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Reed's Armory -- A Malcolm Reed Fanfiction Archive .. |
Title: We Got Now
Author: Lexx
Author's e-mail: [email protected]
Fandom: Enterprise
Pairing: Tucker/Reed
Rating: PG-13
Category: Slash
Summary: It had ended so abruptly. Trip Tucker had no idea it could happen so fast. Life, snuffed out like a candle. He buried his face in his hands as he sat forward in bed, the quiet breathing of his lover the only sound in the moonlight-dappled room.
Comments: Warfare; a desperate battle against a tide of anguish
and death. Angst ahoy, people. It could so easily have been them, on
a dark hillside with the dusky moonlight shining behind them. Trip
and Malcolm deal with things. Started as an answer to Kalita's fic
request, but I don't think this is what she was looking for.
Beta reader(s): Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, wait, you're being serious? No. Ahem.
Archived to Reed's Armory on 10/13/03.
It had ended so abruptly. Trip Tucker had no idea it could happen so fast. Life, snuffed out like a candle. He buried his face in his hands as he sat forward in bed, the quiet breathing of his lover the only sound in the moonlight-dappled room.
Phaser fire screamed all around them, bolts of deadly lightening flashing through the moonlit evening that was still choked by the terrific heat of the earlier day. The soaring screech of explosives rocketing towards them from all directions filled the air, howling a warning of impending death to all around. Explosions rumbled in the far distance, but Trip knew they were getting closer. Bodies were falling all around him as the streaks of fatal light hit their targets, killing without remorse. Trip was disgusted with himself as he thanked god they weren't humans who were dying.
He stumbled through the lethal haze of heat and dust, keeping his head low and his phase pistol drawn. The stench of charred flesh assaulted him, and he blinded himself to the mutilated, bleeding bodies all around him. Screams could just about be heard over the squeals of bullets, phaser blasts and rockets flying over his head; Trip ignored them as best he could, even though each one felt like a shot to his soul.
"Incoming!"
A streak of deadly light was soaring towards them, and Trip felt terror rise in his throat like bile as he saw how close it really was. He flung himself to the hot earth, screaming for the Enterprise crewman near to him to do the same. He squeezed his eyes shut as the missile struck the earth and drove his fingers into the soft ground as the explosion roared overhead.
Pieces of soil and shrapnel rained down all around, and he sucked in a breath, sending out a desperate plea that none would do any damage.
The air was still for one small, blessed moment. Suddenly, someone screamed in the silence, and the shelling started all over again. Trip cast horrified eyes to the place he had seen the crewman hit the dirt; the scream had been human. He knew it; deep in his gut, he knew it.
He scrambled on his front over the dusty ground towards the crewman who was shrieking and writhing, clutching at his belly, face drawn in pure agony. He pulled himself to the man, keeping low as phaser blasts flew like arrows over their heads. He reached to the man, but before he could lay his hands on him, a pair of burly, squat fingers pressed themselves into the man's shoulders.
Trip looked up to see another crewman, his young features etched with pain and dread, floppy blond hair caked with blood.
"John!" he said, horror giving the single syllable so much meaning.
"Stevie! Christ Stevie it hurts so bad--"
John Lorenzo's sentence was punctuated by gasping breaths and ended with a screech of pure suffering. Trip gazed on in horror; it sounded as if John's screams came straight from his soul.
Stephen McKenzie cast terrified eyes over Lorenzo and reached his hands towards the crewman's belly; they came away as crimson as the sun had been as it set when all this horror had started. Trip couldn't believe it had only been a scant few hours ago.
Explosions rocked the ground again, and Trip coughed against the dust that swirled up from the arid earth below him; McKenzie reached his fingers to Lorenzo, running a hand through the man's jet hair, the other tracing his cheeks and jaw. Debris rained around them once more, and Trip met McKenzie's eyes for the most fleeting of moments. It was all they needed; they both knew nothing could be done.
"Jesus, Stevie, I'm gonna die!" Lorenzo shrieked again, silver tears leaking from his pale eyes, leaving shining trails down his young face.
*'No more than a baby'*, Trip thought.
