Congrats, You've Met Your Match (The Space Captain Remix) [Star Trek XI/Stargate Atlantis]
Title: Congrats, You've Met Your Match (The Space Captain Remix)
Author: roga
Rating: R
Fandom: Star Trek (2009)/SGA
Spoilers and/or Warnings: none.
Words: 3000
Notes: Remix of sabinelagrande's Takes One to Know One. Thank you to thedeadparrot and sabrina_il, my amazing, cheerleading betas who improved this infinitely ♥.
Summary: Jim Kirk has issues with the new guy. (Academy fic)
"Have you seen the new guy?" Jim hisses at Bones indignantly.
Bones jumps. "Dammit, Jim, do not sneak up on people who are holding sharp needles and lethal substances in their hands!" Bones carefully puts down his hypo and the concoction of potentially sterilizing shiny green goo on his desk, and turns to Jim crankily. "What do you want?"
Jim grabs Bones by the shoulder and drags him to the thin rectangular slit in the wall, which is the med lab's excuse for a window. "That guy," he points, narrowing his eyes at the new cadet leaning against a bench in the quad, arms folded lazily on his chest, his red Starfleet uniform a little scuffed around the edges, hair looking like it was styled by a compass caught in a magnetic field. Five female cadets are just kind of randomly loitering around him innocently, and a bunch of other cadets that are milling around are throwing him curious looks. It makes Jim want to puke. "First day here and he's strutting around like he owns the place, it's disgusting."
"He's just standing there," Bones points out.
Jim glares at Bones accusingly. "You're taking his side?"
Bones rolls his eyes. "Get out of my lab."
"I need information, Bones," Jim presses. "What do you know? Come on," Jim elbows him, all wink-wink-nudge-nudge animated body language when he's excited, "we both know you're chummy with the higher ups. I need the scoop on this guy."
Bones rubs his eyes with his ungloved hand, fights a losing battle with himself, and sighs. "If I enable your uncalled for territorial masculine paranoia, do you promise not to bother me at work for a month?"
"A week, absolutely," Jim promises, and smacks a kiss to Bones' cheek before sprinting out the door, stealthy intel-gathering mission accomplished.
"And scotch too!" Bones yells to his back. "A tub of it!"
*
All right, so the info Bones manages to scrounge up isn't entirely useless. The guy's name is Sheppard, and he was transferred here from Arizona. He'd gotten his flight wings a few years prior -- wings, by the way, that he did not hesitate to boastfully pin on his lapels every morning, polished till they shined, utterly distasteful, Jim noted -- and now he's stationed at the Academy to undergo extra command training because they're planning on promoting the guy or something, Bones was a little skimpy on the details. Point is, new guy's stealing all of Jim's thunder, and that is just not on. At the end of the year, there's gonna be one cadet at the top of the line for starship command, and that is going to be be Jim Kirk.
Of course, whenever he tells people about being upstaged by this relative newbie, 'people' in this case meaning 'Bones', all he gets is eye-rolls (and okay, the occasional threat of bodily harm if he doesn't shut up). Bones keeps insisting that Sheppard isn't even trying to succeed in this place, which, hello, has Bones been paying attention? Sheppard's schmoozing his way to the top of the lists by looking like he's not making an effort -- brilliant tactic, but Jim can see right through him. Those un-ironed yet very-well-fitting uniform pants are hiding extra hours of field and target practice; those hours spent strumming the guitar on the front steps of the academy are all intended to lull the other cadets into complacency, getting them to hang around with Sheppard instead of study. Also possibly there's some kind of hypnotic element in Sheppard's music, because there's no way Jim would have spent so much time lounging on the steps along with said cadets otherwise, so that's something he still has to look into -- maybe some kind of Vulcan telepathy? -- there's something going on there, fingers strumming some strings can't be so naturally mesmerizing.
And the guy never even takes notes in classes -- says he doesn't do well with paperwork, and fuck if paperwork isn't the bane of Jim's existence but he does it anyway like a good little future captain; Sheppard just gets the material from his adoring classmates, half of whom offer him private lessons because god forbid he actually strain his eyes to read from the screen of a PADD. Yet despite his glaring academic incompetence, Sheppard doesn't seem to be doing badly at school.
Point is, Sheppard means trouble. And Trouble is James T. Kirk's middle name. Give or take a few letters.
