Should really be doing homework but this plotbunny, oh my god. I don't even know how to explain this. And this was meant to be sweet, honestly. Sweet and fluffy. Disney fairy-tale sweet. I'm not sure where it decided to become a Grimm-type fairytale. Probably when I wrote in the birds...
You'll understand that comment in a minute.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek nor any of the content within, I make no money from this, yada yada.
Mau
Spock knows he is different.
Not just by basis of his genetics, half of it from a lively red-blooded species and half from a paradoxically cold desert race worlds away. He knows that too, of course; his peers, his instructors and the world do not let him forget it. But there is something more than that; oddities he knows better than to speak of, even - especially - to his family.
When Spock is five he asks his mother why his father wed her and spent millions of credits on genetic research to produce a half-breed son (that is his precise phrasing) that the man clearly doesn't want.
Amanda Grayson is horrified.
"Spock!" She cries, aghast. "Oh, of course he wants you; what would make you think such a thing?"
(She does not, Spock always remembers, ever try to defend Sarek's choice to marry her).
Spock's father seems confident that he understands the problem. He summons Spock to join him later that day in the chill gray of dusk, and they sit outside with folded legs on mounds of soft sand as T'Khut gleams fat and pale in the sky.
"Spock," Sarek tells him, "You should not take the words of your peers as unassailable fact. Remember your lessons. Have I ever given evidence to make you believe that you were unwanted?"
Spock says nothing.
Sarek seems content to leave the question rhetorical. "Heed only logic and proof, and much will become clear. This is why we control emotion - to prevent such misunderstandings as this."
It's almost, almost a nice moment.
Almost.
"You must improve your control if you are not to shame us," Sarek adds - and promptly shatters any potential the evening had.
This seems to conclude the talk. Sarek leaves, and seems to mind not at all that his son remains outside in contemplation. For his part Spock watches the stars, and their light reflects in his eyes so they glow almost amber. He is silent because he knows his father never lies, and he is very aware that during their conversation Sarek avoided saying that he actually did want his son; and despite Sarek's assumption Spock does, in fact, have evidence to the contrary.
Because Spock remember everything - everything - and this includes the twilight silence of his birth. He remembers bursting from darkness into light, the dry, gnarled hands of a Vulcan priestess clutching him around the middle and shifting him into the cool, stale air.
He remembers waiting silently, silently, watching the brightness around him and waiting for meaning from those blurs of color. And though it meant nothing at the the time he also remembers the dark-robed form that flowed forth from a corner of the room to assess him as mother sighed and fell asleep behind them.
So he also remembers that dark form, Sarek, and the flatness of the man's eyes when the priestess held Spock out to be presented.
"Sarek, your son," she told him, all ceremony but still pleased. Still expecting Sarek to be pleased.
But Sarek had looked at his tiny, quiet son, making no move to touch him, and met the child's shimmering eyes with his own.
And then – and nothing will ever make Spock forget this – he turned away.
"So human," Sarek sighed.
And after that, Spock thinks... no, there is really no room left for denial.
Vulcans naturally have a light gait.
It's part genetic, a byproduct of feline ancestry, and partly habit born of need; their swift lope over Vulcan's shifting, blustering sands could hardly be supported if any individual possessed cloddish feet, heavy or stumbling. Grace is expected, balance assumed. Still, though, Spock always manages to distinguish himself.
He is swift, the instructors note; too swift, perhaps. Spock almost doesn't notice their interest, but then the teachers of the physical disciplines start arriving with those of physics and biology. They use no instruments at first but just stare at him, silent and unmoving. But he knows they are recording, measuring, and calculating with their eyes, and they are reaching impossible answers. When one finally brings in a tricorder Spock deliberately scans the environment with his own eyes, then bolts forward.
Lances of pain spear up his ankle as the shockingly loud snap of broken bone rings throughout the training field. Spock surveys his disfigured ankle dispassionately as the instructors rush over, then flicks his eyes to the obvious hole over which he'd 'tripped'. A minor sacrifice.
The next time he's on the field he's limping along, slow and awkward as the rest of the class go through their motions and exercises effortlessly. Spock heals quickly - "Clearly the break was not as severe as we thought," the healer tells him, slightly puzzled. "We must recalibrate our instruments" - and soon he is following the others with easy grace, always running or moving at a steady pace, and with none of the queer smoothness or flexibility that he'd shown before.
Every other week their speeds are tested for improvement, and the order of testing is voluntary. Spock always chooses to go last. He is in third place, every time, by precisely .3 seconds.
Spock's eyes glow with the amber of starlight, if he lets them, and the reflection of T'Khut's red glare when Vulcan's sister-planet is close can render him truly fiendish in appearance. But he doesn't let that happen around others. He once comes across an old couple while walking home from classes on a dark winter evening, and that experience teaches him the importance of discretion.
It's chill – by his planet's standards, anyway – and Spock just wants to get home as quick as possible. So it seems perfectly natural to adjust his eyes, in his easy, instinctive way, and let the dark clarify into light.
Except the couple, right as he does it, freeze and stare at him. The man just shifts and averts his gaze, looking stiff, but the woman's face twists and distorts with an odd intensity. It takes a moment to register, rare as overt expressions are on Vulcan, but after a moment Spock believes he can accurately call the expression hatred.
"E'shau!" She spits. And that is enough.
His blood roaring in his ears, Spock soars past the two on swift slim feet. He is too quick – impossibly quick, unnaturally quick, he thinks. He races for home with the cry ringing behind him, taunting under the solemn night sky.
E'shau.
Demon.
He reaches his family's estate, then goes past it, ignoring the distant sound of I'Chaya's puzzled howl. Demon. Is that the secret? Is the abomination of his birth worse than a mixing of blood? Is it something truly wrong, truly perverse – truly evil?
Spock doesn't feel particularly evil. But he's certainly, certainly something, and what is that?
Spock spends the better part of the night running, running, running over the hot sands of Vulcan, pulling himself with his unnatural (unholy?) grace up over crumbling cliffs. Once a wild sehlat spots him and gives chase, but Spock is faster. The creature howls, perplexed, as Spock lopes circles around the lumbering beast, then gives up. This just spurs Spock to run faster, faster, faster, and finally as the sun begins to crest the sky the child falls to his knees, forgets control, and laughs until he weeps.
Sarek would think the display shameful; Sarek knows nothing.
Spock knows what the other children say of him, that he is un-Vulcan, an alien. Unworthy. He wants to prove them wrong, to prove the planet wrong. To do something that will make his father approve. So it's a simply decision, really, to take the khas-wan early. Spock knows he has no need for fret over his chances of success. In the same way that his eyes gleam and his legs outstrip the laws of reality, he knows that nothing in Vulcan's Forge will, or can, kill him.
He doesn't plan on I-Chaya.
Le'matya are not dangerous. Not to Spock, anyway. He can outpace them easily, and sometimes they are good company. He has wandered the mountains around ShiKahr often since that starlit night where he was named a demon, and more than once a curious le'matya has come forth to investigate this strange interloper with his two limbs and fluid grace. Looking at them Spock feels an odd kinship, and he lets his teeth pull back in a snarl, makes his ears twitch and twist in ways that he suspects they should not be able to move. It seems to mean something, anyway, and he wrestles with their wild kits and ignores the sting of kitten-venom from his tiny green scratches. By this point he has probably built up an immunity to the beasts altogether.
But this le'matya does not give him the time to test and tease, to reveal his uniqueness. He is wandering through the desert with I-Chaya when he sees it, looming and close; too close. It lunges and Spock twists around to run, but I'Chaya leaps forward first.
No, no, stop, he thinks, and he says it aloud, too, to no avail. I-Chaya doesn't need to do this. A le'matya would never attack an adult sehlat, and Spock is fast. More fast than this huge creature, certainly. But his wishes mean nothing. I'Chaya kills the le'matya, which makes him guilty enough; but even worse are the long green scrapes along his side, marks carrying a poison to which Spock is surely, surely immune. He cradles I'Chaya close as the creature dies, and wonders, bleakly, why he has been cursed.
When Spock is seven they tell him he is to be mated.
"Very well," he says, because a refusal would not be tolerated anyway. He wonders who his parents have in mind. He speaks to none of the girl-children at his school, and still spends most of his days studying or running on the sheer mountain peaks. His family wonders what he does there, and he has caught Sybok following him once. He hopes this girl does not try to learn his habits. He does not know if he could tolerate that.
But it turns out he has no reason for concern after all; his parents find no one.
The procedure is, should be, simple. Get an experienced mind-matcher and a room full of children. Test the combinations of children by having the man or woman loosely connect their minds. Attend several such groupings, then re-test the pairs who did best, and marry them off appropriately. Easy. Efficient.
