Love to my awesome beta LadyFangs
This is a flashback chapter...
Chapter 4 – Sins of the Father, Pt. 1
The woman was beautiful.
Her red hair spilled over her shoulders in waves as she laughed. Her eyes were a deep shade of green, accentuated by flecks of gold, while her lips were as red as the crayon in the little boy's hand. He was drawing a heart held by two people who were supposed to be his mother and father.
But the red-haired woman was not his mother. The woman looked on, patting down the cowlick flying up in the middle of his head. She laughed- and while the little boy normally loved to hear laughter, especially that of his mother, something about this woman's voice made him nervous. He started away from her touch. He wanted to cry. He saw his father walked up behind the woman and wrap his arms around her waist, whispering in the ear covered by that mountain of fire red hair. She laughed again- and the child started to cry.
His father quickly reprimanded him in his native tongue. A rebuke filled with aggravation and a slight hint of hatred. He couldn't understand his father's anger. Couldn't he see he was afraid? Another child, his older brother, came and grabbed his hand and ushered him out the room.
"Toot, just be quiet, and father will take us for ice cream on the way home."
Young Spock began to cry again. This time it was a wail. Loud enough for his father to enter the room and deliver a hard smack across his son's face. The tears stopped, the sobs became choked hiccups, and the little boy understood immediately. Sybok attempted to comfort his brother, but the younger child's fear had coalesced to something different. He had been rejected- by his father. His father was supposed to love him… He responded to his brother's comfort in the same manner his father had responded to him- with a slap.
Sybok just looked at him. Hurt in his eyes, but nowhere else on his face.
"Just like daddy."
The older child sulked and locked him self in the bathroom for the remainder of the visit to red headed lady's home.
Later they rode home in silence, only interrupted by their father's voice.
"There are some things that remain between a father and his sons."
Sarek's words echoed in his two young sons ears as the quiet resumed in the backseat of the tinted Lincoln. When they returned to their family home, Spock noticed that his father did not greet his mother with a kiss. His father acknowledged her presence, with a nod, and walked past her- headed for the stairs. An hour later he returned, freshly showered, casually dressed, and ready to bestow affection to his family. That affection was not welcome.
Spock's mother refused her husband's advances and the child saw his father grab her by the arm and pull her towards him- forcing her into a kiss. She did not respond with laughter like the red- headed lady. In fact the embrace ended in heated words and tears. His mother screamed accusations his young ears did not understand; discussions about words he did not know…deception and infidelity…
A week later Spock sat at the dining room table of the red head that giggled and bubbled over with happiness when his father came around; her name was Denise. She had told Spock to call her Denise when he asked to go to the restroom. His father had threatened him with punishment if he misbehaved during the visit. Sybok had returned to his mother, and was not with him, leaving the child alone with his coloring books and action figures. He attempted to drown out the muffled sounds and whispered voices…the subtle creeks of springs and muted moans with the noise of play from the figures in his hands.
He didn't know why, but the tears started again. He pressed his hands against his mouth, forcing the growing sobs back down his throat. He heard the tap of his father's patent leather shoes against the wood grained floors in the woman's home. Bracing for the impact of the back of his father's hand, the boy was surprised when he found that he was being picked up and cuddled against his father's chest and they headed out of the woman's door.
Spock never saw Denise again.
"Maybe we'll have a sister."
Spock babbled on as he talked to his older brother Sybok. They were five years apart. Sybok was twelve and Spock seven. Amanda's growing stomach had become more noticeable in recent weeks. The little boy found that he was excited by the promise of a new child to take on the baby role in the family. He wanted to be a big brother. His mother was busy decorating the nursery. His father's visits to friends had ceased. And for the first time he could remember- their family was happy.
The baby would arrive in winter. Close to Christmas and Spock couldn't think of a better present. The days grew longer and his mother's belly got larger.
Then Amanda was confined to the bed for fear that over exertion would cause her to lose the baby. Sarek's time at home began to decrease and Young Spock watched as she grew more depressed; often requesting that he and Sybok join her to watch movies as they waited for his father's return. Many nights Sarek's arrival would take place in the wee hours of the morning.
The voices of Spock's parents would escalate to muted screams. Finally his mother would be reduced to tears. He hid in his room. Crying softly by the door. It was one such morning the pain came, followed by sirens, and a visit to the sanitized halls of the hospital. When they returned home, the belly the little boy had rubbed in hope had disappeared. The baby had gone to heaven. He tried to comfort his mother.
"Don't worry mommy, Jesus will give us another one."
His words had sent his mother into a fit of tears behind the closed doors of her
bedroom for weeks.
"There will be no more children for this family." That was the only response Sarek had offered at the time.
Spock was fourteen when he first met Nero.
"He's an insane son of a bitch."
That was Sybok's warning when he heard where his brother was headed.
"Father says that he is one of his closest friends."
"You and your acceptance of Sarek and his twisted ways, have you forgotten everything you've seen? Denise. The little sister we never had?" Sybok was in his brother's face, nostrils flaring, and eyes wide.
"You should respect the man who provides for you." Spock continued in a monotone, pecking away at the keyboard of the computer.
"You're doomed little brother," came the disgusted reply as Sybok grabbed his duffle bag and disappeared from the family home.
When Sarek and Spock returned home that evening, the young man was experienced. His father's friend had arranged for a set of encounters for the boy. It was something that Spock's father had not agreed upon and Sarek's anger was obvious and disquieting. Soon the men were estranged. But the bond between Nero and Spock began to grow. The older man took Spock under his wing, unwilling to believe that years of friendship had ended with Sarek. He would council the boy on the ways of men. The child was intelligent and naïve.
By sixteen Spock had an unnatural grasp of World History and women. He was graduating from high school, enrolling in the local university, and enjoying the harem of women that surrounded Nero.
That is, until the day Nyota Uhura crossed his path. She had openly defied Nero during class, disassembled the man's thesis for the entire quarter in five minutes. She was beautiful, brilliant, and everything that Spock had ever wanted in a companion. He worked hard to keep her from Nero, keeping their relationship a secret for six months. During that time, Spock continued to feast on Nero's offerings - always taking his pick of the delights Nero provided. He was keeping up appearances, and even when the older man questioned him about his attachment to the young student, Spock blew it off as a crush.
"It is nothing of great importance." Spock felt as if a knife was twisting in his side when he lied about what the beautiful woman with deep brown eyes meant to him. He tried to block those eyes out with mind numbing sexual experiences. Only to feel empty and unclean when they ended- was this what his father felt when he returned home?
But he could not block her out. She was ever there…and those eyes…he felt naked to her. As if she could see straight through him down to the pits of his soul…and he feared what she would find there.
Nero convinced him that he was not the problem- she was. He said she needed to be broken to love him properly. That only a woman who had been tested and tried would be capable of loving a man fully and accepting his role in the family. Spock found the argument logical. And it had empirical evidence. After all, his mother had endured the same test and reaped the reward by remaining as the cherished wife of Ambassador Sarek. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Nero's other half, who, Spock would later learn, died years before-a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.