The BLTS Archive- My Chakotay
#12: Angry Murmurs
by MaisieRita (MaisieRita@aol.com)

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copyright 1999

Disclaimer: Paramount owns 'em. I borrow 'em from time to time.

Warning: Extreme weirdness. Random shifts in pronouns.

Feedback: Please! All constructive comments will be seriously
considered. Grammar nits welcome. <g>

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Pain.

Blinding pain.

Every nerve ending in my body is on fire. The only thing that's
keeping me moving is the instinct to get as far away from Chakotay's
quarters as possible. Through the red haze coloring my vision I see
members of the crew. They're staring at me and backing away. Some of
them are drawing their phasers. I'm not strong enough to keep myself
whole if they fire so I make them drop the phasers instead. I hear the
clatter as the phasers drop to the floor and I don't even stop to
wonder how I did it.

I just keep moving.

It's hard for me to think. The demons are in my head, screaming in
pain, and I'm living through every agonizing second of every agonized
death that the unlucky ones are dying. It might be tolerable if I
thought that more than a minute fraction of the demons were dying, but
I can tell that only a few of the uncounted thousands are experiencing
the true death. Some of the others are injured. I feel their agony
too, but I know that they'll recover. The rest are unaffected,
shielded somehow by their brothers.

They're all angry.

I'm at a turbolift and I collapse inside it, waiting for the doors to
shut before calling for my destination. It only takes a minute for the
turbolift to bring me there, but in that time I'm almost crippled by
the demons' pain. God, if this is how they feel every time I give
Chakotay a blow job, no wonder they leave me alone for a while
afterwards . . .

The doors to the turbolift are open but I don't think I have the
strength to get up and move. I'm arguing with myself about it,
struggling to my feet, when I see the security team rounding the
corner, phasers drawn.

Shit. I can't deal with this right now.

It only takes a thought and they're down, bodies sprawled limply in
the corridor, hands still gripping the melted remnants of their
phasers.

The improbability of it doesn't bother me as I step carefully over
their unconscious forms, heading towards the one refuge I have left to
me on this ship. There's only one place I can go, one person who can
help take the pain away now that Chakotay can't . . . I sag against
the door frame as I ring the chime and I pray to all the gods I've
ever heard of that she's home.

The gods must be listening today, because the door slides open almost
instantly and she's standing there, staring at me with wide brown eyes
that are more than a little afraid.

"Tom," she breathes, engineer's eyes appraising my condition in an
instant.

"B'Elanna," I manage to croak back. "It hurts . . ."

She doesn't say a word. She just stands there, outlined by the door
frame, staring at me, and I finally see the phaser in her hand. She
has to know that a single phaser isn't going to harm me, so I guess
she's got it out just to let me know that she doesn't trust me. I
don't blame her. I wouldn't trust me either, if I were her.

"I won't hurt you, B'Elanna," I whisper. "Please, you have to help
me."

Another demon dies the eternal death and I cry out as his pain tears
through me, paralyzing me. Suddenly, the effort of staying upright is
too much, and the last thing I feel before I slam into the floor is
the brush of B'Elanna's arms as she reaches out too late to catch me.

When I come back to myself, I'm lying on the bed in her darkened
quarters, stripped to the waist and aware of nothing other than the
cool cloth she's running over my forehead. The pain has dimmed
somewhat, to moderately tolerable levels, and I shift slightly to let
her know I'm back among the living.

"Hey," she says softly. She dips the cloth in a dish of cold water and
runs it over my forehead again. I can't stop a sigh of relief from
escaping my lips as the cool fabric hits my brow.

"Hey." The screaming in my head has abated, and all I'm left with now
are moans of the dying demons and the angry murmurs of the living
ones. It's not exactly peaceful up there, but it's infinitely better
than the chaos that erupted the moment Chakotay's orgasm hit. She
doesn't say anything for a little while, but instead keeps running the
cloth over my forehead, and down and across my chest. For a minute,
I'm at peace.

Finally, she drops the cloth back into the bowl and sits back on the
edge of the bed, staring at me. It's another minute before she speaks.
"Your eyes are purple."

I nod. "I know."

"Why?"

I shrug and then wince, regretting the slight movement instantly. "I'm
not sure. It has something to do with the demons. They're still in me
. . . "

She frowns fiercely. "Are they making you do it?"

