Author: Lady Starblade -- [email protected]
Rating: Strong PG-13
Pairing: T/R
Category: "Hell-If-I-Know"
Spoilers: "Minefield"
Warnings: Nope
Archive: Entslash; Anyone else, if ya want it, take it. Just let me know where.
Feedback: <in best Roger Rabbit voice> Pppppleeeease!
Disclaimer: Paramount owns 'em, not me. I am broke, and nobody's payin' me for this. Sue and all you'll get is a broken rubber band, a dogeared copy of "The Bartender's Guide," and 3 pieces of lint. Trust me, you don't want it.
Author's Note: Second in "Losing Grip" series. Follows "Starting to Trip."
Summary: Malcolm can't sleep.
**
Malcolm Reed sat in a corner of the darkened, deserted mess hall, both hands coiled around a mug of rapidly cooling tea. He really wasn't all that fond of the beverage's taste, but he did love the smell. It always seemed to soothe him, and Malcolm found himself in desperate need of that quality.
The dreams had woken him again. They had been plaguing him for several months now, but they had become more insistent over the past week. He rarely slept more than three or four hours at a stretch before coming awake, often with a brutal jerk. Tonight he had given up on trying to sleep and had made his way down to the mess hall.
And here he sat in the shadows, trying to forget the images racing around his brain, dream scenes that refused to die a natural death. Oddly, several of them had dealt with the ordeal of being pinned by an alien weapon to the hull of Enterprise while they were in the minefield. The one he most clearly remembered was the re-enactment of his attempted suicide by detaching his air hose. What had been different in the dream was the agonized voice of Trip Tucker coming through his helmet's comm unit, screaming at Malcolm to stop it, that he was a crazy-ass Brit, and how dare he do something like this before Trip could tell him he loved him.
But even that dream hadn't gotten under Malcolm's psychological skin as much as the others. Ever since the time on the catwalk, when Malcolm had had Trip metaphorically melting in his hands, Malcolm's dreams were constantly taking erotic detours. It was a rare night that Malcolm didn't imagine Trip beside him, Trip wound around him, Trip's skin under his fingers....Malcolm would wake up, out of breath and painfully excited. He had always dismissed the stories he had heard of loving someone so much that it hurt. However, now he was forced to realize that not only was it possible, but that he himself was experiencing that very phenomenon. The cosmic force that was Trip had made a believer out of Malcolm.
The door slid open with a hiss, and the sudden clench of his hands made the tawny liquid tremble wildly. He quickly yanked his hands away and hid them under the table, wincing slightly as they landed hard on his thigh. It only took him a heartbeat to recognize the tousle-haired, slightly shuffling figure padding toward the liquid dispenser. Malcolm couldn't make out Trip's words, but he continued to watch as the other man lifted his glass from the unit and headed back for the door.
Suddenly Trip stopped, head tilting upward for several seconds before swinging around to unerringly pick Malcolm out from the room's shadows. "Malcolm?" His voice, still thick with sleep, sounded unnaturally loud in the still room.
Malcolm clenched his teeth together so hard they began to ache. *How did he know?* He sent up a silent prayer that Trip would just leave. He couldn't deal with this right now. Couldn't deal with him. His facade wasn't up. He wasn't thinking straight.
Trip began to walk in his direction, and Malcolm concentrated on keeping himself from trying to shrink away further into the shadows. *You are being ridiculous. He is your friend. He is not going to do anything to you.* That nagging corner of his mind added, *That's the problem.*
Forcing the words out, Malcolm said, "Good evening. Or is it morning already? I'm afraid I didn't look at the chronometer before I left my quarters."
"It's way morning, Malcolm." An easy smile made its way across Trip's features as he came up to the table. "Mind if I join ya?"
*As if I could refuse you anything.* Malcolm dipped his head. "Please."
Trip turned the opposite chair around and straddled it, setting his glass on the table before crossing his arms across the back and settling his chin on them. "Whatcha doin' up this time of night?" His expression was one of open, friendly concern, and Malcolm had to respond to it.
"Couldn't sleep."
"I sorta figured that. Unless you've taken up sleepwalkin', sleeptalkin' and...." he half-rose and leaned to glance into Malcolm's mug, "sleepdrinkin', that's pretty obvious."
Malcolm quirked his eyebrows. "You asked an obvious question. That calls for an obvious answer."
Trip chuckled. "Can't argue with that." Those disconcerting blue eyes narrowed as he stared over at Malcolm in all seriousness. "Dreams?"
Malcolm flinched at the accuracy of the remark. "Something like that." He looked down, trying to avoid that gaze. "I haven't been sleeping well because of them."
Trip's brow wrinkled as he dropped his chin and hunched forward. "Have you talked to Phlox about it?"
Incredulously, Malcolm replied, "You can't be serious. He's a fine doctor, but I don't feel comfortable going to him with such a personal problem."
Trip nodded. "All right then. Have ya talked to anyone?"
Malcolm's glance hardened into an unmistakable answer.
"You know you can tell me, right?" Trip's tone had gone soft and gentle.
Malcolm squeezed his eyes shut as he slowly shook his head. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "I know. But not this." After a moment of silence, he continued, "I've been dreaming about the minefield."
"Why not? It's normal to have nightmares after somethin' like that."
