DISCLAIMER: All recognizable characters are not mine, all others belong solely to moi!
Author's Note: This is a follow-up to Demons in the Waters and is told from Archer's POV. Some slash, nothing obscene or graphic, but just in case you are totally against that kind of thing, don't say I didn't warn you. Please r/r!
Shadows in the Sea
I look back on those days a lot--those carefree days when we were young and naive, training in San Francisco for Starfleet. It didn't matter how hard we worked, how impossible the tasks were, or how grueling the hours were. We laughed and joked our way through it. Not that we didn't work hard--of course we did. Ask anyone and they'll all say that Starfleet training is the most difficult part of their lives...and the most fun. When you're young, everything is one great adventure that you race through with friends by your side and the sun on your face.
Trip and I were together even back then. We spent countless hours hanging out, laughing, and talking with our best friends: wild Jack, cynical Kate, and sweet Caroline. The five of us were a tight-knit group and we spent every available hour together.
Or maybe I should say "the *four* of us". Trip was our friend, but he was different back in those days...kind of distant. He never went out with us for a drink after class, for example. We asked, begged, and teased him mercilessly, but he would just plaster on his easy smile and say that he had something else to do.
"Maybe he's a stripper," Kate offered one Friday night. The four of us had gone out after a particularly killer day, and as always Trip had rejected our invitation. So we had gone on to a small bar across the street from Starfleet HQ. Of course the talk had turned to our absent friend. It always did.
Jack looked thoughtful. "Maybe...he's got a great ass."
The rest of us just laughed. Jack was definitely wilder than the rest of us--we spent fewer nights with someone else put together than he spent alone. He always joked that he was working his way through all of Starfleet and that his goal was to have slept with every officer by the time he made Captain.
"Ooh, Jack has a crush on Trip," Caroline teased.
"Not as bad as you," he countered, grinning as the red rushed into her face. Everyone knew that she was in love with him, but Trip had no clue. It was really kind of sad to watch her smile adoringly at him when she thought that no one else was looking.
"Or maybe he's a monk," Kate offered, pulling attention away from Caroline's crimson face.
"Or a virgin," Jack added.
I made a face. "Come on, how pathetic can you get? Not that his being a virgin," I added, anticipating Jack's response, "but you guys. I mean, it's a Friday night and what are we doing? Sitting in a bar debating Trip's sex life."
Jack shook his head. "What's really sad is that Trip's made-up sex life is a million times more interesting than you guys'. Caroline is harboring a teenage crush on Trip; Kate has sworn off romance, though she hasn't *quite* managed to stick to her resolution--" he grinned at her "--and Jon constantly has his nose in a book."
"And what about you, Mr. Playboy of the Western World?" Kate countered. "All you ever do is brag about alleged conquests and try to get people in bars to go home with you with pathetic pick-up lines."
"Alleged?" Jack feigned shock. "My dear Kate, every one of them was true. Just because you haven't been with anyone since high school doesn't mean that the rest of us have taken vows of celibacy. There are plenty of people looking for a good time."
Kate wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Pig."
"Prude," he countered good-naturedly. The two of them constantly bickered like that, but it was pretty clear that there was a current of sexual tension between them. Kind of like Trip and T'Pol actually. They act like they can't stand each other, but the entire ship knows that eventually they'll go to bed together.
Anyway, I digress. The point is that none of us knew what Trip did after class. He lived in a cubicle just like the rest of us--in fact, Caroline, Trip, and I lived on the same floor. We knew that he went home early every night, but why anyone would choose to go back to a tiny, cramped room instead of hanging out and having fun was a mystery.
It didn't help to ask him, of course. He would just smile, shrug, and say, "I don't know what you're talkin' 'bout. It's not like I have some kinda secret life." And then he would laugh a little a change the subject.
It's not like the rest of us lost sleep wondering about him. It was just who he was--likeable, charismatic, and evasive. We thought about it just long enough to tease him and then forgot about his strange behavior and let our minds turn to more interesting things.
Then one night something changed. A guy showed up at the cubicle building. Jack, Caroline, Kate, and I were returning late one Friday night to find a man pounding on Trip's door. He looked a lot like Trip; when he turned to face us, it was clear that they were related.