"Do what?"

"The things you did."

I'm honestly not sure what she's talking about. "Which things?"

She stares at me intently for a long time. When she speaks, she's
searching my eyes for my reaction. "Five of Tuvok's security officers
are in Sickbay, Tom. You knocked them out somehow. They haven't
regained consciousness yet."

I remember, vaguely, stepping over the unmoving bodies of the security
team in the hall. I remember the flare of red heat shooting towards
them and melting the phasers in an instant. I remember the
exhilaration of absolute power, infinite and terrible, searing through
my veins. I remember . . .

The demons sing in me, urging my thoughts farther down this path,
until I force myself to remember Chakotay's joy at his moment of
completion. Shrieking in agony, the demons subside, but not without a
price.

I groan in resignation as the pain returns. I don't know how much
longer I can take this, how much longer I can keep fighting them. It
already feels like it's been forever. B'Elanna's words play back
through my mind.

"Those five officers . . . you said they haven't regained
consciousness yet."

"That's right," she says, nodding with a frown as she feels my body
tense beneath her probing fingers. Without my asking, she takes the
cloth from the bowl and begins to run it across my forehead again.
It's the 'yet' that's troubling me. "How long have I been here?"

"About two hours," she says neutrally. "You don't remember any of it?"

"No," I say, wincing as my nerves flare again. "No, I don't. Last
thing I remember is falling to the floor."

"I tried to catch you," she says, dipping the cloth in the water
another time for one more pass across my forehead. "I almost did." She
puts the cloth back in the bowl and gently maneuvers me onto my
stomach so she can work at the knots in my back. "I had to carry you
into my quarters."

"Sorry," I mumble into the pillow.

She chuckles. "Don't be. It's not the first time I've carried you to
bed." She's massaging the knots in my back with practiced fingers, and
as the knots in my back start to yield to her magic, the pain in my
head starts to subside again. "I have to admit," she says quietly, "I
hadn't expected ever to carry you to bed again. Why are you here,
Tom?"

I'm silent for so long she has to prod me again.

"Tom?"

"I needed your help," I say finally.

She takes a breath. "Chakotay?"

I shake my head as best I can. "He can't help me anymore. Not the way
he used to."

"Why not?"

I'm oddly hesitant to tell her, but I do. "We tried to. . . do what we
do together. . . and it hurt so much, I almost couldn't finish . . .
but I did and then when it was over I thought . . . I thought I was
going to die, and I just knew I had to get away from him."

Her fingers still for an instant. "Why?"

"It hurt . . . god, B'Elanna, you can't imagine how much it hurt."

"I don't understand. I thought you and Chakotay were just
. . . " She can't bring herself to say it. "I don't understand why
that would hurt you."

"It hurts the demons somehow. I don't understand it either, but when
Chakotay co- . . . when he finishes . . . it hurts them. And now that
they're in me . . ."

"It hurts you too."

"Yes. I can't do that again, B'Elanna. I just can't. I couldn't even
stay in the same room with him."

"So you came here."

"I didn't know where else to go."

She's quiet. "Then this -- your being here -- it doesn't mean that you
. . . that we're . . . "

I wince. "No. I'm sorry, B'Elanna, but I can't-"

She cuts me off before I can make things any worse. "It's okay, Tom.
I'm not looking to get back together with you. I was just making sure
*you* weren't looking to get back together with me."

Now it's my turn to be quiet. "Oh."

She sighs, but her fingers continue to ease the tension out of my
back. "Tom, I love you. I've loved you for a long time. But you're not
easy, you know that? Loving you is like . . . fighting a war. All the
time. And now that I know that you don't love me back, I don't think I
have the strength to keep on fighting." There's a brief pause before
she adds softly, "And frankly, this whole demon business is scaring
the hell out of me."

I snort into the pillow. "It's scaring the hell out of me, too. Thank
you for taking care of me. I half expected to wake up in Sickbay
strapped down to a biobed."

"Chakotay convinced the Captain that it would be a mistake to try to
restrain you again."

I frown and turn over on my side to look at her. "Chakotay convinced
the Captain? They were here?"
She nods.

"When?"

"I commed them right after I got you onto the bed." She won't meet my
eyes and I can't tell whether it's because she's embarrassed or just
bothered by the violet. "Chakotay put out an alert as soon as you left
his quarters."

