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From an engineering perspective, Nog recognizes Jake’s bed is bolted to the wall snugly enough to resist a level 4 artificial gravity inversion. His brain knows that. But with the way Jake’s squirming gets the bolts grinding, Nog’s ears could take some convincing.
Don’t get Nog wrong; he likes Jake’s squirming. Especially when Jake is squirming on top of him.
But the noise? That’s not exactly what he wants done to his ears right now.
There’s not a whole lot Nog can do about it either. A few months ago, if Jake’s bed was making that kind of noise, Nog could have just told him to knock it off. (“Hasn’t your species figured out how to do that more quietly?”) But, of course, a few months ago, he wouldn’t have been in Jake’s bed with him. Now he has to worry about hurting Jake’s feelings in a way he wasn’t capable of before.
Funny how things change.
Nog resolves to suffer in not-quite-silence. Until a particularly obnoxious whine of metal-on-metal brought on by a particularly pleasant meeting of clothed hip to clothed hip. Nog has little choice but to wrap every available limb (biosynthetic or otherwise) around Jake’s body, mustering every last bit of his strength to keep Jake still.
Jake—dear, sweet Human, Jake—takes this as a sign of Nog’s growing desire—which it is, just not romantic desire—okay, not only romantic desire. Let’s just say Nog wants to replace one kind of auditory stimulation with another. Faced with what he perceives as a very amorous Ferengi boyfriend, Jake makes a run for third base. Set off by Jake’s thumb and forefinger massaging his left helix, Nog adjusts his weight to roll Jake over, exposing that one spot behind Jake’s ear…
For all his awareness of how much noise the bed was making, Nog seems to have forgotten how little space Jake’s twin bed takes up.
The haze of youthful desire clears as Jake—followed shortly by Nog—goes rolling off the bed.
Nog can hear the wind get knocked out of Jake’s lungs. “Are you okay?”
Jake winces. “I’m fine. I’m just glad on my butt and not on my—” Jake’s eyes flick to Nog’s knee, which seems to have taken most of the impact. “Your leg—is it okay?”
Nog rubs his kneecap. “It’s still attached.”
Jake grabs a pillow from the bed and playfully thwacks Nog in the chest.
Nog steals the pillow away. “I thought you Hew-mons treated your disabled with dignity.”
“Aww.” Jake holds a hand to his chest. “That’s so sweet.”
“What?”
“You said you were ‘my disabled.’”
Using about one-tenth of his strength, Nog slaps the pillow across Jake’s face.
Jake sits up, pulling Nog onto his lap. “Hey.”
Nog plucks a synthetic feather from Jake’s hair. “Hey.”
Jake bites his bottom lip. “Did you bring your toolbelt home?”
“Yeah…” Nog says, wondering where this is all going.
“Then maybe you could…”
Nog leans closer. “What?”
Jake grimaces and says in a single breath, “Unscrew your bed from the wall so we can push it together with mine and make one big bed so we stop ending up on the floor during oo-mox.”
“What?” Nog snaps, rising to his feet. “What?”
“Come on, Nog,” Jake groans.
“Unbolt the…” Nog plants his hands on his hips.
“Don’t start.”
“Do you know how many…” He starts pacing furiously. “There are rules, Jacob.”
“Jacob? Since when am I Jacob?”
“Since you suggested something that violates at least thirteen Starfleet regulations and seven Bajoran public safety policies.”
“C’mon, Noggles.” Jake puts on that grin, and Nog knows he’s gonna say something to intentionally rile Nog up. “This is DS9; regulations and policies are more like suggestions.”
Nog stops pacing to glare at Jake. “I’m sure Colonel Kira would be interested to hear your thoughts about Bajoran sovereignty.”
However convincing Nog’s facial expression is, tattling to Kira is far too dire a threat for Jake to possibly take seriously as evidenced by the all too genuine smirk crossing his face.
“I’m serious,” Nog says, cracking a grin.
“Sure.”
Nog points a finger at Jake. “I’m still not unbolting the bed. Regardless of what Starfleet and Bajor say about it, unfastening large pieces of furniture from the structure of the station is too risky. What if the artificial gravity goes down?”
Jake shrugs. “Then the bed will float.”
Sometimes Nog wonders how Captain Sisko ever thought Jake would join Starfleet. As Jake’s grandpa once said, “He’s got a good head on his shoulders, but he’d rather write a poem about a starship than fly one. Thank god.”
“Right,” Nog says. “The bed will float. Until the gravity comes back on and then—” Nog claps his right palm down onto his left. “On me or you—”
“Why would we be under the bed?”
“Or Jael.”
Nog can almost hear Jake’s Protective Big Brother Mode activate. “Fine, you’re right. Rules are… rules.”
“Thank you.”
“I guess…” Jake scratches the back of his neck. “I guess we’ll just have to get a bigger bed.”
“You mean, like, for both of us?”
“Yeah, I mean…”
A thrill of elation and a tiny spike of giddy fear passes through Nog before he remembers the exact bureaucratic runaround they’d need to go through to get a new bed. He feels the blood drain from his lobes.
He must be visibly paling, because he can see Jake’s face fall the second their eyes meet.
“Forget it,” Jake mutters. “It was a stupid idea. Obviously, I misread what was going on between us.”
“Jake…” Nog sighs.
Jake pulls his knees to his chest. “You didn’t have to say all that stuff about Starfleet regs and safety. You coulda just told me you didn’t want to—”
“It’s not like that! It’s not like that at all!”
“Then what? What is it like?”
“There are…” Nog sighs. “We’d have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a new bed.”
