Living And Dying
Disclaimer:If I owned them, I probably wouldn't be writing fanfiction about them. Common sense, people.
A/N:Hello, everybody! If you're reading this, it probably means you liked the prologue enough to come back for more. Thanks! This chapter goes out to circa divide, who was the first person to review this series, and to MirrorFlower and DarkWind, who was the second, and of course to T'Key'la, who asked so nicely for more! You guys are the bomb! I advise any readers who haven't to check them out, cuz they are just that good. Thank you so much to everyone who fav'd, reviewed, alerted, or did none of the above but liked it anyway. And to those last-come out of the woodwork! I would love to hear your insights!
And so the curtain rises….
Chapter One: The Deadly Years
The bright red convertible zoomed along Iowa's dirt streets at eighty miles an hour.
The comms unit chirped. The blond boy pushed the button and rolled his eyes as his stepfather's voice filled the car. "Hey, are you outta your mind? That car's an antique. You think you can get away with this just cuz your mother's off-planet? You get your ass back home NOW. You live in my house, buddy. You live in my house and that is my car. You get one scratch on that car and I'm gonna whip your a—"
The kid cut the connection and reached up to release the top. Instead of folding back, it blew off completely. For a second, he felt a lurch of dread. Then a huge smile spread across his face. Boy, was Frank gonna be pissed!
He caught sight of a boy a little older than himself walking along the side of the road, sticking his thumb out without looking back. As the blond came up behind the hitchhiker, he realized who it was and his adrenaline-induced smile widened. Would the bully still think him a nerd now?
"Hey, Johnny!" he yelled, turning and waving, reveling in the shell-shocked expression on the older boy's face. As he did, he caught sight of a hovercycle cop-bot chasing him. The bot pulled alongside the car. "Citizen. Pull over," it commanded. He spun the wheel crazily, turning onto a side road but losing almost no speed. A devilish smirk stretched his face.
The sound of sirens filled his ears and he could feel his pulse pounding double-time in his veins. Just try and catch me! He thought. He slammed through wooden gates, into a restricted area.
As he looked down the road, straining his eyes to see through the Iowa dust, he made out a strange… something…in the road ahead. A few seconds later he realized it was a huge gorge. Anger coursed through him. A dead end. Another dead end. His entire life was a dead end. One giant cliff waiting for him to fall. Dead ends…! A mom who couldn't afford to take a job that would let her come home every night. A big brother who tried to protect him but came home less and less. A step-dad who beat him, just because he was there. Classmates who pounded him to a pulp because he aced his tests. Teachers who suspected him of cheating, who scolded him for fighting, even when it was six against one. All dead ends, no matter how hard he tried, all dead ends, and now, another dead end trying to rein him in. There were only two choices. One; he could brake right now and let the cop-bot arrest him, or two; he could just keep going until the cliff swallowed him. Either way, a dead end. It seemed that the universe was determined to see him fall.
He clenched his teeth. I. AM. SICK OF IT! He screamed to himself. I'm sick of everyone telling me that I can't do it, that I'll never amount to anything. I'm sick of adults who think they know who I am and what I can do. I'm sick of being screwed over!
Screw it, he decided forcefully. Screw all the jerks who think they know better. I'll show those assholes. I'm going to throw it all in their arrogant faces. I'll do everything they tell me I can't. I'll drive this car over the edge of a canyon, and I'll live to tell about it. Screw them all!
"YAAAAAAH!"
He slammed down the brake and launched himself from the car. The convertible fishtailed and skidded over the edge. He slid along the ground, earning serious road burn and scrapes on his elbows and knees. He felt his legs disappear over the edge and his hands scrabbled, trying to find a purchase on the hard-packed dirt. Triumph surged through him as he pulled himself out of the canyon, and straightened up. Screw the universe!
The cop-bot dismounted his hovercycle and marched over to him. "Is there a problem officer?" the boy asked, a little out of breath, but still cocky.
"Citizen. What is your name?" it asked.
The boy jerked his chin up, blond hair blowing in the wind. "My name is James Tiberius Kirk," he said defiantly.
Screw the universe!
The young boy bent over, packing his belongings into his satchel. His black hair was cut severely above upturned eyebrows, and around curved pointed ears. His solemn face was impassive as he straightened up. "Spock," a male voice called to him.
"I presume you have prepared new insults for today?" he inquired coolly.
