by Aimee
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RATING: I'm not sure. There's sex, but it's not really explicit. Call it R.

DISCLAIMER: Tom, Harry, and the good ship Voyager and all aboard her belong to Paramount and UPN, as do all things Star Trek related. By writing this story, I am rather blatantly infringing on their copyright; however, I don't particularly care.

WARNING: This is a slash story. As such it contains a m/m relationship and a m/m sex scene. If such things bother you, or if you're underage, please go away now.

SPOILERS: This story contains very, very tiny references to "The Chute," "Blood Fever," and a couple of other episodes whose names I've forgotten. But I doubt I tell you anything here you didn't already know.

ARCHIVING AND DISTRIBUTION: This can go to the Paris-Kim Slash Party, BLTS, and ASCEML. And R'Rain can have it for her site, as can the ASC archives and the Paris-Kim Slash Party archives (if there are any). Please do not forward to any other list or archive to any other site without asking me first .

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm tired and I don't have the energy to go into detail right now, so let me just say two things, and then we'll go right to the story. This is my response to Amirin's "one night stand" challenge. And it's kind of a downer. I hope I don't make anyone too depressed.

---

"The only comfort is the moving of the river.
You enter into me, a lie upon your lips.
Offer what you can, I'll take all that I can get.
Only a fool's here to stay." --
Sarah McLachlan, "Ice."

---

I'm lying here in your arms, watching your face as you sleep, naked and exhausted from loving you -- fucking you -- and I wish I was happy. I've fantasized about this moment for so long -- dreamed about it, longed for it. I should be happy. But I'm not.

I don't feel anything. I'm numb. Cold, like my heart's been replaced by a hunk of ice. I want to get up, run away, flee from you as fast and far as I can, until I'm out of your orbit, free from your gravitational pull. But I don't.

I stay.

There are times when I hate you, Tom Paris.

---

"Ouch!"

Tom pulled his hand back quickly, but it was too late; the thorns hidden on the overhanging vine had bitten deep enough to draw blood.

"What happened?" he heard Harry's voice call in alarm.

"It's nothing," he immediately replied. "Just pricked my hand a little."

But Harry ignored him, grabbing his wrist and inspecting the wounds anyway. "You're bleeding!"

His friend's head was bent over his hand, causing his hair to fall forward into his face. It shone like black silk in the alien sun; Tom felt a sudden, surprising urge to touch it, stroke it, smell it, bury his face in it. He swayed fractionally closer before he realized what he was doing.

He jerked his hand away and took a step back. "Really, Harry, it's fine. It doesn't even hurt anymore, just tingles a bit."

Harry's mouth dropped open and he stared at Tom with a strange, worried expression on his face.

Tom eyed him uneasily. "What?"

Harry closed his mouth with a decisive snap. "Give me your tricorder, Tom."

"What?!"

"I said, give me your tricorder."

"Uhh. . . okay." He handed it over. "May I ask why?"

Harry ignored Tom's sarcasm as he flipped the device open and began taking readings. "Because those are not minor injuries, Tom. Some of those cuts are really deep, deep enough to need regeneration, but you say you're not feeling any pain, only a tingling sensation. I may not be a doctor, but this worries me. It worries me a lot. We really should beam you up to Sickbay so the Doc could take a look, but we're temporarily stuck here because of those damn ion storms. But we need some sort of medical advice, and you, thank goodness, have a medical tricorder. It should be rather more useful in this situation than my plain old engineering one, don't you think? So shut up and help me figure out what these scans mean."

"Yes, sir!" Tom smirked, and took the tricorder.

Harry fidgeted impatiently while Tom studied the read-out. "Well?" he asked. "What's the verdict?"

"It seems the portable regenerator in the medkit should be enough to take care of these cuts."

"And the tingle?"

"It's not poison," Tom said.

Harry collapsed in relief. "Thank God."

"It's an aphrodisiac."

---

Getting drugged with an alien aphrodisiac while trapped on an uninhabited planet during an away mission -- it sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Like something that could only happen in a pornographic novel, not in real life. A fantasy. A cadet's wet dream come true. But this isn't a dream. It's a nightmare.

Tom, Tom, my poor Tom, you were in so much pain, and still so determined to take care of it yourself. "I'll just whack off and go to sleep, Harry. A little sexual frustration never killed anyone," you said.

"Except Vulcans, of course."

