Everything's Changing But You're The Truth, Fic, (Jim/Joanna), NC-17
Title: Everything's Changing But You're The Truth
Author: hypatia_82
Word count: ~ 8360
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Encouraged and appreciated.
Warnings: Language maybe. Use of the f-word. Loss of virginity.
Disclaimer: I wish for them every year for Christmas, but I haven't gotten them yet. Which makes me sad. Anything you recognize isn't mine. The plot, however, is.
Notes: Written for this prompt over at the st_xi_kink_meme.
Summary: It’s nice like this, it’s comfortable, it’s better than he ever thought it could be to be dirt-side for so long. It’s also absolute hell of Dante-esque proportions.
They’ve just come back from their first five year mission, the Enterprise is being refitted and most of the senior crew, Starfleet’s very own dream team, are taking some well deserved R&R before they take up the teaching positions they’ve been offered at the Academy. It’s strange to be back on Earth, and somehow things seem smaller and more unfamiliar than Jim remembers them. It’s a little like putting on an old coat, it still fits but there are places it’s just a little bit off, despite the well known feel of it. It makes him antsy, and he spends two weeks seeking out some of his old haunts, visiting his mom and a few old friends, and it gradually feels a little less stifling to not be up in the infinite black anymore.
Bones, of course, heads straight for Georgia when they get off the shuttle, eager to see his little girl, and Jim is sure the man would have bent down and kissed the ground when he first set foot on it if half of Command hadn’t been there to greet them.
While Bones is in Georgia, Jim settles into the flat they’ve rented together for the duration. It’s a nice place, with a view over the bay and a living room, a kitchen that’s big enough to double as a dining room, and three bedrooms. One for him, one for Bones, and one for Jo when he brings her back. She’s 18 now, and can make her own decisions, with or without Jocelyn’s approval. And she’s been adamant about spending the summer with her dad and “Uncle Jim” ever since she got the news they’d be staying in San Fransisco.
It takes two days in the flat before Jim gets so restless he thinks he might just implode if he stays. It’s too small (yet much bigger than his quarters on the ship), it’s too confined, and there’s no quiet hum of the warp drive under his feet. It’s too quiet and it’s making him itch all over with restless energy. Solution? He rents a bike. One that looks a lot like his old one, and just starts driving. Somehow, he ends up back in Riverside, at the very bar where Pike once dared him to do better, drinking the same cheap beer and watches someone else pick a fight he can’t win. He doesn’t. Jim wins it for him. It’s not like he could sit by and watch the kid get the everloving crap kicked out of him after all. You leave that kind of thing to the pros.
The rush of adrenaline from the fight makes the itching stop, if only temporarily. The respite lasts until his lip stops bleeding and the various pains diminish into a dull ache.
It’s that magical hour just when the sun is beginning to rise when he sits back on his bike and watches the shipyard with now knowing eyes. There’s not much activity there, no grand ship being built, no sense of nervous excitement, no facing the unknown and leaping out into it. And it dawns on him, slowly and in time with the sun, that there really is no going home. Not that Riverside had ever really felt like home, not in the traditional sense with apple pies cooling on the window sill and a smiling woman in an apron greeting her son when he comes home from school. To the best of his knowledge, Winona Kirk has never owned an apron, and her smile was always tinged with grief.
He kicks his bike into gear and heads back to San Fran.
The first sight that greets him as the door to his flat opens is, well… Legs. Miles of long, tanned, gorgeous legs. Leading up to an equally appealing ass, soft hips, a perfectly curved waist and fuck, he hasn’t been a teenager for over a decade, he shouldn’t get hard this fast. He must make a sound, because The Legs speak, even if his eyes are more occupied taking in the incredibly pleasing roundness of firm breasts when she turns towards him, breasts that look just perfect for the size of his hands. He snaps his eyes up to the face above the Legs and the Breasts, and this must how the idiom of one’s blood running cold was invented. Because he knows that face, or at least a younger version of it. He should NOT be looking at anything beneath that face in the way he just had.
He breathes out a “Jo,” hoping she’ll interpret his reaction as surprise at seeing her, rather than him leering at her, and this is one of those moments he’s going to do his very best to suppress all memory of.
She smiles, slow and sweet like honey, making a drop of cold sweat trickle down his spine, and greets him with a coy “Jim…”.
He huffs out something close to a laugh, and then she’s launching herself at him, hugging him tightly and is suddenly the coltish girl he remembers, all gangly legs and braces on her teeth, and he didn’t know he had it in him to be this much of a creep because he’s still about half hard and has to quickly shift his hips away so she won’t notice as he returns the hug and tries to find his voice.
“Where-- what-- where’s your dad?” he stammers out, and she pulls back with a wide grin and slugs him lightly in the shoulder. “He’s over at ‘Fleet Medical, trying to bully them into giving him some shifts before the semester starts. You know him, if he goes too long without hypoing someone he goes a little…” she makes a meaningful concentric twirl with her finger an inch from her temple and bugs out her eyes in what’s actually a pretty fair imitation of Bones during one of his rants about space. It’s a little creepy, to be honest.
“Mental?” Jim offers helpfully and she rolls her eyes and laughs.
“You said it, not me. Anyway, he won’t be back for a couple of hours.” Letting go of him, she saunters into the kitchen and he feels beyond ridiculous for the way he follows her like a puppy.
He leans against the countertop as she opens the fridge, and he is most pointedly not staring at her ass again when she bends over a little and gets out a beer and a soda. Or her legs when she hops up on the counter next to him and hands him the beer. He’ll have to talk to Bones about the indecent length of the shorts she’s wearing, because she really shouldn’t be showing that much skin no matter how hot it is out.
They fall into their usual banter and gentle teasing, and for a while it’s almost as if the last five years haven’t happened, and he relaxes more than he has since the shuttle left his Enterprise. It’ll always be his Enterprise, the ship is in his blood, as vital to him as the air he breathes. He doesn’t notice when the itching under his skin stops, or even that it does. He only notices the slow burn that replaces it, the fire that feels like it’s going to consume him.
They’ve moved into the sitting room and are laughing at one of Jim’s stories about sharing a room with Bones at the Academy when the man himself walks in. Jim is on his third beer and just beginning to feel a pleasant little buzz, and it makes it easier to smile and look Bones in the eye like he hasn’t spent the afternoon fighting against an erection brought on by the man’s daughter and her stupidly gorgeous legs. He finishes his beer and excuses himself into the bathroom, claiming to want to wash the dust from his travel off. He does that too, but it’s one of the coldest showers of his life.
The next month passes in much the same way. He lounges about the flat, spends mornings reading, brushing up on the syllabus he’s going to teach to a bunch of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed cadets who still think space is nothing but glamorous adventure and a chance for them to be heroes. He’s never had any illusions of glamor when it comes to space, but he’s not about to kill the spark in their eyes. He’ll just make sure they know it’s also demanding, dangerous, and is going to take the best they have to give without necessarily giving anything in return.
Afternoons, he mostly spends with Jo, talking about everything and nothing in particular, sharing stories, and it’s an easy camaraderie. She’s fun, she’s smart as a tack, and she has her father’s non-existent tolerance for bullshit. She’s also still gorgeous and still wearing indecently short skirts and shorts, and he still feels like the worst piece of shit in the universe when his eyes linger a little too long, but it’s really amazing what you can get used to given enough time.
Evenings are spent with both McCoys, mostly. Unless he’s desperate enough to seek out some bar and drink until he’s just stupid enough to let himself admit, and then repress, that the image of Jo naked and moaning underneath him has become a disturbing and recurring theme in his dreams. And that this is why he wakes most mornings achingly hard and has to make sure they’re both in the kitchen before he sneaks out into the bathroom and showers. The showers are always cold. He flat out refuses to let himself jerk off to fantasies of his best friend’s daughter, no matter how hot she is. And on the really bad nights, when he drinks just a little more than he should, he buries himself mindlessly in the best willing body he can find. He pretends that it’s coincidence that they always have long, brown hair and gray eyes, but he knows it isn’t true each time he slinks back into the flat before dawn and passes her room.
The thing is, most days are good. They’re warm, sunny and relaxing, and he doesn’t know where the restlessness went, but he’s glad to be rid of it. And if it returns when Jo spends three days at a friend’s place in Sonoma, he doesn’t notice. He’s happy. Really. He is. It’s nice like this, it’s comfortable, it’s better than he ever thought it could be to be dirt-side for so long. It’s also absolute hell of Dante-esque proportions.
All in all, he thinks he’s doing a pretty good job of not letting on that he’s absurdly attracted to Jo. He finds out one day that he isn’t quite as good an actor as he thought he was. She comes home one late afternoon, and he’s in the living room, lying on the couch and absently playing with a baseball, tossing it from hand to hand and sometimes up in the air, as he tries to assess just how much longer he can live in the same house as Jo without going irrevocably insane and ending up in a straightjacket. Another month? Less if she does something truly cruel like ask him to the beach, or walk around in her underwear again. He’d nearly swallowed his own tongue that time and had only been capable of barking out the sharpest order he could, amounting to “Clothes. Now!”, before he fled into his bedroom. The brunette that night had called him a beast and a sex god, and he supposes he can’t blame her for that, what with the way he’d pistoned into her repeatedly.
