elliewood | May. 25th, 2016

The Plebe, Chapter 8
Convocation -- The Gift

Classes were canceled the day of convocation, a morning so bright and crisp that Jim might have been tempted, were Nyota not speaking at the event, to skip them anyway and wander around the campus, or maybe off campus if he dared, to find a shady patch of ground with a tree trunk or rock to prop his back upon and lose himself in a book. As the interminable speeches interspersed with brief periods of diffident applause dragged on into late morning, he wished more and more that he had dared to do just that. Beside him, Mitchell telegraphed the same sentiment with his incessant, restless squirming.

“Goddamned fucking waste of time,” he muttered. “They should have just given us the day off. Fucking asswit parade.”

Jim muffled his snort of laughter with one hand and squinted at the speaker now on the podium several meters ahead, a gangly dark woman with impeccably styled hair. “What does a provost do, anyway?”

“Fuck if I know.” Mitchell shifted again to cross his legs, ankle to knee, and nodded at the officers seated under the commandant’s tent. “Probably get paid to suck Barnett’s dick, same as the rest of those slappies.”

The tone of the ceremony thus far was indeed self-congratulatory, Barnett’s opening speech in particular exuding a preening quality that Jim found faintly embarrassing. But he still felt a pique of defensiveness at Mitchell’s words as his gaze traveled down the row of speakers to where Pike was sitting patiently at the end. “They don’t all do that,” he whispered.

“Keep your panties on,” Mitchell shot back. “It’s just a joke. Far as I know, Spock’s got that job all to himself.”

“What job?”

“Don’t you know? He’s Barnett’s chicken. That’s the rumor, anyway.”

“Oh.”

The beauty of the fall morning dimmed. Jim digested the information in silence, unsure if he felt surprise at the news; it certainly seemed plausible, he thought as he recalled each time he’d seen Barnett and Spock together. He watched Barnett, seated in the shaded comfort of his tent and beaming fatuously as he applauded the end of the provost’s speech, and wondered why it should even matter to him. It took Mitchell’s elbow in his side to jolt him from his brooding.

“Look, man. Your boyfriend’s gonna speak.”

Even at this distance, it was easy to spot the pale blond ponytail beneath the cap that Finn now removed to lay it on the lectern as he began his speech. Jim watched for a few moments before remembering to protest Mitchell’s assessment of their relationship.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“No? Well, for a guy who’s not your boyfriend, he sure as fuck is keeping you out late.”

“No he’s…what?” Jim shifted his gaze from Finn to search Mitchell’s face, startled at the grim scrutiny he found there; an uncomfortable flush followed a few seconds later as he realized not only that he had not explained the recent spate of evenings away from their dorm room, it had never even occurred to him that Mitch would notice. “I haven’t been with Finn,” he protested. “This is the first time I’ve even seen him in a week.”

“Yeah?” Mitchell’s face closed into a mask. “So he’s not the one who rearranged your face?”

The flush deepened. “No, I told you, I fell.” His dismay worsened at the defensiveness he heard in his own voice. “Why would you think Finn hurt me? He wouldn’t do that.”

Mitchell leaned toward Jim to tick each sentence off with his fingers, his hushed voice intense. “A string of late nights, you sneaking in just before curfew, zero explanation. Then one night you stagger in all beat to hell, marks all over you, very down-low, no one saying shit except for some weak as fuck excuses. After that, boom, no more sneaking out, you’re back to your farmboy hours, in bed by 2100 and up by 0400 like nothing ever happened. So unless you’ve been turning tricks behind the mess hall, my money says you two were hooking up, things got out of hand, he roughed you up, and now you’re laying low.”

It made sense. Jim was discomfited into silence by what he had to admit, given his own secrecy in the matter, was a logical deduction on his roommate’s part. He watched Finn speak for a few unseeing moments longer before turning back to meet Mitchell’s tense gaze.

“Mitch, I swear to you. I wasn’t seeing Finn those nights. All I was doing was working, on a…project. And now it’s over; I’d finished it up the same night that I tripped and fell on my way back here. Finn had nothing to do with it.” It was a good story, he thought, and essentially true, but something in him broke at not being completely honest with his friend. “He’s my tutor, that’s all.”

