifted to me by parents to be unsavoury and ill advised. Nor do I understand your reasons for doing so.”

“It’s called a pet name. Humans give them to people they like or are amused by.”

“I am not human and therefore have no wish to partake of this practice. Please desist, or I shall be forced to file a further complaint against your person.”

“If you insist,” Jim sighs, resigned.

Spock stands and walks away.

“The Kobayashi Maru?” Jim asks with an unimpressed look. “That’s a command track requirement.”

“And I think you should take it.”

“How about no.” Jim states dispassionately.

“Okay, I’m ordering you to take it.”

“With all due respect sir, fuck off.”

Pike stares at him blandly, waiting for Jim to become nervous under his level gaze. Jim knows this is what he’s doing because the Captain tries it all the time. He refuses to fall to the pressure of it again.

“No really, I’m not taking it,” Jim blurts, shuffling awkwardly.

“Okay then,” Pike suddenly smiles. “Off you go then.”

Jim starts, and squints at the Captain suspiciously.

“Really? Just like that?”

“Yup. You’re dismissed Cadet.”

“Nooooo?” Jim draws out, confused. “Seriously, what’s the catch.”

“No catch Kirk. I just can’t be bothered dealing with your ungrateful ass anymore.”

“Right….” Jim mutters in a daze and drifts out of the office aimlessly.

You see, the thing is, Jim lives his entire life with the simple goal of defying everyone’s expectations.

He’s been doing it his whole life.

He strives to embody unpredictability, to be the one person who throws everyone else of their game.

He doesn’t know how to cope when the tables are suddenly turned.

You see, the other thing is, is that he’s angry.

For all that he’s acted out, gotten into fights, been arrested, stalked a professor, slept with half his cohort and flirted with the other half, he’s never actually denied being grateful for all the help and support he’s been given over the last eighteen months. Hell, he’s even outright said the words Thanks for everything, I appreciate it a couple of times. Which for Jim is unprecedented.

So yeah. He’s angry.

“I’m gonna show him,” he mutters angrily, swigging at his and Bones’ latest smuggled in bottle of alcoholic something. It might once have been gin.

“You do that kid,” Bones slurs, taking the bottle from him and chugging his own share.

“I’m gonna be the best cadet to ever cadet and I’m gonna spend my stipend responsibly and do my own laundry an’ everything.”

“You tell him kid.”

“And then I’m gonna graduate and take my lovely rocks and refuse my commission on to his new shiny ship when he tries to give it to me.”

“You love the rocks.”

“I do love the rocks. They’re so shiny.”

“That one’s not shiny. S’grey and beige and dull,” Bones frowns, pointing at one of the many specimens lying around their too small single person dorm room.

“That, Bonsey, is a conglomerate. S’from a river. It’s a river conglomerate. Was formed by water in a river. You can tell from the- from the imbrication. It’s a flow indictor. Which means water. In a river.”

“You’re imbricated.”

“No, I’m intoxicated. Which is fucking brilliant ‘cause Pike hates me when I’m drunk.”

“So get permanently drunk.”

“Too predictable. Aw hell, I don’t wonna give up drinking.”

“I’ll do it if you do. Stick it to the man!”

“I fuckin’ love you Bonesy,” he giggles, slumping over so his head is in his lap. “Fuck yeah, stick it to the man!”

He manages three months of agonising sobriety and impeccable behaviour and leaving Spock alone before he realises he’s been utterly played.

“You!” he shrieks, storming into Pike’s office in the middle of the afternoon.

“Me.” Pike deadpans back. He smirks, kicks his feet up onto his desk, and bites loudly into a crunchy apple.

“You- You tricked me!” Jim shouts, throwing his hands up over his head.

“I had you twigged less than six months into your first year kiddo,” Pike grins smugly. “You can’t stand being understandable. So you do the opposite of what people want you to do. The higher ups were getting irritated at you again for constantly bending the rules, and I needed you to calm down and fall under the radar for a bit. You weren’t going to do it if I just asked you to, so I played you against yourself instead.”

“I can’t believe I ever thought you were a nice person.” Jim sighs, pouting.

“Come on kid, let’s go for lunch,” Pike grins back, clapping Jim on the shoulder as he stands and passes him.

“I’m still not taking your stupid command track test.”

The absolute best thing about geology, in Jim’s less than humble opinion, is the mineralogy. He likes the chemical equations and the endmember diagrams and the crystallography and the weird, but understandable logic of the whole subject.

It’s why he’s collected so many odd bits of rock and crystal over the last two years.

Jim’s second favourite thing, is the field work.

“Four whole weeks to hike around and map and admire rocks and structures and do nothing else,” he smiles dreamily. Gary looks at him like he’s grown an extra head.

“Who’s your mapping partner?” Gaila asks him, pushing a PADD of computer code under his nose in a silent request for him to proof read it.

“Cadet Bandron,” Jim shrugs. “We get along fine, do a lot of our practicals together and stuff. We roomed together when we went to Spain last year, and then again for the Canada trip just after Christmas. It’ll go fine.”

“Jim, you stupid son of a bitch,” Gary sighs at him. “Bandron is straighter than a Vulcan steel measuring rule. Who’s gonna see to your needs for four weeks?”

“Oh,” Jim suddenly laments. “I hadn’t thought of that. Oh god, what am I gonna do!?”

“You’re actually unbelievable,” Uhura mutters in disgust, and then locks her PADD and storms off.

Jim and Gary watch her go with matching expressions of confusion.

“Don’t worry,” Gaila reassures them both, “I don’t understand human women either.”

A week after he returns from his hellishly celibate four weeks of mapping in Africa, Jim has a sudden realisation and panics.

All his friends are going to graduate at the end of the upcoming academic year. Without him!

Jim still has a minimum of eighteen months left at his current pace.

He needs to step his game up.

Majorly.

“Kirk.”

“-But you don’t understand! I need-”

“Kirk.”

“-to finish this project and start the-”

“Kirk,” Pike says boredly, chin resting on his fist.

“-fourth year dissertation on mineral prospecting or-“

“Kirk.”

“-I’m not gonna have time to-”

“Kirk!” he says a little louder.

“-do the necessary lab time and then-”

“James T. Kirk! Sit! Down!”

Jim drops like a rock into his usual seat next to Pike’s desk.

“Now then,” the Captain tells him exasperatedly, “would you please look at this PADD.”

