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Usually, feeling Bones swallow his dick is enough to still the movement of Jim’s mind. Tonight, though, as Bones moans around him, Jim can still hear the warning that’s been chasing him all week.
Keep him happy. Keep him interested. Try something new.
Jim reaches under his pillow. His hand closes around the smooth, round object he had stashed there earlier.
Bones moves his tongue and it’s enough of a distraction that Jim cries out, a jagged sound that makes Bones look up at him, eyes crinkling at the sides. When Bones repeats the movement and Jim whimpers, Bones pulls back and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He crawls up to kiss Jim hard on the mouth. “So needy for me,” Bones growls. “Listen to you.”
“You know,” Jim says, grinning at the segue, “you don’t have to.” He pulls out the ball gag and offers it to Bones.
Who sits back on his heels. He stares at the thing in Jim’s hand, and Jim can see him working his mouth like he’s biting the inside of his cheek.
Jim pushes himself into a sitting position, pulling his knees up to his chest. He studies Bones’ face. His heart pounds and he fidgets with the straps of the gag.
“Jim,” Bones starts, his voice gentle. Jim looks away, eyes suddenly stinging. Nothing good ever started with a voice like that.
“Hey, we don’t have to,” Jim says, blood rushing to his head, the sound of it in his ears muting the room around him. He jumps up and flings open the large yellow box at the foot of his bed, then drops the gag in and closes the box, slamming the clasp down harder than he means to. “No big. Hey, lie down, why don’t you let me take care of you for a change?”
As Jim returns to the bed, Bones reaches for his hand. “Hey. Hey. Stop for a minute,” he says, pulling Jim down next to him. Jim reluctantly meets his eyes, but they’re too soft, too worried, and he looks down.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, don’t worry about it, let’s just keep going,” Jim mumbles, chest tightening. Bones slides closer, pressing a palm to the back of Jim’s neck and pulling him into a kiss that should relax him, should let him feel how good they are together, but that only reminds him of how much he has to lose.
“Jim. What’s going on?” he asks. “You’ve been pulling things out of Pandora’s Box all week. I gotta admit the vibrator was pretty fun but you handcuffed yourself to the bed before you checked to see if the keys were in the right place, and–a gag? I don’t know if you’ve noticed but listening to you run your mouth while I take you apart is one of my favorite hobbies.”
Jim shifts uncomfortably. “Oh, you know me, Bones, I just like…trying new things. It’s really nothing. Sorry I made it weird.”
Bones frowns. “You’re fine, Jim. I guess I just…I like our usual thing just fine,” he says, one side of his mouth crooking up. “You don’t mind too much if I just want you, do you? That mouth and that cock are plenty for me,” he rasps, kissing his way down the side of Jim’s neck.
Jim tries to surrender to the sensation as Bones’ breath moves hot against his skin. By the time Bones has his fingers inside Jim, he’s successfully quelled the persistent mantra in his mind. But after they’ve fucked, as they lie beside each other catching their breath, it starts back up again.
He’s not happy. He’s not interested. You’re not enough.
It haunts him as he packs his things, as he boards the ship for his two-week yard patrol, as he lies in his bunk on board and tries to sleep, as he goes about his duties.
By the time he gets home, he’s sure, Bones will have come to his senses and things will be over between them.
This is the worst idea that Leonard has ever had. He knows it, is made painfully aware of the poorness of his choice, the second the fluorescent lighting overhead mingles with too-bright and flashing neon, throwing strange colors against his skin.
He’s not happy. He’s not interested. You’re not enough.
That’s the only reason he’s in that store, standing there, with a busty redhead on one arm and a ball gag held loosely in the fingers of his right hand.
“Oooh,” Gaila purrs, leaning forward in a manner that’s gonna give way too many people the wrong idea along with a good look down her shirt. “He loves those.”
“Yeah.” Leonard draws his thumb over the smooth silicone, imagining just what Jim’s mouth would look like stretched obscenely around it, how his moans would muffle, teeth biting uselessly into it, as Leonard fucked harsh and unforgiving into him. “He’s already got one.”
