FIC: Marilyn 2/2, Archer/Tucker, NC-17
Sep. 8th, 2006 04:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cloudy_ficTitle: Marilyn, Part Two
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jenniferlupin
Rating: NC-17
Beta: Jessica
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount. I'm not making money from this.
Summary: Trip recalls the beginning of his and Jon's relationship.
Author's Note: Thanks to Jessica for reading this yet again, especially since she's not overly fond of the ship...heh.
I didn’t see Jonny again until that night when I was asleep and dreaming. I dreamed that I was standing in an empty room and I felt so incredibly lost. I kept looking for a way out of the room until finally a door I hadn’t noticed before opened and Jonny stepped in. He came up to me, offered me his hand and told me he knew the way out, but I would have to trust him to lead me there. I woke up in a cold sweat before I made my decision and I couldn’t sleep again until it was time to get up anyway.
I don’t think it will come as too much of a surprise to hear that I was not looking forward to seeing him the next day. But life must go on and so, of course, I saw him first thing that morning on the shuttle. Luck was with me at least a little though because Marilyn wasn’t on that particular shuttle. I don’t think I could have handled either Jonny touching me or him not touching me and her giving us a look.
We sat next to each other as usual, but this time, we both made an effort to avoid touching each other. I had a lot of different emotions playing around inside me at that point. Disappointment that we had let something come in between our friendship. Anger at Jonny for getting us into this mess. Frustration at myself for not being able to let it go. And most disturbingly, the desire for Jonny to put his arm around my shoulder, so I could feel his body pressed up against mine again.
I guess we must have stayed silent for about fifteen minutes before I heard Jonny give a heavy sigh and felt him turn towards me.
“Trip,” he said quietly. There were several other people on the shuttle, though no one sat close enough to hear his words. “I can’t stand it anymore. Please talk to me. I couldn’t sleep last night. I just kept sitting there worrying about what you must think of me now.”
I finally turned to him, forgetting my discomfort in the face of his distress. His eyes were anxious and I could tell by the way he was clenching his hands that he wanted nothing more than to stand up and start pacing while we talked. I’ve often gotten a crick in my neck looking up at him while he paced through one problem or another.
“And what did you think I was thinkin’ about ya?” I asked, genuinely curious. I had been so wrapped up in my own confusion the night before, I don’t think I gave much thought to what Jonny was feeling. Now that he brought it up, I realized that I had assumed he was horrified by my reaction to his kiss and that his own reaction had been the inevitable result of friction. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that he might be in the same bind I was.
He shrugged and played with a tear in the seat’s fabric. “I couldn’t decide if you’d be more pissed or offended.”
I was totally shocked by his words. Well, ok, not totally shocked. It wasn’t a very great surprise that he would think I might be angry with him what with the way I shoved him off of me. But I couldn’t believe that he would think he could offend me like that. Looking back on it, rationally, I know exactly what he meant. He was afraid I was completely uninterested and therefore was disturbed to learn that my best friend thought I was attractive. I didn’t think of that at the time because I was too busy worrying about whether or not he was going to be disgusted by me for the rest of his life.
Confusing, huh?
“No, Jon, it’s not like that. I guess, you know, I just wasn’t expecting that.” I was referring to both the hard on and the feeling of absolute rightness when his lips met mine, but he took it to mean just that the kiss happened at all.
“Yeah, I know. I panicked. Again.” I never thought of Jonny as the type to panic. And I know now that he really isn’t.
“It’s ok. Really.” It wasn’t. Really. But I wanted my friendship with him back the way it was and so I was willing to just forget the whole thing happened. He nodded and smiled. It looked kind of forced, but I knew it meant that he was agreeing to forget it happened, too.
“Alright then. Good.” And as if to seal the deal, he slid closer to me until we were sitting the normal amount of space from one another. We chatted for the rest of the ride to Enterprise, which helped me ignore the heat coursing through every part of my body that touched his.
By the time we reached the ship, we were joking around like normal. I don’t remember what it was about, but I do remember Jonny bumping his shoulder into mine after I teased him about something. It felt good and I was thinking, you know, our friendship was strong enough that we could easily get back to normal and everything would be ok. It would take me much longer to realize I didn’t want it back the way it was.
I’m happy to report (or at least I was at the time) that nothing too significant happened for the rest of Marilyn’s visit. Jonny and I went about our work as usual, without anyone avoiding anyone and although we did get a number of wistful looks and dozens of comments about our “romance” from Marilyn, mostly everything went on as normal. For a brief period of time I worried that she would end up telling someone about what she thought was going between us, but I was assured by her the day she left that our secret was safe with her.
And so, she finally disappeared from our lives to be replaced by an older man who didn’t talk very much at all, except to ask his questions and discuss safety protocol with Jonny. He didn’t even seem to know I was alive, and I can tell you, that was a nice change of pace. I was ready to forget Marilyn ever came into my life and for a little while I thought I would be able to.
But what kind of story would this be if it ended there?
I was able to act normally around Jonny and not think too much about grabbing him and kissing him while we were together, but he began to show up in my dreams with some regularity. And they weren’t all sweet romantic dreams either. No, sometimes I dreamed that he was getting married to someone else or that he was telling me we had to end our friendship if I couldn’t keep my hands to myself. And I would wake up feeling sick inside.
Not that there weren’t sweet romantic dreams though. No, there were plenty of those as well and they kept getting more and more erotic as time went by. I had never had sex with a guy before, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know how it worked and I have a pretty good imagination. I woke up time and again so turned on, it literally hurt and still, I didn’t do anything about what I was feeling. It was almost like I was able to separate my friendship with him from my attraction to him. I kept the attraction hidden away when I was alone and ignored it the best I could when we were together.
I guess Jonny must have been doing the same thing because he kept making up excuses not to be alone with me, excuses I readily accepted. I think we were both afraid that if we were alone for too long in either of our apartments, we’d end up going at it.
And we probably would have too.
So, here I was, being such an idiot and refusing to understand that we might just be able to successfully combine the friendship and attraction and come up with something greater than the two alone. I’ve learned about myself that when it comes to matters of the heart, I need some kind of big thing to happen for me to realize what I want and more importantly, what I need. One of those big things happened about a month after Marilyn left.
By this point, I was having some kind of dream about Jonny just about every night. We never spoke about what had happened, but every so often, I’d catch myself staring at him or catch him staring at me. You know, the look, sort of longing and pathetic, like a puppy. I never tried to touch him more than normal, but every time I did touch him was a major event in my day, like a special treat you only allow yourself to enjoy every so often. I found myself staring at his lips and thinking about how good a kisser he was or his arms and thinking about how wonderful it felt to be held by them or his legs and wonder what it would feel like if they were wrapped around me.
I just got so sick of it, to tell you the truth. It was tiresome and even irritating. I can’t honestly say that I’d never been attracted to a guy before, but it was never like this, I think partly because it was never to someone I was already close to. But I told myself that it wasn’t possible to become attracted to the same sex so late in life and the only way I would be able to forget about Jonny was to find the hottest girl I could and have as much sex as possible with her. Smart, right? I’m embarrassed to even have to relate this part of the story, but it’s an important part, so I’m going to suck it up and tell you.
There was this girl on Jupiter Station I’d gone out with a couple of times named Eileen and she was seriously gorgeous. I’m not kidding about this. She had this amazing long thick black hair, bright blue eyes and a body most guys would kill to get their hands on. Eileen was the perfect image of feminine beauty, complete with the curves and the soft pouty lips. So, of course, she was exactly what I was looking for. I commed her up one night and set up a date for the following evening. I was pleased to note that she seemed pretty happy to hear from me and I wasn’t too surprised either. Again, when I’m good at something…But yes, I tried not to be too obvious, but I think we both knew that this was more of a sexual thing than an actual date. Before you get disgusted with me and think I’m the type of guy to use people, let me just say that we had already agreed not to date seriously, but that hadn’t stopped us from getting together several times after that.
Besides, I was really desperate to get this Jonny thing out of my system.
Speaking of Jonny, his reaction to hearing about my date was interesting. He invited me to join him and some of the other guys in his apartment for a game of poker and when he heard I couldn’t come because I had a date, his face fell. For a split second, I could see something akin to devastation in his eyes. I was sorry he was upset, but mostly I was absurdly pleased by the reaction.
Which convinced me I needed this date more than ever.
