The BLTS Archive - Sounds of Silence Story Two in The Simon & Garfunkel series by Bridget Cochran (bjcochran@aol.com) --- © 1998 Although I'm not found of song stories, I sure do write enough of them. --- Hello, darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk to you again. Because a vision softly creeping, Left its seeds while I was sleeping. The vision that was planted in my brain still remains. And echoes the in Sounds of Silence. --- Insidious.  The shame was insidious.  It permeated his consciousness, and oozed into his unconscious, waking him in the middle of the night, settling over him and into him as he moved through his days. Tuvok had forsaken meditation.  The process was futile--the act did nothing to exorcise the shame, nor did it lessen the pain.  Since the pain was insuppressible, Tuvok accepted it. Though the effort was at times debilitating, Tuvok accepted his shame. The complete darkness of his quarters were a comfort in this last week. The shields raised at his viewport hid the starfield--candles were not lit. Tuvok sat naked, cross-legged on the floor of his day room, very nearly savoring the rough nap of the 'fleet issue carpet on the taut flesh of his gluteus muscles. Today had been as difficult as the others in the week since he had nearly committed the ultimate self-degradation--admit his feelings to Ensign Kim. Mr. Kim stood at his station carrying on his usual inconsequential conversation with Lt. Paris.  The Captain called such interaction "banter" and sanctioned its use on the bridge to relieve boredom. As was his habit, Mr. Paris was teasing the ensign about Crewman Johnson. Harry seemed to take it with good spirit, admitting to enjoying the light hearted romance. Tuvok spent the afternoon in his office.  Working on reports. Avoiding the bridge. Avoiding Mr. Kim. "Paris to Tuvok." His thoughts interrupted, he did not sigh.  He did close his eyes.  "Tuvok here." "Tuvok, need you to play volleyball." "I do not play volleyball." "Of course you do." Tuvok remained silent; to reply was pointless. "Come on, Tuvok.  Harry and his volleyball babes have challenged us to a match. We want to win this time." Silence. "We want to win, so we want someone who's gonna take the game seriously." Seriously, indeed.  Tuvok was unsure as to a less serious game of human origin.  It was not the object of the game that caused him doubt, but the inherent social quality and aspect. It was played in the sand by participants wearing very little. Requisite amounts of laughing, joking and showmanship interfered with strategy and planning required for a favorable outcome. "Tuvok?" "I must decline." "Tuvok."  It was Commander Chakotay. The Vulcan squared his shoulders.  "Commander?" "Your presence is required for off duty recreation." "Is that an order, Commander?" "If necessary." Tuvok expelled air.  "I will be on the holodeck in 10 minutes." "Looking forward to it.  Chakotay out." --- The resort was crowded--half crew, half holocharacters. Someone for everyone. Tuvok slowed his breathing, schooled his expression, opened his fingers until they seemed to drop relaxed to his sides as he moved across the wide terrace to the beach portion of the simulation. He was aware of the surprised looks crew members sent his way. So rarely did Tuvok go anywhere in anything other than his uniform that his appearance in a non-regulation shirt and shorts was cause for comment.  He acknowledged the looks with a blank stare. It was obvious to Tuvok as he sat on a bench beside the court to remove his shoes, that this evening's play was to, indeed, be social.  Lt. Paris joined him on the bench.  "We really need you tonight, Tuvok," the younger man enthused. Tuvok made no reply.  "I am so tired of Harry's bimbos beating us.  We need a coach." They would need a drill sergeant.  Perhaps a miracle. Tuvok carefully placed his shoes beneath the bench and rose.  "You want me to manage your play?" Tuvok looked at the activity around the net. "Yes.  Please." "I will offer only these words of advice:  be quiet, concentrate, cooperate." Paris was about to object, or, at least, ask for more words of advice when Chakotay made his presence known.  "Good advice, Lieutenant. Let's see if our teammates can follow it." The game was surprising to Tuvok.  His words were heeded during the contest~quiet concentration gave way to team play and cooperative effort. The first game went to Harry's team, but by the second, Tuvok's group began to come together as a formidable foe, winning by two points. The gloves came off for the third contest.  