He mutters out a distracted greeting to Jo, keeping his eyes literally and metaphorically on the ball, and he’s so focused on his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice she’s moving closer until it’s too late. Until she’s straddling him, taking the ball from his hands. He freezes. Is afraid to move a single muscle, or even breathe because if he does, he might just do something incredibly fucking stupid and kiss her.
She studies the ball with bored disinterest, then drops it to the floor and leans down, her hands on his chest, her hair falling down as if to shield them from the rest of the world, to hide what she’s doing. Because she’s leaning down to press a chaste kiss to his lips and whisper, “Aren’t you done fighting it yet? You must be absolutely worn thin by now.”
He wants to comment that he’s not worn thin. ‘Worn thin’ means there’s still something left to wear down, and there really kind of just isn’t.
Something inside him breaks a little at her words, at her warm weight on him, at her thumbs rubbing soothingly on his chest, occasionally grazing his nipples. He breaks. He must be, because he’s tangling his fingers in her hair, cupping the back of her head, and pulling her in for the kiss he’s wanted since he saw her lips wrap around that soda bottle the first day. He’d never thought he could be so jealous of a piece of glass, but apparently, anything is possible. The kiss burns better than anything he can remember tasting, and he loses himself in the slide of their tongues, in the way she kisses him back, tentatively at first, then hungrily, like she’s wanted this for as long as he has. Like the same liquid fire is burning through her veins.
It’s only when she rolls her hips against his that he snaps out of it, the sharp jolt of pleasure making him realize there’s no more hiding what she does to him, that there’s no way she isn’t feeling how hard he is. He pushes her back and scrambles off the couch inelegantly to pace the floor, disheveled and breathing hard, panic creeping up one side of his spine, white-hot need up the other.
“No!” he states hoarsely, holding up a hand as if to fend her off. “No. We can’t… I can’t! You’re… No.”
She gets up off the couch and stills him with a gentle hand on his arm, and he very nearly sobs at the sight of her kiss-swollen lips, of the slight redness on her chin from his stubble.
“Jim…” She smiles and meets his eyes and there’s a need, a hunger, a lust for adventure in him that echoes dully in his heart. “Daddy’s working a late shift. He won’t be home for hours. He doesn’t have to know.”
He shakes his head feebly because this is wrong. It’s not about her being 18, it’s not about the morally gray zone that by itself is. It’s about her being his best friend’s daughter. And you just don’t go there. Ever. Full fucking stop!
She steps closer and trails a hand down his chest, letting it rest on the waistband of his jeans. “Jim, you want this. I want this.” He squeezes his eyes shut and she leans in and whispers hotly in his ear. “Just this once. I want you to be my first. Today. Now.”
The sound he makes is not a sob. It isn’t. Because Joanna McCoy did not just ask him to take her virginity. Except she kind of just did and his brain doesn’t seem to be able to handle that. His dick does, but it’s not allowed to make calls like this no matter how much it hates him for it. It’s one of those impossibly bad situations he’s so known for getting out alive of, and it’s more by instinct than anything else that he straightens his spine and opens his eyes to give her a defiant look. Because Jim Kirk doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘surrender’.
She shoots his defiance right back at him and moves her hand to palm his dick through his pants. He may be biting back a groan but he doesn’t back down. It seems that she’s every bit as stubborn as her old man, and he doesn’t really know whether to admire or curse that trait. Then again, it reminds him just a little bit of himself so it’s probably an even mix. They square off against each other, neither of them inclined to yield, blue eyes locking with gray ones, and tension cackles like electricity in the air. He takes a step forward, hoping she’ll stand down. But apparently she isn’t intimidated by physical prowess. On the contrary. That might even be why she’s chosen him for this. His prowess. His reputation and his physicality. It’s almost too ironic not to laugh. Bones always said Jim’s promiscuity would come back to bite him, he just never knew it’d be with his only daughter.
He’s never backed down from a challenge and he isn’t about to let a barely 18 year old girl be the exception to that rule. She doesn’t know what it is she’s really asking for. What it is she’s challenging him to do. She doesn’t know, and he shudders at the thought of someone else granting her wish, someone who won’t make it good for her, someone not him.
He strikes first, a twisted, protective need flaring up in him. Puts his hand on her waist and pulls her flush against him. Thinks that the suddenness of the move will startle her enough to back down. It startles her alright, but there’s still a cool defiance in those gray eyes. A confidence and a self-assuredness in the way she tilts up her chin and brushes her lips over the slight stubble on his jaw. He clenches his jaw to suppress the tremble that threatens to run through him.
Point taken. She’s not going to give so easily, and he really should have known she wouldn’t. He walks them back to the nearest seat and pulls her onto his lap, facing away from him. He’s not sure he can do this if he can see her face, and that just underlines how twisted and wrong this is. There’s a small gasp from her, but she still doesn’t relent. He makes sure she can feel his arousal, hard against her ass, but she still does. not. give. She challenges him again by grinding herself against it, making him growl low in his throat from the friction. So be it.
He puts his feet on the inside of hers and applies just a little pressure. Skims his hands up her legs, taking her skirt with them, and lets them rest like heavy weights on the inside of her thighs, and this time it’s he who challenges her.
“If this is what you want, Jo, you’re gonna have to part your legs for me,” he mumbles against the slope of her neck. There’s a brief moment of hesitation, of uncertainty, before she rises to his challenge and lets him coax her legs apart, slowly and deliberately.
“Good girl,” he praises her, and hooks his calfs around hers, keeping her legs apart. At the first sign of her giving in and backing down, he’ll let her go, has to tell himself he will, because right now, he’s not so sure. But she still thinks she wants this, and he has to prove just how much she doesn’t. Has to prove why she doesn’t want someone almost old enough to be her father, fucking her for the first time. At least that’s what he tells himself, how he justifies doing what he’s doing right now. It’ll be what it is. Fucking. He’s not going to give her any illusions of romance right now. Not when she’s breaking apart one of the only true friendships he’s ever had.
She’s still not backing down, and he skims his hands a little further up. Lets the tips of his fingers trace the lines of her panties, and he doesn’t know for sure, but it feels like white cotton. She shivers and he kisses her neck again. “Say stop and I will,” he promises and she replies by grinding against his cock again. “Little minx,” he scolds, and there’s an affection in his voice, a kind teasing quality he’s sure shouldn’t be there. Not with his best friend’s 18 year old daughter.
There’s a playfulness to this, as if the challenges they’re throwing at each other is just a game, and not the very serious an catastrophic betrayal it really is. It helps a little, makes him lightheaded and he can’t believe she’s in his lap like this. It’s a horrible nightmare that is just too good to be true, and he never wants to wake up.
He dips his fingers inside the fabric and groans. They’ve barely even done anything, and she’s already wet. “How long have you fantasized about me doing this, Jo? About me fucking you?”
She chuckles, low and a little breathless, and tilts her head to give him better access to her neck. “About five years,” she answers honestly, and he twitches hard against her ass when she elaborates. “Used to try thinking of others, but you were the only one who could get me off in less than 5 minutes.”
“Jesus fuck, Jo,” he mutters and has to take a moment to remember how to breathe at that little revelation. Okay, he admits, she maybe she does want him, but that still doesn’t make it right. It’s a silly rock star crush, he tries to convince himself, it’ll pass as soon as they’re done here.
He eases her legs further apart, keeps them apart when she instinctively tries to close them as he parts her folds with a finger. “Say the word, and I’ll stop…” he promises again and he can feel her forcing her thighs to relax and let him do what she wants.
Somehow, this has gone from teaching her a lesson about wanting older men to fuck her, to wanting to make her come undone under his hands, all the pent up desire of the last month coming to a head and clouding his mind. He wants to be the first one to hear and watch her like this. He shouldn’t want it, but he does. He’s going to special hell, but he wants this.
One hand moves to cup a breast, teasing her clothed nipple with a thumb, as the other pulls her panties out of the way and introduces itself to her clitoris, making her whimper softly and push her hips into the touch.
“Like this, babe?” he whispers and she answers with a distracted, but emphatic nod.
His thumb takes up the acquaintance with her clit as he slides the finger down to circle her entrance, letting her decide when it enters her. With a greedy roll of her hips, it does, and she sucks in a sharp breath at the strange sensation, then clenches around him, making the edges of his vision darken with blind lust. Only the slight tremble of her thighs keeps him from pushing her to the floor and burying himself in all that tight, wet heat.
His hand moves of its own volition, knowing this game better than his conscious mind. It’s only when she gets close to the edge she starts protesting, little whimpered words like “Jim” and “Please” and “Too much” spilling from her lips. She doesn’t know how to take what he gives her, doesn’t know what lies just beyond that precipice he has her teetering on.
