Five Times Spock’s Birthday Really Sucked, and the First Time It Was Totally Awesome
Title: Five Times Spock’s Birthday Really Sucked, and the First Time It Was Totally Awesome
Author: dark_orion
Universe/Series: TOS
Rating: G
Relationship status: Preslash/First Time
Word count: 1894
Genre: Angst (-ish)
Tropes: Five Things
Warnings: none (I make Spock sad a lot. Does that count?)
Additional Pairings: none
Summary: As a Vulcan, Spock doesn't really celebrate birthdays, but anytime there's been any kind of to-do, it's led to something awful, right up until it doesn't. (Written quick and dirty as a Happy Birthday for Leonard Nimoy. Happy B'Day, Mr. Nimoy! For a present you get the first Trek fic I've ever written! Um...sorry.) (Also, thanks to everyone who's read and commented on my Kirk essay! I'll reply soon, I promise, but it might be after I've made the thirteen-hour drive back to school from home this weekend. Urgh.)
1
Despite the illogic of human sentimentality, there is only one day that any living creature can call a “birthday”-the actual day on which one is born.
Spock does not actually remember the day of his birth-Vulcan memory is excellent, but it does not extend that far-but the event had been of historic importance, as he was the first Vulcan-human hybrid that had survived to term. The occasion had been recorded by no less than a dozen different holorecorders, all very discretely placed, of course, though certainly none of the scientists observing understood what Amanda meant when she’d laughed about “stage fright.”
Spock has seen the recordings of his birth, has watched each many times over. But no matter how many times he endures it, watching his father’s stoic face as he held Spock for the first time and hearing those words, “So human,” do not get any easier.
2
Spock has been seven for only a few hours when his mother rouses him with a whispered, “Wake up, darling.”
Spock winces slightly, less at the moniker and more at the unwarranted warm feeling it always inspires in his belly.
As Spock rises from his bed, he notes unconsciously the darkness of nighttime through the windows and allows his mother to assist him into the formal robes he had received upon completion of his kahs-wan a month earlier. It is illogical to feel pride as he secures the clasp at his left shoulder, although he allows that perhaps the cause is sufficient. After all, although displeased that Spock had undertaken the ritual early and without Sarek’s approval, his father had admitted that Spock had comported himself with honor; T’Pau had sent a missive acknowledging Spock’s completion of the kahs-wan, which meant that he was now officially a full member of the House of Surak; and Stonn and his other frequent tormenters have not bothered him since Spock had demonstrated his newly acquired facility with the Vulcan neck pinch. (But certainly Spock does not feel pride that Stonn, a year his senior, has not yet become a full member of his own clan, having failed his first attempt at his own kahs-wan, no. That is simply a fact.)
Spock and Amanda venture outside into the cool night air, and Sarek is waiting for them in the hovercar. As his father ascends into the empty airlane, Spock cannot keep curiosity from his mind. Vulcans do not celebrate the anniversary of a birth (although his mother always presents him with a gift sometime in the weeks prior-if it’s not given on the actual birthday, his mother tells him, it’s not technically a birthday gift), but Spock cannot help making a connection between today being the anniversary of his birth and the unusual situation in which he finds himself.
An hour later, the sun is beginning to rise, large and red on the horizon, and Sarek is pulling up next to a building Spock only recognizes from holovids-it is very old, built in the style of Post-Reform Clarity, walls solid slabs of thick, marbled stone, hewn as if drawn from this very site, blending back into the mountainside at the building’s rear, tall, twisting spires of sturdy, mirror black sal’kam shining bright as beacons in the early morning sunlight, their towering height matched by the sprawling breadth of the structure. This is the residence of T’Pau, matriarch of the House of Surak.
As the three exit the hovercar and approach the building, Spock can feel his mother’s anxiety, strong despite her continued attempts at control, and knows that she wishes to take his hand. This more than anything sparks a hint of trepidation in Spock.