It went pretty good at first. She came over to my place and we semi-watched a vid while bringing each other up to date on what was going on in our lives. I’m pretty sure I talked about Jonny an awful lot, but she didn’t seem to mind. Things progressed kind of quickly and soon enough the vid was forgotten and she was pulling me towards the bedroom while at the same time, stripping me of most of my clothes. She pushed me back on the bed and gave me a little strip show. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t into it. Like I said, she’s gorgeous and certainly knows the kind of moves to turn a guy on. And yet, even though I was becoming aroused, it wasn’t as immediate as it usually was. Still, I soldiered on and pulled her down into my arms.
I then had what I like to think of as an “out of body” experience. In reality, I had Eileen in my arms, but I wasn’t seeing her or even feeling her. I was back in that hallway with Jonny. It wasn’t a matter of comparing Eileen’s slender arms with Jonny’s muscular ones or her curvy body with his hard angular one. I wasn’t even feeling her. For all I knew, I was with him. I was kissing his lips, running my fingers through his short hair, feeling his weight pressing down on me. Before, when I was still with Eileen, I was being gentle, but once I’d replaced her with Jonny, something snapped in me. I became almost wild and flipped over on top of her. I think she must have been into it because she started letting out all kinds of groans and moans, but in my mind, they were deeper, less breathy. I entered her forcefully and she yelled out my name.
And it brought me back to reality. I opened my eyes and Jonny was gone. Eileen was looking up at me, her eyes clouded with lust, her full red lips parted in ecstasy and it shocked the hell out of me. I stopped thrusting and my erection pretty much died an ugly embarrassing death.
She was really nice about it and didn’t try to humor me by saying it happens to all guys at some point or anything like that. But she didn’t stay very long after it either, for which I was grateful. After she left, I just lay in my bed and thought about what had happened. For awhile, all I could concentrate on was my embarrassment, but that eventually faded, leaving me with a very scary thought.
This thing with Jonny wasn’t just an annoyance to be dealt with; I really wanted him. It didn’t matter that I still found women attractive. I didn’t want a woman, I wanted him. I wanted to be with him and not just because I wanted to have sex with him. It wasn’t just attraction; I was really deeply frighteningly in love with him.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that that had been the case all along. I spent all my time with him because he made me happy. Every time something good happened to me, he was the first one I wanted to tell. When something bad happened, talking to him was the only thing that could make me feel better. Remember earlier when I said that he was becoming more and more important to me? Well, this was the first time I really understood what that meant. He really was the other half of me, the only thing that could make me feel content.
I heard a story once, I think it was Greek or something, I’m not too sure at the moment. Anyway, the story went that when humans were first created, they were creatures with four arms and four legs and one heart. But something went wrong and the gods split them all into two, separating them forever unless they were lucky enough to find their other half again and then they’d be complete. I’m sure a creature that was half Jonny and half me would be pretty ass ugly, but it didn’t stop me from really getting that story for the first time. I finally realized that, subconsciously, we’d been lovers all along and when he took my hand that first time, that knowledge was pushed into my conscious mind.
As I’m sure you can imagine, that was a pretty huge thing for me to admit to myself and I didn’t want to ruin it by worrying about where Jonny was on all this. Somehow I pushed it out of my mind and instead, for the first time, let myself think about all the wonderful things we could experience together in life. I fell asleep with a smile on my face and peacefulness in my heart.
I dreamed of him again that night, though there was no real coherency to it. I just remember seeing his face full of warmth and love, feeling his lips and hands on my body and knowing that there wasn’t anything else like it in the world. I felt totally safe and utterly loved.
Then I woke up. And panic set in. This was it. I had had my epiphany and I couldn’t take it back. No matter what I did, my friendship with Jonny was changed forever. I knew I wouldn’t be able to be around him any longer without saying something, so I had two choices. Give into my fear and walk away from him for good or put it all on the line and confess my feelings. There were two chances I would lose him forever and only one that I would have everything I ever wanted.
That’s one hell of a frightening concept to be confronted with, but as I lay in my bed, remembering how it felt in my dreams to be held by him, I knew I had to give it a shot. I’d hate myself if I didn’t.
And so I approached that day with a nervous tension in my belly and steel in my veins. No matter what happened, before the day ended, I would be telling Jonny how I felt about him. Looking back on that morning, I’m still surprised by my own recklessness. I don’t recall giving one thought to how this would affect our working relationship. I do remember dreading how it would affect our friendship because I was convinced it would end it. Now, I’m not so sure, but at any rate, even with that concern, most of my mind was occupied with how to go about telling him. I guess that’s why they say people are in love act crazy. I certainly remember feeling crazy that day.
Anyway, by the time I had made it to the shuttle that morning, I had decided I would wait until after we got off work to tell him, preferably alone in one of our apartments. That way, if it didn’t go well, it would just be a matter of one of us leaving and having the entire night to be apart and recover a bit. And if it did work out, then we’d already have a private place to get things started. What can I say? I was a young guy and horny nearly all the time anyway. I couldn’t imagine wasting much time once we got things settled.
Jonny was there, of course, waiting on me and looking good enough to eat. I couldn’t believe there was ever a time when I didn’t feel like jumping his bones, but that’s beside the point. He asked me in a somewhat disgruntled tone how my date went, which encouraged me, although it also brought back the embarrassment. I said it was fine and I could tell he didn’t believe me. He smiled a little too happily, which made me smile as well until the two of us were grinning stupidly at one another.
I’m not sure why I was still worried about him rejecting me after something like that (not to mention all the other little hints I had had all along), but I was. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to get much work done that day, but I was determined. It got to the point where I was starting to be proud of myself. I kept thinking it took a lot of balls to admit to your male, potentially completely straight best friend you were in love with him. Whatever else happened, I knew I would be happy I had enough guts to take a chance on someone when I had absolutely no clue what they felt about me.
And even though that’s not what happened at all, I’m still proud of myself. I fully intended to charge headlong into the unknown. I just didn’t realize that the unknown was about to become painfully obvious. Still, I had to state my intentions for the record.
You see, there was a surprise waiting for me when we arrived at Enterprise. Jonny and I were coming off the shuttle, discussing a plan to get together that night, when I heard it. A high exclamation of joy. The sound of running. Then, a hand grabbing my wrist.
Marilyn had returned. And she was also grabbing one of Jonny’s wrists and saying something I couldn’t quite make out, whether because she was talking too fast or because I had learned to tune her out, I’m not sure. I looked at Jonny’s face and saw that he too was surprised, maybe even shocked. I have to admit, I thought his reaction was a little strange, but I didn’t have much time to ponder it before Marilyn’s words finally began to seep in. She paused in her talking, gave us a bright smile and shook her head.
“You two. You just look as cute as ever. How are my favorite love birds doing anyway?” She winked at Jonny. “Are you still as in love as ever?”
And wouldn’t you just know it, the shuttle bay had completely emptied by then. I knew it was coming and yet I was still surprised by the wave of pleasure that crashed over me when Jonny put his arm around my waist and pulled me close. It occurred to me that I would rather he being doing this because he wanted to rather than because he was scared into it, but then I pushed that thought away. I might as well just cop a feel and enjoy it. For all I knew, this would be the last time I’d be able to.
“Of course, Marilyn,” he answered. His tone was cheerful, but I could hear an undercurrent of some other emotion in his voice. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it didn’t sound very happy. I suppose that should have pleased me, hearing him sound wistful or forlorn while pretending to be in love with me, but it didn’t. Actually, it just made me feel sad and I hugged him closer.
“Oh you two. So adorable!” She shook her head and smiled, but it wasn’t a particularly nice smile. It was more of an ‘Oh, what a waste’ look. I felt like throttling her, but that would have meant letting go of Jonny and I wasn’t really interested in doing that at the moment.
“Well, shall we?” Marilyn gestured towards the door and I reluctantly started to let go of Jonny. I didn’t get very far though before I realized that he wasn’t letting go of me.
“Actually, Marilyn, could you give us a minute?” He asked. He cocked his head and gave her a significant look I didn’t understand. She must have though because she nodded and winked before turning and leaving. I thought about that wink as she disappeared through the door and it hit me that she probably thought Jonny wanted one last minute with his lover before facing a day of living a lie. What she didn’t know was that we were living more than one lie.
I looked at Jonny when she was finally gone. He was rubbing his fingers into both eyes.
“Well?” I asked. I really had no idea what he wanted to talk to me about and to be honest, I was kind of eager to get down to Engineering and have a moment alone to think. I wasn’t sure if Marilyn being here changed my plans or not. Really, it shouldn’t, but I was a little worried that Jonny would think I was confessing feelings just because he was touching me all the time again. I didn’t want him to think it was just a confession in the heat of the moment if you catch my drift.
