Geekiness from Head To Toe

Bradley's house was easy to find. He’d texted you surprisingly detailed instructions, but you hadn't needed them. His gleaming blue Bronco was the street’s most prominent landmark.

You parked up and couldn't help but think how neatly your car slotted into the driveway, like it belonged next to his.

With a hop and a skip, you were on Bradley's front porch and ringing the doorbell.

Ding Dong.

You waited. A minute and a half went by. You rang again.

Ding Dong.

Bradley's disembodied voice floated from the doorbell’s speaker.

“Hi, baby, sorry, I lost track of time.”

“I suppose I'm a bit early,” you said. Though only by 2 minutes and 54 seconds, according to your watch.

“No worries, I'll take it as a compliment. Hopefully, that just means you're keen on me.”

You were, you really were.

“I'm still in the gym, but-”

“Oh,” you replied flatly. Really? He was still at the gym?  You tried to mask your disappointment. “That's OK, I guess I can just go for a drive around the block while I wait…”

“Baby, you're not going anywhere.” His voice was firm, the tiniest bit commanding in the most tantalising of ways. “My gym is in the garage. As long as you don't mind a bit of sweat, we're golden. The side door is open; you can come right in.”

-

Bradley figured he had enough time to sneak in a few more reps with his weights while you made your way inside.

He'd fully intended to be washed and ready before you arrived. He really had. But the afternoon had completely slipped away from him. Though he figured it wasn't such a bad thing if you saw him in a more ‘natural’, day-to-day kind of state. He’d done his best to look polished and put together on your dates so far. He wanted you to know he was serious, that he was looking for someone to build a life with, not a casual fling.

Which is why he invited you to his home for a cosy night in. He would make you dinner, then you’d share a bottle of wine, maybe watch a movie and talk long into the night. He'd even set up the spare room for you (he didn't want to presume) if you felt you wanted to stay over. Most of all, Bradley wanted you to see he had his shit together. He hoped you’d get enough of a glimpse at his life to decide you might want to share more of it with him.

It was only then that Bradley realised you walking in on him doing bicep curls might look douchier than he intended.

“Oh, no need to stop on my account.”

You were leaning in the door frame with your arms folded, smirking with glee.

-

It was your own fault, really. You’d insisted there was no need for Bradley to cut his workout short, and that you were perfectly happy to watch as he completed what was left of his routine. Extremely happy, in fact. He put on an excellent display of athleticism, which made it quite difficult to keep your composure and not insist that he take you over his gym bench for your first time together.

The last exercise on his list was pull-ups. Which, for an entirely unknown reason, he decided you needed to partake in too.

“I won’t be able to do it, Bradley; I don’t do these kinds of workouts.”

“I’ll lift you up.”

“I don’t have the upper body strength to stay there.”

“You won’t need any, you just need to hold on and look pretty, like you always do. No effort required.”

You felt your cheeks flush at his compliment. It was so casual, so natural. The kind of thing a boyfriend might say to a girlfriend of multiple years.

You were going to give in, but flung out one more excuse.

“I’m scared I’ll fall.”

“Baby, I promise you, I won’t let you fall.”

Good lord.

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Ok.”

“Alright. I’ve got you. Jump on the count of three. 1…2…3!”

You hadn't realised quite how strong Bradley was. The first time you saw him, you could tell he worked out. It was par for the course for someone in the Navy, and most of his dating app photos were of him in the gym, although he’d managed to still look chilled out and friendly instead of ‘Gym Bro seeks Gym Bunny’ (but it was the picture of him snuggling his dog that really sealed the deal). So, when he told you to wrap your legs around his and began to lift your combined body weights up and down, you couldn't help feeling a little lightheaded.

If the exercise was any effort at all, Bradley didn't let it show on his face. Instead, the smile he wore was half a mildly cocky ‘see, I told you so’ and half a dopey, boyish grin.

You could get used to this, you thought. Maybe you could come over and work out with him next time, side by side. Exercise might actually be fun with Bradley. Everything else had been so far, and getting to gaze at his gorgeous rippling muscles would be just the motivation you needed…

“I got chills, they're multiplying And I'm losing control 'Cause the power you're supplying It's electrifying (electrifying)”

Bradley froze mid pull-up. His eyes widened and his whole face reddened as John Travolta's voice blared from the portable speaker in the corner of the room. You had barely noticed there was music playing, and most of it had sounded like typical ‘workout playlist’ kind of fare. Until now.

