Spock met Jim when he was 7 and Jim was 6. It has since been generally agreed that this was a mistake (or: the one where they grow up together and things are simultaneously better and worse for it).

Non-Starfleet AU. Jim owns a small bar in Chicago, keeps on picking up strays and taking care of everyone no matter how hard it makes his own life. Spock is a journalist writing feature articles for the Chicago Tribune; he depicts the world with uncanny skill, but hides more than one personal drama and is possibly under surveillance from the Vulcan royal family. They meet by accident just before their lives start to spin out of control.

James Kirk, growing up in two very different universes.

Spock had not intended to watch them. He had only been at the dock because he had been unable to resist the temptation of seeing the Enterprise again, as illogical as that was.

Her first date with McCoy is a good one: coffee and a museum in San Francisco. She enjoys it, likes talking to him. His humor is honest, but he's never cruel. He’s intelligent. He’s not bad looking. He makes her laugh. He talks about Jim Kirk more than she'd maybe like him to, but maybe that’s what she’s looking for. It’s only been a few weeks, and she still can’t look Kirk in the eye. Might never be able to again.

When you're five, you're running down the street with your father, and skin your knees on the sidewalk. Your father surveys the damage and you're trying not to cry, because whenever your father sees other children bawling over something like that he first tells you how useless crying is, how it doesn't make the pain go away and doesn't make the scrape heal, before going over and offering a bandage with a kind smile.

"I know your son very well. I know that he is most likely to do what he is told not to do," Spock says, and she sees a flash of humor in his face, but maybe she imagined that, too. "I wondered if it might be in my interest should you hate me on sight."

"It was also brought to my attention that after marooning you on an ice planet and attempting to strangle you to death, failing to speak out for your defense would make me, in the popular vernacular, a douche."

Jim took the silence as an opportunity to scrutinize his potential new friend, deciding with glee that his eyebrows were about as unfortunate as the severity of his bangs. In the absence of a response from the other, he was getting restless, head tilting as he fidgeted and bit his lip and shuffled his feet in the dirt, as he tried to deal with what seemed to his childish perception to be an awkward moment. He wasn't a shy child, but he sure as hell knew how and when to be a polite and charming one.

Jim couldn’t control the shit-eating grin on his face. He probably looked like a whack job, but so the fuck what? He was on shore leave and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy every minute of it. There was something incredibly simple and fun about grocery shopping.

In which Kirk gets beaten like a rented mule behind a bar, sulks about it for a significant period of time, is forced to endure Spock in eyeliner, and points that no one is ever going to buy what Spock's selling -- unless they train him up a bit.

Detective Spock, born on Vulcan and resident of San Francisco, is assigned to the Midwest police bureau. I think everyone can guess what happens next.

"If I enable your uncalled for territorial masculine paranoia, do you promise not to bother me at work for a month?"

"During your time, was the bridge staff comprised of functional alcoholics?"

Christopher is initially surprised when he wheels into work one day and finds, sitting on his desk, a formal request from the Enterprise’s new captain to have Commander Spock officially dubbed the ship’s First Officer. If memory serves him correctly—and he’s sure that the Centurian slug didn’t take out too much detail—this runs contrary to everything he’s seen conspire between the two men, as well as everything he’s heard of their working chemistry.

He is four years old. His father is dead, his father’s people glad to be rid of the traitor. He has only his mother and his mind, and both seem liable to break.

"Miss Tam," he says, and he is polite though his face is radiating excitement when she turns and he sees-- yes-- she cannot be more than fourteen or fifteen. "Excuse me, but I am very interested to know-- how is it you are coming to be in this class?" Her face doesn't change, though surprise and interest flicker in her eyes, and he adds quickly, "They told me I was the youngest one here."

One day, Bones brings a dongly machine thing into Jim's room and sets it up on Jim's table and then looks Jim in the eye and says, "Jim, quid pro quo."

McCoy knew that he had issues, he didn’t have to mull them over every other second to make sure they were still there.

Since Jim was sixteen, he'd refused to go home for the night if Mom brought someone home. At first it'd been so Mom didn't have guys staying over as much, but now he was twenty-two, it'd become a courtesy. Silently, she paid him the same. They had a system all worked out, unspoken but up til now infallible.

The answer is √π233/hy7. Has been for all three months of the first semester. Jim's not sure why the galaxy's best and brightest haven't realize that, but it's not his school, not his problem.

Winona has all kinds of dreams for Jim's future when he's a boy, but not Starfleet. It's already taken too much from them, she tells herself, and as much as she loves it -- as much as she wouldn't give up space for anything -- she's not about to give it her boy, too. That's not really why, after a while, though. It's that Jim seems so angry, so ready to fight anyone who gets in his way. She thinks he doesn't need more weapons, more reasons to fight; he needs a home.

