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Jim Kirk really isn’t sure this is a good idea. No, not sure at all. Paying an unannounced and most definitely uninvited visit to his adviser on Friday night in the middle of winter break could be one of the stupidest things he’s done in a long time. But he’s so fucking miserable right now that he really doesn’t care. He’s just sat on the open deck of a cross-bay ferry for half an hour, oblivious to the wind and drizzling rain and bone-aching chill of a San Francisco January evening, and if he doesn’t do this he’s going to end up in a bar somewhere in the Mission District getting shit-faced and starting a fight which, in the absence of the customary steadying influence of Bones, might well land someone in the hospital. And he really can’t afford another run in with the police or, god forbid, with the Academy disciplinary committee.
So, here he is standing on the concrete sidewalk outside a high-rise apartment building a few blocks from the Sausalito marina, his hand hovering over the intercom button of apartment 16C, steeling himself with the memory of Pike’s offhand, but nonetheless seemingly genuine offer to contact him if he needed anything during the four week winter break.
He hadn’t intended to let Pike know that he wouldn’t be going home over break, but that was the bitch of being a Starfleet brat even at twenty-four. Everyone who was anyone, and Pike was definitely someone in Starfleet terms, had heard that Win Kirk had taken the Chief of Design Engineering position at the Alpha Centauri Starship Development facility and would be off-world for the foreseeable future – so no Christmas in Iowa for Jim. Which hadn’t really mattered at first since Bones hadn’t had anywhere to go either and they’d spent a very entertaining, slightly alcoholic, few weeks skiing at Taos Mountain; home of the Cowboy Buddha margarita and the best fusion-Mexican food Jim had ever tasted. Well, Jim had skied, Bones had spent the time trying to snowboard and bitching a lot about being a Southern boy who wasn’t damn well supposed to know how to plummet down snow-covered slopes at unsafe speeds. But then Joss had called offering Bones a long weekend with Joanna while she and Clay went off to St. Thomas for a couple of days of sun, sand and sangria, and not even Jim and his always-traumatic birthday could stand in the way of that.
Jim shakes himself - hell, Pike’s going to be a damn sight more pissed if he has to bail him out again in the middle of the night – and presses the intercom. It takes only seconds for the open channel to signal and to Jim’s relief and amusement Boyce doesn’t say anything, just chuffs a short laugh, shakes his head and opens the main door.
The apartment door opens to reveal Starfleet’s Chief of Trauma incongruously clad in a pair of trashed jeans and a sweatshirt proclaiming his allegiance to the Bellevue Catholic High hockey team. Jim isn’t all that well acquainted with Boyce, although he gets to hear about him regularly from Bones. Their paths have only crossed occasionally, most often in the commissary close to the Trauma Center when Jim has been catching a quick lunch with Bones, Boyce stopping by their table to have a quick word about shifts or procedures or some other medical issue. He’s always been pleasant, if a bit brusque, radiating the harassed demeanor common to senior physicians everywhere. But there’s nothing of that harried professional in the man standing in the doorway tonight, just circumspect curiosity as if he’s assessing why Jim might have showed up at his door at 19:00 on a Friday night. At least, Jim thinks, the comfort clothes and bare feet make it clear that Boyce wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon and his relaxed body language makes it obvious that Jim’s appearance might be a surprise but it’s not necessarily an unwelcome one and that makes him feel a little better about interrupting them this evening. Still the silence stretches just long enough that Jim is beginning to get a little nervous and then Boyce grins at him and motions him into the open-plan living room.
“Come on in kid – you look like you could use a beer.” Boyce tilts his head and grins again, “And maybe a towel.”
Jim shrugs and rubs a hand across his hair and knows that his own grin is a little diffident as Boyce opens the door to a half-bath and hands him a towel off the handrail. “Don’t worry, it’s fresh.”
That almost makes Jim laugh, the only reason his own towels are ever fresh is because Bones periodically sweeps his dorm room and throws the offending linens into the laundry chute in the hall. Stepping a little further into the living room, Boyce slides open a second door, recessed into the wall, and a wash of sound rolls out - the soft, overlapping point and counter-point of 21st century jazz.
“Chris, your problem child is here; want to invite him to dinner?”
Boyce pats Jim on the shoulder and heads off to the other side of the apartment. “Bohemian Grove IPA okay?”
“Yeah, great.” Jim nods and waits until, after a moment, Pike appears in the doorway also looking disconcertingly domestic in jeans that have seen better days, and a faded gray t-shirt, his feet bare like Boyce’s. It takes Jim a moment to meet his eyes – grateful for the mild, slightly concerned curiosity that he discovers when he finally does so.
“Jim? Everything okay?”
Jim just shrugs, not quite knowing what to say, not wanting to admit to his embarrassing need for company tonight and watches as Pike raises an eyebrow at Boyce who is returning from the kitchen with a couple of frosted bottles of local IPA.
As he reaches them Boyce hands off a bottle to Jim and lifts the other to his mouth, and Jim watches the by-play of glances and gestures as Pike telegraphs his desire for Boyce to share the beer, and then gives up after a moment with a roll of his eyes and asks, “You want to forgo Thai food and get steaks from Theo’s instead? It is the kid’s birthday.”
And when Boyce opens his mouth to reply Pike takes the chance to reach out and swipe the beer bottle out of his hand. He takes a long draught from it and hands it back, one finger stroking gently across Boyce’s knuckles in apology as they make the hand off, generating a tolerant smile from Boyce and leaving Jim a little dumbstruck at the easy intimacy of their behavior.
He’d felt a little surprised, if smugly vindicated, when Bones had told him about what he’d seen on Pendleton Beach back in late September, and the information had fueled hours of drunk and inevitably lewd speculation about Pike’s sex-life. But this is the first time Jim has actually seen them together in anything approaching an informal setting – they’d both attended the Academy Winter Formal but had spent most of the time socializing separately and much to Jim’s disappointment hadn’t even danced, not with each other or with anyone else. But now that he sees them at home, together like this, it’s clear that they’ve been a couple for a long time. Their body language and the subtle unspoken communication that is passing between them, speaks to years of reading each other, of knowing each other so well that speech has become incidental to their interaction.
And then he realizes that he’s missed Boyce’s response to Pike’s question about dinner and now they’re both looking at him, waiting for an answer to an unheard question. He nods sharply, improvising and managing to stammer out. “Yeah, yeah that would be great.” He’s slightly stunned to find that he’s apparently not only not a problem but is being actively encouraged to join them this evening.
