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Reed's Armory -- A Malcolm Reed Fanfiction Archive .. |
Title: Nailed
Author: Taryn Eve
Author's e-mail: [email protected]
Fandom: Enterprise
Rating: NC-17
Category: Slash
Pairing: Tucker/Reed/Sato
Series: Trip's Toolbox
Sequel to: God's Hammer
Warnings: BDSM, bisexual love triangle
Summary: Malcolm's nailgun is running on empty as the Toolbox series continues.
Comments: Thank you to Stexgirl2000 for beta reading.
Archived to Reed's Armory on 10/15/2003.
Coda:
Memory is a cold-hearted bitch whose kisses taste of salt water. I love her, I want her--God how I want her. Yet, I have to choose between the two of them.
I hope you forgive me, Trip, if I save your life tonight instead of Hoshi's.
God's Hammer: Falling
The door slid open. "Hoshi, no!" Malcolm yelled.
As Malcolm fired, Hoshi's weapon discharged and her shot went askew. Tucker threw himself aside as Malcolm's shot hit Hoshi's stomach, throwing her backwards. Sobbing, she stared up at Malcolm, who scrambled across the room to pull her in his arms.
"God damn you, Hoshi Sato," Malcolm said, feeling overwhelmed. "I wanted to get you off of this bloody ship. I didn't expect to use a Torman disruptor on you, love."
Tucker walked over to them with an agonized look on his face. "What have you done?" he whispered. "Those disruptors I gave you earlier are set to kill. I set them myself."
Once again the door slid open to admit Gelir and the Andorian guards Malcolm learned to despise early on. "Where the hell are my shields, Tucker?"
Malcolm cradled Hoshi, wishing he could do more for her.
Tucker gave her a stricken look. "There aren't any shields," he said, rising to his feet.
"What do you mean?" Gelir asked, sidling closer to him.
Tucker stared at him for a long moment. The ship started to shake and Gelir fell into his arms in a mockery of the closeness with which Malcolm held Hoshi.
"What have you done?" Gelir asked, yanking on Tucker's collar.
It fell apart in his hands. Tucker smiled and Gelir pushed away from him with a startled look.
"Well, look at that," Tucker said. "Seems like I'm a free man."
"Sir," said one of the Andorians, "I'm detecting an explosive device somewhere in this room."
Tucker turned. "Malcolm?"
"Trip?" Malcolm asked, wondering if the other man had recovered from his brainwashing. "We don't have much time."
Gelir grabbed the gun out of his holster and shot Tucker with it. Malcolm scrambled to his feet as Hoshi tried to raise her gun.
"You have ten minutes if you want to live," Malcolm said, aiming at Gelir's forehead. "I have that long to disarm my explosives."
Gelir stared at Tucker, crumpled at his feet, then at Hoshi, and finally at Malcolm. "So this is what you were up to all this time, human? You were hiding in front of my very face. Clever, very clever. The prisoners I tortured when I took the castle told me there was a third one of you, but no one could describe you to me."
Malcolm tilted his head. "I'm easy to recognize. I'm the desperate man. What will it be Gelir? Do you want to save your own life or shall we all die here on your bloody warship?"
Hoshi crawled over to Tucker and pulled him into her arms. Malcolm swallowed and prayed that his lover--their lover--was still alive.
Gelir smiled. "I'll take my chances." His sudden shot threw Malcolm against the far bulkhead. The Torman man lunged after him and hauled Malcolm to his feet. "Disarm the explosive or I'll order my helm to slam into your Enterprise!"
Groggy, Malcolm cursed under his breath. He had to hand it to the bastard--Malcolm hadn't considered him sophisticated enough to consider the kamikaze tactic.
Gelir prodded him in the shoulder with his weapon.
"All right," Malcolm said. His clarity began to return even as sharp needles of pain raced through his arms and legs. "Computer. Abort Operation Achilles Heel."
"Identify yourself and confirm order to abort," the computer said in a flat voice.
"I am Lieutenant Malcolm Reed and I confirm the order to abort." Malcolm uttered a deep sigh. He wasn't quite ready to die yet, no matter how useless he felt.
"Confirmed. Achilles Heel is disarmed and cannot be reactivated for 24 hours."
Gelir shook his head. "What else have you done to my ship, human?"
Malcolm flashed him a smile. "I'll admit that I had fun here."
The Torman man's glare turned fierce. "You've been playing me for a fool."
Malcolm rubbed his false nose. "You didn't make that particular job difficult."
Gelir grabbed his arm. "I want you off my ship. Zollu, bring Tucker, my former weapons master, too."
Hoshi shot Malcolm a frightened look.
