Warning: Spoilers for ST:ID abound in the tags, authors notes and story itself!
While this is tagged as K/K, this part takes place before the big reveal, which is why Kirk refers to her prisoner as Jonah Harrison.
TONIGHT SHE'S GOING TO DROWN
Jonah Harrison is a striking woman, all high cheekbones and long, sweeping eyelashes. Her eyes are pale grey, equal parts cold and warm, calculating and come-hither. She has a thin but wide mouth, curling into a smirk at a moment's notice, usually when she catches Kirk watching her.
Which she does, a lot.
It began as an act of defiance. Come see the woman who murdered Christopher Pike, the closest thing to a father she had ever known. However, as the tangled web of secrets and lies, hidden agendas and buried pasts slowly began to unravel, Kirk found her rage wanting. She can't pinpoint when one ends and the other begins, only that it does; in searching herself she discovers not the brutal back-and-forth of anger when she looks at her, but a slow, roiling wave of something infinitely more terrifying.
Curiosity.
Desire.
"I know why you watch me, Captain."
"Is that right?"
Kirk crosses her arms over her chest and steps into the light. Harrison's eyes track her as she moves, bright in their amusement. It sets Kirk on edge, but she won't lose what little ground she has by admitting it. The woman behind the glass paces, matching Kirk's steps. Like a lion; a caged predator.
Don't feed the animals.
"It's the same reason they all watch me—I am better," she says as if Kirk hadn't spoken. "But they don't believe it because I am a woman, because I am not like them. I elude them and their simple, primitive rationale. I do not make sense, I am the unknown, and a man is nothing if not the brave, all-conquering explorer. What right have I, a woman, to say I am better, to be better?"
They're at the apex of the turn when she stops, and the look on her face is considerate. "That is why you watch me. You may be a woman, and a fine specimen of one at that—"
"Specimen?" Kirk spits the word, furious for reasons she cannot fathom. Her chest is pounding under the bruising weight of her anger. Her fists clench and unclench by her side. "Watch what you—"
"Oh, but you are, Captain Kirk," Harrison declares, drawing closer to the dividing wall separating them. Unwelcome and unbidden, Kirk's feet stir beneath her. She steps forward as if compelled to do so, until there's nothing but the glass under her fingertips. Harrison—Jonah—continues to speak, eyes scanning her face, ravenous with something more than hunger, something sharper, something brighter. "You play right into their hands, those rich little boys with their powerful, flying toys. But let's not talk of such things, not right now. You see, it doesn't interest me why you bring yourself down to their level. What interests me is why you seem to stay there, when you could have so much more."
Her gaze drops to Kirk's lips. Her pupils aren't dilated but her knowing smile is gone.
Their breath skates across the glass, hands splayed out across its surface. Kirk locks eyes with Harrison for a single, fleeting instant before she brushes the hair from her face and gives the terrorist her patented asshole grin. "This is the part where you proposition me, isn't it?"
Harrison's face is carefully blank.
"It is," Kirk says cockily, in hope of smothering the fear and arousal that cling to her like an insistent child. "Thanks, but no thanks."
She may have had the last word, but it's anything but a victory. In fact, the acrid taste in the back of her mouth is better ascribed to failure. She takes her leave of the brig with her shoulders squared, hair brushed off her face and a Captain's air about her.
Harrison's stare follows her all the way to her quarters, and again into her dreams.
'You could have so much more,' she whispers as she wraps her legs around Kirk's waist, as she presses open-mouthed kisses to the base of her spine, as she holds her down with a single hand and pulls to the point of pain. Her fingers tighten around Kirk's hips, the curve of her body, the clench of her thighs as she drinks her in, swallows her scream as her knees buckle and they fall together. It's hot and clenching and bitter and perfect.
She wakes at midnight, covered in sweat and burning.
It isn't a victory.
I'm not sure how I did here, especially with the dialogue.
If you like it, let me know. I'm toying with a few ideas for more, including a piece after Harrison reveals who she really is. ;)