Well, anyway, when Raymee cancels her date with Jim because she 'has a headache', which in these days is apparently only a polite synonym for 'seen sucking face with Sheppard at Lou's later that night', Jim figures he needs to come up with a plan.
*
Jim comes up with a plan.
"Oh my god," Bones groans when he completely voluntarily requests to hear of the plan because he loves and supports Jim like a brother and he cares about his dire situation. “How on earth do you think that that would help your contrived and imagined 'situation' in any way? At all?”
Jim folds his hands behind his head smugly. "It's my charm. I'm irresistible."
"Jim, I already know that you jerk off to a picture of yourself every night. I'm waiting to hear a point."
"When I seduce Sheppard, it'll knock him off balance and bring him over to my side." Jim rubs his hands together. "It's perfect."
"You do realize that you sound like a slightly psychopathic Dark Lord," Bones comments -- which is ridiculous because how can a Dark Lord be only slightly psychopathic? -- "all for the sake of getting laid by a hot guy."
"Hey," Jim retorts, wounded, "I'm the hot guy in this equation. Don't forget that."
Bones stares, and then pointedly lowers his eyes to Jim's foot, which has unwittingly crossed the threshold into the crisply clean floor of Bones' forbidden sanctuary.
"Right," Jim says, and takes a step back, "out of the med lab. Catch you later."
*
The thing is, Jim's brilliant plan to seduce John Sheppard into being second best has some snags. The first and most important of which is -- well, apparently, Sheppard is sort of cute.
So yeah, Jim totally went there are made his first move by offering Sheppard his notes. Sheppard was a little weird about it at first, giving Jim this blank expression, almost as if he were unsure what Jim's intentions were -- and really, if the guy suspected his classmates of having nefarious intentions when they were just offering him notes, it certainly indicated that he was himself untrustworthy.
When he emails Jim back the notes, though, there's a short comment tacked on -- Thanks, followed by a twisted little emoticon which Jim has to look up before deciding that it's probably a smiley that's winking and sticking its tongue out and also has a very large nose, and two out of three are flirty, so Jim's cool with that.
After that, he manages to get himself assigned as Sheppard's gym partner for Advanced Hand to Hand Combat. It works like a charm -- Jim totally lets himself be punched in the face a couple of times because he knows it makes him look hot, and sure enough, when they're both winding down later, catching their breath with their elbows on their knees, he definitely catches Sheppard licking his lips as he stares at Jim's mouth. (Later, Bones kicks Jim in the shins for letting himself get punched in the face. Sometimes Jim really doesn't get who licensed that man to practice medicine.)
So yeah, Jim is 90% sure Sheppard thinks he's hot. And Sheppard -- well, okay, so after the wrestling his hair is even more mussed up than usual, kind of gorgeously spiky and damp with sweat, and even if he weren't just trying to take control of this Academy back into his own hands, Jim would not actually object to tapping that. When Sheppard walks Jim back to his apartment later, he can't help but notice how Sheppard's ass kind of shimmies from side to side in a way that makes it really hard to stop staring, and -- Sheppard's probably just limping because of the way Jim owned him in their workout, but if so, it's probably the sexiest limp Jim's ever seen.
They end up watching a movie in Jim's quarters -- Jim is pretty sure Bones won't show up since he's been warned that "I am having sex tonight, Bones, whether I have the place to myself or not". Halfway through the first act Jim's arm is around Sheppard's shoulders -- yawn-and-stretch, yes, he went there too -- and then he trails his hand up Sheppard's neck and Sheppard shivers quietly, lets the back of his neck be stroked for a few more minutes before turning his head to face Jim with a kind of resigned smile and saying, "How do I always find myself in these situations."
Jim grins back, and leans in just close enough that he can feel Sheppard's breaths on his mouth, forcing Sheppard to close the distance.
*
It doesn't work.
This is a pretty huge disappointment to Jim, who doesn't have much experience with failure, and who also plans to make a career out of planning strategies and working situations to his own advantage.
It's not the seduction itself that failed, of course -- there was no question about that going according to plan. No, the sex was great. It was even, one might say, fantastic, and okay, yeah, Jim pretty much spends all of Intro to Advanced Interspecies Relations replying it in his mind, which is less than productive.
