A/N: This is written for a prompt on the st_xi_kink meme on lj, basically asking for teenage Spock mpreg, where his parents Do Not React Well. I have never written mpreg before, and I have a very busy school schedule, and this is totally a WIP, so gigantic warning: I do not know how soon this will be continued, or when it will be finished, or if it will be finished. I've never asked explicitly for reviews before, but I will for this piece, because I have a lot of not-writing-vaguely-embarrassing-mpreg things to do, and if there is no interest in this, I'll just keep this universe to myself.

Content Warnings: Kirk/Spock, mpreg, fairly explicit sex in this section.

Disclaimer: Kirk, Spock, Sarek, Amanda, the Star Trek universe—all not mine.

x

Spock is standing in the hallway of an apartment building on Earth and there is some sticky substance on the floor, some sort of gum perhaps, that he only narrowly avoided stepping in when he got to the top of the stairs. The human boy who drove him here, Spock clinging tight flush against his back on a motorcycle not unlike the one his father owns and does not let him borrow, ever, because he is too young—the human boy is punching a code into the number pad next to door 4A. He is not looking at Spock, and Spock is beginning to wonder if this was a mistake.

"My father would not approve of this," he says. After he says it, he realizes the remark is somewhat out of place. He and the human haven't spoken since they pulled into the parking lot outside the building, and even then all the other had said was, "This is it." Spock had not said anything in reply, because the building was a squat, dingy structure, not particularly pleasing to the eye, even with the bright and beautiful sun skimming the horizon beyond it, and he neither wanted to insult the human's home, nor lie.

The boy laughs, just a short snort of laughter through his nose, and says, "I guess he wouldn't." The code takes, and the door slides open. The boy ushers Spock in first, and Spock can feel eyes on him as he walks in. They both take off their shoes at the door. The apartment has no entryway. It is one large room, kitchen unit to the side, an open doorway leading to what appears to be a bedroom to the far right, a bathroom just to his left. He takes one sweeping glance at it, the dull colors of the furniture, the scattered mess, thick paperbound books in great piles and a few dirty dishes on the table and next to an overflowing sink. Then he turns back to the human. He wants to say something. He cannot find words. He tries to calm himself, and still the thoughts running quite without order in his head.

"He's an Ambassador, you said? Your father?" the boy asks him, his own stare steady on Spock, almost appraising.

"Affirmative," Spock answers. "He visits Earth frequently. This is the first time I have accompanied him."

"And you thought it would be a good opportunity for some teenage rebellion?" the boy says, and then before Spock can answer, continues: "Don't worry, I'm not judging. I went through that phase." Then he pauses for a moment and rolls his eyes, a strange gesture, which Spock has never seen before. He tilts his head to watch the human closer. "Who am I kidding? I'm still in that phase."

Spock and the human, they met quite by accident, three hours and forty-eight minutes ago, when Spock bumped into the boy in the street. He'd been wandering, bored of waiting at the hotel for his father to complete his business, wanting to know, to understand this culture, these people, his mother's people whom he has never encountered, whom he knows only through his mother herself and his own reading and research. The boy had quite startled him, seeming to come out of nowhere as he rounded a corner, but he hadn't been upset at their collision. He'd invited Spock for a drink. Spock had declined; the boy had insisted; the bar had been loud and the people obnoxious, but the boy, with his blonde hair and clear blue eyes and startling smile that went straight to Spock's deepest organs, with his easy laugh and the way he was always leaning in, almost touching but not, so that when he did touch, Spock was set for the thrill of it, waiting despite himself for the thrill of it, toe curling thrill—the boy had been mesmerizing.

"Come back with me," he'd invited, later. Spock had said yes without thinking, without even asking the boy his name despite their hours together, without ever offering his. They had exchanged ages, though when the boy had said eighteen, Spock had been too afraid, too irrationally but powerfully afraid, to give his real age, so he'd said he was eighteen too. In reality he is fifteen. To lie so boldly and so blatantly is worrisome. Or it would be worrisome, if he had room in his mind to worry. The human is taking up all of the space, every layer of his thoughts.

There are a considerable number of layers to Spock's thoughts.

And what is this feeling? What are these desires? If he could only examine them, if he could only calm himself and take them apart, see how they work and what they mean.