“I didn't peg you for a movie musical fan,” you giggled. “But somehow, it makes complete sense.”

Bradley tried to shake off his embarrassment. He flexed and then swung you both a little, getting the momentum to resume the rest of his reps. You liked that he wasn't a quitter.

“Admitting my music taste sins this early on wasn’t part of the plan,” he huffed.

“You better shape up 'Cause I need a man And my heart is set on you You better shape up You better understand To my heart I must be true.”

Olivia Newton-John had joined the party.

“Spotify doesn't lie,” you teased. “Let’s see if I can guess what else you might like. The Blues Brothers for sure. And Footloose, I just know that’s right up your street - as long as it's not the 2011 version.”

He screwed his face up at that, offended at the mere suggestion of preferring a remake over an original.

“Obviously not. Kevin Bacon all the way.”

“Hmm. Looks like I've got an aficionado on my hands.”

A few more pull-ups and shared musical opinions later, Bradley planted you back on the ground. Perspiration glistened on his brow, and his sweat-dampened tank top clung to him in the most delicious of ways. Neither of you stepped apart. Both your chests were heaving, for entirely different reasons, and you made no attempt to hide the fact that you were desperately breathing him in.

“I think you need to take a shower,” you said. It was just an innocent observation.

“I think I do too.”

“I’ll let you on two conditions.”

“Let me?” A smile tugged at the corners of Bradley’s lips. “And what might these conditions be?”

You trailed a hand down his chest, ending at his Adonis belt and hooking your fingers on the waistband of his shorts.

“Number one: I get to join you.”

“Deal.”

You snorted at his speed and dropped your head to his shoulder. In a moment of absolute surrender, you indulged in a taste of Bradley’s thick, muscular neck, the heady flavour of masculine exertion coating your tongue.

“Baby-” His voice was ragged.

“So you want to clean my house?” 

He sounds incredulous, but you’re not sure why - the house is beyond filthy. In the two days you've spent in Riverside, you've spent your time either eating, reading or sleeping. Jim's been doing much the same. The wound on his forehead has scabbed over, the bruise turning green and then yellow as it heals. Both of you have been too worn out, too shy to break the comfortable silence to talk much, content to just be in the same room - together yet alone with only your respective thoughts for company.

“I'd kind of like a bed to sleep in, you know? Your sofa is great, but it's not great for more than a couple of hours napping. It’s wreaking havoc on my back.”

“Then I'll take the sofa, and you can take my room.” 

He says it as a matter of fact, but you're not sure you can take him up on that offer. There are bags under his eyes, and you’re sure he hasn’t slept any better than you have been.

“I’m not taking your bed from you, Jim.” 

You sigh, leaning back on the couch with the throw over your lap. He’s rumpled and sleep-worn, settled on the other end of the sofa from you. Both of you are staring at the wall of snow building up outside the window, steaming mugs held securely in your hands. It looks oddly peaceful, seeing your reflection and his. In another universe, another happier time, you’d be curled up under his shoulder, and you’d both be smiling.

“We both need to be able to sleep. And this sofa isn’t going to help.”

“What, you need the sleep so you can nag me back into the arms of ‘Fleet?” You can hear the sardonic, sarcastic edge in his voice, but you won’t fall for the trap he’s setting. He doesn’t look ready for a fight either. It’s more like he’s throwing out sarcastic barbs rather than facing the real reason why you’re here. Instead you drain the last of your coffee and stand, stretching out the kinks in your back.

“Are you coming, Kirk?” 

You inject false cheer into your voice, trying to keep your mood light as you walk up the stairs.

 “I would hate to find something you’d rather have hidden up here.”

It’s not a big house. Upstairs, the hallway is short, with four doors branching out. There’s one door to your left and three to your right. There’s a sign on one of the doors to the right, and the door next to it is half open, showing off white tiles. It feels like you’re in a completely different place. Upstairs, it’s dusty, but it’s not a mess. It feels like nobody’s been up here in years, a deceptive thought because Jim’s been disappearing up here every night. You stand in the hallway for a long time, dragging in lungfuls of the dusty air, thinking furiously. How do you approach this? How do you walk into sacred territory without permission?

“I would’ve thought you’d have blundered into any room that caught your fancy.”

