This was written for ...oh darn, I'll fix the name at home sorry! for the help_chile auctions last month. She requested a sweet scene between the two.

I wrote this as a VERY sappy side scene to #6. As such, it references some things that haven't happened yet. I will not explain them. :P

I get cavities every time I read this, hopefully your dental bills won't be as bad! XD

But if we are wise

Jim shifted next to him, the covers sliding off his waist to rest at the start of the swell of his buttocks as he mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath. Len leaned over and gently tugged them back to cover up to the bottom join of his wings, letting his hand linger on the younger man's back; smooth skin pliant under his fingertips as he traced a line of pale freckles up to the eruption point of the first feathers, the fine barbs tickling the back of his hand. If someone had told him even six months ago that he would be sleeping beside someone with wings, he would have immediately checked them for hallucinogenic drugs. But now...he couldn't imagine anything else. Pulling his hand away from Jim's sensitive back before he woke him up, he moved his fingers to Jim's fine hair, the gold-copper-bronze mixture dark in the negligible light coming through the curtains. It fascinated him to see those same colors in the man's wings, a grounding realization that the unexpected appendages truly did belong to him, that they weren't just alien things attached randomly to his back. He would never understand how Jim had managed to hide them for so long as he did, crushed under bioplast harnesses and layers of clothing; Jim was lucky they hadn't been stunted or damaged in their growth by the constant strain. He had seen limbs malformed under lesser circumstances. He could see the marks in his skin, the legacy left behind by over a decade of constriction; odd dents and surface abrasions worn into light scar tissue around where the bones had been forced against his back. He could heal them, but Jim had told him not to bother. They acted as calluses, dulling the discomfort when he would need to wear the contraption in the future. He scowled, and let his fingers trace down Jim's cheek. If he had his way, that damn harness would be recycled on the spot. Jim shouldn't have to hide what he was, shouldn't have to risk dangerous circulation issues just because people couldn't get their heads out of their asses and leave him alone. If only it were so simple.

Letting his fingers stroke through Jim's hair, Len closed his eyes and let his mind drift. That recent trash that he had spotted in the tabloids had been so ridiculous that they had both dismissed it, instead focusing on enjoying their peace and quiet out in the mountains; but the odd reception when they had gone into town had brought it into stark focus again. People had been keeping a wide berth around the two of them, and even more infuriatingly, shooting him sympathetic or even concerned looks. Goddamned idiots will believe everything they read, even out of the sketchiest of sketchy holo-rags; how long was it going to take before they get to Jim's mother with this shit? Len opened his eyes at that thought. Now that was a variable he hadn't thought too much about. He had known that Jim's relationship with the woman was on shaky ground, even before everything; Jim had mentioned her twice, if that much. It wasn't his business, and he had simply added it to the list of things he didn't bring up to the younger man. He had never realized just how serious it was until he had overheard Jim speaking to her over the comm, his voice dryer than his desert in August as he reminded his mother about how she had been considering killing him the day his x-gene activated...had been clutching a Starfleet-issued phaser set to kill when Chris arrived that night, as he later found out. Len had dropped the PADD he had been holding on the spot, meeting Jim's shuttered eyes with horror until the younger man shook his head in dismissal.