"Charlie!" he yelled. "Charlie, it's Will. Let me in!"
Suddenly the door swung open. The room was dim. In the faint light we could see a rumpled form on the bed. The person appeared to be asleep. One arm dangled over the side of the bed. He or she wasn't moving.
"What?" Trip asked tensely. Exhaustion and worry showed clearly on his face. His hand was folded around a thin object, but I couldn't tell what it was.
"Will," he sighed with relief. "Come on in." He moved aside and the two slipped inside.
I don't know how long we stood there. I don't even know if he saw us. I don't think he did; he looked far too preoccupied to have noticed our presence. Finally, we mumbled good bye and walked down the hall to our own cubicles, slightly shaken by what we had seen. We had never seen Trip look so upset, and it seemed to confirm the fact that none of us really knew our friend at all.
*****
None of us saw Trip all weekend. Although he seemed pretty busy, he usually made time to hang out with us. But this weekend his absence was conspicuous. None of us wanted to talk about what we had seen on Friday night, and the unspoken questions made our time together strained and awkward.
On Sunday night I finally decided to look for Trip. I had known him longer than anyone else--we had met during prep squad. Ever since that first sunny day he had always worn the same grin, and the person I had seen on Friday night stood in stark contrast to the man I thought I had known.
I knocked for quite a while before giving up. The problem was that I had no idea where he could be. I stood by his door for a while before deciding to talk to Caroline. Although some people saw her as a foolish schoolgirl hopelessly in love with Trip, I knew that she was a sweet, quietly passionate person who would listen to my fears about my friend unlike Kate and Jack who would brush off my worry as irrational (Kate) or the product of a secret crush (Jack).
I knocked on her door. It took her a while to answer. When she finally did, she was wearing a white tank top and gray pants. Her short blond hair was tousled, and she looked surprised to see me.
"Jon...what are you doing here?"
"I just wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?"
She glanced back, but the door was angled so that I could not see inside. "Now's not really a good time, Jon."
Maybe I should have gotten the hint, but this was Caroline...the only person in our group with a less active sex life than mine. Instead I plowed on. "I'm really worried about Trip...I went to see him, but he's not in his cubicle. Have you seen him?"
"Um, yeah...he's..." She trailed off and again looked over her shoulder.
Trip walked up behind her. He was dressed only from the waist down, and his hair stuck up in all directions. "Yeah, Jon?"
I was completely dumbstruck. "N-nothing...sorry to interrupt." I turned and fled down the hall, even more confused.
*****
That was the end of "Trip the Monk", "Trip the Virgin", "Trip the Mystery". Or maybe it was the beginning. In any case, after that weekend, Trip never again refused an invitation to hang out. In fact, he stayed up until all-hours every night, drinking, flirting...and going to bed with every one on campus.
It's funny how everything can change so quickly. Trip proved to be quite the heartbreaker. Oh sure, Jack was certainly not opposed to casual sex. It's just that whenever he went home with someone, it was just for fun. He never tried to get into a relationship. It was just recreation, a little diversion.
Trip, though...he turned out to be completely different. He dumped Caroline after a couple of weeks...and that was one of his longer relationships. Most times he would wind up with someone one night and the next be with someone completely different. He didn't brag either, like Jack did. He just kept moving, restless, from person to person, staying only as long as it took him to get bored or something, I don't know. But people floated in and out of his bed that year, and every year since. He never seems to get hurt, but the others...that's another story.
Take Caroline for example. After he dumped her, she was never the same. He didn't dump her per se, he just stopped coming by to see her at night. He moved on, and I guess he expected her to move on too. She couldn't, though. Caroline wasn't the kind of girl who had casual flings. She was madly in love with him, and when it turned out that he didn't feel the same way, it crushed her.
Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but I don't think so. Our whole group wound up that way, as did half of the students in our class. He had sex with more of them than I can count, and when he inevitably moved on they always cried a little. Kate cried buckets after he stopped sleeping with her. Even Jack seemed a little different, his smile the next morning a little forced. Trip just had that affect on people. He drew them towards him so fiercly that when he pulled away, it was as though he had ripped out a part of their hearts.