“Rib-eye with all the trimmings suit you? Let me guess, medium-rare”
Jim grins, his equilibrium restored. “Oh hell yeah.”
After ascertaining exactly why Jim is in his living room rather than carousing the night away with McCoy, Pike takes another swig of Boyce’s beer and goes back into the study to finish dealing with his comm traffic and order dinner from the marina-side steakhouse that they frequent on special occasions.
Boyce nudges Jim in the shoulder, “Come on, he’s got eyes-only stuff to deal with for a while. The Enterprise has just been transferred up to the Inchon Orbital Yards – he’s spent most of break up there dealing with the engineering fall out that always happens when they finally skin a ship that big and engage the AG.”
Jim’s heart gives a little skip at the thought of the Enterprise, knows that his eyes are bright even as he glances towards the now closed door. He wants to be on her so badly. It’s why, despite his natural fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on attitude to authority and a tendency towards monumentally self-destructive behavior, he’s worked valiantly to set the curve in every class over the last eighteen months. Hoping that his academic performance will make up for his much more variable conduct record when the time comes to assign the duty stations of the Starfleet Academy Class of 2258. Boyce shakes his head with a tolerant smile, as if he knows what Jim is thinking - and he probably does after years of watching ambitious cadets come and go - and gives Jim another nudge towards the living room.
There is a big, well-worn leather armchair at one end of a long coffee table and Boyce directs Jim to it. He slumps into the seat and takes a healthy slug of his beer before resting the cool glass rim of the bottle on his lower lip and regarding Boyce with a wary, grudging respect.
“How does he know it’s my birthday?”
“Seriously? Other than the fact that you are his only advisee so he has a pretty decent grasp of your file? There would be the fact that we were both serving in Sector 24 the day you were born. It was a pretty damn memorable day.”
“No shit. I didn’t know you were there.” With another long swallow of beer Jim has managed to down more than half the bottle in three generous mouthfuls.
Boyce shrugs. “CMO on Starbase 24, half the shuttles from the Kelvin fetched up on my doorstep.”
For a moment Jim squirms, thinking that Boyce is going to confess to something that will embarrass the hell out of him – he doesn’t need to know the future CMO of the Enterprise did his first pediatric exam – but then Boyce puts him out of his misery. “Nah, I didn’t see you. The shuttle with you and your mother in it was picked up by the Tokugawa.”
“And Pike?”
“Commanding the Jericho. They called in half a dozen patrol ships to cover the holes in the patrol grid - his was one of them.”
“He was a captain? How the fuck old was he?” Jim tips the lip of the beer bottle to his mouth and drains the last of the heavily hopped local IPA, relishing the robust bitterness as it rolls over his tongue, watching Boyce carefully for any reaction to his flip and decidedly impudent tone. But apparently Boyce is used to smart-ass cadets and Jim has to wonder if recent over-exposure to Bones has inured Boyce to insolent sarcasm and then realizes that the man has been dealing with brazen cadets for his entire career – close to forty years of over-confident, egotistical young men and women with inadequate verbal filters and too much faith in their own abilities.
“Not quite twenty-seven – and he wasn’t a captain, just a commander – he didn’t make captain until he was thirty – the youngest in the fleet.” Boyce pauses and cants a thick silver eyebrow at the empty beer bottle swinging between Jim’s middle and index fingers. “Beer helping?”
A fraction embarrassed that he’s managed to kill the beer in a little less than five minutes Jim gives Boyce what Bones refers to as his best lost-puppy look and holds up the empty. Laughing and shaking his head Boyce lays aside his own beer and goes to fetch Jim another one. “Don’t get into trouble while I’m gone.”
In Boyce’s absence Jim spends a little time studying the room. It’s comfortable, an eclectic mix of well used furniture with dark rugs on a synth-teak floor; deep chairs and a sofa long enough for an adult male to sleep at full stretch. The floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the Sausalito marina and further across Richardson Bay to the lights of Belvedere Island. A currently unoccupied dog bed is colonizing the space between the coffee table and the comforting flicker of the simulated gas fire and his attention wanders up to the mantel and its collection of holos. There are a couple of obvious family pictures. One of a very young Boyce with two even younger men, and one of a couple that Jim assumes are Pike’s parents – at least he recognizes the Head of the Inspector General’s Office – it’s not a popular job in Starfleet, but apparently Admiral Josh Pike has managed to garner a reputation for being tough as nails and stringently even-handed. A bit like his son, Jim thinks.
But he’s much more interested in the images of Pike and Boyce; a recent one of the two of them sitting on the steps of a beach house somewhere, beers in hand, looking relaxed and intimate, Boyce with his hand resting against the back of Pike’s neck; one of Pike with the dog and one from what had to have been very early in their relationship. Pike looks barely older than Jim is now, leaning on Boyce’s shoulder – all ice-blue eyes and blond curls and shit-eating grin – and the reality of that beautiful blond boy shocks Jim into an embarrassingly frank admission… “He was gorgeous.” …when Boyce walks back into the room and hands him another beer.
Boyce gives a wry smile, running a hand across his chin.
“He still is.” There is a world of meaning in that simple statement and Jim misses none of it, mature enough to signal his acknowledgment with a tip of his fresh beer, and then almost choking on the mouthful as Boyce continues. “Fortunately he’s no longer the arrogant, smart-mouthed shithead he was in those days.”
Jim would just love to know more but there’s no time for a retort as the intercom signal from the front door chimes and Boyce goes to let the delivery service into the building, ordering, with a gesture towards the still closed study door, “Go get him.” He pauses and then goes on, serious, “Jim, knock first – but if you’re lucky you might get a look at the updated specs.”
For once Jim does as he told, waiting until Pike indicates that it’s okay for him to open the study door before walking in and finding himself in a room that’s almost as large as the living space next door. It’s partly set up as a rec room dominated by a full size pool table that crowds the area close to the windows. The table is flanked by a pair of comfortable looking chairs, one full of sleeping black Labrador, the other serving as a stand for an old and obviously well-loved acoustic guitar. But the center of the room is all business, featuring a large, and probably Starfleet-installed, workstation with multiple retractable vid-screens that are currently covered with engineering schematics. Pike is leaning back in his chair, manipulating the intake data for what appears to be environmental systems power conservation with one hand while beckoning Jim into the room with the other.
“Come here – you want to see what she’s going to look like when she’s done?”
The detailed engineering schematics disappear, two of the screens retracting to leave only the large center screen on which the diagrams have been replaced by lateral and dorsal cut-through schematics of the Enterprise and a stunning star field-backed, three-dimensional projection of what the ship will look like when she’s finally commissioned.