A grueling, grunting, no-holds-barred spike fest ensued, perfectly choreographed volleyball reigned in the sand as senior staff went head-to-head with Ensign Kim and the holographic volleyball women. Tuvok was able to concentrate on the intense exercise throughout the preceding games, but now the young man's side was out.  The team's were tied at ten when he moved from service position to his place at the left side of the net. Sweat hung like rain drops on the spikes of his hair and from his nose.  It darkened the fabric of his shirt. Raising the hem of that shirt, Harry swiped the moisture from his face and rubbed his hair before he let the shirt fall back into place. Tuvok was unsure if he could move. From his position less than a meter away, he had a visual display far more devastating then he had expected when he was forced to attend this social event. "Ten serving ten," Neelix called as he launched the ball into the center of the opposition.  The serve was set and sent over the net to be set and returned by Chakotay and the Captain, in perfect harmony. The returning volley was not so smooth, arcing toward Tuvok as he went to the net to make sure the ball hit the floor on the other side. Harry had the same idea, jumping into the ball, both men charging after the same end, meeting chest-to-chest, forehead-to-forehead in the effort to bring down the ball on the opposite side. With the touch, came jarring sensation to every nerve the Vulcan possessed. He tried to break contact while in mid air.  The lurch from physical contact brought him down on one foot and instantly off balance in the uneven sand.  A wince was the only acknowledgement of the cracked fibula. Tuvok knew Ensign Kim held out a hand to him. "Mr. Paris, I require a tricorder." Although it was a necessary request, it brought Mr. Kim's hand to his knee. Thigh.  Shoulder.  Forearm.  Tuvok's eyes were firmly shut; the pain in his ankle nothing compared to the burn of the ensign's touch. "Mr. Kim, please release me." Tuvok's voice was as even as he could manage. His eyes were shut tight, fighting for control.  "Mr. Paris will facilitate medical remediation." "But, Tuvok--." "Mr. Kim."  The voice was level, but lethal.  He opened his eyes on the young man, who pulled his hand away from contact with the Vulcan's flesh. "If you're sure." The opaque eyes narrowed as they looked at the attending Tom Paris and the broken ankle.  The game resumed with substitutes as Tom set the ankle and fired up the regenerator.  Tuvok sighed, aware of the look Mr. Paris sent his way.  Even though his eyes were closed. --- Tuvok was relieved of duty the next day, ostensibly, to heal. Actually, to regroup.  To fast, to sit in a meditative position, to contemplate the feel of Ensign Kim's hand on his body; the sweat slick stomach and chest. No amount of withdrawal, meditation, motive examination would help him remove the images from his soul.  From his heart.  From his groin. He was naked.  Had been since he had returned from his disturbing trip to the holodeck.  His attraction, and its accompanying distraction, had caused his careless accident.  For a moment he wondered how many credits would be required to replicate a hair shirt.  The smile of self-deprecation settled in his brain. And his door chime rang. His eyes closed and his nostrils flared, there was no need to ask who stood on the other side of the closed door.  Harry Kim was an obstacle placed by Surak, to teach Tuvok a very painful lesson in Vulcan fallibility.  He had been sent an able tutor. Tuvok rose to don his mediation robe.  He had fastened the last clasp when he called for the door to open.  In spilled the young man who had become his burden. "Hey, Tuvok,"  he stopped several meters away, giving the floor length robe the once over.  "Wanted to see how you were doing." "I am recovered." "Good, glad to hear it."  Harry stood and looked around. The room was dark--no stars, no meditation candles.  The only light was a dim one in Tuvok's bedroom.  "You want to play some K'Alto?" "No, thank you." Harry's eyes rested on Tuvok, the question hovering, unsaid. The human was very young.  Too young.  Smart, articulate, attractive.  A worthy companion for discussion.  But, too young to ever form a lasting bond with Tuvok. "Come on, Tuvok."  Harry laughed that nervous laugh that indicated to Tuvok the young man was unsure of himself. "You may leave." The dark eyes of the one so young flared. Tuvok prepared himself for the flash of temper by taking a step backward. Harry followed.  "You are not going to ditch me with insubordination this time, sir."  His voice was strong. "There is something wrong between us and I'm not leaving until you let me know what it is." Tuvok took another step backward.  "I cannot say." "Damn it, Tuvok," his frustration was high. "Can't you just step over that Vulcan line and help me out here?" "I cannot." The young eyes were now aflame.  "'I cannot.'  What the heck is wrong with you?" Tuvok warred with himself and the teachings of Surak, reviewing one hundred possible replies.  He rejected them all as he leveled his coal dark eyes on the man before him. "I love you." He turned and walked into his bedroom. "Shit," he heard Harry say as he followed Tuvok into the bedroom. Tuvok watched the ensign look around the dim room, fists clenching and unclenching.  He looked back at the dark stone face. "Did you mean it?" he asked at last. The brows came together, for a moment, then smoothed out as did the rest of his face.  The eyes examined Harry--no flare or spark of interest could be discerned by the young man. "I have said it." "Vulcans prevaricate,"  Harry shot back, moving further into the room, but still a meter away from the older man. One slow brow rose. "And they dissemble,"  he said as he took another step closer, a space invading step. This was difficult for the Vulcan; he wanted to step away from the devastating young man, but to do so would acknowledge the weakness, give in to the emotion.  Tuvok, in a moment of insight, now understood the human phrase "stiff necked pride". His shoulders relaxed imperceptibly, unless you were a hawk-like ensign less than a foot away.  "We must talk." "I'd say so."  Relief washed over Harry.  Tuvok was aware that understanding of any given situation was important to the young man. The more Mr. Kim could understand in this untried part of the universe, the more comfortable he was. Harry led the way to the couch and threw himself onto it, sprawling his arms wide across the back.  Tuvok sat in the lone single chair, feeling exposed and out of his sphere of experience.  He sat forward in the chair, hands gripped his knee caps so tight he vaguely wondered how much more pressure would be necessary to crush them. K'Ohnar--totally exposed, totally embarrassed.  His burden did not feel lighter with the exposure. "I'm floored, Tuvok.  You just told me you loved me, right?" He didn't expect a response; Tuvok made none. "The three little words," he continued to muse to the ceiling. "If you said them, you meant them.  Vulcans don't lie." A cliché, but true.  Tuvok took great risk saying the words aloud. "But love is an emotion." Tuvok sat very still, his fingers tight on his patellae.  "Love can surpass emotion and become a state of being," he said with the usual Vulcan detachment made Harry wonder if he was speaking with an android. "Christ.  This is hard to believe." "Not so difficult, Mr. Kim." The young man turned his dark expressive eyes to Tuvok, and the older man swallowed visibly. "Tuvok, you're a Vulcan, I'm a human. One young enough to be your great grandson." This he knew.  The Vulcan had reminded himself of those facts over and over in the litany of his shame.  But, "Vulcans have been known to successfully consort with humans." A sort of smile crept onto Harry's face, a small sign of the return of control. "Why would a Vulcan **want** to consort with a human?" A great deal of pressure would be required to crush the Vulcan's knee caps. Tuvok's nostrils flared with the effort to keeping from lurching forward to show him just why. "Why?"  Harry asked again. "Mr. Kim, I will very soon be beyond words.  My control is slipping. May I show you?" Harry frowned and shrugged.  "Sure.  What do you want me to do?" Tuvok's brow rose.  Harry had just agreed to a mind meld.  "I must clarify what I have asked---" "No, you don't," Harry interrupted as he scooted forward on the sofa to come nearly knee-to-knee with his senior officer. "You can't express what you want to tell me verbally.  You need to do a mind meld.  Okay, go ahead." Okay, go ahead.  Humans move headlong into something they do not understand simply because they trust the one leading them.  At this moment, Tuvok was unsure at to whether or not that was one of their good points.  He indicated that Harry should kneel before him. Kneeling a breath away from the young man, Tuvok raised the ever steady fingers of his hands to the trusting face waiting for his touch.  Tuvok knew the damage he could cause the human, going into the young, untrained mind when Tuvok, himself, was unprepared.  But his self control was in short supply. "My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts…." They were both kneeling in Tuvok's quarters, but they were now naked. Harry felt surprise and fear. But Tuvok was there, assuring them both. Harry was aware of the K'Alto board, long talks, grueling security training, Tuvok's effort to maintain an equilibrium in a life turned upside down by his unending love and unquenchable desire for the young man before him. Harry now felt the warm moisture of an engulfing mind. It was not a warm, moist mind, but in Harry's mind, a warm, moist mouth that engulfed his semi-erect penis.  