Chapter Text
It’s been over a week since she walked in on him on the holodeck. In that time, they’ve fought off a Kazon ship, very nearly been sucked into what looked like a nebula, and dealt with two scuffles between Starfleet and former Maquis crew. Privately, he doubts that time confined to quarters is going to cool anyone’s tempers, but he can’t discipline his crew the way he would have on their old ship—the way he wouldn’t have needed to.
“Let’s have dinner tonight,” Janeway says near the end of shift, when he’s about to leave her ready room. “It’s been a long week and I’ve got an old family recipe I want to try.”
“You’ve fixed your replicator?” Chakotay knows her well enough now to know that she never minds being teased about her lack of cooking skills.
“I must have mis-entered some of the proportions last time,” she insists. “You, me, a bottle of wine, an old family recipe…”
“It might be safer to stick to the bottle of wine.” He remembers the shuttle as he says it and hastily adds, “Or not, I’m sure you have the proportions worked out this time.”
“1900 hours. You know where my quarters are.” She stiffens the slightest bit. “Unless you have other plans.”
“B’Elanna—Lieutenant Torres and I aren’t involved anymore, if that’s what you mean.”
“Yes.” Her voice is very dry. “I’d gathered that from the silence lately." Chakotay tries to tamp down the heat that streaks through him whenever he imagines her listening on the other side of the wall. “I assume it won’t affect your work?”
“What?” He’s genuinely surprised. “Oh, no, of course not. B’Elanna is one of my best friends on this ship.” What a ridiculous thing to say, that his fifteen-years-younger subordinate with whom he only recently stopped having sex is one of his best friends. “There are no hard feelings.”
Janeway’s lips twitch and he finds that he can’t stop himself from laughing at himself. “Commander,” she chides, and he hears the humor. “I’m glad to hear there are no…hard feelings. That would prevent you from attending dinner tonight. 1900 hours.”
He’s not blushing but he knows he’s smiling widely enough to show his dimples. It’s always been his tell, the difference between a pleasant ordinary smile and the helpless kind.
* * * * *
The acrid scent of whatever dinner was supposed to be has already started to filter into his quarters by the time he gets out of the sonic shower at 1855. If it smelled good, he would wait until the appointed time to go over, but there’s no reason now.
When he rings the door, Janeway snaps, “Come in!” She’s down to a tank top and pants, a streak of sauce on one arm. He can’t stop the affection bubbling in his heart. “I’m going to get this right,” she tells him.
“I’m sure you are.” He finds the bottle of wine on the table, opens it, and pours two glasses.
She accepts one from him with a “hmph” noise and slumps down in her chair.
“Defeated by the replicator? Little do the Kazon know that all they have to do is ask you to cook.” There’s a certain intimacy to getting to see her like this, the only time she ever seems to be frazzled or inept.
Janeway takes a large sip—possibly too large to be called a sip—of her wine. “Maybe you and I should take turns cooking for these dinners. You must have some old family recipes.”
He expects the pain, at the thought of his family—the thought of his mother’s cooking, his grandfather’s refusal to eat certain herbs—but it’s an ache, not stabbing the way he expects. Janeway starts to apologize and he says, “No, you’re right. May I?”
“Of course. Computer, clear replicator contents and settings.” She gestures to the now-empty replicator. “Whatever you want to make.”
He walks to the replicator, runs his fingers across it gently. “This was my mother’s favorite meal,” he says. “Computer, two whole crabs.”
“Specify species and preparation.”
“Dungeness. Steamed, seven minutes per pound. And a sauce of two parts butter—dairy butter—and one part lemon juice.”
The replicator produces two plates, each containing a whole crab, accompanied by single dish of drawn butter. Chakotay removes the plates from the replicator and sets them on the counter. “Computer, one tablecloth, one large debris bowl, two sets of leg crackers.” The computer obeys. “Here, help me with the table,” he tells Janeway, and they carefully swap out the plates, the silverware, and the candles, until the table is safely swathed in the tablecloth. He reaches between the candles to set one of the crabs in front of Janeway.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“Captain,” he says. “We both lived in San Francisco. You never had whole crab?”
