[Star Trek XI] Dreaming Through The Noise (1/?)
Title: Dreaming Through The Noise(1/?)
Wordcount: ~6,000
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/Spock (Sort of Spock/T'Pring and later Spock/Uhura and Kirk/universe)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own them!
Summary: Spock remembered far too well the first night he heard Jim's mental voice - close to dawn on a dreamless night and he was pulled away from his bed, to a dark, alien kitchen and a terrified, alien mind.
Note: So, this kind of, um, exploded. It was inspired by a line in the absolutely gorgeous Love is Strange, a Dirty Dancing AU that everyone in the world should read. (I would say what line it was, but it's a bit spoilery (for this fic, not for that one), so if you want to know, I'll let you know in the comments.) I flailed a little to forbiddenromanc, and she responded like any good enabler, by waving giant pompoms and letting me ask her things like what kind of tea Vulcans drank and the names of obscure characters. And it just kept getting longer, and. Um. The whole thing is 8,000 words or so by now, and I'm probably a little over halfway finished with it.
Title from Vienna Teng's Recessional.
"I have made my decision."
There was no inflection to Sarek's voice at all - of course there isn't, Spock thought to himself, his father was enviably Vulcan, even under the furious eyes of his all-too-human wife.
"Well, I haven't." Amanda hissed, her hands tightening slightly, bunching her skirt in her fists. She would not have done so if she were not distressed, Spock noted. The fabric would crease easily. "And he is my child as well, or have you forgotten?"
"I am hardly able to forget, Amanda." Sarek responded, and perhaps his eyes were reproachful or perhaps they gentled a bit or perhaps he showed nothing at all and it was their psychic link that made Amanda relax her hands, made her face soften slightly into something more sad than angry. "Which is why I must insist that he be treated like any other Vulcan child. I have allowed him to remain with us in the house to indulge your need for companionship and your attachment to him, but if I were to keep him here now that he has reached the proper age for schooling it would not serve him well. His age mates would - "
"His age mates will treat him differently no matter what we do, Sarek." Amanda said firmly. "And children, even Vulcan children, can be cruel. I do no want to send him out there with them, defenseless! If they should mock him...he feels emotions far more strongly than his peers. If they - "
"I am capable of controlling myself, mother." Spock interrupted, stung. "And I am not defenseless. I have been learning Suus Mahna from Master T'Pirr." And learning somewhat less orthodox methods elsewhere, he thought, but did not voice it. He felt the smile in the back of his mind, and responded with a mental smile of his own. It felt...easy, unlike the crude curling of his lips that he sometimes displayed for the benefit of his mother. The same emotion, and nothing to fight through in order to show it.
His parents turned to look at him. "You invalidate your point, Spock, by interrupting without cause. It's possible your mother is correct." Sarek stated coolly. Amanda inclined her head, the triumph in her eyes dwarfed by the worry.
Sarek did not acknowledge her thanks. "However. I believe the challenge of control will be good for him. He is far too free with his emotions, here, where they are accepted. It will be better if he learns that not all of our society is so tolerant." He turned on his heel, leaving Amanda gaping after him.
If he's what you guys call tolerant, Jim announced in his mind, I'd hate to see Vulcan's racists.
Spock examined his mother's surprised profile for a moment, and then turned away, walking absently through the vaulted halls of his home. His attention was entirely inward, as it had been more and more of late. He supposed his father approved of his silence, but knew his mother worried. He wished to reassure her, but wasn't sure how to explain the boy who dreamed his way into Spock's life, or the utterly alien life of Jim's that Spock saw when he slept.
What is a racist? He asked Jim curiously. The word was weighted and negative where it touched his mind. He wondered which Common root it was derived from - "race" as in a contest of speed, or as in variety within a species?
He could feel Jim struggling to find a way to explain it. He marveled again at just how much he could tell of the other boy - it helped that Jim had mirrors in his room, had let Spock examine his expressive face, his freckled cheeks, his wide smile. It was much easier to imagine that face twisting in contemplation than to have some faceless feeling in the back of his mind.
It's like...do you remember last week, when that woman came into the shop, and Frank totally ignored her to talk to her husband, even though she knew what she was talking about way more than he did?
Spock nodded, and then caught himself. Yes, he said simply, turning a corner. He remembered thinking it was odd, but not worth distracting Kirk from the engine he'd been repairing.
That was sexism. When someone thinks they're better than someone else just 'cause of their gender. Jim was a little angry, a little sad. Racism is like that, only it's usually because of something even stupider, like skin color. We've mostly overcome stuff like that, by now, but it used to be awful. There were wars fought over it - white people kept black people as slaves, like the Orions. Even after we solved that, it took until the 21st Century for a black man to be elected President.
Spock raised his eyebrows. You are not sexist. He observed, reaching his chambers.
Of course not! Jim thought, a little horrified, and Spock hurried to clarify. He tried to find how best to phrase what he was thinking. But your father is. How -
He's not my father. Jim thought quickly, firmly. Spock sat on the edge of his bed, careful, even now, not to let his puzzlement show on his face.
But he is married to your mother. He claims parental authority over you. The thoughts were not really questions - he had observed both of these things as true during his dreaming, but he wondered how the conclusion he drew from them could be incorrect.
Yeah, but that doesn't make him my father. Jim thought, and then was silent for a long moment. Spock thought suddenly that perhaps he had woken, and felt a stab of sorrow.
I apologize if I am prying into personal matters, he thought, mostly to make sure that Jim was still there.
Mental laughter washed over him, and not for the first time he wanted to hear it for real, through his own ears. His mother laughed so rarely that he could remember nothing but how startling it was to hear such noises - nothing about the joy that she must have felt, the joy that Jim felt, when he laughed. Dude, Jim thought, amused, you're inside my head. You are my personal matters.
Strangely gratified, Spock folded his legs under him in a meditative pose. He had no desire to clear his mind - in fact, quite the opposite - but it would give him the appearance of doing something, were anyone to walk by, besides staring at the walls. If Frank is not your father....he started, and then tried again. I do not understand. It was my assumption that humans, like Vulcans, mated for life.
Sort of. Sometimes. Jim thought. There's something called a divorce...
He stopped, evidently tired of explaining every little nuance of human culture, and then sighed. My father's dead.
Immediately images flooded Spock's mind. They seemed to be mostly of projected videos - things a bit like the historical broadcasts Amanda had shown Spock of Earth history. He recognized the ship involved from those same lessons - the USS Kelvin, piloted by one George Kirk. He watched as it was destroyed, the explosion overlaid with the face of a Human man, his features almost familiar, and the face of Kirk's mother Winona, though she was much younger than the times he had seen her before. He blinked at the weight of the emotions he felt from Jim - sorrow, a sort of longing, and a dull, useless anger - as well as the information that the images conveyed.
I grieve with thee, he thought, before he knew what was he doing, and then sat stock still, not sure Jim would understand the ritualistic phrase.
I know. Jim thought back, wearily amused. I'm in your head, remember? Your poker face is useless against me.
Spock blinked again, not because he did not understand the reference (Jim had explained poker to him the week before) but because he had not thought of that. He'd assumed that he could feel Jim's emotions because Jim was human - he experienced everything so intensely, so loudly, that Spock could feel it through their inexplicable bond. But that Jim could feel his, as well, was unexpected, and slightly disconcerting.
Jim interrupted his musings, his mental voice suddenly distant. Uh oh, he thought. I think -
And he was gone, presumably blinking awake in his bed in Riverside, Iowa, the United States of America, Earth, leaving Spock with a mind full of sorrow that he realized with a start was his own.
