[Rifts in the Boredom of Forced Sick Leave] -- [Open]

[kirktastic]

Things had gone... interestingly the night of the party. The small memory put a smile to Kirk's face, despite his complete boredom and annoyance at still being trapped in his room. He could leave, he could walk around, but there was nothing he could do. Damn CMO's orders.

Even if, you know, he was sleeping with said CMO.

There was still a lot to be done, and damn if he was just going to sit back while it happened. Which had led him to sitting on his bed, naked from the waist up, leaning over a padd as he tried to figure out the exact time not one but two people had evidently gone missing from his god damn ship.

And getting no where fast expect to a headache.

Comments

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

The smile was promising. As was the greeting. Jim entered, casually, taking in the room before his eyes came to rest on Kirk again. He was looking better. The tattoos still there, but underneath Jim could see how far Kirk had come.

"Jim," he said in return. "We... haven't had much time to talk. Lately. Thought we might catch up."

There was a lot to catch up on, business and personal, as it were, and Jim didn't want to wait any longer.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Things have been pretty crazy." Kirk agreed, gesturing vaguely. It was definitely a 'have a seat' gesture, but could have meant the bed or the chair at the desk.

He was more then curious to see which Jim would chose. A small indicator, he thought, of how bad things were between them. The party was one thing... this was something else entirely.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim wasn't unaware of the little test. But he wasn't angry with Kirk, and he wasn't here as a captain or to find a captain. He was Jim, and Jim made himself comfortable on the bed. His back against the bulkhead, one leg drawn up--casual, but not intimate. No assumptions other than that he'd been invited in.

"You might say that," he said. "How are you?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk grabbed the padd he had been writing on and nudged it onto the side table, relaxing back himself. "Alive. Bored." He smirked just a little. "Bones never could keep me from staying in my room at the academy, but somehow he's been more affective at it on a ship where I can go anywhere I want!"

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

"How'd he manage it?" he asked. "And whatever it was, don't tell Spock. He's bad enough already."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk managed an impressive pout, "He's realized he has some good pull when it comes to sex." Which ended in him laughing, unable to keep it up for long.

In fact, all around the room there were tiny signs of their living together. Little objects that definitely were not Kirk's tastes, blue shirts visible in the closet. Tiny signs.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim's expression softened. Not just sex. Kirk was... adapting. To this. To being beholden to someone else. And that didn't bother Jim at all--he had never felt that the right relationship was restrictive. Though the wrong one could be. And he wasn't talking about monogamy at all.

"I live in horror of Spock discovering that tactic," he sighed. And smiled. This was good. Companionable. And off.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk held up his right hand, pinky up. "He'll have you wrapped around his long Vulcan pinky once he does. Maybe you'll get lucky." Kirk grinned as he rubbed an itch under his nose.

"Bones just knows me well enough to know where to hit hardest."

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim looked a little sheepish. "You forget--Spock can read my mind," he said. "I think I'm well wrapped, at this point, and Spock's greatest triumph is not letting me know it." He paused, then decided it was too amusing to share this anecdote to want to save face. "He made me come in my pants during that promotion ceremony you held. Without even touching me."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

WHAT.

Kirk sputtered, looking at Jim for a long moment before just bursting out laughing. "You can't be serious." He paused, then, "You are. HOW?" He couldn't even imagine. Someone would have noticed a meld or touching and...

"Is he really that much of a pervert?"

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim managed to look dead serious for about two seconds, before his smirk reasserted itself. Not because he was lying, naturally. But because the truth was so amazing and ridiculous even he had some trouble believing it.

"Spock is all kinds of things," Jim said, his tone conveying that he loved, and wanted to fuck, every single one. "And the bond is a lot more powerful than the whole touch-telepathy thing. I could speak to him right now. Over there. He'd hear me. But I think this had something to do with... I don't know, nerve endings, or manipulating my senses, or something."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk was trying to understand what Jim was saying, even as he was laughing. "You really can hear him that far apart? Does distance make it fainter? Can you feel stuff too?" He was insanely curious, and even though he had done it, felt it... he had no memory of it during his time on the Narada. "You mean he can manipulate you from a distance?" His eyes went wide.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim's own eyes widened as the possibilities washed over him. "You know... I don't know," he said wonderingly. "I don't see why not. It has very little to do with distance--I mean the speaking doesn't anyway. I think it has to do with how strong the connection is and how much practice one has at maintaining it, though Spock says greater distances will take practice. I've been trying to get better--my ESP levels are average, but that's not what's going on here. It's the bond. And it's getting stronger all the time."