Janeway looks a little misty. “No,” she says. “I did. On a few very special occasions.” She doesn’t elaborate.
“On my home world, there were crabs very much like this. It was the meal we ate when we were celebrating something. In San Francisco, Dungeness crab was…the closest thing I could find.” He passes her a crab-cracker. “I’m guessing you know how to eat it.”
“Yes.” She tears off a leg and very carefully cracks the shell to extract the meat, then dip it in the butter. “Yes, I remember.”
Their hands are sticky with sweet crab meat; the stem of Janeway’s wineglass has acquired a small bit of crab shell. Her lips are shiny from the lemon butter and every once in a while, Chakotay thinks that he catches Janeway watching his mouth. “How do you like it?” he asks.
“Really, it’s cheating if you’re just going to tell the replicator to give you a whole animal.” Janeway sucks some juice off her forefinger. Chakotay takes the opportunity to refill his own wineglass, and when Janeway gestures, hers as well. “It’s delicious, of course. Thank you for sharing it with me.”
“Of course.” His voice is a bit rough. They wipe their hands, their faces, and then take the wine with them to Janeway’s couch. Chakotay sits in the chair next to her couch—safer this way—but nevertheless finds his legs tangled with hers. She doesn’t move them, and so neither does he.
“Do you think we’re going to get home, Chakotay?” Janeway’s voice is gentler than usual, more melancholy. “I’m sorry—I know it’s not home for you, or most of the Maquis.”
“If there’s any person in the galaxy who could get this ship back to the Alpha quadrant, it’s you.” He feels a kind of complete certainty as he says it that he hasn’t felt in a very long time.
She stares out into the space between them. “We’re up against a lot. The Kazon, spatial anomalies, the Vidians, enemies that we haven’t even begun to imagine yet…”
“Kathryn,” he dares to say, and he puts one hand very lightly on her knee. “You’ll get us home.”
Her gaze re-focuses, shifts to him. “Not without help,” she tells him.
“I’ll be beside you. Every step—every lightyear.” He doesn’t take his hand off her knee, but neither does he advance it. “You can trust me. I promise.”
“Yes,” she says, and when she meets his eyes the force of it is like a blow. “I believe I can.” There’s a long, tense moment when either of them could do—something, and then Chakotay lifts his hand and sits back and picks up his wineglass and time resumes its normal progress.
* * * * *
Trade negotiations have been going well with their latest contact, the C’Nihuans. Chakotay is on Voyager, coordinating with B’Elanna, while Janeway, Tom, and Neelix are down on the surface for the diplomatic pleasantries. The C’Nihuans mine dilithium on several of their moons and are happy to trade for replicated Federation art and some of Neelix’s secret recipes.
“Commander, the away team is hailing from the surface,” Harry reports.
“On-screen.”
Janeway appears with the C’Nihuan ambassador. “Commander, allow me to introduce G’Na’Far, our host. This is Commander Chakotay, my first officer—”
“Yes, the first mate! Your lieutenant Paris has told me of your ship, of the captain and first mate and bosun and engineer! It is my pleasure!” G’Na’Far’s face has some unfamiliar protrusions, but Chakotay knows a smile when he sees it.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, G’Na’Far. Thank you for taking such good care of my captain during her time there.”
“We’ve been invited to attend the C’Nihuan—harvest festival,” Janeway says. “I understand that attendance and participation is—good luck, for a successful trade.” Chakotay can read between the lines. The dilithium trade hinges, at least in part, on a show of good faith by participating in whatever festival this is. “G’Na’Far has expressed that—”
“It is very important that the Captain’s first mate be here to take part in the festival as well!” G’Na’Far smiles again. Chakotay is growing uncomfortable with the repeated use of the phrase “first mate.”
“As the first officer,” he starts.
