Naked

Disclaimer: Not making any money... Paramount owns it all, except my original characters.

AN: Thanks to my betas Gabi and t'eyla for their help. Always appreciate your opinions, girls!

Please read the warning:

This story contains references to adult situations (nothing graphic) and coarse language. This may be a little darker than my usual fics, and if you don't really like that kind of thing, you might want to stop reading here.

Thanks for reading the warning, and as always, feedback is very much appreciated! Enjoy!

"Malcolm."

The moonlight coming in through the window had painted a pale square, lined by the shadows of the bars. Trip could see part of Malcolm's shoulder, and the back of the other man's head. He knew that Malcolm wasn't sleeping.

"Malcolm," Trip repeated, quietly so as not to wake the other men. "Talk to me. Please."

Malcolm didn't move or speak.

Trip hesitated. Getting out of bed wasn't allowed, nor was talking after lights-out. He glanced at the door. Maybe, if he was in luck, the guards wouldn't hear him.

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his narrow bed. The cots stood close together, and he could touch Malcolm's shoulder if he leaned forward only a little.

"Malcolm."

This time, Malcolm turned his head.

"What?" he asked. His voice was rough.

Trip suddenly felt very tired. The things he wanted to say - you can't go on like this, you have to eat, talk to me, goddammit, just talk to me once in a while or I'll go insane - seemed empty, useless. Just words.

"Nothing," he said. Malcolm looked at him for a moment, then he turned away again and pulled the blanket up to his chin. Trip did the same as he lay back down. The room suddenly seemed very cold to him. The silence sounded in his ears like a scream.

"Did you enjoy your time with him, sir?"

Yes

, Trip thought, say yes, say you enjoyed it, say you had a fucking ball-

"More or less," the man said, casually handing Jaron a few money chips. "He's new, isn't he?"

"Yes," Jaron said. His voice was still all smiles and smooth charm, but as he looked past the man at Trip, his eyes were cold. "We got him only a few weeks ago."

The man grinned. "Yeah. It shows."

Trip knew he was talking about the welts, which crisscrossed his back, bottom and thighs. Jaron's expression promised that there would be more to add to the collection before the day was over.

"I'm sorry if he..."

The man waved a careless hand. "Oh, I don't mind a little spirit. Makes it more interesting, if you ask me." He glanced at Trip and smiled as he turned back to Jaron. "Don't be too hard on him. He'll learn."

"That he will." Jaron pocketed the money. "Enjoy your evening, sir."

The man left, and Jaron turned to Trip. "How often do we have to do this before you get the message?"

"He said he enjoyed it." And he did, from the way he was yelling.

"Shut it!" Jaron took a step towards the bed. "I swear, Tukh'r, one more complaint tonight, and I won't care about your looks. You'll be fucking crawling back to the dorm."

"Yes, sir."

"Now get your ass back downstairs." The door slammed shut.

For a few seconds, Trip only sat there. Then he slowly got up and picked up what passed for his clothes in this place. At least it hadn't hurt that much this time.

"That one."

The man pointed at Malcolm, who slowly got up from the divan bed. His face was empty, but when Jaron narrowed his eyes at him behind the customer's back, his smile reappeared in an instant. Malcolm was good at smiling. He made it look real, even though his eyes were never included in the expression. It had taken several brutal whippings and one near-drowning in a bucket full of icy water before Malcolm had perfected his smile, but now it did look convincing.

"He's a wild one," Jaron said to the customer. "You'll get your money's worth."

The man refused to meet Jaron's eyes. "Come on," he muttered to Malcolm, who followed him with his head down and his shoulders hunched up, the way he always seemed to walk these days.

A wife and two children

, Trip thought as he watched the customer hurry up the stairs, Malcolm in tow. Maybe three. These guys always looked the same - as if they wished that dark sunglasses, hat and fake moustache wouldn't look so damn ridiculous. They never really looked at anyone, either, as if they were secretly afraid of being judged, even by Jaron who took their money and wished them a nice evening.

