Northern Cities Vowel Shift
by betty

Northern Cities Vowel Shift

betty

Summary

None of this makes any sense, really. Jim's barely laid a hand on her, if he doesn't count the occasional hand-up over difficult terrain, or accidental (mostly accidental) groping when an explosion throws his bridge crew around, and Jim doesn't count that, because if he counted that he'd be at third base with Keenser by now.

Notes

Thanks to [info]rubynye for the inspiration and [info]mari_luvs_gcfa for beta. Various people have heard me threaten this story; this is it.

Imported from Archive of Our Own. Original work id: 8846.

Chapter One

Somehow, and Jim's really not sure how, Uhura's turned into one of his exes. By and large, and beyond what sheer probability would predict, Jim gets along with his exes. Most of them know just how much of him is bullshit, and what parts of him are real, and like him just enough, anyway.

"Oh, Jimmy," says Uhura, a bit too snug against him in the bench-seat of the dive they're in, "Jimmmmy, Jimmy, Jim-boy." He can feel the edge of her breast against the back of his arm. The casual invasion of his space is pure ex-girlfriend, although he thinks the five warp core overloads she's downed in the last hour or so have something to do with it too.

"Yeah?" he asks, in case she actually has something to say, but she doesn't seem to, or else has forgotten. The place is a bit too loud for conversation anyway, so he smiles at her, careful not to meet her eyes, and goes back to watching the traffic.

"Hey, Jimmy," says Uhura some time later, sounding a bit more sober from the fruit-whatever that he slipped in front of her after the fifth warp core. "I think that pretty boy on the second barstool is batting his eyes at you."

And there, again. His exes do this all the time; try to aim him at the next sweet young thing coming along, cheerfully follow his sex life, and in one extreme case, offered to provide him with a letter of reference, should future lovers want an endorsement. Jim eyes the boy on the barstool, who eyes him back. Definitely batting his eyes, although the vertical eyelid makes it a bit confusing at first. "I'm pretty sure he's jailbait," he lies to Uhura blandly. "I'm trying to cut down on my stays in the hoosegow on planets that haven't signed the Centaurii Declaration on the Rights of Prisoners and Detainees."

Uhura laughs until tears begin to leak out her eyes, (alarming Jim, who had really hoped to get through this without tears) but then she wheezes out, "hoosegow!" and starts cackling again. It should be really unattractive. A couple times while she's laughing, she seems about to sway into his lap. "Say 'pants'," she demands.

hoosegow

Linguists. "Pants," he says, obediently, and then catches his breath as she puts one hand gently on his throat.

"Now say 'cot'," and she's stopped laughing.

"Co-- " Jim swallows, and takes a swig of the drink he's been nursing for nearly forty minutes to wet his throat. "Caught," he says.

Uhura lets go of him and settles back down. "Mmm. Midwest northern cities, post-war shift. Very nice."

"I bet you say that to all of your captains."

None of this makes any sense, really. Jim's barely laid a hand on her, if he doesn't count the occasional hand-up over difficult terrain, or accidental (mostly accidental) groping when an explosion throws his bridge crew around, and Jim doesn't count that, because if he counted that he'd be at third base with Keenser by now.

But, and he knew she was viciously smart, but this is diabolical, somehow she broke up with Spock, and in the process, Jim became her ex.

"Thanks for..." and she makes a hand gesture that he guesses means, 'using your shore-leave to take a heart-broken lieutenant to the filthiest bar on the planet and entertain her with your vowels.' Which, tragically, is not any kind of euphemism.

"My pleasure," he says, and gives her his best leer. It bounces off her like a phaser off deflector shields. Dammit. He's always had a healthy appreciation for Uhura, but this new 'ex' thing has made her an obsession; she acts like he already knows the mysteries of her thighs, the salt of skin, the weight of her breasts, and at the same time, like he'll never know them. It's a headfuck, and it's making him crazy, and he can admit, he doesn't exactly hate it. He spreads his legs, and sinks a bit on the bench.

"I would have given him to you, if he was mine to give," she says, softly.

Jim cuts a quick look at her. "I'm -- flattered," he finally decides on.

She shrugs a bit. "Besides, once you got him out of your system, you'd be less aggravating on away missions."

Jim hides the wince. Uhura is both too perceptive, and not-quite-perceptive enough, he thinks, but then her eyes suddenly widen and she stares at him in shock. "You didn't!" she exclaims, but it's not a question. "When?"

Jim evaluates his escape routes. "Not while-- Not until after, I would- he wouldn't," he hastily assures her, calming a bit as he decides that between her high heels and the five warp cores, he can probably evade her for quite a while if he flips over the back of the bench. In case it becomes necessary, but she seems more startled than angry, looking like she's trying to figure out a puzzle.

"After we tested it?" she asks. She doesn't need to say which 'it.' The Federation had sent the Enterprise out to baby-sit some scientists who thought they had a planet-killer that could do what Nero's did. Jim doesn't know know, but he pretty much knows that's what Uhura and Spock broke up over.

know

"Yeah," he admits. "Pretty much."

"Oh, Jimmy," says Uhura, with so much sympathy, and if he hadn't watched her grieve for two months now, he wouldn't be able to take it. She takes his hand from the table, and holds it, like he's one of her scale-model voiceboxes of different species; delicately, gently. She's silent for a moment, and then, as if she can't stop herself from asking; "What was he like?"

Jimmy sympathy

"You like hearing dirty stories?" Jim asks, but he can't even make it sound sincere. "He was. Fucked up. I'm pretty sure he's indexed it in his diary under Reasons Emotions Are Unreliable and Lead to Suboptimal Outcomes and Hideous Awkwardness. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't just watched a planet implode."

Uhura closes her eyes in pain. "I-- thought maybe you could give him what he needed," she says. "I can't, I couldn't, but--" He doesn't know how she can do that, keep on loving like that, even when Spock is so cruelly polite to her every time they meet.

"Yeah," Jim agrees. "He's pretty fucked up. And this is me saying it," he adds, trying for levity.

me

Uhura laughs, a bit wetly, but sincerely. "We're a pair, aren't we?" Her eyes are wet, but she's smiling, fond, and the most beautiful thing in this quadrant.

Jim gives up on selling it to her, but he can't help but point out, "Well, we could be."

Her mouth quirks up. "You want to get me out of your system?"

For a moment, Jim considers telling her that's what it is, like a hypo for the flu, but she's Uhura, and his communications officer, and maybe the only one he can count on to get his thing over Spock. "You're pretty much chronic," he admits. "I wouldn't count on it if I were you."

Uhura looks at him from under her lashes. She's still holding on to his hand, absently stroking his wrist with her thumb, and then her thumb stills. "Do you think they rent rooms somewhere around here?"

He lunges, and she cooperates, because he doesn't end up with a knee in his balls, and then she's straddling him on the bench, one hand on his shoulder the other gentle on his larynx, while she kisses him like she's trying to taste Iowa. Her mouth tastes of warp cores, and sadness, and a drink made from fruit they only have on this planet.

When they separate for breath, he's trying to memorize the shape of her leg as it turns into that amazing ass, and she's got one hand half-way up his shirt, which given how tight this shirt is, speaks well of her enthusiasm. "I want something classier than the rooms they rent around here," he says, and tries to restrain his hips from following her up as she rises on her knees.

She kicks one leg over him and stands. "Five minutes, and then I'm fucking you where I find you."

Jim wastes a few seconds of those five minutes enjoying the look of her standing over him, smoothing her skirt back down to where it does not (not that the boots aren't trying) meet her boots. Then he throws some obscene amount of credits down on their table and goes to prove that he doesn't believe in un-winnable challenges.