NEW:Ghost in the Machine-VOY/TOS NC17 m/m 6/6

[Killashdra]

SEE DISCLAIMER IN PART 1.


I touch him, my hand closing on his shoulder, and he jerks
away from me, turning, stumbling blindly in his haste to get
away. I catch him. He's all smooth warmth under my hands, the
tremors running out of him and into me. He's broken and
vulnerable and utterly undone, and I can't help myself--I pull him
hard against me, into my arms.
He's too far gone to fight me, though he doesn't really give in,
either. He just lets me hold on to him, and bows his head against
my collarbone. His tears are hot and feel like they soak into me
through my shirt.
My own tears have stopped; I can't cry any more. I hold him
close and rock him against me, pressing my lips against the hot,
moist skin at his nape, stroking his head like you might stroke an
animal. The short hair is soft and damp and sweet against my
palm, and smells like salt and evergreens.
That would be enough. I wouldn't ask for any more than that he
let me hold him like this, let me bury my face in his hair. But
suddenly his throat catches mid-sob, and he turns his wet face
against my cheek, and his mouth brushes across mine hesitantly.
I moan aloud. Man, I'm gonna go out of my head from that
gentle touch of his lips. I draw in a breath, fighting for air, and
the smell of him smacks me hard in the chest, overwhelming me.
I can't help it--I pull him closer still, and the feel of him against
me is pure heaven. He's warm and satin-smooth and the hard
muscles of his thighs are pressing between mine. I lower my
head and kiss him, unable to do anything else.
He's breathing hard, ragged gasps, his sobs turning to
something else, and he moans faintly against my lips. His
tongue's in my mouth, hot and tasting of that smell that's coming
off of him in waves. His hands are powerful, his fingertips
exquisitely pressed against the small of my back.
I don't know what the hell this is, grief or comfort or just
plain lust, and I don't care. The thought hits me, just as I close
my eyes and push my tongue into his mouth, that if I know all his
secrets, he just as surely knows all of mine. They're part of him,
just as he's a part of me. I press against him harder, feel his hot
arousal against mine, and my body's answer makes my knees give
out. Fierce, liquid heat runs through my belly, and he catches me.
Can't stand up any more. "Please," I gasp out, holding on to him
for support. We're only three steps from the bed, but I don't know
if I can make it. I can't keep my hands still. They're stroking his
shoulders, his back, tracing the fluid muscles under that
amazingly soft skin. I think of Spock, remembering that he never
knew this feeling under his hands, and want to cry again. I can't; I
can't do anything except lean against him, letting him take my
weight, kissing him as if he is air I need to breathe. He puts his
hands into my hair, his fingers pressing lightly on my scalp,
holding me still so that he can touch every part of my mouth with
his tongue. I know that if he doesn't stop, I'm going to come just
from his mouth on mine.
At last we break apart, gasping. He's flushed the most
delicious shade, and I know my own face must be hot and rosy, my
eyes glittering. His are. They're gold and green and big enough for
me to drown in.
He doesn't have that broken look any more. And it's passion
that's making his eyes shine, not tears. He sees the words that
I'm trying to muster the will to say, and shakes his head. "It's all
right," he whispers. "It will be all right. Don't worry."
Gods, I want him so bad I think I'm going crazy with it.
But I have to be sure. "You don't have to--"
His hands are at the hem of my shirt, are sliding underneath,
drawing fingers of flame up my ribs. "Hush, Paris," he says, and
miraculously, there's real laughter in his voice. "We've had
enough foolishness, don't you think?"
And the answer I would make to that gets lost when his
fingertips brush across my nipples. "Oh..." I groan and sag against
him, the blunt, shivery pleasure shooting straight down to my
knees. "Oh, please... don't stop."
He doesn't, and the next touch of his hands makes me shudder
uncontrollably, makes me bury my face against his throat with a
strangled moan, nibbling and kissing him there. I have to have
more of him. Now. My shaking hands find the drawstring of his
pants.
"Shh," he whispers, his breath teasing across my ear. His lips
kiss me there, teeth drawing across my earlobe. For a second I
almost black out, the pleasure is so intense. Next thing I know
I'm lying on his narrow bed and he's undressing me. His knowing
hands feel so good on me I can only throw my head back and let
him do what he will; I'm helpless under the thrall of this power
he has, this control.
When I'm naked he kneels over me, straddling my thighs. I can
feel the heat of him on my bare flesh. It's making all the hair on
my legs stand up. I'm so hard that if he doesn't touch me soon, I'm going
to beg.
He surveys me from under those ridiculous lashes, pursing his
lips as if he's giving me a professional evaluation. "Well, well,
Mister Paris. I'm impressed." He is, too, I can tell--he's
breathing hard, and his loose pants don't conceal much. At the
thought of what's under there, of what it would feel like to have