“Fuck, she’s beautiful.” There is genuine awe in Jim’s voice. Everyone knows that the Enterprise is a whole new generation of starship, unlike anything that has rolled out of Starfleet’s shipyards in the past. She’s the first of a series of Constitution-class deep-space heavy cruisers that will revolutionize Starfleet’s ability to simultaneously conduct deep-space exploration and provide far-ranging defensive cover for the outer edges of Federation territory.
“Oh yeah, she’s beautiful all right – and fast, and powerful and everything else you could possibly want in a ship.” If Jim’s voice was awed, Pike’s is frankly affectionate and, for perhaps the first time, Jim understands something that has always puzzled him – why a captain with a record and reputation like Pike’s would accept a long-term Academy posting. In simple terms, Command had bribed him, and Pike had gone along with it, trading his present for his future. Looking at the ship displayed on the wall, in glorious shades of white and silver and gunmetal gray, Jim knows that given the same choice, he’d make the exact same decision.
“And she’s yours.”
“Yep, accidents and politics notwithstanding, she’s all mine – sixteen months until she’s commissioned.” Pike tilts his head and gives Jim one of those coolly assessing looks that he’s so good at. “Right after the class of 2258 graduates.”
It’s not quite a challenge, but Jim takes it as one anyway, his grin cocky and entirely too self-assured. “I’ll be ready.”
“Yeah, I think you might just be.” Stretching his long legs and levering himself out of the chair, Pike is laughing as he goes to wake the dog and points Jim back out to the living area. “On you go kid, dinner’s ready.”
In their absence Boyce has laid out the delivered meal on the table that occupies the wide hallway between the living room and kitchen – even going so far as to find linen and decent silverware and setting out glasses for the beer. Jim sits where he’s told, and finds himself facing a gorgeous piece of synthetically grown beef – cooked to perfection and accompanied by an equally perfectly presented baked potato and little baby asparagus slathered in butter. The ten centimeter thick amaretto cheesecake, jauntily decorated with a single birthday candle, in the middle of the table gives Jim a moment of slightly breathless gratitude at the thoughtful gesture. But he collects himself quickly, entirely too practiced at not letting his emotions show on his face and covers the lapse with a cheeky, “So, what was he really like when he was in the Academy?”
With a shake of his head Boyce demurs, “Sorry, didn’t know him in the Academy – I met him when he was in Command School – busy breaking every record that had been set for thirty years. But not so busy that he didn’t have time to get laid.”
There’s gleam in his eyes as he looks at Pike who raises a warning eyebrow and interjects, “What ever you think you’re going to tell him – forget it. He’s here to get drunk, maybe play some pool and enjoy some adult company for a change. Not get ammunition to make my life hell when the new term starts.”
Jim’s grin indicates that it may already be too late and Pike casts a dark look across the table at Boyce.
“What have you been telling him?”
“Nothing, really. I might just have mentioned that you were a bit of an arrogant asshole when you were his age.”
Pike shrugs; a gesture that suggests that he knows that it’s not entirely untrue, and shoots back. “Name me a captain in the fleet that wasn’t a total prick at twenty-five.”
“Bob April….” And Pike rolls his eyes, Jim suspects that he should know better than to throw out a challenge like that, suspects that Boyce always has an answer.
****
By the end of dinner Jim is relaxed enough to throw out a challenge of his own. “So, the Kobayashi Maru – who the fuck came up with that as a good idea?” Even on his accelerated track Jim is still a full term away from actually having to face the Academy’s most infamous combat simulation but he’s heard plenty of bitching from the upperclassmen and it sounds to him like a piss-poor way to test anything.
Pike just shrugs. “You’d be surprised just how much feedback we get from it – the biometrics alone are invaluable. Stress is stress, regardless of how you generate it.”
“It’s not real stress.”
“Yes, well actually trying to kill cadets tends to be a little rough on our graduation rate.” Pike sinks the last of his beer and glares at Boyce who is laughing as he pushes himself away from the table, “No comment from me, you know how I feel about this.”
As Boyce retreats to fetch some more beer from the kitchen cooler, Pike shouts after him.
“That’s not fucking helping, Phil.”
Turning back to Jim he continues, “Just think of it as an exercise in tactical thinking. You might not be able to beat the simulation but you can make points off it. And Jim, I’m not a fan of the idea of no-win scenarios either…” Pike pauses for a moment and taps his fingers against the table, apparently considering whether he wants to go further and then carries on “…but there are situations you can’t control and you need to know how you’re going to react when you find yourself in one of those.”
Jim quirks an eyebrow at him, aware that the conversation has turned serious, frowning as he contests “Bullshit…” He probably shouldn’t have said that and he winces and adds, almost as an afterthought, “….sir.”
Pike slaps a hand sharply on the table, suddenly focused and intent. “No it’s not fucking bullshit. You need to understand, Jim, what we learn form the Kobayashi Maru is not how you succeed, but how you fail.”
Shocked both by Pike’s vehemence and by the casual profanity – while he’s sure that Pike swears as much as any other seasoned Starfleet Officer, he tends not to do it around cadets – Jim opens his mouth to protest that failing is something he does spectacularly well, has Pike not read his fucking criminal record? But before he can speak Pike has raised a hand to forestall him.
“No Jim, not personal failure. Adolescent fucking up is something we’ve all done. I’m talking about failing when other lives are on the line, whether it’s a few security red-shirts or the population of an entire planet. You have to know how you’re going to react when there is nothing you can do and people are going to die because of that.”
Pike pauses and Jim feels his breath catch at the bleak regret in his eyes. “Or worse, when you can do something, when your only option is to choose who is going to die.” He pauses again, takes a long, slow swallow of Boyce’s beer, and Jim wisely stays silent, knowing that there is more. It takes Pike another long moment to collect his thoughts before he goes on. “If you’re going to command a ship, one day - I guarantee you - one day you’ll look some kid in the eye and, for the greater good, order her to her death. We need to know that you can make those decisions – we need to see how you deal with that kind of failure. That is why the Kobayashi Maru is valuable.”
Unconvinced, and unwilling to be cowed into just agreeing, Jim shakes his head, determined to make his point. “Respectfully, sir.” And by some miracle he actually manages to make his voice project something approaching respect. “I don’t buy it – sure the part about learning to deal with failure – but not the inevitability of failure. There’s always a way out. There’s always something you can do to change the scenario, to increase the odds, to find the angle that will let you win.”
“No, no there isn’t.”