“I just wanted to…” he paused and it looked like he was searching for the right words. “If she’s back here for another two weeks, Trip, that’s two more weeks of pretending.” His voice was lower than normal, almost kind of strained. “If you don’t want to deal with that, I don’t blame you. If you want, I can tell her we broke it off.” He couldn’t quite meet my eyes. Thinking back on it, I’m inclined to feel sorry for him, but at the time, I remember feeling panicky. Maybe he couldn’t meet my eyes because he was regretting ever telling her that and he didn’t want to spend the next two weeks having to be close to me. That wasn’t the reason at all, but remember, I was already feeling crazy. And just to prove it, I grabbed his hand in mine.
“No, its ok, Jonny.” I gave him my best shit-eating grin. “Besides, I couldn’t leave you to Marilyn’s clutches.”
He looked down at our joined hands and an expression I’d never before seen on him transformed his features. It’s a look I’ve seen many times since and it’s precious to me, sort of a mix between contentment and amazement and something else altogether. Not to be morbid, but if that look is the last thing I see before I die, I will die a very happy man.
After a minute of staring at our joined hands, he looked back up at me and I got the full blast of that look. I’d never been ‘weak in the knees’ before, but at that moment, I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to be able to hold myself up. I hadn’t been able to see the ‘something else’ before, but now I did. The amazement and contentment were still there, but it seemed to me that every defense he ever had, any shield he may have put up to keep others out had completely disappeared and I was seeing his heart, his mind, everything that made him Jonathan Archer right there in his eyes. God, it was amazing and it clenched the deal. That was it, there was no coming back. Either I spent the rest of my life with him or I would become a monk because nothing could ever compare.
I probably would have told him I loved him right then and there, but suddenly, his gaze clouded, just about anything positive about the way he was looking at me evaporated and he dropped my hand. He let out a sound that I think was meant to be laughter, but it sounded dead and gave me an altogether unpleasant shiver.
“No, this is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.” He shook his head as if I had protested. “No.” I almost opened my mouth to say I hadn’t said anything, but I stopped at the glance he gave me. This argument wasn’t with me; it was going on inside his own head. To tell the truth, he kind of sounded a little nuts and it was starting to scare me a bit.
“Jonny?” I asked worriedly. I reached out to put my hand on his arm, but he quickly moved out of reach, walking towards the door.
“Don’t worry about it, Trip. I’m going to go find her and tell her the truth. Tell her what I should have told her in the first place.” He threw his arms out to either side and smirked at me. I hated the way it made his face look. “No more pretending.”
And then he left the room, leaving me with the echoes of his last, bitter words. I allowed the confusion and aimless hurt to overwhelm for a few minutes and I almost gave into the urge to just sit on a nearby bench to collect myself. But then anger overtook all other emotions. It’s always easier to be angry than confused. I told myself I was acting like a lovesick school girl and if Jonny wanted to go acting all cryptic that was his business. I decided to just get on with my work and put it all out of my mind.
Needless to say, that didn’t work. And not just because the whole situation was too overwhelming to really forget. No, it was also because Marilyn was waiting for me when I got to Engineering.
She was peering down at one of the consoles and making notes on a PADD. I stopped in my tracks as soon as I came through the door, but it was too late. She’d noticed me.
“Lieutenant! I’m glad you’re here, I need to ask you some questions about the new warp safety protocols.” She almost turned back to her PADD, but I guess she noticed something weird on my face because she stopped, her eyebrows coming together. “Are you ok, Trip?”
“Has Captain Archer talked to you yet?” I blurted out, surprising myself. I could tell by the way her body straightened and her head pulled back that she was, too.
“Well, I haven’t seen him since we got here. Does he need to talk to me?” She asked with a spark of irritating eagerness. I wanted to lie and say no, but unlike some people, I thought rather ungraciously, I had a hard time doing that.
“He mentioned something, yeah,” I mumbled in response. A wide, delighted grin lit up her annoying little face.
“Well, then, I’ll go and find him.” She started to leave, but then stopped and turned to me, a little self-satisfied smile twisting her lips. “I must say, it’s gratifying to know my work is so satisfactory.”
Now it was time for my eyebrows to be doing the furrowing. “I’m…sorry?” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.
“I just mean, it’s good to know that Captain Archer feels he can trust my work.” Her grin widened. “Why else would he request I come back?”
“Why else would…” I think the human brain has a defense mechanism built into it that stops news like this from sinking in immediately so it can really prepare itself to deal with it. That’s the only explanation for my impression of a large mouth bass and my inability to really connect the dots with what she was saying.
“Didn’t he tell you? Oh yes, apparently, I’m an even better worker than I imagined. And having someone like Jonathan Archer confirm that for me is quite something.”
While she was talking, it finally sank in. Jonathan Archer, self-proclaimed hater of one Marilyn Wilder, had invited her back into our midst. And there could be only one reason for it. No more pretending, he’d said. I was finished deluding myself.
It was time to have a talk with my Captain.
“Hold on a minute, Marilyn. I just remembered something I need to speak to the Captain about. Immediately.” She looked a little surprised and I realized my voice must have sounded a bit too forceful. I relaxed my stance and gave her a little grin. “You know, official business.”
“Oh, of course,” she said and gave me a little secretive look, as if she were in on everything going on between me and Jonny. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t even in on what was going between us, but, obviously, I didn’t. I just nodded at her and left.
I thought over what she’d told me as I left Engineering and got onto the lift. The best I could tell, Jonny had decided that he could endure more time spent in Marilyn’s company. It just wasn’t possible that he actually found her work all that great and the only other thing that changed while she was here was our relationship. It was hard for me to really believe, but it seemed that Jonny was willing to put up with Marilyn’s sycophantic tendencies just so he could have an excuse to touch me.
You’d think that’d make my heart pound in anticipation on the way up to his ready room, that I’d be excited to tell him I felt the same way so that we could get on with the kissing and the holding. But it didn’t and I wasn’t. No, by the time I was standing in front of his door, raising my hand to announce my presence, I was pissed as hell.
My thoughts were more along the lines of thinking he was a complete and total heartless bastard. He’d made Marilyn think he actually liked her work, only to go and tell her that he not only didn’t care about that, but that he only told her he was dating me because he wanted any excuse to avoid dating her. Now, she was annoying, but that didn’t mean he could stamp all over her heart like that. Not to mention my heart.
As I think about it now, I’m much less inclined to think badly of him. I know how hard it was for me to realize I was in love with him. It had to have been even worse for him since I was under his command. I could afford to dismiss that. He couldn’t.
But I wasn’t being rational at that point, so when the door to his ready room opened, I stormed in, threw my hands down on his desk and started yelling in his face.
“You bastard! How could you be so cruel?” I can be very dramatic when I want to be.
He looked up at me in such surprise that I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so angry. “What the hell are you talking about?” He immediately sounded defensive, which just made me more angry. Like hell he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I’m talking about Marilyn and your total disregard for her feelings!” I was right in his face then, the desk between us helpfully creating a barrier so that I wouldn’t give into my urge to throttle him.
“Since when did you care that much about her feelings?” He shouted back, though I could tell by the look in his eyes that it wasn’t really what he wanted to say. Sometimes when people are fighting, they’ll say anything, but what they really want to say. I’ve learned this over the course of the years. Jonny and I can have some pretty spectacular fights. Just ask Malcolm.
“It’s just common human decency, Jonathan,” I said. That was the first time I ever called him Jonathan during a fight, but it certainly wasn’t the last.
He stood up and I raised my hands off the desk so that I could stay on eye level with him.
“If you’d bothered to ask, I could’ve told you that I had changed my mind about telling Marilyn!”
I was preparing something really snotty to say, so that almost didn’t register with me. I’d even drawn a breath to tell him what a shitty thing it was he was about to do when it finally penetrated my mind. I let out my breath and felt some of my anger drain away. Some of it.
“Oh.” I crossed my hands over my chest. “You did, did you?”
“Yes, I did.” He walked out from behind his desk and predictably, started to pace. “I got up here and I started really thinking about it and I realized that I couldn’t do that to a person.” He paused in pacing and turned to glare at me. “But thank you for assuming that wouldn’t even occur to me.”
Some of the anger surged back at that. “Well, what was I supposed to think, Jon? First you lie to her about us being together and then you lie to her again, making her think you really liked her work! There’s no telling what you’d do!”
