by Anonymous
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All characters in this story are copyrighted by Paramount Studios. What is done to them is copyright 1996. You may not reprint, archive, or in any way publicly distribute or make available this story without my express permission.

This is a sequel to "The Chute, Part 2", which is a sequel to the Voyager episode "The Chute".

---

"Hey, Harry."

"Hi, Tom."

Tom stood awkwardly just inside the door to Harry's quarters. He'd been cautiously keeping his distance since their night together, letting Harry set the pace, unwilling to do anything that might inadvertently damage the tentative balance their friendship now demanded. It had been two days, and after 'the morning after', they hadn't even touched.

"Um, mind if I sit down?"

"Sure, go ahead."

He headed over and perched on the edge of his friend's sofa, not touching the seat back, as if ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Every muscle in his body was tighter than a bowstring, and he silently willed himself to relax.

"Tom?"

"Yes?" he blurted anxiously before cursing himself for being so obvious.

"You don't have any regrets about. . . you know. . . what we did."

"Not if you don't."

"Then why are we acting so funny?"

Tom smiled in relief. "Because we're idiots. I was just afraid of scaring you off, you know?"

With a smile, Harry headed over to the sofa and lay down with his head in Tom's lap. "I thought I already told you that you couldn't scare me off?"

"Yeah, you did. I'm sorry."

"Well, I've been acting like a putz too. I'm sorry."

Tom ran his fingers through Harry's hair like he was petting a cat. "I'm sorry, you're sorry, we're all sorry."

"That feels nice."

Tom just smiled back in reply.

They sat silently, Tom stroking Harry's hair, for several long moments before Harry asked, "Do you mind if we talk?"

"Talk? No. That's fine. What about? Is this the 'us' talk?"

"Mmm, not yet. I think I still need the 'prison' talk."

"Sure, if it'll make you feel better. Still having the dreams?"

Harry tensed momentarily, then forced himself to relax.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"I'm sorry, Tom."

"Don't be, Harry. I'm serious. If anyone should be sorry, it's me. . . "

"No, I know you said you'd been wanting me for a while so it's understandable that you'd get an erection. . . "

"But I never wanted to force myself on you. . . "

"Tom, you know those things always pop up at the most inopportune times."

With a small chuckle, Tom acknowledged, "Yeah."

"Tom?"

"Hmm?"

"How long did your nightmares last?"

"Ummm. . . " His throat had suddenly gone dry. "They're back, actually."

Harry looked up into his friend's eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Tom shrugged, saying, "I thought you had enough problems to deal with."

"Tom, don't keep anything from me," Harry murmured as he reached up to touch Tom's face. "I mean it. Not after everything we've been through."

"It's just. . . well, I've never talked to anyone about them, you know? I mean, you're the first person I've even mentioned the rape to."

"I understand. I don't think I could tell anyone either. . . Shit! Tom, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean to call it rape."

"Ssssh, ssssh," Tom commanded gently as he resumed stroking Harry's hair. "Don't worry about it. Look, would it help if I told you about what happened to me?"

"I think so."

Tom took a deep breath, then said, "Um, it happened my second day. The first day they're too busy showing you around and letting you know where everything is, setting up your work detail--that kind of stuff. The second day I was checking out the rec room when a group of guys came in and the guards left. That's when I knew I was in trouble."

"The guards left? But Tom, that's illegal!"

"'Course it is. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Well, the guys--there were eight of them--started telling me things like, 'you belong to us now', and 'your ass is ours'. It didn't take me long to figure out what they meant. I tried to get to the door, but couldn't make it, so I just figured if I went along with it, it would make things easier."

"Did it?" "Well. . . I don't know. I think they wanted me to be new at it, which I wasn't. And I think they wanted me to struggle, which I didn't, so they got a little rough with me just to get some reaction."

"How rough?"

Tom shrugged. "Not too bad. I mean, I was bleeding and all. . . "

"Did you see a doctor?"

"Gimme a break, Harry. Do you think I wanted that on my record?"

In a small voice, Harry replied, "No, I guess not. Then what?"

"Then nothing. Then they basically took turns with me until the day I left."

"That's horrible."

"It wasn't so bad, all things considered. There was one guy who fought them off, so they ganged up on him in his cell when he was asleep. Tied him up and everything. Naw, it was easier to just roll with it. Eventually they started doing favors back." He laughed helplessly, then said, "When your ass is your only commodity, you have to use it."

Harry sat up and tried to hold Tom in his arms, but Tom shrugged him off. "Hey, it wasn't such a big deal, okay? I'd done it before."

Sitting back and giving Tom the space he seemed to need, Harry smiled weakly, asking, "Anyone I know?"

With a chuckle, Tom replied, "You'd be surprised."