It annoys me even though it shouldn't, particularly. "So you dragged
me in here and then called Security to come take me away?"

"No," she says calmly. "I *carried* you in here and then called
Chakotay to let him know where you were."

"And let them in so they could check up on me. If he'd told the
Captain to take me back to Sickbay, would you have let them do it?"

"Probably."

"They'd have tied me down, B'Elanna. Damn it, you *know* I can't take
that."

"I didn't think it was my decision-"

"Bullshit. I came here because I thought you would help me!"

Her anger's growing to match mine. "I *did* help you."

"Only because Chakotay said it was okay!"

"You were delirious and your eyes were purple and they told me you
were possessed by *demons*. What the hell did you expect me to do?"

"Don't yell at me," I answer, irritated, and am obscurely gratified
when she flinches back a bit. "So they decided I wasn't a threat, and
just left me here?"

She's still unnerved, and some little part of me is thrilled to see
it. "Not exactly."

It only takes a second to get it, and when I do I feel the irrational
anger building again. "How many of them are out there?"

She won't look at me. "I don't know."

"Bullshit." She's lying. I can smell it in her sweat.

Without another word I close my eyes and open my mind to the corridor
outside B'Elanna's quarters. There are twelve of them posted there,
all armed with phaser compression rifles. They're tense, but not as
tense as they should be . . . I expand my awareness a little more and
sense it. "Level eight containment field?" I chuckle. "You really
think that will hold me?"

She's off the bed now, backing away, and she's holding the phaser
again. At this moment, B'Elanna Torres is more afraid than I've ever
seen her. I watch her edge her way across the room, enjoying the heady
rush of dark emotions that swirl within me, and decide to press the
advantage. We're not going to hurt her, but she doesn't know that, and
her fear makes us stronger.

"That phaser won't do any good, you know."

"It's been modified," she says, barely a quiver in her voice.

"Not enough," we answer, rising from the bed. "You'd have to set it on
kill to do any damage to the demons. I don't think you're quite
prepared to do that, B'Elanna."

"I would if I had to," she blusters.

I shake my head. "You're lying again. You just told me you love me.
You would never try to kill me."

"If it would stop the demons . . . "

I shake my head again. "It wouldn't. Kill me and they'll just find
another host." Another untruth, but an effective one. Her anxiety
level rises and we grow stronger proportionately. It's almost funny
how easy this is, how simple it is to control the fear of others.
Hell, they *want* to be scared. It's been this way since the first
primitive human scratched his first primitive painting on the wall,
and spoke to his tribe of the dark forces that controlled the rains
and the storms. We exist precisely because they want us to. They need
us to scare them.

B'Elanna backs into the wall and we approach, trapping her there,
running one finger down her face to trace her elegant cheekbones. "I'm
not going to hurt you, B'Elanna," we breathe into her ear, enjoying
the way she stiffens in fear despite our soothing words.

"You've always helped me. Not like the others."
Her breathing is rapid and harsh. "Tom, stop it. This isn't you. The
demons are making you feel this way. Chakotay said they can make you
angry . . ."

I slam my fist into the wall right near her head, and to her credit,
she barely flinches. "I don't want to talk about Chakotay!" I roar,
beating down the traitorous part of me that wants, more than anything,
to talk about him. "He used me, B'Elanna, just like the others,
*worse* than the others, because he tricked me into thinking I
actually wanted to do it. He had me right where he wanted me, and he
didn't even have the decency to pay me . . . "

"No," she says, barely whispering the word. "No, Tom, you're confused.
It was your idea, you said so yourself. Chakotay wasn't using you, he
was helping you-"

"No!" I shout. "You're wrong, you're lying-"

"I'm not," she insists. "I swear it, Tom. It was your idea to go to
him. Always, from the beginning, it was always your idea-"

"Quiet!" I command, and when she opens her mouth again I silence her
by force, if force is the right word to use when all it takes, really,
is a simple thrust with my mind. Our minds. Together we look at
B'Elanna's limp form crumpled on the floor, and feel a smile cross his
Human lips. The female has been silenced before she could undo our
hard work with the One who is our host and deliverance from the
darkness. The battle has been long and the casualties great, but our
power sings within him now and he can no longer deny its glory.

He is *ours*.

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The End