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Spock is eight years old when he is first asked to make the decision. Human or Vulcan.
He stands at the precipice choice, teeters, but does not fall either way.
***
This is the great secret of Spock’s birth:
Human and Vulcans are not compatible. There has never been another like him nor will there ever be another like him.
It is for all intents and purposes... a miracle.
***
On the planet Yano 8, a black gaseous form attempts to force itself down Leonard McCoy’s mouth and Spock feels something in him shift. Beside him, Kirk’s face has gone scarily blank. McCoy is screaming and then McCoy’s eyes are black and then the cadet in the red shirt next to him has a broken neck.
“Bones!” Kirk screams, moving toward him.
“Captain I must advise against this.”
But Kirk is already running toward his friend who wastes no time in seizing him by the throat. Spock, moves into action without thinking and pinches at the base of McCoy’s neck. Kirk collapses to the ground his breath coming out in choked gasps. “What. The. Fuck. Was. That?”
“I do not know.”
***
The first time Spock reaches into his captain’s mind they are both close to dying and the touch is like an explosion, like thin tendrils of light losing their luster. He can see his own imprints in this mind. No doubt left by his counterpart but there is one mark so incredibly blatant and so deeply seeded that he can’t help but reach for it. This is part of him. His mark on Jim’s soul.
When he touches it a warmth seeps through them both and a tiny flicker of a memory swims into his consciousness.
I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.
He disengages their minds abruptly, feeling an almost electric shock coursing through his body.
For weeks after the incident, Spock expects Jim to comment on the matter but his captain for once allows it to pass.
***
At age three, Spock is convinced that his father is not really his father.
After hearing his argument, his father sits him down and explains in no uncertain terms the story of his birth and the exact genealogic nature of his unique make-up.
“Therefore,” Sarek concludes dispassionately, “to believe that anyone other than myself is your biological father would be highly illogical.”
***
What little is known about the Earth’s Third World War is highly contradictory and impossible to corroborate. Some sources say that it was an intercontinental dispute. Others contest that it was product of some still unidentified threat. There are records of extreme violence in the general population as well as several instances of mass killings, probably by biological weaponry. The fighting itself seemed to take place on a largely guerilla scale headed by a pair of fugitives whose true identities have been lost to time.
There are reports of black gaseous entities that would force themselves down a human’s throat and chew them apart from the inside. Two hundred years later, with half of the universe mapped, life forms such as these have not been discovered. History has dismissed these ‘demons’ as nothing more than relics of the Second Dark Ages.
***
He reads the Winchester bibles during his second year at Starfleet.
They are fascinating.
***
They transport McCoy up to the ship and try everything they can think of to expel the creature. They keep him heavily sedated but whenever he awakes he shoots sliver-tongued barbs that are so completely and utterly different from the usual stream of McCoy’s friendly insults, Spock does not know how he ever saw malice in them before this.
Kirk has taken to haunting the sickbay, watching as test after test fails comes up negative. Spock doubts that the captain will be able to function should McCoy fail to be cured.
“I can’t lose him, Spock,” Kirk tells him as they watch him strain against the restraints. “I don’t think I’d even be here without him. But we don’t have any idea what that thing was.”
Spock hesitates. His own theory is so fantastic, so completely and utterly illogical that he is loathe to voice it aloud.
“You saw it same as I did,” Kirk says. “Black, gaseous matter with a definite intelligence to it. It zeroed in on Bones. If we find out what it is, we might have half a chance at getting rid of it.”
“There are no known records on such a creature.”
“Speculate,” Kirk orders. “I know you’ve got a theory. I’m ready to consider anything.”
***
When Kirk begins calling the Enterprise ‘baby’ Spock is overcome by what he believes humans call déjà vu.
***
“So Nyota,” Kirk starts, swinging an arm around his communications officer. “You ever figure out this one’s first name?” He jerks a thumb toward Spock. “I used to think that was why you two hit it off so well. No name.”
“It’s Uhura,” she snaps, shrugging his arm off in annoyance.