She asked for this, though, she wanted this, and he’s not going to let her go before he shows her what it was she demanded of him. He steadies her by moving the hand from her breast to wrap an arm around her waist, holding her close to him and mutters, “It’s okay, baby… Gonna make you feel so good. Like nothing else in the world… It’s okay, babe… Just let it happen, don’t fight it. I’m right here, honey… Right here and gonna catch you. Just let it happen.”
He increases the motions of his hand, and only now, only here, does he force her in any way. Takes away her choice and forces her over the edge until she’s shaking and crying out her climax in his arms. Wrenches every second of pleasure she’s capable of from her, then eases her back down and caresses her thigh and waist tenderly as she slumps back against him, panting, her thighs twitching arrhythmically.
“So good, Jo… So gorgeous when you come for me…” he praises her again, and she turns her head to kiss him softly, then draws back to reveal a secretive and smug little smile.
“Knew you could do it,” she practically purrs and shifts to straddle him, pulling his face in for a blindingly hot kiss. And apparently, she’s not a total stranger to how this works, because when they break apart, she has his pants open and is wrapping slender, unexperienced fingers around his achingly hard and horribly neglected cock.
He gasps and this time he’s the one who shudders at the sensations. She leaves him panting and slightly disoriented for a minute or two, returning sans panties and with a condom in her hand.
He’s going to hell, but fuck if it isn’t worth eternal damnation when she rolls the rubber down his length. His eyes meet hers, his a little desperate and uncertain, hers determined and much too certain for someone who’s never done this before. He only sees a flicker of doubt, of fear for the unknown in them as she positions herself above him. His hands go instinctively to her hips, bracing her and holding her steady as she slowly sinks down on him. His eyes roll back in his head and he pants with the effort it takes to not just pull her down on him or thrust up into her.
She pauses a few times, wincing a little, and it cuts through his haze of pleasure, making him still her progress and very gently ease her off. If he’s going to do this (and there really isn’t any going back now) he’s going to do it right.
The edge of her accusing look is somewhat softened by the furious blush creeping up her neck and coloring her cheeks, and he shakes his head and presses a soothing kiss to her lips. “I’ve got a better idea.” he whispers and sets her on her feet. She frowns a little, but nods her consent.
He tugs his pants off and scoops her up into his arms to carry her to his bedroom. Not hers, he can’t do this in hers, can’t taint her bed with this, wants to take everything that’s bad and wrong about this on his shoulders and keep it far away from her, even if she’s the one who started this.
He lays her gently down and pulls his shirt off, then undresses her with more tenderness than he thinks he should. This is just sex. It’s wrong and it’s with Jo, but it’s just sex, he reminds himself forcibly, not making room for emotions. If he lets one emotion creep in right now, they’ll all crash down on him and he thinks he just might drown if that happens.
So he doesn’t let his eyes linger too long on her naked form, though he’s sure the image is permanently etched onto his retina. Instead he kisses his way down her body, making her sigh softly, then squirm beneath him. He runs a finger through her folds, and shakes his head a little. “Not quite wet enough. Don’t ever let someone fuck you before you’re ready, Jo. Make them work for it.”
He settles between her legs and her eyes widen a little. “It’s okay, I love this part. I think you’re gonna love it too,” he soothes and presses soft kisses around her center, slowly circling in on where he knows she needs him the most. It doesn’t take long before she seems to have forgotten any and all embarrassment or hesitation, and she rests a tentative hand on his head to keep him there. His eyes lock with hers as he lifts his own hand to cover hers and curl her fingers in his short hair.
“It’s okay, it means you like what I’m doing,” he informs her and lowers his mouth to her again, alternating swift licks with broad strokes of his tongue, moaning emphatically and pointedly when he closes his lips over her clit and sucks it gently into his mouth. Her hips arch clean off the bed and she keens hoarsely, making his hands grip her and hold her steady. He broke his nose once like that and it’s not a lesson he needs to be taught twice.
“Some guys won’t know exactly what to do,” he mumbles against her between strokes of his tongue. “So you have to guide them. Show them what you like, and it’s easier with your hand in their hair. Means you can focus on what they’re doing and not on telling them what to do.”
There’s another absent nod from her, and she’s moaning and writhing again, her free hand fisting the sheets. He continues his slow explorations until she grinds out a low, frustrated “Jiiiiiim, please! Want you…” and that’s what he was waiting to hear.
He eases off her, makes his way back up to her lips and kisses her deeply because she needs to know there’s nothing gross about kissing someone who just went down on you.
She’s rolling her hips against his, shifting them restlessly to get him where she wants him, and he wraps an arm around her, holding her to him, and letting his elbow bear the brunt of his weight.
“Okay, sweetheart, okay,” he placates her and reaches down to take hold of himself and line up to her entrance. There’s so much trust in her eyes and he hates himself at the same time that he loves her for giving this to him. She nods once, and he slides in a couple of inches, and she’s still tight, but it’s easier than before when she was on top of him. He pauses each time he feels her tense, waiting for her to relax before he slides in another inch. He doesn’t know how he hasn’t incinerated yet, but he does know he’d rather die than hurt her.
There’s a bit of resistance and she makes a small, distressed sound when he pushes against it. He stills and looks at her with heartfelt regret, whispering softly (and maybe just a little brokenly), “I’m sorry, Jo, I’m so sorry, but I can’t make this not hurt. Can’t take the pain for you, even if I want to.”
She caresses his cheek with her hand, and she’s not the one who should be soothing him, calming him down, because this about her and giving her what she wants, and he doesn’t deserve her gentle caresses.
“It’s okay, Jim, I know you can’t. But you want to, and that’s why I chose you for this. It’s okay, I’m not going to break. Please continue?”
There’s not much he can really say to that, and he nods a little, then screws his eyes shut as he pushes past the slight resistance. It gives more easily than he expected, and he’s never in his life been so grateful that Jocelyn decided she should learn how to ride, or that she took to horses like a duck to water.
She goes very still, the only sign of her discomfort the way her short nails are digging into his shoulder, and he can’t stop himself from muttering a litany of hushed apologies against her forehead. When he looks at her again, there’s a small smile on her lips, one he has to kiss just to taste its sweetness, and she giggles a little helplessly.
“I’m okay, Jim,” she promises and he relaxes a little.
“You sure?”
She cuffs his shoulder lightly, and he can tell it hurt more than she lets on by the set of her mouth, but there’s still that stubborn determination in her eyes when she rolls her hips experimentally and he answers with a cautious thrust. “Like that,” she sighs and repeats the move, gradually pulling back a little more and thrusting a little deeper.
It takes a little while, but then she’s moaning again, and fuck if he can help himself now. He lets go and loses himself in the steady rhythm, hears his voice moan out her name like a prayer, and he never says names during sex, but he doesn’t fuck his friends’ daughters either, so rules are meaningless in all this. His thumb finds her clit again and it’s like an answered, desperate plea when he feels her clench and release repeatedly around him until his mind whites out and he comes from his fucking toes on up.
As the world gradually materializes around him again, he becomes dimly aware that he’s collapsed on top of her, and that she’s cradling him against her chest, rubbing soothing circles on his back. Each breath burns in his lungs and his eyes are stinging a little, something he’s not too keen on examining further, especially since he feels safer and more loved than he has since he was a child.
They lay in silence for a long time, each trying to catch their breath, and his mind is racing in a frantic search for meaning in all this, the implications and consequences of what they’ve just done crashing in on him.
“Stop thinking so loud, you’ll give me a headache,” she nudges him gently, and he chuckles quietly as her words seem to momentarily cleanse him of sin. His body is humming softly, a low thrum in the background like there’s a warp drive under his feet, and he levers himself up on his elbow, easing his weight off her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to crush you,” he mumbles and kisses her tenderly, and he can’t understand where the smile on his face comes from. It has no right to be there, not right now when there’s still an oppressive blanket of guilt in the back of his mind.
“You need to lose weight,” she teases him and pinches his side, making him squirm away a little.
“Hey, this is one fine body, I’ll have you know. One-hundred percent concentrated hot.”
The eyeroll she gives him is disturbingly familiar, and she must see that on his face because the smile she gives him is sincere and just a little shy.
“Thank you.” Her voice is soft and sounds so much younger than he’s comfortable with right now. “I didn’t want to do this with anyone else. Don’t think it would have been as nice with anyone else.”
“You’re amazing, Jo,” he answers, just as sincerely and brushes the hair away from her face. “You don’t need to thank me. What you just gave me… It was amazing, and I’ll never forget it. I should be thanking you.”
They don’t talk much for a while after that, too busy touching and kissing, and it’s not so much about sex as it’s about making sure they’re both there and that this is real. She winces a little when he pulls out and moves to the bathroom to clean up. Blushes furiously when he comes back with a warm, damp cloth and gently cleans her. There’s not much blood, and he shrugs casually and says it’s not important, that it’s the least he can do after fucking her into the mattress. Her blush deepens at that, but it’s not embarrassment that’s the cause anymore.