They are admitted into the building by a servant and led into a small room, circular and bare save for the pedestal-made of the same shining sal’kam of the spires and sculpted into the two pillars that traditionally represent Mt. Seleya-positioned across the room from the door, and the three people standing beside it.
Spock does not recognize the two adults, but the child he knows to be T’Pring. Although they are the same age, he has never had the occasion or the desire to speak with her, as she is a frequent companion of Stonn, and always seems to find very unVulcan satisfaction in the torment Stonn inflicts upon Spock.
Only a few steps into the room, Spock freezes. The robes that T’Pring is wearing are the same as his. He once again takes in the room, the emotionless faces of the adults Spock presumes are T’Pring’s parents, his mother’s fresh burst of anxiety. T’Pring’s gaze rakes over him, and her eyes narrow slightly.
Spock takes a deep breath and has to clench his hands to keep them from shaking.
3
Sarek has been in his office for the past two hours. The air in the house is heavy and stale from the summer’s heat, but the door to the office remains closed.
Spock can hear his mother moving about in the kitchen down the hall. The clatter of silverware is loud in his ears, unnecessarily so. It is too early to be preparing for dinner.
Spock stares down at the mostly empty suitcase on his bed. The new padd his mother had given him four days prior looks horribly lonely tucked into the corner of the case. Spock knows this thought is illogical.
He is joining Starfleet. And he no longer has a home.
He is sixteen.
4
“Well, aren’t you going to open it?”
Spock looks up from his notes on the genetic variance of the kolus-taf wheat he is attempting to hybridize with a newly discovered grain from Rejer 12 to make the wheat strong enough to stand up to the tornadic winds on Yetuq. On his desk is a small, square object, wrapped in brightly colored paper, with tendrils of ribbon cascading from the top. He looks back down.
“That would be inappropriate.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Leila Kalomi’s face redden slightly in a blush, and her eyes flit to the ground. Leila is a capable botanist, but Spock has always been disturbed by how easily she shows emotion. He is thankful that his posting here will last only another two weeks, and then he will be able to return to the Enterprise, to people who know him and do not expect him to be more human than he wishes to be.
Leila bites her lip as she lifts her eyes back to Spock. “I just… When I first heard you would be joining us here, I…researched you a little bit, and I…I remembered that today was your birthday.” Her eyes are hopeful, but her hands grip at each other where she holds them in front of her. “I thought…maybe later, if-if you aren’t busy, we could…”
As Spock looks back up at her from his notes, Leila trails off and looks away again, and Spock supposes he should have seen this coming. After all, he had been witness to Yeoman Colt’s rather unfortunate infatuation with Captain Pike, which had proven so much a distraction for her she had had to be reassigned to Engineering. Those same indications that Spock had seen in Colt had, in the last few days, begun springing up in Leila’s interactions with him-a shortness of breath and escalation of heart rate, the closing of distance between their persons during work, the fluttering of eyelashes and the deeper, more melodic lilt to her voice, the ready acquiescence to his every suggestion. The symptoms had been clear; Spock had simply failed to notice.
Spock suppresses the urge to shift in his chair. “I am afraid that will not be possible, Miss Kalomi,” he says, catching and holding her gaze until he is certain she understands his meaning. This infatuation cannot be allowed to continue, must be circumvented before her work is more seriously affected.
Holding her gaze as he does, he cannot help missing the tears that well up in her eyes before she ducks her head. “Of course, Mr. Spock.” She turns quickly, and before the doors fully shut behind her, Spock can see her bring a hand up to cover her mouth, can hear her muffle a sob.
She doesn’t take the gift with her, and Spock doesn’t open it.
When he leaves two weeks later, he leaves it just outside the door to her quarters. He doesn’t know what else to do.
5
Captain Kirk had not given a reason for asking Spock for a game of chess in the rec room, but Spock felt that he had come to know his new captain well enough to recognize the sly slant of his eye and the gentle upturning of the corner of his mouth. Spock had hoped that the captain had not organized some sort of illogical display in celebration of the anniversary of Spock’s birth.