The problem is, though, that Sheppard doesn't seem to be quite as affected by it as Jim had hoped. Because Jim knows Sheppard had a good time -- Sheppard had three good times, actually, which, go Jim -- but he's not sauntering around campus with a dazed smile on his face or anything the next day, which was what Jim was going for. No, when Jim spots him across the cafeteria during lunch, Sheppard just gives him this small smile, which is almost, god, sweet or something, and then he aces the pop quiz that Major Bensen springs on them in Stellar Cartography.
So Sheppard is neither besotted nor appearing to decline academically. "Huge surprise," Bones notes dryly.
"Small hitch in the plan," Jim waves him off, because if you want to get anywhere, you've gotta think positive. "I know what I have to do. I just have to dial up the awesome."
"...Of course you do,” Bones sighs, and bans Jim from the infirmary. Jim is pretty sure that one of these days he'll find his name on a blacklist taped to the door of the entire medical complex, but that's okay, one bridge at a time.
So Jim dials up the awesome. He takes Sheppard out for burgers and beer and then blows him against the brick wall of a secluded alley and it's a little sleazy but really hot, Sheppard's hand thrust in Jim's hair and the other muffling his own moans. He takes Sheppard out in the morning, jogging down to the Bay in the chilly air until they collapse on the gray beach, exhausted and energized at the same time, and it's early enough that there are only two other people there, maybe, so nobody notices when Sheppard's breath hitches, not from the cold but from Jim's hand sliding down his running shorts, and they still make it back to the Academy in time for class.
And there are, well, the nights they stay in. Jim starts feeling guilty when Bones packs a sleeping bag and a toothbrush and decides to camp out in his "laboratory," pronounced dramatically with five pissed off syllables, until Jim "gets this pornographic madness out of his system". They alternate between Jim's quarters and Sheppard's, whose roommate is, ironically, temporarily hospitalized for Gritsu pox and probably ends up sharing a night or two with Bones. Sheppard's bed is bigger and softer than Jim's anyway -- perks you get when you're already a certified pilot -- and it'd kind of perfect for Jim to push Sheppard down on and have his way with him. Jim uses every trick he can think of; he utilizes food products and textiles, flavored sex toys and the occasional article of Starfleet-issued gear, his hands and his lips and his tongue and his body, fast and urgent and tortuously slow.
So yeah, by this point the sex has officially tipped over to amazing, and Jim is pretty pleased with himself for surpassing his own awesomeness every night. Granted, Sheppard may have something to do with it -- his laid back attitude means he pretty much flows with anything, and he makes the best noises, and he sucks cock like a fucking Olympic champion. And once or twice or maybe a little more often then that, Jim will hear these soft, needy whimpers coming from someone's throat, and be surprised to realize that they're coming from him.
By the time two weeks have passed, Jim isn't any closer to cracking Sheppard's climb to Captainship, but then the truly horrifying realization hits -- that it's possible he doesn't want to stop sleeping with Sheppard. Possibly ever.
It's like something is broken in Jim's brain, and for a second he even considers consulting Bones about it before deciding that having nine hypos jammed into his neck probably won't benefit anyone in this situation other than Bones' inner sadist. And Sheppard, who's always been a little weird, starts acting even weirder. He's still the same guy who breezes through the Academy like it's a long drawn out summer camp or something, and unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be fazed at all by all the amazing sex he's having with Jim, except that -- well, for one, he looks over Jim's Stellar Cartography quiz, and then teaches him this cute little memory trick that actually helps calculate this stuff. And when they're sparring -- and at this point Jim has stopped holding back, because fuck it, he can already get Sheppard in bed whenever he wants to, and giving it all he's got actually makes for an exhilarating kind of prolonged and public foreplay -- well, if Jim gets hurt, which still happens on occasion because Sheppard is not all that bad, Sheppard will... well, he gives Jim this look, later. Kind of tender, almost, and he might touch the tips of his fingers lightly to Jim's bruised face, or press a close mouthed kiss to Jim's split upper lip, and...
Jim doesn't really know what's going on.
It's a small comfort that sometimes, when he pushes Sheppard down and licks into his mouth with a hand pressed flat against Sheppard's chest, Sheppard's eyebrows will lift with this small, almost surprised smile, and it seems like maybe Sheppard doesn't entirely know what's going on either.
*
So they've slept together -- many, many, many, Jim still smirks to himself, times -- but they've never actually spent the entire night together, which is why when they finally do, it comes as a shock to Jim when in the morning he catches Sheppard in the bathroom, hands slick with about five types of Bones' various hair products, gently massaging them into the sculpted natural disaster he calls his hair.