Jim stares at him blankly until the PADD is thrown into his lap with an eyeroll.

“It’s a list of all the command shit you’ve made me do whenever I’ve pissed you off too much,” Jim huffs after a glance at it.

“And?” Pike prompts, waving at it again.

“And that’s it. It’s a list. A long list, but just a list.”

“With equivalent Academy scores alongside each module Kirk. Look at it.”

“So what? I’m not on goddamn Command track. I’m not being your little prodigy. Not now, not ever.”

“Oh lord save me from wilful idiots,” Pike moans despairingly, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “You actually get the credit for each module you’ve completed despite your Science major. If you take the damn test and go on a six-week training cruise next year like I’ve been telling you to for weeks, you can graduate at the end of next academic year with a joint honours degree.”

Jim’s head snaps up.

“Really!?” he exclaims gleefully. “Where can I sign up?”

“Christ almighty,” Pike cusses, dropping his head into his hands. “For someone so dedicated to being contrary just for the sake of it, you are the most predictable little shit I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with.”

Jim takes the Kobayashi Maru for the first time in the July at the end of his second year.

He utterly fails it, and is forced to watch as a more than half his crew die, the Kobayashi Maru explodes, and the Klingon war birds chase his battered and burning constellation class ship half way across the sector before finally getting bored and letting him limp back to the nearest starbase.

Jim storms out in disgust and goes to drown himself in the nearest dive bar.

“Jim, you lasted four hours and fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t rub it in,” he snaps at Bones as he finally stumbles into their dorm at 3am, bloodied and bruised and battered. Bones pushes him into his desk chair and immediately starts patching him up, the actions too familiar to them both after two long years of the Academy.

“Do you know what the record longest time before failing that test is kid? Do you?”

“It’s not a fucking test, it’s a pathetic trap that can go fuck itself.”

“Four hours and twenty minutes. That’s the record. And the girl who managed that lost all her crew as well as the Kobayashi Maru survivors.”

“Well go her,” Jim mutters unpleasantly. “Woopedy fucking doo.”

“Take it again kid.”

“What the fuck Bones no! I’m a Geologist! Not a command goon! I don’t need to prove myself against that shit!”

“So why are you so mad then? If you’re so unbothered by it why’d you come home looking like a train wreck? Take it again and show them up. Remember kid, stick it to the man!”

“Oh yeah, ‘cause that worked out so well last time. I got played.”

“But last time it wasn’t your own plan, it was Captain fucking Pike’s. No-one will be expecting it this time.”

“Unpredictability,” Jim mutters quietly, contemplating the meaning of the word. “What’s the thing they’ll least expect?”

Jim doesn’t actually know, but damn, if he isn’t going to find out.

It becomes an obsession.

When he’s not doing his course work or project or when he’s not in a rock lab, he researches and studies command tactics, even going so far as to read all the reports and journals Pike has forwarded him over the years. Sleep becomes a secondary concern, and he only keeps eating regularly because well… He still doesn’t talk about it, but yeah, regular food is important to him.

The only person who knows what he’s doing is Bones. No-one else could know, or he would lose his unpredictable advantage.

At first, he’s horrified to learn that the latest programmer of the test is none other than his and Uhura’s favourite shared passion. But then he stops and thinks on it and comes to the conclusion that if nothing else, his plan will finally get the Vulcan to take proper notice of him.

You see, everyone always thinks there’s only three possible routes with academics.

You either give up before you begin and don’t try at all; you play by the rules, and do your best; or you try to get the top grades by cheating, breaking the rules and stepping straight outside the defined parameters.

No-one ever seems to realise you can cheat by playing by the rules.

“Uhura, you’re going to be my Comm Officer again right?”

“Do you really think I’d miss another chance to watch you humiliate yourself rock boy?”

“Fantastic, I knew I could count on you! 14:00 this coming Wednesday. Be there or be in my underwear!”

His mild over-interest in Spock pays off.

In trying to find things he and the Vulcan have in common, he’d taken a look at Spock’s published research papers on computer programming language.

Now Jim is pretty computer savvy. He’d had to be, growing up the way he did. There were just certain parts of his history that he didn’t want anyone knowing. Not Starfleet, not Pike, not even Bones. Not anyone.

(Although Bones must have gotten the gist of a lot of it, having been forced to get far too familiar with Jim’s medical file over the years)

And not wanting people to know, meant having to learn how to get into personal files to delete certain details.

So Jim had the basics well down, and a lot of the more intermediate and advanced skills too. In fact, he could have -if he’d felt so inclined- gone straight into a career with Starfleet’s programming department.

He hadn’t been inclined, but it did mean that he could understand enough of Spock’s work that he could adapt to his coding style and add one or two bits to his programmes on the sly.

He has to ask Gaila to get him access to the files.

He could have hacked them himself, if he’d had more time. But he didn’t; he had less than twenty-four hours left until crunch time. So his only remaining options were to trick Gaila into helping him, or ask for her help outright.

He nearly does it. He nearly honestly decides to sleep with her and then steal her access codes once she dozed off, but it feels like too much of a pattern. Too much like what people would expect him to do to gain access.

Pike’s right, to an extent. His unpredictability is starting to become predictable.

So he doesn’t. He goes to her, and he sits her down and explains his plan.

And she grins and nods and not only gets him into the simulation facility, but tweaks his code for him and makes it better. More hidden, more clever, more random and unpredictable.

It goes like this.

The simulation starts as normal. He approaches the neutral zone, receives the distress signal from the Kobayashi Maru, makes the call to approach the stranded and damaged ship, and is subsequently surrounded by the three Klingon war birds.

Then he uses every ounce of his newly learnt tactical knowledge to hold the situation in a stalemate.

Now before he and Gaila played with it, the simulation wouldn’t have allowed it. Something would have gone wrong which would have tipped the odds against them, and they would have been massacred like every other crew before them.

But that’s not what happens now.

Things still go wrong. The whole point was to be subtle about it, and a perfect run to victory would have made their tampering obvious. No, what the modifications did were ensure that nothing ever quite went wrong enough.

The Armory panel would explode for instance, but the shock wouldn’t be enough to kill his Amory Officer. And a loop hole would be left that allowed his bridge technicians to fix it over a number of hours and a Medic to get his Officer back on their feet. Or his shields would fail, but the EMP pulse he sent out in retaliation would just be strong enough to temporary disable the Klingons weaponry systems, giving Jim time to order an energy reroute back into his shields.