The gleam in Kirk’s eye had become brighter as they walked towards the rec room, as if he knew of Spock’s growing apprehension, and the upturning at the corner of his mouth had become a wide grin when the doors to the rec room parted to reveal…a chessboard set up at an empty table. Kirk had laughed as Spock took in the absence of party trappings and the sparse and otherwise preoccupied crew milling about, then had gestured toward the board with a wide sweep of his hand.
“White or black, birthday boy?”
Now, Spock would give almost anything to recapture that jovial mood, even endure the party he’d so feared. Instead he must tell his captain, a man he is coming to respect more and more as time passes, that he must kill one of his own crew, someone Spock knows to be a close friend of the captain.
Spock watches Kirk’s face fall, watches him withdraw, steeling himself for what must be done, and Spock wonders what it would take to bring back those gleaming eyes and wide smile, if he himself could accomplish it. He’s surprised to find that he wants to try.
Spock doesn’t know what that means, but sometimes he find himself thinking of Leila Kalomi’s brightly wrapped box and Yeoman Colt’s shaking fingers gripping her stylus.
+1
“Happy…birthday…Spock…” Jim manages to gasp out between fierce kisses, hands gripping his waist tightly, thumbs circling over the points of Spock’s hipbones and gradually working their way under his uniform shirt.
On some level, Spock feels he should argue that, as happiness is an emotion, it cannot be attributed to a day. He should argue that the word “birthday” is inaccurate to describe the occasion. He should argue that the human practice of celebrating the anniversary of one’s birth is highly illogical. However, Spock is feeling rather magnanimous today.
When Jim pulls back to tug at the hem of his own shirt, Spock stays his hands, sliding his fingers against Jim’s in a way that makes Spock shudder and Jim moan, though his eyes are confused.
“I believe it is tradition,” Spock says, disentangling his fingers from Jim’s so that he can take hold of Jim’s shirt and pull it over his head, “for the celebrant to unwrap his own gifts.”
Author: dark_orion
Universe/Series: TOS
Rating: G
Relationship status: Preslash/First Time
Word count: 1894
Genre: Angst (-ish)
Tropes: Five Things
Warnings: none (I make Spock sad a lot. Does that count?)
Additional Pairings: none
Summary: As a Vulcan, Spock doesn't really celebrate birthdays, but anytime there's been any kind of to-do, it's led to something awful, right up until it doesn't. (Written quick and dirty as a Happy Birthday for Leonard Nimoy. Happy B'Day, Mr. Nimoy! For a present you get the first Trek fic I've ever written! Um...sorry.) (Also, thanks to everyone who's read and commented on my Kirk essay! I'll reply soon, I promise, but it might be after I've made the thirteen-hour drive back to school from home this weekend. Urgh.)
1
Despite the illogic of human sentimentality, there is only one day that any living creature can call a “birthday”-the actual day on which one is born.
Spock does not actually remember the day of his birth-Vulcan memory is excellent, but it does not extend that far-but the event had been of historic importance, as he was the first Vulcan-human hybrid that had survived to term. The occasion had been recorded by no less than a dozen different holorecorders, all very discretely placed, of course, though certainly none of the scientists observing understood what Amanda meant when she’d laughed about “stage fright.”
Spock has seen the recordings of his birth, has watched each many times over. But no matter how many times he endures it, watching his father’s stoic face as he held Spock for the first time and hearing those words, “So human,” do not get any easier.
2
Spock has been seven for only a few hours when his mother rouses him with a whispered, “Wake up, darling.”
Spock winces slightly, less at the moniker and more at the unwarranted warm feeling it always inspires in his belly.
