The BLTS Archive - Season V: Pride's Cloak
by Bridget Cochran (bjcochran@aol.com)

---

This is the fourth story in the Season V Series.  The other
stories are The Way of All Flesh, A Friend in Need, and A Friend
in Deed.  There are spoilers for 30 Days...the episode that might
(maybe) eclipse Resolutions for fanfic propogation.

© 1998

Disclaimer:  I own the ideas, Paramount owns the rest.  Archive
any where, including ASC/EM, BLTs, R'Rain, AllSlash, et al.

This story involves the eventual consensual sexual relationship
between two men.  If that offends you in anyway, move along home.

---

Chakotay had never felt so powerless--angry and powerless--in his
life.  He sat staring at the surface of his desk wondering how
the world could go so wrong in a few short weeks.

Ensign Thomas Paris had just left his office to take on his
duties down in Sick Bay.  Until further notice Paris would split
his days between Sick Bay and shuttle maintenance.

He had, more or less respectfully, declined the offer to helm
Gamma shift.   He'd asked to be removed from the helm all
together.  Chakotay was frankly stunned.  "I'd think you'd want
to get right back at it after thirty days."

Tom's face looked like a stone.  "Well, you thought wrong,
Commander.  You've done fine without me."

No, they hadn't.  The inexperienced pilots had gotten them out of
scrapes, but not unscathed.  They really did need Tom at the
helm.  "I understand you're angry, Tom."  That even sounded
stupid to Chakotay.

And he was hit by blue phasers.  "You understand nothing,
Commander."  The low pitched voice could only be described as
lethal.

Chakotay sat back, bracing himself and waiting for Tom to
continue.

"You know, Commander, during my whole stretch at Auckland, I
spent four days in solitary confinement."

Chakotay hadn't known.  He remained silent.

"I did have a pillow and blanket during those four days.  And I
had a replicator to dispense a half dozen meal choices.  Not
leola root stew for 30 days."  Tom paused.  "Are you familiar
with the Federation Penal Code, Commander?"

Chakotay flicked his head to the negative.

"Well, solitary confinement of longer than one week isn't
sanctioned.  It serves no rehabilitative purpose.  It only serves
to engender bitterness and negative resolve in the inmate.
That's a quote, Commander."

Chakotay shifted in his seat.  "You want to register a
complaint?"

Tom's face twisted.  "Right.  To whom would I direct this
complaint?   My thirty days are over.  I served the time with as
little whining as I could manage."

"If you had complaints, you should have brought them up during
your incarceration."

Tom shook his head at Chakotay.  The man just didn't get it.
"There was no reason to, Commander.  No tribunal met, no
witnesses were called and I wasn't allowed a defense."  Tom blew
out a shaky sigh.  Chakotay watched the emotion struggle with the
bland expression Tom fought to maintain.  "You and Tuvok were no
where to be seen when she was ripping out my pip."  The fair face
reddened, and Tom examined his lap, unwilling to let Chakotay see
his eyes.

"You're going to need counseling," Chakotay ventured quietly.

Tom's laugh was dry; and he raised his head, a mean little smile
hardening his mouth.  "Sure," he said, "and if I refuse?  You
gonna throw me in the brig?"

"Nah.  Just restrict you to quarters."  Chakotay's timing was
never great.  He should never answer Tom's sarcasm with his own.
Not if you wanted a productive conversation.

Shit.  Chakotay let his shoulders sag.  Kathryn had no idea what
she'd done. Sure, she busted him, put him away for a few weeks.
But she hadn't only reversed the progress she and Tom had made
over the last four years, but had busted him way back to his
Maquis days.  Or worse.

Okay, time for a different tactic.  "Well, if not counseling,
what about Klingon martial arts?"

Tom smirked, standing.  The meeting was over.  "Sorry, **sir**,
but it's against protocol for junior officers to date senior
staff."

One look into that smirking, knowing face, Chakotay knew Tom was
angrier than the Commander could hope to rectify anytime soon.
He was mad at the universe, at Voyager, Janeway, and life; and he
was mad at Chakotay.

