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James T. Kirk was 12 years old when he met S’chn T’gai Spock.
The colony on Tarsus IV worked the same as many other colonies in Terra’s long history of gaining land: it took the geniuses and the rejects and stranded them, alone, to figure things out for themselves.
Jim and Spock were classified under both extremes, and this made their lives intrinsically linked.
In another life, they would have met when they were older and better adjusted to their circumstances, and they would have become friends over the little things, playing chess and talking. Here, now, they got on like a house on fire.
As in, a house actually on fire, alarms blaring and a surprising amount of smoke.
On their first meeting they had both insulted each other, discovered that their species had two different blood colors, and promised to be friends forever. Hoshi Sato had rolled her eyes at the both of them, muttering something about how they’d better not make this a pattern, and forced them into the farmhouse.
Hoshi owed Winona Kirk a favor, and apparently she owed Amanda Grayson too, because she took in Jim and Spock when no sane person would.
Sure, they were smart. Geniuses even. But they weren’t smart .
“Where have you two been?” Hoshi snapped from the porch in Andorian, one of the languages that she forced them to learn, watching the two bedraggled boys come trudging back after a long day out. “Why does Jim have a split lip?”
“He said I could hit him if he was wrong,” Spock said simply in the same language. “I did not enjoy our excursion.”
“We did all our schoolwork before we were leaving!” Jim’s Andorian was still in the works. “For the whole week too!”
“Left,” Spock corrected. “You used the past continuous; this situation calls for the past simple.”
“This situation calls for me to–”
“Boys.” Hoshi interrupted. “Explain. Now.”
“Jim said that there would be enjoyment in climbing into Governor Kodos’ garden due to his being the only grower of strawberries,” Spock said. “We did not get caught by the guards overseeing the private territory.”
“Couldn’t even eat any of them,” Jim complained. “They must’ve been overwatering them real bad, there was fungus all over them. Half the garden was moldy.”
“Really bad,” Spock corrected his Andorian once again.
“That was colloquialism, Spock,” Jim rolled his eyes. “You know? Casual speech?”
“Andorian colloquialism favors disparaging remarks,” Spock pressed. “Not bad grammar. It would have been more appropriate to use a simile.”
“Implication of having a bad education by having bad grammar is also appropriate,” she corrected them both. “However, using a simile to imply weakness is appropriate only if Jim is truly upset. Which I guess he isn’t since he’s still smiling even after you punched him.”
“It was fun to sneak around,” Jim was proud of his abilities, even if Spock found no entertainment in the adrenaline rush.
“Well, fun is over,” Hoshi shooed them inside. “Go take a bath, I don’t want any mold growing on your bed sheets. Dinner is nearly ready.”
A month later, their entire world fell apart.
Hoshi fought as hard as she could against the guards, but she was old, and there were too many.
Jim and Spock held hands for the first time that day. They held hands as they ran as far and as fast as they could. When one flagged, the other tugged them along.
Like a house on fire, there were flames.
They found Kevin first, on the same day. The Riley farm was the closest to Hoshi’s, and they hoped they would find help there. Instead, they could see the smoke that came from repeated phaser fire. It was Spock who heard Kevin breathing, his mom had drugged him with something so that he wouldn’t cry, and Jim was the one who pulled him out from inside the couch. It was a miracle that he hadn’t suffocated, being so young. It would be a miracle if he survived what was coming.
They found Erika two days later. She had stolen a guard’s phaser and pointed it at them until Jim convinced her they weren’t going to turn her in to Kodos. Kevin found Tom half-dead under a tree with a slash to his eye that had gotten infected. Spock had run straight into Analee, and the two telepaths had come into an agreement without ever saying a word.
Being alone meant death; being together meant more mouths to feed. There was no winning against fire when you had no water.
“I don’t want them to have my name,” Analee said one day. “I don’t want them to be the ones to kill me.”
She was a Betazoid, chosen to be killed simply for not being human.
She looked at them, “I’m Annie now. Analee is at home on Betazed with my parents, and I can be her again when I’m home.”
“I’m Tommy,” Thomas said. “You’ll be the only ones who can ever call me that.”
They went around in a circle, each offering a new name to be called. Each one chose to bury a part of them so that Kodos wouldn’t bury it for them.
Erika was Era. Leslie was Lee. Si’chan was Sisi. Marcus was Mark. Haegen was Harry. Kevin, who was too young to understand, was named Kev by Jim.
Jim and Spock linked their pinkies together. They knew they shouldn’t, but acting like a proper Vulcan wouldn’t help them survive out there.
“I’m JT,” Jim offered at last.