I was the only member of our group whom he didn't sleep with, and I was the only one to stick with him. Caroline eventually stopped hanging out with us, explaining that it was just too hard now. So did Kate. Jack hung on longer; he still went out with us months after it was over between him and Trip. But he definitely was not the same. I could see the pain in his eyes when Trip would walk up to someone, sit down, and turn on his charm. Eventually even he left.
Sometimes I'm jealous of them, of all the countless people who have found their way to Trip's bed. He always steered clear of me, and I've always wondered why. But out of all of the people in his life, I have lasted the longest, so maybe I should be thankful that he never turned his charms on me.
Of course, that's poor consilation some nights when I lie alone in bed and wonder if I'll ever have someone special in my life. I think about Trip and my stomach twists a little. I'm not blind; I can see why so many have fallen under his spell. His soft accent and trademark grin have wooed thousands, including me. It's not like I'm pining away or anything, but on lonely nights these thoughts creep into my head and won't go away. Truth is, I'm not sure I want to get rid of them. I've given up on his being attracted to me, but sometimes this dream makes it easier to sleep at night, as though it might someday come true.
Then again, I know that it would be a bad idea. I would just wind up in his reject pile, and then I would lose my best friend. Besides, I still don't know him, not really. I've never asked him about that night, and I don't think that I ever will. I want to know him, I want to know that pain in his eyes. I know that somewhere in him that scared, weary person still exists, but he keeps that part of himself shielded from everyone, even me.
Trip's a heartbreaker to the core--he lets people get close but makes sure that no one ever gets a glimpse of his heart. Even me who wants to know what lies under that calm surface so much can't get inside him. He's as much of a mystery as when Jack, Caroline, Kate, and I would sit around pondering Trip's secret life.
*Maybe he's a stripper...or a monk...or a virgin...*
I smile at our naivete. Trip has a secret far deeper than anything that our young minds could have imagained, I know that. And sometimes I imagine that I can see pain on his face, and I know that it's eating him alive. But he doesn't tell anyone, doesn't let anyone close enough to really know him. What lies under his cheerful exterior remains a mystery, like shadows in the sea.
Author's Note: This is a follow-up to Demons in the Waters and is told from Archer's POV. Some slash, nothing obscene or graphic, but just in case you are totally against that kind of thing, don't say I didn't warn you. Please r/r!
Shadows in the Sea
I look back on those days a lot--those carefree days when we were young and naive, training in San Francisco for Starfleet. It didn't matter how hard we worked, how impossible the tasks were, or how grueling the hours were. We laughed and joked our way through it. Not that we didn't work hard--of course we did. Ask anyone and they'll all say that Starfleet training is the most difficult part of their lives...and the most fun. When you're young, everything is one great adventure that you race through with friends by your side and the sun on your face.
Trip and I were together even back then. We spent countless hours hanging out, laughing, and talking with our best friends: wild Jack, cynical Kate, and sweet Caroline. The five of us were a tight-knit group and we spent every available hour together.
Or maybe I should say "the *four* of us". Trip was our friend, but he was different back in those days...kind of distant. He never went out with us for a drink after class, for example. We asked, begged, and teased him mercilessly, but he would just plaster on his easy smile and say that he had something else to do.
"Maybe he's a stripper," Kate offered one Friday night. The four of us had gone out after a particularly killer day, and as always Trip had rejected our invitation. So we had gone on to a small bar across the street from Starfleet HQ. Of course the talk had turned to our absent friend. It always did.
Jack looked thoughtful. "Maybe...he's got a great ass."
The rest of us just laughed. Jack was definitely wilder than the rest of us--we spent fewer nights with someone else put together than he spent alone. He always joked that he was working his way through all of Starfleet and that his goal was to have slept with every officer by the time he made Captain.
"Ooh, Jack has a crush on Trip," Caroline teased.
"Not as bad as you," he countered, grinning as the red rushed into her face. Everyone knew that she was in love with him, but Trip had no clue. It was really kind of sad to watch her smile adoringly at him when she thought that no one else was looking.
"Or maybe he's a monk," Kate offered, pulling attention away from Caroline's crimson face.
"Or a virgin," Jack added.
