a/n: A post-Resolutions fic. Probably the only one I'll ever do because I refuse to touch that episode with a ten-foot barge pole.
Thanks to my awesome beta Helen8462 who made my awkward attempt at semi-smut less... awkward.
Say Something Stupid (Like I Love You)
She's got something on the sleeve of her uniform, right at her wrist where the bone protrudes just a little. He should know really, because he is staring at it awfully hard. Her pale skin is hypnotic, and he's fighting with every bit of himself to keep from touching her and he realises he has to get the hell out of this turbolift.
It's been way too long for him for too damn long and no matter how hard he tries, he can never find the right balance with this woman. It doesn't help that he usually counts on her being too fuelled on coffee - that command brain of hers that focusing too much on parameters and regulations - to help him find that balance.
It's therefore not too much of a stretch of his imagination that he could find that perfect balance between her legs, and anywhere else she's willing to let him go. But, he's still staring at that point on her petite wrist, imaging the way her skin will mark when he finally brands her, and he just can't bring himself to look at her face.
He's really got to get the hell out of the turbolift before he does something really, really stupid.
The silence is almost deafening, and she's still standing to his right, absentmindedly stroking the bit of her wrist he's just been staring at for a good three minutes. Finally, he finds the courage to look up and find her beautiful face when the trip seems to take extraordinarily long and he's stuck for something to say.
His eyes move to hers and she's looking at him now with the brightest blue gaze, a hint of a smirk that says she's not completely oblivious to his inner turmoil. Her husky voice floats around the small, cramped space.
"Are we still on for dinner tonight, Commander?"
She tilts her head a little, looking at him with curiosity when he fails to answer he simple question. Because for him that question could be exactly the pretext to doing the kind of stupid thing he is trying so desperately to avoid.
And he is still thinking about that spot on the inside of her sleeve, and the pale stretch of skin beneath it, and how easy it would be to hold it in his much larger hand.
He finally answers, and he thinks it's probably just his imagination when her cheeks blush a little pink when he says he'll come. Although maybe right now he thinks that neither of them should use the word come around each other because his control is more than waning and he really can't be trusted.
The turbolift doors mercifully open before he starts to get just a little bit aroused from the way she's looking at him. He wonders if she can feel the tension, because it's positively radiating off him right about now. There's a tenuous connection between them; he knows she knows, and he has known ever since they were stranded on that damn planet for months and she looked at him in a totally different light.
She looked at him like he was a man, and not just her first officer. And really, she hasn't been able to stop looking at him that way and its beginning to get noticed. By everyone.
Now they are back on Voyager and if he didn't know any better he'd swear that their Vulcan security officer is fast becoming a fan of leaving them alone together to work out whatever this is.
Chakotay really doesn't want to tell Tuvok that the only way this is going to resolve itself involves a private space – like her bedroom - and something very hands-on with no rules and a certain red-headed Captain. And there is absolutely no possible way it's going to be a one-time thing.
He's pretty sure the Vulcan knows that anyway - if the slightly raised eyebrow is anything to go by whenever the two of them go off into her ready room or end shifts together. He doesn't even want to think about the eyebrow he gets when they arrive together.
He is so busy thinking about Vulcans and eyebrows that he doesn't even notice when she vanishes into her quarters and he's left standing in the corridor with a little bit of a hard-on wondering what the hell it was she just said.
Hours later, when he's showered and taken care of things along with a rather large tumbler of something strong and decidedly not synthenol, he stands outside her door, fidgeting nervously as he runs through all the possible reasons why this is a bad idea.
Really bad, really stupid idea.
But, before he can turn away and bring up some far-fetched excuse as to why he now cannot make dinner, the doors open and she's standing there. Her face is a complete reflection of the emotions raging inside him.
He doesn't even want to think about the fact that she's not wearing her uniform. He can see her bare feet poking out from underneath the slacks, and he is trying not to notice the way her long hair is flicking about her shoulders. Because she never, ever wears it out around him.
Hesitantly, he steps inside. She says a warm good evening, and offers him something to drink. He's not entirely sure though; he's far too busy watching her tongue dart out, licking her lips a little as she speaks to him and he's still got that nagging feeling that the whole thing is a bad idea.
She seems mostly oblivious to the fact that he's imagining himself pushing her hard up against the table, wall or any solid surface she happens to be near at the time. He dreams about the day he can crowd into her space, press into her and see if she'll make the same sound for him as she does for a fresh cup of coffee in the morning.