“S’chn,” was Spock’s choice.
No human could pronounce it. Sh-cart-lun they would say, unable to intone the lower growling sounds. S’khart-lan, Jim could say it perfectly, as if he was born to.
Spock allowed the name, even if one person could say it. It was Jim, and since it was Jim, it was also Spock.
They lost Lee to sickness.
They had gotten so desperate that they’d eaten mouthfuls of dirt with roots in them, leftover from land that was once a vegetable patch. The fungus got them.
They almost lost Tommy to an infection.
Era, JT, and S’chn agreed that they needed medicine, that it was the only way.
The city, and the guards, stood in their way.
JT came up with a plan, saying that it was their best chance.
JT distracted the guard while S’chn snuck inside, all while Era kept a lookout.
Era shot the guard before JT could lose all his clothing. Before he could lose the last of his innocence, but by killing a man, Era doomed herself. S’chn hadn’t seen a thing, but that night, when they held hands, he could feel JT’s tears as if they were his own.
Era died a week before help came.
A phaser to the head by a guard, a single shot during a food raid.
“What does crying feel like?” S’chn said that evening. They couldn’t return to the others, hands empty and missing a friend.
It was raining, and JT looked up at the sky. Jim looked back down at his best friend.
“Like this,” Jim offered.
It was the first time they melded, and it was messy. A mash of emotions and shared memories, and bitter memories, the ones that held guilt and shame, the ones that brought them here.
At first, the rain was enough to mimic tears on his face, a mirror to Jim’s, but then the long-forgotten tear-ducts in Spock’s eyes opened again for the first time in fourteen years.
They screamed and howled their grief together, an unholy feral pain that only they shared.
The storm had soaked them to the bone, but that was not a difficult thing to do anymore. They were only bone; even their skin was thin and stretched out. Jim was weak already, barely capable of walking the distance needed to seek food. Spock has long since returned to the path his ancestors took as predators, his mother’s blood the only reason his stomach adapted so quickly to eating meat, though neither of them would ever speak of where the meat had come from.
“I do not wish to lose you,” Spock admitted.
Jim shivered in his arms, “I don’t want to lose you either.”
They knew– their minds still intertwined, even if the meld was over– that they would be forced apart soon. Either by their impending death, or, if rescue ever came, by their parents.
“There is one possibility,” Spock was hesitant.
“Do it.”
“Jim–”
Bright blue eyes stared right back at him, “Spock. I don’t ever want to lose you. Please.”
James T. Kirk never said please. That was what broke S’chn T’gai Spock.
A house on fire burns bright.
They returned to their family– their kids– as a bonded pair. Married, in Vulcan terms, or, at least, as close as they could be without Spock’s Time having come.
T’hy’la, they call each other. The others don’t ask.
The day Starfleet came, they were separated.
Annie and Tommy got caught at the mouth of their cave.
Sisi and Mark got outside and started to run, but they were grabbed too.
S’chn picked up Kev and grabbed JT’s hand, and they ran as fast as they could. They dodged as many officers as possible, fear so deep in their bones that they could no longer tell friends from foes. All they knew was that adults meant danger, and danger meant death.
Somehow, they found themselves in the place it all began, the farm of Hoshi Sato.
There was a skeleton in the living room that they jumped over, covered in fungus, most of the flesh swallowed by mold, but not all. They tried not to think of the fact that they could recognize the face.
At the top of the stairs, there was a bedroom that once belonged to two boys. It has posters and toys and a stack of science textbooks.
JT climbed into the bottom bunk bed and took a silently crying Kev from S’chn.
He had Era’s phaser. It didn’t have many charges left, they never managed to recharge it, but there were three fatal shots left. JT knew that if anything happened, those shots were not for the adults who were hunting them, but for a painless death.
He remembered what happened to Harry once the guards caught him. He remembered having to stay silent and not scream along as they cut off his fingers, one by one, until he had the same amount as a human would. He bled purple everywhere once they moved from extra limbs to extra appendages and cut off his tail and antennae.
S’chn growled, deep and threatening, once the first adult in bright colors came into the room.
The adult stared at them, and they stared back.
“Jimmy?” The man in gold asked, “Jimmy, do you remember me?”
JT didn’t know why they knew that name, and his fear made S’chn instinctively switch to a hiss.
The final warning before a Vulcan pounces.
“It’s Chris, kiddo,” he said, putting his hands up. There was no weapon in his grasp, a strange sight after all these months. “We came. I’m so sorry we’re late.”
S’chn went to move forward, but JT stopped him with a simple tug of the bond in his mind.