And so on.

He keeps it up for hours.

Four.

Then six.

Then, eight, nine, ten.

At twelve hours in, he’s still going strong, running on pure adrenaline and caffeine. After the first six, he’d started ordering respites for his mentally exhausted bridge crew, just like he would have done on an actual ship. He gets mugs of coffee brought in at regular intervals, and snack foods and protein bars. Bottles of water are stacked underneath each terminal for ease of access. After ten hours, he asks for replacement crewmembers from the “beta shift crew” to give his alpha squad an actual break, and the guys running the simulation have to scramble to find willing volunteers.

He eventually ends up with actual commission officers, one of whom he is amused to note, is Captain Pike himself, who takes a seat at the Navigations panel after a respectful but amused salute. All his new “crew” follow his orders just like they would an actual Captain’s.

At fourteen hours, both sides start losing simulated lives.

Jim had planned it like that. No casualties could only be believable for so long. It had angered him to make that call when programming the code, but he knew he’d have to do it. By the sixteenth hour, he’s lost nearly a third of his men, but one of the Klingon ships is down.

The Kobayashi Maru still floats mostly intact between them.

Eighteen hours and he can feel himself starting to flag. He needs some real food, and some honest to god sleep. He can go much longer without shut eye normally, but he’s been running at full speed non-stop for that entire length of time, and thinking so much is exhausting.

At the twenty-fifth hour, the call is made for him.

“Alright shut it down, show time is over.”

In his tiredness, Jim doesn’t recognise the voice that comes over the tannoy speaker system, but it’s stern and full of self-confidence. Within a few seconds of the announcement, the forward view screen blinks off and the bridge panels all fall into darkness. Jim sits and blinks into the sudden dimness, still practically vibrating with tense energy.

“Well that went well,” he mutters, rubbing at his haze in his eyes with his fist.

“What’s your name kid,” he’s suddenly asked.

There’s a man crouched down in front of him, the shock of thin white hair all he’s able to register at first. He’s still sat in the captain’s chair, unable to force himself to stand; he’s not sure his legs would support him right now.

“Kirk, sir,” someone else familiar sounding answers for him, “James T. Kirk.”

“James huh?” the man smiles.

And then Jim notices the Admiral stars on the man’s shoulders, recognises the old weathered face from the many, many Holos and journals that exist about him.

“Sir,” Jim tries to salute. Does salute, despite his hand’s shakiness.

“I hear you’re a geologist kid.”

“Um. Yes sir. I like rocks,” he answers, mentally cursing himself for the supremely intelligent sounding reply.

“Well I like dogs and water-polo and starships. Why don’t you come to my office and we can have a chat?”

“Yeah okay sir.”

“You too Pike,” Admiral Jonathan Archer commands, as he helps Jim to his feet.

“…but there’s no evidence of any tampering. I think he just found a loophole and ran with it.”

Jim comes back into awareness slowly, wondering why on Earth he’s lying down.

“I believe there is sir. It is simply that I am yet to identify it. Whatever he did, the Cadet did it well and did it discretely.”

“He’s not a programmer Commander. He’s not even an Engineer or an Astrophysicist. He’s a Geoscientist -a damn good one by all accounts, but not someone trained in computer coding. He doesn’t have the skills to alter the parameters of your test.”

“With all due respect Admiral, I believe you are severely underestimating Mr Kirk.”

“Maybe, maybe. But in either case, I’m not letting talent like that go to waste. So drop whatever notions of academic misconduct accusations you’re thinking of and let it go.”

Jim opens his eyes and finds himself in the largest Starfleet office he’s ever seen. He’s on a large couch of some sort, shoved into a corner adjacent to an entire wall of sweeping panoramic glass windows. Out of them, he can see the skyscrapers of San Francisco, and the bay and Golden Gate Bridge gleaming in the late evening sunlight.

On his other side, there’s a large wood and glass desk, rows of pictures mounted on the wall behind it. In front of the desk stands Commander Spock, done up impeccably in his black Academy uniform, not a hair out of line.

“Ah! Mr Kirk! Glad you can finally join us!” the room’s other occupant suddenly exclaims.

“Admiral,” Jim croaks, horrified by how rough he sounds; he’s honestly sounded more alive after wild nights of fights out on the town!

He tries to sit up, and the previously unnoticed warm lump on his stomach stirs and whimpers in protest. Jim looks down at the small beagle puppy blearily and then carefully scoops it up, cradling it close to his chest.

“She likes you,” the Admiral grins as Jim hobbles over on sleep-numb legs to stand by Spock’s side.

“I like dogs,” Jim mumbles, completely unsure of his current standing with both these men. “Captain Pike has a dog. Tango. Springer Spaniel. He likes long walks and sleeping on my feet.”

“And you like rocks too,” Archer laughs back, and Jim can tell he’s being teased, so he smiles tentatively.

Spock, to his left, does what Jim presumes is the Vulcan equivalent of staring at them bewildered.

“Well anyway,” Archer continues, his smile softening, “I need to ask you some questions Cadet, and I need you to answer honestly. Did you cheat?”

“Cheat sir?” he asks back, nodding gratefully when he’s handed a small glass of cool water.

“Yes Kirk. Did you alter the parameters of the Kobayashi Maru test such that you broke the rules of the Academy’s academic conduct agreement?”

Jim thinks carefully about Archer’s wording and then answers negatively.

“No sir, I did not.”

The Admiral looks at him knowingly.

“But you did alter the parameters of the test?”

Jim looks at Spock, who is staring back with his usual Vulcan unreadability. Then he looks at the Admiral again. He can tell both of them are expecting another denial from him, though for different reasons.

“Yes sir, I did,” he answers confidently.

“How?” Archer asks sternly after a moment.

Jim smirks and tells him.

“Guess who’s getting an award for original thinking!” Jim sings songs as he glides into the Starfleet Medical laboratory that Bones usually inhabits.

“Not you,” Bones grumps back no hesitation, “because you wouldn’t know an original thought if it beat you round the head.”

“Oh ye of little faith! Of course it’s me!”

“Go home to bed you reckless miscreant; you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Well actually, I did kip on Admiral Archer’s couch for a bit.”

“Couches are not good for your- Wait, you don’t mean the Admiral Archer do you!?” Bones asks, sounding unusually awed and unlike his normal cynical self.

“The one and the only Bonesy-o!”

“Oh my god, what was that like?! What’s he like?”

