A/N: The request was for hurt/comfort J/C set early in the journey with a realization of feelings at the end. I haven't written a great deal of hurt/comfort, so I hope I've done it justice! Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are from a very fallible me. Post-Investigations, pre-Resolutions.
Fire. A thousand needles. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Another hit of cane against flesh and Chakotay forgets the number he'd held in his head. Fire. Garbled voices and a yell. Maybe it's a question. Maybe it's a demand. Fire. One. Two. More shouting. Blurred colors, muddled from pain. Fire. Three. Eight? A gurgle from his own throat. His tongue is too thick from thirst to even begin to answer whatever the hell it is they're shouting about. Fire. A hundred? Two hundred? Blackness. Fire. He jerks. Fire. His mind finally lets him go.
He feels rough fabric against his cheek when he opens his eyes. His thoughts are a jigsaw puzzle, and he tries to pick out pieces to remind him of where he is and why he's there. He shifts and his back lights up in agony. The Kazon called them liars because no woman could possibly lead a crew. He is bigger, she is smaller, and physical power is the currency they negotiate in.
"Don't move," Captain Janeway instructs, appearing next to him. Her brow is furrowed in concern and she touches his face, careful not to touch the bruises. Her gentle fingers are welcome after the brutal caning he'd received. "Lie as still as you can."
"Thirsty," he manages. He hasn't been lying, not that it matters to the Kazon. He's never been a liar, not even when he left Starfleet. Deception has never been his game. "Water."
"After." After what she isn't clear although he hears liquid being poured into a bowl. She comes back into his vision, "This is going to hurt."
Fire. Fire. Fire. FIRE. He cries out with each touch of the cloth and several tears escape down his face. The flames burn hot for a few moments and then they die down taking the soreness with it. The captain rummages around, out of his vision, and he feels pressure on his back. There's a brief respite and then she carefully guides him into a sitting position. Chakotay feels pain but it is nothing like before. She holds out a bowl with water in it and he drinks it down; its coolness is a relief to the cotton in his mouth.
"You're okay now, Chakotay," she soothes. She's the devil with red hair, he thinks, because she does lie. We needed a good performance. Her words, spoken without any shame and with the expectation he would accept them with a smile. And he did. Spirits help him, he did. It's the conversation they haven't had and the one he can't have now because he's exhausted even if the pain has been ameliorated for the moment.
"Tired." He doesn't know if he'll ever be able to put together another sentence.
Janeway nods and helps him back down into a position that won't harm his back.
Hours later, when he's had a fitful bit of sleep, they come again to beat the "truth" out of him. These Kazon have no sect and they think the two of them must be spies. The rogue Kazon are a cult in the middle of an undetected outpost and that's the way this small enclave intends to remain. He screams this time. He's sure of it. Before, he wasn't sure it was his voice; this time there is no doubt. His throat is shredded as though he's been drinking glass. The one with the cane hisses that Chakotay is lying and demands the truth.
Janeway lies. Seska lies too. Both lie for a cause, for something they believe in. Are they right? Are they wrong? Do ends justify means? Is the cause just? All he knows is that he doesn't lie. He repeats what he's been saying - they didn't know the Kazon were here. His responses are met with harder hits until they decide he can take no more.
"Remember, it's going to hurt." Janeway speaks the truth and he sucks in as she tends to him. She tells him about the women and how they're treated less than. Their lower status makes them willing to help, however. The Kazon men sneer and do nothing as their women pass on salve and food. Sex is power even here on the other side of the galaxy, and the Kazon deal in power. Chakotay wonders if Janeway knows that she treats him as less than. She made him a fool while Tom Paris looked on. Is she the sort who sleeps with a man like Paris? Sex is currency no matter how civilized a people become.
He holds onto that thought when they beat him again. This time he doesn't let out a scream because he's lost in his own mind, wondering if she visits him at night. It makes him angry and he doesn't feel the cane. There are growls and shouts. He doesn't hear them. He hears only his own rage. Does Tom get Janeway's ear because she whispers her secrets over a pillow? Is there jealousy he isn't admitting to? It makes him angrier to consider that there might be.
The gashes on his back get deeper and redder. There's a look on her face that belies her worry.
"Do you have sex with him?" Chakotay asks. Her confusion makes him realize he's been having all these thoughts in his head and not out loud. "Paris. Are you having sex with him?"
She freezes and her lips twitch at a smile. "Am I having sex with Tom Paris?" She's incredulous to the point of amusement.
"A simple yes or no."
"No."
