#jim kirkxreader

There are days when nothing goes wrong, absolutely nothing. There are no sad stories, or sad events, not mean words said or unfortunate incidents. But despite this, there are those days where despite its almost perfect nature you still feel sad, still feel hurt, still feel that ache in your chest and you don’t know why. 

It is those days, days like today, where you find yourself, after a shift in engineering, trailing back to the quarters you shared with Jim. You couldn’t explain why you felt such heaviness in your chest and on your shoulders, couldn’t pin point the reason for your sadness. But it was there, whether you had a reason or not. 

The door to your quarter whooshed open with the code. Jim was already sat on the bed waiting, it was unusual, usually he was still in the bridge.

“What are you doing here?”

“Scotty said you weren’t feeling too good today. Figured i’d stop working over time and come see how you are. So?” It actually makes you want to cry. That Scotty took note, cared enough to tell Jim, that Jim cared enough to stop being a workaholic and wait for you to get in. That he cared enough to listen and be there. 

“I’m sad.” You kick off your shoes before collapsing in his lap, arms around his neck, face pressing into his shoulder. “I don’t know why, I just am. I feel...heavy.” You know that Jim understands, there are days when he collapses onto you, head falling to your lap and he too has no explanation for that feeling. But that is what relationships are about, holding each other when you feel sad even if there’s no explanation. Being there when the other needs you.

You feel a hand in your hair, rubbing at the base of your neck in soothing circles. “You want to cuddle and watch some vids? See if I can’t get the replicator to make some ice-cream or something?” 

You pull back just enough to smile up at him, the first smile you’d cracked all day, “I’d love that, thank you.” You press a kiss to his cheek before crawling off his lap and further into bed. 

You hadn’t seen Jim in five years. Five whole years. You were prepared for that. You knew it was going to happen, you knew why it was happening, after all you were dating a starship captain you couldn’t exactly expect him not to disappear into space for long periods of time...

But five years was a lot harder in practice than it was in theory. Five years of video calls, of hearing about his exploits after the fact, of sometimes hearing about them from other people, of not knowing if he was going to be okay...of knowing he was reckless. 

Five years of lonely nights, his side of the bed empty, the smell of him disappearing after the first laundry day. Five years of eating dinner alone, of eating breakfast alone, of not waking up to the Jim Special breakfast that he sometimes decided to surprise you with. Five years of not having a helping hand with cleaning and cooking, of not having your other half helping you with little things that would otherwise seem unimportant. 

Five years of being asked ‘how’s Jim?’ and not really being able to answer because you didn’t know exactly what was happening at every second and your information was always out of date. Five years of sympathetic looks. 

Five years of not being able to curl up with him at night, not being able to watch old movies together and laugh about the problems within them. Five years without kisses, without hugs, without tickle fights, without jokes between the two of you. Five years without sharing baths and driving across countryside in outdated cars. 

Five years without Jim. 

It was so hard, but you’d always remained proud of him. You’d known him when he was just another Star Fleet Cadet in that bright coloured uniform, when he was just another patron in the bar you frequented after work...and he’d come a long way. He’d grown up without losing that spark, he’d done so many amazing things, things you couldn’t even comprehend doing. But being proud didn’t stop you missing him night and day.

Nor did it prepare you for the nerves in your stomach as you waited for the shuttle to come in. He was coming home, after five years, he was coming home. It was irrational, you knew that, that fear that he would come home and not care anymore, that things would have changed...it was so irrational especially as you’d spoken to him not long before he was supposed to leave the Enterprise for Earth and he’d seemed as loving as usual. But the worry was still there. 

You hadn’t even bothered getting dressed, it was early in the morning and you’d been far too concerned with being there to see him arrive than getting out of your lounge clothes and into something different.

It’s a strange experience seeing him for the first time in five years, it’s almost like time slows down as you spot the familiar blonde hair in the crowd, his civilian clothes in place, the jacket he refused to get rid of even though it had a million scuff marks and points of damage. You don’t really take note of the other people, of other families coming together after five years, of all the noise, it’s like all your senses are honed in on him. 

You don’t run at him like in those movies, although the desire is there, rather you feel like your stuck in mud, unable to move forward. You stand there watching him as he makes his way to you, bag slung over his shoulder, a familiar quirked smile beaming at you. It’s like a weight off your shoulders, like you can breathe again simply because he’s there. 

He doesn’t stop until he’s wrapped you in his arms, cheek pressed against your cheek, breathing you in. He still feels the same, warm and soft, still smells the same like aftershave and coconut shampoo. It is a good sort of ache that fills your chest at being able to touch him again after five years.

