Title: Truths, Lies and What's Underneath
Author: Tory Anderson
Series: Voyager
Rating: PG for some adult references
Codes: P/T, angst
Part: 1/1
Summary: Don't be fooled - Love isn't always candy hearts
and rosa rubifolia.
Disclaimer: Nobody who appears in this story is of my own
invention. They all belong to Paramount, etc. Dialogue
from Demon written by Kenneth Biller.
Archive: Anywhere with these headers attached.
Spoilers: Vis a Vis, Demon
* * *
Truths, Lies and What's Underneath
by Tory Anderson
tory_ander...@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/tory_anderson
Sometimes I wake up at night, and I can't breathe. His
weight is always heavy on me, pressing my limbs into
numbness or leaving me with inches of space at the edge of
the bed. I wake him, and he moves off of me and we fall
asleep. But invariably, hours later, I will awaken again,
suffocated.
When we are out together, I am certain that the dynamics of
our relationship are visible to anyone and everyone simply
through the language of our bodies. He holds my hand,
brushes his fingers against my cheek, or leans in to steal
a random kiss. My spine is stiff, my face turned from him,
the smile on my lips tight and tense. He needs me, and I
do not need him.
I should feel guilty. I pulled him towards me with my
melodramatic dying-breath confession of love, and now I
push him away from me, freezing him out with my silence. I
manipulated him, but I am unwilling to take the last step
and finish this relationship so that he can be free.
Many times, I have tried. I have called him to my quarters,
rehearsing the lines in my head, the reasons, the excuses,
the truths and the lies. But when he arrives - breathless
from hurrying through the corridors to be at my side - the
words stick, refusing to pass through my vocal cords. His
eyes shine with something that I ought to recognise as love,
and the simple joy of sharing time with me, no matter the
occasion.
So I dither and delay, inventing a feeble pretext, and so I
put off hurting him for one more day.
You see, no one's ever needed me before and in moments of
clarity, I wonder if I am stalling because I don't want to
break his heart, or because being adored is so good for my
own.
But I did love him once, didn't I?
I remember that catastrophic day, one incident bleeding
into another until my entire life exploded like a cascade
reaction in the warp core. I meant it at the time - I had
been obsessing over Tom for weeks, swallowing the thoughts
then spitting them back up only to reevaluate the half-
digested facts. And I thought that I had loved him.
The question is, do I still? Do I need him?
There is no doubt that I still desire him, physically. I
am sure he is confused beyond reason at how I will devour
him, dragging him to my quarters to ravish him throughout
the night, only to disappear into the bowels of the ship
for the following week without a word passing between us.
He deserves better, but the look in his eye when we finally
see each other again erases any goodbye I could hope to
make.
So I take him back to my bed and in the heat of passion,
when he clutches me to him, crying "B'Elanna, B'Elanna"
into the crook of my neck, I stare at the ceiling and
wonder when the duplicity will end.
It's funny, because I always thought it would be the other
way around. Why do people say that? It's a stupid
expression. Nothing about this situation is funny.
It's ironic, because I always thought it would be the other
way around. I thought that when the day came that I would
fall in love, there would be no world for me other than the
world that I lived in with him. I thought I would tumble
head over heels, and that there would be fireworks and
choirs of angels singing. And when I fell in love with Tom,
I thought that there was no way in hell he would ever love
me - need me - the way that he does.
You wouldn't expect it of him. He's so happy-go-lucky, not a
care in the world. That's the outside Tom, the invisible
costume he puts on in the morning along with his uniform
and boots. It's a facade. I've discovered that all he
really wants is someone to love, someone to hold at night
when the demons in his mind call to him. Some label him a
playboy, a ladies man, but he's really just been looking in
all the wrong places. Or so he says, until he found me.
But the burden is too heavy. I can't stay strong under the
weight of his need. He needs to spend time with me, needs
to stay the night, needs the physical proximity. I'm too
imperfect. I snap at him like a rabid dog and he recoils,
then retreats to the holodeck to lick his wounds until we
play the same scene the next day, the next week. It doesn't
matter when. It always happens.
One day he'll storm out of my quarters, and he won't come
back. The truthful little devil in my mind wonders if I'm
doing it deliberately, sabotaging our relationship. If so,
it's a cowardly way going about it. I ought to just own up
to how I feel, and end this relationship.
I wanted to be everything to him, but he is nothing to me,
and I am sorry.
* * *
B'Elanna spotted him walking away from her down the corridor
and increased her pace to catch up.
"Chakotay!"