You startle out of your contemplation, head jerking up to see the ghost of the easy grin you’re used to seeing on Jim’s face. 

“I-” You swallow noisily as he steps in closer. He’s so warm, so alive even when he looks broken, beaten down. The bags under his eyes are so purple and dark they’re as livid as bruises. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“So you need me?” His hands are big-boned yet oddly delicate as they take yours, long fingers intertwined with yours as he drags you to the door with the off-kilter sign proclaiming, “Jim’s Room - Keep Out Sam!”.

“What, Kirk? Does that give your ego a boost?” There’s a twin bed pushed under the window, sheets mussed, the sand-blue sheets trailing onto the floor. The sheets match the walls, a mockery of the clear blue shade of the eyes of the man holding your hand. It feels like a memorial to the boy, the man he used to be in here. There are still childhood novels on the shelves, the real paper impossibly precious in an era of PADDs, a baseball bat in the corner and the desk is strewn with the guts of some machinery you couldn’t name if you tried.

“Sweetheart, that boosts my ego like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Hmm?” You’re dragged out of your perusal of the books when his hand wraps around your elbow. “Did you say something, Kirk?”

You look up into those blue eyes, twinkling a little.

“Yeah, sweetheart. But it’s not important. You like books? The paper kind?”

You nod almost too eagerly, gingerly smoothing your palm over the fragile, delicate, soft pages. 

“There’s something special about a physical book. The feeling of them in your hands, the scent of the paper, the smell of the ink. It’s a completely different experience reading a book instead of a PADD.”

His hands shake just a little as he takes the book from you.

“Yeah, those are some of the reasons why I love them, too.”

The cover is worn. A copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. He tugs you to sit on the bed, the sheets cool and smelling strongly of his cologne.

“It’s pretty clean in here, right?” 

You nod. 

“Would you be comfortable sleeping here if I take one of the other bedrooms?” 

You’re not sure you can take his bed from him. It sounds a little like torture - being surrounded by his cologne, curling up in his sheets, and wishing you could be curled up in his arms instead.

“Where will you sleep if I’m here?” 

“I can take one of the other bedrooms.” His smile is gentle.

“Do you need any help cleaning one of the other rooms?” 

“Nah, sweetheart. Why don’t you go make us lunch and get a headstart on dinner?” 

You squeeze his forearm gently before banishing yourself back downstairs. His quick refusal of your help, the way his eyes had shifted when he told you to sleep in his bed and how he’d so easily told you he’d be okay taking one of the others? It sounds like he’s hiding something. But you’re trying not to pry, to overstep the lines he’s so clearly drawn in the sand. They’re so deep they might as well be ravines. But how do you broach what is bothering him when he oh so clearly doesn’t want to talk about it?

It’s the question on your mind as you fall into the relaxing activity of making a pot of stew for the two of you to share. The kitchen smells like rich tomato and fragrant meat when Jim walks in, exhaustion heavy in the slope of his shoulders, smears of dust staining the dark hoodie he’s thrown over the sweatpants he’s been wearing all day.

“That smells amazing.” His eyelids flutter as he leans over the bubbling pot, breathing deeply. He takes the ladle from your hand and nudges you to the side with his hip. He drags it through the broth and sips from the ladle. The moan leaving his lips has you freezing in your tracks. After only a single night, his musical moan shouldn’t have heat swirling in the pit of your stomach, making sweat bead up on your brow. But it does, and you’re not sure whether you can stomach confronting how it - how he - makes you feel.

“Damn, sweetheart.” He groans as he sets the ladle back on the spoon rest and turns to face you. “If I’d known you could cook like this, I would’ve had you cook for me a long time ago.”

“It’s nothing much.” You murmur, bending your head over the cutting board where you’ve been cutting some vegetables for a salad to serve on the side.

“It’s amazing, sweetheart.” He steals a carrot from the cutting board, munching on it with what you know is an infuriating grin on his face. “I’ve been living off cereal and takeout for the past few months.”

“You have to take better care of yourself.” 

You admonish him gently, a half-smile on your lips. He’s like a whirlwind in this kitchen, dancing around you like it’s second nature to have you here. You’re not sure where he pulled the bottle of wine out from, but it’s in his hands, and the cork is out before you can blink. He pours a healthy glassful for each of you but nabs one to start drinking immediately. 