I made a face. "Come on, how pathetic can you get? Not that his being a virgin," I added, anticipating Jack's response, "but you guys. I mean, it's a Friday night and what are we doing? Sitting in a bar debating Trip's sex life."
Jack shook his head. "What's really sad is that Trip's made-up sex life is a million times more interesting than you guys'. Caroline is harboring a teenage crush on Trip; Kate has sworn off romance, though she hasn't *quite* managed to stick to her resolution--" he grinned at her "--and Jon constantly has his nose in a book."
"And what about you, Mr. Playboy of the Western World?" Kate countered. "All you ever do is brag about alleged conquests and try to get people in bars to go home with you with pathetic pick-up lines."
"Alleged?" Jack feigned shock. "My dear Kate, every one of them was true. Just because you haven't been with anyone since high school doesn't mean that the rest of us have taken vows of celibacy. There are plenty of people looking for a good time."
Kate wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Pig."
"Prude," he countered good-naturedly. The two of them constantly bickered like that, but it was pretty clear that there was a current of sexual tension between them. Kind of like Trip and T'Pol actually. They act like they can't stand each other, but the entire ship knows that eventually they'll go to bed together.
Anyway, I digress. The point is that none of us knew what Trip did after class. He lived in a cubicle just like the rest of us--in fact, Caroline, Trip, and I lived on the same floor. We knew that he went home early every night, but why anyone would choose to go back to a tiny, cramped room instead of hanging out and having fun was a mystery.
It didn't help to ask him, of course. He would just smile, shrug, and say, "I don't know what you're talkin' 'bout. It's not like I have some kinda secret life." And then he would laugh a little a change the subject.
It's not like the rest of us lost sleep wondering about him. It was just who he was--likeable, charismatic, and evasive. We thought about it just long enough to tease him and then forgot about his strange behavior and let our minds turn to more interesting things.
Then one night something changed. A guy showed up at the cubicle building. Jack, Caroline, Kate, and I were returning late one Friday night to find a man pounding on Trip's door. He looked a lot like Trip; when he turned to face us, it was clear that they were related.
"Charlie!" he yelled. "Charlie, it's Will. Let me in!"
Suddenly the door swung open. The room was dim. In the faint light we could see a rumpled form on the bed. The person appeared to be asleep. One arm dangled over the side of the bed. He or she wasn't moving.
"What?" Trip asked tensely. Exhaustion and worry showed clearly on his face. His hand was folded around a thin object, but I couldn't tell what it was.
"Will," he sighed with relief. "Come on in." He moved aside and the two slipped inside.
I don't know how long we stood there. I don't even know if he saw us. I don't think he did; he looked far too preoccupied to have noticed our presence. Finally, we mumbled good bye and walked down the hall to our own cubicles, slightly shaken by what we had seen. We had never seen Trip look so upset, and it seemed to confirm the fact that none of us really knew our friend at all.
*****
None of us saw Trip all weekend. Although he seemed pretty busy, he usually made time to hang out with us. But this weekend his absence was conspicuous. None of us wanted to talk about what we had seen on Friday night, and the unspoken questions made our time together strained and awkward.
On Sunday night I finally decided to look for Trip. I had known him longer than anyone else--we had met during prep squad. Ever since that first sunny day he had always worn the same grin, and the person I had seen on Friday night stood in stark contrast to the man I thought I had known.
I knocked for quite a while before giving up. The problem was that I had no idea where he could be. I stood by his door for a while before deciding to talk to Caroline. Although some people saw her as a foolish schoolgirl hopelessly in love with Trip, I knew that she was a sweet, quietly passionate person who would listen to my fears about my friend unlike Kate and Jack who would brush off my worry as irrational (Kate) or the product of a secret crush (Jack).
I knocked on her door. It took her a while to answer. When she finally did, she was wearing a white tank top and gray pants. Her short blond hair was tousled, and she looked surprised to see me.
"Jon...what are you doing here?"
"I just wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?"
She glanced back, but the door was angled so that I could not see inside. "Now's not really a good time, Jon."
Maybe I should have gotten the hint, but this was Caroline...the only person in our group with a less active sex life than mine. Instead I plowed on. "I'm really worried about Trip...I went to see him, but he's not in his cubicle. Have you seen him?"