They separate half an hour before Bones comes home, having gone through the flat together to make sure there’s no evidence of what’s happened. They both pretend to have been asleep for hours, and as Jim lies in his bed, the bed that still smells like Jo and sex, unable to sleep and staring out the window at the starry sky, he’s baffled that guilt isn’t his most prominent emotion right now. His most prominent emotion is the desire to have Jo back in his arms and hold her as they fall asleep, and he hasn’t wanted anything this much since he first saw the Enterprise at Riverside Shipyards a lifetime ago, in the same hour just before dawn as it is now.
For a while, they pretend nothing has happened, that nothing has changed, but it has. He can’t look Bones in the eye anymore, and he can’t help smiling when he looks into Jo’s eyes.
He vows to himself it’ll never happen again, that it was just one time, one wish he granted her and that’s it. The itch reappears, along with the restlessness, but this time, he doesn’t go to bars or on a road trip. He buries himself in work, both for his classes and for the refitting of the Enterprise. Because it will never. happen. again..
It happens again.
A week later, Bones is working the graveyard shift again, and when Jo comes home they take one look at each other, and the next thing he knows, clothes are being hurriedly torn off and he’s fucking her on the kitchen counter.
And again.
Two days after the kitchen, she sneaks into his bedroom in the middle of the night, and he bites down on her shoulder when he comes to keep from crying out her name. They’re lucky that it rains the following week, because Bones doesn’t question why she’s swapped her tank tops for long sleeves, or why she’s wearing pants (to hide the hand shaped bruises Jim left on her hips as he fucked her slowly and thoroughly an hour before Bones woke up).
It keeps happening, over and over and over. They never talk about it, never talk about what it means, how this changes everything between them. And it’s breaking him apart. His restlessness is almost deafening sometimes, and the only time it stops is when he’s alone with Jo.
The summer is drawing to a close, and she’ll be going back to Georgia soon, and it’s like a sharp pain in his chest every time he thinks of not waking up to hidden smiles over the rim of her coffee cup. When he thinks of not falling asleep with her scent strong on his pillow, filling his nose and making him sleep better than he has for a very long time.
Bones never seems to suspect a thing and while Jim hates every second of lying to his friend, he knows it’s better this way.
Two days before she’s supposed to leave, she walks in, just as Jim and Bones are sitting down to dinner. The semester starts in a week, and when it’s over, they’ll be going up in the Black again. Jim can’t wait. Because it’ll mean no Jo, no more sneaking around, no more tearing his own heart out when she leaves his bed before dawn.
Because as good as he is at deceiving Bones, as much as he tries to convince himself it isn’t true, he knows deep down inside that he’s fallen in love with Jo. Hard and irrevocably in love. And while it’s going to kill him not to see her every day, he knows she’s young and that while she likes him, she’s going to find the next best thing that comes along when he leaves on his new mission, and that he’ll be nothing but a sweet memory of a summer fling to her. Which is exactly why he never tells her how he feels, and never listens when she slips and moans out hushed declarations of love when they fuck.
That’s not the point, though. The point is that he’s just about to dig into his steak when she walks in, a wide, slightly anxious grin on her face, wearing cadet fucking reds.
The room goes deathly silent for a long stretched out minute. Then Bones explodes. They argue and Jo looks pleadingly at Jim, begging him to help appease her dad. She’s obviously mistaken his silence for diplomatic neutrality. Because where Bones is just angry, Jim is absolutely livid. Because he is not about to let her make a decision like that based on their sick, twisted little imitation of a relationship.
He grabs his jacket without a word and leaves the flat.
They don’t talk for four days, he can’t even bring himself to look at her, and while Bones grudgingly comes around and accepts her decision, Jim doesn’t. He can’t help ruin her life like this. Bones even tries to talk to him, tries to tell him that it would mean so much to Jo if her Uncle Jim backed her up in this. Jim can barely speak for the bile that rises up in his throat at the title. Uncle Jim. It makes him sound like a child molester. The friendly uncle who doesn’t quite know when touching crosses the line from affection to sex. He knows where the line is, and Jo is 18, so he knows that logically, he hasn’t done anything illegal. Just morally fucked up.
On the fifth day of being studiously ignored by him, Jo has had enough. He can feel it, can sense her seething across the breakfast table, and when Bones leaves for his shift, she backs Jim up against the wall and hisses. “What the hell is your problem?!”
His eyes narrow dangerously and yeah, okay, he knows he provokes her, but he is royally pissed off, he’s had his heart trampled and he’s clinging to the last shreds of his pride. “My problem?! I’m not the one changing my life because of some childish fantasy where I catch the great Captain Kirk and make him stay on Earth to fuck me behind Daddy’s back whenever I want him to. I’m not going to help you ruin your life because of me!”
She slaps him. Hard enough to make his ears ring and glares, her voice low and icy. “Get over yourself, Captain. I’ve wanted to be a nurse since I was six, and I’m not one of your dimwit blondes who can’t make a single solitary decision without your help. I was hoping you of all people would understand, but I guess I was wrong in thinking you were different.”
She turns on her heel and slams the door behind her when she leaves.
They gradually start talking again, and he helps her move into her dorm room. They never touch anymore, and they never look at each other for longer than strictly necessary, and they certainly don’t fuck anymore. He thinks it’s maybe better this way, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. The truth is, he hates it, and it hurts more than he thought possible. Each time he sees her, another little piece of his heart shatters, and he becomes increasingly impatient for their new five year mission to start.
Time passes in the same unsympathetic way it always does, both too fast and not fast enough. Before he knows it, he’s taking a tour of his ship again and getting ready to head out, but he’s still restless and he’s still itching under his skin, but he knows it’ll stop once he’s in his chair again.
He says goodbye to Jo in front of Bones, because he doesn’t trust himself to not pull her into his arms and try to get one more night with her. It’s an amicable goodbye, and everything it technically should be, and he didn’t think there was anything left of his heart to break, but there she goes, proving him wrong again.
They head out and it feels like coming home, but he’s learned that there’s no coming home again once you’ve left. Still, it’s the closest thing he’s got when he sits in his chair and gives the first order of the mission, ordering for warp 3, and watches infinity stretch out before him.
The itch lessens, but it never really goes away. His heart slowly begins to heal again, and he can smile more genuinely as the months pass. He has good days and bad days. The bad days are usually after he wakes up with the ghost of her scent on his pillow and can’t go back to sleep because his mind is too busy replaying every caress, every moan, every touch that ever passed between them.
Months turn into years, and he thinks he’s gotten over her when one day he receives a transfer notice from Admiral Pike. It’s not unusual, it happens every once in a while when there’s a crew member who’s requested reassignment back to Earth, and this time it’s Nurse Johnson and Lieutenant Johnson who’ve made the request. He married them six months earlier, so it’s no surprise when Erica tells him she’s pregnant one day in the briefing room.
What is a surprise, one that makes his heart skip a beat, is the name of her replacement. Joanna McCoy. He knows he can’t refuse the transfer, it would be unprofessional and raise way too many eyebrows, so he tells himself he’s over her, and that it’ll be fine. He’s over her. It doesn’t sting to see her name on the PADD. It doesn’t. Because he’s so much over her it’s not even funny.
It takes two weeks before everything goes through, and suddenly she’s there on the transporter pad. She looks older and maybe a little wiser, but her smile is still like liquid honey that makes desire race against fear to see which one makes it up his spine first.
He goes to her quarters that night, and he doesn’t speak, doesn’t even really wait for the door to slide shut as he casts a glance around the room to make sure she’s alone. And then, before she can speak, he has her face in his hands and is slowly licking her lips apart. She gives under his assault, parts her lips and lets him in, backs down when he pushes, and the itch stops. The restlessness stops. Everything that isn’t them just… Stops. It clicks for him then, like the final piece of a huge, complicated puzzle snapping into place, and when he’s forced to come up for air, he looks into her eyes and thinks he might be drowning, but it’s okay as long as she’s there with him.
And he speaks the words he’s never allowed himself to before. “I love you. I’m an idiot, I’m an ass and I don’t deserve you, but I love you. Always did, ever since I opened the door to the flat that day and couldn’t stop staring at your legs.”
She smiles again, and this time, fear is nowhere near his spine, because her smile is bright and happy, and there are unshed tears in her eyes.
“I should kick you out and tell you never to go near me again for how you treated me when you left,” she says, but there’s too much happiness in her voice for him to be worried she’ll do what she threatens to. “I’ve loved you since I met you, Jim. Maybe not like this, until I grew up a little, but I still loved you. I’m not letting you get away from me again.”
He laughs, bright and openly and carries her to bed. Oh, he knows Bones will kill him in the worst possible way, and he knows it’s not going to be easy, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters, because she’s with him, kissing him and letting him undress her, and he’s stopped itching. All the noise has stopped, and she’s the one who made it go away, who always makes it go away. And he knows that no matter what changes around him, she’ll always make the itching stop, she’ll always make him calm again, and he’s not giving that up for anything. They have a year before this mission ends, so he has a year to convince her and Bones this is the way things are meant to be. It’s an impossible challenge, but those have always been his favorite kind. As he slowly, reverently slides into her for the first time in what feels like an eternity, he thinks that he got it all wrong, after all. You can go home again, you just have to find where home is to do it.
