The BLTS Archive - Please by Kelly (rather_be_reading@yahoo.com) --- Disclaimer: The Trek universe belongs to Paramount. Note: This odd tale is a sequel to Boadicea's suggestive, compelling What You Want. You might want to read that story first. (You can probably follow this story without reading that one. But if you skip it, you'll be missing a fine fanfic. And red velvet furniture.) Warnings: Minor spoilers for "Equinox, Part II." Also, if what you want is romantic J/C, you might prefer not to continue. --- She had the Seska dream regularly now. The dream in which Seska would bind her, strip her, touch her, kiss her. "Be good," the dream Seska would whisper. "Say 'please.' Say 'please fuck me, Seska.'" And Janeway would. Say it. In the dream. And then she would feel Seska's hands stroking her breasts, Seska's tongue tracing her mouth, Seska's fingers slipping inside her. The orgasms were strong, fierce, almost painful. In the dream. Much more intense than anything she'd ever experienced while awake. There was often someone else present in the dream. Sometimes it would be a Mark she hardly recognized. Sometimes it would be Seven of Nine, her voice joining with Seska's. "Captain. Say 'please.'" Once it had been Rudy Ransom. At the sight of him, Janeway had jerked awake immediately, heart pounding, mouth dry, mind filled with the echoes of alien shrieks. Most of the time, she retained only hazy memories of the others in the dream. Unless the other was Chakotay. When it was Chakotay, she remembered. It was usually Chakotay. And it was always Seska. The others might vary, but Seska never did. Each time, it was Seska. Each time, her dream touch inflamed Janeway. Each time, she spoke the same words: "I'm not going to do anything you don't want. . .Maybe you hate this about yourself. . .You don't want to be the Captain in bed." When Janeway thought about the dream, it was Seska she wondered about. Wondered why dead Seska could arouse her when living people no longer did, at least not while she was awake. Wondered why someone who was dead had come to seem so much more real to her than anyone who was alive. But she didn't answer these questions. Because she rarely let herself think about the dream at all. --- Janeway lay unmoving in bed, surrounded by the darkness of her quarters. Just now, as almost always recently, it had been Chakotay. In the dream. "It's not the real Chakotay, sweetheart," Seska had said as usual. "Not the puppy dog who follows you around." This Chakotay, this not-real Chakotay, had spoken to her in his quiet dream tone, soft and steely, ineffably commanding. She always obeyed his orders now. In the dream. This time, he had said, "Kathryn. Come here." And she had tried to go to him. But then the paralysis so common to dreams had overtaken her. She stood motionless, even though she could feel her limbs straining to respond. All at once, the not-real Chakotay had been in front of her, lifting her against the bulkhead, pushing her legs apart, entering her roughly. "That's the way you want him to take you," Seska had said tonight, as she always did. "You don't want to be the Captain in bed." When she first had the dream, months ago, Janeway had fought the not-real Chakotay. She didn't fight any more. She hadn't fought tonight. In the dream. Instead, she had looked over Chakotay's shoulder and watched Seska pace smirking behind him. ". . .his now, darling," Seska seemed to be saying. "Not the Captain. . ." Janeway couldn't quite hear because dream-Chakotay had continued speaking as he thrust into her, using that voice that took away all her choices. "You didn't come to me when I said to. That was a bad call, Kathryn. You crossed the line. I'm warning you. I won't let you do that again. Won't let you. Won't let you." Then the dream orgasm had begun. And Janeway had awakened. She lay still. After the dream, she always lay still, not moving until she could once again feel the texture of the sheet she clutched in her hands, could feel the slope of the pillow under her head. Not moving until she could locate the ceiling, find the viewport. Tonight, as usual, the dream Seska had said, "It's not the real Chakotay." But it was. It was the real Chakotay. It hadn't been, not in the beginning, not when she first had the dream. But it was now. Janeway knew that, suddenly. She realized that she had been hearing his dream voice for months, hearing it aloud. Outside the dream. He had used it when he had spoken the dream words to her during the waking nightmare of the Equinox. "I'm warning you; I won't let you cross that line again." She had relieved him of duty then, but the tone had remained when he returned. Often, on the bridge, he would question her decisions without questioning. "You're going down there." "You're going to give them the information." His inflection so subtle, not quite doubting, not quite incredulous. Yet both. Or he would give orders that he knew she would countermand. When she did, he would subside. But his words were not without effect. The crew was becoming accustomed to seeing him lead, to comparing their commands, to hearing his voice compete with hers. Sometimes, of course, she did not reverse his orders. They were often appropriate, necessary. But sometimes, she let his orders stand because they were given in the dream voice, in the tone that she did not disobey. Now, she heard his voice again in her mind. The voice from her dream. And from her bridge. Soft, controlled, implacable. "I won't let you." He had considered mutiny. Had decided against it, he said, because that would have been crossing the line. But evidently he saw the line, saw it sharply drawn. How long before he redrew it where he wanted it? "I won't let you." The line was already his, not hers. How could she be captain then, if she was forced to command only within his lines? "I won't let you." Rising, Janeway went to her dresser and opened a drawer. She removed a small vial and stood holding it, not looking at it. It was something she had bought when they had docked at the Markonian space outpost a month or so after the loss of the Equinox. She had come upon the vendor by accident, in an out-of-the- way corner of the marketplace. He had shown her an array of hallucinogens. "All safe, all legal," he of course had insisted. The container of silvery liquid had attracted her. "Does your species dream?" the trader had asked. "That compound will adapt to the synaptic patterns of any race that experiences dreams during sleep. For a few hours, the brain becomes hyper-receptive to suggestion. You tell the sleeper what you want their dream to be, and they will dream it. Over and over again. Just a few drops. That's all it takes." Just a few drops. She had made the purchase, not bothering to bargain, paying the first price the vendor asked. The vial had rested snugly in her pocket as she left the marketplace. She found its heft reassuring. Janeway had analyzed the liquid when she returned to Voyager. As the trader had claimed, it seemed safe enough. So she had kept it, more as something to have than as something to use. Like the emergency suicide implants every Starfleet captain knew how to activate. After a while, she did not consciously think of the dream compound. But she knew it was there. Needed to know it was there. She needed to know that when the time came that she could no longer bear the pain and pleasure of her Seska dream, she could change it. She could swallow the drops of silver -- just a few -- and then ask someone she still trusted to sit beside her as she slept and tell her a new dream. One that did not involve dead people she thought she had hated and living people she thought she had loved. That had been her plan, half-formed, unarticulated, comforting. Now she held the vial and thought about dreams that could be altered. --- Janeway let herself into Chakotay's quarters in the dark. Another line crossed, no doubt. If she wanted to, she could find a way to give Chakotay the drug without his knowledge. Then. . .what? Give him new dreams? New lines? Her lines? She wondered where she would draw her lines. "Chakotay," she said softly. He slept deeply, not stirring when she spoke. She moved to the edge of the bed and saw his face in the starlight. He looked peaceful, kindly. It was an expression he had often worn long ago, before the Delta Quadrant had changed him. Changed her. Changed everything. She might have loved Chakotay once. She was no longer sure. She touched his face lightly and left his room. --- Janeway lay in bed, surrounded by the darkness of her quarters, not thinking of Chakotay. And not thinking of Seska. Seska was dead. As she settled into the pillows, drowsiness overcoming her, she heard Seska's voice. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want, darling," Seska said. "But I am going to kiss you now. Properly." "Yes," Janeway whispered. "Say. . ." "Please. Please, Seska." --- The End