Pike has pushed himself back from the table, tilting his chair back at a precarious angle and there is a tension building in the long, lean frame that Jim knows should make him nervous, should be a warning that this conversation is heading into dark and dangerous territory. But he can’t let it go. He really does believe that there’s a solution to every problem, knows it’s not an entirely rational belief, but also knows that it’s been integral to his self-perception for a long as he can remember. It’s the only way he can countenance going out in the black, secure in the knowledge that he will be coming back, secure that, unlike his father, he won’t leave family and friends behind to struggle without him.
“Again, bullshit.” He knows shouldn’t be pushing this, shouldn’t be forcing the issue, but Jim also knows he’s right on this. “I’ve been through every training scenario in the system, I’ve evaluated every unclassified mission failure for the last five years – there’s always a point where someone fucked up – someone made the wrong call – there’s not one incident where there wasn’t a decision-path that wouldn’t have secured the mission, and prevented most if not all of the casualties.”
He watches Pike take a deep, controlling breath, and realizes that he might just have pushed his adviser one step too far, he might be on the brink of being kicked out on his ass to survive the rest of his birthday alone. But Pike just stares him down and counters, with more sorrow than anger.
“You’re wrong, Jim, I wish you weren’t but you’re wrong.”
He stands as Boyce comes back into the room, takes the unopened beer from him and Jim watches intrigued as Pike leans in to Boyce’s touch, utterly un-self-conscious about accepting comfort where it’s offered.
“Okay?”
“Me? Oh, I’m just fucking fine.” His tone clearly broadcasting that he’s anything but fine, Pike goes on, “The boy here thinks he’s always in control. I was considering giving him an object lesson.” There’s just the slightest hint of a shiver as Boyce slides his hand over the back of Pike’s neck, fingers carding gently into the short fine hair at his nape.
“Ahh.” And Boyce’s hand comes to rest lightly on Pike’s back, fingers stroking soothingly across the over washed softness of his t-shirt. Jim watches, silent for a moment, understanding that there is subtext here even if he doesn’t know what it is. Boyce is suddenly tense; clearly not happy with the direction their conversation has taken. “Well, in that case I think we could use something a little stronger than beer.”
“Okay, I’ll take these back to the kitchen and fetch some glasses, you break out that bottle of Macallan we got from Bob and Sarah”. Pike retrieves the unopened beer from Jim and disappears towards the kitchen while Boyce gives Jim a gentle shove in the direction of the living area.
“Come on, if he’s going to tell this story I need to sit down and you need to pay attention.”
Jim lands back in the big leather chair, while Boyce digs in a side cabinet for the bottle of whisky and then sprawls on the sofa, reaching back to trade a glass for the bottle as Pike reappears and opens the bottle, dispensing a generous shot of single malt to each of them. Setting the bottle down on the coffee table, Pike finds a spot on the couch, not close enough to touch Boyce, but not too far away either, and tucks one long leg up under himself as he gets comfortable.
“So – here’s the short version of the scenario. If you want the whys and wherefores of how you could end up in a clusterfuck like this in the first place I can explain that later, but try to imagine yourself in an S-520 shuttle, edge of the Klingon Empire, no power and no communications, only a three-man security detail for company and surrounded by four rogue Klingon freighters. What do you do?”
“Don’t get in that situation in the first place.”
Jim winces even as the words come out of his mouth and he can’t really fault Pike as he snaps back, sarcastic and angry, “Can you try your damndest not to be an asshole, just for once, Jim?”
A slow savoring taste of the scotch gives Jim a moment to think, aware that he at least has to try to give the appearance of taking Pike seriously. He can’t imagine anything Pike can say is going to change his opinion of the Kobayashi Maru test; it’s a cheat, engineered to be unwinnable.
“Okay – well, you can’t run or call for help, and presumably they want the planetary defense grid codes or the patrol routes for whatever sector you’re in – so set the self-destruct and go EVA. There are four of you; you can take down at least one of the freighter crews if you can find an access hatch. ”
“You forgot the ship systems access codes – but EVA? Seriously that’s the best you can do? Even at the closest they’re standing off ten klicks – how do you plan to cover the distance? As soon as you engage your suit propulsion they’re going to pick you off like flies. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of the no-win-scenario?”
‘Well yeah – I guess – so what? You can’t just surrender.” Jim frowns, confused, under the circumstances the best-case scenario is to ensure the safety of the rest of the Federation ships and all the planetary populations in the sector.
“You’re right – you can’t just surrender. But you can challenge them to come and get you, and while they’re tin canning the shuttle open, you can try to rig the self-destruct to the ion drive to take the bastards with you, so at least they can’t be a problem to anyone else.”
“Does it work?”
“Nope, not enough time – there’s no automatic self-destruct on the old S-520s, you have to rig it manually – they have you peeled like a fucking grape before you’re half-way done.” Pike’s voice has gone low and deadly serious, and he pauses, tapping one long finger lightly, almost absently, against the whisky glass.
Jim watches as pain and regret briefly wash across Pike’s normally coolly reserved features and he could kick himself for being so fucking slow-witted, realizing with a sick certainty that this isn’t just hypothetical. This is real, this is history, this is Pike’s history; this is the story of one of those failed missions that Jim’s so sure he can finesse into a success. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to say anything so for once he exercises discretion and just drinks a little more whisky as Pike goes on.
“Now, if someone knows you’re missing then you’re golden – just give the Klingons what they want – ‘Fleet protocol has all the relevant sector security codes changed as soon as a ranking officer goes missing.”
“But then they don’t need you anymore and you’re dead.” Not slumped anymore Jim is sitting forward in the chair, his elbows resting on his knees as he fixes an unwavering gaze on his adviser.
Pike smiles wryly. “But you’re dead fast, no long drawn out screaming.” And there’s something so cool and matter of fact about the way Pike says it that Jim feels his blood run cold.
“Oh fuck, they didn’t know you were missing did they?”
“Nope, I’d sent the S.Y.C. Nkrumah ahead to Starbase 123 to take care of a coolant leak while I stayed on Zalda to finish up negotiations for access to their deuterium resources. The Klingons caught us three days short of our rendezvous, no choice but to shut up and take it.”
Jim watches as Pike slides a hand across the center cushion of the couch, searching for one of Boyce’s, squeezing tightly as he goes on, and his heart sinks at what that need for support implies about what is to come – sinks further at the naked concern on Boyce’s face.