---

"He refused to pilot gamma shift?"  Janeway was aghast.

"He declined," Chakotay chose his words carefully.  The staff
meeting was not the place for this conversation.

But Janeway no longer had her soft spot for Tom.  "Declined?" she
said.  "He has no right to decline."

Chakotay flicked an eye at Tuvok.  When he'd conferred with the
Vulcan, asking for his help getting Tom reassigned, Tuvok agreed.

"On the contrary, Captain.  Ensign Paris has every right to
decline.  He has been placed in an untenable position.  He has
been disciplined and disgraced. In another circumstance, he would
be transferred to a different posting.  Since piloting the ship
would probably bring him into contact with the person with whom
he had the conflict resulting in his current status, it is
logical that Ensign Paris would want to serve in another part of
the ship.  I believe his wishes should be honored."

Chakotay blinked.  That was some speech from Tuvok.  The
Commander looked to Janeway who still stared at Tuvok.  The logic
was unassailable.  She couldn't argue with it in anyway.  "Very
well," she said.  "Assign him where his talents can best be
used."  She rubbed her forehead.  "Dismissed," she said after a
moment.

---

"Ah, Mr. Paris, how is our prize delinquent?"  The doctor
smirked.

Tom didn't flinch.  "Ensign Paris reporting for duty, doctor."

"Ensign Paris."

"Yes?"

"Just savoring the sound of it."  The doctor sighed.  "To what do
I owe the honor of this visit, ensign?"

Tom folded his arms and tilted his head to one side.  "Chakotay
has assigned me here half time each day."

"Oh?"

"Where would you like me to work?"  Tom moved toward the
diagnostic imaging console.

"Where would I like you to work?   Well, ensign, that's a good
question."  The doctor tapped a finger to his head, as if he had
to think about it.  Tom moved to the doctor's main work station.

"Doc," he said, "do you remember when you came to treat me when I
was in the brig?"

"Yes, ensign?"

This ensign crap was getting old.  "How desperate I was to get
out of the brig.  To come here to have a full diagnostic?"

"Yes, I found your discomfort quite amusing.  Ensign."

Tom picked up the doctor's holoemitter.  "Did you?  I didn't find
it so amusing."

Tom moved away from the work station toward the door.  The doctor
turned full circle, realization dawning on him.  "What do you
think you're doing with my holoemitter, Ensign?"

Already at the door, Tom turn to stand just across the threshold,
emitter held between his fingers.  "I'm returning the favor, Doc.
I know how much this emitter changed your life.  Got you out of
the confines of the four walls of Sick Bay.  Before you got this
little piece of 29th century technology, this place must have
seemed like a prison."  Tom took a step back, the door slid shut.

He could hear the doctor call for the Captain as he headed for
the lift. ---

Chakotay hit the chime at Tom's door.  It slid open without
preamble to admit him to a darkened room.  The holoemitter was on
the table.  Tom was slouched in an easy chair turned to the
starfield.

"I wondered who would come," he said after a few minutes, but he
never looked at Chakotay.

The older man dragged one of the table chairs over beside the
pilot.  He sat without a word, stretching his legs out in front
of him and crossing his arms over his stomach.  He'd stay until
Tom talked even if it took hours, days.

It **was** hours.  Chakotay's neck ached.  He craned it, rubbing
it with strong finger strokes.

"Aren't you going to take the emitter back?"

"Eventually," Chakotay shrugged some of the kinks in his back.
"He'll be there."

A smile crept across the face.  It wasn't much, but it was
something.

"You ready to tell me?" the older man asked.

Tom shook his head, but spoke.  "B'Elanna asked me to breakfast.
But all she wanted to do was rub it in about outranking me."

So that's why he showed up for their meeting early this morning.
Chakotay made no comment.  Tom rubbed the back of his own neck.
The Commander tapped his communicator.  "Chakotay to Janeway."

"Janeway here."

"Mr. Paris will be taking the rest of the day off."

"For what reason."

Chakotay's pause was infinitesimal.  "First Officer's
prerogative."

"I see."  Her pause almost cut the link.  "Let me know if there's
anything I can do."

"Will do.  Chakotay out."