"Oh, come on, tell me!" "You probably didn't know Julian. He was my first. I guess the most infamous was Will Riker."

"Commander Riker!" Harry gasped. "No way! How? I mean. . . when did you get the opportunity?"

"Risa."

Harry just shook his head. "I'm trying to picture it, and I can't."

"It was after the beard."

"Why is it that the guys with the biggest reps as womanizers are all bisexual? I mean, there's Riker, Kirk. . . you."

With a laugh, Tom said, "We're not womanizers. We just like sex! And women are still easier because there's a greater chance that they're interested in your gender."

Harry smiled, then turned serious again. "Tom, can you spend the night? Maybe the nightmares won't be as bad if you're here with me."

"Sure. I'll spend the night."

"Just to sleep, okay?"

"Scouts honor."

---

Eyes everywhere and it hurts so much. . . can't you see you're hurting me. . . don't you care that this hurts and I don't want to be a public spectacle like this. . . dammit Tom, save me!


Harry awoke with a ragged gasp, desperately trying to calm the hammering of his heart as the memories of his nightmare echoed painfully through his mind. He remembered crying out for Tom, the thought of Tom as a savior. In the dream, it wasn't Tom raping him, but it was Tom who could save him.

"Tom?" The bed was empty. "Computer, location of Lieutenant Paris."

"Lieutenant Paris is in holodeck two."

---

Harry looked at the display outside the holodeck and saw that Sandrine's was running. He always goes here when he needs refuge, he thought sadly, then walked in.

The first thing he registered was the sound of smashing glass. Then he realized that the entire place had been trashed. Broken glass was everywhere, and all the tables had been turned over--even the pool table. A chair went whizzing through the air, and he flinched as it crashed against a light fixture and hit the ground. "Tom?"

"Harry, get the hell out of here!" Tom yelled frantically.

"What's wrong?" Harry gasped as he ran over to his hysterical friend. "Tom, you're bleeding!"

"Just get the hell out of here! Leave me alone!" Tom screamed, backing against a wall, oblivious to the trickle of blood winding its way down his temple.

"No! I'm not leaving!" Harry replied forcefully, taking Tom's blood-slicked hands in his. Tom's hands slipped neatly out from Harry's, but not before the physical pain squeezed past the mania. With a strangled whimper, Tom slid bonelessly to the floor. "Computer, re-engage holodeck safeties," Harry noted before Tom sat down in a pile of broken wine bottles. Harry sat next to him and murmured, "What's wrong?"

Tom shook his head hopelessly, tears welling up in his eyes. "Damn," he whispered. "I thought I was over it."

"What happened in prison?"

"Yeah. Guess that being on the other end of it re-opened a lot of stuff. I can't believe I did it. I can't. I was just like them. Just like those bastards who did it to me."

Grabbing Tom's shoulders, Harry barked, "No you weren't just like them. You did it to save me. They did it to break you. You have to understand that."

"I understand Harry, up here," he replied, tapping on his unbloodied temple with one finger. Moving his hand to his heart, he finished, "It's here that I can't understand. You're still having nightmares, aren't you?"

Sheepishly, Harry replied, "That's what woke me up."

"So you understand, right?"

"Tom, I dreamed that you could save me, not that you were hurting me."

"Some savior I am."

"Cut it out!"

Blinking back the tears, Tom sniffed and said, "Well, I should probably go to sickbay and get fixed up, eh? It was pretty stupid of me to break things with the safeties off." He stood up and straightened his shoulders, determined not to let anyone outside the holodeck realize how much he was hurting inside.

Harry stood up and looked into his eyes. "Tom, have you cried yet?"

"Nah. If I cry, they win."

"If you cry, they lose. If you keep it bottled in, they win."

Tom just shrugged. "Let's go to sickbay."


It was late, so sickbay was deserted when they arrived and the Doctor was switched off. Harry quickly and neatly took care of the cuts on Tom's hands and face, and then they headed back out towards Harry's quarters.

"So," Harry asked, "feel better?"

"Kinda."

"Will you come back to my quarters with me?"

Tom shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

"If you don't want to. . . "

"Wait 'till we're there, okay?"

They finished the trip in silence, and as the doors shut behind them, Harry took Tom by the hand to lead him back to the bed. "Come on, lie down. It's late."

"Harry. . . I don't think this is a good idea."

"What, spending the night?"

"No. Us."

"Us?"

"Harry, if we spend time together like this, we're just going to keep thinking of what happened in that damn prison, and I'm going to keep thinking of Auckland, and it's just going to be a mess."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing."

"Gimme a break, Harry. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life dwelling on what happened?"

