browngirl | The One Where Lenore Takes a Study Break (Star Trek XI Ficlet, R)

Title: The One Where Lenore Takes A Study Break
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: R
Pairing: Jim Kirk / Lenore McCoy
Content Advisory: Genderswap, Academy-fic, het.
Acknowledgements: Written for

echoinautumn: "Jim/Leah, late night study sessions always seem to go like this..."
Disclaimer: None of these characters or their settings belong to me (though I've made a few modifications).

Lenore H. McCoy, MD, knows full well she's physically capable of getting out of this cozy bed where she's tucked beside her roommate-cum-new best friend-cum-favorite problem-cum-all sorts of things they've mutually refused to discuss. She only feels like she never wants to shift from under Jim's warm sturdy arm across her waist. Her naked waist, bare like the rest of her under his blanket, in his bed, and it's -- she creaks open an eye to check the chrono -- 0427.

Their late night study sessions always seem to end up this way, despite or because of all the next mornings when they get up like nothing happened. Around 0130, like always, Jim looked up from his PADD, those ridiculous eyebrows sidewinding up his forehead as he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Bones, you look like you could use a break."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she'd replied tonight, but it doesn't matter what she says, to him or herself, when he fastens those luminous eyes on her like she's the only person in the world and tilts that smile of his up just so, when he shimmies up out of his chair and struts over like the peacock he is, wilted just enough around the edges that she doesn't hate him for the bounce in his step. "I've got studying to do," she'd said, but she didn't scoot back when he knelt beside her and grinned, she leaned forward when he reached for her and hid her smile against his cheek.

Just to be a goddamn showoff he picked her up, and she gasped, "What the Hell, Jim! I can walk!" but she leaned on his chest, she looped her arm around his neck, she looked up at him knowing he would kiss her. "Do you want to start me ranting about marriage, because this isn't a damn wedding night," she told him, but his eyes sparkled an unbelievable blue above his sideways smile, and as he put her down he did kiss her, starting off gently. But it didn't stay gentle for long.

The worst and best part is, he always picks right when the text's starting to blur before her eyes, when she's starting to fidget and thinking of how good a stretch would feel, when her brain's feeling crammed full and crackling around the edges. Unless it's how he shuts her brain down until she's nothing but a mess of parasympathetic reactions and surging hormones, until she's clinging to him and begging despite her burning blush, and how he laughs a little darkly into her hair as he fucks her until her brain melts entirely and she can all but feel it run out her ears.

Now Jim breathes softly into her hair, long fingers draped over her ribs, thumb snugged up under her breast. Lenore opens her other eye, turning her head slowly so she won't tug her hair, so she won't wake him up, and looks down at the interleaved pile of their undress uniforms, bra and jockeys crowning the heap. It's a pretty blatant symbol of how tangled their lives have gotten, and she shouldn't... she isn't looking for another relationship, she reminds herself, not after how badly she fucked up her last one, the supposed-to-be forever one.

But Jim is warm and solid beside her, and every time she plans her days she considers his. And they keep on studying together late at night, including taking these breaks that end with her waking up warmly in his bed, more refreshed than she has any right to be, pretending not to feel him kiss her forehead before he climbs over her and runs for the shower.

Lenore lifts her hand and looks at her palm, and doesn't set it on Jim's arm to trace his textbook musculature. She's done that before and she could now, but instead she rubs her hand over her face, gently slides Jim's arm off herself despite the way his fingers wake up and curve after a hold, and gets her feet onto the floor.

"Bones?" Jim rumbles all sleepy-muffled, and she makes the mistake of looking back, at the sleek topography of his shoulders, at one blue eye rising out of the pillow. "Bones, it's four-thirty."

She folds her arms across her middle, where his was. "Yeah, and I still have fourteen star charts to review--"

" 'Your spatial thinking will benefit from some rest'," he quotes her own words back to her, the edge of his grin rising out of the pillow as he rotates his wrist to ripple his fingers at her in a 'come here' gesture. "Come back to bed."

"My bed's over there, Jim," Lenore says, but the step she takes isn't away. Jim lifts his head, arching that beautifully formed neck, grin widening in obnoxious triumph as she mutters, "and I should be in it with my padd studying those goddamn star charts full of little speckles I'll never keep straight...."

She sits right back down, and he wraps his arm right back around her as she tugs the blanket back up over them. "You'll do fine. I've seen you name all my muscles, I know you can remember the galactic layout." He kisses her temple, a soft press of his smiling mouth, and it all feels so easy, so familiar, so much like everything she left behind and so new all at once.

Lenore sighs elaborately in wordless doubt, but she fits her body to Jim's as he curves his around hers, and leans her forehead against his as she closes her eyes.