Or maybe more than one, Leonard doesn’t know.
Jim liking them isn’t the problem.
What’s the problem is the fact it isn’t Leonard’s thing.
Or maybe it could be? Just if he hadn’t been so fucking surprised. And then demolished. It was amazing he’d gotten his dick back up.
Joce had tried things too.
Tried things before she stepped out.
Before Leonard just wound up not being enough.
Gaila draws her bright brows together in concern, batting her lashes up at Leonard even though with the heels on her boots they’re the same fucking height. “And that’s still not cutting it?”
“We agreed no commentary,” Leonard grumbles, hanging the gag back on the hook he’d taken it from.
“We didn’t agree on anything.” She taps him on the nose with a well-manicured finger. “You said you didn’t want any. But you came to the wrong person, princess, if you think I’m gonna be quiet in here.”
Leonard is very firmly aware of the fact that Gaila is incapable of being quiet, anywhere.
And yet, she is the one he went to. The only person that he could possibly think of to talk to when it came to this.
She’s had to have kept Jim interested for a while. Lord knows that Leonard walked in on them an incalculable amount of times.
Maybe it’s that Leonard doesn’t have tits? Gaila has nice tits. That could be what Jim’s missing.
But not her, because she doesn’t miss a damn thing, and is all sultrily curved lip as she catches where Leonard’s gaze is focused.
“We could always go with my first idea.” She pulls on Leonard’s forearm a little tighter, drawing them hip to hip, leaning against his shoulder.
“No,” Leonard replies too quick and too sharp. “Thanks though.” Because a threesome with his maybe-boyfriend's possible ex (were they still sleeping together? Leonard hadn’t bothered to ask—he doesn’t want to know the answer) is not what he’s looking for.
He just wants Jim to want him as he is, to be satisfied with what Leonard is.
What Leonard’s willing to be.
So maybe he’s gotta be willing to be a little more.
“What about this?” She’s leaning on him, wrapped around one side of him, like she’s afraid he’ll bolt.
She’s not wrong.
The object in her hand is…strange. It’s not hard to figure out what it is, or what it does, with the very tongue-like implement that is moving in a very tongue-like manner when she activates it.
“Mine ain’t broken.” Leonard had never so much as received a complaint from Jim when it came to the use of that specific body part.
In fact, Jim could hardly form words when Leonard started up.
Which was why Leonard didn’t particularly care for the idea of the gag. He loved the sound of Jim babbling, incoherent, needy.
“Two is better than one?” She tries in a worthy attempt, but Leonard shakes her off and they move further down.
“These?” Her nails tap at a selection of little cages that remind Leonard too much of chicken wire to be arousing. Again, it’s not hard to guess what the item's purpose is.
“Whose dick is supposed to go in that?” He asks, feeling his skin practically light on fire the longer he looks at the item in question.
“I’d say Jim’s, but I don’t think it’d work for him.”
Leonard snorts, only because Jim can and does pretty much get off at the drop of the hat, no matter the restriction.
“Yours?” She looks too happy at the idea, her cheeks carrying a little bit more color than they did a few minutes ago.
“I, ah,” Leonard reaches for the thing and turns it over before clearing his throat, “don’t think it’d fit.”
Her gaze snaps down to his crotch, as if she could fucking see anything, before that seductive smile settles on her mouth again. “He’d said a few things about that.”
A flicker of panic swells in Leonard at that notion, the idea that maybe Jim had been complaining, but Leonard’s always had an inkling that Jim’s a size queen.
He thought that would be enough.
Well, that and him. Fuck this was insane.
“Look this is a bad id–” but Leonard’s sentence doesn’t get finished, before the shop owner is hurrying out of the back.
“Gaila!” He’s happy to see her, and there’s only one reason that a Ferengi is happy to see anyone, which explains the fucking…well…contraption that he’s got in his hand. “It finally came.”
“Oh, really?” Leonard’s arm is forgotten, all of him abandoned, as she meets the shopkeep halfway, clapping her hands together rapidly and making a high-pitched kind of noise.