“You’ll beam down to the surface immediately,” Janeway interrupts. “We expect to conclude the negotiations by nightfall, when the festival begins.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” he says, because what else is there to say.
“Oh, and Chakotay—” Something about her tone makes him uneasy. “Dress lightly. There will be—traditional festival clothing for us. Janeway out.”
On his way to the transporter room, Chakotay summons B’Elanna. “You and Tom had better not have any schemes going on,” he hisses.
“I don’t know what you mean—”
“Lieutenant Paris has told them all about the captain’s first mate?”
“You know Tom! He gets—excited about that kind of thing. Historical things. It’s all filtered through the Universal Translator anyway.” B’Elanna looks innocent. He doesn’t believe it for a second.
“If this is some kind of ploy, you’ll both be punished,” he tells her. “The Starfleet way, not the Maquis way.” She looks actively disappointed.
It’s twilight on the surface when he beams down. In the distance, he sees a grand city—where Janeway and the rest of the away team have spent their day—but here there’s a great flat plain, bonfires dotted across it, colored lights fizzling in the air above like everlasting fireworks, small shelters scattered throughout. Everyone seems to be dressed in white, with the occasional bright spot of red or blue, and music emanates all around.
G’Na’Far is nearly seven feet tall, with a buoyant air about them, and presses clothes into their hands. “Please, change into the festival clothing. Your belongings will be safe until you return for them.” They gesture to a long, low building that seems to be the entry to the festival. “But first, share a celebratory drink!” It gives them each a shining beverage in a tall stemless glass.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Chakotay says. He looks to Janeway for guidance, and when she drinks the celebratory drink, he follows suit.
G’Na’Far beams. “Go, first mate! Share in our celebration! Enjoy your time with your captain!”
There’s that ‘first mate’ business again. He walks with Janeway, Paris, and Neelix into the building, which is full of curtained areas where people seem to be disrobing. Paris and Neelix make quick eye contact with Chakotay and then hurray away. The C’Nihuan idea of festival clothing is more or less a waist-wrap. Janeway manages to stretch it to cover her breasts as well, but from the C’Nihuans around them, Chakotay suspects that’s less than traditional.
On their way out of the building, a very wrinkled (old?) C’Nihuan hands each of them a pot of white mud paint with a brush and a smaller pot of red mud. “You must—prepare,” they say.
“How?”
The C’Nihuan gestures at the other festival attendees, who are busily covering each other’s mostly-naked bodies in white mud. “So that the mischief-makers will not be able to see you. You must prepare.”
Chakotay assumes that the mischief-makers are some kind of destructive spirit force. “What about the red?”
“That, only if you wish. There is no need. Only if you wish.” The C’Nihuan gestures again. “Go on, go on, there are more to welcome!”
Ten meters away, Chakotay sees Tom watching; when Tom realizes he’s been caught, he turns abruptly to the nearest C’Nihuan and offers up his bucket of paint. “Captain?”
Janeway looks around and sighs. “I think I know how I’m supposed to be wearing this festival clothing.” She adjusts the cloth until it rests at her waist, baring her breasts.
“Captain,” Chakotay repeats, and he keeps his eyes firmly on her face.
“You can stop saying that, Chakotay. We all went to the Academy, I would think we’re all comfortable with—the kind of thing you see in a locker room.”
“Of course.” It’s a little hard to get the words out. “The C’Nihuan said we should—prepare.”
“Yes. I think we’re supposed to paint this mud all over each other.” It sounds absurd when Janeway says it. “Would you like to go first, or shall I?”
“Why don’t you start.” He can take his cues from her.
He braces himself for the first touch and Janeway says, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I’m ticklish.” He is not.
Janeway stands in front of him with her paintbrush in one hand, assessing him as though trying to decide where to start. She runs her hand along his side, slowly, and he tries to keep his breathing even. They’re just participating in a local custom. That’s all. She paints the white mud along his collarbone—across his chest, and his breathing quickens—down to his hips, the paintbrush dipping below the waist of the ceremonial garb and he has to close his eyes at the feeling of the brush’s path, tries desperately to think of anything else. They’re supposed to be fully painted. To hide from the mischief-makers. She dips the paintbrush goes a little lower below the waist, down to the base of his cock, flicks it back and forth a few times, and he gasps “Kathryn” and then strangles the noise in his throat. He can’t let himself move.