Author: hypatia_82
Word count: ~ 8360
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Encouraged and appreciated.
Warnings: Language maybe. Use of the f-word. Loss of virginity.
Disclaimer: I wish for them every year for Christmas, but I haven't gotten them yet. Which makes me sad. Anything you recognize isn't mine. The plot, however, is.
Notes: Written for this prompt over at the st_xi_kink_meme.
Summary: It’s nice like this, it’s comfortable, it’s better than he ever thought it could be to be dirt-side for so long. It’s also absolute hell of Dante-esque proportions.
They’ve just come back from their first five year mission, the Enterprise is being refitted and most of the senior crew, Starfleet’s very own dream team, are taking some well deserved R&R before they take up the teaching positions they’ve been offered at the Academy. It’s strange to be back on Earth, and somehow things seem smaller and more unfamiliar than Jim remembers them. It’s a little like putting on an old coat, it still fits but there are places it’s just a little bit off, despite the well known feel of it. It makes him antsy, and he spends two weeks seeking out some of his old haunts, visiting his mom and a few old friends, and it gradually feels a little less stifling to not be up in the infinite black anymore.
Bones, of course, heads straight for Georgia when they get off the shuttle, eager to see his little girl, and Jim is sure the man would have bent down and kissed the ground when he first set foot on it if half of Command hadn’t been there to greet them.
While Bones is in Georgia, Jim settles into the flat they’ve rented together for the duration. It’s a nice place, with a view over the bay and a living room, a kitchen that’s big enough to double as a dining room, and three bedrooms. One for him, one for Bones, and one for Jo when he brings her back. She’s 18 now, and can make her own decisions, with or without Jocelyn’s approval. And she’s been adamant about spending the summer with her dad and “Uncle Jim” ever since she got the news they’d be staying in San Fransisco.
It takes two days in the flat before Jim gets so restless he thinks he might just implode if he stays. It’s too small (yet much bigger than his quarters on the ship), it’s too confined, and there’s no quiet hum of the warp drive under his feet. It’s too quiet and it’s making him itch all over with restless energy. Solution? He rents a bike. One that looks a lot like his old one, and just starts driving. Somehow, he ends up back in Riverside, at the very bar where Pike once dared him to do better, drinking the same cheap beer and watches someone else pick a fight he can’t win. He doesn’t. Jim wins it for him. It’s not like he could sit by and watch the kid get the everloving crap kicked out of him after all. You leave that kind of thing to the pros.
The rush of adrenaline from the fight makes the itching stop, if only temporarily. The respite lasts until his lip stops bleeding and the various pains diminish into a dull ache.
It’s that magical hour just when the sun is beginning to rise when he sits back on his bike and watches the shipyard with now knowing eyes. There’s not much activity there, no grand ship being built, no sense of nervous excitement, no facing the unknown and leaping out into it. And it dawns on him, slowly and in time with the sun, that there really is no going home. Not that Riverside had ever really felt like home, not in the traditional sense with apple pies cooling on the window sill and a smiling woman in an apron greeting her son when he comes home from school. To the best of his knowledge, Winona Kirk has never owned an apron, and her smile was always tinged with grief.
He kicks his bike into gear and heads back to San Fran.
The first sight that greets him as the door to his flat opens is, well… Legs. Miles of long, tanned, gorgeous legs. Leading up to an equally appealing ass, soft hips, a perfectly curved waist and fuck, he hasn’t been a teenager for over a decade, he shouldn’t get hard this fast. He must make a sound, because The Legs speak, even if his eyes are more occupied taking in the incredibly pleasing roundness of firm breasts when she turns towards him, breasts that look just perfect for the size of his hands. He snaps his eyes up to the face above the Legs and the Breasts, and this must how the idiom of one’s blood running cold was invented. Because he knows that face, or at least a younger version of it. He should NOT be looking at anything beneath that face in the way he just had.
He breathes out a “Jo,” hoping she’ll interpret his reaction as surprise at seeing her, rather than him leering at her, and this is one of those moments he’s going to do his very best to suppress all memory of.
She smiles, slow and sweet like honey, making a drop of cold sweat trickle down his spine, and greets him with a coy “Jim…”.
He huffs out something close to a laugh, and then she’s launching herself at him, hugging him tightly and is suddenly the coltish girl he remembers, all gangly legs and braces on her teeth, and he didn’t know he had it in him to be this much of a creep because he’s still about half hard and has to quickly shift his hips away so she won’t notice as he returns the hug and tries to find his voice.
“Where-- what-- where’s your dad?” he stammers out, and she pulls back with a wide grin and slugs him lightly in the shoulder. “He’s over at ‘Fleet Medical, trying to bully them into giving him some shifts before the semester starts. You know him, if he goes too long without hypoing someone he goes a little…” she makes a meaningful concentric twirl with her finger an inch from her temple and bugs out her eyes in what’s actually a pretty fair imitation of Bones during one of his rants about space. It’s a little creepy, to be honest.
“Mental?” Jim offers helpfully and she rolls her eyes and laughs.
“You said it, not me. Anyway, he won’t be back for a couple of hours.” Letting go of him, she saunters into the kitchen and he feels beyond ridiculous for the way he follows her like a puppy.
He leans against the countertop as she opens the fridge, and he is most pointedly not staring at her ass again when she bends over a little and gets out a beer and a soda. Or her legs when she hops up on the counter next to him and hands him the beer. He’ll have to talk to Bones about the indecent length of the shorts she’s wearing, because she really shouldn’t be showing that much skin no matter how hot it is out.
They fall into their usual banter and gentle teasing, and for a while it’s almost as if the last five years haven’t happened, and he relaxes more than he has since the shuttle left his Enterprise. It’ll always be his Enterprise, the ship is in his blood, as vital to him as the air he breathes. He doesn’t notice when the itching under his skin stops, or even that it does. He only notices the slow burn that replaces it, the fire that feels like it’s going to consume him.
They’ve moved into the sitting room and are laughing at one of Jim’s stories about sharing a room with Bones at the Academy when the man himself walks in. Jim is on his third beer and just beginning to feel a pleasant little buzz, and it makes it easier to smile and look Bones in the eye like he hasn’t spent the afternoon fighting against an erection brought on by the man’s daughter and her stupidly gorgeous legs. He finishes his beer and excuses himself into the bathroom, claiming to want to wash the dust from his travel off. He does that too, but it’s one of the coldest showers of his life.
The next month passes in much the same way. He lounges about the flat, spends mornings reading, brushing up on the syllabus he’s going to teach to a bunch of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed cadets who still think space is nothing but glamorous adventure and a chance for them to be heroes. He’s never had any illusions of glamor when it comes to space, but he’s not about to kill the spark in their eyes. He’ll just make sure they know it’s also demanding, dangerous, and is going to take the best they have to give without necessarily giving anything in return.
Afternoons, he mostly spends with Jo, talking about everything and nothing in particular, sharing stories, and it’s an easy camaraderie. She’s fun, she’s smart as a tack, and she has her father’s non-existent tolerance for bullshit. She’s also still gorgeous and still wearing indecently short skirts and shorts, and he still feels like the worst piece of shit in the universe when his eyes linger a little too long, but it’s really amazing what you can get used to given enough time.
Evenings are spent with both McCoys, mostly. Unless he’s desperate enough to seek out some bar and drink until he’s just stupid enough to let himself admit, and then repress, that the image of Jo naked and moaning underneath him has become a disturbing and recurring theme in his dreams. And that this is why he wakes most mornings achingly hard and has to make sure they’re both in the kitchen before he sneaks out into the bathroom and showers. The showers are always cold. He flat out refuses to let himself jerk off to fantasies of his best friend’s daughter, no matter how hot she is. And on the really bad nights, when he drinks just a little more than he should, he buries himself mindlessly in the best willing body he can find. He pretends that it’s coincidence that they always have long, brown hair and gray eyes, but he knows it isn’t true each time he slinks back into the flat before dawn and passes her room.
The thing is, most days are good. They’re warm, sunny and relaxing, and he doesn’t know where the restlessness went, but he’s glad to be rid of it. And if it returns when Jo spends three days at a friend’s place in Sonoma, he doesn’t notice. He’s happy. Really. He is. It’s nice like this, it’s comfortable, it’s better than he ever thought it could be to be dirt-side for so long. It’s also absolute hell of Dante-esque proportions.
All in all, he thinks he’s doing a pretty good job of not letting on that he’s absurdly attracted to Jo. He finds out one day that he isn’t quite as good an actor as he thought he was. She comes home one late afternoon, and he’s in the living room, lying on the couch and absently playing with a baseball, tossing it from hand to hand and sometimes up in the air, as he tries to assess just how much longer he can live in the same house as Jo without going irrevocably insane and ending up in a straightjacket. Another month? Less if she does something truly cruel like ask him to the beach, or walk around in her underwear again. He’d nearly swallowed his own tongue that time and had only been capable of barking out the sharpest order he could, amounting to “Clothes. Now!”, before he fled into his bedroom. The brunette that night had called him a beast and a sex god, and he supposes he can’t blame her for that, what with the way he’d pistoned into her repeatedly.