Usually.
Lists of likely possibilities are given to the parents of the forty-odd children at the first grouping. Spock doesn't have any names.
"He was not at all compatible with any of them," the mind-matcher reports when Sarek demands an explanation. "Statistically unlikely, but it must happen to someone eventually. Try another group."
They do. And another, and another, and another. All have the same answer; Spock is not compatible with anyone.
He is capable of bonding, the healers assure Sarek when they take him to be examined. Just not well, if no one can be found to match his mind. But, yes, he can sustain a bond, and that is enough for his clan.
They seek out a girl named T'Pring, a child from a lower-noble family Her clan is not nearly so renowned as the clan of Surak, but whose is? More importantly T'Pring's potential matches were all weak ones. A situation quite like Spock's is unheard of, but at least T'Pring should not miss out so badly by settling for him. That is the impression Spock has, quite distinctly; she will settle for him, in exchange for joining his illustrious clan.
Except apparently the healers lied; the joining doesn't work.
The attempt does, however, leave T'Pring comatose for two days.
His parents stop talking about bonding after that.
Vulcans are vegetarians. Spock... is not.
Not exactly.
He pretends to be. Certainly it is no hardship to disdain the pungent meats mother indulges in sometimes, hot and burnt and oily-smelling. The meat always seems black and dead and distasteful, but she laughs when he says as much. "I know you're a vegetarian, sweetheart, and I'll try not to eat meat in front of you too often," she says. "But don't say thing like that to others, okay? No matter how disgusted you are, it's rude and culturally insensitive."
Spock doesn't argue. The thing is, though, he doesn't find it disgusting – he just doesn't understand why his mother won't eat her meat raw.
The initial impulse feels almost perverse. He's running through the steep side of the L-Langon mountains, miles out from Sas-a-Shar's edge. He stops to just sit and breathe awhile, half-meditating, when a haurak lands beside him.
The small brown bird shows no sign of distress in his presence. Vulcans have been pacifists and vegetarians both for over two thousand years, and aside from predatory creatures like wild sehlats and le'matya most native creatures lack fear of his gentle race. The bird ruffles its feathers uneasily when Spock lifts it up, then turns its beak to him almost hopefully; sometimes Vulcans will entice creatures with food, either for studying purposes or as a display to children, and so close to Shikahr this bird might be an experienced model.
So the bird barely twitches when Spock's hand closes, slowly; and it doesn't have time to do more than flap a wing, feebly, as he stuffs the creature into his mouth.
Feathers are awful.
But the blood, the blood is rich and warm, sliding down his throat even through the ear-splitting crack of hollow bones. He spits out the talons and beak, almost as an afterthought; then he stares down at the green-stained pile, right where the guileless bird had sat, and realizes what he's done.
There is no logic in thinking that expelling the bird from his body will reverse the horror he has committed, but Spock is eight and not very logical at all, really, considering he just ate a bird. So he throws it up, with extreme difficulty – the Vulcan body is not well suited for such things – but the resulting mass of stained feathers and bile just makes him feel worse.
Demon, he thinks. Yes. That sounds about right.
When Spock is nine Sybok finds religion.
Or creates it. Spock never really decides which.
"Sybok, there is no way to logically parse myth from fact," Spock reasons sensibly, eyeing the papers of research spread about Sybok's room with a dubious eye. "I understand that some smaller components of religion exist today, usually in forms that are not spiritual at all – but there is reason no one worships the old gods."
"Because they don't believe."
"Well. Yes."
"Well, I do."
Spock isn't quite sure how to respond to that.
Sybok tells him about the warrior goddess Akraana, consort of Khosarr. T'Priah, goddess of fertility. Reah. T'Pel. Kir-alep. Ny'one. Natara. The names start to blur. So many! And some of what Sybok speaks of – they are not gods at all, not really. Just something... more.
The fletan are water-spirits. Tam'a, spirits of the dead, may haunt enemies in the physical form of their old bodies. Sirshos'im are evil will-o-wisps that seek out lost wanderers in the desert (though how anyone can get lost in the desert Spock doesn't understand) and eat their katras.
This puts another thought in Spock's mind, though. And he wonders, thinking of a twisted Vulcan face on a dark night, if his species has really forsaken the old gods after all.
"What about e'shau?" Spock finally ventures, quietly.
"Them? They live in mountains," Sybok says, and doesn't notice Spock stiffen. "Not like the sreman. Those are basically rock, but occasionally they sing prophecies to visitors. The e'shau, though – those are nasty. They eat travelers too – and anything else they can find – and basically don't think beyond murder and mayhem. Totally evil. And they're quick. You hear of an e'shau around, you want to get away fast."
Spock is silent.
"Oh," Sybok adds. "You know the lara I've been watching for class?" He turns around, picks something up, then presents a complacent blueish bird. "Would you mind feeding him? I should get this cleaned before Father gets home."
"I think perhaps you should do that," Spock says, "because it is your assignment," and he flees.
Spock will always, always find it ironic that Sarek banishes Sybok for believing in a religion of which Spock might possibly – probably - be a part.
When Spock is eleven he watches as a Starfleet shuttle crash-lands just outside Shikahr's teeming border. He also watches as the Tellarite inside is rescued and patched up, and hears with his too-alert ears as the healer tells him, "let's get you to the embassy."
Sarek hosts the Tellarite for two days until the USS Farview can pick him up. The Tellarite is perfectly polite and a very discreet guests, and Spock thinks nothing of this until he leaves ("Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Grayson" "Oh, it was no trouble at all - ") and his mother, with some astonishment, demands of Sarek, "Are you sure that was a Tellarite?"
His father, oddly, just shrugs. Frowning, Spock turns to his mother. "He said he was a Tellarite, and based upon descriptions I believe he fit the typical profile. Why would you believe otherwise?"
"He was polite! Tellarites are never polite, arguing is their life, Spock! And he said the food was no trouble at all, because he's a vegetarian. I didn't know Tellarite vegetarian's existed."
Spock blinks. Later he researches Tellarites very thoroughly and finds that his mother is correct; less than .000002 percent of the Tellarite population is vegetarian, and on a planetary survey 0 of 600,000 participants said they did not enjoy arguing. Their guests was very unusual, by Tellarite standards, but because Spock has never encountered a Tellarite before that meeting the thought had never even occurred to him.
An idea starts to grow.
Spock is climbing among the mountains when he sees the traveler.
It is a human. Young, perhaps around twenty earth-years old. A tourist, most likely. The man's black hair is matted with with old sweat, and yet the man's skin is now red and dry; his mouth hangs half-open, and the bulge of his tongue is swollen. Dehydration.
The man, seeing him, opens his mouth wider and rasps something that might be "please". Spock looks at him.
He has never seen a person die before.
And he feels the touch of Death on this man, knows it intimately. Folding his legs, Spock sits himself elegantly upon a rock and sits there, for six hours, until the man's heart stops.
Spock is twelve when the claws appear. It starts as a vague itch at the tips of his fingers. Annoying, but mild. He considers telling his parents, then dismisses the thought in the same instant. There is little he tells his parents these days, and certainly nothing about his body. He would prefer not to deal with doctors more than strictly necessary – he doesn't want to encourage odd questions.
But after a few days he is reconsidering, because the itch is maddening. Even Vulcan control only goes so far, and eventually he decides to just follow his body's desire. So out among the cliffs he rubs his fingers furiously against the crumbling stone until there is a sudden release of pressure. His fingers drip with blood.
There is an opening, small and almost unnoticeable, just above the nail of each finger. But if he flexes some inner-muscle of his fingers – and he knows how to do this, like he knows how to make his eyes shine and his ears twitch – then sharp translucent claws protrude out, out, out, far past his fragile Vulcan nails.
It occurs to him that they would be very good for catching birds.
Spock is fourteen when it finally happens.
He is chasing a bird. He has not decided if he will kill it or not. He shouldn't. He has only killed twice since that first time, both after slipping into a half-sleep and listening to his instincts without thinking. He is fully awake, now, but something in his blood has been on fire all day. He has heard older students speak of the Burn of their Time, and wonders if he is fated to an early Pon Far, an early death. It wouldn't surprise him.
Either way, his skin is on fire, and the bird will help. He knows this, like he knows to twist just so when falling from a distance, how to slice the throat of an animal without making a mess, how to extend the tiny fangs that slipped in front of his flat vegetarian-teeth just last year. And he knows it in precisely the same way that he knows nothing in the Forge can kill him – that nothing at all, maybe, can kill him if he desires otherwise.
He is quick, but the bird has wings. The heat of the day makes flight effortless, and the bird floats just out of reach. He rumbles a growl, lowly, then stops. Even with the burning, that is just too much.