“I lost two of the security detail the first day, they were expendable – they killed Li fast just to make sure we knew they were serious – hung him upside down and cut his throat with a bathlet. It took him about three minutes to die; he was the lucky one. Odhiambo; I guess they planned to kill him more slowly, bleeding him in strategic slices, never quite deep enough to cause him to bleed out all at once. But they miscalculated, after an hour or so they cut too deep into his femoral artery. He never made a sound, just looked at me, almost grateful that it was going to be over, and died without a word - bravest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Pike pauses, brushing a couple of stray curls back from his forehead before he goes on, his voice lower and infinitely sad. “At that point they seemed to realize we were more fragile than they had at first thought so, left with just two of us – one to torture, one to talk - they put the blades away and resorted to much cruder tactics. That was the point I realized that they knew just enough about human physiology to be really dangerous. Me, they attached to a bulkhead with half-meter, high-tensile tritanium rivets and made me watch, and then they spent four days brutalizing Crewman First-Class Joe Ramsden in every way you could possible imagine. They couldn’t really do me any serious damage - I was the guy with the information they wanted – so they stripped him and tortured him and raped him and made him scream and beg me to give up those codes so they’d leave him alone.” He picks up the scotch from the end table and wets his mouth again
“So Jim, what do you do?”
For once Jim Kirk is rendered almost speechless, suddenly cognizant that his adolescent delinquency doesn’t come close to the kind of failures that Pike is talking about and he just shakes his head.
“Fuck, don’t break and stay alive?”
“Exactly, endure. You have no control except over yourself. And all you can do is hope that someone finds you before you can’t endure any longer, because as soon as you break, you put billions of lives in jeopardy.”
“What happened?”
“The Nkrumah showed up four days later. They tracked us down with our PDTs, fortunately the stupid Klingon bastards hadn’t bothered to jam the beaming frequencies.”
“Four days?” Jim tries to imagine what watching someone die for four days would feel like, tries to imagine himself in that position – with Bones, or Gaila, or his engineering-geek friend Phillips, or that gorgeous communications cadet Uhura who won’t give him the time of day. Hell, tries to imagine the horror of watching anyone endure a slow and painful death, never mind someone that he’s responsible for. But he can’t quite get his head around the reality of it and instead asks. “What did…” He wants to ask what they did to Pike but he can’t quite get the words out, because he’s not entirely sure that he really wants to know.
“You mean other than riveting me to a bulkhead? Nothing too horrific, a couple of exploratory slices with a d’k tagh - the real hell they saved for Ramsden. Believe me Jim, there’s nothing they could have done to me that would have been worse than listening to that 19-year-old kid beg me to betray the Federation, to turn over vital intelligence that would put billions of lives in the hands of the Klingon Empire just so they’d finally kill him and put him out of his misery. And to know that I had that power to save him, and chose not to use it.”
“You nearly fucking died, Chris,” Boyce interjects fiercely, sliding across the couch to curl an arm protectively over Pike’s shoulder – tightening his grip just slightly when Pike goes to shake him off.
“I got septicemia from being riveted to a filthy bulkhead. You know as well as I do that they could have done much worse – they did do much worse to Ramsden.”
“Don’t let him kid you.”
Jim turns his attention to Boyce who’s speaking with a ferociously protective growl, his hand carding through Pike’s hair in long, gentle strokes. “He had the worst case of necrotizing fasciitis I’ve ever seen, he almost lost his arm. Corvinus kept him in a medically induced coma all the way back to Earth because he spiked a fever at 41 degrees and seized so badly he broke his clavicle.”
“It could have been worse.” Pike’s voice has taken on that iron-hard tone that he uses on recalcitrant cadets and Jim’s familiar with the meaningful look that he gives Boyce – it’s his shut-the-fuck-up look. Jim’s seen it many times, although usually in his case it’s accompanied by an actual instruction to shut-the-fuck-up, but he suspects that Boyce wouldn’t react well to that. Jim goes for deflection trying to defuse the tension as Boyce glares at Pike.
“Worse how?”
“You don’t need to know.” Pike clearly isn’t going to be moved on the issue. “There are some things you don’t need in your head."
Jim thinks about that for a moment, tries to conjure exactly what the term “brutalized” could mean and shudders at the visions his imagination provides as Pike goes on, his voice soft with something far more painful than just regret. “Ramsden died, the Klingons did it, but I allowed it to happen. Yes, for the greater good – but I will live with that decision for the rest of my life.”
Pike turns his head as Boyce slides his hand back and forth across his shoulder, applying gentle pressure, and Jim shakes his head, looking at his adviser with a whole new respect, trying to imagine what it takes to go back out in the black, to once more take on the responsibility of other lives, after that kind of experience. There is a long moment of silence before Jim finally speaks.
“Fuck, you are one tough son-of-a-bitch.” He thinks it’s a compliment, thinks it’s what Pike wants to hear, what he would want to hear under the same circumstances and is stunned at the raw self-contempt on Pike’s face as he counters,
“Yeah, I am - but don’t ever think that’s a good thing.”
The pause that follows is electric with tension – no-one quite sure what comes next – until Boyce speaks.
“Enough – both of you – enough.” And he leans over to refill the three now empty glasses that have been discarded on the coffee table.
It’s a signal that the conversation is over and Jim watches as Pike shudders once and takes a deep breath, features smoothing, familiar, cool reserve restored once again, and then he smiles, still a little forced, but genuinely trying to lighten the atmosphere.
“Come on kid, time for Phil to kick your ass at pool.”
Three hours later, his ass suitably kicked, the bottle of Macallan seriously reduced if not finished, Jim accepts the kindly offered invitation to crash on the couch and makes himself comfortable in his boxers and a borrowed t-shirt. He’s just drunk enough that the affectionate pat on the head from Boyce as he’s passing just makes him smile and he curls down under the quilt and slides a hand down to the floor to rest on the dog’s head.
He’s warm and slightly fuzzy from the alcohol but Jim floats for a while in that place between wake and sleep, his mind as active as ever, replaying their conversation. Pike has given him a lot to think about tonight, has made him realize that no matter how good you are, how prepared you are – and he has no doubt that there’s no one in Starfleet more capable, more prepared, than Pike – you can still be caught unawares.
Still it niggles at him, that Pike didn’t give him the set up for how he ended up being trapped by the Klingons in the first place. If Jim has learnt one thing from the mission briefings that he’s reviewed it’s that the smallest decision can make a difference. There had to have been something, some altered parameter or decision-path that would have resulted in a different outcome. He knows, even as he thinks it, that it’s a betrayal of sorts and perhaps also an illusion, to think that he could have done it differently, that he could have succeeded where Pike failed, but he can’t let go of the idea and he stares into the darkness, fingers playing gently with Jericho’s ears as he tries to reconcile what he’s heard tonight with his fundamental belief in the mutability of fate.
