: ) Bribery will get you anywhere. . . Seriously, thank you to everyone who asked for this after reading Promises, and who made comments or suggestions.
Same as before - P/K, NC17 (I guess, not being one of your American cognoscenti<g>) Angst, angst, mush, sex, should be read before 11pm (JJ;) language. . .
If you don't know who owns the characters and the story (respectively) well, duh. (Or read the disclaimer.
Temaris
Marseilleise
Looking back now, I can see it was my fault. If I had stepped away, not in, let him go, not kissed him, then it never would have happened. I would never have hurt him so very much. But Tom looked so lonely, in the middle of the racket and bustle of Sandrine's after a quiet day in the Delta Quadrant that I had needed to do something. We'd played pool for a while, but his heart wasn't in it - he let me win, which was a sure sign of how unhappy he was. So I waited till everyone had gone, and initiated the privacy lock, asked him what the matter was. I couldn't not try. I had spent such a long time just being his friend when he needed one, ignoring all the things that made B'Elanna think he was a pig, made Tuvok raise that damming eyebrow, or Chakotay thin his lips and frown. I couldn't turn my back on him, even when I was so afraid of what would happen.
I've got no idea how or when I fell for Tom Paris, by the time I'd noticed what was happening the damage was done. And I do mean damage. Between the dreams of him, of Libby, of them both turning their backs on me, and the guilt of abandoning Libby, or hurting Tom or . . . Well, let's just say I don't sleep much at nights. Haven't for a long time.
I realised that I loved him the day I discovered that he loved me - that he had always loved me, and that in my blindness I had never noticed. Yet again I'd had a near miss of dying, this time swapped with a corpse from another dimension, my only route home through death. Very mythic. After all the panic and rushing around were over, once everyone else had gone, he appeared in Sickbay, and perched on the side of my bed. He was furious with me. Completely irrational. I reckon he spent the best part of an hour pacing up and down, alternately berating me and telling me how glad he was that the Doctor had been able to revive me. I was so embarrassed that I could have cheerfully hit him, especially as he didn't bother stopping when Kes walked back into Sickbay.
"You're not my mother or my keeper, Tom," I'd hissed at him. "Leave me alone."
It was at that moment, when I saw his expression, that I realised he loved me. He looked as though his world had fallen in when I spoke angrily to him. I swear, there were tears in his eyes and such woundedness that I wanted to hold him, and tell him I didn't mean it, that it was all right.
It wasn't of course. I still loved Libby, and yet suddenly it seemed that I loved Tom too. I'd given her my word and my ring and she had to come first. I'd promised, and I couldn't change that. All I could do for Tom was to play dumb. So I carried on as I always had, and if among the tears for Libby, some for Tom and myself fell too, who was to know?
By the time Sandrine's had emptied that night I had decided that I had to stop playing the oblivious friend, and say something. Everyone else was excited about the relocator B'Elanna and I had cobbled together from our own transporter technology and some ideas from another space faring race. It really did work, first on particles, and then on small organic compounds. We had no reason to believe that it couldn't work on larger objects, even without a focus at the other end. If we could run a big enough power source there was no reason - theoretically that is, that we couldn't just go home, instantly. I'd tried not to get anyone's hopes up, my own included, but B'Elanna couldn't stop thinking about it, talking about it to anyone who'd stand still long enough. She'd cornered Tom early in the evening, and I had seen Tom get quieter and quieter every time it was mentioned. By the end of the evening he was still there, on his own at a table, drinking doggedly, as if synthale would actually get him drunk.
So I asked. It was a mistake. That whole evening was incredible, but when I woke in his arms, in his bed, and saw him watching me as I woke I knew it might be irreparable.
Those clear blue eyes were filled with a patient kind of look, love and pain both. I was lying with his arm under my back, my own wound around him, legs tangled together, his body turned towards mine, close against me, warm and firm and wanting. He didn't ask me for a thing. That hurts more than anything, that he was content to take what I chose to give, when I knew how much more he needed. How much better he deserved. He pulled me up to sit with him, and cuddled me like I was the one who needed it. I leaned into him, grateful, wishing hopelessly that it could be different.
"Harry, it's all right." It would never be all right, I thought desolately. His lips touched my forehead, and then smiled at me, and said, "Go on. You need a shower, and we've got to be on the Bridge in forty minutes." He grinned as he looked me over, at the dried evidence of our pleasure, and I couldn't help it, I smiled back and almost did it, "Tom, I. . ."