He mutters out a distracted greeting to Jo, keeping his eyes literally and metaphorically on the ball, and he’s so focused on his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice she’s moving closer until it’s too late. Until she’s straddling him, taking the ball from his hands. He freezes. Is afraid to move a single muscle, or even breathe because if he does, he might just do something incredibly fucking stupid and kiss her.
She studies the ball with bored disinterest, then drops it to the floor and leans down, her hands on his chest, her hair falling down as if to shield them from the rest of the world, to hide what she’s doing. Because she’s leaning down to press a chaste kiss to his lips and whisper, “Aren’t you done fighting it yet? You must be absolutely worn thin by now.”
He wants to comment that he’s not worn thin. ‘Worn thin’ means there’s still something left to wear down, and there really kind of just isn’t.
Something inside him breaks a little at her words, at her warm weight on him, at her thumbs rubbing soothingly on his chest, occasionally grazing his nipples. He breaks. He must be, because he’s tangling his fingers in her hair, cupping the back of her head, and pulling her in for the kiss he’s wanted since he saw her lips wrap around that soda bottle the first day. He’d never thought he could be so jealous of a piece of glass, but apparently, anything is possible. The kiss burns better than anything he can remember tasting, and he loses himself in the slide of their tongues, in the way she kisses him back, tentatively at first, then hungrily, like she’s wanted this for as long as he has. Like the same liquid fire is burning through her veins.
It’s only when she rolls her hips against his that he snaps out of it, the sharp jolt of pleasure making him realize there’s no more hiding what she does to him, that there’s no way she isn’t feeling how hard he is. He pushes her back and scrambles off the couch inelegantly to pace the floor, disheveled and breathing hard, panic creeping up one side of his spine, white-hot need up the other.
“No!” he states hoarsely, holding up a hand as if to fend her off. “No. We can’t… I can’t! You’re… No.”
She gets up off the couch and stills him with a gentle hand on his arm, and he very nearly sobs at the sight of her kiss-swollen lips, of the slight redness on her chin from his stubble.
“Jim…” She smiles and meets his eyes and there’s a need, a hunger, a lust for adventure in him that echoes dully in his heart. “Daddy’s working a late shift. He won’t be home for hours. He doesn’t have to know.”
He shakes his head feebly because this is wrong. It’s not about her being 18, it’s not about the morally gray zone that by itself is. It’s about her being his best friend’s daughter. And you just don’t go there. Ever. Full fucking stop!
She steps closer and trails a hand down his chest, letting it rest on the waistband of his jeans. “Jim, you want this. I want this.” He squeezes his eyes shut and she leans in and whispers hotly in his ear. “Just this once. I want you to be my first. Today. Now.”
The sound he makes is not a sob. It isn’t. Because Joanna McCoy did not just ask him to take her virginity. Except she kind of just did and his brain doesn’t seem to be able to handle that. His dick does, but it’s not allowed to make calls like this no matter how much it hates him for it. It’s one of those impossibly bad situations he’s so known for getting out alive of, and it’s more by instinct than anything else that he straightens his spine and opens his eyes to give her a defiant look. Because Jim Kirk doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘surrender’.
She shoots his defiance right back at him and moves her hand to palm his dick through his pants. He may be biting back a groan but he doesn’t back down. It seems that she’s every bit as stubborn as her old man, and he doesn’t really know whether to admire or curse that trait. Then again, it reminds him just a little bit of himself so it’s probably an even mix. They square off against each other, neither of them inclined to yield, blue eyes locking with gray ones, and tension cackles like electricity in the air. He takes a step forward, hoping she’ll stand down. But apparently she isn’t intimidated by physical prowess. On the contrary. That might even be why she’s chosen him for this. His prowess. His reputation and his physicality. It’s almost too ironic not to laugh. Bones always said Jim’s promiscuity would come back to bite him, he just never knew it’d be with his only daughter.
He’s never backed down from a challenge and he isn’t about to let a barely 18 year old girl be the exception to that rule. She doesn’t know what it is she’s really asking for. What it is she’s challenging him to do. She doesn’t know, and he shudders at the thought of someone else granting her wish, someone who won’t make it good for her, someone not him.
He strikes first, a twisted, protective need flaring up in him. Puts his hand on her waist and pulls her flush against him. Thinks that the suddenness of the move will startle her enough to back down. It startles her alright, but there’s still a cool defiance in those gray eyes. A confidence and a self-assuredness in the way she tilts up her chin and brushes her lips over the slight stubble on his jaw. He clenches his jaw to suppress the tremble that threatens to run through him.
Point taken. She’s not going to give so easily, and he really should have known she wouldn’t. He walks them back to the nearest seat and pulls her onto his lap, facing away from him. He’s not sure he can do this if he can see her face, and that just underlines how twisted and wrong this is. There’s a small gasp from her, but she still doesn’t relent. He makes sure she can feel his arousal, hard against her ass, but she still does. not. give. She challenges him again by grinding herself against it, making him growl low in his throat from the friction. So be it.
He puts his feet on the inside of hers and applies just a little pressure. Skims his hands up her legs, taking her skirt with them, and lets them rest like heavy weights on the inside of her thighs, and this time it’s he who challenges her.
“If this is what you want, Jo, you’re gonna have to part your legs for me,” he mumbles against the slope of her neck. There’s a brief moment of hesitation, of uncertainty, before she rises to his challenge and lets him coax her legs apart, slowly and deliberately.
“Good girl,” he praises her, and hooks his calfs around hers, keeping her legs apart. At the first sign of her giving in and backing down, he’ll let her go, has to tell himself he will, because right now, he’s not so sure. But she still thinks she wants this, and he has to prove just how much she doesn’t. Has to prove why she doesn’t want someone almost old enough to be her father, fucking her for the first time. At least that’s what he tells himself, how he justifies doing what he’s doing right now. It’ll be what it is. Fucking. He’s not going to give her any illusions of romance right now. Not when she’s breaking apart one of the only true friendships he’s ever had.
She’s still not backing down, and he skims his hands a little further up. Lets the tips of his fingers trace the lines of her panties, and he doesn’t know for sure, but it feels like white cotton. She shivers and he kisses her neck again. “Say stop and I will,” he promises and she replies by grinding against his cock again. “Little minx,” he scolds, and there’s an affection in his voice, a kind teasing quality he’s sure shouldn’t be there. Not with his best friend’s 18 year old daughter.
There’s a playfulness to this, as if the challenges they’re throwing at each other is just a game, and not the very serious an catastrophic betrayal it really is. It helps a little, makes him lightheaded and he can’t believe she’s in his lap like this. It’s a horrible nightmare that is just too good to be true, and he never wants to wake up.
He dips his fingers inside the fabric and groans. They’ve barely even done anything, and she’s already wet. “How long have you fantasized about me doing this, Jo? About me fucking you?”
She chuckles, low and a little breathless, and tilts her head to give him better access to her neck. “About five years,” she answers honestly, and he twitches hard against her ass when she elaborates. “Used to try thinking of others, but you were the only one who could get me off in less than 5 minutes.”
“Jesus fuck, Jo,” he mutters and has to take a moment to remember how to breathe at that little revelation. Okay, he admits, she maybe she does want him, but that still doesn’t make it right. It’s a silly rock star crush, he tries to convince himself, it’ll pass as soon as they’re done here.
He eases her legs further apart, keeps them apart when she instinctively tries to close them as he parts her folds with a finger. “Say the word, and I’ll stop…” he promises again and he can feel her forcing her thighs to relax and let him do what she wants.
Somehow, this has gone from teaching her a lesson about wanting older men to fuck her, to wanting to make her come undone under his hands, all the pent up desire of the last month coming to a head and clouding his mind. He wants to be the first one to hear and watch her like this. He shouldn’t want it, but he does. He’s going to special hell, but he wants this.
One hand moves to cup a breast, teasing her clothed nipple with a thumb, as the other pulls her panties out of the way and introduces itself to her clitoris, making her whimper softly and push her hips into the touch.
“Like this, babe?” he whispers and she answers with a distracted, but emphatic nod.
His thumb takes up the acquaintance with her clit as he slides the finger down to circle her entrance, letting her decide when it enters her. With a greedy roll of her hips, it does, and she sucks in a sharp breath at the strange sensation, then clenches around him, making the edges of his vision darken with blind lust. Only the slight tremble of her thighs keeps him from pushing her to the floor and burying himself in all that tight, wet heat.
His hand moves of its own volition, knowing this game better than his conscious mind. It’s only when she gets close to the edge she starts protesting, little whimpered words like “Jim” and “Please” and “Too much” spilling from her lips. She doesn’t know how to take what he gives her, doesn’t know what lies just beyond that precipice he has her teetering on.
