Author's Note: I decided to do a very brief follow-up for this story since one lovely reviewer did request it. It's still kind of a one-shot but more like a one-shot with an epilogue. Also, not really sure whether to catagorize this as romance, it's more like the (slightly erotic) obsessively relationship Khan and Kirk share. But anyway.

Happy reading!

Epilogue

Revenge.

That was what is must have seemed like.

Impossibly strong hands groped at him until finding purchase at his collar. Without any doubt, he knew what would follow next – what had to follow next. And not for the sake of revenge, but for something deeper, something electrifyingly intense. Something more.

Khan's pupils were blown, eclipsing nearly his entire iris and Jim could only realize how faintly handsome he was, even when in the grips of pure unadulterated hate. Yet, somehow to see him flaccid and complacent, it was wrong.

No, Khan was meant to be savage. He was burning with such a constant flame of savagery and it suited him well; it brought out his truest passions, his truest desires with such a bone-crushing force. It was terrifyingly beautiful, and Kirk was struck.

By both Khan and Khan's fist.

This time, firm hands found their way into Captain Kirk's hair, sinking in fingernails and bringing them ever closer together. One hand wandered back down to his neck, though it stayed solely on his skin, keeping the friction between a calloused palm and a pounding pulse. If he wanted to, Khan could squeeze the life from his neck, or beat the thought from his brains.

The idea was exhilarating.

Another blow sent his head snapping to the other side – that one felt like an open palm rather than a clenched first. The sting went straight down, pooling in his lower stomach with an aching burn. Once more, Khan struck Jim and once more, Jim tried miserably to silence the sounds threatening to escape past his split lips.

"Isn't this what you've wanted all along, Captain?" Khan hissed right into ear, his lips brushing roughly against his jaw. His voice was sinfully deep and dimly breathless, grating like gravel across his nerves. Kirk felt raw under its timbre.

Khan punched him again and again, until a thin hot trickle of blood escaped from the corner of his busted mouth. Pain blossomed across his featured, unfurling itself in different layers ranging from sharp agony to dull hurt. Kirk couldn't stop the gasp this time and Khan seemed all too delighted to hear it.

Deftly, those long, pale fingers wiped away the errant blood, before bringing it closer for Kirk's inspection. He was transfixed as those fingertips swirled in the air before being brought back to Khan's own lips where a tantalizing tongue stole a taste.

"So he bleeds," the mouth purred. Jim dared to look into the madman's eyes, finding only the same intense abyss which had greeted him earlier.

Then the world was shifting as iron arms lifted Kirk to his feet.

Facing Spock on the conn was like a shock of cold water, coursing through his system and bringing himself back to the present. Out of his agonizing purgatory. Somewhere, Kirk knew Spock was negotiating with Khan, who in turn only tightened his grip on Kirk's neck, placing a newly welcomed pressure.

Yet his capture wouldn't last, and Kirk would pull himself back together again, never letting anyone know how undone the madman had made him. He would escape with Carol Marcus and Scotty back to the enterprise. The day would be saved and months eventually would pass, following the speedy recovery of one of Star Fleet's finest.

Time would go on, finding Kirk back in his captain's chair and Khan returned to his cryogenic prison.

But there would be nights, before Jim Kirk could lose himself in the vastness of sleep, where burning eyes of livid emerald would haunt him. There would be nights when those nightmares were welcomed, where cruel hands would prize from him delicious pain and pleasure.

There would be nights of Khan.

And there always would be.

Fin