"No." His voice was final. "I won't let you. Go on. Get out."
I looked at him, past the serious expression, past the love that he had never really been able to hide, to see the pain behind it. With it there was a kind of gladness. A triumphant joy that said, 'I had this moment. It's all I ever asked for. Now leave, and let me keep it perfect."
So I went.
All I had had to do was step away when he touched me, and I could have kept my friend.
I keep thinking that now, as we sit in this shuttle, trying so hard to pretend the other isn't there. My thoughts run every which way. What if it all goes wrong and we die? It shouldn't - none of the tests have proven lethal to the hapless vegetables, transporter pattern tests or animals we put through. But I can't help thinking about it. What if my idea kills him? We'd probably both be dead, but I can't bear even that I wouldn't know to care. But at least we would be together.
What if it works, and we get back to the Alpha Quadrant? Will I see him again? A small uncompromising voice tells me that I will not. He will lose himself among a billion life forms, and never come back. I don't even know if I would want to see him, but never to see him again. . . I don't know that I can live without him.
It was so easy, to hold him, to be with him. I miss him already as he sits shoulder to shoulder with me in this tiny space. What will it feel like when I no longer can see him, have no idea where he is, who he is with, whether he is well and safe and happy. I steal a glance at the rigid features. He doesn't look happy to be here with me. He's thinner, I can see the tracery of blood vessels under the fine skin, and he holds himself as if he might break if he stops concentrating for a single moment. And I am consumed by the knowledge that I did this to him. There is nothing I can do that will cure this pain. To leave, different shifts, different decks, different planets, would be as bad as still being together as much as we are now, with the brand of his presence killing me by moments.
Oh God, what if we don't get home? Trapped together another seventy years in a burning pit of emotions which I dragged us into. Will we go on pretending? Will we one day regain the relationship that my weakness destroyed? He doesn't talk to me any more. Instead his eyes follow me constantly, like he's storing up memories. Hoarding them against a bleak future. I feel sick every time he turns away from me, drops his eyes, ducks aside, lest our eyes should meet. We haven't exchanged one word beyond those necessary between colleagues since that night. In an odd way it's as if I no longer exist. I hate that. But it's right. I don't deserve to be with him. He should be happy, God knows his life has had grief enough. And I added to it, when all I ever wanted - ever shall want, was for him to be happy. Now, I daren't even talk to him any more, instead I watch him watching me. . . I miss him, the way we used to talk, do things together, relax, be.
I'm so afraid that if I talk to him it will all fall apart, this fragile balance we have forced into being. But I miss him so much.
How long can person hold onto a promise before it becomes a prison? I already know the answer to that - four years, seven months, twelve days. Not that I had been counting. Oh, and five hours, give or take. When did I change? What happened to me? I always thought of myself as a man of principles. My promise is not given lightly, nor, as long as I can remember, broken without overwhelming reason. Perhaps that is it. I was overwhelmed. It's a comforting lie, but it's a lie nonetheless. I did have a choice. I could have stepped away, kept the illusion intact, pretended. . . But that too is a lie. Even if the letter of my promise to Libby was kept, the spirit had fled long since. Instead I kissed him when he would have let me go. I saw it in his eyes, he would have let me go. He expected nothing, asked for nothing, just cried, noiselessly at first, then wildly, his heart breaking on the hardness of my stubborn faith.
That hurt so much. I couldn't allow ourselves happiness, and it wasn't fair. There was no thinking about it then, no agonising, I had to give - do something, so I gave him what he wanted, the only thing he asked for. How could I refuse? Come on Kim, be honest at least with yourself, if not to him. I wanted it too, as much as he did, and I had neither the courage to go forward nor the strength to go back. But at that moment it made us both happy. For a little while anyway. After, we went back to his quarters, I don't know, perhaps I thought, in some half-baked way, that if I didn't bring him to my cabin then it wouldn't count. We just slept. It was wonderful. If I live to be a thousand I shall never forget waking in his arms, my head tucked under his chin, his body curled around me against the world. It was perfect. Just that one moment where nothing more than two loving bodies, warm and glad, existed in the haven of that place.
And now I have nothing, neither a past nor a future.
The distance marker chirped, bringing me back to the shuttle and the job at hand. Our silent minutes of waiting were over. Far away, just beyond the naked eye, Voyager waited to find out if humans could survive the journey. I had volunteered to go on my own - it had to be an engineer, in case something went wrong with the relocator, and the Captain flatly refused to let B'Elanna do it, despite the tantrum she threw. Tom had protested, insisting I needed a pilot. I didn't. There was no flying as such to be done, just getting the shuttle out of explosion range of the ship, and go, but the Captain had looked from him to me and back, and nodded curtly, unsmiling. I wonder sometimes how much she knows, and just never mentions. So here we were. Together, taking the longest deliberate step of our lives. Physical that is.