"Tukh'r!" Jaron hissed, and Trip noticed that he had stopped smiling.

"Sorry, sir," he mumbled, trying to look contrite. He had gotten his share of trouble today, and if he pushed Jaron any further, it would be another night of lying awake and trying to ignore the throbbing in his back. "Won't happen again."

"Here."

Varik held out his cigarette. Trip guessed that "cigarette" was probably the wrong term for the thing; the "tobacco" inside the rolled-up paper contained more than one strong hallucinogen.

"Makes you feel good," Varik said, still holding out the small cylinder. Trip took it and carefully inserted it between his lips. It tasted of dirt and ashes, and made his head swim as he inhaled the smoke.

"Good, huh," Varik said, and took it back.

Trip nodded. "Yeah," he said.

Varik looked at Malcolm, who was sitting on his cot and watching them with no discernible expression on his face. "Riidh? You want to try?"

Malcolm shook his head, then reached out and took the cigarette. His eyes closed as he inhaled, then he suddenly started coughing. Varik laughed.

"You need to get used to it. Takes a while."

He smoked in silence for a while. "You guys need to stop doing this," he said then.

"What?" Trip asked, although he knew.

"You need to stop pissing off Jaron," Varik said. "Won't do no good. You get hurt. And it changes nothing."

Yes it does

, Trip thought but did not say. Varik was right.

"It's not that bad," Varik continued, and stubbed out his cigarette on the window sill. "No hard work. And if you do a good job, you get these." He grinned and held up another cigarette he had pulled from his pocket. "Want one?"

Trip shook his head. Varik shrugged and lit up his smoke, cupping one hand in front of it. "I was the same," he said then. "Two years ago. He almost killed me one time. Then I decided that it wasn't worth it, getting whipped every few days."

Trip said nothing, and Varik held out the cigarette again. "Here."

Trip closed his eyes as he breathed in the smoke. It didn't even taste that bad, after you had gotten used to it.

"I don't know... it's like we don't really communicate."

Trip continued to massage the woman's large shoulders, and tried to put at least a modicum of interest into his voice as he answered.

"Yeah?"

"Yes..." She sighed. "He never listens to me."

Good for him

, he thought. Her shoulders were two wobbly chunks of flesh under his hands. She smelled of sweetish perfume and a mixture of sweat and hairspray.

"I don't think he loves me," she said.

You don't say. Maybe it's got something to do with it that you cheat on him with your own personal boy toy in this sleazy place.

Aloud he said, "I don't see what there's not to love."

She turned her head and smiled. "You're such a sweet boy."

And you're old enough to be my mother, lady. Except that my mother isn't as ugly as an elephant's ass.

He smiled back. "Always a pleasure, ma'am."

She sighed happily as he began to massage the small of her back (in her case, the "small" of her back was a relative term, as there was hardly anything small about her whole person). "I do wish they wouldn't treat you like this," she said. "Why do they hit you all the time?"

"Guess I deserve it," he said. He knew better than to criticize Jaron in front of the customers.

"I don't think so," she said. "I could never hurt you, honey."

"That's nice of you to say," he said, and in way, it was.

"I don't have enough money," she said, sounding as if she really regretted it. "I'd have you out of this place in no time."

He stared at her carefully coiffured hair and wondered why she would think that he'd rather want to be with her.

"I'd like that," he said.

"Yes, I know." She sighed. "But I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you, sweetie."

He felt as if he could have screamed.

"Well?"

Malcolm gasped when the whip came down on his back with a smack. Trip and the others were gathered at the back of the dorm, trying to look at anything but Jaron and Malcolm, who was prone on his bed with his wrists tied to the metal frame. Jaron raised the whip, and brought it down again with more force than before.

"I'm waiting, Riidh."

Malcolm's voice was breathless with pain. "Please... I'm sorry."

Smack

. "And?"