“Uncle Chris?” Jim croaked.
A woman and a man come running up the stairs, and Spock stopped growling altogether.
“Ko’mekh?” He rasped, “Sa’mekh?”
“Spock!” The woman surged forward and pulled him to her chest.
Eventually, when a house catches fire, the alarm will wake you up, just in time.
Vulcan was just like Spock remembered it, and he hated that.
Jim was with him, but nobody else. Their bond saved them, but it did not stop the others from being scattered across the stars.
Kevin had been ripped from Jim’s arms, the toddler screaming for them, but according to everyone involved, a teenager was not a fit parent. Jim had collapsed from a sedative stuck into his neck, and Spock had thrown all logic out as he attacked the officer who had grabbed Kevin, his teeth were sharp and deadly, and if it weren’t for his father’s interference with a pinch, he would have torn the man’s throat out.
Vulcan had stayed the same, but Spock hadn’t. Spock still was S’chn, even though he was home. Jim was still JT even though they were free.
And Vulcan’s beliefs about Spock still held.
He was not fully Vulcan, so he was emotional, handicapped, illogical.
Spock had acted like any Vulcan in his position would have. He took every advantage he could, including his human ancestry. It was an advantage, not a failing. His fear was logical, his anger and grief innate, a fact of life.
“I cannot stay here,” he told his mother.
He was 17, three years younger than the age of majority on Vulcan. He had found Sybok’s leather jacket and pierced his ears using Micheal’s old earrings. Somehow, it made him feel emptier and closer to his siblings.
“I know,” she trusted him. “I’m proud of you, always.”
Jim’s family never contacted him after Tarsus.
Winona had just silently signed his emancipation papers. Sam had never appeared. Frank had said good riddance.
He didn’t need the bond with Spock not to get separated, but he was grateful for it anyways.
They were always together, everywhere.
They went to Betazed and saw Analee. She was still Annie inside.
They went to Andoria and saw Si’chan. They were still Sisi inside.
They went to London to see Marcus. He was still Mark inside.
They went to Germany to see Thomas. He was still Tommy inside.
They did not go searching for Kevin. They knew if they saw him, they wouldn’t be able to leave him.
They realised that Tarsus would never leave them.
They hated it.
The thing about a house on fire, is that it burns .
The diplomatic immunity Spock inherited from his father was put to good use.
Jim drank and started fights and slept with adults over twice his age.
Spock emoted and threw punches and joined Jim in bed.
Pike and Amanda and Sarek never got angry. They just supported them, making sure they still attended their therapy sessions, that they were still eating, that they understood that they needed to feel, that they needed to just be .
Spock had to relearn how to be Vulcan and Human.
Jim had to relearn how to hope.
“The day I was born, my father died,” Jim said the night before his eighteenth birthday. “When I became a teenager, four thousand people died.”
Spock, twenty years old, with bruised knuckles and bruised knees, listened.
“What do you think will happen tomorrow?”
Spock reached out to lock their pinkies together, a chaste kiss, a chaste sharing of emotions, a chaste promise. “I think you’ll be afraid.”
“Yeah?”
“We’ll both be afraid,” he decided. “And we’ll both be waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
He had learned so much about being human, running wild with Jim.
“Do you think it will?” Jim asked.
Spock turned to face his best friend, his brother, his husband. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll be together.”
Jim smiled, “Hey S’chn?”
“Yes JT?”
“You’re the only person I need.”
After a while, the curtains and bedspreads catch aflame too.
Once upon a time, they were a pair of teenagers, angry at the universe for the hand they’d been dealt.
There had been stolen cars and worn handcuffs. Solicitation of minors and underage drinking. In a very memorable weekend, a high-stakes chase where Starfleet attempted to arrest them for hacking their systems, all while Jim filmed them running away with techno music and Spock kept using Starfleet’s own emergency transporters to get away, which had culminated in a tired and disappointed Pike fishing them out of his Jeffries Tubes after they hitched an illegal ride.
But they grew up, slowly.
There was hope in the stars, they had learned.
There was no shame in humanity, no shame in being Vulcan. Spock was, and by being, he was living, and making his parents proud.
There was no shame in surviving, no betrayal in finding joy, and no anger in feeling safe. Jim was, and by being, he was living, and he could understand life.
Spock broke first, a quiet application to Starfleet, to the people who had rescued him, to the hope that he could help others.
He was accepted.
After the height of the flames, a burning house is left with just a shell.
Jim was fine while Spock was still on the ground for those two years of training, but then he graduated, and he was in the stars, and Jim couldn’t go running after him like he always did.