him inside of me, a little sound I can't control escapes me. His
eyes come back to my face, and there's a gentleness in him that
squeezes at my heart. "Has anyone ever told you how beautiful
you are, Tom?"
At Auckland my baby face was not exactly an advantage and I
got called a lot of things. But no one's ever called me beautiful.
"No."
He smiles, and when he does, I realize it's the first time he's
really smiled at me; all the other times were just twisted
reflections of this pure, uncomplicated beauty. There is, I think
to myself, nothing that I wouldn't do to make him smile at me like
that again.
And that's the answer of course, to the question he'd asked
earlier--the one about what Spock had hoped for when he'd turned
his back on a lifetime of logic and hired me to write this sim. I doubt
even a Vulcan could be immune to that smile, or the possibility of
seeing it again.
He's leaning over me then, his tongue a warm wet shock on my
stomach, my chest, shooting white flames of electricity through
me when he laps at my nipple. It's instantly hard, and his teeth
nip at the tender flesh, at both of them until I'm writhing under
him. The way he's bent over me now the heat of him is scalding
my cock, the slide of hard flesh through fabric more than I can
bear. I grab hold of the waist of his pants, slide them down over
his ass, the satin tip of his cock brushing against my wrist. His
breath catches.
I can't stand it any more, it's still not enough. I wrap one leg
around both of his and push his pants the rest of the way off with
my foot, then pull him down against me.
I've surprised him--he groans into my neck and melts against
me, thrusting jerkily, his hardness and his heat rubbing voluptuously
against my own. He's wet and slick against me and oh, gods, he's as
ready as I am, in another second he's going to push us both over
the edge. "No!" I gasp out, clenching my eyes shut, concentrating.
"No, not yet--" In spite of his strength, I manage to twist out
from under him. He's too far gone to fight me. I roll him down
against the bed and force myself to back off a little, though it
costs me.
His face lost in passion is so transcendent I almost can't look
at him. He's watching me through slitted eyes, his lips flushed
bright red, faint sheen of perspiration on his upper lip. "Tom," he
says. Just my name. I know what he wants, what he needs.
There's nothing that I want that moment except to give him what
he needs.
And so I kneel above him, straddling him as he did me, but
lower down. I drag my fingertips down his broad ribcage, tracing
him. He is so incredibly responsive that I can feel the blood rush
to follow my touch. I bend and run my tongue once over his balls,
spread my hands against his hipbones, and take him in my mouth.
I don't tease him. I can't. All I want is to make him cry out
with pleasure, and so I do, sucking his rock-hard hotness into my
throat, pressing my tongue all along the length of him, to the root.
I suck him as if I can suck all his pain out of him, as if I can tap
this well of pleasure in him and somehow heal him. He grabs my
head and holds it still, moaning uncontrollably, and thrusts deep
into my mouth. I realize that I'm making little sounds of my own,
in sympathy.
But when I feel the telltale surge under my tongue, the
gathering vibration thrilling through his lower body, his hands
tighten on my head and pull me away, holding me still above him.
I look up, astonished that he would stop me--astonished that
he could. I'm almost coming myself just from the friction of his
thighs against my scrotum. His head's thrown back; he's bitten
his lip. There's blood on his mouth. His chest is heaving and
there's a battle in his face for control. He wins it, barely.
"What do you want?" I whisper, stroking him gently along one
pale flank. "Anything you want. Just tell me."
He doesn't answer, but opens his eyes enough to look at me. He
lets go of my head, lowers one shaking hand to brush his fingertips, very
gently, against my weeping cock. I draw in a sharp breath, and
a ghost of that devastating smile touches his lips.
But he doesn't say anything. What he does do is grab my hips in the
palms of his hands and lift me up, shifting under me until I'm
between his thighs, and his luscious ass is pressing against my
balls. And then, watching me every second, he slowly brings his
other hand to his mouth, wetting three fingers.
Shit, he can't mean--oh, shit, he does mean. He brings his
now-glistening fingers to my cock and rubs that moisture across
the head. The thought of what he's telling me with that gesture
causes my whole lower body to throb, and a surge of fluid--
mine--coats his already dampened fingers. His ghost-smile widens,
and in one motion he strokes me, hard, and pulls me down against
him, pressing me in between his thighs.
And oh, god, he's so tight and I'm so wet that even though I've
never been so hard I slide right in, buried in his heat. He rocks
against me, raising his hips so I can go deeper, deeper, so I can
wrap my hand around his cock and stroke him as I move. I stroke
him once, hard, and he's already there, already coming with a raw,
ragged sound deep in his throat, incredibly strong pulses against
my palm, hot wetness surging under my fingertips, and he's so hot
all around me, so hot--oh god oh my god ohmygod--


