For Rossy

PART EIGHT

Tom stared contemplatively at his empty wineglass, then sighed and placed it down on the low coffee table. He stretched languorously, hoping that his friend would believe his muscles were merely rippling with contentment, and then rose gracefully to his feet.

“It’s been great, Haz. But it’s late. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The room was suddenly too small, too hot, too claustrophobic, and the earlier pleasant dullness of synthahol creeping through his bloodstream was being rapidly replaced by a sudden zinging urgency.

He *needed*.

There was no true name for the sudden emptiness he was feeling, though maybe ‘hunger’ was a close enough adjective. Or maybe ‘addiction’ would be more appropriate, since his internal shaking felt more like withdrawal symptoms and the gnawing ache inside him was for something less tangible than food but more necessary than air.

Which was kinda funny, since he’d recently discovered that ‘air’ wasn’t one of his necessities anymore. Neither, come to think of it, was food.

But the hunger, the *need*, was undeniable. The more he ‘tasted’, the more he indulged the urge, the stronger it buried its hooks inside his skin.

Or, maybe, it was just that the more he let the beast out, the thinner his disguise of humanity became. It wasn’t so much that it was easier to shed his ‘human’ veneer with each passing night as it was harder to force the beast back into his human disguise with each passing morning.

And that, perhaps, was the most terrifying thing of all. That he no longer even *thought* of himself as ‘human’.

He was something ‘other’.

He just didn’t yet know what the hell the ‘other’ was.

Something dangerous, certainly. Something that prowled Voyager’s artificial nights like a predatory beast. Something that needed to tear and rend and devour to slake the burning heat surging through its bloodstream. Something that was slave to instinct and immune to reason. Something monstrous. Something that should be thrown out of the nearest airlock – and surely would be, if its true identity were ever revealed.

And yet, at the same time, he was still Tom Paris. 

He still had the same hopes and dreams, his conscience was still molded from the same memories, his heart still thundered with the same emotions even as it roared under the needful hunger of the ‘other’.

He could reconcile himself with his new ‘abilities’, because time and again they had proven to be beneficial to the crew he considered his family. He could accept, if not embrace, his enhanced senses because they made it easier for him to keep his ‘family’ safe. He could justify concealing his ‘change’ because the odds of Voyager’s daily existence were increased exponentially by having a pilot who could fly the ship with unfailing 100% efficiency.

But he couldn’t reconcile, accept or justify his nocturnal prowling to himself.

It didn’t matter that no one had lodged a complaint against him yet. In some ways, that only made the situation worse. He hadn’t expected Gerron to complain. Hell, the little bastard was the reason things had gotten so out of hand in the first place. Gerron had thrown himself at him, waking the beast inside his skin, and now Tom couldn’t find a way to control its ravenous appetite. What he couldn’t understand was why *no one* had pressed charges against him.

The worst of it was he didn’t even remember any of the specific details of his nocturnal encounters. Most mornings it took the sight of a bruise, or a bite, or a sly glancing smile, before he was sure of the identity of his most recent ‘victim’.

Then he’d feel nauseous, unable to meet that person’s eyes out of fear that he’d see the ‘other’ reflected back at him.

Countless times he’d crept into Sickbay and illicitly read the medical records of the people who’d shared his rut, only to end up in the head, vomiting his guts out, at the description of bites and claw marks and the evidence of a brutal, animalistic fucking that he couldn’t even *remember*.

Yet he couldn’t deny the truth of the records. He woke every morning with the metallic tang of blood in his mouth and a bruised, over-sensitive groin.

Besides, every night as the ‘need’ began to surge through his bloodstream, his daytime ‘amnesia’ was abruptly replaced by vivid, multicolor memories, and he *knew* everything he’d done and, rather than being sickened by that knowledge, he found himself incapable of resisting the urge to do it *again*. 

