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Picture Perfect
by Lianne Burwell
September 1998
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Commander Chakotay stepped from the turbolift onto Voyager's bridge, a 
smile on his lips and a song in his heart. His stomach was grumbling, 
since he'd missed breakfast, but he didn't care.

Captain Janeway looked up and her lips curved into what was probably 
supposed to be a smile, but was more a smirk. Maybe even a leer.

"Mr. Paris is going to be a couple minutes late, I take it?"

Chakotay's smile widened into a grin as he contemplated the husband that 
had put the smile there, and just *how* he had put it there. "He's on his 
way. He let me take the first shower."

Janeway's smirk was now definitely a leer. "Don't trust yourself in a 
shower with him?" she asked in a mild tone.

Chakotay just kept grinning, and didn't answer the question. He sat down 
and started going though his notes for the day.

Five minutes later, the turbolift door wooshed open and Tom Paris strode 
down the ramp to relieve the conn. Chakotay found himself watching his 
husband's ass as Tom sat in his seat, wincing slightly. He realized that 
he had lost track of what he should be doing when the Captain's hand waved 
in front of his face.

Hey, he was entitled. He'd only been married for twenty-seven days, 
eighteen hours and... thirty-four minutes.

But who was counting?

* * * * *

Not long after that peaceful morning, Voyager entered a nearly empty 
region of space. As day followed day, nothing new was happening.

At first, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They were still repairing 
the damage from a series of encounters with a race whose territory they 
had just left behind.

But then the repairs were finished. Now they could finally catalogue and 
analyze several *years* worth of readings, left untouched due to more 
pressing matters (like survival).

But even that can't fill everyone's time. First it started with hints of 
boredom. Then there were the temper flare-ups. Then the fights. After 
weeks without any *outside* trouble it got to the point where there 
wasn't a single duty rotation where there was not at least one crewmember 
cooling their heels in the brig.

They needed a distraction.

* * * * *

Tom Paris, ship's pilot and (gasp) happily married man, headed into the 
messhall to find himself some breakfast. Normally, he'd be eating with 
his 'Cuddles', but Chakotay had to get to his office early, to go over 
the crew assignments for the next duty rotation. Tom was looking forward 
to having a rotation away from sickbay. He'd put in for hydroponics this 
time, and was pretty sure he'd get it (and, no, not because he was 
sleeping with the first officer).

He nodded to Neelix, as he collected his breakfast (don't look to 
closely, Tom m'boy), then went to join Harry.

"Goooood morning!"

Harry looked at him and shook his head. "If I had known that getting 
married was going to scramble your brains this way..."

Tom smirked. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Harry. Are you saying 
I was a gloomy gus before getting together with Chakotay?"

"Nope. You just weren't so... chipper."

Tom just snickered, and started eating his (don't look and don't *taste*) 
breakfast.

As he ate (don't think about what it might be), Tom picked up the PADD 
sitting on the table. Another one of Neelix's 'great' ideas, to go along 
with his 'Briefing with Neelix'.

During their stop in the twentieth century, Neelix had also 
(unfortunately) gotten a hold of a copy of a tabloid newspaper, full of 
rumors and gossip. The result was a weekly report on PADD - for those who 
managed to avoid 'Briefing' - that combined newsletter, gossip and 
(shudder) advice column.

Tom was flipping through sections when he suddenly choked on his (don't 
look, don't taste and *don't* hurl) breakfast. In the gossip section he 
was looking at a picture of himself.

Dressed in a harem outfit. Lying on a bed. Very obviously aroused, even 
if decently covered. It was from the anniversary program he'd put 
together for Chakotay.

But how had Neelix got it? And how many people had seen it?

Tom took a quick look around, and soon had his answer. There were 
clusters of people around each of the PADDs, and about half of them were 
looking in his directions. Some were smirking. Some were blushing. 
Several were leering.

Tom got to his feet, and stormed towards the kitchen. "Neelix, what the 
hell is this?"

Neelix wiped his hands on his apron. "Ah yes! The new issue of 'Briefing 
in Print'. I'm quite proud of this one."

