First Times: 5x2 (4/10)
Jul. 15th, 2011 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teaoliTitle: First Times: Spock 2, If At First You Don't Succeed
Logic dictates there must a first time for every experience. Knowing that doesn't necessarily make it any easier to get through. Severus and Spock each try 5 times. Hermione and Uhura help. (Not in the same fics, obvs,'cause I don't do crossovers.) Lightly humorous responses to an impromptu challenge inspired by an anti-First Times rant.
Pairing: Spock/Uhura
Fandom: Star Trek 2009
Spock reached the door before she stopped him. He focused on keeping a green flush from suffusing his pale cheeks under her intent stare.
“About what just happened…” she started to say.
Spock wanted to look away; the censure — or worse, pity — he was sure to find in her expression was unwelcome. The irony his all too human compulsion was not lost on him, and he forced himself to meet her steady gaze. Whatever she was thinking or feeling was a mystery to him.
She is more adept at controlling her body language than I am, he realized.
His disappointment in his failure increased by one thousand five hundred percent. No matter that for a Deltan living and working among humans that talent was as necessary, in its way, as it was for a Vulcan.
After twenty-three seconds of silence, he wondered if she was angry with him, but couldn’t muster the bravery to look up again.
“This happens more often than you think,” she finally told him. “I promise you’ll have a chance to try again. I believe in second chances. For the truly exceptional, third and fourth chances. There’s no need to worry, Spock. Next time, make sure you’re worth it.”
He kept his features carefully neutral, and his voice evenly modulated as he spoke.
“I am not worried,” he stated, taking comfort in the familiarity of a formal cadence. “Worry is a human emotion. Clearly, I lack sufficient fluency in human behavior; otherwise, my performance would not have been so deficient.”
Her smile, indulgent and warm, was disarming — and completely unexpected.
“Clearly,” she parroted, “you are more fluent than you realize. Your response just now was classic human male denial.” She raised a hand to forestall him even as he opened his mouth to protest her assessment. “Yes, yes! I know that particular trait is not limited to males, human or other. But it is endemic to adolescent human boys. I think it fits our circumstances.”
Deciding she was at least partially correct, he gave a short nod and said, “I would appreciated another opportunity and will endeavor not to disappoint you again.”
“Just get a little practice before your next attempt. Perhaps your mother’s parents know of someone—”
“Of course, sir,” he said. “Grandfather and I met an ideal candidate, once. I will contact her as soon as we are finished here.” His raised brow requested permission to leave.
Smiling again, she reached around to pull open the door for him.
“I’m looking forward to your next try,” she said.
_____
Twenty minutes later, Spock sat before the communications console, calling a home in the United States of Africa.
“Good evening, Doctor Uhura,” he greeted the human male who appeared on the screen. “Has Nyota returned from school yet?”
“She has,” the xenopsychiatrist said, sounding both intrigued and cautious.
Quickly, Spock recounted his failure to console a lost human child during a simulation.
“I didn’t know how to proceed.”
“There's a first for everything,” Benjamin Uhura mused. “Even for the son of Vulcan's ambassador to Earth to fail a lesson in Interspecies Ethics. With our help, next time you will succeed.”
Next Chapter
Spock's next first
1 of 10
2 of 10
3 of 10
Logic dictates there must a first time for every experience. Knowing that doesn't necessarily make it any easier to get through. Severus and Spock each try 5 times. Hermione and Uhura help. (Not in the same fics, obvs,'cause I don't do crossovers.) Lightly humorous responses to an impromptu challenge inspired by an anti-First Times rant.
Pairing: Spock/Uhura
Fandom: Star Trek 2009
Spock reached the door before she stopped him. He focused on keeping a green flush from suffusing his pale cheeks under her intent stare.
“About what just happened…” she started to say.
Spock wanted to look away; the censure — or worse, pity — he was sure to find in her expression was unwelcome. The irony his all too human compulsion was not lost on him, and he forced himself to meet her steady gaze. Whatever she was thinking or feeling was a mystery to him.
She is more adept at controlling her body language than I am, he realized.
His disappointment in his failure increased by one thousand five hundred percent. No matter that for a Deltan living and working among humans that talent was as necessary, in its way, as it was for a Vulcan.
After twenty-three seconds of silence, he wondered if she was angry with him, but couldn’t muster the bravery to look up again.
“This happens more often than you think,” she finally told him. “I promise you’ll have a chance to try again. I believe in second chances. For the truly exceptional, third and fourth chances. There’s no need to worry, Spock. Next time, make sure you’re worth it.”
He kept his features carefully neutral, and his voice evenly modulated as he spoke.
“I am not worried,” he stated, taking comfort in the familiarity of a formal cadence. “Worry is a human emotion. Clearly, I lack sufficient fluency in human behavior; otherwise, my performance would not have been so deficient.”
Her smile, indulgent and warm, was disarming — and completely unexpected.
“Clearly,” she parroted, “you are more fluent than you realize. Your response just now was classic human male denial.” She raised a hand to forestall him even as he opened his mouth to protest her assessment. “Yes, yes! I know that particular trait is not limited to males, human or other. But it is endemic to adolescent human boys. I think it fits our circumstances.”
Deciding she was at least partially correct, he gave a short nod and said, “I would appreciated another opportunity and will endeavor not to disappoint you again.”
“Just get a little practice before your next attempt. Perhaps your mother’s parents know of someone—”
“Of course, sir,” he said. “Grandfather and I met an ideal candidate, once. I will contact her as soon as we are finished here.” His raised brow requested permission to leave.
Smiling again, she reached around to pull open the door for him.
“I’m looking forward to your next try,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, Spock sat before the communications console, calling a home in the United States of Africa.
“Good evening, Doctor Uhura,” he greeted the human male who appeared on the screen. “Has Nyota returned from school yet?”
“She has,” the xenopsychiatrist said, sounding both intrigued and cautious.
Quickly, Spock recounted his failure to console a lost human child during a simulation.
“I didn’t know how to proceed.”
“There's a first for everything,” Benjamin Uhura mused. “Even for the son of Vulcan's ambassador to Earth to fail a lesson in Interspecies Ethics. With our help, next time you will succeed.”
Next Chapter
Spock's next first
1 of 10
2 of 10
3 of 10
