Chapter Text
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He was nearly eight years old when the first bruise showed up that wasn't his own, it bloomed across his knee and there was no pain and he rushed up to his parents in excitement. They smiled down at him with joy because sometimes people don’t ever find marks on themselves that aren’t their own, sometimes people don’t have soulmates at all and Leo never wanted that to be him. Not when he saw the way his parents looked at each other whenever one of them accidentally bumped into the edge of the kitchen counter or table and matching bruises formed against their hips. It was fond exasperation that led to gentle touches of the new mark that made Leo want a soulmate of his own so desperately.
It wasn’t until he was ten years old that he learned the uglier side to the marks. Of course, he heard stories, where someone loses their soulmate to a horrible accident and the marks are so vivid that some people swear they can feel the pain behind them. Those marks never completely fade and the person left behind is stuck with the reminders of how their loved one was taken away from them.
Leo knew something was wrong the moment he walked into his house. It was too quiet and his dad was home too early. Normally he worked until it was almost dinner time, which his ma grumbled about nearly every day. He found his dad sitting at the kitchen table, his face buried in his hands as he wept. Horrible, wretched sounds that pressed fear onto Leo’s heart.
As if he was approaching a skittish animal, he walked into the kitchen slowly and it didn’t take long for Leo to see the harsh, ugly bruises that marred nearly his whole body. They looked like an abstract painting across his daddy’s pale skin and he didn’t want to know what happened but found he couldn’t help but ask anyway.
“She’s gone Leo, I’m so sorry but your mama is gone, and she is never comin’ back.”
He was ten years old when he decided that having a soulmate was a curse. His dad was a doctor and must have known the moment the marks appeared that his wife likely wouldn’t survive the injuries she sustained. Leo wanted to be a doctor just like him which meant he would know too.
Nothing is the same after his ma’s death, the house became too big and too quiet and eventually, his dad hauled them into the city for a few years just to escape. Leo couldn’t find it in him to complain and gradually adjusted to the hustle and bustle of a big city.
It was in the city that he met a girl named Jocelyn, she was pretty and he was thirteen and finally realized holding hands and kissing someone wouldn't give him cooties. He paid close attention to her arms, hoped to see his own bruises bloom across her skin because she was just so pretty and wouldn't it have been great if she was his soulmate? Before he could find out his dad moved them back to their old home, saying he missed seeing the presence of his ma around the house, her little touches that made it feel like home. As they packed up their things, Jocelyn was sad and Leo swore up and down that he would visit her as often as he could.
When he was on the cusp of his fourteenth birthday, he asked his dad how he knew his ma was his soulmate because he hadn’t met his yet and how was he going to find them if all he has to go by are marks from their bruises and cuts?
Leo half expected his dad to tell him he couldn’t tell the story, couldn’t explain the joy he felt when he realized Elizabeth Beaumont was the person he was meant to spend his life with. But his dad just patted the spot next to him on their couch and he sat down eagerly, eyes wide with anticipation.
What he heard wasn’t what he expected. It took them weeks to piece together what they were and in the end, it all came down to a rather nasty paper cut. Leo knew of course that paper books and paper, in general, weren’t used often. They had decided to study together in the school’s library for their upcoming semester finals. His dad had been in a History of Medicine class and pulled down a rather large book from the 21st century, the book slipped and the weathered pages sliced his palm. When he sat back down at the table him and his ma had commandeered, holding his palm and hissing through the pain she looked up. It was large enough that she caught the thin, ugly mark against her own palm.
At that point, they couldn’t chalk up the bruises and their marks on the other’s skin as coincidences any longer. “Sometimes you meet your soulmate and spend a lot of your life not realizing that they are. Sometimes you never get to meet them at all,” he finished.
Yet another reason Leo thought having a soulmate was a curse. What was the point of seeing all the small pains and larger hurts if he couldn’t use them to actually find said soulmate? It seemed stupid really, but no one could explain why the marks happened or how to use them to speed up the process. They just were.
He was fourteen when he was given another reason to grumble over the marks on his skin instead of soar with delight. All the marks that appeared on his skin before that morning were normal looking ones, like the bruises that formed on his skin whenever he tripped on the playground or slammed his hand in the door on accident - harsh reds and purples. But as he got ready for school two months after his birthday he looked up and saw a green cut on his lip and a vivid green and yellow mark on his eye.
Leo made a split second decision to stay home from school that day, because what the hell. His dad had already left for work that morning and so he just sent a quick message as he settled in front of the family computer. As he typed away he watched an angry red mark appear against his wrist and he felt rage swell within his soul when he yet again noticed the mark looked like a hand.
It took him all of ten minutes to find out sometimes people had more than one soulmate, which made Leo curse out loud. As he dug a little deeper he found it wasn’t all that common and it was even more rare with humans. In fact, the last known case of a human having more than one soulmate had been three hundred years ago. Great, just great.
His next search took him even less time because he already had a feeling, already knew deep down, but he had to make absolutely sure. Really the search was pointless because there were only one alien species that he knew of that had green blood - Vulcans.
Why in the Sam hell did the universe think he’d be a perfect fit for a walking computer?
As if it wasn’t going to be hard enough finding one soulmate who he assumed lived on Earth, finding a second one who was on an entirely different planet in a different solar system was just damn impossible. And how long has he had this second soulmate? Had it been his whole life? He couldn’t imagine Vulcans wound up getting hurt all that often, they were much too logical for all of that.