"Goodbye," he said, speaking softly aloud to the silence of his home.
****
He began school a week later.
He immediately understood why his mother had been worried. Wherever he went he encountered stares and murmurs, body language that conveyed more hostility than he'd ever seen a Vulcan display in any way. His instructors spoke down to him, assuming that he possessed a level of intelligence far below what he actually did. He responded by holding himself high and answering all questions with careful, educated answers. Jim responded by cursing them out and ranting to Spock about how stupid they were, how unfair it was. I'd be on them in a second, beating them to a pulp, he snarled in the back of Spock's mind. Who the hell do they think they are?
Several times in his life, his mother had expressed to him the desire to hold him, and several times she had actually done so, folding him close and pressing her cheek into his hair. He had found the experience remarkably comforting, but had never understood her motives for wishing to do it.
The first time Jim expressed his anger at Spock's peers, at his instructors for their condescension, Spock wanted to hug him.
Overall, however, he found he enjoyed school. The classes were fascinating, much more complete and detailed than the lessons his parents had taught, or even the lectures that his private tutors had given. The work was challenging - he often found himself having to concentrate hard on the assignments. Jim laughed at him about that, thinking, Hey, I just had to do my own math homework, I don't want to do yours while I'm freaking sleeping!
Despite this, he actually seemed quite fascinated with some of the lessons that Spock was taught, especially those concerning Vulcan and alien cultures and styles. He would often chime in if Spock was in class, making observations that would never have occurred to Spock. The few times that he brought these observations to the attention of the instructor (usually he felt as if it was cheating), he was rewarded with raised brows and high marks, as well as the emotionless stares of his peers that said that such things would never have occurred to them, either. Spock felt slightly proud of that, a feeling only amplified by Jim's childish whooping and taunting in the back of his head.
Jim was often childish. It was one of the things that Spock found fascinating about him. He would vacillate between startlingly accurate observations of Vulcan culture to calling them "jerks" and claiming that they needed to "pull the stick out of their collective butt". In his own life, he often did things that were illogical, impulsive, and verging on irrational, tearing holes in Frank's clothing while laundering it, though it would just cause his step-father (this was, Spock eventually learned, the proper term) to scream at him and his mother to scrounge up the money for more, or purposefully scratching one of the cars in the shop, knowing he would be blamed for it but not caring.
One day, Jim sat on the roof of his porch, his feet bare and hanging over the edge, his toes borne up on the wind. The shingles on the porch were old, and many were broken. Still others were rotted through. Spock expressed worry about the safety of his location, and Kirk laughed aloud to the blue sky. "So?" He asked, never quite having gotten the hang of speaking to Spock only in his mind - or perhaps just preferring to talk aloud. Spock would never say it, but he preferred it this way too - he liked Jim's light, laughing voice. "It's fun!"
You do many things only for the pursuit of fun, Spock observed, and Jim grinned. Spock could feel it, a bright blossom of amusement. "Duh. I'm only thirteen."
And I am only fourteen years of age, Spock answered, yet I do not understand such motivations.
"Yeah," Jim agreed, "But you're half Vulcan. There's probably, like, a death penalty for any Vulcan who does anything fun."
That would be illogical, Spock thought at him, but allowed himself to be amused, and Jim grinned even more.
"You seriously don't know what it's like to have fun?" Jim asked, after a minute. The sun was beginning to set over the barren fields, and Spock noticed absently the huge array of colors that the Earth's sky was capable of becoming. "You've never, like. Driven so fast that the wind fills you up? Played soccer? Wrestled?"
I have never driven an automobile at all, Spock answered, ignoring the other two as incomprehensible.
"Oh, man. I'll make sure you're around, next time I take one of the cars."
You are three years short of the United State's legal driving age, if I am not mistaken about Earth law, Spock thought at him.
Jim's only response was to flop back onto the roof and spread his arms wide, opening himself up to the darkening sky. He stayed there, silent, Spock just as silent in the back of his mind, until it was truly dark and the stars began to emerge. The wind was slightly cold, but Jim didn't move, and Spock didn't urge him to.
"My father was a great man," He said abruptly. His mind was alive not with pride, but something more complicated.
Indeed, Spock thought, his contributions to science were numerous, and his skill in the Captain's chair legendary.
"Yeah, and he was a great man, too," Jim responded, with something close to a laugh. He was silent again for a moment, staring hard at the stars above his head. "Everyone expects...everyone expects me to look up to him. To want to...to be him. But..."
He trailed off, and Spock's view of the stars was cut off when he closed his eyes. He left me here, Jim said to him, mind-to-mind, his mental voice conveying a confusion far deeper than his words had. He died, Spock, and left me and my mother with him, and I have to think, what kind of man does that?
There were a thousand things that Spock could have said to defend George Kirk. No one can know the time of his death. It's not his fault who your mother married. He had no control over the character of the man that raised you.
But he read all of those things already in Jim's mind, so he thought instead, It is illogical to wish to be a man you are not.
"Yeah," Jim said, and opened his eyes again. The stars were blurred, above them, and they both ignored the wetness on Jim's cheeks. "Thank you, Spock."
Thank me by showing me what is "fun" about driving an automobile so fast that you endanger yourself. Spock said, attempting to lighten the mood. There was a strange tightness in Jim's chest, or maybe his own, sleeping in his bed on Vulcan.
"I will," Jim promised, and Spock woke up. For a moment he was disoriented by the bright stone ceiling of his bedroom, and then he rubbed a hand across his face and composed himself.
He slipped from his bed and dressed. He briefly considered waiting for Jim, but the other boy was in a contemplative mood and might stare at the stars for hours before his thoughts turned to sleep. It was possible he wouldn't even notice Spock was gone.
So he paced silently from his room and through the halls to breakfast.
His parents were waiting for him, something that made him hesitate in surprise. It was not unheard that one of them, when they were not away on business, might wish to breakfast with him, but they usually would leave him a message explaining such, and it was rare indeed to find both of them at home at once. This seemed somewhat of an ambush, and Spock found himself dragging his steps slightly.
"Good morning, sweetie." His mother said over her cup of spice tea. Spock's hesitation grew as Sarek inclined his head formally, each of them clearly trying to put him at his ease in their own way. He took his seat. "Good morning," He greeted. "Might I ask what prompts this gathering?"
Amanda attempted to look innocent. She was not entirely successful. "I just wanted to have breakfast with my son - "
Sarek cut her off, his eyes solemn. "You are fourteen years of age today, Spock."
Spock blinked, but did not change his expression, and remained silent. He knew humans celebrated birthdays, but they had never followed that custom before, and nor had any Vulcans he had ever heard of.
"Your mother and I have decided that it is time we looked to the issue of your bonding."
Oh. Spock remained impassive, but it felt like the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. He turned his eyes to his mother.
"We have no way of knowing whether it will work," she said, her gespar pastry untouched on her plate. "Or whether it is necessary. But it is a precaution that we feel we must take."
"Of course." Spock said, a little proud of how steady his voice was. It did make sense - to go through the pain of pon farr without a promised bondmate was rare, certainly painful, and sometimes fatal. However, he had always had a sort of hope that his human heritage meant that he wouldn't go through it at all. So, apparently, had his mother.
"You are agreeable?" His father asked, and if Spock didn't know better he would have said he was surprised.