She paints in broad swipes across his back, his shoulders, his arms, haphazardly on his legs, and then more carefully on his upper thighs, again painting beneath the cloth. She brushes the paint very carefully across his balls, and it feels like they must both be drunk, high, somehow altered, for her to allow this to happen. Eventually the only part of him left unpainted is the length of his cock, hard beneath the waist-wrap. She could make him come, he thinks, if she touched the brush to him again. He’s gasping in breaths now, sides heaving,
“Your turn,” she says, and spreads her arms wide. He wants to kiss her. He wants to throw the paint away and kiss her and pull her to the ground with him, wants to push his cock into her and let the paint on his body cover hers. He knows she would enjoy it—even wants it, from what she just did to his body. But she’s asked him to paint her and so he does, in sweeping strokes across her back and arms and her stomach and chest. He lingers on her breasts, painting back and forth across her nipples as they harden, until he can’t bear it and has to take a nipple between his fingertips and pinch gently, roll it slightly as though he’s just trying to be sure it’s fully painted. The noise Kathryn makes when he does it hits him deep inside and he does the same to the other nipple to see if she’ll react the same way. What would she do if he used his teeth, his tongue, the same way—what would the paint taste like, would he care at all?
He kneels in front of her to paint her legs—they both remember the decon chamber—and paints all the way up to the crease in each thigh. He wants, so badly, to push the wrap up just enough to get his mouth on her, on the one unpainted part of her body. He’s honestly contemplating it when he hears Tom’s very unwelcome voice say “Captain!”
Chakotay doesn’t turn, doesn’t stand up. How would it be any better if he turned to look at Tom now, revealed the desire that’s so obvious that Tom and B’Elanna have been plotting all this time?
“Did they tell you what the red paint is for?” Tom’s voice is thick and lazy. “If you want to claim someone. A red handprint. To claim them for the night. What a place, right? We should spend more time here! Dilithium mines and claiming people at parties!”
“I see.” It’s some comfort that Kathryn’s voice is far from her normal equanimity. “Thank you, Mr. Paris. Go away.” When his footsteps fade, she says, “Chakotay. Stand up.”
He does, almost automatically. She looks eerie covered in white paint, and before he realizes what’s happening, she’s put her hand in the bucket and she reaches out to leave a red handprint on him, fingers spread just at the base of his throat. His breath catches as though she’s just gripped him by the throat. He takes it as permission and puts his own hand into the red bucket, leaves a red handprint right over her heart.
People come pouring out of the building behind them, a tide of white-painted aliens, and Chakotay grabs Kathryn’s hand before they’re swept away and half-driven, half-carried out onto the plain. The wave of people breaks, spreads out around one of the bonfires; they talk and laugh and cavort as though they don’t feel this breathless desperation spreading through Chakotay, Kathryn’s red handprint as her claim for the night.
He turns to her and threads his hands into her hair, tilts her head so that he can lean down and kiss her and she opens her mouth to him eagerly. He doesn’t know how long they stand there just kissing, tongues slick against each other, her hands pulling his hips tight against her own, before someone laughs too close and they break apart just enough for him to say, “We could go somewhere else.”
It takes them a long time to make their way to a less crowded area. Every time he sees his own handprint over her heart he has to stop and kiss her until they can barely breathe, and the same thing seems to happen when she looks at him. Only when they’ve found themselves some modicum of privacy and they stop does Chakotay say, “Kathryn, please,” and find himself kneeling in front of her.