"And... it won't happen again."

Smack

. "And?"

"And... and I know that I mustn't speak to our guests in such a way. Really, it won't happen again, sir."

Jaron lowered the whip. "Better keep that promise for more than a few days, Riidh. Next time you're going to be in real trouble." He nodded at the guard, who had watched the procedure with bored indifference. "Untie him."

The guard loosened the knots and pulled Malcolm's hands out of the looped ropes. He didn't bother to remove the restraints from the bed frame, and only gave Malcolm a push that almost sent him to his knees. Jaron, in the meantime, had turned around towards the group of men at the back of the room. He pointed the whip at Trip.

"Tukh'r," he said. The others moved away a little, as if they didn't want Jaron to think that they were taking sides. Slowly, Trip began to walk towards the bed.

Jaron sighed. "I wish there was one week when we didn't have to do this."

"Do you think they're still looking for us?"

Trip looked up at Malcolm, who was seated on the opposite side of the windowsill.

"Yeah," he said. "'Course they are."

Malcolm took his cigarette out of his mouth and stared at it, then put it back between his lips. "How can you be so sure?"

"They wouldn't give up on us," Trip said. "The Cap'n wouldn't. And Starfleet wouldn't either."

Malcolm was silent for a while. "Maybe it's better if they don't find us," he said then.

"What?"

Malcolm exhaled a cloud of grayish smoke, and for a moment his face was blurred behind it. "I don't know," he said. "I mean, look at me. Look at you. Maybe this is where we belong now."

"You don't mean that." Trip flung his own, half-smoked cigarette on the floor, and jumped from the windowsill. "I don't fuckin' belong here. And you don't either. So shut the hell up."

Malcolm lowered his cigarette. His pupils were dilated, and made his eyes look almost black. "Maybe I don't," he said. "But maybe I don't want to think about it all the time."

Trip said nothing. He wished he hadn't thrown his smoke away; it was the last one he'd had, and after that asshole had complained about him today, he wasn't likely to get another one any time soon.

"Riidh, Tukh'r!" Varik called from the other end of the room. "Lights-out in a few minutes. We don't want to get in trouble because of you guys."

Slowly, Malcolm climbed off the windowsill and walked over to his bed. For a moment, Trip remained where he was, and stared out the barred window at the dark sky outside. Then he abruptly turned away. There was nothing out there anyway.

"I've never seen a pinkskin that far away from home."

The Andorian idly trailed a hand down Trip's back.

"Yeah, well," Trip said, not really listening. He hadn't had a smoke in three days, and could hardly think of anything else.

"The pointy-ears don't really like the idea of you going into space, do they? They're afraid you might find other friends to play with."

"Dunno," Trip said. His head was aching, and he wished he could find something, anything, to soothe his burning throat.

"Having a conversation is not one of your strong sides, is it?"

Trip looked up. If this guy complained to Jaron about him, he could forget about getting another pack of cigarettes before the end of next week. Trip doubted that he could survive until then... and Malcolm wasn't going to give him any of his. Trip still owed him a couple from last week.

"I'm sorry, sir." What had the guy been talking about, anyway? Vulcans. Right. "Yeah, the Vulcans don't really want us to go into space yet."

"But you still got a mission of exploration going, didn't you? I seem to remember that a friend of mine told me their ship had met up with an Earth vessel."

For the first time, Trip looked at the Andorian. "An Earth vessel?"

"Yes..." The man began to caress Trip's behind. "I forgot the name, something unpronounceable..."

"Enterprise?"

"Yes, I think so." He regarded Trip with raised eyebrows. "Why?"

"I'm... I was an officer on Enterprise," Trip said. "Me and my friend..."

"The little dark one and you? Officers?" The Andorian laughed. "If you say so. I didn't know you pinkskins had that kind of thing going on aboard your ships. But I'm sure it lifts the morale of the crew."