The silence seems to be making the human a bit uncomfortable—the signs are subtle but Spock thinks he's picking them up, a bit of twitching, an unsteady gaze—so he saunters a bit closer to Spock and tells him, "You're the first Vulcan I've ever met, you know? I've heard you're about…three times stronger than the average human?" He tilts his head, a bit like Spock had a moment before, and then reaches out one hand so gently, all of Spock's conceptions of him blur and turn. He doesn't quite touch, not until after he adds, "Strong—but somehow—delicate." His palm is against the skin of Spock's cheek. "I mean that as a compliment, by the way," he says, and smiles in such a way that Spock believes the human is trying to put him at ease.

The boy moves his hand to Spock's shoulder, then puts his other hand on Spock's other shoulder. He looks right into Spock's eyes, and Spock controls his body carefully, tells himself he cannot look away. "In a moment," the boy says, voice calm and much quieter than Spock has yet heard it, "in a moment, I am going to kiss you. Step away now if you don't want me to."

Spock is vaguely aware of the human custom of kissing, quite different from any kisses he has ever witnessed on Vulcan, but his mind is lagging behind its usual pace by a full 74.8% and so he is still trying to imagine what pressing his mouth against this boy's mouth would be like when it is happening. His lips are soft. For a moment they don't move. Then they begin to open against his mouth. The human steps closer, so that their bodies are pressed against each other. He does not stop kissing. Spock opens his mouth, because he thinks this is probably what the human expects him to do. He feels a tongue in his mouth, reaching out to run across his teeth and then seeking his tongue, just pushing against it at first. The most curious of sensations. The boy's arms are around his body. This sort of physical intimacy with a being not part of his immediate family is shocking. He does not know what to do with his hands. Or with his mouth. He tries to press his tongue back against the human's. It is wet and disorganized. An activity with no logical purpose except that if he were not controlling his body, barely but still, he would be shaking, and even now his breathing has increased in rate, and he can feel a slight increase in his heart rate as well. Also the strong and undeniable desire to press his body closer to this other body. He does so, even wrapping his arms over the boy's shoulders, and at this the human pulls away and speaks, directly into Spock's mouth in a low and rasping voice: "Yeah, that's it. You got it."

Spock does not know exactly what it he has, but he imagines his father would not want him to have it, and neither would the Vulcan High Council, or T'Pau, or his mother. He presses his mouth roughly against the boy's again.

For several moments more they press against each other, increasingly disorganized, and Spock carefully loosens some of his control over his own physical reactions. He pants a little when the boy starts to pull away. He wants to ask what is going on, but the boy smiles, yet again, and as he untangles their arms he takes Spock's hand, a touch way too strong for his current state and it sets his heart beating the slightest bit faster, and begins to walk backwards ahead of him, carefully keeping eye contact as he leads Spock toward the bedroom he'd seen off to the right when he came in.

Spock follows. He follows without hesitation. His mind is flooded with feeling, drunk with it, drowning in it, feeling for this boy and want for him and need, yes, completley illogical need so strong it defies logic, and he's never felt this way before in his life. This is dangerous, a tiny voice in his mind says. He pushes it away. The boy pulls him over the threshold. He lets out a command, voice clear and loud and shocking to Spock's ears, and the lights come on, not full on, but 75% at least. The human catches Spock's eye and says, quieter now, "I want to be able to see you. You are…" (they're only touching at the hands now, a light touch, tantilizing, and Spock feels his tongue flick out and run across his lips, notices the boy's eyes follow the movement)—"You're gorgeous."

And then they are kissing again. It is as if the human boy's hands were everywhere at once, running first up to Spock's hair, now down his back, touching and teasing and skimming. Spock's own movements are inadequate in comparison, he thinks somewhere low at the base of his thoughts. He keeps his hands splayed one and then the other on the human's back, trying for a maximum of contact even through his shirt. He is also not sure what to do with his tongue. He moves with little grace within the hollow of the human's mouth, feeling the warmth of it, a light human warmth he could never have imagined, first trying not to entangle the other tongue still against his, the tongue pushing insistantly into his mouth, then trying to entangle it. The human makes an unexpected noise as they pull a little apart, and Spock would be startled by it, it sounds almost pained, except that at the same moment the boy's hands move down and one stops at the small of his back and the other grabs his ass. He hears himself, also, exclaim softly at the touch. It is an exclamation of surprise, but the way the human pulls away and catches Spock's eyes, and shoots him a few seconds' of gleaming smile, it is clear that he understood it to be a moan of pleasure. Spock feels himself flushing green.