"None of that!" McKenzie said firmly, but the lie was belied by the tears falling unchecked onto Lorenzo's uniform, once blue, but now stained purple and red by the blood flooding from the gaping hole where his belly had been.
Each tear, to Trip, was like a grief-stained pearl, each conveying the feelings that were too horrifying to say out loud.
"I am!" Lorenzo said, flicking his eyes to Trip for a moment. "I am!"
McKenzie gripped his friend's--no, Trip thought, they were more than friends--shoulders, as if by holding on tight John Lorenzo would never leave; never die. Bone-white knuckles were tinted red by the phaser volleys that still soared over their heads, blue tears turned blood red as McKenzie cried from the depths of his heart.
"Johnny, just hold on!"
Trip couldn't find any words to say when McKenzie tore his gaze from Lorenzo's already dulling eyes, as if pleading silently for Trip to say 'April Fool!' and it would all end.
"Stevie, Stevie, I love you so much." Lorenzo said, each breath a rasping wheeze as blood spilled over his pink lips. "Get--get yourself out--of here."
"No!" That single word was so pain-filled Trip felt tears begin to finally slip from his eyes. "Don't leave me John, you can't! We promised we'd stay together forever!"
"I l-love you...Stephen McKenzie..."
"I love you too! Don't leave me! I can't live without you!"
John Lorenzo gave a deep, shuddering breath, and suddenly it was over for him. Trip found himself screaming 'NO!' at the top of his lungs. It was odd, a tiny part of his brain whispered as his face sunk into his hands, the roar of conflict trying to cover up the heart-wrenching sobs of the man beside him; he had never even spoken to Lorenzo before.
McKenzie gave a shriek that seemed to emanate deep in his bones as his fingers dug into Lorenzo's uniform, throwing his head back and howling in rage and despair.
And then it was over.
McKenzie gasped and fell forward onto Lorenzo's body; he was dead. Trip looked up to see an alien soldier standing a few paces from them, rifle poised to kill again.
He never got the change, as the wrath boiled over in Trip's mind, all the suffering, the love and the fury he had just felt coming to the surface in a putrid, blood-tinted rage.
Trip killed him, and the battle raged on.
Trip Tucker sat on his bunk, legs folded beneath him and blankets pooled around his waist. He trailed gentle fingers over the closed gashes and lesions that criss-crossed his lover's abdomen and chest, marring the creamy, velvety skin of the man that meant so much to him.
It had been one hell of a fight, the likes of which Trip prayed he would never see again.
He had almost died.
Malcolm had almost died.
McKenzie and Lorenzo were dead.
It hadn't even been their war.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that stung them once again, as the memories of that fateful night surfaced; Trip knew he would never forget. The stench of blood, the wail of shellfire in his ears, the sight of dying men, reaching out to him, pleading with him to help...
He leant forward and buried his face in the mattress close to his lover's heart, fingers boring into the material as they had into the ground during the fighting. Grief swelled inside him, suffocating him, squeezing death-pale fingers around his throat. Suddenly, they were McKenzie's burly, work-roughened ones; McKenzie's eyes tore into him, swimming with pearly tears...Why didn't you save him? Why didn't you save ME?
Tears soaked the mattress he pressed his eyes to as he screamed in his mind, *'What could I have done? I'm no surgeon! And even so, there was nothing left to save! He was wounded so badly...'*
He flinched as gentle hands settled themselves on his back, stroking softly, comforting him as they had done so many times before. He tentatively raised his head from the mattress and met a pair of pain- dulled, yet so very understanding pair of pale eyes. Pale, just like Lorenzo's had been.
And he was dead.
Trip felt Malcolm take him into his arms, and he pressed his face to Malcolm's chest, breathing in his lover's scent, so different from dust and sweat and blood. So Malcolm.
They had been young, and in love. Sobs wracked Trip's body as Malcolm whispered gentle words into his ear. He could feel his heart grieving so badly he feared it would burst. For Lorenzo and McKenzie, their love stolen from them on the battlefield, amongst the roaring shells and shrieking phaser blasts. For all the soldiers who had ever lost their lives, no matter what side, what race, what species. For the suffering Malcolm had been through, trying desperately to save the research crews and crewmen who had been welcomed so warmly to the planet's surface. It had been like holding the ocean back with a broom, and Trip could see the anguish maiming his lover's soul.