“But we’re friends.”
“Try again, Captain,” she says but she’s smiling just a little. Spock suspects that they are in fact, friends, but the nuances of the relationship elude him even more than that of the captain and Dr. McCoy.
“It is not true that I am lacking in a first name,” Spock says. “But rather I have found that human vocal cords are unsuited for speaking it.”
“Never know unless you try,” Kirk chirps. “Let’s hear it.”
Nyota snorts like she doesn’t believe he will dignify such a childish plea with a response. She does not know him as well as she thinks she does. He is finding it increasingly hard to deny Jim Kirk anything.
So he tells him his name. It is the first time he has spoken it aloud since he joined Starfleet and the sound is slightly jarring to even his own ears. Kirk listens with mouth ajar and when he finishes immediately tries to repeat it.
Nyota laughs in his face. Spock widens his eyes ever so slightly and endeavors to keep the twitch of amusement off of his lips.
“What that wrong?” Kirk asks.
“You just told him your cousin is wearing a giraffe.”
Kirk looks mildly crestfallen but hides it immediately. “Come on, Spock. There’s got to be a standard version of it. Tell us!”
Spock hesitates, scanning his memory for a suitable approximation. He finds one after a few moments but finds himself either completely unwilling or completely unable to say it aloud.
The closest he can find is Castiel.
***
Age ten at school, Spock writes a paper about a particular religious philosophy. It is the theory that the universe contains a finite amount of souls. And if these souls are matter which cannot be created or destroyed, when a person dies it is only logical that their soul is recycled.
He hypothesizes that if religion is to be trusted, only the highest of the high souls or the lowest of the low achieve heaven or damnation.
He receives acknowledgements that his arguments are sound but is sent to a specialist because of the subject matter.
***
“Demons?” Kirk repeats. “Like the old Terran superstition? Christ, if you’re reduced to thinking it’s demons, Bones is beyond fucked. There’s no such thing!”
“On the contrary, captain,” Spock says. “Reports of entities such as demons have existed on Terra for more than two thousand years. In fact, there were numerous reports of amorphous gaseous beings as factors in the third or your world’s global wars.”
“Unconfirmed reports.”
“But not something that can be completely dismissed.”
“I can’t believe I’m arguing this with you. You, Spock. Tell me, in what possible world are demons logical?”
“It would appear that they are in this world.”
“This is insane.” Kirk deflates, sinking back against the wall. “Spock, we’ve all gone completely insane.”
He can hear Dr. McCoy’s screams from the sick bay. He needs to be dealt with and dealt with soon. Kirk heaves a sigh. “Alright, Mr. Spock, how do we get rid of a demon?”
***
The exorcism works, McCoy belching black smoke that the captain flushes into a void of uninhabited space.
McCoy is a huddled, shaking ghost of himself for three days. He resumes duty after a week and resumes his almost friendly insults toward Spock, Kirk and anyone within a three yard radius after two.
For all intents and purposes, nothing changes.
Except Spock is sure that everything has.
***
Kirk moves the rook, setting it down on the smugly on the board. “Hey Spock,” he says brazenly. “You ever think this might be fate?”
“I will have you in mate in three moves, Captain,” Spock informs him.
“That isn’t what I meant.” Kirk says. He’s annoyed but strangely earnest. “I mean the two of us. Right here. I keep thinking that no matter how much Nero screwed this world up, no matter how many fights I got in, we were always going to be right here, right now.”
Spock moves his knight. He looks up for the briefest moment and in his head hears the flutter of wings, a different man’s voice spoken with the same passion. If there’s anything worth dying for, this is it.
“Captain, that is most illogical.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kirk mutters. “Of course it is.” His bishop cuts diagonally down the board. “Checkmate.”
***
He is thirty-four years old when Jim Kirk smiles at him and he sees the barest flash of Dean Winchester peaking out through the edges. A different shell wrapped around a soul he knows better than his own self.
He is thirty-four years old and he has been falling for the better part of three centuries.