"Oh, really? Well you better have a good explanation for *this*," Tom 
said, thrusting the PADD at him. Neelix looked at the screen and gasped.

"Oh dear!" he said in what *looked* like horror. It was a little hard to 
tell with a Talaxian. "I did *not* put that in. I'm not sure how it got 
there. I'll take care of it right away, Tom."

Tom watched Neelix hurry off to collect the PADDs from all the tables, 
and realized that everyone in the room was looking at him. Suddenly his 
appetite was gone, and he decided that he better get to the sickbay for 
his shift. And quickly.

He wasn't sure who pinched his butt, as he made his way to the door, and 
he wasn't sure he *wanted* to know.

* * * * *

It took a couple of days for things to settle down, but Chakotay had 
thought his husband would go insane first. Tom couldn't walk down the 
corridor without wolf-whistles, or someone pinching him, or making an 
obscene suggestion.

Okay, Tom had gone through the same thing after the original kidnapping - 
the one that started their relationship - but there was a difference 
between hearing about the outfit, *seeing* it. Several people had seen 
him walk through the corridors to his quarters in the harem outfit, but 
there was no permanent record, and most of the crew had only heard about 
it second-hand. This time... Well, Neelix had done his best, but a large 
number of people had already downloaded the image to personal PADDs, and 
even a request from the Captain that they delete them didn't seem to do 
much good, other than to embarrass Tom further.

And then there were the anonymous gifts and messages. Replicated 
chocolates and flowers. Offers of back-rubs. Offers of... more, often 
described in graphic detail. Chakotay had even used a few of those 
descriptions. Mushy cards left on Tom's seat at the start of his shift, 
which *everyone* denied having seen placed there. Paper hearts stuck to 
the doors of their quarters. Chakotay found it all rather amusing, but 
valued his skin too much to let Tom know that.

In the back of his mind was also the secret relief that it had been Tom, 
and not himself.

* * * * *

Chakotay had just entered the Captain's ready room, PADD with the details 
on how the cross-training program was proceeding in hand, when he heard 
her gasp. He looked over to where the Captain was standing, next to the 
replicator. In one hand has a cup of coffee (what else would it be?) and 
in the other she was holding a square object. It looked like paper. In 
fact, it looked like...

Chakotay pulled the square from the grinning woman's grasp. Yep. It was a 
photograph, on old-style paper. More to the point, it was a photograph of 
himself. In a loincloth. A very *small* loincloth, which barely covered 
his... assets. He was wearing the teeny loincloth and paint, and giving 
the camera a come-hither look.

Chakotay felt the blood rush to his groin, for a moment, remembering the 
circumstances of Tom taking that picture. Then common sense reasserted 
itself.

"Where did you get this?" he demanded. The Captain was snickering now.

"I ordered a cup of coffee, and when it appeared *that* was propped up 
against it."

Somehow, Chakotay had a sneaking suspicion that this was *not* the only 
replicator that was going to be handing out party favors that day.

* * * * *

Unfortunately, he was right. It didn't take long to remove this little... 
bonus from the replicator system, but in the meantime, the replicators 
had been used twenty-six times. Only five copies of the picture were 
recovered.

This time it was Chakotay's turn to be pinched and propositioned, which 
pleased Tom to no end. After all, he pointed out, why should he be the 
only one to suffer?

The Captain assigned Tuvok to track down *how* the extra command had 
gotten into the replicator system. While no harm was done (except to the 
first officer's dignity), the fact that someone was *able* to do it was 
disturbing.

For once, Tuvok's investigations came up empty.

* * * * *

Over the next few weeks, more of the pictures showed up, in unlikely 
spots. A picture of Tom and Chakotay, kissing passionately while dressed 
as the Lone Ranger and Tonto, was discovered in one of stellar 
cartography's reports on a star they had passed by six months earlier. 
The Delaney sisters were thrilled with their find. A picture of Tom 
Paris, half-dressed in a twentieth-century Marine dress uniform, licking 
his lips in a suggestive way, was found enlarged to double life-size, and 
mounted on the wall of one of the currently unused shuttlebays. A picture 
of Chakotay, lying facedown on a beach wearing only a thong bathing suit, 
caused winces and glee when discovered in a posting about the state of the 
gell-packs in jefferies tube eight on the ship's public bulletin board 
area of the computer.