Jonny took a step forward and raised a hand as if he was going to argue with me, but then he stopped and his eyes widened a little bit.
“Who told you I told her I liked her work?” His voice was suddenly very quiet and I felt the tension in the room shoot up to nearly unbearable levels. This was it. Everything I’d been thinking on and worrying about for days and weeks was about to be laid on the table. I finally got to my heart-pounding at that point.
“She did. She told me you asked her to come back here because you were so happy with her work.”
“I never told her that. I never said why I wanted her to come back!”
There was silence then. I don’t think I expected him to come right out and admit it like that. But this situation had us both so confused and tangled up, neither one of us were in our right frame of mind. I took a moment to prepare myself for the answer to my next question before I asked it. Then, I plunged into the deep end.
“Why did you ask her to come back?” Blood roared in my ears and it felt like my stomach was trying to turn itself inside out. I noticed Jonny’s breathing hike up and that he was clenching and unclenching his fists.
“I did it because...I thought...when she was here last time, it just felt...” His voice died and he just looked so lost. All the anger I felt left me completely then and it finally struck me how hard this must be for him. After all, I yelled at him when he grabbed my hand, shoved him off when he kissed me and made a date with a sexy woman during all this. He’d had much less to go on then I did.
I stepped closer to him, gathered all my courage and took his hand in my own.
“It just felt right?” I asked gently. His eyes were riveted on our joined hands and I realized I could feel him trembling. “It just felt right, didn’t it?”
He looked up at me and that look was back, that look that made me feel like I was the most important person in the entire world just because it was directed at me.
“It felt amazing,” he said. All the frustration and fear and worry I’d been feeling for the last few weeks evaporated and it was replaced by a giddiness, a joy I felt deep in my heart. I moved closer to him, so close we were almost hugging, but not quite.
“I take it you aren’t talking about your time spent with Marilyn?”
He laughed then, a great resounding thing that was more relief than amusement. “Hell, no.” His smile is so beautiful. “But when it occurred to me that I could have two more weeks of touching you, it didn’t seem like anything at all to have her back.”
Lord help me, but I blushed. He does that to me. “So, you’re telling me that you were willing to be stalked just so you could be with me?”
He looked mighty embarrassed at that. “Well...I just wasn’t sure how you felt. I thought that if I had another two weeks of pretending, I might be able to find out for sure if you’d ever feel the same way about me. I know I should have just said something, but...God, Trip, I had no idea what to do!” He was starting to sound defensive again, which I could understand. I’m pretty sure he still feels stupid about the whole thing.
“I know, I know.” I lifted a hand to his shoulder and started rubbing it gently. His eyes fell shut and he made a little contented noise in the back of his throat. “I didn’t give you much to go on.” I remembered the look on his face when I pushed him off me. “I’m so sorry I pushed you away in the hall, Jonny. I was just embarrassed because I was...” Now that we were talking about it, I felt a little shy. I’d been dreaming about kissing him again for weeks and I knew I could now and it was a little overwhelming.
“I know. Me too.” And then I started thinking about how it felt to have his erection pressing against my own and I felt myself stiffen slightly. Suddenly, I had to touch him, hold him again. I threw my arms around his neck and buried my head in his shoulder. His own arms came up around my back and he enveloped me into a tight embrace.
“God, Trip,” he said into my hair. “I missed this.”
“Me, too,” I said, although I’m not sure it was understandable, given that my mouth was jammed against the juncture of his neck. He stroked his hands down my back, sending shivers all through my body. And knowing that we were doing it because we both wanted to and weren’t thinking of anyone else, but each other made it that much better.
I lifted my head and he was so close, his breath was warm on my cheek. My hands came up of their own accord to cup his face. I rubbed a thumb over his bottom lip. His eyes closed again and he sighed.
“Trip...”
I kissed him then, long and hard and with everything I had in me. He showed me a similar ardency and I think that might have been one of the best kisses of my entire life. I had never really been in love before and I guess I just didn’t believe others when they say sharing yourself, really sharing yourself with another person is the most amazing thing you can experience. But it is and I never wanted it to end. The feeling that is. The kiss, obviously, did and we were in a right state when it did. His hair was all screwed up because I guess sometime during the kiss I had started running my fingers all through it and both of us were breathing fit to beat all hell.
“Trip,” he said once he’d gotten enough breath together to form words, “I love you so much.”
The tears were a surprise, but I managed to hold myself together long enough to reply. “I love you too, Jonny.”
The rest of the day is kind of a blur to me. I know we spent a lot longer than we should have in his ready room, kissing and holding each other and saying that we loved each other a few more times. I eventually went back to Engineering and Jonny had to make up something important to talk to Marilyn about. I couldn’t be bothered to worry about that though because I was cloud nine the whole day. I can still remember the look on Jim’s face, like I’d lost my mind.
That isn’t to say we rode off into the sunset happily. No, there was still a lot of talking we had to do and things we had to figure out, like how we’d manage to be together without getting kicked out of Starfleet. I went to his apartment that night and we talked for hours on his couch, my legs thrown over his lap. As matter of fact, we talked for so long, we never did get around to making love that night, though I did fall asleep with my head pillowed on his bare chest. That’s my favorite sleeping position.
Things have changed a lot since then. Our mission finally started and I never did get to see what it would be like to be Enterprise’s First Officer, but I don’t really regret that. I was promoted to Chief Engineer when Jim decided to retire before the mission and I spent most of my time with my engines. And besides, though I had a hard time with her at first, I’ve come to really enjoy T’Pol-she’s the most fun person to tease I’ve ever met.
Other people have come into my life that mean a lot to me, too. Hoshi’s like a little sister to me, something that became even more precious after I lost my own sister to the Xindi attack. Dr. Phlox and Travis Mayweather have become good friends too, though Phlox tends to ask too many questions about what he calls my “fluid sexuality”. And of course, there’s Malcolm, my nutty British best friend, the person I’m closest to after Jonny. Someday I’ll have to apologize to him for telling him way too much about my relationship with Jon, but when I’m pissed at him, Malcolm’s the only person I can really talk to about it. I don’t think he minds now, but after the first time I ranted to him about some fight we’d been having, he couldn’t look Jonny in the eye for a week. Poor guy.
Other things have changed, too. For many years, we told no one about our relationship, both out of a sense of privacy as well as a sense of self-preservation. During that time, I would sometimes be struck by the insane irony of the fact that the only other person who knew the truth was one Marilyn Wilder. About two years into the mission, after some serious discussion and lots of soul searching, Jonny and I finally told the senior crew about our relationship. We were met with a resounding, Uh yeah, of course. After that, it was a lot easier to live without the constant worrying. And the next year, Jonny convinced Admiral Forrest that Starfleet would have to relax the fraternization rules for ships on deep space missions. There was a lot of discussion about it in committee, but they finally voted to allow it. We never really said anything about it to the Admiral, but I think he knew that Jonny was asking for himself as much as for the rest of the crew.
The only thing that hasn’t changed is the way I feel about Jonny. Well, actually, my feelings have deepened, so maybe they have changed. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for allowing me to find him. My life wouldn’t be nearly as full of love and light as it is with him and as he’s told me over and over, he feels exactly the same way.
You know, now that I think about it, I was wrong earlier. This story isn’t really about how Marilyn changed my life. It’s about how Jonny did.
He did it by making me complete.
I wasn’t entirely sure why I felt like sitting down and writing this all out, but I think I’ve figured it out now. I’ve been thinking about this for days and even though I know Jonny will probably kill me, I think I’ve finally made up my mind to do it. Marilyn isn’t the one who changed me forever, but she was definitely a catalyst and thinking back over all this now, I’d say she deserves to be there when it happens.
I just hope Jonny can forgive me.
*************************************
Trip Tucker clicked to save what he’d written and sat back in his chair. He was glad to finally be finished the letter. He hadn’t planned on showing it to anyone, but now that he looked back on some of it, he thought he might let Jon see it someday. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t explain very well to Jon exactly how he felt about him. This would help.
But that wasn’t really the reason he’d written. He’d done it so that he could feel a little less guilty for what he was about to do.
He closed the document and opened message box, entering the address he’d finally gotten from Starfleet earlier that day. He wrote a short message, added an attachment and before he could change his mind, sent the missive. There was a chance she had totally forgotten about both of them, but somehow he doubted it. He smiled to himself. He would have paid good money to see her face when she opened that attachment.
You are cordially invited to attend the nuptials of Jonathan Archer and Charles Tucker, to be held on June 22nd, Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Five at Half past Five of the Evening at St. Cecilia Church, San Francisco, California...
