Disclaimer: This story is a companion piece my previous companion 
piece Roday be Sweet(still with me?) to BratKatze's wonderful 
Today, Yesterday, My Thomas and Wishes.  It takes place in the 
same universe, and is based on events she dreamed of and wrote in 
her stories.  It is absolutely necessary to read them first to 
understand what's going on here.  This story is set the morning after 
Today be Sweet.

BratKatze has generously allowed me to play in her sandbox.  
Thanks, BK. I owe you one.

Once again the title is from arachne  - a whole poem this time(and it 
*still* seems to fit so well with BK's early titles!)  The poem is 
reporduced at the end, and even for you non-poetry-readers I 
recommend this one. We could almost adopt it as the definitive C/P 
angst poem <bg>.

Paramount: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Owns all, does nothing with it. Me 
make money out of this?  No way.

=================
What Is Tomorrow?  Part 2/2
by whitecrow
June 1998
=================


Chakotay was stunned by the violence of their joining, stunned into 
silence.  Raw thoughts gnawed at his brain - where had Tom found 
a taste for this type of sex?  Oh spirits, what had Tom become?  
What else had he learnt in the last 16 months?  Chakotay was 
appalled by the man who held him.  Who was this man?  

"Did you like that?" Tom asked softly. 

Chakotay shuddered, not sure how to answer.  It was beyond 
anything he had ever experienced, but he wasn't sure he cared to 
repeat it.  His brain kept circling around the same question, What 
had happened to Tom?  "I, uhh," he cleared his throat, trying to 
ease the pain.  "I ..."

Tom stood up, and pulled Chakotay with him.  "Pretty good, huh?  
That's a trick I learnt on... somewhere.  On the edge, isn't it?" He 
leant down, nipping at Chakotay's collarbone, and his hand slid 
down to cup Chakotay's cock and balls. "Mmmm, it's even better 
when you've had some Violet..." his hand moved gently, kneading 
the limp flesh, his teeth still biting softly.  His tongue licked at the 
small bites, soothing apologetically.

"Tom... oh spirits, what were you trying to do?" He coughed as his 
raw throat hurt, and pushed Tom away.  "What's happened to you?"  
Disgust and anger burst out of the older man, triggered by the 
confusion he was feeling.

"Showing you something a little... different," Tom replied 
flippantly. "Better get used to it, Chakotay, that's what I like, now."

Disgust and confusion fed Chakotay's anger.  He thrust Tom 
roughly up against the glass wall.  "What game are you playing 
now?  What are you trying to tell me?  I was willing to let it go, I 
was willing to believe that you hadn't changed, that deep down you 
were still the same person.  But I was wrong, spirits, how wrong I 
was!  There's nothing about you I recognise, nothing about you 
that's the same.  I don't even know who you are any more!"

"Back on the holier than thou track, eh?  It never takes long with 
you, does it, Chakotay?  Sooo quick to judge, sooo self-righteous.  
Well, fuck you, 'cos that's the way things are, now.  You don't like 
it, you can always leave it!"  Tom was furious at the disgust and 
anger in Chakotay's eyes, he was damned if he was going to let him 
get away with it!

"Oh, so that's what you want, is it?  People get too close and you 
lash out?  Doesn't matter what you say, you're always the hurt one, 
the one that nobody understands.  Well, you're gonna push too 
hard, Tom, and then there'll be no-one, no-one who cares, no-one 
who'll be around for you, no-one who'll save your sorry ass. Isn't 
that what you've always  wanted?  Just what are you running from 
this time?  Me?"

Tom struggled against Chakotay's hands as they pinned him to the 
wall with angry strength  Their bodies slid against each other, slick 
and smooth from the water that poured over them.  He pushed back 
against Chakotay, the restraining arms panicking him.

"Fuck you!  You don't have the first idea of what I've been 
through.  But it's always the same with you, isn't it?  You've gotta 
control, gotta be in charge all the time.  Experiences outside your 
norm are just *too* threatening!  Well, it's about time you grew up, 
Chakotay.  Sure I fucked around, I had no choice, but you always 
think there *is* a choice!  You're wrong, you're just so fucking 
wrong..."

Chakotay let go of him so abruptly that Tom almost fell.  Hurriedly 
the captain stepped out of the shower, and grabbed a towel.  He 
wrapped it around his waist, and strode quickly out of the 
bathroom.

Under the water Tom smiled coldly to himself.  Yup, it was all 
falling apart, just like it always did, just like everything he always 
touched fell apart.  Slowly, regretfully he turned off the water.  
Shame to end it, really, he thought, but whether he meant the 
shower or something else he didn't bother to answer.

He dried himself, and went back into the bedroom, searching 
amongst the fallen clothes for yesterday's trousers.  He was just 
looking around the adjoining room for his shirt when Chakotay 
came back.  He had stopped to pull on loose trousers, but his chest 
was bare, his hair spiky wet.  He carried something in his hand.

He looked hard at Tom, then held out the glass vial he carried.  
"*This* was something you couldn't avoid?  You had no choice but 
to take *this*?" Still furiously angry, he held the fragile glass vial 
up. The light coruscated through it, a delicate shade of purple, 
glittering, ominous.  For an instant the breath stopped in Tom's 
body, and he paled. He lunged for it, but Chakotay easily 
held him off with a large hand planted in his chest.

"We found several of these on your ship.  Why, Tom?  Why do you 
keep it with you? I thought it wasn't addictive? Or didn't you have a 
choice about that, either?"  He looked up at the vial as he turned it 
in his large fingers, waiting for Tom's answer as if he'd asked the 
most natural question in the world.