As time went by, the crew was spending more and more time trying to be 
the first to discover one of these little tidbits. In fact, they were 
spending so much time on the improntu scavenger hunt that the fights had 
stopped, and the brig was empty.

Morale was at an all-time high, except for in the Chakotay-Paris 
quarters. The residents *there* were stuck in a state of permanent 
embarrassment.

Finally, they decided that enough was enough. Time to find the culprit 
and extract revenge.

* * * * *

"All right. Who are the possibilities?"

Tom and Chakotay were seated on the sofa in their quarters, PADDs in hand.

"Neelix."

Chakotay looked up in surprise. "Neelix? You've got to be joking."

"No. After all, 'Briefing in Print' was the first place one of the images 
appeared."

"But... *Neelix*?"

"If he thought it would raise morale, he'd do it in a second."

"Okay, I'll give you that. But how would he get them? We keep them on a 
PADD, with a backup. The PADD has never left our quarters, and the backup 
is still in the back of the closet. Neelix hasn't been *in* our quarters. 
No, I think we should limit ourselves to people who have been in our 
quarters *and* left alone long enough to make a copy."

Tom frowned. Part of him *wanted* to nail Neelix for this. It wasn't 
rational, but still... However, Chakotay was right. "Okay. Harry."

"Harry?"

"Sure. Whenever you have to work late, I go to Sandrine's or the resort 
with Harry. A couple times, I've been in the bedroom, changing out of my 
uniform, while he was in here."

"Maybe, but I have a hard time picturing *Harry* doing something like 
this."

"Why? He has the computer skills to do it, and trust me, he's not as 
innocent as he looks."

"Okay. I'd suggest that *you* be the one to talk to him, though. Okay, 
let's see. B'Elanna." Tom raised an eyebrow. "You were working on a 
project with her. She came by when you weren't here, and I let her wait. I 
was in the shower."

Tom's eyes narrowed. "And it's just the sort of thing that would appeal 
to her sense of humor. Just look at what she did for our wedding night."

Both men paused a moment to remember. Chakotay snickered. In retrospect, 
the whole 'whoopie incident' was becoming funnier all the time.

"Okay, she's definitely at the top of the list. Anyone else that you can 
think of?"

Tom's forehead wrinkled as he thought. "Nooo... but..."

"Yes?"

"The Captain, Tuvok and the Doctor all have over-rides that would let 
them get in while we weren't here. As well, the Captain and Tuvok have 
the rank to cover it up in the computer."

Chakotay thought about it for a moment. "All right. I can certainly see 
Kathryn doing it, especially if she thought it would be good for morale. 
But somehow I don't think that either Tuvok or the Doc would do this."

"Agreed. Okay, that leaves us with Harry, B'Elanna and the Captain."

Chakotay nodded. "I'll check the Captain. You talk to Harry. And 
B'Elanna..."

"I'll talk to B'Elanna."

Chakotay winced a little at the smile on Tom's face.

* * * * *

Tom waited until he was off-duty to track down B'Elanna. He just *knew* 
that she was the one behind the pictures being plastered all over the 
ship. After all, who else would be twisted enough to do it?

She was in Engineering when he went to confront her. It didn't matter 
that she was in the middle of a conversation with Vorik and Kendry. 
Needless to say, Tom was beyond caring by that point.

"B'Elanna..."

"Tom! What brings you down here? I thought you'd be off-duty by now."

"You know exactly why I'm here," he said with a glower. "I don't know how 
you got those images, but this stops *now*!"

He expected a lot of things from her, but not the blank look followed by 
gales of laughter.

"Tom, why would you think it was me?" she said, wiping her eyes as the 
laughter died down.

"Three words. Whoopie. Cushion. Mattress."

B'Elanna snickered. "That was a good one, wasn't it? But, sorry Tom. I'm 
not behind the visual history of your relationship."

"Riiight," he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest. She snickered 
again.