“Let that breathe, Jim!” 

You bump him out of the way, stealing the glass from his hands.

“You don’t call me by my name very often.” He murmurs, fishing a cherry tomato out of the salad bowl despite your disapproving look.

“You infuriate me enough that I don’t think you deserve it - most of the time.” You shrug as you carefully transfer the stew into two bowls and set them on the table.

“And what about right now?”

You settle down into your seat. “Right now, I just want to eat a nice meal, drink some wine and do all of it with a friend.”

“We’re friends?” There's a naked shock in his tone at your honest statement.

“Of course we’re friends. I didn’t make the trip to the middle of nowhere, Iowa, in the middle of a blizzard for just anybody!”

There’s a smile on his face as he dips his spoon into the stew, steam bringing a blush to his pale cheeks. The kitchen is filled with the soft clatter of cutlery against ceramic for several minutes. When you push your bowl away, the apples of his cheeks are pink, a blush rising up his neck. He hasn’t been drinking any more than you have, and you know it is just the heat of the hot stew settling easily into his pale skin.

By unspoken accord, you wash up together, domestically, him washing while you dry, sipping on the wine. The easy banter, how he laughs every time he succeeds in flicking soapy water your way, makes your heart ache. You want this to be your everyday life one day, you and someone you love living together, building a life together. Your heart aches more because before the night you’d shared with the man standing on your left, you’d never thought you could have it. Now, all of your dreams have been rewritten, and remade in his image.

You don’t want the night to end. When you dry your hands and grab your wine glass, migrating your way to the living room, he follows you. There’s a roaring fire on the hearth, and you curl up on the sofa facing the bank of windows. Jim settles a cushion away, curling up an arm's length away from you on the other end of the sofa. The snow is still falling, fluffy and soft-looking, the sky gray with heavy clouds, every light bouncing across the pristine white.

“Tell me a secret?” His voice is so low you can barely hear it over the crackling logs on the fire.

“What kind of secret?” You turn a little on the sofa to face him.

“Something you’ve never told anyone else.”

You tip your head to the side, pillowing your cheek on the backrest as you peer blearily, exhaustedly, into his blue-eyed gaze.

“You first.” 

His brow furrows as he chews on his lip. You have to fight the urge to reach over and pull the abused flesh away.

“I haven’t been back to this house since I was thirteen. It was my nightmare coming back here. But right now, it doesn’t seem so bad.”

The questions rise up in your mind like a tidal wave. Why hasn’t he been back if he grew up here? Why did he leave? Why did he hate coming here? If he hated being in Riverside so much, why did he come back?

What can you tell him in return? He wants a secret you've never told anybody. But you're not sure you have a secret so precious, so carefully guarded.

“I don’t know why I joined Starfleet anymore. I wanted to see space, explore, and work with the best engineers in the galaxy and beyond. But after Vulcan and the Narada and everything that's happened since, I don't know what I'm doing here anymore.”

He hums, and you feel uncomfortably exposed. But he skirts past it, ignores it, returning the small kindness you’d granted him in turn. 

By the time the bottle of wine is empty, you feel languid and loose. You’re both sprawled over the sofa, legs intertwined over the middle cushion, with your feet pressed up under his thigh.

“Why didn’t we work, sweetheart?” 

It’s a question which hits you out of the blue. Of all the questions you’ve been expecting him to ask, the ones you’ve been lobbing back and forth all night haven’t hit quite so hard.

“You left.” You say it simply, as gently as you can bear. “I woke up the next morning, and you were gone. I couldn’t find you. It was like you disappeared. So how could we work with all of this distance between us?”

He curls a big hand around your ankle.

“I don’t think there’s any distance between us right now…” He’s got a gentle grin, his eyes twinkling in the dwindling firelight.

You tug your foot out of his grasp. “There’s plenty of distance between us, Jim.”

“Yeah?” You nod, tugging the throw blanket off the back of the sofa and onto your lap, playing with the fringe on the end.

“Where?”

You point to your heart and then draw a line to him.

“I don’t see anything there.”

You chuckle mirthlessly. “Well, you wouldn’t. The distance is for everyone else to discover. Ravines and No-man's-lands sprinkled through every interaction you have with other people.”

He blinks, blue eyes wide and uncomprehending.