"Okay?"
"okay." I replied in a voice that would shake. I touched the first of the controls. The second. The third. A hand dropped onto my shoulder as the fourth and last one was pressed, gripping tightly. He wasn't going to let go, no matter what.
White out. A blur of everything.
Then black again, marked across with a wide stripe of stars. . . The Milky Way, as it was supposed to be. I was hugging Tom tightly, crying, laughing, "Oh we're home! We did it!"
He was smiling too, though rather thinly, and all he said was, "Shall we tell the rest?" as he pulled away from my touch.
Moments later we were back in the Delta Quadrant, and Voyager was hailing us.
Small and anxious, Janeway's face appeared on the little comm panel. "Well gentlemen?"
"It's still raining in Seattle," Tom grinned at her.
"Congratulations," was her only reply, but the smile in her eyes said everything protocol didn't allow. In the background we could see and hear the jubilation. Home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Three weeks later we were allowed back to our families. Tom didn't speak to me again even once. Just those eyes. It had taken two weeks to figure out how to get enough energy to move the entire ship - for a while we thought we'd have to do it a shuttle at a time, till we realised that we could off line everything apart from the relocator, just for a few minutes. Only the navigational shields remained, and we jumped. It took nearly three hours of intensely irritating talking, before anyone would agree we were who we said we were - starting with an idiot who assured us that we were in violation of Federation law as we were travelling in an unregistered ship - Voyager had been presumed dead, and deleted as a live entry. The Captain gradually got more and more angry, until she finally blew up, hands on hips, at a minor desk clerk until she got put through to Necheyev. Things moved a lot faster after that. Starfleet had insisted on debriefing us for the first couple of days, keeping us virtually incommunicado, lest we speak to the press before the bureaucrats had finished with us. There was a near riot on the ship when they told us we couldn't contact loved ones yet, eventually, and with the Federation's press breathing down their necks protesting right of free speech, they let us out, and we left that horrible little ship.
Don't get me wrong, I'm amazed it held up for so long, and I'm grateful that we had it, and yes, it could have been worse, but to have freedom again, no rationing, no holodecks because the real thing was only moments away. . . I never wanted to see another Starfleet vessel or uniform as long as I lived.
The first time I spoke to my parents in nearly five years was beyond description. They looked so old and tired, and none of us could stop crying. They wouldn't let go of me, one or the other of them had a hand on my shoulder, or touching my hair, hugging me, like they had to make sure I was real. As if they feared that were they to let go, I would vanish. I wanted to ask about Libby, she hadn't come with them to meet me, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know. If she had waited. . . But if she hadn't? what would I do? And I didn't even know where Tom had gotten to, I thought inconsequentially.
He had been taken away by Star Fleet security, not long after we got home, and not even the captain had known for sure what was to become of him. A couple of days went by when I was totally unable to concentrate on anything but ways to engineer a jailbreak from Auckland. I had maps, blue prints, lists of equipment -- and then word came. They'd let him go. He was deemed to have served his time during the voyage - a delicious irony that, Voyager as prison, and had been offered reinstatement into Star Fleet. There was no word yet as to his decision, and by the time I got to speak to someone he was long gone, God knows where. I kept thinking of him, alone in some horrible dive, what would he do? Did he have any money? Anyone to go to? How dared he make me worry like this? He didn't say goodbye. And why hadn't Libby called? I'd done this for her, broken two hearts, lost the only man I would ever love, why didn't she fucking call? I lay awake half the night, alternately crying and cursing one or the other of them, and myself. I finally fell asleep as the sky darkened with that edge that is the hint of dawn coming.
I couldn't get over the food. It was real, there was as much as I wanted of whatever I wanted. The taste of pancakes. The texture of fresh orange juice, bitty and smooth all at once. Real coffee. I took hours over breakfast, my mother on one side of me, and my father on the other, smiling till their faces ached - I know, because, mine ached too. They kept laughing at me, partly because they couldn't help it, and partly in amusement at the sheer enjoyment on my face as I worked my way slowly through the delicious food, bite after deliberate, sensational bite. I couldn't stop talking either, jumping from one subject to the next, unable to stop, trying to fit all the lost years into a single day. Every story needed another to follow it, or explain it, who everyone was, anecdotes, adventures. . . I threatened to fetch out my holo's at one point and mother laughed so hard she dropped her cup of tea.