“His couch is really damn comfortable…”

Spock, to Jim’s unending frustration, is still mad at him an entire three and a half months later. In the meantime, Jim has finished his mapping project, started his Upperclassman dissertation, organised his training cruise with the Captain of the USS Farragut so he can do it during Easter, and most importantly, bought all his Christmas presents for when the traditional human holiday takes place in two weeks.

Which is why he decides that it’s the perfect time to approach the stoic Vulcan once again.

“So I know you don’t do human holidays Professor, but I went ahead and got you this anyway.”

Spock looks at the box he places on the desk with the barest twitch of his left eyebrow.

“Not gonna lie, it’s just a bunch of rocks.”

“You are a geologist, I would therefore assume they each have a personal significance to you.”

“Well most of them are pretty schist actually,” Jim grins cheekily.

“I presume you are attempting to make a vocabulary based geological pun.”

“I couldn’t resist, I’m sedimental like that.”

“Cadet please,” Spock actually sighs to Jim’s shock, “I do not find such jokes to be amusing. Please do not continue to make them.”

“Aw, but I hadn’t even gotten to the one’s about slaty cleavage and arrested dykes yet!”

Spock walks out of his own office, leaving Jim snickering to himself quietly. Then he pats the badly wrapped box once fondly before leaving himself.

“So you know how Pike regularly fucks off to places unknown to try and con other poor individuals into signing up for a life of Starfleet mandated slave labour?”

“You mean the part where unlike you, he has a real job?” Bones drawls from his bed.

“I’m a student don’t you know Bonsey, I don’t need a job!”

“Whatever, what’s your point?”

“Well he’s gone off on another trip and he’s gonna be gone until at least after Christmas and probably for New Year too.”

“And what does that have to do with us?”

“Well it’s just that our poor little dorm room is so small and cramped, and Pike has this big old townhouse just sitting there empty for over a week. And it’s got a proper Christmas tree in it and a decent shower room and a usable kitchen and a cupboard full of spirits and liquor and-”

“If he comes back early and catches us, I’m entirely blaming you.”

-Get out of my house-

-not in your house-

-I can see you on the security feed-

-you installed cameras?-
-and where is your Christmas spirit?-

-I transferred it into vodka spirit and drank it-
-I needed it to cope with dealing with you-
-Get out of my house-

-now that is my kind of Christmas spirit sir!-
-we promise not to break anything-

-Congratulations, you are now an instructor for Plebe year introductory PT-

-That is the shittiest Xmas present ever-
-And to think I was going to buy you something nice-

-I am changing the security codes on my alarm system-

-you say that like you think I even knew the codes in the first place-

Jim’s dissertation is on Tectonophysical Data Analysis and it’s Uses in Conjunction with Dilithium Mine Prospecting Techniques. Basically, how one would use artificial earthquake data to look for that most coveted crystal used as starship fuel.

It’s therefore useful in terms of real world applications as well as being suitably mineralogy based enough to stir Jim’s interest.

The only problem is that he actually needs some crystals of Dilithium, otherwise he can’t do his lab tests and obtain his needed experimental data. And because they’re so darn rare, they won’t let him have any unless he formally agrees not to do anything which could potentially damage the crystals.

And well, apparently his plan could damage them.

So they keep saying no.

Which is stupid, because all he wants to do is a couple of p-wave velocity tests on them. It should be harmless. The possibility that he might fracture them is only very low, and the academic board are being entirely unreasonable about the whole thing.

“I’m gonna lie and then do it anyway,” Jim moans, knocking back another pint. Gary pats him on the back and flags down the barkeep for another round. “Screw their petty science blocking regulations, they don’t understand the purity of research.”

“It’s okay rock muncher, you’ll find a way around them.”

“Yes I will, damn them. And I’m not a muncher, I don’t eat rocks.”

Gary looks at him disbelievingly but does hand him yet another glass of bitter.

“I have literally watched you put rocks in your mouth Jimbo,” Gary snorts, “Don’t lie to me.”

“I will have you know,” Jim lectures drunkenly, “that the only reliable way to distinguish a clay from a shale in the field, is to rub it on your teeth.”

“That’s really gross Kirk,” Gary grimaces.

“If it’s gritty, it’s a shale,” he continues, raising his free hand to gesture with a finger. “And if it’s slimy it’s a clay.”

“Can you not just get that information from a Tricorder? ‘Cause seriously, gross.”

“Geology is a hands on subject my good man, and sometimes you just have to lick a rock.”

“I am never kissing you again. God knows what’s been in your mouth.”

“I know something I’d like to put in my mouth right now,” Jim leers with a meaningful glance downwards.

“Now you’re talking dirt-boy,” Gary winks back, shimmying off his barstool.

“Oh, I am a dirty boy.”

Jim happily lets himself be tugged towards the bathrooms at the back of the bar.

“This session has been called to resolve a troubling matter. James T. Kirk, step forward. Cadet Kirk, evidence has been submitted to this council, suggesting that you violated the ethical code of conduct pursuant to Regulation Two-Six point nine of the Starfleet Code. Is there anything you care to say before we begin, sir?”

“Erm? I didn’t mean to explode the fume cupboard and set fire to the sediment sorting lab? It was an accident and I’m sorry?”

“Would you care to explain why you were utilising a laboratory that you do not have the permission nor the training to access?”

“I did have permission!” Jim grins triumphantly.

“There is no evidence to support that claim.”

“Yeah, but I totally did ask before I went in.”

“And who did you approach for permission?”

Jim’s grin falters for a second, before widening even further.

“I approached Admiral Jonathan Archer sir.”

Admiral Barnett narrows his eyes.

“I highly doubt that cadet. He’s off world and beyond your contact.”

“I actually have his private comm number. We go to parks together with our dogs on weekends. Well, my dog is actually Captain Pike’s dog, but trust me, Tango loves me waaay more than his proper owner these days.”

Barnett actually twitches.

“Regardless of your claim Cadet, the Admiral does not hold the Authority to grant you access to an expensive research facility without first contacting the lab’s overseer.”

“But he totally did!” Jim protests, mind scrabbling to formulate another lie.

“Then whom did he contact?”

“I don’t actually know that, I don’t question his mysterious ways.”

And then thank Jim’s stars, some random Aide guy strides across the stage and distracts Barnett with a notification of some sort.

“What do mean I’m grounded?” Jim moans to the Commander.