****
“We do this now or we do it in two or three hours after you wake up screaming.”
Phil curls his hand around Chris’ neck, thumb brushing gently against the pulse spot at the point of his jaw, scraping lightly against the 18-hour stubble and Chris shivers at the sensation and relents. He knows Phil is right, the conscious decision to drag his four days of torture back into the open is going to generate at least a week’s worth of nightmares and after sixteen years they are utterly familiar with the paths that will allow them to negotiate the storm with the least possible pain.
He is just fractionally taller than Phil, and some five kilos heavier, but as Chris relaxes into the strong embrace he surrenders control completely, allowing himself to be pulled unresisting to the bed as Phil whispers soft against his temple.
"Shhh, darling boy, I’ve got you.” And he’s stroking one hand through Chris’ hair, the other gentle on his back. “Let me take care of you, let me love you. Let me make this so good for you.”
Chris sits down hard as the back of his knees hit the mattress, knows that he needs to be taken care of right now in a way that precludes any kind of action on his part. Safety, comfort and ultimately the ability to sleep soundly again all lie in allowing Phil to touch him and love him and eventually to fuck him into sweat-soaked, incoherent ecstasy.
Right now though Phil is still just stroking his fingers through the thick graying hair, Chris’ head resting against his chest, just above his heart, the strong rhythmic thump vibrating against his cheek.
“He meant well you know, that problem child of yours, he doesn’t understand yet, what command will cost him. And he’s wrong, you’ve never been tough – focused yes, driven by the greater good, but never heartless.”
Chris shudders slightly, turning his head a fraction to press a damp kiss to the cotton covering Phil’s sternum.
“I’m not so sure. Every time we revisit this I have to wonder just how much of a son-of-a-bitch I can be.”
“No more of one than is required of you.” Phil tilts Chris’ head up and kisses his temple tenderly. “You did what you had to do Chris, and you paid – Christ, you’re still paying – a terrible price for that.”
Another gentle brush of lips across his forehead and Chris leans in, rubbing his head cat-like against Phil’s chest until he’s a little calmer, until he can’t contain a wry smile and half laugh at their situation.
“I doubt he’d think I’m so tough if he could see this.”
Phil smiles, and tips Chris’ head up, fingers curling tight in his hair to hold him as he leans into a kiss, long and soft and open with just enough heat to remind Chris of the promised pleasure to come.
“Everyone needs a place to be safe, Chris.” Strong fingers work their way down the back of his neck, and Chris lets out the smallest sound, need wrapped tight with threads of arousal before responding quietly.
"And mine is with you. Always has been, always will be.”
The t-shirt comes off easily and Phil laughs a little as he gives Chris the slightest nudge and he falls back on the bed, arms over his head in slightly wanton surrender.
“Beautiful boy.”
“Flattering, but I don’t think I’m either of those things anymore do you? Really?” There’s humor in his tone and that half smile that teases at the corners of his mouth and eyes but there’s also something else, and Chris knows he’s projecting a vulnerability so rare that he can see the pain of it reflected in Phil’s eyes as he acknowledges the exposure before Phil drops his gaze and leans down to lay a series of warm, wet kisses down the flexed abdomen.
“Really.” Phil braces himself on one hand and continues to feather kisses over Chris’ flank and down towards the waistband of his jeans, tracing the invisible path of a long-healed scar from a d’k tagh blade and Chris can feel the devotion in the touch, the almost reverent acknowledgement of all the pain and courage and honor that would be written on his body but for the miracles of 23rd century medicine. Phil pauses to take care of the five-button fly with one handed ease and tugs the denim lower so that he can keep going – lips and tongue following an invisible line until it fades out in the soft hollow of Chris’ pelvis. “You have no idea how beautiful you are.”
He nudges Chris again, getting him to shift just enough that he can pull jeans and boxers off in one easy motion and Phil ends up kneeling between Chris’ spread knees; the long, lean, well-muscled body sprawled naked across the bed in front of him an eloquent confirmation of everything he’s just said.
“Oh yes, so fucking gorgeous.” One hand slides over the warm, firm muscle of Chris’ thigh until it meets the rising curve of an awakening prick and Chris shudders under his touch, the hand, warm and practiced as it wraps around his cock, the tight, slightly rough grip bringing him to full, aching hardness.
"Fuck Phil, what you do to me." A muscle in Chris’ thigh twitches as a hot, wet tongue flickers across the skin and he lets out a low whimper of a moan as the whispering kisses turn into a long, deeply bruising suckle. It’s so good, so achingly sweet that Chris forgets for a moment why they are doing this here and now - with a potential audience less than ten meters away – and allows his eyes to slide closed in blissed-out pleasure.
It takes only a moment for the image of Ramsden – broken and bleeding, begging – and of himself, unpitying and resolute, to sear itself onto the inside of Chris’ eyelids and he’s suddenly shuddering, pushing himself up on his elbows, drawing a harsh, unsteady breath even as he feels his erection flag. He hates this, as much as he expected it, he still fucking hates it and he opens his eyes to the sight of Phil leaning over him, one hand braced on the mattress, the other caressing firmly up his jaw, thumb curving to stroke against the rapid thrum of a racing pulse. He’s smart enough, Chris thinks, not to say that it will be okay – no matter how many years go by, there is nothing that will ever make that kid’s death okay, neither the fact nor the manner of it – so Phil just touches him, lets him know with his hands, his eyes, his body that he’s here and always will be.
“Eyes open Chris, always, remember, focus on me, on us, and we’ll get through this.”
For months after Zalda Chris hadn’t been able to close his eyes without seeing Ramsden: hadn’t been able to approach the silence of sleep without hearing those soul-destroying whimpers of fear and pain and abject terror. When he had slept, in fitful snatches, there had been no rest – just guilt-ridden, horrifying nightmares that had left him drained and trembling, waking curled in on himself, drenched in sweat. Or worse, in the light of day, when he’d looked at himself in the mirror and wondered what kind of man he was that he could tolerate someone else’s pain without balking. For four days he’d given the Klingons not a single sign that what they were doing was affecting him, focusing on the mission, on the unshakeable certainty that the only thing that mattered was to guard those codes and the lives they protected. It was bad enough that Ramsden had died, but in the face of Chris’ unflinching stoicism, it was as if he had died alone with no solace from the one person that could have eased, even in the smallest way, his passing. No matter how much he had rationalized it, it had taken years for Chris to make some kind of peace with that, even longer for him to even approach being able to forgive himself.