A humorless laugh worked its way out. "I'm well aware of that. But that's not the dream that has been keeping me awake. Or at least the dream that's been waking me up." Of their own volition, Malcolm's hands returned to the mug, drawing it closer to him, as if it were a shield between him and Trip. But he had forgotten that his hands would betray him. They were still shaking. Too late, he noticed, and his wide-eyed glance darted back up to Trip in time to see a similar look.
"Malcolm?" The name took on a disbelieving, questioning note as Trip stared down at Malcolm's hands. "Your hands..." Before Malcolm could react, Trip leaned forward, seizing Malcolm's left hand and prying it off of the cup. The nervous tremble was now plain to see. "Damn Mal, you're shaking!"
The combined effect of Trip's touch and the affectionate shortening of his own name shot through Malcolm, and he couldn't react enough to pull his hand away. He didn't want to, anyway. He idly wondered if Trip could feel his racing pulse as he rotated the hand in Trip's grip to tangle their fingers. Trip looked at their entwined hands oddly before moving his eyes back up. "You're scarin' me."
Malcolm felt his mouth work a few times before any reply came out. "I'm sorry Trip, I'm sorry...." He made a halfhearted attempt to pull away, but the sudden tightening of Trip's hand sent relief coursing down through his veins. Then Trip reached for his other hand, and Malcolm met him halfway. Now four hands, knotted together, lay on the table.
Tugging gently, Trip pleaded, "Mal, please tell me what's wrong. Please."
"I told you, I can't tell you. Not about this. I just can't."
Trip's face became a battlefield of conflicting emotions. Concern. Irritation. Hurt. That last cut straight through Malcolm. He would give anything to be able to tell Trip. But what would he say? *Ever since I put my hands on you, they keep trying to go back? That I keep dreaming about you, about what your mouth tastes like, about how it feels to run my fingers through the sweat on your naked back, about the sound of you screaming my name while you're inside me? Is that what you want to hear?*
He didn't realize that he had spoken that last thought aloud until Trip asked, "Hear what?"
"Nothing." The denial left a bitter taste in Malcolm's mouth.
Trip's nostrils flared, and Malcolm knew what was coming next. Trip pulled his hands away and stood up, taking a step backwards. "I really wish you'd stop that. Every time someone tries ta get close, you clam up and go cold. Makes it real hard to be friendly sometimes."
Malcolm dragged his hands back to the edge of the table, suddenly feeling very small. "I know. I can't help it. I try, but letting people come close...it's hard for me."
Trip snorted. "Well, it ain't easy from this end, either."
Not bothering to hide the hurt in his voice, Malcolm shot a look upward and snapped back, "Did it ever occur to you that this frightens me and I don't know how to deal with it?"
The irritation emanating from Trip vanished in an eyeblink, replaced by a sad surprise. "Are you sayin' that I scare you?"
*Yes. I'm afraid of what you can do to me, even without meaning to.* "Of course not. It just that, in my experience, the closer people are, the worse they can hurt you."
Trip sat back down with a gusty sigh and slumped forward. "I'm sorry, Mal. I shouldn't push ya. You're a big boy and you can make up your mind who ya want to be friends with."
Malcolm smiled as he caught Trip's eye again. "And there is no one in the universe I would rather have as a friend than you."
Trip smiled back. "No one, huh?"
Malcolm nodded once, decisively. "No one."
"Fair enough."
They looked at each other for a moment, then Malcolm pushed his own chair back and stood. "I should try to get back to sleep."
"Yeah, I probably should too." Trip got back up and spun the chair back around. He picked up his glass and drained it in several quick gulps. Tilting the empty glass toward Malcolm, he added, "Milk. Does wonders when ya can't sleep. Now tea on the other hand, that stuff will keep ya up."
The men walked across the hall to deposit their cups into the dish receptacle. "I wasn't drinking it. I was just smelling it." At Trip's cocked eyebrow, Malcolm continued, "I find the aroma soothing."
"And here I was, thinkin' you're just being a stereotypical Brit."
Taking on a mock offended air, Malcolm said, "You should know better."
Trip shrugged with a small smile. "Yeah, I probably should. Oh well." Nodding at the doors, he asked, "Wanna walk back together?"
There were some things Malcolm would never have to think about. "Absolutely."
The walk through the corridors of Enterprise was a pleasant one, and Malcolm let himself get lost in the easy friendship between them. Strange how the source of the tension inside him could ease it without even knowing. One of the little ironies of life and love. They stopped in front of Malcolm's quarters, and Trip stuck out a hand. "Friends?"
Taking it, Malcolm replied, "Friends."
Trip grinned and put his free hand over their clasped ones. "Good night, Mal. If you ever want to talk..."
"I know. Thank you. Good night, Trip."
They let go and Malcolm allowed himself to watch Trip retreat down the corridor for a few more seconds before entering his quarters. Eying his rumpled bedclothes with a vague distaste, he let his mind run back over their conversation. Everything he had said was true. Trip was his best friend, the one person that Malcolm would always be able to turn to and trust in.
And that was why Malcolm could never tell him.
END
**
"Are you aware of what you make me feel, baby
Right now I feel invisible to you, like I'm not real...." -- Avril Lavigne, "Losing Grip"