“I’ve missed you...” You mumble into his neck, nuzzling there, feeling like the closer you get the less likely he is to leave again. You don’t want to go through five years apart again. Ever. You’d leave your job, join him if you had to, even if you’re terrified of space. 

“I’ve missed you too...five years...” Five years in space was hard enough, the same thing day in and day out, but without you, with the knowledge that he couldn’t see you? It made it infinitely worse. His cabin was cold, clinical. His insecurities, fears that you’d find someone else while he was gone, very real. 

“Don’t leave me again? I’ll come with you next time, I don’t care as long as we don’t have to do that again.” You press further into him, bodies touching from cheek to legs and you want to draw him even closer, practically become one person because it’s been so long, with such distance between the two of you...

“You’d do that?” He pulls back, just slightly, but even an inch feels like miles. 

Part of the Enterprise’s job was to greet newly joined federation planets, to keep relations on good terms, and to ultimately do what they were told. That’s really how you found yourself in quite the predicament.

Xaxia was a new member of the federation, a little planet settled by human smugglers and traders. They had been very Anti-federation for quite a while and the change of hard took time, a lot of work and now they had finally joined the federation all bad blood put aside. The USS Enterprise, your ship (or rather Captain Kirk’s ship), was assigned to see, speak, and celebrate with the Xaxians (and to make sure everything was in order and there weren’t any federation rules being broken).

“Why do I have to come along? I’m just a nurse, Leonard!” Leonard had accosted you while you’d been working on an ensign’s burn and promptly told you that as your chief medical officer he demanded you go to ground with everyone and take part in the festivities.

“Because you’re getting grumpy.” Sure you were a little grumpy, but only because you kept getting put on long night shifts and for some reason ensigns can’t help but flirt with you when they find out you’re a nurse. It’s frustrating. You’re tired. You miss real food and sleep.

“Like you?”

“Yeah, like me. There can only be one grumpy medical personnel on the ship. That and you need a break, seriously.” Leonard might not ever say it but it was obvious he was concerned for you, as your officer and your friend. You appreciated it but you didn’t want to go to a strange planet to celebrate them joining the federation. You just wanted to sleep.

“Len…”

“The Captain will be there.”

“And?” The truth was you knew exactly why Leonard had brought that up. The Captain despite not knowing you very well always wanted you at things like this and would drag you their himself if he could…that and you might have admitted to finding the man attractive while you were drunk one time. But, that man seriously had eyes that were incomparable. How does anyone get eyes that blue?

“If he notices you’re not there he’ll come and drag you down himself.”

“Jim can be easily persuaded!”

“Not when he has to be there and wants to gawk at you all night.”

“He doesn’t gawk, he looks at me and looks at everyone.” There was no gawking or at least you told yourself there was no gawking. You told yourself that there was absolutely no gawking, that Jim Kirk did not stare at you. That he wasn’t at all attracted to you. He was your captain the two of you barely shared words. You were definitely not his type. Definitely not.

Or you tried to tell yourself that because while there weren’t any serious fraternisation rules, you really didn’t like how anxious you got around him when you even considered the prospect of him being interested.

It wasn’t a bad sort of anxious really, the type that made you a little excited and nervous, but you still found it unsettling to have someone change how you felt so easily.

Suffice to say you agreed to Leonard’s badgering and that’s how you found yourself on a strange planet, with fungus for trees and bright colours, at what was essentially a bonfire. People, Star fleet crew and Xaxians, were dancing round the flames and drinking from cups. You had to admit that it was nice; a warm fire, laughter in the air, real ground beneath your feet. Yeah, it was nice.

It was the sort of atmosphere that had you sitting on the bright pink grass, pulling what were the equivalent of earth daisies from the ground and threading them together. As a child making flower crowns from daises had been an art you had perfected and while you weren’t quite as good as you once had been you still found yourself managing to construct a rather good looking crown.

“Hey.” You looked up to see the captain, scrambling to your feet, “Captain!” You didn’t stand at attention despite the urge to seeing the looking he gave you.

“Call me Jim, please, how many times do I have to tell you?” You knew that he wanted you to call him Jim, but it hadn’t quite set in yet. You still called him the Captain, you still stood at attention, still had those natural instincts and yet part of you didn’t want to have to call him Captain. He was such an informal captain, he cared so much about his crew and you wanted to be just as easy with him as he was with you.

“A million…maybe more.” The two of you stood in silence, you passing the crown of flowers through your hands , and noting that a few of the Xaxians were watching intently, but put it off as the fact that you were talking to the well know and amazing James Tiberius Kirk and not any other factor at all.