He opened his mouth. His words stuck, a little, in his throat, but finally he said, "I would like to know more about the other party involved, but as always you are perfectly logical. I am agreeable."
His mother let out a sigh of relief, and his father shot her a glance that she ignored. "Oh, Spock, she's beautiful."
"Her name is T'Pring." Sarek said. "I have sent you her files, if you wish to retire to peruse them."
"He hasn't even eaten anything!" His mother scolded, and she passed him the gespar. "Besides, a girl is more than statistics and a family history. Eat, Spock, and I'll tell you - "
"No," He interrupted mildly. "If it is acceptable, I should like to return to my rooms to learn about this T'Pring. Will you be here all day?"
Amanda looked startled. "Yes, but - "
"Then if I require anecdotal supplementation to her official files, I shall seek you out and ask." He stood, inclining his head to them both. "Thank you."
Sarek inclined his head in return, and, a bit belatedly, so did his mother. He walked from the room, feeling her gaze on him until he turned the corner.
On his personal computer he found extensive files on T'Pring and her family, a well-known merchant clan. The files included images, and he opened one, wanting to study the girl he was to be promised to for life.
She was, as his mother said, beautiful. Her hair was long and silken-straight, her cheekbones high, her face as stone-set as any Vulcan could wish. But it seemed to Spock as if she were carved of ice, or the porous stone of Vulcan's white mountains. Her features moved nothing in him.
He was about to close the image when he felt Jim uncurl, catlike and blinking, in the back of his mind.
Missed you, came the thought, one of those right on the edge of the bond that he was not sure Jim was even aware of conveying. And then, louder and more awake, Ooh, who's she?
She is to be my promised bond. He thought, and his fingers shook a bit on his keyboard. Betrothed, is the closest equivalent in Common.
You know, I heard Vulcan all night, and I think I'm beginning to get it. Jim thinks, almost babbling. Like, it helps that I have your brain there to translate it for me, into feelings and stuff, but sometimes you think in Vulcan, too, and I'm pretty sure I'm starting to figure out the language.
Spock blinked. Fascinating. He thought, feeling somehow...nonplussed. You have no reaction to my betrothed?
Um, Jim thought, and Spock could sense his unease. She's pretty? Congratulations?
I am unsure such regards are in order, Spock thinks, and he can feel something snap into place in Jim's mind where it rests comfortably against his own.
Oh, Jim thinks. Oh, I thought - you don't love her. I mean, of course you don't, but you don't - you don't want this?
I am....hesitant. Spock said, and then frowned. You cannot feel my confusion?
It changes, how much of you I can feel. Jim thought. Usually it's like...yeah, I feel what you feel, 'cause we're...us, y'know? But sometimes...like today, I get here and you're all closed off, and looking at some Vulcan girl and I thought maybe you went and fell in love or something without me -
Illogical, Spock interrupted. Discounting the fact that Vulcans do not fall in love, you are with me for most of my life, how would I have fallen in love without your knowledge?
I don't know, man! Jim's voice was agitated. Somehow you went and got yourself engaged without my knowledge, so I didn't think it was that much of a stretch! He was almost yelling in Spock's head, and Spock blinked at his computer screen, taken aback.
Sorry. Jim said, after a moment. Spock nodded, knowing Jim could see him in the reflection on the now-dark computer screen.
I apologize for not consulting you. He thought. It did not occur to me to consider you in this. If you had been here, perhaps the conversation with my parents would have gone differently, this morning.
Jesus, they just sprang this on you? Jim's mental voice was incredulous, a little shaky. Shit. I'm sorry I wasn't here, dude. Frank came home a little drunk and - Spock could feel him stop that thought, forcibly wrench both of their minds away. It took me a while to get to sleep, is all.
Spock remembered far too well the first night he heard Kirk's mental voice - close to dawn on a dreamless night and he was pulled away from his bed, to a dark, alien kitchen and a terrified, alien mind. Help me help me help me help me - A fist, raised to strike a women who fairly glowed with strength and love in his new body's eyes, a face twisted with alcohol and rage. Help me help me someone oh god please - He remembered that it was all he could do to think I'm here, all he could do to think as hard as he could about the things his martial arts tutor had told him. All he could do to watch in amazement as the strange new body he was inhabiting stepped forward and went through the precise motions of a complicated Suus Mahna move, throwing a man perhaps three times his size over his shoulder and kneeling swiftly by his head, checking his pulse. He remembers how strange it was, the numb acceptance of his presence, the shocked obedience of his equally as shocked orders.
Spock. Jim pulled him away from the memory again, his mind-voice ragged. Stop, please.
You do not belong in that house. He replied, but he let go of the images, looking into his own eyes in the reflection.
We were talking about your betrothal, Jim reminded him, but it was a not a disagreement.
Yes. We were. Spock sighed and turned from his computer, sitting on the edge of his bed again. Her name is T'Pring, he added, as if that would help something.
Cool, Jim said, blankly, and then, That's total bullshit, you know.
Spock lay back on the bed, mirroring the stance Jim had taken the night before, trying to open himself up to the featureless expanse of ceiling as the other boy had to the night sky.
To what are you referring? He asked, assuming that Jim meant something other than the name "T'Pring" or the betrothal in general, which had too much logical reason behind it to be described as 'total bullshit'. Not that that would stop Jim, but even so.
The whole 'Vulcan's don't fall in love' line. Of course they do, and you know it.
Spock blinked at the ceiling. How would I know such a thing?
Uh, your father? Jim's mindvoice was that particular shade of confused it got when he was explaining something he thought should have been obvious to Spock.
Spock lifted his hands, lacing them together to block out the view of the ceiling. He felt strange, restless. My parents arrangement is one of logic.
Yeah, of course they told you that. Your dad is trying to be a model Vulcan now he has someone to model for. But you can't say you haven't noticed the way they look at each other. Something in Jim's voice indicated that he found something ironic in Spock's father's impassivity. There were times that Spock agreed with him.
It is not something I have observed. Spock thought, though he made a silent vow to pay more attention when next his parents were together. In any case, I do not love T'Pring.
Yeah, Jim acknowledged. I can feel you, again. I know how uncomfortable you are with this.
Unspeakably relieved, Spock sent him a touch of a smile, and felt the answering one, small and faltering. Jim's voice followed, just as small. Spock...what will happen to me? When you and T'Pring bond?
Spock closed his eyes, sinking into his bed. I don't know. He thought. I've tried to research our situation before, but there is no mention in any available Vulcan Science Academy files of anything close to the bond we share. We are unique, Jim.
Freaking fantastic, thought Jim. What will happen if I'm bonded too? If when...whatever it is, Crazy Time hits, and I'm worlds away and no one knows and...
It is called ponn farr. Spock thought, And there is no guarantee that it will hit me at all. The chances that it will hit you as well are 0.0023%.
You made that up. I thought Vulcan's couldn't lie! Jim sounded scandalized, as if Spock had kissed his mother in public.
They can't, apparently, if you could tell. Spock thought, even more of a smile growing.
I'm in your brain! Of course I can tell, moron, Jim thought at him, warmly exasperated, and suddenly everything felt a little lighter. Well, he continued, I guess we'll find out. Maybe when we're old and grey, you can add us to the Science Academy files.
Perhaps I shall. Spock propped his folded hands behind his head and crossed his legs, a pose that Jim often found comfortable.
I hope T'Pirr doesn't mind being married to one and a half humans, Jim thought, settled in his mind.
As do I, Spock thought, and felt Jim's laughter wash over him.