She freaked out, Bones, she wasn't thinking clearly. That's all Jim would say to him when he brought it up later, and no amount of sputtering and arguing would budge him further. Freaking out. His own mother had been contemplating his murder, and all he would say about it is that she freaked out. If Len had had any reservations about Jim's lack of contact with his mother (which he hadn't even thought about, truthfully) they would have been smashed to bits by that revelation. Even now, almost fifteen years later, the woman was unable to meet her son's eyes for any period of time, and she had rather conspicuously kept her gaze away from his wings throughout their conversation. He looked down at Jim's wings, twitching slightly as Jim enjoyed his REM sleep, and sighed. They were such a part of Jim, so very central to much of his behavior and sense of self that he couldn't imagine the younger man without them now; even when thinking back to events before he had known, his brain was usually updating the Jim of the past with the Jim he should have seen since day one, the beautiful being they should have all seen. Jim stirred under his hand, his head turning towards the pillow, causing his fingers to run through the short locks. God, he was a lost cause. He could care less about Starfleet, about the goddamned world for that matter. If it wasn't for Joanna, he would be happy to just stay here forever with Jim; watch him catch the Santa Ana winds, see the gold tints in his feathers glow under the desert sun as he travelled through the sky. He had loved Jocelyn, truly loved her; but he couldn't even compare that feeling to the one that threatened to overwhelm him every time he met Jim's eyes. He was seriously glad that those idiotic rumors were nothing but; because if Jim really was able to do mind tricks, Len was pretty sure he would have died of embarrassment the instant the younger man had focused on him. There were just some things he didn't need to articulate out loud. Jim had continued to wriggle about as he mused, and the wing nearly smacking him in the face made him look down at the culprit, the laugh tumbling out before he could stop it. Jim had curled into a fetal position of sorts, with his face completely obscured by the pillow; his butt was sticking in the air with his legs folded up underneath his torso and his arms tucked up under his chest. He had seen cats do a similar pose, with all their limbs hidden under their fur, but it looked far less ridiculous on a cat. It was also probably going to kill the circulation to his legs after awhile. Unable to keep his mirth entirely under control, he ducked under the wing threatening to bonk into his nose and worked his arms down the younger man's sides, grasping his waist and pulling him up out of the curled position.

"Mmm...wha'?" Jim's voice was nearly incomprehensible with sleep, and Len settled back into the pillows, letting the winged man squirm around until he found a comfortable position again.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered, but Jim couldn't exactly behave, could he? Bleary and slightly-crossed blue eyes peered at him in the twilight, and he brought his hand back up to run down Jim's face.

"Why are you up?" Jim's full lips were pursed and frowning, and Len chuckled and leaned in to kiss the frown away.

"Just thinking." Jim snorted at that, and Len found himself pushed into the pillows as the younger man moved on top of him, resting his head on his chest and letting his wings dangle over his arms and droop off the bed. He was going to be roasting by the time he woke up again.

"Stop thinking and go to sleep, Bones. If you are stewing about that dumb shit in town earlier, don't. I'm a big boy, I can handle it." Jim's lips tickled against his chest, and he sighed as he wrapped his arms around Jim's waist.

"You shouldn't have to be handling anything, Jim." Jim snorted again, and he tightened his arms around Jim's waist in response. "Seriously, Jim. This isn't the twentieth century anymore. People should have moved beyond all of this petty assumption shit." Unwinding one arm from Jim's waist, he reached up and lifted Jim's chin. "You aren't an island, Jim. You never were. You don't need to handle this sort of thing by yourself." The younger man frowned and pulled his face away from his hand, burrowing into Len's chest.

"I need to, Bones. I can't keep burdening everyone with my shit."

"That's what we are here for, Jim. If Chris heard you talking like this, he'd smack you." He relaxed minutely at the chuckle that erupted from Jim at that comment, and let his eyes drift closed. "Let's get some sleep, Jim; you won't be able to keep that pretty face of yours intact if you keep staying up all the time." A hand crept up his chest, and strong, callused fingers swept across his lips.

"Awww, do you really think I'm pretty, Bones?" Len cracked an eye open to see mischievous blue eyes looking up at him, and he raised an eyebrow as he closed his eyes again.

"No, you idiot, I'm just saying that." There was no reply, and the silence that fell between them began to lull him to sleep. Just as the darkness overtook him, he felt Jim's mouth move against his chest one more time, the faint stubble scratching against his skin rousing him just enough to hear the younger man's words.

By the next morning, however, he couldn't decide if what he heard was "Thank you," or, "I love you." But when Jim lifted his face from its resting place on his chest and gave him one of those eye-crinkling toothy grins that lit up both the room and a place in his heart that he had once thought completely lost, it really didn't matter.