She asked for this, though, she wanted this, and he’s not going to let her go before he shows her what it was she demanded of him. He steadies her by moving the hand from her breast to wrap an arm around her waist, holding her close to him and mutters, “It’s okay, baby… Gonna make you feel so good. Like nothing else in the world… It’s okay, babe… Just let it happen, don’t fight it. I’m right here, honey… Right here and gonna catch you. Just let it happen.”
He increases the motions of his hand, and only now, only here, does he force her in any way. Takes away her choice and forces her over the edge until she’s shaking and crying out her climax in his arms. Wrenches every second of pleasure she’s capable of from her, then eases her back down and caresses her thigh and waist tenderly as she slumps back against him, panting, her thighs twitching arrhythmically.
“So good, Jo… So gorgeous when you come for me…” he praises her again, and she turns her head to kiss him softly, then draws back to reveal a secretive and smug little smile.
“Knew you could do it,” she practically purrs and shifts to straddle him, pulling his face in for a blindingly hot kiss. And apparently, she’s not a total stranger to how this works, because when they break apart, she has his pants open and is wrapping slender, unexperienced fingers around his achingly hard and horribly neglected cock.
He gasps and this time he’s the one who shudders at the sensations. She leaves him panting and slightly disoriented for a minute or two, returning sans panties and with a condom in her hand.
He’s going to hell, but fuck if it isn’t worth eternal damnation when she rolls the rubber down his length. His eyes meet hers, his a little desperate and uncertain, hers determined and much too certain for someone who’s never done this before. He only sees a flicker of doubt, of fear for the unknown in them as she positions herself above him. His hands go instinctively to her hips, bracing her and holding her steady as she slowly sinks down on him. His eyes roll back in his head and he pants with the effort it takes to not just pull her down on him or thrust up into her.
She pauses a few times, wincing a little, and it cuts through his haze of pleasure, making him still her progress and very gently ease her off. If he’s going to do this (and there really isn’t any going back now) he’s going to do it right.
The edge of her accusing look is somewhat softened by the furious blush creeping up her neck and coloring her cheeks, and he shakes his head and presses a soothing kiss to her lips. “I’ve got a better idea.” he whispers and sets her on her feet. She frowns a little, but nods her consent.
He tugs his pants off and scoops her up into his arms to carry her to his bedroom. Not hers, he can’t do this in hers, can’t taint her bed with this, wants to take everything that’s bad and wrong about this on his shoulders and keep it far away from her, even if she’s the one who started this.
He lays her gently down and pulls his shirt off, then undresses her with more tenderness than he thinks he should. This is just sex. It’s wrong and it’s with Jo, but it’s just sex, he reminds himself forcibly, not making room for emotions. If he lets one emotion creep in right now, they’ll all crash down on him and he thinks he just might drown if that happens.
So he doesn’t let his eyes linger too long on her naked form, though he’s sure the image is permanently etched onto his retina. Instead he kisses his way down her body, making her sigh softly, then squirm beneath him. He runs a finger through her folds, and shakes his head a little. “Not quite wet enough. Don’t ever let someone fuck you before you’re ready, Jo. Make them work for it.”
He settles between her legs and her eyes widen a little. “It’s okay, I love this part. I think you’re gonna love it too,” he soothes and presses soft kisses around her center, slowly circling in on where he knows she needs him the most. It doesn’t take long before she seems to have forgotten any and all embarrassment or hesitation, and she rests a tentative hand on his head to keep him there. His eyes lock with hers as he lifts his own hand to cover hers and curl her fingers in his short hair.
“It’s okay, it means you like what I’m doing,” he informs her and lowers his mouth to her again, alternating swift licks with broad strokes of his tongue, moaning emphatically and pointedly when he closes his lips over her clit and sucks it gently into his mouth. Her hips arch clean off the bed and she keens hoarsely, making his hands grip her and hold her steady. He broke his nose once like that and it’s not a lesson he needs to be taught twice.
“Some guys won’t know exactly what to do,” he mumbles against her between strokes of his tongue. “So you have to guide them. Show them what you like, and it’s easier with your hand in their hair. Means you can focus on what they’re doing and not on telling them what to do.”
There’s another absent nod from her, and she’s moaning and writhing again, her free hand fisting the sheets. He continues his slow explorations until she grinds out a low, frustrated “Jiiiiiim, please! Want you…” and that’s what he was waiting to hear.
He eases off her, makes his way back up to her lips and kisses her deeply because she needs to know there’s nothing gross about kissing someone who just went down on you.
She’s rolling her hips against his, shifting them restlessly to get him where she wants him, and he wraps an arm around her, holding her to him, and letting his elbow bear the brunt of his weight.
“Okay, sweetheart, okay,” he placates her and reaches down to take hold of himself and line up to her entrance. There’s so much trust in her eyes and he hates himself at the same time that he loves her for giving this to him. She nods once, and he slides in a couple of inches, and she’s still tight, but it’s easier than before when she was on top of him. He pauses each time he feels her tense, waiting for her to relax before he slides in another inch. He doesn’t know how he hasn’t incinerated yet, but he does know he’d rather die than hurt her.
There’s a bit of resistance and she makes a small, distressed sound when he pushes against it. He stills and looks at her with heartfelt regret, whispering softly (and maybe just a little brokenly), “I’m sorry, Jo, I’m so sorry, but I can’t make this not hurt. Can’t take the pain for you, even if I want to.”
She caresses his cheek with her hand, and she’s not the one who should be soothing him, calming him down, because this about her and giving her what she wants, and he doesn’t deserve her gentle caresses.
“It’s okay, Jim, I know you can’t. But you want to, and that’s why I chose you for this. It’s okay, I’m not going to break. Please continue?”
There’s not much he can really say to that, and he nods a little, then screws his eyes shut as he pushes past the slight resistance. It gives more easily than he expected, and he’s never in his life been so grateful that Jocelyn decided she should learn how to ride, or that she took to horses like a duck to water.
She goes very still, the only sign of her discomfort the way her short nails are digging into his shoulder, and he can’t stop himself from muttering a litany of hushed apologies against her forehead. When he looks at her again, there’s a small smile on her lips, one he has to kiss just to taste its sweetness, and she giggles a little helplessly.
“I’m okay, Jim,” she promises and he relaxes a little.
“You sure?”
She cuffs his shoulder lightly, and he can tell it hurt more than she lets on by the set of her mouth, but there’s still that stubborn determination in her eyes when she rolls her hips experimentally and he answers with a cautious thrust. “Like that,” she sighs and repeats the move, gradually pulling back a little more and thrusting a little deeper.
It takes a little while, but then she’s moaning again, and fuck if he can help himself now. He lets go and loses himself in the steady rhythm, hears his voice moan out her name like a prayer, and he never says names during sex, but he doesn’t fuck his friends’ daughters either, so rules are meaningless in all this. His thumb finds her clit again and it’s like an answered, desperate plea when he feels her clench and release repeatedly around him until his mind whites out and he comes from his fucking toes on up.
As the world gradually materializes around him again, he becomes dimly aware that he’s collapsed on top of her, and that she’s cradling him against her chest, rubbing soothing circles on his back. Each breath burns in his lungs and his eyes are stinging a little, something he’s not too keen on examining further, especially since he feels safer and more loved than he has since he was a child.
They lay in silence for a long time, each trying to catch their breath, and his mind is racing in a frantic search for meaning in all this, the implications and consequences of what they’ve just done crashing in on him.
“Stop thinking so loud, you’ll give me a headache,” she nudges him gently, and he chuckles quietly as her words seem to momentarily cleanse him of sin. His body is humming softly, a low thrum in the background like there’s a warp drive under his feet, and he levers himself up on his elbow, easing his weight off her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to crush you,” he mumbles and kisses her tenderly, and he can’t understand where the smile on his face comes from. It has no right to be there, not right now when there’s still an oppressive blanket of guilt in the back of his mind.
“You need to lose weight,” she teases him and pinches his side, making him squirm away a little.
“Hey, this is one fine body, I’ll have you know. One-hundred percent concentrated hot.”
The eyeroll she gives him is disturbingly familiar, and she must see that on his face because the smile she gives him is sincere and just a little shy.
“Thank you.” Her voice is soft and sounds so much younger than he’s comfortable with right now. “I didn’t want to do this with anyone else. Don’t think it would have been as nice with anyone else.”
“You’re amazing, Jo,” he answers, just as sincerely and brushes the hair away from her face. “You don’t need to thank me. What you just gave me… It was amazing, and I’ll never forget it. I should be thanking you.”
They don’t talk much for a while after that, too busy touching and kissing, and it’s not so much about sex as it’s about making sure they’re both there and that this is real. She winces a little when he pulls out and moves to the bathroom to clean up. Blushes furiously when he comes back with a warm, damp cloth and gently cleans her. There’s not much blood, and he shrugs casually and says it’s not important, that it’s the least he can do after fucking her into the mattress. Her blush deepens at that, but it’s not embarrassment that’s the cause anymore.