Trip's cheeks were burning. He didn't know why the man's casual remark would hurt so bad. "No, we... we were kidnapped. That's why we're here. I was the Chief Engineer aboard Enterprise. My friend was the Armory Officer."

"Kidnapped?" The Andorian stopped stroking for a second. "Really."

"Yes," Trip said. "Do you... do you think you could send your friend a message, sir? Maybe he could let our people know where we are."

"I suppose I could." The Andorian grinned. "But I didn't pay for two hours just to talk to you. Who knows... maybe if you try really hard, I'll even remember your name when I talk to my friend."

Trip forced himself to smile. "Anything's possible, sir."

"Give me back my fucking smokes, Len!"

Malcolm was trembling. Len, a thin man with watery brown eyes, looked scared, but he still found it within himself to protest.

"I haven't got your smokes, Riidh, so fuck off!"

Malcolm grabbed the man's arm and yanked him off his cot. "I know you've got them, you've been stealing them for weeks! Give them back right now, or I'm going to-"

"Hey!" Varik took a hold of Malcolm's left arm and pulled him away from Len. "Easy there, okay? There's no need to freak out like this, Riidh."

Malcolm rounded on Varik. "This asshole's been stealing everybody's cigarettes, and you know it!"

Varik looked at Malcolm, then at Len who was cowering on his bunk. "Give Riidh his smokes back, Len," he said quietly. Len only sat there, staring down at his hands.

"Well?" Varik asked.

Len's watery eyes filled with tears. "I haven't got them anymore. Really. I'm- I'm sorry. Jaron didn't give me any for weeks, and I really... really n-needed..."

Malcolm only stared at him. Then he turned around and ran, the door to the shower room slamming shut behind him.

Varik looked at Trip. "You'd better go and check on him."

I didn't start the goddamn trouble

, Trip thought. Not my fault if Malcolm can't keep an eye on his fucking cigarettes.

He said nothing, however, got up from his bed and went into the shower room. He found Malcolm next to the toilet, his forehead pressed against the grimy tiles of the wall. He was shaking.

Trip sat down on the toilet. "Malcolm..."

"I need a bloody smoke!" Malcolm's voice was choked, and Trip realized that the other man was close to tears.

"Maybe Jaron..."

"Fuck Jaron!" Malcolm looked up. His teeth had left dark red marks on his lower lip, and a thin trail of blood trickled down his chin. "He's not going to give me any, not after that bitch went and complained to him!"

Trip sighed. "Maybe tomorrow," he said.

"But I need it today!" Malcolm almost screamed. "Don't you have any left?"

As a matter of fact, Trip had. But he had no intention of sharing this particular fact with Malcolm, or anyone else for that matter. He'd been where Malcolm was now, and he certainly didn't want to repeat the experience.

"Sorry, Mal," he said. "I smoked my last one a few hours ago."

Malcolm stared at him. "No you didn't."

Trip tried to look as if he had no idea what Malcolm was talking about. "Yes I did. I only had two more left from my last pack."

Except for the ones I stole from the counter when Jaron wasn't looking.

"Come on, Trip." Malcolm wiped the blood off his chin. "Please. I'll pay you back when I get my next pack."

Trip stared at him. Then he sighed, reached into the back of his underpants and pulled out a rather crushed white cylinder. "It's the last time I'm doin' this, Malcolm," he said. "And I want two from your next pack, y'hear me?"

Malcolm nodded, trying to light the cigarette with shaking hands. Trip reached out and took the lighter.

"Here, let me."

As soon as he inhaled the first few lungfuls of gray smoke, Malcolm's trembling began to subside. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.

"God, I needed this."

Trip only nodded.

"That's disgusting!"

The woman jumped off the bed, looking as if she were going to be sick.

"What's wrong with you, you freak?"

Trip tilted his head back so the blood wouldn't drip all over the place. Jaron was going to kill him if he ruined the new silk sheets.

"Gods, I hope it's not contagious!" The woman stood next to the bed, hands on her hips and a nauseated look on her face.