So what had prompted his other, very Vulcan soulmate to get punched in the face?
Leo tried to push those thoughts to the back of his mind; there wasn’t anything he could do while he was on Earth just like there wasn’t anything he could do about the other human marks that flared on his skin that could only point towards one thing. Anger that couldn’t be put to good use would only make him miserable, all he could do was pray that his soulmates were able to take care of themselves until Leo barrelled into their lives and could do it for them.
There was no use in hiding the new mark from his dad when he got home that day and immediately his dad’s eyebrows raised so high Leo could’ve sworn they would disappear into his dad’s hairline. They may have lived in a small town in Georgia, but his dad had to take classes on alien biology and anatomy like every other doctor and Leo watched as everything clicked into place.
He had expected sympathy from his old man, but instead, he looked relieved. “Oh Leonard, you are very lucky.”
It didn’t feel like luck to him. He didn’t want to experience losing two soulmates when apparently losing one was already painful enough. But he kept his mouth shut because he wasn’t about to open old wounds and see his dad drown himself in work until the pain faded away enough that he could function.
His life fell into a routine after that day, at least for a little while, he studied hard in school so he could get into Ole Miss to study pre-med just like his dad and he watched for any more green marks against his skin, they never came and he was almost convinced that he had imagined the whole thing if he dad hadn’t asked about his Vulcan soulmate every once in awhile like it was the most natural thing in the world. Which he guessed it kind of was because as far as the Federation could figure, all Federation citizens experienced the same phenomenon.
He was twenty when his routine went to hell. For the last year, he hardly had any marks bloom across his skin from either of his soulmates, which made him hope that things were finally settling for both of them that he didn’t have to worry as much about being too far away to patch either of them up if the marks grew worse. But all that changed when he woke up for class one day and saw harsh marks littered across his back as if he had been whipped or shoved against a wall that was anything but smooth.
Panic flared quickly and Leo had to grab onto the edges of the sink to keep himself upright. Another quick glance at the marks told him nothing that had been inflicted on his first soulmate was going to kill him which barely allowed him to breathe a little easier. Maybe they got into a fight, maybe the fell down the stairs, anything but being whipped.
His false hope that nothing was seriously wrong went down the drain when he actually felt pain on his left forearm. With wide eyes, he watched as the word help appeared raggedly against his skin and he had to quickly excuse himself from class so that he could throw up in some bushes.
This was why having a soulmate, let alone soulmates was nothing but a curse. Leo was utterly helpless to actually do anything but his first soulmate had been desperate enough to purposely cut themselves so that maybe he could do something for them. But he didn’t know who they were or where they were and the second wave of helplessness washed over him as he dry-heaved.
Jocelyn found him and he looked up at her with wet eyes and she seemed to just know without him ever having to breathe a word. And as she held him he decided that having soulmates wasn’t for him, not when he couldn’t actually touch either of them, couldn’t comfort them or keep them safe.
When the marks appeared on his hips and thighs days later Leo knew what they meant and he didn’t push Jocelyn away when she kissed him, he needed to find shelter in her embrace because she was safe, she was here and he could protect her. She made no comment on the fading word on his arm, didn’t once let her gaze linger on the marks that littered his hips and thighs even though she knew she hadn’t been the one to put them there. Both of them pointedly ignored their marks and that they didn’t match because it was easier that way for them both.
Leo never asked Jocelyn why she wanted to ignore her soul marks and she never asked him either. It was a silent agreement on their parts and he never mentioned to her how he wept alone in his room when the marks on his skin grew more violent with each passing week. For three months he was sure he was going to lose one soulmate without ever getting to meet them until gradually the bruises faded and were replaced with ones he had grown used to for most of his life. They never lingered, never scarred the way his daddy's marks did from the day his ma died.
He wondered if his other soulmate found the same marks stretched across their skin the same way he had and abruptly he realized that maybe both of his soulmates only saw his marks and not each others. It seemed unlikely since all previously documented cases where someone had two or more soulmates they all saw each other’s bruises.
Jocelyn never asked why he cried in relief when it seemed the trauma was over and he found he loved her for it, said as much as he kissed his way down her neck and collarbone that every night. She whispered it back against the nape of his neck and three and a half years later when he was twenty-four he asked her to marry him.
His dad didn’t approve, didn’t think it was right and it had ended in the worst argument of his life. But he showed up at the wedding eight months later anyway.
Life was good for a while, two years of marital bliss nearly made him forget about the trauma of his first soulmate and almost entirely about his second but once again everything crashed down around him when he was twenty-seven. It’d been seventeen years since he lost his ma and when his dad told him he was terminally ill, well he wasn’t about to accept that. He locked himself away in research labs, slaved over finding his dad a cure because dammit he couldn’t lose him too. Couldn’t see the light fade out of his eyes when there was something he could actually do about it. Jocelyn didn’t understand, could never understand because her parents were happy, alive and well and the nights he didn’t come home he woke to several nasty messages on his PADD.
Nothing was enough, no amount of time and energy he put into saving his dad worked because one quiet afternoon his dad asked him to do the one thing he had tried to ignore. Had asked him to ease him into death peacefully instead of painfully like the disease would do in only a few short weeks.
“You need to live your life Leo and what you’re doin’ isn’t livin’,” his dad said when he refused to comply for the sixth time. And the way his dad’s voice cracked on the last word made him want to vomit because his daddy sounded so tiny and frail and desperate. “I want to see your ma again. I’m sorry I can’t stay with you longer, but…” he never finished as coughed ravished his already weak body.