"I won't let them hurt Tucker," Malcolm said. He hoped he wasn't lying. "Be strong, Hoshi. We'll see this through somehow."
Hoshi bowed her head. In a way, Malcolm felt sorry for her. For almost a month, she'd been struggling to return to Trip's arms, always sure of her love for him despite the amnesia and violence of the situation. Now she was losing him again. To make things even worse, because of the levels of subterfuge involved in the covert operation, she wasn't sure if she trusted Malcolm, much less loved him.
It was an odd time to appraise the inequities in their little love triangle, so Malcolm let go of his regrets as one of Gelir's henchmen led him off. Tucker's face was blank as if in sleep, a look Malcolm studied in the shadows over the last few years. Many considered Tucker an open man, an easy study, but Malcolm learned to make his way through the outer layers and shiver in the other man's depths.
Almost everyone underestimated Tucker's ability to conceal secrets of this magnitude. For instance, the small matter of Tucker the undercover agent surprised him. Captain Archer never briefed him on how much Tucker actually knew. Even now, Malcolm didn't know if the engineer somehow escaped Gelir's brainwashing or if he had never succumbed at all.
As they marched through the corridors, Tucker's hand fell against the back of the man carrying him. Malcolm tried to prevent himself from catching his breath. If Tucker were conscious, they might have a chance to overcome Gelir's mercenaries and win back Hoshi, with the larger prize being Enterprise's safety.
"Dear sweet heaven, I feel terrible," Malcolm said, doubling over and clutching at his stomach.
The two mercenaries laughed. "Gelir didn't shoot you hard enough, man," one of them sneered.
"I've heard you scream louder from his bed," the other one said. "I thought you liked it rough, small man."
Malcolm coughed to conceal his snarl, hating the reminder that he'd been forced to use his sexual skills in order to obtain the information he needed to rescue his crewmates. He looked up at the men and smiled a sweet and easy smile borrowed from Tucker's repertoire. "You're right, I do."
Launching a roundhouse kick at the nearer man, Malcolm connected with his chest, sending the alien barreling into his companion. This forced the far man to drop Tucker to the deck.
Tucker groaned and picked himself up as the mercenaries scrambled to their feet. "Nice one, Malcolm. I think my butt is permanently dented."
"We'll worry about it later," Malcolm snapped, as he ran up to the mercenaries with a flurry of kicks and jabs.
Tucker slammed a fist into one of the opponents, who snarled in his face. "Great. I need some help here, Lieutenant!"
With a quick strike of his hands, Malcolm sent the nearest alien slamming into the bulkhead. The remaining mercenary grabbed him and Tucker and shook them until Malcolm kicked him in the crotch.
"Ow," Tucker said as the alien dropped them.
Malcolm snarled in the alien's face and kicked him again. Obliging Malcolm's sense of decorum, the mercenary fell over backwards.
"Much better," Malcolm said, wiping his sweaty hands on his black leather uniform.
Tucker shook his head. "Two down and what, one hundred forty to go? We need to hightail it out of here."
"Hoshi--" Malcolm interjected.
Tucker shook his head as he undid the front of his shirt. "I love her, too, Malcolm, but we have orders." Taking out a small gray box, he snapped it open. "Tucker to Enterprise. Two to transport."
The door at the end of the corridor slid open and Gelir pounced down the hall, dragging Hoshi with him. Malcolm could see a glowing blue circle attached to her forehead.
"Tucker!" she cried, stretching her hand out.
Malcolm closed his eyes as the transporter beam enveloped him and Tucker--the man everyone loved and whom he couldn't help hating in the time and space between heartbeats.
Enterprise: Chalkboard
Malcolm closed his eyes, trying to catch the sound of Hoshi's voice in his memory. Instead, it was Tucker's voice filling his head, the room, the ship, and the empty spaces where she used to be.
As he hugged Hoshi's red silk robe, Malcolm realized too late that he was a man trapped in a classic love triangle. He loved an unobtainable woman whose heart belonged to another. It didn't matter that Tucker had once loved him--the complex geometry of their emotional relationship couldn't survive the brutal circumstances in which they had left Hoshi almost a month ago.
Tucker picked up a pair of handcuffs and dropped them into an open box. "I guess that was easier than I expected." He glanced at Malcolm and shrugged, closing the drawer. "Resigning my commission, I mean."
The heavy silence told Malcolm to speak. "The captain did his best to persuade Starfleet to let Enterprise return. It can't be helped if the Vulcans have decided the Torman people have to determine their civil conflicts on their own."
Oh, he sounded so reasonable. She would be proud of him.