The human takes him by the hand again and pulls him to the bed, where they collapse, half sitting and half lying; Spock supports himself with one hand against the mattress (the bed isn't made, he'll remember later; the sheets are rumpled from where the boy slept the night before, a small mountain of blanket at the foot, imprints in the pillows). The human leans close into him, balancing Spock does not know how, one hand on his leg, one wrapped around his body. They kiss mouth against mouth only a moment, then the boy takes his lips away and starts to kiss, small kisses, almost gentle, across Spock's face and then along his jaw and then down his neck. This skin is more sensitive. Spock can't stop the noises he's making, definitely moans now, he tells himself calmly somewhere within his thoughts. It is only logical. I am responding to stimulus.

He only wishes the human were warmer. He craves warmth, needs it, needs the contact that comes from skin touching skin, the comfort of this closeness. He uses one hand to reach a bit nervously, a bit tentatively, under the boy's shirt.

He seems to sense Spock's nervousness. Mouth at his ear now, he whispers into the shell of it, "It's all right. I want you."

Spock isn't sure if the two sentences are related. If the second is the explanation for the first. He feels a graze of teeth and his thoughts blank for a moment and when they return all he cares about is the way the boy is pressing him, carefully but unquestionably, backwards onto the bed. He covers the totality of Spock's body with the totality of his, and for a moment, for a handful of moments, it is perfectly blissful, hungry and a bit rough and completely desperate and driving, but blissful. He's lost in it. Then the human pulls away, and lifts himself up on two arms so he's looking at Spock's face. Spock looks back at him. He notes his red cheeks and his slightly mussed hair and that he is breathing through his mouth. Spock notices each of these hints of arousal, of desire, but he's still worried, because the human has stopped, and he doesn't know why.

"I think we're wearing too many clothes," he says, after a few seconds' silence. Before Spock can answer the human is pulling his own shirt over his head. The ease with which he reveals his half naked body is startling, scandalous. Spock does not even consider mimicking the gesture, has not gotten that far in his now considerably slowed thoughts, until the boy says, in a slightly teasing tone, "Now we're uneven."

"I—" Spock starts to answer, but he does not know what he is trying to say, what he wants to say. He can see the slightest definition of muslces rippling down the boy's chest and he's swamped with a desire he's never felt before and he's caught, he has no idea what's happening. No. That is a lie. He does know what is happening. When the boy smiles down at him again, still a bit teasing, yes, but that is only a thin hint beneath the reassurance baldly displayed in his expression, and moves back to crouch over Spock's legs, and gestures for him to sit up, he does. He starts to peel off the three layers he's wearing to protect against the cool chill of Earth weather. Embarrassment floods up to his ears at the appraising look the human is giving him. But before he can say anything the boy pushes him back again, hard this time, the bed jostles beneath them, and covers his body again.

Skin against skin tempts him to let down his defenses, his barriers, and feel the boy's emotions flow into him. But he does not. He cannot. He must not. Still he runs his hands up and down that back and bites his lip to keep from answering too loudly the sensation of that warm mouth against his burning skin, trailing down his chest. He feels the swipe of a tongue across one nipple and he claws his nails into the boy's back. He thinks he feels a smile press against one of his ribs.

The boy's mouth presses against his again, lips open against lips. Their movements are sloppy and undignified, messy and embarrassing. Spock feels them both move to rub their bodies against each other in whatever manner they can. The boy is hard, he notices vaguely, and so is he, and what can he do? What can he do but tilt his head to the side and begin to kiss the human boy's face and jaw? He hears words mumbled breathlessly: "yes yes good you're so good you're so hot fuck oh yes." These words and other things. They only vaguely register in his thoughts. He himself is silent, except for a few moans he cannot suppress. He tilts his head awkwardly to plant separate, distinct kisses, just a press of the lips and again, against the skin of the boy's neck.

He shouldn't be surprised when he feels the boy's hand struggle between them and touch him, grab him, through the fabric of his trousers. But he gasps so loudly the boy laughs into Spock's shoulders and mumbles, "My neighbors heard that one."

He kisses Spock again as he undoes the buttons of his trousers and slips his hand softly inside.

But he feels Spock's unease and pulls back again, hand where it is, but still, and looks into Spock's eyes again. "This okay?" he asks breathlessly.

"I…I do not know," Spock answers, considering. He tries to sort, logically, carefully, one by one, his scattered and shuffled thoughts. This is why the boy took him home, he's thinking. He does not want to disappoint him. An illogical thought. He owes him nothing. Nothing but this feeling, this swamp of feeling he's sinking in, this ecstatic pull of emotion he's flooded with, perfect, beautiful feeling. He does not want it to end. He does not believe it could continue, not at this pace, without escalating. To touch more, to take off more of their clothing, to come eventually to release: this is the logical conclusion of their activities. But to continue these activities would itself be illogical.