***
The announcement of his and T'Pring's bonding came out two days later, the bonding itself to happen two weeks after that. It was rushed for such an important matter, but Sarek was scheduled to leave for a twelve-month assignment on a Space Station orbiting Earth, and to do the ceremony without him would be unthinkable.
Spock hadn't considered the effect the news would have on his school life. Most of his instructors seemed to approve. His mathematics professor even went to so far as to remark upon it, when he handed back Spock's latest test. "Well done," he said, "I am glad to see that you are working to overcome your unfortunate handicap."
Spock inclined his head politely, accepted his paper, and walked back to his seat.
Jim, at the back of his mind, growled I'd like to give him a handicap. Spock quirked an eyebrow. Yeah, okay, that was lame. But he's an asshole.
His peers seemed to have the opposite reaction, becoming even more hostile towards him. The few who had spared kind glances or courteous words for him vanished altogether, replaced by tall, stone-faced young Vulcans who murmured words like "Half-breed" and "bastard" at him from behind his back, things that the Vulcan tongue had no equivalent for and they had to stumble through in clumsy, heavily-accented Common.
Jim, of course, found this hilarious. Harf-brid, he crowed after one particularly bad day, his laughter filling up Spock's mind so much that he was almost afraid it would burst out his mouth. Harf-brid! Jesus, that's amazing.
The next day, when his ears caught their cruel voices, Spock spun. "While you are correct that I am equally of the blood of two species, I believe you will find that my human mother was quite legally and rightfully bonded to my father well before my birth." He said, in perfect Common.
That shut them and Jim up, for a few minutes, at least. He was three classrooms down the hall before Jim spoke up again. Woah, was all he said.
You are not the only one learning languages, Spock thought, unable to contain just a breath of smugness. Could you say that in Vulcan?
Of course I could, Jim blustered, and when Spock went to sleep that night he tried.
He did pretty well up until the "legally and rightfully bonded" section, which wasn't surprising because there were four words that meant the same thing but for shades and nuances of meaning. For the first time in his life, as he listened through Jim's ears to Jim's voice mangling the breathy syllables of his tongue, Spock felt the urge to laugh.
He would later note how beautifully ironic it was that when the urge struck, he was without a body to do so.
It's not fair. Jim complained, after laughing for him, eyes shining bright blue. Linguistics is your favorite subject, and Common is waaayyy easier to learn than freaking Vulcan.
But he kept working on it, and within the week he had the whole thing correctly and smoothly. He grinned at Spock in the cracked mirror in his bathroom, and Spock again felt that strange, inexplicable need to embrace him.
His instructors, in the week leading up to his bonding, apparently unanimously decided that T'Pring should be forewarned of what she was getting into, despite the rules dictating contact between betrothed before the time of the meld, and sat them together in class. In person T'Pring was more beautiful and more cold than she was as a still image, but Spock found himself impressed despite himself with her academic prowess. They quickly rose to the top of the class, fighting for the top place from day to day.
Well, she's smart enough for us, Jim thought as he walked from Planetary Geography, his PADD in his arms. He had been referring to Spock and himself as "us" much more lately, a habit that Spock supposed he was forming in response to the fact that soon enough they were both to be tied to one woman for life. A little lacking in the compassion department, but if you've gotta marry a Vulcan there's not really much variety there.
Indeed, Spock agreed. Perhaps this bonding will not be as bad as we have feared.
You know how we can tell? We should play chess with her. That always -
Jim broke off as Spock slowed down, both of them examining the three young Vulcan males that blocked the hallway. They were all quite tall and broad, the one in the middle especially so, his ears protruding excessively from his skull and his face flat and too-wide. His neck was too long and his head too small and his face was twisted with more anger than Spock had ever seen a Vulcan display.
You know, I think that's the first time I've seen a truly ugly Vulcan. Most of you are so ridiculously pretty you're gonna give me a complex. Jim thought, and there was a rueful sort of truth behind the thought.
Illogical, Spock responded immediately, startled. Although humans as a race are remarkably varied in aesthetic quality, you yourself are -
He was interrupted by the middle Vulcan, although enough of what he had intended to say must have gotten through because there was a surprised whisper of Thanks before they both focused their attention on his words.
"You do not deserve her." The Vulcan was saying. "She should not be defiled by such impurity."
Spock stood straight and considered beginning to walk again. He also considered turning around and heading back the way he'd come. There were other ways to get to his next class, ones that didn't involve passing through a roadblock of his peers.
But he did neither. Instead he stayed, and he listened, and maybe that was the Jim in him because he could feel a vibrating sort of readiness at the back of his mind.
"You do not deserve her," the Vulcan insisted again.
And you do? Jim asked incredulously. Spock ignored him. "Perhaps not. It is not my decision, in any case, but it seems to me we are suited, intellectually at least. What is it, exactly, that you object to?"
The guarded anticipation the Jim was feeling slid smoothly into surprise. Spock, what -
"You are a half-breed. You are born of a human woman, a human whore." The word, again, was Common, and he pronounced it with a certain flavor of glee.
Don't goad him, Spock. Jim said, and there was a touch of worry to him, now. Spock tried to send him reassurance, but his mind was alive with anger's sharp buzz. "My mother is a respected linguist and scientist." He said, tightly.
"She is human. After that, who cares?" The Vulcan paced forward a few steps, closer than was courteous. "Humans are savage. They are unthinking, brutal, illogical, irrational beasts, ugly and worthless. And half of you - "
Spock didn't let him finish, swinging an arm up and around to strike at his face. Jim gave a horrified shout in his mind, but he was drowned out by Spock's own heartbeat, the molten anger that seized him and made him tremble.
The other Vulcan twisted with his blow, apparently expecting this, and his friends moved swiftly forward, moving to catch Spock's arms.
Left - Came Jim's split-second warning, and Spock struck out in a closed-fisted punch obviously not from any Vulcan martial art. He spun right and managed to get a knee into the third Vulcan's groin but by then the first was up again, slamming him back against the wall. "Savage." He said again, shaking his head to clear it. His fingers came up, finding the precise points on Spock's neck that would render him unconscious.
Spock, his mind awash with Jim's memories, slammed his head forward into the other Vulcan's.
He collapsed to the ground, seeing stars, and blinked them away in time to see T'Pring, on the ground, kneeling next to the ugly Vulcan, who was lying prostrate on the floor.
"Stonn?" T'Pring was saying, her voice more emotional than Spock had ever heard it. "Stonn, awaken."
The Vulcan did not move.
T'Pring looked up at Spock, and then slowly stood. "If you have killed him, half-breed..."
'Least she knows how to pronounce it. Jim thought bitterly. But I don't think I want that chess game anymore.
Nor do I, Spock acknowledged, and turned away from the scene. As he moved, his head throbbed and darkness threatened at the corners of his eyes.
Spock? Jim asked anxiously, and then the other two Vulcans were on him, slamming the edges of their open palms into his sides simultaneously. He tried to spin and faltered, his vision swimming.
You headbutted him too hard. Shit, Spock, get out of there -
Excellent advice. Spock stumbled back a step, but before he could get his feet under him to run, a flat palm slammed against his temple, and he dropped.
From where he lay, he could see that a teacher was approaching. He watched as T'Pring stepped forward, saw her lie through her stoneface mask that he had attacked Stonn unprovoked, that the others had had to restrain him. He tried to lever himself upwards in order to make a case for himself, but his arms shook and his head throbbed and he felt himself slipping away.
