Title: my love, the astronaut
Author:
eudaimonRating: R-ish
Wordcount: 687.
Pairing: Pike/Kirk
Summary: "You want to know the most important thing about Captaining a star-ship?" he asks him, and, somewhere above him, Jim nods.
A/N: Just a little thing, based on a request by
rubynye.
I would gladly stay, an afterthought.
The wind is ever-present and it stirs the leaves in the dry trees and howls across the canyon towards the house. There's a woman who spends some of her days here who tells him stories about a woman in the sky who makes the rains come but Chris Pike has been there, way up there beyond the blue, and all he ever saw was stars.
You find different things to believe in. There are many places to begin.
The wind stirs Jim's shirt where it's open save for one button, flapping the fabric at his sides and, leaning his weight onto one crutch, Chris reaches around him and undoes the last button. He slips his free hand under Jim's open shirt, resting it against Jim's chest. He can feel the strong rhythm of Jim's heart, an aching counterpoint to the mournful sound of the wind in the branches of the trees.
He drops the crutch and leans his weight against Jim instead.
"When you do you leave?"
He asks the question even though he knows the answer. He wrote the order. He wrote the outline of the mission. He knows exactly where it is that James T. Kirk is going to boldly go.
"Tomorrow," says Jim and turns his head, his nose grazing against Chris' temple and Chris pretends not to notice how careful Jim is to keep him standing. "Tomorrow at six."
Chris' free arm curls around Jim's waist and pulls their bodies snug together and, for a moment, they just stand there, Chris' arms around him, one hand on Jim's hip and the other on his heart, and all his weight leaned onto Jim's feet.
"Come on," he says. "I've got something to give you before you go."
Jim turns in his arms, a smile catching the corner of his mouth and holds. He looks so young, so beautiful and so careless than Chris can't resist it; he leans in and kisses him, his hand slipping up to the back of his neck and holding on. Jim gives himself as utterly as he gives himself to every kiss, sucking on Chris' bottom lip. Jim shrugs out of his shirt and the wind's cool but Jim's warm and, for a moment, Chris presses close.
The kiss breaks with one, two, three smaller kisses pressed against the corner of his mouth to seal it.
Jim's eyes are wide and blue and Chris finds himself thinking about that woman in the sky again.
"What?" he asks and, with regret, Chris pulls away and then he offers Jim his hand.
"Orders," he says, and now he's the one he's smiling. "Advice. Things to take with you."
"I don't even know where I'm going," says Jim.
"That's part of it, too," he says.
*
He draws a map on the flat, smooth muscles of Jim's belly and he drops kisses and every kiss is a projected star-date, another place where the Enterprise will be going. Jim lies there with his head resting on his folded arm and watches.
"Be good to your crew and they'll respect you," he says, his mouth lingering against Jim's chest, kissing over smooth skin and hair, teasing the edge of his nipple with the tip of his tongue. "Be brave for them and they'll love you."
What Chris knows is this: that Jim Kirk never has any problem finding bravery, which sometimes makes him restless but doesn't make him difficult to love.
There's a lingering weakness in him, so he doesn't move much; no sex, and definitely no dancing, just him lying there and he ends up with his cheek resting against the warm skin of Jim's chest and Jim's fingers in his hair. He drifts a little, lying there with a pleasant heaviness in his limbs and stars spangled across Jim's bare skin.
"You want to know the most important thing about Captaining a star-ship?" he asks him, and, somewhere above him, Jim nods.
"You have to want to know what's up beyond the blue," he says, and, somewhere inside of him, there's still someone who knows that there has to be more than just stars.