"Are you okay?" the boy asks again, this time with more force.

"Yes," Spock answers quickly, to reassure him.

"I can stop, if you want me to stop."

This time, Spock hesitates. The boy is still staring at him intently. He is still touching him. Spock is sweating, even though the human's room is quite cool.

Finally he says, "I am returning to Vulcan tomorrow."

The human's forehead wrinkles in confusion, just for a second, then he shakes his head and readjusts his position over Spock and says, "What does that have to do with anything? I'm not talking about tomorrow. I'm talking about right now." As he speaks he moves his hand from Spock's crotch and uses it to help support his weight.

Of course, Spock reminds himself, flicking his eyes down for a moment in embarrassment. There are no assumptions of longevity in this relationship—this is merely interaction. There is no bond but only a quick and fleeting lust.

"It would be illogical," he starts, but the human cuts him off.

"Don't think about logic."

"It is against the teachings of my culture to ignore logic."

The human sighs, perhaps fed up, and Spock imagines he will leave but he does not. He lowers himself down against Spock again and speaks this time low into his ear. "This feels good, right? I feel good on top of you, against you?"

He pauses, lips almost but not quite touching Spock's skin.

"Affirmative," Spock whispers.

"And you want me?"

One breath, a second.

"Very much."

"Then follow your feelings. Just once. This doesn't change who you are. It doesn't change what you believe."

"It would be hypocrisy—"

"You are alive. You have feelings. You have desires. To deny these things would be illogical."

Spock does not answer this. He thinks the boy expects him to. But he has no answer. He closes his eyes and tries to center himself.

He feels the human sit up. He flickers his eyelids back up, watches as the boy passes the back of his wrist over his forehead almost absently. He's sitting lightly on Spock's knees and Spock's stomach twists up because he's ruined this now, hasn't he?

"Don't do anything you don't want to," the boy says finally. "Just know that I want you. Okay? Terribly. And," he hesitates. Almost nervously, he avoids looking at Spock's face as he continues, "and I'll be careful. Slow. Just—think about it. For a few minutes, or however long and," he sighs again. "Decide completely. Ask yourself what you want and if it's worth it. I'll be in the other room."

Spock closes his eyes again, and does not open them even when he feels the weight on the bed redistribute and hears the human boy walk out.

He doesn't know how long he waits there, sprawled without dignity on the boy's white sheets. Perhaps only a few minutes. He hears a faucet running in the kitchen. He runs his hands down his own chest and draws in a few deep and calming breaths. What does he want? This boy, just that, just him. And is it worth it?

He glances through the doorway, but the human is too far away, invisible to him.

A few minutes more and Spock stands up.

The human is standing by his sink and staring down at the dishes piled in it, hand curled around an empty glass, and when he hears Spock, he lifts his head and looks at him. He isn't smiling. He doesn't seem upset, but still, Spock finds himself wishing for some sort of reassurance in that experssion, reassurance he knows he shouldn't need. He hesitates before speaking, and the human asks him, in that tripped up silence, "Do you want me to drive you back to your hotel?"

"Negative," Spock answers, as quickly as he can. "I wish to remain here. With you. I—trust you."

At this, the boy's face breaks into a proper grin, and then he raises his eyebrows a bit mockingly. "Your face is completely green," he says. Spock does not find this comment helpful. His stomach is all twisted. The boy steps up to him and wraps him in his arms. He kisses almost sweetly against Spock's lips. Perhaps he feels the hesitation, the displeasing embarrassment, that Spock radiates, that tenses each muscle and keeps him from leaning in properly to the touch, because he quirks up the corners of his lips and adds, "I like green. It's okay."

Spock just nods, and drops his eyes away from the human's face.

He hears a whisper, very light—"Come on"—and he does.

Back in the boy's room now and he's starting to fall. He feels his heart beat almost painfully against his side as they each lose the rest of their clothes, and he's naked with a stranger in a stranger's bed, and he's terrified and turned on and desperate for this, shamefully desperate. The human whispers the most obscene and filthy words Spock has ever heard, but in such a soft and quiet voice that they sound almost like endearments. Spock himself says almost nothing. He tries to relax when the human tells him to; he follows what instructions he is given and he answers the questions straightforwardly put to him. "Are you okay?" the boy asks him. "Are you all right?" All right, he wants to say, is so vague that it is meaningless, and how can he be all right, when he is here, carefully directing his muscles to accommodate two fingers inside his body, closing his eyes and slipping his hands over bare skin for the comfort of contact in this hour. How can he be all right? Is he not all right? He is floating and falling. He is utterly aware of his surroundings. He is unable to go on. He must loosen his control. He feels bits of another's mind flash through his thoughts. Lust and his own lust combining, and a sense of awe too pure to be his own, unmixed with pounding fear and clawing curiosity.