“You’re a sweet guy, Jim.” You lean forward and press your lips against his cheek. “But you have to let other people in. You shouldn’t have to shoulder all the weight yourself. Others can and will help you. If you let them.”

You pretend not to hear the devastation in his voice when he calls your name as you walk away.

Hours later, the words you uttered and the secrets you shared are running amok in your brain. You haven’t been able to sleep a wink. It’s been too much, being wrapped up in the sheets still scented like his cologne, the cotton perfectly cool against your skin yet wreaking havoc on your self-control. You’ve been tossing and turning, rolling the pillow over and over, chasing the cool side like it will help you rest. But the rest hasn’t come. You haven’t heard a sound from Jim either, not since you heard a door close, loud in the quiet night.

At least until a hoarse shout rends the still night air, you rocket out of bed with a curse, fighting your way out of the bed sheets ensnared around you and to the door. There’s nobody else in the house. The pained shouts you hear have to be Jim. They’re heartbreaking and grow louder with every step you take to the room Jim’s sleeping in while you’re here.

“Jim?” Your voice is quiet, hesitant as you rap lightly on the door. “Are you okay?”

All you can hear is pained whimpers. After minutes of bated breath, of the continued shouts and screams interspersed with names you recognize, you crack the door. The bedroom you find yourself is a mirror image of the one you were just in. Far fewer books are on the shelves, but your quarry is the twin bed pushed up against the wall and the man lying on it.

“Jim?” He’s writhing on the bed, droplets of sweat on his brow. You cup his face in your hands, sinking down on the bed near his hip. “Jim, you’re safe. You’re okay.”

“It’s me,” You plead. “Wake up.”

Your pleas don’t work. He’s trapped in the nightmare’s clutches, every muscle tense as he spasms on the bed. You keep up a steady stream of soothing chatter, dabbing the sweat from his brow, cradling his head in your hands in a futile effort to show him he’s not alone. It breaks your heart when he finally jolts awake, a pitiful scream escaping his throat as he jerks upright.

He staggers to the restroom dazedly. You’re not sure he even registered you in the room with him. You let your head thud against the aged windowpane, hearing the pained, sputtering gasps as he spits bile into the toilet. Every muscle in your body is fatigued as you pour water into a glass from the pitcher you’d brought to your bedside and carry it into the bathroom. By the time you walk in, the light is on, and he’s bent over the sink, splashing water into his face like he wants to drown himself.

“Here,” you murmur, cupping the back of his neck. “Drink this.”

It shouldn’t hurt so much, how he flinches at your touch, but it does. He still takes the glass from you, draining the cup in thirsty gulps.

“W-why are you helping me, sweetheart?” His voice is ragged, hoarse from the screaming.

“Shhh, Jim.” You soothe, carefully tugging the glass from his unresisting fingers. “I told you earlier. Nobody should shoulder the weight of what happened on their own.”

“I couldn’t sleep anyways,” You hum as you trace the damp washcloth over his skin. His eyes are heavy as they peer down at you, the dark a heavy blanket over you both.

“How about some hot chocolate?” You’re graced with another shadow of his customary Kirk smile as you intertwine your fingers with his and lead him down the stairs.

It feels like another world in the kitchen downstairs as you skirt around Jim, putting a pot on the stove.

“What’re you making, sweetheart?” 

He still sounds a little bit like death warmed over, the bags under his eyes even darker, his skin pale. For the first time since you walked into his bedroom you see James Kirk as he is in this minute. He’s not the hero the Federation and Starfleet like to make him out to be. He’s a man - a broken-down, exhausted, heart-worn man. With hair mussed and wearing only low-slung sweatpants, you want to wrap him up in a blanket and kiss him (just a little).

“The hot chocolate I promised you.” You pour cream and milk into the pot, setting it to simmer gently on the stove before turning around.

“You don’t have to do that, sweetheart.” 

“I don’t.” You cup his jaw tenderly, fingers warm against the waxy coolness of his skin. “But I want to. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore, and I had a feeling you couldn’t either.”

“So, hot chocolate?”

“So hot chocolate.”

“And then what, sweetheart? You're going to make me spill my guts and fix me?” He sounds defensive again. A gritty voice stripped bare of any emotions, flat and lifeless.

“No. I’m too tired for that.” You attempt a smirk, but you have the feeling it falls flat. “We’re going to drink the hot chocolate sitting on the sofa. It’s going to be light and easy. If you want to talk to me? Then I’m here to listen. If you don’t, then it’s fine, and we’ll see where the rest of the night takes us.”