Trip held on tighter as he felt agony rolling off himself in waves, clinging to Malcolm as if he was the only thing keeping him from drowning in a sea of blood and tears. What wouldn't he give to go back and change things? Why couldn't he have done something? Why had Lorenzo and McKenzie's lives been snatched away so hastily? It was like cradle snatching, Trip's heart sobbed.
"You couldn't have saved them, Trip." Malcolm murmured in his ear, his breath soft and warm against Trip's trembling skin.
Trip raised his head; pulling out of the embrace just enough to get a good look at Malcolm's face. Tears were falling from his pained eyes, catching like pearls in his eyelashes. They were silvered by the thin moonlight filtering into Trip's cabin from the moons orbiting Wharfair III, where Enterprise had scuttled to after the disaster on Wharfair II only days before.
Silver tears, just like John Lorenzo's had been as he died a painful, grief-wracked death. Trip thrust his arms around Malcolm as Lorenzo's words burst forth from his mouth.
"I love you so much." He squeezed his arms tighter, as if he could protect the man from the future, as if they could stay that way forever...
"Christ, Trip, I love you too."
Malcolm's words were echoed by McKenzie's, *'I love you too! Don't leave me!'*
Trip could feel Malcolm's fingernails digging into the skin of his shoulders, and he imagined bone-white knuckles tainted red in an arid, blood-soaked battle.
"There was nothin', nothin' I could do Malcolm. Nothin'!" Trip said through hitching sobs.
"I know Trip, I know." Malcolm choked out. "I'm so, so sorry Trip. So sorry."
"Me too Mal, me too."
Trip would never forget the look of shock and horror on Malcolm's face as he was told Lorenzo and McKenzie were dead. They were two of his boys, joined at the hip since they first laid eyes on each other; green crewmen whom Malcolm took under his wing and trained to be damn good security officers. He had looked as if someone had wrenched his heart out through his mouth.
Trip loosened his arms a little and brought Malcolm's face to his own, noses almost touching, his gaze searing into Malcolm's eyes.
"Promise me something, Malcolm." Trip could hear the anguish in his voice; it sounded like McKenzie--*'we promised we'd stay together forever!'* "Promise me that you'll never leave me!"
Malcolm bit his lip as more silvered tears slipped down his pale cheeks. Pale; Lorenzo's skin had been pale right before he died.
"Promise me, Malcolm Reed!" Trip was screaming in Malcolm's face, but he didn't care.
"I promise Trip! God help me, I promise!" He pressed his tear- slicked face to Trip's shoulder as sobs tore throughout his body. "I can't live without you, Trip. Promise me too!"
McKenzie's voice battered Trip's mind again; *'I can't live without you!'*
"I promise Malcolm Reed, I promise!"
*'Lord help me but I can't live without you either!'* His mind wailed.
"I'll always love you forever Trip, no matter what." Malcolm said, his voice muffled against Trip's skin. "I'll always love you. But Christ, Trip, what if something happens?"
"Ssh." Trip said, running his fingers through Malcolm's hair, even though the same thought was tearing his heart to pieces. "We got now, Malcolm. We got now."
He knew the words that burned his ears and cut his throat to shreds were not what he wanted to say, but it was all he could.
His eyes flicked up as something caught his vision. For a moment, he thought he saw two figures; angels, faces slick with silvery tears, bodies illuminated by the moonlight, holding onto each other. They were gone, though, and Trip buried his nose in the sweet-smelling dark hair. For a brief moment he thought he felt gentle fingers running over his cheeks, heard desperate promises made on a blood- slicked battlefield with death close by clearly in his ears.
*" Charles, Charles, I love you so much."*
*"Don't leave me Malcolm, you can't! We promised we'd stay together forever!"*
*"I l-love you...Charles Tucker..."*
*"I love you too! Don't leave me! I can't live without you!"*
Trip squeezed his eyes shut.
"We got now, Mal. We got now..."
~the end~