“Whatever. But you’re meeting up tonight, right?”

On the podium ahead, Finn was recounting a self-deprecating tale of an early misadventure as a fourth-class cadet; Jim waited for the gentle laughter from the audience before responding. “Yeah. In the library.”

“Ooh, very romantic. Just you and him and a bunch of moldy books.” The familiar bantering was tempered by Mitchell’s expression, still hard even as his body seemed to relax, his arms folding easily as he uncrossed and recrossed his legs to wag one foot at Jim. “Are you gonna tell Gaila?”

The irritation of Mitchell’s innuendo was preferable to the glum guilt of his own thoughts; he gladly rose to the bait. “Don’t be weird. There’s nothing to tell.”

“You keep bullshitting yourself and it’s gonna backfire on you. Just wait.”

“I’m not…”

A quick glance at Mitchell’s face showed him that the teasing was only superficial; the protest died on Jim’s lips at the sight of the normally warm brown eyes now stony with suspicion and hurt. Jim retreated back into silence, the only sound between them the ceaseless chuk-chuk-chuk of Mitchell’s impatiently jiggling boot, and forced himself to focus on the ceremony. Finn’s address had been a welcome change from the smugness of the speakers before him, refreshingly candid in the gentle fun he poked at the Academy and its leadership; the applause that now followed from cadets and officers alike was genuine rather than perfunctory, and even Barnett, the butt of some of the most daringly pointed anecdotes, laughed and clapped enthusiastically as he rose to slap Finn’s back and shake his hand. Nyota’s remarks followed, her contribution flawless and polished without being stiff, and Jim felt his spirits rise further with each successive speaker. By the time Pike had completed the closing remarks to officially conclude the ceremony, Jim was able to offer an unfeigned smile at Mitchell’s rousing shove.

“Thank God that’s over.” Mitchell yawned ostentatiously as he stood and stretched, his own mood apparently lightened as well. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, get some lunch, and hit the gym before your big date.”

“It’s not a…oh, no.” The smile quickly dissolved as Jim stood too and immediately spotted the unmistakable figure of Tella Kottke striding toward them through the dispersing crowd, Gaila and Nyota just ahead of her.

“What is it?”

“A girl I don’t want to talk to,” Jim answered miserably. Caught between the truth he couldn’t tell and Gaila’s creative lie, he waited numbly as they approached, searching the smoothness of Nyota’s face for some hint as to what was to come but finding none. He hoped that was a good sign but acknowledged to himself, as the unwanted image of Tella’s bare back and rolling hips flitted again through his mind, that he was pretty likely screwed.

He braced himself for the jibe to come, but beside him, Mitchell was unexpectedly, blessedly silent as Gaila reached his side to enfold him in a hug. “Wasn’t her speech the best?” She kissed Mitchell’s cheek and released him to take Jim’s arm. “She practiced all night long.”

Nyota’s stifled yawn confirmed Gaila’s statement. “Not all night, but most of it. I’m ready for a long nap.” She gestured toward Tella and pulled her forward. “Tella, you remember Jim,” she said with no trace of archness. “This is his roommate. Mitch, this is Tella Kottke.”

The hand that Tella offered Mitch was firm to the point of rigidity, but her expression softened when she turned to Jim with an uncertain smile.

“Jim. I’m so…” She paused briefly before reaching out unexpectedly to brush Jim’s fingers with her own. “I hope you’re doing all right.”

It was not the greeting he expected. He let her take his hand, mystified as she pressed it warmly between both of hers, the gesture intimate, almost fond. Mitchell gawked openly, his gaze flicking back and forth between Jim’s face and Tella’s as she frowned with regret at the bruise beneath his eye, its blackness fading to an ugly green.

“I wanted to say…I’m sorry, you know, about the other night.” She punctuated her apology with another squeeze of her hands on his. “And to let you know that…” She hesitated as she searched for words, then seemed to give up, the rest coming in a rush. “Look, I’m choosing to be with Bruce right now, but if things change, I’ll let you know. I’d like to, I mean, I’d be more than happy to get to know you better.” She clung to his hand, eyes downcast, flustered into silence.