“And you’re not willing to make that kind of commitment? Okay, fine, whatever.”
“That’s not what I’m saying!”
“But that’s what I’m hearing. And I may not have lobes like a Ferengi, but I can still sense that you’re not as invested in this as I am.”
Nog feels his fingers involuntarily tighten into claws. Kasidy was right; sometimes the Sisko men are too in touch with their own feelings. In this case, their own insecurities. Nog relaxes his fingers enough to pick up a PADD from the side table. If Jake couldn’t hear what Nog was saying, maybe he could see it.
“If I wasn’t invested in us,” Nog says quietly, walking towards Jake, “would I be reading this?” He hands Jake the PADD.
Flipping it on, Jake reads aloud, “Contract Parity: Negotiating a Feminist Marriage in the New Ferengi Alliance.”
“I’m on the chapter about negotiating with off-worlders.”
Jake lets the PADD fall slack in his hand. “Whoa.”
“Yeah.” Nog kneels down next to Jake. “So, trust me when I say I’m invested. Literally. I’ve started putting away latinum to pay for a premarital mediator.”
“Whoa,” Jake says again. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon? We’re not even engaged.”
“Do you know how expensive a Vulcan mediator is?”
“Wait. A Vulcan mediator?”
“They’re the best in the business. And my Hew-mon deserves the best.” He squeezes Jake’s shoulder.
Jake places his hand over Nog’s. “I don’t know what the big deal is about getting our own bed.”
Nog looks down at their knees. “There’s just, you know… A request like that goes through a lot of people.” Nog can tell where Jake’s mind is going just by seeing his leg muscles tense (okay, and by hearing a subtle shift in Jake’s respiration). Nog cuts him off before he can start. “And, no, I’m not worried that people will find out we’re together. I’m not ashamed to be with you—not since we were little kids. And, besides, everyone knows we’re together.”
Nog gets the small sigh of relief he was aiming for. “Actually,” Jake concedes, “I think some of them knew we were together before we know we were together.”
“Exactly. But not all of those people know how together we are. I mean, physically.” Nog makes a few crude hand gestures to illustrate his meaning. “And, well, for those who don’t know, seeing my requisition for a queen sized bed will probably tip them off.”
Jake stares at him blankly for a second. “My dad knows we’re having sex.”
“That’s not—what? How?”
“I tell my dad everything.”
“Everything?” Calling in sick tomorrow suddenly sounds very appealing.
“Not everything. I didn’t go into detail, but I obviously checked in with him afterwards to talk about my feelings.”
“Obviously… Wait, how soon afterwards?”
Jake looks askance. “You were out like a light; I didn’t think I would wake you up.”
“You said you were going to the Promenade to write me a poem!”
“I did. On the way back from my dad’s quarters.”
“Well, I’m sure he was very happy to be woken up at 0200 hours to hear about your sex life.”
“He was,” Jake says forcefully, before adding more quietly, “Kasidy and Jael not so much.”
Nog thinks back to that night—just a few days after the whirlwind of Captain Sisko’s return and Jael’s birth. Given the horrifying way Humans deliver their young, Nog can’t imagine Kasidy being too pleased to see Jake at that hour. Or really anyone—including her newly returned husband.
“Does that weird you out?” Jake asks.
“No,” Nog says. “I mean, it’s weird. Even for a Hew-mon. But I knew what I was getting into. And now so does your dad.”
Jake chuckles, pushing Nog’s shoulder playfully. “Then who are you so worried about? Is it Kira?”
Nog shakes his head. “I know she already knows. She knows everything.”
Jake nods in agreement. “Then who?”
Nog sighs. “Mul Goras.”
“Mul…? Who’s Mul…?” Recognition dawns on Jake’s face. “The militia’s quartermaster?”
“All furniture requests go through her.”
“How do you even know her?” Panic briefly seizes Jake’s features. “Don’t tell me you had a thing with her, because she is seriously old.”
“No!” The thought of it frosts Nog’s lobes. Not that he has anything against older women (except that they’re not Jake—and that’s a very recent objection), but this older woman? He shivers. “She was... She was my nanny.”
“Hold up. You had a nanny? On Terok Nor?”
“As far as the Cardassians knew, yes. She’d watch me during lunch and dinner rush, and the rest of the time she found Bajoran buyers for some of my uncle’s more militaristic acquisitions.”
“Your nanny sold weapons to the Resistance?’
“Not weapons. Weapon components. It was completely up to the consumer whether they were ever assembled.”
“Somehow, I don’t think Dukat would have respected that distinction.”
Nog shrugs. “Thankfully, she was never caught.”
“Not a bad tradeoff for having to change your diapers.”
“She was a good nanny.” Nog smiles fondly. “Everything I know about petty theft, I learned from her.”
Jake cocks his head to the side, appraising Nog. “You know, it’s kinda cute. You not wanting your old nanny to know how grown up you are now.”
“It’s not cute. It’s embarrassing.”
“No.” Jake wraps his arms around Nog, pulling him onto his lap. “It’s cute.”
Nog rolls his eyes even as he relaxes into Jake’s embrace. “You’re the only Hew-mon I’ll let call me cute. Don’t abuse the privilege.”
“I won’t.” Jake rests his chin on Nog’s shoulder. “I’ve got a PADD loaded up with all the synonyms for ‘cute’ I could ever need.” He presses a kiss to Nog’s jaw. “I have years of material.”
Nog turns his head just enough to nuzzle Jake’s nose. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
As Jake's lips trail up Nog’s jaw toward his lobes, Nog makes a mental note to put in the requisition first thing tomorrow morning.