In turn they tried to tell me everything - what had happened when the news came, what they had been doing since I had gone missing. The families had been told everything Starfleet knew - that we were on an operation to rescue an undercover Starfleet officer, that the ship had gone into the Badlands, and that no-one had come out again. Apparently a little beacon sat by our last known co-ordinates, chirping gently to anyone with ears to hear it, that in this place it was presumed that all hands on the USS Voyager perished, either in natural disaster or as the result of enemy action. I wanted to round up B'Elanna and Tom (Tom!) and go blow it to smithereens. Maybe frame some of the debris.
Finally, as midday drew close, I gathered my courage and asked the question that had haunted my brain for weeks.
"How. . .how's Libby?"
There was an awkward silence.
Finally mom sighed and took hold of my hands. She patted them, and said, "Harry, we've talked to her a lot. . . not just this last few days, but over the last few years." She looked over at my father worriedly.
He took it up. "Son, she feels really bad about all this. She waited for three years-"
"She kept hoping even after your father and I gave up."
"But. . ." I could hear it coming.
They just looked at each other, waiting for the other to speak. Finally Mom stood and went over to the bookcase. She reached to the back of the top shelf, and fished out something lying there. A picture. It had been face down, hidden where I wouldn't see it. She handed it silently to me, nervously biting at her lip. Libby in a white dress, smiling up at a tall dark haired man.
"She's married," I said, my voice flat from sheer abject relief. I was absolved. They mistook my tone though, and looked at each other anxiously, Mom's hands tightening on mine.
"Harry dear, she wanted to talk to you sooner, as soon as we knew for sure, but we thought it would be better to give you some time," Mom's voice trailed off, clearly imagining me to have spent nearly five years holding fast to my promise, to the hope of home and Libby. I smiled at her, blindingly I think, because she blinked, and her expression lightened. She met dad's eyes, who was hovering worriedly behind us both. I turned and lifted my head to face them both and they both began to smile back at me, looking relieved and more than a little confused.
"Is there someone else son?" Dad asked gently. I just nodded, then asked, because I had to know, because I never stopped loving her, "Is she happy?"
"Why don't we get her to tell you?" my father said, and made a quick call.
Half an hour later I was pacing in the living room, on my own, waiting for her. I sat down on the sofa, then bounced to my feet again, no that would be too much like I was expecting her to sit with me. She shouldn't feel obliged. I paced some more - calm down - I sat on one of the upright easy chairs, no, too formal, she might feel like I was trying to sit in judgement. I was pacing again when I heard the front door. There were murmurs outside the living room door, then it opened. I turned to face it, face her.
She was still beautiful. Slight, with the hair I remembered as long and curly in a short bob around her ears. Her eyes were full of tears as she hesitated by the door. In the distance I could hear a small child's voice "Mama, me too!" and a soothing voice, cut off as the door closed behind her.
Alone at last. Together after nearly five years. All the cliches. I was terrified.
"Libby."
"Hello Harry." She smiled at me, shyly.
"Um, please, sit down. How. . .how are you?" My voice cracked, and I stole a glance at her.
"Very well, thank you. Yes, I'm fine," she said nervously, one hand grabbing a swathe of the yellow fabric of her skirt, and frantically pleating it. I caught her stealing a glance at me too, and we dissolved into giggles. The awkwardness vanished like it had never been.
"Oh Harry, I missed you so much," she took the last few steps between us and wrapped her arms around me. Reflexively my own wrapped around her. With a horrible lurch in my stomach I realised she was crying.
"Libby? Lib, are you okay? Aren't you happy?"
"Of course I'm happy you're back. . " she wailed. Oh god, maybe she doesn't love him after all, maybe she wants me back, maybe he treats her badly, that rat-bastard, are you all right Libby, oh please don't need me. I was torn between fear for her, and fear of her, that I'd have to go back to her after all.
"I thought you were dead Harry. I had to move on. You don't know how hard it was, missing you, and thinking maybe you'd be back, but it was years, and Simon was always there, and he was so kind, and I didn't mean to. . . "
"Libby."
"I'm sorry, I should have waited longer but. . ."
