Payment in Full - Chapter 27

Payment in Full - Chapter 27 TITLE:                      PAYMENT IN FULL- CHAPTER 27
AUTHOR:                 PIPPIN
RATING:                   NC-17 (to be on the safe side)
PAIRING:                  Archer/Trip

SETTING: Minor spoilers: "Stigma"; "First Flight" and "The Expanse". Set after the events of "Savior".

FEEDBACK: Always! [email protected]

DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns the characters. I’m just borrowing them, and promise to return them safe and sound. The only thing I gain from this is some writing practice.

SUMMARY: Everything has a price.

Chapter 27

Archer held onto his fraying temper as best he could. "Come on, Trip. Don't be like this." There was no answer. He tried again. "You need to eat."

"If I'm too sick to be able to read, then obviously I'm too sick to eat. I don't want it." And Trip turned his head away.

Goddamn it! Still keeping his voice even, Archer said, "I could order you to eat, you know."

"You certainly could. And if you want to, then go right ahead. But it won't make any difference ‘cause I still won’t. I'm not hungry. But put me on report if it'll make you feel better. I don't give a damn."

"You trying to kill yourself, is that it?" He meant it as a joke, but the words came out sharper than intended. There was no response. "I know it's tough, but –"

This got a response. "You know, do you? What do you know? Nothing! You don’t know a goddamned thing. Why don't you try lying here all day, staring at the damn ceiling? Then tell me what you know."

Archer sighed again. He put Trip's dinner tray down, and sat beside the engineer's bed. He reached out to stroke Trip's hair, but Trip went rigid. It was obvious that any physical contact between them would only make matters worse, so the captain folded his hands in his lap instead. "I admit it seems excessive," he said, "but try and see it from our point of view. For starters, you scared the hell out of me."

His thoughts flew back to two nights ago, when Porthos had roused him. He had woken to find Trip hanging unconscious over the bed rail. His heart nearly leaped out of his chest, and he buzzed Phlox: three short, sharp rings, which meant, come on the run. He threw the covers aside and leaped out of bed, rushed over to his lover. He gently disentangled Trip from the railing, and laid him down. What had happened? When they had gone to bed, Trip had seemed fine. No, scratch that. He had been fine. Archer had checked his vitals before turning in; this had become as much a part of his bedtime ritual as brushing his teeth. They were all in the green. So what had happened in the past few hours? He laid a hand on his lover's forehead. It was cold and clammy. He took a cloth, gently wiped the pale face and then bathed Trip's wrists, noting sadly how frail they appeared; he could almost see through them. He heard the buzz of the door override, and Phlox had rushed in.

He looked down at Trip, finally managing to catch his eye. "And I think you gave Phlox quite a fright, too."

Trip looked back up at Jon. He knew he was behaving badly, but he had had enough. When he had awoken from his faint, he had found Phlox and Jon hovering anxiously over him. He could understand their concern; if the truth were told, he had had a bit of a fright himself. And he was feeling a bit ragged, so when Phlox had given him a mild sedative, he had not protested; instead, he had taken his medicine like a good boy, and allowed Jon to fuss over him. He had also kept mum as to the cause of his fainting spell; the last thing Jon needed right then was another dose of guilt.

So it was not much of a surprise, then, when he woke up to find his bedside table completely bare except for a glass and his call button. He knew what this meant; it was Phlox's way of telling him that he was not up to scratch and was to spend the day resting. And when Phlox said resting, he meant it. No reading, no music, no movies. Just sleep and eat. No surprises there, but annoying nonetheless. And what was really annoying was that Phlox was right - he felt like hell. Even if he was allowed to read, he doubted that he would be able to concentrate for any more than ten minutes or so before his head and stomach would make their displeasure known. So he had behaved himself and spent the morning sleeping.

After a liquid lunch, T'Pol had stopped by. He had been surprised; the Vulcan was not one for social visits, but as it turned out, she had come by because Phlox had asked her to; the doctor wanted Trip to be able to sleep without always having to resort to drugs. She stayed for about half an hour, leading him through some meditation exercises designed to help him relax. These had worked. He had fallen asleep, and slept like a rock until this morning when he had awoken feeling much better.

And found that the bedside table was still bare. This time it was more than annoying; now it was goddamn infuriating. He could understand Phlox's caution yesterday, but that was then and this was now. And now he was feeling all right. How the hell was staring at the ceiling for another 24 hours supposed to make him feel any better? And Jon's attempts to jolly him into a better mood were having the opposite effect; the more Jon tried, the more irritable he was becoming.