Whatever it is, it looks expensive. Pitch black leather, or something like it, woven in strange kinds of ways that don’t quite make sense, and buckles that jingle and jangle with each movement the two of them make as they turn it over and back again.
It’s some kind of…clothing or outfit or something, Leonard guesses, as Gaila holds it up against her frame and gushes over the mastery of the work.
“This is it, Leonard!” She sets on him, because that’s the only way that Leonard can describe it, with whatever it is in hand.
“What is what?” That whatever it is, has his heart thrumming harsh in his ribs as she holds it up against his chest, eye where it falls at his waist.
“He’ll love this.” She makes an adjustment here and there, before turning Leonard sideways to compare the width. “We’re pretty close in size.”
“We’re not close at all,” Leonard grinds out.
But she just waves him off. “You’ve got a long torso like mine, I bet our chest measurements are similar, as well as your derriere. We’ll just have to get you a bigger pair of stockings.”
Keep him happy. Keep him interested. Try something new.
“Stockings?” His voice is far too tight and loud when he asks the question.
“Yeah. You know.” She turns over her shoulder to where the Ferengi waits. “Haiz, do you have any fishnets in extra large and tall?”
As Jim sits on the shuttle, his knee bobs up and down with a force and rapidity that earns him dirty looks from the people sitting on either side of him.
If he stops moving, though, he’s pretty sure he’ll explode, and then they’d really be pissed.
He stares down at his PADD. It’s not like he hasn’t heard from Bones. They’ve messaged back and forth, but they were on different schedules and they never really got into a rhythm. Certainly no conversation long enough for Bones to work up to what Jim knows he really wants to say.
He should be excited to see Bones. He is excited to see Bones, except that he’s also terrified to see Bones. He feels his mouth twist to one side. Better to get it over with. He taps out a message.
Hey Bones, we’ll be there in fifteen. Can’t wait to walk off the shuttle and see your face. He hits send and feels adrenaline jolt through him. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. He’s not ready for this.
When the shuttle lands, Jim shoulders his bag and forces a grin onto his face. He walks out the door, squinting against the bright sun, scanning the forms in the crowd until his eyes adjust and he can pick out Bones.
He’s hard to miss. On this sunny California summer day, Bones is wearing a hoodie and jeans. His hands are in his pockets and he’s standing hunched over. He looks like he wants to be anywhere else in the world. Jim swallows hard and breaks into a light jog, reaching Bones and pulling him into a deep, open-mouthed kiss.
Bones flinches at Jim’s embrace. Jim’s heart races. He pulls back, searching Bones’ face for any clue about how to stall, how to keep the moment he’s been dreading for the last two weeks from arriving.
“I missed you, Bones,” Jim says in Bones’ ear, mouthing at the soft lobe in a way that Bones has always seemed to love. “I can hardly wait to get you home. Sure you don’t wanna duck into the library, those carrels on the 8th floor that no one’s ever using? It’s right there.”
Those carrels have seen quite a lot of Jim and more than their fair share of Bones, so when Bones says, “Uh, I’m good, let’s just head back, ok?” Jim’s legs almost give out with the certainty and terror of what’s going to happen when they get to their room.
“Hey, you hungry?” Jim asks as Bones starts walking. “Wanna grab a bite?” Now that he’s here, now that he can see how miserable Bones looks, he’s seized with a desperate need to delay the inevitable, to give himself more time before Bones cuts him loose.
“Just ate,” Bones says gruffly, not slowing down.
Jim skip-hops to catch up and get out in front of Bones, turning and walking backward while talking a mile a minute. “Hey, didn’t one of your messages say there was some big medical lecture you wanted to catch today? It starts pretty soon, right? Wanna go? I promise I’ll behave!”
“Watch where you’re going, kid,” Bones shouts, alarmed, as Jim barely avoids backing into a tree. Jim turns right-way-round and catches at Bones’ hand, pulling him close and spinning him toward the tree, pressing him into its substantial trunk and running his fingers through Bones’ hair, kissing Bones more tenderly this time.