“Yes,” she breathes and he takes it as permission to lift her waist-wrap and find her clit with his tongue. She does almost collapse then, until they’re both on the ground and she’s gripped his hair tight with both hands as he works. He brings his unpainted hand down and just barely slides one fingertip into her; when she pulls his hair hard in frustration, he slides his finger in all the way and moans against her even as she spreads her legs for more. Soon he’s pumping two fingers in and out in time with his tongue, his other hand on her nipple again, and she cries out and comes on his fingers. He licks her through it, spreads his fingers just slightly wider and pinches her nipple hard and he doesn’t know if she comes again or just never quite stopped.
Whichever it was, she pushes him down onto his back and undoes his waist-wrap entirely so that he can see his cock stark against the painted white of the rest of his body. “Kathryn,” he begs, when she just stares at him, eyes roving. “Please,” he says again, and she moves forward just enough to straddle him, to sink slowly down onto his cock even as he can feel the tremors still running through her, the way she clenches suddenly sometimes. He can’t help working his hand beneath her waist-wrap to find her clit again. He wants her to come on his cock, wants it even more when she’s taken him all the way and has put her hand on the handprint she left to hold him in place. When she starts to move, he thrusts up hard against her, as much as she’ll let him, over and over in time with his fingers until he can tell she’s close again—how he wants to feel it. He shifts up enough that he can get his mouth on her nipple, paint be damned, and when he bites just slightly, she comes again, almost wailing. The clench and release, over and over, is too much for him and he rolls them over, puts his mouth to his own handprint over her heart and thrusts into her until he comes and all his senses abandon him.
* * * * *
The morning sun on C’Nihua is gentle, soft. Chakotay wakes slowly as Janeway shifts against him. The white paint has begun to turn to dust, though as far as he can tell, the red remains bright as ever. “Chakotay,” she mumbles against his chest.
“Good morning.” He says it into her hair and pulls her closer against him. The air is just cool enough that the warmth of her body is overwhelmingly pleasant.
She tilts her head up and kisses the handprint at the base of his throat, then wriggles up just enough that she can kiss his mouth. Everything is languid, golden, though the colored sparks still hang in the air everywhere. When he lifts his head a little more, he can see that the bonfires are still burning, some with white-painted figures dancing around them. He doesn’t see Tom or Neelix, thankfully. So he leans down and kisses Janeway again—it still feels safe here, even in the light, and he’ll happily accept whatever more she’ll offer. Her hands come up to his face and then she trails one of them down his neck, down to the handprint, which she fits her hand to and presses hard.
Chakotay would like to blame his response on something in the paint, some chemical reaction with Janeway’s skin, but he can’t really. The kiss turns deep and dark, his tongue finding hers, one hand clutched in her hair as the other searches for his own handprint, rediscovers it over her heart—and maybe there is something chemical, based on the way that she jolts and moans into his mouth, on the way they roll back and forth, half-fighting for the right to be on top, on how easily he slides into her again, how quickly they both come.
By now, the sun is starting to get uncomfortably warm. “We should get back,” Janeway says, almost regretfully. It’s the first thing either of them has said that acknowledges the existence of the outside world.
“I suppose so.” Chakotay disentangles their discarded clothing and passes one length of cloth to Janeway. They stand and attempt to reassemble the wraps.
“I swear there was some kind of special way to wrap this,” Janeway says. She sounds very much the way she does when she’s cross with the replicator. “I saw it done.”
“Here, let me.” Chakotay closes the distance between them and carefully wraps the cloth around her hips several times, then ties the end together. He kisses her bare shoulder when he’s done and comes away with a dusty mouth. “I’m sorry about your hair,” he says.
She touches the mess gingerly. “I can only imagine what a bird’s-nest it is right now. Maybe I’ll finally cut it shorter.” She laughs a little. “What I wouldn’t give for a good hot bath right now.”
As they walk across the plain toward the entrance building, Chakotay tries to dust some of the paint off himself. It’s easy enough to wipe off his shoulders, his abdomen—he tries not to think about the fact that she painted all but one part of his body, tries not to remember the precise feeling of it—but the red remains firmly intact. Janeway has been imitating his movements. “The paints must have different chemical compositions,” she says finally. “But I’m sure they would have warned us if the red was permanent.”
