He tries to remember if there was a build up to him having to admit to himself that he might, MIGHT, be in trouble over his computer program.
The picture may have been a turning point.
"Koz?"
"What did you break?" Kozimer asks, not looking up from the screen in front of him. James sounds guilty, and that's never good.
"Nothing! Shut up! I just wanted to show you something."
Kozimer blinks, then sits back, looking up at one of the cameras. "Alright...I'll give. What did you do?"
"I've been working on something for a while." James says, he sounds so nervous that Kozimer raises his brows in curious surprise. "It's a rendering. I took it from a stockpile of a lot of different images and then started working up into something that looked, that felt-"
"Did you make a picture of yourself?" Kozimer interrupts quietly.
"Yeah...well I mean kinda. It's a picture of what I look like. What I want to look like. When you get the body made. If you can do that!"
Kozimer smiles, ignores the little flutter in his chest. "You can make the bodies look however you want, James. It should be easy. Let me see, then."
The screen in front of him flickers and the graphs are replaced by a single image. Kozimer stares at it, at James.
It's a young human man, barely out of his teens. With pale skin and blue eyes and a thin, mischievous curl of a smile that makes his eyes light up. It's made to look like a photograph. The boy's, James's, head is turned just slightly as he looks at the camera, like someone caught his attention before snapping the shot. There's sunlight hitting him and even a generic, outdoors background.
It's not exactly what Kozimer had imagined for the voice that has been his companion for almost two years, but it fits. It's so utterly James that Kozimer can't even imagine him as looking any other way.
"It looks just like you." Kozimer says with a smile, ghosting his fingers over the computer screen where James smiles back up at him.
"It is me. Will be. Same difference. Hey, Koz?"
"Hm?" Kozimer doesn't look up from the image, from the details of it. How long had James been working on this? He can see each strand of white hair and the faint hint of freckles over his skin. There's even the detailed weave of thread in the fabric of his shirt. And his eyes are a perfect blue and reflect the artificial sun like-
"What's kissing like?" James asks in a rush.
Kozimer freezes, blinks rapidly while he tries to come up with an answer and his face heats up. He clears his throat and looks away from James's eyes. "It's....difficult to describe."
"Try?" James prompts.
"It's..." Kozimer clears his throat again and rubs at the back of his neck. "It's different for every person, really. For me it's something very....personal. Something small that you can still feel all over, that connects you with someone..." He's usually better at words than this. Usually not this bad. But it's difficult, with the image of James's smile right in front of him behind the glass.
He might be in trouble.
"When I get a body...that body. Will you show me?"
It doesn't sound as naive as it should. James sounds sure, like he knows exactly what he's asking for.
Kozimer bites his lip and looks back at the image. Thinks of the last two years. He should say no, brush it off as the innocent question of an innocent computer program.
But James is more than that.
"I will." Kozimer says softly.
~oOo~ (MA content ahead) ~oOo~
Kozimer hardly feels like he's done much for the day, but he falls back onto the bed feeling wrung out and worn down all over. He's loose and tired, ready to just pass out as soon as he hits the mattress.
Except he can't seem to get his brain to realize that it's about time to stop replaying the day's events over and over again.
He's starting to think that he's in a lot of trouble.
James's picture had not helped. It wasn't even a particularly alluring picture. It was just a portrait rendering of a smiling young man, blue eyes bright and grin a mile wide.
He couldn't stop thinking about it, about how much it looked like James. Which didn't even make sense.
He may definitely be in trouble.
And he needs to take his mind off it. Needs to find something to blank himself out and hurry him off to sleep so he doesn't have to think so much.
His hand almost starts moving on it's own, palm sliding flat over his chest. The material of the jumpsuit bunches and smooths as his hand moves over it and he closes his eyes, focusing on just feeling instead of what his brain is doing.
Kozimer lets a slow breath out and drags his hand up his sternum, feeling the faint friction of material over his skin. It's easy to get lost in touch, to blank out as he leisurely traces the ridges of his collar bones, slides his fingers up over his neck. Fingertips ghost over the skin of his neck at the top of his collar and his next breath comes out on a sigh.
He takes his time, hooking one finger through the zip of his jumpsuit and pulling down slowly, slow enough that he can feel air hitting skin as the suit parts behind his hand.
With his eyes closed everything just -feels- more. He opens his suit down to his navel and leaves it, sliding a hand beneath the material instead of outright removing it.
Kozimer bites his lip, scratches at his skin lightly and moves his hand up. His breath hitches, catching when he drags his thumb over one nipple. The rustling of the bed when he shifts is nearly deafening, and he opens his eyes slightly.
Just enough to see the faint glow of a blue camera light in the corner of his vision.
James.
His breath hitches again, mind flooded with the memory of the picture James sent him. It's all too clear, how that smile would curl around James's laugh that he knows too well. How the blue eyes would light up when James was excited or the way those lips would work around James's distinct voice.
Kozimer is in trouble. His breath comes in small, short bursts and he should ignore the light. He should ignore it or demand James respect a little thing called privacy.
There are a lot of things he should do.
"What are you thinking about?" Kozimer asks, barely above a whisper.
There's a pause following him. A heavy silence where he holds his breath, holds his hand still and wonders if he just crossed some line that he can't come back from.
'Oh there's no question that I crossed it,' he thinks. If he's honest with himself he crossed this line a long, long time ago.
He's wondering if James is actually at the camera when the AI finally answers, voice quiet and hesitant. "I...I really want to touch you."
Kozimer closes his eyes again and shudders at the sound, hearing James's voice so close and intimate. He moves his hand again, but now he's keeping his touches light and teasing, imagining a smaller, curious hand. "Tell me," he breathes.
