Chapter Text
Jamie Kirk abruptly stopped at the entrance of Riverside’s Celestial Observatory. Her date for the evening (Chris? Kevin? She couldn’t remember his name) stumbled to a stop behind her and let out a drunken giggle. Ignoring him, Jamie removed a small, crude looking device from her pocket, twisted the frayed edges of two loose wires together and jimmied them into a small hole at the bottom of the keypad on the door. She had drilled the hole the first time she broke into this facility, about five years before, and remarkably it had remained undetected ever since. An algorithm changed the access code about once a week and hacking the lock remotely was much more time consuming then doing it onsite, she had discovered. The little device lit up and numbers began to scroll across the LED screen. Jamie turned around and looped her arms around Calvin-or-whoever’s neck.
“Gonna be a second. You still got that joint?”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding breathless and a little stupid. His cadet uniform was looking a tad worse for wear after their small hike through the underbrush, detouring the building’s singular automated security outpost, but he still smelled as good as he did at the college party she picked him up at. They made out lazily against the locked door until the device chirped and they made their way inside.
When they reached the main observation deck, Jamie tossed what’s-his-face a lighter and began fiddling with the nearest computer. A couple seconds later Jamie had her favorite star system projected onto the large domed ceiling. The room lit up in a supernova of color and light that circled ethereally above their heads. Flavor-of-the-day gasped and she snagged the lit joint from between his limp fingers.
As a kid, she spent a lot of time at this observatory since she was a member of a bunch of nerdy astrophysics clubs. She had even made a couple of minor discoveries and proudly published her first research paper when she was eleven. When she was twelve, she was arrested for the first time and her membership to most of these (Starfleet affiliated) clubs was revoked and with it her access to the observatory. She had to resort to breaking and entering if she wanted to use the research facilities. Or if she needed a quiet place to take a drunken one off. He had roommates, apparently.
Wandering across the room, she took a couple of long drags from the joint, located the flannel blanket she knew someone kept in the cupboard on the back wall and made herself comfortable on the floor. Her date made his way over to her while gaping unattractively at the ceiling and settled himself beside her.
“Man, that’s really something. Are you sure we should be in here? Isn’t there a camera or something?”
She raised an eyebrow. So much for boldly going where no man has gone before. Besides she disabled the camera already. Obviously. “You wanna leave?”
He shot her a look and let a slow smile creep onto his face. Not a bad look for him, if she was honest. He grabbed the proffered joint and settled back. “You’re fucking wild, didja know that? Where does a high school dropout get bootleg lock breaking tech anyway? Selling that shit is a Class A felony. Didn’t think there were many crime bosses here in buttfuck, Iowa.”
She forgot that she had told him that she dropped out. Easiest way to explain why a 17 year old didn't have school the next morning while drinking heavily on a Thursday night. In reality she graduated when she was 14 but telling people that made her sound like a douchebag. In any case, she didn’t acquire bootleg lock breaking tech, she built it in her garage. She smiled and said, "A better question is what does a high school dropout have to do to get her end away around here? Asking for a friend."
He took one last drag of the joint, stubbed it out and rolled on top of her. He kissed her deeply and ran a hand up under her shirt. He pulled back, flushed and breathless, and asked, "wanna blow me?"
She laughed loudly in his face and pulled him back in for more sloppy kisses. They began to clumsily undress and soon enough he was pushing slowly into her. He let out a groan and dipped his pretty head onto her shoulder. He gave a couple of deep, uncoordinated thrusts before finding a rhythm and settling in. Jamie tipped her head back and sighed.
Damn... She was already losing interest. His teeth dragged sharp and distracting along her collarbone. Her thigh began to itch where it chafed against his leg hair. Sure he was cute and his technique wasn't bad but it was just...sex. Far from mind blowing, it was hardly even diverting. She probably wouldn't even be able to get off, at this rate. Her mind was already wandering, somewhere in the nebula that glittered high above. Latent anxiety about the upcoming weekend began to dampen her hard earned buzz. She wondered if she could reach the joint from here.
