The Shattering of the Mask 28
By MorticiaSee part 1 for disclaimer
Chakotay sank down and huddled in misery on the floor outside of Tom's bathroom. He had given his word that he would stay alive, that he would give Tom his 'vengeance'. He had even begged the Captain to allow it against her own better judgment, yet now, he bitterly regretted his choice.
He should have killed himself.
As far as he could see, Tom wasn't getting better, he was getting worse.
For the last two weeks since they had returned to Voyager and had both been greeted with remarkably little rancor by the Captain considering Tom's sabotage of the ship, Chakotay had tried to give Tom what he wanted. He had listened in acceptance to Tom's list of 'rules'.
That their 'arrangement' remained secret except for the Captain, Tuvok and the Doctor. That Chakotay resumed his role as Commander and stayed on Beta shift so that he and Tom would not interact on duty. That at shift end each night he would go to Tom's quarters and sleep on the floor in the corner of Tom's bedroom. That he would rise with Tom in the mornings and prepare his breakfast and then return to 'bed'. Then after Tom had left for work, Chakotay would clean and tidy Tom's quarters and then attend his own shift.
In itself, apart from the discomfort of the floor, Tom asked nothing more of him. They did not speak. Tom did not strike him with words or with fists. Tom simply ignored his existence. Because of the difference in their shifts, it had not been immediately apparent to him. Tom was in bed when he got 'home' and he himself was still half-asleep when Tom rose in the morning. Their failure to speak to each other was no more than that for the first four days.
It had been on Sunday, when their day off coincided that Chakotay first had a true inkling that what he thought he had agreed to, was not what was truly happening. He had been looking forward to the day off with a strange mix of dread and anticipation. Finally, Tom would have time and leisure to "punish" him. He did not know what it would entail, hence the dread, but he welcomed it regardless.
Instead, Tom had spent most of the day curled up in a chair, pretending to read and looking like the proverbial white rabbit as he quivered from head to toe every time that Chakotay had moved.
Chakotay had risen first and put Tom's breakfast on the table, then had waited while Tom pushed the food listlessly around his plate.
"What do you want me to do?" he had asked.
Tom's eyes had flashed.
"Did I say you could speak?" he had demanded.
Chakotay had shaken his head in apology.
Tom had then made Chakotay kneel 'in position' all day, but he had reacted with near hysterics when Chakotay had begun to strip, assuming that was what Tom had wanted, and so the whole day had been spent with him simply kneeling, fully clothed, in the corner of Tom's room, while Tom had sat in terrified silence on the other side of the room, trying to pretend he wasn't there and jumping in terror every time that cramp forced Chakotay to adjust his position slightly.
Worse than that, though, were the nights.
Tom had nightmares every night, terrible horrific nightmares in which he would scream and beg someone not to hurt him, and Chakotay would lie on the floor, listening to Tom's pleas and would cry as he understood that the person in Tom's nightmares was himself.
If, like now, he rose and tried to ease the terror of Tom's dreams, the pilot would wake and bolt in terror into his bathroom, where he would spend the rest of the night with the safety of a locked door between himself and the object of his terror.
Witnessing Tom's pain was worse than any physical punishment that could have been given him, and sometimes he wondered whether Tom knew that and merely wished him to share an understanding of what he had done. That in itself would be bearable. If the next eight years were just a nightmare of being forced firsthand to witness the destruction that he had wrought in the pilot, then it was no more than he deserved.
What was truly unbearable was the realisation that his presence here was not helping Tom, it was only adding to his fear.
~~~
"I can't do it, Captain," Tom said miserably, as he sat in the briefing room after the rest of the senior staff had left.
"I warned you it wouldn't be easy," she replied mildly.
She had, to be honest, said a great deal of unsupportive things when Tom had arrived back on Voyager and had outlined his proposal for dealing with Chakotay. Yet the fact that Tom had managed to retrieve Chakotay in one piece, with an alleged agreement that he would not seek to harm himself for eight years, was so much more than she could have hoped for that she had felt unable to completely disregard Tom's idea.
Tom was still far from well, but the fact that he had acted as he did to save Chakotay's life had caused her to re-evaluate him. She had, of course, removed his holodec privileges for the next three months as a "punishment" for stealing the Delta Flyer, but it was merely a gesture of disapproval and he had understood that.
Where she had baulked was at Tom's insistence that Chakotay's monitoring device was removed and that he should move into Tom's quarters. She understood completely that Tom had no intention of abusing his new-found power over the Commander. It wasn't Chakotay's safety she was concerned with. It was Tom's.