Then the bird dives, and Spock lunges forward. Misses. The bird is huddled deep in a tiny pit in the mountain side, staring out at him with perceptive fear. This creature sees Spock for what he is; a predator.
A poor one, right now. Spock flattens himself and stretches in his arm, but he can't reach the tiny creature however hard he tries. Another growl threatens to emerge. He could find another bird, and much more easily; but this one is the right bird, the one that will stop the fire boiling his blood, searing his skin, melting his eyes -
The world shifts.
He scrambles in the hole, catches the bird in his mouth. It's bigger now, huge and awkward to hold. But the blood is just as rich, and the talons even easier to spit away. It wasn't his intent, but he doesn't think twice, now, about eating.
When the carcass is clean he yawns. Stretches. Bares his fangs. And then wonders when, exactly, he turned into a feline.
A small feline, at that. But it's as easy as purring on a warm night (and oh, how didn't he realize before?) to run forward in this form, too. He's the size of an earth house cat, maybe, can't look at himself to know, but his speed and strength are far greater. He runs past a huge sehlat and watches it cringe from him, knowingly. Something about this form warns them in a way his Vulcan disguise – was it ever anything else? - does not.
And oh, oh, why should he care if he is a demon? Who could call this wrong? He leaps over miles of sand, the wind roaring in his ears, and for the first time wonders if he is blessed.
Sarek argues, cajoles, commands. But Spock is firm. He will join Starfleet.
'Banished'. The word makes his mother weep. Spock isn't actually banished, not really, but he's disowned in all but title. That doesn't matter to him. Sybok was fully, legally banished, and he was likely more right than anyone ever knew. So it's okay.
Spock goes to Starfleet, and there he barely has to hold back. "Amazing!" The instructors declare, admiring his speed, his fighting, his stealth. They praise him and his Vulcan heritage both, and in turn he neglects to mention that the infamous 'Vulcan nerve pinch' is typically considered impossible for use on non-Vulcans, and even on his own race it is very difficult. As for his exemplary physique – well, he's a hybrid. Naturally he's a little different.
Afraid to offend their only Vulcan, their star cadet, no one protests too much when he squirms out of physicals.
He is assigned to the Starship Enterprise right out of the academy. More than that, he goes right to the post of Science Officer. "You better be worth it," Captain Pike tells Spock his first day aboard.
The very next day he apologizes. "Lord, I hope we get more Vulcans!" Pike sighs, and Spock decides that acting like his too-perfect memory is Vulcan-standard will likely work out well.
Yes. Spock thinks he will fit in just fine in Starfleet.
"I'm not much fond of cats," says Doctor Piper, and Spock hates him immediately.
Not that he lets this show, of course. Hate is illogical. Spock is Vulcan – mostly. So he is polite, faultlessly polite, in expressing his disdain. "I apologize, Doctor Piper," he says, early enough when the doctor will be easily waylaid. "But I really cannot interrupt my experiment. May we reschedule?"
"I apologize, Doctor. But it seems I am scheduled for double duty that day."
"My apologies. I really must be present for an experiment in science-lab three."
"There are several personnel issues I must see to."
"Now is truly not convenient..."
Piper becomes increasingly irate. So Spock moves onto phase two of his plan; convincing Piper that he doesn't want Spock around.
"Are you entirely certain that is the right compound, doctor?"
"I believe the average human temperature is actually .1 degrees Fahrenheit below what you stated, Doctor - "
"You are somewhat old for a surgeon, are you not? Trembling hands cannot be conducive to surgery."
"Are you aware of the acuity of the Vulcan olfactory system? You smell rather consistently of alcohol, Doctor..."
Captain Pike is amused. "Piper really isn't crazy about you," he tells Spock sympathetically. "What happened?"
"Nothing whatsoever," Spock responds, because if he is only partly-maybe-Vulcan he might as well just lie.
"Well, either way you have a physical tomorrow – and if you don't appear I've ordered the security chief to give you an escort." Pike grins suddenly, clapping him on the shoulder. "Have fun!"
The readings, of course, are bizarre.
"This doesn't make any sense at all!" Piper cries, dismayed.
"It may be that you are deficient in your xenobiological studies," Spock corrects smoothly. "My readings are quite average, and perfectly healthy.
Saying so he circumspectly memorizes the readings. For a Vulcan they really are inexplicable – and, in most cases, probably lethal.
Fascinating.
"Will this be a problem?" Spock adds, because he can't not. "I could arrange to have you tutored – although it may be best to attend to all of your lacking areas."
"Just... get out," Piper mutters, and Spock easily slides from Sickbay as Piper curses and jams buttons behind him.
Problem solved.
Spock knows there are typically a few pets aboard starships, and the old earth tradition of ship-cats is still prevalent; even starships have pests, after all, and there's really nothing worse than a mice infestation in an enclosed space. Even modern technologies have issues with pests, so cats still have their uses. The ship's recent infection of ruaka – a small, leech-like rodent from Ceti Yellici II – was largely halted due to the ship-cats, and Spock attributes them to the sudden disappearance of a lethal three- inch insect that had escaped months before and killed two crewmen before vanishing. Ship-cats are valued and common, but more importantly specific cats are rarely differentiated; no one even blinks to see an additional feline stalking the decks.
Having since had the opportunity to inspect himself in mirrors, Spock knows his feline form is small – roughly seven and a half pounds – and deceptively slim. He's pitch-black, save for a slight silver sheen around the paws. His eyes are very close to his human ones, at least, but otherwise the only trait marking him as odd is the fact that the tiny blood vessels in his ears, when hit with a strong light, allow one to see veins that protrude green instead of red.
Phaser fire rends the sky, shrill, deafening shrieks that make his too-sensitive ears ring. The surge of fire recedes abruptly, giving way to a silence almost more foreboding than the noise.
Spock risks letting his day-sight give over into night vision, which makes his eyes flare so strangely. Beside him Pike pants, clutching a phaser to his chest. On his other side Ensign Putessa is on the ground moaning quietly, grasping his bleeding arm while Ensign Trenton attends to the man's flayed leg. Putessa is white-faced and pale with blood loss. Spock dismisses his presence ruthlessly; he can sense that Putessa is as good as dead.
"There are too many," Pike rasps, chest heaving with his gasps. "God, we'll never - "
He stops himself, abruptly, eyes flickering to the ensigns. Pike changes what he had been about to say. "Spock, any luck with communications?"
"No, Sir."
Pike curses lowly as a few tentative shots fire near their position. Spock shifts, frowning through the smoky haze. They're covered behind a stand of trees, out where the renegade religious group has situated themselves around the the natives' tiny huts. It's dark, but Spock picks them out easily.
There is a river to their six, deep and powerful; and venturing to the right or left would just bring them into range of the cult's traps. Spock tilts his head, thoughtfully, as starlight gleams down through the trees. Fire burns along his skin. Yes, he can do this.
"Please wait here, Captain," he says politely.
"What? Spock, what're you – wait! Spock!"
He doesn't often have a chance to run while on the ship, and it's strangely exhilarating, even in this tense moment, to simply stretch his legs and move. There is no restraint. He ducks through a barrage of deadly phaser fire, smells the burnt scent of ozone singe his fur – no, his hair – is he a cat? No, he's fully Vulcan, and he tackles one man to the ground so hard his skull breaks, then leaps up to pinch another on the neck; a wildly screaming man leaps at him, and is knocked away with effortless contempt.
They are nothing to him; weak, useless, obsolete. And he knows, knows, knows, in that special way, that they can't kill him. He is no danger.
So he hisses and bats and smacks and rams into a dozen bodies until they're strewn all about him, groaning or dead. He doesn't bother to check. With this accomplished it's a small matter to find his party's communicators.
Pike has not waited for him, but comes along limping grimly with a teary-eyed Ensign Trenton at his side. "Putessa's dead," he says, very flatly.
Spock nods. He has learned that humans do not approve of certain statements concerning death – statements like 'I know' – so he says nothing.
Pike takes the communicator from his hand. It's covered in blood, and for a moment he just stares at it.
"Three to beam up." The captain sounds almost resigned. And in the second before the wash of the transporter beam hits them, Spock wonders why he feels so alive.
Pike does not ask him about the mission, about the men he killed with such ease or the red flash of his eyes. He doesn't talk to Spock much at all anymore. Spock doesn't mind. There has always been something – missing, about Pike. Close, he always thinks. So close. Close to what, he isn't sure, but Pike doesn't quite fit. Spock's not sure what will, who will, but he'll know when he finds them.
"I'm proud to have worked with you," Pike tells him, taking a sip of whiskey.
"And I you, Captain," is the polite, correct response. Quite true. But Pike eyes him like Spock is doing something nefarious.
"There's something wrong with you," he says. Abruptly, like he's come to some decision. "There always has been."