Author:
jenniferlupinRating: NC-17
Beta: Jessica
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount. I'm not making money from this.
Summary: Trip recalls the beginning of his and Jon's relationship.
Author's Note: Thanks to Jessica for reading this yet again, especially since she's not overly fond of the ship...heh.
I didn’t see Jonny again until that night when I was asleep and dreaming. I dreamed that I was standing in an empty room and I felt so incredibly lost. I kept looking for a way out of the room until finally a door I hadn’t noticed before opened and Jonny stepped in. He came up to me, offered me his hand and told me he knew the way out, but I would have to trust him to lead me there. I woke up in a cold sweat before I made my decision and I couldn’t sleep again until it was time to get up anyway.
I don’t think it will come as too much of a surprise to hear that I was not looking forward to seeing him the next day. But life must go on and so, of course, I saw him first thing that morning on the shuttle. Luck was with me at least a little though because Marilyn wasn’t on that particular shuttle. I don’t think I could have handled either Jonny touching me or him not touching me and her giving us a look.
We sat next to each other as usual, but this time, we both made an effort to avoid touching each other. I had a lot of different emotions playing around inside me at that point. Disappointment that we had let something come in between our friendship. Anger at Jonny for getting us into this mess. Frustration at myself for not being able to let it go. And most disturbingly, the desire for Jonny to put his arm around my shoulder, so I could feel his body pressed up against mine again.
I guess we must have stayed silent for about fifteen minutes before I heard Jonny give a heavy sigh and felt him turn towards me.
“Trip,” he said quietly. There were several other people on the shuttle, though no one sat close enough to hear his words. “I can’t stand it anymore. Please talk to me. I couldn’t sleep last night. I just kept sitting there worrying about what you must think of me now.”
I finally turned to him, forgetting my discomfort in the face of his distress. His eyes were anxious and I could tell by the way he was clenching his hands that he wanted nothing more than to stand up and start pacing while we talked. I’ve often gotten a crick in my neck looking up at him while he paced through one problem or another.
“And what did you think I was thinkin’ about ya?” I asked, genuinely curious. I had been so wrapped up in my own confusion the night before, I don’t think I gave much thought to what Jonny was feeling. Now that he brought it up, I realized that I had assumed he was horrified by my reaction to his kiss and that his own reaction had been the inevitable result of friction. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that he might be in the same bind I was.
He shrugged and played with a tear in the seat’s fabric. “I couldn’t decide if you’d be more pissed or offended.”
I was totally shocked by his words. Well, ok, not totally shocked. It wasn’t a very great surprise that he would think I might be angry with him what with the way I shoved him off of me. But I couldn’t believe that he would think he could offend me like that. Looking back on it, rationally, I know exactly what he meant. He was afraid I was completely uninterested and therefore was disturbed to learn that my best friend thought I was attractive. I didn’t think of that at the time because I was too busy worrying about whether or not he was going to be disgusted by me for the rest of his life.
Confusing, huh?
“No, Jon, it’s not like that. I guess, you know, I just wasn’t expecting that.” I was referring to both the hard on and the feeling of absolute rightness when his lips met mine, but he took it to mean just that the kiss happened at all.
“Yeah, I know. I panicked. Again.” I never thought of Jonny as the type to panic. And I know now that he really isn’t.
“It’s ok. Really.” It wasn’t. Really. But I wanted my friendship with him back the way it was and so I was willing to just forget the whole thing happened. He nodded and smiled. It looked kind of forced, but I knew it meant that he was agreeing to forget it happened, too.
“Alright then. Good.” And as if to seal the deal, he slid closer to me until we were sitting the normal amount of space from one another. We chatted for the rest of the ride to Enterprise, which helped me ignore the heat coursing through every part of my body that touched his.
By the time we reached the ship, we were joking around like normal. I don’t remember what it was about, but I do remember Jonny bumping his shoulder into mine after I teased him about something. It felt good and I was thinking, you know, our friendship was strong enough that we could easily get back to normal and everything would be ok. It would take me much longer to realize I didn’t want it back the way it was.
I’m happy to report (or at least I was at the time) that nothing too significant happened for the rest of Marilyn’s visit. Jonny and I went about our work as usual, without anyone avoiding anyone and although we did get a number of wistful looks and dozens of comments about our “romance” from Marilyn, mostly everything went on as normal. For a brief period of time I worried that she would end up telling someone about what she thought was going between us, but I was assured by her the day she left that our secret was safe with her.
And so, she finally disappeared from our lives to be replaced by an older man who didn’t talk very much at all, except to ask his questions and discuss safety protocol with Jonny. He didn’t even seem to know I was alive, and I can tell you, that was a nice change of pace. I was ready to forget Marilyn ever came into my life and for a little while I thought I would be able to.
But what kind of story would this be if it ended there?
I was able to act normally around Jonny and not think too much about grabbing him and kissing him while we were together, but he began to show up in my dreams with some regularity. And they weren’t all sweet romantic dreams either. No, sometimes I dreamed that he was getting married to someone else or that he was telling me we had to end our friendship if I couldn’t keep my hands to myself. And I would wake up feeling sick inside.
Not that there weren’t sweet romantic dreams though. No, there were plenty of those as well and they kept getting more and more erotic as time went by. I had never had sex with a guy before, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know how it worked and I have a pretty good imagination. I woke up time and again so turned on, it literally hurt and still, I didn’t do anything about what I was feeling. It was almost like I was able to separate my friendship with him from my attraction to him. I kept the attraction hidden away when I was alone and ignored it the best I could when we were together.
I guess Jonny must have been doing the same thing because he kept making up excuses not to be alone with me, excuses I readily accepted. I think we were both afraid that if we were alone for too long in either of our apartments, we’d end up going at it.
And we probably would have too.
So, here I was, being such an idiot and refusing to understand that we might just be able to successfully combine the friendship and attraction and come up with something greater than the two alone. I’ve learned about myself that when it comes to matters of the heart, I need some kind of big thing to happen for me to realize what I want and more importantly, what I need. One of those big things happened about a month after Marilyn left.
By this point, I was having some kind of dream about Jonny just about every night. We never spoke about what had happened, but every so often, I’d catch myself staring at him or catch him staring at me. You know, the look, sort of longing and pathetic, like a puppy. I never tried to touch him more than normal, but every time I did touch him was a major event in my day, like a special treat you only allow yourself to enjoy every so often. I found myself staring at his lips and thinking about how good a kisser he was or his arms and thinking about how wonderful it felt to be held by them or his legs and wonder what it would feel like if they were wrapped around me.
I just got so sick of it, to tell you the truth. It was tiresome and even irritating. I can’t honestly say that I’d never been attracted to a guy before, but it was never like this, I think partly because it was never to someone I was already close to. But I told myself that it wasn’t possible to become attracted to the same sex so late in life and the only way I would be able to forget about Jonny was to find the hottest girl I could and have as much sex as possible with her. Smart, right? I’m embarrassed to even have to relate this part of the story, but it’s an important part, so I’m going to suck it up and tell you.
There was this girl on Jupiter Station I’d gone out with a couple of times named Eileen and she was seriously gorgeous. I’m not kidding about this. She had this amazing long thick black hair, bright blue eyes and a body most guys would kill to get their hands on. Eileen was the perfect image of feminine beauty, complete with the curves and the soft pouty lips. So, of course, she was exactly what I was looking for. I commed her up one night and set up a date for the following evening. I was pleased to note that she seemed pretty happy to hear from me and I wasn’t too surprised either. Again, when I’m good at something…But yes, I tried not to be too obvious, but I think we both knew that this was more of a sexual thing than an actual date. Before you get disgusted with me and think I’m the type of guy to use people, let me just say that we had already agreed not to date seriously, but that hadn’t stopped us from getting together several times after that.
Besides, I was really desperate to get this Jonny thing out of my system.
Speaking of Jonny, his reaction to hearing about my date was interesting. He invited me to join him and some of the other guys in his apartment for a game of poker and when he heard I couldn’t come because I had a date, his face fell. For a split second, I could see something akin to devastation in his eyes. I was sorry he was upset, but mostly I was absurdly pleased by the reaction.
Which convinced me I needed this date more than ever.
