sparklefiction

He likes sex.

He's always liked sex, the sweat and effort of it, the sweetness of breath heavy on the skin, the flush of blushes, the softness of kisses, the suction of the mouth, the noise and the exercise and the baring of the soul in the eyes, falling asleep on top of or inside of one's partner and experiencing a thousand different shades of emotional bonding, contact and communication. Bathing in the waters of evolutionary compulsion, spilling it between skin in sweat, in come, in blood, in whispers of languages he may or may not fully comprehend. He's had a thousand lovers, probably, if he could keep any kind of count.

None of them matter now.

They haven't mattered in a long time.

Fingers under his own, sometimes stroking, very slowly, across his palm, other times lingering, two on two, just the tips, a kiss that very few recognize as such, stolen moments no one else can see. Skin under his cool, the beating of the heart below the ribcage, where the liver would be on someone else, someone less special. Smiles that are as fleeting as individual snowflakes. A deep and steady voice that fills his heart more full of courage than a fleet of a thousand ships at his command.

Not that there isn't ever sex. Sometimes there is. But he doesn't need it like he used to, he doesn't even want it like he used to. He is not alone. He used to feel like he was all alone in the universe, and what a great expanse of universe it was. The quadrant alone was massive, then the galaxy, then clusters of galaxies, Jim Kirk, as big as he was, was just one man in all of that, one man in all of Starfleet, one man in the vast, endless darkness of space.

He had friends, certainly. Spock was one. And then, somehow, he wasn't. Somehow, Spock became the other half of Jim, and now he cannot imagine going back to how it was.

And all Jim has to do to tell Spock how he feels is to hold his hand in bed at night and they understand one another almost completely.

It's not better than sex. Jim still thinks he would be lying to say anything was truly better than sex.

He likes it just as much, though. Loving Spock, without words to get in the way. Silently. Their hands entwined. The stars hold infinite possibility. Love is Jim's favorite.