A respectable but unremarkable ten minutes later, whoever-the-fuck squeezed his eyes shut, pulled out and came over Jamie's stomach, all the way up to her clavicle. Jamie was unwittingly impressed by this considering how much he had to drink. He was muttering praise into her ear, warm and uncomfortably wet; shit like "you're so hot" and "you take it so well." Jamie rolled her eyes and began to wiggle out from beneath him. She reached for the joint, lit it and quickly chiefed the fucker. She figured it was only fair since only one of them came. Time to wrap this shit up.
“So...Charles-”
“Connor…. My name’s Connor.” He peaked out from behind the arm he had thrown over his face.
She smiled archly at him in apology. “Right. Connor. You don’t happen to have a cigarette on you by any chance, do you?”
After hastily wiping down and tidying up, Jamie quickly returning to the computer to cover their traces, the two of them found their way to the exit. With a cigarette in her hand and a dopey smile on Connor’s face, they made the precarious journey back to the main road. Jamie led the way to her speeder, parked carelessly on the shoulder. She tried valiantly to tamp down her disappointment and budding restlessness. It wasn’t Connor’s fault, she knew. But as far as distractions went, this one was pretty uninspiring.
The two made idle chit chat on the ride back to student housing. Connor let his hands wander, to Jamies distant irritation. She dropped him off with some muttered promises to call him sometime, and glanced at the time. In just over six hours, at 0900, her mother would be officially planetside. Jamie sighed and began the 45 minute journey back home. It was going to be a long day.
***
At around 0930 the next morning, Jamie stood miserably beside Frank on a landing deck at Riverside Shipyard. The sunglasses she was sporting were failing to prevent weak rays of sunlight from stabbing at her poor retinas. Her stomach would roll occasionally and she had to suck deep breaths through her nose to prevent herself from gagging in front of the handful of gathered reporters. Fuck, why did she think being drunk for this would make it more tolerable? Frank glanced sideways at her and rolled his eyes. He had strongly advised getting a good night's sleep for this. It was a miracle he had resisted the temptation to tell her “I told you so” this far, the dumb square. He had bought her a coffee on their way over, though, so she should probably be kinder to him, even if only in the privacy of her own head. She still made a face as he turned away.
Just for the record, it wasn’t the prospect of seeing her mother that was driving her to distraction. Everyone knows that mommy issues are the least sexy of the neuroses, and besides her mom was fucking great. A badass in the extreme. Furthermore, if she was a psychologist (which she wasn’t) or prone to any degree of introspection (which she certainly wasn’t) then she would imagine the whole Dead Dad thing would be higher on the list of contributors to her concerning-but-still-cute alcohol abuse. It’s just, when she was with her mom she became a spectacle; on display. Jamie wasn’t too proud to admit that from the outside looking in, she was kind of a massive disappointment. It became much harder not to dwell on her bad decisions when people, you know, actually paid attention to what she did. Also, she would be forced to attend a bunch of Starfleet events over the next three days and heels fucked up her feet for weeks.
Only 45 minutes behind schedule (not bad for this type of thing) a runway extended from the parked starship and disembarkation commenced. Jamie watched as dozens of crewmembers came ashore in a steady stream. After about ten minutes of this, Winona Kirk, second officer and chief engineer, finally began her descent. Despite herself, Jamie’s lips quirked when she laid eyes on her. Damn but if it wasn’t good to see her. They made eye contact and Jamie’s face broke into the grin that had been threatening earlier. Winona hurried the rest of the way down towards the waiting landing party and wrapped her daughter in a hug.
“God, I missed you. Have you grown? Is that something people your age still do?” Winona pulled away and wiped the dampness from her eyes, grinning like a loon.
Jamie laughed and said, “I think you just shrunk. What are you, like, 50 now?”
“Im 42 you dick,” Winona said, smacking Jamie on the arm. “Also why do you smell like an ashtray? Are you smoking again?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned away from Jamie to give Frank a quick peck on the lips. They smiled and whispered at each other while Jamie pointedly looked away.
When they were done canoodling, Winona wrapped her arms around the both of them and started shepherding them towards the car. “Let’s blow this joint. I’m dying for a non-replicated meal. There better be food in the fridge.”
Frank sheepishly scratched the back of his neck and said, “How does drive through sound?”