"Libby"
She was talking rapidly into to my shoulder, and I tilted her head up and put my hand carefully over her mouth. "Libby. It's all right." I kissed her gently, and everything changed. I pulled away for a moment wondering if it was just me that felt it. But she looked up at me weakly through her tears, even as my over-active imagination conjured disasters for me, and reached up to kiss me again, on this time on the cheek. Then we leaned into each other, relaxing muscles we had not known were tensed in the gentle embrace. There was no passion there now, not on either side. The love had changed, dimmed into something that we could both live with. It was perhaps like having a very dear sister or friend in my arms, not a lover. I could see the guilt fading from her eyes, felt my own soul start to heal.
"But are you happy Libby?" I asked again.
"Yes. Yes, I'm happy," she said steadily, and then with a concern that I found touching, she said, "And you? Do you have someone?"
Her face relaxed when she saw me smile happily at the thought of Tom Paris, who I knew would wait forever if he had to, no matter where I was, or who I was, or whether I was alive or dead. "Yes. At least, I will have. I had to know you see. . ."
She smiled ruefully, "I might have known. Too honourable for your own good. Does she love you?"
"He--" I paused for her startled laugh, "loves me more than I deserve."
"Details, details!" she demanded.
When my parents and her husband finally dared to walk into the room nearly three hours later they found us on the floor, going through each other's holo's. She had shown me the pictures - hundreds of them! of her son, my namesake and godson, she informed me, so I'd better behave when we were introduced, now fourteen months old. It was my turn, and I was talking her through a sequence of pix taken during a very drunken shore leave on Gitoar Three, where I had made the mistake - again, of letting Tom choose the drinks. We were shrieking with laughter at the expression on the Captain's face as the small furred barkeep tried to grope her, and at the towering wrath on Chakotay's as he realised what was happening. The bar brawl which had ensued had wrecked the place, and it was only quick thinking on my part, and the use of three lemon like fruit
and a small amphibian that we'd escaped unscathed. She was crying with laughter as I finished.
"And that's how I really got those pips," I winked at her as I handed her the next picture. She ran a finger along the lieutenant's
pips showing on the collar of the picture. Her gaze shifted to the others in the picture. Tom was standing a little out to my left, and his eyes were on me, with such unconcealed pride and mischief that she laughed again. I waited for her to make the connection.
"Harry. Oh dear." She hiccuped back another giggle, and took a closer look. It was the first picture that had shown him as a more or less normal human being, and she brought it closer, then looked at me with a sympathetic smile.
"So that's him?"
"Mmm." I smiled blithely at her, and at my parents, and at Simon, her husband. "That's my Tom."
And that was that.
Epilogue:
I knew where he'd be. At least, I hoped I knew. He'd gone there before when he needed unquestioning company and a kind ear.
Sandrine's. Marseilles.
I'd been here before, in another reality. It was no different in this one. I was astounded all over again at the wealth of detail Tom had put into his program of the place.
I arrived at the tavern early in the morning, going in when they first opened up, to talk to Sandrine herself. I wanted to be sure he really was here. The blithe confidence that had carried me across continents vanished as I looked around the empty place, no sign of him anywhere. <It's too early,> I tried to quell my rising panic.
Sandrine herself was there, and she watched curiously as I walked up to the bar, a frown on her face, as if she couldn't quite place my face. I asked her about Tom, and I explained I was a friend of his. She glared at me, I was puzzled till she said, "You are 'Arry? Oui?" I nodded, more confused than ever, and she slapped my face. Hard.
Tears of pain sprang to my eyes, and my hand flew to my cheek, feeling the sharp sting of her blow, but I didn't protest it.
"I thought I recognised that face," she said coldly. "He carries a picture of you everywhere you know. Where have you been? He has been terribly unhappy. You should have come sooner."
"He is here then?" I asked eagerly.
"Yes, though I don't know how long for."
"He didn't say anything, he never called. . .I didn't know where. . ." I trailed off as my excuses sounded feeble even to my own ears.
"You are here now, n'est-ce pas? You managed to figure it out, si?" she asked sarcastically, and I flushed.
"I had personal business to finish up, I came as quickly as I could."
She eyed me consideringly. "So. It's like that eh?" I wondered just what he'd said to her. There was a long pause, and for a moment I thought she was going to throw me out on my ear. Instead she seemed to measure me, and find something worth keeping. Her glare relaxed into a frown, and she said, "He'll be here soon, he'll be playing --"
"Pool. I know." The relief was shattering.
She smiled sharply at me and nodded. "Bien. Bonne chance p'tit!"
I racked the balls on the baize and started setting up shots, then played a game against myself. I lost. I was setting up for the third time, still stone cold sober despite the drink I had knocked back, when he walked in.