It went pretty good at first. She came over to my place and we semi-watched a vid while bringing each other up to date on what was going on in our lives. I’m pretty sure I talked about Jonny an awful lot, but she didn’t seem to mind. Things progressed kind of quickly and soon enough the vid was forgotten and she was pulling me towards the bedroom while at the same time, stripping me of most of my clothes. She pushed me back on the bed and gave me a little strip show. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t into it. Like I said, she’s gorgeous and certainly knows the kind of moves to turn a guy on. And yet, even though I was becoming aroused, it wasn’t as immediate as it usually was. Still, I soldiered on and pulled her down into my arms.
I then had what I like to think of as an “out of body” experience. In reality, I had Eileen in my arms, but I wasn’t seeing her or even feeling her. I was back in that hallway with Jonny. It wasn’t a matter of comparing Eileen’s slender arms with Jonny’s muscular ones or her curvy body with his hard angular one. I wasn’t even feeling her. For all I knew, I was with him. I was kissing his lips, running my fingers through his short hair, feeling his weight pressing down on me. Before, when I was still with Eileen, I was being gentle, but once I’d replaced her with Jonny, something snapped in me. I became almost wild and flipped over on top of her. I think she must have been into it because she started letting out all kinds of groans and moans, but in my mind, they were deeper, less breathy. I entered her forcefully and she yelled out my name.
And it brought me back to reality. I opened my eyes and Jonny was gone. Eileen was looking up at me, her eyes clouded with lust, her full red lips parted in ecstasy and it shocked the hell out of me. I stopped thrusting and my erection pretty much died an ugly embarrassing death.
She was really nice about it and didn’t try to humor me by saying it happens to all guys at some point or anything like that. But she didn’t stay very long after it either, for which I was grateful. After she left, I just lay in my bed and thought about what had happened. For awhile, all I could concentrate on was my embarrassment, but that eventually faded, leaving me with a very scary thought.
This thing with Jonny wasn’t just an annoyance to be dealt with; I really wanted him. It didn’t matter that I still found women attractive. I didn’t want a woman, I wanted him. I wanted to be with him and not just because I wanted to have sex with him. It wasn’t just attraction; I was really deeply frighteningly in love with him.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that that had been the case all along. I spent all my time with him because he made me happy. Every time something good happened to me, he was the first one I wanted to tell. When something bad happened, talking to him was the only thing that could make me feel better. Remember earlier when I said that he was becoming more and more important to me? Well, this was the first time I really understood what that meant. He really was the other half of me, the only thing that could make me feel content.
I heard a story once, I think it was Greek or something, I’m not too sure at the moment. Anyway, the story went that when humans were first created, they were creatures with four arms and four legs and one heart. But something went wrong and the gods split them all into two, separating them forever unless they were lucky enough to find their other half again and then they’d be complete. I’m sure a creature that was half Jonny and half me would be pretty ass ugly, but it didn’t stop me from really getting that story for the first time. I finally realized that, subconsciously, we’d been lovers all along and when he took my hand that first time, that knowledge was pushed into my conscious mind.
As I’m sure you can imagine, that was a pretty huge thing for me to admit to myself and I didn’t want to ruin it by worrying about where Jonny was on all this. Somehow I pushed it out of my mind and instead, for the first time, let myself think about all the wonderful things we could experience together in life. I fell asleep with a smile on my face and peacefulness in my heart.
I dreamed of him again that night, though there was no real coherency to it. I just remember seeing his face full of warmth and love, feeling his lips and hands on my body and knowing that there wasn’t anything else like it in the world. I felt totally safe and utterly loved.
Then I woke up. And panic set in. This was it. I had had my epiphany and I couldn’t take it back. No matter what I did, my friendship with Jonny was changed forever. I knew I wouldn’t be able to be around him any longer without saying something, so I had two choices. Give into my fear and walk away from him for good or put it all on the line and confess my feelings. There were two chances I would lose him forever and only one that I would have everything I ever wanted.
That’s one hell of a frightening concept to be confronted with, but as I lay in my bed, remembering how it felt in my dreams to be held by him, I knew I had to give it a shot. I’d hate myself if I didn’t.
And so I approached that day with a nervous tension in my belly and steel in my veins. No matter what happened, before the day ended, I would be telling Jonny how I felt about him. Looking back on that morning, I’m still surprised by my own recklessness. I don’t recall giving one thought to how this would affect our working relationship. I do remember dreading how it would affect our friendship because I was convinced it would end it. Now, I’m not so sure, but at any rate, even with that concern, most of my mind was occupied with how to go about telling him. I guess that’s why they say people are in love act crazy. I certainly remember feeling crazy that day.
Anyway, by the time I had made it to the shuttle that morning, I had decided I would wait until after we got off work to tell him, preferably alone in one of our apartments. That way, if it didn’t go well, it would just be a matter of one of us leaving and having the entire night to be apart and recover a bit. And if it did work out, then we’d already have a private place to get things started. What can I say? I was a young guy and horny nearly all the time anyway. I couldn’t imagine wasting much time once we got things settled.
Jonny was there, of course, waiting on me and looking good enough to eat. I couldn’t believe there was ever a time when I didn’t feel like jumping his bones, but that’s beside the point. He asked me in a somewhat disgruntled tone how my date went, which encouraged me, although it also brought back the embarrassment. I said it was fine and I could tell he didn’t believe me. He smiled a little too happily, which made me smile as well until the two of us were grinning stupidly at one another.
I’m not sure why I was still worried about him rejecting me after something like that (not to mention all the other little hints I had had all along), but I was. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to get much work done that day, but I was determined. It got to the point where I was starting to be proud of myself. I kept thinking it took a lot of balls to admit to your male, potentially completely straight best friend you were in love with him. Whatever else happened, I knew I would be happy I had enough guts to take a chance on someone when I had absolutely no clue what they felt about me.
And even though that’s not what happened at all, I’m still proud of myself. I fully intended to charge headlong into the unknown. I just didn’t realize that the unknown was about to become painfully obvious. Still, I had to state my intentions for the record.
You see, there was a surprise waiting for me when we arrived at Enterprise. Jonny and I were coming off the shuttle, discussing a plan to get together that night, when I heard it. A high exclamation of joy. The sound of running. Then, a hand grabbing my wrist.
Marilyn had returned. And she was also grabbing one of Jonny’s wrists and saying something I couldn’t quite make out, whether because she was talking too fast or because I had learned to tune her out, I’m not sure. I looked at Jonny’s face and saw that he too was surprised, maybe even shocked. I have to admit, I thought his reaction was a little strange, but I didn’t have much time to ponder it before Marilyn’s words finally began to seep in. She paused in her talking, gave us a bright smile and shook her head.
“You two. You just look as cute as ever. How are my favorite love birds doing anyway?” She winked at Jonny. “Are you still as in love as ever?”
And wouldn’t you just know it, the shuttle bay had completely emptied by then. I knew it was coming and yet I was still surprised by the wave of pleasure that crashed over me when Jonny put his arm around my waist and pulled me close. It occurred to me that I would rather he being doing this because he wanted to rather than because he was scared into it, but then I pushed that thought away. I might as well just cop a feel and enjoy it. For all I knew, this would be the last time I’d be able to.
“Of course, Marilyn,” he answered. His tone was cheerful, but I could hear an undercurrent of some other emotion in his voice. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it didn’t sound very happy. I suppose that should have pleased me, hearing him sound wistful or forlorn while pretending to be in love with me, but it didn’t. Actually, it just made me feel sad and I hugged him closer.
“Oh you two. So adorable!” She shook her head and smiled, but it wasn’t a particularly nice smile. It was more of an ‘Oh, what a waste’ look. I felt like throttling her, but that would have meant letting go of Jonny and I wasn’t really interested in doing that at the moment.
“Well, shall we?” Marilyn gestured towards the door and I reluctantly started to let go of Jonny. I didn’t get very far though before I realized that he wasn’t letting go of me.
“Actually, Marilyn, could you give us a minute?” He asked. He cocked his head and gave her a significant look I didn’t understand. She must have though because she nodded and winked before turning and leaving. I thought about that wink as she disappeared through the door and it hit me that she probably thought Jonny wanted one last minute with his lover before facing a day of living a lie. What she didn’t know was that we were living more than one lie.
I looked at Jonny when she was finally gone. He was rubbing his fingers into both eyes.
“Well?” I asked. I really had no idea what he wanted to talk to me about and to be honest, I was kind of eager to get down to Engineering and have a moment alone to think. I wasn’t sure if Marilyn being here changed my plans or not. Really, it shouldn’t, but I was a little worried that Jonny would think I was confessing feelings just because he was touching me all the time again. I didn’t want him to think it was just a confession in the heat of the moment if you catch my drift.