"Affirmative," the deeper voice answered. The boy stood, turned and walked up to the group. Four of his peers, all a little older and taller than he, faced him.
"This is your thirty-fifth attempt to elicit an emotional response from me," he informed them.
"You're neither human nor Vulcan and therefore have no place in this universe," one—the one who had called out—told him.
"Look," said another to his friends. "He has human eyes. They look sad, don't they." It didn't sound like a question.
"Perhaps an emotional response requires physical stimulating," the leader suggested. He shoved Spock back with both hands. "He's a traitor, you know. Your father. For marrying her. That human whore."
Spock's face twisted in anger. "AAGH!" he yelled as he shoved the other boy into a learning pod. He slid in after and slammed his fist into the bully's face, spinning him around with the force of the blow. The older boy grabbed Spock by the collar, but Spock tripped him and climbed on top of him, punching him mercilessly.
His father sat down next to him on the bench. Spock hung his head, ashamed of his emotional outburst, ashamed that he felt shame. "They called you a traitor," he said softly, raising his head to look at his father.
"Emotions run deep within our race," Sarek said. "In many ways more deeply than in humans. Logic offers a serenity humans seldom experience; the control of feelings. So that they do not control you."
Spock contemplated for a second, then looked back at his father, confusion in his eyes, though the rest of his face was blank. Frustration bubbled up within him and he struggled to tamp it down. "You suggest… that I should be completely Vulcan." His brows furrowed. "And yet you married a human."
"As Ambassador to Earth it is my duty to observe and understand human behavior," he explained. "Marrying your mother was…logical."
Spock thought about it for a moment.
"Spock." He raised his eyes to his father's again. "You are fully capable of deciding your own destiny. The question you face is, which path will you choose? This is something only you can decide."
Spock's difficulties only grew worse. He constantly faced prejudice from his peers and even his instructors. His father was very strict with him, and when Sarek was around, Spock strived to be utterly devoid of emotion in an effort to please him. The only person who seemed to accept Spock as he was, whether he was being human, or emotionless Vulcan, was his mother, Amanda. Though he struggled to be without emotion, she always seemed to know what feelings he was hiding, and exactly how to respond.
This comforted him greatly, but also worried him. If she knew what he was feeling, then he clearly was not succeeding at suppressing his emotions. When, at last, he could stand to wonder no longer and put the question to her, she laughed.
"Oh, Spock," she said with an exasperated noise that fell somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. She crouched in front of him and put her hands on either side of his face. "I've been living with Vulcans for sixteen years, three years longer than you've been alive. I've had plenty of time to get used to the Vulcan ways. And I'm your mother. I've been with you your whole life, so I know every tiny indicator of your mood. And," she smiled brightly, "Any human mother will tell you; we have a sixth sense when it comes to our children. We know things about them almost instinctively." She patted his cheek and stood. "Okay?"
"Very well," he consented. Privately he thought that humans were strange indeed, driven as they were by emotion, but human women, perhaps even more so.
He continued to face prejudice and conceit from all Vulcans he met. As he lay in bed at night, trying to banish his anger at their arrogance, he wondered despairingly what the logic was in despising him for the simple fact that his mother was human. Where is the logic in automatically making assumptions about me? he anguished, fists clenching. Realizing what he was doing, he relaxed his hands, forcing himself to breathe deeply and evenly.
When he could not entirely suppress his despair, he sat up and pushed aside the curtains at his window, to reveal the bright and sparkling stars. As he gazed out at them, he recalled the silly little poem his mother used to recite with him when he was a small child. Try as he might, he could not recall the full poem, so he settled for what he did remember. He trained his eyes on the first dot of light they met and, acutely aware of how illogical it was to 'wish on a star', he murmured, "My dearest wish…I would like someone I can truly call friend. Someone who, when looking at me, will see me and not a half-Vulcan, half-human outcast. A person who will not ask that I be more than myself. This…is my deepest desire." He had never spoken these words aloud before, though they were often at the forefront of his mind. Somehow, he felt a little lighter now that he had admitted it out loud, even if it was only to a far-distant star.
Much calmer, he laid back on his pillow, pulled his light blanket up to his chin, and quickly fell asleep in the warm light of the night sky falling from his open curtains.