Jim's simple, heartfelt Bitch was the last thought he remembered before he passed out.
Wordcount: ~6,000
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/Spock (Sort of Spock/T'Pring and later Spock/Uhura and Kirk/universe)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own them!
Summary: Spock remembered far too well the first night he heard Jim's mental voice - close to dawn on a dreamless night and he was pulled away from his bed, to a dark, alien kitchen and a terrified, alien mind.
Note: So, this kind of, um, exploded. It was inspired by a line in the absolutely gorgeous Love is Strange, a Dirty Dancing AU that everyone in the world should read. (I would say what line it was, but it's a bit spoilery (for this fic, not for that one), so if you want to know, I'll let you know in the comments.) I flailed a little to forbiddenromanc, and she responded like any good enabler, by waving giant pompoms and letting me ask her things like what kind of tea Vulcans drank and the names of obscure characters. And it just kept getting longer, and. Um. The whole thing is 8,000 words or so by now, and I'm probably a little over halfway finished with it.
Title from Vienna Teng's Recessional.
"I have made my decision."
There was no inflection to Sarek's voice at all - of course there isn't, Spock thought to himself, his father was enviably Vulcan, even under the furious eyes of his all-too-human wife.
"Well, I haven't." Amanda hissed, her hands tightening slightly, bunching her skirt in her fists. She would not have done so if she were not distressed, Spock noted. The fabric would crease easily. "And he is my child as well, or have you forgotten?"
"I am hardly able to forget, Amanda." Sarek responded, and perhaps his eyes were reproachful or perhaps they gentled a bit or perhaps he showed nothing at all and it was their psychic link that made Amanda relax her hands, made her face soften slightly into something more sad than angry. "Which is why I must insist that he be treated like any other Vulcan child. I have allowed him to remain with us in the house to indulge your need for companionship and your attachment to him, but if I were to keep him here now that he has reached the proper age for schooling it would not serve him well. His age mates would - "
"His age mates will treat him differently no matter what we do, Sarek." Amanda said firmly. "And children, even Vulcan children, can be cruel. I do no want to send him out there with them, defenseless! If they should mock him...he feels emotions far more strongly than his peers. If they - "
"I am capable of controlling myself, mother." Spock interrupted, stung. "And I am not defenseless. I have been learning Suus Mahna from Master T'Pirr." And learning somewhat less orthodox methods elsewhere, he thought, but did not voice it. He felt the smile in the back of his mind, and responded with a mental smile of his own. It felt...easy, unlike the crude curling of his lips that he sometimes displayed for the benefit of his mother. The same emotion, and nothing to fight through in order to show it.
His parents turned to look at him. "You invalidate your point, Spock, by interrupting without cause. It's possible your mother is correct." Sarek stated coolly. Amanda inclined her head, the triumph in her eyes dwarfed by the worry.
Sarek did not acknowledge her thanks. "However. I believe the challenge of control will be good for him. He is far too free with his emotions, here, where they are accepted. It will be better if he learns that not all of our society is so tolerant." He turned on his heel, leaving Amanda gaping after him.
If he's what you guys call tolerant, Jim announced in his mind, I'd hate to see Vulcan's racists.
Spock examined his mother's surprised profile for a moment, and then turned away, walking absently through the vaulted halls of his home. His attention was entirely inward, as it had been more and more of late. He supposed his father approved of his silence, but knew his mother worried. He wished to reassure her, but wasn't sure how to explain the boy who dreamed his way into Spock's life, or the utterly alien life of Jim's that Spock saw when he slept.
What is a racist? He asked Jim curiously. The word was weighted and negative where it touched his mind. He wondered which Common root it was derived from - "race" as in a contest of speed, or as in variety within a species?
He could feel Jim struggling to find a way to explain it. He marveled again at just how much he could tell of the other boy - it helped that Jim had mirrors in his room, had let Spock examine his expressive face, his freckled cheeks, his wide smile. It was much easier to imagine that face twisting in contemplation than to have some faceless feeling in the back of his mind.
It's like...do you remember last week, when that woman came into the shop, and Frank totally ignored her to talk to her husband, even though she knew what she was talking about way more than he did?
Spock nodded, and then caught himself. Yes, he said simply, turning a corner. He remembered thinking it was odd, but not worth distracting Kirk from the engine he'd been repairing.
That was sexism. When someone thinks they're better than someone else just 'cause of their gender. Jim was a little angry, a little sad. Racism is like that, only it's usually because of something even stupider, like skin color. We've mostly overcome stuff like that, by now, but it used to be awful. There were wars fought over it - white people kept black people as slaves, like the Orions. Even after we solved that, it took until the 21st Century for a black man to be elected President.
Spock raised his eyebrows. You are not sexist. He observed, reaching his chambers.
Of course not! Jim thought, a little horrified, and Spock hurried to clarify. He tried to find how best to phrase what he was thinking. But your father is. How -
He's not my father. Jim thought quickly, firmly. Spock sat on the edge of his bed, careful, even now, not to let his puzzlement show on his face.
But he is married to your mother. He claims parental authority over you. The thoughts were not really questions - he had observed both of these things as true during his dreaming, but he wondered how the conclusion he drew from them could be incorrect.
Yeah, but that doesn't make him my father. Jim thought, and then was silent for a long moment. Spock thought suddenly that perhaps he had woken, and felt a stab of sorrow.
I apologize if I am prying into personal matters, he thought, mostly to make sure that Jim was still there.
Mental laughter washed over him, and not for the first time he wanted to hear it for real, through his own ears. His mother laughed so rarely that he could remember nothing but how startling it was to hear such noises - nothing about the joy that she must have felt, the joy that Jim felt, when he laughed. Dude, Jim thought, amused, you're inside my head. You are my personal matters.
Strangely gratified, Spock folded his legs under him in a meditative pose. He had no desire to clear his mind - in fact, quite the opposite - but it would give him the appearance of doing something, were anyone to walk by, besides staring at the walls. If Frank is not your father....he started, and then tried again. I do not understand. It was my assumption that humans, like Vulcans, mated for life.
Sort of. Sometimes. Jim thought. There's something called a divorce...
He stopped, evidently tired of explaining every little nuance of human culture, and then sighed. My father's dead.
Immediately images flooded Spock's mind. They seemed to be mostly of projected videos - things a bit like the historical broadcasts Amanda had shown Spock of Earth history. He recognized the ship involved from those same lessons - the USS Kelvin, piloted by one George Kirk. He watched as it was destroyed, the explosion overlaid with the face of a Human man, his features almost familiar, and the face of Kirk's mother Winona, though she was much younger than the times he had seen her before. He blinked at the weight of the emotions he felt from Jim - sorrow, a sort of longing, and a dull, useless anger - as well as the information that the images conveyed.
I grieve with thee, he thought, before he knew what was he doing, and then sat stock still, not sure Jim would understand the ritualistic phrase.
I know. Jim thought back, wearily amused. I'm in your head, remember? Your poker face is useless against me.
Spock blinked again, not because he did not understand the reference (Jim had explained poker to him the week before) but because he had not thought of that. He'd assumed that he could feel Jim's emotions because Jim was human - he experienced everything so intensely, so loudly, that Spock could feel it through their inexplicable bond. But that Jim could feel his, as well, was unexpected, and slightly disconcerting.
Jim interrupted his musings, his mental voice suddenly distant. Uh oh, he thought. I think -
And he was gone, presumably blinking awake in his bed in Riverside, Iowa, the United States of America, Earth, leaving Spock with a mind full of sorrow that he realized with a start was his own.