"I am not certain what you mean, Sir."
"You do. You might not care, but you do."
Spock tilts his head, considering, and says nothing.
"You're a damn fine officer," Pike qualifies. "Damn fine. Never doubt that."
"I do not."
Pike ignores the interruption. "But, see, there's more. There could be, I mean. But you don't have it. The heart, in what you do. The - "
Spock smiles, humorlessly, and watches Pike flinch from the strange sight. "The soul?" he mocks.
"...Maybe."
Spock nods, and smooths his face back into a mask of Vulcan implacability. "That would not surprise me," he agrees.
Pike finishes his drink and leaves.
And Spock never speaks to him again.
"A pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant-Commander."
The room is suffused with the scent of the desert sun, fragrant kasa fruit and damp leaves; and beneath it all, warm and subtly musky, is the rich pulse of iron-blood. Prey, his mind says, but no, that's not right. Vulnerable, but not prey, and his next thought is, he is the one.
He is mine.
Captain Kirk is smiling at him, politely, shining gold; and in comparison the world is gray.
"Captain," is all Spock can manage; and his fate is sealed.
Spock darts through the halls in cat-form, ignoring the occasional crewmen that reach out with slow hands to try and pet him. There is a mouse – or something like it – and it's tiny mammal-smell clogs his throat sweetly. Ahead – yes – right – and now -
"Damn it, cat!"
He sees the foot coming, and in initial panic freezes, debating whether or not to show his unnatural speed. The wait is too long; the foot collides, and he yowls unconsciously as he falls against the wall. He hisses as the foot swings back again, baring his fangs -
"Crewman!"
The foot freezes.
Captain Kirk is upset. No one on his ship will be going around torturing animals, you get that, crewman? And the man nods yessir, yessir, three bags full sir, and bolts as soon as he's released.
Kirk turns to Spock. His voice softens.
"Well, are you alright?"
The cat hums, and for once doesn't hiss in protest to the hand that flattens his upraised fur. That's not right, some part of him thinks. It is meant to be the other way – I am meant to -
"I'm going to take you to Sickbay," Kirk declares, interrupting his thought.
...This might be a problem.
The fact that the new CMO, Doctor McCoy, does not realize his patient is green-blooded leaves Spock distinctly unimpressed. In fairness, however, all McCoy does is check his ribs; and despite the mutters about being "a doctor, not a veterinarian or cat-whisperer, damnit," the touch along his sore chest is gentle.
Alright. He might be a little better than Piper.
Kirk likes playing chess; more than that, he is good at it, good enough to occasionally stump Spock. When a tentative match in the rec room turns into weekly meetings, Spock thinks he should brush up on his strategies.
He doesn't want to disappoint, after all.
On Delta Auteilli IV the landing party gets caught in a landslide.
Most unfortunate,Spock thinks, because he knows that the three red-shirted ensigns will be dead by sunset. But as for the captain -
Fragile, he thinks. Kirk is – flickering. There is no better term. The captain might die, Spock realizes. If Spock does nothing.
(It has never occurred to him, in the past, to intervene when he feels someone about to die).
Kirk is knocked unconscious with a rock to the head; his feet are buried in rubble, one badly twisted. As for the other three ensigns – one takes his last, shuddering breath as Spock looks on. The woman is already dead, he sees, her chest crushed. And the last -
The last is a young man, twenty perhaps, staring at Spock with wide-rimmed blue eyes, fearful and half-glazed with pain. "Sir?" He rasps.
Spock turns his back to the man. Digs out Kirk. Carries the captain to the shuttle, ignoring the shuddering voice drifting away, weakly, behind him.
The ensign would only slow them.
Kirk is whisked off to Sickbay as soon as they arrive. Spock is restless on the bridge, continually inquiring after the captain, asking often enough that Lieutenant Sulu starts staring at him with something like speculative respect. But that's irrelevant.
When Kirk wakes he hands over the con to Sulu, then leaves. He tells himself that he needs to make his report immediately, and knows in the same instant it is a lie.
"Lieutenant-Commander – you're not hurt?" Kirk asks immediately.
"No, Sir."
"The others - "
"Dead, Sir."
This is a somewhat-lie. The blue-eyed Ensign Kelly is probably still alive, rasping dry smoke-filled breaths beside his friends' stinking corpses. But he will be dead, very soon, so Spock reasons that it is much the same thing.
Kirk is looking at him with sadly, but with gratitude. "I understand I have you to thank for my rescue, Mr. Spock," he says.
That sounds good. Mr. Spock. Much better than 'Lieutenant-Commander'. Or maybe it is just the way the captain says it?
The captain tries to continue. "I - "
"Jim! You're awake!"
First Officer Mitchell barrels into the room, all smiles. His presence seems to wipe the last of the melancholy from the captain's face. "I'm fine, Gary," he assures fondly.
"You once said that with a punctured lung," Mitchell scoffs. "I'll believe it when the doctor lets you out of his claws – you're dismissed, Lieutenant," he adds to Spock, distractedly. Kirk flashes the Vulcan a brief smile, then turns back toward the energetic navigator.
...Spock does not approve of Gary Mitchell.
"Sir," Sulu ventures warily the next day. "I was wondering if you might like to work with me on a botany project? I'm trying to breed hybrids for the sleeping lilies of Catrelli IV and Drenelli V's water-weeds.
Spock can see the medicinal advantage of such a pairing. The request surprises him - Sulu has always seemed to be intimidated by the Vulcan - but his response of "Certainly, Lieutenant," gets a wide smile in return.
How strange.
"There's your patient, Bones!" Kirk exclaims, pleased. The black cat at his feet only has time to blink before being scooped into the air.
"Get that rat outta here," McCoy grouches. "Ain't sanitary, having cat hair in the mess."
The doctor immediately contradicts his words by trying to stroke the cat; trying being the key word. The feline hisses, back arching, and McCoy jerks back his arm. Kirk just laughs. "Looks like he's picky."
McCoy grumbles something about odd tastes and space-related brain injuries, then goes back to his food without concern.
Spock settles down and watches the room with gleaming amber eyes, and enjoys the sight of Kirk's still, unwavering form, safe and whole.
Starfleet was definitely a good idea.
Spock finds it odd that it does not occur to any of the others that the he, being a Vulcan and a natural telepath, is unaffected by the barrier which so alters Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner.
The truth is that he is affected, but not overtly, and not in any lasting way. He feels it, though, the instant he sees the barrier's blue sheen. A light presence digging into his skull, deep and insidious. Strong. It would make Spock something more, he understands that intrinsically, and he almost lets it in.
And Kirk flickers.
That is enough. So Spock shoves away that feathery-soft power, spurning it, and Kirk stabilizes. Spock relaxes. He does not need power, so long as Kirk is safe. After all, for what else would he use his power?
He is unsurprised when Mitchell's powers manifest, and manufactures enough speculation to convince Captain Kirk that The USS Defiant met an end through similar psionic growth in her crew. Kirk flickers every time he goes near Mitchell, and it is vital, vital, that Mitchell is labeled a threat.
Marooning Mitchell doesn't work. "Gary Mitchell must die," Spock tells Kirk.
This feels like a half-lie, but it is also half-truth, and the result is the same; Kirk lives. That is enough for Spock.
"I, too, felt for him," Spock tells Kirk later – and this is a lie. But it's also what Kirk needs to hear, and the captain smiles at him gently in answer.
The captain looks at him a long time. His face is lined with sorrow, but still, still he manages a tiny smile.
"Then maybe - " and the captain's voice in fond, in that friendly way once reserved for Mitchell only, " - maybe there's hope for you yet., Mr. Spock."
Maybe.
(Spock finds this unlikely).
Kirk is considering promoting Spock to First Officer.
This is... not expected.
"Just think about it," Kirk assures. "I need to get you promoted to Commander either way – you're well overdue – but for this position you'll need to interact with the crew more. Sleep on it and tell me what you think tomorrow, yeah?"
Were Pike asking him such a thing Spock's answer would be an unequivocal refusal. He has no desire to command, and is well aware that he lacks the necessary capacity for compassion. Science is both fascinating and, most importantly, allows him to deal largely with numbers, facts, experiments – not people.
But this is Kirk, so he considers.
He is still considering later that day in the rec room, tuning his lyre absently as he listens to a conversation on the other side of the room.
"You know, it seems like away missions have gotten a lot more dangerous with Kirk as captain."
"There's nothing wrong with the captain! He's gotten fantastic results - "
"I know, I know! Believe me, I'm not criticizing. What he did on Alta IX – but, I'm just saying. We're doing some pretty fantastic things, saving lives, making a difference – that's all great. That's what Starfleet's about, and we've done more in three months under Kirk than the five years I was with Pike. But we've lost a lot of people already, too."