They separate half an hour before Bones comes home, having gone through the flat together to make sure there’s no evidence of what’s happened. They both pretend to have been asleep for hours, and as Jim lies in his bed, the bed that still smells like Jo and sex, unable to sleep and staring out the window at the starry sky, he’s baffled that guilt isn’t his most prominent emotion right now. His most prominent emotion is the desire to have Jo back in his arms and hold her as they fall asleep, and he hasn’t wanted anything this much since he first saw the Enterprise at Riverside Shipyards a lifetime ago, in the same hour just before dawn as it is now.
For a while, they pretend nothing has happened, that nothing has changed, but it has. He can’t look Bones in the eye anymore, and he can’t help smiling when he looks into Jo’s eyes.
He vows to himself it’ll never happen again, that it was just one time, one wish he granted her and that’s it. The itch reappears, along with the restlessness, but this time, he doesn’t go to bars or on a road trip. He buries himself in work, both for his classes and for the refitting of the Enterprise. Because it will never. happen. again..
It happens again.
A week later, Bones is working the graveyard shift again, and when Jo comes home they take one look at each other, and the next thing he knows, clothes are being hurriedly torn off and he’s fucking her on the kitchen counter.
And again.
Two days after the kitchen, she sneaks into his bedroom in the middle of the night, and he bites down on her shoulder when he comes to keep from crying out her name. They’re lucky that it rains the following week, because Bones doesn’t question why she’s swapped her tank tops for long sleeves, or why she’s wearing pants (to hide the hand shaped bruises Jim left on her hips as he fucked her slowly and thoroughly an hour before Bones woke up).
It keeps happening, over and over and over. They never talk about it, never talk about what it means, how this changes everything between them. And it’s breaking him apart. His restlessness is almost deafening sometimes, and the only time it stops is when he’s alone with Jo.
The summer is drawing to a close, and she’ll be going back to Georgia soon, and it’s like a sharp pain in his chest every time he thinks of not waking up to hidden smiles over the rim of her coffee cup. When he thinks of not falling asleep with her scent strong on his pillow, filling his nose and making him sleep better than he has for a very long time.
Bones never seems to suspect a thing and while Jim hates every second of lying to his friend, he knows it’s better this way.
Two days before she’s supposed to leave, she walks in, just as Jim and Bones are sitting down to dinner. The semester starts in a week, and when it’s over, they’ll be going up in the Black again. Jim can’t wait. Because it’ll mean no Jo, no more sneaking around, no more tearing his own heart out when she leaves his bed before dawn.
Because as good as he is at deceiving Bones, as much as he tries to convince himself it isn’t true, he knows deep down inside that he’s fallen in love with Jo. Hard and irrevocably in love. And while it’s going to kill him not to see her every day, he knows she’s young and that while she likes him, she’s going to find the next best thing that comes along when he leaves on his new mission, and that he’ll be nothing but a sweet memory of a summer fling to her. Which is exactly why he never tells her how he feels, and never listens when she slips and moans out hushed declarations of love when they fuck.
That’s not the point, though. The point is that he’s just about to dig into his steak when she walks in, a wide, slightly anxious grin on her face, wearing cadet fucking reds.
The room goes deathly silent for a long stretched out minute. Then Bones explodes. They argue and Jo looks pleadingly at Jim, begging him to help appease her dad. She’s obviously mistaken his silence for diplomatic neutrality. Because where Bones is just angry, Jim is absolutely livid. Because he is not about to let her make a decision like that based on their sick, twisted little imitation of a relationship.
He grabs his jacket without a word and leaves the flat.
They don’t talk for four days, he can’t even bring himself to look at her, and while Bones grudgingly comes around and accepts her decision, Jim doesn’t. He can’t help ruin her life like this. Bones even tries to talk to him, tries to tell him that it would mean so much to Jo if her Uncle Jim backed her up in this. Jim can barely speak for the bile that rises up in his throat at the title. Uncle Jim. It makes him sound like a child molester. The friendly uncle who doesn’t quite know when touching crosses the line from affection to sex. He knows where the line is, and Jo is 18, so he knows that logically, he hasn’t done anything illegal. Just morally fucked up.
On the fifth day of being studiously ignored by him, Jo has had enough. He can feel it, can sense her seething across the breakfast table, and when Bones leaves for his shift, she backs Jim up against the wall and hisses. “What the hell is your problem?!”
His eyes narrow dangerously and yeah, okay, he knows he provokes her, but he is royally pissed off, he’s had his heart trampled and he’s clinging to the last shreds of his pride. “My problem?! I’m not the one changing my life because of some childish fantasy where I catch the great Captain Kirk and make him stay on Earth to fuck me behind Daddy’s back whenever I want him to. I’m not going to help you ruin your life because of me!”
She slaps him. Hard enough to make his ears ring and glares, her voice low and icy. “Get over yourself, Captain. I’ve wanted to be a nurse since I was six, and I’m not one of your dimwit blondes who can’t make a single solitary decision without your help. I was hoping you of all people would understand, but I guess I was wrong in thinking you were different.”
She turns on her heel and slams the door behind her when she leaves.
They gradually start talking again, and he helps her move into her dorm room. They never touch anymore, and they never look at each other for longer than strictly necessary, and they certainly don’t fuck anymore. He thinks it’s maybe better this way, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. The truth is, he hates it, and it hurts more than he thought possible. Each time he sees her, another little piece of his heart shatters, and he becomes increasingly impatient for their new five year mission to start.
Time passes in the same unsympathetic way it always does, both too fast and not fast enough. Before he knows it, he’s taking a tour of his ship again and getting ready to head out, but he’s still restless and he’s still itching under his skin, but he knows it’ll stop once he’s in his chair again.
He says goodbye to Jo in front of Bones, because he doesn’t trust himself to not pull her into his arms and try to get one more night with her. It’s an amicable goodbye, and everything it technically should be, and he didn’t think there was anything left of his heart to break, but there she goes, proving him wrong again.
They head out and it feels like coming home, but he’s learned that there’s no coming home again once you’ve left. Still, it’s the closest thing he’s got when he sits in his chair and gives the first order of the mission, ordering for warp 3, and watches infinity stretch out before him.
The itch lessens, but it never really goes away. His heart slowly begins to heal again, and he can smile more genuinely as the months pass. He has good days and bad days. The bad days are usually after he wakes up with the ghost of her scent on his pillow and can’t go back to sleep because his mind is too busy replaying every caress, every moan, every touch that ever passed between them.
Months turn into years, and he thinks he’s gotten over her when one day he receives a transfer notice from Admiral Pike. It’s not unusual, it happens every once in a while when there’s a crew member who’s requested reassignment back to Earth, and this time it’s Nurse Johnson and Lieutenant Johnson who’ve made the request. He married them six months earlier, so it’s no surprise when Erica tells him she’s pregnant one day in the briefing room.
What is a surprise, one that makes his heart skip a beat, is the name of her replacement. Joanna McCoy. He knows he can’t refuse the transfer, it would be unprofessional and raise way too many eyebrows, so he tells himself he’s over her, and that it’ll be fine. He’s over her. It doesn’t sting to see her name on the PADD. It doesn’t. Because he’s so much over her it’s not even funny.
It takes two weeks before everything goes through, and suddenly she’s there on the transporter pad. She looks older and maybe a little wiser, but her smile is still like liquid honey that makes desire race against fear to see which one makes it up his spine first.
He goes to her quarters that night, and he doesn’t speak, doesn’t even really wait for the door to slide shut as he casts a glance around the room to make sure she’s alone. And then, before she can speak, he has her face in his hands and is slowly licking her lips apart. She gives under his assault, parts her lips and lets him in, backs down when he pushes, and the itch stops. The restlessness stops. Everything that isn’t them just… Stops. It clicks for him then, like the final piece of a huge, complicated puzzle snapping into place, and when he’s forced to come up for air, he looks into her eyes and thinks he might be drowning, but it’s okay as long as she’s there with him.
And he speaks the words he’s never allowed himself to before. “I love you. I’m an idiot, I’m an ass and I don’t deserve you, but I love you. Always did, ever since I opened the door to the flat that day and couldn’t stop staring at your legs.”
She smiles again, and this time, fear is nowhere near his spine, because her smile is bright and happy, and there are unshed tears in her eyes.
“I should kick you out and tell you never to go near me again for how you treated me when you left,” she says, but there’s too much happiness in her voice for him to be worried she’ll do what she threatens to. “I’ve loved you since I met you, Jim. Maybe not like this, until I grew up a little, but I still loved you. I’m not letting you get away from me again.”
He laughs, bright and openly and carries her to bed. Oh, he knows Bones will kill him in the worst possible way, and he knows it’s not going to be easy, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters, because she’s with him, kissing him and letting him undress her, and he’s stopped itching. All the noise has stopped, and she’s the one who made it go away, who always makes it go away. And he knows that no matter what changes around him, she’ll always make the itching stop, she’ll always make him calm again, and he’s not giving that up for anything. They have a year before this mission ends, so he has a year to convince her and Bones this is the way things are meant to be. It’s an impossible challenge, but those have always been his favorite kind. As he slowly, reverently slides into her for the first time in what feels like an eternity, he thinks that he got it all wrong, after all. You can go home again, you just have to find where home is to do it.