"Goodbye," he said, speaking softly aloud to the silence of his home.
****
He began school a week later.
He immediately understood why his mother had been worried. Wherever he went he encountered stares and murmurs, body language that conveyed more hostility than he'd ever seen a Vulcan display in any way. His instructors spoke down to him, assuming that he possessed a level of intelligence far below what he actually did. He responded by holding himself high and answering all questions with careful, educated answers. Jim responded by cursing them out and ranting to Spock about how stupid they were, how unfair it was. I'd be on them in a second, beating them to a pulp, he snarled in the back of Spock's mind. Who the hell do they think they are?
Several times in his life, his mother had expressed to him the desire to hold him, and several times she had actually done so, folding him close and pressing her cheek into his hair. He had found the experience remarkably comforting, but had never understood her motives for wishing to do it.
The first time Jim expressed his anger at Spock's peers, at his instructors for their condescension, Spock wanted to hug him.
Overall, however, he found he enjoyed school. The classes were fascinating, much more complete and detailed than the lessons his parents had taught, or even the lectures that his private tutors had given. The work was challenging - he often found himself having to concentrate hard on the assignments. Jim laughed at him about that, thinking, Hey, I just had to do my own math homework, I don't want to do yours while I'm freaking sleeping!
Despite this, he actually seemed quite fascinated with some of the lessons that Spock was taught, especially those concerning Vulcan and alien cultures and styles. He would often chime in if Spock was in class, making observations that would never have occurred to Spock. The few times that he brought these observations to the attention of the instructor (usually he felt as if it was cheating), he was rewarded with raised brows and high marks, as well as the emotionless stares of his peers that said that such things would never have occurred to them, either. Spock felt slightly proud of that, a feeling only amplified by Jim's childish whooping and taunting in the back of his head.
Jim was often childish. It was one of the things that Spock found fascinating about him. He would vacillate between startlingly accurate observations of Vulcan culture to calling them "jerks" and claiming that they needed to "pull the stick out of their collective butt". In his own life, he often did things that were illogical, impulsive, and verging on irrational, tearing holes in Frank's clothing while laundering it, though it would just cause his step-father (this was, Spock eventually learned, the proper term) to scream at him and his mother to scrounge up the money for more, or purposefully scratching one of the cars in the shop, knowing he would be blamed for it but not caring.
One day, Jim sat on the roof of his porch, his feet bare and hanging over the edge, his toes borne up on the wind. The shingles on the porch were old, and many were broken. Still others were rotted through. Spock expressed worry about the safety of his location, and Kirk laughed aloud to the blue sky. "So?" He asked, never quite having gotten the hang of speaking to Spock only in his mind - or perhaps just preferring to talk aloud. Spock would never say it, but he preferred it this way too - he liked Jim's light, laughing voice. "It's fun!"
You do many things only for the pursuit of fun, Spock observed, and Jim grinned. Spock could feel it, a bright blossom of amusement. "Duh. I'm only thirteen."
And I am only fourteen years of age, Spock answered, yet I do not understand such motivations.
"Yeah," Jim agreed, "But you're half Vulcan. There's probably, like, a death penalty for any Vulcan who does anything fun."
That would be illogical, Spock thought at him, but allowed himself to be amused, and Jim grinned even more.
"You seriously don't know what it's like to have fun?" Jim asked, after a minute. The sun was beginning to set over the barren fields, and Spock noticed absently the huge array of colors that the Earth's sky was capable of becoming. "You've never, like. Driven so fast that the wind fills you up? Played soccer? Wrestled?"
I have never driven an automobile at all, Spock answered, ignoring the other two as incomprehensible.
"Oh, man. I'll make sure you're around, next time I take one of the cars."
You are three years short of the United State's legal driving age, if I am not mistaken about Earth law, Spock thought at him.
Jim's only response was to flop back onto the roof and spread his arms wide, opening himself up to the darkening sky. He stayed there, silent, Spock just as silent in the back of his mind, until it was truly dark and the stars began to emerge. The wind was slightly cold, but Jim didn't move, and Spock didn't urge him to.
"My father was a great man," He said abruptly. His mind was alive not with pride, but something more complicated.
Indeed, Spock thought, his contributions to science were numerous, and his skill in the Captain's chair legendary.
"Yeah, and he was a great man, too," Jim responded, with something close to a laugh. He was silent again for a moment, staring hard at the stars above his head. "Everyone expects...everyone expects me to look up to him. To want to...to be him. But..."
He trailed off, and Spock's view of the stars was cut off when he closed his eyes. He left me here, Jim said to him, mind-to-mind, his mental voice conveying a confusion far deeper than his words had. He died, Spock, and left me and my mother with him, and I have to think, what kind of man does that?
There were a thousand things that Spock could have said to defend George Kirk. No one can know the time of his death. It's not his fault who your mother married. He had no control over the character of the man that raised you.
But he read all of those things already in Jim's mind, so he thought instead, It is illogical to wish to be a man you are not.
"Yeah," Jim said, and opened his eyes again. The stars were blurred, above them, and they both ignored the wetness on Jim's cheeks. "Thank you, Spock."
Thank me by showing me what is "fun" about driving an automobile so fast that you endanger yourself. Spock said, attempting to lighten the mood. There was a strange tightness in Jim's chest, or maybe his own, sleeping in his bed on Vulcan.
"I will," Jim promised, and Spock woke up. For a moment he was disoriented by the bright stone ceiling of his bedroom, and then he rubbed a hand across his face and composed himself.
He slipped from his bed and dressed. He briefly considered waiting for Jim, but the other boy was in a contemplative mood and might stare at the stars for hours before his thoughts turned to sleep. It was possible he wouldn't even notice Spock was gone.
So he paced silently from his room and through the halls to breakfast.
His parents were waiting for him, something that made him hesitate in surprise. It was not unheard that one of them, when they were not away on business, might wish to breakfast with him, but they usually would leave him a message explaining such, and it was rare indeed to find both of them at home at once. This seemed somewhat of an ambush, and Spock found himself dragging his steps slightly.
"Good morning, sweetie." His mother said over her cup of spice tea. Spock's hesitation grew as Sarek inclined his head formally, each of them clearly trying to put him at his ease in their own way. He took his seat. "Good morning," He greeted. "Might I ask what prompts this gathering?"
Amanda attempted to look innocent. She was not entirely successful. "I just wanted to have breakfast with my son - "
Sarek cut her off, his eyes solemn. "You are fourteen years of age today, Spock."
Spock blinked, but did not change his expression, and remained silent. He knew humans celebrated birthdays, but they had never followed that custom before, and nor had any Vulcans he had ever heard of.
"Your mother and I have decided that it is time we looked to the issue of your bonding."
Oh. Spock remained impassive, but it felt like the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. He turned his eyes to his mother.
"We have no way of knowing whether it will work," she said, her gespar pastry untouched on her plate. "Or whether it is necessary. But it is a precaution that we feel we must take."
"Of course." Spock said, a little proud of how steady his voice was. It did make sense - to go through the pain of pon farr without a promised bondmate was rare, certainly painful, and sometimes fatal. However, he had always had a sort of hope that his human heritage meant that he wouldn't go through it at all. So, apparently, had his mother.
"You are agreeable?" His father asked, and if Spock didn't know better he would have said he was surprised.
He opened his mouth. His words stuck, a little, in his throat, but finally he said, "I would like to know more about the other party involved, but as always you are perfectly logical. I am agreeable."