It's when I'm lying boneless and gasping on top of him that he
realizes.
"Tom--" I feel him go still under me, his heaving chest
catching for a second in the moment when the thought occurs to
him. I close my eyes, afraid of what he's going to say. Oh, I was
hoping he wouldn't ask this.
"Yeah?" I have to struggle for air even to manage that one word.
"I didn't... I never asked you. How long has it been for you? In
the--" real world, he doesn't say "--outside?"
I move off him a little, burrowing down into the space between him
and the edge of the bed. My nerve endings are humming. It takes every
bit of strength I have to lift my arm, but I do. I put it loosely across
his stomach--a kind of embrace--and he allows it. With that
encouragement I lay the side of my face against his upper arm.
I can't lie to him.
"It's been nine years and eleven months since I last saw him."
He doesn't say anything, just lies there, looking up at the
ceiling. Finally he says softly, "For me, it's been less than a day."
There's not really anything else I can say, except, "I know."
We lie in silence for a while, letting lungs and hearts regain
their normal rhythm. I can feel him gathering himself, making a conscious
effort to regulate his breathing. When he's got himself
back under control, he shifts slightly. At first I think he's gonna pull
away--and he does, a little. But he lets my arm stay where it is.
"Do you know...?"
I shake my head against his shoulder. "No. Not for sure. My
ship got trapped in the Delta Quadrant three years ago. I've been
pretty out of touch." I draw a deep breath. "But last I heard... he'd
been on Romulus, and the Federation operatives there had lost
touch with him."
He's very still under my arm, not quite breathing. "Do they
have any idea what happened?"
I have to tell him; there's no getting around it. "Last I knew, they
had him listed as... missing."
He just digests that quietly. After a minute, I feel the regular
rhythm of his breathing start again. To my surprise, his chest
rumbles with a low chuckle. "Ah, Spock. Always keeping 'em
guessing." I am utterly surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy
when he says the Vulcan's name.
Something else I have said catches his attention. "You said... 'my
ship.' What ship?"
"She's called Voyager." I know he can hear the quiet pride in
my voice, and don't care. If anyone will understand, it's him.
"Starfleet vessel?"
"Yes." I suppress a grin. What would Chakotay have to say
about that?
"Tom Paris... Commander Paris?" he hazards.
I blush, and am glad he can't see it. "Lieutenant."
"Lieutenant," he muses, and doesn't comment further. He's
stroking my hair gently, rhythmically, and I'm getting hypnotized
by it. "You know, Lieutenant, this was a first for me."
"What, you've never had a Lieutenant before?"
"No... never been had by one."
I choke back a giggle. "First time for everything."
But he doesn't laugh. "No," he says quietly. "Not everything."
I want to put my arms around him, want to kiss him and stroke
*his* hair, but I know if I try he'll pull away. Instead I prop
myself up on one elbow so I can see his face. When I move he stops
petting me and tucks his arm up under his head.
"Can I ask you something?"
His lips twist in a little self-mocking smile. "Is there
anything you don't already know about me?"
"There's a lot I don't know."
He just lifts his eyebrows. Like what? the expression says.
"Like why you didn't break my neck as soon as you laid eyes on
me."
Now, finally, he looks directly at me. "I told you that."
I hold his eyes, searching them. The darkness I saw there
before is mostly gone. And so I ask him, the one thing I still don't
understand. "Why did he tell you?"
He blinks, and after a moment, looks back at the ceiling. "You
mean... why did he tell me what I was?"
"Yes."
He sighs, and there's mostly resignation in his face. "I forced
him to tell me."
I blink, finding that damn hard to imagine. "You... forced him?"
He's smiling, a private smile that speaks of things beyond my
ken. "I have a long history of making him tell me things I'm not
supposed to know."
My anger shows through. "I can't imagine doing what he did.
In my book, it was unforgivable."
But he's shaking his head. "You wouldn't understand this," he
says, "but he meant it as a kindness."
"A kindness--!"
"He knows me very well."
"You mean you're glad he told you?"
His smile is sad, and the momentary touch of his eyes on mine
feels like pity. "No, Tom. But for me... it would be worse not to
know."
I don't really have anything to say to that. I've separated
myself from him now, a little space of mussed scarlet coverlet
between us, and though I want to touch him again I don't know
how to cross back over. There's a distance between us that
wasn't there a minute ago.
"You've forgiven him, haven't you?" I whisper finally.
His eyes close; I see the tightening of his throat as he
suppresses the instinct to swallow. "Of course. I never could
stay mad at him."
"And me?"
It comes out sounding small and pathetic, and I wish instantly
that I'd been strong enough not to ask something I'm not sure I
want the answer to.
But he touches me then, the brief caress of his hand in my
hair, stroking the back of my neck, once. "Sure," he says, as if it's
easy, as if it doesn't cost him anything at all to say it. My throat
closes with gratitude.
Then, suddenly, his eyes are on me, stabbing through me in one
swift stroke. "Just promise me one thing."
"Anything." I don't hesitate.
"Whatever you do, don't wait to say the words. You hear me?
Don't wait until it's too late." His face is full of fatal
understanding, and it stops my heart.
"I won't," I say, and I let him see the promise in my eyes.


