Title: Machine Child and the Wild Ape
Author: Jane (jat_sapphire)
Contact: jat_sapphire@yahoo.com
Series: TOS
Rating: [PG-13] for language, implied sex
Codes: K, S, K/MitchellSummary: Vignettes from Kirk's and Spock's lives previous to "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
Archive: Yes, please.
Disclaimer: I climb Paramount because it's there, but I don't make money and I'm not trying to. They own it. I'm playing around the edges.
Same-sex sex implied in this story. Don't like it? Read elsewhere.
Note: Thanks to beta readers Islaofhope, T'Aaneli, and Rabblersr, who made me work harder, especially on the ending, and reassured me when I wanted to scrap it and start all over.
Many shifts in POV, marked ***. Fasten seat belts.
----
Machine Child and the Wild Ape
One of his earliest memories was of George Kirk leaving. The whole family stood in the spaceport lounge saying goodbye, and nothing Jimmy could do would get his father's attention. He laughed, asked questions, tugged on George's sleeve, hung on his mother. Nothing. Some part of him seemed to stretch, tighter and tighter until it snapped, like a rubber band. He tackled his father's leg and pounded wherever he could reach with his fists, yelling so loud he lost words and just concentrated on varying the noise. Sam covered his ears.
George reached down almost casually and pulled the child away. "Win, do something with this wild ape. And bring my Jimmy back."
My Jimmy! When had he been "my Jimmy" before? He held the sound of it in his mind.
***
Sometimes, when they jeered at him, along with the cries of "Halfbreed" and "Human," they called him "Nine-months' Child," or even "Machine Child"; since the last rhymed, it grew more and more popular. At last, he asked his mother about it, but tears came into the blue eyes that always looked like water, and he was too embarrassed to wait for her to answer.
Her tears were no help. His own tears had been none.
He asked his father, who told him, in that dust-ridden voice, "Full Vulcan children grow in the womb for a Vulcan year, but your mother could not carry you so long. Human babies are carried for nine Earth months only. After that time, you were placed in an artificial womb, where you grew until you were ready to be born."
So it was true, in a way; untrue, in another way. The next time they called the names after him, he thought, Then I shall be a machine's child. The name will not hurt me. Nothing will hurt me. The pretense gave him the oddest breathy feeling of fear and not-fear, twisted together like rope.
***
On Tarsus, in that waking nightmare, the other refugee children sometimes called him "Wild Man" because he had taken Kodos' soldiers down by ambush and by deliberately getting captured in order to steal their weapons, and once by simply going berserk. By the time it was over and he stood over the still-moaning body, he did not know which of those wounds he had made with the man's knife and which with his own teeth and hands. There was definitely blood in his mouth. The edges of the wounds were ragged. He bent over the soldier's legs, retching as they jerked under him, and could never speak of it afterwards.
***
He had been human on Vulcan. He was Vulcan on Earth. There, the other cadets called him "Computer-Brain," or "Circuit Kid" or any of a hundred different versions of Machine Child. The irony was not lost on him. Indeed, had there been anyone to share it with, it would have become a game, this tally of the myriad ways of defining him as artificial.
Following his mother's instructions, he helped classmates with various computer tasks, in order to exhibit his desire to 'make friends,' but the more he demonstrated skill, the more they mocked him to each other. He knew. He overheard in the cafeteria, in the hallways, on the paths of the Academy gardens. Sometimes, he decided, they did not mean him to overhear.
It was not in good deeds but in intellectual rivalry that he found companions: other computer students who sought him out to watch his programs run and to show him their own. Even they teased him, but he saw that they teased each other as well, calling names and shoving, hiding or upsetting things. They rarely played physical tricks on Spock. There seemed to be extra space between his computer terminal and their own, even when they sat beside him. At meals, though they shared his table, the chairs next to his own were empty until all the others had been filled.