He wants to tell the boy these things. Or show him. Let his emotions flow back across the channel but he can't, these things would hurt him. So he says he is all right.

"Don't lie if it's not all right," the boy tells him, panting, his fingers still within Spock, so slick and cold as they entered but easier, now, to accept.

"It is acceptable," Spock assures him, just as breathless.

It seems that this is the wrong answer, though, because the human frowns and says, "It's supposed to be good, baby." He shifts and licks down from the point of Spock's ear, until he can whisper into it, "Here." Spock feels that touch again on his length. "Now touch me," the boy directs, and he does. The sensations triple at each of his most sensitive body parts, and he feels the human's fingers crook inside of him. He moans. The human is repeating a word, "yes," over and over to him.

"Do you trust me still?" he asks, later, hovering over Spock, about to push in. Spock grabs at his shoulder. He lets himself feel the boy's emotion, controlling the transfer of it as well as he can, and as he does he bites his lips and closes his eyes and tries to pretend the boy is not staring at him. He feels impatient and a bit nervous, the boy, Spock through the boy, and he's quite blinded with lust, an almost self destructive lust he's felt before, and despite their new acquaintance there is a thrill of deep affection, almost familiar affection, thrumming an undertone of feeling. Spock must answer with the truth. He must look the other boy in the eye. And he does. He forces himself to. They are both slick with sweat and he's scared.

"I trust you," he says.

The boy nods once.

The human thinks he is hurting Spock, Spock realizes, and that is why he is talking him through this, always asking if he's okay still, carefully moving more slowly than he wants to, touching Spock wherever he can because he knows somehow it is touch Spock wants. It is logical to conclude from Spock's own behavior that he is in pain, from how he keeps his eyes shut tight, how he grips at the boy's back and hip. But he is not in pain. He retains great control of his body, his muscles, even now. But he is scared, scared he is feeling too much, scared he will not return from this, scared that he will lose control. He is stronger than the boy by a great margin and he knows that he is causing pain just by the strength of his grip. He tells the boy to move faster, harder, because he knows he wants to, and lacks only the permission to do so.

It does not last long. The boy orgasms with little warning and with a loud and unrestrained moan, incoherent and wordless. Spock is almost embarrassed to hear it, to see the lost expression on the human's face. He is himself nowhere near release, or at least he does not believe himself to be, until the human takes him unexpectedly in his hand; after only a few awkward, exhausted strokes Spock feels his body focus and his hips buck and he releases. He groans out a string of Vulcan words, mostly expletives, without truly knowing what he is saying, and when it is over he falls with a thud back onto the bed.

For several moments, he cannot look at the human boy. His eyes are open but they are on the ceiling. He and the boy have parted completely by now; they are no longer even touching each other, and Spock, washed through and sputtering like the almost drowned with only his own feelings, begins to realize just how much he was taking of the human's emotions, and is embarrassed and guilty. Also he is sure that he looks a complete mess.

He is startled by a light touch at his hand. Then there is the sound of shifting, and he glances over to see the boy about to kiss him. He lets him, kisses back carefully, slowly. It is a closed mouth kiss. The boy holds his gaze for several moments after but he does not say anything, and neither does Spock. Then the human smiles, a thin, forced, smile, which then drops quite as suddenly from his face. The boy sits up with a loud sigh and a groan. He swings his legs over the bed and stares in the direction of the window, which is curtained closed. Safe now from that gaze, Spock stares at his back and the ladder of his vertebrae. He has a desire, out of nowhere it seems, to slide his fingers slowly down those notches, to take his time in exploration. But the realization of this desire comes with another: that he will have no such opportunity, now or ever. That this interaction is over now, only formalities left. A hollow pit settles in his stomach.

"The bathroom's on the other side of the apartment—I don't know if you noticed it before," the boy says finally. His voice is tired and Spock cannot read any emotion in it. "It's kind of annoying, the placement. You're welcome to use the shower if you want. There are towels in there and—soap." His words are a bit stilted, uneven, the voice of someone trying to keep his thoughts on track despite his fatigue.