His mother let out a sigh of relief, and his father shot her a glance that she ignored. "Oh, Spock, she's beautiful."
"Her name is T'Pring." Sarek said. "I have sent you her files, if you wish to retire to peruse them."
"He hasn't even eaten anything!" His mother scolded, and she passed him the gespar. "Besides, a girl is more than statistics and a family history. Eat, Spock, and I'll tell you - "
"No," He interrupted mildly. "If it is acceptable, I should like to return to my rooms to learn about this T'Pring. Will you be here all day?"
Amanda looked startled. "Yes, but - "
"Then if I require anecdotal supplementation to her official files, I shall seek you out and ask." He stood, inclining his head to them both. "Thank you."
Sarek inclined his head in return, and, a bit belatedly, so did his mother. He walked from the room, feeling her gaze on him until he turned the corner.
On his personal computer he found extensive files on T'Pring and her family, a well-known merchant clan. The files included images, and he opened one, wanting to study the girl he was to be promised to for life.
She was, as his mother said, beautiful. Her hair was long and silken-straight, her cheekbones high, her face as stone-set as any Vulcan could wish. But it seemed to Spock as if she were carved of ice, or the porous stone of Vulcan's white mountains. Her features moved nothing in him.
He was about to close the image when he felt Jim uncurl, catlike and blinking, in the back of his mind.
Missed you, came the thought, one of those right on the edge of the bond that he was not sure Jim was even aware of conveying. And then, louder and more awake, Ooh, who's she?
She is to be my promised bond. He thought, and his fingers shook a bit on his keyboard. Betrothed, is the closest equivalent in Common.
You know, I heard Vulcan all night, and I think I'm beginning to get it. Jim thinks, almost babbling. Like, it helps that I have your brain there to translate it for me, into feelings and stuff, but sometimes you think in Vulcan, too, and I'm pretty sure I'm starting to figure out the language.
Spock blinked. Fascinating. He thought, feeling somehow...nonplussed. You have no reaction to my betrothed?
Um, Jim thought, and Spock could sense his unease. She's pretty? Congratulations?
I am unsure such regards are in order, Spock thinks, and he can feel something snap into place in Jim's mind where it rests comfortably against his own.
Oh, Jim thinks. Oh, I thought - you don't love her. I mean, of course you don't, but you don't - you don't want this?
I am....hesitant. Spock said, and then frowned. You cannot feel my confusion?
It changes, how much of you I can feel. Jim thought. Usually it's like...yeah, I feel what you feel, 'cause we're...us, y'know? But sometimes...like today, I get here and you're all closed off, and looking at some Vulcan girl and I thought maybe you went and fell in love or something without me -
Illogical, Spock interrupted. Discounting the fact that Vulcans do not fall in love, you are with me for most of my life, how would I have fallen in love without your knowledge?
I don't know, man! Jim's voice was agitated. Somehow you went and got yourself engaged without my knowledge, so I didn't think it was that much of a stretch! He was almost yelling in Spock's head, and Spock blinked at his computer screen, taken aback.
Sorry. Jim said, after a moment. Spock nodded, knowing Jim could see him in the reflection on the now-dark computer screen.
I apologize for not consulting you. He thought. It did not occur to me to consider you in this. If you had been here, perhaps the conversation with my parents would have gone differently, this morning.
Jesus, they just sprang this on you? Jim's mental voice was incredulous, a little shaky. Shit. I'm sorry I wasn't here, dude. Frank came home a little drunk and - Spock could feel him stop that thought, forcibly wrench both of their minds away. It took me a while to get to sleep, is all.
Spock remembered far too well the first night he heard Kirk's mental voice - close to dawn on a dreamless night and he was pulled away from his bed, to a dark, alien kitchen and a terrified, alien mind. Help me help me help me help me - A fist, raised to strike a women who fairly glowed with strength and love in his new body's eyes, a face twisted with alcohol and rage. Help me help me someone oh god please - He remembered that it was all he could do to think I'm here, all he could do to think as hard as he could about the things his martial arts tutor had told him. All he could do to watch in amazement as the strange new body he was inhabiting stepped forward and went through the precise motions of a complicated Suus Mahna move, throwing a man perhaps three times his size over his shoulder and kneeling swiftly by his head, checking his pulse. He remembers how strange it was, the numb acceptance of his presence, the shocked obedience of his equally as shocked orders.
Spock. Jim pulled him away from the memory again, his mind-voice ragged. Stop, please.
You do not belong in that house. He replied, but he let go of the images, looking into his own eyes in the reflection.
We were talking about your betrothal, Jim reminded him, but it was a not a disagreement.
Yes. We were. Spock sighed and turned from his computer, sitting on the edge of his bed again. Her name is T'Pring, he added, as if that would help something.
Cool, Jim said, blankly, and then, That's total bullshit, you know.
Spock lay back on the bed, mirroring the stance Jim had taken the night before, trying to open himself up to the featureless expanse of ceiling as the other boy had to the night sky.
To what are you referring? He asked, assuming that Jim meant something other than the name "T'Pring" or the betrothal in general, which had too much logical reason behind it to be described as 'total bullshit'. Not that that would stop Jim, but even so.
The whole 'Vulcan's don't fall in love' line. Of course they do, and you know it.
Spock blinked at the ceiling. How would I know such a thing?
Uh, your father? Jim's mindvoice was that particular shade of confused it got when he was explaining something he thought should have been obvious to Spock.
Spock lifted his hands, lacing them together to block out the view of the ceiling. He felt strange, restless. My parents arrangement is one of logic.
Yeah, of course they told you that. Your dad is trying to be a model Vulcan now he has someone to model for. But you can't say you haven't noticed the way they look at each other. Something in Jim's voice indicated that he found something ironic in Spock's father's impassivity. There were times that Spock agreed with him.
It is not something I have observed. Spock thought, though he made a silent vow to pay more attention when next his parents were together. In any case, I do not love T'Pring.
Yeah, Jim acknowledged. I can feel you, again. I know how uncomfortable you are with this.
Unspeakably relieved, Spock sent him a touch of a smile, and felt the answering one, small and faltering. Jim's voice followed, just as small. Spock...what will happen to me? When you and T'Pring bond?
Spock closed his eyes, sinking into his bed. I don't know. He thought. I've tried to research our situation before, but there is no mention in any available Vulcan Science Academy files of anything close to the bond we share. We are unique, Jim.
Freaking fantastic, thought Jim. What will happen if I'm bonded too? If when...whatever it is, Crazy Time hits, and I'm worlds away and no one knows and...
It is called ponn farr. Spock thought, And there is no guarantee that it will hit me at all. The chances that it will hit you as well are 0.0023%.
You made that up. I thought Vulcan's couldn't lie! Jim sounded scandalized, as if Spock had kissed his mother in public.
They can't, apparently, if you could tell. Spock thought, even more of a smile growing.
I'm in your brain! Of course I can tell, moron, Jim thought at him, warmly exasperated, and suddenly everything felt a little lighter. Well, he continued, I guess we'll find out. Maybe when we're old and grey, you can add us to the Science Academy files.
Perhaps I shall. Spock propped his folded hands behind his head and crossed his legs, a pose that Jim often found comfortable.
I hope T'Pirr doesn't mind being married to one and a half humans, Jim thought, settled in his mind.
As do I, Spock thought, and felt Jim's laughter wash over him.