That's all she says. She made him a fool and acted like it wasn't anything to lose sleep over. He lost sleep over it though. He is a court jester, to dance when she asks and to perform tricks at her behest. His arms are strung up above him the next time he goes in and the Kazon in charge, the one with the hair most matted and in need of a good wash, hits him in the gut when Chakotay refuses to answer. He's repeated himself enough and they still don't believe him. They're afraid and fear makes people certain of facts that aren't really facts at all.
He doesn't flinch at her touch when he's returned to his cell.
"I managed to get one of our communicators. I've switched on the homing beacon. I don't think these Kazon have a lot of technology at their disposal. It's likely it'll go unnoticed."
"You really aren't sleeping with Paris?" he hisses out as she presses a bandage to a particularly tender spot.
"I said that I wasn't." She seems almost indignant that he didn't accept her word the first time.
He grunts. It hurts to talk and the fire… damn it. The salve is losing potency and he doesn't want to consider what it will feel like when he gets back after the next interrogation. Janeway sits in front of him and he notices her hair, disheveled and unkempt.
"Tell them something," she instructs after she's inspected his wounds. "Make it up if you have to. They already don't believe the truth. Maybe they'll go easier on you if we give them something they want."
He chokes out a cough. "I'm not like you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm not good at lying."
"Chakotay…" He can hear an excuse forming at the tip of her tongue and then she bites it back. Her concern has been replaced by guilt and he's oddly satisfied. She disappears during the night and he doesn't see her before they drag him out again. Her mind is always calculating and this time, it will be in his favor, whatever game she's playing at.
They string him up, they yell at him some more. There's no caning today and he doesn't know if it's a blessing or if there's worse coming along. The worse turns out to be more hits to the gut and more than a few to the face. He's surprised when they throw him back in his cell without a more significant beating. Janeway is there, her bowl full once more, and with fresh bandages.
"Let it be." He doesn't want her to touch him.
"You need…"
"I need to be left alone."
"I can't do that."
Chakotay sighs and flames course down his spine. "Afraid to lose your lap dog?"
She gives him a leveled gaze and avoids his pointed question. "The leader's… woman," Janeway starts, grimacing at the use of the word "woman" in terms of possession. "She apparently demanded they go easier on you." Her tone is self-satisfied and now he knows where she went last night. "Her argument was that they were going to kill you and then what use would you be?"
"That's all that matters right? How useful I am?"
"This isn't the time, Chakotay."
He snorts and winces immediately after. "Will there be time on Voyager? You made me a fool and don't give me the line that it was about performance."
She broaches him slowly, not answering his question. He pulls back even though it hurts and she frowns. "Let me. Please."
Chakotay relents because he's tired and in a great deal of pain. She's kind to him, he concedes. They aren't beating her because a woman can't be in charge. They're beating him because that's the way things are in their culture. He's got the genitals and therefore he's got the rank. It doesn't matter that he's wanted and she's his captor. All that matters is what's under their clothes. Maybe that's why she is the way that she is. It's the way things are for her. It doesn't matter the uniform he's wearing, what matters is what's on his record. A man who betrayed the Federation and never did his time. A criminal with Federation secrets. He's untrustworthy even though he was trying to save lives the Federation forgot. Is there no understanding for a man trying to fight the injustices against his own?
"You should have told me," he mutters, peering at her as best he can. His eyes are swollen from the left hook the leader gave him. "I was fighting for my people."
"I was afraid. With traitors on board… I was afraid. I am afraid. I don't know if I can get us home if I keep finding snakes under every rock. Hell, I don't know if I can get us home at all."
She might be skilled at deception but not in this moment. In this moment, she is a woman with lives in her hands, including his own. Do the ends justify the means? When his cheeks had been hot with embarrassment he would have said no. Now… now he's not so sure. He struggles against the fire in his back to get a better look at her, the ambient lighting revealing raw vulnerability. Her beauty has never been a matter of question and yet…
"If anyone can do it, you can," he tells her. Inside he tries to grab onto his anger again and it slips through his fingers like water. He doesn't want to absolve her and his lips betray him. "But you can't do it alone."
Janeway smiles, warmth emanating from her, towards him, and he finds loyalty being drawn from inside him. She glances down and then meets his eyes, contrition evident in her expression. "I'm sorry. I should have trusted you."
There's a stirring inside him. Not just loyalty he realizes. More. She needs him and, spirits, he realizes, he needs her. He struggles to open his mouth to tell her what he can barely admit to himself when phaser fire cuts through the darkness.
"They found us," he says instead, biting back his pledge of fealty and… more. The fact that it remains unnamed doesn't make it any less true. He's not ready to name it though. He's not ready for more. Perhaps, he considers, he's not as unskilled in the art of deception as he had originally thought.
"We're going to be okay," she assures him. She grips his hand as the familiar tingle of the transporter engulfs him, and he has no doubt that she is telling him the truth.
The End