But if the next years were hard on Spock, they were a living hell for James T. Kirk. He spent three good years on Tarsus IV with his brother Sam, living with his aunt and uncle. Then, in a flash, everything was wrong, a hell to torment him even in his waking hours. He returned home, fourteen years old, hardened and haunted, having lived through a nightmare that would have broken older and harder men. That had broken them.
He laughed his way through high school, in bed with a different girl every week from his sophomore year on, in and out of jail for minor offenses a dozen times.
Frank was long gone; his mom had divorced him immediately after bailing a ten-year old Jim out of juvenile detention for driving a car over a cliff. Then she had sent both sons out to Tarsus while she searched for a job closer to home. She had found one groundside, in their hometown of Riverside, Iowa, but worked long hours.
Sam was gone before Jim's junior year, working any job he could find to pay his college tuition. He majored in sciences and called at least once a month to check on Jim. He came home for Christmas every year, and they tried to be a normal happy family for a week or two before he went back.
Jim lived fast and furious. He was cocky and arrogant, constantly pissing off his teachers with his lack of respect. He got perfect scores, but never seemed to be paying attention. He charmed every girl he met and learned to fight in bars and against the boyfriends, girlfriends, family members, and occasional husbands of the girls he seduced. He became infamous as a playboy, a love 'em and leave 'em sort of guy. At age seventeen, he discovered the mind-numbing power of alcohol, and got drunk as often as he could stand. His life was a whirlwind of bars, hospitals, jail cells and long, solitary nights zooming across the flat Iowa countryside on his motorcycle rather than sleeping.
He made no attachments to anyone, let no one close to him, determined to be free, held down by no one and nothing.
James T. Kirk lived his life in was that would maximize the benefits and minimize the repercussions.
Until he turned twenty-two and tried to hit on a beautiful African woman in a bar.
He lifted a beer to his lips and downed a healthy gulp, settling more comfortably on his stool. His head was already buzzing pleasantly, and he lifted his drink again. As he tilted it up, he caught sight of a drop-dead gorgeous girl wending her way through the crowd toward him. Her mocha-colored skin glowed in the dim lighting, and her straight, silky dark hair flowed halfway down her back. She was wearing the red mini-dress of a Starfleet cadet and her smile was dazzling. She carried herself with a confidence that made Jim long to get her in bed. He had frozen in place, beer tipped up a centimeter from his mouth.
"Shit—" He hastily lowered his beer bottle to keep any more from spilling. Muttering expletives under his breath, he grabbed a napkin with his free hand and mopped up his lap, thankful that he had caught it before a wet spot appeared on his dark jeans. He kept one eye on the woman as she strode purposefully up to the bar and scanned a menu.
"One Clabnian firetea, three Budweiser classics, two Cardassian sunrises, and…" she trailed off, looking at the menu again.
"Try the Slusho, it's good," the bartender suggested.
Smiling, she handed back the menu. "The Slusho mix, thank you."
"That's a lot of drinks for one woman," Jim drawled, leaning forward so she could see him around the alien with the elongated face who sat between them.
She glanced over at him, and turned back to the bartender, rolling her eyes, but half-smiling. "And a shot of Jack, straight up," she added.
"Make that two, her shot's on me," Jim piped up, jerking a thumb at her with a sidelong glance.
"Her shot's on her," the woman contradicted immediately, before turning to Jim. "Thanks but no thanks."
"Don't you even wanna know my name, before you completely reject me?"
"I'm fine without it," she told him.
"You are fine without it," he agreed wholeheartedly. "It's Jim, Jim Kirk." He looked at her expectantly. When she didn't respond, he made an impatient gesture with his hands. "If you don't tell me your name, I'm gonna have to make one up."
Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, annoyed, before she directed her gaze at Jim. "It's Uhura."
"No way, that's the name I was gonna make up for you!" he exclaimed. Later, he would blame that one on the fact that he was about half-drunk and as such his charm was slightly impaired. The strange faced alien looked exasperated. "Uhura what?"
"Just Uhura."
"What, they don't have last names on your world?"
"Uhura is my last name," she said.
"Well then, they don't have…uh," he thought for a moment. Again he blamed it on the drinks. "First names on your world?"
She still wasn't looking at him, but she smiled and rolled her eyes.
He grabbed his beer and walked around the alien to stand beside the lovely Uhura. "So…" he leaned on the bar. "You're a cadet, you're studying, what's your focus?"