It was getting crowded by then, and he didn't see me. I was ridiculously disappointed by that. Instead he went up to the bar to exchange words with Sandrine. Momentarily her eyes flickered to where I stood watching him, pool cue clutched in one hand, but I shook my head. He didn't seem to notice, just laughed at some remark of hers, and waited for his drink. I rested the cue carefully against the table, waiting till he had a beer in one hand and had just shifted his weight on his feet to turn towards the pool table.
"Anyone up for a game?" I asked casually. You wouldn't have thought he could have picked out my voice really. His reaction was perfect. The glass smashed unheeded to the ground, and in two strides he was scant inches away from me, breathing like he'd run from here to Proxima and back. He hesitated, and I could see him wondering why I was here, the fear warring with the hope.
So I smiled at him, and took the last step for both of us, into his arms. His mouth was on mine, and his arms held me so tightly I couldn't breathe and I didn't care, I didn't care, I was home.
Time went away, until a clearing throat echoed near my ear. We both looked round, with me thinking what a remarkably silly smile Tom had on his face, and wondering whether I had as silly a smile on my face. I felt like smiling. Sandrine's eyes twinkled as she said "I am so pleased for you, but this is not the place, mm?"
Nothing could bother us, and Tom simply leaned forward to dab a kiss on each side of her face. "Thank you," he said, eyes glowing.
She touched a hand to his face and jerked her head towards the door, saying, "Go on. Take him home, and don't bother me no more."
"Yes ma'am," he said fervently, and I went scarlet at the meaningful grin he directed at me then.
We left, and headed slowly back to my hotel, his arm round my shoulders, dropping kisses on my face and neck and hair as we walked like he couldn't help it. In the lift up to my room he stood away from me, a purely happy look in his clear blue eyes as he drank me in. Once safely inside my room, we stood for a moment, just waiting, until without a word we were holding each other so close that it was as if our clothes had melted away and we were breathing as one person. He was here, it was real. He was warm and solid and -- and hard. I pulled back a little to grin at him and he lifted his head from where it had rested against mine, smiling at me, looking peaceful.
"I love you too," I said, as if no time had passed since that dreadful morning, and I was finishing the sentence he had stopped me completing.
He laughed delightedly and we kissed, his lips caressing my face, then meeting mine in soaring passion. His hands were everywhere, stroking across my back and down to my buttocks, pulling my body in against him until I no longer knew where I ended and he began. I tugged his shirt out of his trousers, slid my hands up his back, over the smooth warm skin, the muscles which flexed in tiny movements as he moved against my hands.
He reached around and took my hands in hands that shook, brought them in between us, staring at them, then lifted them both, kissing them fervently, covering palms, fingers, wrists in loving touches, for a moment he held them against the hollow of his throat, and I could feel his pulse thudding rapidly against the back of my hand. His eyes were closed, hunching his body around our hands as he gripped them tighter. He lowered his lips and pressed another kiss on our joined hands, then his eyes opened, and a shudder ran through him. "I can't believe this," he murmured, shaking his head, the smile never leaving his face. He took a step backwards, and another, pulling me after him.
"Close your eyes." he said softly, and he leaned forward to kiss them shut. He turned us both around, pushed me down onto the bed. For long seconds I just lay there, waiting, feeling his gaze on me. Gentle hands undid the fastening on my shirt, slid it off my arms. The pants and briefs were removed and the bed dipped as he sat beside me. A hand ran over my chest, the other resting on the side of my face. A light kiss feathered over one eyelid, the other.
I shivered. "Love, I never wanted to hurt you. . . I never wanted to hurt you. I'm sorry. Can you." My voice broke. "Can you forgive me?" I finished on a miserable whisper. His lips touched mine briefly, cutting me off.
"I don't remember anything that needs forgiveness. You're here. Nothing else matters," he breathed, touching his lips to my face, again and again, each one nearer than the last, until finally he possessed my mouth, tongue delving deep inside, sliding across my own tongue, electricity arcing between us. We curled together, caressing and pressing against each other, my hands tearing at his clothing till we could touch skin to skin, and it shook me to the core, the feel of his body. I moaned into his mouth, and his hands were in my hair, tilting my head to reach deeper, till I felt as if I had never known anything else all my life. Every sense was focused on the wet heat of his mouth. He was naked, sprawled half across me and I wrapped my arms around him and rolled.