Leo tried for two more weeks, he didn’t sleep but the required amount that his body needed and didn’t step foot into his and Jocelyn’s apartment the entire time. She never came by to see if he was okay. The messages on his PADD stopped altogether.
“Leo please,” his father begged and it was when he finally saw the pain that he knew he couldn’t deny his dad any longer. So he numbly nodded as he loaded up the hypospray with a dosage that was far too high for a man his father’s size. The steady hands that were praised throughout his years at school and during his residency shook. His dad smiled up at him and squeezed his other hand, “It’ll be okay. I love you so much Leo and I’m so proud of you. Promise me one thing before?”
He nodded without any real thought though he knew he’d promise his dad just about anything right now. “Promise me you’ll find them,” his dad whispered.
With jerky movements, he snapped his gaze up and only found his dad staring at him kindly. It was hard, but he managed to swallow past the lump in his throat before he said, “I will, I promise I will.”
The divorce papers came the day before his dad’s funeral and he punched the mirror when the anger became too much to contain. No pain filtered through his mind even though he knew it was there behind the haze of anger. Idly he wondered what his soulmates would think of the mangled marks on their knuckles and hand before he patched himself up.
It took six months for the lawyers to sort out everything and in the end, he didn’t care enough to fight Jocelyn on anything she wanted. Her sharp, calculated words had already ruined his practice with patients all but running away from the doctor who couldn’t make his wife happy, who married someone that wasn’t his soulmate. It was ridiculous and only proved bigotry continued to run deep in the South. So he did his own running to the one place no one would think to search for him if Jocelyn decided what he gave her wasn’t enough - Starfleet.
The recruiter told him to be in some bumfuck town in Iowa so that he could catch the next Starfleet shuttle into San Francisco and he did as he was told as if he was on autopilot which if he was honest with himself he pretty much was. Too much thinking led to thoughts of watching his dad die, of someone finding a cure only two weeks after the funeral and of Jocelyn’s angry expression pinning him down from across the mediation table. All things he didn’t want to dwell on.
On the day he was supposed to board the shuttle he woke up to marks on his face and he wondered what the fuck his first soulmate was thinking getting into a fight the day he had to look somewhat presentable. The moment he stepped foot onto the shuttle, however, the annoyance was quickly replaced by bone-crushing fear. He was not nearly drunk enough for this and promptly shut himself in the bathroom. Maybe he could get away with staying in here the entire time, but when a stern voice ordered him to leave he knew that wouldn’t be the case.
Nervous and slightly drunk ranting fell from his lips, he knew it was pointless and when the woman ordered him to sit down he did begrudgingly.
If he hadn’t been so afraid Leo would have laughed hysterically right then and there, probably been declared insane and unfit to enlist and shipped back to the hell hole Georgia had become. He would sit next to his first soulmate at the lowest point in his life. Of course, he would find them when he wasn’t actively looking and didn’t believe he ever would because sure enough as he turned to tell the kid next to him he may throw up on him, he noticed the bruises on the kids face, the same ones that marked his own.
The words died on his tongue and Leo just stared. The kid stared back, wide-eyed back and fuck he looked like a mess too, which was just great, just his luck really that his first soulmate was equally a human disaster. “You,” the kid breathed before his gaze quickly flickered down to Leo’s right hand, the one he had used to punch a mirror only a few months ago and if the bruises didn’t clear out whatever doubts he may have had, that quick, barely there look did.
“Fuck,” was the only response Leo gave as the shuttle lurched beneath them.
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He was far too young when he decided he never wanted to meet his soulmate, not when he saw his mom’s skin littered with reminders of his dad’s death. Not when Sammy told him their mom used to be vibrant and lively and loving and now she wasn’t. It wasn’t until he was five years old that he started to realize some of the marks on his skin belonged to them.
He scrubbed dirt on the mark while he was on the playground at school so that he wouldn’t have to see and he never breathed a word of his new discovery when his brother picked him up later that day. Sammy loved his marks even though he saw what they did to their mom and maybe that was because he started getting them before their dad died. Not Jim, no he never got to see the affectionate gazes his parents used to give each other full of fond exasperation whenever one of them got hurt. Sammy told him it usually happened whenever their mom accidentally hurt herself fixing up starship engines and his dad would know when it happened all the way up on the ship’s bridge.
It didn’t take long before he was utterly bored in school and he couldn’t understand why none of the other kids could understand basic addition and subtraction. The boredom boiled over on more than one occasion and he looked defiantly at his mom whenever she had to come pick him up.
“I’m sorry Jimmy they don’t have a way to challenge that genius mind of yours here,” she said quietly in the hover car. “I’ll try to find some things you can occupy yourself with.”
He knew it was a half-assed solution even at six years old, but at least his mom had tried to do something. Six months later though after he turned seven, she left him and Sammy in Riverside while she flew into the black, far away from either of them. His brother was pissed and Jim couldn’t really blame him, the last time he watched their mom fly up into space it was with their dad and she came back alone.
Uncle Frank was alright at first he guessed. The older man wasn’t his mom but he mostly left them to their own devices and when the two months came to an end and they were supposed to go back to living with their mom he was relieved.
But then two months became three and then six and it was clear that his mom didn’t plan on coming back to Riverside anytime soon. All she had sent him was a half-hearted apology about how her assignment was extended and she wouldn’t be back for two more years. Sammy lost it when he read the message on his PADD, threw the device across their shared room and yelled until his voice grew hoarse. He just watched because he never felt the love of their mom the same way Sammy had, he was too smart for his own good because he knew he was a walking reminder of what they both had lost.