Jim couldn’t help but respond to Tella’s obvious discomfort despite his own growing confusion. “Thank you, uh, for that. I guess I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to…I mean, I wasn’t trying to…you know…”

“It’s all right.” She looked up and smiled again, then dropped his hand, stepping back to where Nyota was waiting to take her arm. “We’re headed over to mess if you, both of you, would care to join us.”

He knew he owed her a yes. “Definitely. We’ll, uh, definitely be there.”

“Most definitely. Ladies.” The delight in Mitchell’s voice was plain as the women turned to go; he barely contained himself until the pair was out of earshot before turning to Jim in jubilant accusation. “What the fuck was that all about?”

“I don’t…I don’t know, honestly.” Unsure if he really wanted enlightenment, he looked down questioningly at Gaila, still clinging to his biceps. She smiled slightly and raised her lips to his ear confidingly.

“Nyota told her that you were asking about her, that day on the green when she got hit with that disc. We put two and two together after you showed up outside her window at Shen the other night.”

“Two and two…” A horrible suspicion flared in Jim’s gut. “Wait, you can’t mean…you don’t think…”

“Mm hmm. But I forgive you.”

“You told her I liked her?”

Beside him, Mitchell guffawed at the crimson evidence of his mortification. Gaila pointedly ignored the mocking laugh as she nipped at Jim’s earlobe, the touch sending an unexpected shiver of pleasure forking down his spine.

“It’s the only logical explanation. But don’t forget,” she warned as she tapped his sternum with one finger. “When you’re over your little crush on her, you’ll be coming back to me.”

She pulled away from him, her expression one of feigned severity as she moved away from him to follow her friends. He turned to find Mitchell staring at him with the lingering derision he expected mingled with a disappointment he did not.

“So the other night, when you fell while working on your project,” he drawled, “whose fist did your face hit on the way down?”

Jim didn’t have the will to lie any longer. “Her — Tella’s — boyfriend. More like big-man-friend, really.”

“You know they’ll kick your ass out of here for that shit.”

“I didn’t fight him. He got the one punch in and it was pretty much over.”

Mitchell shook his head, his expression unusually serious. “I gotta tell you, I’m pissed at you. Gaila’s a good girl. You don’t need to do her like that.”

“I’m not doing her. I mean, I’m not doing anything to anyone. I don’t even like Tella.”

“But you’re following her around campus? Getting your ass whupped by the jealous boyfriend?” Mitchell’s voice telegraphed all the disbelief Jim knew he deserved. “Doesn’t add up, brah.”

“I’m not…” Jim blew out a breath, weary of skirting the truth. “It was a total misunderstanding. I swear to you, I don’t like her.”

Mitchell raised his eyebrows and gestured with a tilt of his chin at a point behind Jim, his expression still skeptical. “Here comes someone else who’ll be happy to hear that.”

“Jim!”

He turned at the sound of his name to see Finn striding eagerly toward them, cap in hand, the open smile fading into bewilderment as his eyes darted over Jim’s face, dove grey hardening into a metallic glitter as they came to rest at last on his left cheekbone. His neck prickled at the sight of Finn’s gaze shifting deliberately from his face to Mitchell’s in silent accusation.

Mitchell shrugged with casual defiance. “Down, boy. It wasn’t me.” His own eyes were darkly flat as they looked Finn up and down. “Good thing it wasn’t you either.”

Jim shifted uncomfortably as Finn reached for Mitchell’s hand, the motion smooth and reflexive from years of Academy protocol training, the silvery eyes never leaving his face. “I apologize; that was rude of me. I’m Ben Finnegan, Jim’s tutor. You must be Mitch.”

“Yeah.” The greeting was brief to the point of rudeness, Mitchell dropping the proffered hand almost immediately to fold his arms across his chest. “About that. You making any progress? ‘Cause I’m not crazy about my boy throwing his money down the shitter to get 50’s on Spock’s tests.”