"My turn. My turn, love," I said, pulling back a little. He looked startled for a moment, and groaned as I slid my hands slowly down his body, moulding his bones and muscles, engraving the form of him into my brain, touching, scratching, smoothing, drawing warm lines and swirls on his chest and stomach, till my hands rested on his hips. I slithered down after them, dabbing little kisses across his torso, nibbling at his nipples, biting a little harder when he moaned and arched under me, licking the curls on his chest flat, all the time my eyes on his face, watching. His head was thrown back on the pillows, eyes half closed, just a glint of darkened blue to tell me he was looking at me. I wrapped my arms around the narrow waist and blew into his navel, grinning as he sucked his stomach away from the torment. I leaned closer to lick and then suck a circle of tiny marks around it. He was whimpering, the muscles in his stomach trembling under my touch as I lifted my head away to take another quick a look at him. My breath caught. I've never seen anything so incredible. I froze, able only to stare at him, able only to think how much I loved him, how beautiful he was, so aroused he couldn't think, couldn't speak, could only moan and gasp for air, writhing under me. For me.
I slipped a little further down and tentatively kissed his straining erection.
"Ha-Harry!" He jerked up till he was almost sitting, hands flying to my head. I smiled up at him, and did it again.
"I guess you liked that?" I said, and licked curiously at his hot skin. It tasted odd, not like the rest of him, saltier, with an odd flavour that I didn't recognise, but knew nonetheless. <Not quite like mine,> I found the absent thought running through my brain. He was watching me, leaning back on one elbow now, one hand cupping the back of my neck, thumb moving in small circles over one shoulderblade. I could see him wondering whether I was going to try to back out. No. I just wanted him. No point thinking about it. I grinned wickedly up at him, and swallowed him whole. He screamed something totally incoherent, and moved helplessly under me. I wasn't too sure what to do, so I just sucked as hard as I could, interspersing it with explorations down the sides of his cock with my tongue. One of my hands petted and caressed the root and his balls, the other holding his hip. It didn't take long before he was coming, hot fluid spurting into my mouth. I swallowed and swallowed again, savouring the taste of him. Carefully I cleaned up, laving him till I'd got it all and his moans had subsided into sighs.
"Harry. . ." A slow hand stroked across my hair.
I pulled myself back up the bed and found myself enveloped in his arms. I burrowed in, and whispered, "I love you."
Tom's eyes went wide and vulnerable, he tightened his arms and whispered, "Oh I love you too. I love you so much, I thought I'd die of it..."
"Shh. I'm not going anywhere." Then, hesitant, "If that's okay?"
"Okay? Har, if I get my way we'll spend the rest of our lives tied together."
"Kinky," I murmured, trying to keep a straight face as he glowered at me, then dissolved into laughter. It faded into silence as I saw the uncertainty appear in his face.
"What. . .?"
"Happened with Libby?"
He nodded.
"She has more sense than me apparently." I pulled the bed clothes up over us, keeping my eyes on him. There were still things we needed to straighten out.
"You mean she didn't wait?" he said indignantly.
I lifted my head for a moment to look quizzically at him. "You'd rather she had?"
"Oh well, far be it from me to change your mind," he said lazily, sliding a hand down my back to let it rest on my ass. "I guess if you want to stay you can."
"Tom, I'm serious."
"So'm I," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. He pulled away from me slightly, and sat up, gripping my wrists. "Would. . ." he swallowed and seemed to hunch in on himself. "I don't know if I want to hear this, but I have to ask. I've got to know. Would you have--" his voice petered out, but I knew what he wanted to know.
"If she had waited? I don't know. I don't think so." His face closed up and he let go of me completely, hugging his knees, wrapped around his pain. "No! Tom, I didn't mean that! You've got to listen to me. I meant I wouldn't have stayed with her, even if she had waited, even if she had told me she still loved me. You're not second best. Please? You've got to believe me. I couldn't have stayed away, I can't live without you. I only wanted to know she was all right, and--"
"What if she hadn't been 'all right'?" he asked. He looked cold, and so far away, holding onto himself.
"Then I would have waited till it was, and left." I put everything I had into convincing him, but he wouldn't look at me.
"How long?" he asked implacably.
"I can't know that. But I would always have come. I did come." I had thought this was what he had wanted, but now it seemed I'd got it wrong again, that he was rejecting me. I couldn't help the tears that came, I could feel them fill my eyes, spill down my face. Maybe it never would be 'all right'.