Jim wondered if that whole "never parted" thing was really supposed to be about sex.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Huh." Kirk sat back, knowing that look on Jim's face. "Doesn't it get... weird?" He gestured a little towards his temple, "Having someone in your head all the time?" Sure, he had some small resonance with Spock as well, but it was shielded specifically against all of that.

The idea, at least to him, was a little on the side of terrifying. He liked having at least one place he could be alone.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim's expression was decidedly thoughtful. No flippancy, he regarded the question seriously.

"You know," he mused, "I would have thought so. If you'd asked me before. The weirdest part, for me, has been the fact that it's much less weird than I would have expected. And I wonder what that means, only... I don't feel violated. I don't feel like he's in there, rifling through my every thought. No more than he was before, and we were good at reading each other even before this... And it should bug me, you know? But it doesn't. I think, maybe, it's that... he's been there for so long, it's almost an extension of what we were before. Not new at all. Just more... complete."

He ducked his head a little, surprised at the mini-speech.

"Sorry. I've crossed over into sappy, haven't I?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Nah." Kirk soothed, grinning a little, "Maybe the idea isn't as weird for you because you knew him so long. How many years was it, again?" The idea of being together, as captain and first officer, was sort of heart-warming in a strange way because Kirk just couldn't imagine having any relationship that long.

...Well, until he met Bones.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim laughed. "Not as long as you might think," he said. "Three, four years? But things are different, out here. You'll know what I mean in a bit--you're not entirely isolated, and there are a lot of people on the ship, but relationships... There's an accelerated timeline, a sense of intensity, from being thrown together and depending on one another. Like old war stories, though maybe not quite that intense. Maybe that's why I'm so quick to form them. But Spock... I can't imagine being without him, or Bones, now."

There was more to it than that, of course. More to Jim's propensity to reach out and accept people, that had been well formed before assuming command. But it was likely a factor.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"I can't imagine being without Bones." Kirk could agree to that, pulling a knee up to his chest and wrapping his arms around it. He flexed his left hand, but the movement seemed stiff even though the hand looked fine. "Three years and some odd months I've known him... had to put all my trust in him the second time we ever met."

His smile was warm, "He's the whole reason I'm here, and maybe the Earth's even here now."

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim smiled.

"There are worse reasons," he said. "And worse people to put your trust in." He paused. "You're looking good."

Which brought them closer to a point, though the bullshitting was also pointful, as far as re-connecting went.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk really didn't want to talk about this, but knew it was coming. "...Depends on the definition." He said in an uncaring tone that was anything but.

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

"Or the scale one's measuring by," Jim clarified. "I can pretend nothing's changed, Jim, that none of this ever happened and Spock's here with me and that we never had a disagreement. Part of me wants nothing more. But most of me knows that that won't help you. We can do this later, but at some point you're going to need to be the captain again."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk just gave Jim a long look, "I want to be captain again, don't get me wrong." He rubbed one hand against the back of the other. Vulcan. The faint raised lines that spoke of scars were like braille for the blind. The ships trickled up his arm, swirling together, black. The other side was the enemy before the enemy became so.

"I don't do the whole 'pretend this never happened' unless it was bad sex."

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim laughed, but it was a little strained despite his genuine amusement. "I want us to be able to talk," he said. "We're good at the... not talking. Nonverbal communication, we've got down. But you need more than that. And I think you need something your Bones and your Spock might not be giving you. Not because they lack anything, but because none of us have been in a situation like this before. And because... I guess because I want to be whatever I can for you."

He looked at Jim searchingly, remembering that dream, remembering that sense of Jim being within him, part of him. He couldn't forget that. And there was too much at stake to let them avoid subjects that might be touchy.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"....Bones and I have... a nonverbal agreement, in a lot of ways. We don't push each other to open up. Kind of a safe haven from people bothering us about things." He shrugged his shoulder. "Spock and I don't talk about that sort of stuff at all."

No, but we did... He smirked at the rest of that thought.

"What do you want to talk about, exactly?"

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim hesitated.

"That depends," he said finally. "Am I bothering you?"