When it became clear that he had to take care of two kids who weren’t his own Uncle Frank changed. Though Jim suspected later on that his uncle was always a mean bastard beneath it all but didn’t want to touch his sister’s kids and leave bruises on their skin that she would see when she collected them.
Now? Now there was nothing to stop his uncle’s true colors from showing and all he could do was try and minimize the pain that was inflicted upon him. Sammy tried to help at first, even though they weren’t close because his brother always looked at him like he was the reason their family had fallen apart, but eventually, their uncle realized and hit Sammy twice as hard for it. So Sammy eventually stopped and he couldn’t really find it in himself to resent his brother for it. At least if he let Frank hit him he wouldn’t make things worse for Sammy.
It was when he was eight years old when his world became all the more complicated. He woke up, took a shower and as he stared into the mirror he realized there were green marks on his skin. Not the familiar and scattered red and purple marks he tried to cover up. His toothbrush clattered into the sink as his brain processed this new mark and what it meant - he had two soulmates.
There was no way that he could cover up the marks like the others, no way to hide that he, James T. Kirk had a soulmate somewhere out there in the universe. So when he went downstairs it was just his luck that Frank actually decided to sober up enough to go to work for once and the moment he saw the green marks on his lip and eye he sneered.
“Well, well look what we have here,” he spat and Jim really and truly tried not to flinch when Frank grabbed his arm and yanked hard but he couldn’t help it.
Reactions always made things worse and he slammed his eyes shut for the next blow, but nothing came. “They won’t love you, Jimmy, they won’t be able to love a pathetic excuse of a human like you.” Normally Frank’s words didn’t affect him, but he jerked his arm from Frank’s grip and stared up at him wide-eyed and fuck if the words didn’t sting.
It wasn’t until he was at school that he allowed himself to look up which alien species had green blood. It was a short search and as he stared at the word Vulcan on the computer screen he wasn’t sure how to feel. He had two soulmates, two, which didn’t seem to happen all that often and one was on the same planet as himself but the other? The other was in a completely different solar system. If that wasn’t enough proof that he didn’t want nor deserve a soulmate, let alone soulmates then he didn’t know what would be. The universe seemed to enjoy creating agony in his life in such a short amount of time.
His classmates oohed and awed at his marks, asked if he knew what planet his soulmate was from and seemed almost jealous that his soulmate wasn’t human like theirs. He never breathed a word that this wasn’t his first soul mark and that the others had belonged to a human.
Eventually, he learned how to live with Frank and when his tenth birthday came and went it was clear to both him and Sammy that their mom didn’t plan on ever coming back from them. This knowledge only fueled the anger the boiled deep down inside his brother and there was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable explosion.
So when he was thirteen and Sammy said he couldn’t stay in the house, couldn’t be a Kirk here and left him with the monster that was their uncle, Jim couldn’t really find it in himself to be angry. His brother was just another person who abandoned him, another person who didn’t want him, who didn’t think he was worthy enough to stick around for. Instead the ache in his soul grew worse and he made a rash decision when the keys to his dad’s classic car fell into his lap. Well, if he wasn’t worthy enough to stick around for or to not get slapped around then he would stop being such a good kid.
The wind stung his face as he pushed the car faster and faster down the empty Riverside roads. Corn flashed by him in a yellow and green blur that on reminded him of his second soulmate and when he saw Sammy on the side of the road he waved but didn’t stop. His brother wouldn’t have stopped for him if they had swapped places, so why should he?
It felt good to scream as he blasted the music over the modern day stereo system and he ignored the police officer that ordered him to pull over. He laughed because yeah right like that was going to happen, nothing mattered anymore anyway. He pushed the gas pedal all the way down to the ground as the quarry came into his view.
For a heart-stopping moment, he was sure he wouldn’t jump out of the car, but self-preservation kicked in right at the last moment and he scrambled to keep a grip on the edge of the quarry’s cliff as the car fell to its fiery death. In the back of his mind, he wondered what he soulmates would think about the harsh bruise that formed across his ribs from the impact.
He wasn’t really surprised when Frank sent him away, too angry to even lay a hand on him as he threw down a suitcase of his things down the stairs. “Off to Tarsus you go you piece of shit, I’ll let you be your aunt’s problem now.”
When he arrived, Tarsus IV wasn’t too terribly different from Riverside, the sky was a weird shade of blue and the crops were a weird hybrid between corn and wheat but it was calm and his dad’s sister was nothing like Frank. He wondered why his mom hadn’t dumped him and Sammy here in the first place. Eventually, his life was alright, not perfect by a long shot, but gradually he stopped flinching when he heard the front door open and close at the end of the day. His aunt tried her hardest to undo the damage Frank inflicted upon his psyche and it may have worked if all hell hadn’t erupted on the colony a little over a year after he arrived.
Reports arrived one after another of failing crops, of a white fungus that destroyed any kind of food in its path and a month after the first one the colonists were in a panic. His aunt did her best to hide her worry and stocked up on much food as she could. They were weeks out from any Starfleet help, that much he knew from his long trip to the colony in the first place.
“Stay close to me,” she breathed to him quietly as they made their way into the massive square in the main encampment. He ignored the way his heart hammered against his ribs, something wasn’t right there were too many people packed in the square and there were too many guards with phasers out of the holsters for the gathering to be anything good.