"Son of a bitch!" Jim's eyes widen. "You do style your hair to look like that!"
Sheppard looks at him a little sheepishly through the mirror. "It's not like I put in too much effort. Just, like, twenty minutes each morning."
Twenty minutes of 'no effort' -- and suddenly things start falling into place, and Jim's jaw drops. "Oh my god. That little walking slink. That was on purpose too! All this time, you were trying to seduce me!"
Sheppard raises an eyebrow, but then the mask of innocence falls off, and holy crap, it's a mask, Jim knew it. "Okay, maybe," Sheppard admits. "You had fun, though, right?"
He says this with a sort of smirk, and fuck it, "Fuck it, I was the one who seduced you!" Jim retorts, and adds vehemently, pointing at Sheppard's still-naked but not-the-time-to-pay-attention-to-that chest: "Look, dude, you're hot and all, but I have my eyes set on a certain spaceship and I am not letting you and your little guitar-playing low-riding uniform pants get in my way."
And Sheppard smirks and says easily, "A, my pants don't play the guitar, and B, I'm not actually sure I want to be in command of anything, but if I did, you'd probably want me on your ship."
Jim pauses. "On my ship?" And then he blinks and asks, "Why were you trying to sleep with me anyway?"
Sheppard wipes his hands on a towel and finally turns around from the mirror with that smirk on his face and gives Jim a very, very slow once-over, and oh. Yeah, okay, Jim gets that.
"So -- you're not actually trying to get command of a ship," Jim says, just to clarify, because it's the kind of thing that makes him doubt Sheppard's sanity but also feels a little too good to be true.
"Nope," Sheppard says, leaning against the bathroom door frame. "I understand that captaining a ship is something that requires paperwork, and on occasion, diplomacy." His smile turns rueful. "I'm not a huge fan."
"Oh." And it's just occurring to Jim that maybe he doesn't have to compete against the new guy, and yeah, that's kind of cool. And also -- he checks his clock, and yeah, there's totally enough time before class for a quickie. He grins. "I can work with that."
*
Even though Bones was entirely unsupportive throughout the whole affair, Jim ends up buying him a tub of scotch anyway.
Author: roga
Rating: R
Fandom: Star Trek (2009)/SGA
Spoilers and/or Warnings: none.
Words: 3000
Notes: Remix of sabinelagrande's Takes One to Know One. Thank you to thedeadparrot and sabrina_il, my amazing, cheerleading betas who improved this infinitely ♥.
Summary: Jim Kirk has issues with the new guy. (Academy fic)
"Have you seen the new guy?" Jim hisses at Bones indignantly.
Bones jumps. "Dammit, Jim, do not sneak up on people who are holding sharp needles and lethal substances in their hands!" Bones carefully puts down his hypo and the concoction of potentially sterilizing shiny green goo on his desk, and turns to Jim crankily. "What do you want?"
Jim grabs Bones by the shoulder and drags him to the thin rectangular slit in the wall, which is the med lab's excuse for a window. "That guy," he points, narrowing his eyes at the new cadet leaning against a bench in the quad, arms folded lazily on his chest, his red Starfleet uniform a little scuffed around the edges, hair looking like it was styled by a compass caught in a magnetic field. Five female cadets are just kind of randomly loitering around him innocently, and a bunch of other cadets that are milling around are throwing him curious looks. It makes Jim want to puke. "First day here and he's strutting around like he owns the place, it's disgusting."
"He's just standing there," Bones points out.
Jim glares at Bones accusingly. "You're taking his side?"
Bones rolls his eyes. "Get out of my lab."
"I need information, Bones," Jim presses. "What do you know? Come on," Jim elbows him, all wink-wink-nudge-nudge animated body language when he's excited, "we both know you're chummy with the higher ups. I need the scoop on this guy."
Bones rubs his eyes with his ungloved hand, fights a losing battle with himself, and sighs. "If I enable your uncalled for territorial masculine paranoia, do you promise not to bother me at work for a month?"
"A week, absolutely," Jim promises, and smacks a kiss to Bones' cheek before sprinting out the door, stealthy intel-gathering mission accomplished.
"And scotch too!" Bones yells to his back. "A tub of it!"