He took a deep breath. If things went on this way, he and Jon were going to have a dust-up and that wouldn't help either of them. "Look," he said, doing his best to speak in a level voice. "You can talk all you like about taking precautions and being on the safe side, but Phlox is over-reacting. You know it, I know it, he knows it – hell, Porthos probably knows it! And you're not the one stuck here, twiddling your thumbs because that damn Denobulan has decided that reading a book will blow your head off!"

"You're right," Jon said quietly. "But not eating is not going to get Phlox to change his mind."

Trip glared at him, all the more irritated because he knew Jon was right. "You expect me to get enthusiastic over this slop? Even Chef can't make whatever-the-hell it is – "

"- Chicken broth," Jon interjected.

"If you say so," Trip grumbled. "I think I'd rather have burnt snake meat."

He could see that Jon was working very hard to keep a straight face, and that did nothing to help his temper. "That bad, huh?"

"You try it. Go ahead."

Jon heaved an exaggerated sigh, and lifted the cover of Trip's lunch tray. He sniffed. "Well, " he began.

"Go ahead. You keep telling me it's good. So prove it."

The captain took a spoonful, swallowed, looked over at Trip. His face worked. "It's not all that bad."

"Really?"

"OK, I'll admit it's kind of tasteless. But – "

"'Kind of tasteless'?"

Jon sighed. "Okay. It's pretty crappy." He looked at Trip. "But you still need to eat."

Trip sighed. Jon was capable of staying all afternoon and nagging him into submission. Or possibly death. " I'll have my usual liquid lunch. How's that?"

"Okay," Jon said reluctantly. "And then you go to sleep, right?"

Trip's irritation flared again. "Not like I have much of a choice, do I?" Jon did not reply; instead, he simply brought him his lunch. Trip finished it off, lay down. "You know what? I've got an idea," he said tightly. "Why don't you and Phlox just drop me into another one of those comas? Like when Phlox had to detox me? Easier all round."

Jon was silent, and Trip realized that he was not answering because if he did, they really would be going into it, hammer and tongs. I just want this to be over, he thought. It's driving us all crazy. He sighed, closed his eyes. I’d better go to sleep before I kill someone – or someone ends up killing me. Using the technique T'Pol had taught him, he was asleep within minutes.

Archer looked down on him, his expression a mixture of exasperation and concern. My poor brat, he thought. How much more of this can you take?

* * *

The sun was warm and felt good on his back. He hated to wake up but he couldn't lie on the beach all day. He reached for Jon and found – nothing.

Trip woke up with a start. The beach was deserted; there was nothing to see but white sand for miles in either direction. Where was Jon? It wasn't like him to go off like that. He stood, stretched, enjoying the touch of the light tropical breeze on his naked body. He'd better go find Jon. He began following his lover's footprints in the sand, as they led up the beach and into the fringe of palm trees that marked the demarcation between beach and forest.

He turned left and came to a T-junction in the corridor. Which way would Jon have gone? He hesitated, feeling the rough nub of the carpet on his bare feet. Enterprise crew walked past, but as long as he was looking for Jon, nobody noticed him, out of uniform, out of clothes altogether.

Engineering. That was where Jon was – looking for him. Trip chuckled to himself. He's looking for me and I'm looking for him. We'll have a good laugh about this over dinner tonight. And he hurried down the corridor, vaguely aware that he was starting to feel a little cold. That wasn't surprising; Enterprise's temperature was set to be comfortable when you were in uniform, not running around bare-assed.

Not too much further now. He turned a corner, and came to a halt. A long line of Enterprise crew was standing between him and the entrance to Engineering, repairing a lengthy crack in one wall. Engineering's hatch opened, and his heart gave a great, joyful leap when he saw it was Jon who stepped out. He called to him, and Jon smiled, raised a hand, beckoned to him.

Trip tried to get through the repair crew, but couldn’t. They hardly seemed aware of his presence; with blank faces, they continued their work, moving so slowly that they barely seemed to be moving at all. He tried to get to Jon once more, but they were unyielding. Somehow he knew that he could not get past until the repairs were done.

Hurry up, he urged them, but they continued their slow, slow pace. He looked over them to Jon, who sighed, shook his head, and began to walk away. Trip called out, but Jon kept walking.

He pounded the wall in fury and dismay. What was wrong with this crew? Why were they moving so damn slowly?

He turned to find T'Pol, not wearing her usual uniform but that of the Healers from the Vulcan hospital ship. She stared at him with her usual even stare. "It is inadvisable for them to work faster,” she informed him. Then with that same Vulcan stoicism, she simply turned and walked through the wall, leaving him all alone.