"Um, yeah...he's..." She trailed off and again looked over her shoulder.
Trip walked up behind her. He was dressed only from the waist down, and his hair stuck up in all directions. "Yeah, Jon?"
I was completely dumbstruck. "N-nothing...sorry to interrupt." I turned and fled down the hall, even more confused.
*****
That was the end of "Trip the Monk", "Trip the Virgin", "Trip the Mystery". Or maybe it was the beginning. In any case, after that weekend, Trip never again refused an invitation to hang out. In fact, he stayed up until all-hours every night, drinking, flirting...and going to bed with every one on campus.
It's funny how everything can change so quickly. Trip proved to be quite the heartbreaker. Oh sure, Jack was certainly not opposed to casual sex. It's just that whenever he went home with someone, it was just for fun. He never tried to get into a relationship. It was just recreation, a little diversion.
Trip, though...he turned out to be completely different. He dumped Caroline after a couple of weeks...and that was one of his longer relationships. Most times he would wind up with someone one night and the next be with someone completely different. He didn't brag either, like Jack did. He just kept moving, restless, from person to person, staying only as long as it took him to get bored or something, I don't know. But people floated in and out of his bed that year, and every year since. He never seems to get hurt, but the others...that's another story.
Take Caroline for example. After he dumped her, she was never the same. He didn't dump her per se, he just stopped coming by to see her at night. He moved on, and I guess he expected her to move on too. She couldn't, though. Caroline wasn't the kind of girl who had casual flings. She was madly in love with him, and when it turned out that he didn't feel the same way, it crushed her.
Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but I don't think so. Our whole group wound up that way, as did half of the students in our class. He had sex with more of them than I can count, and when he inevitably moved on they always cried a little. Kate cried buckets after he stopped sleeping with her. Even Jack seemed a little different, his smile the next morning a little forced. Trip just had that affect on people. He drew them towards him so fiercly that when he pulled away, it was as though he had ripped out a part of their hearts.
I was the only member of our group whom he didn't sleep with, and I was the only one to stick with him. Caroline eventually stopped hanging out with us, explaining that it was just too hard now. So did Kate. Jack hung on longer; he still went out with us months after it was over between him and Trip. But he definitely was not the same. I could see the pain in his eyes when Trip would walk up to someone, sit down, and turn on his charm. Eventually even he left.
Sometimes I'm jealous of them, of all the countless people who have found their way to Trip's bed. He always steered clear of me, and I've always wondered why. But out of all of the people in his life, I have lasted the longest, so maybe I should be thankful that he never turned his charms on me.
Of course, that's poor consilation some nights when I lie alone in bed and wonder if I'll ever have someone special in my life. I think about Trip and my stomach twists a little. I'm not blind; I can see why so many have fallen under his spell. His soft accent and trademark grin have wooed thousands, including me. It's not like I'm pining away or anything, but on lonely nights these thoughts creep into my head and won't go away. Truth is, I'm not sure I want to get rid of them. I've given up on his being attracted to me, but sometimes this dream makes it easier to sleep at night, as though it might someday come true.
Then again, I know that it would be a bad idea. I would just wind up in his reject pile, and then I would lose my best friend. Besides, I still don't know him, not really. I've never asked him about that night, and I don't think that I ever will. I want to know him, I want to know that pain in his eyes. I know that somewhere in him that scared, weary person still exists, but he keeps that part of himself shielded from everyone, even me.
Trip's a heartbreaker to the core--he lets people get close but makes sure that no one ever gets a glimpse of his heart. Even me who wants to know what lies under that calm surface so much can't get inside him. He's as much of a mystery as when Jack, Caroline, Kate, and I would sit around pondering Trip's secret life.
*Maybe he's a stripper...or a monk...or a virgin...*
I smile at our naivete. Trip has a secret far deeper than anything that our young minds could have imagained, I know that. And sometimes I imagine that I can see pain on his face, and I know that it's eating him alive. But he doesn't tell anyone, doesn't let anyone close enough to really know him. What lies under his cheerful exterior remains a mystery, like shadows in the sea.