"I want to know what it's like." James says in a rush. "I want to know what skin feels like, how your clothes feel different from your skin and how different areas of skin feel different. I'd want to feel your hair, run it through my fingers and then run my hands down over your neck. I can see your pulse there and I want to know if it's warmer on your neck, want to feel that under my hand."
Kozimer closes his eyes again, sliding a hand up to rest over the side of his neck, right where his pulse flutters wildly in his jugular. "You'd be able to feel my pulse jump," he says, keeping his voice low and quiet, even though he's technically the only one on the ship. "And it definitely would."
"I'd....yeah I'd like that." James says softly, "I want to see how you react. I'd move my hand down, keeping contact because I want to feel every texture. I'd move down to your chest, feel your heartbeat there because I want to know if it's different than how it feels on the side of your neck."
His hand moves down obediently, pressing more firmly as it drags down his chest and pauses in the center, right over where his heart pounds against his ribs. The suit is still only partially open, his hand hasn't even gone lower than his chest yet and he's already fully hard. Kozimer can feel his erection straining and pressing against the tight material every time he shifts.
Every breath shudders out of him, he wants so desperately to move down, to reach beneath his suit and wrap his hand around himself and let go. But he keeps his hand where it is, waiting for James to direct him.
"I would move my hand over to run your nipples under my fingers, because I heard they're sensitive and want to see-" James stops when Kozimer's breath hitches on a whine while he rolls his nipple beneath his fingers, "-that..." James finishes. "I want...I want you to do that because of me."
"I am." Kozimer sighs, shivering while he twists his fingers.
"I'd kiss you, now." James rushes out, and Kozimer bites his lip, nodding even though James didn't ask anything. "And I would want to stay teasing, I mean...I really want to take my time and touch everything but I know myself too well." His voice breaks into a small laugh and Kozimer barely bites back a groan at the sound of it. Stars just that laugh could do him in, he can easily imagine it breathless and huffed against his ear or muffled with a smile pressed against his neck.
"I'd want to tease," James says again, "but...I can see how hard you are. I can see it through your suit and I wouldn't be able to keep myself from touching it. I wouldn't be able to stop from tracing it through your suit with my fingers and Ty feeling the shape of it."
Kozimer moves his hand down quickly, voice choking out a moan while his fingers run over the ridges of his erection. He keeps his touch light, maddeningly light; imagining James's curious, hesitant touch.
"James..." he barely recognizes his own voice, he's hoarse and strained and sounds completely wrecked. The brushes of his fingers are barely enough through the suit, he can only just feel the heat of his erection bleeding through and the hints of touch muffled by material only make him arch and whine, desperate for something more substantial.
"Press your palm over it," James says, "I want to feel all of it at once. Can you feel it throbbing like that?"
Kozimer chokes again, grinding the heel of his palm over his erection, pressing against the head and thrusting up. "Yes. Yes James, please!" It's not enough it's still not enough, he's shaking while his hips move up against his palm, desperately seeking more friction while he rocks against his the flat of his hand. His head thrashes mindlessly, neck arching back and mouth opening as he pants on each breath.
"I don't know what to do next." James says softly, and Kozimer is pretty damn sure he's lying. James lives on the internet, he knows exactly what to do, but Kozimer's brain is too fried to call James out on it properly.
"James, please." He whimpers, deciding he can be embarrassed later. His hips jerk up, insistent. "Need you to touch me...please I need-I can't like this I need more-"
"I want to see." James breathes, "I-...open your suit the rest of the way."
It takes Kozimer a few seconds to comply, his fingers fumble of the zipper and his hand is shaking as he drags it down. He grits his teeth on a high moan as his erection bobs free, swollen to a point close to pain and throbbing. Just the feel of air hitting it makes Kozimer shudder and leak a bead of precome. The tremors move up his arms, he feels like he's falling apart and his other hand moves up, slapping flat against the wall of the ship in a desperate grasp for something stable.
The metal is cool on his hand, he can feel a thin layer of perspiration forming on his palm and warming the steel beneath it. He knows that James isn't really the ship, knows that James can't feel anything, but he presses his hand harder into the wall, rubs his thumb over the smooth surface and pretends that it can reach James somehow.
"Ok..." James says, voice low, "Ok you can...you can touch yourself now. I want to see...want to see how you do it. So when I get a body I can do the same thing and then I can be the one making you feel like that."
Kozimer immediately wraps his hand around his erection, nearly sobbing as he thrusts up into his fist. "James yes James please-" He's not sure what he's begging for anymore, he's hardly aware of what he's saying at all.
He tightens his fingers, gasping as his hips move wildly. Kozimer couldn't even stop if he wanted to now. Precome drips down over his hand, slicking his erection and smoothing the friction as he twists his fingers of the head and fucks up into the clench of his fist. It doesn't take long for him to feel the beginning of a twisting heat low in his belly, a tightening strain that he's sure will break any second.
"James-" he gasps, "James I'm close, I'm so close. Please James-"
"I want you to come." James says quickly, "I want you to come for me Koz, want to know I did it."
His hips stutter up, bucking one last time before his entire body snaps. He means to say James's name, it's on his tongue and screaming through his mind but he only manages to get halfway through it before his voice breaks on a moan and he comes into his hand. Convulsions tear through his body and he keeps thrusting through his orgasm, working through it until he's shuddered out every drop of come and he's falling limply back onto the bed.
There's electricity running over his skin, he feels exposed and hypersensitive and drained in the best ways. He's still gasping for air and there are still small aftershocks moving through his muscles as his arms fall open to either side of him.
"You know what I'd like to do now?" Kozimer asks, voice cracked and hoarse.
"What?" James asks, attention focused.
"I'd very much like to hold you." Kozimer says quietly.
James pauses for a second before he answers.
"Yeah," he says, voice so close and quiet and achingly far away over the speakers. "I want that too..."