“- I, Governor Kodos, hereby order your executions so that they colony may survive.”
In the chaos that ensued over the next several minutes, he was separated from his aunt and he tried his hardest to keep the panic at bay but he was only fourteen and he knew the odds of his survival were low. He managed to escape the square but only hours later guards found him as he hid and waited for his aunt to find him so they could run away to the caves they had discovered a few months prior.
Jim had expected to be killed on the spot, but instead was dragged into the square and tied against a wooden pole. His arms were stretched so far above his head that he had to take shallow breaths so he didn’t pull his shoulders out of their sockets, his chest rubbed against the wood uncomfortably and it was only when he heard others struggling beside him did he lift his head. Bile rose in his throat when he saw other children next to him, eyes wide with terror and the youngest couldn’t be older than five years old. Five. That was when the whipping began. He had been the first to arrive and he would be the first example broadcasted across the entire colony. Kodos stood in his tower and ordered over and over again for Jim and the others to be hit, to draw their families into the square so they could be killed. Once that happened, he knew they would be next.
It wasn’t until nightfall that he had the energy to stir again, his back was on fire and shoulders were numb from being extended above his head for so long. “Shh Jimmy, it’ll be okay,” his aunt’s words flooded his eyes with tears and he couldn’t stop them from falling onto his cheeks.
Her hand was a pleasant pressure at the back of his head as she unknotted the rope that bound his wrists together. “I need you to take the other children and run to our caves alright? I managed to get you some things to help you all at first, but you need to make sure you get more, I don’t think help will come for a while. I’m so sorry,” her words washed over him and it was a miracle he could even register them at all.
When she doesn’t show up at the caves two days later, he knew that his aunt was dead along with the other adults who had freed them from their deaths. He didn’t cry, couldn’t allow himself to break down when he had fifteen kids who looked at him for guidance, for protection. Their wounds were still raw and ragged, but there had been enough hypos to go around to make sure none of them fell to infection. He wondered though if it was worth it because he had no idea if dying of starvation would be worse. It didn’t take long for the supplies to run dry and he knew he’d have to run out and find more food.
The obvious place was to go back to the main encampment, with Kodos there Jim knew there would be plenty of food, enough food that they could all survive and then some until Starfleet arrived. Anger flooded his veins at the thought and he knew what he had to do.
“Kev,” he whispered, “I need you to watch over everyone. Can you do that for me?”
The little boy nodded up at him and he hated leaving such a responsibility on his shoulders, but the older kids could hardly move at the moment, their shoulders still healing from being dislocated. Jim was just thankful his hadn’t been pulled from their sockets.
He didn’t get very close to the encampment when he came across guards, ones who looked stuffed and relaxed despite the famine and chaos around them. They sneered down at him and must have seen the desperation in his eyes, must’ve known what he needed and that he would do anything to get those supplies. “We’ll make a deal with you,” the tallest one purred.
As their hands raked over his body, pulled away his ragged and dirty clothes he tried not to think about what they were doing, tried to push his mind out of his body so he wouldn’t have to be aware, wouldn’t have to feel the pain. But as was the story of his life Jim didn’t have that kind of luck and as the first guard pushed into him he was consumed by white hot pain and he screamed. They got a kick off his screaming so their touches grew firmer and left bruises in their wake. It was the sight of them after everything was over along with a bag full of food to last him and the others another week that made him throw up halfway back to the caves. His soulmates would see, they would know what he’d done and how he was nothing but disgusting, used human being. They would never want him now.
He didn’t realize what he did until after it was over. It wasn’t until after the rock fell from his fingers that his eyes focused long enough to see the word help etched into his arm as if his soulmates would read the word and come save him.
The fear slammed into him then, followed closely by tears and he knew then that he probably would never get to meet his soulmates, to learn their names, to see their faces and touch their marks so that he could feel their love and affection for himself. He didn’t realize how badly he wanted to be with them until his death loomed over his head and even if he did survive he was ruined.
It took three months for Starfleet to arrive and while he waited for them to swoop down and knock Kodos from his tower, he had to bury five of his kids. Jim knew it could have been worse but each shallow grave he dug was like he scraped the very essence of his soul and buried pieces of it with them until there was nothing left. They take his kids away from him, send them to family members who could never understand their horrors, or to new families who had no familiarity for his kids to draw from. He yelled and shouted and fought against his restraints for them, he would take them all, he would care for them because he did for three hellish months.
When they were all gone, he was empty. His eyes listlessly gazed up at the ceiling of the starships Medbay and when his mother picked him up as soon as they arrived at Earth he lost it. Sammy was long gone, off at college somewhere overseas and she would leave him soon enough. “I won’t go back to Frank,” he snarled at her when he noticed her things slowly were packed away.
He was nearly sixteen and broken and it was all her fault.
“I’m so sorry Jim,” she whispered as she left two days later. Frank never came knocking on the door and Sammy never called to see if he’d be alright. He was alone again and he learned in that moment he always would be.
Eight years blurred together for him, he finished school six months after his mother left and became reckless in his pursuit to never feel dirty, used and discarded ever again. Instead, he discarded whoever tried to worm their way into his heart, past his confident and arrogant exterior.
He was twenty-one when he was reminded of his soulmates. Marks bloomed across his right hand as if his soulmate had punched a wall or glass and as he looked closely at the marks he felt his heart tug painfully. What the fuck would make his one of his two very sensible and unbroken soulmates lose their temper like that? He was supposed to be the damaged one between the three of them and a protectiveness he didn’t realize he possessed came over him because the marks could only mean someone had hurt his soulmate.