They sat in silence for several more minutes.  "Why don't you go
take a nap?" Chakotay asked after a few minutes.

Tom was incredulous.  "All I did for the last four weeks is take
naps."

And do calisthenics, from the looks of it, Chakotay thought as he
noted the way Tom shrugged under the red shoulders.  "But it's
not the same as sleeping in your own bed."

Tom nodded at that and brushed his hair back and forth with the
flat of his hand.  "Kind of like missing your own bathroom."

The two shared a smile, and Tom began rubbing his neck again.
"Okay, Commander, I'll take you up on that day off and see what a
nap will do."  He pushed out of the chair.  Chakotay took the cue
and stood, loathe to leave with the seed of a tentative truce
beginning to take.

"Gotta a knot," he asked, watching Tom knead his neck.

"You might say that."  He didn't stop rubbing.  "I'd visit a
masseuse, but I still don't have holodeck privileges."

"If you wouldn't think it was a breach of protocol, I offer a
rub."

Tom's head turned and he stared at Chakotay for a long moment.
The older man resisted the compulsion to swallow.  He didn't want
Tom to see the effort to keep himself detached, because it
**was** an effort.

The momentary flicker of something other than anger, irritation
and the hard look of bitterness on Tom's face almost released a
sigh from Chakotay.  Tom remembered what he'd said to Chakotay
about the Klingon Martial Arts program.

"Is it a breach of protocol?"  Tom was asking for more than a
clarification.

Now Chakotay did swallow. "Only if you see it that way."

Tom pulled open the front of his uniform as he turned to his
bedroom. "Just my neck and shoulders, okay?"

Chakotay swallowed again.  "Fine with me."

The older man silently watched Tom strip to the waist and lay
face down on the bed.  He eased down beside him, examining the
broad, pale back.  Tom had done something constructive with his
incarceration, he thought watching muscles play under the flushed
skin as Tom jockeyed for a comfortable position.

"What are you waiting for?"  Tom asked.

Self control, Chakotay thought.  "Do you have any lotion, or
anything?"

"Lickable oil?"  Tom said, sarcasm threatening.

"Lotion."

"Yeah, there's some in the drawer there," he signaled with his
head.  "Starship air is too dry sometimes."

Chakotay was silent as he coated his hands with the unscented
lotion.  He started at the neck.  It was knotted, so he started
by applying soft pressure with the pads of his fingers.  He soon
had his whole hands involved, engulfing the neck in gentle
pressure.  Tom was going to have to stop making those noises,
though.  "Shhhh," he said.

Remarkably, Tom subsided, allowing Chakotay to work on his neck
in silence before trailing to his shoulders.  Yes, they felt as
good as they looked. Rolling the muscles under his fingers,
Chakotay gave a deep massage letting his fingers establish a
rhythm as they worked the muscle.

"Where were you the last two months?"  Tom broke the silence at
last, but the words were muffled in his pillow.

Chakotay worked the shoulders with slow, even strokes as he
thought of how to answer.  He pulled the skin toward him.
Honesty.  "I didn't want to embarrass you."

Tom didn't appreciate the truth.  "Shit.  You'd only be
embarrassing yourself."

"Not true."

"Bullshit."  Tom tried to rise up, shake Chakotay off.

"I'm not done."  The hands became firmer, moving toward a
shoulder blade.  "The crew was quite a mess after our little
conflagration."

"So."

"So, I had my hands full, trying to keep the Maquis from rising
up," Chakotay's hands kept working.

The sound from Tom's pillow indicated that he didn't believe it.
But the Maquis, and some Starfleet were pretty upset at the harsh
penalty Tom received.  They could see removing his rank or the
thirty days, but both seemed a little harsh.  Actually, it seemed
very harsh.  But his orders were to keep Tom sequestered.  Make
him think about his actions.  Turns out he thought about them a
lot.

Tom shifted his weight to the hip closest to the masseur, and
slid his arms up under the pillow.  He had to keep from
embarrassing himself in front of Chakotay.  Yes, he was still
pissed at him.  Hell, yes.  But he hadn't masturbated in thirty
days; he was a perv in many ways, but jacking off in front of a
guard or a surveillance camera had no place in his perverted
psyche.  Now under Chakotay's firm hands, Tom couldn't help the
hard on.

