Work Text:
T’Pock was five years old, and he had always known he was a boy.
Eventually, he’d have to find out he wasn’t. But for right then, he was content just to exist in his brain.
-----
T’Pock was ten years old, and he hated his body.
He hated the way his hips were curved, the way his chest was no longer flat, the way his hair framed his too-feminine face.
Sometimes, when he was by himself, he’d pin it up, folding over his hair in the front so it looked more like his father’s, more like every male Vulcan he’d ever seen, and he’d stare into the mirror and think illogical thoughts.
After a while, he’d have to release his pseudo-bangs, and put his hair back in the neat bun it was always in. And he’d go back to being T’Pock, the normal female Vulcan, who didn’t hate herself and was perfectly logical.
T’Pock wished he could be her all the time. He wished he was her.
He wasn’t.
He took one last glance at the mirror before fixing his hair and leaving.
-----
T’Pock was twelve years old, and his arms were bleeding.
He didn’t really know how it started. But somewhere along the way it became better to slice apart his lifeless arms than feel instead.
He pressed the blade in until he heard the tiny pop of breaking skin, and a few tiny beads of blood made themselves known. He didn’t react. Not even a hiss or a wince or a spike of emotion in his chest that used to be there when he did this. He just did it again, and again, and again, until there wasn’t any room left, perfectly straight lines, all in a neat row down his skin.
He watched as the blood seeped out lazily and didn’t feel it.
He waited until the blood wasn’t flowing anymore before he wrapped his arms up in fresh white bandages.
It was better, he told himself. Logical.
Logical.
-----
T’pock was fourteen years old and he had finally chosen a name.
Spock.
He’d agonized over it for years. He’d searched and searched for a name that felt right, a name that was truly him. Sorok, Spick, Sperok, Spok, Tock, Tovok, and finally, Spock.
It had taken so long. Deliberation, late night ramblings in his head, long hours of contemplation.
And now all that work was over. And no one knew about it.
It all felt so futile. He’d thought so much and so deeply about this, and no one else knew. No one called him it. No one saw.
Still. He whispered the name into the stars at night, Spock, and it felt good on his lips, Spock, it felt special, Spock, it felt right.
Spock finally had a name.
-----
Spock was nineteen and he was leaving.
“There will be consequences for your actions, T’Pock,” said Sarek.
“My name is Spock,” he wanted to say, but he didn’t. He stared at the floor.
“T’pock,” Sarek ground out, “it is my wish that you stay here and attend the Vulcan Science Academy. If you choose to disobey my wishes, then you shall no longer be my daughter.”
Ironic, Spock thought, and looked up and looked Sarek in the eye for the first time in years.
“I am leaving,” he said, and turned to walk to his room to pack.
-----
Spock was twenty, and he wanted to die.
He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He studied the cracks, branching this way and that, disrupting the smooth white.
He was doing great at the Academy. He was excelling. Perfect grades.
He was still T’Pock.
-----
Spock was twenty one, and his hands were shaking.
He looked blankly at the blade in his hand, watched it hover over his wrists.
One wrong move and he could die.
He didn’t know how that made him feel.
He didn’t know how anything made him feel. He didn’t feel at all. And that was a good thing, he insisted on telling himself, and the rows and rows of tiny white lines on his arms were his proof. Proof that he was better off this way. Logically, if this helped him feel less, then it was good.
He wondered if he’d feel less if he was dead.
He was soon to graduate from Starfleet Academy. He’d aced all his classes, and would be graduating with honors.
But Spock wasn’t graduating. T’Pock was. T’Pock would walk across the stage when they called her name, and accept her diploma in her female dress uniform and her neat bun and avoid shaking her professor’s hands and sit down daintily and cross her legs and be comfortable in her body and not hate herself, and Surak, Spock fucking hated himself. He was a fucking monstrosity. A half-breed who thought she was a male, too emotional, too different, too wrong, and his body was wrong and his brain was wrong and Spock wished she were dead.
Spock was twenty-one. And he wasn’t sure if he would make it to twenty-two.
-----
Spock was twenty-three, and he was alive.
And tired. So, so tired.
-----
Spock was twenty-four and he didn’t want to be a girl anymore.
He didn’t really tell anyone. There’s no one to tell. He had no one, no one who would care that he’s a boy now (no one who would care if he died). He just went to the sick bay on a random Tuesday.
“Greetings,” he said, stopping a nurse.
“Hello Ensign T’Pock,” she said, and a little bit of Spock’s resolve crumbled. He steeled himself.
“I would prefer,” he started, “if you were to address me by the name of Spock.”
“Oh.” she said, and then “Oh!” A pause before she remembered herself. “How—how can I help you, Spock?”
It was the first time anyone had ever called Spock by his name.
Emotion flared in his chest, and he squashed it, reprimanding himself for the little shiver of excitement that rippled through him. “I wish to speak to someone about possibly beginning hormone replacement therapy.”