* * *

Trip awoke with a start, looked around. Their quarters were dim and silent. Jon was lying next to him, deeply asleep, as was Porthos at the foot of their bed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Hell of a dream. He was used to having nightmares, but this ... this was strange. It left him with a disquieting feeling, as if he had missed something of significance. Sure. All right, Sigmund Tucker – what does it mean? Hell if I know. That was the problem. If his subconscious wanted to send him messages, why not use something a little less confusing than some damn strange dream?

He looked over at his bedside table, and smiled very faintly. All of his paraphernalia was back. He guessed that Jon and Phlox had had some words while he was asleep. Well, that was fine by him. It was all well and good for Phlox to be cautious, but there were limits.

Stealthily, he reached, found the controls for his side of the bed, and quietly raised himself into a semi-sitting position. One of the advantages of these Vulcan beds was that they were very quiet; you could hardly hear the motors that powered them. Nevertheless, he looked over at Jon, ready to stop if it looked as if Jon were going to waken. However, his lover simply muttered into his pillow, shifted slightly, and continued to sleep. That's good, Jon. You just keep sleeping. God knows you need the rest.

He knew from previous experience that he himself was, for lack of a better term, "slept out", and would not be able to get back to sleep for a few hours at least. Better to spend this time productively than to stare at the ceiling. He turned his bedside light on, picked up one of his padds. He had managed to download the specifications of the Vulcan nanobots before Phlox had taken all his toys away; he might as well try ploughing through that once more. Maybe he'd be able to figure it out this time. It was the rates of productivity that seemed to be off, if he remembered correctly...

He gripped the padd in sudden excitement. That was it! "Inadvisable to be set at a higher rate." Inadvisable. Not impossible. Vulcan conservatism strikes again, he thought. He began to work his way through the database until he found the section he was looking for.

Trip settled back and began to read.

* * *

“Hey.”

Trip looked up and smiled. “Hey yourself. Have a good day?”

Archer breathed a mental sigh of relief, and moved to sit beside his lover. For the past three days, Trip had been somewhat distant. Not wanting to upset him any further (if indeed he was upset), Archer had simply kept his distance and left the engineer alone. However, it looked as if Trip had finally worked himself out of the snit (or whatever it was). “It was all right,” he responded. “And you?”

“Same old, same old,” came the reply. “I think I finally figured out how to solve the structural problem for those automatic cleaning systems we discussed. See, I was thinking four segments, when really, given the – “

Archer didn’t give him a chance to finish. He leaned over and kissed him, cutting off the flow of words. “Let’s not talk shop right now, okay?”

Trip sighed and tried to look affronted but failed. “All right, you bastard. Have it your way. As usual.”

Archer simply grinned at him. “Hey – tonight’s movie night, you know.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s on?”

”Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“That’s a good one.”

“It is. Want to watch it with me?”

“Can you do that?”

“I’m the Captain,” Archer said lightly. “I can do whatever I want.”

“Maybe you can, but I sure as hell can’t. I’m supposed to be in bed in an hour, and the movie runs longer than that.”

“I think we can bend the rules – just this once.”

* * *

“What’s this?”

“Chocolate milkshake.”

“No, I know that. I mean, what’s that you’re holding?”

Archer looked at the glass in his hand. “It’s a milkshake, too.”

Trip looked at him. “Tell the truth. Do you really want a milkshake?”

“Well…”

“It’s all right, Jon. I know you like a beer when watching stuff. So go ahead. Have a beer.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Why should I mind?”

“Because you can’t have one.”

“Just because I can’t have one doesn’t mean I should be a miserable so-and-so and insist that you don’t have one either, you know. I may be a spoiled brat, but I’m not that spoiled. At least, I hope not.”

Archer came back a moment later, beer in one hand, bowl of popcorn in the other. He handed the popcorn to Trip. “You can have this, though.”

“Thanks.”

He put his arm around Trip, and dimmed the lights, settled back. The rousing music of John Williams’ score filled the room, and he took a swig of his beer. This is the life. As Indiana Jones made his way down the lethal hallway to where the golden idol waited, Archer turned and gave Trip a long, slow kiss.

“Thanks a lot.”

“You don’t sound very happy.”

“Now I smell like beer. Phlox will think I’ve been into your stash.”

“I’ll tell him you’ve been good.”

“He won’t believe you.” Trip leaned over and kissed him back. “Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, don’t you think?” He then settled into Archer’s embrace, watching the movie with every indication of enjoyment.

Raiders, Archer thought abstractedly some time later, was not an ideal movie in terms of giving the audience “down” times to sneak out for snacks or bathroom breaks. However, Indy and Marion were on the ship (“It’s not the years, it’s the mileage”) and he thought he would get up and get another beer, and see if Trip wanted anything else. “Trip?” No response. He looked over at his lover, and smiled.

Trip was lying quietly, his head resting on Archer’s shoulder, a small smile playing around his lips. He was also sound asleep.

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