"I--" I choked, abruptly unable to speak, unable to plead for the love I didn't deserve. I cleared my throat, tried to ignore the tears: this was too important for stupid emotionalism. Even if my heart was threatening to break all over again. "Please, Tom, you've got to believe me. All I went home to do was to tell her to her face. Break it off and leave. If I hadn't found you here I would have kept on looking, for as long as it took. For ever, if that's how long it took. What would be the point of doing anything else? If I never found you I'd still never have gone back to her, or anyone else." I was kneeling beside him, not quite touching. "I was so afraid you wouldn't be here. . ."
"I thought you would never come back." He said it staring into a distance that didn't include me.
"I'm here. I'm here, with you. I'll never leave you. Never again. Tom? Tom please. Don't you want me?" I didn't want to sound so piteous but my words came tumbling out without volition.
There was a long silence, and more than my skin grew colder. His head turned then, and I could see his own tears. "Harry, I have to be sure. If you left again. . .I think it would kill me." he said softly, utterly serious.
"I won't. What can I say to convince you?" Suddenly I thought of something - two somethings. One at a time though.
"Would you. . ." I began, then stopped, thinking it through. No. I was going to do this properly. I rolled off the bed to kneel on the floor before him, relieved to see his eyes follow me, appalled at the sudden fear in them. "No, it's all right, I'm not going anywhere," I soothed, keeping one hand on both his where they gripped each other, white-knuckled across his shins. I squared my shoulders, and took a deep breath. "Tom. . ." I took another deep breath, too deep, because I saw spots before my eyes. "Thomas Eugene Paris, would you marry me?" Then, because I couldn't help it, in a very small, frightened voice, "please?"
"Oh." His face was still and stunned for a moment, then he looked like fire was catching inside him, burning through his limbs, destroying the fear. His eyes met mine and I couldn't breath, the heat was burning all the air in the room. He nodded, once, a tiny movement of his head.
"Yes?"
He nodded again, a smile swelling through his eyes to his whole face, lighting him up till it seared my eyes to look. I had to look, even if it blinded me.
"Really yes?" I asked again, like an idiot, grinning madly. I caught him tightly to me, kissing him, yanking him off the bed onto the floor, on top of me in my enthusiasm and then, as he began laughing at me, paused to ask again "Really yes? Oh thank you, oh thank god, oh Tom." I was still saying his name, over and over, when he closed my mouth with a kiss. Abruptly I was reminded of the other thing.
"Tom," I said into his mouth.
"Mmmm?" I took his moan as encouragement.
"Would you fuck me?"
"Yes. Yes, Harry, anything," he said, rapidly, as if desperate to agree to anything I wanted, then paused, I could see him processing what he'd just agreed to, and I felt his body shake against me, a rumble of laughter bursting out. "Only you, Harry," he said, eyes crinkling with amusement, "would think it necessary to ask!" And he seized my mouth again, burning away all thought. I only emerged from the fiery haze of his hands and lips when I felt his hand between my legs, gently parting my thighs. I moaned eagerly, far beyond words, and pushed back against the finger dipping into me.
"Har, do you have any lube?"
"Huh?" I asked intelligently.
He grinned down at me, delighted that I couldn't speak, couldn't think. He reached hopefully up to the bedside cabinet, and I finally understood what he was talking about.
"Top drawer." I gasped, shivering with pleasure as he bestowed a congratulatory kiss on one ear. A moment later the missing hands were back, caressing me. Then he was there, his fingers filling and opening me, cool and slick, moving surely inside me till I was reduced to whimpering cries, begging for more. He pushed my legs further apart, and lay between them, bringing my knees up. My back arched, pressing more closely against him, and I grabbed my knees, angling my hips to where he wanted me.
"You're going to have a hell of a rug burn, love," he said softly, a wicked look in his eyes, and replaced his fingers with his cock in one long swoop.
"Ahhhhh," I cried out, swimming in the sensations. Him, deep inside me, moving slowly, part of me. So hot, and everything I ever wanted, taking me, filling me, and it was Tom, my Tom, and nothing could ever separate us again, as he thrust harder and faster, sending jolts of pleasure through me, and there was more. My eyes opened, meeting his, and there was only love there, no fear, no tears, no uncertainty, all love, and it was as if we were lost together, his hands on my shoulders, mine on his waist, our eyes locked, falling into blueness, losing everything that made me Harry, leaving only love and the other, him, the two of us mixing inextricably, and we were the only reality, we were. . .we were. . . We were one. Forever and perfectly one. And the world blew apart, every fragment whispering "I love you."
© Temaris 1997
Page last updated 18/09/2004.