He lasted six months in solitude until he broke, falling back onto old habits.
Three months later, Pike pulled him out of a drunken bar fight.
“I didn’t know you were back,” Jim slurred. “Woulda gone to Spock.”
“Jimmy,” Chris used a napkin to wipe the blood off his face. “You don’t think he didn’t miss you too?”
“Of course, he misses me,” Jim replied. “He’s my Spock.”
It was as simple as that. He’s Jim and he’s Spock. Together, always.
“And you’re his Jim,” Chris tilted his head back so his nose would stop bleeding. “I know you can do better, kid.”
With his head tilted back, Jim had a perfect view of the stars.
“Dad loved me, didn’t he?” His voice felt small. “He died for me.”
“Living is just as much love as dying,” Chris pulled his godson into a hug. “I promise you, we haven’t forgotten about you.”
Jim broke second.
He joined Starfleet the very next day.
At dawn, the embers of the house are still smoldering, but not burning.
Jim was pretty sure that when Pike told them to, and he quoted ‘be professional for the love that is all good and holy,’ that he hadn’t meant this.
“Who is this pointy-eared bastard?” Bones cursed as Jim got brought up on academic misconduct charges in front of the entirety of Starfleet.
Jim couldn’t answer him, because he was pretty sure he saw Admiral Nogura roll their eyes as Spock began one of their age-old debates.
Considering Nogura remembered that time Jim and Spock burst into a high-level admiralty meeting so they could get additional perspectives on their debate of the true meaning of intergalactic exploration when they were sixteen and eighteen, Jim knew that he wasn’t going to end up in any real trouble. Admiral Archer had even played along back then, though Spock had stormed out when the man had said that he had a very Vulcan point of view, and he seemed to be happy to play along now again, as long as Jim fixed the Maru once this was all over.
But that didn’t happen, because something was happening on Vulcan.
Jim could feel Spock’s fear, just as easily as he could feel his own.
Pike was gone, and Jim was first officer, and Spock was heading back down.
“I have to get the Elders out of the Katric Ark,” Spock had said.
“S’chn!” Jim snapped, running onto the platform after him. “I’m coming with you.”
It was a promise, not one that Spock could deny.
Vulcan was hot and cracking under their feet as they ran up the mountain, so they held hands. Like they were children again.
Jim herded Amanda out as Spock guided the Elders, and when the cliff began to break, Jim pulled the woman who had been his mother when nobody else would out of the way, straight back into Spock and Sarek.
They arrived on the Enterprise with all the Elders, yet to the death of billions.
There was anger and pain and grief they thought they would never feel again.
Having a Scotsman, a Roydeep, and a future Spock beam aboard while the ship was in warp was not as much of a surprise as it should have been.
Jim sighed and said, “Do you always have to hack the Starfleet transporters, Spock?” The second he had come face-to-face with the older Vulcan.
Somehow, after a few blinks, the Vulcan had reoriented himself enough to smile, “I have been and shall always be your friend, James T. Kirk.”
“I know,” Jim couldn’t help but smile back. “Come on, my S’chn is absolutely going to decide that this is his last straw and 619 himself when he sees you.”
Bones and Uhura were left spluttering behind them and asking why Jim was so familiar with Spock.
Here’s the thing about a house on fire: it burns itself out.
It becomes ash, and there is no smoke. No fire. Just ash.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Stardust.
There is something eternal about it.
Five seconds after the Narada gets sucked into a black hole, Jim jumped out of the Captain’s chair and grabbed Spock by the hand to pull him into a deep kiss.
When they finally pulled apart, Spock only said one thing.
“JT,” he pressed their foreheads together. “Pike is going to report us both for unprofessionalism again.”
The first time had been when they got caught, black instructor robes and red cadet uniform, in a closet, half naked, by Pike.
“God damn it,” Jim sighed. “Can’t even give my husband a victory kiss. Fucking Starfleet.”
He looked around to see the rest of the bridge crew gaping at them, “Please don’t tell Pike, neither of us want to get written up again for indecent displays of affection.”
Bones snapped first, “JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK, WHAT DO YOU MEAN HUSBAND?!”
Uhura began hollering one beat after him, apparently for being flirted with by both of them.
Captain Kirk and Commander Spock sounded like a pair for the history books.
Jim told Spock that, just to watch his husband raise an eyebrow.
“I prefer JT and S’chn,” he replied. “And Jim and Spock.”
In bed, Jim could trace the names of everyone they lost into his lover’s skin.
“Spock,” he said. “Are you still afraid of growing old?”
“Not if I’m growing old with you, T’hy’la.”
From ashes, new life can grow.