***
The announcement of his and T'Pring's bonding came out two days later, the bonding itself to happen two weeks after that. It was rushed for such an important matter, but Sarek was scheduled to leave for a twelve-month assignment on a Space Station orbiting Earth, and to do the ceremony without him would be unthinkable.
Spock hadn't considered the effect the news would have on his school life. Most of his instructors seemed to approve. His mathematics professor even went to so far as to remark upon it, when he handed back Spock's latest test. "Well done," he said, "I am glad to see that you are working to overcome your unfortunate handicap."
Spock inclined his head politely, accepted his paper, and walked back to his seat.
Jim, at the back of his mind, growled I'd like to give him a handicap. Spock quirked an eyebrow. Yeah, okay, that was lame. But he's an asshole.
His peers seemed to have the opposite reaction, becoming even more hostile towards him. The few who had spared kind glances or courteous words for him vanished altogether, replaced by tall, stone-faced young Vulcans who murmured words like "Half-breed" and "bastard" at him from behind his back, things that the Vulcan tongue had no equivalent for and they had to stumble through in clumsy, heavily-accented Common.
Jim, of course, found this hilarious. Harf-brid, he crowed after one particularly bad day, his laughter filling up Spock's mind so much that he was almost afraid it would burst out his mouth. Harf-brid! Jesus, that's amazing.
The next day, when his ears caught their cruel voices, Spock spun. "While you are correct that I am equally of the blood of two species, I believe you will find that my human mother was quite legally and rightfully bonded to my father well before my birth." He said, in perfect Common.
That shut them and Jim up, for a few minutes, at least. He was three classrooms down the hall before Jim spoke up again. Woah, was all he said.
You are not the only one learning languages, Spock thought, unable to contain just a breath of smugness. Could you say that in Vulcan?
Of course I could, Jim blustered, and when Spock went to sleep that night he tried.
He did pretty well up until the "legally and rightfully bonded" section, which wasn't surprising because there were four words that meant the same thing but for shades and nuances of meaning. For the first time in his life, as he listened through Jim's ears to Jim's voice mangling the breathy syllables of his tongue, Spock felt the urge to laugh.
He would later note how beautifully ironic it was that when the urge struck, he was without a body to do so.
It's not fair. Jim complained, after laughing for him, eyes shining bright blue. Linguistics is your favorite subject, and Common is waaayyy easier to learn than freaking Vulcan.
But he kept working on it, and within the week he had the whole thing correctly and smoothly. He grinned at Spock in the cracked mirror in his bathroom, and Spock again felt that strange, inexplicable need to embrace him.
His instructors, in the week leading up to his bonding, apparently unanimously decided that T'Pring should be forewarned of what she was getting into, despite the rules dictating contact between betrothed before the time of the meld, and sat them together in class. In person T'Pring was more beautiful and more cold than she was as a still image, but Spock found himself impressed despite himself with her academic prowess. They quickly rose to the top of the class, fighting for the top place from day to day.
Well, she's smart enough for us, Jim thought as he walked from Planetary Geography, his PADD in his arms. He had been referring to Spock and himself as "us" much more lately, a habit that Spock supposed he was forming in response to the fact that soon enough they were both to be tied to one woman for life. A little lacking in the compassion department, but if you've gotta marry a Vulcan there's not really much variety there.
Indeed, Spock agreed. Perhaps this bonding will not be as bad as we have feared.
You know how we can tell? We should play chess with her. That always -
Jim broke off as Spock slowed down, both of them examining the three young Vulcan males that blocked the hallway. They were all quite tall and broad, the one in the middle especially so, his ears protruding excessively from his skull and his face flat and too-wide. His neck was too long and his head too small and his face was twisted with more anger than Spock had ever seen a Vulcan display.
You know, I think that's the first time I've seen a truly ugly Vulcan. Most of you are so ridiculously pretty you're gonna give me a complex. Jim thought, and there was a rueful sort of truth behind the thought.
Illogical, Spock responded immediately, startled. Although humans as a race are remarkably varied in aesthetic quality, you yourself are -
He was interrupted by the middle Vulcan, although enough of what he had intended to say must have gotten through because there was a surprised whisper of Thanks before they both focused their attention on his words.
"You do not deserve her." The Vulcan was saying. "She should not be defiled by such impurity."
Spock stood straight and considered beginning to walk again. He also considered turning around and heading back the way he'd come. There were other ways to get to his next class, ones that didn't involve passing through a roadblock of his peers.
But he did neither. Instead he stayed, and he listened, and maybe that was the Jim in him because he could feel a vibrating sort of readiness at the back of his mind.
"You do not deserve her," the Vulcan insisted again.
And you do? Jim asked incredulously. Spock ignored him. "Perhaps not. It is not my decision, in any case, but it seems to me we are suited, intellectually at least. What is it, exactly, that you object to?"
The guarded anticipation the Jim was feeling slid smoothly into surprise. Spock, what -
"You are a half-breed. You are born of a human woman, a human whore." The word, again, was Common, and he pronounced it with a certain flavor of glee.
Don't goad him, Spock. Jim said, and there was a touch of worry to him, now. Spock tried to send him reassurance, but his mind was alive with anger's sharp buzz. "My mother is a respected linguist and scientist." He said, tightly.
"She is human. After that, who cares?" The Vulcan paced forward a few steps, closer than was courteous. "Humans are savage. They are unthinking, brutal, illogical, irrational beasts, ugly and worthless. And half of you - "
Spock didn't let him finish, swinging an arm up and around to strike at his face. Jim gave a horrified shout in his mind, but he was drowned out by Spock's own heartbeat, the molten anger that seized him and made him tremble.
The other Vulcan twisted with his blow, apparently expecting this, and his friends moved swiftly forward, moving to catch Spock's arms.
Left - Came Jim's split-second warning, and Spock struck out in a closed-fisted punch obviously not from any Vulcan martial art. He spun right and managed to get a knee into the third Vulcan's groin but by then the first was up again, slamming him back against the wall. "Savage." He said again, shaking his head to clear it. His fingers came up, finding the precise points on Spock's neck that would render him unconscious.
Spock, his mind awash with Jim's memories, slammed his head forward into the other Vulcan's.
He collapsed to the ground, seeing stars, and blinked them away in time to see T'Pring, on the ground, kneeling next to the ugly Vulcan, who was lying prostrate on the floor.
"Stonn?" T'Pring was saying, her voice more emotional than Spock had ever heard it. "Stonn, awaken."
The Vulcan did not move.
T'Pring looked up at Spock, and then slowly stood. "If you have killed him, half-breed..."
'Least she knows how to pronounce it. Jim thought bitterly. But I don't think I want that chess game anymore.
Nor do I, Spock acknowledged, and turned away from the scene. As he moved, his head throbbed and darkness threatened at the corners of his eyes.
Spock? Jim asked anxiously, and then the other two Vulcans were on him, slamming the edges of their open palms into his sides simultaneously. He tried to spin and faltered, his vision swimming.
You headbutted him too hard. Shit, Spock, get out of there -
Excellent advice. Spock stumbled back a step, but before he could get his feet under him to run, a flat palm slammed against his temple, and he dropped.
From where he lay, he could see that a teacher was approaching. He watched as T'Pring stepped forward, saw her lie through her stoneface mask that he had attacked Stonn unprovoked, that the others had had to restrain him. He tried to lever himself upwards in order to make a case for himself, but his arms shook and his head throbbed and he felt himself slipping away.
Jim's simple, heartfelt Bitch was the last thought he remembered before he passed out.