What little exhaustion-courage you had worked up on the walk across campus disappeared the moment your knocks were answered.

"Hey, Y/N. What's up?" Jim Kirk's voice was soft, and he had an interesting case of bed hair going on, looking as though he had been settled for a while, and you smiled awkwardly.

"Hi, Jim. I'm so sorry to have woken you, I had hoped it wasn't too late. Is Leonard here?"

"Don't stress; I was awake, just catching up on my reading. Bones isn't here, sorry, he's at the hospital tonight. Do you need some help?" Jim looked pointedly at the little tube you clutched to your chest, and your hand tightened around it as you shook your head.

"Oh...no, it's ok, thank you. I'll just catch Leonard next time."

"Hold up," Jim grabbed your arm before you could turn and leave, and extricated the tube from your grasp. "'Deep Heat', huh?" He looked down at you, eyebrow cocked, and if you didn't know better you'd say he was a captain already. "Are you in pain, Y/N? Don't lie to me."

Try as you might, you'd never really been able to lie, and least of all to Jim. "I get back pain every now and then. It's not too bad, just persistent, but I can't rub the cream in properly on my own, so Leonard usually helps me."

"I can help you."

You bit your lip at the thought of his hands rubbing over your shoulders, massaging their way down to your lower back, and suppressed a shiver. "I don't want to trouble you. I'll just go by the hospital."

"Y/N, I want to help you. I wouldn't feel right letting you go knowing you're in pain."

You tried to avoid eye contact, focusing instead on the tube he had in his hands. His big hands. His big and also probably very skilled hands. Skilled hands that could, in the next ten or so minutes, be touching your skin. Bare skin. Touching and pressing and stroking and-

You made something of a wheeze before clearing your throat to answer Jim. "If you're sure, that would be…great, thank you."

He ushered you in, giving you a friendly pat on the shoulder as you passed him. "No need to thank me; what are friends for?"

Borderline sensual massages, apparently. You ended up perched on the edge of his bed as he piled books up on his desk, filling the silence with small talk about his classes for the semester.

You wondered, as Jim crawled over to you, if you had made a huge mistake. As he motioned for you to lay down, you realised that you would never be able to look at him again without recalling the feel of his hands on your body, and as he pushed your shirt up to uncover your back, you fleetingly wondered if going braless was a terribly wonderful happenstance.

The cream was cold at first, causing you to jolt the moment he started smoothing it over your lower back, and you felt him add the slightest amount of pressure to keep you from rising.

"Do you get this pain often?" Warmth spread through you as Jim started to massage the cream in, and you gladly sank down, relieved that the pain was finally starting to ebb.

"Every few months. Most times I can just take some painkillers and feel fine, but every now and then that just doesn't cut it."

"I haven't seen you in here before. Where does Bones usually do this?"

You gave yourself a moment when his hands brushed low, hitting a particularly troubled spot. "I normally see him at the hospital, but this came on hard and fast tonight and your dorm is closer. I assumed Leonard would be here," you gave a little shrug as Jim added more cream and smoothed his way up your spine. "You know what they say about assuming."

Jim laughed; a low snicker that shot straight through you as his breath fanned over your neck, and you willed your body to calm the fuck down.

Despite the mad beating of your heart at Jim's close proximity, you were so relaxed by your pain-free state that it took you a long moment to realise that while Jim had finished massaging your back, he hadn't stopped touching you. His fingers lazily trailed up and down your back, more for a need to touch than anything else. He had shifted to lay beside you, his other arm cushioning his head, and he gave you a small smile as your eyes met.

"How are you feeling?"

"Unbelievably wonderful, thank you." You dropped your voice to a whisper to match his, the air between the two of you having changed subtly in the last few minutes.

"I'm glad Bones wasn't here," Jim gently brushed a few wayward strands of hair back from your face, his hand staying at your neck as his thumb brushed against your earlobe, and you closed your eyes, leaning into his touch. "I've been wanting to talk to you like this for a while. Just us, no interruptions."

Jim's admission brought a smile to your face, and you rolled onto your side to face him properly, feeling a little of your earlier courage return to you as you rested your hand over his. "I've been wanting that, too. It's just a little hard for me to talk to you, sometimes."

His brow furrowed, and you couldn't help but feel that your words had not been received the way you had intended.

"I always worry that I'm going to embarrass myself in front of you; say the wrong thing, or just make a fool out of myself. You get me a little tongue tied at times." You admitted,

"Would you believe me if I said that you have the same effect on me?"

"You could tell me just about anything and I'd probably believe you."

"These last few days I've read some compelling research papers about the moon and its likening to cheese..."

"Your charm might make you more convincing, Jim, but I'll have to draw the line there." You couldn't help but laugh at the look he gave you. "It cannot be surprising to you that I find you charming."

"Not so much a surprise, but...nice, I suppose, hearing that you've thought about me enough to think of me as charming."

"One does not have to do much interacting with you to come to that conclusion, James Kirk, you exude it in spades." More of a need to be doing something than the other more obvious and pleasurable outcome, you began to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt. "That does not mean that I don't think of you, though."

"Good thoughts, I hope."

"There have been good thoughts and some...not so good ones, I'll admit that, but I won't tell you what they were."

"I could coax it out of you, I'm sure."

"If your coaxing is anything like your massages then you won't have any trouble."

His laugh was soft, quiet. "Bones isn't the only one with legendary hands, you know. The interrogation wouldn't take very long at all." As if to prove his point, he started to gently massage the back of your neck, and you closed your eyes, melting into his touch.

"Jim, you are magnificent and entirely too charming."

"Go on…"

"Your penchant for shirt ripping is endearing and somewhat alluring."

"Only somewhat?" He increased the pressure, his hand sliding lower, and you melted a little more.

"More than it has any right to be if I'm being honest," you said quietly, opening your eyes to look at him. You ceased fiddling with his buttons to instead grab a fistful of his shirt front. "I would very much like to kiss you, Jim."

"I think you should," his low tone matched yours, as did his smile, and you closed the distance between the two of you, shuffling forward until you were close enough to gently press your lips against his.

It was soft and sweet; a combination that you weren't sure you had been expecting but welcomed wholeheartedly. As his hand moved from your neck to clasp yours, you couldn't stop yourself from smiling, and laughed breathlessly when you felt him do the same.

"This," he whispered, kissing you once more, "is a fantastic way to end a rather monotonous study night."

"Fantastic?" You asked, smiling coyly. "I think we could try for delightful."