At the midterm, a new student arrived, Duana Garner, whose skills were advanced enough to place her in Spock's computer programming class. She liked to work collaboratively, which was an unusual preference, and she liked to sit or stand very near as shared projects were planned or implemented. She greeted her friends with genial slaps on the shoulder or back, a habit that Spock deplored but could not convince her to stop. When he raised the subject, she simply laughed. "What's the matter, you afraid I'll rub off?" She patted his shoulder this time, several short touches in succession. He flinched. "Don't worry, that is deep programming. I sure can't budge it," she said, and rubbed his upper arm, and laughed again as he stepped away.
***
Gary came home with Jim for spring break the second year they knew each other, but for a week he barely looked out the window at the Iowa sun and new grass.
"So, are you really avoiding my mother, like you're making her think, or is it just such a bore here? Yo, Earth to Gary. Look at the weather. No fog. There are horses to ride, roads to walk, girls to chase...Heck, we could go to the swimming hole - picnic - play cards! What's the matter?"
Gary looked at him for an instant, and Jim could see pain but didn't know what had caused it. Then Gary put on one of his shit-eating grins, and then went back to the book, seeming to forget Jim altogether. "Think or sink, Lieutenant Kirk," he said without looking up again.
"Bullshit, Ensign Mitchell. That isn't even a textbook."
Gary shrugged and went on reading. He was in the deep well of the attic window gable, sitting on the worn quilt that used to be on Sam's bed, and then on Jim's. By the time Jim was eleven years old, it had become so shabby that his mother swore she'd throw it away, but Jim hid it up here. The attic window was one of the spots he remembered best when he was on Tarsus, and the quilt was one of the first things he got out when he came back. That had made his mother cry, and it was the last any of them heard of throwing it away. Jim still came up here with a book from time to time, and he had shown the spot to Gary, along with the rest of the farmhouse, when they first arrived. He hadn't known that Gary would take over the space and hibernate there. It bothered Jim. He felt like Gary was taking something away when Jim had hoped to share something.
Jim looked at him in growing frustration. "Gary!"
"Mmm," said Gary, turning a page, and Jim punched him in the arm, snatching at the book. They struggled over it, mostly playing but using their strength, rolling from the quilt to the dust-streaked floor. Jim got the book and tossed it away, and they went on wrestling until Jim had pinned Gary under the corner of the antique shaving table from his father's room. Gary's head pressed against the base of the single, pedestal leg. Jim had already banged the back of his head on the table top. He grinned down at his best friend, and a hanging lock of hair caught the lowest beam from the window, blinding him on that side. Gary raised his hands next to his head, palms up, as if in surrender, and then quick as a snake, grabbed past the blazing hair, pulled Jim's head down, and kissed him hard on the mouth.
***
For two years he was not hazed. Then, as his mother might have put it, his luck ran out. A group of young men backed him against the outer wall of the garden. Their leader was one of the cadets he had helped with computer work, and he knew several of the others, as well.
In that nook below the overhanging tree branches, the other cadets stripped the uniform from Spock's body. There were so many of them, and they were so fragile, that he did not know how to defend himself against them. He anticipated some sort of ritual humiliation, but they seemed unsure how to proceed. When he moved toward his clothes, though, they shoved and yelled at him enthusiastically.
It was early in spring and early in the morning, a gray misty time with rain coming in from the Bay. The trees dripped, and the wind was cold; soon he could not control the chills that looked to the others like fear. Nor, eventually, could he hold back the anger that let him pick up the leader, who was nearest, and throw him up over the wall behind him. The boy caught at the top of the wall and succeeded only in falling down the inside instead of the outside; he landed heavily among broken branches, and the others fled.
Spock stood a moment, recovering his self-possession, then picked up and put on his clothes, and then slung the cadet over his shoulder and took him to the Academy Medical Officer. He gave very few details about the incident; the lieutenant who was asking muttered, "Didn't you have your log function on?" but when Spock asked evenly for the question to be repeated, the lieutenant was silent. When the other cadet awoke, he claimed to have been tree-climbing. The incident was officially forgotten.
***
Now that they weren't having sex any more, Jim rarely touched Gary, but from time to time he certainly wanted to - to punch him in the nose, to be precise. This was one of those times.
"Gary, shut up!" Jim kept his voice low and threw a sideways glance toward the stiff figure of the Vulcan, only three tables away in the mess.
