ANGEL By Morticia 36/? ST: Voyager C/P Rating. SLASH, m/m NC-17 Archive: Anywhere, just let me know, please Disclaimer: Tom, Chak et al are Paramount's (lucky devils) Angel is mine (yippee!)     Part 36   TOM   When I first woke in sickbay, and found myself attached to a bio-bed I panicked. I couldn't remember how or why I had got there. I shut my eyes tightly, hoping that it was a dream, just a horrific flashback to my paralysis. But as the steady drone of medical equipment and the all too familiar sterile smell of sickbay pervaded my senses I felt an overwhelming terror creep over me and I began to hyperventilate. I felt the hiss of a hypospray at my neck and felt my breathing slowly return to normal. The relief was enough for me to cautiously open my eyes again to stare in confusion into the concerned eyes of Tuvok, the Doctor and Kathryn. "Where - why-?" I croaked and then a snatch of memory hit me and I groaned in helpless misery and embarrassment. I had done something stupid. I couldn't remember exactly what, but I knew it was something terrible. I moaned in shame. "It's okay, Tom." The Doctor said soothingly "You're in Sickbay. Do you remember what happened?" I shook my head plaintively and then heat flushed my face as an image popped into my head. I could see myself looking in a mirror at my own bald bleeding scalp. Tentatively I reached up to feel my head. Instead of the skin I half expected, or the long thick hair which was more likely, my fingers met soft down. I gasped as I realised that my image had been a true memory, only I couldn't remember anything else. "I regenerated your skin, Tom and encouraged the regrowth of your hair follicles but the Captain presumed you would prefer me to leave it short." The Doctor explained gently Short? I looked at him in bewilderment. Why would I prefer it short? Chakotay liked my hair long. And with that thought, the rest of my memories swept over me like a tidal wave, and I drowned in a jumbled flash of nightmare images. "NO. It's not true. I never intended to kill myself." I protested frantically but my words were met by unbelieving, pitying stares. "I mean, I didn't actually mean to do it, I just wanted to stop looking like HIM and I got carried away, I think. I just kind-of lost control." I explained desperately, so ashamed of my undeniable cowardice that I just wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear. "Evidently" Tuvok said but his voice was oddly sympathetic rather than the judgmental condemnation I expected. "Oh God, he'll be so mad at me!" I sobbed in panic, "He'll think I did it on purpose to make him come back." And then suddenly I realised his absence from the room "Is that why he isn't here? Is he that furious with me?" I queried miserably. The Doctor looked helplessly at the Captain, obviously unwilling to answer my question. "He must hate me," I concluded sadly. "He doesn't know, Tom. I wanted to give you the chance to recover a bit before you saw him." The Captain told me gently. Oh God, I wanted to see him NOW! I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and pretend he loved me. I wanted to bury my head in his shoulders and believe, if only for a short time, that I really mattered to him. My need to see him was like a physical ache. "I don't want to see him" I whispered brokenly "I don't ever want to see him again." "Are you sure, Tom?" The Doctor asked in surprise and I was so tempted to take back my words and admit that the truth was I simply couldn't bear to live without Chakotay. But despite my earlier actions, there was still some degree of self-respect left in my battered soul. "Positive. I wanted him to leave me on V'rakn but he wouldn't. I knew that he wouldn't stay with me. That he'd leave me again. He always does. I just can't take it anymore. The not knowing. The promises and the lies. It's like living on a cliff-edge, always knowing that the next step could make me fall off." "He loves you, Tom, I know he does, he just isn't good at making a commitment or expressing his feelings." The Doctor said in a kind attempt to make me feel better. "He doesn't seem to have a problem with expressing his feelings about Angel" I said with bitter honesty. "He always told me that he would leave me if we got home." My words seemed to stun the other occupants of the room. "What a bastard!" The Captain swore uncharacteristically. Even Tuvok's usually expressionless face curled into a faint sneer.  I was horrified at their evident anger. I hadn't meant to make Chakotay look bad. I hastened to explain. "You don't understand. He's been honest with me all along. He never pretended to really love me. I've always known that Angel was the one he wanted. I was always just a substitute. It's my own fault. He warned me and I didn't listen, I didn't want to listen. I just hoped that we'd never get home." Then realising that I sounded as though I didn't appreciate the Captain's efforts I flushed with renewed embarrassment "Sorry, Captain. I know it was selfish of me." I apologized, hanging my head in shame. She patted me softly on the shoulder, her touch conveying her forgiveness of my selfish wish. Then she stiffened, obviously struck by a new thought. "So what was the wedding all about? Was he intending to divorce you when we reached home?" She asked incredulously "No, he said that marriage is sacred to his people. If we had managed to complete the ceremony he would have had to stay with me." I admitted "You must be so devastated that Angel arrived when he did." She murmured sympathetically I looked at her in surprise. She just didn't get it. "Oh no, you don't understand. I'm glad Angel arrived when he did. The only thing worse than Chakotay leaving me would be him staying with me out of a sense of duty. He'd hate me and he'd be unhappy and therefore so would I. At least this way Chakotay can be happy. I can't bear to think that I'd be the cause of his suffering. I love him too much."   