"Xeno-linguistics. You have no idea what that means," she added challengingly.
His answer was immediate. "Study of alien languages, morphology, phonology, syntax…means you've got a talented tongue."
She turned, looking mildly and pleasantly surprised. "Wow, I'm impressed. For a moment there, I thought you were just a dumb hick who only has sex with farm animals." She was clearly baiting him now.
"Well," he answered, cocky. "Not only." His lips quirked up in smirk and she threw back her head and laughed.
A large bald cadet with a truly horrible beard chose that moment to walk up behind Jim. "This townie isn't bothering you, right?" he rumbled, and Uhura laughed again.
"Oh, beyond belief," she said with feeling. "But it's nothing I can't handle," she told him warmly.
"You could handle me, that's an invitation," Jim replied, folding his arms, impressed, as she knocked back her shot without flinching.
"Hey," said the cadet warningly. "You better mind your manners."
Jim rolled his eyes. "Oh, relax, cupcake," he said, slapping the bigger man on the shoulder. "It was a joke." Jim continued, turning back to the bar, only to be grabbed by the shoulder and wheeled around.
"Hey. Maybe you can't count," Cupcake growled. "But there are four of us and one of you." He got up in Jim's face as he finished.
Jim didn't bat an eyelash. "So go and get some more guys and it'll be an even fight." He patted Cupcake's cheek, smiling indulgently, before turning back to the bar again. He was leaning toward it when he tensed and looked back to the cadets, only to catch Cupcake's fist squarely on the jaw.
He heard Uhura scolding the big man as he collapsed against the bar. Jim heaved himself up and kicked Cupcake in the chest, sending him flying backward.
The man's friends surged forward and things became a blur of fists and pain. It was a blur that Jim knew well, and somehow, the familiarity of a good bar fight was comforting. Vaguely, he registered Uhura's voice shouting in the background as he was lifted from the floor and slammed into a table. His vision blurred as he was punched in the face repeatedly. As he was yanked upward for another punch, an earsplitting whistle filled the bar and everyone fell silent. The man attempting to kill him snapped to attention and Jim fell back onto the table with a thud, his head lolling. A man in Starfleet instructor blacks stood there looking sternly around at his cadets. "Outside, all of you," the man said, and a crowd of cadets filed out of the bar. The other patrons took this as their cue to leave.
The instructor looked down at Jim. "You alright son?"
"You can whistle really loud, you know that?" Jim responded dizzily.
The man cocked his head.
Several minutes later, they were the only two in the bar. Jim sat across from the man called Captain Pike, tissue in his nose and a drink in his hand. He had staunchly ignored the captain's warnings about the dangers of drinking with a concussion.
"You know, I could hardly believe it when the bartender told me who you are," Pike said conversationally.
"And who am I, Captain Pike?" Jim asked sardonically.
Pike looked at him evenly and quietly replied, "Your father's son."
Jim looked over his shoulder and gestured to the bartender with his glass. "Can I get another one?"
"For my dissertation I was assigned the USS Kelvin. Something I admired about your dad; he didn't believe in no-win scenarios.
Jim pulled the tissue from his nose. "Sure learned his lesson."
"Well, that depends on how you define winning. You're here aren't you?"
"Thanks," Jim said as another drink was set down in front of him.
Pike continued. "You know, that instinct to leap without looking, that was his nature too, and in my opinion that's something Starfleet's lost."
"Why are you talking to me, man?" Jim laughed.
"Because I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor," was the cool, immediate response. "Your aptitude tests are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only genius level repeat offender in the Midwest?"
"Maybe I love it."
Pike wasn't buying. "So your dad dies, you can settle for less in ordinary life. But you feel like you were meant for something better. Something special." Jim stared into his drink. "Enlist in Starfleet."
Jim's head snapped up. "Enlis—?" he laughed. "You guys must be way down on your recruiting quota for the month."
"If you're half the man your father was, Jim, Starfleet could use you. You could be an officer in four years, you could have your own ship in eight. You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's a peace-keeping and humanitarian armada—"
"We done?" Jim cut him off.
Pike looked at him for a moment. "I'm done." He got to his feet. "Riverside shipyard. Shuttle for new recruits leaves tomorrow, zero-eight-hundred." Jim raised his glass in mock cheers. "You know your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes? He saved eight hundred lives including your mothers…and yours." Pike's gaze burned with intensity. "I dare you to do better."