“Once again, you’re on academic suspension until the board rules Cadet.”

“What? It was one tiny little fire!”

“I don’t make the rules Kirk. Now get out of my way, I have places to be.”

“Spock!” Jim yells, bouncing across the hanger with Bones hot on his heels. “Spock I have a problem!”

“Jim no!” Bones protests behind from him.

“Cadet Kirk, I do not-” Spock begins smoothly.

“I need you to fix this problem I have with being suspended,” Jim cuts over the top of him.

“I cannot do that Cadet.”

“But you totally can! You’re the Science Officer and I’m a Science officer. Your Science officer! Fix it! Please!”

“I do not understand why you think I am able to assist you with this matter. The fault for your suspension lies with you alone.”

“Your home planet is experiencing a mass tectonic phenomena! Global Moment Magnitude nine disturbances! I’m a Geoscientist, tectonics is my jam! You need me.”

“There are plenty of vastly more qualified geophysicists already boarding the Enterprise and the other Starfleet Federation vessels. I have no need of you. Dismissed Cadet.”

Jim watches Spock stalk off with an expression of extreme distaste.

“Pointy-eared bastard,” he spits.

“You know, I think I’m starting to like him,” Bones grins evilly.

“Look Jim, I gotta get going.”

“You’ll be safe yeah?” Jim asks, beginning to be resigned to his fate.

“Course I will,” Bones tries to reassure. And then he smiles weakly and disappears across the hanger bay.

Jim lets his shoulders droop and stares morosely at the shuttle the rest of his classmates are probably all on.

“Screw it, I can’t leave you. Come with-”

“I have an idea!” Jim exclaims over the top of Bones.

“Yeah, so do I. And unless you come with me right now, it’s gonna be too late to work!”

“I’ll meet you on board!” Jim grins, ignoring Bones’ tugging on his arm.

“Jim I’m serious! We have to-! Aaaand he’s gone. Ungrateful brat!”

The last part is shouted at him, so Jim waves cheerily over his shoulder as he darts away through the crowd.

It takes him less than a minute to find the correct shuttle. Thankfully, it’s still being loaded up.

Jim takes a deep breath and then strides up the stair rig leading to the shuttles door, trying to project confidence.

“I have an important message for Captain Pike sir. It’s urgent,” he tells the Lieutenant guarding the door.

“Sure Cadet, what is it and I can pass it on to him?”

“I’m afraid I was informed it’s need to know only. All I can share is that it concerns the USS Enterprise; I have to give the rest of the message to him in person.”

The Lieutenant narrows his eyes at him suspiciously, but does eventually step aside and let him into the shuttle’s main cabin.

Pike very literally knocks his head against the back of the seat in front of him three times when he spots Jim striding towards him.

“I have an urgent message concerning your ship sir,” Jim tells him, stopping at the end of his seating row.

“No you don’t. Get out,” Pike groans. The Captain seated to Pike’s right raises an eyebrow and adopts a bemused expression.

“Yes I do,” Jim barrels on. “You’re missing an important individual from your crew roster sir.”

“You are not important, get off the shuttle.”

Another Captain seated somewhere behind Jim actually snickers.

“I think we both know that I am important sir.”

“You’re suspended. I won’t ask you again Kirk. Get off the shuttle.”

Pike actually sounds angry this time, and Jim wonders if he’s miscalculated; it’s not often that he genuinely does cross one of Pike’s lines. He glances back at the door and sighs disappointedly, realising he should have gone with Bones after all.

“You must be James T. Kirk,” the woman to Pike’s right suddenly speaks up, offering her hand. “Captain Vonroe, USS Hood. Nice to finally meet you in person Cadet.”

“Um, thanks,” Jim replies confused, shaking the offered hand.

“Heard a lot about you from this one,” she continues, indicating the still scowling Pike with a nod. “Duel Command and Science yeah? With specialities in Tactics, Mineralogy and Tectonophysics?”

“Um. Yes Ma’am. I plan on graduating at the end of the year.”

“Great! I could use a solid officer like you! What say you come aboard now for this trip out to Vulcan, have a look around our research labs, see if I can convince you to take a commission under me in September?”

“You’re not poaching him!” Pike suddenly growls in protest, sitting up sharply.

“Well you clearly don’t want him,” Vonroe smirks. “If you won’t take him on board the Enterprise, then I’ll gladly have him instead. Wasted talent otherwise.”

“I know what you’re doing Lila, and it’s not going to work.”

“Take a seat Kirk,” she grins, patting the empty space between the two of them, ignoring Pike’s protests once again. “And ignore Captain grumpypants here; the rest of us usually do.”

Jim hastily sits down and starts doing the buckles up before Pike can protest again. Several more of the other Captains begin sniggering and chuckling.

“You are going to pay big time for this,” Pike snarls in his ear as the shuttle engines rumble to life.

Jim cringes, but reminds himself he still managed to get where he wants to be.

“Come along then Cadet,” Vonroe announces cheerfully when they dock for a second time at the orbital space dock. “This is our stop.”

Pike puts his hand on Jim’s arm and growls.

“You’re not poaching him.”

Vonroe watches them both levelly, assessing them both with a calm surety that no-doubt earnt her her rank.

“No, I’m not,” she says seriously. “Go easy on him Christopher; we’ve all made mistakes.”

Jim sighs in relief as the shuttle door slides shut again.

“You do know that Admiral Barnett is going to tan both our hides for this?” Pike says dully, dropping his head back against his seat’s headrest.

Jim doesn’t know what to say, so keeps his mouth shut for once in his life.

“As you’re technically a stowaway, you don’t have a room assignment or a uniform code,” Pike grumbles as they walk across the bridge from the space dock to the Enterprise. “So we’ll go to my quarters and you can borrow one of my shirts. You can get spare uniform pants and an undershirt from the refresher room down the hall.”

“Oooo putting me in your clothes, kinky!”

“Kirk, I am really not in the mood for more of your bullshit.”

“That’s what they all say to begin with sir,” he smirks. “Then I show them-”

“One more word and you’ll spend the entire duration of this voyage in the brig.”

Jim ends up forgoing the borrowed shirt when he points out that it would technically be mutiny for him to wander around the ship displaying Captain’s stripes on his sleeves.

“What I wouldn’t give to see you actually court martialled.” Pike sighs wistfully.

“I want a divorce,” Jim deadpans. “This marriage is both loveless and abusive.”