"It's supposed to be payback," he had told her. "So he has to stay with me like I did with him or he won't believe me."
The idea of Chakotay sleeping on Tom's floor had disturbed her initially because of the percieved embarrassment of the situation for the Commander. Now she saw that it was damaging Tom too.
"I can't sleep, Captain. Knowing he's there in the room. I keep dreaming that he attacks me as I sleep and when I have the nightmare and he tries to wake me up, I panic and run into the bathroom. If I send him back to his own quarters now he'll know I never meant it when I said I wanted to punish him."
Kathryn thought about what he was saying and her mind supplied a solution so unthinkable that she bit her own lip in shock. Then she decided, what the hell? She had already proven her own inability to deal with this situation by abandoning Chakotay to his suicide attempt in the first place. Time and time again, Tom's bravery in this situation was astounding her. Tom had told her what the V'tx'n Prime had said, and as much as she had wanted to argue the point, she truly believed that he was right. Tom's solution might not be the most ethical idea she had ever come across, but the alternative, Chakotay's suicide, was far worse.
"I think you should restrain him," she blurted.
"What?" Tom asked in complete shock.
Kathryn flushed, but continued.
"You told me he did that to you sometimes, chained you up," she said.
"Yeah," Tom agreed miserably.
"So if you chained him, at night, he would feel punished and you would feel safe, wouldn't you?"
"I can't do that to him," Tom sobbed.
"I think you are going to have to, Tom, or give this up. I understand that you don't want to physically hurt him, and god forbid that I should let you if you did, but a little humiliation is probably just what he wants, and it will have the added bonus of making you feel safer."
"You really think it would be okay?" Tom whispered.
"I don't think it's "okay" at all, Tom, but I don't see another alternative, to be honest."
~~~
When Chakotay returned to Tom's quarters after shift, he found, curled next to his blanket a short chain attached on one end to the door jamb and with a collar on the other.
"Tom?" he asked in query, his eyes a little frightened.
"I'm sick of you sneaking around my bedroom at night," Tom spat from the safety of his bed.
Chakotay's heart sank as he remembered Tom's terror of the night before. No wonder the poor bastard wanted him restrained instead of having to lock himself into the bathroom to feel safe. He locked the collar around his neck without complaint and curled in misery into his thin blanket.
At least, that night, Tom seemed to sleep better and although the collar bit into his neck and increased the already severe discomfort of the hard floor, for the first time in weeks, Chakotay felt a little better.
~~~
"You're obviously sleeping a little better," the Doctor said, as he gave Tom his daily check up.
Tom flushed.
"Now I feel safer, the nightmares aren't so bad, and although it sounds weird, having him there, in my room, makes me feel better. I just wish he wasn't on the floor."
"Surely you would feel equally unsafe if he were in your bed," the Doctor pointed out mildly.
"Yeah, I guess," Tom admitted. "But it's just I *remember* how cold and uncomfortable it is on a floor. It hurts me to think of him there."
"The pain and discomfort probably bring him some form of comfort, Tom," the Doctor argued.
"I know," Tom sighed.
"What about yourself, Tom? Are you having any progress with your attempts to masturbate?"
Tom flushed. No matter how many times this subject came up, or how naturally the Doctor discussed it, he found the subject humiliating to discuss.
"No," he finally admitted.
"And you haven't had another involuntary arousal, either?" the Doctor asked.
"No," Tom confessed. "Sometimes, when I'm lying there in bed, if I wake early and I can hear him sleeping, I try and touch myself. I get the desire but nothing happens."
"Perhaps you are inhibited by his presence," the Doctor suggested.
"Yeah, maybe," Tom agreed listlessly.
"Confidentially, Tom, as your Doctor, may I ask why you have not touched Chakotay?"
"What?"
"It is my understanding that Chakotay believes that he is your property, is that not so?"
"Yes," Tom admitted, blushing.
"So he would behave exactly as you asked him to in a sexual encounter. But you still do not feel physically safe enough to encourage sexual relations with him?"
"Jesus, Doc. I'm not a monster. Using him like that would make me no better than Mad Chak, would it?"
"You love each other, Tom. It's different. You both want each other, but you need to feel safe, and he has to feel guiltless. It seems to me that if you 'ordered' him to make love to you, you would both be able to have what you want."
"Yeah, well, all I can say to that is no matter how advanced you are, Doc, you're still a hologram," Tom spat. "You have NO idea of morals, do you?"