Even after Phil had finally tracked him down at the Starfleet rehab facility in Ensenada and had moved himself in to Chris’ comfortable beach-side cabin - over Chris’ somewhat half-hearted protests - it had taken him weeks to sleep more than a few hours without thrashing awake, turning to search for Phil’s heat and solid presence in his bed.
It wasn’t until years later that he’d discovered that Phil had used two years’ worth of accumulated furlough and had badly pissed off one of Starfleet’s top research epidemiologists by skipping out on the last few months of his research sabbatical to ease Chris through those months of physical and mental recuperation. And it had only been years later that he’d admitted how much that support had meant to him. The physical and psychological therapy teams that Starfleet Medical employed were the best, and Chris had been working with the same counselor for years – one of the first things that successful completion of Command School got you was a permanent assignment to one of Psych Division’s finest – but nothing healed like the constant presence of another warm body; one that cared enough to lie awake in the dark night after night and murmur soft, quiet words of comfort.
It had taken him years too, to admit that this was when affection and breathtaking sexual compatibility had finally turned into love – in part because for the first month at least, there was no sex. Unable to sustain an erection without visions of three massive Klingon crewmen brutalizing the barely-out-of-basic training Ramsden, overwhelming frustration had made Chris angry and hostile. He was used to working out his stress with sex and the persistent failure of his body to accommodate that need had been seriously impeding his mental and physical recovery; until Phil’s tenacity, his unswerving patience, his innate emotional intelligence had produced a solution. Not an obvious one, given that Chris had just been restrained in the hands of extremely hostile enemy forces, but the act of binding him to the head board with his own utility belt – keeping him focused on Phil, who had made love to him with sweet, slow, utterly abandoned kindness - had broken the deadlock. Chris had come deep in Phil’s throat, impaled on two long fingers, stroking expertly across his prostate and had then followed the mind-shattering orgasm with a profoundly embarrassing bout of emotional catharsis, wracked with tears.
It should have turned into a relationship right then, the end of their fuck-buddy phase and the beginning of something new, fused together with hurt and healing and a deeply held trust. But Chris had balked; afraid to commit to something so new and so different, something so risky when he was still unsure of his own motivations. When, in truth, he had still hated himself enough to wonder if he deserved the kind of unswerving love and loyalty that Phil was offering. They had gone their separate ways when Chris had been signed back onto the duty roster – Chris back to the Nkrumah and Phil to Starbase 62 – his short, two-year tour filling time until he was due back on the Norman Bethune.
“Hey.” Phil’s tone is verging on the sharp and it snaps Chris out of his long space of contemplation.
He shivers, forces the memories back as he looks up at Phil and asks, “Hmm?”
“Don’t wander off – I’ve got plans for you tonight.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to – just, you know…”
“I know, I do understand that these memories are powerful. But darling boy, I also know you and I know how wrong you are about the man you think this makes you.”
That makes Chris smile, a little sad and rueful, but willing to acknowledge that Phil might have a point and he leans up on one elbow and watches as Phil leaves him for a moment to pull up the controls for the window shades and adjust them from polarized to reflective. The modification creates a mirrored surface all along the two outside walls of the large corner room – the offset angle of the bed allowing for most of the area of the mattress to be visible in both walls simultaneously.
“What are you planning?”
“Sex, eventually – but you need to focus right now – I want you to understand something.” Despite his smile, there’s gravity to Phil’s tone, a sense that he has something serious that he needs to impart and he divests himself of his sweatshirt and jeans then settles himself in the middle of the bed, his knees together, inviting Chris to join him with another seductive, almost brazen smile.
“Come on lovely boy, you need to know just how beautiful you are.”
When Chris rolls over and kneels up to face him, stretching forward on his forearms, ready to bury his face in the wiry gray curls at Phil’s groin, Phil shakes his head. “No – turn around, face the windows – I want you to see us.”
And, accustomed as he is to doing what Phil tells him in bed - at least when he feels like it - Chris does as he’s bidden and comes to rest with his back firmly pressed to Phil’s chest, legs spread wide so that he can sit astride Phil’s lap, the heat of a just-awakening cock nestled in the small of his back.
“Do you know what I see when I look at you?” Phil strokes his fingers through the soft curls on Chris’ chest, interspersing his words with gentle touches of his mouth along Chris’ jawline and down the corded tendon on his neck.
“Hmm…” Chris has the feeling he’s not really supposed to answer, and he rocks slowly on Phil’s lap, smiling at the sensation of firm heat at his back, swelling and lengthening along his spine.
“I see the most honorable man I’ve ever known.” A brush of lips against the hinge of Chris’ jaw makes him shudder.
“I see integrity and intelligence and an unshakeable strength.” Additional touches - harder now - teeth, leavened with just a hint of tongue. “I see, courage and tenacity, virtue and decency, talent and skill, all focused in the cause of preserving the good things in our universe.”
Breathing against Chris’ throat, Phil traces his fingers in teasing patterns across Chris’ abdomen, incendiary touches that make Chris whine and twitch as they begin to stoke the arousal that had all but died in the face of powerful reminiscence.
“I see loyalty and faithfulness and a man who loves so powerfully and so unconditionally that he has made me who I am – has made me a better man for being the other half of his soul.”
Watching Phil in the mirror, Chris can see the color flaming in his own face at the words. He may be all of those things, but he’s many other less flattering things too – driven and arrogant, a man capable of ruthless focus with an implacable will that can’t be bent or bought or broken, no matter the cost to himself or others. But Phil doesn’t need his input tonight and Chris forces himself to relax into the sound of Phil’s voice, focusing on the tone and warmth of it rather than the actual words.
“That’s why you’re beautiful, not just this…” Phil strokes his hand all the way from throat to groin, coming to rest with his fingers wrapped loosely around the pliant heat of Chris’ cock. “….gorgeous as it all is.”
Phil falls silent for a while, using his mouth instead to trace delicate, teasing trails along Chris’ nape, over his shoulders and along his jaw – his fingers working Chris’ cock in skillful, loving strokes, slowly drawing it out to its full, thick length. There’s just the occasional whisper as they rock together in the center of the bed and Chris stays focused on the vision of them in the window – slightly awed at the picture they make moving together, almost reluctant to admit that they are beautiful together – not the way they look, but the way they are, loving and connected and totally absorbed in each other.