“Trust me Kirk, only someone bat-shit insane would ever even consider marrying you.”

“Spock…” Jim drawls, actually concerned. “These readings are impossible.”

He’s reading the mission briefing on the bridge, the ship having jumped to warp only minutes ago. He skims over the information again, an irritating prickling feeling of familiarity niggling at him. In frustration, he’d opened all the data attachments, hoping to work out why he couldn’t shake the sensation that there was something obvious he should be realising. Something to do with that damn lightning storm that was mentioned.

One of the attachments turns out to be a list of tectonic measurements from Vulcan, ones that include far more detail than the brief overview he glimpsed back in the shuttle hanger on Earth.

“Impossible they may seem, but they are indeed correct,” the Vulcan tells him coolly, gaze flickering between his own PADD and the screen of the Science Panel he’s inputting data into.

“Commander I’m serious,” Jim insists brusquely. “Here it states that the focus of the energy waves must be here, near the equatorial surface. But when I simulate these next set of readings, they correlate to a deeper focus and the epicentre has moved slightly. Which okay, a focus that moves isn’t exactly unprecedented, but when you add the third and fourth data sets, the focus has deepened again by exactly the same amount both times. These readings are being taken at regular time intervals so that’s odd. And I mean really odd. Impossible in nature kind of odd. Spock, if you then add in Vulcan’s core, the projection curve is still a straight line…”

“What are you suggesting Cadet?” Spock demands, suddenly pinning his entire focus on Jim.

“I’m suggesting this is not a natural disaster. My Upperclassman dissertation is on Seismic Data and mining Dilithium sir, and I’m telling you now, the closest things I’ve ever seen to a data pattern like this are made by mining drills. I think if I threw together a simulation and scaled it up to the size of a planet like Vulcan, I’d see more or less what this data here is telling me.”

“You are suggesting someone is attempting to drill to Vulcan’s core?”

“Yeah, with a fucking huge drill. Impossibly huge. Futuristically probably weapon-like huge.”

Spock regards him consideringly. Jim holds his gaze.

“Your conclusions are logical, we must alert the Captain.”

It all rapidly goes downhill from there.

Rapidly.

“Mr Spock, I'm leaving you in command of the Enterprise. Once we have transport capabilities, communications back up, you'll contact Starfleet, report what the hell's going on here. And if all else fails, fall back, rendezvous with the fleet in the Laurentian system.” Pike rattles off rapidly as they hurry through Engineering.

He pauses and looks Jim dead in the eye.

“Kirk, I'm promoting you to first officer.”

“What! No!” Jim screeches. “No! take it back!”

“Despite your many attempts to prevent me from doing so, I have managed to train you to handle the responsibility. Do what Spock tells you to do and stay calm.”

“You can’t do this to me!” Jim protests. “Spock tell him I’m just a scientist!”

“Captain, I must admit I do not understand your reasoning in this instance.”

“You don’t need to, and I’m not the Captain, you are.”

Spock nods, and Jim can’t read him.

“Sir? After we knock out the drill, what happens to you?” he asks instead.

“Oh, I guess you'll have to come and get me. Careful with the ship, Spock. She's brand new.”

Jim has never regretted accidently breaking Pike’s retro cassette player as much as he does now.

If he hadn’t drunkenly decided to fiddle with the damn thing one night and burnt out the old copper wiring, he wouldn’t have been forced to go on a HALO jumping course during his second year as retribution. And if he hadn’t been forced to go on that course, he wouldn’t have been qualified to join the away team for this borderline suicidal stunt.

“BEAM US UP! BEAM US UP!” he shouts into his headset, as he and Sulu tumble through the air uncontrollably.

Vulcan is gone.

Jim stands on the bridge and shudders.

“Spock,” Jim breathes quietly when he hears.

About who Spock tried to beam up to the Enterprise.

Tried and failed.

“Tushah nash-veh k'odular,” he says carefully. Tushah nash-veh k'odular. I grieve with thee…

“You require Medical attention Mr Kirk.” Spock eventually replies quietly into the resultant silence, “Your hands have clearly sustained injuries.”

“Yeah,” Jim mutters, allowing the change in topic, “You should come with me. To Medbay.”

“There is no need for me to accompany you Officer. You are functioning well enough to attend alone.”

Jim sighs, and tries to think like a Vulcan. Like someone logical and predictable and the complete opposite of himself.

“You should get scanned,” he tries slowly, “in case you breathed in something while down on the surface. That level of tectonic breakup caused a lot of eruptions. Some of the gases might have been toxic.”

Spock blinks at him.

“I do not feel unwell. I do not believe I inhaled anything detrimental to my health.”

“You should check. Just to be sure.”

Spock blinks at him again.

“Very well Mr. Kirk.”

The Medbay is trashed, the CMO and a third of the medical staff are dead, and Jim has never been so relieved to hear Bones’ grumbling in his life.

“I was on another deck,” he recounts emotionlessly, “I just went to collect some supplies from a storage hold we have up there. And then things are exploding and people are screaming. I ran back here and the upper ward on deck six is sealed off and everyone in it lost to the vacuum.”

“We’ll make him pay Bones. I promise.”

Bones continues to wrap his bruised hands in silence while Spock stands to their side and stares unfocused into the distance, his hands clenching and unclenching at random.

“I am concerned Kirk.”

“Spock, with all that’s just happened, who wouldn’t be?”

They’re in the turbolift alone together, Bones and Sulu already having proceeded to the bridge before them on Spock’s orders. Spock reaches out and pushes the emergency stop button, turning to Jim with a slight frown.

“Our orders are to rendezvous with the main fleet, but I am concerned for the fate of Earth. Current trajectory indicates that the Romulan ship has chosen your home planet as its destination.”

“And if we run off for a giant conflab in the Laurentian system, there’s going to be no-one there to defend her.”

“I had wondered at Nero’s interest in Captain Pike. I believe the Romulans are attempting to gain access to his knowledge of Earth’s defence codes and systems.”

Jim runs a hand over his face, wincing when the action causes them to throb dully.

“We’re gonna have to go after Nero. Get Pike back like he ordered us too, before some serious shit goes down.”

“We are technologically outmatched in every way. It is clear to me that this ship arrived from the future; their possession of a device which can artificially generate a black hole provides evidence that can be interpreted in no other manner. Therefore, it his highly unlikely that we would survive a second encounter with the ship.”