"Listen, fly-boy. When you asked me if I was the one who doctored your 
mattress, did I deny it? No. When you asked if I was the one who started 
the rumor that you and Chakotay had been caught having sex in the 
captain's ready room, did I deny it? No. When you asked if I was the one 
who programmed the helm to make a wolf-whistle every time you started 
your shift, did I deny it? Well... yes. But Harry was the one behind 
*that* one. But I have never denied anything when confronted, so believe 
me. I am *not* the culprit this time."

Tom sighed. She was right. She'd never denied anything that he'd linked 
to her. Tom had to fight a blush, though. What would she think if she 
knew her little 'rumor' was actually true?

"If it isn't you, then who is it? B'Elanna, this has got to *stop*."

"Let me do some checking. I'll see what I can find. But I am *not* the 
one behind this little prank."

Tom sagged a little. "Thanks, B'Elanna," he said, before turning to leave.

Just before he reached the doors, though, she called out something that 
made him turn beet-red.

"Besides, if I'd gotten my hands on those pictures, I wouldn't be giving 
them away. I could make a fortune in replicator rations selling them."

"B'Elanna!!!!!"

* * * * *

"Kathryn, can I talk to you?"

The Captain looked up at Chakotay, who was standing at the door of her 
ready-room. "Of course. What can I do for you?" Chakotay felt his face 
heat up, suddenly feeling the urge to shift from foot to foot, like a 
guilty schoolchild.

"About these pictures..."

The Captain burst into a wide smile. "They are *great*, aren't they? 
Those costumes... You know, I might have expected them from Tom, not you. 
But seeing you dressed up in that Shakespearean outfit with the doublet 
and *very* tight tights..."

She got a dreamy look in her eyes, and for a moment Chakotay thought he 
was going to have to offer her a bucket to catch the drool. Then she gave 
a little shake, and refocused on him.

"So. What about them?"

Chakotay hemmed and hawed, not quite sure what he was going to say. After 
all, he couldn't just come out and suggest that she was behind his face 
(not to mention body) being plastered all over the ship, could he? 
Luckily, she beat him to it.

"You think *I* might be behind them, don't you?" She started to giggle in 
a *very* unCaptain-like way. As he turned red, the giggles became 
laughter, until she was brushing tears away. "I'm sorry to disappoint 
you, Chakotay, but I'm not your culprit. But Tuvok is still working on 
it. I'm sure he'll find out who it is."

Chakotay rolled his eyes. Tuvok hadn't had much luck so far. Scratch 
the Captain from the list of suspects. Hopefully Tom would have better 
luck.

* * * * *

"Well?"

"B'Elanna laughed herself silly, then denied it. I believe her."

"I got the same reaction from the Captain. Harry?"

"Exact same thing. In fact, he actually fell of the couch in his quarters, 
he was laughing so hard."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Beats me, Cuddles."

* * * * *

Nearly two months after entering the quiet area of space, Voyager left it, 
moving into the territory of a species that decided that Voyager's 
existence offended the sensibilities of their God, and set out to do 
something about it. Everyone took a deep breath, then got back to work.

Within weeks, the scavenger hunt had been dropped, and no new images had 
turned up. No one had the time to think about it, but two men breathed 
deep sighs of relief.

* * * * *

"Hmmm..."

Tom groaned, aroused by the gentle touch, and rolled towards it. Or, he 
*tried* to roll towards it. He quickly woke up when he realized that he 
had been tied to the bed frame.

"Chakotayyy..."

The gentle touch turned out to have been his grinning husband, who had 
been painting him with edible body paints. Looking down at himself, he saw 
swirls of red (cherry, from the scent) and blue (blueberry) decorating his 
torso and further. A spiral circled his navel. Sunbursts spread out from 
his nipples. Symbols that looked deliberate, but unfamiliar, decorated his 
arms and legs. His erect cock was completely covered in random squiggles.

And his significant other was standing on the other side of the room, 
camera in hand.

"Chakotay, this is how we got in trouble *last* time!"

"What can I say? You bring out the artist in me."

"I'd *rather* bring out the animal in you," Tom replied, trying his 
sexiest pout.

It worked. Chakotay took one more image, then tossed the camera away. He 
climbed onto the bed and lay down next to Tom.