At night, the crew weren’t his family. At night his senses thrummed with the knowledge that they were his soft, doe-eyed prey. The deer were running, and every fiber of his body vibrated with the need to make chase. To sink his fangs into tender flesh, to thrust his cock into heat, to claw each and every one of his herd until they bore the mark of his ownership.

And the only reason he hadn’t taken a running leap out of an airlock himself was the fact that he somehow knew the ‘other’ would tease and taunt the ‘prey’ but never truly harm them. The ‘other’ saw the ‘prey’ as its willing playthings and, as such, might maul them a little but would never leave them broken beyond repair. 

There was something, some vague understanding, which prickled in the back of his mind during those nighttime moments of clarity. Some kind of racial memory, perhaps, though it was knowledge gleaned from the ‘other’ that flickered through his consciousness at those times. Bizarre images of clearings in forests where humanoids knelt in worship at the feet of huge cat-like creatures in the silvery half-light of twin moons. Pictures in his head of people vying with each other for the honor of being one of the ‘chosen’. Visions of a world where people lived in peace, protected by four-legged ‘gods’ who unleashed jealous, vengeful fury against any who threatened the safety of the ‘herd’. A place and time where all were the willing property of their ‘gods’, all honored by their fleeting attentions, but only a rare few proved themselves worthy to become equally cherished by the ‘gods’ they worshipped.

In those brief moments, Tom understood what the ‘other’ was seeking. He knew what he was searching for as he prowled the lonely corridors of the ship. The ‘chosen’ one, the perfect sacrifice, the one member of his ‘herd’ that would prove him or herself worthy of being the consort of a ‘god’. 

###

Harry chewed his lower lip, a myriad of conflicting emotions swirling over his features as he realized that Tom wasn’t prowling towards the door in search of *sleep*. The desire burning in Tom’s eyes was for a different physical slaking.

If all the rumors were true, Tom *didn’t* truly sleep these days. He just caught cat naps between seductions. And even if *all* the rumors weren’t true, there was hard evidence to prove that Tom was fucking at least two people every night. Visible physical evidence. Breakfasts in the Mess had become a bizarre ritual of someone proudly brandishing the marks that proved they’d gotten ‘lucky’ the night before, while a jealous Gerron always made a point of revealing a fresh bruise or bite to prove he was *still* Tom’s fuckee of choice.

The new Tom scared Harry. There was no point pretending otherwise. Tom wore an unmistakable aura of danger like a dark cloak. Yet rather than that darkness eclipsing his golden perfection, the contrast somehow enhanced it. The juxtaposition between his wholesome blond beauty and his brooding animalistic sensuality was as unsettling as the way Tom’s eyes could flick instantaneously from soft humor to scalding sexual heat.

Tom had changed, was *still* changing. Harry knew that, understood that, in a place inside his head that had little to do with logic but a lot to do with instinct. His conscious mind found endless excuses for the changes within his friend, found justifications and explanations, shied deliberately away from even ‘seeing’ with his eyes anything that his mind was too uncomfortable to acknowledge. 

His subconscious mind knew better.

Tom was, somehow, not Tom anymore.

It wasn’t a stranger who looked out of Tom’s eyes. It wasn’t an alien presence that Harry detected slithering so dangerously under the surface of Tom’s outward features. Tom hadn’t been hi-jacked by a body-snatcher. He was still Tom Paris, Harry’s best friend.

But, deep in the secret recesses of Harry’s heart, there was equally no denying that Tom was *also* becoming something ‘other’. 

The knowledge terrified Harry. Scared him so much that he spent most of his waking hours denying the evidence of his own eyes and ignoring the pounding of his own heart. It was only at times like this, late at night, with synthahol charging through his veins, that he forced himself to truly *see* the new face of his friend.

He suspected he wasn’t the only one who, in the cold light of day, denied the changes that were so impossible to ignore when observed in the midnight shadows. During the day, his mind refuted truths that seemed somehow reasonable in the small hours of the night. During the day he would angrily deny any suggestion that Tom was ‘different’. But at night, it was harder to hold on to logic. At night it was harder to ignore the instincts that made his guts clench in response to Tom’s presence.