She turns away from him, moving off to get his drink and he's watching all over again like an idiot as his eyes trace her movements from the subtle sway of her hips to the perfect flick of her hair. He doesn't even notice when she stops next to the replicator, fidgeting a bit and grabbing a bowl of something green.
"Is this something you can work with?" she asks, holding the bowl a little in his direction, before placing it down next to a heap of freshly-replicated ingredients and he's reminded strongly of a time on that planet when she was asked the very same question.
She's standing over by the table and he's still in the middle of the room, watching her with absolutely no clue as to what she's talking about.
"Chakotay?"
It's like she's slapped him clean across the stubble-covered expanse of his jaw as he thinks to the planet, when she'd pulled that replicator apart too and then struggled to put it back together again before night had suddenly fallen. She'd shrugged her shoulders and they'd been stuck for dinner when he'd managed to find some bits of fruit and ration packs from storage and he'd asked her the exact same question.
Was this something she could work with?
She'd never answered, only looked at him with a sultry glance before reaching out and taking the ration packs and trying to make something that resembled food. Only now, they are passing amongst the stars instead of looking up at them, and she's railroaded him into making dinner even though it's her quarters and her turn.
He wonders if she is as clueless as she seems about him and their entire situation, as he answers her and moves over to the fresh food she's still standing next to. As he passes by her, a little bit closer than strictly necessary in the large expanse of her living room, she glances at his mouth, his hands, his chest and then down to his pants and he doesn't wonder anymore.
Taking the knife, he begins slicing the food for dinner – walnut and feta salad – and he finally exhales. Knowing that she knows is beginning to take the edge of his nervous energy, and he focuses entirely on hiding himself behind the table and avoiding cutting his fingers.
She stands just that little bit too close and watches him with that little bit too much attention. It's beginning to get to him, the way she stands so near and watches him. It makes him nervous, he fills the tiny space between them with idle chat and he finds her just that little bit more enchanting with each passing second.
He leans into the wood, crosses his arm over his chest as he finishes preparing and tries to hide his still nagging semi-erection. He mostly succeeds, and she pretends not to notice as she dishes out the salad. For her part, she continues to flutter around, grabbing the wine glasses she'd failed to get earlier and assessing him boldly out of the corner of her eye when she thinks he isn't looking.
If she isn't going to be embarrassed then he sure as hell won't be.
Over dinner, he continues to study her intently and for the most part he can hide his scrutiny behind small-talk and ships business. They've only been back a few weeks and they have a lot to catch up on. He watches her, intrigued by the way her eyes bounce around the room, between the hardly-touched salad in her bowl and then to parts of him he imagines would be much better explored with her mouth.
He takes him time, picking at his salad with little interest before she moves over to clean up. She brushes just a little bit too close when she returns, leaning over to fill his second – or is it third - wine glass for the evening. The fabric of her just-that-little-bit-big blouse snags on his, and he's suddenly hypnotised again by the perfect white skin of her fragile wrist.
A few moments of tense silence, save for the clinking of dishes being recycled, and she sits back down again, and he's never been more grateful for the expanse of the table between them. Her expression is serene and eerily calm when she eventually speaks.
"So, I am thinking we have a problem."
Janeway bits her lip, her eyes flicking down to the wine glass in her hand as she twirls it on one end. Red liquid pools to one side, staining the glass before draining back to the centre as she rights it again.
He takes a rather gulp of wine himself. "Yeah. Me too."
He can almost hear her thinking, turning it over in her mind before she speaks again and he fully expects the next words out of her beautiful, red lips to be a solution, or orders that confine him to the night shift for the rest of their journey.
If only so they never have to deal with this.
Instead, her head drops slightly, and her shoulders sag. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
He's so shocked for a minute by her words that the wine glass he's holding thuds lightly when he all-but drops back to the table. She jumps, sharply eyeing him from across the table.
"I know," he says simply, and because he really does know. "Me too."
He never intended for this - to fall for a Captain from an institution he has come to hate with every fibre of his being. He really didn't, because she is not really his type; bossy, commanding and she's far too enshrouded in principles and regulations that he could never let govern his own life.
She's too tiny, petite and fragile-looking with a mess of auburn hair and an arrogance that's beginning to grate on his nerves. He knows for the most part, he isn't her type either. He's too aggressive, and challenging.
But, he'd follow her to the ends of the universe if she asked.
She gets up slowly, placing a napkin down on her vacant chair and coming to perch delicately on the edge of the table just a little bit away from him. He thinks he should probably get up, because it's way too dangerous for him to be eye-level with her chest. Especially given that it's almost see-through with the white of her blouse.