"Sit down. Come on, sit down." Tom reluctantly sat on the bed next to Harry, who took his shaking hands in his own and said, "If I remember correctly from my Intro to Psychology course back at the academy, they said that the best way for most people to get over something is not to repress it, but to confront it and deal with it head on."

"That's easy for them to say."

"Maybe, but it helps. How long have you been bottling up what happened to you in Auckland?"

"Since it happened."

"That's not healthy!"

"Look what happened when I tried to let it out! You had to sneak me into sickbay to fix me up!"

"Next time, don't turn off the safeties."

"I tried that. It didn't feel right."

"Doesn't that tell you something?"

"Yeah, Harry. It tells me that I should keep bottling it up. Look, I spent a lot of time crying as a kid and it didn't fix anything, okay? I still feel like shit about my childhood."

"Kes tells me that you once said that you don't trust anyone that doesn't cry."

"So I'm a hypocrite. So shoot me. I'm serious Harry, I've tried letting things out, and you know what? It hurts a hell of a lot more that way."

"Maybe for you it does, but not for me."

"Then will you let me cope my own way?"

"If coping your own way means that I lose you, then no way in hell, Tom Paris. No way in hell." He pushed Tom backwards onto the bed and straddled him. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, you know. About your body, and the way you smell, and the sounds you make."

"Harry. . . don't. . . "

Pulling down Tom's waistband, Harry smiled at the erection waiting for him. "You can't stop thinking about it either."

"Please. . . " But Tom made no physical move to stop him, just looked at him with pained blue eyes.

"I need this. You need this." Harry definitively ended the conversation as his mouth descended to Tom's erection, first flicking up the underside, then swirling around the sensitive head, and finally enveloping him completely with his mouth. Tom groaned from somewhere deep inside him, and reached down to touch Harry's hair.

"Gods, Harry," Tom moaned as he felt the tears start welling up in his eyes. He looked down at his friend's head, the silky hair gleaming in the starlight, and the tears started spilling over. He couldn't watch. Tossing his head back, he stared at the neon lights over the bed, falling into a trance, falling back to the point where everything connected. Harry's mouth and hands continued their earnest work, and Tom felt his body react, but as the tension built, so did the memories of shame and pain and helplessness. They rushed back with a speed and intensity that frightened him, goaded on by Harry's mouth and hands. Just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore, the dam burst, and so did the tears.

Harry wiped his mouth and looked up at Tom, who was unabashedly crying his eyes out. He snaked up to hold the pilot in his arms, murmuring his name.

"Damn, Harry, I'm sorry," Tom choked out.

"Don't be."

Cradled in his best friend's arms, Tom's tears turned to outright sobs. As Harry listened to the heartwrenching sounds being torn from his friend's psyche, he found himself being dragged back to the prison, back to the incident, back to the humiliation, back to the stories of Tom's rape in New Zealand, and his tears joined Tom's.

---

Don't touch me it hurts when you do that. . . save me Tom. . . what took you so long you feel so good don't ever let me go don't you ever leave me again I need you so much it hurts. . .


Harry woke up and realized that he and Tom had literally cried themselves to sleep. His friend's face was finally at rest, eerily lit by the colored bulbs over the bed. Harry looked closely at his face, at the child-like innocence, the peacefulness, the trust, and realized just how deeply buried Tom kept his real self. This was the face he always wanted to see.

Tom stirred. "Harry? Why are you awake?"

Gliding his hand down Tom's cheek, he replied, "Had another dream, but it ended really well this time. It ended with you."

A tentative smile graced the corners of Tom's mouth. "Glad to hear it."

"How are your dreams tonight?"

"They must be okay because I can't really remember any."

"We fell asleep in our clothes."

"We did? Oh yeah, we did. Want me to help you take yours off?"

"If you do that, then I'll have to help you take yours off."

"Sounds like a fair deal."

Harry sat up, looking down at Tom's prone form. . .


Harry? What's happening to me?


With a ragged gasp, he jumped off the bed. Tom was at his side seconds later, cradling the shaking form of his friend in his protective embrace. "I'm sorry. . . I'm sorry," he chattered.

"Harry, it's all right," Tom murmured. "I'm here."

"I had a flashback."

"Oh gods, I'm sorry."

Harry laughed sharply. "I've spent the whole night acting like I have the one true answer on how to cope and now this. Dammit, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You only did it because you cared about me."

"Make love to me, Tom. Please?"

Tom looked at his young friend's eyes, looked into the inky depths, and saw a desperation and a need that scared him. "Are you sure that's what you really want?"

"Yes. I'm positive. I need to have you in me again. I need you to make everything right again. Dammit, Tom, I need you."