*
All right, so the info Bones manages to scrounge up isn't entirely useless. The guy's name is Sheppard, and he was transferred here from Arizona. He'd gotten his flight wings a few years prior -- wings, by the way, that he did not hesitate to boastfully pin on his lapels every morning, polished till they shined, utterly distasteful, Jim noted -- and now he's stationed at the Academy to undergo extra command training because they're planning on promoting the guy or something, Bones was a little skimpy on the details. Point is, new guy's stealing all of Jim's thunder, and that is just not on. At the end of the year, there's gonna be one cadet at the top of the line for starship command, and that is going to be be Jim Kirk.
Of course, whenever he tells people about being upstaged by this relative newbie, 'people' in this case meaning 'Bones', all he gets is eye-rolls (and okay, the occasional threat of bodily harm if he doesn't shut up). Bones keeps insisting that Sheppard isn't even trying to succeed in this place, which, hello, has Bones been paying attention? Sheppard's schmoozing his way to the top of the lists by looking like he's not making an effort -- brilliant tactic, but Jim can see right through him. Those un-ironed yet very-well-fitting uniform pants are hiding extra hours of field and target practice; those hours spent strumming the guitar on the front steps of the academy are all intended to lull the other cadets into complacency, getting them to hang around with Sheppard instead of study. Also possibly there's some kind of hypnotic element in Sheppard's music, because there's no way Jim would have spent so much time lounging on the steps along with said cadets otherwise, so that's something he still has to look into -- maybe some kind of Vulcan telepathy? -- there's something going on there, fingers strumming some strings can't be so naturally mesmerizing.
And the guy never even takes notes in classes -- says he doesn't do well with paperwork, and fuck if paperwork isn't the bane of Jim's existence but he does it anyway like a good little future captain; Sheppard just gets the material from his adoring classmates, half of whom offer him private lessons because god forbid he actually strain his eyes to read from the screen of a PADD. Yet despite his glaring academic incompetence, Sheppard doesn't seem to be doing badly at school.
Point is, Sheppard means trouble. And Trouble is James T. Kirk's middle name. Give or take a few letters.
Well, anyway, when Raymee cancels her date with Jim because she 'has a headache', which in these days is apparently only a polite synonym for 'seen sucking face with Sheppard at Lou's later that night', Jim figures he needs to come up with a plan.
*
Jim comes up with a plan.
"Oh my god," Bones groans when he completely voluntarily requests to hear of the plan because he loves and supports Jim like a brother and he cares about his dire situation. “How on earth do you think that that would help your contrived and imagined 'situation' in any way? At all?”
Jim folds his hands behind his head smugly. "It's my charm. I'm irresistible."
"Jim, I already know that you jerk off to a picture of yourself every night. I'm waiting to hear a point."
"When I seduce Sheppard, it'll knock him off balance and bring him over to my side." Jim rubs his hands together. "It's perfect."
"You do realize that you sound like a slightly psychopathic Dark Lord," Bones comments -- which is ridiculous because how can a Dark Lord be only slightly psychopathic? -- "all for the sake of getting laid by a hot guy."
"Hey," Jim retorts, wounded, "I'm the hot guy in this equation. Don't forget that."
Bones stares, and then pointedly lowers his eyes to Jim's foot, which has unwittingly crossed the threshold into the crisply clean floor of Bones' forbidden sanctuary.
"Right," Jim says, and takes a step back, "out of the med lab. Catch you later."
*
The thing is, Jim's brilliant plan to seduce John Sheppard into being second best has some snags. The first and most important of which is -- well, apparently, Sheppard is sort of cute.
So yeah, Jim totally went there are made his first move by offering Sheppard his notes. Sheppard was a little weird about it at first, giving Jim this blank expression, almost as if he were unsure what Jim's intentions were -- and really, if the guy suspected his classmates of having nefarious intentions when they were just offering him notes, it certainly indicated that he was himself untrustworthy.
When he emails Jim back the notes, though, there's a short comment tacked on -- Thanks, followed by a twisted little emoticon which Jim has to look up before deciding that it's probably a smiley that's winking and sticking its tongue out and also has a very large nose, and two out of three are flirty, so Jim's cool with that.