Jim rode his motorcycle through the silent Iowa night. Pike's words still rang in his head. I dare you to do better… Despite the fact that he hated losing a dare, his initial instinct had been to ignore the captain's words and continue on his way. So some Starfleet instructor thought he was wasting his life. Big deal, everyone he met thought that. There was no one he hadn't heard it from so why should it matter? And yet…
Your father saved eight hundred lives… Jim stopped the motorcycle and gazed at the huge shipyard. Thinking hard.
When he pulled into the shipyard the next morning, he couldn't really say why.
He wanted to believe that it was just his natural recklessness, the fact that he hated backing down from a challenge.
But he knew it was more. He didn't want to be outdone by his old man. No. No, that wasn't quite it. It was more that he wanted to be his own person. He wanted to be something more than just 'the son of the hero George Kirk.' He wanted to be recognized by his own achievement.
And, though he was loath to admit it, there was truth in what Pike had said. Jim felt like he was meant for something special.
"Nice ride," someone called as he pulled up near the shuttlecraft. Jim turned off the bike and tossed the keys to the speaker.
"It's yours."
He strode purposefully toward the shuttle doors and Pike, who looked mildly surprised, though at his mode of transportation or at Jim himself, Jim couldn't tell. "Four years?" Jim repeated as he passed Pike. "I'll do it in three." With that, he slipped into the shuttle, wondering faintly if he were crazy and grinning widely. He shook it off and moved forward. Almost immediately, his forehead slammed into a protruding pipe and he ducked, cursing internally. He made his way, bent almost double, past the red-clad cadets. "At ease, gentlemen," he said, raising two fingers ironically to his forehead as he passed Cupcake and his friends. The man gave him a death glare. He found an empty seat and dropped into it, smiling awkwardly in greeting at the cadet next to him. He fumbled for a minute before he figured out how to buckled himself in. As he slid the straps over his shoulders, he caught the eye of the beautiful Uhura sitting several seats down in the row across from him. He grinned fiendishly. "Never did get that first name," he directed at her. She smiled and looked away from him.
Jim was still smiling when his attention was drawn to a commotion near the passage to the toilets.
"You need a doctor—" a female shuttlecraft attendant was saying.
"I told you I don't need a doctor, dammit I am a doctor!" exclaimed an extremely disgruntled voice in a slightly southern accent. A rather disheveled man a few years older than Jim came into view, a heavy scowl on his face. Even with the five o'clock shadow, Jim could tell he was extraordinarily handsome. He was also extraordinarily pissed off.
"You need to get back to your seat," said the attendant severely.
"I had one!" he cried furiously over her protests. "In the bathroom, with no windows! I suffer from aviophobia. It means fear of dying in something that flies!"
"Sir, for your own safety, sit down, or else I'll make you sit down," she threatened, glaring up at him.
For a second, he glared back at her. "Fine." Still fuming, he collapsed onto the next to Jim. The attendant stalked off and he scowled after her. As the man pulled the straps over his shoulders, he leaned over to Jim. "I may throw up on ya," he warned through clenched teeth.
"I think these things are pretty safe," said Jim cautiously.
The man snorted. "Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds," he informed Jim, clipping the pieces of his buckle together. "Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait'll you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence."
Jim wondered if he'd ever met such a dramatically pessimistic person before. Or one who knew so much about the dangers of spaceflight. Somehow, he didn't think he had. "Well, I hate to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space," he told the older man, slightly thrown for a loop.
"Yeah, well, I got nowhere else to go, the ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce," the man said darkly. He pulled a flask out of his coat and lifted it to his lips. "All I got left is my bones." He drank and offered Jim the flask.
Jim took it, lifted it toward the dark man. "Jim Kirk," he said, by way of introduction, before raising the flask and savoring the whiskey as it slid down his throat.
"McCoy. Leonard McCoy," the man replied.
Jim handed him the flask and grinned, slightly bemused. He didn't quite know why—lord knew the man was eccentric, to say the least—but he liked the scowling, cynical Bones.
As the shuttlecraft took off Jim thought, somehow, I think I've let myself in for more than I planned. His grin widened. This is gonna be interesting.
A/N: As always, I humbly ask that you review. Constructive criticism and compliments are equally gratifying and just to hear from a reader is an honor like no other. You probably know by now that flames will be ignored. Love to all of you!