Jim glanced over at you, a cup of god knows what in his hands. It was amazing horrible that he looked so good in the firelight, the shadows playing with his features. You hated that you found him so attractive, weren’t superior officers supposed to be old, unattractive men? People you didn’t get distracted by?

“This drink is pretty good…” He held out the cup to you, “Wanna try?” you stared at it for a moment, contemplating the pros and cons of drinking from the same cup as your captain but decided it couldn’t do any harm, right? After all he wasn’t ill and it was only a sip.

“Thanks…” You took the cup from him, fingers brushing against his own before you brought the cup up to your mouth and took a sip. You held the cup away from you, coughing slightly at the strength of the alcohol in cup. “Wow…”

“Not much of a drinker?”

“I mean…that’s strong, Ca- Jim..” You had to take a moment to clear your head, Jim laughing lightly at your reaction before taking the cup back and sipping from it himself. He barely flinched.

You looked down at the crown of flowers in your hand and back at the captain. It was more out of instinct, out of an urge, than a thought out process when you placed the crown on his head. It suited him nicely though, the bright blue of the flowers simply matched his eyes (not that you noticed) and it made him seem soft, not that he wasn’t a soft person but…

You watched Jim look up at the flower crown before smiling at you, “I knew you liked me!” You could feel the embarrassment rushing through you. It was definitely not because you liked him.

“It’s just some flowers!” It wasn’t a marriage proposal for goodness sake it was just some flowers! You barely noticed a few of the Xaxians coming towards you, grins on their faces as if they’d just been witness to some amazing event. Which they had, not that you were aware of that though.

“Flowers mean you like someone. Just admit it. You like me!”

“I-“ You were cut off by a strange voice to your left, “Congratulations!” One of the locals was grinning at you, hands clasped together as they looked between you and Kirk with what almost looked like a loving expression. The type of look your academy roommate used to get when watching romantic films.

“What?”

“You don’t know…?” The woman looked between you two with a look that quickly turned to horror at the thought that you’d maybe done something that you didn’t know you’d done. But she realised rather quickly it fell on her to tell you both what had happened. “You’re married.”

You heard a muffled swear from the other room. You walked in and saw one of Jim’s paper books in pieces. “Jimmy,” you treaded carefully as he just stared at the pile of pages, the cover dangling from his finger tips. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“It, uh, it fell apart,” he looked up into your eyes, his own brown pair brimming with tears.

“Oh Jim,” you sighed, sitting next to him rubbing a hand on his back. “Which one was it?”

“Treasure Island,” your blood ran cold. That was a family heirloom, ever since his great great grandfather. Handed father to son. A small note from each one in the cover of the old paperback. You watched him started to pick up the yellowed wrinkled pages, biting his lip. “It was bound to happen.” He got up moving to throw it out.

“Jim,” you cried out making him stop dead in his tracks, turning to look at you, eyebrows raised. “Come here. Let me fix it.”

“How could you,” he asked, but walking to you anyway. “What can you do? It’s all tattered up.”

You smiled placed your hands over his, looking up into his eyes. “I have my ways. Trust me, James Kirk.” You whispered brushing the hair off his brow.

“I always trust you,” he leaned down and kissed your head.

It took a few weeks but you did it. You managed to bind the book back together. Pages into signatures. And signatures into a book. All the precise measurements, and lacing. The late nights after shift, when Jim was asleep, or at work, working in silence and mystery. But it was all worth it. He was going to have Treasure Island back.

You slid into his office where he was pouring over a report, stylist tapping on the desk. His eyes were knitted together in concentration. “Jim,” you singsonged. You received an hmph. “Jim, I need you to close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

“Y/n, I’m really behind on these reports. I need to make sure everything gets signed off.” He didn’t even look at you.

“James Tiberius Kirk. This will take two minutes! Please. You’ll love it.” you pleaded rocking on the balls of your feet.

He finally glanced up, “two minutes?” you nodded, grinning. He smiled softly closing his eyes and putting out his hands. You gently laid the book in his hands.

Jim opened his eyes slowly and gasped. “Y/N,” he breathed. “You. You fixed it.” He ran his hands over the book opening it so delicately.

His thumb ran over the ink of the note his father left. And then he let out a shuddery laugh as he spotted your note to him. “Jim, let this binding be as secure and tight as my love for you, Y/N.”

He placed the book down and stood up, wrapping you in his strong arms. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” He rocked slowly holding you tightly to him.