"And Pike only landed himself in Sickbay twice, in over a decade," another voice adds. "Kirk's already been there four times!"
"Well, no one can say he doesn't work himself as hard as his crew, right?"
Murmurs of agreement. Spock pulled his attention from the group, mulling over their discussion. The Enterprise has indeed become much more dangerous under Kirk's captaincy; more successful, certainly, but still...
"Mr. Spock! We don't see you around here much."
Spock tilts his head as Lieutenant Uhura boldly takes the seat across from him. A few tables down a group of women laugh behind their hands, eyes dancing as they take in the odd sight; clearly they don't think he will take well to the interruption.
Out of little more than a desire to be contrary, he nods to her politely. The communications officer doesn't need much encouragement; while he is still considering what culture niceties to use she keeps speaking. "What kind of instrument is that?"
Spock can deal with questions. "A ka'athyra."
"Vulcan?"
Obviously. "Yes."
"I wouldn't think a race of logical beings would have much appreciation for music, Mr. Spock."
"There is math in music, although serious musicians are often among those considered... rather eccentric."
Uhura laughs, though he's not sure why. "Well, I don't know if you were aware of this, but I do a little singing myself, and I like trying my hand at different instruments; I don't suppose you'd care to teach me a few lessons." She smiles a little demurely now, ducking her head to look beneath him under full lashes; he's not certain if the effect is intentional or not.
Spock almost says no; he wants to say no. Directing or teaching about science is one matter; he somehow thinks Uhura is not considering a rigorous set of lessons, but a casual arrangement – something more like what might occur between friends, and he is not at all comfortable with that idea.
Then he remembers his conversation with Kirk. "If I want to keep you as first officer, Starfleet needs to see that you can form healthy relationships with the crew. Be approachable, Spock!"
Spock eyes the lyre with apprehension. And then, slowly, he nods to Uhura. A beaming smile blooms across her face.
"Thank you, Mr. Spock!" She exclaims. "This'll be so much fun." Tables away her friends gape at them.
If Kirk wishes him to socialize, he will.
Besides, a proper first-officer will accompany the captain off-planet more often, yes?
Mind-melds are not very common on Vulcan.
They are well-known to outsiders, part of the Vulcan 'mystique' and just as infamous as the lesser skill of basic touch-telepathy. But mind-melds were in fact banned relatively recently, and still there is a certain stigma to the technique when used outside the province of mind-healers.
Using the meld on Dr. Simon Van Gelder is certainly unconscionable. The man is not Vulcan; both of them could easily be destroyed in the attempt. Furthermore he is no state to understand Spock's request or give consent. There is a word for breaching the mind forcefully; kae'at klasa, mind-rape. It is punishable by death on Vulcan.
"It's a hidden, personal thing to the Vulcan people, part of our private lives," he tells McCoy, which is true enough. Morally speaking the idea does not actually bother him. But he does not say that he would be ostracized for the attempt, possibly executed, if Vulcan found out.
But McCoy argues, and it only takes a few words - "Jim could be in real trouble" - to convince him.
"Very well."
He tries to talk Van Gelder into opening his mind to Spock's touch, but fails. Ultimately he pierces the man's fractured, torn shields with ease. After this Van Gelder may be even more damaged than before.
Kaiidth.
The man's mind is mad, delusional, insane. Spock tears into it with ease, leaving thick scars in his wake as he seeks out – yes – yes, this is the information he needs -
Oh.
Kirk is in trouble.
He leaves as soon as the meld is concluded, and rescues Kirk. When all is said and done, however, it occurs to him that Kirk had never wavered, never flickered, and in response Spock had never been compelled to help he wonders what that means.
Spock's solo mission with the Galileo Seven results in two deaths and a guilty landing party, some of whom willingly approach the captain to admit to insubordination. Spock knows that it was his attempted 'sacrifice' of himself when trapped by the boulder that led the others to feel so guilty; that was, after all, his primary motivation to play martyr.
(After all, it is not as though the natives could have actually killed Spock).
He feels nothing for those crewmen who have been killed. He had seen their fate in their eyes as the party beamed down, and it affected him neither then nor now.
In hindsight, at least some token gesture of remorse might have been wise on the planet. But Captain Kirk has agreed that Spock's actions were correct; the captain is primarily angry with the crew, who became so excessively emotional and unprofessional during the mission.
Still, Spock thinks he will try to act remorseful. The idea pulls to him like the growth of fur and fang, and he always follows that feeling.
Kirk summons Spock to his quarters at the end of the day, and from the setting seems to intend that the talk stay informal. Very well; Spock pretends discomfort. "Sir?"
"Sit down, Spock."
Spock sits.
"I notice you rather glossed over the issue of insubordination in your report."
It would seem rather redundant, considering everyone else has confessed; but what he answers is, "One incident, Sir, I would have reported; to have the entirety of a group become mutinous seems more to say more of the superior officer than a mere issue with discipline."
Kirk does not seem pleased. "Spock, I looked over every report, and you didn't give a single order I wouldn't have."
Spock would speak, but a telling twitch in his fangs stops him. He is silent.
Kirk's voice softens. "It's hard to lose any crewmen, Spock. Especially on your first mission. I understand that. But there was really nothing more you could have done."
There is a long, somewhat wistful pause from the captain's end, the human's eyes glazing with grief and some distant memory. After a long moment when Spock doesn't answer, Kirk straightens, smiling at him tightly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to make you talk emotion, just – don't think about the men you lost. Remember them, but tonight, I want you to think about the men you saved."
Spock inclines his head, mutely, which seems to be enough to satisfy Kirk. Spock returns to his quarters, retires, and falls into an untroubled sleep.
Guilt is not much of an issue for him these days.
"Eleven years, Commander," McCoy snarls. "I don't know how the hell that even happened, but you're getting a physical if I have to drag you there by the teeth."
Spock pictures loosing his fangs, McCoy falling to the ground in a screech of blood and torn flesh. Drag him by the teeth, indeed. "I merely suggest waiting until a more opportune time - "
"A decade or so from now, you mean?" McCoy folds his arms. "Look, I'm not doing this for kicks. We need to establish a baseline for you in case you get sick - "
"Which I do not - "
"Or injured - "
"Which has not occurred in more than eleven years - "
"Or even just so I'm not surprised during your autopsy, which seems fairly likely to occur soon, Sir, if you keep ignoring your doctor's advice!"
Spock gives McCoy a quelling look and lets a little light shine off his eyes; he is grudgingly impressed when McCoy doesn't even blink. "...I'll report before the week is through," Spock slowly agrees, a plan already beginning to form.
"And what, you expect me to just believe that?"
"I am a Vulcan," Spock lies. "I cannot lie."
McCoy grunts.
But he also assents; so three days later Spock calls to set a time, and the day after that he's in Sickbay at 0945 hours precisely.
Of course, it isn't that simple.
"The hell is this?" McCoy asks, frowning as Spock hands him a data padd. "We're doing a physical, Commander, not work."
"I am aware," Spock answers, and doesn't elaborate.
McCoy looks over the forms.
"The hell? Confidentiality agreements? I'm a doctor! Of course I'm not going to blurt out anything - "
"These precise forms divest you of the obligation, or legal ability, to send reports to your superiors or anyone else concerning my results, barring anything that is definitively life-threatening or over which I have explicitly given you permission to reveal."
"You can do that?"
There are some advantages to the diplomatic immunity of being an ambassador's son from a well-trusted race. "Yes."
"For god's sake, man, why?"
A gamble. "There are many individuals who have desired to investigate the anomaly of my creation, for... various purposes. This is merely for the purpose of caution."
Amazingly, the physician's face softens a little. "...Well," McCoy agrees gruffly, "alright," and it's done.
"You tricked me," McCoy rages.
"Yes."
"This - it can't be explained. Not by Vulcan genes, not by human ones, and there's nothing abnormal enough in your DNA to account for the - the muscle mass, density, the - " McCoy stops. Spock can imagine what he means.
"The claws?" He asks, callously. McCoy flinches. "The fangs? No."
McCoy stares at him, pale, and then asks, in a low whisper, "What are you?"
"I do not know. And that, Doctor, is the truth."
When a man named Finney sets up Kirk, making it look as though the captain has killed him in negligence, Spock vows faithfully that Kirk could have done no such thing, whatever the evidence might say. In truth, he just does not care.
So what if Kirk has killed Finney? Finney is irrelevant. So Spock goes looking for proof to defend his captain.
(In truth, he's just as surprised as everyone else when he actually finds it).
Spock is not certain why he saves Lieutenant Stiles. Firing the ship's phaser was certainly a more important task; saving Stiles was unnecessary. And he has never felt inclined, before, to save someone touched by Death.