And what truly frightened him was that at the times he *did* sense and accept Tom’s predatory nature, he felt less inclined to run than to submit to the raw power pulsing through Tom’s frame.

At that moment, he was terrified of Tom. But he was even more frightened of his own physical response to the terror he felt, of his sudden and absolute jealousy of whoever would slake Tom’s thirst that night if he let him leave his quarters, of his sudden *need* to bare his throat for Tom’s bite.

And so his words emerged in a rushed bleat rather than a seductive purr. “You don’t *have* to go, Tom.”

###

Tom was half-way to the door when his nostrils were suddenly assaulted by the musk-scent of mingled lust and fear. He shook his head and growled deep in his throat, disturbed by the loss of his friend’s normal cinnamon-sweet smell and yet irresistibly tempted by the odor of Harry’s obvious arousal.

Even the quivering fear in Harry’s voice as he said, “You don’t have to go, Tom,” was enough to drive invisible barbs into Tom’s cock that tried to tug him around and back to where Harry was sprawled on his couch, his legs wide open in sacrifice.

“Don’t,” Tom warned, his voice tight. 

“I want you, Tom,” Harry said, his voice raw.

Tom shook his head, trying to clear the sudden rush of blood that was making thinking impossible. Tom would never let Harry be mauled by the beast that lived under his skin. Harry was his friend. His best friend.

But Harry smelled of sex, of victim, of *prey*.

He could already feel the texture of Harry’s flesh in his mouth, could already taste the coppery-tang of his blood, could smell the sweetness of pre-come beading on Harry’s cock and the hot sweat pooling between Harry’s ass-cheeks. He could already hear Harry’s voice yelping as he drove his cock through that tight, unprepared hole and clawed his fingers down that trembling golden-hued back while he thrust into Harry’s heat.

Perhaps Harry was the *one*.

“Don’t tempt me, Harry,” he begged raggedly as the heat rising from his groin seemed to catch fire and rip through his body, shattering his illusion of self-control.

Harry’s face paled, but his eyes darkened and his breathing began to hitch and stutter until the only thing Tom could hear was the frantic, uneven pounding of Harry’s heart. “You owe me this, Tom. I want, just once, to have what you’re giving everyone else.”

Tom’s nostrils filled with the scent of Harry’s arousal - an irresistible seduction of heavy musk, laced with top-notes of sharp fear that spiked into Tom’s groin like savage knives.

“Pain,” Tom snarled, swinging around to meet Harry’s gaze with half-maddened, grief-filled eyes. “All I give is pain, Harry. Can’t you understand that?” he pleaded. “I can’t…can’t control myself. Don’t… don’t do this to me.”

###

Harry flinched at the look of torment on Tom’s face, but his cock still stiffened at the crazed lust that had darkened Tom’s eyes so that they appeared almost black. He had a moment of sudden absolute clarity. He was seeing Tom on the brink of losing himself to the ‘other’ but there was still time to pull back. Tom still had enough self-control to leave the room in search of another bed-partner if only Harry backed down and let him go.

Pain.

Harry had seen enough ‘victims’ of Tom’s lust to know that ‘pain’ was hardly a strong enough adjective to describe having his flesh torn and bitten and savaged. Harry wasn’t ‘into’ pain. He didn’t want to be hurt any more than Tom wanted to hurt *him*.

But, oh God, neither could he bear to let Tom walk out of the room.

“I want it,” he gasped. “I want *you*. Just this once, Tom. I need to *know* why everybody wants to be in your bed.”

And, without consciously choosing to do it, he rose to his feet and then sank to his knees, throwing his arms wide and tipping his head back to reveal his bare, vulnerable throat, opening his legs to reveal the unbearable hardness pressing against his groin, instinctively offering himself to the creature that was, but wasn’t, Tom Paris.