As Spock rises from his bed, he notes unconsciously the darkness of nighttime through the windows and allows his mother to assist him into the formal robes he had received upon completion of his kahs-wan a month earlier. It is illogical to feel pride as he secures the clasp at his left shoulder, although he allows that perhaps the cause is sufficient. After all, although displeased that Spock had undertaken the ritual early and without Sarek’s approval, his father had admitted that Spock had comported himself with honor; T’Pau had sent a missive acknowledging Spock’s completion of the kahs-wan, which meant that he was now officially a full member of the House of Surak; and Stonn and his other frequent tormenters have not bothered him since Spock had demonstrated his newly acquired facility with the Vulcan neck pinch. (But certainly Spock does not feel pride that Stonn, a year his senior, has not yet become a full member of his own clan, having failed his first attempt at his own kahs-wan, no. That is simply a fact.)
Spock and Amanda venture outside into the cool night air, and Sarek is waiting for them in the hovercar. As his father ascends into the empty airlane, Spock cannot keep curiosity from his mind. Vulcans do not celebrate the anniversary of a birth (although his mother always presents him with a gift sometime in the weeks prior-if it’s not given on the actual birthday, his mother tells him, it’s not technically a birthday gift), but Spock cannot help making a connection between today being the anniversary of his birth and the unusual situation in which he finds himself.
An hour later, the sun is beginning to rise, large and red on the horizon, and Sarek is pulling up next to a building Spock only recognizes from holovids-it is very old, built in the style of Post-Reform Clarity, walls solid slabs of thick, marbled stone, hewn as if drawn from this very site, blending back into the mountainside at the building’s rear, tall, twisting spires of sturdy, mirror black sal’kam shining bright as beacons in the early morning sunlight, their towering height matched by the sprawling breadth of the structure. This is the residence of T’Pau, matriarch of the House of Surak.
As the three exit the hovercar and approach the building, Spock can feel his mother’s anxiety, strong despite her continued attempts at control, and knows that she wishes to take his hand. This more than anything sparks a hint of trepidation in Spock.
They are admitted into the building by a servant and led into a small room, circular and bare save for the pedestal-made of the same shining sal’kam of the spires and sculpted into the two pillars that traditionally represent Mt. Seleya-positioned across the room from the door, and the three people standing beside it.
Spock does not recognize the two adults, but the child he knows to be T’Pring. Although they are the same age, he has never had the occasion or the desire to speak with her, as she is a frequent companion of Stonn, and always seems to find very unVulcan satisfaction in the torment Stonn inflicts upon Spock.
Only a few steps into the room, Spock freezes. The robes that T’Pring is wearing are the same as his. He once again takes in the room, the emotionless faces of the adults Spock presumes are T’Pring’s parents, his mother’s fresh burst of anxiety. T’Pring’s gaze rakes over him, and her eyes narrow slightly.
Spock takes a deep breath and has to clench his hands to keep them from shaking.
3
Sarek has been in his office for the past two hours. The air in the house is heavy and stale from the summer’s heat, but the door to the office remains closed.
Spock can hear his mother moving about in the kitchen down the hall. The clatter of silverware is loud in his ears, unnecessarily so. It is too early to be preparing for dinner.
Spock stares down at the mostly empty suitcase on his bed. The new padd his mother had given him four days prior looks horribly lonely tucked into the corner of the case. Spock knows this thought is illogical.
He is joining Starfleet. And he no longer has a home.
He is sixteen.
4
“Well, aren’t you going to open it?”
Spock looks up from his notes on the genetic variance of the kolus-taf wheat he is attempting to hybridize with a newly discovered grain from Rejer 12 to make the wheat strong enough to stand up to the tornadic winds on Yetuq. On his desk is a small, square object, wrapped in brightly colored paper, with tendrils of ribbon cascading from the top. He looks back down.
“That would be inappropriate.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Leila Kalomi’s face redden slightly in a blush, and her eyes flit to the ground. Leila is a capable botanist, but Spock has always been disturbed by how easily she shows emotion. He is thankful that his posting here will last only another two weeks, and then he will be able to return to the Enterprise, to people who know him and do not expect him to be more human than he wishes to be.