Shut up and give me a fucking handkerchief, will you

, Trip thought, but of course he said nothing. One hand under his chin to stop the blood from running any further, he felt with his left hand for the box of paper napkins on the table next to the bed. He found it, and grabbed a fistful which he hoped would soak up the mess before any of it got on the sheets.

"'m sorry, ma'am," he muttered through the wad of napkins.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, still at a wary distance. "What's wrong with you?" she repeated.

"Nothin'," he said. "I... I sometimes get nosebleeds. It's not contagious or anythin'."

"It'd better not be," she said.

Trip didn't explain to her that the bleeding was a side-effect of the cigarettes. All of the men would get profuse nosebleeds from time to time, and it wouldn't be the first time Jaron punished one of them for soiling the bed sheets. It was of course his luck that it had to happen while he was with one of the customers, and a squeamish one, to boot. The look on her face told him that he could forget about getting his smokes today, or tomorrow, for that matter. He was probably lucky if Jaron didn't give him a flogging for his bad timing.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She sighed. "If that guy thinks that I'm going to pay one y'an for this, he's got another think coming."

Definitely a flogging. Trip considered pleading with her, telling her that he would make it up to her; not so much because he was afraid of the punishment, but because he really needed those smokes. He decided against it, however. He knew her type; he could see that she was looking forward to kicking up a fuss, and would not be deterred even if he tried to beg.

"You're getting it all over the sheets," she said.

Trip looked down and saw that she was right.

She shook her head. "What a mess."

Trip was inclined to agree.

"This guy wants two of you for three whole days. And he'll pay extra if you do a good job - which you will."

Jaron gave them the evil eye to make it perfectly clear what would happen otherwise. "Try not to look your worst when he arrives. And if I see you pulling that face when he's here, Tukh'r, there's going to be trouble."

Trip quickly rearranged his face into the smile Jaron wanted to see. It wasn't easy; he'd been deprived of cigarettes since the incident with the sheets, and it was now exactly five and a half days ago that he had had his last smoke. He felt as if he were slowly but surely dying from the inside. If this customer Jaron was so excited about picked him (not likely to happen; after several sleepless nights he didn't really look so hot), Trip was sure he would not perform up to expectations, which would land him in even more trouble. And if he didn't get those smokes soon, he'd seriously kill someone.

When the customer arrived, Trip hardly looked up. All he wanted was to crawl into a hole and die, or find someone who would plant a bullet in his brain and put him out of his misery. He had never imagined that you could hurt so bad without actually knowing where the pain was located. It was as if his nerve cells had gone completely haywire, sending random impulses into his brain.

"Last warning, Tukh'r. I told you, I'm not taking any of your shit today." Jaron slapped him on the back of the head and the world grayed out for a moment.

Trip swayed on the couch where he was supposed to be reclining in a lascivious manner, but Jaron wasn't looking at him anymore, almost falling over his own feet as he hurried to greet the visitor. The world was spinning before Trip's eyes, and he could not even make out the customer's face.

Jaron's voice seemed to come from far away. "... do you have any preferences? I can offer you a wide selection of choices..."

"Yes, actually I do," the visitor said, and suddenly, Trip was sure he was hallucinating.

"Those two," Jonathan Archer said. "I want the two humans."

The sky was dark and wide and ink blot blue. There was an explosion of stars directly above his head, and Trip smiled a little at the sight. He didn't know why he smiled. Often the sight of the stars brought sadness and anger, so much that he could not bear it. Many things did. Today, however, it made him happy to look at something so beautiful. Today, it was okay.

He turned his head when he heard the sound of quiet steps approaching. Malcolm had come out onto the porch and was now standing a few meters away, hands buried in the pockets of his flannel jacket, head tilted backwards to look at the stars. It seemed that Malcolm was having a good day as well. He even smiled a little as he sat down in the chair next to Trip's.