What a thought, that they would wear each other’s handprints forever. The tattoo above his eye is easily explained, easily understood. This one, though—“My captain claimed me with it,” he imagines telling someone who sees it, any time that he’s shirtless. “She put her hand on me and now I’m hers.” Ridiculous thought. Ridiculous, to feel that hit of arousal as he thinks it. “I’m sure they would have,” he said.
G’Na’Far is waiting for them when they reach the building. “Captain Janeway, first mate, welcome to the morning! The cleansing area is to the right, and you will find your clothes safe as you left them. When you are finished, we have breakfast for you. Your crewmen have already begun.”
“Thank you, G’Na’Far,” Janeway says. Chakotay watches her slip smoothly back into the role of diplomat and marvels at her, a woman who can appear at ease and in charge of any situation, even half-naked in white paint with his come still wet between her thighs. That’s why she’s the captain.
The cleansing area is an artificially-created waterfall with a strange wavy edge, pouring down into a pool of recirculating clear water. Other C’Nihuans are unconcernedly splashing in it, washing every part of their anatomy—which differs in certain substantial ways from that of humans, a thought that almost comforts Chakotay because it means they might not know the significance of the way that he and Janeway are painted. The shape of the waterfall creates little alcoves, which people seem to use as quasi-shower stalls for one or two or three or more.
They find an unoccupied alcove and begin to wash off the paint. The white comes off easily, in little rivulets, so cleanly that they barely have to do more than stand beneath the water. Janeway unpins what remains of her bun and shakes out her hair in the water, and somehow it falls straight like a curtain, almost to her waist, the tangles gone. She says something about what substances must be in the water that Chakotay is entirely unable to hear. The red handprint stands out brightly against her pale skin, as clear as it was when he first put it there. He tilts his head up, exposes his neck fully to the spray, and knows that her handprint is still there too.
“Chakotay?” she says. “Any luck?” He reaches out and puts his hand back over her heart—maybe under the pretense of trying to help, maybe not—and feels it again, that urge to touch more, to touch all of her, as she does the same to him. “Let me help.” Janeway reaches down with her wet hand, down to his cock as though to wash off the last vestiges of the paint, and he can’t help it; he pushes them both through the falling water, to the small space behind it where they’re shielded from view. Her skin is clean now but for the print and he kisses her, gathers her long hair in one hand and pulls just enough that she gasps and throws her head back so he can get his mouth on her neck. He leaves long scraping kisses along her skin, the kind that will mark her neck until she heals them, until she pulls him back to her mouth. She tastes like water, with the faintest hint of some unfamiliar herb, and he doesn’t realize that she’s wrapped her legs around his hips until he’s halfway inside her yet again.
Eventually they stumble out of the waterfall shower and walk beneath a vent of strangely-scented air on their way back to their clothes. They’re abruptly dry—even Janeway’s hair—and the handprints are just as bright. After they find their clothes and dress themselves, they leave the building and find G’Na’Far waiting again to guide them to a private breakfast room with Tom and Neelix.
“Thank you for your participation,” G’Na’Far says. “We are loading your shuttles with the first two loads of dilithium.”
Chakotay is ravenous and has already dug into the breakfast, with as much control as he can muster. Janeway, though, remembers to say, “Thank you for the use of your cleansing area. The red paint appears to—remain, though. How long should we expect that to last?”
“If you stayed as our guests, it would last another week or so,” G’Na’Far says. “As soon as you are beyond the reach of our star, though, it will disappear.”
“And any—side effects?” Janeway says it delicately, but both Tom and Neelix are obviously immediately interested.
“What kind of side effects, Captain?” They ask it almost simultaneously.
Chakotay thinks that the expression on G’Na’Far’s face is confusion, but the C’Nihuan smooths it over too quickly to be sure. “Some—visitors who do not share our biology may experience—heightened sensation. Heightened emotional reaction. When the red paint is touched by the one who applied it.”