After that, he manages to get himself assigned as Sheppard's gym partner for Advanced Hand to Hand Combat. It works like a charm -- Jim totally lets himself be punched in the face a couple of times because he knows it makes him look hot, and sure enough, when they're both winding down later, catching their breath with their elbows on their knees, he definitely catches Sheppard licking his lips as he stares at Jim's mouth. (Later, Bones kicks Jim in the shins for letting himself get punched in the face. Sometimes Jim really doesn't get who licensed that man to practice medicine.)
So yeah, Jim is 90% sure Sheppard thinks he's hot. And Sheppard -- well, okay, so after the wrestling his hair is even more mussed up than usual, kind of gorgeously spiky and damp with sweat, and even if he weren't just trying to take control of this Academy back into his own hands, Jim would not actually object to tapping that. When Sheppard walks Jim back to his apartment later, he can't help but notice how Sheppard's ass kind of shimmies from side to side in a way that makes it really hard to stop staring, and -- Sheppard's probably just limping because of the way Jim owned him in their workout, but if so, it's probably the sexiest limp Jim's ever seen.
They end up watching a movie in Jim's quarters -- Jim is pretty sure Bones won't show up since he's been warned that "I am having sex tonight, Bones, whether I have the place to myself or not". Halfway through the first act Jim's arm is around Sheppard's shoulders -- yawn-and-stretch, yes, he went there too -- and then he trails his hand up Sheppard's neck and Sheppard shivers quietly, lets the back of his neck be stroked for a few more minutes before turning his head to face Jim with a kind of resigned smile and saying, "How do I always find myself in these situations."
Jim grins back, and leans in just close enough that he can feel Sheppard's breaths on his mouth, forcing Sheppard to close the distance.
*
It doesn't work.
This is a pretty huge disappointment to Jim, who doesn't have much experience with failure, and who also plans to make a career out of planning strategies and working situations to his own advantage.
It's not the seduction itself that failed, of course -- there was no question about that going according to plan. No, the sex was great. It was even, one might say, fantastic, and okay, yeah, Jim pretty much spends all of Intro to Advanced Interspecies Relations replying it in his mind, which is less than productive.
The problem is, though, that Sheppard doesn't seem to be quite as affected by it as Jim had hoped. Because Jim knows Sheppard had a good time -- Sheppard had three good times, actually, which, go Jim -- but he's not sauntering around campus with a dazed smile on his face or anything the next day, which was what Jim was going for. No, when Jim spots him across the cafeteria during lunch, Sheppard just gives him this small smile, which is almost, god, sweet or something, and then he aces the pop quiz that Major Bensen springs on them in Stellar Cartography.
So Sheppard is neither besotted nor appearing to decline academically. "Huge surprise," Bones notes dryly.
"Small hitch in the plan," Jim waves him off, because if you want to get anywhere, you've gotta think positive. "I know what I have to do. I just have to dial up the awesome."
"...Of course you do,” Bones sighs, and bans Jim from the infirmary. Jim is pretty sure that one of these days he'll find his name on a blacklist taped to the door of the entire medical complex, but that's okay, one bridge at a time.
So Jim dials up the awesome. He takes Sheppard out for burgers and beer and then blows him against the brick wall of a secluded alley and it's a little sleazy but really hot, Sheppard's hand thrust in Jim's hair and the other muffling his own moans. He takes Sheppard out in the morning, jogging down to the Bay in the chilly air until they collapse on the gray beach, exhausted and energized at the same time, and it's early enough that there are only two other people there, maybe, so nobody notices when Sheppard's breath hitches, not from the cold but from Jim's hand sliding down his running shorts, and they still make it back to the Academy in time for class.
And there are, well, the nights they stay in. Jim starts feeling guilty when Bones packs a sleeping bag and a toothbrush and decides to camp out in his "laboratory," pronounced dramatically with five pissed off syllables, until Jim "gets this pornographic madness out of his system". They alternate between Jim's quarters and Sheppard's, whose roommate is, ironically, temporarily hospitalized for Gritsu pox and probably ends up sharing a night or two with Bones. Sheppard's bed is bigger and softer than Jim's anyway -- perks you get when you're already a certified pilot -- and it'd kind of perfect for Jim to push Sheppard down on and have his way with him. Jim uses every trick he can think of; he utilizes food products and textiles, flavored sex toys and the occasional article of Starfleet-issued gear, his hands and his lips and his tongue and his body, fast and urgent and tortuously slow.