Tucker looked around the room he and Hoshi once shared. Now that Tucker had removed their things, the room seemed bare as Malcolm's own quiet quarters. He walked over to the box and dropped Hoshi's robe into it, feeling as though he were losing his last bit of contact with her as the cloth vanished inside.
"I think leaving is the only thing I can do," Tucker said, leaning his forehead against the headboard. "I need to find her." He looked up at Malcolm with a plaintive look in his eyes. "Do you understand?"
Malcolm touched his cheek. "Of course."
Hard not to understand, really. Tucker loved her and needed to rescue her at all costs, despite the fact that she had been abandoned on his orders. There's nothing Duty can make you do that Love cannot fix, after all.
Still, Malcolm felt hollow inside. In the weeks following the retreat from Gelir's threats and the Torman world, Tucker had done nothing to reach out to Malcolm. They slept in different beds and they didn't speak outside of their functions, and God forbid they should even speak her name.
Tucker loved her before he fell in love with Malcolm. In the course of the time Malcolm spent on the Torman world, he'd fallen in love with the dynamic woman whom nothing could defeat. He loved her more than he'd imagined possible in the days before they fell into bed together the first time. And now Tucker and Malcolm could no longer love each other in her absence. Hoshi was the necessary one, the determined woman who made them talk in spite of themselves. The love part of their triangle was silent.
Malcolm wondered what she would think if she were here. After a few more minutes of awkward silence, he realized that he had no idea whatsoever. For the first time, he realized that silence could act like nails on a chalkboard.
"Did you hear what I said, Malcolm?"
Ignoring the lingering scent of Hoshi's perfume in the air, he looked down at Trip and saw worried blue eyes and a man who hadn't slept well in months. Over meals and halting conversations on the bridge with Travis Mayweather, Malcolm recently learned that Tucker confided in the younger man about his nightmares over leaving Hoshi behind. In a way, Malcolm was glad he couldn't remember his own dreams, certain they would be much worse than Tucker's.
"No, I didn't hear you."
In his own voice, Malcolm could hear the wall of reserve he hated yet continued to use. It kept people away and it kept him safe.
Tucker tilted his head and smiled. "How about we figure out things when Hoshi and I get back?" He reached for Malcolm, who sat down on the edge of the bed with reluctance.
Sighing, Tucker reached over and touched Malcolm's hand. "I wish I could show you the love you deserve, but I feel really conflicted about Hoshi right now. It's my fault that she got left behind. I've got to make up for that--understand?"
Malcolm stood up and stretched. "Yes." He eased over to the door, hoping to make an easy escape. Tucker was too wrapped up in his own pain to see the shadows of self-blame Malcolm carried with him everywhere he went. Tucker may well have been the commanding officer, but Malcolm was the security officer...he should have done his job. No one should have been left behind, least of all their beloved Hoshi.
Rising from the bed, Tucker called his name. "Malcolm, listen, I don't leave for another hour. Do you think you could stay?"
Malcolm stared into his eyes. Tucker still loved him, but without Hoshi nothing felt right. Shaking his head, he turned to go.
Tucker blew out his breath. "God damn you for making me ask, Malcolm Reed." He moved to block Malcolm's way. "I didn't ask you to come with me because I wouldn't be able to handle it if I lost both of you. Will you stop sulking and come to bed with me? I need you, even if you act like you don't need me."
Malcolm buried his head in his hands. Nailed. Sulking like a little boy because he wasn't invited to play, or as Tucker would no doubt say at some point, to go out and kick butt, take prisoners and generally save the universe.
He sagged against Tucker and let his strong sense of guilt and blame evaporate. "Do you think you can do the job alone then?" he asked in a suggestive manner.
Tucker snorted. "I come fully equipped."
"I see that," Malcolm said, rubbing against him. "Shall we?"
Tucker pushed him back against the wall and stared into his eyes with need and fear. Sensing his partner's need for control, Malcolm kept still, allowing Tucker to strip him with quiet efficiency. After a long kiss, Tucker took Malcolm's hand and squeezed. They took hold of each other's hardened members and began rubbing and gasping. It only took moments between them, but they both came calling a single name--
"Hoshi."
The Island: Back to Basics
Her laughter rang out in the darkness.
Malcolm scrambled to sit up, but he discovered that his hands were tied behind him. "Hoshi?"
She laughed again, a soft and lethal sound. "You look so tame tied up that I wondered why my master wanted your secrets, human."
Falling to his knees, he remembered. "You bitch."
She ran her fingers under his chin and lifted it. "Call me that again and I'll have you drowned, no matter what Lord Gelir's orders are. I know what you're afraid of and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make my people free of you crazy humans."
Malcolm held onto his temper. It wouldn't do Tucker any good to get himself killed.
