Summary: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations... doesn't actually mean that diversity gets accepted.
But that's fine. Cisco and Hartley find their acceptance together.
Notes: For Hartmon Bingo prompt I4 - "It's only logical"
Star Trek Fusion
It's Only Logical
They call him Heartless Rathaway behind his back. And it stings.
What else did they expect from a human child raised by Vulcans? Hartley was taught to manage his emotions. To set them aside and think rationally. Logic above all else.
He's not heartless, though. If anything, Hartley cares too much.
Too passionate for his Vulcan parents. Too passionless for his Human peers.
Is it any wonder Hartley learns to hate himself quite young?
Cisco grows his hair out when he turns sixteen. To hide the points of his ears.
He's mostly human. He had a great grandfather who was Vulcan, though, and Cisco's the only (un)lucky sibling to have the pointy ears. Armando and Dante both look human. No one expects them to be unemotional and logical all the time.
But Cisco's got the ears. So random Vulcans think they've got the right to reprimand him all the damn time. For smiling. For visibly enjoying himself. For daring to show emotion in public.
It's tiring being told he's too happy.
(It doesn't help his parents fall into stereotyping him too. 'Why are you so emotional over this? Why so sensitive? Why can't you be tougher, like your brothers?')
So he grows his hair out. Covers his ears up. And the first time Cisco looks at himself in the mirror and realizes he's got shoulder-length hair now, he grins. It's this huge smile that stretches across his face maybe a little too desperately. But with his ears hidden, Cisco looks human. Just human.
He can be as passionate and emotional as he damn well pleases.
When the new guy starts in the particle physics lab, Hartley doesn't really pay much attention. He's cute and gregarious and gets along well with the majority of his new coworkers. Unlike Hartley. And he'll probably start in on the nicknames soon enough. They all wind up calling Hartley Heartless eventually.
Ramon is efficient, though. Hartley admires that about him. (The efficiency. Not the way his hair trails over his neck and shoulders. The stretch of his spine when he reaches for something across a lab table, shirt riding up a little. The way his fingers seem to almost dance across consoles and intertwine with their tools. It's admiration, not a fire raging inside, not a desperate desire to be seen.)
"Oh, you mean Heartless," is one careless coworker's comment one evening.
"Don't call him that." Ramon's response is new. No one ever... it won't last. "I don't care if he's the biggest asshole you've ever worked with. Do not call him that. If I hear it again, I'm reporting you to HR."
Hartley's eyes sting and he has to walk out. No one ever stands up for him.
He has to find his calm again, or he's never going to get his work done. This emotion, whatever it is... it's not rational. Hartley doesn't have time for it.
(He's crying in his quarters and he can't help but wonder if this is really the life his birth parents would have wanted for him. Emotionally stunted, feeling like an impostor in his own skin. Ever the disappointment to T'dana and Slokar, the Vulcans who adopted him. It's not logical to expect a human child to act the perfect Vulcan. Why did they...?)
Cisco likes most of his new coworkers. Right up until it turns out they're all kind of bullies.
What kind of grown men think it's cool to call someone else 'Heartless'? Especially where the guy can here them. It's shitty and unprofessional and Cisco won't stand for it.
But Hartley is... kind of an enigma. Never smiles, just kind of... if Cisco didn't know better, he'd think the guy was a Vulcan. Did an impressive impression of it, but there was no denying those rounded human ears. Though he could be part Vulcan like Cisco and just chose to embrace his Vulcan heritage.
It's an awkward thing to ask someone, though. Did you just plop down at a cafeteria table and say, "hey, so I'm part Vulcan, like, way back on my mom's side. Are you part Vulcan too? 'Cause you act the way random Vulcans were always trying to make me act just 'cause I have pointy ears."
Probably not.
But Cisco does eventually get his chance to ask, one afternoon in Hartley's office. They've got a meeting in the morning they need to coordinate on and had a few particulars to iron outbefore then. While it's not the first time Cisco's been in there, it is the first time he sees the holo on Hartley's desk properly. A graduation photograph from a science academy on Alpha Centauri. A pretty prestigeous one too. And Hartley's standing there looking... sad actually, flanked by two stern faced Vulcans.
It should've been a happy day and Hartley looks miserable.
"Are these your grandparents?" Cisco asks.
"Parents," Hartley corrects. "They adopted me, when my birth parents died in a shuttle accident." He paused a beat. "Why did you think they're my grandparents?"
"I dunno, I guess... I kind of thought you might be part Vulcan somewhere down the line. Like I am." Daringly, Cisco tucked his hair behind his ears. "None of my brothers got the ears, but I did. And it was such a hassle as a kid, being treated like my ears somehow meant I should act like a Vulcan. Even my parents kind of..." Cisco shrugged and let his hair cover his ears back up. "I guess I was hoping for a kindred spirit, even if your issues were like mine in reverse."
"In a way they are." Hartley stared out the window of the STAR Research Station into space for a long moment. "And in a way, my problems were the same as yours. Everyone either expects me to be human because I am one, or vulcan because I was raised like one. And I'm never enough of one or the other to fit in anywhere at all."
"I'm sorry," Cisco says sincerely. He knows how much that feeling sucks. "If you want to talk about it... or, ya know, not talk about it, I'm all ears." A sly smile makes its way on to Cisco's face and he really hopes...
It's small, but for a moment there's an answering smile on Hartley's lips. "Thank you. Now, about tomorrow's meeting..."
Cisco really is different. And he listens. And makes bad jokes.
He likes Hartley for who he is, not what he isn't. And if Hartley wants to nibble those pointed ears hidden beneath absolutely gorgeous hair and kiss with their mouths and their fingers, well...
Surely it's only logical.
(The first time they kiss, Hartley tries to convey all the passion he's afraid to display outside the safety of his quarters. Cisco's murmured 'you're so fucking beautiful' against the skin of Hartley's neck as he kisses his way southward makes Hartley relatively certain he succeeded.)