"Oh, is that the word, Tom? Morals? Well if they let two wounded people stay unhappy, perhaps I would rather not have them," the Doctor sniffed.
~~~
"What the fuck are you looking at?" Tom howled, his face flushing dark red.
Chakotay's own face deepened and he averted his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. He had returned earlier than expected from Beta Shift because there was a new Bridge crew starting on Gamma Shift that night and Lieutenant Wildman had arrived an hour early so that she could settle herself before her new team arrived.
Assuming Tom would be asleep already, Chakotay had crept quietly into the bedroom so as not to disturb him, and had found the pilot sitting on the edge of his bed, naked, with his cock in his hands.
Even more embarrassing for Tom, it had been immediately apparent to Chakotay that his body was not co-operating.
"Sorry," Tom repeated bitterly. "Sorry. Yeah that really cuts it, doesn't it?"
Assuming Tom was referring still to his unannounced entry, Chakotay began to reply, "I didn't mean to -"
He was interrupted by Tom's near hysterical laugh.
"Didn't mean to what, Chakotay? You didn't mean to do this to me? Do you think that helps? Do you imagine it makes me feel better, knowing that, when I can't, can't, oh fuck it," Tom finished. "What the hell do you care?"
Chakotay swayed as he understood what Tom was trying to say. Tom was impotent. Not satisfied with screwing up Tom's mind, he had screwed his body up too so that he couldn't even pleasure himself.
"I'm sorry," he repeated helplessly.
Tom looked at him in fury. What the fuck use were words like sorry, anyway? And yet, there was no mistaking the genuine anguish in Chakotay's face, either. The Doctor's words came back to him and he flinched minutely at the thought, even as another part of him said, why not? What could possibly make anything worse, anyway?
"If you were really sorry, you'd do something about it," he hissed.
Horror chased over Chakotay's face as Tom's words sank in, and yet hadn't he sworn that he was Tom's property do with as he wanted. Did Tom think that the offer of his ass would be enough to bring life back to his limp, disinterested cock? Maybe he did.
"You want to fuck me?" Chakotay asked quietly.
"What with?" Tom spat back, gesturing at his useless groin.
Chakotay chewed on his lower lip.
"Do you want me to help you?" he asked awkwardly.
Tom flushed and dropped his head before answering "Yeah," in a near whisper.
Chakotay felt sick. He couldn't see a way of refusing Tom's need, hell, he didn't want to leave Tom in this misery, yet, at the same time, wasn't this abuse of the pilot, even if he asked for it?
It was difficult to know *what* he should do, and so he decided that the only thing he could do, under the circumstances, was to keep his promise, and obey Tom's request.
He dropped to his knees before approaching, remembering the fact that Tom had said that he himself had forced Tom to crawl. It seemed the only way to do this, particularly since he was fully dressed and Tom had the additional vulnerability of nakedness.
He could see Tom shivering in a mixture of terror and anticipation as he approached, so he deliberately kept his face downturned, and his shoulders low in a gesture of humility. He knew how imposing he was physically, and in view of his previous behaviour towards Tom he was beginning to believe that it was fear of him that was preventing Tom from exacting the revenge he needed.
What good did it do Tom to have him supposedly helpless in his quarters if he was too frightened to use the power he had over him? It was time that Chakotay proved that he had been serious about his offer of reparation. He would prove, here and now, that Tom had no reason to fear him anymore.
He settled between Tom's open legs and bent his head towards Tom's groin. Tom's rapid intake of breath was definitely not excitement, he realised, as on either side of his head the pilot's long legs began to tremble in terror. It was this obvious, heart-breaking fear that caused tears to well in his eyes so that he could barely see as he leant forward and tentatively licked at the tip of Tom's flaccid cock.
He heard Tom's breathing change, so he moved his tongue in a slow, lazy arc around Tom's cock head, teasing at the slit until he tasted a tiny hint of salt. Then he nuzzled deeper into Tom's lap, licking up the length of the soft shaft until he reached Tom's ball sac. One by one he sucked at Tom's balls, making sure that his lips were gentle as they massaged.
When he finally felt them tighten a little, he returned his attention to Tom's cock and laved down it's length again. It jerked a little under his mouth's caress and he could hear Tom's breath coming in ragged gasps, yet still Tom's flesh remained limp and disinterested.
Very carefully, listening intently to Tom's breathing to judge his response, he began to use his teeth too. He worked his way over Tom's groin in a series of licks and kisses and tiny nibbles, barely letting his teeth touch Tom's skin before releasing and moving once more.