There was a moment of pure terror, as Tom gave a guttural roar, pounced on him with the effortless, deadly accuracy of a beast of prey, and effortlessly flipped him over onto his face like he was a rag-doll. Then teeth sank into the back of his neck, so deeply that it felt like fangs pinning his face into the carpet rather than the bite of a human mouth, and the pain was so sharp, so intense, that he barely felt the nails /claws/ that shredded his clothes and ripped shallow gouges in his flesh.

But though he screamed as his buttocks were forced apart by the savage accuracy of Tom’s first thrust, and wailed as his tight, unprepared pucker was brutalized by a hard and merciless invader, he found himself thrusting his hips upwards to welcome the pain of penetration, found himself so in thrall to the beast bucking between his open legs that even the agony of the cock spearing into his bowels was, somehow, the most wonderful, shattering, mind-blowing experience of his whole life.

“I’m yours,” he gasped. “Yours. Use me. Take me. I’m yours.”

Though it was difficult to think clearly, with Tom’s teeth savaging his neck and Tom’s cock pistoning into his ass, he understood on an instinctual level why he was writhing like a slut beneath Tom’s assault. Somehow it didn’t matter that the cost of satisfying Tom’s pleasure was his own pain. Perhaps, in a bizarre way, it was better that he *was* suffering such agony because it made his sacrifice true and honest, it made the offering of his body an act of worship rather than one of self-gratification.

Worship.

The word resounded through him, reverberating through his body in a wave of primal understanding. No matter that the body convulsing around Tom’s stabbing cock was that of a 24th century man, it was reacting with the awed instinctive submission of a primitive species in the face of a being of incomprehensible superiority.

That was why no-one had lodged a complaint over Tom’s sexual savagery. That was why people who had ended up in Sickbay as a result of Tom’s ‘attentions’ were lining up in hope of a return-bout. That was why Gerron was walking around with a pronounced limp and a disgustingly smug smile on his face.

Because, somehow, being Tom’s ‘victim’ felt peculiarly like being, just briefly, touched by a savage primal God.

###

Professionally, Chakotay was pissed as hell. Personally, he was so ecstatic he wanted to jump up and punch the air in triumph. So it was taking all his self-control to keep his face expressionless and his posture relaxed as he sat in the Command Chair and drank in the various emotional sub-currents flowing across the Bridge.

Tom had just saved all their asses. Again. For the third time in as many days, Tom had performed an act of sheer wizardry at the helm that had left the entire Bridge crew breathless with combined disbelief and relief. And Harry Kim was consequently staring at the pilot like he was the second-coming.

Which was the source of Chakotay’s anger.

Tom probably wouldn’t have *had* to save their asses if Kim had been paying attention to his work earlier instead of drooling in the direction of the helm like a love-sick puppy dog.

On the other hand, there was no point denying it was a matter of personal satisfaction to him that Kim was evidently a newly recruited member of the ‘fucked and discarded by Tom Paris club’. 

He’d been keeping a careful, if illicit, eye on early morning visitors to Sickbay, so he knew perfectly well that Tom had torn Kim a new asshole the night before last. He hadn’t particularly cared that Kim had become another notch on Tom’s bedpost except that he’d privately retained a certain amount of concern that Tom’s friendship with the Ensign might have promoted Kim to at least become Gerron’s replacement, even if he hadn’t managed to snag Tom’s total attention.

Chakotay had spent a sleepless night as a consequence, until he’d checked with the Doctor that morning and discovered that Henderson had limped into the Sickbay with a Tom-sized bite mark on his right buttock. So it seemed that Harry Kim hadn’t been given a second bite at the cherry after all.

Which was, presumably, why Kim had been too busy pouting at the back of Tom’s head to notice the sub-space transmissions that would have warned them they were about to drop out of warp into the middle of an alien fire-fight.