Leila bites her lip as she lifts her eyes back to Spock. “I just… When I first heard you would be joining us here, I…researched you a little bit, and I…I remembered that today was your birthday.” Her eyes are hopeful, but her hands grip at each other where she holds them in front of her. “I thought…maybe later, if-if you aren’t busy, we could…”
As Spock looks back up at her from his notes, Leila trails off and looks away again, and Spock supposes he should have seen this coming. After all, he had been witness to Yeoman Colt’s rather unfortunate infatuation with Captain Pike, which had proven so much a distraction for her she had had to be reassigned to Engineering. Those same indications that Spock had seen in Colt had, in the last few days, begun springing up in Leila’s interactions with him-a shortness of breath and escalation of heart rate, the closing of distance between their persons during work, the fluttering of eyelashes and the deeper, more melodic lilt to her voice, the ready acquiescence to his every suggestion. The symptoms had been clear; Spock had simply failed to notice.
Spock suppresses the urge to shift in his chair. “I am afraid that will not be possible, Miss Kalomi,” he says, catching and holding her gaze until he is certain she understands his meaning. This infatuation cannot be allowed to continue, must be circumvented before her work is more seriously affected.
Holding her gaze as he does, he cannot help missing the tears that well up in her eyes before she ducks her head. “Of course, Mr. Spock.” She turns quickly, and before the doors fully shut behind her, Spock can see her bring a hand up to cover her mouth, can hear her muffle a sob.
She doesn’t take the gift with her, and Spock doesn’t open it.
When he leaves two weeks later, he leaves it just outside the door to her quarters. He doesn’t know what else to do.
5
Captain Kirk had not given a reason for asking Spock for a game of chess in the rec room, but Spock felt that he had come to know his new captain well enough to recognize the sly slant of his eye and the gentle upturning of the corner of his mouth. Spock had hoped that the captain had not organized some sort of illogical display in celebration of the anniversary of Spock’s birth.
The gleam in Kirk’s eye had become brighter as they walked towards the rec room, as if he knew of Spock’s growing apprehension, and the upturning at the corner of his mouth had become a wide grin when the doors to the rec room parted to reveal…a chessboard set up at an empty table. Kirk had laughed as Spock took in the absence of party trappings and the sparse and otherwise preoccupied crew milling about, then had gestured toward the board with a wide sweep of his hand.
“White or black, birthday boy?”
Now, Spock would give almost anything to recapture that jovial mood, even endure the party he’d so feared. Instead he must tell his captain, a man he is coming to respect more and more as time passes, that he must kill one of his own crew, someone Spock knows to be a close friend of the captain.
Spock watches Kirk’s face fall, watches him withdraw, steeling himself for what must be done, and Spock wonders what it would take to bring back those gleaming eyes and wide smile, if he himself could accomplish it. He’s surprised to find that he wants to try.
Spock doesn’t know what that means, but sometimes he find himself thinking of Leila Kalomi’s brightly wrapped box and Yeoman Colt’s shaking fingers gripping her stylus.
+1
“Happy…birthday…Spock…” Jim manages to gasp out between fierce kisses, hands gripping his waist tightly, thumbs circling over the points of Spock’s hipbones and gradually working their way under his uniform shirt.
On some level, Spock feels he should argue that, as happiness is an emotion, it cannot be attributed to a day. He should argue that the word “birthday” is inaccurate to describe the occasion. He should argue that the human practice of celebrating the anniversary of one’s birth is highly illogical. However, Spock is feeling rather magnanimous today.
When Jim pulls back to tug at the hem of his own shirt, Spock stays his hands, sliding his fingers against Jim’s in a way that makes Spock shudder and Jim moan, though his eyes are confused.
“I believe it is tradition,” Spock says, disentangling his fingers from Jim’s so that he can take hold of Jim’s shirt and pull it over his head, “for the celebrant to unwrap his own gifts.”