"Nice," he said.

Trip smiled back; his new smile, the one that was only a very slight twitch in the corners of his mouth. He could never bring himself to smile like he used to. Before.

"Yeah," he said. "It is."

Malcolm was silent for a while. "Phlox called," he said then. "He wants to come for a visit. Said that there's a chance we'll be out of here in a few months."

Trip nodded. It was what the doctor always said. It was now almost a year ago that Starfleet had committed them to the Hawthorn Hill Asylum for Mental Disorders, after their withdrawal on Enterprise had failed. In the nine days he had spent in the decon chamber, deprived of any pain relief whatsoever because it was too much of a risk to give him even an aspirin, he had suffered worse than ever before in his life. He and Malcolm had cried, threatened, begged to be taken back to Jaron, and offered to do anything if someone would only give them what they needed so much. Trip's cheeks still burned with shame when he remembered how they had given a detailed account of what anything would include, how they had promised that Phlox and the Captain wouldn't regret it if they only gave them the drugs. It was at that point that Jon had clamped his hands over his ears and run off to his quarters; one of the few times Trip had actually seen him cry.

The drugs didn't wash out of their systems as Phlox had hoped. Somehow, the addiction circle renewed itself even without the addictive substance, and after nine days Phlox had seen no choice but to provide them with small amounts of the drugs they craved so much. In his report to Starfleet Command, he stated that he could not possibly allow patients to suffer in such a way.

At Hawthorn Hill, the withdrawal had been tried again, this time with the help of sedatives that were supposed to ease the symptoms. After two months, the doctors noticed a slight improvement, and after four months, they discovered that things were as bad, if not worse, as they had been in the beginning. Slowly, however, after many relapses and setbacks, the symptoms began to disappear as their bodies gradually rid themselves of the alien substance. However, the doctors at Hawthorn were still reluctant to let them go. They weren't all that clear on their reasons why, although Trip had overheard one of them talking to Phlox about a "suicidal depression". All he and Malcolm were told that they weren't "cleared for discharge" yet. If they would ever be, he did not know.

"Do you ever wish you had been born a different person?" Malcolm asked.

Trip looked up. "I don't know," he said after a while. "Maybe. If I could pick the person, I'd think about it."

Malcolm nodded, hands still buried deep in the pockets of his jacket. Trip was beginning to forget that he had ever seen Malcolm without some sort of bulky, oversized pullover or jacket. It was now part of Malcolm's normal appearance, just like the bowed head or the slight shaking of his hands. Not that he was any better. Sometimes he caught himself chasing some small speck of dirt or lint and transferring it carefully to the nearest trash receptacle as if it were a piece of dangerous bio-hazardous waste. He had no idea why he would do such a thing, and afterwards he always felt like an idiot. Until the next time it happened.

"Sometimes I think I would like to be somebody else," Malcolm said.

Trip turned his head to look at him. "Why?"

Malcolm shrugged. He was looking at the stars again. "Might be easier," he said. "Less complicated and all that. And I don't really like myself all that much."

Trip was silent for a while. Then he reached over and laid a hand on Malcolm's arm. Malcolm stiffened a little; he usually hated to be touched, and under normal circumstances, Trip could identify with the feeling. Today, however, he had a feeling that it was okay.

"Malcolm," he said.

After a while, Malcolm answered. "Yes."

Trip saw a speck of dust on the porch planks next to his foot, and for a moment considered picking it up. Then he decided that the dust could stay there for a while longer. And besides, the feeling of his hand on Malcolm's arm was sort of... nice.

"I don't want you to be anybody else," he said. "You're... you're okay. That's more than a lot of people can say of themselves."

Malcolm made a soft noise that could have been a laugh or a sigh. Maybe both. And he didn't pull his arm away. "Maybe so," he said. "I think I'm glad you're here, Trip."

Trip nodded. He didn't know about tomorrow, or any of the days that would follow... but today, it was indeed okay.

The End