McCoy got full custody of Joanna. Jim ran away from Starfleet. They meet in a barn in Georgia and life goes on.

In a timeline where the Vulcans never allowed Earth freedom from their oversight, Jim Kirk doesn't fit in. All he needs to get away is a fast ship and a crew as crazy as he is; luckily, some things are universal constants.

His name is George Samuel Kirk. And he's the only person in his family who has his shit together.

Frank Hallie never meant to be the wicked stepmother in the story.

If Amanda had to pick a word to describe Sarek, it would be "genuine," or maybe "surprising."

Leonard McCoy wouldn’t have said that he was happy, but he was content with being blind until Jim Kirk came along and threw up on him.

"Yeah, no, we're not playing analyze the human for fun and profit tonight, thanks. Either get me out of here or get the hell out and I'll figure this out for myself."

Spock accompanies his parents to an Earth resort where Jim Kirk is a dancer. 'Dirty Dancing' redux.

Just for shits, as far as Jim can tell, he teaches him the Standard accent that makes Vulcan ears bleed with pain, the one that makes them forgive you because you're trying so hard, and the educated one that might make a Vulcan take you mildly seriously. Then it's on to different dialects of Vulcan and why you don't talk like this in polite company and why this accent makes Vulcans think you're upper class, even if you're really, really not. As a chaser, he adds in Romulan and how it differs from Vulcan, and how S'Fuckhead basically rewrote it from the first few grunts the first proto-Vulcans made. (Which is actually kind of interesting, but Jim would rather live on plomeek soup than admit it.)

He's been a good Captain. It isn't his own ego talking, although it does tend to echo across the galaxy on a good day. He's seen the peer reviews his crew sent in, seen the overwhelming praise that's been sent to Starfleet on his behalf. And yet here he is on his mostly deserted ship filling out paperwork to send them scattered across the universe because not one of them wishes to remain with him.

Then he decides it's only logical to have one last taste of the batter before it's poured into the pan.

The last day of the Enterprise's five-year tour is comprised of about 90% lounging, 10% other.

The don't talk about his father, ever. He doesn't want to. But he'll talk about Jim, his genius younger brother who's too smart and too fast and somehow stuck where he is. There's adoration and guilt there—he left Jim, but staying would have killed him.

After Nero, Uhura goes home. Spock and Gaila do, too.

Amanda Grayson raises two boys on Vulcan.

"I'm studying xenolinguistics and she's studying computer science," Uhura snaps, the eighth time some cadet leans in close across a table in the library to ask what it was like, being an Orion slave girl. "The comparative anthropology section is over there."

The last thing Spock ever remembers is a mission going horribly wrong.

Transitioning from "hating each other's guts" to "friends" to something more takes a lot of work, on both their parts, but it isn't until after they start spending the bulk of their free time together that Jim actually bridges the gap between the theoretical knowledge that Spock is a humanoid alien and truly understanding it.

Jim, I swear to fucking GOD. Is this shit you? IS THIS YOU? What the fuck are you planning? No, don't tell me. I can't bear to hear it. The universe record holder for largest confirmed orgy is something in the neighborhood of 300+ sentients, and that was in a planet that engages in psychic sex -- THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN BEAT THAT, ALL RIGHT?

"James T Kirk," Jim says, and sticks his hands in his pockets because Vulcans don't shake hands, and he's pretty sure his fingers don't bend that way.

Maria also has the Vulcan Flu of Very-Much-Not-Death-Now-Get-Out-of-my-Sickbay-Captain, and wants nothing more than to crawl into bed with her papa and have him give her hugs. That'd be awesome because it's very clear that also pretty much what Spock wants, but Spock can't move his arms. No one seems particularly interested in Jim when he's not bathing them or giving them tea. That's fine.

Jim thought it was just a one night stand until McCranky turns out to be his Professor McCoy.

Bizarre alien peace rituals, drunken debacles, Jim Kirk's pornography, the phrase 'bet your sweet ass' taken way too literally, bar fights, everyone's favorite Orion and super advanced sex toys of the future you wish you had now. A love story.

Gaila knows a challenge when she hears one, even if it wasn't quite meant that way.

Miss Amanda and Mr. Dad of Spock left in the afternoon, and Miss Amanda kissed Spock on the nose and kissed Jim on the cheek and said, "You take care of him, all right? He's your responsibility." Mom said that Jim was good at responsibility even though Sam said he wasn't, but Spock seemed like he'd probably be harder to take care of than Chester.

And having it confirmed, that Spock was actually begging for credits, almost shocked him speechless again. But not quite. "What are you doing here?"

Jim wants to ride that (and by "that" he means "Spock's dick") into the sunset.

Spock will only ever be certain of one thing.