“But if we don’t try, there isn’t going to be a second encounter for anyone because Earth and a bunch of other Federation planets will end up just gone while we waste time discussing tactics.”

“This is indeed the source of my concern. Mr Kirk, you and I have been associates for approximately twenty and a third Terran standard months now. Throughout our acquaintance, you have shown yourself to be a highly illogical and irrational individual and provided me with no end of confusion. Yet I have also observed that you are rarely unable to achieve your goals despite your utterly unconventional approach to any given problem. We are our currently out classed, out manoeuvred, and facing an issue of a scale far beyond any that I have previously encountered. The situation is unconventional; therefore I look to you as First Officer for an unconventional solution.”

Jim stares at Spock wide-eyed.

“Also my interactions with you and the Vulcan elders in the Medbay suggest that I am emotional compromised.” Spock adds, apropos of nothing. “It is why I am currently holding this conversation with you.”

“Don’t you dare resign!” Jim immediately insists. “I’m a geologist not a Captain!”

“Mr Sulu, plot a course for the nearest habitable planet or planetoid. From our current coordinates, I believe it should be Delta Vega.”

“Captain?” Uhura questions, as Spock strides to the centre of the bridge and sits in the Chair. Jim follows him and stands to his left.

“I have decided that we cannot leave Earth undefended against the fate Nero has planned. Mr Kirk and I have formulated a course of action, and we require a short detour to a safe outpost to achieve it. It would be unwise to attempt a further engagement with the Romulans without first draining the radiation leaks on the lower decks. Delta Vega has a small Federation outpost situated upon its surface that contains the necessary equipment for doing so. The procedure should be completed within a matter of minutes and we can then proceed swiftly to Terran space.”

“This is Jim’s crackpot plan isn’t it?” Bones drawls. “Great, we’re all gonna die.”

“Mr Kirk has assured me that I should not be concerned by your morbidity, and that it is simply part of your human charm, Doctor McCoy.”

Jim can’t help but snicker at Bones’ look of outrage.

Delta Vega appears to be a giant ball of icy death to Jim’s Geoplanetary-trained eye.

Spock refutes that it is as inhospitable as it appears, as apparently there are three non-native life signatures on the surface instead of the anticipated two.

“Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott sir. Scotty to most people,” the Scottsman cheerfully announces once he’s materialised on the Transporter Pad. “And I have to say, this ship is one well-endowed lady! I can’t wait to get my hands on her ample nacelles.”

Jim would be amused by the Engineer’s unusual turns of phrase, if he wasn’t busy being distracted by the Transporter’s other passenger.

“You are James T. Kirk. How did you find me?” the old Vulcan asks cryptically.

“Do we know each other?” Jim asks back.

Jim has read about Vulcan mind melds; that first summer of the Academy that he spent stalking Spock, he and Uhura looked up a lot of information about Vulcan culture and heritage.

Reading about it is nothing like experiencing it.

“Well,” Jim croaks to the vaguely horrified looking younger Spock a few seconds later, “you were right about Nero being from the future.”

“I hereby by relinquish my command, based on the fact that I have been emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log,” Spock announces to the bridge.

Jim actually whimpers a little.

“But we don’t have a damn First Officer to replace you with!” Bones immediately protests.

“Spock, I fucking hate you man,” Jim moans overly dramatically

“Pike made Kirk First Officer,” Sulu clarifies when everyone on the bridge continues looking confused.

“I am assured by my alternate universe counterpart that Mr Kirk is more than capable of handling the Captaincy. Captain Pike too, must have faith in his abilities or he would never have appointed him to the position of First Officer before he departed the ship.”

“But I don’t wonna be Captain!” Jim complains, “I just wonna find some cool space rocks and not die!”

“Never the less, the situation is as it presently stands. Now you will excuse me; I have need to speak to my Father.”

“Fuck my life,” Jim laments loudly, flopping into the Captain’s chair as Spock strides off the bridge without another word.

Jim gets the remaining bridge crew to start pooling ideas while he himself organises the rest of the ship, urging all departments to be at battle stations and ready within the next ten minutes.

Then Spock reappears with a transwarp beaming equation in hand and they suddenly have a slightly insane, but workable plan.

“The Captain asked you specifically to retrieve him,” Spock tells Jim when he tries to protest that he’s not qualified to accompany him over to the Romulan vessel.

“And when the hell have I ever done what Pike’s asked me to? I know he complains about my insubordinate tendencies to you regularly at the Academy.”

“He also comments frequently that you enjoy doing the unexpected. He will not expect you to have followed his orders.”

“Touché Mr Spock,” Jim concedes with a resigned sigh.

Uhura is waiting with Scotty in the transporter room. She steps up to Jim with a frown once he and the new Chief Engineer have exchanged mission information.

“If you get yourself killed over there and deprive me of your puddings for the rest of my life Kirk, I will personally see to it that your bad boy reputation back on Earth is destroyed by telling everyone how sweet you actually are.”

“You wouldn’t!” Jim mock gasps.

“Oh I would. And because it’ll be me saying it, they’ll believe every word of it.”

Jim narrows his eyes playfully.

“You are a cruel and heartless woman Uhura.”

“Nyota, Jim, you can call me Nyota,” she smiles. And then to Spock she adds, “watch your back around this one Commander, he can be a much nicer person than he wants you to think he can be.”

“I will take that under advisement,” the Vulcan not-frowns just before they disappear in a swirl of transporter energy.

By the time Jim has managed to find where they’re holding Pike, he’s been beaten and strangled twice by angry Romulans and is severely regretting all his life choices.

Pike is well out of it by the time Jim gets him back onto the Enterprise and hands him over to Bones’ capable hands.

Jim allows himself a single second to grimace in discomfort before taking a deep breath and racing to the bridge with Spock to deal with the consequences of Spock’s unanticipated collision course solution to their red-matter problem.

They’re down their warp core, have some semi-serious structural integrity issues, and a major onboard overcrowding problem, but they’re alive and free and Nero is not.

Jim sits back in the Captain’s chair and sighs in relief.

“Captain.”

Jim hums quietly in response.

“Captain, it is my understanding that humans regularly require a meaningful amount of sleep. You have been on duty now for over twenty hours without pause. I must insist you retire to your bunk assignment for much needed rest.”

“Don’t have a bunk Spock. Stow away remember?”

“In that case I present no objection to sharing my own quarters with your person.”

“You want to sleep with me?” he smirks, trying for a joking tone.