How do you do that? How are you able to make me laugh when I really feel like screaming? How are you able to joke in the face of your own worst fears? And I know this betrayal by your own body is one of your deepest fears, Tom. You never talk about prison, but Akritaria opened my eyes to a few things. I know that control -- of yourself, of your body, of who you have sex with, and when, and where, and how -- is very important to you. Almost obsessively so. Any other man would have jumped B'Elanna when she begged them to, and to hell with the fact that she was under the influence of Vorik's Ponn farr. But not you. You knew she wasn't in control of her own body just then, and you didn't want to take that choice away from her. Just as I know that, if you'd been thinking clearly, you wouldn't have wanted me to take that choice from you.

But I'm not as strong as you.

Tom, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

---

Tom lay on his bedroll, and twitched. He shifted uncomfortably. He twitched again. He rolled onto his side, and let his hand meander down his body, sliding slowly from his chest to his hips. No, I'm not going to jerk off again. It didn't help the last three times I tried it, it won't help now.

Instead, his eyes turned to the only other human being nearby: his best friend, Harry, who was lying on the ground on the other side of the campfire, pretending to sleep. Beautiful Harry, of the golden skin that glowed a rich, luscious color in the flickering light of the fire, inviting him to touch it. Golden skin, and dark, silky hair, and full, sensuous lips that he absolutely ached to kiss, and. . .

Tom vaguely realized that he had begun to tug and pull on his erection, and stopped.

This is insane. It's stupid! I want him. My God, how I want him! B'Elanna will just have to understand. I want him. I need him. I need him, I want him, I want you, I want you. . . "I want you, I want you, I want you. . ."

Harry sat up like a shot, and Tom grabbed him and latched onto his mouth, kissing him with a searing intensity born of desperation. When had he moved over here to this side of the camp? He didn't know and didn't care, it didn't matter, this kiss mattered, the feel of this body under his own mattered, and they were the only things that did.

He didn't even hear Harry's feeble attempt at a protest.

The fire burning under his skin took all his attention. It scorched him, eating him up from the inside out, and it hurt. But then Harry was touching him, and his hands cooled the fire -- just a little, just enough to turn the pain into pleasure, or at least into some weird combination of the two -- and he thrust against a willing body, and thrust, and thrust, and thrusthrusthrust, until the pleasure/pain exploded and became his entire world, then went away, and finally, finally he had relief.

For a few moments.

Then the fire started to burn again.

---

The night is almost over; the stars are starting to fade in the pre-dawn light. According to the tricorder, you're not going to remember any of this, Tom. I should go before you wake up, put my clothes on and move away from you. You don't need to know what happened; no good can possibly come from your knowing. It will just hurt you and B'Elanna. And you'll end up hating yourself -- and me -- for it.

But I don't move. I stay here.

I tell myself I can't possibly hide it, that there will be physical evidence I can't conceal. And the doctor should know anyway, to check you over for any complications or residual effects. And, most of all, you have a right to know what happened to you. And all of this is true. But it's not why I stay.

I stay because I want you to remember. Because if we both remember -- that will make it real.

If this is all I can have of you, then I'll take it. I'll take whatever I can get.

You're so peaceful in your sleep. You look innocent, like an angel. It makes me want to kiss you, softly and tenderly.

It makes me want to hit you. To wipe that calm off your face.

How can you be so fucking oblivious?

You tease me about my love life -- or my lack thereof -- all the time, but you never stopped to think about what it meant, did you? A holocharacter, an alien diplomat who would be gone in a few days, and Seven. What do they have in common? They're all completely unavailable, you idiot! Crushes I can indulge in without ever having to worry that something might actually happen. They would never reciprocate. They were safe.

Substitutes for you.

No one can substitute for you.

I love you. I am so deeply in love with you that I can't even begin to see a way out -- don't even want to try. But you don't love me; you love her. I know that. I've accepted that. But I love you anyway; I can't help it.

What hurts is that you never even noticed.

When you turned to me tonight, it was only for physical relief. It wouldn't have mattered if I were Chakotay, or Captain Janeway, or, or Neelix -- you would have done the exact same thing. All I was to you was a body. You had sex with me, but I made love to you. And you never even noticed.

I love you, Tom, but sometimes I hate you.

The sun is up now. I should move. But I don't.

I'll take it. If this is all I can get, I'll take it. If your friendship is all I can get, I'll take it. If one night of chemically induced passion is all I can get, I'll take it. Even if you end up hating me for it. At least you'll finally know. I'll take it.

I settle in next to you, snuggling up to you in your sleep, stroking your face gently.

Despite everything, I'm here to stay.

---

End