“Anything for my Jim.”

“What in this galaxy did I do to deserve you,” he looked at you tears in his eyes. You held his face, ready to wipe his tears. You grinned at him, and he smiled at you leaning in to kiss you.

“Must’ve been something good,” you giggled as he held his lips millimeters from yours, eyes locked to yours.

His warm breath tickled your skin as he chuckled, his eyes crinkled in that beautiful way. “Must have,” he mused pressing his lips to yours in a soft, loving kiss.

You and Jim had been together for a year now, after the accidental marriage, after deciding to stay together you’d done so and it had been great. Old vids on your days off and looking after him when he was reckless. Being brought lunch when you were stuck in med bay. Your relationship had grown from strength to strength. You were ‘happily married’ even if you had been treating it more like dating than marriage. But it had worked.

You had grown closer, learnt more about each other, and even had vid calls with each other’s parents back on Earth. You woke up each morning to sight of James Tiberius Kirk and went to sleep each night to the same. You loved it and you loved him and in your head you contemplated the idea of a proper marriage.

A proper wedding, all that pomp and ceremony…not a random alien marriage without realising you were doing it.

It wasn’t uncommon for you to be called to the bridge, but to be called there and to find everyone else gone was a strange occurrence. It hadn’t been empty since the last stop you’d made to grab supplies and rest for a few days.

“James?” He wasn’t in his chair, but rather standing in the middle of the room, hands behind his back. The smile on his face was one that you’d only ever seen when he had something planned. Whether that something was good or bad only time would tell, but you hated that smile because it meant a surprise that you were probably not prepared for.

“Hey, Moonbeam, light of my life, darling wifey.” It was bad sign when Jim Kirk started listing off more names for you than just Moonbeam.

“I thought I told you to never call me wifey?” You raise an eyebrow at him as you walk closer, coming to stop in front of him with your hands on your hips. You’ve had a long shift and part of you just wanted for him to get it over and done with so you could go get out of your uniform and maybe take advantage of having access to his bath tub. But part of you was filled with a familiar excitement that Jim always seemed to draw from you.

“Yes, you did…but maybe just this once I’m allowed to?” You’re about to ask him what makes him think that, until he’s holding out a little box. A jewellery box. The question dies before it can even be formed by your lips. “Take it…have a look.” It’s a shaky hand of yours that reaches out for it and takes it into your own.

It clicks open to reveal to solid bands of gold, you look up at him. “I figured we could make it official…wedding bands…since we didn’t really have a conventional marriage. I figured we could do all the ceremony and stuff after we get back to earth…I know it is a few years, but family…”

The rings are simply wedding bands but it’s the surprise, the consideration, the meaning that makes them so important. He wants to make this marriage real for the both of you. With Earth traditions. With things that mean something to the both you.

“Oh…James.” You grab his hand pulling him towards you, before taking one of the rings, the one obviously meant for his fingers. You watch the gold band slide onto his left hand and suddenly what happened a year ago feels so much realer.

“I love you.” He takes your ring and does the same to you, the weight is strange and yet reassuring. You suddenly understand why it had never felt real before. Because before there was nothing physical tying the two of you together. It was simply a law, a rule. There was nothing physical about it. Now there’s rings, rings which say you’re a wife and he’s a husband.

“I love you too.”

It’s a few weeks later, and much closer to that federation outpost and your impending decision surrounding you marriage. Jim was back to his usual teasing and vibrant self. He didn’t need you to help him get dressed anymore, and despite the awkwardness that had prevailed during those days of looking after him it did bring the two of you closer.

All in all life with Jim and life on the Enterprise was returning to a sort of normalcy after everything that had happened. Normalcy for you wasn’t necessarily normal, but it was growing increasingly domestic. You’d spent a great deal of your time being a doting nurse and fitting a terrible stereotypical wife. After healing, however, roles had begun to reverse.

Jim would bring lunch to you if you were stuck in the med bay because of an emergency, he would make the bed and change the sheets. He would do laundry and clean rather than letting you do it. He would ask you if you needed anything. He had started to become a doting husband figure and it was entirely too strange.

Everyone, even the captain, had certain days off from work. Despite all odds, and most likely due to some sort of interference from Jim, the two of you had the same day off each week…although on a space ship the weeks didn’t really seem to have days anymore. It was strange, how you could go from knowing the days and whether it was morning or night to simply accepting that everything blurred into one.

“James, I need to go do the laundry!” You were currently being held hostage by your captain in a very warm bed. With the weeks came a sort of friendship and comfort around each other that meant Jim was all the more teasing and all the more tactile. Hence the arms right around your waist, and the legs keeping you from moving away despite every attempt to get up and out of that bed.