Six months later he found himself in his usual bar surrounded by Starfleet cadets, he quickly shoved memories far, far back into the recess of his mind as he grinned at one particularly beautiful cadet. It was harmless flirting really because he just knew she wasn’t one of his soulmates, she was far too sensible to ever punch glass out of anger. The fight that followed the harmless flirting was the kind he reveled in, the kind that made him forget just how shitty his life was and how ruined he had become.
Later, Pike would believe it was his dare that made Jim join, but really deep down he was just tired. Tired of the town who only looked at him and saw his father, the town the liked to remind him that his mom and brother left him behind. He was just tired of the reminders and Starfleet would hopefully replace those reminders. At least there he could prove he was more than the two people who gave him life.
Ranting pulled him from his thoughts and he looked up to see who the hell was making such a fuss over a goddamn shuttle ride, but everything he knew splintered the moment the man sat down beside him and turned to say something. The bruises that still throbbed around his eye and cheek were marked on the man’s face. “You,” he breathed in shock because really what were the fucking odds? His eyes flickered down to the man’s right hand and his gaze didn’t go unnoticed.
“Fuck,” was the only response he got as the shuttle lurched and flew into the air.
Jim steadfastly refused to look at the man because he knew, knew all the darkest parts of his soul, saw them bloom across his skin. There was no way the man wouldn’t remember because from what he could see his soulmate was at least five years older than him.
His body craved to lean against his soulmate, desperate for contact that supposedly soothed both the physical and emotional hurts. “This is not how I wanted to meet you,” his soulmate growled next to him, but the harshness of his words were directed more at himself than Jim. “Hell, I had started to think I would never meet you, just fuck.”
He couldn’t help but laugh hollowly and let his head fall back until it rested against the headrest. “Believe me, I didn’t want to meet you like this either,” he said.
His soulmate cursed beside him one more time before he started another rant, “I wanted to get my life together, my ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce and all I have left are my bones right now kid. I can’t offer you much of anything.”
Bones.
The word stuck in his head as he shifted his gaze to look at his first, very human soulmate. “We’ll make quite the pair,” he said sarcastically before he shrugged. “Jim Kirk.”
For a moment he wasn’t sure his soulmate would tell him his name, but eventually, he heard a quiet, “McCoy. Leonard McCoy,” in response.
God, he hoped they got their shit together before they met their other soulmate. He was certain the Vulcan wouldn’t appreciate their fucked up emotional states. “Well, here goes nothing,” he said as he took a swig from his flask before he handed it to Bones.
◎
He was nearly five when it became apparent he had a soulmate, though as the mark bloomed across his forearm Spock couldn’t tamper down the feeling of surprise that the mark was red. It had been logical to assume that his soulmate would be Vulcan since nearly all Federation citizens found their soulmate on their home planet. When he showed his mother she laughed, which was peculiar. “What is so funny?” he asked.
She smiled down at him affectionately and the corners of his lips quirked up in response before he smoothed them down when he entered the room. “You are more like your father every day Spock,” she responded.
“I am not certain why my likeness to Father has anything to do with the appearance of my soul mark,” he said which only caused his mother to laugh again. Spock turned his gaze towards his father hoping for an explanation for his mother’s laughter.
There was a small pause while his mother controlled her emotions before he answered the questioning gaze, “I believe your mother refers to the fact my soul marks also belong to a human.”
And that, as his mother would say, was that.
After that afternoon he did not discuss his soul marks with his parents or any of his peers at school, it was a waste of his time to explain what is obvious when he caught someone staring at his very red and purple marks. He was ten when his peers began to comment on both his human heritage and human soulmate after lessons had concluded for the day. Most of the marks he received were covered by the uniform they were required to wear for the duration of their school lessons, but the ones that appeared across his hands were there for all to see.
Spock knew they attempted to draw out his emotions, to prove that he was not a full Vulcan and therefore would not be able to control himself. It was frankly a frustrating use of his peers time but as the year dragged on he began to realize he had become their own personal experiment. He was after all the only one of his kind, there were no other Vulcan-Human hybrids in the whole Federation.
That knowledge was something he worked on containing within his mind with the loneliness that came along as well. It did him no good to desire more like himself so that he would not be alone, he knew that his chance of being carried successfully to full term had been extremely low.
He was eleven when his control finally slipped. Stonn, a Vulcan of average intelligence, approached him once more after their lessons had concluded. “ - therefore you have no place in this universe.”
It was difficult to school his expression, to keep it blank as they continued to poke at the very facts that unsettled him the most. It was illogical of course because what is cannot be changed, but that day his peers' remarks were extremely pointed as if they had discovered over the last year what exactly to say. “You and your father are traitors you know,” Stonn continued, “with human whores for soulmates.”
There was any thought behind what happened next. He moved forward so quickly that Stonn wouldn’t have time to realize what was about to happen until Spock’s hands were on him and they tumbled down into a learning pod. It was one thing to call his soulmate a human whore, that alone would have been enough to elicit an emotional reaction from him, but Stonn had included his mother in the insult and that was just unacceptable. It didn’t take long before he was pulled away from Stonn and the other boy had managed to land a few of his own attacks. In the very back of his mind, Spock knew his soulmate would finally get their first mark and he wondered what their reaction would be to the green cut on their lips that matched his own.
