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BOXERS OR BRIEFS
A. Kite
Aug. - Sept. 1999
"What in the Delta Quadrant are you wearing?"
The question took Harry by surprise. He looked up at his friend and then down to where Tom was pointing. Harry was stripped down to his underwear, the lime green with pink polka-dots boxer shorts, and sorting through his clothes for swim trunks. He and Tom were going to the holodeck resort. "What? You don't like them?"
Tom could only shake his head in wonder. Those had to be the loudest, most obnoxious boxers he'd ever seen. He would have never suspected that Harry would wear something like that in a million years. Didn't look like the type.
Harry shrugged and went back to the hunt. "Is just after wearing that boring uniform, day after day, I like knowing I have them on. You know?" There it was! The black thong, he had been searching for. He pulled it from the tangle of other things and looked over at Tom again.
He had that poleaxed face on again. "What?" Harry asked.
"You're wearing that? That skimpy little thing to the holodeck?" Tom sounded as if he was going to faint.
"Well, yeah, under these." Harry held up a pair of sensible dark blue swimming trunks.
Tom moved from his position in the doorway to Harry's sleeping area to sit on the bed. He let out a "Whew!" of relief. Harry ducked into the bathroom to change. Tom got a good look into the drawer that Harry had been rooting through. There wasn't a pair of plain Fleet underwear to be seen. Some of it was certainly colorful.
Harry reappeared and they set out for Tom's quarters. Then he got a wicked, wicked thought. He sure wouldn't mind seeing Harry in a couple of those numbers. In them and nothing else.
Good thing that Harry was walking in front. He didn't see the blush that came over Tom's face.
The door to Tom Paris' quarters slid open for its owner. Following closely behind was Tom's best friend, Harry. Tom waved Harry toward the couch in the outer room as he continued on into the sleeping area. Harry ignored the vague gesture and flopped himself on the bed instead.
Tom had already begun unsealing his uniform before he realized that Harry had followed him. He stopped dead in his tracks. It was silly; he knew that. Harry had seen him in various stages of undress and even totally naked a time or two. Any second now, Harry would be asking him what was wrong, and Tom didn't have a clear cut answer.
He didn't know why the revelation of Harry's underwear had shocked him so. The other shock; the fact that he wanted to see his friend in his underwear. Well, to be truthful, no sense lying to yourself, he found out today that he wanted Harry, period. That was a bit tougher. Now that person was right here. On his bed and watching him get undressed.
The question never came. Instead, Harry got up and moved past him, over to rotate the chest of drawers out from the wall. He opened the top drawer and looked. "Yeah, just like I thought. Nothing here but standard gray 'Fleet issue. No. Take that back. What have we here?"
"Hey, give me that!" Tom tried to grab what Harry had in his hand.
Harry wasn't going to let a prize like this go without a fight. "Where'd you get this? Woo hoo! A leopard print g-string?" He twisted his body away from Tom. "Careful! You'll break it." Harry had the advantage as his buddy was trying to hold his uniform closed, until the realization of just what he was holding hit. Not that it was likely to be dirty, but just the thought that he touched something that had been-had been, there.
Tom watched as Harry's eyes widened and his face went red. The g-string hit the deck. He heard his friend mumble an apology as he pushed past and headed for the door. Tom called after him, but Harry was moving at warp speed and already out the door before Tom could speak.
Tom wasn't sure just what had happened. He continued changing his clothes as he tried to puzzle it out. He wasn't surprised when Harry failed to make an appearance on the holodeck that evening. Tom decided not to push it for now. Harry would tell him or he'd wring it out of him when the time was right.
Days passed, and the situation never got a chance to rectify itself. Harry avoided anywhere he thought Tom might be when they were off duty. Tom ambushed him when he was most vulnerable, in his sleep. He dreamed of Tom in the g-string, in tight Fleet issue briefs, and worst of all, sometimes in no underwear at all. Guys weren't supposed to dream of their best friends that way, in Harry's mind. It was way too embarrassing when you had to face them over the briefing table after waking up with a hard on.
Tom was miserable too. He missed his friend. On impulse one evening, he used a few precious replicator rations for some new underwear. It was a fun idea. A small rebellion against authority to wear something outrageous under the somber uniforms. It made him feel closer to Harry, and he needed that now.
That plan backfired somewhat when on the very next duty shift Tom had occasion to wish he hadn't worn yellow boxers with wide red and black stripes. He never figured out how it happened. Starfleet uniforms weren't supposed to rip like that. They were supposed to be pretty near indestructible. All Tom knew was that he went flying from his station to end up back by the Ops console with the seat of his pants ripped open.
By the time Tom came back to his senses, their attackers had been dispatched. Harry was at his side helping him up in a flash. With a twinkle in her eye, Captain Janeway ordered Harry to escort Tom to sickbay to be checked out. Everyone on the bridge except Tuvok seemed to be suppressing gales of laughter. Tom gathered the seams of his pants in one hand and walked to the turbolift with all the dignity he could muster. He'd need it.
Harry got in the lift and as soon as the doors closed, slid down the wall. He was laughing so hard that his legs wouldn't support him. Between chuckles, he asked Tom, "What in the Delta Quadrant are you wearing?" Echoing Tom's question to him, just days before.
Tom growled at him in a fair imitation of their chief engineer. When the turbolift stopped, Harry had the courtesy to walk behind Tom to shield his backside. They got some strange looks anyway.
Harry left Tom with the doctor fussing over him and headed back to finish his bridge shift. Later that evening, Harry was at the desk in his quarters finishing up a report when his door chimed. "Come," he called to whomever it was.
Tom entered a bit cautiously. "Hey, Harry. Busy?"
Harry attempted a smile. He was nervous too. "No, come on in. I'm just about finished here, just need to save it." Harry hit save and shut down his computer terminal. When he looked up again, he almost fainted. Tom Paris had stripped down and was standing in the middle of his quarters wearing nothing but the leopard print g-string.
It all seemed surreal to Harry Kim when he thought back on the night that his best friend became his lover. Now, some days, he wore Tom's briefs or Tom wore a pair of his boxers. It didn't seem peculiar to him at all to wear something that had touched Tom *there*. Since he had the opportunity to revel in getting to know that part of Tom intimately.
Sometimes, when they were feeling really wicked, they wore no underwear at all. But only on days that were almost guaranteed to be quiet with no danger of tearing uniforms. It worked most of the time. Though, the leopard print g-string had almost got them in trouble more than once. It was worth it. More than worth it, but that's another story.
End