“Moonbeam it’s our day off…can’t we just watch old vids and eat replicator popcorn?” It was incredibly tempting especially because the bed was arm and Jim was warm and he was doing that whiney begging voice. The one you were sure barely anyone had ever heard but that was really hard to resist.

“Ugh…fine.”

You found yourself no longer struggling allowing yourself to be drawn back full into the bed and wondered how you’d reached this point. How you’d fallen for your captain after accidentally marrying him, to the point that you could barely disagree with him on some points? How had you gotten this attached this quickly? How come you feared the possibility of a divorce and no longer being around him anymore?

You weren’t actually sure you could sleep on your own anymore. There was a routine in sleeping in the same bed with someone, the taking turns to get changed for the evening, the conversations about your days, the warmth of another person, the reassurance that you weren’t alone, the sound of their breathing and the way the felt when you cuddled up next to them. You weren’t entirely sure you’d be able to sleep if the two of you parted ways.

You snuggled back into the warm covers and followed Jim with your eyes as he got up and pottered about, replicating popcorn and all sorts of sweets (more than you thought possible, obviously Scotty had been improving the replicators), before searching what you could only assume was his own personal archive of movies that he’d stored on his PADD. You knew that Jim, much like yourself, enjoyed classical music, musical from a few centuries back, and you assumed that his taste in vids was much the same.

It was hilarious just watching him attempt to sort out a bigger display, he wasn’t an engineer or a technician and it was messy and it took about 5 attempts to get sound and 3 attempts to get a picture, but he succeeded in the end.

“What’s your poison, Moonbeam? Horror? Romantic Comedies? Fantasy?”

“Anything, but horror, we deal with enough terrifying shit every day.”

“Sci-fi horror is definitely off the table.”

The best thing, you decided, about Jim was that he made decisions and he made them quickly. You’d in the past struggled to watch movies with people with neither of you being able to make a decision about what to watch, but Jim wasn’t like that. He listened to what you did or did not want to watch genre wise and then made a decision based on that.

“So what even is this?” You asked as he brought the replicated snacks over the bed, before curl under the covers again himself.

“Dogfight.”

“What’s it about?” You took a handful of popcorn before pressing against Jim’s side, shoulder to shoulder. It was obviously an old movie, perhaps 20th century? Maybe 21st? But in your experience there was something enjoyably bad about those movies, the limitations and what people made with them, the lack of knowledge about space and science was also quite funny. The assumptions people always seemed to make about the future that never quite panned out, but sometimes got close.

“This marine and this girl and you’ll just have to watch.”

You had never imagined that you’d be watching an old movie in bed with James Tiberius Kirk when you were in the academy or even when you’d first joined the Enterprise. Not only did it seem too domestic for Jim, the Jim you had heard about back then, but the thought that it would be you in that situation seemed so utterly bizarre.

“If he likes her why won’t he accept it? Why does he hurt her?”

“Because wife of mine, he’s a dick and he needs to go through some stuff and grow up…”

“Is there a happy ending?” You look up at Jim, taking his attention away from the screen to look at you.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.” He gives you that teasing grin before turning back to the vid and you think that maybe waiting and seeing applies to your situation too. Maybe worrying about how Jim feels and what decision he wants to make in the next few days when you finally hit that federation outpost is ridiculous. Maybe it’s just about waiting and seeing because things can change in the blink of an eye. You know how you feel.

You know that you want to remain married, treating it more as a budding relationship than a marriage. You know that you want to continue sharing quarters and waking up to him. You want to keep this routine you’ve gotten, the sharing of responsibilities, the lunches, the coming back after a long shift to another person.

You know you can’t guarantee he feels the same. While you feel romantic feelings deep in your gut, Jim could simply want to be your friend and if that is the way it is there’s nothing you can do, but accept it and let it happen. If he wants a divorce who are you to stop him?

Wait and see was very fitting you decided.

“What do you want to watch now?”

When you didn’t answer Jim looked down at you realising that you had fallen asleep. The warmth of the bed, the soothing nature of being curled up with another person had led to you slumbering against him, cheek pressed against his shoulder, mouth open just so as you breathed evenly.

He settled down further into the bed, carefully pulling you against him before reaching for the tiny control and selecting another movie. He had to admit…that prospect of not being married to you anymore upset him. He just hoped you felt the same way. He wanted to explore your relationship more. He wanted you around. He could feel the deep well of affection for you in his chest whenever he even thought of you.