Later that day he knew that his father was disappointed even though his facial expression gave nothing away, it was faint over their family bond. On the other hand, all he could feel from his mother through their bond was worry and...a little pride?
...Fascinating.
As time moved on from the incident, he learned how to ignore Stonn and the other boy had learned that pushing him to his emotional breaking point resulted in nothing good. It was a grievous waste of time for him to spare thoughts on peers that were extremely illogical at their cores, not when he desired to attend the Vulcan Science Academy after their primary education was completed.
It did not take him long to notice that the marks on his skin from his soulmate had become rather concerning, taking the shape of hands that were far too large to be anyone else’s but an adult. No amount of meditating that he did ebbed away the worry that coiled inside his soul at the thought of someone harming his soulmate. It was like primal instinct kicked in and demanded that he protect his soulmate, though logically Spock knew there was nothing he could do without knowing their identity.
“Spock are you certain?”
He was thirteen and he stood in the foyer next to his sehlat I-Chaya who remained steadfast beside him. His parents faced him so they could send him off on his journey. “Mother, as you know this is a ritual that father completed when he was my age and many of my peers have completed it as well. It is only logical that I too complete the kahs-wan now,” he stated.
His words did nothing to soothe her worry and he attempted to send calming emotions to her through their familial bond. It seemed to be enough because she simply nodded in response instead of prodding further. “Be safe my son,” his father said and he took that as his queue to leave the safety of his home.
The journey to The Forge was not as taxing as he had anticipated though he slowed his pace to accommodate I-Chaya’s old age. It had not been his plan to bring the sehlat along, but the animal had been extremely insistent on the matter and he found no reason to dissuade him. Below his veil of control, he was secretly relieved to have a companion for the journey.
Five days passed and he could already feel the effects of no food or water, but he spent long hours at night with I-Chaya standing guard regulating his body to accommodate for the lack of hydration and nutrients. It was a difficult task but eventually, he learned how to do suppress the pangs of hunger and desire for water. The sixth morning, it appeared that his luck had run out as his mother would have aptly put had she been with him. The low growl of a le-matya alerted him too late as it leaped off the rock formation that he and I-Chaya had taken shelter under. They were cornered and immediately he felt a spike of fear that seemed completely understandable given the circumstance.
It was not unheard of for Vulcans to fail their kahs-wan, for the elements or le-matya to cause their demise and there was no shame in their deaths. Spock, illogically, had believed that he would not become one of those who perished.
I-Chaya roared and everything that occurred after seemed to happen all at once yet also in slow motion. There was nothing he could do as the le-matya used its last breath to sink its teeth into I-Chaya’s skin and he could only watch as the sehlat cried out and fell atop the other creature. Emotion crashed down upon him and he lurched forward until his face was buried into I-Chaya’s fur and his fingers curled near the wound as if they could heal.
They could not and even though he knew that he still felt tears well into his eyes at I-Chaya looked at him once last time and heaved his last, heavy breath against his face.
He returned home, because after there did not seem to be a point to continue. His father nodded in what he believed was understanding and his mother was just happy that he was in her sight, where she could see that he was indeed safe and protected.
They never spoke about what happened after that day.
He was seventeen when the first disturbing marks appeared and he was thankful that his uniform covered most of them up because he would not let his peers discover the trauma his soulmate clearly endured. These marks were private and all he could do was stare at them in the comforts of his rooms and wish he could know who or what inflicted them. After some research on what the marks on his back could be caused by, he felt a stutter in his heart that could not be explained when he discovered they likely were a result of a whip.
Days later, he nearly lost his control once more when he felt his arm sting and looked down to see four letters appear. Help . It was illogical to feel useless, but in that moment he could not help but feel anything but that emotion. He did not know who his soulmate was, where they currently lived or what they specifically needed help with. Though based on the first ugly marks that appeared he could conclude it was nothing good. The marks only grew worse as time went on and for three months he watched bruises and cuts appear and fade, imprints of fingers and hands seared harshly against the delicate skin of his hips and thighs and for once Spock wished he did not remember everything perfectly. These were marks he never wanted to see appear on anyone, but especially his soulmate.
Eventually, the ugly marks ceased to occur and he curled his fingers into fists as he momentarily allowed relief to wash over his mind. It was over. Whatever horrors that were inflicted upon his soulmate were no more.
Illogically, he wished they had never occurred in the first place, but there was no point in that desire. The past was immovable and it was a waste of energy to dwell on things that could never change. Despite that, Spock still wished.
He was eighteen when he applied to the Vulcan Science Academy and beneath the tight control of his emotions confidence hummed, only muted by the soft hints of nervousness that his mother, of course, was attuned to in ways he realized he would never understand. It was not logical for him to feel either of those emotions, his scores had consistently been in the top ten percent of his peers and aside from the one dark mark upon his record when he was eleven, he followed Surak’s teachings.
“It is truly remarkable, Spock. That you have achieved so much despite your disadvantages. Welcome to the Academy.”
Upon later reflection, he would realize those words changed the course of his life irrevocably but in that moment he could not contain the familiar anger that broke through his control. “If you would clarify, Minister - what "disadvantages" are you referring to?”
There was a beat of silence before the Minister answered. “Your human mother and soulmate.”
He was eighteen and found himself on a ship that carried him towards Earth. The Starfleet recruiter had seemed surprised when he had called to discuss what was expected of him when he arrived in San Francisco, but he pushed on. Later, during meditation, he would conclude that he declined the acceptance into the VSA because it would not be enough of a challenge for himself, but much, later on, he would discover that he could no longer stand the prejudice that colored the early years of his life.