But Kirk is pleased. And something about the whole business feels... Good.
(He wonders, secretly, if he might try it again sometime).
Leila Kalomi is...annoying.
But Spock can tell that Kirk is safe here, so he politely follows her, wondering if she will reveal the secret to this colony's miraculous survival.
She takes him to a group of bulbous flowers, pink and ugly.
"I was the first to find them - the spores."
"Spores?"
And it hurts, worse than the Burn ever has, bubbling through his body, scorching and searing, tearing, destroying, nonono -
"It shouldn't hurt!" Leila protests.
"I can't - please don't - "
"Not like this!" She is like a petulant child. "It didn't hurt us!"
"I am not like you - "
Oh.
Oh.
The spores. Oh, everything is perfectly clear. The planet is safe. Everyone will live forever and be happy forever down here, and isn't it perfect? The Burn fades to a dull, persistent throb.
Spock can't release his claws, he realizes. Or his fangs. Odd. He doesn't particularly care.
But something's missing. Kirk, yes. Even with the flowers (the blessed, blessed flowers) Spock cannot be content knowing Kirk is vulnerable, in danger, angry and distressed. Obviously, Kirk needs to join them.
The captain, however, is strangely resistant to this idea. Mr. Sulu understands; the entirety of the crew is beginning to understand. All except for Kirk.
And no one matters except for Kirk.
"Join us, please," he begs the captain. He doesn't understand why Kirk won't join them. It seems so obvious to Spock, how best to protect the captain. Why won't Kirk let Spock do what he needs to do?
And then Kirk does, Kirk Joins them, and he beams up to help Kirk pack.
It doesn't go as planned.
"All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed, we'll see about you deserting my ship."
That's... not right.
"What makes you think you're a man? You're an elf with a hyperactive thyroid." "You don't have the brains to understand; all you have is printed circuits." "What can you expect from a simpering, devil eared freak whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?" "Your father was a computer, like his son. An ambassador from a race of traitors. A Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity." "You're a traitor from a race of traitors, disloyal to the core, rotten like the rest of your subhuman race, and you've got the gall to make love to that girl - " "Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting in a mushroom, instead of passing himself off as a man? You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship. Right next the the dog-faced boy..."
And that is enough, enough, enough. A very different sort of fire courses through him, and without thinking Spock rises, grabs up a metal bar, and lunges.
"Finally!" Kirk exclaims afterward. Spock barely hears the captain explain that anger is the key, that they must make everyone else angry, too; his blood is roaring in his ears.
He is a threat to Kirk. And that's not a threat Spock knows how to deal with.
He goes through the motions, mechanically, until the crew is all returned and the planet evacuated. Kirk pulls him aside to apologize for his harsh words; Spock doesn't care. It bewilders him that he had ever cared. It is years since he's possessed the capacity to be hurt with words.
It occurs to Spock then, why the spores affected him differently - why they hurt him, and why his fangs would not grow when Spock was under their influence. Being what he is - whatever he is - Spock will never be happy. He is literally unable to be happy.
But Spock thinks of Kirk, proud and relaxed on the ship's bridge, giving orders as if he was - no - because he was born to do so. Kirk laughing on shore leave, teasing Spock, smiling over a chessboard. Kirk, with that tender light in his eye, saying "You're like a brother to me, Spock - "
Spock will never be happy. But he thinks he can handle being content.
"Mr. Spock, meet Dr. M'Benga," McCoy introduces. The man is tilting forward and backward on the balls of his feet, plainly pleased; Spock is familiar enough with this habit of McCoy's to be suspicious.
"Doctor," he greets evenly. Spock is astonished when M'Benga raises his hand in the ta'al.
"Dif-tor heh smusma," the doctor says solemnly.
McCoy's glee becomes almost tangible. "Geoffrey here interned on Vulcan," he declares. "He'll be doing you're physicals from now on."
...Spock knows of several Terran expletives that would be appropriate to this situation.
Edith Keeler is a danger of a different sort. Pretty and charming, Spock can tell Kirk is enamored with her at the instant of their meeting. He knows it cannot end well; he feels Death in her. But the captain always listens to his heart, and there is no denying the appeal, and intrigue, of Edith.
Even Spock admits she is oddly perceptive. She wants to know where they're from, doesn't trust their make-believe story.
"I still have a few questions I'd like to ask about you two. Oh, and don't give me that 'Questions about little ol' us?' look. You know as well as I do how out of place you two are around here."
" Interesting," Spock says. "Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?"
Do her eyes glow, or is it a trick of the light? "You? At his side - as if you've always been there and always will be."
And, really, there's nothing Spock can say to that.
Spock doesn't know why Kirk seems so affronted to learn about his parents. The subject has, literally, never come up. Indeed, Spock has not thought of his parents in years. They were necessary while he was a child, and his father's position as an ambassador can sometimes be used to advantage. Otherwise Spock has no particular attachment to them.
His mother's clear mix of distress and joy is perplexing. She is happy to see him, but she grieves over the apparent divide between Spock and Sarek, a chasm deep enough to prevent them from speaking for eighteen years. If she thinks Spock is offended by Sarek, or hurt, she is incorrect. Certainly he is aware that Sarek disapproves of him; but that awareness is no different than knowing that the space outside the observation window will be star-studded black, that water is blue and blood is green. Kaiidth. Sarek lost the ability to affect him a long time ago.
It is also difficult to understand why everyone seems so aghast at Spock's refusal to give blood to Sarek while Kirk is in Sickbay. Kirk had nearly died, and Spock was nowhere nearby. This is unacceptable. Thus Spock must make sure the ship - and, by virtue of being aboard the ship, her captain - remain safe.
If that means Sarek dies, so be it.
But Kirk comes to the bridge, wincing and careful. Does he think this fools Spock? Does he think Spock cannot smell the iron tang of blood in the air, hear the labor in his breath?
Kirk flickers, flickers, flickers, but Spock understands; arguing will not help. The burn along his claws tells him that Spock must agree, go to Sickbay, and Kirk will stand down. Kirk will live.
Kirk is very smug for days after, because Sarek lives, too. Spock does not care about that, but if Kirk is also alive he supposes it doesn't matter either way.
Spock will always look back on the tribble incident with some wistfulness, because before they were transported off-ship he took the time to hunt them down with other ship-cats. It was a pleasant exercise. His first experience with a tribble, though, will always perplex him.
Uhura has a table full of the creatures when he and Captain Kirk enter the rec room. "A most curious creature, captain," Spock says absently, picking one up. It purrs, foolishly. Spock stares at it, stroking it slowly. Small animals are difficult to resist; his claws ache to flash out. "It's trilling seems to have a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system." His mouth is burning, fangs starting to poke through gum. He licks his lips. "Fortunately I am, of course, immune."
But that does not make it a pleasure to hold the creature, which looks to be such easy prey; resisting temptation, Spock carefully sets it down.
Then he looks up and wonders why everyone is laughing.
Spock knows, as soon as he sees the cat, that she is like him.
He says nothing. What could he say? But his claws itch beneath the skin, his fangs shiver, and it takes every ounce of Vulcan-control he possesses to swallow the growl rising in his throat.
It is not surprising when the floors drop, nor when he wakes shackled in a dungeon. It is surprising, though, when Sylvia-the-cat leads them to a man named Korob. Korob has a device that allows him to wield fantastic power - but he is nothing special. He is certainly, Spock understands intuitively, nothing like Kirk, and he is not important to Sylvia like Kirk is to Spock. Something is very wrong here.
While Korob taunts the crew, Spock catches the eye of the innocent-seeming cat and leaves the room.
She morphs immediately into a beautiful, seemingly human female. Her dark eyes glitter with malevolence.
"What did you do to deserve him?" She hisses immediately.
"I am uncertain what you mean."
Sylvia snarls, fangs slipping forth. Spock, disdaining the threat, does not react. "Three hundred years, since my last! I'll take him. You - you were born, naturally, not raised, not made - you're not worth him."
"That," says Spock, "is not for you to decide."
She seems ready to attack him, and with the strange device and stranger power she wields he could never win. So he asks a question, instead, before she has a chance. "Why do you settle? Why do you pretend with Kerob, when he is nothing?"
The glower in her face fades. The woman flinches instead, seeming to shrink down; and suddenly there is nothing special about her at all, really. Just a beautiful, lonely girl, tainted with tragedy and grief.
"They always died!" She cried. "A dozen of them, all mine, and then I stopped finding them - what good is this, when I cannot even protect them?"
When he cannot answer (cannot, indeed, do anything through the haze of irrational disgust inside of him) she transports him back to the others, who seem to have not noticed his absence at all.