A touch of pink washed across Finn’s cheeks. “He’s not paying me,” he replied, his voice stiff at the affront. “I offered to help. That’s all I want to do.”

“Help, huh. Mm hmm.” Mitchell was impassive. “You usually help people on Friday nights?”

“If I can." Finn raised his chin. "I work after class at Medical, so I don’t have a lot of free time in the evenings except for Fridays.”

“And a player like you has nothing better to do? How the fuck does that happen?”

Jim’s chest contracted in distress at Mitchell’s insolence, but Finn just smiled tightly. “I don’t have much of a social life. If I have free time, I spend it either working on my capstone project or tinkering with a few side projects. I’m trying to develop algorithms for holographic combat and tactics.”

“Holographic combat…?” Mitchell frowned. “What are you, some kind of jacked-up gamer?”

The taut smile widened into a wolfish grin. “All day long. Hard core.”

Mitchell’s barking laugh was as loud as it was unexpected, the coordinated blow to Jim’s back carefully placed between the shoulder blades to avoid the still-tender scrape.

“There you go. Fucking told you so.”

***

Jim scanned his final answer for errors, then looked up expectantly at Finn, who nodded and tapped the chronometer.

“That’s twenty-two minutes, from start to finish. How does your hand feel?”

“Good. It feels good.” He dropped the stylus and rubbed his left wrist experimentally. “I don’t even feel anything. Like I could go on for another couple of hours.”

“Let me see.”

Jim passed the PADD across the library table and watched as Finn scanned it, the grey eyes now calmed as they darted from side to side. “Huh,” he breathed after a minute. “It’s perfect. Even all the units. And you’ve got lots of time to spare.” He slid the PADD toward Jim and leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “You’re ready for that test, and the exam, and anything else Spock has up his sleeve. So I guess you don’t need me anymore.” One white-gold eyebrow arched with irony. “You can stop throwing your money down the shitter.”

It was the first reference Finn had made that evening to the earlier encounter with Mitchell, and Jim was glad for the chance to smooth over the incident.”Look, about Mitch…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Finn dismissed Jim’s worry with a wave of his hand as he reached for his shoulder bag. “Your roommate doesn’t like me much, and I’m okay with that. Can’t please everyone.”

“Sure he does, he’s just kind of…rough around the edges, I guess. I don’t know.”

“I do. He’s protective. And that’s a good thing, because you’re worth protecting.” Finn smiled ruefully at the bruising around Jim’s eye. “And you have to admit he has a point. Looks like you could have used someone to stick up for you. No, that’s all right,” he added quickly as Jim opened his mouth to answer, “you don’t have to tell me what happened. Just promise me you’ll be more careful. The Academy can be a rough place.”

Jim nodded in relief, the weight of another falsehood removed before it had even settled on his heart. “I will. Thanks.”

“Good.” Finn reached into his bag. “Here, I brought something for you.”

The flat, rectangular object Finn pulled out and handed over was completely unfamiliar; Jim peered closely at it as he ran his fingers over its smooth surface. “What is it?”

“It’s called a slide rule. Found it in an antique shop the other day.”

“All these numbers…what does it do? Is it a computer?”

“Yeah, analog. Sort of like an abacus, but for higher order calculations.” Finn’s face broke into a sheepish grin. “I didn’t know that when I found it; I thought it was some weird kind of ruler. The guy at the store had to tell me what it was.”

Jim was too engrossed in his exploration of the device to notice the crinkle of pleasure around Finn’s eyes as he watched his fingers push the slide back and forth. “This is pretty fun. How does it work?”

“You line up the numbers you want to enter by moving the sliding parts and reading the answer off the scale.” His smile widened at Jim’s growing delight. “I knew you’d like it. It made me think of you, the way your brain works, you know, the push out and the pull back, when you do your mental iterations. This kind of does the same thing.”

“Yeah, it does! Show me how to use it.”

“All right, think of a math statement.”

“Uh, one plus one.”

“Has to be harder than that; it doesn’t add and subtract. Time was, people were expected to do that for themselves. Try something else.”

“E 20.”