“I am not adverse to the idea,” Spock blinks.

Jim stares at the Vulcan gobsmacked.

“Well okay then, lead the way,” he eventually chokes in response.

To Jim’s utter disappointment, Spock was being very literal when he agreed to sleep with Jim. Jim should have known, given the words came from a Vulcan after all. But he still pouts something fierce when he’s told to close his eyes and “submit to his exhaustion”.

“I wasn’t joking you know? At my tribunal?” Jim rasps the next morning in the ship’s mess hall.

“I am unsure of what I am supposed to gather from your cryptic phrasing,” Spock replies, stirring a bowl of vibrantly purple soup with a spoon.

“I really do have Admiral Archer’s private Comm number.”

Spock glances at him and raises a single eyebrow.

“He’s been sending me a mixture of expletives and praise for the past twenty-four hours. I’m mildly terrified to be honest.”

“As I am Vulcan, I do not share your emotional response to that information.” He pauses, cocking his head. “However, if I were human I believe the correct reaction would be my experiencing a more powerful feeling than simple mild terror.”

Jim chokes on his oatmeal in laughter.

“You’re not sleeping enough,” Bones grouches at him when he arrives in the Medbay for the second of his twice-daily visits to Captain Pike.

“I’m sharing a bed with a hot Vulcan every night,” Jim smirks. “I’ve got more interesting things to do than spend the time sleeping.”

“Kirk shut up,” Pike rasps from behind them. “Nobody wants to know.”

“Stop trying to talk,” Bones tells him sternly, twisting to face the biobed. “You have damaged vocal chords and you’ll make them worse.”

“Make me,” Pike grumbles defiantly.

Jim winces, knowing full well that the Captain would regret saying that.

They arrive back at Earth two and half weeks after first losing their warp core.

Jim is both saddened and elated by this.

Saddened, because he still hasn’t managed to goad Spock into doing more in their shared quarters together than actually sleeping, and now they’re going to go back to having separate accommodations.

Elated, because it finally means he can cease to be an Acting Captain.

God, he can’t wait to go back to being a lowly geologist with minimal responsibilities.

“We have compiled all our finding from the debriefing process and this board is in agreement,” Admiral Marcus announces to the room.

Jim resists the urge to shuffle, glad that the entire bridge crew from the Enterprise is standing to attention at his back for once. For over a week, he’s been standing alone in this room before the panel of senior Admirals; day after day of ceaseless interrogation and motive dissection with no back up.

“For your actions in defeating the terrorist Nero and saving Earth and other Federation planets from the same fate as Vulcan, it has been decided that you shall all receive commendations and promotions.”

Jim sighs internally in relief. He was set to graduate as a Lieutenant; he could handle an unexpected bump up to Lieutenant Commander so long as that’s all they did.

“Kirk, we’re making you Captain of the Enterprise.”

Jim opens his mouth. Closes it. Silently curses Pike. Looks at Spock. Looks back at Marcus. Turns. Walks out of the room to have a private panic attack.

“You are distressed.”

“Nope!” Jim squeaks in denial as the potted plant he’s staring at starts to blur in his vision. “All is peachy in Jim land!”

“Your irregular breathing pattern indicates otherwise. I shall return momentarily with Doctor McCoy.”

“Doctor McCoy indicated I should hold you and attempt to regulate your breathing with steady counting. He apologises for not attending you himself, but he is busy futilely arguing with Officers well beyond his station on your behalf. His vocabulary is surprisingly extensive, if inappropriate and crude.”

Jim grunts a choked off laugh and drops his head down when Spock obligingly wraps his arms around him and pulls him stiffly to his chest.

“Relax Spock,” he gasps, gripping Spock’s dress uniform jacket with both hands. “You’re as stiff as a board.”

“My apologies,” he replies succinctly, but blandly.

But despite the seeming vocal brush off, slowly the tension in Spock’s frame slackens, and Jim begins to think he might be able to do this whole normal breathing thing after all.

“Answer me one question Spock,” Jim grunts into his shoulder several long minutes later.

“If I am able.”

“What is Barnett expecting me to do?”

“While I am unable to know his thoughts exactly, I can surmise that he believes you will leave Starfleet’s employ and thus avoid responsibility once again, as was your pattern throughout the Academy.”

“Okay,” Jim breathes. “Okay I can do this. Stick it to the man, I can do this.”

He steps away, square’s his shoulders and goes to accept his fate.

“I’m decorating the bridge with all my rocks,” he slurs to Bones.

“Please don’t. Make a trip hazard. Too many broken ankles.”

“’Spose so. Be irresponsible of me. Have to be a grown-up now I’m in charge. Why am I in charge again?”

“Cause you pissed Captain Pike off again and he’s making you pay with more Command stuff.”

“Is Admiral Pike now. Bet he hates tha’!”

“He’s not my problem anymore! Up to Starfleet Medical now! He can complain at them ‘bout it instead!”

Jim drains the last of the schnapps and tips his head back to watch the stars glistening above their heads. Their feet dangle loosely off the edge of the building, and Jim leans more of his weight against the bottom bar of the safety fence.

“I miss everyone,” Jim sighs. “It’s too quiet. No Gary, no Gaila. No Bandron and Kingsley and my other geology bros. All on different ships. All gone. Stupid. Pointless.”

“They’d be proud of you kid,” Bones tells him quietly, sounding far too sober suddenly. Jim rests his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and together they sit in silence and watch the lights and traffic of San Francisco flit about far below them.

“Hey Bones?” Jim smirks into the long silence. “Do you mind if I decorate the bridge with a Spock instead?”

They make him attend a pompous handover ceremony several months later.

Jim almost skips out, but then Spock points out that’s exactly what Barnett is expecting him to do.

“I never should have told you how I make decisions,” he grumbles to his First-Officer-to-be just before he’s due to climb onto the stage.

“I think you will find Captain Pike informed me of your contrary nature long before we met in person Jim.”

“Yeah well, I like unpredictability.”

And then, to really prove his point, he leans forward and presses his lips to Spock’s.

“I have been expecting you to do that for some number of weeks now Captain,” Spock tells him at the after party that night. “There was nothing unpredictable about your actions before the ceremony.”

“Shut up and let me believe otherwise,” Jim grumbles, pulling Spock back into his arms.

And if he slips a small chunk of Vulcan obsidian into Spock’s pocket as he does so?

Well, Jim really does love his rocks as much as his Vulcan.

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