"The stuff that gets me isn't the same that gets you, though."
Her voice is soft, like she's thinking about her words slowly and carefully. She's right though. She is dealing with emotions and guilt about leaving her fiancé behind and accepting that maybe at some point she might have to just move on from the dreams she's left behind.
He, for the most part, is dealing with hormones.
"That doesn't make it any easier," he says, carefully.
She huffs with something he thinks is akin to exasperation, and he makes him want to smile a little. Reaching around a little, she takes his wine glass from the table and takes a long sip. He isn't even sure where hers is, only that her hands are far too near his own and he can't stop himself from encircling her wrist when she leans to put his wine glass back.
She flinches, only a little, but doesn't pull away. He's managed to grab some of the fabric from her blouse too, and it slips a little bit off her shoulder.
That feeling is slowly coming back. The one that's screaming at him to get out before he gets more involved, and the same damn one that's been telling him all night that this is crazy, stupid idea.
"What do we do now?" she asks, and she sounds almost sad.
He wants to tell her that the only thing he wants to do right this moment is take her to bed, and get this damn thing out of their systems. Because it's so much easier dealing with it if he can look at it as purely release, something that they have to do because of hormones and that they can't possibly have any feelings involved.
Only his fingers are stroking the inside of her wrist in the same spot he's been staring at all evening. His eyes are darting between her mouth and the pale expanse of her shoulder that he can see, and she's not helping matters when she looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to get a hold of his control and step back.
She sure as hell isn't moving.
"I think this is something that you need to decide," he says eventually instead, because it's easier than admitting to her that what he feels for her is a long way from pure lust. And that if she wants to continue to think that she's the only one dealing with emotions, then he'll let her.
She licks her lips again and he thinks she is probably doing it on purpose. He can see the remnants of red wine tinging her lips, and her fingers, cool to the touch despite the heat radiating between them, tighten a little into a fist as she struggles for her own control.
In that moment, he thinks he knows the kind of woman she really is.
He knows that she's the type to do something reckless with her own life and answer the questions later, if she ever makes it through the death wish. She's the kind that pushes the limits far beyond what anyone else would and she's got a dark side from deep in her past that he sees sometimes. She flirts a little too much with a pool cue in her hand, and drowns her sorrows late at night when she thinks nobody else is watching.
It's not a hard stretch of the imagination then, to think that she's probably capable of breaking a few protocols. He thinks that she probably has done it before, because he's read her file and all the classified parts and he knows all about the young Lieutenant that rescued her from the Cardassians and how they ended up engaged.
He thinks that's probably where she learned that dark part of herself. And he knows, because he's been there. He's still there. Only she's beginning to help him in more ways than she knows. Ways that go beyond ancient legends and hand-holding and he knows it's never going to be enough.
And that's why this whole thing has to stop.
"It's better if you make this call," he says, and he so desperately wants to add her name to the end of that sentence.
She's watching him now, blue eyes boring into brown as she tries to read him. She's done this before, pushing things back onto him when she doesn't want to make that call, justifying her actions because someone else made the decision. And he knows in that moment, that she'll always hold back from him. She might risk her life amongst the stars, but she'll never risk her heart.
"It probably is," she concedes eventually, when he tightens his grip on the arm of his chair just a little bit too hard and she tries not to notice. She leans in a little bit closer, sighing breathily. "I don't always make good choices, Chakotay."
He thinks he can read her, just a little bit. But she's so damn close and smelling of that rich perfume that he loves and it's hard to even think straight. He drops his hand from her wrist, smoothing it consciously over the growing bulge in his pants and he stands up, pushing back from the table and walking to the viewport near her couch.
"Yes, you do Kathryn. When it matters, you do."
His back is to her now, and watching the stars fly by, he can think a little bit clearer now. He can hear the hesitation in her voice, the subtle ask of her, pushing to get him to make that decision, to push those boundaries all on his own. He's never going to ask her to break those boundaries, those protocols.
And, if she asks him all own her own to break those parameters? Well, he thinks he's probably man enough to question her motives whilst taking off his pants.
A sigh from behind him makes him jump, just a little and he spins around to see her standing close again, looking up at him with an expression that makes him want to push her into the bulkhead and hold her there.
"Yes," she whispers, an almost defeat colouring her words. "I do."
The light from the passing stars catch the blue in her eyes. The tension has been so high for so long that he doesn't even catch himself when he mutters her name and grabs her small shoulders, pulling her into him.