He snorts, tiredly running his hand through his hair, making it stick up even further. “It sounds so easy when you say it like that.”

He may be objecting just a little to your plans for the night, but he takes it anyway when you hand him his mug, topped with a mountain of whipped cream and a couple of hearty splashes of bourbon.

“I thought alcohol wasn’t the answer to everything, sweetheart.” 

If he’s grousing, then he must be feeling better. You’re smiling as you take his other hand, loath to let real life, the life where James T. Kirk doesn’t even think you’re good enough for more than a one-night-stand, intrude on this night. The sofa makes you groan as you settle into the cushions. By unconscious accord, you settle back into the positions you were in this morning, facing each other.

“Why do you want me to tell you what’s bothering me so much, huh, sweetheart?”

“Why do you keep calling me sweetheart?” You counter in return.

There’s something which looks a lot like heat in his eyes as he looks at you.

“I keep calling you a sweetheart because you genuinely are sweet. I haven’t had someone care for me like this in a long time.”

You have to hide your giddy smile behind the rim of your mug. Some of the spirit of the game you’d been playing after dinner soaks into your veins.

“I keep asking you to tell me what’s happening because I believe bottling things up isn’t good for your health. Whatever this is, it can’t be made worse by putting it into the air, where nobody can hear it except for me and the snow outside. What is worse is letting the bad things fester, until they’ve destroyed the good man at the heart of who James Tiberius Kirk is, until they overshadow all of the amazing things he’s done.”

“I’ve done amazing things?” 

You shrug, winking playfully over your mug.

“Sweetheart?”

He tugs at your ankle.

“What?”

“Put your mug down and c’mere.”

You do so willingly, letting Jim tug you in until your head is pillowed on his chest. 

“We might as well get comfy while I tell you my biggest nightmares.”

He slips his hands under your soft t-shirt, ignoring your grumble at how cold his fingers are as they collide with the small of your back.

“I know you were on the Enterprise during the Battle of Vulcan, sweetheart.”

You nod with your cheek squished against his chest. 

“It was terrifying, seeing so many fleet ships ripped apart by weaponry they couldn’t counter. Terrifying seeing the Narada looming on the horizon like a futuristic squid-like robot hell-bent on destroying a mostly innocent world.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be on the Enterprise at all. I was supposed to be in San Francisco, grounded until the Admiralty decided on the outcome of my academic hearing. Bones pulled me onto the Enterprise as my primary physician after infecting me with the symptoms of a virus contracted from Melvaran mud fleas.”

He’s breathing raggedly, heartbeat racing under your palm. His hands flex as they clutch you closer.

“Then I was being volunteered for death-defying stunts, plummeting through the atmosphere with only a parachute to show for my troubles, working to disable the drill. I’m an adrenaline junkie. I know I am, sweetheart. But I think that was too much for me. Sulu was on the drilling platform with me that day. And that’s my first nightmare.”

He’s shaking, eyes unseeing as he looks out the windows, the blue you love so much vacant in a way you’ve never seen before.

“I see him plummeting down to the ground. I can’t reach him like I did. And he’s gone. Screaming my name.”

You curl in closer, unwilling to let go or move a muscle, when you hear the tremor in his voice and feel the goosebumps covering his skin.

“I see every death the Narada caused in high definition, sweetheart. Billions of nameless, faceless Vulcans verbally eviscerating me the way Spock likes to, children asking me why I couldn’t save them. How do I go back to captaining a ship when those thoughts haunt me? How do I convince myself I’m not the monster I see in my dreams?”

He’s sniffling, and you shuffle closer, tipping your face upwards to press a gentle kiss against the underside of his jaw.

“Because you didn’t kill them, Jimmy.”

“Why does it feel like I did?” He’s loud, distress raising his voice, and you can hear the heartbreak in it as he swallows harshly. “I should have seen the signs!”

You squeak when he rises from the sofa, keeping you in his arms. You curl your arms around his neck, pressing your cheek against his, relishing the prickle of his stubble against your cheeks, loath to give up the contact.

“I’ve been researching what happened the day I was born practically my whole life - ever since I realized how much my mom hated my birthday. I knew all the signs - all of the extraplanetary phenomena, all the signs of an attack. I’ve been over the logs from the U.S.S Kelvin a hundred times. But I didn’t see it, sweetheart. Why didn’t I see it?”