Starfleet Academy was not what he had expected it to be and he found himself challenged both in the classrooms and outside of them. It became apparent that his mother was the exception and found other humans succumbed to their emotions and threw away logic that only made him place firm boundaries between himself and his fellow cadets. He had not joined Starfleet to cultivate friendships, he had joined so he could contribute to the forward momentum of science and allow his knowledge and expertise to assist the Federation.
He was twenty-one when he graduated at the Lieutenant rank and found himself assigned to the USS Charleston under Captain Pike who seemed to understand without ever having to ask what Spock required to be comfortable amongst his mainly human crew members. Life fell into a routine shortly after and he found he flourished on a ship, with the constant hum of the engine’s below his feet and the stars streaking past. Six months later on an away mission that was what Captain Pike called a “milk run” he found himself and the others in the landing party communicators cut off. An ion storm swept through the skies and he was forced to keep his fellow crew members calm when one of them sustained a grave injury from an unknown attacker and human blood seemed to be everywhere.
After two point six four hours they were beamed back aboard the ship where medical sprung into action before they had even finished materializing. The other scientists looked stricken and he remained near them until the flurry of action ceased. He remembered his mother often said that during trying times for humans, they often found great comfort in the fact that they were not alone after an ordeal such as the one they endured.
“Lieutenant, please come with me.”
He was twenty-two when he attained the rank Lieutenant Commander for simply doing his job and when he told Captain Pike as such, the older man refused to listen to logic and pushed the new rank through. For two years he served on the USS Charleston until it was decommissioned and to be replaced with the USS Enterprise.
“So, Spock,” Number One appeared in his line of sight as he walked through the hallways of Starfleet Command. His response was a raised eyebrow which apparently was amusing for the woman who served as Captain Pike’s First Officer. “I’m not going to be on the Enterprise when it’s ready to go.”
That was not what he had anticipated her to say.
“Chris is going to want you as his First, after all those hairbrained missions that went south and you kept your cool on he’d be an idiot not to ask for you,” she continued.
Humans would continue to elude his understanding. “I am sure the Captain will select a First Officer from a more qualified officer,” he finally settled on saying.
Number One just shook her head but a grin pulled at her lips which on further baffled him. “Oh Spock, you still have so much to learn. Selecting a First Officer isn’t bound by logic. He trusts you and you’ll keep him balanced out there and that is what he will need most. You’ll do great.”
Before he could say another word she walked off.
“Spock!” Captain Pike said as he left Command a few hours later with his new orders to report to the Academy until the USS Enterprise’s construction was completed. The older man had a wide smile on his face that once more caused his eyebrow to lift and once more the action drew laughter. “What do you say about being my Chief Science Officer and my First on the Enterprise?”
It appeared that logic was not something that governed Christopher Pike’s decisions and he knew that as First Officer he must endeavor to introduce the concept into Pike’s command. “Of course Captain,” he said with a slight nod a habit he found eased his crew member’s unease around him by seventy-three point two eight percent.
“Wonderful, she’ll be ready in four years. In the meantime, I hear they grounded you at the Academy?” Pike asked.
This time he merely inclined his head. “Yes, I will teach several classes in both the science and communications tracks as two instructors have been assigned to other posts.”
Christopher Pike laughed, shook his head and walked away in the same manner that Number One had just earlier that day. A small sigh escaped his lips before he composed himself and began his search for a suitable apartment to live in until the USS Enterprise was ready for its maiden voyage.
It was during the first week of his classes three months, one week and two days later when his soulmate left another violent mark on his skin and he felt the familiar flood of concern when the marks stretched across his right hand, red and jagged. It was logical to assume they had punched something like glass that shattered beneath their skin. Many of his students eyed the mark and he could see they wished to ask him about his soulmate, but he schooled his expression as he would if he continued to live on Vulcan and their curiosity gradually faded.
He was twenty-five when marks appeared on his face and clearly indicated his soulmate had found themselves in a fight and once more he donned the extremely blank expression that deterred anyone from asking about the marks. The following day it was clear the rumor mill had found something to discuss and it took two point three five days before the information reached his ears - the infamous son of George Kirk would be attending the Academy when the new semester began next week. Spock would admit his interest was piqued until he settled back into his routine the following day.
Three years go by with minimal soul marks and idly he wondered if he would ever meet his human soulmate, especially when he was due to spend a significant amount of his time in space on Starfleet's new flagship. It would be a grave waste of resources not to send the Enterprise on two point three four times more missions than any other ship in the Fleet.
He was twenty-eight when his routine was abruptly shattered as he watched Cadet Kirk’s third futile attempt at the Kobayashi Maru when the Cadet grinned around the simulator’s room with an arrogant smile on his face.
“How the hell did that Cadet beat your test?”
It took exactly twelve point six five hours to find the line of code that forced the program’s parameters to alter long enough for Cadet Kirk to beat the unbeatable test. Anger flared under the surface of his control and he took a moment to collect himself before he filed a formal academic complaint with the Admiralty. It was rather careless of the Cadet to leave behind evidence such as this, which made him wonder idly if it was left behind on purpose. Clearly, based on the subroutine that was introduced into the system Cadet Kirk possessed a high level of intelligence and there was no other logical reason he would leave such a glaring fingerprint behind.
“I believe I have the right to face my accuser directly.”