For one perfect moment, Bones hums with pleasure and kisses Jim back. Jim’s heart leaps and he reaches for the zipper of Bones’ sweatshirt, wanting to get closer than the thick fabric will allow.
Bones stiffens and gently but decidedly ducks out of Jim’s hold, tugging his shirt away from Jim’s hand. “I uh…just wanna get back to the room, ok? Sorry, ‘m not…not quite feeling myself today,” he mumbles, practically speed-walking now.
Jim notices for the first time that Bones is…limping? His gait is off, though he doesn’t appear to be favoring one side over the other. “Bones, you ok?” Jim says, self-recrimination flooding through him. Jesus but he was self-centered. He was so fixated on the break-up he knew was coming that he hadn’t even noticed that Bones was hurt.
“I’m fine, Jim, I swear,” Bones says, and Jim can see him make an effort to even out his stride. Jim catches at Bones’ shoulder and Bones shrugs him off, but stops, looking Jim squarely in the eye for the first time since he’s gotten off the ship. “I’m fine,” he says again. “And…I can explain. But not here, ok? Can we just…can we just get back to the room, and talk there?”
“Yeah, Bones, of course,” Jim says, heart sinking. “Right behind you.” Suddenly the nervous energy that’s been powering Jim all day leaves his body. His bag feels like someone’s filled it with boulders. There’s nothing for him to do but follow Bones into their room and wait.
Fucking fucking fuck.
Everything on Leonard aches.
All it takes is a breath, not even a deep one, just the normal amount, maybe even a little smaller, a single fucking huff, and hair gets pulled out of his nuts while the straps of the damn thing cut into his shoulders.
No matter what Gaila said, or how she cajoled, or somehow talked Leonard into letting her help him into this blasted contraption, they are not the same size, and he’s stuck between worried he’s gonna break her special order lingerie that just arrived from Orion, or he’s gonna be left with some kind of permanent fucking injury.
And none of that, none of it, not the pain in his back or the chafe on his chest because somehow leather bras can hurt when you have pecs instead of tits, matters for fuck all because Jim’s getting ready to leave him.
Leonard’s seen this a dozen times. Watched it as Jim does that little back and forth dance between trying to rub up against someone and trying to avoid being alone with them. Jim Kirk’s a lot of things, hot, adorable, insanely good in the sack, but he’s never been fucking subtle.
So when the door swishes shut behind them, and Leonard leans against the counter of their kitchen - if you can call it that - curling down and in just to give the tension a fucking break, he tries not to come out of his skin as Jim’s bag hits the floor.
Because that means they’re home and they’re in the apartment, which means now they’re gonna have to talk and fuck, Leonard does not want to do that. Not now. Not after.
What’s even worse is the way that Jim can’t seem to figure out what to do either. Leonard knew this was a bad idea, them mixing things up with them living together, and now how the fuck are they gonna manage?
Apparently by staring at each other.
Jim’s chewing on his lip in a way that Leonard thinks is cute, that he’s always thought is cute, and he really just wants to cross the small space between them and remind himself just how chapped Jim’s lips get when he’s been in space for more than a day.
He never remembers to drink enough water to make up for the dryness of processed O2.
“You,” Jim pauses and chews and twists up his mouth and Leonard has to ball his hands at his sides to not take that step and pull Jim to him, because he could so easily derail Jim getting to this, and if Jim’s really ready to break up with him, Leonard would rather it be before he sees Leonard in thigh-high fishnets (which actually aren’t too bad) hooked into a leather garter belt that’s buckled into some leather fucking panties (with a very convenient zipper for a guy with a dick, that Leonard’s not really sure how that would work for Gaila other than showing off what has to be an impressively red bush) which are somehow locked into a bra that all crosses around his front and his back and ends in a not-at-all delicate collar and o-ring which makes Leonard feel pretty fucking stupid but also ten-percent hot and, fuck.
“So you’re fine.” Jim tries again with a statement that also doubles as a question but one that’s not fully asked because Jim probably doesn’t actually want the answer.