The hard floor was beginning to grind into his knees and after a shift on the bridge, his back and neck screamed their protest at his position, but he ignored his own body's protests, intent only on teasing a reaction out of Tom's.
He had a feeling that if he let his fingers creep up towards Tom's ass, he would have more chance of causing the pilot to respond, but he refused to even try that tactic. This was for Tom, to prove that Tom's cock could still respond to its own stimulation rather than just react involuntarily to rape.
Tom's hands clutched his hair and he felt fingers massaging his scalp, their frantic movement an encouragement, so he moved down and took Tom's cockhead in his mouth. At first he simply held the glans with his lips and concentrated on fucking the slit with short, sharp jabs of his tongue.
Then, as he finally felt Tom's shaft begin to engorge, he slid a little more of it into his mouth, his tongue still busily licking at the pre-cum that was slowly beginning to ooze out of its head. Tom was shaking and gasping, but the fingers in his hair were now almost painful in their insistent kneading of his scalp, so he felt confident enough to relax his throat muscles and draw more of Tom's length inside him.
Now that Tom was hard, Chakotay began to slide his mouth up and down Tom's shaft, bathing its entire length with his hot, wet caress. Tom was beginning to jerk on the bed as though Chakotay's ministrations were sending tiny jolts of electricity through his body.
Chakotay used his hands to gently hold Tom's thighs steady so that he could continue his assault unhindered. Tom responded by pulling against the back of his head, pulling him closer so that his throat was further impaled. Something about Tom's action warned Chakotay that Tom was feeling too overwhelmed and out of control, so he froze in place and allowed Tom to set the pace instead.
Slowly at first and then with increasing confidence, Tom started to fuck Chakotay's mouth. Chakotay felt Tom trying to rise from the bed so that he had some leverage, so he slid backwards a few inches, careful to keep Tom's cock deeply imbedded in his throat and he used his hands to pull at the back of Tom's thighs until Tom was standing upright.
Then he had to keep his hands tightly against Tom's legs to brace himself as Tom began to buck his hips and thrust into his mouth with a savagery born of pure need.
Tom's sudden assault was painful in its intensity. He was violently ramming himself into Chakotay's eager throat with such abandon that Chakotay could barely breathe. He had to concentrate to keep his now exhausted mouth wide enough that his teeth wouldn't scrape against Tom's shaft.
Tom was sobbing and crying as his first successful erection in months was taking him to the bliss of an orgasm, and the sheer depth of his passion was forcing tears to stream down Chakotay's face in relief that he was, at last, doing *something* that might in a tiny way help to undo the harm that he had done.
To his disgust though, Chakotay could feel his own cock pressing painfully against his pants, and the fact that he was gaining his own pleasure from an act that was purely meant to help Tom, made him so bitterly ashamed of himself that he almost missed the signal that Tom was near release.
Tom stiffened, his thigh muscles going taut against the bracing support of Chakotay's hands, and then he screamed as he came, wailing as though months of hurt were being expelled alongside the cum that surged into Chakotay's throat.
Chakotay gulped and swallowed, willingly accepting the essence of Tom that filled his mouth with a salty-bitter sweetness, and as Tom shuddered and pumped, Chakotay suctioned at him, draining every last drop of Tom's seed with a hungry need of his own.
Tom staggered and slipped backwards to sit on the bed, his eyes glazed in his red, breathless face, and Chakotay moved forward to gently lick him clean, savoring the taste of Tom's pleasure as he lapped at the sticky remnants of Tom's orgasm.
"Oh shit," Tom gasped, when he finally caught his breath.
He looked down at Chakotay's bent head and then used his right hand to force Chakotay's chin up. He wanted to taste himself on Chakotay's lips, wanted to share his joy in his pleasure with the man who had so gently and patiently forced his reluctant body to respond.
Yet when Chakotay finally raised his face so that Tom could look him in the eyes, all Tom could see was the tears of humiliation that were spilling down the older man's face and Tom could only close his eyes against Chakotay's mute condemnation.
He pushed angrily against Chakotay's shoulders, thrusting him away angrily, his own guilt making him strike out viciously at the source of his own shame, and he fled into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
Chakotay regarded the locked door in misery. For a moment, as he had looked up into Tom's face he had imagined that Tom was as blissfully relieved as he was that it had worked. Then, Tom's face had twisted as he had looked down, and remembered obviously that it was *he* who had caused Tom's problem in the first place. No wonder Tom couldn't bear to look at him.
TBC