PLEASE NOTE: This chapter includes one of my pet theories about Vulcans. I'm probably talking out of my ass, but it would certainly be interesting if it was true. I have a lengthy footnote explaining it at the bottom, if you're interested.

Oh. And I know unignorably is not a word. But it should be.


Spock walked stiffly out of Kirk's apartment and did not stop moving until he arrived at his own quarters. He sat down as soon as he entered the room and prepared to meditate, which he often did when he needed to think.

He needed to eliminate emotion in order to think about this objectively. This had never required more effort.

"Control," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Emotions do not help. Illogical."

It was a testament to his powers of concentration that he managed at all.

As a matter of fact, Spock had been putting off thinking too hard about Jim. He had resolved to eliminate his feelings about the captain exactly 1,241 times during the five-year mission, but had always found it impossible to do when Jim smiled at him the way he did. It was almost as if Kirk knew what he had sworn to do and was deliberately making him break his promise to himself.

But that was illogical. The captain had no way of knowing Spock's thoughts. Spock needed to do away with that kind of thinking.

Vulcan culture did not allow for homosexual relationships. On the one hand, Vulcans acknowledged the strength of the bond that sometimes occurred between two best friends. They even celebrated this closeness, this sharing of minds. But most Vulcans saw displaying this closeness physically as totally illogical. It was something that had been left behind with emotion. During ponn farr, it only mattered that the Vulcan in question had sex with their bondmate. The nature of your bondmate's anatomy did not factor in to the equation. To Vulcans, sex only really mattered during ponn farr. Yes, Vulcans had sex at other times, but they didn't need to. The impulse could easily be—and often was—controlled.

Vulcans had eliminated the concept of homosexuality from their culture so long ago that there wasn't even a word for it in the Vulcan language. Spock knew that this part of himself came from his human half, and this just made him resent his sapien blood even more.***

He had never been interested in women. He had almost tried to be (a most un-Vulcan thing to do), but in the end he had just decided to completely lock away that part of himself.

The only times he had ever felt legitimately interested in a girl, he had been drugged or under some outside influence. Unfortunately, the drug in question had come with some side effects. Ones he could not deal with.

Like utterly nonsensical urges to climb trees.

And then Jim had been there. Spock had never had to abandon his dignity for Jim.

Spock quickly discovered that it was impossible for him to completely lock away his sexual side when he went through his first ponn farr. This had happened to him so late in life that he had hoped, vainly, that it would not happen at all. However, even when he did go through it, it was not T'Pring, his future mate, who he was attracted to.

Focus, he thought to himself. Do not think of the past. Find a solution to the problem at hand.

The way he saw it, Spock could not continue to be near Kirk. Jim had always forced more emotion out of Spock than Spock had thought possible. That was inappropriate and had to end.

When they were on the five-year mission, Jim had always managed to keep a professional distance…most of the time. However, now that he had moved beyond innuendo and made it unignorably, abjectly clear how he felt about Spock, Spock was sure that they could never regain the rapport of the five-year mission. This night would come too strongly to mind.

Spock had to get away from Jim.

He had to stop calling him Jim, too. The name itself elicited an emotional response.

What are you going to call him? interjected a sarcastic voice in Spock's head, What else would be accurate? T'hy'la?

Even the voices in Spock's head had a tendency to be precise. Once Spock realized that that was exactly what Kirk was to him, the word refused to go away. T'hy'lat'hy'lat'hy'la…

Spock banged his fist on a nearby table. It creaked ominously, threatening to break.

That settled it. Spock had to get out, and fast. He could not conquer these feelings with the methods available to him at the present. There was only one way to regain that inner peace he had in his early days in Starfleet. Those were beautiful days—he had finally found somewhere he belonged, where he was respected.

Then he had met Kirk, and everything had changed.

There was only one solution, he decided. Only one good one, at any rate.

Kolinahr.

Spock packed, submitted his resignation, and left that night.


*** Not sure what to think about this. It's a pet theory that I have, that there are no gay Vulcans. It would be logical. Not all species even have homosexuality, and Vulcans are a different species than humans. I played with the idea of it being biologically impossible—I might go back and change it at some point. I've always thought that Vulcan culture was conservative in some ways. They have their traditions and their rituals, and they stick with them. What's more, homosexuality is somewhat illogical, seeing as homosexual couples cannot produce offspring (Although gay penguins have been know to care for the orphaned offspring of other penguin couples, sharing the responsibility the way the chick's biological parents would have. One could argue that homosexuality makes biological sense for this reason.).

I have textual basis for these claims. It's all from the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was written by Gene Roddenberry himself. On the one hand, you have this:

"But it still felt painful to be reminded so powerfully and unexpectedly of [Kirk's] friendship and affection for Spock—theirs had been the touching of two minds which the old poets of Spock's home planet had proclaimed as superior even to the wild physical love which affected Vulcans every seventh year during ponn farr."

Now to me, that sounds very ancient Greek—the whole "spiritual love between two men" ideal is similar. Thing is, those Greek guys had a lot of sex, too. It wouldn't be the first ancient Greek parallel that Roddenberry pulled with Kirk and Spock, either…

ON THE OTHER HAND, you also have this:

"It was only through kolinahr that [Spock] could once and for all time unburden himself of his human half, which he believed to be responsible for his pain."

WHAT PAIN, SPOCK??? If you're going by my "pain because he loves Kirk but can't deal with the emotional implications" theory, then yeah, associating his gayness with his human side indicates that homosexuality is not really a Vulcan thing.

Incidentally, I think that Kirk is clearly bisexual (he seems to have had meaningful relationships with people of both genders), but Spock…not so much. He always has to be drugged or in some way not himself. Then there was that one time with the Romulan chick when he was under the captain's orders. Because he'd do anything for Kirk.

My point? Spock's just straight-up gay (no pun intended). Would like to find some more evidence for this.