So yeah, by this point the sex has officially tipped over to amazing, and Jim is pretty pleased with himself for surpassing his own awesomeness every night. Granted, Sheppard may have something to do with it -- his laid back attitude means he pretty much flows with anything, and he makes the best noises, and he sucks cock like a fucking Olympic champion. And once or twice or maybe a little more often then that, Jim will hear these soft, needy whimpers coming from someone's throat, and be surprised to realize that they're coming from him.
By the time two weeks have passed, Jim isn't any closer to cracking Sheppard's climb to Captainship, but then the truly horrifying realization hits -- that it's possible he doesn't want to stop sleeping with Sheppard. Possibly ever.
It's like something is broken in Jim's brain, and for a second he even considers consulting Bones about it before deciding that having nine hypos jammed into his neck probably won't benefit anyone in this situation other than Bones' inner sadist. And Sheppard, who's always been a little weird, starts acting even weirder. He's still the same guy who breezes through the Academy like it's a long drawn out summer camp or something, and unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be fazed at all by all the amazing sex he's having with Jim, except that -- well, for one, he looks over Jim's Stellar Cartography quiz, and then teaches him this cute little memory trick that actually helps calculate this stuff. And when they're sparring -- and at this point Jim has stopped holding back, because fuck it, he can already get Sheppard in bed whenever he wants to, and giving it all he's got actually makes for an exhilarating kind of prolonged and public foreplay -- well, if Jim gets hurt, which still happens on occasion because Sheppard is not all that bad, Sheppard will... well, he gives Jim this look, later. Kind of tender, almost, and he might touch the tips of his fingers lightly to Jim's bruised face, or press a close mouthed kiss to Jim's split upper lip, and...
Jim doesn't really know what's going on.
It's a small comfort that sometimes, when he pushes Sheppard down and licks into his mouth with a hand pressed flat against Sheppard's chest, Sheppard's eyebrows will lift with this small, almost surprised smile, and it seems like maybe Sheppard doesn't entirely know what's going on either.
*
So they've slept together -- many, many, many, Jim still smirks to himself, times -- but they've never actually spent the entire night together, which is why when they finally do, it comes as a shock to Jim when in the morning he catches Sheppard in the bathroom, hands slick with about five types of Bones' various hair products, gently massaging them into the sculpted natural disaster he calls his hair.
"Son of a bitch!" Jim's eyes widen. "You do style your hair to look like that!"
Sheppard looks at him a little sheepishly through the mirror. "It's not like I put in too much effort. Just, like, twenty minutes each morning."
Twenty minutes of 'no effort' -- and suddenly things start falling into place, and Jim's jaw drops. "Oh my god. That little walking slink. That was on purpose too! All this time, you were trying to seduce me!"
Sheppard raises an eyebrow, but then the mask of innocence falls off, and holy crap, it's a mask, Jim knew it. "Okay, maybe," Sheppard admits. "You had fun, though, right?"
He says this with a sort of smirk, and fuck it, "Fuck it, I was the one who seduced you!" Jim retorts, and adds vehemently, pointing at Sheppard's still-naked but not-the-time-to-pay-attention-to-that chest: "Look, dude, you're hot and all, but I have my eyes set on a certain spaceship and I am not letting you and your little guitar-playing low-riding uniform pants get in my way."
And Sheppard smirks and says easily, "A, my pants don't play the guitar, and B, I'm not actually sure I want to be in command of anything, but if I did, you'd probably want me on your ship."
Jim pauses. "On my ship?" And then he blinks and asks, "Why were you trying to sleep with me anyway?"
Sheppard wipes his hands on a towel and finally turns around from the mirror with that smirk on his face and gives Jim a very, very slow once-over, and oh. Yeah, okay, Jim gets that.
"So -- you're not actually trying to get command of a ship," Jim says, just to clarify, because it's the kind of thing that makes him doubt Sheppard's sanity but also feels a little too good to be true.
"Nope," Sheppard says, leaning against the bathroom door frame. "I understand that captaining a ship is something that requires paperwork, and on occasion, diplomacy." His smile turns rueful. "I'm not a huge fan."
"Oh." And it's just occurring to Jim that maybe he doesn't have to compete against the new guy, and yeah, that's kind of cool. And also -- he checks his clock, and yeah, there's totally enough time before class for a quickie. He grins. "I can work with that."
*
Even though Bones was entirely unsupportive throughout the whole affair, Jim ends up buying him a tub of scotch anyway.