“I’m fine. It’s not a big deal.” Leonard drums his fingers on the counter. “Just, it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” And for some reason Jim looks fragile and unsure, and Leonard doesn’t know what to do here. Is he supposed to beg Jim not to leave him? Have this be the moment where he tells Jim for-real that he’s in love with him rather than whispering it into Jim’s hair after Jim’s well-fucked, freshly-showered, and passed out?
“It’s nothing,” Leonard reassures him.
It’s the closest thing to a lie that Leonard’s ever told Jim because it isn’t nothing. It’s a lot of everything. Shit, Leonard’s already gone through losing one person he thought he loved and it’s only thought because he has never felt for anyone the way he feels about Jim, and to not be enough for Jim? To have somehow been the one to let him down because he wasn’t exciting enough?
“But it’s something, because you said you’d explain.” Jim’s lost all the color in him, and his eyes are huge, and Leonard is pretty sure he can’t hear anything over the wush-wush of the blood in his ears.
“I don’t want to have this talk,” Leonard admits, again wishing he wasn’t trussed up like some Thanksgiving turkey gone S&M.
“I missed you.” Jim had said it before, but it had been different at the shuttle port, because there in their rooms it’s all quiet and sad like he’s gonna keep on missing Leonard for the rest of his life.
Silence hangs between them for another span of seconds where Leonard swears he can see the light moving across their floor, before he finally breaks out, “Give me a chance,” like it’s the last damn thing he’ll ever say.
Confusion ripples across Jim’s forehead, and he breaks the intense as fuck eye contact they’d been managing only to mouth the words Leonard has just said.
“What?” He asks, finally, tilting his head to the side.
“A chance?” Leonard risks, voice harsh and unsteady. “Please, just, give me another chance.”
He’d never even asked Jocelyn for that.
Okay he had, he’s been here before, except not … dressed like he is.
How many people had asked Jim for this? How many people had seen all that he could be, all that potential, all of the man who’s going to make a difference in the fucking universe, and pleaded with him not to leave.
“What?” Jim asks again, but there’s a curve at the corner of his mouth. “I was going to ask you for another chance. I thought after,” he dips his head and flushes and there’s that fucking adorable kid who is fucking insane in bed but won’t say ball gag when they’re having a conversation, “after everything that you were acting weird because, well…”
“Because?” Because now Leonard can’t breathe and it’s not because of the straps cutting into his skin.
“I thought you were going to leave me. That you’d gotten sick of me.” And then softer, under his breath. “Like everyone else.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“I just figured if I kept things exciting you wouldn’t end up…like all of them.”
Leonard just blinks. Blinks and stares at Jim and tries to calm down all the zillion things zooming around his head because everything has fallen apart but might be coming back together and, well, fuck it.
So he pulls his zipper down.
It’s kinda fun, and almost worth it, to watch everything on Jim’s face do a one-eighty as Leonard’s hoodie hits the tile.
It’s even better to watch him hurry forward and drop to his knees as Leonard snaps the button on his fly.
“Oh my god,” Jim breathes, thumbing at the straps, tracing up and over them, before leaning in to nip his teeth against the tops of Leonard’s fishnets. “What is this?” He’s beaming as he asks it, looking up through those long-ass lashes of his, all worry and fear banished in deference to lust.
Zero to sixty in under a second.
Everything’s fine.
“It’s fucking uncomfortable is what it is,” Leonard grouses. But still he reaches forward to comb at Jim’s hair, curling his fingers in and pulling him forward, urging him against the gentle rise of a slowly filling cock held prisoner in too much leather and too many zippers and jesus he needs to get out of this thing.
“You look amazing.” Jim’s hands are everywhere, urging Leonard to step out of his jeans, getting him to turn around, running over the flesh of his ass. “Where?” Jim starts before Leonard feels teeth against the rise of his right cheek. “How?”
“I would like to talk about that even less.”
“So if you aren’t comfortable and you don’t want to talk about it, then why do you look like the best wet dream I will be having for the rest of my life?”
