Fandom: Star Trek
Pairing: Jim Kirk x unknown
Words: 849

Prompt: "i did that annoying thing where i put loads of smaller boxes inside one big box and you’re getting really mad but you don’t know that the ring is in the smallest box and i can’t wait to see your face"

Christmas wasn't a big thin on the Enterprise. While humans on Earth still held on to most traditions, humans found on colonies or spaceships had more or less dropped the traditions. Instead new traditions were made instead, often merging with that of neighbouring species and planets. On the Enterprise, there were so many different cultures and species, that if the crew were to uphold all traditions, they wouldn't have gotten any work done.

Which is why I was very surprised when I woke up on December 25^th and saw a huge brightly coloured thing next to our bed. It was at least a foot high and just as wide, and covered in green paper with gold baubles and with a wide red ribbon that ended in a huge bow on top.

I blinked several times, trying to get my bearings. Where did that come from and who put it here? It had not been there when we went to bed last night, and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep before Jim. I thought about checking the security logs to see if anyone had managed to enter our quarters without permission, but when I saw the large white tag with my name on it, curiosity got the better of me.

Looking over my shoulder, Jim was still asleep. I sat up and pulled the gift closer, untying the ribbon, then carefully lifting the lid off. It was a real anticlimactic moment. I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't another box, in red and white candy stripes. Lifting the lid off of that, revealed another box, gold paper and full of Santa-heads.

I stood up from the bed, the sheets falling off my naked body, and I lifted the new lid off. And lo and behold, a fourth box. Grumbling, I lifted lid after lid after lid, each box getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

Behind me I heard chuckling, telling me that Jim had woken up.

"What is this shit?" I snapped, pulling out a box, they were getting so small I had a hard time getting my arms deep enough.

Jim didn't reply, but I heard the replicator starting up, making his usual cup of morning coffee.

I had sat down on the bed again and was opening my eleventh lid, and was about to reach into it for another lid, when my hand halted in mid-air. There was no new brightly coloured box, but a tiny black square. It looked like velvet, like an old fashioned –

My eyes grew as large as a deflector shield and I gingerly picked it up, dropping the gift box onto the floor. Snapping the lid open, it revealed a beautiful ring.

"Is that baakonite?" I recognized the metal right away, having seen a bat'leth or two in my time on the ship. "And –" I could hardly breathe. "Jim, is that really –?"

I looked up and found Jim standing in front of me, naked as the day he was born. "Resin from a Folnar jewel plant, yes. Trust my Chief Geologist to figure it out." He then knelt down in front of me, taking the box from my shaking hands.

My heart started beating wildly in my chest, and I began rambling. "But that's... I've never seen this kind of jewellery before. How did you get the baakonite? I know you and the Klingons aren't on speaking terms. And Folnar jewel plant... Those are really rare, and it takes years to –"

Jim shook his head. "Just shut up for a moment, please, honey?" He lifted the ring out of the velvet cushion it was embedded in and held it up in his hand. Then he took my left in his right one. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, and I could see he was struggling to find the words.

Seeing him like this, the unflappable, unbeatable Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise, lost for words... I felt the lump in my throat, not believing any of this was really happening. He looked into my eyes and I was almost blinded by the impossibly bright blue of his, shining with tears as they were.

"My love," he began, his voice quivering a little, then he shook his head. "I had this whole speech planned, but right now, I can't remember a word of it. Will you marry me?"

Tears sprung from my eyes and I smiled and nodded and everything was blurry, but my heart was bursting from my chest, and I still couldn't believe this was happening, but I somehow found my voice. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes."

"One was quite enough," Jim jibed, and slid the ring onto my finger. It was a perfect fit, the unsymmetrical hardened resin from the Folnar jewel plant making up the head of a shooting star of near indestructible baakonite that went all around my finger, the tail of it welded below the head of the star.

I leant forward and threw my arms around him, kissing him, both of us laughing and crying.

"Merry Christmas, darling."