That’s a pretty mild way of describing whatever happens when he or Janeway touch each other, but he can’t rule out the possibility—the likelihood, even—that they used whatever minimal effect there was from the paint as an excuse.
* * * * *
As usual, they don’t talk about it. He doesn’t know if it’s cowardice on his part or hers, that neither of them is willing to mention the fact that they spent about twelve hours completely absorbed in each other to the point of having public sex repeatedly.
Or at least, they don’t talk about it until two days after the handprints have faded, until she summons him to her ready room and says, “Sit down, Chakotay.”
“Captain?” He obeys, of course.
Janeway abruptly says, “I’ve considered it, and I’m open to—an arrangement.”
“Captain?” There’s a strange feeling starting in Chakotay’s chest. “What kind of arrangement?”
“As we both know, Starfleet prohibits…relationships between commanding officers and their subordinates.” He’s damn well aware of that. “But obviously we have a certain—connection. As though the universe is encouraging us.”
“You know ‘the universe’ was mostly Tom and B’Elanna.” He feels obliged to mention this even if it undermines what she’s saying. He can’t believe she’s finally going to say this.
Janeway smiles. “Yes, after the turbolift incident, I got that impression. I assume you disciplined them both for the shuttle crisis.”
“Yes.” Is this going where he wants it to? It’s almost impossible to believe.
She leans back in her chair a little. At least he’s also sitting down for this. “We’ve clearly both enjoyed it every time. We may be in the Delta quadrant for a long time. You told me that in the Maquis, people find—pressure valves. As you did with B’Elanna.”
Ah. No. His entire body is cold now. “You’re suggesting—”
“I know it would be—bending—the rules a little, for us to engage in something like that.” Janeway looks so calm, as though they’re discussing which replicator should be upgraded first. “But we would have to be very careful to keep it solely—sexual, and we’re both under a lot of pressure—”
“No.” He says it before he’s even thought about it. “No.” It should be an immediate yes. How is he possibly turning this down? But now, faced with that prospect—meticulously kept separate from any emotional involvement, and he knows she would be meticulous about it—it suddenly seems less appealing. He spends so much time dissociated from his actual feelings and he’s not sure he can add this to it. Not when it would have to be so definite, unlike all the hazily-defined things that have happened so far. Maybe the good first officer he’s supposed to be would happily take it, but of all things, this is the one beyond his ability. Chakotay does force a smile and adds, “I appreciate the offer, but I think it could negatively affect our working relationship.”
Janeway looks surprised and—maybe?—a little disappointed. “If you say so. I didn’t think it had so far, but perhaps I was wrong. It appeared that your arrangement with B’Elanna didn’t impact anything, but of course.” She meets his eyes. “May I ask why?”
His ears are roaring a little. “No,” he says again, automatically, and his voice is too rough—too obviously emotionally affected. “That is, I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Of course. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s not a problem, Captain. Is there anything else?” He’s good at holding his body like this, emotions locked down tight beneath the casual, cheerful projection. She shouldn’t be able to tell that anything is wrong.
Janeway glances down at the PADDs spread on her desk. “No, Chakotay. Thank you.”
He stands up smoothly, so smoothly. He has to make it clear that he isn’t upset. “Computer,” he says to the nearby replicator. “Coffee, black.” When it materializes, he gives it to Janeway. She starts to protest and he says, “Don’t worry, I’ll take it out of my own replicator rations.” Then he turns and walks out of the ready room onto the bridge, makes eye contact with each of the crew and smiles appropriately, settles himself down into the first officer’s chair and lets his mind go blank.
Chakotay doesn’t tell B’Elanna about Janeway’s offer. It’s acutely painful in a way that he doesn’t want to examine too closely. He knew from the beginning that Janeway would never engage in a romantic relationship with a subordinate. All the rest of it—of course Janeway could find a way to put it into a rational box, because she’s the captain and she has the monumental task of getting them home and her fierce mind can accomplish whatever it needs to.