Tom solemnly led Harry back to the bed and sat him down, then knelt at his feet and gently took off his shoes and socks. He rubbed the tension from one foot, then the other with strong stroking motions and deep pressure. He glanced up at Harry's face, at the tears gleaming in his eyes, and reverently leaned forward and planted a kiss on the top of each foot.

Rising up onto his knees, he reached for the buttons on Harry's shirt, undoing them slowly and carefully before gently easing the shirt off of his body. With a comforting smile, he climbed onto the bed behind Harry and started kneading his shoulders. A small groan escaped from Harry's throat, and Tom leaned forward to kiss the back of his neck, hands never stopping their ministrations to Harry's tense muscles. "Lie down," he whispered, and Harry obeyed.

When Harry was comfortably settled on his stomach, Tom straddled his body and ran his hands down his back. "You're awfully tense, Harry."

"I know."

"Let's take care of that, shall we?" Tom murmured as his strong fingers deftly worked at each and every tense muscle, slowly turning Harry into a warm, relaxed puddle.

"Tom, that feels so good."

"Good. You deserve it," Tom replied as he started working his way back up from Harry's lower back to his scalp.

Harry gasped. "How did you know?"

"It's all connected, Harry. If you back is tense, your scalp is tense. Mmmmm. . . your hair feels really nice."

"Thanks," Harry murmured as his face flushed ever so slightly. Tom finished working on his friend's scalp and rolled him over, fingers reaching for Harry's temples, then smoothing his thumbs over the muscles running from his nose down to his cheeks. An errant thumb strayed over Harry's lips, which was promptly kissed. "You're supposed to be relaxing," Tom gently chided.

"And you're supposed to be having fun too."

"Who says I'm not? As much fun as it is to be on the receiving end, I've always prefered to be on the giving end. It fulfils my pathetic need to feel needed."

"How about your need to feel wanted?"

"We'll talk about that later," Tom replied. "Right now, I think it's time to kiss you."

"I agree," Harry smiled as Tom's lips met his. The kiss stayed soft, breathy, and Harry gasped as Tom's kisses spread to his nose, his eyelids, and his ears, where they turned to nibbles, which then traveled down his neck, his chest, pausing at his nipples then trailing down to his bellybutton. Tom's mouth was everywhere, delicately using his teeth and lips to map out every square centimeter of Harry's chest. Harry reached out to caress Tom's face, and groaned as Tom turned his head to suckle at his fingers.

Tom chuckled as he continued to suck, and his left hand wandered down to tease the skin on the insides of Harry's thighs. Harry's moans got deeper, then turned to whimpers as Tom's fingers failed to stray to the part of him that was screaming out the loudest. Harry reached out, wrapped his free hand around the back of Tom's neck, and pulled him in for a bruising kiss. His other hand reached down for Tom's ass and pulled him close, grinding their erections together and coaxing a heartfelt groan from the back of Tom's throat. "Harry," he moaned raggedly.

"No more teasing," Harry said as he moved to roll over onto his stomach.

Tom stopped him. "No, not like that. I want to watch you." "Then how?"

Tom reached for the lubricant and quickly coated both his erection and his fingers. "Like this," he said, guiding Harry's feet up over Tom's shoulders.

"This feels funny. . . unnnnnh, yessssss. . . " Harry hissed as Tom's probing fingers cut off any further protest.

Tom thought that the sight of Harry, head tossed back and eyes closed in ecstacy, would send him right over the edge. "You're so beautiful," he murmured reverantly as he continued gently preparing Harry for entry. "So beautiful." He viciously pushed back memories of someone saying that to him in New Zealand, and willed himself to concentrate on the here and now. Harry was ready, and he wanted him, and that was all that mattered. With a sigh, he started easing his way in.

"Ohhhhh. . . " Yes, this was what he wanted. Tom was in him now, where he belonged, where he made Harry safe, where he reconnected him with his sane self. All he had to do was think of the feeling of being filled by Tom and it made everything more than all right again. It made him whole again, undefiled, forgiven. The feeling of Tom moving within him, knowing that the beautiful sensations that he felt were mirrored in his friend, that they were together in this. Together.

"Harry, look at me," Tom murmured raggedly. "Please." Harry obeyed without thinking and was transfixed by the expression of total abandon on Tom's face. Nothing was hidden. It was all there for him to see--the need, the desire, the vulnerability. Tom needed him too.

What Tom saw in Harry's eyes drove him straight to the edge. Desperately hanging back for just a few moments longer, he reached down and cupped Harry's erection in the palm of his hand, rubbing forward, and then neither of them could hold back as everything exploded into brilliance.

Instinctively, when the fireworks died down, they curled up together, feeling the combined force of their hearts hammering through each other's chests. "I need you. Don't ever leave me, Tom."

"I won't. I promise."

---

End