The woman who used to be Hoshi pinched his nipple. "You're much more fun than that other weak human. Once we have your ship's secret codes, my master will give me more humans to train. Would you like to help me?"
Malcolm smiled. "You must realize that Captain Archer changed my codes as soon as he discovered my absence. I didn't understand that brainwashing made you stupid as well as insane, Lady Hoshi."
She didn't bother to slap him this time, though his face stung from her earlier blows. A small whimper escaped her.
"Does your head hurt?" he asked in a vicious voice. "You should tell Gelir that his little device is defective. That's how Tucker escaped him and I'm sure you'll fall apart any moment now, too."
In answer Hoshi gave him a half-hearted kick. Malcolm concealed a smile. He was winning their verbal battles. In her confused mental state, Hoshi was breaking away from Gelir's hold over her and gravitating towards Malcolm.
For days he'd kept talking, ever since he let her capture him. Now they were on the private island Gelir gave her for her interrogation sessions. In her capacity as a brainwashed slave of Gelir, she was willing to do anything for the Torman man, including torturing whoever he handed to her.
"Tomorrow is the festival of Summer's Death," Hoshi said, sounding bored. "You will give me the information I requested or your friend Tucker will be executed."
"I have a better idea," Malcolm said, lowering his voice. "Take off this blindfold first and I'll tell you."
She snorted. "I suppose it doesn't matter."
It does matter, Malcolm thought. If I can make you look me in the eye, then it might be possible to reach your original self.
He closed his eyes as the folds of cloth came away from his face. Blinking, he stared at the woman in front of him. Hoshi was almost nude except for the thick metal collar and the circular device on her forehead that Gelir used to control her.
The summer sun beat down upon the island and the sound of the waves called from the beach below the cliffs. A breeze stirred Hoshi's hair. It would have been a beautiful sight if not for the nightmare Malcolm was living.
"God, I want to go home," he said under his breath. "To my nice and useful little torpedoes and all the lovely hand weapons I have stuffed all over the ship."
"Poor baby," Hoshi said, smirking. "No one here to save you and Tucker is under my control. You're all alone."
Malcolm shook his head. "Word of advice, young woman--never try to rescue people while naked. And for God's sake, don't try to do it two times."
His companion wrinkled her nose as if trying to remember. It seemed that Gelir tried to wipe her recent memories as well as her old ones. During the time he'd been held prisoner, Malcolm kept throwing out references to things he hoped Hoshi remembered. A few of his remarks earned him puzzled looks, but for the most part, his captor was more interested in tormenting him than in his psychological tricks.
"Summer's Death," he mused. "It doesn't sound like a very cheerful holiday. I think you preferred Thanksgiving Day. At least, you seemed to like Chef's turkey a lot."
"Or your ham," Hoshi muttered.
Malcolm raised an eyebrow. On a certain level, she was beginning to remember things. For instance, his fear of drowning, which he'd confided to Hoshi a few weeks before their first visit to the Torman world. If only he could break through to the person she used to be...
She turned and looked at the tent in the distance.
"Am I keeping you from company?" Malcolm asked, forcing his voice to sound cheerful.
Hoshi grimaced. "Tucker. He's sleeping off the tranquilizer we gave him, but he was allergic to it. If he doesn't wake up soon, I'm going to have to return to the mainland. The idiot doctor left for the festival a few hours ago, so I'm on my own."
Crushed, Malcolm sagged against his bonds. Great--he was tied to a tree, Tucker was dying from an allergy, and she was worried about the very people she was going to execute in the morning. He shrugged and supposed that she could lose her job as Gelir's flunky if she killed her prisoners too soon. This evil little woman was after his own heart--and liver, and lungs, and whatever else she could get away with while Gelir was gone.
All in all, he was having a rather terrible day.
He smiled and looked up at Hoshi. She was staring at him with a hungry look. "What?"
She shook her head. "I've been watching you for days. You laugh to yourself when you think no one is watching you. What do you find so amusing?"
He glanced down at her body and shook his head. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"I'm disappointed," she said, giving him a narrow look. "I thought you were different from Tucker and all those men who devour me with their eyes. I thought I saw someone who cared for me."
"A good excuse for all that torture," Malcolm quipped. "Perfect practice for marriage, I suppose."
Hoshi raised her hand, but to his surprise, she didn't slap him. Instead, she turned away with a reproachful look.
"Don't go," Malcolm said, trying to straighten himself. "Look, we're both doing things that are against our natures. Can we try to talk about this?"
Hoshi sighed and dropped to her knees. "I have my assignment--getting the information you have--and you have your mission, I'm sure."