“I just wanted to…” he paused and it looked like he was searching for the right words. “If she’s back here for another two weeks, Trip, that’s two more weeks of pretending.” His voice was lower than normal, almost kind of strained. “If you don’t want to deal with that, I don’t blame you. If you want, I can tell her we broke it off.” He couldn’t quite meet my eyes. Thinking back on it, I’m inclined to feel sorry for him, but at the time, I remember feeling panicky. Maybe he couldn’t meet my eyes because he was regretting ever telling her that and he didn’t want to spend the next two weeks having to be close to me. That wasn’t the reason at all, but remember, I was already feeling crazy. And just to prove it, I grabbed his hand in mine.
“No, its ok, Jonny.” I gave him my best shit-eating grin. “Besides, I couldn’t leave you to Marilyn’s clutches.”
He looked down at our joined hands and an expression I’d never before seen on him transformed his features. It’s a look I’ve seen many times since and it’s precious to me, sort of a mix between contentment and amazement and something else altogether. Not to be morbid, but if that look is the last thing I see before I die, I will die a very happy man.
After a minute of staring at our joined hands, he looked back up at me and I got the full blast of that look. I’d never been ‘weak in the knees’ before, but at that moment, I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to be able to hold myself up. I hadn’t been able to see the ‘something else’ before, but now I did. The amazement and contentment were still there, but it seemed to me that every defense he ever had, any shield he may have put up to keep others out had completely disappeared and I was seeing his heart, his mind, everything that made him Jonathan Archer right there in his eyes. God, it was amazing and it clenched the deal. That was it, there was no coming back. Either I spent the rest of my life with him or I would become a monk because nothing could ever compare.
I probably would have told him I loved him right then and there, but suddenly, his gaze clouded, just about anything positive about the way he was looking at me evaporated and he dropped my hand. He let out a sound that I think was meant to be laughter, but it sounded dead and gave me an altogether unpleasant shiver.
“No, this is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.” He shook his head as if I had protested. “No.” I almost opened my mouth to say I hadn’t said anything, but I stopped at the glance he gave me. This argument wasn’t with me; it was going on inside his own head. To tell the truth, he kind of sounded a little nuts and it was starting to scare me a bit.
“Jonny?” I asked worriedly. I reached out to put my hand on his arm, but he quickly moved out of reach, walking towards the door.
“Don’t worry about it, Trip. I’m going to go find her and tell her the truth. Tell her what I should have told her in the first place.” He threw his arms out to either side and smirked at me. I hated the way it made his face look. “No more pretending.”
And then he left the room, leaving me with the echoes of his last, bitter words. I allowed the confusion and aimless hurt to overwhelm for a few minutes and I almost gave into the urge to just sit on a nearby bench to collect myself. But then anger overtook all other emotions. It’s always easier to be angry than confused. I told myself I was acting like a lovesick school girl and if Jonny wanted to go acting all cryptic that was his business. I decided to just get on with my work and put it all out of my mind.
Needless to say, that didn’t work. And not just because the whole situation was too overwhelming to really forget. No, it was also because Marilyn was waiting for me when I got to Engineering.
She was peering down at one of the consoles and making notes on a PADD. I stopped in my tracks as soon as I came through the door, but it was too late. She’d noticed me.
“Lieutenant! I’m glad you’re here, I need to ask you some questions about the new warp safety protocols.” She almost turned back to her PADD, but I guess she noticed something weird on my face because she stopped, her eyebrows coming together. “Are you ok, Trip?”
“Has Captain Archer talked to you yet?” I blurted out, surprising myself. I could tell by the way her body straightened and her head pulled back that she was, too.
“Well, I haven’t seen him since we got here. Does he need to talk to me?” She asked with a spark of irritating eagerness. I wanted to lie and say no, but unlike some people, I thought rather ungraciously, I had a hard time doing that.
“He mentioned something, yeah,” I mumbled in response. A wide, delighted grin lit up her annoying little face.
“Well, then, I’ll go and find him.” She started to leave, but then stopped and turned to me, a little self-satisfied smile twisting her lips. “I must say, it’s gratifying to know my work is so satisfactory.”
Now it was time for my eyebrows to be doing the furrowing. “I’m…sorry?” I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.
“I just mean, it’s good to know that Captain Archer feels he can trust my work.” Her grin widened. “Why else would he request I come back?”
“Why else would…” I think the human brain has a defense mechanism built into it that stops news like this from sinking in immediately so it can really prepare itself to deal with it. That’s the only explanation for my impression of a large mouth bass and my inability to really connect the dots with what she was saying.
“Didn’t he tell you? Oh yes, apparently, I’m an even better worker than I imagined. And having someone like Jonathan Archer confirm that for me is quite something.”
While she was talking, it finally sank in. Jonathan Archer, self-proclaimed hater of one Marilyn Wilder, had invited her back into our midst. And there could be only one reason for it. No more pretending, he’d said. I was finished deluding myself.
It was time to have a talk with my Captain.
“Hold on a minute, Marilyn. I just remembered something I need to speak to the Captain about. Immediately.” She looked a little surprised and I realized my voice must have sounded a bit too forceful. I relaxed my stance and gave her a little grin. “You know, official business.”
“Oh, of course,” she said and gave me a little secretive look, as if she were in on everything going on between me and Jonny. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t even in on what was going between us, but, obviously, I didn’t. I just nodded at her and left.
I thought over what she’d told me as I left Engineering and got onto the lift. The best I could tell, Jonny had decided that he could endure more time spent in Marilyn’s company. It just wasn’t possible that he actually found her work all that great and the only other thing that changed while she was here was our relationship. It was hard for me to really believe, but it seemed that Jonny was willing to put up with Marilyn’s sycophantic tendencies just so he could have an excuse to touch me.
You’d think that’d make my heart pound in anticipation on the way up to his ready room, that I’d be excited to tell him I felt the same way so that we could get on with the kissing and the holding. But it didn’t and I wasn’t. No, by the time I was standing in front of his door, raising my hand to announce my presence, I was pissed as hell.
My thoughts were more along the lines of thinking he was a complete and total heartless bastard. He’d made Marilyn think he actually liked her work, only to go and tell her that he not only didn’t care about that, but that he only told her he was dating me because he wanted any excuse to avoid dating her. Now, she was annoying, but that didn’t mean he could stamp all over her heart like that. Not to mention my heart.
As I think about it now, I’m much less inclined to think badly of him. I know how hard it was for me to realize I was in love with him. It had to have been even worse for him since I was under his command. I could afford to dismiss that. He couldn’t.
But I wasn’t being rational at that point, so when the door to his ready room opened, I stormed in, threw my hands down on his desk and started yelling in his face.
“You bastard! How could you be so cruel?” I can be very dramatic when I want to be.
He looked up at me in such surprise that I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so angry. “What the hell are you talking about?” He immediately sounded defensive, which just made me more angry. Like hell he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I’m talking about Marilyn and your total disregard for her feelings!” I was right in his face then, the desk between us helpfully creating a barrier so that I wouldn’t give into my urge to throttle him.
“Since when did you care that much about her feelings?” He shouted back, though I could tell by the look in his eyes that it wasn’t really what he wanted to say. Sometimes when people are fighting, they’ll say anything, but what they really want to say. I’ve learned this over the course of the years. Jonny and I can have some pretty spectacular fights. Just ask Malcolm.
“It’s just common human decency, Jonathan,” I said. That was the first time I ever called him Jonathan during a fight, but it certainly wasn’t the last.
He stood up and I raised my hands off the desk so that I could stay on eye level with him.
“If you’d bothered to ask, I could’ve told you that I had changed my mind about telling Marilyn!”
I was preparing something really snotty to say, so that almost didn’t register with me. I’d even drawn a breath to tell him what a shitty thing it was he was about to do when it finally penetrated my mind. I let out my breath and felt some of my anger drain away. Some of it.
“Oh.” I crossed my hands over my chest. “You did, did you?”
“Yes, I did.” He walked out from behind his desk and predictably, started to pace. “I got up here and I started really thinking about it and I realized that I couldn’t do that to a person.” He paused in pacing and turned to glare at me. “But thank you for assuming that wouldn’t even occur to me.”
Some of the anger surged back at that. “Well, what was I supposed to think, Jon? First you lie to her about us being together and then you lie to her again, making her think you really liked her work! There’s no telling what you’d do!”
Jonny took a step forward and raised a hand as if he was going to argue with me, but then he stopped and his eyes widened a little bit.