So, Chakotay decided he could be charitable enough in view of his own personal sense of victory to wait until the end of shift and ball the Ensign out in the privacy of his office.

Tom was quickly running out of options. Unless he decided to try his charms on the married and/or paired off members of the crew, he was going to run out of new conquests before the middle of the next week. And while Chakotay didn’t doubt Tom’s ability to tempt a few people into having an ‘affair’ with him, he sincerely doubted that Tom would choose to do so. Even before his eyes had been opened to Seska’s treachery, Chakotay had learned to respect Tom’s dedication to the welfare of the other crew. He couldn’t see Tom risking the peace on Voyager for the sake of a one-night-stand.

So there were just nine people to go before Tom had to either seduce the Captain, Tuvok or himself, or work his way back through his own discards

Which, admittedly, was always a possibility. It was possible that Tom simply *liked* being Voyager’s answer to Don Juan.

But Chakotay didn’t think so.

In his heart, he *knew* Tom’s wildcatting was really a search for someone *special*.

In his heart, he knew *he* was the special someone that Tom was looking for.

So the real problem was how the hell he was going to prove it when his opportunity came.


####


“Hello, fur-face.”

She chuffed her normal snort of derision at the nickname, but her eyes were bright with laughter as she met his gaze, and her bushy tail was sweeping the air behind her in a wagging welcome.

/ It’s about time you decided to take your head out of your ass, Chakotay / 

He nodded his head, hiding a smile at her words. His father had described an animal totem as being a guide who gently led a reverent traveler through the maze of the spirit world. Kolopak had obviously had a *different* kind of totem.

“The vision you showed me – the snake and the big cat – it came to pass,” he admitted. “You were right when you said I looked but I didn’t *see*.”

/The deer are running/

“You said that last time, but I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say to me.”

/Everything has a season, Chakotay. The hunt’s on, and the deer are running./ The wolf sniffed at the air, her muzzle wrinkling over her wide, fang-filled mouth. / The scent is everywhere./

“The scent of blood? Of death?”

The wolf barked laughter and spun around, chasing her tail. / The Rut, Chakotay. The scent of the Rut. /

“You’re talking about Tom, aren’t you? His hunt for a mate.”

/Follow me/ she said, leaping away down a forest trail so quickly that he was forced to run to keep up with her.

He ran until he could feel the tang of copper in his mouth, until his lungs were wheezing in protest and his thighs were burning with exertion, and still she continued to dart through the trees ahead of him, ignoring his gasped pleas for her to slow down. He ran until he thought his heart might explode out of his chest and he was tripping and stumbling over the treacherous tree roots that snaked invisibly through the thick foliage that covered the forest floor. He ran until his foot caught under one of the roots and he fell to the ground with a cry of pain as his ankle twisted beneath him.

The moment he crashed to the floor, the light faded around him and he was lying, sweat-sodden and panting, in a midnight clearing lit only by the silvered reflection of twin moons. Although it was too dark to see anything but shifting shadows in the surrounding trees he knew he wasn’t alone. All around him he could hear the dark, rumbling thunderous purr of at least a dozen big cats. He could sense, if not see, their bodies draped over the low hanging branches and, now and then, as clouds passed over the moons overhead and the dim light shifted in consequence, he saw the jewel-like glints of emerald eyes and the pearly flash of what could only be fangs.

‘They’re not real,’ he told himself, and resisted the urge to jump to his feet and run, or at least limp, back out of the clearing.

/They’re real / 

He nearly leapt out of his skin as she snarled into his ear. It was so dark that even knowing she’d crept right up to his side, he could see nothing of her silver pelt except a vague, blurry shimmer.

“Real?” he whispered, his heart thudding in panic.

/In a different time and place /

“You mean this is a true vision, but that I’m not really here with them?”

/ Exactly / she replied, and he felt a surge of pride at the note of approval in her voice.

“Is this a scene of the past, or of the future?”