"Well, since I've made a mess, I guess I'd better clean it up," he said 
in a purr before leaning down to lick one of the patterns on Tom's closest 
arm.

Tom moaned at the slight roughness of Chakotay's tongue as it meandered 
across his skin. Chakotay was nothing if not focused. All his attention 
was on cleaning the one arm. When he was done, he moved to the other side 
of the bed, and repeated the process on the other.

"Chakoooo-taaayyyy..." Tom whined, tugging at the restraints holding his 
arms. There was almost no give. His legs had a little more slack to play 
with, but not enough to get Chakotay to pay attention to what he *really* 
wanted to have licked.

When both arms were clean of everything except a faint sheen of saliva, 
Chakotay moved his torture to Tom's legs. Each symbol was carefully 
cleaned away, one by one, starting at the calves and working up. But 
Chakotay skipped over the groin, ignoring the protests from his frustrated 
lover.

The protests quickly became cries of a different sort when he cleaned away 
the area around one nipple, then fastened on. A steady sucking raised it 
up, even harder than it had already been. Just as the sensation was about 
to cross over from pleasure to pain, he abandoned it to go to its twin. 

The only thing left now, other than the weeping erection, was the navel, 
and Chakotay started with the outermost part of the spiral, and followed 
it in, until he reached Tom's navel. He dipped his tongue in to clean out 
the small pool that had collected inside the hollow.

By this time, Tom was about to go nuts. All he could do was lie there and 
take it. Of course, if he *really* wanted Chakotay to stop, he would, but 
it was all too exhilarating (infuriating) to want that. He resolved to 
surprise his husband this way some night in the future. After all, what 
was good for the gander was good for the *other* gander (to mangle a 
cliche).

Suddenly, he realized that he wasn't being touched anymore, even though he 
could feel the warmth of his lover's body between his legs. He forced open 
eyes that he hadn't realized he had shut, and looked down. Chakotay's 
grinning face was poised above Tom's erecting. Dribbles of pre-cum had run 
down his cock, destroying the perfection of the red and blue lines. Tom 
moaned.

"Damnit, Chakotay, if you don't finish I swear I'll program the replicator 
to only supply you with underwear made from sackcloth!"

Chakotay grinned. "I would just have to go without underwear, then."

Tom almost came just from the image that the statement conjured in his 
mind. Then that talented tongue was cleaning his erection, and he couldn't 
stop himself. He whimpered as Chakotay, semen dripping from his chin, 
finished the job, licking the over-sensitive skin clean.

Sparks were still going off behind his eyelids as he heard the sound of 
his husband taking a few more images. Then Chakotay undid the bindings, 
and pulled him into his arms.

"Damnit, Cuddles, you better lock up those pictures *good*. I don't want 
to see *them* plastered all over the ship."

A warm, earthy chuckle was his reply, and he couldn't help joining in.

"Actually," Chakotay finally said, once the laughter had faded. "I noticed 
that the only pictures used were the ones where we were decently covered."

"I suppose," Tom said with a shrug. "I still want to know who was behind 
it, though."

"We eliminated all the likely suspects."

"So it was someone a little less likely. Hey, maybe it *was* Tuvok."

"Tom!"

"Why not? He had the means, and being the investigator meant he could 
cover up. After all, he isn't going to find evidence proving *he* was the 
guilty party, is he?"

Chakotay laughed. "Very true. Let's confront him right now." He started to 
get up, but Tom pulled him back down.

"Go to sleep, big guy. Who knows. Maybe, someday, we *will* find out who 
it was. Just make sure those pictures are someplace well-hidden. I don't 
want to be Voyager pinup boy again, thank you."

"Will do, Love."

* * * * *

Tuvok sat in his office, going over the security reports from the last 
duty cycle. Other than the brief rise in disciplinary actions two months 
ago, there was little to report. He glanced at the data-cube sitting on 
his desk. The pictures had been an inspired idea, and getting them from 
the Chakotay-Paris quarters had been quite simple, if a little unethical. 
Still, it had been in the best interests of the ship, and its crew.

He dropped the data-cube in his desk drawer and set the lock. You never 
knew when it might be useful again.

THE END