"It's... it's, ohh jesus, Chakotay give it to me.  You wouldn't 
understand ... oh god!  It's not addictive, but .."he lunged again. 
Grasping at the air as Chakotay moved the vial aside.  "You 
wouldn't understand!.... Its the feeling! You get addicted to the 
feeling, the unbelievable high, the ecstasy.  It makes everything so 
wonderful.. you don't have to hurt any more...."

"I never understood how anyone could do this to themselves, you 
know?" he glanced sideways at Tom, but didn't wait for an answer.  
His eyes slid back to the vial, mesmerised.  "Not anybody I knew, 
not anybody rational.  But you did it, Tom.  You did this to 
yourself.  I've often wondered why..."  He looked up at Tom, as the 
younger man loomed over him.  Tom's eyes were wide, he was 
terrified at what Chakotay was doing.  He could see what was going 
to happen as if it was scripted out for him.  He suddenly couldn't 
bear to watch Chakotay do this to himself.

"Don't, Chakotay, please, don't..." he moaned.

"I thought I knew you.  I thought I understood you, what you were 
capable of, and what you weren't.  I was wrong, wasn't I?  So 
wrong..." Chakotay sighed.  "Well, I don't want to be wrong.  I 
want to know.  I want to know how it feels, how wonderful it really 
is.  Will I understand you then, Tom?  Will I know how your mind 
moves, how your heart changes?" He looked at Tom again.  "Will I 
understand you?" he whispered.

Tom wanted to scream.  This was not supposed to happen!  Oh 
god, how could he stop Chakotay?  He had to stop him, he couldn't 
let him try the drug. It was vital, the most important thing in the 
world, that Chakotay be kept unsullied and innocent.  In a blinding 
instant of clarity he realised how much he needed Chakotay to be 
the a solid cornerstone in his universe.  He sobbed once, straining to 
reach the arm that held the vial so far out of his reach. "No..." he 
shouted, and with a desperate grab at Chakotay's arm he pulled him 
off balance.

The two men fell together, Tom backwards, Chakotay forwards 
onto Tom  The delicate glass shattered in Chakotay's hand as he 
struggled to regain his balance.  Tom hit the edge of the low table, 
and it tipped, cascading bowl, stones, coffee cups, shirts, onto the 
floor.  The bowl smashed as it fell, and Tom finally ended his fall 
with an "Ooof!"  He felt a sharp throbbing pain in his hand, and he 
cried out in surprise.

Silence, except for panting breaths.

Chakotay rocked a little on his heels.  Tom lay at his feet, twisted in 
an awkward position, his eyes bewildered and wide with pain.  It 
could almost have been hilarious, if it all wasn't so deadly serious.  
Slowly Chakotay gripped Tom's free hand and pulled him upwards 
into a sitting position.  Tom clenched his teeth as his hand came 
away from its impalement, and he turned his head to see what had 
cut him.  On the floor, broken into five pieces, lay the shards of the 
clay bowl that he himself had made for Chakotay.

He looked at it, unable to tear his eyes from the pattern the broken 
pieces made on the floor.  And as he looked the universe seemed to 
shift around him, as the thread of their arguments and the strands of 
their lives shifted into a new pattern in his mind.

"Oh, Tom," Chakotay breathed sadly behind him.  He turned, and 
looked into the deep velvet eyes that regarded him in sorrow.  He 
felt suddenly saddened beyond bearing, and revolted at his own 
actions.  He reached out to touch Chakotay's face, and both men 
watched as blood dripped from the deep gash in Tom's hand.

Then they were both standing, and Chakotay requested the doctor 
to attend his quarters.  They waited in silence.  There seemed 
nothing to say, and so many words that a lifetime would not 
encompass them all.

The doctor arrived, healed Tom's hand with unnerving detachment, 
and left as quickly as he could, leaving a rippling well of silence 
behind him.

They both spoke at the same time.

"Tom, I shouldn't have..."

"Chakotay, I'm sorry.  I.."

Impasse.

Tom sighed gently and moved forward.  "I'm sorry," he whispered. 
"I didn't mean it, any of it."

Somehow Chakotay knew he was referring to both the sex and the 
broken bowl.  He pulled Tom gently into his arms.  "I know, Tom, I 
know. It's alright. I know."  He felt Tom draw a deep shaky breath, 
and he held the younger man more firmly.

There seemed nothing to say.  Chakotay's brain whirled with all the 
anger he held, still unexpressed.  He was frightened by the degree of 
anger this Tom roused in him, the same anger that he had vented 
against Tom years before, back in the Delta Quadrant. It had taken 
him so long to work past his anger and see the man that Tom kept 
hidden inside.  Ohhh spirits, was this journey of discovery to be 
made again?

Involuntarily his arms tightened around Tom.  He had shared his 
loneliness for such a brief time.  He would live, and fight, and sleep, 
and hurt, alone again.  And this time there would be no Tom beside 
him to remind him that the journey was worth making.  This time he 
would face the journey alone.  But then, it didn't matter how long it 
took, for at the end there might be Tom.  And if so, if that was his 
reward, then the journey was worth any price.


Finis


What Is Tomorrow?
Edith Sodergran


What is tomorrow? Perhaps not you.
Perhaps another's arms and a new contact and a similar pain...
I shall leave you with a certainty like no other:
i shall come back as a fragment of your own pain.
I shall come to you from another sky with a new resolve.

I shall come to you from another star with the same look.
I shall come to you with my old longing in new features.
I shall come to you, strange, angry and faithful
with the footfalls of a wild beast out of your heart's far desert
homeland.
You will fight against me hard and powerlessly
as one only fights against one's destiny, against one's luck, 
against one's star.
I shall smile and bind silken threads around my finger
and I shall hide the little spool of your destiny in the folds of my
clothes.