Spock does not want to get up but he knows the boy's invitation is more of an order, so he does, awkwardly, unevenly. He walks naked to the bathroom. He turns the water on in the shower as hot as it will go, which is still not very hot, and though usually he takes quite short showers, this time he has the desire to stand under that water for ages. He refrains out of a sense of politeness. He's sure the human is desperate to get rid of him by now.

It is not, he considers as he dries himself, that his mind is blank. There are thoughts, there are emotions, but he's been carefully, without realizing even that he is doing it, placing them in boxes and shelving them, regaining his control. There will be time later to meditate upon this encounter. For the moment he has practical matters to concern himself with: returning to the hotel as inconspicuously as possible, explaining his prolonged absence to his father. What is most important is to find his center again, regain his balance, regain his logic. What is important is to be Vulcan, to indulge no longer in desires and temptations that are, as he puts it only now to himself, guiltily, and to hide his guilt, all too human.

When he returns to the boy's room, embarrased in his nudity but unwilling to cover what the human has already seen, his clothes are sitting, folded messily, but folded, in a pile at the foot of the bed. The boy is looking through his dresser drawers absently; he is wearing a pair of well worn jeans and no socks. He looks up when he hears Spock enter. "Your communicator's been beeping," he says, quite levelly, and then returns to his search.

Spock picks it up. Three messages. Two from his father, one from his mother. He turns it off. "My parents," he starts to say, and then realizes that explanation is unnecessary, and puts the communicator off to the side so that he can begin to dress.

The boy finds a shirt and pulls it swiftly over his head. "Know what you're going to tell them yet?" he asks casually.

"I will think of something," Spock answers. He finishes dressing swiftly and then follows the boy from the room. They put on their shoes at the doorway, neither speaking. Spock finds himself wondering what the human is thinking. But no, such thoughts are useless, such speculation idle and without meaning. He clears his mind.

"Where do you want me to take you?" the boy asks him once they are outside, pressed close again on the seat of the motorcycle. "Your hotel?"

"My father would not appreciate seeing his son arrive in such a manner," Spock answers. "No. Take me to the library. I will walk back from there."

He hears the human laugh, just a short snort of it, as he turns the machine on. "The old library excuse—and not even technically a lie—I'm impressed," he says, then turns them out toward the road.

x

The boy stops his bike, but doesn't turn it off, just leaves it idling beneath him as Spock climbs off outside of the Riverside Public Library. Spock doesn't know what to say. He almost wants to say thank you, but such a remark would be illogical, as the human has done him no favors, has sacrificed nothing for him. The pause lasts several moments, confused, unsure, and then the human turns his head to catch Spock's glance and says, in a calm tone Spock can't read, "I hope you have a safe trip home."

"I thank you," Spock answers, relieved somehow that he's been given the opportunity to say the words. Having nothing more to say, he nods once formally, and the boy nods in return, just once, and sighs a little a sigh so small Spock doesn't believe a human ear would notice it. Then the boy takes his feet from the ground, adjusts his hands on the handlebars, and roars off.

Spock waits several moments on the sidewalk, just watching him.

His father is not angry, when Spock finally punches in the code to their rooms and walks in. He is disappointed. He is quietly, evenly, disappointed—looks like he did when Spock got into that fight at school four years ago—and all Spock can think when he looks at him is how much he does not want to talk to his father at this moment. He wants to go to sleep. He is not tired, not physically; if he had to he could stay awake for hours still, but his mind is almost painfully drained. All he wants is sweet unconsciousness and a few hours' meditation when he awakes.

His father does not say much. He asks where Spock was.

"I was at the library," he answers. "I was caught up in my research and lost track of time. I did not hear my communicator, as I had turned it off in order to avoid disturbing the other patrons. I apologize."

Sarek looks at him sternly, silently, and Spock can read in his face clearly enough that he does not believe him.

"It is late," he says finally. "We will discuss this tomorrow."

"Yes Father," Spock answers deferentially, and retreats into his room without saying anything more.

Once the door closes behind him he allows himself a glance in the mirror. Did his father see the same debauchery he sees in his own face? He is overwhelmed suddenly with a burning shame that brings a green flush to his face yet again. No. This paranoia is unreasonable. The human boy is gone. And Spock—tomorrow he will return to Vulcan, to his normal life, to the everyday realities of school and his preparation for his entrance exam for the Vulcan Science Academy. And everything will be just the same as it was.