"What the fuck difference does it make if he does hear me? I hauled his ass over this already."
"You used that kind of language?"
"No, I was a good little first officer and gentleman, Captain." Gary had a way of saying the rank that was all his own; at any rate, Jim hoped none of the rest of the crew would pick it up. "I suggested that not everybody in the crew had his advantage of being nothing but circuitry inside, and he might possibly make a few concessions to the fact that this is Marsha's first duty shift since Rhondi was hurt."
Jim thought that for somebody so concerned about Marsha Smith's morale, Gary was certainly careless of Mr. Spock's. But then, Gary wasn't attracted to Spock, while the way he hung over Smith and grabbed her hand at moments of crisis was becoming positively silly. Jim had taken to calling her "Jones" himself, as if he couldn't remember her name. Partly he meant to let her know that not every member of the command crew was after her ass, and partly it was his old bar-hopping code with Gary - 'not this one' - not that Gary seemed to notice. "And Mr. Spock said?" Jim prompted him now.
"That as Science Officer he hoped I appreciated that he was concerned for the correct functioning of all the ship's infrastructure, no matter how badly regulated. Whatever the hell that means."
Jim let out a huff of laughter, although the quarrel itself was certainly not funny. "Oh, Gary, you've been zinged."
Gary looked up, not getting it. Well, he was the one who had brought it up, right here in the mess in front of God and everybody. Let him have it - though Jim still kept his voice low. There was noise around them. Nobody but Mr. Spock would hear, and Jim didn't mind that. "He jerked your chain. He yanked your little pull string and made you dance around. That was a Vulcan 'up yours, sir' and you never even heard it."
In the corner of his eye, Jim saw movement and turned just in time to see Spock's head snapping up and around. They looked at each other for a few seconds, and then Spock went back to his plate of mixed vegetables and Jim to soothing Gary down and trying to figure out - in the interests of clearing up the 'infrastructure' - whether he was actually banging Smith or just flirting with her.
There was definitely more to Mr. Spock than what Gary called his "circuitry." Jim promised himself he'd find out what.
***
Spock was still aware of residual surprise - and was still finishing the last of hiis stir fry - when he realized that the captain was actually standing beside his table. He looked up warily, not sure he was going to escape a reprimand for his remark at a ranking officer's expense. But Kirk was smiling, and Spock did not think this smile belonged to the covering-anger category.
"Mr. Spock," said the captain, "dining alone?"
"Yes, sir."
"I've heard you play a mean game of chess," said Kirk. "Though I gather you just play the computer."
"I do not think my chess game is intrinsically cruel, but it is beyond the level of the human players whom I have thus far encountered."
"How do you know, Mr. Spock? I play a fairly good game myself. Of course, I'm not the computer."
Was this, Spock wondered, what Kirk had referred to as an 'up yours,' if not an 'up yours, sir'? But his expression looked so candid. On the supposition that the comment referred only to his chess opponent, Spock said, "Perhaps you would give me a game, sir, and test my hypothesis."
"I think I can promise to test it, Mr. Spock." The captain paused, looking at Spock as if he had something more to say, then reached out suddenly and just barely touched his arm. "I'll find you in the rec room sometime."
Spock was suddenly reminded of Duana, and he stared at his own arm where the captain had touched him. He felt exposed and cold. Looking up again, he saw that Captain Kirk's eyebrows had drawn together a little; he seemed puzzled. Spock realized that he needed to answer. And, having proposed the game himself, he really had only one possible response.
"I shall look forward to it."
Kirk's face relaxed; he nodded; Spock watched him as he left the mess.
The sound of chair legs, hitting the floor hard, made him turn his head to see Lieutenant Commander Mitchell looking at him. Or perhaps past him. Spock went resolutely back to eating, but the crunch of the replicated pea-pods between his teeth suddenly recalled the branches breaking on that rainy morning long ago.
Spock swallowed, got up, and threw the rest of his food away. Then he left the mess, not sure how to properly approach the chess game, not at all sure what sequence of events had just begun.
***end***