KATHRYN I looked helplessly at Tuvok. My heart was breaking at Tom's pathetic attempts to justify Chakotay's behavior. How could I have been so wrong about the dynamics of Tom and Chakotay's relationship? I had seen Tom as a leech, selfishly draining the life and vitality out of Chakotay. Now I could see it from the other perspective and it sickened me. Chakotay had taken a vulnerable young man and selfishly used him for his own gratification, always planning to cast him aside if we got home. Even now, Tom was as blind to Chakotay's faults as I had once been and I knew that unless he could find some righteous anger, some sense that he had been abused, then Tom would undoubtedly end up finishing what the Doctor had prevented. Tuvok drew me aside to speak privately. "Don't make another mistake, Kathryn." He whispered "Nothing is black and white. There are many shades of grey in human relationships. While I am sure that the only solution to Tom's current unhappiness is to put Chakotay behind him, it is illogical to assume that Chakotay's affection for Tom was just a facade." "But you heard what Tom said, Chakotay always said he would leave him if he got home." "Yes, but he was also prepared to marry him and thus take away his own choice to leave. That is not the action of someone who does not care. In a few weeks we will all meet the ghosts of our old life. We both left partners in the Alpha Quadrant. It will not be easy to just cast them aside. Even though they have both moved on with their lives, as we have, it will be difficult to reconcile our new relationship with the old." "But Chakotay's old partner didn't move on." "Exactly." "What are we going to do?" "Nothing. There's nothing anybody can do, except be here for them both if they need to talk, and keep a 24-hour suicide watch on Tom, of course." "He'll try it again, won't he?" I asked sadly "Indeed." Tuvok replied.   ANGEL   I dozed for a long time, simply reveling in Chakotay's closeness, enjoying the warmth of his velvet skin on my own naked body. Then I heard his breathing change and he moved slightly, obviously waking up. Bending over to kiss his beautiful full lips, I saw his eyes flicker open. His gaze was still slightly glazed and out of focus but his lips responded to mine with hunger. I slipped a hand between his thighs and felt his cock spring immediately to attention. Still raiding his hot sweet mouth with my tongue, I stroked his cock, feeling it firm and enlarge in my hand. His eyes grew even more glazed as the blood rushed to his groin and he moaned deep in his throat like a contented cat. I ran my index finger over his weeping slit, gathering his pre-cum and then using it to loosen the tight muscles of my sphincter. I was so hot and aroused that it took very little time to loosen myself. Gracefully I straddled him and then sank slowly down, impaling myself on his rigid cock. As his velvet smoothness slid inside my ass, stretching and filling me, I gasped with delight. It felt as though I had been waiting an eternity for this moment, but all of my efforts to find him were finally worthwhile. Finally, Chakotay was mine again. "Ohhhhhhh" Chakotay moaned deliriously as I began to move myself up and down his shaft, faster and faster, using gravity and my considerable body weight to drive him so deep inside me that my prostate was thumped on each downstroke. Chakotay's eyes were closed, his face flushed, his fingers clenching desperately at the sheets as I rode him furiously. "Oh yeah, babe, oh that's good, oh that's so nice" he gasped as my rhythm increased. Ignoring the strain in my thighs, I bobbed up and down on his cock, slowing my rhythm whenever I saw him arch towards climax and speeding up again when the danger had passed. I wanted this to last as long as possible. But eventually I either mistook my rhythm or he was simply too aroused to stop and he arched into me, his hands suddenly grasping my waist and forcefully ramming me down into his thrust. The sudden unexpected violence of his assault made my own cock erupt and I screamed and my ass clenched tightly on its invader. Squeezed by my contracting muscles, Chakotay instantly came with a howl, filling me with his cum and then spent he collapsed back on to the pillow, gasping for breath. I sat there in ecstasy, feeling his softened cock sliding out of my sore ass on a river of cum. "Oh god, babe, that was so hot" he whispered sleepily, and tears of joy formed in my eyes. "Was it really good, Chak?" I whispered, needing some more reassurance before he passed out again. "It was fantastic, Babe" he yawned "So you won't leave me?" I begged desperately "I'll never leave you, Tom, I love you" he muttered and fell back asleep. Stunned and shattered, I could only sit there in absolute shock and horror, watching his chest rise and fall as he slept innocently, unaware of the knife that had pierced my heart.   TBC