hi @introvertia i am so sorry that i let this languish in my inbox for ages. i appreciate you sending it!!
AOS Spirk AU, mostly Spock POV
Spock is already working at the Academy when James Kirk arrives, first as a student, and then as hired as a lab assistant.
I just think it would be delightfully funny for Spock's narration to be like "I do not understand my new coworker. He stands too close to me and laughs at the things that I say. I thought he did not like me for this reason, until I saw him physically assault someone who insulted me."
"Jim is a valued colleague. Perhaps we could co-write a paper."
Meanwhile Jim is like "i am in LOVE and i don't care if he knows it, i don't care if it takes me the rest of my life but we are getting married"
Something something diplomacy needs to happen and the Enterprise gets sent to pick up T'Pau and her retinue for some Federation conference or another. However, the unexpected visitor is T'Pring, who has discovered that being bonded to Stonn is not all it's cracked up to be.
She makes a move on Spock, who does not want this and asks Jim to pretend to be his betrothed until she is gone because she won't accept that he is happier single than bonded.
Lo and behold! Fake Dating tropes abound! They fall in love, etc etc.
SNW Uhura/Chapel (vaguely in the future AU)
Chapel and Uhura become pen pals while Chapel is off on her fellowship thing, after the events of S2
In my brain this is rapidly becoming a Fried Green Tomatoes AU?? Chapel has this whirlwind affair with the professor on the fellowship, Roger Korby, and at first everything is great but he doesn't like that she's a veteran with baggage, that she's a little bit wild, that she's deeply ambitious and smarter than he is, and he wants to control her. he threatens to ruin her career if she doesn't marry him, so they get engaged as she figures out a way to escape.
Uhura is the only one that she's telling the details to and the first to pick up on something being wrong, and when Chapel sends her a coded message that she needs an immediate extraction, Uhura, Ortegas, M'Benga, La'an, and Spock take a shuttle and head for her immediately.
Chapel reclaims her spot on the Enterprise and as she's getting resettled and restabilized Pike starts giving her cooking lessons as a calming mechanism
The first thing Chapel ever bakes entirely on her own she brings straight to Uhura as a gift
She asks Uhura why she came for her, etc etc, and Uhura has loved her the whole time, and Uhura confesses this, and Chapel is like "I almost wrecked my whole life leaping without looking. Can you give me time to think about this?" and Uhura says yes
Time passes etc and then Chapel realizes that she loves Uhura too and they kiss etc etc
Thanks for sending these fun titles. I had a good time thinking of new ideas. Maybe I'll write one of these sometime!