“Who told you I told her I liked her work?” His voice was suddenly very quiet and I felt the tension in the room shoot up to nearly unbearable levels. This was it. Everything I’d been thinking on and worrying about for days and weeks was about to be laid on the table. I finally got to my heart-pounding at that point.
“She did. She told me you asked her to come back here because you were so happy with her work.”
“I never told her that. I never said why I wanted her to come back!”
There was silence then. I don’t think I expected him to come right out and admit it like that. But this situation had us both so confused and tangled up, neither one of us were in our right frame of mind. I took a moment to prepare myself for the answer to my next question before I asked it. Then, I plunged into the deep end.
“Why did you ask her to come back?” Blood roared in my ears and it felt like my stomach was trying to turn itself inside out. I noticed Jonny’s breathing hike up and that he was clenching and unclenching his fists.
“I did it because...I thought...when she was here last time, it just felt...” His voice died and he just looked so lost. All the anger I felt left me completely then and it finally struck me how hard this must be for him. After all, I yelled at him when he grabbed my hand, shoved him off when he kissed me and made a date with a sexy woman during all this. He’d had much less to go on then I did.
I stepped closer to him, gathered all my courage and took his hand in my own.
“It just felt right?” I asked gently. His eyes were riveted on our joined hands and I realized I could feel him trembling. “It just felt right, didn’t it?”
He looked up at me and that look was back, that look that made me feel like I was the most important person in the entire world just because it was directed at me.
“It felt amazing,” he said. All the frustration and fear and worry I’d been feeling for the last few weeks evaporated and it was replaced by a giddiness, a joy I felt deep in my heart. I moved closer to him, so close we were almost hugging, but not quite.
“I take it you aren’t talking about your time spent with Marilyn?”
He laughed then, a great resounding thing that was more relief than amusement. “Hell, no.” His smile is so beautiful. “But when it occurred to me that I could have two more weeks of touching you, it didn’t seem like anything at all to have her back.”
Lord help me, but I blushed. He does that to me. “So, you’re telling me that you were willing to be stalked just so you could be with me?”
He looked mighty embarrassed at that. “Well...I just wasn’t sure how you felt. I thought that if I had another two weeks of pretending, I might be able to find out for sure if you’d ever feel the same way about me. I know I should have just said something, but...God, Trip, I had no idea what to do!” He was starting to sound defensive again, which I could understand. I’m pretty sure he still feels stupid about the whole thing.
“I know, I know.” I lifted a hand to his shoulder and started rubbing it gently. His eyes fell shut and he made a little contented noise in the back of his throat. “I didn’t give you much to go on.” I remembered the look on his face when I pushed him off me. “I’m so sorry I pushed you away in the hall, Jonny. I was just embarrassed because I was...” Now that we were talking about it, I felt a little shy. I’d been dreaming about kissing him again for weeks and I knew I could now and it was a little overwhelming.
“I know. Me too.” And then I started thinking about how it felt to have his erection pressing against my own and I felt myself stiffen slightly. Suddenly, I had to touch him, hold him again. I threw my arms around his neck and buried my head in his shoulder. His own arms came up around my back and he enveloped me into a tight embrace.
“God, Trip,” he said into my hair. “I missed this.”
“Me, too,” I said, although I’m not sure it was understandable, given that my mouth was jammed against the juncture of his neck. He stroked his hands down my back, sending shivers all through my body. And knowing that we were doing it because we both wanted to and weren’t thinking of anyone else, but each other made it that much better.
I lifted my head and he was so close, his breath was warm on my cheek. My hands came up of their own accord to cup his face. I rubbed a thumb over his bottom lip. His eyes closed again and he sighed.
“Trip...”
I kissed him then, long and hard and with everything I had in me. He showed me a similar ardency and I think that might have been one of the best kisses of my entire life. I had never really been in love before and I guess I just didn’t believe others when they say sharing yourself, really sharing yourself with another person is the most amazing thing you can experience. But it is and I never wanted it to end. The feeling that is. The kiss, obviously, did and we were in a right state when it did. His hair was all screwed up because I guess sometime during the kiss I had started running my fingers all through it and both of us were breathing fit to beat all hell.
“Trip,” he said once he’d gotten enough breath together to form words, “I love you so much.”
The tears were a surprise, but I managed to hold myself together long enough to reply. “I love you too, Jonny.”
The rest of the day is kind of a blur to me. I know we spent a lot longer than we should have in his ready room, kissing and holding each other and saying that we loved each other a few more times. I eventually went back to Engineering and Jonny had to make up something important to talk to Marilyn about. I couldn’t be bothered to worry about that though because I was cloud nine the whole day. I can still remember the look on Jim’s face, like I’d lost my mind.
That isn’t to say we rode off into the sunset happily. No, there was still a lot of talking we had to do and things we had to figure out, like how we’d manage to be together without getting kicked out of Starfleet. I went to his apartment that night and we talked for hours on his couch, my legs thrown over his lap. As matter of fact, we talked for so long, we never did get around to making love that night, though I did fall asleep with my head pillowed on his bare chest. That’s my favorite sleeping position.
Things have changed a lot since then. Our mission finally started and I never did get to see what it would be like to be Enterprise’s First Officer, but I don’t really regret that. I was promoted to Chief Engineer when Jim decided to retire before the mission and I spent most of my time with my engines. And besides, though I had a hard time with her at first, I’ve come to really enjoy T’Pol-she’s the most fun person to tease I’ve ever met.
Other people have come into my life that mean a lot to me, too. Hoshi’s like a little sister to me, something that became even more precious after I lost my own sister to the Xindi attack. Dr. Phlox and Travis Mayweather have become good friends too, though Phlox tends to ask too many questions about what he calls my “fluid sexuality”. And of course, there’s Malcolm, my nutty British best friend, the person I’m closest to after Jonny. Someday I’ll have to apologize to him for telling him way too much about my relationship with Jon, but when I’m pissed at him, Malcolm’s the only person I can really talk to about it. I don’t think he minds now, but after the first time I ranted to him about some fight we’d been having, he couldn’t look Jonny in the eye for a week. Poor guy.
Other things have changed, too. For many years, we told no one about our relationship, both out of a sense of privacy as well as a sense of self-preservation. During that time, I would sometimes be struck by the insane irony of the fact that the only other person who knew the truth was one Marilyn Wilder. About two years into the mission, after some serious discussion and lots of soul searching, Jonny and I finally told the senior crew about our relationship. We were met with a resounding, Uh yeah, of course. After that, it was a lot easier to live without the constant worrying. And the next year, Jonny convinced Admiral Forrest that Starfleet would have to relax the fraternization rules for ships on deep space missions. There was a lot of discussion about it in committee, but they finally voted to allow it. We never really said anything about it to the Admiral, but I think he knew that Jonny was asking for himself as much as for the rest of the crew.
The only thing that hasn’t changed is the way I feel about Jonny. Well, actually, my feelings have deepened, so maybe they have changed. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for allowing me to find him. My life wouldn’t be nearly as full of love and light as it is with him and as he’s told me over and over, he feels exactly the same way.
You know, now that I think about it, I was wrong earlier. This story isn’t really about how Marilyn changed my life. It’s about how Jonny did.
He did it by making me complete.
I wasn’t entirely sure why I felt like sitting down and writing this all out, but I think I’ve figured it out now. I’ve been thinking about this for days and even though I know Jonny will probably kill me, I think I’ve finally made up my mind to do it. Marilyn isn’t the one who changed me forever, but she was definitely a catalyst and thinking back over all this now, I’d say she deserves to be there when it happens.
I just hope Jonny can forgive me.
*************************************
Trip Tucker clicked to save what he’d written and sat back in his chair. He was glad to finally be finished the letter. He hadn’t planned on showing it to anyone, but now that he looked back on some of it, he thought he might let Jon see it someday. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t explain very well to Jon exactly how he felt about him. This would help.
But that wasn’t really the reason he’d written. He’d done it so that he could feel a little less guilty for what he was about to do.
He closed the document and opened message box, entering the address he’d finally gotten from Starfleet earlier that day. He wrote a short message, added an attachment and before he could change his mind, sent the missive. There was a chance she had totally forgotten about both of them, but somehow he doubted it. He smiled to himself. He would have paid good money to see her face when she opened that attachment.
You are cordially invited to attend the nuptials of Jonathan Archer and Charles Tucker, to be held on June 22nd, Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Five at Half past Five of the Evening at St. Cecilia Church, San Francisco, California...