She tries to seduce Kirk with her body, and the depth of her desperation makes something curl low in his stomach, smug and pleased. It is an odd sensation, but not unwelcome. Dark and territorial. Kirk is his and he is Kirk's, and this weak woman will not, can not change that.
Let her try.
"Do you know," Kirk says later, "That cat - when Sylvia looked like a cat, I mean... she was oddly familiar."
"One black cat looks like any other, Jim," McCoy remarks.
"No, I mean - you could just tell she wasn't normal, right from the start. I don't..." He frowns. "I just feel like I've felt that, somewhere."
The captain considers this a long while, and Spock waits.
Finally Kirk shrugs off the thought. "I'm sure it doesn't matter," he adds, and that is that.
Later Spock wonder about Sylvia, marveling over her grief and madness. Kirk is the most important thing in his life - of that there is no doubt - but the depth of crazed hysteria to which she was reduced - he cannot imagine that, imagine ever reaching such extremes of emotion. Whatever he is, he has always believed that a lack of compassion was just intrinsic. Now, though, he wonders.
How odd, Spock thinks, that he meets two others in such quick succession.
Gary Seven's companion is named Isis. The man is certainly aware that she is more than a cat, though, and Spock feels a pang of distant envy, wondering what it would be like to stay forever nestled in warm fur, openly, with his own human. Even impossible and different as his physicals say he is, his Vulcan body can feel tight and big and clumsy, stretched out in all the wrong places. Sometimes he longs to be rid of it altogether, but Kirk always comes first.
Isis comes right over to Spock while Seven speaks, and Spock sees the old human glancing at him thoughtfully every now and again. Spock strokes the "cat's" fur, listens to her purr, and wonders.
He feels that she is less than pleased when the Enterprise is forced to subdue Mr. Seven and put him in the brig; but he desires to speak to her, and it must say something of her assessment of the situation that she willingly leaves Seven alone and follows Spock as they exit the brig.
Spock takes her to the briefing room, no one seeming to notice the odd cat behind him as they move through the halls. Is there some trick of her' he is missing?
This one is another female, striking with dark black hair and the same shimmering eyes as Sylvia. The comparison is disturbing, but apt. He is relieved there is no sign of insanity in her eyes.
Seven, he could tell, was special. Like Kirk. Not as much as Kirk - Spock doesn't think anyone will ever compare to Kirk - but he belongs to Isis. She has no incentive to indulge in madness.
But that is all instinct, and what he wants to know -
"What are we?"
Isis smiles at him, showing just a glint of tooth. "Cutting right to the chase? She asks. Her voice is an accented rumble, low and husky with a purring edge. She has been a cat a long time, he understands suddenly.
"Can you tell me?"
She sits in a chair, tossing her legs over the side, then tilts her head to look up at him. "I'm old," she says, suddenly. "I didn't know what I was, either - not for many years. We always run into each other, it seems, rare though we are... but back then it was just me, on earth, all alone with my First. My pharaoh." She smiles, and it's all teeth now. "He thought I was a goddess."
"Isis."
"Yes. The whole nation worshiped cats because of me - mau, they called us then. That's how I think of us, our race - but we are born to every planet, at some point or another. Like old earth changelings, starting as a normal member of our species and then becoming..." she huffs a laugh. "Well. More, or less. You can decide."
"And no one one knows - how?"
Isis shrugs. "Do you care? I don't. I had my pharaoh, and I have my Gary, and there were a dozen others before, and that's all that really matters. Some aren't like that, of course; some of us have one bonded, our chosen companion who we guide and guard, and then we die with that same person." The look she gives him - "But it's hard to say. I've heard of a planet, once, where a human-like mother and a klingon-like father might make an orion-like child with glowing eyes. A tiny little world that sends us out wherever we're needed - or destined, as you might look at it." She flexes her claws. "Rumors. Speculation. Maybe it's a myth, blown out of all proportion like my own name, but - " she shrugs, eloquently. "Well, it makes more sense than anything else. A dormant gene awakens, and the off-world descendants of those changelings follow their ancestors."
Spock mulls this over. "But there is no real answer."
"Did you ever expect one?"
No. Not truly. But it's something, at least. "Kirk - why Kirk?"
This seems to startle her. "I don't know. But I think you do."
Yes. Because James Kirk is special, different - because of his quick smile and his open heart and painful wisdom, the burden of responsibility he shoulders every day. Because he is a captain, a leader, because he saves planets and shifts stars. Spock's mind turns to Gary Seven. We protect them, he thinks. The world-changers, the major figures, the heroes...
He just has one last question.
"Do you know what we would be called on Vulcan?"
"Giidas, I'm told. Guardian spirits."
Spock tilts his head, eyes glowing, totally unrestrained for perhaps the first time in his life. "I do not understand," he says. "If I am a guardian, I am a poor one. I am - " he hesitates, feeling an echo of old shame, " - not a peaceful being, as some think."
Isis throws back her head, fangs gleaming in the air, and she laughs and laughs and laughs.
"Oh, Spock!" She cries. "Whoever told you that guardians have anything to do with peace?"
(After returning to their own time Spock tries to gauge Kirk's opinion of Isis, but the captain seems entirely uninterested in discussing her, and Spock returns to his own quarters trying to pretend the low ache in his stomach is not disappointment).
On Parmen's planet Spock is used against his will. He is humiliated, forced to feign emotions he does not, cannot feel; to sing, to laugh, to kiss... and almost, almost he is made to kill
So close. His limbs raise of some outside volition as he dances around the captain, slow at first and then rapidly, and at the last his boot hangs over the captain's head. It would be so, so easy to lower it, to crush bone and brain, to feel Kirk's life die under his heel -
For weeks after Spock withdraws from the crew, from Kirk, meditating in his quarters. He has not needed to meditate for years - there is nothing to control, to work through, when emotion is so foreign and scarce - but Kirk's harm, from his own hand, is a haunting memory. In the right circumstances even he, a giidas, could be made to kill the captain. He is a threat to Kirk. Threats to Kirk must be eliminated.
It feels too simplistic, and yet the most natural answer in the world. He spends hours turning over ancient Vulcan knives, listening to his own pulse and the beat of his heart. He could end his own life. The thought does not distress him. But if he were to die, were to eliminate this potential threat against his Chosen, would that not leave Kirk vulnerable to more common, more likely threats? Kirk is always in danger, it seems.
He eventually puts his blades aside, and lets himself be drawn back into the activity of the ship. But he never, ever forgets.
Spock has always known it must happen eventually.
They are on Beta Greragregia VII, tossed into a medieval-style prison; just Spock and Kirk. It was meant to be a simple mission; take samples of the planet's fauna, get out without being seen or interfering with the natives. Spock imagines something must have interfered with their scanners, though, because they beamed in right amid a group of hunters and were quickly divested of their weapons and communicators. They're looking forward to being burned as demons - oh, the irony - and the only thing separating them from freedom is the crudely shaped iron of their cell doors.
"Primitive, but effective," Kirk observes gloomily. He tugs on a bar, testing it; then, sighing, he moves to another. "I'll give them this, though, they sure don't do shoddy work."
The captain grunts as he pulls, to no avail. Spock stares.
He stares because Kirk is going flick-flick-flick, moving in and out of sight so fast his body seems a blur. Spock has never seen Kirk waver so much, and something dark and understanding solidifies in the his gut. If they do not leave, very soon - right now - Kirk will die. This he knows.
There are distant footsteps on the levels above them, the clacking of metallic weapons. Kirk, oblivious, continues testing the room.
There is nothing in the cell, not even a bed; just a stone floor and stone walls and hard iron poles.
But their communicators are right outside the door, and the bars -
Spock steps forward. Yes. Yes. The bars are very slim.
"Please step back, Captain."
"What?" But Kirk does so. "Do you have an idea?"
There's no need to answer, so he doesn't. Instead Spock steps forward, feels himself shrink and stretch, the still-wrong slide of bald skin rippling into fur, hard claws clacking on the smooth ground. Behind him Kirk curses in surprise; and then, easily, the cat - the giidas, the mau - squirms right outside the cage bars and shifts back.
Spock flips open the communicator, stuffing the other equipment in his pocket. It seems they're not so far underground as to be out of range, and it only takes one command - "Two to beam up - " and they're both lost in the glow of the transporter beam, leaving Spock with the haunting memory of two wide brown eyes staring at him with betrayal.
"What are you?"
The low question, so hoarse, rings out like an accusation. Spock stares at the chessboard in Kirk's quarters, untouched, as he answers.
At least he can answer, now. "A giidas. A guardian."
"What does that mean? Where's Spock?"
Spock flinches without meaning to, and is surprised by his own reaction. "I am the same individual you have always known, Captain. I have always been capable of - that."
There is a moment of silence. Spock dares to look up.