Finn laughed. “Okay, too hard for me. I’m just learning too. I had to dig up a manual on the net just to figure out how to use it. Something easier.”

“Two times three.”

“Good. Now push on that middle piece, the one that slides…push it over to where the one on that C scale is over the two on the D scale…no, not the second one, the first one.”

Jim frowned at the cluster of numerals and tick marks. “What do the C and D mean? And why are there two ones?”

“To answer your first question, I honestly don’t know, but we could ask the guy I bought it from. The two ones are because it’s logarithmic. Just look at the C scale, C1, it’s the one on the bottom of the slide…oh, here.” Finn rose and moved around Jim to lean over him from behind. “Let me show you. I can’t read it upside down.” He aligned their arms, reaching forward to cover Jim’s hands with his own, his chest grazing his shoulder blades as his breath stirred the little hairs on the back of Jim’s neck. His fingers on Jim’s were a steady, cool pressure. “Push the slide over until this first one is over the two down here...Now slide this little piece until the hairline is over the three on the C scale, and you follow that line down to read the answer off the D scale.”

Jim felt his own eyes widen in disbelief as they tracked up the hairline to find it resting on one of the numerous 6’s on the scale. “It worked!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty neat. It’s not as precise as you; best it can do is one or two significant figures. It’s amazing humans went into space using these little things to do their calculations for them.”

Jim’s eyes were shining as he twisted his neck to look at Finn behind him. “I love it, I really do.”

“I’m glad. I…” Finn looked as though he were going to say something else, then changed his mind. “I was thinking that you could use it in class, to help speed you up. For the team exercises.” He removed his hands and straightened to move back to the other side of the table and take his seat. “Mr. Spock wants to see your work, but you don’t use the terminal’s calculator like everyone else, so he can’t track your process. Maybe if he saw that you were using a different computer, he’d give you credit, even if you can’t log the keystrokes. At least maybe you wouldn’t have to write every single thing down.”

The vision of himself expertly utilizing the ancient tool under Spock’s approving gaze dissolved as Jim turned it over in his hands, noting the cracks and discolorations in its yellowing polymer. “I don’t know,” he hedged, trying to dampen his own enthusiasm. “I’d hate to break it by using it. It’s got to be really expensive, as old as it is.” He pushed the slide back to nestle between the fixed rules and offered it to Finn, who held his hands up in refusal.

“No, it’s yours. I think whoever made it would be happy if you’d use it.” His eyes dropped for a moment, veiled behind the dense white lashes, before flicking back upward to meet Jim’s. “I thought of you the second I saw it. You like old things, don’t you?”

Jim struggled to recall when he had revealed that detail about himself. “How did you know that?”

The sheepish smile returned. “I used my mad psych skills to analyze you. That, and I saw the books.” Finn nodded at the volumes visible through the opening of Jim’s shoulder bag. “Come antiquing with me this weekend and we’ll find you some more.”

“I’d like that.” Jim felt his own face warm with the pleasure of anticipation and tried to force it down. “But I don’t think I can afford it. I don’t have much to last me through the rest of the semester, and I can’t blow it all on books.”

“It’ll be my treat. No, listen,” Finn continued over the objection he saw blooming on Jim’s face, “let me do this. I don’t need any mad psych skills to know you’ve been taking care of yourself for a long time, but you can relax and let someone else take care of you now and then, right? It’s just a couple of books.”

The combined appeal of those pleading grey eyes with the prospect of adding to his small collection was irresistible; despite the niggle of guilt at his own selfishness, he heard himself agree. “All right. But only a couple.”

Finn beamed triumphantly as he rose and pulled his bag onto his shoulder. “Excellent. It’s a date. And bring your roommate too.”

Jim had bent down to stuff the PADD into his own bag but froze at Finn’s words to look up at him in confusion. “Mitch?” he frowned, shrinking from the prospect of an afternoon filled with confrontation. “But you…I mean…I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who uses ‘antique’ as a verb,” he finished lamely.

Finn’s voice was serious through the benign smile. “Agreed. But he’ll mistrust me until he thinks he doesn’t have to anymore. And the sooner we get to that point, the better off we’ll be. All of us.”

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