After fighting out of his sneakers (and using the counter for balance because Jim is currently exploring the fucking unknown and not any help at all) Leonard turns again, pulling Jim up to his feet.
“Because,” Leonard starts, but knows there’s only one true answer for this and he’s still not fucking sure that he’s willing to give it.
But maybe.
“Because,” he tries again, but Jim is grinning up at him as he palms Leonard’s dick through the incredibly not-sexy feeling of the leather/zipper trying to imprint itself on some very sensitive skin.
“Because I want to make you happy,” Leonard lands on. “And if you want to make me happy, so that I can make you happy by fucking you senseless for the first time in two weeks with some other nice things I have picked up like a pair of handcuffs that are actually meant for people and sex and won’t lock you to furniture or cut off your bloodflow, then get me out of this.”
Jim hesitates for a second, smirking up at Leonard - a trick he and Gaila have evidently conspired towards because again, same height - before he dips his head and starts to go for the buckles. “Since you asked so nicely.”
But the buckle doesn’t go.
So Jim laughs and tries another, and then another, and he’s edging for the fourth and fifth and nothing is fucking happening.
“I think there’s too much tension on it.” Jim tugs, and that makes Leonard make a noise that is very much a whimper and is in no way sexual.
“Can you not do that?”
“It’s fine.” And Jim’s all calm control. Thumbing at Leonard’s cheekbone in a soothing sort of manner. “I’m just gonna grab some scissors.”
“No!” The intention Leonard has is to jerk back and away, but there’s a counter behind him and Jim in front of him and he can’t actually move well so all he does is ram his back into the rim and that’s probably going to fucking bruise.
“Well if the buckles won’t undo.” Jim shrugs his shoulders.
“Gaila will murder me or make me pay her back and I really don’t know what’s worse.”
“Gaila.” There’s a smile on Jim’s face that he’s trying to restrain but doing a very, very bad job at it.
“Yes. This is Gaila’s. No, I will not tell you the story. I didn’t like it to begin with and now I’m trying not to panic because I am apparently stuck in it.”
“Do you have instructions?”
“No,” Leonard can feel the tension increase in his jaw, “because I had to have Gaila help me put it on.”
“She got to put you in it?!”
Jim looks so honestly disappointed and adorable that Leonard can’t help but to lean in and kiss him.
It’s supposed to be quick, just a peck of appreciation, but those lips are just as chapped as he remembers, and for some reason that’s a fucking turn-on because it’s Jim and it’s his mouth and it’s been too long.
But then Leonard’s dick wants to join in and the discomfort starts all over again.
“Call her.” Leonard groans, collapsing in an overly dramatic way against Jim’s shoulder.
He’s just tired and sore and horny and relieved.
Relief that gets to be even greater just a few minutes later after a very short vid call that involves no giggles and the revelation that there’s an emergency clasp.
Why the fuck didn’t she tell him that?
Everything aches and pinches and there’s way less hair on his sack than there was to begin with, but Jim’s fingers are sturdy and soothing as they rub lotion into each one of Leonard’s half-dozen strap burns.
“You still awake down there?” Jim asks as he finishes up, tugging lightly at the fishnets that are still wrapped around Leonard’s legs.
“Hmm?” comes Leonard's very aware and awake response.
“Pizza and movie?” Jim throws Leonard’s sweats at him, but doesn’t look sad or disappointed or like he’s not sure which way to run.
He looks relaxed. He looks comfortable.
“I missed you.” Leonard moves to peel off his right stocking but Jim stills him.
“Are those uncomfortable too? I mean, they don’t look as tight as everything else was.” He adds the last bit too quickly.
“No,” Leonard replies, smiling slowly. “I kinda like ‘em.”
“Yeah they are, um,” Jim leans forward to run his hands over them. “Can you leave them on?”
“I think that can be arranged.” Leonard knows he’s full-out grinning now. “I’ll make you a better offer though.”
Jim perks up, sitting back on his heels.
“You get mushrooms on the pizza, I’ll blow you while we wait.”