"Not really," Malcolm mumbled as she grazed her nails against his thigh. "My captain didn't know I was leaving."
"Oh?"
Malcolm bit his lip as her fingers continued sliding over his skin. He could take a calculated risk and feed her enough information to hold her interest in him. Or he could risk lying his head off and hope she didn't start in on the truth drugs the incompetent doctor was supposed to leave her...
His thoughts scattered as she started undoing the laces to his stolen Torman breeches. She gave him a look that promised him everything he ever wanted from her.
"I don't want to take advantage of you," Malcolm said, looking away and swallowing.
Hoshi laughed. "You're tied to a tree and you're at my mercy, human."
"So you keep reminding me," Malcolm said dryly. "Do what you will with me, my lady."
One of the tree limbs was strong enough to support Malcolm's weight. She guided him over to it and made him sit. A moment later she began rearranging his bonds.
"You're rather skilled at this," Malcolm said, trying to look in her eyes.
She yanked on the chains. "I seem to have a natural talent. Relax."
Malcolm took a deep breath, the only thing he was indeed free to do. In what seemed a lifetime ago, he remembered letting Tucker appropriate a set of handcuffs for bondage play with Hoshi. For some reason, he never found out what happened before he entered the room that night, though he recalled Tucker packing the cuffs away a few weeks ago.
His thoughts were cut off as Hoshi slipped her legs over his and settled into his lap. After a few short heartbeats, she stared into his eyes and took firm hold of his shaft.
He sighed. "I've missed you, woman. Touch me."
With a small, hard smile she began stroking him with one hand while holding onto his shoulder with the other.
"You still like to touch," he said, wishing he could bury his fingers in her hair. He gasped as she reached a sensitive spot. "I wish I could please you. Won't you let me?"
He leaned forward and kissed her. For an instant she was unyielding, then her lips parted and their kiss deepened. After a few more breathless minutes of kissing, she broke apart from him and gave him another predatory look. Taking hold of his thickened shaft, she twisted herself and slipped him inside of her.
She was wet, hot and tight as he remembered. Moaning and gasping, Hoshi rode him. As she worked him, he could think of nothing but the sensations of being inside of her. She slipped her fingers into his mouth. Malcolm sucked on them until she withdrew them to finger herself.
The feel of her clenching his cock and the cries she made as she came almost overwhelmed him.
We've never been closer, he thought. Oh, I wish you were really Hoshi. I'd hold you in my arms and you wouldn't let me lose you ever again.
His tormentor slid out of his lap and stared at him with a satisfied look on her face. Malcolm stared at her, feeling like a mouse waiting for a cat to pounce upon him when she shifted to her knees in the sand before him.
As she began sucking him off, Malcolm vaguely recalled almost failing his class on psychological warfare but getting an A in Basic Torture Techniques. If only he'd known, he would have gone on to the advanced class...
Oblivious, she continued working on him with her eyes closed.
It was hard to think through one of the best moments of his life. He considered the situation. Back in San Francisco he had prided himself on his ability to work through battles in tactical simulations. Despite the intense pleasure of the situation, he felt helpless to save himself. A real tactical officer would have been able to free himself by now, his inner demons shouted.
Fuck off, Malcolm shouted back. God, she's good at this and she loves doing it, too.
He blinked. She remembered. On a basic level, she remembered him.
"Hoshi, I love you," he whispered. "You know how much I love you." She didn't pause as he continued to speak to her. "I love your hair and the way you smile. I wish I could touch you."
She gave him a busy smile and patted his thigh as a shadow crossed the distance behind her.
Malcolm cried out as she swallowed his come. "Hoshi, I'm sorry."
Her eyes fluttered open. "Why?"
Tucker bashed a Torman coconut against Hoshi's temple and she fell over.
"Took you long enough," Malcolm said in a gruff voice. "I hope you aren't angry at me for letting Hoshi play with me."
Picking up Hoshi, Tucker snorted. "I liked the floor show, but yeah, I kind of felt left out. For some reason, she's decided she hates me--or she's been programmed that way. Plus that nasty doctor kind of creeped me out. Come on, I tuned into the comm traffic before I left the tent. Gelir plans to take over Enterprise tomorrow. It's headed back this way to escort a Vulcan cargo convoy into the system."
Malcolm stared at Tucker. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Tucker leaned over and kissed him. "Thanks for trying to rescue me again, honey bunny. Sorry it didn't work out like you planned."
He took off with Hoshi in his arms.
Malcolm stared after him, elated at the prospect of finally having his family intact and whole once again. Then it hit him.
"I'm still tied up, you bloody git!"
To Be Concluded in Technobabble
~the end~
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