And then, when they are both shivering and breathless, sweat beginning to prickle across heated flesh Phil is nudging Chris, encouraging him to kneel up so he can slide the velvet heat of his cock easily in the channel formed by Chris’ thighs. He pulls back for a moment and nudges the head of his cock gently against Chris’ balls; and then Phil is pressing his fingers, slick and cool, against the tight ring of Chris’ anus, the muscle flexing involuntarily as he applies the gentlest pressure, just enough to breach and with a twist, slide deep.
Forcing himself to keep watching the mirrored wall, Chris groans at the sight of them moving together, as Phil stretches him gently and then withdraws to grip his own cock and press the head against the relaxed entrance. For one long moment Chris resists, catching Phil’s gaze, challenging him, awed at the lust-blown darkness of the usually clear blue eyes. And then he smiles sweetly and finally gives in, lowering himself down, letting Phil’s thick length slowly sink deep and torque in just the right way to make his body spasm with shocks of deep electric tension. As the thick heat settles into him Chris lets out a low, wanton, deeply carnal moan that couldn’t possibly fail to reach the living room and then laughs, just a little desperately, “Fuck, I hope he’s asleep.” And goes to muffle himself, biting down hard on the heel of his hand.
Phil pulls the hand away.
“I don’t care. I want to hear you and if he hears too, well, he’s a fucking adult, and he can just deal. You need this, I need this and if Jim gets to share the ride, well hell, you’ve never been shy before.”
It’s an unusually long speech for Phil to make when he’s got his cock buried deep in Chris’ ass and his hand wrapped competently around Chris’ prick – but the only part that Chris really hears is the first three words and he’s pierced with a pang of sweet, soul-deep gratitude. Chris might not be shy, but Phil is incredibly reserved and for him not to care that Jim is almost certain to hear what they are doing – quiet and sex are mutually exclusive terms for Chris – speaks of a deep abiding love that is sweeter and more affirming than anything else Phil has said in the last fifteen minutes.
Another long, low groan and Chris leans back onto Phil, resting for just a moment before he flexes the muscles of his thighs and begins to piston up and down, using strong, supple inner muscles to massage Phil’s length, determined that he isn’t going to be the only one making noise tonight. Behind him Phil grins, and Chris watches the knowing smile in the mirror, Phil fully aware of what Chris is trying to do.
“Oh no, this is your show – just keep watching us.” And Phil leans both of them forward, until Chris is on knees and forearms, and sets up a punishing, scorching rhythm that makes Chris shudder and grunt with every thrust.
****
Damnshitfuck, this is the last thing Jim needs, lying here in the dark, straining his hyper-sensitive hearing for any sound that would indicate what’s going on in the next room. He doesn’t want to listen, really, really he doesn’t – but he can hear just enough, just the occasional whimper or moan, to know that someone is getting thoroughly and vigorously fucked and with a groan and a shivering thump of his cock against his belly he’s now focusing on the fact that he hasn’t gotten any in three weeks.
Jim likes sex, he likes it a lot, and regards his ability to get laid on demand as one of his more discreet talents but, with most of the cadets gone for winter break, he’s suffering badly from the temporary loss of his usual pool of fuck-buddies.
Another deep, barely audible sound comes from the next room and Jim shudders convulsively as he slides a hand down beneath his boxers. He’s hard as steel and desperate not to think about the possibility that Pike is being fucked right now, because he’s not sure he’ll be able to look the man in the eye again if he does. It’s one thing to joke about Pike’s sex life, it’s another thing entirely to have proof of it. He has no idea which one of them tops, or if they trade off, but for some reason his head is fixed on the image of Boyce, all long, lean graying 80-plus kilos of him, nailing Pike to the mattress and that thought is way hotter than it should be.
Desperate for distraction Jim shifts his attention to the one person he can’t have, the only one, in truth that he really wants – tall and broad and dark and irascible as hell – and utterly unattainable. It’s not that Bones doesn’t do guys, it’s that he doesn’t do anybody as far as Jim can tell. Blessed with a single occupancy dorm room as befits his status as a professional track cadet, Bones is more likely to give the space up to Jim to use for one of his many assignations than to require the privacy himself. As far as Jim can tell, in the eighteen months they’ve known each other Bones hasn’t had sex once. For a while Jim hadn’t been able to get his head around the idea of voluntary celibacy, after all it wasn’t that the extraordinarily striking Georgia doctor didn’t have his share of admirers. But Jim finally came to understand that Bones didn’t do casual, and in the wake of his searingly ugly divorce, he didn’t do relationships either.
So Jim revels in his friendship and lusts in secret and hopes that eventually he’ll be able to combine the two, hopes that someday he might be fortunate enough to have the long and loving relationship that Pike and Boyce so clearly have had for so many years. In the meantime, he has his hand and the deeply treasured memories of Bones fresh from the shower in the studio ski-cabin they’d rented for two weeks. Skin still damp, dark hair flat to his head like an otter’s pelt, a towel wrapped round his waist – a vision of wide shoulders and broad chest and gorgeously long legs.
Oh yeah, that’s doing it. Fuckfuckfuck that is so damn good. It doesn’t actually take much to get Jim off when he’s on this much of a hair-trigger and a couple of long pulls, his hand twisting over the head of his cock in just the right way and he’s close to coming. For a long moment he pauses, thumb pressed tightly to his glans, staving off the final moment of surrender for a fraction longer and then he hears another sound – a long, low, feral growl from the next room – the unmistakable sound of orgasm and Jim’s gone, his face buried in a pillow to muffle his own howl of aching pleasure, the sweet intensity of the orgasm only slightly dampened by the far-too-late realization that he’s going to have no boxers to wear home in the morning.
When he finally regains some measure of awareness, Jim listens for a moment and realizes that the sounds from the other room have changed in tenor and volume, softer and quieter – laughter and whispered words rather than the primal sounds of sex - and fuck that’s just a little weird too, the knowledge that he climaxed in concert with them. Leaning back against the pillow he wipes his hand off on a dry section of his boxers and tries to find a comfortable position that doesn’t leave wet cotton plastered to his skin – failing utterly he finally wriggles out of the offending garment and uses it to wipe off his sticky groin and belly – freezing when the door to the master opens and a voice, Boyce’s drifts out.
“I can’t believe you’re fucking hungry after what you ate at dinner.”
“Cheesecake Phil, if you love me you’ll bring back cheesecake.”
There’s a laugh and then the pad of bare feet on the floor, and Jim doesn’t even breathe as the feet pause for just a moment, too late realizing that his lack of respiration is a definitive tell that he’s awake. The voice that comes out of the darkness sounds satisfied and content, layered with mirth and understanding and an easygoing humor as Boyce adds, in a soft undertone meant for his ears only.
“You want some cheesecake too, Jim?”