You curl your fingers through his hair, feeling the hitch in his breath as tears splatter hot against your shoulder.

“Because you’re human, Jay.” 

He clutches tight to you like you’re slipping through his fingers aching with the need to be connected to you.

“Because for someone as smart as you are, and God,” you sigh, “you are incredibly smart. You don’t have the answers to the universe. It’s why you joined Starfleet. To search out those answers in the stars, out in galaxies we don’t know anything about. To find a purpose beyond drifting without a thing to anchor you.”

He freezes against you, body tense. If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest, you would think you were wrapped around a wax statue. His body unfreezes in sections, hands flexing around your waist as he squeezes you close. You shudder at the feeling of his lips against your pulse. They’re soft kisses, tender and gentle.

“How did I get so lucky to have you here with me?” 

You hum as you scratch his scalp, just to feel how he shivers at each soft press of your blunt nails.

“Blame Len and Admiral Barnett.” 

“You call him that to his face?”

“Len?” You giggle when he rubs his stubble against your pulse and collarbones, just gently enough, the brush of hair tickles over your sensitive skin. “That’s his name, Jay! We can’t all call him Bones!”

“Baby, can we please stop talking about Admirals, Bones, and my nightmares?”

Your heart jolts at the sweet roughness in his tone as he calls you Baby.

“W-what do you want to talk about instead, Jay?”

“I don’t want to talk at all.”

When his lips meet yours, you sigh into the kiss. He tastes like rich chocolate and smokey bourbon, and you melt into his arms. The last time you kissed James Kirk, you were drunk. So you don’t remember what he felt like, how he sounded, what his mouth tasted like. Now it feels like you’re getting the full force of his attention, and it’s a heady sensation. His tongue slides languidly against yours, turning the soft, sweet kiss steamier and hotter. You pull away when you need to breathe, and you’re grinning goofily.

“What was that for, huh?” You sound breathless, too. His fingertips rub gentle circles against your back, warm against your skin where your shirt has rucked up.

“You look beautiful.”

You feel giddy, cheeks hot at the unexpected compliment. You kiss your thanks into the side of his head before untangling yourself from his embrace. You have the feeling you’ll need the distance for the next part of this conversation.

“But Jay, we need to talk about the night you left. I thought we had fun. But then you disappeared. I wanted to wake up and kiss you, curl into you in the early morning. Maybe have some sweet morning sex. Instead, I woke up to an empty, cold bed, feeling like a complete slut.”

He’s stammering, crawling forward on the sofa when you hold up your hand. His chest is warm and alive against your palm.

“I know, Jay. ‘m not a slut. But you have a reputation. You know you do. And I felt like I was falling for that reputation instead of the man I’ve come to adore.”

When you pull your hand away, he collapses onto you, smothering you with the weight of his body.

“Baby, you know I don’t think that about you. And that’s not why I left.” 

He presses a wet kiss against your collarbone, the gentle brush making you squirm a little. 

“I was a mess that night. I think I’ve been a mess since we returned to Earth, limping on a quarter-impulse all the way home.”

“Then, there was no time to process what happened. Everybody wanted a piece of the great Captain Kirk. When we were drunk off our asses that night, and we gave into the chemistry between us, it was the kick in the ass I needed. I realized I needed to sort my head out.”

You run your fingers through his hair again, relishing the way he almost seems to purr against your collarbone.

“So you ran.”

“So I ran.” 

“So where do we go from here?” You ask the question a little hesitantly, not sure if you’re going to like the answer you’re going to get.

“I think right now, sweetheart, we need to sleep. We can figure all of this out in the mornin’.” 

He's slurring the words, exhaustion in every syllable, until you can finally hear the Iowa in his voice. He's right. It's not a bad idea to have this conversation when cooler, more relational, heads will prevail. The two of you have time to kill, at least until this snowstorm passes you by and everything opens up again. You press a kiss against his lips, gentle and sweet, before letting him manhandle you until your head is pillowed against the arm of the sofa. You're pressed between Jim and the back of the sofa, legs intertwined and the throw laid over you both. The last thought you have before sleep takes over is how desperately you want to be able to kiss this man in daylight. No more clandestine shenanigans. No more hiding under the cover of night.

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