/ Both / she replied cryptically. / Some spirits are elemental. They have no beginning or end. They simply are /

“And one of them is Tom?”

/ Is Tom. Was Tom. Will be Tom. It depends on time and place, doesn’t it? /

“I don’t understand.”

/ You rarely do / she scoffed, not unkindly.

Something familiar about the positioning of the moons suddenly clicked in Chakotay’s head. “This is Caton, isn’t it? This is where it happened.”

/ Where what happened? /

“Whatever’s wrong with Tom.”

/ There’s nothing *wrong* with Tom /

“But he’s different. He’s been different since we came back from Caton.”

/ You’ve *both* been different / she pointed out.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Emotionally, Caton changed me. But Tom’s change isn’t just emotional, is it? He’s not…. Well, he’s not Tom any more.”

/ Are you sure? Perhaps he’s simply becoming the Tom he was always meant to be /

“What do you mean?”

/ These spirits here are old, Chakotay. Older than your homeworld. Older than your universe. Yet one of them is, or was, or will be Tom. So perhaps the question isn’t so much whether Tom is becoming something ‘other’ as who will be worthy of him if he does /

Chakotay rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I came here to find the way to prove myself worthy of him,” he admitted. “But I’m scared.”

/ Of him? /

Chakotay shook his head. “I’m frightened I’m not what he wants.”

The wolf stayed ominously silent until Chakotay corrected himself.

“I’m frightened I can’t *prove* I’m what he wants.”

/The deer are running./

“What the FUCK does that mean?” Chakotay roared.

Instantaneously, the dark clearing vanished and he was back in the bright sunlit glaze with only his guide for company.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his face flushed with guilt and disappointment that his temper had caused the wolf to destroy the vision. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Please, I need your help.”

The wolf grinned a full-fanged smile.

/You want advice?/

“Please.”

/Don’t run / 

“What?”

But the wolf just closed her left-eye in a remarkably human wink and vanished, along with the clearing, and Chakotay found himself in his Quarters, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“Don’t run,” he repeated, shaking his head in frustration. He had *no* intention of running. Hell, if Tom Paris knocked on his door that very moment he’d throw it open and invite him inside… just like everyone else did.

Spirits.

That was it.

That was what his guide was trying to tell him. What *Jarvin* had tried to tell him, when he said Tom wanted someone to 'front up to him'.

The rut was on and the deer were running. Not running ‘away’, but still behaving in a manner that clearly marked them as ‘prey’. And ‘prey’ was played with, and mauled, and then discarded.

So if he had any chance of being seen as an equal by Tom he had to be a predator too. He had to prove that *he* was as Alpha as Tom was.

Or at least a close facsimile.

He wouldn't achieve that by brute force. He was realistic enough to accept he wasn’t physically capable of challenging the new Tom. In a direct conflict, the man who had thrown Baxter single-handedly across the Mess was more than capable of defeating *him*. And a physical defeat would inevitably lead to a sexual defeat too. Tom would kick his ass, and then probably fuck it just to drive the defeat home. 

But a direct confrontation wasn’t the *only* way to establish his own position in Tom’s eyes.

There was another way to throw down the gauntlet.

He’d fight fire with fire.

For the next nine days, he was going to rig his personal console to keep a highly illegal 24-hour monitor on Tom’s activities. And every time Tom made a move towards one of the people he still needed to cross off his ‘list’, Chakotay was going to beat him to the finish line.

He knew he was as handsome, in his own way, as Tom was. He was just as capable of tumbling one of the crew into his bed. And if he didn’t have the advantage of Tom’s animal sensuality, so what? He had a Commander’s uniform which was, in his experience, just as heady an aphrodisiac. 

And if he felt slightly guilty at the idea of participating in ‘one-night-stands’ with other crewmembers just to drive Tom crazy with jealous frustration, he comforted himself with the knowledge that at least none of *his* conquests were going to end up in Sickbay.

TBC