Work Text:
and the difference is you
--
She doesn’t find much glamour in the job he’s doing. It’s important, and she realizes his own spiritual integrity depends on it (much the way the integrity of the organization they both represent does), but she still finds certain aspects of the whole ordeal terribly vexing.
The smell of another woman’s perfume on his shirt. A stray hair, more often blonde than not, caught on the front of his shirt. The scraps of paper containing personal communicators data or transporter coordinates, stuffed not-quite-subtly into the pockets of his favorite jacket. The slight slur in his speech as he answers her customary evening hail, a result of too many drinks downed in heaven-knows-whose company.
These are just specks of dust, she knows that; he’s doing a great work, obviously, gathering intel and confirming the loyalty of Fleet’s admirals and captains, putting himself at risk to assure that nobody else comes to harm. It’s so essentially him, this job, this mission, and she thinks she might love him even more for it, impossible though it may seem. He completes her—always has—and she’s never—almost never—doubted him.
Still.
It can be quite infuriating sometimes, to imagine everything that might be happening out there, where she cannot see. Is it possessive? Obsessive, even? Perhaps. After all, he did apologize for… that thing, and she forgave him. Did she forget, though? Ay, there’s the rub.
And so, she’s watchful and observant when he comes back (home; planet-side; to her), dropping his luggage carelessly in the corner by the door. She catalogues the minute changes in his face, the lines of fatigue that transform into gentle smiles when he sees her, curled up in an armchair with a glass of wine, her feet burrowed in the dog’s long, reddish fur; or else: still at her desk, PADDs cluttering the surface, blinking insistently with unread messages notifications. It’s all set aside—the wine, the dog, her work—creating the space into which he fits, seamlessly, his arms enveloping her tightly, her nose buried in the skin of his throat. She swallows down the bile as her consciousness is flooded with unknown smells, the familiarity lost under everything he’d done when he was away (from home; from the planet; from her).
By unspoken understanding, they move together, through the quiet house and into the bathroom, where she flips on the hot water tap and proceeds to remove his clothes, the persona he assumes outside. He hums in appreciation, fingers chasing hers, helping, facilitating, reciprocating, until all that’s left is his quiet, happy laughter, and her half-pretended impatience.
Under the hot, soothing spray and the familiar aroma of argan oil soap, he loses all traces of the world she cannot enter; under his hands, strong and sure, she loses her heart’s unease, uncoils and relaxes, only to let him coil her up again, fill her with a very different emotion, one that she releases in a moan shaped like his name, breathed into his ear or branded on the dark skin on his shoulder. The water turns cold and they groan, spent, promising each other to do this properly next time—and knowing very well they won’t be able to stop themselves, neither next time, nor any time. This is how they are, ten years running, still making up for lost opportunities, still longing for assurance and closeness and that one blissful moment where they cannot be distinguished from one another.
She palms the environmental controls, turning the heat up, and they lie on the bed, transferring leftover water onto the covers yet not caring about it one bit. She runs her fingers down his nose, over his lips where they get nipped on playfully, over to his chin, his strong neck, pausing to take his pulse, slow, steady. Lower still, to cover his heart, feeling the same beat under her palm; knowing, with overwhelming clarity, that here he is, completely, wonderfully—
“Mine.”
He smiles in the dusk, touches his fingers to her sternum, feels the same rhythm resonating under freckles and skin flushed with loving.
“Yours, Kathryn. Always.”
And she knows that he knows—she’s his, and that makes their tiny corner of the universe a good place. A better place.
The best.
/end