He felt the Commander's hands reach his ribcage.  "That's far
enough." Chakotay's hands didn't stop, just returned to the
shoulder blades.  Tom relaxed and let Chakotay do the work,
melting the tension from his muscles, leaving him lethargic.  Not
the best state for a depressed man to be in.

Chakotay was leaning forward, his lips all but grazing Tom's ear.
"You're crying."

"I know."  Tom's voice was so deep and dry, empty.  "Don't."  He
didn't want Chakotay to hold him.  "I'm angry and I'm hurt."

Straightening, Chakotay wanted to follow his instincts once again
and not acquiesce to the wishes of others. He wanted to hold Tom
in his arms.  Instead he examined as much of the younger man's
profile as he could see.  Soft lashes lay upon the small rings of
tension that lay beneath his eyes.  It would take sometime to
remove them.  They may never be removed. Tears slid out from
under the lids.  Spirits, life could be oppressive.

He rested a hand on the warm back.  It still glowed pink from his
ministrations, but Tom flinched.  "Please go,"  Tom whispered.
Chakotay's sigh was huge, conveying much.  Frustration,
ineffectiveness, and disappointment. Disappointment in himself
for his lack of action in Tom's defense, disappointment that Tom
wouldn't take the comfort he offered now.  Christ, he was a weak
man.

Resisting the impulse to place a kiss on the expanse on skin in
front of him, Chakotay ran the hand up the back and neck into the
crisp blond hair offering what comfort would be accepted.  Tom
rolled his head into the hand before subsiding into the pillow.
"Get out of here," Tom repeated.

Chakotay pushed off the bed.  "Tom-"

"I know.  You're sorry."

Tom heard the outer door shut and made the supreme effort to kick
his shoes off.  Crawling under the covers he pulled the other
pillow toward him, curling around it.  Now he could cry.  And he
did.  He wasn't so sure if the neck rub had been a good idea, but
shit, he needed to feel the contact of another human.

Nobody else offered.  Nobody else would.  Nobody.  Chakotay was
it, the only one who ever came after him when something was
wrong.  But where was he in the last two months?

No where.  Christ, Tom had felt so bad when that insectoid had
attached to B'Elanna.  Bad?  Shit.  He'd been wild to find a
cure.  Why, oh, why had Harry not been a little more forceful
when the doctor said it didn't matter if the medical assistant
they conjured up looked like a Cardassian?  Huh, they could have
put the information into some nicer species' specs.

But, no, keep the god damn Cardassian and piss everybody off.
Didn't they see none of the bullshit mattered if B'Elanna died?
Christ, that shouting match he had with Chakotay in the staff
meeting had been so fucking hard.  And he never really got the
chance to apologize.

My fault again.  Temper and stupid, stiff necked pride.  I walked
around with a stick up my butt for a couple of weeks.  And just
when we were starting to be able to be relaxed around each other
again.  Boom.  Or Splash.  Planet Water Hell.

Tom rolled onto his back.  He'd do it again.  Sacrifice
everything.  He knew he would.  It'd take more than thirty days
in the brig and a bust in rank to keep him from doing what he
thought was right.  Tears dripped into his ears.

The Prime Directive never stopped Janeway, wouldn't stop him.
They'd agreed on the methods to save B'Elanna, they just didn't
agree about intraplanetary destruction.  Wouldn't stop him from
exerting who he was.  If he had to be the scapegoat, he'd be the
scapegoat.  If he had to be her fucking convenient conscience for
all Starfleet protocol, so be it.  He'd take on the mantle, and
wear it with pride.

Right.  Militant little pecker, aren't you, Tom?  Yeah.  He
guessed he was.

He grasped his erection firmly and began to pump, wiping out any
thought of anyone and just gave into the urge he denied himself
for thirty days.  He pictured no one, man nor woman, just pushed
himself to the release of tension, calling out a desolate 'shit'
as he hit his release.

---

The End