He turned and she watched some sort of relief pass over his
face - he knew this was coming, it had just been a question
of when.
"You're going out to look for them, aren't you?" she
demanded.
"That's right."
"Take me with you."
He set his lips. He had known this was coming, too. "I
can't do that, B'Elanna. You're needed here to complete
repairs."
"I've already handed out assignments," she countered him,
"Vorik's on top of it. I want-" need "-to help you find
them."
Chakotay glanced up the empty corridor, "Look," he said, his
voice pitched low, "I know you're concerned about them. We
all are. I'll have them back safe and sound in no time."
"Don't patronise me," she snapped. Goddamn Chakotay and his
damn neutrality. He was a fighter, but over the years on
Voyager he had turned into a lover instead. Could she trust
him to do whatever it took to get Tom - and Harry - back? A
blue-shouldered crewman passed by and quirked an eyebrow at
B'Elanna's flushed face. Goddamn it! She was making a
scene, and everyone would know it was about Tom. And though,
in recent weeks, she found her concern for him slipping away
from her, to have him forcibly removed did not sit well with
her at all.
"We both know how dangerous that environment is," she began
again. "They could both be in serious trouble."
"You're right," Chakotay said. She narrowed her eyes at
him. It wasn't going to be that easy. "I don't know what
we're going to find. That's why I need cool heads."
"You think I can't control myself?" she said belligerently.
"I think... you're too close to this," he chose his words
carefully. He never knew, at any given moment, the status
of the relationship between the chief engineer and the pilot.
Sometimes he wondered whether they themselves knew. It was
always wiser to tread softly... any one of the apples could
be poisonous.
"You're damn right I am," she cursed at him. Wrong apple.
"If someone you loved was missing on this planet you would
be the first one out that door and you know it."
Neither one of them said a word.
B'Elanna closed her eyes for a split second. Did I just say
that? she wondered. And then, Did I mean it?
When Chakotay spoke again his voice was even, modulated.
The subject of loving Tom Paris was one he was not going to
touch. "B'Elanna, the clock is ticking. Go back to
Engineering, do your job and let me do mine." He turned
from her, closing the conversation.
"Do me a favour," she blurted out. He stopped, pursed his
lips.
"What?"
"Take Seven of Nine with you."
Chakotay arched an eyebrow, "You're recommending her?"
"You said you needed cool heads, didn't you? Nobody's head
is cooler than hers."
He considered it for a moment. "All right." He turned to
go again, and once more she stopped him, grasping his arm.
"Bring them back safe."
He looked down into her anxious, upturned face. He knew
that he could not guarantee to either of them that he would
keep this promise, but nevertheless he heard himself say,
"I will."
She held onto his sleeve a moment longer, searching his
eyes for any sign of deception, that he might just be
telling her what she wanted to hear. Chakotay might have
gotten soft, but he was still honest. She relaxed her hand,
and he turned and walked away down the corridor.
B'Elanna felt her breath slide out of her body like
something solid leaving her. Her knees felt weak, and her
hands shook before her eyes. She had been ordered back to
her post, but she couldn't - just couldn't go down there
and see all the sympathetic faces, hear the whisperings
behind her back and the pitying looks.
She pushed herself off the bulkhead and forced her rubbery
legs to carry her to her quarters, where she collapsed on
the unmade bed. She wished she could say the disarray was
due to another exclusive party she had hosted for her lover,
but the truth was, she hadn't seen him since the hour they
had spent on the holodeck, weeks before, after the Steth
fiasco.
Staring at the ceiling, she remembered the smell of grease
and Tom's deodorant, fumbling in the awkward space, hearing
him chuckle into her neck and seeing happiness within her
grasp. It was the closest she had come to being at peace
with Tom for months, and it frightened her. She had covered
her unease with a vehement passion, but as her body
approached its peak, her brain systematically shut down.
She had quickly dressed and returned to Engineering, even
though she wasn't supposed to report for another three
hours.
She hadn't been alone with Tom since.
There wasn't even a trace of his scent when she buried her
nose in the pillows to soak up her tears, and that
realization only made her shake harder.
What are you doing, Lanna-Lanna?, her inner demon teased
mercilessly. Thought you didn't give a damn about old Tom
Paris. Thought you were tired of him. Thought he was
nothing to you. Well, now he's probably dead... aren't you
happy? It's the easiest way to break up with someone,
highly recommended.
She breathed deeply, drawing air into her burdened lungs.
He couldn't be dead... he couldn't be.
She needed him.
* * *
the end.
tory_ander...@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/tory_anderson
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geocities.com/vienna/stage) (
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