His mind was overcome with erotic thoughts. Reflexive movement brought Harry's hands to the hair springing at the back of the dark head, reflex pushed the questing face into the now surging groin. Harry felt the waves of desire assault him as Tuvok performed a new skill, gave a gift he had never given before. "Yes," Harry muttered and moved one sure hand to grip Tuvok's lean shoulder. The other human hand moved to caress and fondle his own balls as they tingled with the fire of a billion nerve endings. Tuvok's enthusiasm nearly knocked Harry backward and onto his butt. Harry gently pushed at Tuvok's jaw. "You're going to blow my brains out if you don't slow down." Harry found himself kneeling behind Tuvok in the ethereal, wispy world of their minds. Tuvok's dark flanks took on a burnished quality in this nether world. Harry's hand reached to the hard muscles that twisted along his back and butt and back of his legs.  Fingers grazed the occasional spring of hair, slid through the thin layer of perspiration. Questing fingers were sliding across the tightening flesh of the dark buttocks to slip between the globes.  Harry felt the sigh, savored the passage of emotion under his fingers.  His fingers moved easily to their target, the sensitive ring, the center of almost all of Tuvok's insensibility. The Vulcan arched at the gentle brushing of fingers on his skin, grunting when the pressure turned intent, pushing back as fingers moved their way into his sensitive core.  Tuvok felt each finger probe and stretch him, prepare him for carnal possession.  Strong, steady fingers remained as they were as the erection nudged its way to entrance.  The fingers were removed as the hot arousal pushed its way past the preparatory digits.  Soon Tuvok was filled with the hot stiff lance that he had longed for, dreamed for and its presence within him was almost holy. "And your body is a temple?"  The irony of Harry's thoughts brought Tuvok from his lofty dogma.  Tuvok rammed back into the straining presence within him to remind the ensign that he was not alone in this communion. "Uh-uh.  Okay, Tuvok.  I get the message:  you're not here by yourself." Harry struggled to keep the end away, but he couldn't.  Not with the quality and quantity of arousing visions coursing through his mind at a speed very nearly beyond his comprehension.  The pace quickened, grunts and groans intensified, the words both shouted were unrecognizable as language. "Touch it."  Harry's voice wafted through him. "It's gotta be ready to split its seams.  So hot, you are so tight." Harry's thoughts overwhelmed Tuvok's mind as much as any sensation of touch could have. His hands grasped the hard silken flesh, his own fingers tightening around the raging source of his turmoil.  Strong fingers closed around his shoulders to bring Tuvok back and up to a seat on Harry's thighs. Slowly, surely, Harry rocked Tuvok back and forth, pushing far up into Tuvok to touch his very soul.  One pale hand moved from the dark, slick collar bone to graze the hard pec and nipple to latch on to the flesh at the ribcage. Tuvok could feel the beginnings of Harry's climax.  Although the sensation would normally begin in the young man's genitals, this orgasm was from his brain, and the simultaneous tightening of one arm around his ribcage, one arm snaked around to grasp a shoulder.  Harry launched forward, nearly pushing Tuvok from his place, again, again, forcing the liquid evidence of his arousal deep within the grasping passage.  The fierce, hot evidence of Tuvok's own lust shot into his hands, coating their palms and a good portion of the floor. "Ah," Harry shouted and jumped back, almost losing his balance.  He gaped at Tuvok, blinking back into reality.  His mouth opened and shut.  He licked dry lips. Dazed, he looked down at the dark stain in the crotch of his uniform. "Oh. My.  God." "Ensign--" Harry looked at Tuvok, eyes wild and scared.  "I gotta get out of here." From his position on his knees, Tuvok watched Harry make a stumbling retreat from his quarters.  After a detached examination of his own stained garment, the Vulcan contemplated Surak's teachings on ritual suicide. He discarded that idea.  Suffering for emotional transgressions were more to Tuvok's tastes. Voyager's computers would not allow the water in his shower to get hot enough to flay his skin. --- The End