She's pressed up against him before either of them can think better of it, and he stumbles a little, back pressing into the bulkhead he'd imagined holding her against only moments before. Her thigh is pressing into his groin, her breasts pushing against him and her breath so hot and heavy on his neck.
When he starts to harden more, and it doesn't take long, she pushes back against him, a low moan in her throat that feels like the worst kind of tease imaginable. It takes only a second for him to really lose control, and he's stepping off the wall and spinning her around so fast it makes him dizzy.
He wraps his arm all the way around her, so that his right hand is pushing into her left breast as he supports her a little bit, holding her against the wall and he realises that now he has a thigh between her legs and she's beginning to sag a little with the weight of it all.
God, if they're not careful…
He doesn't even finish the damn thought before he shifts a little harder into her and she moans and it goes straight to his core because she really does make the same sound for him as she does for coffee. He allows himself the luxury of reaching down, and opening his mouth against her red, sinful lips.
His other hand comes up, the one not currently holding her to him, and he grabs her jaw, cupping his hand around her elegant face and stroking a thumb over her cheek. Her pulse thrums beneath his fingers as his own fan out, trailing down her neck. If they don't get a hold of themselves soon he is going to take her right here, against the bulkhead with nothing but the passing starlight and his marks on her pale skin.
Her tongue is dragging over his, sending all sorts of shivers and thrills through him, and he thinks nothing of it when his hand makes its way down from her neck, dragging the material of her shirt further still, down the length of her arm. His mouth follows leaving hers and trailing down her neck.
It's then that she stiffens, pulling back as much as his body crowded in will allow, and her head thuds softly on the bulkhead. She opens her eyes, tantalising slowly and the once-bright blue is now darkened, lust fading away as he begins to see the realisation show through.
"Chakotay," she chokes out, and he's never heard his name whispered with such fright from her lips.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath and steps back, allowing her the space to move. He holds her gaze in his, stepping back far enough so he's nearly back to the table and she's still standing there against the bulkhead with red lips and a blouse half-off her shoulder.
He is aching with unfulfilled need, and he isn't going to pretend like they were thirty seconds away from having sex against the wall. So, he reaches down and adjusts himself a little, hiding it as much as he can so that when he walks back to his quarters – and he knows he has to – a passing crewman won't know any different.
He notices the way she hugs herself, hiking the blouse back up and pressing her thighs together to relieve what must be a similar sort of ache. She holds his penetrating stare, and he thinks that she's never been more beautiful.
It's been a long time and he's never been this turned on by a woman he wasn't already taking to bed. He's not used to not getting what he wants, and he thinks she probably isn't either.
The overwhelming arousal is beginning to dissipate, and he's really got to get out of there before he loses all self-control and ends up pinning her to the bulkhead again. She looks flushed, a little tousled and so completely wanton that he isn't sure he can walk away from her.
"We will figure this out, Kathryn," he says, and allows himself the pleasure of letting her name roll of his tongue. He can still taste her.
She nods a little, and breathily laughs. "I think that's my line to you."
He thinks it probably is her line, but he doesn't care. In this situation, they are both in command. Although, that's probably what got them to this place because neither of them are willing to push the other, and those boundaries that she so carefully constructed a few weeks ago after he pushed just a little are starting to crumble down so rapidly.
Eventually, when they both fail to move, she smiles at him and he begins to relax. If they can get through the next day, and the next shift, the next meeting with an alien, they're going to be okay.
It's the next hard time they are going to face that scares him. The time where they are going to nearly lose each other, and he knows it will come. It's only a matter of time. Because that's the nature of their job and he is going to have to accept the fact the one day he might have to get this ship home without her, or she without him.
And he thinks, that the only way they are going to get through that is probably going to involve him crowding into her space again and pushing her against the nearest solid surface he can find, kissing her soundly and breathing life back into his own tormented body.
When he does eventually leave, and she finally steps off the wall and says goodbye, he's smiling just that little bit too much for their dinner to have been considered purely professional and she's still that little bit too flushed to be purely from the wine.
Because she hadn't meant for this to happen, and neither did he.
As he steps out the door and she follows him just far enough behind that he can't be tempted to stay, she's still smoothing that spot on her wrist, and as he gives her one final look, he notices that there is a tiny red mark where his fingers dug just that bit too hard into her sensitive skin, branding her as his.
a/n: Don't forget about the wonderful Talsi's competition on Tumblr to win a hand-made Chuckles Teddy Bear. All you gotta do is read and review J/C fan fic so the author can nominate you. PM me for the tumblr link if you want to have a look-in at the competitors, rules, judges and updates!