We're standing at the door to his quarters. I need to go through
that door, because I can't be looking at him when I shut the
simulation off. I couldn't bear that. If I wasn't so damn tired of
crying I might be doing it now.
"Are you sure?" I hate myself for asking it again, but I want
desperately for him to give me another answer.
He is serene, in control, the quintessential starship captain.
"Yes, Tom. I'm sure." He gives me the barest shadow of his
extraordinary smile. "He would be, too."
"I could... I could rewrite the matrix, you know." I'm choking on
the thought, but say it anyway. Anything but what he's asking of
me.
"You mean, make me forget?"
"Yes. You could be like you were meant to be. You could be...
*him* again." But I know as soon as I say it that he doesn't want
that. It would be living a lie, in the truest sense of the phrase.
He'll take an honest death over that kind of existence.
He only shakes his head.
I catch up his hand in mine, and he doesn't pull away. For a
second we stand awkwardly, looking down at the place where our
fingers interlace. Finally I find a smile from somewhere, though I
suspect it looks pretty shaky. "Do you think this is what he meant
to happen, when he sent me the disk?"
He gives a soft snort of laughter. "Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe
he just knew..."
I look up, meet his lion eyes. "Knew?"
"That you were the only one who could help me."
I nod. "And vice versa."
That touches him, shakes the newfound serenity up a little.
"Is that true?"
I try to give him my best nonchalant grin, but I'm not entirely
successful. "Oh, yeah, I was a basket case when I came in here.
You should have been a shrink instead of a starship captain."
He looks at me for a long moment. "Thank you, Tom. For
everything." Gently, he disentangles his hand from mine.
"Remember, don't wait too long."
I can't do anything but nod again in return.
Finally he touches a control stud, and the door slides open
behind me. Hardly seeing, I turn and step through the door.
"Good-bye," he says behind me, and the door slides shut. I draw a
breath.
"End program," I say.
I'm standing then in semi-darkness, alone. The display panels
glow expectantly. I close my eyes, feeling a tear or two slip
down my face; it seems I'm not quite done with them after all.
It's some minutes before I can make my throat let go enough to
let me speak the words.
"Computer, delete file NCC1701-K. Authorization Paris,
Thomas E."


He's in his quarters, asleep, when I sound the buzzer at his
door. It's just after oh-six hundred hours, an hour when all sane
people are in bed. We don't have to be on the bridge for another
three hours.
Don't wait, he said. Well, I can't wait. I hurt. I need to see
Harry, if only for a few minutes. I need to touch him, hear him,
smell him, know that he's real. I sound the buzzer again,
impatient.
My clothes are too neat, distressingly free of any sign of what
I've been doing for the last three hours. I don't even have the
smell of him on me; every trace has vanished with him, back into
the holodeck computer from whence it came. And that absence of
proof makes me want to go off and hide somewhere by myself,
remember ever moment I was with him so that the reality won't
disappear.
At last he answers the door, and when I see him, warm and
mussed from sleep, his hair in disarray, I want desperately to
grab him and hug him hard to me and not let go. I want to tell him
I'm sorry for waiting to tell him, for even considering the
possibility of not telling him.
He frowns at me. "Tom? What's wrong? Are you okay?"
He rubs his eyes sleepily, blinking in the muted light from the
corridor. I'm thinking, he is so beautiful I can't possibly
encompass it.
"Yeah," I say, holding tightly to the thing that's trying to get
past my throat. "I'm fine."
And then I'm smiling, just grinning at him like an idiot,
because I can't help it. "Listen, Harry? There's something I have
to tell you..."

[the end :-)]

[Dawn]

Beautiful
I always knew thought I had Warped Impulsive Drives.