The captain looks as though he has aged ten years since beaming up. It makes something black and self-accusing writhe up his chest. Spock is not supposed to harm the captain. He defends the captain, he -
"What does it - mean, Spock? A guardian. A guardian of what?"
"Of you. In a manner of speaking."
Kirk stares at him.
"I am not certain myself," he adds, softly. "Isis was one - for Gary Seven, if you recall. She told me the name, confirmed what I had guessed. But I cannot - " he stops, abruptly, then continues. "I was born on Vulcan, to the Vulcan Sarek and the human Amanda; I have no explanation for what I am. But I have always known to hide it, just as I knew, the moment I met you, that you were - different."
"Different," Kirk echoes, dully.
"I cannot explain it better than that, Jim - "
"Don't. Just, don't." Kirk closes his eyes. "Go. I'll talk to you - later. Just go."
And so, cowardly, Spock does.
For the first few days Kirk avoids looking at him; then he look too much, eyes accusing. Spock feels like he knows every sin Spock has committed in the human's name, for his Chosen's protection. He does not like this idea, and he hopes, desperately, that Kirk never asks.
The Enterprise's five-year mission is drawing to a close; they have less than a month left. Spock had planned to spend the scheduled refit teaching at Starfleet Academy, like Kirk, and then they were both meant to return to their posts. Another mission. Continuing the adventure, continuing their destiny. He wonders if that can truly happen, now.
And then, quite suddenly, he wonders if it should.
Because Kirk flickers, sometimes. Not enough to show that he is in immediate danger, but - something. And it takes a while, but Spock finally figures out that the captain pulses with fatality every time Spock thinks of their future, together, and he understands.
Spock does not give Kirk time to become accustomed to the idea. Instead he sends out two letters; one is a resignation, and the other is for the Masters of Gol.
"Spock," Kirk entreats. There are bags under his eyes. "I should have said something sooner, but - please. We need to talk."
Silently, Spock stands aside and lets him in.
His quarters, occupied for years, look bleak and barren. Sparse. The Enterprise will be docking within twelve hours. Spock will be on a shuttle to Vulcan in twenty.
"I don't know what this is, but you don't have to - to leave, Spock - "
Spock doesn't want to. But even as that traitorous thought comes through Kirk flick-flick-flicks, so there's no choice at all, really.
"I have lived my life by instinct, Jim," Spock says. The words have been carefully practiced, carefully planned to have maximum effect. "It may not have seemed so, but it is true. And now I find I suspect my own motives, my own thoughts. How much of what I do is from free will?" He shakes his head. "I need - answers. My revelation to you was merely the step I needed to see that. I must look for them, on Vulcan."
Kirk is silent for a very long time.
"...I can't argue with that," he finally says. "I just - I've got an offer from Nogura, you know? They want to - promote me."
"Congratulations," Spock tells him, and cannot think of anything less true. But Kirk's body is whole and tangible, no flickering to be seen...
It is clearly not the answer Kirk is looking for. "I haven't accepted yet," he hints.
"Then I would suggest you do so," Spock says, as a vice closes over his heart, "before the offer is redacted," and the opportunity is gone.
A year later Spock is in the monastery of Gol trying to master emotion he does not truly feel, secretly honing his telepathy. It is here that words reaches him of the devastating destruction of the USS Victory on her maiden voyage - the Victory being the ship that took over the Enterprise's planned mission route when Kirk was promoted.
He understands, but he does not leave, not yet. It is not time.
He waits.
They are about to make him a Master when he feels it.
The priestess of Gol looks at him, then drops the pendant and turns away, recognizing his supposed failure. Spock does not care. It is time.
V'jer, when he meets the mechanical mind, is cold and clinical. Lost. Like Spock, he wonders about his existence, wonders about the universe. The difference is, Spock has a purpose. He will always have a purpose.
He only partially feigns his hysteria when Kirk visits him in Sickbay, concerned and warm, and Spock fully realizes what has happened.
"Jim... I should have known."
Because Kirk might have been betrayed, angry, but those are shallow emotion in contrast to the bond the share, the bond even Spock doesn't fully understand. And the brief doubts he had entertained, during what seems now to be so long ago, wisp away like cobwebs. "This... simple feeling... is beyond V'jer's comprehension."
V'jer went mad from sterility, from loneliness. Spock will not, because Spock has Kirk; and, grasping the hand of his chosen, Spock knows nothing will change that.
He won't allow it.
Members of the old Enterprise crew join them. Uhura, wrinkled and set with age, smiles and sings in husky tones as he accompanies her songs on the ka'athyra. Sulu invites him to spar, and he somehow gets involved in a pet project with Chekov and Scotty. It's warm, familiar, something Spock had never thought he'd missed. He has certainly longed for the days of the Enterprise - who would not, in the stark barrenness of Gol? - but it occurs to him that maybe, maybe, that longing was not entirely due to Jim.
He is not sure what to make of that idea.
When they do retire Kirk - finally - it is a good thing. Kirk is tired. Old. He has seen a thousand adventures and saved a hundred worlds, and he is ready to retire. And if he eyes the shipyard a little too wistfully during the speeches, well. No one mentions that.
Over the next decades they live together on earth, on the Enterprise, even briefly on Vulcan. Sometimes they are co-workers, shield-brothers, working together for the galaxy's greater good. Other times a gray-speckled colleague will visit Kirk's earth apartment in San Franscisco and ask about his absent Vulcan friend while an amber-eyed cat watches them, serenely, from the window seat.
(McCoy never does understand Spock's anomalous readings - but he has a hell of a time trying, and Kirk loves taunting him with hints. He never seems sure what to make of all the yarn around their apartment, though).
The day the Enterprise-B is due to set out Spock is asleep on the window-seat of their shared apartment. It's raining outside, very lightly, but the house is pleasantly warm. Kirk, grabbing the last of his bags, touches the space between Spock's shoulders absently.
"Be back in three days," he says, cheerfully.
Spock opens a single slitted eyelid, mutely, and hums contentedly when Kirk's form does not waver. Seal of approval given, Kirk turns and leaves.
It is the last time Spock ever sees him.
He doesn't understand, when the news comes in. Dead, everyone says. A tragic loss. But of course Kirk isn't dead. He never flickered.
Spock would know if Kirk were dead.
Isis had said that some giidas died with their partners. Spock has always thought that would be his fate. Certainly, certainly Kirk cannot actually be gone.
But he does not appear. Spock commandeers a shuttle, through much string-pulling, and later a ship; he never finds anything. McCoy visits repeatedly, worried, but Spock cannot even bring himself to attempt to care about the doctor now. He's not sure about his relationship with McCoy - his friendship, if he can apply that label to anyone - but with Kirk gone no one else matters, no one else can matter, and eventually McCoy leaves, too.
And Spock is alone.
Life moves on. He isn't sure how that's possible, but it does. Spock becomes a teacher, an ambassador, finally a revolutionist for the Romulan Empire.
There is a young man on Romulus with strong telepathy. Spock is teaching him to control the gift, but these lessons are long and strenuous. One day while Spock is staring out a window, watching the gray overcast sky and the dull throngs of people moving outside, endless and faceless, Proran brushes against his arm and gasps.
Spock turns, a little resigned, to watch him. "You may ask," he says.
"Why?" Proran demands. "You - you hate us. Despise us. Why - "
"I do not despise you. I dislike everything, because I cannot be fond of anything." Spock turns to look at the window again.
"Your work - "
"Is sincere. But I do not do it for you."
And Spock tilts his head, staring through the stormy clouds as though he could glimpse an errant star. "I think," he adds, "an old friend would consider it - a worthy endeavor."
And then, one day, he feels it.
Kirk. Flickering.
Alive, impossibly, a hundred years later. Spock stands stock-still in the Romulan street, ignoring the mutters around him, staring sightlessly into the dawn sky.
His chosen. In danger, off planet. No. No. Not like this.
He is aware of falling to his knees, hears shouted exclamations. Kirk is dying. Dying.
Spock Sees it, if he tries. Running. Shooting. A bald human - Picard - helping. Kirk is a hero, he recognizes, distantly. Yes. That is right. That is how he's supposed to die. A hero.
And this, with Kirk, is how Spock is meant to die.
The old Vulcan closes his eyes, feels that warm life fade from his awareness, and in the moment before death thinks that maybe, maybe, he knows something about emotion after all.
..I don't even know. I was writing this thinking 'Oh, Spock will be some guardian spirit thing, yay' and then I started writing him chasing birds, lalala, and then he ate the bird. And then I made some horrified sounds and was all "WHY DID I JUST WRITE THAT" and then wrote some more. And it all just snowballed from there. I feel like I should be apologizing, almost, but I hope someone enjoyed this fucked-up whatever. :)